4 ms·
Actually, YES, to the extent that the foreign policy is supporting & maintaining institutions & policies necessary for continued open democratic societies. By
by toss1 8y ago
Actually, YES, to the extent that the foreign policy is supporting & maintaining institutions & policies necessary for continued open democratic societies.
By virtue of the US' historically strong support for open democracies (albeit often flawed or failed), and historical accident, it essentially now falls to the US to attempt to maintain it around the world.
To the extent that we have failed to maintain and support democratic institutions and traditions around the world, they are lost.
To the extent that these free, open, democratic governments, institutions, and traditions are lost around the world, those remaining in free societies will find ourselves under threat of losing those societies.
So, yes, if a company wants to enjoy the fruits of being able to grow and prosper in the greatest open society and largest economy on the planet at this time, it is not too much to ask it to avoid supporting adversaries who would undermine our society and economy at the first opportunity (and are actively doing so right now).
[recommend reading Garry Kasparov's "Winter is Coming" & other titles -- Fmr World Chess Champion, Russian Presidential candidate, author -- he's been there, done that, and buried his friends doing so]
- coffeeonrollt 8y agoWith the amount of Chinese products being used in US and US support of countries who have violated human rights, your statement sounds hypocritical. US has interests and behaves to protect it, there is no morality in those decisions.
- toss1 8y agoIt would be if I supported it, but I am extremely against it (& yes, I did ack that US has been inconsistent/failed and was referring to supporting some anti-rights regimes). The extensive use of Chinese products by the US will likely turn out to be a great geostrategic blunder of historic magnitude. While the US companies and govt thinks they're exploiting cheap Chinese labor, China is strategically exploiting our myopic weakness for short-term profits to steal IP and gain global economic & military power.
- mulmen 8y agoI'm all for the US government supporting open democracy through foreign policy. The US electorate influences this policy. I don't want Google making decisions based on anything other than how to make money legally.
- toss1 8y agoThen you are essentially demanding either that Google: 1) actively support anti-democratic, anti-human rights activities to the extent that they're willing to pay, or 2) that the USGovt simply ban them from doing biz in those countries, or 3) that the USGovt ban doing biz of a certain type, with likely arguments around the edges of that type. 4) or something else that I'm missing. Which are you proposing?
- mulmen 8y agoI am proposing 2 (assuming it applies to all business) if we as a country actually have a problem with the Chinese government's treatment of their citizens. As far as I can tell we don't have a problem with it so we continue doing business with them.
- toss1 8y agoI'd agree with #2 just fine. I think the large portion having no problem continuing to do business with China on such a large scale is a folly of historic proportions. Since that folly is unlikely to be abated, it'd be good if we at least cut off companies actively helping to undermine human rights and democratic institutions.
- tsbertalan 8y agoWow, I've never seen a more open defense of profit motive as the only possible objective function for business.
- mulmen 8y agoI have no interest in living in a world where Google decides what is right and wrong. I don't even agree with their default browser options.
- tensor 8y agoGiven that many first world nations now avoid the US for data storage due to surveillance overreach, your statement comes across as rather ironic. As a Canadian, the US is definitely not the pinnacle of open democratic government. Your view of the US is a very US centric view. There is certainly a line somewhere, selling weapons for example is a pretty clear one. But this line hasn't been established on the data side, and I don't think the US is in a very good position to establish it given its poor track record in this area. But to the extent this line is written, it should be a law applying to all US companies, not cherry picking Google or other politically unfavourable companies.