4 ms·

Capitalism ironically. X money is never enough.

jerf 8y ago
There's a lot of people here trying to blame capitalism or the right, but it seems like trying to square that circle with the collaboration of Silicon Valley and the Chinese Government is a bit of a stretch. History is important and all, but even if I stipulate your theory about the past (which I don't, but for the sake of argument let's let it go), it's SV and China doing this today. Anyone who wants to try to convince me that the SV+China collaboration is "of the right" is welcome to try but I warn you you're basically facing Mt. Everest here. Blaming it on people who are not even proximal to today's manifestation of the will, at best, make you briefly feel better, but do nothing to solve the problem.
- FiveSquared 8y ago
  What happened in the past can happen again. See, every war in human history.
  - jerf 8y ago
    What relevance does that have to what is happening now? Are you seriously proposing that it's OK to not worry about what Silicon Valley and China are doing, because someday in the past and maybe someday in the future, right-wing people will try to squash freedom? That makes no sense.
- greycol 8y ago
  I think you'll be willing to admit that SV's interest in China is the good old capitalistic rule "rational actors will make deals that most benefit them" coupled with the fact that publicly traded businesses are generally targeted at profit for shareholders. You'd need quite a few obstacles/penalties to make a rationally acting company not jump on the more money bandwagon. Whether that's shareholders with that inclination and enough power to block such actions, blow back from other parts of the company(customers boycott/supplier not supplying/workers walkout) to lower the value of Chinese deals, or laws and regulations that make dealing with China while disregarding ethical issues less profitable. In that non exhaustive list on making companies behave ethically the first two are "vote with your wallet" the last is "vote with your vote". Both the left and right vote with their wallet on these issues, but when it comes to the laws and regulations it is fair to say that the right has a more laissez faire approach than not to adding regulations and laws. It's also arguably this one that is most effective with very large or monopolistic companies (as there are more barriers to voting with your wallet). Thus the left blaming the right for not coming to the party on regulations that would stop or regulate this. I'll point out that this is just one viewpoint on why those more to the right can be blamed for this and ofcourse it misses the underpinnings of why the right to left spectrum differ on their views to the spectrum of regulation. I'd expect that those underpinnings would be part of why you feel changing your mind on the connection would be climbing Everest. Still, I'd hope you agree that it's not straight "Blaming it on people who are not even proximal" as regulations do change company behaviour.
  - jerf 8y ago
    "I think you'll be willing to admit that SV's interest in China is the good old capitalistic rule "rational actors will make deals that most benefit them" coupled with the fact that publicly traded businesses are generally targeted at profit for shareholders." I'm not. Personally I think helping a leftwing authoritarian society is actually something that the SV leadership is interested in doing, because it is something they want for the US as well, and they want in at the top. I don't feel this is a very big leap from the demonstrated political proclivities of the area, what people say, or the actions being taken. "Thus the left blaming the right for not coming to the party on regulations that would stop or regulate this." Actually, if you want to fall back to "I blame the other people over there for not stopping us from doing this!", I'll take it. It's a silly argument but I'll take the premise it's based on without question. It's still you doing it. And I say "you" not necessarily as "greycol" personally, but because this is HN and the line workers actually doing this work are indeed here. And 95%+ of them are on the left.
refurb 8y ago
Oh please. If you had said "humans never have enough", I would have agreed. Be it art, science, business, relationships, longevity, finance or knowledge, the human condition is we're never satisfied with where we are. Which is good or we'd still be living in caves.

jerf 8y ago

There's a lot of people here trying to blame capitalism or the right, but it seems like trying to square that circle with the collaboration of Silicon Valley and the Chinese Government is a bit of a stretch. History is important and all, but even if I stipulate your theory about the past (which I don't, but for the sake of argument let's let it go), it's SV and China doing this today. Anyone who wants to try to convince me that the SV+China collaboration is "of the right" is welcome to try but I warn you you're basically facing Mt. Everest here. Blaming it on people who are not even proximal to today's manifestation of the will, at best, make you briefly feel better, but do nothing to solve the problem.

FiveSquared 8y ago
What happened in the past can happen again. See, every war in human history.
- jerf 8y ago
  What relevance does that have to what is happening now? Are you seriously proposing that it's OK to not worry about what Silicon Valley and China are doing, because someday in the past and maybe someday in the future, right-wing people will try to squash freedom? That makes no sense.
greycol 8y ago
I think you'll be willing to admit that SV's interest in China is the good old capitalistic rule "rational actors will make deals that most benefit them" coupled with the fact that publicly traded businesses are generally targeted at profit for shareholders. You'd need quite a few obstacles/penalties to make a rationally acting company not jump on the more money bandwagon. Whether that's shareholders with that inclination and enough power to block such actions, blow back from other parts of the company(customers boycott/supplier not supplying/workers walkout) to lower the value of Chinese deals, or laws and regulations that make dealing with China while disregarding ethical issues less profitable. In that non exhaustive list on making companies behave ethically the first two are "vote with your wallet" the last is "vote with your vote". Both the left and right vote with their wallet on these issues, but when it comes to the laws and regulations it is fair to say that the right has a more laissez faire approach than not to adding regulations and laws. It's also arguably this one that is most effective with very large or monopolistic companies (as there are more barriers to voting with your wallet). Thus the left blaming the right for not coming to the party on regulations that would stop or regulate this. I'll point out that this is just one viewpoint on why those more to the right can be blamed for this and ofcourse it misses the underpinnings of why the right to left spectrum differ on their views to the spectrum of regulation. I'd expect that those underpinnings would be part of why you feel changing your mind on the connection would be climbing Everest. Still, I'd hope you agree that it's not straight "Blaming it on people who are not even proximal" as regulations do change company behaviour.
- jerf 8y ago
  "I think you'll be willing to admit that SV's interest in China is the good old capitalistic rule "rational actors will make deals that most benefit them" coupled with the fact that publicly traded businesses are generally targeted at profit for shareholders." I'm not. Personally I think helping a leftwing authoritarian society is actually something that the SV leadership is interested in doing, because it is something they want for the US as well, and they want in at the top. I don't feel this is a very big leap from the demonstrated political proclivities of the area, what people say, or the actions being taken. "Thus the left blaming the right for not coming to the party on regulations that would stop or regulate this." Actually, if you want to fall back to "I blame the other people over there for not stopping us from doing this!", I'll take it. It's a silly argument but I'll take the premise it's based on without question. It's still you doing it. And I say "you" not necessarily as "greycol" personally, but because this is HN and the line workers actually doing this work are indeed here. And 95%+ of them are on the left.

refurb 8y ago

Oh please. If you had said "humans never have enough", I would have agreed. Be it art, science, business, relationships, longevity, finance or knowledge, the human condition is we're never satisfied with where we are. Which is good or we'd still be living in caves.