4 ms·

Hmmm. Withdraw the app and you go to jail. Don’t withdraw the app and your Russian employees go to jail

skinkestek 5y ago
Fire your Russian employees. Then withdraw. Hurts but if history should learn us a thing or two one of them should be not to give in to dictators. The younger ones here are allowed to take a few minutes off to use their favorite search engine to look up the quote "peace in our time" by Chamberlain. Edit: It looks so simple the way I wrote it above. Please note that doing the right thing isn't easy. Telling lots of people their job is gone. Telling investors the money invested in one of the most promising markets is gone etc etc. But I am afraid that sooner or later the alternative will be worse.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  > Fire your Russian employees. More like move them to a better place if they prefer this to simply terminating the contract. Benefits are numerous - retain already-hired quality personnel, have a good PR campaign about being moral and holy and doing the extra mile with bureaucracy (which would be true), grow some extra hairy balls overnight. Or something similar.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Good points. Russia unlike certain others probably won't torture their loved ones because of this.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      Of course, if they ever go back to Russia, they risk prosecution. Rather rough deal.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        “Leave and never be able to visit your family for as long as the current regime lasts” is a tough call. People do do that, but the pain of remaining has to be very high to make the tradeoffs palatable.
        skinkestek 5y ago
        Pavel Durov knows a bit of this I heard.
        lambdadmitry 5y ago
        He doesn't. He regularly visited Saint Petersburg office after being "exiled".
- dmos62 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
- gm3dmo 5y ago
  It won't be worse for either Cook or Pichai though.
baybal2 5y ago
There used to be an English statesman, Chamberlain Neville he was called. First, he seen what Hitler did with Jews, and Poland prior to events of the Second World War. Then, he was quick to observe the same point you do now with Hitler pointing a gun at UK, and US pointing a gun at UK: Save the Jews, and get shot by Hitler, surrender Jews, and get shot by the USA. Since he observed that both outcomes are nothing good, he decided that the best option is to sit down, and do nothing, and hoping for nothing to happen. The entirety of mankind now knows how wrong was Chamberlain Neville. Terribly wrong. The British Empire saw the beginning of the Second World War as the one, and only global hyperpower, which could've squished Hitler with ease if it wanted, and it ended the war as a wreck of its former self, losing half the Empire, never to recover.
- Angostura 5y ago
  If you look more close into Chamberlain’s record it’s pretty clear he was playing for time while he put his efforts into Britain’s depleted armed forces and armaments. It wasn’t all about appeasement.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    I know it, and I know that British Empire had absolutely monstrous material advantage over Germany, enough to sweep it within months in mid-thirties.
pera 5y ago
The only winning move is not to play (i.e. don't have offices in authoritarian states)
- avmich 5y ago
  Bingo. Those who do have offices should also feel heat from unfair competition, so this should be legalized somehow.
colpabar 5y ago
Option 3: choose to make less money and don't have offices in countries with human rights records as bad as russia. I know this isn't realistic, because we can't expect a company to make less money. that'd be crazy!
- Angostura 5y ago
  Surely option 4 is the best option - the US government issues a list of countries within which no US business can have any operations or sales. Better than leaving it to individual companies. Don’t forget to write up your list and start lobbying your congressional representative
yanderekko 5y ago
No - this is elementary game theory. By precommitting to "if I withdraw the app I will go to jail", then the Russian threat would become ineffective and they wouldn't make it to begin with. Granted, the real world is more complicated but this is equivalent of using the strategy of disabling your steering wheel before playing a game of chicken.
- avmich 5y ago
  It's not a game of chicken. Russia is well prepared to collide - did that many times. Threats won't work - actually jailing important Russians abroad for supporting Russian organizations under sanctions will. Direct action is the primary working approach here. For those reasons Google and Apple should be considered aiding and abetting Russian government now. Not quite illegal as of now - but how well it looks?
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    > Google and Apple [are] aiding and abetting Russian government now. Not quite illegal … - but how well it looks? Meh, no quite as bad as the US quietly making Russia its second largest supplier of oil, no? [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-04/russia-captures-no-2-rank-among-foreign-oil-suppliers-to-u-s https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-04/russia-ca... If you want to starve Crazy Ivan of his forex…

Fire your Russian employees. Then withdraw. Hurts but if history should learn us a thing or two one of them should be not to give in to dictators. The younger ones here are allowed to take a few minutes off to use their favorite search engine to look up the quote "peace in our time" by Chamberlain. Edit: It looks so simple the way I wrote it above. Please note that doing the right thing isn't easy. Telling lots of people their job is gone. Telling investors the money invested in one of the most promising markets is gone etc etc. But I am afraid that sooner or later the alternative will be worse.

saiya-jin 5y ago
> Fire your Russian employees. More like move them to a better place if they prefer this to simply terminating the contract. Benefits are numerous - retain already-hired quality personnel, have a good PR campaign about being moral and holy and doing the extra mile with bureaucracy (which would be true), grow some extra hairy balls overnight. Or something similar.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Good points. Russia unlike certain others probably won't torture their loved ones because of this.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    Of course, if they ever go back to Russia, they risk prosecution. Rather rough deal.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      “Leave and never be able to visit your family for as long as the current regime lasts” is a tough call. People do do that, but the pain of remaining has to be very high to make the tradeoffs palatable.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        Pavel Durov knows a bit of this I heard.
        lambdadmitry 5y ago
        He doesn't. He regularly visited Saint Petersburg office after being "exiled".
dmos62 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
gm3dmo 5y ago
It won't be worse for either Cook or Pichai though.

baybal2 5y ago

There used to be an English statesman, Chamberlain Neville he was called. First, he seen what Hitler did with Jews, and Poland prior to events of the Second World War. Then, he was quick to observe the same point you do now with Hitler pointing a gun at UK, and US pointing a gun at UK: Save the Jews, and get shot by Hitler, surrender Jews, and get shot by the USA. Since he observed that both outcomes are nothing good, he decided that the best option is to sit down, and do nothing, and hoping for nothing to happen. The entirety of mankind now knows how wrong was Chamberlain Neville. Terribly wrong. The British Empire saw the beginning of the Second World War as the one, and only global hyperpower, which could've squished Hitler with ease if it wanted, and it ended the war as a wreck of its former self, losing half the Empire, never to recover.

Angostura 5y ago
If you look more close into Chamberlain’s record it’s pretty clear he was playing for time while he put his efforts into Britain’s depleted armed forces and armaments. It wasn’t all about appeasement.
- baybal2 5y ago
  I know it, and I know that British Empire had absolutely monstrous material advantage over Germany, enough to sweep it within months in mid-thirties.

pera 5y ago

The only winning move is not to play (i.e. don't have offices in authoritarian states)

avmich 5y ago
Bingo. Those who do have offices should also feel heat from unfair competition, so this should be legalized somehow.

colpabar 5y ago

Option 3: choose to make less money and don't have offices in countries with human rights records as bad as russia. I know this isn't realistic, because we can't expect a company to make less money. that'd be crazy!

Angostura 5y ago
Surely option 4 is the best option - the US government issues a list of countries within which no US business can have any operations or sales. Better than leaving it to individual companies. Don’t forget to write up your list and start lobbying your congressional representative

yanderekko 5y ago

No - this is elementary game theory. By precommitting to "if I withdraw the app I will go to jail", then the Russian threat would become ineffective and they wouldn't make it to begin with. Granted, the real world is more complicated but this is equivalent of using the strategy of disabling your steering wheel before playing a game of chicken.

avmich 5y ago
It's not a game of chicken. Russia is well prepared to collide - did that many times. Threats won't work - actually jailing important Russians abroad for supporting Russian organizations under sanctions will. Direct action is the primary working approach here. For those reasons Google and Apple should be considered aiding and abetting Russian government now. Not quite illegal as of now - but how well it looks?
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > Google and Apple [are] aiding and abetting Russian government now. Not quite illegal … - but how well it looks? Meh, no quite as bad as the US quietly making Russia its second largest supplier of oil, no? [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-04/russia-captures-no-2-rank-among-foreign-oil-suppliers-to-u-s https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-04/russia-ca... If you want to starve Crazy Ivan of his forex…