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I'll try my best, but obviously these are just my thoughts and a lot of other people don't necessarily agree with me. I think all authoritarian governments rel

I'll try my best, but obviously these are just my thoughts and a lot of other people don't necessarily agree with me. I think all authoritarian governments rely on a chunk of their population to stay in power. This population can be very small, but sufficient. In order to maintain their popularity they rely on: 1. Lack of education 2. Strong propaganda 3. Poverty 4. Social welfare 5. Religion & ideology 6. Fear of enemy Within their target demographics. So, they will end up with chunks of population who are uneducated, poor, strongly reliant on government welfare that are actually thankful for the government for their social welfare and cultural/religious alignment. The pro-democracy people are usually middle class citizens. How do you fight uneducated, religiously/culturally motivated people with tame middle class citizens? It's not doable. That's why Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. The only thing that I've seen work is this: 1. You try to keep communications alive with population. Google leaving a country? There couldn't be anything worse. 2. You incentivize government/regimes to stay as open as possible. 3. You wait decades for paradigm shifts within populations. As for #1, let me give you an example. ~25 years ago I was 7. I lived in Iran. There was no internet. TV & Radio are government controlled and the country was too poor for people to travel abroad. The _only_ thing that kept us connected to the outside world was... soccer. Iranian state TV would broadcast a few soccer games a week (not live). For a massive chunk of the population, the only way to see there are _other_ type of people, not name Ali, Hussain, Muhammed, etc, and instead named Alessandro, Paolo, David, whatever, was soccer. Something simple like this can really keep the mind open. Allows you to realize there are other ways. Fast forward a few years, a "reform" government was in place. The regime was relatively incentivized to talk to the US. Thus, they allowed Internet. The reform government allowed music and film to flourish again. As a result of economic growth a lot of Iranians were traveling abroad (from Turkey and Dubai to all over Europe) and as a result the middle class got more and more "western". Fast forward to Donald Trump leaving the JCPOA, putting a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. The economy went to shit (it's really a humanitarian crisis now). The government, scared of riots, locked everything down. All European brands/companies have left the country and the government is pushing to close down internet altogether. A decade ago Iranians were pushing for democracy (Green Movement). Now, their only concern is survival. There is no hope anymore. The population is getting poorer and poorer, less and less educated. So my question after this story is, do you think Google leaving Russia will end up helping Russians get more educated, more wealthy, more connected to the free world? Or would it push them to the direction of poverty, isolation and disconnect? Iran 10 years ago (before maximum pressure campaign by the republicans) was on the path to be something like Turkey. Not totally free, but somewhat OK ish country. Now it's on the path to be another North Korea (if this direction continues for another 15-20 years) Sorry this wasn't a well written, well thought piece. It was an anecdotal dump of thoughts, but hopefully I managed to make a point.

tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
> So my question after this story is, do you think Google leaving Russia will end up helping Russians get more educated, more wealthy, more connected to the free world? Maybe, if the alternative is them cooperating with the dictator government for more effective surveillance and enforcement? Google from 2021 isn't Google from 2006. I mean, 20 years ago I'd 100% agree with you, but modern-day big tech is... yikes! The only thing it'll do is prevent the emergence and spread of more open (and certainly harder to track) tech.
- emilsedgh 5y ago
  So the choices are: 1. A western company that has to abide to Russian's unlawful and immoral requests time to time 2. A Russian company, which either belongs to the state, or is fully controlled by the state, or has absolutely 0 power against the state. You choose 2? Another way of looking at it for me is this: If, one day, Iran and US governments allow Google to operate in Iran, that'd be a step forward. It's true that Google _may_ have to bow to Iran's regime from time to time. It's also true that Google may _want_ to help Iran's regime from time to time (due to whatever interest) but their interest is not 100% aligned. It's only sometimes aligned. That, next to all the benefits of Google operating in Iran, would definitely make me choose 1.
  - tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
    Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here. When their interests aren't aligned with Iranian government, they'd be aligned with American government, and the latter is what brought upon you the former in the first place. To be honest, I think that tech has no solution for you, and that you're only looking there because tech's what you're good at.
    - tailspin2019 5y ago
      > Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here. Your argument is definitely compelling - I share the distrust in the way things are going with “surveillance capitalism” as you call it, but, is there a risk of being too binary here? For example, could it be possible that options 1 and 2 do not necessarily have the same negative outcome. Could an outside tech company (not state controlled) even if it’s under control of a western government that’s continually pushing for more control (and I speak as a Brit where we’re fighting our own battles on this front) still be better at helping to spread freedom of communication and ideas even marginally than the fully state controlled alternative? It’s all relative I think. No country is perfect, no government is perfect. As a Brit my government fucks up continuously. The American government fucks up continuously. The Australian government fucks up continuously (looking at the recent legislation that we’ve talked about on HN). We’re all basket cases. But, the world is imperfect. Is it possible that even with our flaws, a more open and democratic (relatively) country’s private sector companies can still have a positive impact by having a presence in less open/democratic countries? Even if that means having to acquiesce occasionally? I’m not sure. But I’m open to the possibility and I think the parent makes a strong case from their description of their own experience with Iran.

tdsamardzhiev 5y ago

> So my question after this story is, do you think Google leaving Russia will end up helping Russians get more educated, more wealthy, more connected to the free world? Maybe, if the alternative is them cooperating with the dictator government for more effective surveillance and enforcement? Google from 2021 isn't Google from 2006. I mean, 20 years ago I'd 100% agree with you, but modern-day big tech is... yikes! The only thing it'll do is prevent the emergence and spread of more open (and certainly harder to track) tech.

emilsedgh 5y ago
So the choices are: 1. A western company that has to abide to Russian's unlawful and immoral requests time to time 2. A Russian company, which either belongs to the state, or is fully controlled by the state, or has absolutely 0 power against the state. You choose 2? Another way of looking at it for me is this: If, one day, Iran and US governments allow Google to operate in Iran, that'd be a step forward. It's true that Google _may_ have to bow to Iran's regime from time to time. It's also true that Google may _want_ to help Iran's regime from time to time (due to whatever interest) but their interest is not 100% aligned. It's only sometimes aligned. That, next to all the benefits of Google operating in Iran, would definitely make me choose 1.
- tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
  Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here. When their interests aren't aligned with Iranian government, they'd be aligned with American government, and the latter is what brought upon you the former in the first place. To be honest, I think that tech has no solution for you, and that you're only looking there because tech's what you're good at.
  - tailspin2019 5y ago
    > Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here. Your argument is definitely compelling - I share the distrust in the way things are going with “surveillance capitalism” as you call it, but, is there a risk of being too binary here? For example, could it be possible that options 1 and 2 do not necessarily have the same negative outcome. Could an outside tech company (not state controlled) even if it’s under control of a western government that’s continually pushing for more control (and I speak as a Brit where we’re fighting our own battles on this front) still be better at helping to spread freedom of communication and ideas even marginally than the fully state controlled alternative? It’s all relative I think. No country is perfect, no government is perfect. As a Brit my government fucks up continuously. The American government fucks up continuously. The Australian government fucks up continuously (looking at the recent legislation that we’ve talked about on HN). We’re all basket cases. But, the world is imperfect. Is it possible that even with our flaws, a more open and democratic (relatively) country’s private sector companies can still have a positive impact by having a presence in less open/democratic countries? Even if that means having to acquiesce occasionally? I’m not sure. But I’m open to the possibility and I think the parent makes a strong case from their description of their own experience with Iran.