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“Reading the news” hardly gives you the ability to make geopolitical judgments.

by just-ok 5y ago

p1esk 5y ago
Why not? How else would you make geopolitical judgments?
- roenxi 5y ago
  The traditional way has been to organise a panel of bureaucrats and a large diplomatic/informant network spread over multiple countries, where individuals often have multiple decades of experience in their area of the globe. Which still throws up some pretty terrible misjudgements; but that is the baseline for a serious try. Any group who's state of the art information gathering includes having "a PR department" and reading the news shouldn't be trying to make moral judgements in countries half a world away. They're going to get it wrong, regularly, and start sanctioning people who shouldn't be sanctioned. The news is not reliable enough to make snap commercial decisions. The only strategy that works in practice at scale is providing a dumb service. These companies are not up to the job of international politics, it is too fraught. If they think they can dip a toe in safely they're just taking on risk for no real gain. At best they can maybe blindly support the US position, which is the more morally questionable side a fair chunk of the time. Ukraine is unusual for me in that a country is being invaded and the US troops aren't explicitly involved.
  - p1esk 5y ago
    reading the news shouldn't be trying to make moral judgements in countries half a world away How should we make moral judgments about what’s going on in the world? How is deciding to be a dumb service in a country when clearly innocent people are dying as a result of official actions of that country not a moral judgment? Or should we just not care?
    - roenxi 5y ago
      > How is deciding to be a dumb service in a country when clearly innocent people are dying as a result of official actions of that country not a moral judgment? Because it is a position that fundamentally says "I don't know how reliable this information is". Obviously if we took news at face value then it would be necessary to approach the world very differently than people do. But the media lies/is wrong/works to sway consensus/doesn't uncover the most important issues/are only human and so it would be stupid to respond to everything that gets reported. There hasn't been a crisis in my lifetime where the consensus position 10 days in was useful for making good decisions. People were still saying COVID wasn't human transmissible and laughing at peppers at this point, for example. Or Iraq, my go-to comparison, where people were convinced Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The news coming out about the Russia/Ukraine war is unreliable no matter how much people think that this time it will be an open and shut case. At some point people have to bow to overwhelming evidence that even though every single time it looks like this time is different, it probably isn't different. The reliable information here is that Russia has invaded the Ukraine. That isn't enough reason for businesses to start throwing out random punitive mini-sanctions. We've seen a lot of invasions over history and that isn't a usual or useful response.
      - p1esk 5y ago
        If you are not sure what’s going on, then yes, I agree with you. But what if you’re sure? Personally I have received enough information to be sure about what’s happening there. Maybe the Spotify’s CEO feels the same way you do. But if not - he should make a moral judgment and prioritize that over profits. This is what great men do.
        roenxi 5y ago
        Sure about what? At any given time it is normal for the US to be engaged in active invasion or occupation of multiple countries. Nobody is calling for Spotify to boycott US propaganda. The parts we can be sure of don't justify anything other than business as usual. Which is typical.
gleenn 5y ago
> Al Kelly, chairman and chief executive officer of Visa Inc., said in a statement: “This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values.” From the New York Times. Someone seems to be able to make these judgements. Also kind of absurd given Corporations status as legally people in the US. If they get those protections, shouldn't they also bear the responsibilities?

“Reading the news” hardly gives you the ability to make geopolitical judgments.

p1esk 5y ago

Why not? How else would you make geopolitical judgments?

roenxi 5y ago
The traditional way has been to organise a panel of bureaucrats and a large diplomatic/informant network spread over multiple countries, where individuals often have multiple decades of experience in their area of the globe. Which still throws up some pretty terrible misjudgements; but that is the baseline for a serious try. Any group who's state of the art information gathering includes having "a PR department" and reading the news shouldn't be trying to make moral judgements in countries half a world away. They're going to get it wrong, regularly, and start sanctioning people who shouldn't be sanctioned. The news is not reliable enough to make snap commercial decisions. The only strategy that works in practice at scale is providing a dumb service. These companies are not up to the job of international politics, it is too fraught. If they think they can dip a toe in safely they're just taking on risk for no real gain. At best they can maybe blindly support the US position, which is the more morally questionable side a fair chunk of the time. Ukraine is unusual for me in that a country is being invaded and the US troops aren't explicitly involved.
- p1esk 5y ago
  reading the news shouldn't be trying to make moral judgements in countries half a world away How should we make moral judgments about what’s going on in the world? How is deciding to be a dumb service in a country when clearly innocent people are dying as a result of official actions of that country not a moral judgment? Or should we just not care?
  - roenxi 5y ago
    > How is deciding to be a dumb service in a country when clearly innocent people are dying as a result of official actions of that country not a moral judgment? Because it is a position that fundamentally says "I don't know how reliable this information is". Obviously if we took news at face value then it would be necessary to approach the world very differently than people do. But the media lies/is wrong/works to sway consensus/doesn't uncover the most important issues/are only human and so it would be stupid to respond to everything that gets reported. There hasn't been a crisis in my lifetime where the consensus position 10 days in was useful for making good decisions. People were still saying COVID wasn't human transmissible and laughing at peppers at this point, for example. Or Iraq, my go-to comparison, where people were convinced Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The news coming out about the Russia/Ukraine war is unreliable no matter how much people think that this time it will be an open and shut case. At some point people have to bow to overwhelming evidence that even though every single time it looks like this time is different, it probably isn't different. The reliable information here is that Russia has invaded the Ukraine. That isn't enough reason for businesses to start throwing out random punitive mini-sanctions. We've seen a lot of invasions over history and that isn't a usual or useful response.
    - p1esk 5y ago
      If you are not sure what’s going on, then yes, I agree with you. But what if you’re sure? Personally I have received enough information to be sure about what’s happening there. Maybe the Spotify’s CEO feels the same way you do. But if not - he should make a moral judgment and prioritize that over profits. This is what great men do.
      - roenxi 5y ago
        Sure about what? At any given time it is normal for the US to be engaged in active invasion or occupation of multiple countries. Nobody is calling for Spotify to boycott US propaganda. The parts we can be sure of don't justify anything other than business as usual. Which is typical.

gleenn 5y ago

> Al Kelly, chairman and chief executive officer of Visa Inc., said in a statement: “This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values.” From the New York Times. Someone seems to be able to make these judgements. Also kind of absurd given Corporations status as legally people in the US. If they get those protections, shouldn't they also bear the responsibilities?