4 ms·

It is disturbing that many people do not see anything wrong that an elite from one country dictates to the whole world how to live (it has bigger guns/power but

by d0mine 4y ago

It is disturbing that many people do not see anything wrong that an elite from one country dictates to the whole world how to live (it has bigger guns/power but it is not right).

Semaphor 4y ago
World police USA is a very popular point of view on HN, sadly.
the_lonely_road 4y ago
“We” don’t dictate to the whole world how to live, that would be ludicrous as you just stated. We dictate the terms for behaving if you want to do business with us and our friends…just like the rest of the world. Most people don’t care about north koreas rules because they don’t want to do business in North Korea. Most of the world wants to do business with the west because it’s huge and rich and relatively unified in how you need to behave in broad strokes (obviously tons of differences in the details of implementations across regions). Foolish Americans keep ending up in Singapore jails because they don’t think their rules apply to them when they go there and find out the hard way that they do. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too because you disagree with the rules. If you want to do business with the west, you follow its rules or you stick to doing business with your own sphere of influence only.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  >If you want to do business with the west, you follow its rules or you stick to doing business with your own sphere of influence only. unless those same rules are applied to american businesses doing work in other countries to follow their specific rules and then all hell breaks loose. case in point, https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/exclusive-visa-complains-us-govt-about-india-backing-local-rival-rupay-2021-11-28/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/exclusive-visa-comp... https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/mastercard-files-complaint-against-indian-protectionism/ https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/mastercard-files-comp... So, mastercard/visa goes back to big daddy when they dont get their share of the pie according to their way, as opposed to the law of the land so they ask the big daddy to big dick them into submission. same with many big american tech companies who apply american laws (dmca for example) on foreign users "because the data is held with american companies/DCs") and many other such examples
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  You're making a distinction without a difference. US sanctions are designed to completely cut off the target country or company from the global economy - even from doing business with foreign companies that have no obvious connection to the US. The US does this through secondary sanctions. If a European company does business in Iran, it will suddenly find itself unable to do business with anyone in Europe. Its bank will terminate its account, even if the bank doesn't do business in the US, because the bank is afraid of getting cut off from its business partners. US sanctions are designed to cascade in this way. The end result is that Iran is almost completely cut off from the world economy, because the US decided that nobody anywhere in the world should trade with Iran. I don't think any other country in the world applies secondary sanctions this aggressively. When the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, it effectively forced the EU to pull out of the deal as well. The deal was oversight of Iranian uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. But US sanctions scared off EU companies from doing business with Iran, so Iran got no real sanctions relief from the EU. It's a sign of how politically weak the EU is that it didn't respond in kind to US threats to sanction EU companies that did business with Iran. The EU effectively allowed the US to dictate EU trade policy. But I wouldn't assume that this situation will continue indefinitely. Other countries will eventually respond to the US' overreach here.
wil421 4y ago
Is it right the EU forced cookie pop ups on everyone? Maybe, maybe not but it’s politics in a nutshell.
jcranmer 4y ago
The underlying proposition here is "don't do $X if you also want to operate in country $Y," which I do not find a disturbing proposition at all. It's just that there are a few values of $Y for which staying out of is deeply unsatisfying for international companies--namely the US, EU, and China. In fact, I would find the alternative more disturbing--a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone who can set themselves up to be sufficiently international.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  US sanctions are designed to act like a virus: they spread, so that eventually nobody in the world is allowed to do business with the target country, unless they want to completely cut themselves off from all economic interactions outside the target country. A European company can't do business with Iran, because it does business with a European bank, which does business with another European bank, which does business in the US. A Chinese chip foundry can't do business with Huawei, because the foundry buys equipment from a Japanese company, which uses a piece of software written by an American company somewhere in its pipeline. The global economy is tightly interconnected, and the US takes advantage of this fact to cut companies or even entire countries off from the global economy. As far as I'm aware, no other country uses secondary sanctions anywhere near as aggressively as the US does.
rtpg 4y ago
Describing a state of affairs is different from stating whether it is good or not. I don't believe I've seen people cheering anything on, much more identifying that Binance might be in big trouble due to all the potential consequences of their actions. I am confident that many people here, fundamentally, understand the cruel and arbitrary nature of Iranian sanctions and would like to see them be less so. But that doesn't change the idea that, as of right now, this legal issue could be very major.

by d0mine 4y ago

It is disturbing that many people do not see anything wrong that an elite from one country dictates to the whole world how to live (it has bigger guns/power but it is not right).

Semaphor 4y ago

World police USA is a very popular point of view on HN, sadly.

the_lonely_road 4y ago

“We” don’t dictate to the whole world how to live, that would be ludicrous as you just stated. We dictate the terms for behaving if you want to do business with us and our friends…just like the rest of the world. Most people don’t care about north koreas rules because they don’t want to do business in North Korea. Most of the world wants to do business with the west because it’s huge and rich and relatively unified in how you need to behave in broad strokes (obviously tons of differences in the details of implementations across regions). Foolish Americans keep ending up in Singapore jails because they don’t think their rules apply to them when they go there and find out the hard way that they do. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too because you disagree with the rules. If you want to do business with the west, you follow its rules or you stick to doing business with your own sphere of influence only.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
>If you want to do business with the west, you follow its rules or you stick to doing business with your own sphere of influence only. unless those same rules are applied to american businesses doing work in other countries to follow their specific rules and then all hell breaks loose. case in point, https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/exclusive-visa-complains-us-govt-about-india-backing-local-rival-rupay-2021-11-28/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/exclusive-visa-comp... https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/mastercard-files-complaint-against-indian-protectionism/ https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/mastercard-files-comp... So, mastercard/visa goes back to big daddy when they dont get their share of the pie according to their way, as opposed to the law of the land so they ask the big daddy to big dick them into submission. same with many big american tech companies who apply american laws (dmca for example) on foreign users "because the data is held with american companies/DCs") and many other such examples
DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
You're making a distinction without a difference. US sanctions are designed to completely cut off the target country or company from the global economy - even from doing business with foreign companies that have no obvious connection to the US. The US does this through secondary sanctions. If a European company does business in Iran, it will suddenly find itself unable to do business with anyone in Europe. Its bank will terminate its account, even if the bank doesn't do business in the US, because the bank is afraid of getting cut off from its business partners. US sanctions are designed to cascade in this way. The end result is that Iran is almost completely cut off from the world economy, because the US decided that nobody anywhere in the world should trade with Iran. I don't think any other country in the world applies secondary sanctions this aggressively. When the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, it effectively forced the EU to pull out of the deal as well. The deal was oversight of Iranian uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. But US sanctions scared off EU companies from doing business with Iran, so Iran got no real sanctions relief from the EU. It's a sign of how politically weak the EU is that it didn't respond in kind to US threats to sanction EU companies that did business with Iran. The EU effectively allowed the US to dictate EU trade policy. But I wouldn't assume that this situation will continue indefinitely. Other countries will eventually respond to the US' overreach here.

wil421 4y ago

Is it right the EU forced cookie pop ups on everyone? Maybe, maybe not but it’s politics in a nutshell.

jcranmer 4y ago

The underlying proposition here is "don't do $X if you also want to operate in country $Y," which I do not find a disturbing proposition at all. It's just that there are a few values of $Y for which staying out of is deeply unsatisfying for international companies--namely the US, EU, and China. In fact, I would find the alternative more disturbing--a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone who can set themselves up to be sufficiently international.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
US sanctions are designed to act like a virus: they spread, so that eventually nobody in the world is allowed to do business with the target country, unless they want to completely cut themselves off from all economic interactions outside the target country. A European company can't do business with Iran, because it does business with a European bank, which does business with another European bank, which does business in the US. A Chinese chip foundry can't do business with Huawei, because the foundry buys equipment from a Japanese company, which uses a piece of software written by an American company somewhere in its pipeline. The global economy is tightly interconnected, and the US takes advantage of this fact to cut companies or even entire countries off from the global economy. As far as I'm aware, no other country uses secondary sanctions anywhere near as aggressively as the US does.

rtpg 4y ago

Describing a state of affairs is different from stating whether it is good or not. I don't believe I've seen people cheering anything on, much more identifying that Binance might be in big trouble due to all the potential consequences of their actions. I am confident that many people here, fundamentally, understand the cruel and arbitrary nature of Iranian sanctions and would like to see them be less so. But that doesn't change the idea that, as of right now, this legal issue could be very major.