6 ms·

It is wild to me that we still frame stories like this in such an openly xenophobic way. Your opinions on the Saudis should not matter. The nationality of the

by slg 4y ago

It is wild to me that we still frame stories like this in such an openly xenophobic way. Your opinions on the Saudis should not matter. The nationality of the farm owner is completely irrelevant to the issue. Growing water intensive plants in the middle of the desert is stupid and bad even if 100% of the profit goes to Americans.

scatterhead 4y ago
It's wild to me that we frame legitimate concerns as xenophobic. The second sentence explains why the nationality matters: > Some farms are foreign-owned and are shipping the crop to Saudi Arabia, where it's illegal to grow because it takes too much water. In this globalistic world it's worth considering that stringent policy in one area of the world can be worked around by taking advantage of lax policy in another area of the world. It's not xenophobic to talk about that. It would be ignorant not to.
- slg 4y ago
  >In this globalistic world it's worth considering that stringent policy in one area of the world can be worked around by taking advantage of lax policy in another area of the world. It's not xenophobic to talk about that. It would be ignorant not to. Saudi owned farms circumventing Saudi laws is an issue for the people of Saudi Arabia. If it is legal in the US, it should be legal for everyone. If you want it to be illegal in the US, it should be illegal for everyone. The owners are and should be irrelevant.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    > If you want it to be illegal in the US, it should be illegal for everyone. It is reasonable for a region to decide its natural resources should benefit the people who live there above people who do not live there.
    - Eumenes 4y ago
      This 100%.
  - scatterhead 4y ago
    > If it is legal in the US, it should be legal for everyone That's a strawman. No one is arguing against that. How a resource is being used by foreign corporations is an important input to policy decisions. We're at a point in today's society where the mere suggestion that nationality might be relevant is met with accusations of xenophobia. It's the same way with race or sex.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      Race exists literally only to draw unfair distinctions.
      - effingwewt 4y ago
        Then how would you explain nature being 'unfair'. Race exists due to nature and we use it to denote distinctions in our collective race. We should celebrate our differences, not pretend they don't exist, or are merely humans being derogatory to each other.
        viciousvoxel 4y ago
        While I agree with your conclusion, unless by "nature" you mean "human nature," the statement > Race exists due to nature is absolutely false. Race is a cultural construct and has little to do with biology or national origin.
    - phendrenad2 4y ago
      For saying it's a strawman, you're doing a lot of litigation in the court of public opinion.
    - slg 4y ago
      > We're at a point in today's society where the mere suggestion that nationality might be relevant is met with accusations of xenophobia. How is the nationality relevant? Would this behavior be acceptable if the farms were owned by an Australian company? What about a publicly traded American company? What about an Arizonan billionaire? I don’t see how that would change anything. Monopolizing natural resources is bad regardless of the nationality or residency of the people profiting.
  - lisasays 4y ago
    The owners are and should be irrelevant. In geopolitics (especially as applied to critical resources) -- and that's what this comes down to, really; not simply greed -- this never the case, of course. It's always relevant who the owners of are - and what kinds of influence led them to being able to put down stakes where they have. You might say it's the name of the game, in fact.
    - zekrioca 4y ago
      So is it always relevant to be xenophobic?
      - tough 4y ago
        It's always relevant to know who's trying to fuck with you
      - lisasays 4y ago
        It's not xenophobia. It's simply a matter of being aware of how things work.
      - HybridCurve 4y ago
        Aside from purely capitalistic motivations, there is such a thing as environmental warfare. Unless you want to naively assume that any foreign nation might always have the best interests of another in mind when exploiting their resources.
  - scatterhead 4y ago
    A company is not separable from the regulatory environment and culture in which it's based. A British company opening a diamond mine in Botswana is a very different story from a Namibian company opening the same diamond mine.
morelisp 4y ago
It is wild to me that this is trotted out when "Saudi" is both a demonym and yet also an actual ruling family name. (And for context, I think it was accurate to describe it as a xenophobic "Muslim ban" and I think "Chinese coronavirus" is racist.) Yes, it's bad even if Americans do it, but it's definitely worse if it goes to Saud. Would you object to "Rockefeller company draws unlimited etc"? What if they also literally owned a country?
- slg 4y ago
  >Would you object to "Rockefellers draw unlimited etc"? What if they also literally owned a country? Maybe you misunderstood my point. I'm not giving the Saudis a pass. I would object to anyone doing this whether it is the Saudis, the Rockefellers, or some middle class farmer. The problem here is a poorly constructed regulatory environment which created a tragedy of the commons situation. We made it profitable to do something that is bad for the local environment and inherently stupid. People shouldn't grow water intensive plans in the desert. The problem here is "company draws unlimited Arizona ground water amid drought". There doesn't need to be an adjective before "company".
  - morelisp 4y ago
    You also said "such an openly xenophobic way." I reject the idea that a) the framing is xenophobic in this case, and b) it needs to be framed more generally before we can fix this specific case.
    - slg 4y ago
      From the article: >"We cannot afford to give our water away frankly to anyone, let alone the Saudis, for free," said Mayes. This person is saying that giving the water away to the Saudis is worse than just giving it away. It isn't simply the action of taking the water that is troubling them. It is that it is going to a scary other. This is classic xenophobia.
      - morelisp 4y ago
rhaway84773 4y ago
Yeah I don’t get it. Would it be ok if it was an American country bleeding the state dry? The nationality of the company seems the least important issue in this whole story.
- mint2 4y ago
  I think the notion is that the company has zero interest in the well being of the land because they have no ties to it. That does have some logic, similar to out of state landlords or corporate landlords milking a property for as much rent with absolute minimal upkeep as they have no involvement in the community. A flaw with that argument with the foreign water exporters and also with the landlord is that local landlords or businesses also can be equally bad. But still, there is some sense to it and may have some truth if the average behaviors were quantified
yesco 4y ago
I'm shocked anyone would even consider this xenophobic at all. Why would our opinions on the Saudis not matter? You aren't making any sense to me. It would be one thing if it was irrational, like not wanting to go to a Saudi barber, but when foreign nationals are draining critical geopolitically relevant resources, regardless of if other Americans are doing it to, to call it xenophobic to even mention the association seems like pure madness to me. There is nothing irrational about questioning the motives here.
Tangurena2 4y ago
Utah has also been having water problems. Agriculture uses most of the water in UT, the governor has a farm that grows hay/alfalfa for export to China. With water shortages, instead of cutting back on his farm's water consumption, he got on the TV and told Utahns to "pray for rain". Arizona passed a law requiring developments of 6 or more homes to provide for water. Consequently, many developers now make all of their developments 5 homes in order to skirt that law. Urban water suppliers (which are government run utilities)_have cut those suburban/rural customers off. Which is making the water problem madly political.

by slg 4y ago

scatterhead 4y ago

It's wild to me that we frame legitimate concerns as xenophobic. The second sentence explains why the nationality matters: > Some farms are foreign-owned and are shipping the crop to Saudi Arabia, where it's illegal to grow because it takes too much water. In this globalistic world it's worth considering that stringent policy in one area of the world can be worked around by taking advantage of lax policy in another area of the world. It's not xenophobic to talk about that. It would be ignorant not to.

slg 4y ago
>In this globalistic world it's worth considering that stringent policy in one area of the world can be worked around by taking advantage of lax policy in another area of the world. It's not xenophobic to talk about that. It would be ignorant not to. Saudi owned farms circumventing Saudi laws is an issue for the people of Saudi Arabia. If it is legal in the US, it should be legal for everyone. If you want it to be illegal in the US, it should be illegal for everyone. The owners are and should be irrelevant.
- morelisp 4y ago
  > If you want it to be illegal in the US, it should be illegal for everyone. It is reasonable for a region to decide its natural resources should benefit the people who live there above people who do not live there.
  - Eumenes 4y ago
    This 100%.
- scatterhead 4y ago
  > If it is legal in the US, it should be legal for everyone That's a strawman. No one is arguing against that. How a resource is being used by foreign corporations is an important input to policy decisions. We're at a point in today's society where the mere suggestion that nationality might be relevant is met with accusations of xenophobia. It's the same way with race or sex.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    Race exists literally only to draw unfair distinctions.
    - effingwewt 4y ago
      Then how would you explain nature being 'unfair'. Race exists due to nature and we use it to denote distinctions in our collective race. We should celebrate our differences, not pretend they don't exist, or are merely humans being derogatory to each other.
      - viciousvoxel 4y ago
        While I agree with your conclusion, unless by "nature" you mean "human nature," the statement > Race exists due to nature is absolutely false. Race is a cultural construct and has little to do with biology or national origin.
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    For saying it's a strawman, you're doing a lot of litigation in the court of public opinion.
  - slg 4y ago
    > We're at a point in today's society where the mere suggestion that nationality might be relevant is met with accusations of xenophobia. How is the nationality relevant? Would this behavior be acceptable if the farms were owned by an Australian company? What about a publicly traded American company? What about an Arizonan billionaire? I don’t see how that would change anything. Monopolizing natural resources is bad regardless of the nationality or residency of the people profiting.
- lisasays 4y ago
  The owners are and should be irrelevant. In geopolitics (especially as applied to critical resources) -- and that's what this comes down to, really; not simply greed -- this never the case, of course. It's always relevant who the owners of are - and what kinds of influence led them to being able to put down stakes where they have. You might say it's the name of the game, in fact.
  - zekrioca 4y ago
    So is it always relevant to be xenophobic?
    - tough 4y ago
      It's always relevant to know who's trying to fuck with you
    - lisasays 4y ago
      It's not xenophobia. It's simply a matter of being aware of how things work.
    - HybridCurve 4y ago
      Aside from purely capitalistic motivations, there is such a thing as environmental warfare. Unless you want to naively assume that any foreign nation might always have the best interests of another in mind when exploiting their resources.
- scatterhead 4y ago
  A company is not separable from the regulatory environment and culture in which it's based. A British company opening a diamond mine in Botswana is a very different story from a Namibian company opening the same diamond mine.

morelisp 4y ago

It is wild to me that this is trotted out when "Saudi" is both a demonym and yet also an actual ruling family name. (And for context, I think it was accurate to describe it as a xenophobic "Muslim ban" and I think "Chinese coronavirus" is racist.) Yes, it's bad even if Americans do it, but it's definitely worse if it goes to Saud. Would you object to "Rockefeller company draws unlimited etc"? What if they also literally owned a country?

slg 4y ago
>Would you object to "Rockefellers draw unlimited etc"? What if they also literally owned a country? Maybe you misunderstood my point. I'm not giving the Saudis a pass. I would object to anyone doing this whether it is the Saudis, the Rockefellers, or some middle class farmer. The problem here is a poorly constructed regulatory environment which created a tragedy of the commons situation. We made it profitable to do something that is bad for the local environment and inherently stupid. People shouldn't grow water intensive plans in the desert. The problem here is "company draws unlimited Arizona ground water amid drought". There doesn't need to be an adjective before "company".
- morelisp 4y ago
  You also said "such an openly xenophobic way." I reject the idea that a) the framing is xenophobic in this case, and b) it needs to be framed more generally before we can fix this specific case.
  - slg 4y ago
    From the article: >"We cannot afford to give our water away frankly to anyone, let alone the Saudis, for free," said Mayes. This person is saying that giving the water away to the Saudis is worse than just giving it away. It isn't simply the action of taking the water that is troubling them. It is that it is going to a scary other. This is classic xenophobia.
    - morelisp 4y ago

rhaway84773 4y ago

Yeah I don’t get it. Would it be ok if it was an American country bleeding the state dry? The nationality of the company seems the least important issue in this whole story.

mint2 4y ago
I think the notion is that the company has zero interest in the well being of the land because they have no ties to it. That does have some logic, similar to out of state landlords or corporate landlords milking a property for as much rent with absolute minimal upkeep as they have no involvement in the community. A flaw with that argument with the foreign water exporters and also with the landlord is that local landlords or businesses also can be equally bad. But still, there is some sense to it and may have some truth if the average behaviors were quantified

yesco 4y ago

I'm shocked anyone would even consider this xenophobic at all. Why would our opinions on the Saudis not matter? You aren't making any sense to me. It would be one thing if it was irrational, like not wanting to go to a Saudi barber, but when foreign nationals are draining critical geopolitically relevant resources, regardless of if other Americans are doing it to, to call it xenophobic to even mention the association seems like pure madness to me. There is nothing irrational about questioning the motives here.

Tangurena2 4y ago

Utah has also been having water problems. Agriculture uses most of the water in UT, the governor has a farm that grows hay/alfalfa for export to China. With water shortages, instead of cutting back on his farm's water consumption, he got on the TV and told Utahns to "pray for rain". Arizona passed a law requiring developments of 6 or more homes to provide for water. Consequently, many developers now make all of their developments 5 homes in order to skirt that law. Urban water suppliers (which are government run utilities)_have cut those suburban/rural customers off. Which is making the water problem madly political.