Doing business in China is unethical.
You're not adding any information when you post like this. It's just a strong opinion with a strong feeling attached. When someone else with the opposite opinion comes along and blasts their opposite feeling, no interesting information will be exchanged. Therefore it's off topic for thoughtful conversation, which is what we're trying for here.
An HN thread thrives on curiosity and specifics, withers on the gruel of grandiosity, and fries under scorching rhetoric.
http://time.com/5366225/china-uighurs-detention-report/
A million Uyghur and Muslims in camps. That's a sixth of a Holocaust.
If you guys want to fling furious links around, you need to find another site to do it. It isn't part of thoughtful discussion—it's pure reflex.
If we aren't allowed to talk about and compare what the nazis did, how will we learn from it?
If this comparison is not permitted in this situation, when will it ever be?
Really quite disappointed in your stance on this one.
And please, spare us the condescending attitude that we don't actually care about this stuff. If we are going to veer off into "unstated positions and assumptions" territory there is a white hot glaringly obvious apparent conflict of interest with HN moderation shutting down discussion of human rights abuses right as YC china launches, dont you think?
We actually moderate HN threads less, not more, when YC is the topic—this is a longstanding principle on HN. But that doesn't mean we don't moderate them at all. You only need to read a small sample of the moderation comments we post to this site to see how consistent we are on these questions.
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
So tell us, Dan, how would one criticize the Chinese government for imprisoning dissidents and genocide, while staying within your guidelines? How must one couch it to pass the Great Firewall of Hacker News? Serious question.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
To the extent that people are fulminating rather than saying anything substantive, and reacting ideologically or tribally rather than thoughtfully, they're crossing outside the scope of what this site is for. Heated rhetoric, grandiose generalization, and angry name-calling are the kind of thing that mark this distinction. Your comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17764244 is an example of the kind of thing that clearly moves the needle into the red.
So, real talk, why do you think concerns over YC working with a government with super shaky human-rights record are unimportant or unfounded?
A valid answer is totally "Because we're gonna make money and nobody complaining is in a position to actually do anything."
What do you think about it?
The problem with bringing such links into arguments like this is that no one does so for reasons of intellectual interest. For example, in this case, people aren't actually interested in the plight of the Uighurs. Rather, it's convenient ammunition for justifying pre-existing political and national feelings. Such a move is not part of thoughtful conversation at all; it's just ideology and tribal loyalty, which explains why the discussions are so utterly repetitive—and therefore off topic for HN.
I'm not sure what to say if HN's position is that it's too controversial (or is it that "all denunciations are the same"? They are not) to call out such actions. These discussions are clearly related to the topic at hand.
Maybe those of us criticizing the Chinese government aren't saying anything new, but that doesn't lessen the need to speak out. It's neither "rhetoric" nor "grandiosity" to point out that it's morally wrong for a government to act the way China's does.
I would expect the PRC to put a lid on this sort of criticism, not Hacker News. It's bordering on complicity.
> For example, in this case, people aren't actually interested in the plight of the Uighurs.
What an awful sentiment. Please don't profess to know my own moral compass. I am deeply concerned and sickened; we all should be. These people are being forcibly relocated and tortured by their own government.
If you refuse to serve Chinese people, that's another level of the story.
If you think serving people in China is somehow helping the government, you are somehow admitting the legitimacy of the government.
Is it ethical that doing business in Five Eye countries?
Is providing tools/services to the people considered unethical comparing to providing none?
What about free services that everyone including the Chinese can access via Internet? Are they unethical because they didn't block the Chinese?
Thoughts?
Without going to far into the political weeds, the US has never delivered freedom effectively at the end of a gun, but rather through McDonalds and Coca Cola.
There is literally no way to do this without the cooperation of the Chinese government.
More generally, please don't practice the online shaming culture of denunciation on Hacker News. It makes for lousy, predictable discussion, regardless of how right you are or feel. From an intellectual curiosity point of view—which is the main value of this site—all denunciations are the same.
On one hand I'm curious to see the responses to the idea that corporations that were founded and bloomed in liberal countries can suddenly just become "global" companies and not be held to those same liberal standards.
On the other, I look at countries like China and Russia and wonder how much mileage this "liberal world order" has left in the gas tank.
If we look at history we can see that when liberalism first encountered china it wasn't John Locke and human rights that opened up trade, but a naval blockade that forced china to capitulate (and create hong kong too, which is the most liberal country in asia).
Do we as the west have the ability or the willpower to pull a move like that again? Because if we don't then i don't see how we can overcome china other than writing more bloomberg articles on how their ghost cities are going to crash their economy any day now.
I do not have any faith that any amount of trade with China will cause the government to reform in any meaningful way and I'm confident that China will remain a dictatorship a thousand years from now.