Silicon Valley's Saudi Arabia Problem | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley's Saudi Arabia Problem

nytimes.com

47 pointspetethomas13 comments

The problem is that the Saudi Regime has reached a point of not just murder but instability and poor judgement. IE, they brutally murdered someone of substance, in a lawless fashion, outside Saudi Arabia proper, for very little cause - after they brutally, physically extracted wealth from their own financier class (princes and such probably had taken a good portion of this corruptly but there's a reason for rule-of-law in these situations, other the state doesn't know when to quit).

It's one, sadly normal, thing these days to get blood money from one or another sources. It's another thing to get money from a powerful entity that kills anyone at all that displeases them - after all, at that point they might actually kill you, personally if you lose money or complain. I don't think even the Mafia is foolish enough to do this regularly.

And the evils of the Saudi Regime have been considered tolerable for years, in the interest of stability and, well, making money. Now you have something like a coal-mine that's broken out into the open. What to do, what to do?

>The problem is that the Saudi Regime has reached a point of not just murder but instability and poor judgement.

That they murdered people was a minor issue. That they now target people like you and me, people who are well-off and have some power... now they've gone too far and show poor judgement.

It's one thing to get blood money from one or another sources. It's another thing to get money from a powerful entity that kills anyone at all that displeases them - after all, at that point they might actually kill you.

The evils of the Saudi Regime were tolerable for years, in the interest of "stability" and, well, making money. Now they're coming after us. What to do, what to do?

Go after them. Who's with me?

> The problem is that the Saudi Regime has reached a point of not just murder but instability and poor judgement.

Maybe you did not mean it that way,but this sounds extremely cyncical.

I personally would love for the US to have a foreign policy that's even remotely humanitarian - I'll vote and advocate here for that.

The reality however is that US' policy has for years been murderously cynical with respect to the Saudis and numerous other dictatorships.

I don't have the ability even now to change much. Well meaning folks don't really have that ability. So really all one can do is throw the brutality and cynicism of those having power back in their faces. Maybe spotlighting this level of actual murderous narcissism will get the attention of who argued the need for the realpolitik approach of supporting the Saudis.

Even Stalin felt the need for kangaroo courts before offing his enemies, as does Iran, for that matter.

Saudi Arabia is unique in its failing to even pay lip service to the concept of rule of law.

I saw Marc Andreessen and Sam Altman listed on the new Saudi Arabian advisory board. I’d bet the Saudi’s are either LPs in their funds or they are courting them for their next fund.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18201620

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18197431

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18196934

It's striking how in the span of a week the media is in a full court press against Saudi Arabia, based upon (as far as I know) unconfirmed alligations around the disappearance of a journalist. There is truth to the narrative that SA is an ethically compromised country, it has been for decades, but the sudden coordinated messaging and deluge of articles that all seem directed towards affecting the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US is too overt not to notice.

not long ago there was coordinated reporting about the "saudi arab spring" that the new ruler would bring. Thats the media i guess, herdish.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/world/middleeast/mohammed...

The cynic in me thinks that, like most things the media reports on these days it seems, there is an attraction to stories that undermine Trump. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'm going to assume that this sudden meme about Saudi Arabia emerging is evidence in favor of there being some currently undisclosed diplomatic headway in the peace talks underway between the US, SA, Israel, and others that have been ongoing since Trump's trip to Riyadh the first month of his presidency.

they are just appealing to their audience

No, it's much simpler than that. A journalist was murdered, and that hits close to home for... journalists. Unlike genocide in Yemen.

I thought the same. I mean it's terrible what happened, and it's obvious SA isn't exactly a moral beacon, far from it - but China, Russia and many other countries do this type of thing all the time without the world blinking an eye.

I wonder what this is leading up to?

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