Blood money | Hacker News Reader

Blood money

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256 pointsdeegles150 comments

Mark my words, this will blow over in a month or two and we'll forget all about it, like we always do. Softbank has a lot of sweet, sweet petro-dollars to wave around.

If you are really opposed to the Saudi regime, I'd posit that the most effective thing you could do is create a bullshit startup and get them to invest, and then frivolously waste their money.

>the most effective thing you could do is create a bullshit startup and get them to invest, and then frivolously waste their money

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea to employ against a regime perfectly willing to violently murder people.

The most effective way to affect the change in KSA is to block KSA's citizens access to the non-KSA. It is that easy. The KSA is stable because its princess and princesses and its middle class enjoys unrestricted access to the West. For that they are willing to compromise with those that would stone women and cure homosexuality with whips.

Block that and KSA will fall apart within months as having hundreds of thousands of dollars means nothing if there's no access to Gucci purses and houses in London.

What replaces it if it loses stability or falls apart? Would it not be replaced by a government dominated by the people engaged in behavior you detest? It seems more likely that enacting more freedoms would instead result in civil war dominated by those who are more repressive, and likely the domination by the princes aligned with those perspectives.

Instead, we see a slow progress which is painful, but may be the best that can be hoped for.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of olympic level mental gymnastics I need to engage in to be able to view a butchering of a US permanent resident who works for a major US newspaper in a consulate on a territory of a NATO country and lying about it being a "progress" but I'm probably just not understanding the delicate picture

I was referencing the broader program of social change Mohammed bin Salman has begun to enact (driving, concerts, movie theaters, women working, anti-corruption), as contrasted to the more regressive opinions of his predecessors any likely successors.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-women-drivers-face-one-la...

So in this case the end justifies the means, right?

Why would it lose stability and fall apart? Saudi Arabia is about as stable as bad places come, which is what makes it is so terrible. This is exactly the sort of country you should pressure to reform. Otherwise might as well just come out and say that it was all just an excuse to freely meddle with countries we don't like.

I don't think it would, but that is what the parent comment suggested.

How has that strategy worked out for Cuba / Iran / North Korea?

> How has that strategy worked out for Cuba / Iran / North Korea?

It hasn't been attempted. Kim Jong-un, for example, has been raised in Switzerland, dito for MANY children of autocracies, dictatorships and other detestable regimes from all over the world. Their blood money (or, in earlier times their blood diamonds) was, is and always will be welcome for Western banks.

I don't think you'd even need to block the non-royals for this to be effective.

If France and/or the UK put anyone with "Al-Saud" in their last name on a no entry list, MBS would be gone in weeks.

well, you're already dead, Metheny.

Anyway, levity aside regimes that will violently murder to silence critics might not to get even for bad business investments.

As for me I'm hoping to get some investment on my new grocery list tracking app that uses machine learning on the blockchain to automatically buy what you want to eat before you know what it is!

>regimes that will violently murder to silence critics might not to get even for bad business investments

I don't really disagree with that but at the same time it doesn't really feel all that wise to whack a hornet's nest with a baseball bat. If anyone feels like taking the risk, then I wish them the best of luck in swindling them for as much as they can get away with, but playing stupid games can lead to winning stupid prizes.

but can it identify hotdogs?

not hotdog! (but most other things)

> Mark my words, this will blow over in a month or two and we'll forget all about it, like we always do. Softbank has a lot of sweet, sweet petro-dollars to wave around.

This type of cynical, defeatist attitude is part of the problem.

Perhaps, but on an ordered list of contributing factors "a defeatist attitude" is pretty near the bottom.

> this will blow over in a month or two and we'll forget all about it, like we always do

We always don’t. That’s how some countries end up under sanctions. (In any case, this is a bad moral defense.)

Its not clear that the sanctions have anything to do with the moral considerations, as opposed to the domestic and geo-political considerations, which actually dominate the decision making process. Sanctions on Russia after Ukraine had no more to do with the moral significance of their invasion than the absence of French/German sanctions on the UK/US after the invasion of Iraq. We only sanction bad behaviour when either geopolitics or domestic politics makes it convenient to do so.

> We only sanction bad behaviour when either geopolitics or domestic politics makes it convenient to do so

I'd say when both make it convenient to do so, or one makes it an overwhelming necessity.

I hate to be pulling this thread into politics on HN, but you mentioned sanctions so I believe you speak about political sanctions.

All 19 hijackers of 911 attacks were Saudis. We have sanctioned many countries and murdered 100,000 innocent children and civils in last Iraq war that most americans still don’t know the reason we invaded, yet Suadis remain off the radar. Now the greencard holder got in altercation at the embassy and ended up treated with bonesaw, meanwhile POTUS tells we invested 1B in their contracts so we have to be careful what we say. On the top of that he has multiple private businesses at the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars at stake with Saudis. Tell me again about some sanctions against them, please?

>this will blow over in a month or two and we'll forget all about it, like we always do

>There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen

The house of saud can't be on the top of the throne forever. Their monopoly on oil is diminishing (as is the importance of oil) and they don't have anything else even remotely comparative.

You could have predicted that nothing would happen to the Assyrians for 16 thousand years and you would only be wrong once, but that was the one time it did matter. You could have predicted it about the romans for a thousand years; about the soviets for 70 years; about the third reich for 15; iraq for 40. In the end they all fell.

Now, I am not saying that this won't blow over in a month, just that it is really difficult to predict the future, especially in international relations.

Like those food delivery startups and ride sharing apps that all lose money?

Saudi may kill my journalists, but at least they subsidize my lunch.

Nations that sincerely object to what happened have it within their power to pass something like the Magnitsky Act[1] against those involved. The act was signed in to law after the murder and torture of Sergei Magnitsky, who had uncovered Russian corruption.[2]

The parallels in the two cases are striking.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act

[2] - https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/death-sergei-magnitsky-bil...

> I'd posit that the most effective thing you could do is create a bullshit startup and get them to invest

This sounds like a long-term con that would take years to implement - sovereign wealth funds are more into late-stage pre-IPO rounds and not as much into $5k AngelList syndicate rounds.

For short-term reducing personal dependence on oil sounds like a good start.

If this were 2010 I'd agree with you, but technology is changing very quickly.

We are very close to the ability to use bonds to pay for goods instead of cash. This allows you to buy things with "strings attached" so the bond becomes valueless under certain circumstances. E.g., I will buy your eggs, with a $8 bond which will lose its value if you are proved within my network of trust to have paid a worker less than a living wage.

Of course this $8 bond is worth less than $8 in cash, but the eggs purchased with the bond are worth more to me than eggs purchased with cash.

This will enable people to spend money and ensure that their revenues are reinvested according to their values.

This is one of my candidates for a "killer app" for Ethereum.

This is absolutely necessary as a key check on dirty money, since cryptocurrency has dramatically loosened up the ability for cash to flow between regulatory regimes.

I recognize that the author is using the term Blood Money like Blood Diamond, as a way of saying that the investment dollars are tainted by violence. But the term Blood Money already has a meaning in English, which is a payment to settle the feelings of a family for the loss of a loved one, and prevent revenge. It's not very common among northern Europeans, but is part of the culture of Arabs and, supposedly, Sicilian mafiosi. The US paid lots of blood money over the years to attempt to quell vengeance for collateral damage or incorrect targeting, and even in some cases for legitimate killings of battlefield opponents.

> But the term Blood Money already has a meaning in English, which is a payment to settle the feelings of a family for the loss of a loved one, and prevent revenge.

This is incorrect; "blood money" is an established English term for money that has been metaphysically tainted with blood. (Compare, among many others, Judas' refrain in Jesus Christ Superstar, "I don't want your blood money", referring to the 30 pieces of silver the priests pay him for betraying Jesus.)

The English term for money paid to settle a death is "weregild".

The concepts appear similar, but "blood money" has been in use for a long time:

> Blood money is from 1530s; originally money paid for causing the death of another[1].

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/blood

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_money_(restitution)

> Blood money is, colloquially, the reward for bringing a criminal to justice.

> A common meaning in other contexts is the money-penalty paid by a murderer to the kinsfolk of the victim. These fines completely protect the offender (or the kinsfolk thereof) from the vengeance of the injured family. The system was common among Germanic peoples before the introduction of Christianity (weregild)

The concepts of "money you pay as a penalty for killing someone" and "money a third party pays you as a reward for killing someone" aren't really similar in the slightest.

The very first sentence is:

> Blood money, also called bloodwit, is money or some sort of compensation paid by an offender (usually a murderer) or his/her family group to the family or kin group of the victim.

Given that the page primarily defines "blood money" as "the reward for bringing a criminal to justice" as well as being weregild, it doesn't seem like strong evidence that weregild is the primary sense of the word. (Strong evidence for that would be hard to find, as it isn't true.)

I question the idea that "weregild" is a current English term found outside of history or literature departments, its reappearance in fantasy fiction not withstanding.

There is no current English term for this practice because it is not within the experience of any significant number of English speakers.

"Blood money" is sometimes used for the concept, as you can see in COCA ( https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ ), but that is certainly not the normal sense of "blood money". "Blood money" is routinely used to refer to money that has been morally tainted.

FWIW, I've only ever heard Blood Money used the way it's used in the article. The first entry in the Merriam-Webster dictionary says "money obtained at the cost of another's life", the secondary definition is restitution like you mentioned.

Interesting, I stand corrected. It is the first time I've heard the term used in my language like that.

I’ve heard of a few cases of murder in Saudi Arabia where the accused was found guilty and facing execution, but was set free after blood money was negotiated and transferred. Knowing that fact, I think the author intended the title of the article alludes to the practice with respect to recent events except with tech being recepients of said blood money.

From Wikipedia:

Diya (Arabic: دية‎; plural diyāt, Arabic: ديات‎) in Islamic law, is the financial compensation paid to the victim or heirs of a victim in the cases of murder, bodily harm or property damage. It is an alternative punishment to qisas (equal retaliation). In Arabic, the word means both blood money and ransom, and it is spelled sometimes as diyah or diyeh.[citation needed]

It only applies when victim's family want to compromise with the guilty party; otherwise qisas applies. [0]

The murder of Yvonne Gilford comes to mind [1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diya_(Islam)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Gilford

"wergild" is the unambiguous term for "money paid in compensation for an injury".

I have very little sympathy for these companies getting called out. Many of them gleefully throw themselves into the political arena when they can capitalize on things like pride or international women's day for cheap progressive points and some marketing exposure yet shirk away from the conversation about where they get their investment money from. I would say this is a nice lesson for a lot of marketing departments. If you're going to interject yourself, as a company, into the political arena, you have to be all in otherwise you will get called out like this eventually.

> If you're going to interject yourself, as a company, into the political arena, you have to be all in otherwise you will get called out like this eventually.

A company selectively interjecting itself into the political arena highlights its hypocrisy, but any company having a significant public impact should be getting called out regardless of their actions in other spheres. Ethics are not an opt-in.

Making yourself an ethical arbiter is opt-in; deciding to pursue profit within the constraints of a particular legal regime (or indeed a particular religion ethical doctrine) but otherwise apolitically is entirely legitimate, and I suspect makes one more likely to act in a genuinely good way than chasing the hot-button issues of the day.

Can't a company just do what's best for itself and it's shareholders? Why does every organization need a moral/ethical complex which caters to the issues of modern day?

If we follow your logic to its logical conclusion the only way to change the way a company is behaving is through laws and regulations. I'm getting strawman-adjacent here but something tells me that if you think that a company should only "do what's best for itself and it's shareholders" you might also not like heavy handed regulations either, am I correct? And if so, how do you think the problem of unethical companies should be solved?

By instituting only those regulations that loosely serve a public good (say a carbon tax or sin tax) and then predominantly by customers voting with their wallets.

This is as good as saying nothing at all since nobody agrees on what serves the public good.

That's why we have a representative process to decide on a single course of action when not literally everyone agrees.

Yes, you have succinctly described the status quo. My point is that "only pass regulations that serve the public good" is vague to the point of being meaningless. That's akin to saying "cancel all the wasteful government programs" as an answer to the deficit.

Ah, I now see the disconnect. 5 posts or so up, someone suggested strong, targeted, heavy-handed regulation as a cure/control for an unethical company.

My "loosely serves the public good" was meant to suggest that instead you could target carbon or sin taxes, but you couldn't (read: ought not) target a specific company, say Exxon-Mobil or Philip Morris.

IOW, broadly target the thing you want to reduce with policy, not the company that does the specific thing.

I can see based on my text how you reduced it to a vague "pass smart laws", but I was trying to make a specific recommendation on how to do that, but then further leaving the majority of control for ethics to the choice of the consumers in aggregate.

Thanks for the clarification. I get what you mean now.

Companies exist to serve society, not the other way around. Corporate charters are granted by governments, from the people.

Ok I'll bite, so if your company is based in Saudi Arabia you have to be okay with killing journalists because the charter was granted by the government?

I mean... you don't have to feel okay with it, but if you're paying taxes, you're certainly complicit in it on some level. Similar goes for Americans and the Iraq War.

In the old days, in some countries, we had a device for changing the government when it did stuff you didn't want to be complicit in. I think they called it an "election" ;-). Now, admittedly, even if I take a very broad array of American political parties, from the Greens to the Libertarians, their spectrum on foreign policy still ranges from bloody-stupid to fucking appalling, so I don't entirely blame actively anti-war Americans for the anti-war movement's failure to stop the war.

But that's because the democratic system has decayed to the point where, if you don't want today's fresh new war of choice, you're left choosing between two irrelevant third parties, one of whom puts forth a candidate who doesn't know where Aleppo is, and the other of whom are outright tankies on foreign policy and may be paid by Vladimir Putin.

Does knowing where Aleppo is help American citizens in any measurable way, shape, or form?

Yes, but I'm not going to debate this, because I'm already appalled that this comment got +3 while my remarks on the Bayesian brain theory in another thread were ignored.

#MakeHNTechnicalAgain

Yes, because some number of American citizens are in/near there in a dangerous situation in the employ of the US federal government.

Well if you're a Saudi citizen and you don't have much of a choice then clearly no, it's just the way things are, you don't choose where you're born. If you're a foreigner and go out of your way to open a company in Saudi Arabia then clearly yes.

Ok I’ll bite :)

Does Saudi Arabia have centuries of free enterprise, civil rights progress, government accountability, and not-a-monarchy?

What does any of that have to do with the previous question?

The premises of the grandparent was

> Corporate charters are granted by governments, from the people.

This is true for the USA, at least afaict as an European.

The same can't be said about Saudi Arabia, as sad as that might be.

Companies should not be relied on to make these decisions. If dealing with Saudi Arabia is immoral, that is a topic of diplomacy and the country should be possibly embargoed. What industries are allowed to do business there should be left up to a nations people to decide.

Many companies believe that catering to the issues of the modern day often is best for itself and its shareholders.

Companies do seem to be taking more and more political stances, though, than they have in the past, and personally I think it's, at least in some cases, naive on their parts. I used to see more of "we'll donate 1% of our revenue to save pandas" type marketing, which is noble and universally applauded, but now it's replaced with taking political stances on things that are often hot-button issues.

Companies like that do exist. Profit at any cost, under the disguise of "serving the shareholders" - everyone/everything else be damned. Recent examples include the pharma companies hiking the cost to whatever levels they please ...

If everyone started behaving this way, it wouldn't be pretty.

"You mean I have to worry about the consequences of my actions? Why can't I just bury my head in the sand and make tons of money?"

Plenty (most? all?) large businesses do this. It isn't good for the world.

Because people are involved.

Edit: You can downvote all you want, but politics are an outgrowth of human interaction at scale. The idea that you can get a couple thousand human beings running around with limited resources and various goals and not get politics is laughable.

> Can't a company just do what's best for itself and it's shareholders?

That's exactly what ethical behaviour is.

> Why does every organization need a moral/ethical complex which caters to the issues of modern day?

Because joining a corporation does not remove you from human society.

How about American universities that educate people from KSA paid by KSA? Should they be called out for taking blood money? After all international students are basically the only ones that pay the full rack rate?

Overall, I agree with your point, but it's definitely a fallacy that if you do bad things it nullifies good things that you do.

If (for example) you thought that eating vegan was better ethically or environmentally, eating vegan only one day a week would still be "better" than not eating vegan at all. Eating non-vegan some of the time is not hypocritical, nor does it nullify the "good" you're doing.

Absolutely though, companies should be shamed (and not patronized) for their bad behavior and bad associations.

"but it's definitely a fallacy that if you do bad things it nullifies good things that you do."

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if you inject yourself as a moral arbiter into a debate, then the people you're marketing to with that stance are going to demand moral purity. You open yourself up to more criticism when you first criticize. I'm not really making a moral argument here at all actually. I'm more saying "those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" from a practical standpoint unless you're ready to abandon good business practices in the pursuit and constantly moving goal posts of moral purity.

Yeah, but I wouldn't focus on the vegan part of the phrase "x is a vegan serial killer" if someone was introduced that way.

When I find an article like this, what is supposed to convince me to spend the time to read it? The title communicates almost nothing and there's no subtitle. The author starts off with a (boring) vinette and knowingly teases the actual topic: "Needless to say this article is about Saudia Arabia." But there are thousands of journalist writing thousands of articles about Saudi Arabia right now.

Is the idea that I would know the author's name and just trust them? (Surely no one loves everything TechCrunch puts out generally.) Or that I'd get linked to it on social media from someone who's taste I really trust?

I'm just honestly confused why a column like this doesn't have such a bad bounce rate as to induce a different writing style.

If article titles were crafted to convey the topic and thus only attract people interested in the topic they'd be as good as useless.

Instead they use bold, non detailed, titles to attract readers that might not even care about the particular subject (but will click to see what the "blood money" are about).

Isn't that the whole idea behind clickbait titles?

Bounce rate after reading some of the article shouldn't really concern them, as long as people click on the article and the banners have been displayed.

I understand they want clicks and the general incentives for clickbait, and thus why the title might be a tease. But they also need to keep people on the site to view and click on the ads (especially near the bottom). So, for instance, why not tease more with a subtitle? Maybe the idea is that, empirically, the small fraction of people who will trudge through the article to find the mystery topic, for whatever reason, nevertheless stay for long enough that total ad exposure is higher. So the bounce rate is high but outweighed by these outliers.

It still doesn't help me understand their motivation though. Like, there are a thousand news articles each day that begin with an intro thats indistinguishable (information-wise) from this one. Why read this one?

I think it's just laziness/the economics of web content. Stuff like this usually gets pushed live more or less as soon as it's written and (maybe) checked for spelling errors.

Adtech has some awareness of bounce rate -- page linger time is a factor in ad impression metrics. That's why so many sites have arbitrary videos at the bottom of articles, to inclease linger time on the page.

Clickbait is usually sensationalist. It promises something so intriguing/attractive that you click because the potential payoff is higher than the cost of clicking. It's kind of just good title writing taken to the extreme, if you think of a good title as something that intrigues you (but delivers on the intrigue) or makes a promise (but fulfills that promise with the content.

I've been trying to think of an apt clickbait title for this piece for the last few minutes, but can't: I think, because the article isn't really saying much that's new at all.

If you had an offer from Slack, would you seriously turn it down because they have Saudi money via Softbank if it was otherwise your top choice?

I’m in the late stages of the interview process for a heavily SoftBank-funded company that would otherwise be my top choice, and I’m strongly considering turning them down because of that. So if you want a definitive answer, ask me again in a week.

If you turn them down for that reason, will you state is as the reason? Otherwise, it doesn't seem nearly as effective.

I agree, and yes I would.

I'm not passing judgment but I think it depends on the market. If there was a recession and tech jobs were harder to find and at a lower rate, then people would take jobs with more questionable funding/mission. Part of the reason we are seeing more people mic drop is because they can walk away to something just as good.

This is why all effort needs to move toward automizing as much as we can, while passing on as much value as possible back to society - so then people don't have to work in order to have more than basic needs along with a high quality of life. This would give people time to educate themselves, to build relationship with others (community), among other things - and to support the people and mechanisms who provide and improve this function and quality of life.

Yes. These things matter.

I am all for standing up for your beliefs with your actions, I just hope we all realize this is a privileged position.

Which is why these choices should be fairly simple, if you're confident of your own ethical stance. Most tech people's moral sacrifices are made for convenience/a few thousand dollars, not to put food on the table.

If you work for a high-status SV company and you have a lot of moral qualms, you should leave your job and find one you feel better about.

It's a modern disease to confuse integrity with privilege.

Sure, but the reason for that privilege is also the reason it matters so much. If you're considering whether to take a menial job in a warehouse or call center or something for a SoftBank-funded company, you're probably in a less privileged position in terms of your ability to turn down the best available job offer. But the ceiling on the value that you can create for those investors is much lower, which IMO significantly reduces the moral imperative to look elsewhere. Conversely, if you're an engineer for a SoftBank-funded startup, it's fairly likely that your contributions will create many millions of dollars' worth of wealth for Saudi investors.

If you are in a position to do so, then what does it matter? Given the ability to pick between two things that are identical bar some moral aspect, it seems logically consistent to pick the option that aligns more with your morals.

So if we do nothing we are bad people and if we do the right thing we are still not good people, because "privilege"?

That kinda trap sure doesn't make me more likely to give a shit about ethics.

Honestly, doing the right thing is pretty low on the list privileged people should be worrying about.

But yes, we should be careful passing judgement on people.

Care to elaborate?

I mean, doing the right thing, and then worrying that you’re doing the right thing because you have privilege... not a thing I think people need to worry about.

If they’re judging others for not pitching in, that’s a concern.

No, of course not. I'd do what's best for me, my family, and my finances. As a conservative individual, there are BOATLOADS of mainstream organizations that make "moral choices" I don't agree with and I don't hesitate for a second to work for them or give them my all.

Yes. I've quit jobs over far less.

The thing that influences your values more than anything else is who you spend time in close proximity with.

If you spend all your time around people who look the other way when their compatriots do terrible things, you'll slowly bend that direction over time too.

The essence of Slack is to solve the problem “IRC is broken because my company doesn’t own it.” Slack’s only value prop is to its shareholders and no one should bother to use it.

>If you had an offer from Slack, would you seriously turn it down because they have Saudi money via Softbank if it was otherwise your top choice?

Of course not. The Valley runs on greed.

How many of us even know (or take the time to find out) the investors of the companies we are interested in working for? And if we take a high moral stance, there wouldn't be many companies left - Amazon for its bad treatment of workforce, Google for privacy concerns, Facebook for its .. where do we even start, Oracle for its nastiness and so on.

Yes

Does anyone have any guesses about what exactly the Saudi plan was when they killed Jamal Khashoggi?

Surely they knew if they got blamed for the murder, it would cost them much more in damaged relationships than it could possibly gain in eliminating a critic. And surely they knew a disappearance of a journalist seen on camera entering their consulate won't be ignored.

Sorry for a slightly off topic question.

I'm guessing the crown prince was upset with his journalism, I don't think a deeper reason needs to be found.

From inside the bubble of absolute power (when you have already killed and tortured dissidents, rivals and potential threats) adding this journalist to the kill list probably didn't seem like such a big deal. He was apparently surprised by the reaction to the whole affair. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/22/saudi-khashoggi-claims-...

According to that article, MBS "[...] was really shocked that there was such a big reaction to it. He feels betrayed by the West. He said he would look elsewhere and he will never forget how people turned against him before evidence was produced".

Indeed at this point the evidence against MBS is only circumstantial, so that would be a reasonable point to make in a court of law. But in the world of politics, there's no presumption of innocence because common folk don't much care for that, and politicians and activists need to build upon popular emotions while the issue is hot. Is MBS so naive as to genuinely expect the population of the West to ignore the very strong circumstantial evidence? Or for the politicians to ignore the popular opinion and wait for hard evidence (which may take months, years, or decades for all we know)? Or is he just leaking this message to create an impression of innocence?

Also, the two parts of the statement are somewhat in conflict. Is he shocked by reaction or is he shocked of being accused without evidence? If he is shocked by reaction, it suggests he thinks the killing isn't a big deal, which implicates him even more.

If MBS wasn't involved. I can imagine two scenarios.

1. There was a general guideline to reduce regime criticism by any means necessary. Some officials decided to follow that guideline by demonstrating to the critics that can be killed at any time (note that they didn't just secretly assassinate Khashoggi making it look like an accident; they did in a way as to set an example). Wouldn't be the first time nor the last. But if that was the case, why didn't Saudi authorities quickly identify those responsible, and try and execute them? They can explain to the world they punished them because of their horrible acts. Internally, to their loyal followers, they can explain that they were executed for being total idiots who acted in a way that caused SKA irreparable harm and undermined MBS reputation in the world.

2. The powerful enemies of MBS did that to undermine MBS, and MBS cannot do anything about it because his power is limited. That would be consistent with MBS being outside the palace, and the King giving him more authority over the ingelligence services. However, if that's the case, why wouldn't MBS just say precisely that? The only downside is that he would admit weakness, but it seems like he has nothing to lose at this point, if people in his inner cirlce are basically trying to destroy him.

The latest report is that they sent out a body double in Khashoggi's clothes:

https://www.apnews.com/2e7cc6f821a14c90bec0253fe9ae9527

It seems like they expected to throw up enough distractions that their denials would hold at least among those who wanted to believe them. I think they failed to anticipate how closely Turkey was watching their consulate or that his fiancée would be waiting outside.

Hmm that is beyond understanding. I thought they wanted to make it look like a demonstration of power to all would-be critics. If they wanted to make it look like they weren't involved, aren't there much less risky ways to assassinate someone than to do it while they are visiting your consulate?

The Saudis aren't stupid; they knew this would become an international news story, and they also knew the long-term impacts to them would be minimal. Killing a dissident this publicly is primarily a deterrent to future dissidents; if they can dismember a well-known critic this publicly with no recourse, lesser-known critics get the message.

What's missing is the ability for people to easily know where the line is, and where people stand related to said line; they might be on the other side of the line simply due to ignorance or circumstances, they need the work to survive.

We have to draw the line (and show who is on which side of the line), so people can choose/decide to hold that line with their actions - to hold the people in nations who are in control accountable, towards peace and for justice. Who's being accountable, and who isn't - who is purposefully not being accountable, who is espousing ignorance or laziness as justification?

These organizations, the employees and leaders of these organizations - they certainly could take a stand and voice their concern, however why aren't they: looking at the story of a dead journalist is all you need to reason why they don't and how they don't want to end up themselves - so they've trapped themselves from action, at least publicly; whether they do anything privately that is significant or indirectly enough to support the cause of peace and justice, we may not be able to see or know.

We need a database of “lines”.

The challenge is, Line Space is probably impossible to be adequately parameterized, with anything less than Turing complete parameters.

So the database would have to be a database of code, which describes people’s “lines”.

In order to put a front end on that you need to solve End User Programming (EUP) for some subset.

Interesting line of thinking.. I'm not sure the system needs to be perfect but almost-perfect. The importance is to track and manage the bigger systems and revenue systems. Sure, you're missing potential smaller transfers that that fund people to do abuse, however then you can have other mechanisms in place to manage that abuse.

I don’t think so, I think a simple federation, like the email system would suffice.

I don’t believe any active management is needed at the system level. If anything you can just let people to do marketmaking around what are essentially structured ethical insights as a commodity.

Blood money? Take it. Seize it. I wonder why, AFAICT, the Magnitsky Act allows for freezing, but not seizing assets? Surely mass murderers should get worse financial treatment than say people who happen to be near a drug deal.

Who is going to do the seizing, when the government itself is involved in the sales? The article specifically mentions arms deals to the Saudis, despite everyone knowing what those arms may be used for in the end.

This is what should be scaring people. SA is not giving the US money out of the goodness of their heart, they are playing a long game. They eventually want to be powerful/influential enough to control international politics, rather than being a by-standard.

We know that their government has no respect or appreciation for Western values. Yet our companies and governments will gladly take their money and provide them with weapons and investment opportunities which increase their wealth, technological understanding, and military power; knowing that SA is aiming to turn on us when the opportunity arises.

I don't think it's US policy to ever seize money from a state, or corrupt officials who embezzled it. Governments come and go but the state is a proxy for the people and when a regime changes we don't just wipe out their debts.

Funny having this read on my screen while I was also reading this: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/mosul-moria-air-s...

Of course, foreign capital inflows are hardly unique to Silicon Valley tech. Dodgy capital finds its way wherever speculation and money laundering are to be had. Real estate is a huge example. We have known for a while that some of the priciest real estate in the world in cities such as New York and London is due to capital inflows from the Middle East, Russia, China, India and other places where people have made enormous fortunes through illegal or semi-legal means. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. There's a difference between selling drugs on the street and creating a narco-state. If you want to see the first narco-state of real estate, move to Vancouver, where Chinese capital has turned the city upside down.

The fact is that dodgy capital inflows are central to every speculative bubble: real estate, bitcoin, Uber for X, you name it. Who else has the money to throw around?

I feel like we are at the beginning of a sweatshop moment for finance. Way back when it became known that kids were slaving away to produce your shoes, there was a global outcry and enormous pressure put on companies such as Nike to improve their operations. Did that save the world? No it didn't, but it changed the way outsourcing was implemented.

Similarly, we need to change the moral landscape of finance. I don't mean the radical solution of socializing investment or samizdats that people write in secret communist pamphlets. I mean raising the bar for the mainstream - making it impossible for otherwise profit minded people to take certain kinds of money.

If you want to see something even more scary... go look at the amount of money given by these countries to U.S. politicians. Now legally you can't receive foreign money for a US campaign. The money comes in as gifts to non-profits and foundations owned by/supporting/supported by US politicians. Saudi money is one of the biggest.

And if you typically align with the Democrat side, don't think it is just Republicans taking it. You will be shocked. Start with Hillary Clinton during her 2016 campaign. The money went to the Clinton Foundation. The list keeps going and it is on both sides.

Absolutely. It would be a sign of progress if politicians and NGOs along with companies stopped taking blood money.

Do you have a source where we can go look this up? All I found was Trump made such a claim, but there's no proof either way.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jul/07...

I'm not sure what source should be considered authoritative, but here are some numbers from from the New York Times:

The Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the State Department — before, during and after Mrs. Clinton’s time as secretary — criticized for their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues. The countries include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria.

Saudi Arabia has been a particularly generous benefactor. The kingdom gave between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Donations are typically reported in broad ranges, not specific amounts.) At least $1 million more was donated by Friends of Saudi Arabia, which was co-founded by a Saudi prince.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clint...

Edit: Reading the politifact.com link you provided, I now see that it makes a very similar claim. While there is legitimate doubt as to the exact number, it seems wrong to say that there is "no proof either way". Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are looking for?

> making it impossible for otherwise profit minded people to take certain kinds of money

These are called sanctions. They are proper to consider, given the circumstances.

True. In a just world, the UN would be sanctioning KSA for its war in Yemen, but what are the chances of that happening? A privatized version is a modest alternative - a pledge that companies sign and enforce about their sources of financing. Nowhere near as good as state backed sanctions but a start.

The UN is mainly a a forum for a bunch of sovereign nations, not a world government. Sovereign nations can (and do) aplly sanctions where they see fit, unilaterally or in ad hoc multi-lateral agreements.

In this case, the one nation whose sanctions are likely to impact the culprit is hesitant to do so because that will prevent the sales of weapons that invite the sanctions in the first place.

> If you want to see the first narco-state of real estate, move to Vancouver, where Chinese capital has turned the city upside down.

Are you implying that a significant amount of the Chinese money flooding into Vancouver originates from the drug trade? This is the first I have heard of this. Care to elaborate?

Sorry for the confusion. What I meant was an analogy - just as Colombia or parts of Mexico were taken over by the narcotics industry and everything about them was transformed by the influx of drug money, Vancouver has been taken over by Chinese money transfers and everything about it has been transformed by that influx.

I'll never ever understand the point of the "yes, but this" way of criticise on something.

It always looks to me like when you are arguing with somebody that is thinking exactly like you, but you don't get each other because wording. In which way the fact that people are raising their voices as a consequence of the brutal murder of this journalist make Yemen people less important? And most of all is this really matters?

I think this situation is slightly different and worth of notice, because is not just a murder, is a way for UAE to show off power and give a notice to all the other dissidents that they can reach them and get along without any consequences. This is a threat.

Saudi is powerful because of the reliance on fossil fuel. Any way to decrease dependancy on fossil fuels, both from governments and from individual citizens, will prevent situations like this.

The blood money isn't Saudi money in tech. That's oil money. The actual blood money is the Saudi money for American weapons that will be used to kill Yemenis (Yemenis today maybe Iranians tomorrow).

And there's Trump telling us not being blood sucking arms merchants would be bad for the U.S. because we'd be giving up a lot of money! The right thing to do, per POTUS, is to take the money and ignore how the weapons are being used.

There's the blood money. Money for the blood of Yemeni civilians.

For those curious, Saudi sovereign wealth investments include:

* Magic Leap

* Tesla

* Lyft

* Uber

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/saudi-arabia-pif-tech-in...

Unrelated, but I couldn't help but notice the new UX changes with techcrunch.

Once you finish reading the page it adds a grey transition background color

While we are finally beginning to call out Saudi money, shouldn't we start doing the same with the China money? As far as oppressive regimes go China isn't any better - just ask the Tibetans, the uighurs, controlled media etc.

Why stop there? Should we really be taking American money either? Not exactly a spotless record.

How about BP and their atrocities in Iran. How about United Fruit and banana republics? I could dig up more examples. There are very few ethical companies, if any.

Let's just call out all the money until we don't do business with anybody. So much for being global citizens.

I hope at this point you're looking at the replies and realizing that your nihilistic, cynical viewpoint is in a very strong minority.

You can take the money, but you can never say that nobody told you there would be repercussions.

What's wrong with having a viewpoint that's in the minority?

Isn't blood money what makes the world go round? Seems like it at least when you look around.

> This was before Russia was the democracy-manipulating enemy it is today

Ugh. It’s like millennials woke up yesterday and said to themselves “Wait a minute. We have rival countries that don’t have our best intentions in mind??”

Did our generation just skip world history classes in high school or something?

It's a new age where corporations are in it to make the world a better place and governments are here to serve the people.

Or that seems to be what everyone on reddit under the age of 30 thinks.

I had that initial reaction as well, but I think it was a reference to Russia being recently "in vogue" in the media for these actions - basically the "fake news/facebook/DNC" label applied post-2016.

I don't know what you're trying to say.

While it is true that our rivals don't have our best interests in mind and have always acted to subvert our goals, their efforts to do so became brazen and blatant only very recently. Furthermore, this was (and still is) exacerbated by the continued denial and looking-the-other-way of our leaders currently in power. So it is a substantially different playing field today than it used to be.

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