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Comment by unethical_ban | Hacker News Reader

thatoneyouthrow got flagged for commenting on the hypocrisy of the tech Elite for their support of a government in Saudi Arabia that kills journalists and oppresses females with no apologies - that funds radical Islam throughout the world - in the comments of an article discussing Apple and Google distributing government oppression apps on their stores.

It is odd. The keep from being too meta, I pose this question (since it seems like a controversial stance): Should Google and Apple formally decline to host applications in their stores that actively assist governments in oppressing their population? This isn't a philosophical discussion about how we are already tracked by phones, or how Facebook knows everything. This app literally is built by the government to check women in, so they do not have freedom of travel.

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In an ideal world, it would be nice if we (governments, individuals, businesses etc) didn't support oppressive regimes and other bad actors. But would we though? Take Amazon - we know that they are almost as bad as Walmart on a host of issues, but how many of us would give up the convenience of one click shopping? It would be inconvenient, sure, but it is much easier for an individual to stop shopping at Amazon than for companies to give up billions of dollars in profit and answer their shareholders (to whom nothing matters but profit).

I am not saying Google/Apple is right - just pointing out that almost all of us are hypocrites at some level, some more than others.

Convenience is one factor and an even greater factor is price. People have as much morality as they can afford.

For the things that make a smart phone smart. We expect people to be able to find locations without directions, access arbitrary information, receive email, use eTickets, access calendars, etc - on the go, at any time of their day.

Smartphones aren't really about phone calls or sms.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. Smartphones are now essential, so you can't completely avoid doing business with at least Google xor Apple, but you can absolutely give up one-click shopping. I've never used it. I've never had Amazon Prime. It's been multiple years since I last bought anything at all on Amazon. I've used Uber less than five times (and Lyft none), and the last time was over three years ago.

Don't act like these services are essentials. They're nothing but tiny conveniences. And while your individual boycott won't have an impact on their bottom lines, their entire existence depends on hundreds of millions of people in your exact situation, giving in to defeatism or not even caring in the first place.

> Smartphones are now essential, so you can't completely avoid doing business with at least Google xor Apple...

What? Why?

Smartphones are convenient, but essential? Phone calls and SMS/MMS still work without a smartphone.

There are plenty of (nontrivial) services, devices, etc. that you simply can't use without a smartphone any more. Most of that dependency is artificial, but it exists nonetheless.

Exactly. We seem to forget that our parents lived just fine and even happily without most of these instant-gratification and convenience services. It is possible, if we try.

There are people who often apply this logic to smartphones and even internet access, which is wrong. Those things are now as necessary as cars for participation in society. But there are plenty of other modern products and services that are very much just conveniences, many of which come from the companies with the most scandalous headlines.

Does it hurt to have priorities and pick your battles? Oppression, especially state-sponsored, of women and minorities is way higher concern to me than Amazon's many and varied infractions.

There's also a problem of feasibility: Fairphone eventually conceded on their idealized fair trade product after an amazing effort. There's also world hunger and disease resulting in serious but avoidable death.

You could call this hypocrisy if you want but it's a matter of resources available to fight for these causes.

thatoneyouthrow got flagged for his personal attacks on people.

The quote "None of these men care about women or LGBT unless it's legally enforced." is clearly untrue, and simply doesn't address what is a multi-faceted issue.

It's worth noting that if citizens of the US are concerned about this, then the citizens have the power - via government - to fix this by imposing trade sanctions.

I posit that there are two issues here: profit and rights for women. Now it seems to me that the real issue is profits over the rights of women. But please educate me on how this is a "multi-faceted" issue if I have left something out.

Maybe Apple and Google are entitled to make money from Saudi Arabia's oppression of women? Once again, please make your case.

No I don't believe that Google or Apple should make money from the oppression of women. I believe this app is free, so they don't appear to be in this case. Nevertheless, I'd like to see it removed.

But nor do I believe that Sundar Pichai or Tim Cook were aware of this app previously or had any personal responsibility for it.

Nor do I think they should be vilified for shaking hands with MBS prior to the murder of Khashoggi, and especially not prior to the Yemeni war.

Did Tim Cook not realize Saudi Arabia executed homosexuals before he shook his hand?

Can he really feign ignornance?

I believe at the time there was an optimism that MBS would be a positive for change. Remember the optimism around when he announced the changes to allow women to drive...

They arrested activists campaigning for women's right to drive days before that. The optimism was propaganda from the start.

I'm a US citizen. Where do I find the form for imposing trade sanctions? Can I file it electronically?

First reread the comment so you understand it.

We've banned this account for trolling. We don't want trashy internet flamewars here, irrespective of how right your views are or you feel they are.

It's not hard to express your views without breaking the site guidelines. Plenty of other users have managed it in this thread. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...

For the sake of argument here, consider a different perspective.

Can the voting US public really make a difference to foreign policy with the UAE\Saudi Arabia?

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There's a grey area that's worthy of discussion, but we the voting public and as voters for democratically elected governments have cracked the shits with governments and international businesses for much less than what Saudi Arabia have done as a hostile, extremist sovereign third party has achieved. The only difference with Saudia Arabia is the ridiculous amount of financial influence they hold and this blurs borders on the cost/value of morality.

Most companies are beholden to their share holders to make a profit, but at which point do write a line in the sand and say, we no longer allow money to grey the lines on what we consider morale and immoral?

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Also consider the US voting public are losing their shit about a wall at time of writing. That's a fairly black and white concern when you consider the implications and rather obvious cost benefit (slim to none). The border wall is potentially the biggest white elephant that's gone to US policy in recent times. It's not going to work. And it's going to be incredibly expensive if it is built. Yet... a strong portion of the public still want it built. And it will be at the expense of schools, public health, infrastructure, disaster relief.

Now consider.... you think the US voting public have the collective nous to make an international impact on US foreign policy with an extremist, wealthy 'ally' like UAE\Saudi Arabia? Sincerely?

I don't have the same faith in the public hive mind as you. But... I don't have another option that can help besides publicly discussing the point as we are. For all the benefits of how much better life is for those living right now vs prior generations. We do an exceptional job at shitting in our own beds over and over again.

Edit: structure and a few words.

I think the public can make a difference. It was done with the TPP.

A more effective and simple solution is mandatory eVerify. What is the cost of illegal immigration? For example there's no study on the cost of deportations. There's about ~180k people deported annually? https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/crossing-attempts-at-us-sout...

The expense of schools has to do with the ever ballooning amount of administers, not teachers. Spending on admin increased and decreased for teachers. As of 2016 more than half of those involved in education are not teachers. Furthermore few countries outspend the US per pupil. In several states education is paid for via bonds and not out of the general fund. The country doesn't have a tax collection problem, it's got a spending problem. As long as people can vote to spend other peoples money, they will.

I think it is worth noting that Saudi Arabia doesn't have any popular ground level support (as far as I can tell).

Yes, money buys influence. But that only goes so far in the face of widespread hostility. The "they took money from XXX" negative argument does really work if everyone hates XXX.

>Yet... a strong portion of the public still want it built. And it will be at the expense of schools, public health, infrastructure, disaster relief.

You are drinking up propaganda if you believe this to be true in the slightest. The US extremely rarely has a balanced budget and there is always room for politicians to take on more debt for their projects.

The entire position of AOC at this point is to give up the facade of government brining in revenue to pay for any proposals. All questions about payment are answered with whataboutism pointing at a different unfunded liability.

Neither party cares about balanced budgets. The wall, tax cuts, the green new deal, whatever do not take away funding from other programs because the federal government no longer fundamentally operates that way.

Funding is only cut for political gamesmanship at this point.

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