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Comment by undefined3840 | Hacker News Reader

It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain.

Also this story of a Chinese Stanford professor/investor’s “suicide” last year is quite the story. There’s a potential safety issue here too. https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/12/13/a-death...

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> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain.

Because that's pushing the line further and further of what the CCP can make people accept.

Business won't be the one to push the change on this attitude. It has to be people, or at best government. Most companies are morally agnostic, they only follow the money, you can judge them for it either way, but it's the truth.

> It has to be people

> Most companies are morally agnostic

What do you think makes companies do what they do? Companies consist of people. There are still people making these decisions. Many companies have taken ethical stances wrt China. Many more have not. Companies don't just get let of the hook because they're companies.

It has to be people pushing companies to do it. Which is why it is exactly counter-productive to post "Of course companies won't do anything" when a person is demanding a company do better.

In a sense, yes, but someone, somewhere had to be the one to say "we could be courageous, but let's softpedal this and come up with a lame excuse". They also (perhaps with others) had to build a culture where people know they can't speak up on it.

Of course, there's a question of causality. Are businesses "morally agnostic" because they choose to be, or because the ones that aren't don't survive? Companies that say "we don't do business with places that harvest organs from prisoners" will struggle against ones that say "we were able to cut the price of our phone 50% by doing business with (said regime)"

This would actually be a good reason to impose import duties on those places - to make goods from ethical regimes more competitive.

I'd say "only following the money" isn't moral agnostiscism, but very much a moral choice. It's a choice made by people collectively, and either way it doesn't exist outside of morality, or consequences.

May be we should then question the model that Businesses should be morally agnostic.

Many states have 'benefit corporations'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation

So if things are bad, do nothing? We in the west have the responsibilty to take a hard stance on what's acceptable.

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain.

I know right? I mean, it's not my liver that's being harvested...

You act like that doesn’t happen here...I just read a story in the LA times on how organs are being harvested from the recently deceased before a proper investigation can take place

The organs of members of marginalized groups detained in Chinese prison camps are being forcefully harvested — sometimes when patients are still alive, an international tribunal sitting in London has concluded.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests...

Your comment is an instance of whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Coming from Poland some of the the post-war socialism Whataboutism is a meme here (check the polish variant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes#V... )

they execute people solely to harvest their organs systematically, just because situations where organ harvesting happening before a proper death investigation takes place in the USA have occurred (and are likely illegal and irregular), does not in any way make them comparable.

What tells you there is nothing to gain? I was probably the only one to consider Google a degree above other GAFA companies because for a long time it resisted Chinese censorship and refused to give away access to the gmail account of Chinese activists.

In a world where so many companies' valuation is tied to the number of users willing to give you their personal data, reputation is a precious thing.

[flagged]

You first.

Mass incarceration and the destruction of Uighur culture is inhuman.

The people of Hong Kong, and their right to live with self-determination, matter.

something to gain: the respect of the community you actually intent to serve

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain.

Same sentiment for Saudi investors? Same for Israeli?

People have different lines and I'm sure soon founders will be doing a great more DD in this new age of outwardly conscious capitalism.

I'm patiently waiting for the tweet thread/medium article of a successful founder pointing out all the dirty cash they didn't take. Unfortunately, as of yet it is still a great deal of money that builds companies. Not unwaivering morals... One day.

> Same sentiment for Saudi investors? Same for Israeli?

"Yes" & "Possibly, but being open to investor' individual behaviour to supersede their country's"

See: it's not that difficult. One man's slippery slope is another's perfect hill for early morning skiing.

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