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Comment by frereubu | Hacker News Reader

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country?

My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't see much of a moral distinction between the two.

Clearly there's a difference in the directness of interaction when it's a person or a company. But speaking personally I would never compromise my core ethical beliefs (which include not working in an environment where gay people are executed because of who they love and secret service agents are sent to kill critical journalists overseas) just so my company could make more money.

This isn't to say that I don't think politicians shouldn't talk to those regimes, but that feels quite different.

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Should people who wouldn't like to work for e.g. George Bush have pressured their companies to stop operating in the US? After all, they were effectively accepting and complying with things like secret courts that issued broad warrants and some questionable sanctions (e.g. Cuba), while paying taxes that funded indiscriminate wiretapping of people all over the world, invasions of other countries under false premises, CIA black sites, imprisonment and torture without due process in Guantánamo and so on.

Not saying bin Salman is any better (he's not) but my point is that things aren't so cut and dried, and ultimately companies are just going to do what is best for them even if it means accepting some shady stuff. If all workers were that strict about the morals of the companies they work for, most of us would be out of a job.

By not providing your services to the people of these countries, you are making their quality of life worse. See heavily sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran for examples of quite how much worse life is for those citizens.

"I don't want to support Mohammed bin Salman" needs to be traded off against "I don't want to make 34 million people have worse lives".

In my view, in nearly every case, the latter effect outweighs the former.

That's the "magic" of commerce. That a transaction can bring two parties together who ordinarily would not agree on anything. And they BOTH walk away from it with a net positive.

I completely get where you're coming from, and I prefer to be pragmatic rather than ideologically pure. But I don't see how Amazon being in a country really makes that much of a difference.

As a former Chinese citizen, I've always been a bit confused why people get mad at companies operating in the country, censored.

At least in my experience, a censored version of a foreign website is always much better than the stuff developed locally, and there are some political reasons for this I won't go into.

In my opinion, it's pure virtue signalling to argue that "a company compromising morals in a different country is bad", at least in the general case. I would totally rather use a censored version of Google over Baidu.

Arguing that "companies operating in China while censored hurts the Chinese people" is pure nonsense. The only people that care that {some company} is censored in China are distinctly people outside of China.

I take your point - elsewhere I've said that I come from a place of pragmatism, not ideology. My question about this is that your example search engines, where this article is about Amazon selling products. I think the trade-offs are subtly different.

> The only people that care that {some company} is censored in China are distinctly people outside of China.

That's how censorship works. The people inside the bubble don't know, by design, what information has been omitted, and therefore can't care.

You seem to have taken this quote out of context. My point is that "a less censored platform is always better", in other words "Google but censored is better than Baidu".

My counter-argument is that a complete lack of alternate platforms, although worse in the short term, might actually catalyst a long term improvement.

Just like russians are now being forced to learn to live without Ikea furniture or Intel computers, for the hopes that the complete lack of the better stuff might encourage them to think about overthrowing their oppressors.

Google with censorship is like a false hope, a kind of political PR greenwashing. The people of China use Google and think it's the same Google the rest of the world uses. It might be better to reveal the ugly truth, and say, you either get the whole truth, or no truth at all. To reveal the liars.

Back when India was throwing off the British Raj there was a strategy among the rebels to murder the good British officials (judges and so on) rather than assassinating the corrupt or incompetent ones.

The idea was that the good British made the Raj more tolerable.

- - - -

Edit to add: I should point out that that strategy did not result in victory. It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded.

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

Is Gandhi censored by the CCP?

>It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded.

Was Ghandi's method really the reason for success or does western media (& ruling class) prefer that narrative?

How would I know? I wasn't there, and I don't have a crystal ball nor a time machine.

If you check the Wikipedia link in my previous comment you'll see that it was actually a whole epic constellation of events and forces and personalities and masses of people. Not quite the Mahabharata but still pretty epic.

The particular thing that Gandhi's "arc", if you will, achieved was to demolish utterly the rationale for the British Raj in the first place: that Indians needed outside governance. The non-violent movement showed that Indians were the moral equals or even superiors of the British, and Gandhi knew it.

Winston Churchill: What do you think of Western civilization?

Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

Because those people feel that their culture/ideas are the correct one's and that the other county should change(Sometimes they may even be right!). They view the domestic companies as a vehicle to push their views and effect this change.

There are a couple camps:

Do business but censor, in the hopes that the users become aware and become promoters of your views

Don't do business as to not enable the regime to succeed and hope the potential users notice and become promoters of your views.

I think that for the most part, even companies like Google or Facebook will not be able to change a country, similar to how the US was not able to change Cuba or North Korea.

I think that there is a lack of understanding in Western society that other societies view their government/societal structure not as vehicles for increased personal freedom but as a structure to promote social stability over long periods of time(1000 of years. Something I think China is particularly proud of, for good reason).

Mohammed bin Salman is from Saudi Arabia, this article is about the United Arab Emirates, or well the Amazon-related part anyway.

Also, while we're on the topic of moral dilemmas, I would like to add some spice by pointing out that buying almost anything from the supermarket funds someone like Mohammed bin Salman, because their oil was used in the production and transportation of the product or its components.

Saudi Arabia was mentioned in the article too. I picked him as he and his actions are more well-known. Also, I don't think you're adding "spice". Just because that's the state of the world currently, doesn't mean that can't change. I find a lot of these comments frustrating as they seem to coming from a really weak place of "change is too hard".

Edit: My reference to "change" here is about transitioning from fossil fuels so governments like that of Russia and Saudi Arabia have less hold on other governments.

It's not about change being hard, it's about doing a reality check on moral highground. You chose to talk about working for a company that cooperates with MBS, and I wanted to point out that it is only a tiny fraction of activities that support MBS.

Choosing an MBS-free activity is all fine and good for personal moral growth. However, in general, I've observed a lot of gloating about moral highground once someone does a few of these choices. Without realizing that the people they're trying to describe as morally corrupt might actually be less corrupt just because they shop less.

I'm a pragmatist, not an ideologue, and my intention was not to grandstand. I find people who think change happens overnight just as frustrating.

It doesn't have to be that way. The USA has more than enough energy reserves, however international lobbying and bribery ensures foreign influence.

(c) Every drops of oil you use strengthen Saudi Arabia, why didn't you stop yet? and (d) If you are using Uber, WeWork or in a company being invested by Softbank, Saudi Arabia get benefits from it as well (https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/OurInvestments-Global.aspx).

> but I don't see much of a moral distinction between the two.

The key here is that you will have to elaborate how you think the two are similar. And then we can discuss whether those reasons also applied to (c) and (d), or additional (x), (y), (z) or not. This slippery slope is quite long, so we can't easily hand-wave things awaay

This just seems like a recipe for paralysis. Just because you can't live a perfect life - I try to drive as little as possible, and try to be careful about where things I buy are sourced, but my time is not infinite - doesn't mean you can't live a better one. This doesn't seem like a slippery slope argument to me.

My argument is different. I'm not saying that you shouldn't, or that you didn't try to live a more morally good life. I'm saying that you tried, but we don't know if your actions have the effect you want.

It might be the case that you driving less, and trying to be careful about sourcing necessities. But you are contributing more, rather than less, to the benefit of nations/ people you don't like.

The original discussion was you making the claim that working directly under MBS management is morally the same as working in one of the thousands companies that have to obey the request of Saudi Arabia, and I'm asking you to elaborate how to draw the line.

You are optimizing virtues to your convenience. Others are doing it too. Still you are seemingly coming up with a superior attitude about other's behavior.

So, unless you are putting up serious personal sacrifice in real world for your beliefs, this is pure and unadulterated virtue signaling.

Just change the names from UAE / Dubai / bin Rashid al Maktoum and Saudi Arabia / Mohammed "Bone Saw" bin Salman to Syria/Assad and Russia/Putin and it will all become clear.

One set of despotic rulers deposits the majority of their oil money in Wall Street firms, one set of despotic rulers does not. That's entirely why the Saudi/UAE war on Yemen and the blockade of Yemen ports and the resulting famines and deaths are quietly ignored by the New York Times / CNN / FOX etc., and why the war in Ukraine gets daily front page coverage.

It's fairly obvious that if the likes of Putin and Assad cut the same kind of deal over oil money and recycling petrodollars to Wall Street, they could persecute their own people and wage local wars with not a murmur of disapproval from 'the world leader on human rights and democracy', just as Saudi Arabia and the UAE do.

This generalizes to whether or not you would be willing to e.g. get an Uber. This money is absolutely everywhere, is there really some moral high ground in measuring how far away you stand as you accept it? What about working for a public company with Saudi shareholders?

For me at least, the willingness to take Uber rides I know are subsidized by Saudi money is little (if at all) different from a moral perspective than working directly for a fully Saudi funded entity, although I am sure many will attempt to define a spectrum between these two that happens to align well with general conveniences

No, I don't take Ubers because I don't agree with their business practices. As I said in another comment, I can't be perfect with my finite time, but I can make moral decisions. These kinds of comments feel a bit like the Zeno's arrow paradox where things can be framed in a way that makes change seem impossible, but in practice I don't think that's the case.

> the willingness to take Uber rides I know are subsidized by Saudi money is little (if at all) different from a moral perspective than working directly for a fully Saudi funded entity

What? No! The Uber driver is getting a paycheck; you're getting a ride; and the Saudis are getting ripped off.

Related, this debate is big news in Portland this week, and in the golf news world in general. These kind of questions are being asked and discussed. A few players have signed lucrative deals to play golf in a Saudi Liv Golf league, tarnishing their legacy in exchange for crazy amounts of money. Other players are rejecting the offers for moral reasons.

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