Comment by libertine | Hacker News Reader

Comment by libertine | Hacker News Reader

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> the issue is turning everything into a literal battlefield as opposed to market competition with transnational regulatory bodies to align rules.

The problem with autocratic regimes is that they don't seem to care that much about rules, or some rights and duties that a valued by Western societies.

You can claim that Western countries at times didn't follow rules either, they're far from perfect.

But one thing is to haven't followed the rules on some occasions, the other thing is to do it consistently as a part of your strategy, because there are no consequences to it.

Let's pick for example Russia: their regime loves to use the Iraq war and now even the Israel war to make parallels between what they are doing and want to achieve in Ukraine, and what the US did and what Israel is doing. Here we have a country trying to annex another country, and using Genocide as a tool to achieve this goal, and you have Brazil, India, China, and South Africa supporting this.

Or China making it difficult for foreign companies to tap into the value of the Chinese internal market, and the amount of IP theft that happened for decades.

That's not market competition, and regulators can't enforce anything when you have big players captured by a small elite not playing by the rules. What are you going to do about it?

I can’t disagree at all with what you've stated, but I’ll toss in a nuclear-take here: As a consumer, the IP theft has been fantastic.

Prices for many things stayed high for no good reason and market competition hasn’t been doing what it ought to because our market is broken in a number of ways to favor incumbents.

It’s been the only effective check on the market in quite a long time. Now is it at all ethical? Perhaps not. But it’s extremely difficult to have sympathy.

> As a consumer, the IP theft has been fantastic. (...) Now is it at all ethical? Perhaps not. But it’s extremely difficult to have sympathy.

I think this is a great take, but prices aren't just a reflection of IP theft, but also of child labor, low wage labor, environmental damage, etc... so I will throw a question back at you:

Do you think that we reached the point where Westerners aren't willing to pay the Civil price for Human Rights, and other Western values?

I’d argue the cost of western values needs to be split up into two categories. We have the cost of “fair” (non-abusive) labor and the cost of expectations for increasing margins.

On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices.

On the second, I would assume most people wouldn’t care if someone isn’t able to extract a higher price for the good for non-direct-product-delivery reasons.

Anecdotally, I purchased a thermal camera off of eBay for 1/3rd the cost of a FLIR camera with similar resolution. For a device that I’d use a handful of times a year, it’s difficult to justify paying 3x the cost for a name-branded FLIR. The value-add of 3x the cost isn’t apparent.

This is a weird spot to be in because FLIR may be able to produce a device that’s 1/3rd cheaper… but then they’d risk their commercial market buying the inexpensive consumer-targeted device.

> On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices.

> On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices.

This is very hard to assess, other than price there's very little transparency about these practices. No one boats about this in their marketing material.

But let me give you an insight: Kickstarter and other crowdfunding campaigns. Many companies try to launch their products and concepts on Kickstarter, only to find that someone made a copy of their intellectual property and beat them to market, and you will say, that's just the market optimizing itself. I think it's trickier than that, as we are draining people from bringing their products to market because there are people on the sidelines waiting to copy the outcome of their work and investment.

>Iraq war and now even the Israel war to make parallels

Well the West could simply stop the Genocide today and prove them wrong. If they think they have the moral high ground, they could repeal the Hague Invasion act. Throw in Bush and Blair and others for war crime trial. It is absolutely marvellous to think that the West which plundered millions in the last two decades has any more decency than Putin. Not that Putin is benign, but the West collectively have more capability and have used it as far as they can.

> Well the West could simply stop the Genocide today and prove them wrong.

How could the West stop the Genocide in Ukraine?

> Throw in Bush and Blair and others for war crime trial. It is absolutely marvellous to think that the West which plundered millions in the last two decades has any more decency than Putin. Not that Putin is benign, but the West collectively have more capability and have used it as far as they can.

So let's roll back - why didn't Saddam get trialed for war crimes? It's like you seem to forget who Saddam was, what he did, and what capacity he had.

"Not that Putin is benign" is quite precious, a man committing the largest genocide we've seen in Europe since WW2, just because Ukrainians exist.

How did the west stop the invasion of Kuwait?

And how did Ukraine supposedly decided to join EU and NATO?

Saddam did get tried and executed. But comparing the scale and lasting impact of a war began by lies of Bush and Blair, it seems like a drop in the ocean.

I like that you have mentioned the Genocide in Europe, might as well say just Genocide, because if it happened elsewhere, and is happening in Palestine, the west would give a damn about it. Of course thoughts and prayers would come from there.

Putin is not Benign, and as malicious as he could be in intent, the west outperforms him because they can do so. Atleast he was not awarded a Nobel for Peace, like Obama and Kissinger, for their peace activities in Syria, Libya and east asia.

> How did the west stop the invasion of Kuwait?

By defending the sovereignty of Kuwait, a country from the UN.

> And how did Ukraine supposedly decided to join EU and NATO?

Because they're a sovereign country and chose to join after Russia invaded them.

> Saddam did get tried and executed. But comparing the scale and lasting impact of a war began by lies of Bush and Blair, it seems like a drop in the ocean.

Saddam got tried and executed after Bush and Blair went in - truth be told, they shouldn't have waited until the 9/11 event, but their National Security policy changed that day.

You're trying to compare the Iraq war, when Russia in just 2 years has caused +1.000.000 casualties, and ongoing genocide.

> I like that you have mentioned the Genocide in Europe, might as well say just Genocide, because if it happened elsewhere, and is happening in Palestine, the west would give a damn about it. Of course thoughts and prayers would come from there.

I said Genocide in Europe because it's a reference to all the Genocides that Russia took part - let's not forget they were allies of Nazi Germany, let's not forget Holodomor, let's not forget the Genocide in Chechnya.

So before you try to find semblances of "what could arguably be considered genocide", to mauling millions upon millions of human beings for decades all for one single man.

Ukraine is a country of 40 million people which Putin denied its existence and is seeking to make it disappear from the map, not only its borders, but its culture, and its people, all because they exist - that's what genocide is. An UNPROVOKED war of genocide.

It's disgusting your attempt to dilute what Putin and Russia are doing in Ukraine.

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