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Comment by gjsman-1000 | Hacker News Reader

NVIDIA, ethical?

I thought about how to reply to this for a minute and then realized that I'm so desensitized by American tech companies that all the nonsense NVIDIA gets up to to maintain their economic position barely registers to me anymore.

My heart goes out to all the gamers who discovered they were chopped liver during the crypto boom.

Besides that though, I don't see how Nvidia is particularly non-ethical. They cooperate with Khronos, provide high-quality Linux and BSD drivers free of charge, and don't deliberately block third parties from writing drivers to support new standards. From a relativist standpoint that's as sanctimonious as server hardware gets.

They make significant investments in Israel and even said they’d build a new factory there. It doesn’t get any less ethical than that!

American tech leaders often have no other choice. In most states you can be sued for boycotting, divesting or sanctioning Israel for any reason. If you acquire a company with outstanding obligations to Israel, your only option is to fulfill them.

Specifically WRT Mellanox, Nvidia's behavior was more petty than callous.

Who would sue them for boycotting and divesting from Israel? This is a false statement (or our democracy is in a much dire state than advertised!).

Google anti-boycott laws.

And yes... yes it is.

It's not a false statement: https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac

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