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Startups in Myanmar

economist.com

36 pointswyclif20 comments

As someone who is in the mining (ore not data) industry, the changes I have seen in Myanmar in the past 2-3 years is remarkable.

I have been over with a variety of mining exploration companies, and with each trip there are major advances in overall 'economic' freedom.

The effect of 'western' mining companies is already funneling through (much stricter environmental and safety controls).

Look forward to watching it grow.

I'd be interested in hearing more about what you mean? Are you saying that there is simultaneously more economic freedom and more regulation? I'd believe it but I'm curious to see a more detailed picture of what that looks like.

There definitely are development in technology area. There are now more "start ups" than 3 years ago. But the thing is the infrastructure is pretty much broken still. The Internet is (still) slow and expensive. (A year ago, I spent the whole morning by trying to 'bundle install' and then the other half of day, the electricity is gone). So, basically, small companies are struggling to roll out their own products and from months to months, they have to make their cashflow by doing services/outsource. Also there are foreign tech companies (eg Rocket Internet) who are trying to clone their existing stuffs into the Myanmar and trying to make it work. I can say they are struggling either because our culture is different. What works in Singapore/Vietnam might not work in Myanmar.

Recently, a friend of mine company tried to get some seed funding from outside for his startup and he had to set up a lot of extra work such as opening the same name company in Singapore, get the money for the Singapore company and then bring it back with him to Myanmar. Because there are still lots of restrictions around there. Feel free to ask me anything and I could try my best to answer them.

Disclamer : I'm native Myanmar. Programmer working at a local small tech company.

There are some really talented young people in Myanmar - would like to name Nex, Code2Lab, Total Gameplay Studio. Big open source movement too.

It's an interesting time and our company, Myanmar Plus, is building apps for Android and web - things like http://myanmarestate.net which is launching soon. You can reach me at info@myanmarplus.net - give us a shout if you're visiting or have questions!

> Vagueness in the rules on foreign investment and intellectual-property rights do not help with the difficult task of finding funding from abroad.

Incorporating religious extremism into your law doesn't help either - a picture of Buddha wearing headphones on Facebook gets you jail time. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/268881/new-zealander-...

    > Incorporating religious extremism into your law doesn't
    > help either

Well over a billion people live in countries with similar laws; describing that as "religious extremism" is a stretch.

> a picture of Buddha wearing headphones on Facebook gets you jail time.

In the West, wearing a shirt with a racy graphic design can cause a literal rocket scientist to be pilloried on social media to the point where he is literally crying on TV -- despite the fact that said shirt has nothing to do with his job. [1]

Cultural differences, that's how they work. What is perfectly normal to you can appear extremely strict, weird, or ridiculous to others.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11231320/Roset...

1) The rocket scientist case was a) entirely ridiculous in itself, and b) is a textbook example of the "tu quoque fallacy"[1]; the fact that some putatively similar thing happens in the west is irrelevant to the question of whether it is bad that it happens in Burma.

2) Do you realize that the postmodernist cultural relativism you are blithely spreading around the world was formulated by fascists to justify their wars of conquest and genocides? [2][3]

3) The mere fact that different cultures have differences in standards, and that what's normal in one place is weird in another, does not imply that one ought to be non-judgemental towards and non-critical of anything another culture does. This does not follow from the premise.

Relativism additionally requires one to adopt an attitude of invarying quietism towards all manner of atrocities, no matter how severe (presuming that hypocrisy is undesirable, which does not seem to actually be a problem for many postmodernists.) The cultural relativist, faced with the Holocaust or the genocide in Sudan, can only passively say, "Well, that's their way, we shouldn't impose our own standards on them."

This very cultural relativism argument is indeed routinely employed today by the most brutal dictatorships in the world[4] to justify all manner of atrocities, by brushing off any criticisms as mere "western imperialists trying to impose western standards upon us and our culture."

That's the company you choose for yourself when you advocate for cultural relativism. In the western world, it's typically adopted as some kind of enlightened and fair worldview by kindhearted intellectuals in a liberal arts college somewhere. Outside the western world, it's something very different: an ideological tool for dictators to sidestep criticism of atrocity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger

[3] "Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth … then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable." - Benito Mussolini, "Diuturna"

[4] President Bashir of Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese military junta itself, the PRC, and many others.

Your argumentation makes sense and I enjoyed reading it, unfortunately you just followed Godwin's law.

Your parent comment could have just wanted to point out, that the western world is not perfect and we should be (as always) careful when judging. He or she could have found a better example, though, directly comparing religious legislation to religious legislation.

Being reflective does not always equal cultural relativism.

Also, it is fallacious to suggest, that, because of the fact that it was initially formulated by fascists as a propagandistic weapon, postmodernist cultural relativism is false, or not a useful view of the world. If fact I think it is very useful to stop and consider that point of view, and be able to reflect on it, and reach conclusions about why it is or it is not a good cosmovision to have.

If you reread my argument, you will see that I never said the fact that fascists invented moral relativism makes it false. I rather argued that those who adopt this viewpoint are aligning themselves not only with fascists but with all manner of other tyrants and dictators who commit what most people regard as horrid atrocities, and that moreover moral relativists are required (insofar as they wish to avoid hypocrisy) to morally and philosophically support these acts.

I believe that most western moral relativists do not realize this. I am pointing out that moral relativism is not an inherently leftist or "nice" viewpoint, contrary to common opinion among western intellectuals. I said nothing about whether it was true or false.

I think this are better cases: prosecution in US for possession of a manga drawing:

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

It's awful how often i think, that something can't happen in a developed world, and after googling for a precedent I find it.

The specific case doesn't matter at all: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

It matters, because the initial assertion was that such behavior hampers investment. But similar law is not a problem for US, so probably it's not a problem for investment in Myanmar too.

I would really like to see people stop using "Godwin's Law" as a rhetorical cudgel, as though it were making a substantive comment that somehow refutes and invalidates any possible reference to fascists. In this case, the reference was relevant to the discussion. The fact that some people have given a cutesy name to the act of referencing fascists is not a substantive or relevant point.

As for the other point, I understand very well that the parent comment was trying to point out that the western world is also not perfect and so we should be careful when judging. That is indeed precisely the substance of my counterargument: this is exactly the "tu quoque fallacy." The moral imperfection of some other actor is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether a given actor is morally correct.

Some people called him out and he apologized? That's your response? You seriously don't see the difference between culturally-enforced norms/embarrassment and being arrested/jailed?

Sometimes I think my profession is full of professional man-children who enjoy being purposefully obtuse.

My point wasn't about the punishment, it was about what people find horribly distasteful and offensive -- and why your pet standard might not necessarily be the one accepted by 50 million Burmese. Reducing it to "Ha ha, a picture of Buddha wearing headphones on Facebook gets you jail time!" is a bit simplistic to be honest.

How do you know that a Buddha with headphones isn't offensive enough to the people of Myanmar for them to legislate against it? Anyway, in case you are genuinely concerned with the difference in magnitude of punishment, see the reply to my comment in which someone has pointed out how owning a manga can get you prosecuted in the US.

As a side note, I should clarify (if some people were in doubt) that I don't agree with the Burmese decision. Throwing people in jail for two years for an offensive picture is, in my opinion, ridiculous. And so is the manga example, or how Matt Taylor was pilloried on social media.

If, in your opinion, makes me a "professional man-child", so be it.

The magnitude of the difference in punishment is not relevant, nor is whatever may or may not happen in the west. We can say that sending someone to jail for putting Buddha on a flyer is objectively bad, without regard to frame of reference or our own background. Doing so does not carry an implicit hidden second meaning of "... and our culture is by implication better." What our culture (or any other) does is not relevant. (again, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque)

Your position seems to amount to "hey, I personally think it's bad, but I wouldn't impose my views on them; if they think it's so terrible as to jail someone, who am I to say they shouldn't?" This is cultural relativism, which suffers from the problems I outlined in my previous post.

> We can say that sending someone to jail for putting Buddha on a flyer is objectively bad

I don't think this is 'tu quoque'. I have not heard a lot of people (on HN or otherwise) saying that castigating Matt Taylor for wearing a racy shirt is objectively horrible.

This would make me think that it is a cultural thing -- i.e. I am alone in thinking it is objectively bad; and therefore probably culturally un-attuned. Therefore, my belief in its objective badness must be wrong. Hence, I believe that putting people in jail for showing a Buddha with headphones, might also be a culturally okay thing to do for the Burmese (just as shaming Matt Taylor for wearing a racy shirt till he cries on TV is culturally okay in the US).

Most of us (younger generation) living in the country think this is ridiculous. But these kind of things are not a surprising thing to us because government do whatever they want to do. It is pretty bad few years back. They can send someone to jail by making up some laws and giving no excuse.

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