That's not what I am saying ... It's silly to think that 'investors' will ignore such a giant opportunity just because there's human rights issues. It's just naive!
Yes but this is not just some random investor. This taints the brand that is YC.
The statement they are making is “we don’t care about oppressive governments and ethics. As long as we’re churning out billion dollar unicorns, we’ll invest in anything”.
I have a lot of respect for China, I also know China may be the most likely to use AI against their citizens to suppress them. Do YC funded companies really want to enable that?
Yeah this is YC as you're saying ... They're not gonna be left behind. Hurting their brand might be a risk that they can mitigate but not investing in China is not going to bring it democracy.
Expecting capitalists (the economic class, not the ideological faction) to put human rights over returns on capital is, if not silly, at least naively optimistic.
That's why we speak out (like this!) and force them to do the right thing. As I've said elsewhere, there are things more important than profit. Companies that disagree ought to be boycotted.
Maybe that's naive. It's still the right thing to do. No amount of money can shift what's right and wrong.
If you want to make it in China then yea, you probably shouldn't be too hung up on human rights. It's not some universal concept that has applied throughout the world for our existence so it's quite rude to pretend like China has to bow to these systems of human rights we developed without china's input.
It is hard to argue that detaining 1 million people for their beliefs[0] and then torturing them[1] is justifiable by cultural relativism. Or massacring people for that matter[2]. At that point you could argue for any atrocity.
It’s not rude it’s basic humanity. It’s not just completely reasonable to ask a government in charge of more than a billion people to please exercise basic humane standards, it’s morally atrocious to suggest otherwise. The Chinese government deserves all they criticism they get for what they have done and continue to do, and it’s arguable that we in the west deserve criticism for enabling them.
Most Americans just don't care. In a few years it will be as unpopular to talk about China's exploits as it is talking about Israel-Palestine. You can argue that Europeans don't care either, but at least the work culture and society is different enough from China to make the latter unappealing. Much less so for Americans.
A lot of americans don't approve of many things the government does but we don't call them a dictatorship oppressing the people.
Plenty of western countries are involved in censorship on a smaller scale but that's not considered evil and suppressing the true views of the public.
One easy example being mega projects, here in the west we seem to wax poetic constantly about returning to the good old days where a nation could undertake mega-projects and yet china just keeps doing them faster than we can keep track.
I'm sure many westerners and chinese both want to see these things happen and yet they are doing it and we aren't? Is that some proof that we are suppressed citizens? Or maybe its a bit more nuanced.
>A lot of americans don't approve of many things the government does but we don't call them a dictatorship oppressing the people.
Because the government doesn't block you from saying those things. It's concerning to me that you don't appear to know what the definition of 'oppression' or 'dictatorship' is.
>One easy example being mega projects, here in the west we seem to wax poetic constantly about returning to the good old days where a nation could undertake mega-projects and yet china just keeps doing them faster than we can keep track.
When you throw enough suffering and death at a project, you can build quickly. Nobody with a brain is suggesting we do projects the same way we did the hoover dam that resulted in silicosis.
> but we don't call them a dictatorship oppressing the people.
That's because there's an actual definition of dictatorship. China is a dictatorship, the US is not.
> Plenty of western countries are involved in censorship on a smaller scale but that's not considered evil and suppressing the true views of the public.
It's not some universal concept that has applied throughout the world for our existence so it's quite rude to pretend like China has to bow to these systems of human rights we developed without china's input.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights[1] was signed by China and Dr. Peng-chun Chang (who was Chinese) took part in its drafting[2].
Which part of it do you think China doesn't officially agree with?
