
Why Do We Tolerate Saudi Money in Tech? - iamspoilt
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/why-do-we-tolerate-saudi-money-in-tech.html
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dorkinspace
Why are we asking this question of the Saudis and not, say, the Chinese?

Over the past few months there have been many issues of companies taking
actions that seem to be based on appeasing the Chinese government.

Both are awful government's actively committing crimes against humanity.

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notsag-hn
What about the crimes against humanity commited by the US then? Should we ban
US money as well? :D

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deogeo
While the parent poster presented the issue as one of morality, it's more
honest to frame it as self-preservation. It's rarely wise to allow another
country too much influence over you - even rarer when it's as openly hostile
to the US as China.

Any wrongs you may have done don't enter into consideration when trying to
prevent being wronged by others.

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papln
Who is "we"?

Recipients like getting money, obviously.

Non-recipients generally don't have the power to interfere.

The US government has that power, but the US government is beholden to the
Saudis' control over oil.

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perl4ever
The US has no particular interest in Saudi oil, as it doesn't provide a
particularly large or irreplaceable amount of US consumption.

What binds them to the US is their dependence on weapons and military
cooperation to maintain power, and conversely, the American defense industry's
need for foreign markets.

The reason we hear so much about dependence on Saudi oil is to engender a
false sense of helplessness and keep the latter relationship
stable/unthreatened.

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lacker
Well they are going to spend that money on _something_. Investing it in the US
economy seems like just about the best place for it to go. I wish all fortunes
held by dubious foreign entities just got sent to the American stock market.

Twitter is a public company, it seems pretty unlikely that Saudi investment
and Saudi spies getting hired by Twitter are related.

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jiveturkey
I admit I have yet to read TFA but I can answer this quite easily.

We not only tolerate it, we welcome and solicit it with open arms. For the
same reason we push industrial waste and exploitative labor to developing
countries!

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mantoto
Because of missing ethics.

If you read this and you have enough power to influence something like this
and don't consider where your money comes from -> fuck you.

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bigpumpkin
Why do we tolerate saudi oil in our gas tanks?

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iron0013
I feel like you're saying this sarcastically, but you should be saying it
earnestly.

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perl4ever
In general, people don't ship oil around the world for no reason, which is why
US oil tends to come from the Americas.

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notJim
Because it spends.

Edit: Clay Davis said it best:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU5IoHf3xdg&t=256](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU5IoHf3xdg&t=256)

