But they won't. And that has real consequences for actual people. Google has the option to improve those people's lives by going there, even if it means bowing to the demands of Chinese censors. Nothing is gained by staying out. China isn't going to magically change its opinion on censorship because Google won't enter their market. The objections of the Google employees are shortsighted and naive.
Funny, I'd say it is your objections that are shortsighted and naive: caving to the demands of an authoritarian dictatorship steadily growing in influence.
Ok. Play your tape all the way through. What are the negative consequences of doing so? The positive consequences of entering the Chinese market are obvious.
The negative consequences are that Google are the best at cataloguing and searching information. This expertise can now be leveraged by the Chinese government to search for dissidents.
Edit: Do you honestly think that once the Chinese government has some leverage over Google (because they now make a portion of their revenue from the Chinese market) they wouldn't use that to get additional concessions?
As an example, Chinese citizens can still access Google if they can connect through an outside VPN. Google may be able to identify such users through cookies, reCaptcha or another Google tracking technology. What if China asked Google to censor results for Chinese users using VPNs too?
There’s a big difference between Google making data available to the Chinese government, which is what Dragonfly would do, and Google making their expertise at cataloguing and searching information available to the Chinese government, which has not been reported.
The only information that the Chinese government would have access to from Google is info they already have from Baidu.
How do you know that the number of atrocities committed in the future by the Chinese state is independent of Google being there or not?
Maybe people unaware of DragonFly will try riskier search phrases on Google than on Baidu.
And the problem gets especially bad if they find whatever they were looking for. As in this case the state has evidence on consuming "politically dangerous" material. (Not that they can't fake it otherwise.)
Sure, and right now Baidu is doing that for them. Baidu is likely not as good at it as Google, but Baidu is also much more likely to comply willingly. Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do".
By abdicating that responsibility to an actor like Baidu, who is much more aligned with the Chinese government, they make the problem worse. By agreeing to their demands, and then doing the shittiest job possible of complying, they actually have a lot more power and influence.
> Edit: Do you honestly think that once the Chinese government has some leverage over Google (because they now make a portion of their revenue from the Chinese market) they wouldn't use that to get additional concessions?
Yes, but that's a two way street. Chinese citizens will come to rely on Google search, and will be unhappy when its taken away. So both sides become enmeshed.
> Baidu is likely not as good at it as Google, but Baidu is also much more likely to comply willingly. Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do".
This is an argument akin to "I'm joining the system so I can change it from the inside".
This can work, but you need leverage. What leverage would Google have over the Chinese government in this case? Say what you will about the current Chinese leadership, but they're not stupid and they know what Google is capable of. If they think Google is dragging they're feet why wouldn't they just block Google again?
Or just...i'm joining the system, and i'm going to do whatever I can to help it as little as possible, while providing a valuable service to its people.
Sure, that's the known positive. But this makes Google 1984 compatible in other regimes too. And with the capability there it's a matter of configuration to run it in other countries too. Proliferation of totalitarian machinery is a worry.
> Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do".
Why would they? They're out to make money and they'll make much less money by making enemies with the CCP.
We can also look at history: American companies have no problem doing business with authoritarian and repressive regimes. Sometimes they even prop them up.
You mean, other than the fact that they pulled out in the first place for ethical reasons? And that it's long been a contentious issue among the founders of the company, again, for ethical reasons? I'm not sure I can take this question seriously.
Nothing is gained by not staying out (aside from money in Google's pockets, of course). I'm not sure how Google's expected to "improve those people's lives" while still being subject to China's rules around censorship and surveillance.
If a lot of companies decided to refuse to follow China's oppressive methods (and thus making life slightly worse for some of the people of china) it might slightly push the residents of china towards revolting and gaining more freedom.
This is all theoretical of course, I doubt that anything like that could happen in real life.
Ahhh yes, the 'we're in the dystopian dictatorship so deep that it's too big to fail' argument.
There's always a human cost to revolutions. That doesn't justify supporting and perpetuating one of the biggest threats to freedom in the entire world.
A misapplication of logic (i.e the claim that the U.S. invaded to instill "freedom and democracy") does not invalidate the logic (i.e fighting for freedom is a good thing).
>Compared to that, continuing to enjoy the greatest rise in living standards in human history doesn't look half bad.
This is extremely poor reasoning. An overall "bad" thing does not become "good" or justified because it has improved conditions in some way. By the very same token, slavery has both good sides and bad sides, and by your dismissive style, we ought not to consider the bad sides - the slaves should continue to enjoy the greatest rise in living standards (having food and shelter provided by the master) and the slave owners should continue to enjoy the greatest rise in profits in human history - isn't it clear that everyone wins?
What is even more ironic is that for China, a state which claims to be Communist, is being supported by your argument which was specifically repudiated by Marx in criticizing Proudhon for exactly the view you are expounding!
>The good side and the bad side, the advantages and drawbacks, taken together form for M. Proudhon the contradiction in every economic category. The problem to be solved: to keep the good side, while eliminating the bad. Slavery is an economic category like any other. Thus it also has its two sides. Let us leave alone the bad side and talk about the good side of slavery. Needless to say, we are dealing only with direct slavery, with Negro slavery in Surinam, in Brazil, in the Southern States of North America.
>Without slavery North America, the most progressive of countries, would be transformed into a patriarchal country. Wipe North America off the map of the world, and you will have anarchy – the complete decay of modern commerce and civilization. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off the map of nations.
>What would M. Proudhon do to save slavery? He would formulate the problem thus: preserve the good side of this economic category, eliminate the bad.
I will also note that your immediate dismissal of revolution is historically shaky at best, as great advances in history and freedom were gained from revolution - of both country (France, America, many wars of independence, Germany) and economy (the bourgeois revolution in means of production). Just remember this:
>If money, according to Augier, “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.
>? his is extremely poor reasoning. An overall "bad" thing does not become "good" or justified because it has improved conditions in some way. By the very same token, slavery has both good sides and bad sides, and by your dismissive style, we ought not to consider the bad sides - the slaves should continue to enjoy the greatest rise in living standards (having food and shelter provided by the master) and the slave owners should continue to enjoy the greatest rise in profits in human history - isn't it clear that everyone wins?
It's pretty clear that the question is whether a thing is good on balance. We all agree slavery is bad on balance. China, on the other hand, who has authoritarian policies, but has simultaneously lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty, is much more mixed.
I have to say that "authoritarian policies" is a deceptively weak phrase for the stuff China is doing lately.
In any case this reasoning is flawed -- the correct analogy to "China has authoritarian policies but pulled billions of people out of poverty" would be "the United States had slavery but populated a continent while creating wealth for millions of people". So the story of slavery is "much more mixed".
> I have to say that "authoritarian policies" is a deceptively weak phrase for the stuff China is doing lately.
Sure, call it what you want. I'm no fan of the Chinese government.
> In any case this reasoning is flawed -- the correct analogy to "China has authoritarian policies but pulled billions of people out of poverty" would be "the United States had slavery but populated a continent while creating wealth for millions of people". So the story of slavery is "much more mixed".
So, should the cotton gin makers of their day not have sold cotton gins to the plantation owners? What good would that have done?
Except that there is already a company making ankle trackers and selling it to the slave owners, but their ankle trackers chafe the slaves ankles and Google's do not. That is my point.
That’s the “for good” part of the parent comment. Civil rights protestors were unwilling to tolerate / were intolerant of the status quo situation, to the point of being willing to be attacked with fire hoses and dogs.
