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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
If the companies knew their products were being used to commit genocide, they should stop supplying the products. |
Why? According to you, that might impact their profits and is unnecessary. Besides, you were quite insistent before that a company should obey the local laws. Now you're changing your tune all of a sudden. Were you wrong before?
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I think it's ridiculous to compare a situation where you're selling the government products to help them kill people to a situation where a private service has keywords censored in accordance with local law. |
You think it's ridiculous, that does not make it so. Prima facie censorship of political speech is unethical, so is genocide. One may be worse than the other, but both are unethical, the degree of badness is not important. The general principle is that it is wrong to profit from colluding in human rights violations. There may be cases of differing degree, but it doesn't change the fact that it is basically unethical for the same reasons.
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The simple fact of the matter is there's more than ethics involved. This is a simple matter of practicality and business. |
And which trumps? Ethics of course. That is unless you want to say that people can ride roughshod over any ethical reason just to make a profit. If you're talking about what it's right and wrong to do, you're talking ethics. I'm taking the ethical position that Microsoft is wrong here. You have to give me an ethical argument to show me why I'm wrong. Pointing to the practicalities of business is irrelevant without some ethical argument.
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You have ignored the entire situation and YOU have been smacked around in this thread. |
No. Sorry little boy. You have taken a beating here, as GePap noticed, purely because you don't seem to understand what is a simple argument.
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This is the real world. You need to address the above-mentioned 5 questions and convince me -- and other shareholders -- why MS should withdraw from China over this. |
I don't have to. The reason is simple: it is unethical to profit from colluding in human rights violations. You show me how it is ethical to profit from colluding in human rights violations
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Your constant parroting of "it's not ethical" and comparing it to the holocaust is doing nothing but display how inept you really are at this whole argument-thing in non-academic situations. |
Waa Waa
No. It is me trying to get you to give an ethical argument against my ethical position. Business practicalities are irrelevant to my argument without some reasoning, and you have offered none.
Your best attempt is a BAM asserting that ethics is irrelevant in business. This has obviously daft consequences. Sure, some business people might feel this way because it stops them from making money from human misery, but that's not an argument. We should always do what is ethical is a necessary truth, for anyone who understands the meanings of its terms.
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The tirade against the US Media and the blatant strawman I've quoted in this post also demonstrates that I think you know how owned you were, and you're now doing damage control to save face in the opinion of people who don't know any better (GePap, Kid...) |
No. That was a separate point about censorship in general and state vs private censorship. The thread went a different way, but we could go back to that if you like, since you are losing so badly here.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
There seems to be something about your example that you fail to grasp. I'm not harmed by failing to engage looting, nor is anyone I know. That doesn't carry over to MS (the company and its workers would be harmed a great deal) withdrawing from the Chinese market to protest its human rights abuses when the situation on the ground wouldn't be changed. |
That''s just semantics. I lose out in either case.
I could very well offer the other sort of case I offered earlier.
Do you think it is unethical for a company to sign a contract with another party if a requirement of that contract is, say, that they fire any employees who are visibly gay, or Republican, even if not signing the contract will harm the company more than the firing of the Republicans or gays?
That would be a dangerous road to travel: it would open up all sorts of policies that are worse, and would licence unethical behaviour for profit.
But don't exaggerate. I am not claiming that Microsoft should stop selling Windows in China, or that they should stop engaging in any activity which is not a direct violation of human rights. Same goes for Google and Yahoo. It's unlikely that the Chinese government would ban all trade with these companies if they just didn't offer blogging and bowdlerized search. In fact Google, a company I like more than Microsoft, would stand to lose more if all three of them refused to engage in censorship.
I find your position to be a bit weird really. Here I am defending human rights in China, and one of the most notorious anti-China posters on the forum is arguing that it's OK for western companies to collude in human rights violations in China.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
Err, what was proven false? |
The following patently absurd view.
quote:
Microsoft exists to serve the interests of its shareholders.
Shareholders want Microsoft to have return on investment.
ROI isn't achieved by making futile political stands with no benefits to the company, or to the Chinese people. |
(1) The principles involved in your beliefs commit you to saying that stealing is OK if someone else is going to do it anyway (because no additional harm will accrue and it will benefit you). How any reasonable person could regard that as ethical behaviour is beyond me. You are just trying to make room for profiting from direct collusion in human rights violations.
(2) You seem to believe that making such a stand would be futile. It might be, but according to (1) that does not exonerate Microsoft. Moreover, I don't think it would be futile. If all three companies did it, I think that would be a huge shot in the arm for political progressives in China.
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You can keep saying you've proven my claims false all you want, and continue blathering endlessly about why you think it's wrong, but you're an idealist living in the real world. |
Ethics is in fact about the real world. People who say what you've just said are usually just seeking to make excuses for profiting from unethical behaviour.
Me grow up? You're the one suggesting that it's OK to profit from violating human rights. That sounds selfish and childish to me. Children are the ones who seek to ignore the misery they inflict on others for their own benefit. Grown ups actually realize that there is a point to the consideration of the interests of others.
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Multibillion dollar businesses with a responsbility to providing ROI to shareholders are not going to lose billions of dollars over futile political stands with no effect. |
Again, you are assuming that this is true, and assuming that it is relevant. You have not yet countered the possibility that it is irrelevant, so you are, as someone said, just like a broken record.
 You'll have to do a lot better than repeating the statement that is in question.
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
Yeah, no-one disagrees with that. This is about how far they can go in that regard. All the way to genocide according to you. |
I've said specifically that they should stop supplying tools that aid in genocide. This isn't a black/white case. Genocide clearly should not be aided, but that is not at all comparable to a corportation censoring the content on their private service under local law. You're essentially trying to make the argument that Microsoft is providing the duct tape to gag and rifles to shoot people who support democracy, when that's not the case at all.
While I consider communism to be unethical, I do support trade with China as well.
By your logic, should I refuse to do business with communists, even if it's in my best interests to do so?
Again, you're trying to make this an academic discussion. It's not.
The simple facts are, it's not practical for Microsoft to withdraw from the Chinese market. It's simply too important, and practically there's no benefit for withdrawing their products.
If the current management at MS did withdraw their products from China, I can guarantee you the shareholders would fire them and hire someone who would expand into growth markets.
I don't care if you think this is not ethical. I don't care if you think it's not ideal.
The whole point is it doesn't matter. It is not an option for Microsoft to withdraw from that market, and that's all there is to it.
All of these attempts to hold an academic argument on ethics just show just how out of touch you are when it comes to business in the real world. I will bookmark this thread and use it in the future on rant about inept Philosophers running technology companies into the ground.
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15-06-2005 21:09
@ Asher
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