Microsoft hates Freedom and Democracy!!!

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Yeah, you missed the part where we entered the Aggieverse.

It's a wierd place.

[Agathon]

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Bosh


*points at sig*
*sighs*

[DinoDoc]

Some points that seem to have been ignored or at least glossed over:

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Hm. Aggie's position seems to be that M$ should keep out of the PRC till the later tidies up. This would help whom, exactly?

Originally posted by Asher

Actually, Microsoft doesn't really have a choice.

China will eventually become a larger market than North America/Europe, and shareholders of the company expect growth in all markets -- especially China.

It gets even more complicated with the threat of Linux in China (specifically, the "People's" Red Flag Linux).

If Microsoft withdraws from China, Linux would become the de-facto operating system in one of the most important, and soon to be the most important market.

Shareholders become upset, share prices falls, people lose their jobs...

What ethical purpose is served by Microsoft withdrawing from the Chinese market over it's human rights violations when a) it won't change the human rights situation in the country and b) hurts Microsoft itself in both the short and long term?

[Agathon]

What ethical purpose is served by Microsoft withdrawing from the Chinese market over it's human rights violations when a) it won't change the human rights situation in the country and b) hurts Microsoft itself in both the short and long term?

The ethical purpose of not profiting from human rights violations.

If you want further consequences, then I also think that Google and Yahoo should refuse to play along as well. The Chinese need them, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place. By colluding in the suppression of political speech in China, these companies are making things worse for the Chinese people, and I think that the political rights of a billion Chinese trump the profits of a couple of corporations any day. Same goes for those sacks of **** who collaborate with the junta in Myanmar.

Everyone that colludes in Chinese human rights violations makes it harder for the Chinese people to do something about it.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Some points that seem to have been ignored or at least glossed over:

What ethical purpose is served by Microsoft withdrawing from the Chinese market over it's human rights violations when a) it won't change the human rights situation in the country and b) hurts Microsoft itself in both the short and long term?

The ethical purpose of MS acting in accordance with their own values. Is there anything more that is needed?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by GePap
Is there anything more that is needed?

Perhaps a reason why such an action should trump thier responsibility to thier workers and shareholders when the situation on the ground won't be changed by the absence of Microsoft?

[Agathon]

Perhaps a reason why such an action should trump thier responsibility to thier workers and shareholders when the situation on the ground won't be changed by the absence of Microsoft?

I dealt with this a couple of pages ago.

Would you consider it ethical to engage in looting if you know that someone else will just loot what you don't? If you don't, then you concede that it is not ethical to profit from wrongdoing even if it won't make the situation worse overall.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Agathon
If you don't, then you concede that it is not ethical to profit from wrongdoing even if it won't make the situation worse overall.

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.

[Agathon]

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.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Perhaps a reason why such an action should trump thier responsibility to thier workers and shareholders when the situation on the ground won't be changed by the absence of Microsoft?

This is rich, Dino claiming that corporations have a duty to their workers, and I've already explained that Microsoft has no duty to their shareholders to behave unethically.

[Kuciwalker]

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.

This is why ethicists are idiots.

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.

You show me why it's unethical. Show me how Microsoft acting differently would have a positive effect. Especially since removing censorship by removing the entire medium of communication isn't much of a solution.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

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.

This is why ethicists are idiots.

You should really read more carefully... again... I think you have a very crude understanding of what I am trying to say.

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.

You show me why it's unethical. Show me how Microsoft acting differently would have a positive effect. Especially since removing censorship by removing the entire medium of communication isn't much of a solution.

I have already given numerous examples. And your assumption that a positive effect must flow from every ethical action is contradicted by a wide variety of examples (such as some posted in this thread by me). After all, it's not permissible to kill someone if someone else is going to kill them anyway no matter what you do.

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
The ethical purpose of MS acting in accordance with their own values. Is there anything more that is needed?

No, you're exactly right.

And by making the decision to operate in China, they are acting in accordance with their own value.

Case dismissed.

Aggie wants MS to lose billion dollars when nothing would change. It's really that simple.

He's an idealist with no grounding in reality. He spends his day talking to children about Plato, why should he care about or understand business?

[Agathon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_world

For Imran