[jdoliner]

Copying over my comment from the other thread that sparked some interesting debate:

I find this letter to be deeply cynical. There's a baked in assumption that a global community is a good thing and that the only possible reason to resist it is because you're being left behind by its benefits. I don't think that's true and I certainly don't think it should be assumed a priori. There are people in this country, and every where in the world, who don't want globalization. And it's not because they haven't received enough of the benefits or need to be educated better, they don't want it for real reasons and, in a Democracy, that should be an acceptable stance. If we're not willing to accept that stance than we're forcing people into a global community that matches our vision for the future, not theirs. In other words it's a plot for world domination of one world view over another. I find it deeply cynical that instead it masquerades as a virtuous plan to help all man kind.

[dang]

> Copying over my comment from the other thread

Please don't do that. We merge duplicate threads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13663737) and now we have duplicate subthreads.

[lazaroclapp]

What are those "real reasons"? And are they against globalization in the abstract or against specific models of global institutions? I find being against globalization in the abstract very strange, because it takes arbitrary historical divisions of human-kind and tries to set them in stone. A global human community almost always seems like a more natural positive future than a fragmented system of hostile parties defined by birth location and operating in anarchy. Maybe I am lacking some context or some value system that the anti-globalist have and which might have its merits, and if so I would love to hear the argument, but to me the idea of "this person is more valuable or interesting to me because it was born my neighbor than anyone born a hundred miles away" seems to lack some ethical foundation. Let alone the same argument defined by religion or race, instead of plain location.

[rfrank]

> Maybe I am lacking some context or some value system that the anti-globalist have and which might have its merits, and if so I would love to hear the argument, but to me the idea of "this person is more valuable or interesting to me because it was born my neighbor than anyone born a hundred miles away" seems to lack some ethical foundation.

Why? People care more about what happens around them. I care more about housing issues in the Bay Area than I do the same problem in New York. I care more about Oakland crime rates than Chicago crime rates. People care more about things that directly impact them and those close to them. If people see their hometowns and communities falling apart when the main industry moves overseas, and only receive second-order benefits like slightly reduced price of good a few years later, what incentive do they have to support globalism?

[lazaroclapp]

Their children's having better opportunities as wealth created by their countries participation in globalized trade creates chances for improved education, scientific advancement and new industries?

Don't get me wrong, we are failing many of those communities. But is not a failure to stop globalization, it is a failure to share the gains of globalization more broadly with those most affected by its negatives. We can do both. Is not either let them starve or stop global trade, both can be prevented. Besides, a lot of those industries that keep being brought up as examples of victims of globalization only ever got to be as significant as they were due to globalization: consider the American manufacturing industry, which greatly increased in significance after WW2 mostly due to the demand for its production in war-ravaged Europe. Or the American agricultural industry, where people complain about Mexican workers "stealing" jobs, while ignoring that Mexico consumes $17.7 billion of that agricultural production from U.S. exports.

[rfrank]

That's not reality though. Their schools are failing, opiate addiction is rising, and opportunity is drying up. We are failing essentially all of those communities. Global corporations have no incentive to share the gains of their decisions with the communities they damage. Pressure to make them do so will likely just quicken the pace of automation, not suddenly make people care about the plight of the middle America. We can do both, but if the history of globalization is any indicator, we won't.

[lazaroclapp]

Fair enough, but you really consider isolationism, trade barriers and anti-immigrant rhetoric either significantly more feasible than or preferable to trying to improve wealth and opportunity distribution? Do you think forcing companies to bring manufacturing to the U.S. and fire foreign workers will result in anything else than automation, loss of foreign markets for U.S. companies and even further poverty for these communities, absent any other measure or the political will to help them? It seems to me just as hard to assist them under nationalism as under globalism, and globalism still has at the least the potential of doing better. For my part my current view is that I should try to both champion globalism and try to make it do better in whatever small sphere of influence I have.

[rfrank]

Yes, I think trade barriers are both more feasible and preferable. I perceive automation as a constant, it's happening no matter what. Enforcing a border adjustment tax is easier than trying to remove every international tax loophole a la the double Irish. How is reshoring not trying to improve wealth and opportunity distribution, just with the benefactor being Americans and not the factory town in SEA or Central/South America? How does it not "have the potential to do better"? Someone keeping or re-gaining a job in their field is better. Those people contributing to their cities and towns in the form of taxes and other spending makes them better. I work in electronics manufacturing, and people are generally pretty excited about the potential changes.

[ThrustVectoring]

Exit rights are extraordinarily important for maintaining negotiation power with the powerful institutions in your life. If you don't like the way England is doing things, you can leave - and this puts a limit on what England does, since it doesn't want you to leave.

If you don't like Facebook or other global institutions, there's no effective way to opt out.

[lazaroclapp]

You honestly think that quitting Facebook is harder than changing countries? Opting out from your country is currently near impossible for most people, and the only reason it is possible for the few who can is globalism. The place where moving between countries is the easiest is the E.U. and that's precisely because of the supra-national structure.

I am not a centralist when it comes to the official international institutions precisely because the no opt-out you describe (which is true for official institutions, not so much for Facebook). But at the same time, without international cooperation and with "every nation for itself" we end up much worse off at a personal and species level.

[ThrustVectoring]

Quitting Facebook doesn't effectively prevent it from affecting you and your social network.

[lazaroclapp]

And not living in many countries certainly does not prevent them from affecting you. The world is deeply interconnected no matter how you structure it, from nuclear proliferation to pollution. You are also not immune from states you opt out of, if you even manage that.

Not that shadow profiles are a good thing, though. But I think this is drifting from the original topic, Facebook is, as of now, eminently more "escapable" than most nation states are. Certainly than any of the great powers, even if you don't live anywhere close to them.

[appleflaxen]

For many people in the US, I think the reason is that they see globalization as a threat to their livelihood.

[lazaroclapp]

As in, a threat to their wealth and earnings? Sure, that's an issue, but is not an issue with globalization in the abstract. In fact, the U.S. benefits enormously of globalization in total material terms (U.S. produced goods and U.S. brands are pervasive through the world and have been for half a century, and that generates tons of wealth for the nation). "Yeah, but that gain gets mostly concentrated at the top while working class people go unemployed and risk homelessness" one might say. But that is the issue, not globalization. A more progressive taxation scheme, a coordinated investment into infrastructure, improved access to education and even things like UBI can all be combined to solve that problem. Better wealth distribution without negating all the wealth created by globalization.

Globalization-in-current-practice has a lot of specific problems: wealth inequality, environmental and labor laws race to the bottom, etc. But those are things to work on without throwing globalization away (the same way that propaganda on social networks can be tackled without either: "ban social media" or "internet sovereignty: internet propaganda for the national government where you live and no one else"). There are big issues with specific models of globalization. But nationalism flaws are inherent, a nationalist utopia is strictly worse than a globalist utopia, and historically nationalist reality has been worse than globalist reality (e.g. for all its problems, the E.U. beats what came before it).

[BjoernKW]

Fair enough. Should 'we' have to comply to 'their' worldview though? The opportunity to participate in a global community without a doubt is a good thing. 'Opportunity' implies that you can opt out. Others willing to take that opportunity shouldn't be kept from doing so though

[jdoliner]

If global means everyone, and I think that's what it means here, then someone has to comply to someone else's worldview. To have a true global community the people who don't want a global community have to be part of it just like everyone else. If people can opt out of the global community and build their own insular communities which they determine the fate of then it's not a global community, it's just a community. A global community that you can opt out of is a solecism.

[BjoernKW]

Taking Facebook as an example for a global community: Just because I have the opportunity to participate in each and every Facebook group I don't have to do so.

Yes, in real life there are compromises to take. You have to accept that in order to thrive in the world you have to comply to some of its rules. I'm very much a cultural imperialist in that I think that an open-minded, tolerant mindset is superior to isolationist, absolutist ideas.

[ThrustVectoring]

Opportunities are not categorically good things. I, for one, want laws that make it harder to sell my vote or my kidney.

[BjoernKW]

Those are far-off examples. Granted, perhaps in some cases people should be prevented from doing something utterly stupid but that shouldn't keep us from exploring opportunities in general. Just because kids occasionally hurt themselves during play they shouldn't be forbidden to play.

[ThrustVectoring]

Would you want to be able to change your brain so that you can productively work 70 hours per week? I wouldn't - it'd quickly become the standard against which you're measured, while the rewards for passing the test stay about the same.

There's a similar argument to be made for being able to share your life on facebook - it displaces alternative interpersonal interactions, so you have the same amount of human connection except with your social graph sold to marketers.

[kukac]

"We are building a community that's inclusive to everyone in the world, as long as they agree with us."

[ciconia]

> If we're not willing to accept that stance than we're forcing people into a global community that matches our vision for the future, not theirs.

I would posit that presenting globalisation as a choice forced on unsuspecting victims is itself cynical. You of all people should know - your a tech guy. You are aware of how technology removes economic, cultural, lingual, even physical walls. There's no going back from globalisation. Accept it and go on with your life.

[jdoliner]

I don't think the victims are unsuspecting and I also don't think they have a choice in the matter.

> Accept it and go on with your life.

Isn't that exactly what you say to someone when you're not giving them a say in what's happening in their life?

> You are aware of how technology removes economic, cultural, lingual, even physical walls.

Tech does remove walls but it also allows you to construct walls. That's a lot of what this letter is about isn't it? Facebook has become a tool for people to organize themselves into groups that have their own political beliefs and beliefs about reality. These groups were shielded from the ideas on the other side. Why? because these walls were more effective than the ones we had in the world before. Zuckerberg has decided this was bad because people voted the "wrong" way and wants to prevent it from happening again. You might agree with that stance, but don't delude yourself into thinking this is just some inherent feature of technology. There's human morals behind these decisions.

[snarf21]

I find it even worse that he/FB feels that he/FB is the only one who can do it. "Just trust us. We have everyone else's best interest at heart." Especially when they have bought or tried to buy almost all of the competition as soon as they get to any size. The hard part is most people would sell their soul as long as it came with something for free.