[europeanperson]

I assume that most of the people that commented on this article live in the U.S. The majority of the world sees the U.S. as the world's biggest threat to world peace, yet I don't see anybody on Hacker News claiming companies shouldn't do business with the U.S. Since the war in Iraq, can we think of something that the Chinese government has done that is worse? I disagree strongly with the notion that the Chinese government's influence on the world is somehow worse than the influence of the U.S. I do think there is something to be said about boycotting governments that abuse human rights, but I think it is hypocritical to think that somehow that doesn't apply to the U.S.

[mattigames]

USA is fairly variant in its own chaos, no president gets more than 8 years, internet censorship by the state is looked down by all parties; people who oppose the wars it goes can complain without fearing for their lives; a big chunk of this behavior and similar ones is because the US is made from people of a lot of races including Asians and Asia-descendants.

On the other hand China just recently confirmed a "president for life", that's always a bad idea, remember the last "president for life" China had? Yeah... So despite U.S. being more likely to start wars its open to change from the inside; China is a solid big time bomb with little to no space for change and once they decide to enter a war it will likely be the last one.

[europeanperson]

I agree that the U.S. is way more democratic than China. My argument is that the wars that the U.S. has started have been way more damaging to the world and, as a consequence, moral objections to doing business with China without having those same objections when doing business with the U.S. just seems hypocritical to me.

[mattigames]

The chance that in a couple decades the US is part of no big war is existent; the chance that China is gonna become a democracy in a couple of decades is null; so yeah, doesn't seem that hypocritical to me.

[europeanperson]

This is not a game of chance. Hundreds of thousands of people have died. Let's base our principles based on what actually happens. I think it's ridiculous to give the U.S. a pass because the killing might stop in a few decades.

[mattigames]

Well... you are using a website created by silicon valley millionaires in the heart of America using a technology called internet created mostly by a military organization (DARPA) to check news about american startups and american technologies so that probably puts you a bit on the hypocritical side of things...

[King-Aaron]

> can we think of something that the Chinese government has done that is worse?

https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1029861843521523712

[europeanperson]

A horrible act, but I don't see how it is worse than the war in Iraq.

[seanmcdirmid]

You really don’t read HN much if you’ve missed all the criticism leveled at the USA.

[europeanperson]

You got me there. It's just that almost all of the current comments talk about how YC shouldn't do business in China, while they're already doing business in the U.S. I just don't see how it is worse, when the U.S. has a far more violent recent past.

[seanmcdirmid]

There are many comments that don’t say that, however.

The USA is still a great place to do business if you want to make money. My only arguments against China is that the system is more rigged against foreigners from making money there.

The moral arguments are a distraction, though they are mostly true. Yes, China has third world problems, yes the USA has first world problems. Whatever, the world is an imperfect place.

[enwa]

I don't think the moral arguments are a distraction if they are reasonable. Any intelligent person can see that both the US and China have problems and wouldn't want to contribute to those problems. And to not do that one has to look at ones intentions, motivations and actions.

Most individuals just don't have a lot of pull and we can compensate, at least somewhat, through other means. People visiting, buying products from or to some extent working in these countries isn't the problem. Most people aren't qualified to make an assessment, can't really be expected to go out of their way and won't, hopefully, engage in propaganda.

What YC is doing is just incredibly high on that scale. If you start a company in the US chances are you don't know better, since the US has a much better reputation, or you have to be there, since you were born or just very aware of it. You can treat your employees well, protest the US government and you can sue companies, people or the government itself.

YC should not only know better but will be able to do very little of those things in China. And it will be a huge win for China in general. This makes their actual step into China much worse. You can't really come back in five years and criticize them for working with the government and their investments doing objectionable things. Well you can, but it isn't very practical.

Why do we even insist on justice? Most of us can just mind our own business and do fine. It is of course on behalf the people who get mistreated. Their condition is the actual cost of our actions. Most of us can, sort of, live with that we largely unintentional enable mistreatment of many people in the developing world. But for a small entity with a lot of impact those actions becomes a lot costlier. So such decision are and should therefor be much harder to justify.

[europeanperson]

I agree.