[humanrebar]

The counterargument is that censoring political speech is decidedly indecent regardless of anyone's intentions. If political censorship ceases to be unconscionable, then a culture is convinced that there is no right to speech or conscience.

That is clearly true for China. It seems to be true for Google as well.

[pliny]

>The counterargument is that censoring political speech is decidedly indecent regardless of anyone's intentions

This is (as I understand it) a deontological, rather than a consequential, argument. So that cannot really be a 'counterargument' because it has a disjoint set of premises. You can argue that the premise for GP's argument (something along the lines of `The decision of whether to operate Google in China should depend on the aforementioned having better outcomes for chinese citizens than otherwise`) is incorrect or you can argue on the basis of his premise, but giving a different argument on a different premise (something like `the rule "don't censor political speech" should never be broken`) does not make a counterargument.

[humanrebar]

Part of the argument is that decent and intelligent people can disagree on this.

The counterargument is that suppressing truth and speech is indecent, regardless of intent. That is, the lesser wrong is still wrong. Boiling people down to utilitarian guesswork is part of the problem. It is fair to point out that the alleged decency is premised on skipping past established ethical and moral frameworks.

[gjm11]

A lot's hanging on the definition of "decent" here, and utilitarianism is also an established ethical and moral framework even if you consider it a pernicious one.

So let's avoid arguing over the definition of "decent" by being more specific. I claim:

It's possible for someone to endorse the position taken by Google management on this even though that person is highly intelligent, is far from indifferent to others' suffering and oppression, and habitually goes out of their way to treat others well, including others who are unlike them and far away.

I do, of course, agree that if you get to define what "decent" means then you can make it so that no decent person disagrees with you. In this case, I think that requires a definition that has built into it either an answer to the specific object-level question at hand, or else a specific position on a subtle philosophical question (consequentialism versus deontology versus virtue ethics versus whatever else) on which smart people who spend their whole lives thinking about this stuff are far from all agreeing.

[olalonde]

As a foreigner living in China and stuck with Bing, I decidedly disagree with you on that. I'm a consequentialist...

[yourbandsucks]

If we presume that the world isn't black and white, and we give some credence to the principle of "least harm"..

There's a case to be made for providing more net information while being less than 100 percent morally pure in the process.

The choice we're confronted with isn't "uncensored vs censored". It's "more information and access vs less information and access".

It's a practical call. Chinese people are very practical, they'll figure it out.

[humanrebar]

The concern isn't about personal purity. It's about other human beings being treated as less equal or less important.

Everyone is equal on some level just by being human. They are inherently worth treating well. That includes freedom from death and harm. But that also includes freedom of thought, conscience, and expression.

[yourbandsucks]

If you really believe that, then you must understand that 99% of a loaf is better than none.

Docs, Hangouts, YouTube. All very difficult to censor. Its whack a mole, complicated by https. Information wants to be free.

Standing on principle here denies them that 99%. Are you going to make that call for them, or should they make it for themselves?

[michaelmrose]

I guess you could call turning politic prisoners into organ donars practical

https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/

As is deliberately killing pedestrians after accidentally injuring them in order to pay a lessor death benefit instead of expensive care.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

Im not worried about their practicality but rather that they are culturally morally bankrupt and revealing how morally bankrupt people like Google are.

[dang]

Nationalistic flamewar is not allowed here, so please don't haul in talking points for that purpose.

Moreover, if you post another national or racial slur, like you did here and confirmed below, we will ban you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[michaelmrose]

I will avoid similar topics in the future I suppose this forum is only really fit for tech. Things that drift into political matters stir up strong feelings.

[bun_at_work]

The existing systems in China place various pressures on the people there. You can't make the claim that Chinese people are morally bankrupt based on those cases alone.

The government is, for sure. However, it's the legal system's fault for letting the punishment of injury outweigh the punishment of manslaughter.

Furthermore, it's not as if Google has gone out of its way get into a position of censoring search results in China. Those search results are going to be censored no matter what. What Google does, whether they operate in China or not, doesn't effect that. All that changes is how much search-engine-generated money goes to Google or doesn't.

[michaelmrose]

The people are responsible for their government.

[bun_at_work]

This just isn't true in all cases.

[yourbandsucks]

Oh, yeah, give me more of that raw prejudice. Got any blood libel?

[dang]

We just asked you to stop posting like this. If you do it again we will ban you.

[yourbandsucks]

Do it. The post I'm responding to is in fact raw prejudice. Calling a billion people morally bankrupt. Nobody would tolerate a comment like that about black people.

Ban me for calling it.

[dang]

It was a shitty comment and I've replied to it, but someone else breaking the site guidelines doesn't make it ok to break them yourself.