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1. Wohlf+(OP)[view] [source] 2020-06-15 17:23:11
I think your argument is a better fit for the Chinese government which is currently running concentration camps for Uyghurs.
replies(2): >>jrochk+l3 >>tomjen+ku
2. jrochk+l3[view] [source] 2020-06-15 17:35:01
>>Wohlf+(OP)
I think you are misunderstanding my argument. My argument is you (and github employees) should feel free to raise that about the Chinese Government vis a vis the Uyghurs too.

If we agree that there are any circumstances where a company is ethically required to refuse selling it's software to a national government, then we can look at the particulars of any specific instance and decide if we think that's such a case, but we don't need to argue about whether it's appropraite to "to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity," becuase we've all agreed that there are at least some circumstances where it is.

What is in fact inappropriate is to argue that a company should never be expected to deny service to a government, no matter what they do.

replies(1): >>rattra+Em1
3. tomjen+ku[view] [source] 2020-06-15 19:33:36
>>Wohlf+(OP)
The (ilegitimate) China government should under no account be permitted to buy anything high tech from the US so long as they are the oppressive regime that they are.

However that is a dicussion that is, at most, tangential to this one.

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4. rattra+Em1[view] [source] [discussion] 2020-06-16 02:14:42
>>jrochk+l3
Yeah, thanks, you make good points here and I agree. Companies should certainly refuse service to government entities in certain cases on ethical grounds.

I think there's a moral component and a practical component. The latter becomes very difficult when taking a stand against a government entity in your home jurisdiction, since the offending government may put you out of business or something.

For example, in Nazi Germany (which I agree is a useful example to reference), a company that refused service to the Nazis would have had its executives murdered and been taken over by the state within a day. (My guess based on my recent read of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but I may be off).

On the other hand, refusing service to North Korea (sanctions aside) is a clearly ethically correct thing and offers little practical risk for companies based in the West.

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