Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Writing off an entire planet seems the most barbaric of the 3.


Does it?

Imagine Taliban with their treatment of women, queer people, freedom advocates, and dissenters. Or Imagine DPRK. Now with an entire planet's worth of control.

Would you willingly give them technology so they can oppress their own people better?


There are options in between that you're excluding.


>options in between

Except in this case, there are not. Context is important. We're discussing this particular planet, and I gave you examples that would be equivalent.


If DPRK wasn't wagging their nukes around they'd get all the technology they needed. Ditto Iran (compare with Saudi Arabia).


Kinda telling that you don't mention the hazara.

Flip it over, why would you allow the US this kind of power?


> Kinda telling that you don't mention the hazara.

What does it tell? Are we supposed to know all persecuted groups worldwide?


Well, why not?

When it comes to treatment of women by the taliban hazara women have it bad enough that it's been called genocidal, and it's a rather racial and religiously motivated abuse. The group is pretty large and the US engagement with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran hasn't exactly been good for them, so if the OP is usian it would be prudent for them to know about their plight.


> usian

Indian, and the term is "American." We're speaking English - in English we have two separate continents, North and South America, or just "Americas."

Further, no other nation state uses the term "America" in its name. So when people say "American," they mean the USA, not Peru.

So, unless you want to speak Spanish (more than happy to), or Peru changes its name to American Republic of Peru, it's American, not "usian"

>kinda telling

why would I know every single oppressed group. Kinda telling that this is your reaction and kinda telling on your political leanings too when you can't give any other reasonable objections. (See, I can do this too lol - it's a dumb argument).


From my point of view America is much larger than the US. I wouldn't write 'european' and mean 'polish'. Between usian and usaian I prefer the former.

Right, why would one try to learn about oppressed groups? One reason could be to develop a sense of solidarity and community with larger portions of humanity than whatever social strata one has been allotted in one's local society. Another could be to find patterns of oppression to make it easier to see them in one's local society, where one is hampered by being like a fish in water. It could also flow from some stance on ethics, or slogan like 'as long as there are unfree people, none of us are free'.

Now you explain why this is profoundly unreasonable and obviously not a good idea.


Also called sanctions (we do those all the time, and it is usually only the poor suffering the most) or the morally superior prime directive.

Sanctions can be necessary, and usefull, but incredibly hard to do right and target them correctly. Sanctions also suck at changing whomever is target for whatever.


Based on a book by Dan Drezner, sanctions aren't impactful. However, the threat of sanctions is. In order for the threat to be credible you need to follow through with actual sanctions whenever they are threatened and the other party is non-compliant.


True that. One thing that does work are targeted embargoes, if you do not want certain tech to spread to far and wide.

General sanctions so, well, trickey isn't it?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: