Comment by pyrophane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pyrophane | Hacker News Reader

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I am not looking forward to the rehabilitation of MBS's image that will take place over the next couple of years.

After Khashoggi was killed, some prominent people took a bit of stand and pulled out of the Future Investment Conference. The narrative there was clear: we don't do business with people who murder journalists.

So now, the US has essentially confirmed it: yeah, MBS did in fact have that journalist killed. So what comes next?

What should happen is all of those people who boycotted the conference a couple years ago come out and say "we will not do business with MBS connected businesses, investment funds, etc moving forward!"

What will actually happen? Probably the something worse than what seems to be the official US government stance: "Yeah, he did it, but we aren't going to punish him or allow what he did to impact business as usual." Business leaders can't even afford to take a position that weak. They have considerably less leverage, so they have to kowtow. I expect for the most part they will refuse to discuss their relationship with MBS as they move forward with partnerships and investments. The real question is when his tours of US tech campuses will resume.

You could also say the same about Russia making the UK basically their poison playing ground. You would think much more would be done when a whole city needs to be shut down due to the spread of the poison between people.

Money is money, people are fickle minded and will look beyond incredibly awful things if need be. It's a helluva drug.

I assume it’ll be similar to what’s happening with China.

Putin & company have done the same and more, and their money is still more than welcome in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

Well Biden did say he was going to direct companies to increase semiconductor production. He says critical components need to be identified as a national security concern. A similar effort could be introduced here. Identify what Arabia provides that’s so critical and introduce alternatives as a national security effort.

> Identify what Arabia provides that’s so critical

Lots of oil. And money. Mostly oil.

Worth noting that earlier this year US imports of Saudi Oil hit zero. Granted it was just for one week but certainly reflective of the broader trend.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-06/saudi-oil...

US was never really dependent on Saudi oil, and US governments knew it.

Even before the shale oil, US had no problem to expand its oil production to match its own consumption.

What prevented US oil industry to just work was a very strange regulatory framework where it was both shielded from competition, and prevented from expanding, keeping it in subservient role as a supplier to US strategic petroleum reserve.

For all intents, and purposes the US legislation only benefitted Saudi interests after 1975.

US policy in the Middle East is not necessarily about the fact that we get our imports directly from there, but to keep price stability for the global price of oil, which is still something we pay even if we don’t pay SA and friends directly.

Now that we have shale, it seems like this policy is less worth it.

An enemy.

In the context of tech, KSA has a massive amount of wealth that they’re trying to diversify into other sectors to avoid civil unrest over the next 50 years when oil usage is decreased.

So, don’t take VC money funded by KSA?

It’s not that simple. You may never know where the money you’re accepting is coming from.

While I find the actions of MBS and the assassination to be morally reprehensible, you should be aware that the US has a storied history of extrajudicial assassinations. Further, dissidents who have spoken out against the government in the form of leaking of classified information are routinely jailed for 20 years, which is IMO akin to a death sentence.

The fact that something is hard to do doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, or that a good faith effort shouldn’t be made. Nor does it mean that those efforts won’t have some deterrent effect that reduces bad behavior in the future.

The problem is you need to rectify “MBS had a journalist assassinated” with “The US should stop meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations”.

It's hard to square that attitude on non-interference abroad with a killing by Saudi on Turkish soil of a man resident in the US for things he wrote in a US newspaper.

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