@piggo and we thought Germany was the impostor...
@piggo That's a great shame indeed. For now there is a significant push in the country to "move something" about this, but I wouldn't have high hopes for it to go anywhere. We'll see. Ostrich politics at work in this little land of innocent and ignorant.
But let's not pretend it's all rosy elsewhere. I recommend reading kamilkazani's twitter - it is very instructive - the guy is stirring the pot on German, Czech and other military exports to Russia quite a bit (especially Rheinmetal et al). For instance this thread (and related ones from September) are a good start: https://nitter.it/kamilkazani/status/1567882093585203200#m
And his findings lead to news stories later picked up - for instance that Czech stuff ended in October in mainstream press in CZ and the German connection findings too.
@FailForward @piggo
IMO it's on governments to check the exports and block those that would violate agreed upon embargos (and also to make sure the embargos they agree upon are effective and don't have major holes).
@wolf480pl I agree. But either way, it's on us, the civic society to check on them too - after all, money tends to trump morale, so relying on the govt only is probably naive.
@FailForward @piggo
At the same time, I don't think companies and NGOs should apply sanctions extrajudically, nor be pressured by the public to do so.
At the start of war I saw many organizations jump on the hype train of "russia bad" and do whatever they can to be mean to Russians without any government coordination or thought whether such actions will be effective or whether they'll just make ordinary Russians hate the West more without any effect of Russia's capability to wage war.
@wolf480pl We are living in a free society. Individuals and companies are free to "apply sanctions" as they see fit, there is nothing wrong about it - as far as they are also wiling and prepared to bear the consequences of those decisions. I am not obliged to do business with people I don't like, or don't want to do business with. Is it stupid from somebody's perspective? Maybe. Silly? Perhaps too, but that is how freedom works. I don't need to coordinate with my government on that.
Whether I am interested in not alienating ordinary Russians is also besides the point. They do the job better than I ever could (c.f., e.g., https://nitter.it/JuliaDavisNews, or francis_scarr's feed).
@FailForward @piggo
AFAIU if a company refused service to a customer because said customer was black, or a Muslim, that'd be illegal in most countries.
And where it wouldn't be illegal, it would be wrong by our western morality.
Why should this principle not extend to nationality of the customer?
@FailForward @piggo
Also, for example, in Poland, refusing to sell a product that is intended for retail sale is a civil offense, except when such sale would be illegal.
Now this would not affect selling CNC machines to a business but it's another example that no, just because we live in a free society does not mean business owners can refuse service to anyone they don't like
@wolf480pl And yet we agreed not to sell alcohol to under-18s, or weapons to members of societies we don't like. See, it's not all black or white. I guess we both agree what is going on and why it is so. Where we perhaps differ is where we stand on the spectrum between the reality vs. where we wish the reality were.
@FailForward @piggo
We agreed through the means designated for it by legal orders in each country - for example by voting for representatives who then voted for acts of law that establish a bill that prohibits sale of alcohol to under-18s.
Same how we can agree that someone should be put in prison by passing laws and then having a court of law hold a trail and find that said person did commit the acts that warrant sanctioning them with prison.
We don't just go out and lynch people.
> We don't just go out and lynch people.
Sure. And that's a good thing, I hope we agree on that. I also don't observe e.g., Czech companies doing it - which was start of this interaction. So where do we disagree?
@FailForward @piggo that refusing service to a customer abroad is equivalent to the country you are in harming the country your customer is in
@wolf480pl That seems to me a bit overreaching. Why would you draw equivalence between A) my personal decision not to engage with somebody and B) my "country" harming their country? No, we certainly don't agree that A equals B here. Nor am I able to understand why would anybody actually take that stance. Those are 2 different things to me.
@wolf480pl Yes, such a hypothetical company would be certainly harming Poland in this story. But what is wrong about it?
Just as a side-note to show that this situation is not very realistic even if hypothetical, suppose such a Gazprom would exist. That would most likely mean that either 1) natural gas is abundant, or 2) totally unimportant matter - in both cases to a point where commercial companies have a sovereign powers over it - in which case the hypothetical Poland would just switch the provider, because if one Gazprom could exist, then so can 2, 3 or more.
In reality, in Gazprom case we are dealing with a state owning its own resources and using them as a strategic weapon against others - and all that just covered up in a structure of a commercial company. But that is a rather normal state of affairs, isn't it?
I think your example would be more fitting if instead of Gazprom you'd say Apple (also big and important) refusing to open a subsidiary and thus do business in say, Burundi (nothing against Burundi, it just crossed my mind). And that is a totally usual configuration, isn't it?
@FailForward @piggo
Except you can still make ICBMs without a Macbook
@FailForward @piggo
Hmm ok, let's bisect.
Imagine that Gazprom was an independent company making decisions independently of Russian government.
If such imaginary Gazprom hypothetically decided to abruptly end its business relationship with PGNiG (the primary gas company in Poland), and as a result there was a gas shortage in Poland, would that be Gazprom the company hurting Poland the country?