Wait, there's no NBA thread?

[Mo]

Only if one old dude is a white dude wearing goggles and a sweat band.

[Highway]

[Warren]

QFT

[Mo]

Looks like honoring the flag and 'Merica helps ratings and being all political and shit hurts them. Wait, what? You mean sports ratings might not be about politics?

[JasonL]

So it begins. Choke on this Mark Emmert.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/2501 ... route-ncaa

[JasonL]

More preposterous post career hypocrite, Rodney Harrison finger wagging about how there's no room in the NFL for late hits/dirty play/head hunting, you name it, or Kobe Bryant finger wagging at Kyrie Irving about how the missing part of his game is learning how to make teammates better?

"Find an emotional connection with teammates" haha. Hahahahaaa. Ha.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kobe ... teammates/

[Mo]

The way the NBA and the Rockets bent over backward for Morey's mild pro-Hong Kong tweets shows that "woke capitalism" doesn't exist. It's all just marketing. Though the best way to push back are domestic boycotts.

It's getting exhausting how much Western culture and brands are hemmed in by Chinese government shibboleths.

[nicole]

The way the NBA and the Rockets bent over backward for Morey's mild pro-Hong Kong tweets shows that "woke capitalism" doesn't exist. It's all just marketing. Though the best way to push back are domestic boycotts.

It's getting exhausting how much Western culture and brands are hemmed in by Chinese government shibboleths.

You’re not kidding.

[JasonL]

+1 also. They are the bad guys. They just are. I don’t want billions of them starving through lack of development and I don’t want a costly trade war, but a world where their norms prevail is not a better one.

[Mo]

+1 also. They are the bad guys. They just are. I don’t want billions of them starving through lack of development and I don’t want a costly trade war, but a world where their norms prevail is not a better one.

This. Also, the NBA won't have the All Star game in NC because of the transgender bathroom bill, but they have no problem putting a training camp in Xinjiang, where they have the Uyghur reeducation camp.

[Mo]

I cosign this. If they can't deal with a tweet from one exec, the price will get much higher. Take away China's bread and circuses and inflict some reciprocal pain.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/china ... versy.html

[Mo]

Cowen is quite adept at making galactically dumb takes. NBA employees critcize the US government, it's largest market by far. It's also one thing to say the NBA should be apolitical and another that everyone associated with the NBA should be. The NBA telling employees, it's ok to criticize police brutality in the US, but shush when it comes to China is not an apolitical stance. And his point about making anti-China criticism now being off base, as we've seen from a number of brands, including the stupid Tiffany's thing, that that is basically what's happening. FFS, they made the Ancient One in Dr. Strange not Tibetan because China would have banned the movie.

[Jennifer]

Even if you guys aren't South Park fans, you really ought to watch the latest episode "Band in China" -- it deals (among other things) with precisely that theme: China's sensibilities dictating what movies and other forms of entertainment Americans can watch. Fuck China, and fuck the NBA for caving.

[JasonL]

Hate that Cowen take and I have more tolerance for his contrarian grandstanding than Mo. It’s usually an interesting contrarianism.

A uniform non engagement would not be productive, but tit for tat is probably helpful in things their people value that would be difficult to replace. Like - soybeans is not the right play because it’s a commodity. The most powerful thing is engagement then take it away.

I think we need to stare pretty hard at the methods of Chinese influence. If it is just they have a big market and Chinese tastes will matter ok we can live with that. This thing where their propaganda or opening technology becomes a requirement of engagement because the government requires it should viewed with extreme side eye.

[Mo]

And I support the administration blacklist of the 8 companies doing the Uyghur dirty work. I’m cool with targeted sanctions for bad behavior.

[JasonL]

Yes. Tit for tat in targeted conditions not “win global trade by blowing up all deals”.

[Mo]

Though I will say, I find it amusing that people that previously said “corporations should maximize profits and not have political views*” are now saying “the NBA should stand up for human rights and for their employees!” Like those are two contradictory points of view. If the NBA should solely be a profit maximizing organization, they should firmly throw Morey under the bus.

* Not talking about anyone here

[Eric the .5b]

Eh, to an extent (which doesn't cover the current president) I can understand I don't want corporations taking sides in my country's partisan politics, but I don't want them to help dictators do evil, either.

[Mo]

If you think a company's only social responsibility is to maximize profits, it doesn't matter whose ass they're kissing.

[JasonL]

If you think a company's only social responsibility is to maximize profits, it doesn't matter whose ass they're kissing.

The edges of the moral framework have always been the extent to which fundamental assumptions of rights are in play. He was addressing for the most part what has come to be called stakeholder value by E Warren and her ilk. In that discussion he is entirely correct. Stakeholder arguments are complete bullshit. If you want to invoke a what about slavery or what about deals with totalitarian regimes sort of thing, there is an argument that the market assumptions would no longer be even kind of true but I can see it as a general critique in 2019 global capitalism.

The counter to that critique would still be - why is it the firm not the customers voting with feet that should be the moral agents here. I’m a little persuaded by both arguments

[Eric the .5b]

If you think a company's only social responsibility is to maximize profits, it doesn't matter whose ass they're kissing.

If your stance is actually that absolute, yes. Most people's' stances aren't that absolute on most issues, and most people don't subscribe to the all-inclusive idea of politics that puts "not annoying fans by weighing in on everyday partisanship" or "not supporting XYZ cause" on the same plane as "not publically toeing a foreign dictatorship's line". Most people work by degrees, not absolutes.

I mean, I suppose you could mock the "get woke go broke" people about this, or the more lizardy capitalism boosters, but to the extent they'd care, that'd just encourage them to double down and go "Fine, whatever, don't care about that either."

Or maybe I've got too much weltschmerz and not enough blood sugar right now. Dunno.

[Mo]

Two fans were kicked out of a preseason game for holding “Free Hong Kong” signs. The game was in Philly.

[Jadagul]

I am a little sympathetic to Cowen's point on the original tweet, although I mostly think it's bad.

The kicking fans out of the Philly game is just appalling.

Though it's maybe not as bad as some of the other "American companies censoring on behalf of China stories". Don't have time to find the link again but there was a really disturbing roundup going around earlier today.

[nicole]

If you think a company's only social responsibility is to maximize profits, it doesn't matter whose ass they're kissing.

The edges of the moral framework have always been the extent to which fundamental assumptions of rights are in play. He was addressing for the most part what has come to be called stakeholder value by E Warren and her ilk. In that discussion he is entirely correct. Stakeholder arguments are complete bullshit. If you want to invoke a what about slavery or what about deals with totalitarian regimes sort of thing, there is an argument that the market assumptions would no longer be even kind of true but I can see it as a general critique in 2019 global capitalism.

The counter to that critique would still be - why is it the firm not the customers voting with feet that should be the moral agents here. I’m a little persuaded by both arguments

I mean, the customers are also voting with their feet, but more than a billion of them are in favor of concentration camps.

[Mo]

I don’t think think the customers are voting. Pretty sure if Chinese state media allowed the games to be televised, the vast majority wouldn’t GAF. I suspect they’re less snowflakey about those things than NFL fans.