Do people here feel as strongly/stonger/less strong about boycotting the NBA?
I have zero interest in basketball and I’m not sure I’ve bought more than one Activision game since the 80s (and haven’t really liked the Diablo series since the original, or StarCraft since the original, or WarCraft since 2), so this is the most meaningless boycott ever for me.
The trick is, there are societies, like China, where government and society are thoroughly intertwined. The concept of “the government is not involved” is a null set there. Unless we want to insist that the only legitimate political economy is relatively unfettered capitalism with a clear separation between public and private sectors, we are back at the problem I describe, an inability to compare apples to apples. And if we do insist on one view of economics, I doubt we can expect people to be compelled to agree with us.
The NBA hasn’t done what Blizzard did. They’ve been headed the opposite way. Also, China already cut off their support of the NBA to a major extent so it’s sorta moot now.
Also, I think this rings true…
I occasionally watch games on TV but I’ve refused to buy an NBA ticket since the Sonics left Seattle.
I don’t boycott Blizzard products entirely (I have friends that work at the Irvine HQ that I like to support) but I will certainly hesitate before buying another Hearthstone expansion unless something changes.
The NBA confiscated a pro-protest banner at a game yesterday.
The problem I have with these protests are they feel like “feel good” protests. I stopped giving Blizzard $15 a month and hell, I can go play this other game instead. Now, Blizzard’s ham handing of it is worth criticizing and may well be worth voting with your dollars about. But, it is not a protest of consequence or self-suffering.
I don’t think it gets at all to the root of the problem: The Chinese Government. It is functionally impossible to avoid anything in life that hasn’t passed through China. Apple recently caved, again, and removed an app from the app store that helped the protests? I don’t see a bunch of people smashing their phones. But even then, any phone we buy passed through China. The infrastructure we use for all communications is made in China. I looked around my office last night and was only able to Identify 3 things that I knew were manufactured in the States: a 1987 Jackson Guitar (but the tuners and strings might have came from China); a set of bookcases I bought from the builder, and a desk that has been in my family for over 50 years.
When did we start requiring protests to have consequences? There are a lot of protests that frequently don’t have consequences because a lot of us live in a generally free society which allows that.
I don’t think anyone here is under the illusion we can change the Chinese Government, but financial and social pressure can certainly deter non-Chinese companies from submitting to whatever demand China has.
The fact a lot of goods comes from China, that’s not really the issue either, but it has been brought up before.
NBA arenas have confiscated signs for political things before. I don’t think that’s uncommon. This is not an easy issue to solve. The reason they are confiscating these signs is because it’s disruptive to the event people have paid to attend.
If you attended a game night at the local game shop and some dude stood there all night with FREE HONG KONG gear and signs and kept talking about it, would you want that person there for the three to five hours it takes to play some massive board game?
That’s a good point, so long as it really is enforced universally. It’s also one thing to confiscate a sign, and another to strip a winner of his victory and winnings though. In my opinion the latter is much worse, because that political statement is momentary and can easily be tolerated, assuming a purely non-political stance (which needs to be proven first).
Correct. I’m not defending China or Blizzard. I think them taking away the guy’s winnings and victory as well as apparently firing the two people covering the event is insanely bad.
You eff with the bull (China), you’re gonna get the horns eventually.
Obviously they don’t. But, while someone canceling an unused account, or a game they don’t really care about sends a message, it’s not the same as that well-known Heathstone player bowing out. To me, that weighs more. It feels like the difference between giving a protester on the street corner a honk and a thumbs-up, and the person actually standing there with the sign all day. Someone who plays WoW a lot every week, and decided to walk away, that means more to me.
I am getting dangerously into P&R territory, but a friend is working on voting with his dollars from Amazon. We had a good chat about how damned hard that is.
Sure they’re not the same weight but the two are linked.
The person who risks his livelihood, his life, and something I presume he loves to do is making that stand to bring attention to the cause he cares about. None of that matters if he doesn’t actually get a reaction in favor of his cause, and in this case that reaction can vary from silent deletion of accounts, arguments about what is going on in Hong Kong, legal attempts to defend his writers… as a whole, all of that matters, no matter how small. It’s all keeping HK as a topic of discussion and action.
We are in agreement on this.
As has been mentioned, it’s a little different because political signs of any kind aren’t allowed at NBA games (same as any other major US sports league, AFAIK). They’d similarly confiscate a MAGA sign or an Elizabeth Warren sign.
The NBA’s initial reaction was as bad as Blizzard: forced apology from Morey, condemnation, etc. They changed course the following morning, though, and instead stood by the freedom of speech rights of people associated with the league, which is what led China to retaliate. The league is looking at losing a lot of money, but so far they’re sticking to their guns, unlike Blizzard.
I’ve never paid to see a game, so I can’t technically boycott. However, it is deeply amusing to see them exposed as a bunch of poseurs when it comes to taking a stand on an issue that might cost them some of their sweet sweet money. Safe activism FTW.
Imagine you had to give up 40% of your salary, you personally, you will make 40% less money next month and from then on until you die. But you get the moral high ground. Would you do it?
Depends. If I couldn’t look myself in the mirror and feel good about who I am and what I do, yes, I would do it.
I can cite an example of something that touches on this: I have had to terminate/fire/layoff people I personally like. I lose sleep and wince when it happens, but it’s part of conducting business and being a manager/leader. What kind of man would I be if it didn’t bother or impact me?
That choice would never occur, since modifying a product for organ harvesting tyrants should be inconceivable.
If nobody considered abiding by obscene, immoral, demands, then China would just be forced to choose whether to make this content (NBA, Marvel movies, etc) available to its people or not. It’s not as if they could go elsewhere to find an NBA competitor, and as their population gains wealth they’re also inevitably going to be more demanding to have access to content so the risks of censorship increase.
Remember when Radio Free Europe made sure not to say anything bad about the Russian leadership?
There’s a way to be a force for freedom and prosperity in the world, and it’s not by appeasing totalitarian regimes to “deliver business value in critical markets.”
If my income was 2.5 billion, like Activisions, sure.
