It would have a negative impact. The Russian government would be very glad to ban platforms like Google even though Google cooperates with them because it would help to control the population even more. Google discloses emails after request? A local social network will monitor every message for them. Youtube removes a video when it's already viral? A local video platform will ban the channel before it gets views.

Yes. Yes. Maybe. Similarly unknown.

In this case we're talking about propping up the existing Russian government who actively interfere in democracy around the world, assassinate political enemies and draw immense influence from the fear it spreads around it. Yeah, sure, why wouldn't we want to keep that going as long as we can?

Because it will end one day. Putin isn't Russia's greatest love machine. When that day comes, all the instability you'd blame on me and my ideals will rain down on us all anyway.

If you want to reduce my reasoned moral objections to "cancel culture", I'm sure you're somebody's hero, but yes, I think we should demand better from the companies we fund. Russia's instability is inevitable, either way.

We only have a limited bandwidth for action. While I don't think that everyone should be hyper-utilitarian and focus all of our effort on distributing antimalarial medication like Bill Gates is doing, you need to have some threshold of ROI if you want a proposal to be taken seriously. For example, the US government values a human life at $10 million dollars.

> This is the kind of moral framework that creates cancel culture.

Cancel culture means a lot of different things to different people. You might want to clarify your interpretation here.

> Russia will decrease many Russian's standard of living, but will have zero impact in stopping them from rigging elections.

Wow, this was a mental leap. So by giving into already established corruption of government officials in Russia, you're making it better for Russians standard of living by further having a corrupt government? I don't know how you reached this conclusion. There are thousands of businesses in Russia (and probably hundreds that are large and US centric), but only one government. One company pulling out is hardly going to make a dent in providing jobs in a country as large as Russia.

> If everyone cuts trade for moral reasons, then there's no incentive for us not to point nukes at each other again.

So, you're implying that if we didn't have global trade then nations would fight more? I don't think I've ever heard this interpretation before - care to elaborate?

> If everyone cuts trade for moral reasons, then there's no incentive for us not to point nukes at each other again.

I don't agree with OP but this is actually a pretty common talking point around the benefits of globalization. If you depend on some other country for some essential resource (e.g. natural gas) you're less likely to want to go to war with them because it would be quite inconvenient to suddenly have half your population freezing in the winter.

Here's some research from Cato that shows that trade interdependence generally promotes peace https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-policy/does-tr...

Bullshit. The Russians won’t be able to stop using iPhones, and with Apple out of Russia, the OS can be free from Russian influence.

If Apple didn't bend the knee, Russia could block its banks doing business with Apple, as well as simply blocking their networks.

Russia has a lot of power to flex against its own citizens.

And leave its citizens with what alternative? The smartphone OS duopoly is stronger than one authoritarian little shit.

"If I don't become complicit, somebody else will be. Might as well do it myself."

I haven't decided if I agree with the comment you're replying to, but this isn't a fair summary of it. Either engage with it or don't but posting a caricature doesn't exactly raise the level of debate around here.

Citing "cancel culture" as the final boss doesn't start us in a place of elevation.

Good point. I glazed over that. But still...

Pulling out of Russia might have zero immediate impact on stopping Putin rigging elections which are rigged anyway, but it would definitely reduce his and his mafia's wealth and power, thereby helping bring about the inevitable regime change sooner, and in a less turbulent way.