261–270 of 326 posts
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"Some social workers have observed that they simply have absolutely no respect for authority - it's meaningless to many of them" Sounds like a bunch of Richard Feynmans.
Indeed, not to mention Richard's penchant for organized crime.
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> It's got to be one or the other, right? Which is it? No, it does not as neither is what I wrote or believe. The pledge is an empty gesture matched against corporate or government interests. Pledgers do not have the same protections that Unions have now. They will be replaced. Groups organize and exert political power by playing the same game in DC as every other group that succeeded. The faster tech wakes up and le…
I'm not sure how to map this response to my question. It sounds like you're saying, "so few people will sign this that it will be easy for any tech company to make up the loss". How many would have to sign for it to be different?
How about you answer the question I asked before yours. "I can point to a long history of groups entering politics affecting change, can you do the same with a pledge to quit?"
I find the whole premise of the pledge to be a non-starter in the US. This is why congresspeople fear the NRA but not the EFF.
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I'm not sure how to map this response to my question. It sounds like you're saying, "so few people will sign this that it will be easy for any tech company to make up the loss". How many would have to sign for it to be different?
A significant chunk of all future IT workers, and as olalonde points out[1] some won't because they don't believe its wrong. How about you answer the question I asked before yours. "I can point to a long history of groups entering politics affecting change, can you do the same with a pledge to quit?" I find the whole premise of the pledge to be a non-starter in the US. This is why congresspeople fear the NRA but not…
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> proposed banning Muslims from entry to the US I was actually at the rally when he announced this. Trump wants a freeze on immigration from countries that are actively producing a large number of jihadis which, surprise, happens to be predominantly Muslim countries. The premise being, they need more scrutiny and we need time to implement such. Of course I'm sure this whole time he's just been pulling from George W's…
This is just classic FUD. The probability of being harmed in a terrorist attack is tiny and the probability of any given immigrant being a part of a terrorist attack is also tiny. This is a mountain out of a mole hill. You'd be better off eating less junk food and paying more attention while driving rather than concern yourself with these edge cases.
The problem is that terrorism leads to sectarianism, and sectarianism leads to civil war. Northern Ireland is an excellent example of this paradigm and it has been replicated in Syria.
Many people believe the same threat exists in Europe esp. France.
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A significant chunk of all future IT workers, and as olalonde points out[1] some won't because they don't believe its wrong. How about you answer the question I asked before yours. "I can point to a long history of groups entering politics affecting change, can you do the same with a pledge to quit?" I find the whole premise of the pledge to be a non-starter in the US. This is why congresspeople fear the NRA but not…
I don't understand what the US has to do with this pledge. The people signing it don't need legal defense against their employers. Leaving their jobs is the point.
I can point to a long history of groups entering politics affecting change, can you do the same with a pledge to quit?
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All it takes is a tiny team of people who "need that job".
No, you're misunderstanding the concept of the pledge. Most of the people who signed the pledge at (for instance) Google[1] are never going to be anywhere near the actual creation of misuse of databases for deportation or religious discrimination. The pledge isn't about denying labor for the actual project. What it's about is radically altering the cost to companies of having anyone comply. It doesn't matter than you…
^(the salary commonly quoted on HN about how much the usual Googler makes)
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Because they won't do it. This pledge is so full of get-out clauses it makes Swiss Cheese look robust. Many of the signers already work for companies that build large databases that could be used in bad ways by governments. This is the Silicon Valley equivalent of saying "I'll move to Canada".
Then hold them to it when something happens. Personally, I think the people who have publicly signed this, putting them a Google search away from any future employer learning about this, probably thought about it more carefully than you did. In talking to people about this pledge --- particularly people resistant to the pledge (I have conservative friends), the most notable thing I've learned is that people do this a…
Have you ever been asked on an interview how you handled being assigned to write code that you had serious ethical concerns about, or whether there was any kind of projects you'd object to being assigned to? I haven't. Maybe those questions come AFTER the whiteboard hazing if there's time...
I've in the past objected to an ethically questionable assignment, and the company dealt with by moving me to a different part of the code base and hiring a contractor who had no problem with doing the deed. Had I quit over it they would likely have shrugged and hired someone else.
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No, you're misunderstanding the concept of the pledge. Most of the people who signed the pledge at (for instance) Google[1] are never going to be anywhere near the actual creation of misuse of databases for deportation or religious discrimination. The pledge isn't about denying labor for the actual project. What it's about is radically altering the cost to companies of having anyone comply. It doesn't matter than you…
OK, so what you're saying is it boils down to math: N = Number of employees signing the pledge, Q is probability that an employee will quit their otherwise fantastic $300K/yr^ job because someone ELSE at the company is working on MuslimDB, C = average cost to replace and retrain an engineer, P = expected profit from project. If NQC Makes sense. I suppose whether it has an effect, then, depends on how many people sign…