Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#321

Post by edblarney » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 5:30 PM UTC

Dr0Dre wrote: post #252

edblarney wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's de-facto a M/E country. The North African countries are Arabic, Muslim, and are geopolitically part of the Arabic sphere of influence which is de-facto the same thing as middle east. 'North Africa' I find to be not descriptive. The best term would be 'Maghreb' - but nobody knows what that means. M/E is an appropriate geopolitical designation.

> The North African countries are Arabic Wrong my friend. Morocco and Algeria for example have more than 50% ethnic berbers [0]. Saying it's part of the middle east show your lack of knowledge of the region and its distinct culture. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers

Morocco and Algeria are definitely Arabic countries.

They speak Arabic officially, they belong to the 'Arab league', they are Muslim (because of Arabic colonialization).

I'm 100% aware of what the Berbers are, save your insults for Reddit.

They were colonized by Arabs 1000 years ago, and they fit quite fundamentally into the Arab sphere of influence.

Obviously, they are all different, and 'more different' the further you get from the Gulf ... but most Arab countries are in fact, quite different as well.

Geopolitically - they are basically M/E countries. Our approach to them has nothing to do with 'the rest of Africa' and everything to do with the status of other M/E countries.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#322

Post by tptacek » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

wink wrote: post #320

tptacek wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is true. The stronger the employment market, the more market power labor has. We can easily get new jobs. But we cannot easily find jobs that satisfy all the points I laid out above. Short exercise periods, for instance, are almost universal among tech startups. Companies can get away with doing that because right now , the interest in fixing that is diffuse, and the interest in maintaining the status qu…

I'd love to see any numbers on how many "startup employees with stock options" there even are compared to normal salaried employees without any vesting periods. And then compare that to other countries. Maybe that's my point. I don't see myself disagreeing with anything you wrote, yet you seem to take it that way :)

We don't need to unionize every software developer in the world. If the targets we want to apply pressure to are startups, all we have to unionize are the startups.

Sorry if I sound snippy. That happens a lot. The problem is with message boards: they're weighted heavily towards comments that highlight distinctions in point of view. That doesn't mean, in my case at least, that I'm trying to be dismissive.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#323

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 8:38 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #227

ChuckMcM wrote: post #119

That is an interesting headline, when I read it I immediately thought the coda would be, "... but advertising networks offer to share theirs." There is absolutely technology already out there that, without your voluntary participation, puts you into arbitrarily precise boxes. One need only look at the targeting options on a Facebook ad to realize just how deep that data goes. Adtech companies have invested billions i…

That's not really true. Look at the ads that are targeted at you, and you'll see that adtech data is really quite inaccurate. Ad companies collect the data so they can make impressive promises to investors and clients, or just tick a box in a spreadsheet somewhere. Anyone in the industry will tell you that they are bad at using it, and bad at vetting it. Ad company data is nothing like what you could get from Google…

Ok. Try this experiment at home. Create a fictitious business and sign up for a Facebook advertising account. Now call your assigned sales rep and say "Hi, our business sells Halal meats for the Muslim community, what parameters should I be using to target my ads to people who would be looking for that?"

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#324

Post by CN7R » Sun, Dec 18, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #48

What about a database of people from countries with high propensity for radicalization, for example Tunisia, or Somalia? Paradox: Tunisia is perhaps the most progressive of all the M/E Muslim countries, and yet they are the #1 M/E country in terms of Jihadis. They are overwhelmingly the greatest per/capita Jihadi producers in the world. By far. Tunisia is very small. Networks are very small. 95% chance that a young m…

Tunisia might be the most progressive country in the MENA region -- guaranteeing gender equality and women's rights -- but all that happened under the former president, Habib Bourguiba. The ousted president, Ben Ali, did very little for progressivism; under his reign, he enacted neoliberal economic reforms that while may have made the country wealthier as a whole, lessened living standards for the average Tunisian. Economic growth masks the fact that buying food is an issue, the education system is inept, and unemployment levels are at all time highs. The people's discontent with the secular government can be seen in the political polarization of the country: in recent elections, the Ennahada party -- Islamist in belief -- captured half of Parliamentary seats; their voter base all came from the rural inner region of Tunisia. When you have a group of disillusioned youth, combined with a pervalent Islam sentiment in the country, I don't think the popularity of jihad would be a paradox.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#325

Post by adrienne » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:03 AM UTC

AcerbicZero wrote: post #163

dmritard96 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

equating the purchase of a shotgun to having an ethnic or religious identity is a sad statement.

An interesting, but somewhat depressing argument can be made that subscribing to a specific religion, along with one or two other "flags" is actually far more dangerous than legally purchasing a firearm. Most reports put between 80%-94% of crimes involving a gun as being committed with an illegally obtained weapon. Which means of the 300k firearm related crimes in 2013 perhaps less than 20k were due to legal gun owne…

Yes! In fact, in the United States, being a white dude who is at least nominally Christian is a HUGE risk factor for being a perpetrator of a mass killing. It'd be great if we could have a database of disaffected young white dudes from Christian households, right? We could prevent a lot of violence!

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#326

Post by this-dang-guy » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 8:11 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #209

jdmichal wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is using a SSN as proof of citizenship, they are blatantly wrong. SSNs can and are issued to aliens. https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10096.pdf USCIS lists as common proofs of citizenship: US birth certificate, US passport, certificate of citizenship, or naturalization certificate. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/A4...

I imagine they are thinking of it being a list C document: https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/acceptable-documents (an unrestricted SSN is proof of eligibility to work in the US)

Yes, and no less than 3 of my former jobs required a photocopy of the card itself. You can argue legal requirements, or you can shut up and be paid.

Sometimes it's better to be paid than right. (Especially on your first few jobs)