Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#61

Post by firic » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:37 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #30

macspoofing wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal way to claim asylum is to do so from official points of entry.

No. The legal way to claim asylum is to do so within a year of entering the country, regardless of whether your entry was official[1]. The US is currently breaking its commitment to the 1951 UN convention on the rights of refugees by not ignoring "irregular entry." [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158

Sure, they may apply for asylum. However, if they entered illegally, then they should be detained so that if they are not accepted for asylum then they can get deported.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#62

Post by hueving » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

vinhboy wrote: post #22

coliveira wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that one can live outside of politics comes either from naiveté or from tacit support for the existing status quo. The later option is the most common, people just figure that they don't want to put the effort needed to change the system and at the same time want to deny the morality of such decision.

HN is very guilty as of this. The insistence that HN should never discuss politics is morality reprehensible. The people in this community creates many tools and products that could help or hurt a lot of people. As such, we should readily engage in political discussion so that we fully understand the impact we have.

People in general are far too immature to discuss politics. They are happy to spew opinions an complain about the ignorance of 'the other side' but they don't actually want to listen to other perspectives.

Look at this thread for examples. Comparing ICE agents to Nuremberg, etc.

This platform (due to the vote-based sorting) and this community are not capable of discussing politics in any meaningful sense. It's just popular opinions drowning out unpopular ones. That's why discussing politics is and should be discouraged.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#63

Post by netsharc » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

jadedhacker wrote: post #38

deegles wrote: post #3

> “Our current engagement with ICE is focused on moving legacy infrastructure such as mail, calendar, messaging and document management to the cloud using Azure.” I don’t understand why this makes it any better. I’m sure there’s a lot of “messaging and document management” needed to run those detainment centers. And besides, what’s going to happen in the future when they do ask to use Cognitive Services in their miss…

Child concentration camps run a lot smoother on Office 365, now on Azure! EDIT: Anyone that collaborates with ICE from this point forward is complicit. In a just world, collaborators, ICE officers, and high officials would be tried in the International Criminal Court. Following orders or making money was not an acceptable defensible at Nuremberg, nor will it be in the coming future when the US loses enough internatio…

Smells like IBM supplying tabulating machines to the Nazi government...

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#64

Post by t0astbread » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #55

jhanschoo wrote: post #19

It would be nice if the recent instances of employee pressure in Google and Microsoft are early signs of software workers organizing.

Organizing for what? Google employees are well paid, have exceptional benefits — why would they want to potentially destroy all that for collective bargaining? That’s ridiculous.

Because they don't want to support the practises of their organization?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#65

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

vinhboy wrote: post #22

coliveira wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that one can live outside of politics comes either from naiveté or from tacit support for the existing status quo. The later option is the most common, people just figure that they don't want to put the effort needed to change the system and at the same time want to deny the morality of such decision.

HN is very guilty as of this. The insistence that HN should never discuss politics is morality reprehensible. The people in this community creates many tools and products that could help or hurt a lot of people. As such, we should readily engage in political discussion so that we fully understand the impact we have.

The reason HN tries to avoid discussing politics is because it's not suited for productive political discussions, so everything would be drowned in noise.

I honestly don't know of any place on the Internt suited for a productive political discussion. I'd join such a space in a heartbeat. Given how politics is both complicated and universally triggers all the bugs in human minds, such a place would have to both structurally and culturally support discovery, fact-checking and moderation that ensures only good-intended, honest people participate.

(Regardless, borderline politics happens here all the time - it's because whenever tech impacts something political, people will bring that up and discuss it. So your complaint here is invalid anyway.)

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#66

Post by cm2187 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:58 AM UTC

The problem is that "doing evil" is in the eyes of the beholder. To some it is performing a gay wedding. Are we supporting a world where it is ok to refuse to sell a cake because it would be used in a gay wedding? Is it a good thing that the major cloud providers and OS makers enforce a democrat agenda on their clients? I think this is undesirable and dangerous. Already there are many calls for social medias to step in to police the political debate and suppress comments that are deemed to carry fake news. It is only too obvious how such a responsability can be abused (and if human nature and history teaches us anything, will be abused).

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#67

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:02 AM UTC

everdev wrote: post #9

As I get older, it's becoming clear how intertwined our morality is with our politics. And how that bleeds into business, sports, religion, etc. It's nice to think of aspects of life that should be free from politics, but in reality that seems hard to achieve.

People answering to you that "everything is politics" or that "separating tech and politics is naïve" are - perhaps unwittingly - doing a motte-and-bailey argument. The motte here is "whenever 3+ people meet, it's already politics" and "if it impacts people, it's politics". The bailey is political parties, ideologies, rallies, buzzwords, presidents. There are two definitions of "politics" at play that are being mixed, where they absolutely shouldn't.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#68

Post by firic » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:04 AM UTC

Karishma1234 wrote: post #10

factsaresacred wrote: post #6

> I think that what we’re seeing right now with ICE is deeply immoral. It’s a violation of human rights on all kinds of levels. Treating criminals as criminals happens every day in every country and comes with the same consequences - children are separated from their parents. Right now there are tens of thousands of broken black homes as one or two parents are in prison - where's the outrage for them and what about t…

Not at all. Children are not separated because you used your prescription medicine after its end date. Children are not separated because you ran a red light. Border crossing is merely misdemeanor and most of them are just seeking asylum. > Illegal aliens ignore US law, knowing full well that their acts are illegal and have consequences. Go to a port of entry or embassy like all other immigrants. It's that simple. Mo…

Running a red light usually does not result in arrest. But if someone ran a red light and then refused to show their license and got arrested. Well, if their child was with them, then the child would not be put in the same prison that the parent was put in. ie. they would be separated.

I didn't read the law so I may be mistaken, but based on my understanding is someone comes to a proper boarder control and claims asylum then they will not be arrested. The ones being arrested are the ones who are crossing illegally and then when caught, claiming asylum.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#69

Post by bkor » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:06 AM UTC

jgaa wrote: post #45

Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil. When I wrote the War FTP Daemon in 1996, as freeware, this became a problem to me. I did want to give away my work for free, but I did not want any government agency to abuse it. So I came up with a solution - a GPL license with an additional clause - that the government - any government - could not use it for any purpose…

> Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil.

If a lot of people assume this, then eventually behaviour happens according to the expectation. Within Netherlands I assume the government is usually there to make things better (though there are exceptions). What is considered better might be completely different, but still, it's assumed to be better.

I've since have a few friends who work for a municipality. It's quite refreshing to notice that they're way more open to try and do good for everyone. Unfortunately there's more populism (ignore facts, just follow assumptions).

It seems better to actively ensure that people should be improving things to ensure there's an environment where bad behaviour is frowned upon.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#70

Post by Certhas » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:06 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #66

The problem is that "doing evil" is in the eyes of the beholder. To some it is performing a gay wedding. Are we supporting a world where it is ok to refuse to sell a cake because it would be used in a gay wedding? Is it a good thing that the major cloud providers and OS makers enforce a democrat agenda on their clients? I think this is undesirable and dangerous. Already there are many calls for social medias to step…

That last part is just the slippery slope fallacy though. There are many cases where you are not allowed to lie, and knowingly helping someone lie is also a criminal offence.