Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 516 posts

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#61

Post by greyman »

dev_dull wrote: post #11
iainmerrick wrote: post #10

One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream? Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing…

I want them to have these contracts because I want the smartest people on the planet working to defend our country. This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.

But there are also people outside of your country. Google is a global company, and I am also their customer... It doesn't feel right to support a company, which in turn supports military of another country than mine.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#62

Post by greyman »

bad_user wrote: post #60
_ptgt wrote: post #30

These employees are free to exercise their right to (not) work for whomever they want, but the certainty they express (as well as most commenters here) in their own self-righteousness seems misplaced to me. There's certainly a case to be made that a strong US military is in the world's best interest. In fact, I would wager that a majority of Americans (and a majority of citizens of democratic countries across the wor…

Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. So what stops me, as a Google customer (which I am), to stop doing business with them, given that I see proof after proof that they are working against my interests? This is the same problem as with the Snowden le…

> I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance.

Yes, that's exactly the problem. What if in the future, my country and USA will be enemies? It is not very probable, but so wasn't a prospect of war in Ukraine, for example. You just don't know how things will develop, and if a company want's to be global, it shouldn't directly support a military of a specific country.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#63

Post by letsgetphysITal »

dev_dull wrote: post #12
robin_reala wrote: post #5

Every company I apply to is told during the interview process that I will not work on military projects, and that I would probably leave the company if they chose to take on a military contract. If you have personal moral limits and you’re upfront about them then no-one is the worse off; I’ve yet to be turned down for a job over it and, somewhat the opposite, companies seem to appreciate frankness.

If you contribute to open source software then you’re contributing to military projects.

Contributing to something which could be used by the military is different to contributing to something which will be used by the military specifically.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#64

Post by musage »

pmontra wrote: post #14
iainmerrick wrote: post #10

One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream? Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing…

It can be not to leave all of that cake to its main competitors: if Google takes a slice from Amazon and Microsoft, they will grow a little less faster. This applies to every sector, not only government and military. If you ever played boardgames (especially German style) maybe you'll remember some games when only one player developed some resource unchecked by the other ones. This usually leads to an easy win for th…

Yeah, and when someone asks you for directions, don't tell them the truth, lead them into a trap that is profitable for you if possible, otherwise at least lead them into a wrong direction; else you might be giving them an easy win.

It's not actually a board game, and if you ever read about any totalitarian "philosophy" (especially German style), you'll come across this same reasoning. Of course it applies to every sector, because that's just how life is. When will people stop shooting the messengers, right?

> Of course it's extremely easy to say, the heck with it. I'm just going to adapt myself to the structures of power and authority and do the best I can within them. Sure, you can do that. But that's not acting like a decent person. You can walk down the street and be hungry. You see a kid eating an ice cream cone and you notice there's no cop around and you can take the ice cream cone from him because you're bigger and walk away. You can do that. Probably there are people who do. We call them "pathological". On the other hand, if they do it within existing social structures we call them "normal". But it's just as pathological. It's just the pathology of the general society.

-- Noam Chomsky

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#65

Post by _ptgt »

bad_user wrote: post #60
_ptgt wrote: post #30

These employees are free to exercise their right to (not) work for whomever they want, but the certainty they express (as well as most commenters here) in their own self-righteousness seems misplaced to me. There's certainly a case to be made that a strong US military is in the world's best interest. In fact, I would wager that a majority of Americans (and a majority of citizens of democratic countries across the wor…

Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. So what stops me, as a Google customer (which I am), to stop doing business with them, given that I see proof after proof that they are working against my interests? This is the same problem as with the Snowden le…

>Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance.

A multi-national company is still responsible to multiple nations in differing amounts though, no? It shouldn't mean "responsible to no one." And America quite clearly should have some significant claim on Google, even if it isn't all of it (or necessarily even a majority). Furthermore, most of the those non-American countries that Google should be accountable to (i.e. most democratic countries and most developed countries... as that is from where it draws revenue and employees) rely, in large part, on the US military for their own national security.

>There's also a real chance that I might get hit by a brick and die tomorrow, yet that doesn't stop me from going out.

This misses the point entirely--which was that whether or not the US military is good or bad for the world is a complicated and difficult question to answer. At the very least, this is clear from the large number of democratic countries who have chosen to mostly rely on the US military for their own national security. So the apparent certainty in the moral correctness of those refusing to work on technology for it is unjustified.

Again, I'm not saying that these employees are necessarily making the incorrect moral decision. I'm saying that the conversations on this topic seem to overlook a lot of the ethical difficulties associated with their choice.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#66

Post by FearOfReprisal »

mankash666 wrote: post #56

Software engineers in the valley seem disconnected from reality. Maybe they believe politically correct fairies drop from the heavens and secure the US, it's borders and interests. Or maybe the Taliban and ISIS don't deserve drone attacks. Whatever their delusion, it's for the good. Military and defense funding yielded everything from the transistor to the internet. Let the next wave of innovation happen outside the…

Hey what's your name? I keep a blacklist of patriotic amurrikkkans like yourself so I can make sure that if your resume comes across my desk, I'll get to mock you on Instagram before round-filing your application.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#67

Post by B-Con »

onion2k wrote: post #27
iainmerrick wrote: post #10

One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream? Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing…

They’re amazingly profitable already That isn't enough. Due to the frankly idiotic way corporate investors think 'any company that isn't growing must be dying'. Google will need to continue to demonstrate growth forever despite that being impossible. Growing in the ad market is hard because they're already the biggest player, so Google are looking at new things to do. This is just one of them.

> That isn't enough. Due to the frankly idiotic way corporate investors think 'any company that isn't growing must be dying'.

I despise it when I see large companies make business moves purely to "grow". The big ones are roughly the size of the first world, excuse them for not growing a full 20% like they did last year.

Investors are in a bubble of "bigger is better". Who cares if you have a monetization strategy or how good your product is, how big are you? Who cares about the quality of interaction, how much did you get?

You see the social media giants like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc, make UX moves that their dedicated userbase displakes purely because they're trying to tap into the long tail of users. Sometimes it feels like they would prefer 3x the userbase at 1/5 the average interaction quality because moar unique active accounts/month!!111

I would bet this ridiculous obsession with QonQ growth is responsible for half the irritating garbage UX we experience. It tests better for engaging the long tail so it ships. It's why your timelines/feeds refuse to sort chronologically, the casual masses only do drive-bys and need to be hooked/engaged every micro-chance that presents itself. It's why they want to curate your feeds, because most people are turned off by a raw firehose and the best content needs to be front and center when they do glance past it.

It's why Twitter literally runs ads literally telling people how to choose a username[0], because if you have a phone then please create an account, like seriously omgplzcreateanaccountwehavetogrowlikethisquarter!!!

Sorry, sore spot for me.

[0]: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/comedian-romesh-ranga...

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#69

Post by cbg0 »

gok wrote: post #33

I wonder how many engineers refused to build tools to sell ads for counterfeit medicine.

I don't know if you're trying to imply that they're being hypocritical or not, but those engineers built tools to sell ads in general, not to sell specific ads, so there's probably a lot of reprehensible stuff being advertised for with these tools, things which those engineers might not agree with. You wouldn't blame a knife maker for people stabbing each other.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#70

Post by musage »

dev_dull wrote: post #11
iainmerrick wrote: post #10

One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream? Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing…

I want them to have these contracts because I want the smartest people on the planet working to defend our country. This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.

Don't assume because someone isn't partaking in your game they're not good enough for it -- it might not be good enough for them. The smartest people on the planet wouldn't go anywhere near the advertisement industry or the military of a country involved in wars of aggression. Okay, maybe "smart" people would, but intelligent and wise people wouldn't, not from what I have sampled so far. They all seem to look right through and begin after what is the impenetrable zenith of "smartness" for you.
Post reply on HN