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

Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 378 posts

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#351

Post by belorn »

oconnor663 wrote: post #290
oska wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, I think it's pretty troubling that the French government banned a bunch of Muslim religious garments. You're either misinformed on the French legislation or, less charitably, willfully misrepresenting it. The legislation [1] passed by the French government was a ban on face coverings in public spaces. It included covering the face with balaclavas, full face helmets, masks and yes, full face veils such…

I promise you that I reread that article before I commented about it, and we can all plainly see that 1% of the discussion is about balaclavas and 99% of it is about the effect of the law on Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law_on_secularity_and_c... is also relevant. To be fair, maybe the article is that way because it was written by non-Frenchmen with non-French sensibilities. I understand that French…

Almost all countries has categories of clothing which is considered decent and proper based on culture and norms. The French law want extend which specific items should be excluded, while those opposing it want to include specific items. However it is not politically right to saying you want to exclude or include specific items in the set of decent and proper clothing, so what we get is one group making general laws that forbids "types" of clothing while having a disproportional effect that focus specific clothes, while the other side argues for general rights (religious or otherwise) but which never will be implemented in ways that actually removes the distinction between decent and proper, and indecent and improper clothing.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#352

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

toss1 wrote: post #119
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Companies dont have our interests in mind any more than the government, but we can vote the government out. Companies are easier to not do business with. Governments only get voted out if enough people agreed to vote with you. Also, only one of these groups generally has the ability to use violence against you, and if the other group has that ability, it is only because the first allowed it to be delegated.

No, they are not easier to not do business with, and it is also harder to find out when we should attempt to not do business with them. Try telling people who have only Comcast to not get off the Internet, or people with only one nearby grocery store to boycott it. Both require strenuous oversight, and without a govt capable and willing to constrain that oversight, you wind up wint an economy like the 1890s robber ba…

>Try telling people who have only Comcast to not get off the Internet, or people with only one nearby grocery store to boycott it.

Regardless of the personal cost to not doing business with them, they won't send an armed force after you that will kidnap you. But with the government, if you want to grow a plant on your own property that they don't agree with, they will. That makes a massive difference.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#353

Post by bogomipz »

slavik81 wrote: post #336
bogomipz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Not everyone thinks authoritarianism is morally wrong" The people who don't find authoritarianism morally wrong are generally elites who enjoy privilege on account of their being ranking members of that authoritarian regime. Can you provide any examples of a 21st century authoritarian regimes where this hasn't been true? Mugabe? Bouteflika? Quaddafi? Assad? I don't think so.

Rodrigo Duterte. Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support. They get things done. Mussolini made the trains run on time. A cult of personality is how an authoritarian leader defends themselves from being overthrown by other members of their regime. They ensure that they are associated with all the good that their government does, while deflecting blame for the bad towards scapegoats. Worrying about fairness or the…

Duterte was democratically elected. He will be stepping down in 2022 and has already been voicing his support for Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

>"Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support."

"Strongman" is not even a real political term its a media term invented in the US media and first applied to General Noriega of Panama. The term doesn't even necessarily apply to official the head of state as was the case with Noriega.

>"Mussolini made the trains run on time."

No this is not actually true. See:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

And my question was regarding authoritarian regimes of the 21st century. The rise of Mussolini was very much tied the consequences of World War 1 on Italy.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#354

Post by tim333 »

titzer wrote: post #341
pg_bot wrote: post #27

This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. For those unaware, the United States runs on what I call "Air Bud rules", named for this scene from the children's movie.[0] To summarize, as long as there isn't a rule forbidding you from doing something, you can do it. While I applaud his personal stance on refusing to…

> This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation I'll take your permissionless innovation and raise you 8 million tons of plastic garbage going into the oceans every year[1], a depleted Ozone layer, black lung, asbestos, and unbreathable air. (Not to mention global warming--egad!) The problem is that industry "permissionlessly innovates" and because profitable innovations…

Re [1] you have to give pg_bot that the argument was "why America has a culture of innovation"

and your counters are all basically non American. As to "8 million tons of plastic garbage going into the oceans every year[1], a depleted Ozone layer, black lung, asbestos, and unbreathable air. " America does rather well at getting rid of those, China is the biggest offender.

It works in America because they do pass laws to reduce that stuff, China could try harder.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#355

Post by bogomipz »

ska wrote: post #194
bogomipz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?" No but it would be nice if they at least upheld the same values of the country that they themselves are a product of. Or are values just things you can draw arbitrary borders around when it's convenient?

it would be nice if they at least upheld the same values of the country that they themselves are a product of. One could say the same of the government :)

Heh, yes agreed.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#356

Post by zhengwang »

tim333 wrote: post #354
titzer wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation I'll take your permissionless innovation and raise you 8 million tons of plastic garbage going into the oceans every year[1], a depleted Ozone layer, black lung, asbestos, and unbreathable air. (Not to mention global warming--egad!) The problem is that industry "permissionlessly innovates" and because profitable innovations…

Re [1] you have to give pg_bot that the argument was "why America has a culture of innovation" and your counters are all basically non American. As to "8 million tons of plastic garbage going into the oceans every year[1], a depleted Ozone layer, black lung, asbestos, and unbreathable air. " America does rather well at getting rid of those, China is the biggest offender. It works in America because they do pass laws…

[dead]

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#357

Post by zhengwang »

bilbo0s wrote: post #7

I actually applaud Poulson for leaving Google in protest of Google's Chinese business practices. Having mentioned that, I think I have to part ways with him when he implies that the correct way to "fix" this is to have the government come in and make these sorts of business decisions for the company. I don't believe in the government obliging businesses to do things. Especially when it looks like this whole thing is…

[dead]

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#358

Post by true_religion »

zaarn wrote: post #334
pg_bot wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made no such argument for no regulation. My argument is that we have a set of rules, and we should not interfere with decision making if rules have not been broken. If in response to some exploitation of the rules which you deem as unhealthy to society you may pass new rules to deal with that behavior. You can't just mess with someone because you don't like them.

That's a bit paradox, isn't it? If the only allowed way to change the rules is in response to behavior you deem unhealthy to society, how can we should not interfere if the rules have not been broken? And deeming something as being unhealthy to society is a sort of process of dislike in a subjective notion since there is no objective way for a society to be unhealthy.

Well we can talk about making a rule, and covering future cases but we don't have to castigate people for actions they took in the past where no such rule existed.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#359

Post by Bartweiss »

Rapzid wrote: post #318
Bartweiss wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can appreciate the sentiment here, but I'm reluctant to accept it on a purely practical basis. Which is to say: how do we make that happen? What does it look like? The idea of inalienable rights is theoretical at best, because a large fraction of the world is alienated from any right one cares to name. As an assertion that humans deserve these things, that they should be demanded without compromise or compensation?…

I'm not proposing anything legal or technical; simply that there is appears to be a dissonance between how some view the acceptability of allowing government and corporations to violate "rights" and "liberties" at home vs abroad. If that can't be overcome, I don't know how we could ever make progress on the technicalities.

Oh, entirely endorsed then. I may have been a bit quick on the gun because I've seen some rather loopy proposals to enshrine that non-distinction in law, but I certainly agree that there's an alarming moral incoherence.

The idea that it's somehow better for an American company to help regressive, unelected governments abroad spy on people than to do the same at home is nastily backwards. Hell, even the idea that it's fine for international companies like that to source their labor in the US (a la Hacking Team) is loathsome, and I'm not sure why it doesn't draw more criticism.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#360

Post by throw2016 »

pg_bot wrote: post #27

This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. For those unaware, the United States runs on what I call "Air Bud rules", named for this scene from the children's movie.[0] To summarize, as long as there isn't a rule forbidding you from doing something, you can do it. While I applaud his personal stance on refusing to…

This is like appealing for ethics after the river is polluted, wondering why none of the people involved didn't protest earlier, and worse hoping that individual protest now will somehow fix the problem while the pollution continues unabated.

The only reason someone is not building a nuclear plant in your neighborhood or polluting rivers and poisoning your kids is regulations. The idea that this 'dampens innovation' is an extremely narrow view of 'innovation' without context of consequences.

Building surveillance infrastructure is unethical and pollutes the commons and democracy, every educated person knows this, yet hundreds of thousands of 6 figure earning engineers did it anyway. These are the same old problems of commons that have been solved by human societies with governance, rule of law and democracy.

The 'repositioning' of government and rules and regulations as a 'constraint' is fundamentally anti rule of law. Governments is 'you' in a democracy. Constraints and laws exists for businesses but also individuals, how will lifting constraints lead to a civilized society?

This promotes an unstable society that regresses to barbarism by those who want all the benefits of civilized society in terms of stability, peace, education, science and markets but do not want to think how this comes to be.

Post reply on HN