Pretty bold. A lot of people are saying this wont work, but speaking from my own experience, you'd be surprised what companies are amicable to when it comes to business. Im an engine mechanic by trade, and our shops handle bids for cash strapped local governments that outsource their motor pool maintenance. We do things like fire trucks and police cars, but we were working on a new regional idea as a "service center"…
> Pretty bold It's interesting you would label this as such. In what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and a massive proponent of free speech and human rights, you think it's bold to write a letter on the internet to your extraordinarily famous employer? If it's considered bold in the USA involving Google, I shudder to think about anyone else doing this anywhere else. In the year 2018 I would hope it's ver…
We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
261–270 of 888 posts
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#262On the other hand, I recall reading somewhere that people who were forced into making munitions for the German army during WWII got to be really good at manufacturing faulty products that would still pass rigorous inspection. If you're really concerned about the moral implications of a project like that, it might be worth keeping your mouth shut (since somebody's going to do it whether you do it or not) and finding w…
How do you know?
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#263Pretty bold. A lot of people are saying this wont work, but speaking from my own experience, you'd be surprised what companies are amicable to when it comes to business. Im an engine mechanic by trade, and our shops handle bids for cash strapped local governments that outsource their motor pool maintenance. We do things like fire trucks and police cars, but we were working on a new regional idea as a "service center"…
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
‘Ostensibly’ does not mean what you think it means.
I think, clearly, the larger issue here is the false idea that the USA is a proponent of free speech or human rights. I would certainly never in a million years hope anyone would seriously claim the US to be the greatest country in the world.
Pretty much the only speech outlawed is child pornography and that which a reasonable person would see as inciting imminent violence. That's a pretty high bar, higher than any other country I've ever heard of.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#265I considered working at Google last year after a recruiter reached out to me, but their decision to backtrack on their promise in China changed my mind. I do not morally condemn anyone who works at Google. I have many good friends that are both bright engineers and undeniably good people that work there. I just feel that as someone who's family is Taiwanese, I cannot in good consciousness support the company. I let t…
I sympathize with your position, especially regarding Taiwan, but I wonder if your early rejection was as effective as employees rebelling? One need not take the most effective route, but given the size of Google, when I was in a similar position to yours I justified it by saying if I got an offer, I'd make it very clear I'd want nothing to do with the censorship work for the exact reason you listed.
Similarly, if internal morale is in decline and reports come back saying that it's because of X, that also has a real (and quite possibly quantifiable) cost.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are mostly "Software Engineers" and not a lot of them. Google can kick them out and replace within a month. Unfortunetly I dont think executives will give a slightest heck about this article..
> Google can kick them out and replace within a month. Ah. A believer that software engineers are cogs and can just be “replaced” without training and learning of code bases. Hiring software engineers, bringing them up to speed, and having them contribute to production features, is expensive. Also, you’ll never truly recoup the lost knowledge that goes.
In other words, every single person who is not a software developer, especially anybody in any form of "management"?
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#267Given how trash of a search engine Baidu is, Google would likely achieve market share dominance in China within a couple years - should they move forward with Dragonfly. Complying with demands of the Chinese gov't is the only way they can penetrate the Chinese market. Search engine advertising constitutes close to 85% of Google's revenue. And unlike Project Maven, which was ended due to internal resistance from emplo…
Why dont western companies band together and threaten a boycott until some kind of IP laws are enforced? They just keep getting picked off one by one.
Isn't companies banding together and agreeing to restrict business in a market a combination in restraint of trade, which is explicitly illegal?
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I’d like to try and agree... I think you may be missing a sense of scale and the reality of just how replaceable people are... even magically-gifted google employees.
Replacing people might be easy, but it's never cheap - even in industries with an abundance of candidates. The real issue with having your work-force leave is three-fold. First, you lose all the accumulated knowledge of your team. Second, you lose the cohesiveness of your team. Thirdly, you have to _pay to get a new team_. All of these things conspire to make all but the lowliest of jobs (think Target Associate) much…
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#26960 signatures, 88,000 employees :(
I'd be curious to hear what people think a reasonable target is, 1%?
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bit older, but it's a citation: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/from... > You said: "There has never been a better society than in the United States in 1958." What do you mean by that? > FROMM: Well, I mean it, of course, in relative terms. The history of man so far is nothing to brag about, from the standpoint of our ideas--and what I mean is, that in comparison with most other soci…
[flagged]
But I guess if you're interested in virtue signaling, checking boxes and waxing poetic about what could have been...rather than looking at actual quality of life stats for Americans...I guess the U.S. might look like a lost cause.
Oh and if you want to understand the electoral college, read The Federalist Papers [5]. It's far more resilient to corruption than a nationwide popular vote.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/01/news/economy/black-unemploy... [2] https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/410081-kudlow-says-latest-... [3] https://www.bea.gov/news/glance [4] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/281936-oba... [5] http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/the-federalist...