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We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

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Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#511

And if the employees placed thier values over profits, why are they still there? I wonder if they are going to refuse their stock based compensation?

Interesting, so do you suggest that the company's morally correct employees leave, and cause a moral evaporative cooling at the company?

If anything, you should be urging your moral friends and coworkers to go to Google.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#512
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you, for real. It takes a lot sometimes to stand up against something that a lot of other people would jump for the chance to do. While I think the average developer has a more negative opinion of Google these days, for years they have been considered one of the best places to work in the world. I know if I told my parents, for instance, I had done what you did, they probably would've called me an idiot. :P…

> Good for you, for real. It takes a lot sometimes to stand up against something that a lot of other people would jump for the chance to do. While it is a nice enough gesture, let's not kid ourselves that this was some difficult selfless act on the part of the OP. Apologies to the OP if I have misinterpreted their earlier post but: > I considered working at Google last year after a recruiter reached out to me This st…

People knowing about OP’s decision, was those in his social circle, makes a profound difference if compounded by others.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#513

> MRAP's are for combat, not police work While they were designed for combat, they are effectively the same thing that Brinks uses to transport money. They are meant to stop bad things from killing the people inside. They have 0 offensive weapons. They are entirely defensive vehicles that have been used to rescue downed officers, civilians in harms way (gunfire), and multiple times in natural disasters where other ve…

Perhaps concerns about 'the over-militarization of police' is essentially a concern for situations where an extreme power imbalance exists between police and civilians, creating a much higher risk of totalitarian abuse and oppression by police in situations where the police force in question becomes corrupt or 'bad' in some way. (Disclaimer: I'm not making an anti-LEO argument; quite the contrary, I'm very pro-LEO, and in many cases I see, LEOs are disrespected very unfairly.)

The problem isn't where police are good; the point is to design a system that inherently protects against abuse by the very small percentage of LEOs that do become corrupt and abuse their special powers that civilians do not have. How do we protect against this?

Perhaps the simplest and most robust way to protect against this abuse is simply to limit the magnitude of power imbalance between the government and the people! One could argue that this principle applies to physically defensive equipment as much as it does to computer and information systems, and any other mode of power. Additionally, this notion is encoded into our country's constitution at least in some ways.

Therefore, this leads to the question: Can a civilian buy an MRAP? If so, I think your argument works very well -- especially since they're defensive machines. If a civilian cannot buy one though, I could see the argument against police using them gaining favor.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#514

And if the employees placed thier values over profits, why are they still there? I wonder if they are going to refuse their stock based compensation?

Presumably because Dragonfly hasn't launched yet. They are trying to prevent Google from making the same mistake that Apple and so many others have before it makes that mistake.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#515
post #38

I 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'm fairly anti-China and loved Taiwan, can't wait to go back, loved it, loved the Taiwanese people.

Good for you on making a decision like that.

But... Just so long as you know that someone did take your job there. And they're almost certainly happy to do anything asked. That's something I think many idealistic users here aren't understanding.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#516
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders can do more than just fire the management team, they can set meaningful objectives and tie management compensation to reaching them.

Yeah, and then the CEO decides he'd rather make $124M that year and feel good about himself in not kowtowing to totalitarian governments vs doing so and making $125M that year. The entire point of this comment thread is that individual people are not motivated solely by money. They care about many other things too, like their values. Hell, this entire post exists because some Google employees care more about their va…

The only people not motivated solely by money are those who used the very tactics that are in question to amass enough not to care... Or simply have no stake in it, Or have a stake in a competing company.

I can assure you if google employees revolt on a number of projects and that drops the stock price in half over the course of 3 weeks PEOPLE WILL CARE... Even the ones that today you say don't care.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#517

> MRAP's are for combat, not police work While they were designed for combat, they are effectively the same thing that Brinks uses to transport money. They are meant to stop bad things from killing the people inside. They have 0 offensive weapons. They are entirely defensive vehicles that have been used to rescue downed officers, civilians in harms way (gunfire), and multiple times in natural disasters where other ve…

Perhaps concerns about 'the over-militarization of police' is essentially a concern for situations where an extreme power imbalance exists between police and civilians, creating a much higher risk of totalitarian abuse and oppression by police in situations where the police force in question becomes corrupt or 'bad' in some way. (Disclaimer: I'm not making an anti-LEO argument; quite the contrary, I'm very pro-LEO, a…

> Can a civilian buy an MRAP? If so, I think your argument works very well

Yes you can if you found one for sale (not sure what that market looks like). Civilians can also buy decommissioned tanks, Two ton trucks, humvees, etc.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#518
post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the companies value and ambition is to maximize the stock price then the stock price is a good metric. If the companies value is something else then stock price isn't really a good metric. It will also attract shareholders that share those values and thus going against them will cause an uproar.

It really depends on their charter. People don't park money in a company simply to have the stock value drop or stay the same -- with exception of companies who pay out dividends. Most companies charters talk about their relationship and obligations to the shareholders -- people don't invest in companies that don't intend on increasing in value.

Again, value doesn't have to be monetary. Shareholders has the right to expect return on their investment, yes. If the company delivers on their ambitions and values then that is the shareholders reward.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#519

And if the employees placed thier values over profits, why are they still there? I wonder if they are going to refuse their stock based compensation?

> And if the employees placed thier [sic] values over profits, why are they still there? There is probably more than one kind of profit. I think that if you've got a mortgage on a SV condo or house, and made plans for your financial life based on your income without knowing what the company you work for was or would be up to, you may be in a pretty good position to say that it's okay for you to accept a salary as you…

Have you notice that when it comes to being “brave” and speaking out against moral wrongdoing in Silicon Valley, it’s always the highly compensated white collar workers? You never see factory workers at Amazon for instance protesting about Amazon’s government contracts.

I bet you anything if people at Google who are protesting were really afraid of losing thier jobs, not as many would be protesting.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#520
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But this many Google employees acting collectively, including some very senior and long-tenured Googlers, meet that additional condition. (Disclosure: having worked at Google I know some names on that list personally, and respect them greatly. I haven't worked at Google since early 2015.)

But this was 139 out of 88K employees [1]. Doesn't seem like that many? How do we interpret the other 87K+? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti...

See Nassim Taleb's minority rule: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
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