Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shareholders do.
Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't expect that all (or even most ) shareholders think that only money matters.
There are better places to play the virtue game, than on the stock market.
We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
781–790 of 888 posts
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#782I can't find even one Chinese name on the signing list. These people have no idea what Chinese people really want and what they really need. Chinese people already lost all their privacy. They have nothing to lose by having Google operating in their country. But in contrast, I believe having Google operate again in China can actually help human rights in there. Why? Because currently the Chinese search market is monopolized by Baidu, and if you read the story behind Baidu and Putian Medical Group, or know about how Baidu is making money by abusing all kinds of human rights, even putting lives in real danger, you would understand how necessary it is for Chinese people to have a search engine, that at least doesn't direct you to a fake hospital.
If you search the word "Baidu" in the first page of HN comments, you will find 0 results (at least at the time I'm writing this). No one cares the reality in China, because that's different than their imagination, and they live in their arrogant imaginations.
These people are just hypocrites. They don't care about human rights, or Chinese people's well-beings as they already lost human rights. They don't even bother to think in others' shoes. They are just feared. They are afraid that one day their own government will utilize the same practice and steal their little privacy. Cut the bullsh*t. If you really care about human rights, try to make some changes in China, start by making a better and healthier search engine than Baidu. There are many more evil business practices in China, like in food delivery, bike share, P2P loans, etc. Try make some healthier alternatives in these business as well. This is the way you should help human rights, not just keep ranting about something they have already lost.
Just do me a favor: ask any Chinese people you know, or think about this as you were Chinese: would you prefer a censored Google as an alternative, or the monopoly of Baidu? Please do this before you leave any comment.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#783And if it's created for China, it will sooner or later be used everywhere else. Like Cisco routers were.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#784Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The resulting social unrest caused by a major search engine disappearing in China There was no social unrest in China when Google pulled out and I’m pretty sure that in the scenario you’re describing, the Chinese wouldn’t give a fuck. I mean they have had plenty of reasons for social unrest thus far, far better reasons actually and it did not happen. > it's much more dangerous to allow Chinese tech companies to hav…
When Google pulled out of China, they has no market share. If Dragonfly isn't successful, they'll abandon that as well. There is a lot of social unrest in China. China does a good job at preventing it from escalating with supression, but that cost would certainly outweigh any benefits of China trying to mess with Google outside their jurisdiction. This isn't even considering how the US simply just wouldn't allow Goog…
So you're saying that people of a sovereign nation use local products and that is somehow dangerous. You're also saying that you're entitled to their money.
I find this line of thinking to be very troubling, to be honest.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#785Earlier quoted context omitted.
While threats from the Chinese government may be valid, it's more likely that they don't want to / cannot risk their H-1B status or green card priority date. So their immediate threat is more likely (indirectly) coming from USG.
What is the risk, that their status would be changed in response to their involvement? If so, would there be an officially articulated basis?
They can get fired. If they're still an H-1B, that basically requires them to leave the country immediately.
There's a short grace period in practice (usually, and this isn't official) if you have another job all lined up that is ready to sponsor you. But if you were an H-1B applying for a green card via your employer, this basically resets your position in line, unless you're in late stages of the process. And keep in mind that the wait is measured in years for many countries (e.g. for India, >9 years right now unless you're in the "exceptional" category).
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#786Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's fair to try and nitpick people's ethical decisions like this. Imagine yes, this person would work for Amazon even though they're in China too. Does that make them not working for Google because they're in China a bad choice? I don't think so. Are we really prepared to tear everyone down who isn't absolute in their morality?
A moral inconsistency is not a nitpick when it's the entire industry. Their logic makes Google a better employer than Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and any other tech company currently operating in China. Saying they spurned Google because the company was considering going to China is disengenious, since the majority of the substitute employers are already in China.
> Saying they spurned Google...the majority of the substitute employers are already in China.
There is life outside of the FAANG/GAFAM bubble. If you refuse to work at Google, it doesn't mean that you're then obligated to work at Amazon or Microsoft, etc.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#787> 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…
Right - an MRAP is a 'battlefield taxi' - it's a basic vehicle to move around a hostile area - it's defensive. You aren't doing anything offensive from inside an MRAP unless it has a remote weapons station on top. Great for collecting casualties.
SWAT teams use them as rams on wheels to bust through walls.
Oh, and they do that to serve no-knock warrants on weed possession, no violent crimes involved.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#788Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they're compensated fine already. I disagree, given the massive cash reserves the tech companies have. Yes, having a higher salary would be ridiculous in a lot of these cases, but we should moderate that through legislation that benefits the most people - not by a public company further lining the coffers of its owners. Apple and Google particularly have a lot of cash just lying around, and that cash is the result…
> I disagree, given the massive cash reserves the tech companies have. They have massive cash reverses because the tax laws have encouraged that rather than paying it to shareholders as dividends. And that level of return is necessary because of the nature of the industry -- you have to spend millions of dollars trying to create the next tech giant before you know whether you've succeeded or not, and most of the time…
On the one hand it sounds like you're saying that software engineers are paid enough already, then on the other hand you're saying you think the compensation given to the software engineers that founded the company - which is much MUCH higher than that of the average company engineer is appropriate.
It feels like what you're saying is that the risk of failing in a startup is massive enough for a founder that they deserve literally billions of dollars.
Could you let me know exactly what risks you think a failing startup founder faces that would entitle them to say, a thousand times more dollars than the average salaried employee? Are you saying that because a founder may go bankrupt they are entitled to thousands of times more money? Does this mean that any individual that takes out a loan larger than their assets to start a business is entitled to thousands of times more money than their average employee? Could you help me understand what makes you think that?
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a difference between boycotting products made in China and protesting against building technologies that enable dictatorial regimes. They do not deserve to be conflated.
You are essentially funding and enabling a dictatorial regime if you buy products made in China — you think Foxconn doesn’t pay the Chinese government any taxes?
There are over a billion innocent people in China. The products themselves are mostly innocent and the people who build them make their livelihoods manufacturing them. That the government takes a cut is incidental. It's simply not comparable to a product specifically built to support dictatorship.
Over 5 trillion in US tax money has been used to prosecute unjust war in the middle East resulting in 100s of thousands of deaths. Is boycotting Disney movies that support the government through taxes the same as boycotting predator drones?
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#790Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nitpick: you can buy automatic rifles made before 1986 (might be off on the date but you get the idea). You can't go buy a brand new automatic. * you can however buy a modern rifle that's made to have its automatic mode disabled, but my understanding is that it's trivial to modify to become automatic (but it will no longer be legal)
> You can't go buy a brand new automatic. Also the ones that are on the market (pre-86) go for tens of thousands of dollars to start. They are basically coveted by rich collectors who show them off at designated "machine gun shoot" days at specialty ranges. > but my understanding is that it's trivial to modify to become automatic It's not trivial. Requires decent gun-smithing skill, the ability to craft an auto sear,…
It is trivial. You don't need to craft an auto sear - you can just buy one.
https://www.newfrontierarmory.com/shop/m-16-full-auto-lpk/
The reason why it's legal is because these will only fit in a full auto receiver, which is the regulated part. But most semi-auto lower receivers can be converted to accept said full auto trigger group simply by drilling a single hole in the receiver. Which is also fairly trivial, given that you're drilling aluminum, and jigs are readily available:
https://www.newfrontierarmory.com/shop/m-16-drilling-jig/
If you ever hear references to the "third hole" in gun context, or see the meme linked below, that's what it is about.
