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GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

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Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is surely in the mix. To me, its about human decency. I support immigration, but even if you do not support immigration you should support human decency. Making people sleep in cages on concrete, limiting supplies, limiting legal assistance, separating families - those are horrible ways to treat other humans, other humans simply seeking a better life. We are largely a nation of immigrants. We've lost sight of ou…

I think the problem is an attribution of intent. You see "white nationalism" but: > Making people sleep in cages There was a spike in the number of illegal immigrants in the last few years, facilities were swamped. This was an unfortunate but temporary measure. It would be more irresponsible to just release people into the country without establishing their identity, criminal history, or a suitable guardian (for chil…

I didn't actually use the words 'white nationalism' and tried to make a different point about decency without blaming any one group other than maybe those that oppose immigration. There are other options besides putting people in cages, we could make it easier and much quicker to accept them legally for example. To me, its not so much about white people, its about how we choose to handle immigration. Current immigration rates are far from unprecedented, https://www.history.com/news/immigrants-ellis-island-short-p....

We could choose to do things differently and treat people with the dignity and respect that we all deserve as humans. No matter the color of our skin.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is surely in the mix. To me, its about human decency. I support immigration, but even if you do not support immigration you should support human decency. Making people sleep in cages on concrete, limiting supplies, limiting legal assistance, separating families - those are horrible ways to treat other humans, other humans simply seeking a better life. We are largely a nation of immigrants. We've lost sight of ou…

Making people sleep in cages on concrete That was during the Obama Administration , yet those in outrage over ICE now were utterly silent then . Why is that?

Because if you haven't noticed, there is a general sense among the younger generations that the many, many ills of yesteryear are actually bad, not just "business as usual" and instead of tolerating them we should start to fight back.

The people who are carrying the torch of this mentality were teenagers and twenty-something during the Obama administration. Now they are all grown ups.

The better question is, why were Boomers so willing to go along with these policies (and far worse) for decade after decade?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are pro-American and are Latino, African, Asian... etc, does that make you a White Nationalist? If not, then why can we just call it Nationalism?

White Nationalism is an entirely different thing than nationalism. But both are objectionable.

I'm having a hard time understanding if you were downvoted for correctly pointing out that "nationalism" and "white nationalism" are two very different things, or because you described both as objectionable.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#154
post #19

I'd like to get a feel about what volume of employees have an issue with these things. From issue to issue I hear about various forms of employees making themselves heard but it is REALLY hard to jive with what that means. We've seen Google employees post about some ideas that seemed to be genuinely popular (measure that how you will...) but later ideas or advocacy were reportedly far less supported by the general em…

I also have to wonder what percentage of GitHub’s employees _are_ non-US citizens. Every programming job I’ve ever had in the U.S. was for a company that was staffed by at least 90% foreigners; if they see U.S. immigration as an adversary, they may be opposing any contract on personal grounds.

> Every programming job I’ve ever had in the U.S. was for a company that was staffed by at least 90% foreigners.

Where the hell are you working? I'm going to call bullshit, because it's really not that easy to get a work visa in the US. You're saying 90% of your colleagues weren't US citizens?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#155
post #2

It seems that these kinds of demands are becoming more common. Is it because conflict resolution is becoming a dying art, is it because people don't rise to the level of maturity of past times? I just find it to be confusing. Non PW link: https://archive.ph/IkYQ3

I think it is because human rights abuses by the US government are becoming more common. Or at least more brazen.

I don't think there is evidence to back that up, especially once you dig in to the actions of the federal government in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

But people, mostly young people, are clearly more vocal about pushing back when abuses come to light.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#156
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's just more awareness of employee power - or, perhaps, technological advancement making it such that employees actually do have meaningful power and much more liquidity in the job market, that GitHub is GitHub because of the technical skills of ICs and not the organizational skills of management, whereas your stereotypical successful company 50-100 years ago was successful because of infrastructure and bus…

Just sitting here thinking about it, I can't remember anything specific like this outside of the tech industry... I may be wrong though.

You're not considering the entire history of the labor movement in the United States, then. There were massive protests, literal battles, and many died, all to bring about better working conditions, shorter workweeks, higher pay, etc., not just for those inside those companies but across the entire economy.

Workers fighting for the rights of themselves and others isn't a new thing. Hell, it even happened in the era of medieval serfdom following the Black Death; there was suddenly a serious shortage of labor, and the serfs realized they could push for reform because the landed gentry now needed them more than they needed the gentry.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is surely in the mix. To me, its about human decency. I support immigration, but even if you do not support immigration you should support human decency. Making people sleep in cages on concrete, limiting supplies, limiting legal assistance, separating families - those are horrible ways to treat other humans, other humans simply seeking a better life. We are largely a nation of immigrants. We've lost sight of ou…

I think the problem is an attribution of intent. You see "white nationalism" but: > Making people sleep in cages There was a spike in the number of illegal immigrants in the last few years, facilities were swamped. This was an unfortunate but temporary measure. It would be more irresponsible to just release people into the country without establishing their identity, criminal history, or a suitable guardian (for chil…

How weird that you didn't mention asylum in this entire post, not even once. You keep talking about "illegal immigrants" and "breaking the law", completely ignoring the fact that claiming asylum is legal.

Many of these people who were being caged are people who claimed asylum at the border points of entry; they were not illegal immigrants, nor did they try to sneak in. The correct thing to do in this situation of not having enough room would be to release them into the country pending their asylum hearing, rather than locking them up in substandard, inhumane, occasionally deadly accommodations.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are generally not separated from their parents when their parents commit non-violent minor offenses. Crossing a border is, at the least, non-violent. How major or minor it is is debatable. The basis of your argument is wrong. What else ya got?

Children are generally not separated from their parents when their parents commit non-violent minor offenses Children are separated from parents every damn day in cases of neglect or endangerment. Hell, we get CPS involved when a kid is left unattended in a car or alone at home, or even if a home is dangerously unkempt. Dragging children across two thousand miles of desert and multiple borders (where many die en rout…

When CPS gets involved, do we then keep the kid in a cold warehouse inside a fenced off pen, leave them to sleep on the floor with a space blanket, give them antipsychotics to sedate them, fail to provide them with soap and toothpaste so they become ill? Further, fail to keep records so they may never see their parents again?

This is literally what's happened to thousands of children. We don't know exactly how many. And before another person carelessly posts some sentiment about how this is okay, I hope you also take the time to do some real introspection.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have to wonder what percentage of GitHub’s employees _are_ non-US citizens. Every programming job I’ve ever had in the U.S. was for a company that was staffed by at least 90% foreigners; if they see U.S. immigration as an adversary, they may be opposing any contract on personal grounds.

> Every programming job I’ve ever had in the U.S. was for a company that was staffed by at least 90% foreigners. Where the hell are you working? I'm going to call bullshit, because it's really not that easy to get a work visa in the US. You're saying 90% of your colleagues weren't US citizens?

At every large company where I have worked (Intel, Qualcomm, Google, Facebook) the majority of my colleagues have been non-citizens. In some cases (Qualcomm SD, Google) 100% of the people on my team were non-citizens.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have to wonder what percentage of GitHub’s employees _are_ non-US citizens. Every programming job I’ve ever had in the U.S. was for a company that was staffed by at least 90% foreigners; if they see U.S. immigration as an adversary, they may be opposing any contract on personal grounds.

> Every programming job I’ve ever had in the U.S. was for a company that was staffed by at least 90% foreigners. Where the hell are you working? I'm going to call bullshit, because it's really not that easy to get a work visa in the US. You're saying 90% of your colleagues weren't US citizens?

I suspect they’re saying anyone who looks/sounds different must be foreign.
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