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GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

latimes.com

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

#481

Post by harryh »

zer00eyz wrote: post #367
supernova87a wrote: post #348

I question how much an employee should concern him/herself with how a product is used once it's created. You have to let certain control go after a point. Or if your product is open to everyone, you'll have to live with the fact that people may use it in ways you disagree with. Xerox or Canon (or whoever) probably makes copiers that ICE uses to make copies. Lenovo or Apple probably makes hardware that they use also t…

There is an even bigger question here. Is ICE the only thing on GitHub that is morally questionable? I would venture to guess NO. I would venture to guess that all sorts of things on GitHub are used in illicit, illegal, or morally repressible ways.

[flagged]

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

#482

Post by nintendo1889 »

smsm42 wrote: post #321
standardUser wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> many, many ills of yesteryear are actually bad, not just "business as usual" and instead of tolerating them we should start to fight back And somehow that moment of clarity by pure coincidence happened on January 20, 2017? Sorry, not buying that particular bridge. > The people who are carrying the torch of this mentality were teenagers and twenty-something during the Obama administration. Literally the same people…

Then trump comes along and says publicly and gets elected by stoking people up over what is already happening under the force of law.

It's just like JFK, how the media looked the other way at his affairs.

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

#483

Post by drjesusphd »

slykat wrote: post #422
_7bxa wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is not serving black or queer people isn't a moral judgement -- it's just discrimination (there isn't anything inherently wrong with being Black the same way there isn't anything wrong with being queer or Asian or Indian, those things aren't a choice unlike being a Nazi). At best, not serving minorities is a shitty moral judgement. Not serving ICE is a more legitimate moral judgement because ICE has th…

Do you not see the negative repercussions for businesses serving the public to be allowed to make a moral judgement on who they do business with?

If that's the case then there's no room whatsoever for capitalism to be anything other than an amoral system we should be ashamed of.

Vote with your dollar. You're allowed to make your own moral choices and refuse to contribute to evil.

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

#484

Post by jerkstate »

harryh wrote: post #462
supernova87a wrote: post #348

I question how much an employee should concern him/herself with how a product is used once it's created. You have to let certain control go after a point. Or if your product is open to everyone, you'll have to live with the fact that people may use it in ways you disagree with. Xerox or Canon (or whoever) probably makes copiers that ICE uses to make copies. Lenovo or Apple probably makes hardware that they use also t…

I am not a GH employee nor do I speak for them. But I think a fair point of view is that it would be GREAT if the employees of Xerox and Canon and Lenovo and Apple and Ford and the airlines and even the farmers all took the same stance as GH employees. If that actually happened, ICE would cease to be able to function incredibly quickly. Which would be good. This is basically the point of these protests.

> ICE would cease to be able to function incredibly quickly. Which would be good.

If you had said "ICE would be forced to reconsider its inhumane methods which have lead to its terrible reputation" - a lot more people would agree with you. There have been a number of polls done over the past year or two which show that only about 25% support abolishing ICE, the majority oppose. I think almost everyone would agree that they need to do their job with a lot more empathy and humanity, so protests are good, but the goal should be to get them to clean up their act, it would be a mistake (and not supported by the people) to try to get rid of the immigrations and customs enforcement function entirely.

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

#485

Post by cglace »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #396
zarkov99 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what will your peers at brunch say if you do not show how virtuous you are?

Caring for the well-being of imprisoned asylum seekers is not virtue-signalling. It says more about your own morals that you think it is.

How does removing a tool from ICE help improve the conditions of asylum seekers? At most it makes them pay for a different tool and makes the asylum seekers conditions worse. Unintended consequences...

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

#486

Post by manfredo »

dcposch wrote: post #473
supernova87a wrote: post #348

I question how much an employee should concern him/herself with how a product is used once it's created. You have to let certain control go after a point. Or if your product is open to everyone, you'll have to live with the fact that people may use it in ways you disagree with. Xerox or Canon (or whoever) probably makes copiers that ICE uses to make copies. Lenovo or Apple probably makes hardware that they use also t…

> I question how much an employee should concern him/herself with how a product is used > Where do we start? Where do we stop? Often when moral question pops up on HN, the top comment is some variation of > But where do we we draw the line? > I wonder whether we should even try. Counterpoint: cynicism is too easy. Actually giving a shit is harder, it's uncomfortable, it involves compromise. Yes, there's ambiguity. Ye…

I think you're misrepresenting the argument of people who don't think developers should interfere with the usages of their product.

The most compelling arguments I found is that just because we happen to work in a field that lets us exert our influence over society doesn't make our moral sensibilities any better than the rest of society. What us privileged few who work in technology see as using our position of influence for good, many other people may see as a small minority abusing their power to manipulate society for the worse.

I think many technology worker do understand the power they have, and make the deliberate decision that refraining from exercising that power is the morally optimal choice.

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

#487

Post by rtpg »

slykat wrote: post #381

I find it ironic that the same people protesting the contract would also protest a bakery that refuses to sell a product for say a same sex couple (or if you were in the 60s, restaurants that refused to serve blacks). You either have a viewpoint that: 1) a business shouldn't make a moral judgement on its customers and be accessible to all 2) A business can make moral judgements on its customers and choose not to do b…

This is a false dicothomy

The actual (IMO correct) position most of these people share is the following two points at once:

- businesses should have a moral position, since businesses are just a set of people

- that moral position should be right!

This isn’t rocket science! Stuff like “don’t support a business doing bad stuff” and “support businesses doing good stuff” is just really basic consumer activism.

There’s no need to go deep in metaphysics. It’s literally just “support good things, don’t support bad things”

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

#488

Post by [deleted] »

codyb wrote: post #182
BurningFrog wrote: post #168

If anyone thinks Github boycotting ICE will change anything of ICE's conduct, that to me is some kind of Delusions of Grandeur. The money involved are a tiny part of a forgotten section of their budget. If they don't think it will change anything, we can agree that this boycott is purely symbolic and will accomplish nothing.

This feels like a pretty defeatist attitude to me. Just because your portion of ICE’s budget is insignificant doesn’t mean you have to support ICE. And even if it is purely symbolic, lots of symbolic actions do more than nothing. At the very least it may improve employee morale to not support ICE which may increase Github’s employee retention rate, which may not be a big deal for ICE but may be a bigger deal for Gith…

[deleted]

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

#489

Post by harryh »

jerkstate wrote: post #484
harryh wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a GH employee nor do I speak for them. But I think a fair point of view is that it would be GREAT if the employees of Xerox and Canon and Lenovo and Apple and Ford and the airlines and even the farmers all took the same stance as GH employees. If that actually happened, ICE would cease to be able to function incredibly quickly. Which would be good. This is basically the point of these protests.

> ICE would cease to be able to function incredibly quickly. Which would be good. If you had said "ICE would be forced to reconsider its inhumane methods which have lead to its terrible reputation" - a lot more people would agree with you. There have been a number of polls done over the past year or two which show that only about 25% support abolishing ICE, the majority oppose. I think almost everyone would agree tha…

I think the core idea here is: this organization is doing bad things. By not supplying them with goods and services we can stop those bad things from happening.

Whether that happens because the organization reforms or because the organization ceases to exists is a secondary concern.

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

#490

Post by rtpg »

ljm wrote: post #453
_7bxa wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is not serving black or queer people isn't a moral judgement -- it's just discrimination (there isn't anything inherently wrong with being Black the same way there isn't anything wrong with being queer or Asian or Indian, those things aren't a choice unlike being a Nazi). At best, not serving minorities is a shitty moral judgement. Not serving ICE is a more legitimate moral judgement because ICE has th…

There is nothing inherently wrong with serving ICE. You might not like it, but many of your compatriots do. I don't like what they do at all, I think it's reprehensible, backwards, and purely uncivilised. But people you utterly hate have friends too, and they see something different than you do, and we do not have a singular moral world-view. This situation with ICE should totally change, but that change is a functio…

Lots of people support ICE, maybe, but that doesn’t prevent a lot of people from thinking it’s inherently wrong.

The more clear cute example is weapons research. Loads of researchers and institutions outright rule out weapons research, because they find it wrong.

Besides, “inherently wrong” is a subjective thing anyways, if only by the fact some people agree to your statement and some people don’t, despite everyone having the same set of facts

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