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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

#521

Post by malvosenior »

rtpg wrote: post #509
malvosenior wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many, many people feel that enforcing existing immigration laws is morally right and a "good thing". I think defining what is morally right is harder than rocket science and literally impossible in some cases.

others think the laws are fundamentally unjust. Even others (a plurality I think) don't have strong feelings on the laws, but know one of the following: - the executive has selective enforcement rights - (at the time) congress + the WH could change laws! - the laws were written with an understanding of selective enforcement and so rightly recognized that this was a bad thing that could be made right. There is an n-si…

I think your entire argument would make a lot more sense if you replaced “right” with “what I think is right”. Your position is just one side of the dice (as you say).

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

#522

Post by admax88q »

bcheung wrote: post #492
dandanqu82 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 13th amendment abolished slavery for everyone except prisoners. The fact that migrants are being treated like prison labor is evidence that they are performing slave labor.

Slavery is still allowed for jury duty as well. You are forced to work and if you don't go they can throw you in prison and/or fine you.

Oh Hacker News, you never cease to disappoint.

"Prisoners are being forced to work for almost no pay, its modern day slavery."

"Yeah but think about jury duty, I'm the real slave labour in my middle class lifestyle, having to participate the function of my democracy."

I'm sure you think that taxation is theft as well.

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

#523

Post by lordlic »

tomschlick wrote: post #355
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…

> Why don't the employees at all these other companies object like Github employees? Why do Github employees get a special right to withhold consent for their product to be used in a setting they might object to? Why is ICE the only company that they object to? Why do some causes get their favor and not others? Wokeness and the recent trend of trying to cancel anything that doesn't align within a narrow spectrum of p…

"Kids these days with their wokeness. Back in my day we didn't care about things like human rights, wealth inequality, the plights of underrepresented groups, or destroying the planet. All these damned messy ethics are interfering with business!"

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

#524

Post by SamReidHughes »

dunstad wrote: post #472
wil421 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

41,000 deaths in Dachau.[1] 15 deaths in ICE detention centers.[2] If you add 2017 it would be about 25.[3] I have family who immigrated to the US last year with their children. We have the largest immigrant population and we want people to come here.[4] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp [2] https://www.ice.gov/death-detainee-report#wcm-survey-target-... [3] https://www.cato.org/blog/annua…

Sorry, I didn't realize that if you don't kill as many people as they did at Dachau, that makes it okay! My mistake xD

Isn't that a lower mortality rate than that of young American adults outside of ICE detention?

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

#525

Post by refurb »

drjesusphd wrote: post #478
ljm wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. So because shitty people have friends, we should throw in the towel and refrain from enforcing moral codes in our own lives, behavior, and economic decisions? That's pretty weak stuff.

People who have different views than you are “shitty”?

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

#526

Post by RickJWagner »

If enough of this happens, the government will begin to act as a monolith-- refuse services to organization A, you get no business from orgs B-Z.

I think it's a temporary thing. When the economy turns down and jobs are harder to find, people won't feel so strongly about such things.

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

#527

Post by CapricornNoble »

p1necone wrote: post #377
tomschlick wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't the employees at all these other companies object like Github employees? Why do Github employees get a special right to withhold consent for their product to be used in a setting they might object to? Why is ICE the only company that they object to? Why do some causes get their favor and not others? Wokeness and the recent trend of trying to cancel anything that doesn't align within a narrow spectrum of p…

> "narrow spectrum of progressive viewpoints" Oh fuck off, the way the US government is currently treating asylum seekers and immigrants is horrifying. Only within the bubble of American politics could someone brush complaining about it off like that.

Asylum seekers are supposed to stop in the first country available. Mexico grants people asylum. So you should ask yourself, why aren't they applying there? Because they aren't fleeing imminent physical danger, that's why. They are abusing the system to cover being economic migrants, and they are assisted in this by NGOs with questionable motives.[1][2][3]

People who cross national borders, without documentation, and not at designated points of entry, are NOT "immigrants". They are illegal aliens. People need to stop conflating the two.

[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48548031

[2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/as-trump-t...

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJlOmMj21uM

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

#528

Post by refurb »

verall wrote: post #515
tomschlick wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most asylum seekers don't have valid claims for asylum. They are economic migrants that are bogging down the system for valid asylum cases. Bogging down a system that was not built for it results in overcrowding, long delays and other pretty shitty things. Thats why congress needs to take further action to 1) limit the number of invalid claims making it into the system and 2) make sure DHS/ICE has the proper resource…

The current administration has been crystal-clear that it intends to reduce legal and illegal immigration through all means available. One of these means is lengthening the asylum-seeking process and requirements. Another is reducing the allowed number of successful asylum seekers through informal quotas. The current administration has done both. They are intentionally gumming up the asylum system in order to make go…

What you see as “lengthening the process”, others see as actually aligning the process with the laws.

HN loves to rail against the corrupt H1-B system, but apparently actually getting asylum seekers is amoral.

What would be more honest is to say “I don’t like cheap tech labor, so therefore clamping down on H1-Bs is good.” And “I don’t like the Trump administration and I want an open immigration system, so what Trump is doing to asylum seekers is bad.”

It’s all politics.

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

#529

Post by Thorentis »

istjohn wrote: post #510
manfredo wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 influ…

It surely takes some mental gymnastics to contort taking a position against supporting an agency that detains children into an abuse of power.

Would you rather the agency detained the parents but not the children? Splitting up families is worse than detaining children in my opinion. I'm sure you'd think that detaining anybody is bad, but then what is the point in having borders if you don't enforce them? A law that isn't enforced is not a good law. Or maybe you disagree with borders too? In which case supporting any US government since the creation of the nation has been an "abuse of power" too?

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

#530

Post by legostormtroopr »

userbinator wrote: post #433
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…

This politicisation of tech that's happened at a surprisingly rapid rate since a few years ago is scary, because it threatens to split the industry and maybe even eventually society into a number of opposing factions.

I've said it before, and say it again StackOverflow has taken a huge nosedive sicne the "Time to take a stand"[1] post, where Joel stated openly that if you don't support open borders, you aren't welcome on StackOverflow.

[1]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342440/time-to-take...

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