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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

#551

Post by Reedx »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #542
Thorentis wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Splitting up families is worse than detaining children in my opinion You don’t need to pick and choose because ICE is splitting up families AND detaining children!

Don't the police do the same thing with citizens when parents are detained?

Edit: Of course asylum seekers are a different case and should not be separated.

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

#552

Post by rumanator »

rtpg wrote: post #504
Sophistifunk wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - that moral position should be right You do realise that what this actually means is "this person agrees with me"

How is this a problem? Like.... seriously. This is the whole point of everything. If you believe strongly in a thing, then you should fight for it. And other people in society will judge you for it (rightly so!) So yeah, you decide that you care enough about "sanctity of marriage" so you decide to not sell cakes. So everyone who disagrees with you boycotts your business. Others believe that sexual orientation is such…

> How is this a problem? Like.... seriously.

It's a colossal problem because it is an authoritarian stance hidden behind incoherent arguments of morality. There is no morality or ethics. There is only pushy people trying to strong-arm everyone around to comply with their personal world view under the threat of being cut off from a product/service.

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

#553

Post by caconym_ »

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 don't think there is some "special right" at work here. I think some people who work at Github have decided that they don't like a deal their employer made, and presumably if said employer is trying to "quell employee anger" then enough of their employees must be angry enough to move the needle for their business.

This is fine, because employees are not in principle slaves. They do have a right to tell their employers to go fuck themselves "at will", just as the opposite is true. Anybody who takes a stand like this is exercising a privilege that not everybody enjoys, sure, but you're running with that in a suppressive direction (why should Github employees get to be special if not everyone can be special, and by the way (gasp) what if they aren't perfectly logical and fair in their activism?) while I'd go the other way: in an ideal world everybody would enjoy this privilege, and any workers who can take a stand for what they believe in certainly should.

The alternative is that corporate leaders alone are responsible for imposing ethics on the markets they play in, and we all know the sorts of decisions such people tend to make.

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

#554

Post by Thorentis »

sascha_sl wrote: post #549
Thorentis wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a false dichotomy at all. Businesses should have a moral position, sure. That moral position should be right? According to who? The business itself? Then that second point is redundant. Everybody thinks their moral position is right, that's what morals are. It's a tautology otherwise. GitHub employees think their moral position on ICE is right. Many disagree. But according to them that's fine, because the…

To draw a parallel between an organization that runs concentration camps (in a similar state to early nazi camps before they were extermination camps, nuance please) and one that refuses to provide services based on an anarchic justification for bigotry is either truly vile or exceedingly cynic.

[flagged]

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

#555

Post by pnw_hazor »

refurb wrote: post #528
verall wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Failing to or refusing to seek asylum in an adjacent safe country (i.e., Mexico) is an automatic no-go on an asylum claim.

Also, claiming asylum because of local criminal elements (non-state actors) is an automatic no-go for an asylum claim.

(Note, Obama's DOJ fucked this one up by letting an immigration judge (unlawfully) grant an asylum claim because of local non-state criminal threats.) Hence, the flood gates opened and people began sending women and children first, rather than adults to sneak in and find work.

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

#556

Post by cjbprime »

Reedx wrote: post #551
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting up families is worse than detaining children in my opinion You don’t need to pick and choose because ICE is splitting up families AND detaining children!

Don't the police do the same thing with citizens when parents are detained? Edit: Of course asylum seekers are a different case and should not be separated.

ICE separates asylum-seeking families; seeking asylum is not a crime.

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

#557

Post by istjohn »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #539
istjohn wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. Philosophers will debate subtleties around morality until the end of time, but that shouldn't prevent us from taking a stand against evil when we see it.

> That's nonsense. Philosophers will debate subtleties around morality until the end of time, but that shouldn't prevent us from taking a stand against evil when we see it. "evil" is exactly what religious people called homosexuality for centuries, which is ironic considering your statement. Morality is purely an opinion, just like religion.

[flagged]

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

#558

Post by chadlavi »

whalesalad wrote: post #143
chadlavi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the reverse is also true: companies that work in bad faith don't deserve employees. They exist to employ people so that they can sell product. If the company's not going to be a team player, then there are billions of other tech companies its employees might choose to go work for. See Deadspin for an example of the inverse of what you're calling for: people sticking to their guns and letting a company go for conflict…

> See Deadspin for an example of the inverse The Deadspin situation is in complete alignment with my original comment. One person was let go and a ton of other people left becuase they weren't going to put up with the same BS any more. Deadspin is better off, they can continue to do whatever it is they are doing and it is either going to work or they'll fizzle out and die. Employees are better off because they can go…

the "Deadspin is better off" part is what I disagree with.

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

#559

Post by V-eHGsd_ »

smsm42 wrote: post #311
house9-2 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's highly unlikely they're illegals I consider 'illegals' to be a derogatory term used by racists (whether they think they are racist is another matter) Did you drive a car today? Did you speed? If so that is an illegal activity so maybe you are also an 'illegal'? Maybe I am way off base? I should probably go hug a tree or something.

> I consider 'illegals' to be a derogatory term used by racists You consider wrong. Doubly wrong since race has nothing to do with it (there are illegal immigrants of all races, just as there are people of all races on all sides of the immigration debate). > If so that is an illegal activity so maybe you are also an 'illegal'? Within the context of driving, yes. You can be called "illegal driver" or "criminal driver"…

> Doubly wrong since race has nothing to do with it

I can't see the gp comment, but from what you're quoting, I feel compelled to correct you.

gp doesn't say that the people who use the term "illegals" are racist "because" they say illegals. gp just says that it's a comment, in their experience, that's used by racists.

there's an important difference, do you see it?

>> Maybe I am way off base? > Yes, you are.

nah, not this time.

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

#560

Post by d-smoke »

smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #336
duxup wrote: 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…

About a quarter of the company has signed the protest letter. I signed the letter just so people would stop nagging me to sign. I don’t care about ICE. I suspect there are others who got pressured into signing.

I keep getting flagged/downvoted into oblivion, but I am also a GitHub employee and this person (smudgymcscmudge) is very identifiable based on their public HN posts. The history of all signers of the protest letter is visible (it’s in an internal repo) and he never signed it. Why is HN okay with letting a completely false comment stand?
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