GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract • Hacker News Board

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

#631

Post by icelancer » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #597

icelancer wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> race Unless you're Asian/Asian-American, of course. Then it is fine to negatively discriminate against you. https://www.stanforddaily.com/2019/10/03/judge-rules-in-favo...

That's not at all what that decision says. Finding that it did not happen is not the same as finding that it is legal for it to happen .

No, it happens.

>> She rejected the argument that “tips,” or admissions advantages, received by some black and Hispanic students were unfair. While some racial groups did receive tips...

They get them, and Asian/Asian-Americans are excluded from this, placing them in the "advantaged group" as I stated above (usually reserved for white people).

That they ruled this was "not unfair" doesn't make it "not discrimination." They admit as such that it happens to the detriment to Asian/Asian-Americans.

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

#632

Post by nemothekid » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #591

nemothekid wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make the deliberate decision that refraining from exercising that power is the morally optimal choice Don't you think the FSF exists as a huge counterpoint to this? The FSF deliberate makes the decision that copyleft is the morally optimal choice and forces others to comply - and I'd imagine more developers view the FSF as a good thing.

It forces developers to comply, but it doesn't impose any restrictions on the users of the software. In fact it forces developers to not impose any restrictions on the users of the software.

Your distinction between "users" and "developers" is meaningless to me. Why does FSF get to make that distinction, but GitHub cannot do the same for "ICE" and "other humans".

All in all, the FSF is arguing for restrictions about how one class of individuals may use what they produce and for the benefit of the other class. Just like how FSF prevents other developers from using their products to lock other users out of their software, similarly, the employees are asking to prevent ICE from using their products against the questionable imprisonment of other human beings.

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

#633

Post by CorruptedArc » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 5:44 AM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #537

CorruptedArc wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It truly isn't a partisan organization. The Dems buried their heads when this happened under President "Deporter & Chief" Obama. People are pretending this issue is new because they didn't take the time to learn about it years ago. Some media reported on it under Obama, but few took the time until they were looking for ammunition against Trump.

No, don't do this both sidesim over here. Obama prioritized deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. He created the DREAM program to help the millions of immigrants who spent most of their life in the US. Its not the same.

The DREAM act has been around since 2001 and at its peak never even had even a million members throughout its existence. Illegals with a criminal background have always been preferred for deportation in the US. But my question how is which ICE is a government entity partisan for following the immigration edicts of the current administration?

Also looks like Both Sideism can go into the large book of unnecessary and arbitrary -ism words people have come up with during this presidency.

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

#634

Post by Thorrez » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #632

Thorrez wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It forces developers to comply, but it doesn't impose any restrictions on the users of the software. In fact it forces developers to not impose any restrictions on the users of the software.

Your distinction between "users" and "developers" is meaningless to me. Why does FSF get to make that distinction, but GitHub cannot do the same for "ICE" and "other humans". All in all, the FSF is arguing for restrictions about how one class of individuals may use what they produce and for the benefit of the other class. Just like how FSF prevents other developers from using their products to lock other users out of…

Yeah I do see there are a lot of similarities.

But I think the main difference lies in that copyleft limits itself purely to the realm of controlling how modified software is distributed. The only thing it limits is how modified software is distributed. The only thing it requires is how modified software is distributed. When a developer writes software to be used by others, it's necessary for the developer to decide how to distributed it, and copyleft provides an answer. Copyleft doesn't venture past the developer's necessary role.

On the other hand, limiting providing stuff to ICE ventures out of the developer's necessary question of how to distribute software and now starts thinking about human suffering, jails, politics, etc. You've gone past the question of how to distribute software, and are now thinking about broader topics.

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

#635

Post by dang » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #500

rtpg wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

The whole point of morality is that it is subjective. You can not determine what is right as a rule.

Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. They lead to shallow, predictable discussions. A public internet forum is not, as a medium, capable of addressing such questions. If you really want to discuss something like that, write an essay (or a book) and then post it here, or maybe someone will.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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

#636

Post by fatbird » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

Aristotle divided causality into four kinds that are useful to remember: material, formal, efficient, and final. Consider a table: the material cause is the wood from which it's made; the formal cause is the concept or design of a table; the efficient cause is the act of carpentry that resulted in its construction; and the final cause is the intention to have the table to use.

The workers of github are an incremental part of the material cause of ICE's actions and the consequences thereof. Any individual employee's contributions are fractional at best, but they clearly own a share of the results of ICE's use of their product, and were I in their position, I'd be balancing whether I want to own some of those shares or not.

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

#637

Post by pm90 » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 6:17 AM UTC

CorruptedArc wrote: post #633

pm90 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, don't do this both sidesim over here. Obama prioritized deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. He created the DREAM program to help the millions of immigrants who spent most of their life in the US. Its not the same.

The DREAM act has been around since 2001 and at its peak never even had even a million members throughout its existence. Illegals with a criminal background have always been preferred for deportation in the US. But my question how is which ICE is a government entity partisan for following the immigration edicts of the current administration? Also looks like Both Sideism can go into the large book of unnecessary and a…

The act was never passed into law whereas Obama gave actual legal status to Dreamers and attempted to do the same for their parents too.

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

#638

Post by manigandham » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:00 AM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #622

manigandham wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is nothing but an economic system where you own the means to production. There is no inherent morality. Nobody has an issue with you making choices and voting with your dollars. The issue is forcing those choices on everyone else (as in a business, especially as a non-owner) through your own interpretation of morality.

I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure the system where workers own the means of production isn't capitalism.

It refers to "you" vs the state. You create a factory or a business or a new patent and you're responsible. You gain the profits or suffer the losses and nobody else can take it from you.

Workers are obviously not business owners, but they do own their own labor and are free to take whatever job they want, not be assigned to it from some central authority.

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

#639

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #444

dragontamer wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gitmo’s a great example. Under Bush it was immoral. Under Obama? Barely heard a thing. Your history is off. Obama tried to shut it down until it was overturned by Congress. As soon as the political reality of transferring the prisoners became apparent, all Congressmen blocked the closure of Gitmo. No one wanted to take the prisoners into their own state. No one wanted to be the Senator or Representative to say "I a…

Of course! Obama tried as hard as he could to close it, but darn that other party wouldn’t let him. Obviously he’s off the hook.

Your sarcasm is noted, but I don't believe it is in the spirit of this forum to talk in that manner. Its much better to leave the sarcasm in Reddit.

If you do not wish to discuss a matter seriously, then there's no real point in discussing it at all. This website mostly aims at a higher level of discussion than other websites.

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

#640

Post by manigandham » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #595

Thorentis wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I understand what you are saying but I do not believe all morals and values are created equal. For one, many disparate cultures have separately developed values that are very similar. In a lot of these cultures values intersect more than diverge. Second, I do not believe discriminating on an entity based on the perceived harm it is causing others is the equivalent to discriminating on an individual or group based on…

> "perceived harm"

That's the entire problem isn't it? Perceived by who? Do people actually know the truth or is it just what they assume? How is this kind of policy not immediately susceptible to all sorts of abuse?