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Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

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Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#431

Post by yourbandsucks »

munmaek wrote: post #430
yourbandsucks wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pretty significant online mob who really want to split HK off of China. I'd call 'kneecap' reasonably apt. As far as hegemony.. I'm sorry you don't believe that :) Why is specifically China the Big Bad Guy if it's not about hegemony? Why aren't we focused on cleaning our own house first if it's about justice and freedom? Like, if this isn't about power, we could at least stop actively supporting the horribl…

> here's a pretty significant online mob who really want to split HK off of China There are significant online mobs dedicated to anything. That's not really a convincing argument. People who are advocating independence don't understand the situation, nor do they even understand what the protestors actually want (it's not independence). > Why aren't we focused on cleaning our own house first if it's about justice and…

It is complex! You're right.

It's also complex over there, where Americans don't speak the language or understand anything about the culture or history. Our lack of understanding does not make them 1-dimensional movie villains in reality.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#432

Post by kortilla »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #329
mb_72 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in China for some time, and have sources of information other than just 'Western media'. Are you saying the article I linked in, for one example, is not accurate? Are you saying the UN is wrong with their information? I have no doubt the Chinese have a different point of view; they have much less complete information on the subjects I mentioned, and others. But, yes, of course the point is that the poster…

It's very disputable whether or not China is "stealing" territory in the South China Sea or engaging in debt-trap diplomacy. The latter accusation is mostly hypothetical at the moment, based on a general fear that Chinese loans for infrastructure investment might in the future be abused to trap poor countries in debt. More generally, what's the point of raising these accusations? When you speak to an American, do you…

“But America did X” is not a valid argument when discussing what China is doing.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#433

Post by tharne »

dtwest wrote: post #409
coldtea wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first one is flattening China with nuclear weapons (conventional war is impossible to win) which is obviously inacceptable, the second one is totally excluding China from any and all international trade. The world had had more invasions, interventions, toppling of legitimate governments, etc, from the US than from China. And while the US keeps democracy internally (unlike China) they have supported all kinds of…

China has a long history of war. The US doesn't even have a long history. Your historical view is zoomed in too far. All large nation states are guilty of aggression, that's how you become a large nation state.

It's incredible how many people miss this basic point. Land is a fixed quantity. Every square inch a state controls was at some point take from some other state or group of people. Big states were just better at this.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#434

Post by eternalban »

Causality1 wrote: post #62
Iv wrote: post #58

Ok, that discussion made it clearer for me, and I am kind of behind @cciresi at that point: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/5555#not... They have a customer that required the personal data they'll give to Gitlab not be handled by people living in Russia and China. Could be a group doing humanitarian or journalistic work. That's actually an interesting conundrum: you want to hire a company, need to…

True. You have to decide what level of security is necessary for you. In some countries like China privacy from the government is basically nonexistent. In some like Australia backdoors are mandated by the government. In others like the US secret FISA courts exist and can demand data from companies and gag them at the same time. Off the top of my head I don't really know any ideal developed countries to do business i…

See QA with Angelo Codevilla:

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/culture-ne...

Search for "You were directly involved in the drafting of the original FISA law in 1978."

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#435

Post by apocalyptic0n3 »

490d0aff0ee8 wrote: post #401
tomp wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? And Australians, they're explicitly (by law) required to be spies. And your comment suggests as much - why would opsec about consumer / sensitive data be important unless you expect your employees to act in less-than-fair manner (be that for personal gain, a competitor's gain, a national gain, ...)?

> "Why not? And Australians, they're explicitly (by law) required to be spies." How come we don't see Gitlab re-considering hiring Australians then? > "And your comment suggests as much - why would opsec about consumer / sensitive data be important unless you expect your employees to act in less-than-fair manner (be that for personal gain, a competitor's gain, a national gain, ...)?" The defense industry will put you…

> How come we don't see Gitlab re-considering hiring Australians then?

I can't speak to GitLab specifically, but them restricting Australian hires too has been brought up numerous times in this HN thread. Given the amount of activity on here from their team members and specifically sytse, it would seem likely that they have at least been made aware.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#436

Post by tharne »

coldtea wrote: post #294
mschuster91 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The first one is flattening China with nuclear weapons (conventional war is impossible to win) which is obviously inacceptable, the second one is totally excluding China from any and all international trade. The world had had more invasions, interventions, toppling of legitimate governments, etc, from the US than from China. And while the US keeps democracy internally (unlike China) they have supported all kinds of…

Right...perhaps you should ask the good people of Tibet, or the Muslims in western China if they feel that the Chinese government "minds its own effing business".

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#437

Post by munmaek »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #431
munmaek wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> here's a pretty significant online mob who really want to split HK off of China There are significant online mobs dedicated to anything. That's not really a convincing argument. People who are advocating independence don't understand the situation, nor do they even understand what the protestors actually want (it's not independence). > Why aren't we focused on cleaning our own house first if it's about justice and…

It is complex! You're right. It's also complex over there, where Americans don't speak the language or understand anything about the culture or history. Our lack of understanding does not make them 1-dimensional movie villains in reality.

Why does this argument appear over and over?

1. I do not need to comprehensively understand a country's culture to know about security risks and totalitarian governments. In fact, both of my grandparents and parents lived in and fled from a communist country, so I know a thing or two about that. 2. I do not need to comprehensively understand a country's culture to understand when human rights abuses are happening.

This argument is a form of -gatekeeping-. "Only X people can really discuss this issue", except you can move the goalposts whenever necessary.

People often don't understand American culture or history (and sometimes don't English either) but that doesn't seem to phase them when discussing America, etc.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#438

Post by Twirrim »

490d0aff0ee8 wrote: post #401
tomp wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? And Australians, they're explicitly (by law) required to be spies. And your comment suggests as much - why would opsec about consumer / sensitive data be important unless you expect your employees to act in less-than-fair manner (be that for personal gain, a competitor's gain, a national gain, ...)?

> "Why not? And Australians, they're explicitly (by law) required to be spies." How come we don't see Gitlab re-considering hiring Australians then? > "And your comment suggests as much - why would opsec about consumer / sensitive data be important unless you expect your employees to act in less-than-fair manner (be that for personal gain, a competitor's gain, a national gain, ...)?" The defense industry will put you…

> How come we don't see Gitlab re-considering hiring Australians then?

Because no company has asked them to yet. Give it time ;)

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#439

Post by el_cujo »

arczyx wrote: post #291
mb_72 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious as the way I see it it's very often China who is the 'initiator', eg internment of Muslims, stealing of territory in South China sea, debt-trap diplomacy, and so forth. Presuming that you are aware of these occurrences, do you agree with your government's positions and actions, and - if not - what actions, if any, do you take to make it clear your opposition? The Chinese government is, IMO, massively over sen…

>Presuming that you are aware of these occurrences, do you agree with your government's positions and actions, and - if not - what actions, if any, do you take to make it clear your opposition? I'm not from China and I disagree with the action of the China's government you listed above. However I wonder why this kind of opinion (aka the Chinese should be responsible for their government) is not commonly held against…

Because the USA has an independent media that is very critical of its government while China doesn't (at least not on the scale as the USA's main stream media). I mean maybe if you're a conspiracy theorist you could say it's just controlled opposition or a distraction, but in the context of this argument at least the US media is unafraid to criticize or even just straight up mock the government and it's leaders, that has to count for something compared to China.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#440

Post by zajd »

mb_72 wrote: post #336
netok wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a chinese, this kind of comment makes me hate the west even more. I have no control over my government. Zero. 0. Do you understand the concept of 0? Thats the amount of influence I have over any government matter. And you people being racist pos because there is nothing I can do about my gov. Wtf do you want?

> As a chinese, this kind of comment makes me hate the west even more. I have no control over my government. That right there is exactly the response your government would want you to have. You already 'hate the west', and now even more because of what I wrote? That seems unreasonable to me, and there was not one racist mention in my comment either. If 'my' government (in Australia) were pulling these kind of stunts…

So we shouldn't hire Australians until they actually fix the situation with their indigenous peoples? Why are you assuming that the average Chinese engineer doesn't resist and oppose transgressions by the government?

"The west" is not a race, it's not racism to hate the west, it's just the result of the blatant hypocrisy these sorts of statements display.

Imagine if Americans started to refuse to hire Australians because of their recent crackdown on press privacy?

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