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I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

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Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#61

Post by leoh »

I can't help but think that people are thinking about this the wrong way. Today, activists in China understand that the internet is not a safe place to engage in activist activities without extreme precautions. This was less well understood a decade ago and Yahoo really messed up when they handed over account information for an activist. I think Google entering China makes a lot of sense now, is an interesting technical and linguistic problem (how do you build an incredible search engines in a radically different language) and a worthwhile business aim (getting a foothold into the most important economy in the world).

Also, to suggest, at this point, that US agencies haven't harmed an incredible number of people by co-opting information from tech companies and service providers would be absurd. Although companies sometimes contemplate how to protect their users (which doubtlessly Google would do in China), this essentially never blocks anyone from starting a company here.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#63

Post by homonculus1 »

Aperocky wrote: post #43
virtuous_signal wrote: post #10

I don't have firsthand knowledge, but my conjecture is that the old Google probably had a significant % of employees who held the belief "We shouldn't censor for China, even if that makes us lose money". But over a period of years, whatever they selected for in hiring led to enough people joining, who don't give a damn about human rights in China, so the censorship went ahead. The only thing that stopped it was bad p…

> ethical sense Define that. For regular people in China, does the addition of Google with some censorship make their life better? Does it improve information flow over existing domestic search engines? I think the answer is obvious. People subscribe to overly simplistic thinking - if something is not perfect, it must be the worst. I see a lot of people promoting sanctions on a country because of government. Who gets…

That's only one concern. Another concern is not normalizing such policies to propagate back over here. When you as a decisionmaker make excuses as to why it's okay to cooperate with information suppression in another country, then there are no principles stopping you from doing the same things back home--just precedent and personal incentives.

For a cartoonish example let's say Adolf Hitler approaches you to buy large quantities of morphine as a substitute for Zyklon B. Surely this is an improvement for the victims of extermination over their current situation, but you're still participating in the Holocaust.

I think utilitarianism has a big problem with myopia. It's extremely hard to do a real global calculation for outcomes so faithful practitioners inevitably end up following local gradients. I think a solid ethical equilibrium requires a certain amount of deontology, a framework of things that We Do Not Do.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#64

Post by untog »

Aperocky wrote: post #43
virtuous_signal wrote: post #10

I don't have firsthand knowledge, but my conjecture is that the old Google probably had a significant % of employees who held the belief "We shouldn't censor for China, even if that makes us lose money". But over a period of years, whatever they selected for in hiring led to enough people joining, who don't give a damn about human rights in China, so the censorship went ahead. The only thing that stopped it was bad p…

> ethical sense Define that. For regular people in China, does the addition of Google with some censorship make their life better? Does it improve information flow over existing domestic search engines? I think the answer is obvious. People subscribe to overly simplistic thinking - if something is not perfect, it must be the worst. I see a lot of people promoting sanctions on a country because of government. Who gets…

> For regular people in China, does the addition of Google with some censorship make their life better? Does it improve information flow over existing domestic search engines? I think the answer is obvious.

What does that have to do with ethics, really? Your argument seems to be that utility should outweigh ethical concerns.

> I see a lot of people promoting sanctions on a country because of government. Who gets hurt in this case? Ordinary people living their life.

So do you think governments were wrong to sanction South Africa's apartheid regime? Do you not think that the ordinary people in South Africa have a better life today as a result of those sanctions and the collapse of the apartheid regime?

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#65

Post by throwlaplace »

tharne wrote: post #52
throwlaplace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They were able to cash in on this image of moral superiority and principle first for years and it gave them a leg up okay but honestly how silly is it to take a company's branding to heart? like are we all children that believe in santa claus too? >do good for the world, and get stinking rich at the same time i'm old enough now to understand that these two things are mutually exclusive because the latter necessarily…

Doing good for the world and getting rich are by no means mutually exclusive. People pay money for products and services that make their lives better and history has shown that economic growth is not a zero-sum game. Where companies get into ethical trouble is when they try to maintain exponential growth long after it is possible to do so in a way that is moral. You can make a lot of money doing good for the world, b…

>economic growth is not a zero-sum game.

economic growth is an abstraction. i'm not talking about abstract notions of good and evil.

some people believe that there are systems where entropy decreases too. their mistake is the same as yours: the system you're looking at isn't big enough. someone, somewhere, pays for your growth. either it's the employees that you underpay or it's the commons that you trash or it's the competitors whose coattails you're riding on or etc and etc and etc.

you can't point to a single product that doesn't incur this kind of entropy increase somewhere along its supply chain.

edit: i'm getting downvoted. would love to know where i'm mistaken (other than that i'm assailing capitalism).

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#67

Post by erikpukinskis »

I just want to cite this, for those who have voiced on HN the thesis that conservative opinions will get you fired in tech, but liberal opinions are “safe”:

> Standing up for women, for the LGBTQ community, for colleagues of color, and for human rights — had cost me my career.

I would love if some other conservatives present, who care about free speech, could voice some support for this guy. It would help me feel unified with you, and want to support you more in “James Damore”-type situations.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#68

Post by mkolodny »

Aperocky wrote: post #43
virtuous_signal wrote: post #10

I don't have firsthand knowledge, but my conjecture is that the old Google probably had a significant % of employees who held the belief "We shouldn't censor for China, even if that makes us lose money". But over a period of years, whatever they selected for in hiring led to enough people joining, who don't give a damn about human rights in China, so the censorship went ahead. The only thing that stopped it was bad p…

> ethical sense Define that. For regular people in China, does the addition of Google with some censorship make their life better? Does it improve information flow over existing domestic search engines? I think the answer is obvious. People subscribe to overly simplistic thinking - if something is not perfect, it must be the worst. I see a lot of people promoting sanctions on a country because of government. Who gets…

> For regular people in China, does the addition of Google with some censorship make their life better?

I don't think so. If Chinese people want to use Google, then they have to use a VPN. And if Chinese people use a VPN, their search results won't be censored.

If Google releases a censored search engine in China, then people will have less incentive to access an uncensored one.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#69

Post by amadeusw »

akfanta wrote: post #57
shadowgovt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google hired a significant number of Chinese citizens and migrants who didn't leave China for political reasons. Not surprisingly, they tend not to see China's government policy as evil.

> Chinese citizens and migrants who didn't leave China for political reasons. According to whom?

There's plenty. Here's one example [0]

> Convoys of Chinese patriots in Ferraris and other high-end sports cars have been revving up pro-Beijing demonstrations in Canada, home to tens of thousands of Chinese millionaire migrants.

[0] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3023499/wors...

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#70

Post by mycentstoo »

After reading, I can't help but wonder if this dismissive attitude Google (and others) have towards social and political issues such as censorship, privacy, diversity, etc. has something to do with the hiring model. I can't speak for other departments but in terms of engineering, competency in algorithms and system design are the only things that are screened for. These aren't well rounded people. They aren't leaders. They're not screened to think beyond the immediate task at hand which shouldn't leave us surprised when they fail to see beyond the objective. In some ways, it would be akin to colleges looking exclusively at SAT scores instead of the whole person.

In this process though, what I believe might be getting lost is any sense of ethics, purpose or vision beyond code. One has to wonder if that's in these companies' long-term best interests to pursue the best leetcoders at the expense of other skills. I won't pretend to have an answer as to how those skills are screened for but it's evident from what I've experienced that there isn't any expectation beyond writing code at all.

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