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After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

latimes.com

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Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#121

Post by umvi »

karpierz wrote: post #73
Fellshard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big strain of consequentialism running through the modern left - no neutral service is held as neutral if it permits the 'wrong' customers.

Suppose that: 1. You provide tools to a group. 2. You believe (in a informed way) that the group intends to act immorally. 3. Your tools will make the group more effective at acting immorally. Do you have any responsibility for what happens?

Suppose that I'm highly religious:

1. I make tools (wedding planning software)

2. I believe (in an informed way) that a group intends to act immorally (use my tools to plan a gay wedding)

3. My tools will make the group more effective at acting immorally

Do I have any responsibility for what happens?

Or (alternatively):

1. I make tools (highly specialized chemicals)

2. I believe (in an informed way) that a group intends to act immorally (use my chemicals to improve abortions)

3. My tools will make the group more effective at acting immorally

Do I have any responsibility for what happens?

=====

IMO, it's better not to attempt to be morality police. Focus on making great tools.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#122

Post by joshuamorton »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #33
zachrip wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure github has zero impact on the tech choices made by ICE or any other government agency.

GitHub perhaps, but we are talking Microsoft, and we are talking other corporate powers. One of the things I hear all the time is that corporations influence public policy _too much_. Look at ALEC, look at PACs etc. Companies _can_ influence policy. Look at Microsoft saying they won't offer facial recognition until laws are passed.

Right, Microsoft is influencing policy at ICE by refusing to provide them facial recognition software, which prevents them from having facial recognition software.

In general, if the idea is that a tool makes you more efficient/effective, denying that tool does the opposite. Making ICE less effective seems laudable, so why not throw roadblocks, even small ones, in the way?

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#123

Post by drocer88 »

dnissley wrote: post #75
jobeirne wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service o…

By this logic, businesses would be able to turn away customers based on their race.

And a business could refuse to cater a communist or fascist gathering.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#124

Post by netsharc »

Fellshard wrote: post #11
duxup wrote: post #6

Is GitHub a hug part of what ICE ... does? Personally I wouldn't want to work for a company actually detaining people, but call me terrible but I'm not sure I'd feel the same about letting them pay to host some code...

There's a big strain of consequentialism running through the modern left - no neutral service is held as neutral if it permits the 'wrong' customers.

If we change the nationality of the police or immigration force (let's pick.. China), I feel like even people on the "right" will have the opinion that it's wrong to work with them...

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#125

Post by empath75 »

nxpnsv wrote: post #96
empath75 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace ICE with "the SS" and see how your comment reads. I was working on a DHS contract and quit the second I found out they were putting children into cages. I'm under no obligation to work at a company that contributes in even a tiny way to an atrocity. A company I work for is free to take the contract, and I'm free to tell them I don't want to work for them any more because of it.

There are no excuses for ICE behavior, but they clearly are very different from the SS.

Let's say you're, say, IBM in the 1920s. At what point does the SS become an organization with which you refuse to do business? They didn't start off running concentration camps, after all.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#126

Post by wyck »

Company leadership who don't understand the danger of politics are poisoning their own well. If you open the door to what is fundamentally not part of your core values and culture (in this case a programming/engineering platform), then expect the worse.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#127

Post by vkou »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #46
mchanson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are going through a very strange and extreme period in US History. Corporations are a huge part of the political landscape. Of course workers who are powerful will demand things of their workplaces. All corporations are political. By accepting the ICE contract previously it was political. Now by reversing they would be changing sides. They were already in the political fray.

The idea that all corporations are political is obviously quite true, especially insofar as potentially-everything is political. What's interesting is erosion of the norm that corporations should not be particularly political (picking and choosing customers based on politics, touting allegiance to one specific side). This was once a somewhat stronger (political) norm that has fallen by the wayside as the nation has g…

Corporate CEOs have always had an outsized influence on politics, it's just now that said influence is not all pro-right-wing (because many of the right's social stances are completely intolerant), Republicans have started wringing their hands, and clutching their pearls, and predicting bedlam, cats and dogs living together, etc, etc.

Were the outsized influence limited to run-of-the-mill pro-corporatism politics (Or anything that aligned with their social agenda, as in the case of firms like Hobby Lobby), we wouldn't be hearing a peep from that camp on the subject. (As if that's somehow apolitical.)

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#128

Post by couchand »

lurknn wrote: post #99

If working with ICE is so reprehensible, why are none of these employees taking advantage of their in-demand skillset and moving on to companies that better respect their values? I'm sympathetic with those who point out that corporations typically have more leverage than individual employees, and that changing jobs is not so easy for those who are less privileged. That category, though, of "less privileged" with rega…

> why are none of these employees taking advantage of their in-demand skillset and moving on to companies that better respect their values?

For one thing, many have. I would expect that those who remain believe they can continue to exert leverage to achieve their goals.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#129

Post by nailer »

Illegal migration is not enforced by race. Nobody has the right to live in another country, particularly if they have entered the country without permission.

This is more an indication of how political extremists use race-baiting to push forward changes they want.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#130

Post by andromeduck »

Fellshard wrote: post #11
duxup wrote: post #6

Is GitHub a hug part of what ICE ... does? Personally I wouldn't want to work for a company actually detaining people, but call me terrible but I'm not sure I'd feel the same about letting them pay to host some code...

There's a big strain of consequentialism running through the modern left - no neutral service is held as neutral if it permits the 'wrong' customers.

Yeah collectivist and consequentialist views are not without merrit but without a very high threshold things quickly becoming unworkable. There needs to be a balance.
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