After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by uhoh-itsmaciek » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:27 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #348

49531 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.

Yes, I'm glad that GitHub workers are allowed to protest this. It is heartening. That doesn't change the fact that I'm personally disappointed that they're executing that privilege on this particular issue.

What sort of issue do you feel that privilege should be reserved for?

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

#532

Post by nodesocket » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #14

What a bummer that workers are publicly demanding this, and (presumably) seeking press attention on it. I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies). But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a pri…

I don't see the connection between supporting black lives matter and enforcing our immigration laws. If they want completely open borders, then they need to come out and say that, but demanding ICE lose contracts and technical software access is absurd.

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

#533

Post by tharne » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

If you take a paycheck from someone, you're implicitly agreeing to carry out their instructions and their vision for their business. If, over time, you have a moral issue with that vision, the best thing for you and that company is to find work elsewhere that is a better fit for your values. It's unreasonable to agree to work for someone and then proceed to undermine their business because it doesn't align with your particular political beliefs.

This would achieve the same ends as protesting, but in a much more ethical manner. Unethical companies would eventually have a harder time finding qualified workers and would suffer accordingly. What wouldn't be happening, is a bunch of people agreeing to serve a business in exchange for money and then reneging on that agreement while still drawing a paycheck.

This is particularly true for higher skilled workers who have other options.

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

#534

Post by diegoperini » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

takeda wrote: post #510

archagon wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent, yes. The economy exists for the benefit of humanity and not the other way around. The question is: does the automation help us build things that were impossible before, or does it exist for the sole purpose of cutting jobs and funneling more money to the executives?

IMO what actually needs to be done is tax on automation that would directly fund universal income. That would actually help humanity.

That kills the whole purpose of automation. Automation is preferable because it is supposed to be cheaper while providing equal benefits as traditional production of goods and services.

My personal choice here would be a tax for practices that are provably automatable but not yet automated. The result is the same, we are funding a UBI but now businesses are also incentivized for innovation to escape from the tax. I'm probably missing hundreds of reasonable concerns with my simplistic view point though.

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

#535

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #384

rattray wrote: post #14

What a bummer that workers are publicly demanding this, and (presumably) seeking press attention on it. I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies). But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a pri…

You touch on an interesting point on the continuing amassing of power around corporations. ICE was created by people who were voted on by the populace. A corporation refusing to work with a legal entity really shows just how much power corporations now have. Github refuses to work with ICE today and hypothetically tomorrow will only host code for Democrats? I'm certainly no fan of ICE, but I'm also not sure I like ce…

> hypothetically tomorrow will only host code for Democrats

I can imagine a more disturbing (possible) hypothetical: the activists are successful, and Github terminates it's ICE contract. Nobody else will host their code. ICE still has source code that needs to be hosted, so they hire more developers to maintain their own internal source-code repository. Those developers are subsequently blackballed from future employment opportunities due to their past association with ICE.

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

#536

Post by gok » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

johncena33 wrote: post #26

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...

This is a genuine question. I want to immigrate to USA, but currently there is no easy way to immigrate to USA. On the contrary Canada has a fair immigration system that allowed me to stay, work and eventually be citizen. Why don't people push for a fair immigration system in USA instead of abolishing ICE? What exactly am I missing here?

Many people benefit from the way the immigration system has settled:

1. High paying legal immigration is tightly controlled because highly skilled people and high-paying employers don't dare to break the law.

2. Low-paying illegal immigration is poorly controlled because poor people and small employers don't care about immigration law.

Pro-ICE-abolition groups, for the most part, want essentially open borders for poor people and are ambivalent about high skilled legal immigrants. ICE, for its part, has become increasingly brutal in its enforcement of immigration law, and has repeatedly been caught employing white nationalists and doing otherwise gross things. Getting rid of an unpopular enforcement agency is considered easier to accomplish politically than to actually re-write immigration law.

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

#537

Post by perfmode » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #533

If you take a paycheck from someone, you're implicitly agreeing to carry out their instructions and their vision for their business. If, over time, you have a moral issue with that vision, the best thing for you and that company is to find work elsewhere that is a better fit for your values. It's unreasonable to agree to work for someone and then proceed to undermine their business because it doesn't align with your…

> If you take a paycheck from someone, you're implicitly agreeing to carry out their instructions and their vision for their business

what makes you so sure?

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

#538

Post by VBprogrammer » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

kuzimoto wrote: post #470

VBprogrammer wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. That is a childishly simplistic understanding of how free markets work. There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population who are wheelchair users for example, when they could easily make their stores considerably more efficient by making the aisles a l…

If someone can still get groceries without physically going into the store, is it still discrimination?

Honestly, if you can't see a hundred reasons why that isn't a fair way of treating people then their is no point in me trying to convince you.

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

#539

Post by dnissley » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:38 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #473

Our medium sized company created a simple policy in early 2016 - No religion - no politics in the office. I never dreamed that policy would pay dividends so profoundly. The distraction of having activists within your company trying to actively pressure the company via public channels - I mean it's almost unbelievable that this is the new norm. ...an I am so very thankful we seemed to have sidestepped it.

Don't celebrate too early. It took less than 5 years for this 'thing' to go from college campuses to big companies... What will you do when a twitter mob comes for your company because you're "oppressing your workers ability to speak out about injustice and human rights" or "remaining silent, which is violence"?

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

#540

Post by GhostVII » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

“Thank you for the question. Respectfully, we’re not going to be reconsidering this,” he said on the videoconference call. “Picking and choosing customers is not the approach that we take to these types of questions when it comes to influencing government policy.”

Sounds reasonable. Imo GitHub should be a neutral platform rather than trying to deny service to those they don't agree with. I'm sure electricity and internet companies have lots of contracts with the ICE, no one criticizes that because those are utilities which aren't expected to descriminate based on the views and actions of their customers. I think there is value in having platforms like GitHub with the same approach, you shouldn't have to worry about your code being taken down because it doesn't match the values of a private company. Once you start denying certain customers based on their actions, you implicitly support the actions of all of your other customers, which quickly becomes a very difficult position to be in.