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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

#801

Post by LunaSea »

jlokier wrote: post #544
umvi wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are over-complicating it. Evil people might use my software on GitHub to help kill people. I'm okay with that. I'm not going to try to prevent it; it's impossible. Their blood is not on my hands any more than the blood of Nice France victims is on the truck company's hands.

I think it's obvious that the scope here is "things you are aware of (or could choose to be) and are within your control".

If customers would be anonymous, would you mind if ICE used GitHub since nobody at GitHub would be aware of it?

If GitHub were to go through with it, that would make for an interesting middle-man company business model.

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

#802

Post by LunaSea »

ckocagil wrote: post #196
jjice wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a direct reply to your comment, but more of an adjacent one. > Guess what? Politics are interwoven in every aspect of our lives. You cannot choose to “avoid” them; But I do choose to avoid them in my personal life. A private company can do whatever the hell they want, whether I approve or not, it's their right. I also believe it is my right to not care about politics and continue moving forward with my own life.…

You can ignore politics, but politics will not ignore you. What you're doing is burying your head in the sand, not avoiding.

So why aren't these vocal GitHub employees leaving the company then?

If this was really about strong political will they would just change companies.

If we follow their own logic, they are enabling ICE by continuing to work for GitHub and are thus complicit.

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

#803

Post by moolcool »

dingaling wrote: post #767
moolcool wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So who decides? Do companies now need a chief political officer? Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do. Just as Apple and Nike make the _decision_ to employ the questionable overseas labour practices, providing services to them is also a _decision_. The whole point of the corporate executive branch is to make decisions for the company, it's the difference between McD…

> Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do. That's incorrect. The vast majority of companies are small and medium sized enterprises who just try to make it through. Does the launderette in the high street make political decisions? The car dealership? The scrap metal yard?

Those all make political decisions. Let's take the car dealership: What are your hiring practices? Are the cars foreign, or domestic? How do you incentivize your salesforce? How much (if any) insurance do you provide employees? How do you provide credit? Do you sell cars to people with bad credit who you don't believe will be able to make payments? How do you handle missed payments? When do you decide to repossess a car? Do you push low emissions and electric vehicles? There's a ton of politics behind literally all of these (and more) questions.

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

#804

Post by LunaSea »

amcoastal wrote: post #219
akerro wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Guess what? Politics are interwoven in every aspect of our lives. Yes, but also companies exist literally only to make money. Companies can't exist without workers. Once a company finds itself in a position of conflict of interest between political views of workers and point of existence of the company - where contracts bring money... we're going to see interesting things. I wonder, who will break first? The company…

So you don't agree with employees disagreeing with their company hosting code or developing tools for the Chinese government to run their concentration camps? Like the parent says, being non-political IS being political. You cannot separate it. What is so bad about employees at a company having a say in what type of work the company does?

Would you be Ok with GitHub recruiting based on political opinion since there would for these to "match"?

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

#805

Post by LunaSea »

sangnoir wrote: post #253
dominotw wrote: post #13

i wish someone of these workers quit. Tons of IT jobs even in covid. If you are not quitting then you are also profiting form ICE contract.

> If you are not quitting then you are also profiting form ICE contract. This is reductive, right up there with "Why don't you move to Canada?" Do you agree with every single action done by all entities you belong to: family, employer, HOA, neighborhood, city council, state/province, and country? If you disagree with the actions of a family member - is your solution to cut them off immediately without talking to them…

Well now that GitHub denied their request I hope that they will leave the company.

They wouldn't want to be complicit right?

I wouldn't bet on this happening though.

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

#806

Post by thaumasiotes »

diegoperini wrote: post #748
thaumasiotes wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal choice here would be a tax for practices that are provably automatable but not yet automated. If a practice is provably automatable, then it's already automated. That's what proof looks like.

Existence of a proof doesn't mean application of it is widespread.

In this case, the existence of a proof means that its application is universal. You may believe that the automation of one process could be easily generalized to another process, but you haven't proved it until you've automated the second process.

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

#807

Post by jrochkind1 »

LunaSea wrote: post #782
qtplatypus wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different people have different thresholds for “Abusive behaviour that is sufficient to break ties”. This is a subjective question of morals. You can’t say “If this organisation has X units of badness”.

Right, which also means that not everyone at GitHub agrees with not working on ICE related projects. I'm even betting that it is a small vocal minority that is against it. So, how should GitHub proceed in your opinion?

You realize that not everyone in an organization would have agreed with not working with Nazi Germany either?

IBM literally sold them information retrieval technology they used to keep track of concentration camp inmates. So clearly the important decision-makers did not agree.

I guess it is like any other question of what an organization should do. Those with the power to make decisions will decide based on some combination of their own ethical standards or (more likely) what think they is "good for the business", where PR as well as employee morale are components of that. The employees without the power to decide directly can organize to try to convince those with the power to make decisions of the correct ethical choice, or of what's good for the business, or to try to change the calculus of what's good for the business by effecting PR and employee morale etc.

I mean, this is kind of just a description of how human organizations or collective decision-making works....

I personally think that what ICE is doing is absolutely immoral and unethical, putting people, including asylum seekers, into (yes I think it's appropriate language) concentration camps, without a trial or hearing or access to a lawyer, in unsafe conditions (covid makes this even more extreme), separating children from parents, etc. If we looked for an external arbiter of this, I think it also clearly violates international law and agreements on the rights of migrants and refugees, so that could be another argument, don't sell software to organizations that will use it to violate international law.

I personally wouldn't at this point call for github (or anyone) to avoid business with the federal governmetn entirely -- just to avoid your products being used for the programs that are violating international human rights. That is, avoid doing business with ICE, for sure. Maybe with DHS in general, or particular programs/units in DHS.

I can't make you agree. People disagree, this is part of human life. But if I were in github, I'd be working to convince other co-workers of this, and to convince decision-makers leaders of it, as those in the article are presumably doing (I still can't read the article because paywall, so I'm only guessing as I think most commenting are!) This is how humans in organizations work.

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

#808

Post by devalgo »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #760
devalgo wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I think the larger call is saying that ICE as it currently is conceived as a paramilitary-style organization is not the way control the border and manage immigration. This seems like what people on the right do with Trump. He'll say some outlandish or indefensible thing on Twitter and pundits will walk it back and lay out some complex argument to support it. It's not convincing in either case. It's the same with…

What protesters? I attended a march in NYC this weekend and the protesters demands included shifting $1 billion of the NYPD budget to community, education, and social welfare programs, and a $500 million investment fund for black businesses. No one was screaming to get rid of all cops everywhere forever. Are you genuinely seeking to understand, or do you hols these protesters in too much disdain to actually listen to…

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

Feel free to try and explain it away but to say no one is calling for this would at this point be willful blindness. I have complete freedom to think that many of the protests demands are dangerous, poorly thought out and outright foolish.

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

#809

Post by moolcool »

koheripbal wrote: post #710
moolcool wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

"You either with us or against us" is the hallmark call of extremists. It was first used politically by Vladimir Lenin, then Benito Mussolini, and more recently by George W Bush after 9/11. It's not surprising that modern liberals are so keen on its use.

Non-complacency is totally different from "with us or against us" mentality. Like the Bush example, you can simultaneously stand in opposition to terror and extremism, and also be in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. You don't have to agree with 100% of the principle of someone who you share _some_ principles with.

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

#810

Post by chipotle_coyote »

philwelch wrote: post #722
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion is a protected class, so the question is moot under US law. In any case, I confess I'm always a little suspicious of this method of argument. Bob says, "I will ban neo-Nazis from my forum," and people chime in with, "Well, what about banning Catholics? Vegetarians? People who admit to liking Nickelback?". Is the principle really that if we find one single case where Bob would admit "I don't think banning tha…

I was directly addressing the notion that "It makes sense to not let people discriminate on things that are immutable (like skin color), but it's crazy to not let discrimination happen on things that are a choice." Religion is not an immutable characteristic. It's not a slippery slope argument, but rather a direct counterexample of the principle given.

This is where in Slack, I would add a thumbs-up emoji reaction as an "okay, gotcha," but I'll just have to say: okay, gotcha. :)
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