121–130 of 134 posts
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You may be confusing “right direction” with “my direction”.
There was no detectable point of view in the comment you're replying to, other than that what a person does should be compatible with their own belief system. It's hard to see that as oppression.
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There's a great Warren Buffett quote on this: "Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don't have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it's true. If you hire somebody without integrity, you really want them to be dumb and lazy."
This is actually based on a classification system for military officers first outlined in 1933 by a German general named Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord
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A couple of honest questions coming in. I would very much like to engage in a good faith conversation with you. > ... unwilling to represent the failings your company has done to society, then I need to hear a justification before moving further in the conversation. I'm going to replace 'company' with 'organization'. Do you harbor similar opinions about people who have previously or currently work for a federal gover…
I work in the security org now, and so I deal with a lot of exmilitary and exfederal employees. Considering that the military is a institution in this country that helps a lot of working class kids get education and training... It really comes down to choices and consent for me. If you're in the military, that may have been the option for an 18 year old and certainly I wasn't thinking about ethics when I was 18. But…
A military is, for better or worse, a necessary requirement for maintaining a society that won’t get taken advantage of by others. While it’s easy to point to “job is to kill people”, that’s a simplistic reduction and many who are in the military will not do so. As much as one can be all Kum-ba-ya and imagine a Utopia in which armed forces are not necessary, life doesn’t really work that way.
Facebook is a form of publicly consumed entertainment, but unchecked they will happily fuck with people’s minds for more clicks/revenue, and they absolutely should be held to a higher standard than they are.
They two aren’t even in the same league when it comes to ethics.
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As I said in the other post of mine that you commented on, you're welcome to not agree with me (or anyone, I don't care), that's totally fine with me.
You’re welcome to disagree but repeating that doesn’t make for engaging discussion which is kind of the purpose of this forum. If you aren’t willing to defend your support of those who are subliminally attacking others, maybe just don’t post at all. It’s just not interesting and doesn’t add anything.
There was a previous discussion of this yesterday based on a Buzzfeed News article about the same memo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24474343
I've taken a hard line with people who work at Facebook. If you're still there and unwilling to represent the failings your company has done to society, then I need to hear a justification before moving further in the conversation. I don't think I've ever felt this strongly about a tech company. I know that's tough but it's a matter of ethics. And frankly, Facebook is an amazing technical institution, and I would lov…
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How would it be illegal? Doctors are often required to attest their ethics before doing a job.
But engineers are not. There are jurisdictions that this could be framed as discriminatory. Not in the US, but other markets.
Maybe the difference is that (computer-based) engineers are expected to do unethical work in some situations and for some employers, and there is an unwritten code that they can pass the buck and won't be penalised just for "doing their jobs".
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While you have a point about 18yo, it is very difficult to overlook the main job of the military: kill people. NSA flies below the radar or at least used to, but it is very difficult to not notice that the US military mostly come to foreign countries and kill people there. Even if you are a teenager. However, with FB it is less obvious due to their fancy talk about community and shit. I understand your outrage about…
> it is very difficult to overlook the main job of the military: kill people. Not really. Its stated job is to keep other people from killing you. It's unfortunate and unjust that in many cases this devolves into pre-emptive killing. But for most sovereign nations, there's really no alternative to having a military.
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Not sure if it's reasonable to expect people to badmouth their current employer in an interview, especially when you don't know the result of the interview.
The last ex-Amazonian I interviewed managed to express his discomfort with Amazon without "badmouthing" anything or anyone. I was impressed with his diplomacy. We hired him.