Drop Dropbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Drop Dropbox

#521

Post by vdaniuk » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

bsaul wrote: post #505

vdaniuk wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soooo, putting public pressure on a company that is employing a very controversial politician who is linked to war deaths, mass surveillance and torture is left-wing totalitarianism. Care to explain yourself?

Listen, war means death. Counter-terrorism means spying and surveillance, and unfortunately very often, torture. Those are things a state does and has always been doing for the last 3000 years. The fact that we know about it, that we think about it as grown up, that we are trying to do otherwise whenever we can, and choose to prevent abuse is what makes us unique as a democratie. Now please, let me laugh at those peo…

The states of Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Belgium, Norway do no such things. US, China, Russia and others on the other hand do. So don't feed me this 3000 years crap.

US is not trying to do otherwise, Rice wasn't trying to do otherwise. Dropbox board, Dropbox top management lost all my trust as soon as they agreed to work with the person responsible for lots of human suffering. It's simple really, its about the character of people running dropbox.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#522

Post by peeze » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

I thought this was going to be about Heartbleed...darn.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#523

Post by roc » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

aioprisan wrote: post #286

roc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "how is that less responsible for the results?" Devil's Advocate: It's not. But they didn't join Dropbox's board, so it's irrelevant. It is possible this isn't about partisanship, just personal history. Though I have a hard time believing that's actually the case.

Do you think if John Kerry or Barack Obama joined their board, we would see this level of outrage? I highly doubt it.

> "I have a hard time believing that's actually the case."

Re: Drop Dropbox

#524

Post by mbeattie » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

"HEY HERE ARE SOME NON-PARTISAN REASONS TO NOT LIKE CONDI: partisan reason number 1 partisan reason number 2 reason 3 is valid partisan reason number 4"

Re: Drop Dropbox

#525

Post by htns » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

api wrote: post #388

Funny the reaction of so many against this. If it's okay to vote by ballot, why is it not okay to vote by dollar? They're your dollars. It's perfectly fine to choose not to give them to companies that do things or whose leadership holds views you disagree with. Dollars are far more powerful mechanisms of voting than ballots IMHO. Imagine if everyone investigated the leadership of companies they did business with and…

Because voting by dollar is not democracy.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#526

Post by facepalm » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #354

pvnick wrote: post #253

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with most of the opposition to Condi Rice wrt the illegal war, warrantless wiretaps, torture, etc. On the other hand, I threw a hissy fit over the opposition to Eich based on his beliefs. I'm not sure how I can oppose Rice while standing up for Eich without inconsistency. Anybody else feel conflicted and have some insight? I'm still probably goin…

> I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with most of the opposition to Condi Rice wrt the illegal war, warrantless wiretaps, torture, etc. On the other hand, I threw a hissy fit over the opposition to Eich based on his beliefs. I'm not sure how I can oppose Rice while standing up for Eich without inconsistency. The issue here isn't just about someone's personal beliefs. Eich and Rice…

Gay marriage really isn't such an obvious case. Marriage means subventions by the government. So I suppose you could argue that the subventions are really for promoting families with the ultimate goal of having children. Even though gay families can adopt, you could argue that promoting gay marriage does not bring more children into the world.

Not saying that is my opinion, or that marriage is currently perfectly designed for that goal (after all, childless couples can marry too and get some benefits). But I can understand if people feel "if I am paying for other people's marriage, I want to pay for more children being brought into the world in my country" - or something like that. Then I think it would be acceptable to oppose (gay) marriage on that ground.

Just an example - I am not big on the theory of gay marriage, just saying that there can be reasons to oppose it.

It's not a question of denying people the right to be together, but a question of what the community should pay for.

From my European perspective it seems much less ethical to deny people health care (talk about basic human rights), yet I am sure many who support gay marriage are opposed to public health care for a variety of reasons (they don't want to live in a socialist country or whatever).

Re: Drop Dropbox

#527

Post by insuffi » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

rjohnk wrote: post #518

insuffi wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. In my world, morals matter more than political affiliation. Conservative or not, neither of those is inherently bad. What matters is how it's executed. Oh, and by the way,I have observed this trend in the US where people who are liberals automatically disagree with conservatives just because. Sorry, I do like me some critical thinking, you know? You have that, right? I explained my case loud and clear. War is b…

But you said it had nothing to do with her political beliefs - Going to war against Iraq is a political statement as she and others believed that WMDs were there and posed a threat to the region and the World. It's a political belief. I'm not arguing your moral stance. What I see is wanting something both ways - being able to say you don't disagree with politics of the woman, then disagreeing with the politics of the…

Except she did know that there were no WMDs there, and so did the rest of the admin.

Even if the WMDs were there, that in no way posed a threat to the region or the World. If anything, that was just a charade. It's widely known the US had a close relationship with Saddam.

Expanding on her making a political statement, people would have every right to condemn her that political statement if it's a pure lie.

P.S. Political affiliation/beliefs, like I said, don't make you a bad person. Fucking shit up and holding a certain belief are not connected.

EDIT: Plus, following your logic, if you're a republican and you beat your wife, does that mean being a republican is bad?

Re: Drop Dropbox

#528

Post by aridiculous » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

elwell wrote: post #347

It should be noted that her consulting firm [0] has been advising Dropbox for the last year. [0] - http://www.ricehadleygates.com/

Just had a look at their website. It's like a dream team of awful people.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#529

Post by nickff » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:37 PM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #491

nickff wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "So don't go fucking blaming the victims here." Are you trying to imply that you are a victim, just because you naively believed that investing a great deal of power in another politician, who you thought was 'your man in Washington' would lead to better results? It is hard to be sympathetic to someone who pursued such poorly thought-out objectives. It is not the political system that was at fault; in fact, if anyo…

Oh, I heartily agree that I was a total moron to fall for Obama's sweet talk. Glad you had the smarts and life experience to avoid that trap. To exculpate myself a tad, I didn't vote for him in 2012 (or anyone else). But back to the question at hand: if we, the people, are somehow supposed to right out ship by doing more than just voting, how exactly do we choose our candidates? In Obama's case, we went on his statem…

I commend your intellectual rigor for examining your previous belief system in what I am certain was a painful lesson (as changing beliefs is always painful[1]). My point was not that I was any sort of clairvoyant, or had a brilliant insight into the president's soul; it is only that all the politicians are acting under the same incentive system, and unless you have good reason to believe that one acts differently under the same incentives, real substantive change is unlikely. Even if you do believe that you can 'pick' better than most other people, investing large amounts of power in a system which will be run by your opponents/enemies about half the time is not a particularly good strategy.

I invest my energies in divesting the government of power, to reduce the impact of abuse and poor decisions; but you may find a different way to change the system for the better, and I hope you do.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed

Re: Drop Dropbox

#530

Post by JanSt » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 4:37 PM UTC

viggity wrote: post #476

_hgt1 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Eich, Rice went far beyond simply holding beliefs and making donations. She held real power and used it in unconscionable ways. Given the current climate, I find it incredible that a cloud storage company would be involved with someone who actually wiretapped members of the UN Security Council. It's almost like they're saying "thanks for all the data, oh and f * you".

> Wiretapping members of the UN Security Council You realize that is part of the reason we have the NSA, right? Only in a fantasy world do the other members not attempt to spy on the US. The reason why the NSA spying issue is wrong is because they were violating the consitutional rights of US Citizens. The German Chancellor is not a US Citizen and we have every reason to spy on her, the same goes for every other coun…

> The German Chancellor is not a US Citizen and we have every reason to spy on her, the same goes for every other country in the world.

This is so wrong.