Drop Dropbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Drop Dropbox

#631

Post by skeltoac » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

Shunning is a healthy, grassroots, social expression of disapproval. It is right and fair that people should express their opinions via economic choices. It is not enough to vote only once every few years. You must tolerate grassroots action like this or you will help to entrench totalitarianism.

Nobody is saying there ought to be a law. They are exercising their freedom peacefully and lawfully. You should celebrate that even when you disagree.

Dropbox is free to hire Ms. Rice. Everyone else is free to shun them for it.

Dropbox news is HN fodder. The political nature of Ms. Rice's reputation does not make the topic any less relevant to HN.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#632

Post by usingpond » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

I could see how you'd think this is purely political, but it isn't necessarily. Everything the post brought up is pretty antithetical to the ethics of most of Silicon Valley and startup culture in general. Sure, many Republicans might agree with her but many Republicans also think that gay people should be put to death.

Bad ethics should be called out as so, in this case I think hiding behind "politics" is a bit of a cop-out. It's not inherently liberal at all to make a case against Rice, in fact many conservatives would do the same.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#633

Post by sp332 » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #459

sp332 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to feel really bad if I've been wrong about this, but I thought Bush admitted in his autobiography that WMD's were a made-up reason to invade Iraq. He thought he had the moral high ground in invading to depose Saddam Hussein, but his advisors convinced him that no one would support that reason for invasion.

If you're "going to feel really bad" if you're wrong, why don't you go look it up and make sure before commenting?

That would take a long time :) But seriously, I thought it would be helpful to note a widely-held belief, and I was wondering if someone could post evidence (either way) more quickly than I could.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#634

Post by sparkie » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

antonius wrote: post #4

When looking to grow our board, we sought out a leader who could help us expand our global footprint. Condoleezza sure left a global footprint in the Middle East alright. Hate do this Dropbox, but time for me to move on. Edit: Suggestions for a Dropbox substitute?

http://seafile.com/en/home/

Similar to ownCloud, has client support for all the major platforms.

For the record, it's written by a Chinese company - not that this should matter, but it's often rejected because all those Chinese are cyber criminals, y'know?

Re: Drop Dropbox

#635

Post by gbhn » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #70

I'm as anti-war as the next guy; we military veterans tend to be more so than most, and I've gotten even more so as I've gotten older. Still, there are those who appreciate that: (A) political leaders aren't supermen and -women. Like all of us, they have to make the best decisions they can with the limited information available to them at the time; (A1) [ADDED:] the signal-to-noise ratio can be problematic; the avail…

Hindsight is always good, but this neglects that there was a strong point of view before the invasion of Iraq that it was a mistake. It simply wasn't a popular one in the US. But if you look internationally, there were a lot of people who stuck their necks out and said "don't do this, the evidence isn't very good." There were people in the US who did the same thing (notably Feingold).

The tragedy of US politics is that we don't seem to hold people who made the worst foreign policy call in several decades accountable. Unreconsidered support for the Iraq war should just categorically disqualify one for a position either within national politics or as a commentator on them. Yet it doesn't. These people are either cynical liars, easy-to-dupe rubes, cynical spinsters that can't be trusted to say what they think, or vacillating receptacles. Perhaps several categories apply to some. The point is, any of these characteristics should be disqualifying for national leadership.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#636

Post by mikeash » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

Here are some things I've "learned" from the comments in this thread:

1. Public discussion and encouraging people to vote with their wallet does not belong in a civil society.

2. Nonviolent grassroots campaigns are anti-democratic.

3. It's OK to do terrible things as long as you had good intentions.

Seriously, are you guys all completely insane? The quality of these comments is just amazingly bad. It goes beyond the standard "internet bad" comments full of trolling and bad reasoning, and over the edge into "actively ridiculous".

I'm sure there are good arguments to be made against this but they aren't being made here. Please think about what you're about to write makes any kind of sense before you comment.

Edit: if I were more conspiracy minded, I'd be wondering if the Brendan Eich affair was deliberately created as a weak example to create a wedge and discredit the whole idea of attacking companies based on the politics of their high-level people. It certainly strikes me as unlikely that there would be so many negative comments towards this if the Eich business hadn't first put so many people in that mood.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#637

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

bdlbdl wrote: post #595

jnbiche wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Americans that act in these kind of thought police exercises instead of actually investing in the system should be ASHAMED of themselves. Is what she did illegal? Nominate politicians that will instill FBI leaders who will prosecute crimes. WORK FOR IT. Don't just talk. You need to do more than vote. Yeah, many of us did exactly that back in 2007/2008. We nominated and worked hard to promote and to get elected a pol…

Ok, not saying that Obama has been 100% perfect in his presidency so far, but are you really implying that he's been an awful president? He's kept a lot of his promises: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ Not to mention major wins in healthcare, Iraq, and avoiding the major impending economic collapse that was in place when he took office. He's no saint, and I'm as pissed as anyone about the i…

"...are you really implying that he's been an awful president?"

Every president in the modern context has been and will be awful, even if to somewhat varying degrees. The problem is not the people in office, it's the office itself. It's important that the media emphasize personalities and the infinitesimal differences between them, so the average citizen can make-believe that some presidents are better than others.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#638

Post by insuffi » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #554

grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

People are increasingly incapable of living and working with people with whom they deeply disagree. Quite frankly I consider that behavior childish and immature. Unfortunately it appears that we are living in a world full of children. I am not looking forward to the future where no one shares any opinion they may or may not have due to this type of blacklisting.

Except her opinions have far reaching consequences, such as killing people.

Am I not allowed to blacklist her because of that? I'm sure the people she's indirectly killed would blacklist her. No?

Re: Drop Dropbox

#639

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

sreya wrote: post #520

_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".

If you don't believe every country in the world doesn't try to bug any country they have an investment in, rather it be ally or enemy, you're naive. I can't believe it even came as surprise that US bugged its allies, you don't believe our allies do the same thing, or at least try to, to us?

Who spends 10% as much as the NSA to do it?

Re: Drop Dropbox

#640

Post by foenix » Thu, Apr 10, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

While some of the vitriolic response to Ms. Rice's appointment to the Dropbox board stems from her political affiliations, we should take a step back to explore her resource-management and business decisions.

Personally, I know I have a lot of political mis-givings about appointing Ms. Rice, but that's not the main reason I would feel uncomfortable working under her direction in a technology company. I would probably be more concerned about her lack of fore-thought and poor decision-making. I would be concerned about my ability to trust her.

I know that I, and quite a few others in the tech community have a political bias, but even looking past that, there are many business-related reasons to feel that this is a wrong choice.