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Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu

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Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#171

Post by duaneb »

johnchristopher wrote: post #145
duaneb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox doesn't matter. Your money does. It speaks volumes about you that you are outspoken on ethical issues except where your wallet is. Like the vast majority of Americans. Of course, that's precisely the attitude that gets us gay marriage (good), two wars, a dying environment, and an absolutely unsustainable economy based on putting our lower class out of work.

> Dropbox doesn't matter. Your money does. It speaks volumes about you that you are outspoken on ethical issues except where your wallet is . No, you distorted parent's statement by slightly reframing the perspective when it should be read like this: It speaks volumes about you that you are outspoken on ethical issues except when it comes to putting food on your kid's plates .

It's a false dichotomy that you either have to let your kids starve or support evil companies. Again, it's this dichotomy that has led to the present situation.

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#172

Post by duaneb »

justizin wrote: post #148
duaneb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox doesn't matter. Your money does. It speaks volumes about you that you are outspoken on ethical issues except where your wallet is. Like the vast majority of Americans. Of course, that's precisely the attitude that gets us gay marriage (good), two wars, a dying environment, and an absolutely unsustainable economy based on putting our lower class out of work.

Right. I work in a position where I am somewhat responsible for decisions such as whether to use AWS or not, which at other companies has been a different decision such as what hardware to purchase and where to install it. This is a difficult situation to balance, because what you are suggesting, from my perspective, ends up being about saying, "I will quit working here unless we quit using Vendor X!" - that will end…

I mean, I use EC2 and see nothing wrong with it. I'm just pointing out the double standard of making a big fuss when what you're fussing about is probably a waste of energy and what you're not fussing about would be much more effective if you DID fuss about it.

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#173

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

doesnt_know wrote: post #167
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm using gpg.

Would you be willing to do a little write up or make a blog post about your process or something? I've been meaning to setup encrypted backups for a while. At the moment mine are all unencrypted, but are stored on hardware under my control that I have direct physical access too. I'd like to use a convenient offsite storage provider, but have no interest in trusting them with data. Tarsnap would be ideal if it was act…

Yes, I literally just tar and gpg the result. I could sort out something more elegant and do a writeup. Keep an eye on http://drewdevault.com.

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#174

Post by dredmorbius »

dmix wrote: post #13

Amazon is building a $600 million datacenter for the CIA. The CIA did all of the bad things listed in Dropbox article as directed by Bush and Condoleezza, and they are still actively trying to cover up torture. I've never heard anyone here not using EC2 over it? The tech scenes pitchfork mobs are wildly inconsistent. I have a feeling this one hit a nerve because Condoleezza Rice is famously hated across the internet…

You pick your battles.

In a moral argument, finding a target who's likely sensitive to moral suasion, whose audience or market is vocal, outspoken, and rights-oriented, and in which there's a reasonable chance for success. The Mozilla-Eich situation would be a case in point.

Condaleeza Rice has certainly drawn fire previously in her career -- despite Knuth's apparent support of her while at Stanford, I'm aware of others who were glad to see her move on, though perhaps not fully realizing she could do far more harm as National Security Advisor.

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#175

Post by [deleted] »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #161
pavelrub wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just that regardless of your political inclinations, you need to be extremely ignorant of the complexity of the situation in the Middle East to be able to make such clear cut statements about what's justifiable and what's not. Disclaimer: I live in Israel.

Please correct me if I'm wrong: within living memory, a large area of land already occupied by many humans was unilaterally declared not to belong to them anymore, and they were largely either forced out or subjugated to make way for a different batch of humans who wanted to live, literally, in their houses. My nation did something very similar to the Native Americans more than a century ago, and it's now universally…

[deleted]

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#176

Post by mathattack »

sitkack wrote: post #89
mathattack wrote: post #48

It may help to put 2002 in the title, as this relates to the war in Iraq rather than Dropbox. (It's still interesting, and worth an upvote!) When people go after her, I wonder, "What about Kissinger?" He was part of a lot of cold hard decisions in tough times on the world. That said, I would enjoy his counsel if I wanted to get involved in China. Similar with her, though her expertise may be more in Russia. My (non-e…

Kissinger is widely and wildly despised. East Timor, Cambodia and extending the Vietnam war by years is his bullshit legacy. If someone can reincarnated before they die, then Kissinger => Condoleeza

Yes - this is my point. He is despised, but still is knowledgable, and I'd listen to him about China.

Granted this is about tapping specific knowledge. I would never hire someone with a morality deficit as an employee. (And maybe it would be dangerous to have one as the CEO's boss)

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#177

Post by bsder »

Tloewald wrote: post #20
m52go wrote: post #12

Simply removing Condi as a board member doesn't solve anything. The move to make her a board member puts the motivations of the entire Dropbox leadership team in question. Today, Dropbox hurt its reputation very badly, regardless how this ultimately plays out.

And it's such a bizarre move. What's the upside?

Connections to megacorps.

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#178

Post by pohl »

dmix wrote: post #13

Amazon is building a $600 million datacenter for the CIA. The CIA did all of the bad things listed in Dropbox article as directed by Bush and Condoleezza, and they are still actively trying to cover up torture. I've never heard anyone here not using EC2 over it? The tech scenes pitchfork mobs are wildly inconsistent. I have a feeling this one hit a nerve because Condoleezza Rice is famously hated across the internet…

I have no particular standing in this debate, but I've decided that terms like "pitchfork mobs", "witch hunts", and "bullies" in the context of this issue are far too close to Godwin territory for my taste.

Has there been actual violence that I haven't seen covered in the news? All I've seen are consumers engaging in online discourse about ceasing use of a service.

I don't mind reading the contrary opinions, too, but I'd really like to read some that can explain their case without the hyperbole.

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#179

Post by azth »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #173
doesnt_know wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to do a little write up or make a blog post about your process or something? I've been meaning to setup encrypted backups for a while. At the moment mine are all unencrypted, but are stored on hardware under my control that I have direct physical access too. I'd like to use a convenient offsite storage provider, but have no interest in trusting them with data. Tarsnap would be ideal if it was act…

Yes, I literally just tar and gpg the result. I could sort out something more elegant and do a writeup. Keep an eye on http://drewdevault.com .

Looking forward to it :)

Re: Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

#180

Post by rdc12 »

duaneb wrote: post #171
johnchristopher wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dropbox doesn't matter. Your money does. It speaks volumes about you that you are outspoken on ethical issues except where your wallet is . No, you distorted parent's statement by slightly reframing the perspective when it should be read like this: It speaks volumes about you that you are outspoken on ethical issues except when it comes to putting food on your kid's plates .

It's a false dichotomy that you either have to let your kids starve or support evil companies. Again, it's this dichotomy that has led to the present situation.

But your false dichotomy ignores reality, sure he could leave his current job (assuming he can't ditch evil company X at his current job), but will he then find another job at an "ideal" company that is a) not evil and b) uses no evil companies products, probably not
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