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Re: Drop Dropbox

#891

Post by nollidge »

vdaniuk wrote: post #678
sergiosgc wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big deal as it may be, the parent comment was placing the discussion in a plane you totally missed in your response. The type of blackballing practiced by this campaign is similar to the kind of blackballing that ousted Brendan Eich. It is also a slippery slope. Slippery slopes are dangerous. At each step of the way, you can reason about your present decision and easily justify it. Add all the steps and the picture i…

Slippery slope is also a logical fallacy, so there's that.

Yeah, sorry, you don't get to just declare "fallacy!" and not explain yourself.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#892

Post by [deleted] »

EliAndrewC wrote: post #839
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…

Debates on Brendan Eich and Condoleezza Rice seem to boil down three separate questions: 1) Is there any belief or action not directly related to someone's job that should disqualify them from their position? 2) If the answer to #1 is yes, does this specific issue cross that threshold? 3) Does the answer to #1 change based on their position within a company, e.g. a regular employee vs a CEO? I've seen well-reasoned a…

[deleted]

Re: Drop Dropbox

#893

Post by hackinthebochs »

aioprisan wrote: post #734
hackinthebochs wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have citations off hand, but from memory: 1. Cheney strongly pressured the CIA to discover a smoking gun for Iraq WMDs 2. CIA produced a document that they themselves questioned the authenticity of (the "yellow cake" purchase document) 3. Bush/Cheney ran with that, ignoring the caveats of the intelligence and trumpeting it as the smoking gun 4. Later discovered that the document was fabricated So while I have…

> 1. Cheney strongly pressured the CIA to discover a smoking gun for Iraq WMDs Really? What is your source for that? Where in the Senate's report do you see that information? http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?browsePat...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0605-01.htm (wholesale copy of a washingtonpost article)

Also quite a few similar stories and first-hand accounts (of varying credibility) from a google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=cheney+pressure+iraq+intelli...

Re: Drop Dropbox

#894

Post by canvia »

janj wrote: post #724
MarkPNeyer wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this. I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act. If the tech community dumps anyone from any party…

I was fooled by Obama during his first campaign but learned quickly during his first term that he is no different. I might be a bit partisan in thinking if we had a democratic president during 9/11 we might not've gone to war with Iraq but we'll never really know. I have simplified my life, reduced my consumption, don't own a car, grow my own food, try to avoid using Wall Street whenever possible when I do make purch…

Removing clutter and unnecessary consumption gives you a lot more time to read and think. I am trying to minimize the waste in my life as well, and focus on local sustainable efforts. Reducing news consumption has freed up a lot of time for me. Keep voting with your money and time and hopefully we'll reach a tipping point. Good luck on your journey!

Re: Drop Dropbox

#895

Post by smtddr »

burntroots wrote: post #875
peteretep wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is a community with a corporation attached. That community (as with most communities) is built on a set of shared values, and arguably needs to be led by someone sharing those values. Dropbox is a company who exists to enrich their shareholders, and has customers, not community members. That's the fundamental difference here.

Don't fool yourself: they're both corporations and thus money making entities. Clearly, the difference is minor at best, since this behavior is spreading beyond the community based organizations.

Don't agree. I like to see tech companies trying to become more than the old-fashion 9-to-5 grind without morals/ethic and only interested in the money. We have enough of those ruining the world already.

I'm happy to see mozilla rise above bigotry and get Eich out and I hope similar happens to Rice.

It's one thing to have your private opinion, I'm not calling for stormfront.org to be shut down(as extrememly disgusting as it is). It's another thing to put action to your opinions in the form of taking others' rights away(prop8) or wiretapping/murder/torturing people. It's time those of us in tech stop pretending we live in a vacuum without politics and make sure we send a clear message that we are(should be) very much against discrimination based on race/gender/orientation or gross human rights violations.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#896

Post by krick »

I don't know who author of that mentions by saying "we", but I somehow don't feel I should respond to his call. I don't even really know who is that woman he is speaking about, I don't know about politics, I don't want to know. I can't even recall without googling who's running Dropbox right now and I surely don't know (I wonder if I could!) if they are good or bad people. I know Dropbox. Dropbox is a service that does something valuable to me. So, why should I be concerned?

I could be concerned if author explained me why and how is that Dropbox does something "bad". If it'd show that it will hurt customers or dolphins or whatever. I surely would be concerned if it'd show that there's no way we can trust Dropbox anymore because of that. But if it would be so I don't think I should trust them anyway, because, you know, Condoleezza Rice doesn't fall from the sky right in the directors chair usually, she's invited first. They are already connected somehow.

But manifesting some organization (that does something useful, which rarely the manifesting ones do) because of some woman-who-supported-war (or man-who-is-against-gay-marriages, for that sake) is sitting the hight chair in it is stupid. I don't think I could use anything if I protested about every company having some personality I disagree with in its owners/directors list (however their names may be somewhat less known than "Condoleezza Rice").

And if you want to hurt that Rice specifically for some reason — too bad, but I don't think that's big problem for her. I believe she has money to avoid dying of starvation anyway already.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#897

Post by Curmudgel »

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…

> ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world.

Most of the negative comments on this thread are about her actions, not her ideological purity. The criticisms focus on her role in the Iraq War, 9/11, Katrina, not her political affiliation. Critics are outraged that the candidate hired for her decision making ability has a record of making very poor decisions that had severe deleterious effects.

>It is easy enough to whip oneself up into a lather over Ms. Rice’s policies if one disagrees with them but what about the half of America (or whatever significant percentage) that does not. And why should this be relevant to board service?

Ms. Rice has expressed support for warrantless wiretapping and mass surveillance. Many users are concerned that these views are inappropriate for someone working at a company that hosts our data.

>Politics, religion, and social worldviews divide people and have no place as limiting tests in a business environment. Scolding and finger-wagging...

Her support for mass surveillance is very relevant to Dropbox's business.

I disagree strongly with your supercilious characterization of the outrage as an example of close mindedness and bigotry. I believe that you made your post in earnest but it is hard not to see it as malicious. Your fatuous attempts to classify the outrage about the hiring of a supporter of mass surveillance, torture, and the Iraq War as similar to the oppression of minorities and the blacklisting of suspected Communists in the 1950s is so outrageous that it is offensive.

Ms. Rice is not a founder, and she is not being persecuted for her political views. She is disliked because of her actions, not her views, and your failure to distinguish between the two is troubling.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#898

Post by doesnt_know »

burntroots wrote: post #875
peteretep wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is a community with a corporation attached. That community (as with most communities) is built on a set of shared values, and arguably needs to be led by someone sharing those values. Dropbox is a company who exists to enrich their shareholders, and has customers, not community members. That's the fundamental difference here.

Don't fool yourself: they're both corporations and thus money making entities. Clearly, the difference is minor at best, since this behavior is spreading beyond the community based organizations.

The difference is not minor. Mozilla wouldn't exist, or at best be a tiny husk of what it is today without the community surrounding it.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#899

Post by supersystem »

EliAndrewC wrote: post #839
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…

Debates on Brendan Eich and Condoleezza Rice seem to boil down three separate questions: 1) Is there any belief or action not directly related to someone's job that should disqualify them from their position? 2) If the answer to #1 is yes, does this specific issue cross that threshold? 3) Does the answer to #1 change based on their position within a company, e.g. a regular employee vs a CEO? I've seen well-reasoned a…

> Since grellas' post was an argument about question #1, I hope people are able to recognize that and tailor their responses to the argument he is actually making, in the spirit of "colleagues trying to reason out the truth together".

I think grellas comment was tactless. He used his karma to publish a largely meta argument, ignoring the debate as well as the link and not responding to anyone else afterwards. This isn't "colleagues trying to reason out the truth together" to me. It's also indistinguishable from the type of comment you would post if you wanted to derail the more specific discussion. Often because your viewpoint lacks good arguments.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#900

Post by fredophile »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #866
chrisBob wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also "free speech" means something specific: It means the government can't make laws limiting your speech. It does not say I have to do anything to support that "right". As long as I am not violating another law (ie racial prejudice) I can fight or limit your "free speech" as much as I want.

You are confusing free speech and the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects free speech against the U.S. government, but governmental control is not the only aspect of free speech. Free speech is a larger issue. Edit: if what you are saying were true, there wouldn't be any free speech issues in any country besides the United States. Clearly that is not the case.

It sounds like you're saying that if there are any consequences for speech then it isn't free. This probably isn't what you really mean so please feel free to clarify your argument. I'd rather debate your real position than rip apart a strawman.
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