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Re: Drop Dropbox

#951

Post by captainmojo »

davidkellis wrote: post #865
captainmojo wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powder keg or not, a Privacy concern would certainly influence my decision of whether or not to use their APIs in my software, especially on behalf of consumers. They've been trying to attract developers to their API, and they just lost my interest.

I don't see the privacy concern. Is the fear that Condi is going to persuade Dropbox leadership to open the doors to govt. snooping?

I don't fear that, so much as that she would facilitate it or fail to act to prevent it. I don't care about most of the content of the OP's page, but I'm not really willing to give her the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making sure I'm the only one with access to my data.

As MichaelGG points out, maybe I was wrong to assume that my data was safe in the first place. In either case, yes, Dropbox and its APIs are no longer on my radar.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#952

Post by theorique »

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…

Rice is a war criminal who happens to have not been prosecuted.

That's a pretty serious claim, and more a matter of opinion. Depending on the situation, one could point such a charge at any person who was in a position of authority in a government of a nation that was fighting a war, if one were so inclined.

Shouldn't a person's status as a war criminal depend on whether they've actually been charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced?

Re: Drop Dropbox

#953

Post by sroerick »

nickff wrote: post #708
usingpond wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how it's a black-list if the means of ejection is extremely public and based on pure market motivation? Conservatives with awful views tend to get "freedom of speech" and "freedom from social and business consequences" mixed up a lot.

First off, I am no conservative. I would contend that the Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s and 1950s is comparable with what is we see here; then as now, a group of people with certain political and social views are being excluded and ejected from jobs solely because of their activities outside of the job being denied to them.[1] Those blacklisted in the 1940s and 1950s had "freedom of speech", but not "freedom from…

I'm baffled by this opinion. Comparing a voluntary boycott of Condi to the government blacklisting of the Hollywood Ten is so far off base that I honestly can't understand how you can compare the two.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#954

Post by EliAndrewC »

sigzero wrote: post #942
EliAndrewC wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about people that can separate their personal from their business? Eich never did anything at all at Mozilla to push his point of view on gay marriage. If #1 is true, then that plays to him not doing so as well as CEO. Rice is a different story I guess. You have to decide if you think #2 is right or not. I don't happen to think she is but I can see why people are hesitant for her to be on the board.

> What about people that can separate their personal from their business? Eich never did anything at all at Mozilla to push his point of view on gay marriage. If #1 is true, then that plays to him not doing so as well as CEO.

Right, we definitely had (at least) two different signals about how Eich would behave as CEO with respect to LGBT employees. And how he behaved in practice is arguably a much stronger signal than his political donations, especially when coupled with his statements of support for Mozilla's inclusive culture and promise to maintain it.

The strongest counterarguments I've seen go something like this:

- Eich was never previously in an executive leadership role; being CTO is important but not in the same way as CEO. So his past behavior is less of a signal than his supporters would have us believe, especially since we don't know about every interaction he's ever had with his LGBT colleagues.

- It's easy to accept that Eich had no plans to e.g. try to roll back domestic partner benefits for LGBT couples; with Mozilla's current culture, that would have zero chance of happening anyway. But given his political donations, are we 100% sure that he wouldn't be in favor of it if the culture shifted? If not, then it's reasonable to oppose him as CEO.

- Even if we expect zero policy changes driven by Eich's beliefs, as CEO he would be making decisions about people's roles within the company. It's reasonable to be concerned about how fair-minded he would be, particularly if someone felt they were being marginalized.

I'm not sold on these arguments, but I think they're sincere and I cringe every time someone categorizes them as a "witch hunt".

Re: Drop Dropbox

#955

Post by sroerick »

aw3c2 wrote: post #62
uptown wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the current sentiment regarding the security and privacy of BTSync?

It's closed source and proprietary so it is no solution for me.

Thanks. Reading this thread, it feels like I'm the only one who has already been boycotting dropbox.

Hopefully this news will lead to increased development for a product like SparkleShare. Lord knows we need it.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#956

Post by CamperBob2 »

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.

People aren't logical entities, so the fact that slippery-slope arguments are "logical" fallacies is completely irrelevant.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#957

Post by EricDeb »

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…

That's the issue though. Libertarians often say things like "If you don't like Walmart, don't shop there," which is fine, but puts the responsibility on the consumer to know the various ideologies of the businesses they choose to support. If we want to live in a society in which this responsibility lies with the consumer, then the people who make up a company's board of directors are an important part of this decision making process.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#958

Post by DonGateley »

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…

Be aware that with a Google Drive account you explicitly give Google unfettered access to all of your data to do with what they want.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#959

Post by stormbrew »

yypark wrote: post #922
supersystem wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 is…

It might sound tactless because it breaks down the illusion of moral superiority that most sides in a political battle believe they have. In general, people don't like being told they may in fact be wrong, they want to believe their side is unique, superior, and the other side is committing crimes against humanity/unborn children/whatever it may be. When a huge proportion of the broader population (not necessarily HN…

> If we used a boycott at every opportunity, at every disagreement, where would we be?

If we used a slippery slope argument at every opportunity, at every disagreement, where would we be? Would we be able to buy milk for fear of the veritable avalanche of milk we may end up buying in the future? Could we stand the idea of going to work one day under the contemplation of spending the next thousand years, every day, going to work?

Boycotts are not new. They are not novel to Eich's situation and it working is not a sign of a Brave New World in which every person boycotts every other person.

If I'm wrong, and in ten years I can't talk to you because I have a beard and you don't, please feel free to say "I told you so," but in the meantime this kind of argument is just ridiculous.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#960

Post by parasubvert »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #821
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…

Deceit, torture, violation of civil rights, homophobia. These things are not about politics or religion. This is about willfully and intentionally hurting others. Please stop representing this as being merely about the personal political or religious views of the people involved. This is about people who either have, or had the intention of inflicting very real pain on others. Others that include our friends, our fam…

This has everything to do with political (in)tolerance.

There is nothing to be gained from asking a person to step down over their past political beliefs and actions, other than engendering fear and heightening mistrust among people with different points of view. It also happens to be illegal to fire employees over their beliefs in many states.

  Tolerating difference and changing minds can enact positive social change, destroying the heathens does little.
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