Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The tech sec­tor might be evil

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 233 posts

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#221

Post by 3131s »

evgen wrote: post #206
3131s wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like the guy pulling the lever in the gas chamber.

And in the vast majority of the cases the guy pulling the lever happened to be on that side of the gas chamber door because his nation had a strong defense sector and the government that was supposed to protect the people on the wrong side of that door had a weak defense sector. Maybe ask yourself what side of the door you want to be on before getting up on that high horse.

What an embarrassing comment for you. Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? So your comment really makes no sense, in addition to being cowardly.

I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#222

Post by monochromatic »

Sean1708 wrote: post #132

> It no­tably in­volves the M-word This might be a horrendously stupid question, but what is the "M-word"? The only m-word introduced up until that point is "moment" but that's obviously not it. I was thinking maybe Microsoft, but they then go on to talk about Facebook, Amazon, and Google. Edit: OK that was a very stupid question, I should have read to the end of the article first.

I paused reading and came to the comments with the same question. So I’m glad you asked.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#223

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

BatFastard wrote: post #164
RickJWagner wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to be conservative, and I work in tech. It feels to me like a repressive atmosphere. Conservatives are muzzled or eliminated. It's not a healthy environment for anyone.

Calling yourself a conservative is meaningless. The US has shifted away from being a republic to being more of an oligarchy over the last 30 years. So if you are a supporter of oligarchs stand up and be counted. If you are a fiscal conservative you should be pissed that the republicans put the country farther in debt than the democrats do. If you are a social conservative, what the fuck is wrong with you? If you want…

While you may have valid points, your tone is aggressive, emotional, and unproductive.

> people who's ideas feel repressive or too far out there either learn to monitor their own extreme ideas or they are shunned. That's how a civil society works.

This can be taken too far, however. Complete suppression of nonpopular views can maintain an unproductive status quo, and may lead to authoritarianism.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#224

Post by taway_1212 »

maxerickson wrote: post #208
evgen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the vast majority of the cases the guy pulling the lever happened to be on that side of the gas chamber door because his nation had a strong defense sector and the government that was supposed to protect the people on the wrong side of that door had a weak defense sector. Maybe ask yourself what side of the door you want to be on before getting up on that high horse.

I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. I mean, I don't want to die, but if you are gassing people, you've not really come out ahead of the people you are gassing.

> I'd rather die than participate in mass murder.

There were relatively few perpetrators of mass murders, while the murdered people counted in millions. In other words - not all Germans "pulled levers of gas chambers", while most of for example Eastern European Jews got gassed (or shot).

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#225

Post by taway_1212 »

thex10 wrote: post #185
taway_1212 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the disdain for working in the arms sector. After all, weapons are just tools, it's the politicians who decide what to do with them. You should despise the king, not the gunsmith.

Believe it or not, there are some folk who abhor all violence, for whom there is literally no situation where a weapon of arms sector level sophistication could be used for good. In this case, there's simply no justification for the arms sector's existence.

I suspect these are fringe beliefs though, as they are naturally eliminated via evolution of the human specie.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#226

Post by taway_1212 »

3131s wrote: post #221
evgen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the vast majority of the cases the guy pulling the lever happened to be on that side of the gas chamber door because his nation had a strong defense sector and the government that was supposed to protect the people on the wrong side of that door had a weak defense sector. Maybe ask yourself what side of the door you want to be on before getting up on that high horse.

What an embarrassing comment for you. Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? So your comment really makes no sense, in addition to being cowardly. I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.

> Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans?

Citation needed? Unless you were talking about the operators, not the victims... (it's not clear for me).

> I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.

There is a saying in Polish "we know ourselves only to the degree we've been tested before" - in other words, it's hard to tell beforehand how one would behave in an extreme situation.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#227

Post by evgen »

3131s wrote: post #221
evgen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the vast majority of the cases the guy pulling the lever happened to be on that side of the gas chamber door because his nation had a strong defense sector and the government that was supposed to protect the people on the wrong side of that door had a weak defense sector. Maybe ask yourself what side of the door you want to be on before getting up on that high horse.

What an embarrassing comment for you. Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? So your comment really makes no sense, in addition to being cowardly. I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.

Sorry, but the embarrassment here is yours. The overwhelming majority of those in the gas chambers were Polish, not German. The fact that you do not know even this simple fact makes you completely unqualified to use this example in any argument you make.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#228

Post by dalbasal »

ashark wrote: post #205
dalbasal wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I can't tell if you're actually advocating... I'm just being silly, mostly. I don't the answers. I have been involved with legislation a little though, and quite a lot with “regulations” (in the regulated industries sense). The 5 year old defence holds water in a surprising number of cases. The problem of definitions in law is real, and kind of reminiscent of the problem of specifications in software. For example,…

> Legislation is a tool. It has lots of hangups, a legacy from thousands of years of history. It’s not always the best tool for the job. I’m not an anarchist, I just feel we’re get more milage from better browser behaviour and defaults than laws in this particular instance. I care about a lot more than browser data, though. I don't really care how they're getting the data, I think they shouldn't be able to, and if th…

Can we still ban numbers though?

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#229

Post by maxerickson »

taway_1212 wrote: post #224
maxerickson wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. I mean, I don't want to die, but if you are gassing people, you've not really come out ahead of the people you are gassing.

> I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. There were relatively few perpetrators of mass murders, while the murdered people counted in millions. In other words - not all Germans "pulled levers of gas chambers", while most of for example Eastern European Jews got gassed (or shot).

Sure. I guess my point is that worrying about which side of the gas chamber walls you end up on is a morally feeble position. The goal must be to not have gas chambers.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#230

Post by 3131s »

evgen wrote: post #227
3131s wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an embarrassing comment for you. Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? So your comment really makes no sense, in addition to being cowardly. I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.

Sorry, but the embarrassment here is yours. The overwhelming majority of those in the gas chambers were Polish, not German. The fact that you do not know even this simple fact makes you completely unqualified to use this example in any argument you make.

Meh, I'm only mildly embarrassed about getting a fact wrong. Having no personal integrity however, and admitting that you'd pull the lever in the gas chambers, is another story.
Post reply on HN