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Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

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Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#281

Post by Nervhq »

hollerith wrote: post #277
sevenzero wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't every nuclear bomb an existential threat to all human life? How can one say there are no existential threats while countries people consider "The Enemy" have enough nukes to kill all human life multiple times? Also global warming is an existential threat. It's really telling how little people care about the world's problems not seeing their very own existence endangered.

>Isn't every nuclear bomb an existential threat to all human life? No, of course not. It's a threat to people within 15 miles of the explosion plus people who are outdoors and turn to look at the bright light in the sky. And there's never been enough nukes to kill all human life. That statement is based on a despicable calculation in which it is assumed that people would assemble packed shoulder-to-shoulder in circle…

[dead]

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#283

Post by vlan0 »

mancerayder wrote: post #239
pjjpo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I assume anyone with more than five years at Google is morally bankrupt to at least some degree. I don't want to paint them as bad people or anything but can't find better words for it - it's so obvious that if you stick around, you are accepting it and likely contributing to some degree. People I still talk to are generally honest about accepting it. I wonder if they will all reneg with this sort of qu…

I think you're coming from a privileged position - finding a job is extremely hard*, and if someone stayed somewhere that paid well then it's a bit extreme to say they're "bankrupt" morally. Alternatives are finance, ad tech, big consulting, etc. Are YOU working for a non profit? * For us, maybe not for you.

>Are YOU working for a non profit?

yes....it was the "least evil" choice

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#284

Post by qnleigh »

senordevnyc wrote: post #248
qnleigh wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Google's track record prior to the DOW contact is far from perfect, but is it really so hard to understand why it crossed a line for a lot of people? Why are we acting like ad tracking/targeting and developing autonomous lethal weapons are morally comparable?

Because HN posters constantly have their outrage meter pegged at 11, and there’s no room for nuance, good faith, benefit of the doubt, or different perspectives, anywhere. Big corporations and wealthy people are all the worst of the worst, nothing less than pure evil, as bad as Hitler or Stalin.

Ironically this take is also a pretty black-and-white, cynical take. There are far worse places on the internet in this respect than Hacker News.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#285

Post by qnleigh »

tristanj wrote: post #191
qnleigh wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic interdependence is also a big factor. If you depend on someone selling you things or buying them from you, you have a lot more to lose by invading them.

That's the Capitalist peace theory, proposed in 1795 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace_theory It has some truth to it, but it doesn't survive looking at European history. In 1913 Germany and Britain were each other's largest trading partners, but a year later they ended up fighting each other in WWI. They fought again in WWII. Nuclear deterrence is a better explanation of post-WWII peace.

All this proves is that economic interdependence doesn't completely prevent war. Who knows how much more violent the 20th century would have been without it.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#286

Post by storus »

Hugsbox wrote: post #238
storus wrote: post #63

Is he a canary in the coal mine, announcing things that are coming?

Not at all. He made his money, so now he can act all morally superior even though we've all known Google to be a menace since long before he started there in 2017. This article is downright ridiculous.

Things can always get worse; everyone has a threshold in what level of dirtiness is still okay. As Android security director he might have seen some incoming things he can't ignore any longer.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#287

Post by tomhow »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #262
tomhow wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Unfortunately, times have changed. Google management has quietly abandoned its goals to become carbon-neutral because of the AI model energy usage. Worse, Google management is now signing deals with the US Ministry of War—where “any lawful purpose” by the current US government has already been repeatedly demonstrated to be in violation of international laws. None of this is being debated or communicated within the…

> This entire article is already engaging in political and ideological battle

Hence we don't really want articles like this on HN, and checking the stats now, I see it only spent about two hours on the front page, which was more than enough.

Articles like this are bad for HN as they are mostly about the writer's own political grievances, and the discussion thread then becomes a vehicle for others to express their own alternative political grievances, many of which have nothing to do with the topic of the original post. So the whole thread just becomes a battle between people expressing their own conflicting political grievances, which is precisely what we don't want on a site whose primary reason for existing is to cultivate curious conversation.

As I wrote in my first comment above, the guidelines specifically ask us to avoid using HN this way. Your comment counts as a generic tangent, because it introduces an issue that's only very tenuously linked to the central topic of the article, then sets off a whole new subthread debating that topic, taking the thread further and further away from the original topic.

I understand this topic is important to you and I'm not telling you it shouldn't be. I'm upholding the HN guidelines and asking you to make the effort to observe them, because it's only by upholding the guidelines that we can have any hope of keeping this place from going up in flames.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#288

Post by senordevnyc »

qnleigh wrote: post #284
senordevnyc wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because HN posters constantly have their outrage meter pegged at 11, and there’s no room for nuance, good faith, benefit of the doubt, or different perspectives, anywhere. Big corporations and wealthy people are all the worst of the worst, nothing less than pure evil, as bad as Hitler or Stalin.

Ironically this take is also a pretty black-and-white, cynical take. There are far worse places on the internet in this respect than Hacker News.

Ironically this take is also a pretty black-and-white, cynical take.

I'll give you that, it's really lame what HN has turned into and as a user for almost twenty years now, I'm bummed by it.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#289

Post by ethbr1 »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #259
ethbr1 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the forest for the trees. The scene between Colonel Jessup, Lt Jg Kaffee, and Lance Corporal Dawson and PFC Downey is about the nature of contradictory duties. Everyone in that scene has a sworn duty to the United States as active duty military. However, their duties sometimes conflict with each other (Jessup and Kaffee), and are even sometimes self-conflicting (Dawson and Downey). Bad doesn't always c…

I understand and respect what you're saying here, but the fly in the ointment is that this posting (gitmo) was always bullshit and never actually mattered. Jessup is missing the forest for the trees far more than I ever could because it's not my job. He's getting kids killed for a bullshit assignment while being a Colonel. How do you think an Afghanistan or Iraq veteran would regard the Cuba assignment?

You're missing the forest, because Jessup and the entire enlisted structure would have been rotated to their next posting in 2-3 years max.

And since Jessup seems to have been base commander for a while already, likely less than that.

The goal of the military (as a whole) is to make people substitutable per their rank and MOS.

Allowing good order and discipline to break down (as an officer, NCO, or enlisted) just because of current post is anathema to that.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#290

Post by gordian-mind »

watwut wrote: post #212
gordian-mind wrote: post #166

"I am also a European academic. That means the current US government has become hostile to me" Such a bizarre claim. EU academics seem under mass psychosis lately.

US government is openly hostile to Europe. The Greenland crisis was only few months ago. Before and after that, it was just a stream of insults and attacks. To be fair, US government was OK with Orban and tried to help him stay in power. It is OK with authoritarian far right movements and is trying to help them too. But, if you are pro-democracy European, US is a hostile country trying to destroy your democracy.

It's weird that you don't mention academics. My words were precise though. This "open hostility" is not an official stance but a projection.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/17/trump-adminis...

Currently, the few "pro-democracy" (left-liberal, I presume?) European governments are cracking down hard on freedom of speech. Your worldview is lacking coherence.

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