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

Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 368 posts

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#291

Post by skissane »

tuatoru wrote: post #257
wwweston wrote: post #81

Israel is an inherently inequitable and therefore likely terminally conflict-ridden ethnostate. Israel is a reasonable reaction to a long and terrible history of ethnic persecution. What's going on in Gaza is an unacceptable humanitarian tragedy that is a reaction to an unacceptable attack. There are players on both "sides" of this conflict that are driving it because they actually want the conflict, people who never…

Up until Hamas attacked Israel, Palestine relied on Israel to collect taxes. Collecting taxes is the bmost basic government function there is. Hamas had twenty years to become a government. It was uninterested in doing so. Israel is not the genocidal agent here.

> Up until Hamas attacked Israel, Palestine relied on Israel to collect taxes. Collecting taxes is the bmost basic government function there is.

> Hamas had twenty years to become a government. It was uninterested in doing so.

This isn't true. Hamas taxes the inhabitants of Gaza [0].

Israel collects taxes on imports and exports from Gaza, and income tax on the pay of Gaza residents who were employed inside Israel. But transactions which occur entirely inside Gaza are not taxed by Israel, only by Hamas.

[0] see e.g. https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2024/01/23/hamas-fundin...

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#292

Post by nebula8804 »

jack21bret wrote: post #286
pbiggar wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You twisted my words: I said "not entitled". Accidental civilian killings are not acceptable but yes of course they happen. Deliberate killing of civilians are war crimes. We must hold the IDF to the same standard as we hold Hamas. Neither is allowed kill civilians, neither is allowed starve a population, neither is allowed detain civilians (whether as "hostages" or "administrative detainees"), neither is allowed to…

this seems about right. i think we might be living in the most orwellian times ever. numerous, independent sources of info showing that Israeli soldiers doing things far more barbaric than what hamas millitants do and we've got the entire media apparatus apparently just admitting it exists to defend and cover for israel. I feel like we are entering a new era, kind of like the start of world war 1 where the rules chan…

If there was another secular power like maybe the EU that had the ability to match the US then some of this could be contained. Right now the US does not really need to care about any of the (valid) issues you listed. Why would they?

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#293

Post by nebula8804 »

lordfrito wrote: post #125

Lately it seems that more and more rank-and-file employees believe that a company has some sort of moral obligation to take their political opinions into consideration. Corporations aren't democracies. Unless you're an executive or high ranking decision maker, you're along for the ride. I don't ask my kids for their opinion about my home budget, what house I should buy, etc. So it is at work. Expecting a company to k…

It seemed like it worked when top tier techies were in high demand but difficult to find. Now post the "learn to code" movement and high interest rates the underlying conditions have changed no? Also Elon probably showed you can disrespect your employees to the hilt and you will still get hoards of good applicants because olympic class people want to only work with other olympic class people.

If we are going to go back to the good old days™ then at the very least the market needs to see elons companies crash and burn to show that his kind of management does not work long term. So far the opposite is happening.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#294

Post by weatherlite »

wwweston wrote: post #81

Israel is an inherently inequitable and therefore likely terminally conflict-ridden ethnostate. Israel is a reasonable reaction to a long and terrible history of ethnic persecution. What's going on in Gaza is an unacceptable humanitarian tragedy that is a reaction to an unacceptable attack. There are players on both "sides" of this conflict that are driving it because they actually want the conflict, people who never…

> Israel is an inherently inequitable and therefore likely terminally conflict-ridden ethnostate. Israel is a reasonable reaction to a long and terrible history of ethnic persecution

How can these two thoughts go together? Either its a horrible "ethnostate" or its a reasonable construct due to Jews special history.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#295

Post by weatherlite »

Kapura wrote: post #8

>“This behavior is not okay, _regardless of the issue,_ and the employee was terminated for violating our policies.” There are some issues that are worth speaking up about. There are some issues that are worth being fired over.

Well if it was worth it to him I guess its a win win for everyone

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#296

Post by tptacek »

pbiggar wrote: post #283
tptacek wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's all sorts of stuff in here I disagree with ("Hamas has by all accounts treated its detainees well"? There's video footage!) but it doesn't matter. We're not going to resolve Israel/Palestine on an HN thread. I have a very limited point to make here, which is that it can't possibly be the case that a party to a war can't kill civilians under any circumstances. If you agree with that, there's nothing for us to…

I addressed that in the first line! To restate: why is Hamas' attack on Oct 7 bad? It's because they killed civilians. If we condemn that, then we must condemn all the IDF killings of civilians. If we do not, what basis do we have to condemn Hamas? Israel's killing of civilians is a horrendous war crime. No we are not doing a carve-out because they really want to kill Hamas fighters. Absurd and horrific to suggest th…

Hamas has an objective of killing civilians. You will of course argue that Israel does as well, but that will be an argument, not a plain statement of fact.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#297

Post by tptacek »

UperSpaceGuru wrote: post #284
tptacek wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think much of what Israel has done in Gaza is justifiable, but "cannot kill civilians under any circumstances" can't possibly be the standard; if it was, the Nazis might still control most of Europe.

[flagged]

When you find yourself opening a comment with "not being ad hominem", consider just not writing the rest of it.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#298

Post by bestcoder69 »

tptacek wrote: post #296
pbiggar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I addressed that in the first line! To restate: why is Hamas' attack on Oct 7 bad? It's because they killed civilians. If we condemn that, then we must condemn all the IDF killings of civilians. If we do not, what basis do we have to condemn Hamas? Israel's killing of civilians is a horrendous war crime. No we are not doing a carve-out because they really want to kill Hamas fighters. Absurd and horrific to suggest th…

Hamas has an objective of killing civilians. You will of course argue that Israel does as well, but that will be an argument, not a plain statement of fact.

[flagged]

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#299

Post by tptacek »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #298
tptacek wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamas has an objective of killing civilians. You will of course argue that Israel does as well, but that will be an argument, not a plain statement of fact.

[flagged]

How do you expect to have a curious conversation when you phrase questions that way? If that's not what you're after on this topic, fair enough! I don't like that people are trying to hash this out on HN either. But that's the rule for this place.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#300

Post by shrimp_emoji »

smashah wrote: post #222
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So everyone who kills civilians is like the Nazis? Wow, I guess everyone who has ever fought in war is like the Nazis. What a wild worldview.

Whatever you need to imagine that I said to help you sleep at night, feel free to tell yourself.

I have to drift to sleep to https://youtu.be/9L3M2WC5LPA at maximum volume to drown out the haunting images. D:
Post reply on HN