I don't get BigCo attitude;
They say Consumer doesn't know what is good and not good for them. So we will decide.
Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
321–330 of 378 posts
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#322Google isn’t nice to the little guy innovators ... invite them out to discuss buying ones technology only to bait and switch you and kick you out saying the race is on. Later getting patents for what you met/discussed with them.
I’ve noted my story before and everyone says that’s just how it goes. Ummm that’s how it went for Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby til it didn’t.
Wrong and horrible behavior will eventually catch up to you or any company!
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#323Does the New York Times have any conflicts of interest in its coverage of Google and Facebook? I can't recollect anything positive the NYT has written about those two in maybe a decade.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
A company complying with the laws of the country it does business in seems fairly uncontroversial to me, even if you may not agree with those laws. Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?
Actually, YES, to the extent that the foreign policy is supporting & maintaining institutions & policies necessary for continued open democratic societies. By virtue of the US' historically strong support for open democracies (albeit often flawed or failed), and historical accident, it essentially now falls to the US to attempt to maintain it around the world. To the extent that we have failed to maintain and support…
Given that many first world nations now avoid the US for data storage due to surveillance overreach, your statement comes across as rather ironic. As a Canadian, the US is definitely not the pinnacle of open democratic government. Your view of the US is a very US centric view.
There is certainly a line somewhere, selling weapons for example is a pretty clear one. But this line hasn't been established on the data side, and I don't think the US is in a very good position to establish it given its poor track record in this area. But to the extent this line is written, it should be a law applying to all US companies, not cherry picking Google or other politically unfavourable companies.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#325I actually applaud Poulson for leaving Google in protest of Google's Chinese business practices. Having mentioned that, I think I have to part ways with him when he implies that the correct way to "fix" this is to have the government come in and make these sorts of business decisions for the company. I don't believe in the government obliging businesses to do things. Especially when it looks like this whole thing is…
I think there are a lot of conditions and issues with trade and China, and I'm not sure how the US government deal with them all, but I agree one rule for Google is a TERRIBLE idea and precedent.
Semi-related, how weird is this https://twitter.com/amlivemon/status/1002044167793594368
> As a condition of China joining the WTO in 2000, Visa and Mastercard would be allowed into China market. 18 years later, China has lost a WTO case on this subject and Visa/Mastercard are still not allowed into China. That's just for starters. Don't believe China on trade deals.
China and trade is a real quagmire.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#326I actually applaud Poulson for leaving Google in protest of Google's Chinese business practices. Having mentioned that, I think I have to part ways with him when he implies that the correct way to "fix" this is to have the government come in and make these sorts of business decisions for the company. I don't believe in the government obliging businesses to do things. Especially when it looks like this whole thing is…
I agree that government regulation is not a silver bullet, but neither is the free market. Companies at the scale of Google are directly benefiting from the current government infrastructure and rule-of-law that allows them to be one of the most profitable companies on the planet. At that size, there definitely should be some accountability to broader society, and there is no mechanism for that other than government, imperfect though it may be. The current political climate is one where capitalist incentives are deemed inherently moral, and the fear of government intervention is disproportionately high while consolidation of wealth is accelerating. We're all still basking in the lowered-barriers-to-entry of the internet age, but if we don't restore some faith in government we may well be heading towards a world where FAANG control all meaningful tech innovation.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#327My take in the issue is that Google is being mismanaged. China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? By bowing to Chinese censorship, Google hurts its public image. Google's management should have expected that its employees, who joined Google on the premise of "Do not evil", would leak this to the public. In short, the people at the top of Google look like…
Completely agree. The best thing they can do is focus on containment by focusing on winning all the countries surrounding China so that the Chinese companies can't really expand beyond China's borders.
There's nothing wrong with making sure Baidu, Tencent and all the other big Chinese companies remain largely China-only companies.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Don't give me any bullshit excuses for continuing Then don't act as if this is sufficient reasoning. Any one of these people or the entire department could quit, and you and I both know it would be re-staffed inside of a month. > named for this scene from the children's movie. Which should be a strong hint as to it's merit in the real-world. You shouldn't have to look very deeply into our society to see where the p…
If you knowingly engage or are an accessory to bad behavior, you are a bad person. Another person potentially replacing you does not absolve you of your actions. This defense didn't work in Nuremberg, and it won't work with me. A concept so simple that a child could understand it is fundamentally sound.
> This defense didn't work in Nuremberg, and it won't work with me.
Great. Unfortunately you're not the emperor of the United States and people will continue to take jobs that harm society. Seeing what happened to the Nazis tried in Nuremberg did exactly nothing to stop the same thing from happening in Indonesia, Rwanda, and other post-WWII mass killings. This is because people who do these things, don't actually think they're doing bad things.
For example, in your original comment you're justifying a system where exploitation of labor, violation of privacy rights, and support for despotic regimes are permitted because it promotes a culture of innovation. By your standard I should hold you accountable for helping whitewash these practices by making them the responsibility of individual employees - who have little real power to influence their employer's decisions. However, you clearly don't see yourself as culpable because you're defending what you believe is a higher goal: innovation.
Now consider that the people who choose to continue to work on these projects feel exactly the same way you do, except they justify their behaviour by some other ends: perhaps they need to support a family, or care for an elderly relative, or they're just demonstrating the idea of "permissionless innovation" with their own employment choices. And why not? What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
> Don't give me any bullshit excuses for continuing, if you know it's wrong stop supporting it!
Perhaps you should apply this to your own opinions before suggesting others apply it to their lives.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, what's worse, a single populist regulation, punishable by a moderate fine or total information control? Very hard to draw a line indeed...
I think you just put words in my mouth, which is difficult to respond to on the internet. Of course I agree with you about which is worse. Have you thought about how I can both agree with you and also believe that drawing the line is hard?
Well, my point (which I tried to do sarcastically, admitted) was that I disagree that it's hard to draw a line here:
One is a regulation with restricted scope and consequences in a system that otherwise has human rights and individual freedom as core values. (Which doesn't make the regulation itself any good)
The other is a system with control of individual knowledge at its root and then developing regulations to further that goal as needed.
So, actually, yes, I have thought about it and no, I don't think you can.
Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. I've seen that theory, but my understanding is that striking a proper balance is what fosters innovation; anarchy yields corruption and spoils for the powerful; it does not reward the most productive and innovative. Also, my impression is that other things may be much…
I'm not advocating for anarchy, just that we stick to the laws that are actually codified. We should be reactive to bad behavior, not proactive. Instead of blanket calls for regulation, we should be specific and considerate when making new rules as they often have unintended consequences. Instead of having to constantly ask for permission, you should be able to read the rules and make decisions independently. You don…
> We should be reactive to bad behavior, not proactive.
The ex-Google employee is calling on Congress to be reactive to Google's activities. Do you agree then with their proposal?
I actually don't agree; bad behavior hurts people and that harm should be prevented if reasonably possible. For example, we should be proactive about airplane safety. We should have been proactive about regulating the securitization of mortgates - that would have saved maybe billions of people from harm, many losing their homes, jobs, and savings.
Of course, anything can be taken too far ...
> Instead of blanket calls for regulation, we should be specific and considerate when making new rules
I don't think anyone would disagree, but am I overlooking someone?
In fairness, you earlier wrote the following, which seems like a much broader, stronger statement:
> any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish