GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#671

Post by fiter » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #128

fiter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot find in your quotes or the article where it says they are giving them the product for free. One of your quotes mentions a $56k payment.

That's based on https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-deve... : > We will donate $500,000—in excess of the value of the purchase by ICE—to nonprofit organizations working to support immigrant communities targeted by the current administration. The Social Impact team will get Hubber input on which nonprofits can provide the most impact for migrants, to be supported via this donation. In the past, we’…

I'll admit I still do not understand. That quote seems to say that ICE paid GitHub $500,000 and, presumably, ICE received $500,000 in services. GitHub later paid $500,000 to immigrant support nonprofits. In this case, when you say that GitHub gave $500,000 of value, do you mean in the original transaction between the two of them?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#672

Post by malvosenior » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #668

malvosenior wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to minimize illegal immigration. And yes, that looks like a pretty standard detention facility to me. Every person in there knew the risk before deciding to break the law.

> Every person in there knew the risk before deciding to break the law. That's a delightful lie Americans can tell themselves to try and absolve their personal consciences of responsibility for their part in their country making people miserable on purpose. It falls apart pretty quickly with any investigation (I'm sure that shoeless toddler on the left weighed all the pros and cons before crossing the border), but ev…

Most people have the capacity to do basic math and know that we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country.

You can blame that toddler's parents for making the decisions that put them in that position btw.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#673

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #672

shadowgovt wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every person in there knew the risk before deciding to break the law. That's a delightful lie Americans can tell themselves to try and absolve their personal consciences of responsibility for their part in their country making people miserable on purpose. It falls apart pretty quickly with any investigation (I'm sure that shoeless toddler on the left weighed all the pros and cons before crossing the border), but ev…

Most people have the capacity to do basic math and know that we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country. You can blame that toddler's parents for making the decisions that put them in that position btw.

> we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country

[citation needed]. It's certainly the terror gripping some percent of Americans these days that maybe we can't, but why? We're spending a fortune on deterrence. What if we retargeted for naturalization and education instead? Flattened the complexity of the process and increased the legal caps by a factor of 10 or 100? What's worst case scenario, and how probable is it?

It's weird to think a country that is generating enough surveillance to trigger some of the other threads on HN doesn't have enough resources to track immigrants on their process to becoming permanent residents or citizens without caging them.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#674

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

ryanbrunner wrote: post #209

CydeWeys wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not considering the entire history of the labor movement in the United States, then. There were massive protests, literal battles, and many died, all to bring about better working conditions, shorter workweeks, higher pay, etc., not just for those inside those companies but across the entire economy. Workers fighting for the rights of themselves and others isn't a new thing. Hell, it even happened in the era o…

Genuine question, but are there many examples from the labour movement where there were labour actions directed at the company's general business practices rather than the rights of the workers working in those companies? It feels like the obvious difference here is that GitHub employees aren't arguing for their own rights so much as the rights of people outside of GitHub.

Genuine answer, you should read books on this stuff. It's a fascinating, complex history, and no one is gonna be able to summarize it well in a low effort Internet comment like I'm making now. But the answer is yes, there are very many.

To pick just one example though, labor unions were heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement, and fought against racist/discriminatory actions by those companies.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#675

Post by standardUser » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #447

standardUser wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a mistake to look at "the last few election cycles". The people making all of this noise were children during that time. Just about everything has changed in the last 5 or so years, and a lot of that change appears to be driven by the historically massive and historically diverse Millennial generation.

We love to think we live in unique times, but we don’t. Politics hasn’t really changed in the US in the last 100 years.

That's absurd. Politics changes all the time, we just happen to be in a more tumultuous moment than in the last 3 or 4 decades. Nothing spectacularly unique, but different enough across countless metrics to warrant a fresh look at the very least. The trends and patterns we relied on for many decades just don't stand up any longer.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#676

Post by dta5003 » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

azirbel wrote: post #354

The comments here seem very negative compared to e.g. the Google employee protests over Project Dragonfly. [1] There are two questions here: whether GitHub should allow ICE to buy its software, and whether employees should influence the direction of their company via protests, petitions, and threats to quit. GitHub specifics aside, I think employees absolutely should organize and quit over issues they feel strongly a…

The important distinction is that Project Dragonfly was being built to serve a single customer and purpose, both of which employees were not comfortable with. GitHub is built to serve any customer and has a defined purpose that is generally useful. Employees are now uncomfortable with their generally useful tool being used as intended by a customer they do not approve of.

It's not really an apples to apples comparison.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#677

Post by malvosenior » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #673

malvosenior wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have the capacity to do basic math and know that we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country. You can blame that toddler's parents for making the decisions that put them in that position btw.

> we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country [citation needed]. It's certainly the terror gripping some percent of Americans these days that maybe we can't, but why? We're spending a fortune on deterrence. What if we retargeted for naturalization and education instead? Flattened the complexity of the process and increased the legal caps by a factor of 10 or 100? What's worst case scenario, and ho…

Our infrastructure is already in bad shape, a bunch of shanty towns is not going to help. The same people that want open immigration also want free healthcare for all and student loan forgiveness. Who pays for all of this?

Millions of American's are struggling, it's totally logical that people would look at this situation and say "why not help people who already live here before letting millions of more people pour in". The reason we don't help people who already live here is because we can't afford to. I'm skilled enough to make a good living but I'm taxed to the hilt and can't take on any more burden. Many others rightly feel the same way.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#678

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #335

smsm42 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has negative connotations because it describes the act that is against the law. That's literally what "illegal" means. If you think it's OK to violate the law, then the connotations would be positive, if you do not, then the negative connotations are appropriate. You can't have it both ways.

It's not due to the definition, it's because of how the word has been used. There are terms which refer to undocumented immigrants which still represent their status, but are not dehumanizing.

If a person breaks the law, it is completely correct to say they broke the law. Going out of one's way to hide that fact because stating the facts is somehow "dehumanizing" is a political propaganda exercise, which tries to present (some) laws as something insignificant and barely worth mentioning, and people that consider following these laws important as somehow irrational, and more than once in this very topic - irrational, hateful and racist. I can see why you want to go through this political exercise, but I have absolutely no reason to follow you.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#679

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #677

shadowgovt wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country [citation needed]. It's certainly the terror gripping some percent of Americans these days that maybe we can't, but why? We're spending a fortune on deterrence. What if we retargeted for naturalization and education instead? Flattened the complexity of the process and increased the legal caps by a factor of 10 or 100? What's worst case scenario, and ho…

Our infrastructure is already in bad shape, a bunch of shanty towns is not going to help. The same people that want open immigration also want free healthcare for all and student loan forgiveness. Who pays for all of this? Millions of American's are struggling, it's totally logical that people would look at this situation and say "why not help people who already live here before letting millions of more people pour i…

It's logical that people react that way, but it's a fear-based reaction that fails to acknowledge possible solutions. For example, people who are working on the fringes of society as undocumented immigrants aren't paying as many taxes into the system because they legally can't, not necessarily because they don't want to. How much tax money is bad immigration policy leaving on the table?

If you don't want your taxes to go up, you ought to consider advocating for making more undocumented immigrants into taxpaying citizens. Spread the burden.

If one doesn't approach these problems as sorted and stack-ranked (i.e. "we can't help immigrants if we can't even help our own population"), solutions open up.

Housing is not actually as big a concern as people make it out to be. Housing in major population centers is a concern. The federal government has programs to help immigrants establish communities around the country, including neighborhoods with more housing than people (which we have quite a few of as our population ages and people move towards the cities). Those programs, of course, are targeted to help documented immigrants; making it easier to be a documented immigrant makes it easier to minimize the risk of shanty-town glut.

Historically, it's rare for a country (especially an empire, which the United States basically functions as de facto due to its sheer size and impact) to encounter problems that can't be ameliorated by more hands and minds. Barring people from participating in society when they're already in society doesn't make those problems easier to solve.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#680

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

V-eHGsd_ wrote: post #559

smsm42 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I consider 'illegals' to be a derogatory term used by racists You consider wrong. Doubly wrong since race has nothing to do with it (there are illegal immigrants of all races, just as there are people of all races on all sides of the immigration debate). > If so that is an illegal activity so maybe you are also an 'illegal'? Within the context of driving, yes. You can be called "illegal driver" or "criminal driver"…

> Doubly wrong since race has nothing to do with it I can't see the gp comment, but from what you're quoting, I feel compelled to correct you. gp doesn't say that the people who use the term "illegals" are racist "because" they say illegals. gp just says that it's a comment, in their experience, that's used by racists. there's an important difference, do you see it? >> Maybe I am way off base? > Yes, you are. nah, no…

> gp just says that it's a comment, in their experience, that's used by racists

Technically, almost every expression imaginable could be used by somebody who is racist. Racism does not make one incapable of using language in the same way non-racist people do, so every expression can be - and usually would be - used by racists. Words "a", "and" and "the" are used by racists. Obviously, the distinction is only meaningful when the expression is exclusively or predominantly used by racists, and for a reason that it aligns with their views are racists. That, in this case, is completely false.

> nah, not this time.

Yah, this very time.