771–780 of 888 posts
Pretty bold. A lot of people are saying this wont work, but speaking from my own experience, you'd be surprised what companies are amicable to when it comes to business. Im an engine mechanic by trade, and our shops handle bids for cash strapped local governments that outsource their motor pool maintenance. We do things like fire trucks and police cars, but we were working on a new regional idea as a "service center"…
However, between this and the 20,000 Google employee/contractor walkout I have gained a lot of respect for what the individual employees are collectively doing.
I considered working at Google last year after a recruiter reached out to me, but their decision to backtrack on their promise in China changed my mind. I do not morally condemn anyone who works at Google. I have many good friends that are both bright engineers and undeniably good people that work there. I just feel that as someone who's family is Taiwanese, I cannot in good consciousness support the company. I let t…
Do you in good consciousness support the U.S. government? I'm asking because the government doesn't recognize Taiwan as an independent country and kicked Taiwan out of the United Nations in 1971.
It's true that the US government officially recognizes the Beijing government as the legitimate Chinese government and doesn't recognize Taiwan.
OTOH, the US has a security partnership with Taiwan. See https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-united-states-securit... for details of this unique relationship.
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There's some statistic that says if one person is willing to speak out, then there's X number of people that agree but are unwilling to speak out. Don't know the accuracy of that, but I've taken it to heart and have been willing to be one of the first to speak out on multiple occasions at multiple jobs. Sometimes things change for the better. Sometimes things don't change, and I force a change by leaving. If nobody s…
> There's some statistic that says if one person is willing to speak out, then there's X number of people that agree but are unwilling to speak out. I've heard this before. I'm not sure if it's a statistic or just a saying. What's the standard formulation?
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> While I get that they "look scary" to some people . That's more than enough reason not to deploy them. It changes "we're here to serve and protect" to "we will crush you if you step out of line".
Here's a great example of how the police have failed to live up to 'serve and protect'. Here is an EU police car. Note it's bright colours to be easily spotted. Dare I say this car looks friendly. http://cdn1.blog.powerblocktv.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10... Now, here's a US police _interceptor_. The front grill looks like it's ready to ram me. http://s3.caradvice.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-F... The MRA…
Maybe it could get a cute paint job like the Focus and split the difference?
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> A great example of how working people have more power than they think if they're willing to risk dollars and cents for matters of right and wrong. I believe this is key. If more folks at more organizations were brave like this and willing to take the risk, a good chunk of the problems our civilization is facing might be greatly improved.
Bargaining power. (Organized) working humans have it...but it will erode as robots and algorithms take on more and more work. An argument for striking while the iron is hot. (No pun intended.)
We've gone a long way from being serfs who have almost no rights, even the right to read and write.. to citizens who can communicate via the internet.
Advancement in technology will/have make current powers obsolete. Robots and algorithms have been taking more work since the stone age.
Better tools, means more surplus, means more time to think critically, more time to comment over the internet, or read books.
The only problem is that we probably won't see any observable improvement in one lifetime. It is however, also very possible that the incumbent powers put an end to our civilization. Hopefully enough people like these Google employees, Snowden, Assange will be there to stop fascism.
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Since China is known for its countless human rights violations, Are these Google employees also going to... 1. Give up their Chinese-Manufactured iPhones/Android Phones? Tablets? Laptops and workstations?? 2. Give up watching movies/shows on their Chinese-manufactured TVs?? 3. Stop wearing Chinese-made iwatches/fitbits/etc.?? 4. Boycott silicon valley startups that have accepted chinese investments? 5. Boycott every…
There's a difference between boycotting products made in China and protesting against building technologies that enable dictatorial regimes. They do not deserve to be conflated.
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> this increases the chance of using force instead of diplomacy in any given situation. I'm not sure diplomacy works when someone is actively shooting at you or other people. If people are rioting (actually rioting, not protesting) then I honestly don't care how the presence of a MRAP makes them feel. It's the police's job to stop the riot and they need tools to do that. > I'm not going to call the cops for anything…
> > I'm not going to call the cops for anything less than assault. > I'm glad you're not the majority. Because the world would be pretty shitty if all the police responded to was physical assaults and above. Only ancentotal, I know, but every time I have called the cops for any reason in my life, the situation was arguably made worse for everyone present... In some cases, severely so. In m several cases, the threat o…
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Here's a great example of how the police have failed to live up to 'serve and protect'. Here is an EU police car. Note it's bright colours to be easily spotted. Dare I say this car looks friendly. http://cdn1.blog.powerblocktv.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10... Now, here's a US police _interceptor_. The front grill looks like it's ready to ram me. http://s3.caradvice.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-F... The MRA…
That grill is designed for ramming, shoving, and a hammer-head maneuver that destabilizes the target vehicle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIT_maneuver [1] https://youtu.be/OjvBYk8_8HI?t=19
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It's not just the censorship. Let's say Google opens up in China and then a month later China comes to them and says "we need the names of everyone who searched for the term 'Uyghur concentration camp' and lives in such and such region." Google then has two choices: give over the names to the Chinese government or immediately pack up and leave China. It's practically a given that China will eventually demand this of…
Google could do it in a much more transparent way than others, for example by stating "Here is what we know about you, and this information may be given away to the government if you proceed with a search that they considered dangerous". I think it would be better than the current situation, where Chinese people are left with a poor quality search engine, which won't find a good answer to the question, report them to…