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Drop Dropbox

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Re: Drop Dropbox

#771

Post by janj »

gress wrote: post #755
mrweasel wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry.... You're going to show discontent with the actions of Rice and Bush by boycotting Dropbox. It's not that I disagree with you in terms of the consequences of the actions of the Bush government, but boycotting Dropbox is like hitting a "Like" button on Facebook to "cure cancer".

I disagree - it's a lot more powerful than that. If it becomes generally known that politicians unethical actions will limit their opportunities in the corporate world after they leave office, it produces a strong incentive to behave more ethically.

Thank you, I was trying to figure out how to say this. For far too long politicians have ignored ethical considerations when mapping out how to maximize opportunities in the private sector.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#772

Post by clarky07 »

sergiosgc wrote: post #744
sergiosgc wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big deal as it may be, the parent comment was placing the discussion in a plane you totally missed in your response. The type of blackballing practiced by this campaign is similar to the kind of blackballing that ousted Brendan Eich. It is also a slippery slope. Slippery slopes are dangerous. At each step of the way, you can reason about your present decision and easily justify it. Add all the steps and the picture i…

Coincidence or not, this is my first comment ever with a negative voting score. I guess downvoting is blackballing on a small scale: silence all those who have dissenting views. I always upvote well written comments, regardless of my personal agreement with the view. I loathe this face of Hacker News I'm seeing today. I'll upvote each and every 0 or -1 comment that is well written (as in: not a one liner, not a joke,…

fwiw, i upvoted your comment as I thought it was a well written response that didn't include flaming or anything of the sort. The fact that it is negative shows a sad reality.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#773

Post by grandalf »

grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

Throughout your comment you refer to "politics" as if we're talking about which cable tv host we find less annoying.

Rice was one of the architects of one of the largest human atrocities in the past 50 years.

It stopped being politics around the time that the first concentration camp was built in Iraq after the US invaded.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#774

Post by aytekin »

sebular wrote: post #665
grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

Your comment and the fact that it's the top-voted one are disturbing in what they imply about the moral attitudes of this community. Everything you've so passionately stated with such deep concern can be summarized as, "Let's not persecute people in the startup world for their political beliefs." I would agree with that statement, however it is entirely irrelevant in this case-- the first three items in that article…

"Your comment and the fact that it's the top-voted"

I wonder if it is really top-voted.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#775

Post by janj »

clarky07 wrote: post #748
janj wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We define the values we hold as a society through our actions and choices and that is the way it should be. I didn't necessarily agree with the Eich ousting but it shows a shift in values that I agree with. The perpetrators of the Iraq war and the Patriot act have been able to avoid repercussions for their actions. I find this very distasteful because of my strong feelings about what these actions have done to my cou…

Luckily we elected the polar opposite to Bush, who turned out to do things pretty much the same as Bush. Nothing that you are saying started or ended with Bush. We did similar things for a hundred years before Bush, and we are doing worse things now with Obama. The hatred of Bush and his administration is just bizarre. The Patriot act was voted for by Congress and continually extended by both R's and D's.

> Luckily we elected the polar opposite to Bush, who turned out to do things pretty much the same as Bush.

This has contributed to my belief that our current political system has failed we the people, even though it is operating exactly as intended. I was fooled by Obama's first campaign but quickly realized he's no different. I don't know what the answer is but inaction is too boring. I'm trying to reduce the amount of money I send to Wall St believing that they are behind many of the gov's ills. I'm also trying to reduce general consumption as much as possible believing that the taxes we send and lobbying by corporations pumped into the federal government are also at fault. My goal is to see a drastically reduced Wall St and federal gov without blaming R or D.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#776

Post by mkr-hn »

pdpi wrote: post #99

I feel that at this point we might to coin the verb "to eich", meaning "to shitstorm a company into forcing a high-ranking manager to resign".

The word is protest. It's a valid and useful form of speech. Not everyone wanted him out of a job. I don't even think that was the majority opinion. I only wanted to know that the new CEO's values lined up with the values of the company if I was going to continue using and supporting the company's products.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#777

Post by AznHisoka »

alecco wrote: post #721

Dropbox board and CEO decided this was a good move. They know it will alienate the original userbase, the tech savy, the first movers. In exchange they'll access old money, the old school corporations and government agencies. They decided to screw the current userbase for a new userbase. It's over, just get over it. The maximum you can do now is refuse to use Dropbox. It's sad how tech is getting to a cycle of befrie…

exactly. I dun even understand the love affair ppl have with DropBox. It's just a cute GUI over FTP.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#778

Post by clarky07 »

gress wrote: post #755
mrweasel wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry.... You're going to show discontent with the actions of Rice and Bush by boycotting Dropbox. It's not that I disagree with you in terms of the consequences of the actions of the Bush government, but boycotting Dropbox is like hitting a "Like" button on Facebook to "cure cancer".

I disagree - it's a lot more powerful than that. If it becomes generally known that politicians unethical actions will limit their opportunities in the corporate world after they leave office, it produces a strong incentive to behave more ethically.

Clearly that hasn't been the case. All of the major tech companies leaders supported Obama (Google, Apple, Yahoo, etc). He extended the wars and significantly extended the spying on US citizens which is at least as bad if not worse than anything Rice did.

I think it provides incentive to not be a part of the bizarrely hated Bush administration. Since he's unlikely to be president again, it won't have any effect at all.

Re: Drop Dropbox

#779

Post by mindcrime »

bguthrie wrote: post #699
grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center It means that a bunch of people who once thought they were somehow above or apart from politics find that they are not, and that the things that happen in the world constitute news of real interest to hackers. That's growth. It's also misleadin…

That's growth.

So is cancer.

HN really isn't the place for political discussions. It's even in the guidlines[1].

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon

OK, yeah, they're fun in a way; and I've made the mistake of participating in a few myself (largely NSA stuff). But the thing is, there are plenty of other forums for discussing politics. There's no real reason for discussing politics here unless it has a specifically technical aspect to it.

Personally, I'd like to see HN get back to a focus on technology and business, and the intersection of the two. If the front-page were nothing but stories about Erlang, D, Javascript, acquisition announcements, new tech announcements, and "Show HN: Rate my Startup" posts, that would be a Good Thing, IMO.

[1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Drop Dropbox

#780

Post by [deleted] »

grellas wrote: post #538

Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…

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