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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Interesting, but I think it also shows the neutrality of the company --- they would sell to anyone, regardless of what their technology was being used for.

A stark contrast to the actions taken by Cloudflare's CEO[1], incidentally also involving Nazis.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922

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There is no 'neutral' in genocide.

No middle ground.

>1) the state of not supporting or helping either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.; impartiality.

>2) absence of decided views, expression, or strong feeling.

One wonders how you define neutrality.

I suspect the OP is saying that there is no room for neutrality in genocide. That an "absence of decided views" over the extermination of a race is not actually a viable position for any human being to take.

Either that, or it’s just an emotional outburst.

Meanwhile, in the course of history, humans regularly engage in mass slaughter of humans.

We could say indifference to genocide is not viable, because it ought not be viable. But that has its problems: if we convince each other that we are incapable of evil, perhaps we won’t be vigilant enough to see the signs in time.

That is precisely what I was saying. Thanks for clarifying.

That's a much more reasonable interpretation than the one I made.

> 1) the state of not supporting or helping either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.; impartiality.

...But they did support the Nazis.

Having read IBM and the Holocaust, I'm not convinced that IBM actually had a clear idea of how the machines would be used until quite late in the war effort, at least until well after 1941.

Is there any evidence that IBM knew that it was enabling genocide? It was selling to Germany, certainly. But the US didn't officially enter the war until Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Also, the Nazis weren't just collecting data on Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc. They collected data on everyone. It was arguably essential for resource management for the war effort.

Bear in mind that the resources the Nazis were managing included shells made by slaves from Auschwitz and soap made from people killed in Birkenau. There’s no dividing line between the Nazi war machine and their atrocities.

There was not much difference between optimising bombing runs over tokyo (in terms of "target damage" per "input dollar" say) and other war crimes for the people affected, what's your point? Sure I guess operations research is a war crime?

Yes, of course :(

But if IBM sold the gear long enough before it was clear that the Nazis were doing that, IBM arguably isn't at fault. And if they did, they are.

Notwithstanding Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation, it's my understanding that all suits against IBM over this have been dismissed or withdrawn.

IBM advertised directly to the GAP(Nazi party) product designed to architect genocide

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=1...

CEO even got a medal for "service to the Reich", from Hitler himself, while visiting Berlin ...

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ibm-and-quot-death-s-cal...

Well, that ad reminds me far too much of the NSA:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nothing_is_beyond_ou...

But yes, that Jewish Virtual Library cite is damning. It does seem that IBM knowingly aided genocide.

Yeah but as far as corporate image risk goes, what are the odds that one of your clients will be invaded by two countries 10 years later, and that the ONE (of typically several) political party that approved your contract will be relevant at all?

PRETTY SLIM

You never know what a political party is going to actually do. You could attend all the furthest spectrum events and hear some twisted things and not expect any of it to actually happen.

Its not a factor.

"Oh I'm not going to take this lucrative government contract because one political party is disenfranchising 0.75% of the population and my time machine says they are going to make concentration camps, and two countries are going to invade them and leak all the state secrets and onlookers on the ... internet (was ist dis?)... are going to vilify us"

Neutrality is an illusion when it comes to man made constructs. An earthquake is neutral; executives in a company deliberately choosing to make a profit by selling things which will be used to commit crimes against humanity is certainly not.

Read the link:

”Willy Heidinger, who remained in control of Dehomag, the 90%-owned German subsidiary of IBM, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Hitler regime.”

Would you argue that this is what neutrality looks like?

What does profit have to do with it? Would it be better, ethically, if they sold it at a loss?

Neutrality at the expense of others isn't neutral.

You must be confused about what neutrality actually means.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Desmond Tutu

I’ll happily describe myself as as confused as Desmond Tutu.

Exactly. Thank you.

It wasn’t widely known what was happening behind the scenes until the Soviets started to take back the east.

> Interesting, but I think it also shows the neutrality of the company --- they would sell to anyone, regardless of what their technology was being used for.

You sound like you think that's a good thing.

This is an utterly peculiar statement. It’s phrased in a way that suggests you think enabling concentration camps is a superior moral choice to refusing to do business with Nazis.

If that’s not what you meant, I’d strongly consider choosing your words more carefully.

Pecunia non olet.

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