Google Walks Away from America's Security | Hacker News Reader

Google Walks Away from America's Security

bloomberg.com

13 pointspetethomas13 comments

Divesting from the military industrial complex is patriotic. Waging peace is patriotic. Not pursuing militaristic and inhumane technology development is patriotic.

It is a confused idea for patriotism to be conflated with militarism, isolationism, nationalism, and racism.

is tracking and selling user data patriotic?

I would argue that it is unethical and becoming illegal to a certain extent in various jurisdictions (such as EU). It is taking a similar process to the use of unsolicited email mass-marketing we now consider SPAM. In the early days, it wasn't obvious how invasive SPAM would be, but in hindsight it is very clear and now there are laws to discourage the practice.

This feels like a very bizarre propaganda / pro-military opinion piece. Google isn't a defense contractor, its employees aren't any more or less patriotic if they don't want to build software that goes in killbots.

But Google wants to be a defense contractor and the employees are emotionally blackmailing it from not being one.

If those employees had a fucking conscience, they wouldn't slice and dice every online interaction of a user and serve ads. Stop pretending to be on a moral high-ground by refusing to serve the very entity tasked with securing YOU and the nation

> refusing to serve the very entity tasked with securing YOU and the nation

Google is refusing to support the militias? Given so many companies are supporting the military, google not supporting the militias does seem pretty negligent in securing us and our rights.

You think it's irreconcilable for an individual to be okay with farming data, but not with indirectly killing people?

Everybody has a slightly different moral compass. Every "good" person does "bad" things.

I highly doubt, for instance, that everyone who commits check fraud would be okay with murder; I also doubt every murderer would be okay with committing check fraud.

>>> "but not with indirectly killing people?"

I'm absolutely not OK killing (innocent) people, and clearly, the pentagon isn't too. The aim of the program is to increase accuracy to prevent and minimize collateral damage.

If you truly cared about protecting the lives of innocent, you'd support this program.

Bloomberg calls Google's decision a defeat for U.S. national security, patriotism ...

This raises a couple of questions:

What does it even mean for a US company to be "patriotic"?

In today's globalized economy, how "patriotic" does an "American" company have to be?

That's a hypocritical question. Google and co. go running to big daddy if hostile foreign adversaries cause it business or IP problems. Case in point, Google sought the support of the Obama administration when China attempted to steal it's source code from within Google-China offices.

Just as recent as a month ago Tesla Inc. was a big beneficiary of the current administration's attempt to level the tariffs placed on automakers. Company CEOs routinely accompany senators and diplomats on foreign trips to woo foreign governments into favorable business climates for said companies.

And, here's a non-exhaustive list of benefits that America has bestowed on Google -

1. Stanford univ (and other world class univs), along with the economic ecosystem around them enabled 2 grad students to even think of forming a company.

2 . The VC ecosystem at that point was the most mature in America/Silicon Valley - they took a risk on two pimpled faced fucks, albeit smart.

3. America provided an economically just, politically stable and equitable environment for a fledgling company to take on established industry giants. In Russia or China, you can be coerced by violence to hand over your work, just ask the founder of Telegram/VKontakt about it.

4. The Islamic world is opposed to VC funding, interest-based banking, women employment, ... due to religious reasons. Google could not have been born there

....

After all the ways Google has benefited, to chicken out of a fair deal the gives back to the country it leeched on is stupid. Further - being allowed the freedom to walk away from a government deal without consequence is another luxury Google would not have enjoyed in MOST other countries.

Wake up!

> fair deal the gives back to the country

do they already give back by paying taxes? I guess the dispute is that some people don't trust government enough to give them even more advanced killbots, and goverment is not necessary the same thing as country.

I'd argue non-elected entities such as the Pentagon are driven by national security and patriotism. If you suggested not pandering to any elected administration, I'd agree, as politicians are driven by the singular need to get re-elected. But the other parts of government mostly serve the country for pride and security.

Google is arguably one of the company that treats their employees the best, and yet those employees seems to constantly be sabotaging their company.

"Give them an inch and they'll take a mile" I guess.

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