Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggg9990 | Hacker News Reader

I just don't think we're tracking towards a healthy world where your email vendor pulls the plug on your contract because of your activities. I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer.

Edit: Does that mean I have to sell lumber to the KKK even though they will likely burn a cross with it? Yes, unless they explicitly say they're going to. Leave those policing problems to the police, don't ask everyone to become a member of the police.

View on HN

This cuts both ways, and a precedent has already been set, recently, with the wedding cake debacle.

If a business can refuse service due to soneone’s gender or sexual orientation (I.e. it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality), why should a business not be able to refuse because they morally object to their client using their product or services to harm human beings?

Honestly, I don’t see the distinction. If one is legal then the other must be.

I take your point that this could end in a situation where all businesses end up being discriminatory in one way or another, but it’s then up to the market to reward or punish businesses for their stance. If you don’t like Microsoft selling Azure to human rights abusers, don’t buy their stock, don’t buy their products. If you don’t like that a bakery didn’t sell a cake to a gay couple, don’t buy their cakes.

Yes, it can be argued that we will end up back with “no blacks no dogs no Irish”, and if we do that’s a damning indictment of the times - but it can also be argued that large corporations have substantial power to influence policy, which they somewhat have a track record of using for Not Good. It would be nice to see it being used for good.

I don’t think it’s asking businesses to be police, rather to act as moral entities rather than purely economic ones. I mean - corporations are people, too (corporate personhood, emergent intelligence), and unless we want an entirely mechanistic and amoral future (think Cloud Atlas and kin), we need to allow businesses to be moral arbiters.

Is it a good idea? I don’t know, but it can it really be worse than selling zyklon b knowingly for genocide as Testa did?

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/jun/04/gay-cake-ruling-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesch_%26_Stabenow

> it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality

I just don't think this should be allowed to matter. If you want to sell widgets, sell them or don't sell them. The problem of controlling what people do with those widgets should not be allowed to rest in business owner's hands, because the largest corporations are more powerful than they ever were, and that is allowing a few CEOs, completely unaccountable to the public or in some cases even their shareholders, to control too much of society's behaviors.

But they are accountable. Money talks, bullshit walks - and as more and more businesses move towards a service rather than ownership model, this becomes more and more likely, and the power of other businesses and consumers to use a different service and hit them in the wallet grows.

I mean, as it is, I cannot use Microsoft or Apple products to design or proliferate nuclear, chemical or biological weapons (its in the EULA) - is this an infringement on my rights? Where should this line be drawn?

Federal law already prohibits you from making nuclear weapons, whether you’re using Excel on iOS or not. Why should a company draw a line anywhere?

For example, most grocery stores don’t sell eggs to youngsters near Halloween for fear they will egg people. But there are teenagers who have to run entire households and cook breakfast for several kids, and need eggs. In a locally owned corner shop this isn’t a problem because the owner knows the kids and their situations. But as Walmart’s and Safeways displace these stores, policy is set by headquarters, and local employees can’t deviate. At that point, who does the kid take the grievance to? If it’s a local ordinance the kid’s advocates can go to a town meeting. If it’s a Walmart how do the kid’s advocates petition headquarters?

The Supreme Court case that you're speaking of set no precedent that a business can refuse service due to gender or sexual orientation.

They ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated the Free Exercise clause of the first amendment by not properly respecting Jack Phillips' religious beliefs during their hearings on the matter.

That's why everyone was saying that it was a "narrow" ruling - they did not rule on the "wide" question, which was about businesses discriminating based on sexual orientation.

The ruling can be read here [1]. It's pretty short and easy to read, if you want to know more about the case.

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

When ICE violates human rights, it's no longer a free speech issue. Microsoft shouldn't work with ICE in the same way that banks shouldn't work with sanctioned oligarchs.

What about oligarchs who aren’t sanctioned? What rule of law do you apply to determine oligarchs have committed some crime? Is there a certain number of tweets where you consider an oligarch sanctioned? Do you rely on an ICC ruling? A judgement from a single nation? A UN resolution? A case being brought to the ICC?

The challenge I see here is that applying an arbitrary measurement to what constitutes “ICE violates human rights” because it is so obvious will be problematic and unpredictable.

Will we get to the point where felons can’t use MSOffice? Or only certain felons?

Where to draw the line is a matter of judgment for each business. All ethics and justice relies on judgment. No murderer knows whether they'll be sentenced to ten years or twenty, just as there is no list of exact crimes that will get you sanctioned by the UN.

So while I cannot answer your questions, I can point out that the UN human rights chief has denounced the ICE policy as "unconscionable". That seems like ample grounds to end a business relationship.

I don’t think this is a good idea as judgement requires due process. For significant decisions it’s important that rule of law is followed to reach determinations.

Since technology is becoming more and more essential for human rights (speech, assembly, etc), having providers exercise their corporate judgement (whatever that is) will lead to high variability and stands to come in conflict in areas against corporate motives. So it would require heavy regulation.

While the UN human rights chief is a reputable source it’s important to distinguish between ver official capacity and vis personal judgement.

This is why we don’t have repercussions from a judge denouncing policy as “unconscionable” personally. And in the US, governement figures are prohibited from making nonofficial statements that can be confused with official statements. [0]

Due procress applies so that rule of law can be as fair as possible.

So while this has the appearance of an injustice, I want a method for official determination so we don’t devolve into a lynch mob society making emotional decisions where systems of law are established and appropriate.

[0] http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-unite...

ELI5 what human rights is ICE violating in this case? Is due process not being followed?

Separating children from parents causes permanent changes to a developing brain due to toxic amounts of stress. It’s torture.

It seems like we are treating these children well (and I'm glad): "he seemed cheerful, “He shared how he was learning English, playing games and being well treated,” Ms. Ortiz said." [1]

However, I was appalled by the horrible "children in cages" photo taken during the Obama era. How was this allowed to happen? Wish I/we all had known about this, back then.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/us/immigration-deported-p...

> Under federal law, which adopts the United Nations definition, torture is: “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third person … has committed or is suspected of having committed.” And though in theory any action inflicting such suffering is banned, that is what is inflicted by separating parents and children in border detention.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/0...

If being separated from your parents is torture, then what about the prison system?

The U.S. prison system is widely condemned as inhumane, overcrowded, and violent. So yeah, I would say that's torture, too.

It is official US government policy to separate children from their parents as a deterrent: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separa...

Children have the right not to be abused. The UN human rights chief calls the practice "unconscionable": https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/world/europe/trump-migran...

Am I the only one who appreciates the difficult situation that ICE is put in here? They're tasked with enforcing U.S. immigration law which, like any immigration law implies that only certain people are allowed to enter the country under certain circumstances. No matter what they do, they're going to be stuck dealing with otherwise decent people who are knowingly violating immigration law. I see a lot of people complaining, in the most hyperbolic way, but I'm not seeing anybody suggesting any solutions other than "let anybody come who wants to come" (which might actually be workable, but a lot of other things would have to change at the same time).

Here's a solution: go back to the policy under Bush or Obama. Immigration policy is rarely pleasant, and we may have different views on hard choices, but I hope we can agree when a policy is evil.

Didn't this start under Obama, though?

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/...

> I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer.

I do not understand your mindset. Why are you trying to force people to do something they do not want to do?

> Does that mean I have to sell lumber to the KKK even though they will likely burn a cross with it? Yes, unless they explicitly say they're going to.

Then you're a slave of the state. It's not a policing problem, it's a freedom problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com