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Comment by kyrra | Hacker News Reader

Google's code of conduct[0] still has "don't be evil" in it. The very last paragraph/line in the document:

> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!

The big issue with a phrase like "don't be evil" is that it is ambiguous and highly depends on the understanding of the word "evil" to the individual that reads that line. Google at this point is 80k+ full-time-employees, that I can guarantee will read that phrase to mean different things.

The newer code of conduct tries to codify what "evil" means, to lay a clearer picture for everyone what it means. That way it can't arbitrarily be applied for or against the company based on your an individual's beliefs of what that word means.

[0] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html

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> The big issue with a phrase like "don't be evil" is that it is ambiguous and highly depends on the understanding of the word "evil" to the individual that reads that line.

That's a feature, not a bug. If you think to yourself:

"Self, is this truly evil? Are there no redeeming factors or are the consequences more heavily tilting to the negative than the positive?"

And the answer comes back: "Yes this is truly evil. No, even from a consequentialist perspective you shouldn't do it."

Then you should speak up. Even if only 1% of Google's employees see something from a certain light and speak up, that's enough! It doesn't mean they get final say, but it encourages a conversation where there might have been none. At the end of the day they can always quit in protest.

Quitting in protest is overrated. It assumes a level of economic stability only available to the very wealthy. If you have a family to provide for and you live in SF, you ain't quitting nothing. Remember, quitters don't even get unemployment.

It’s also ineffective if you think you’re having an economic effect on the company by quitting. For most tech companies big and small, there is a long line of competent people out the door hungry for the opportunity to do whatever you’re quitting over.

I'm fairly certain most Googlers (as with other FAANGM employees) aren't living paycheck-to-paycheck and, even if they were, you can carry out a job search while you're still employed at Google. I would expect that most Googlers could find employment elsewhere, especially in the current job market.

If we were talking about Walmart sales associates, I'd have more sympathy for your points.

Not to mention, for a lot of these companies that pay well, your position will be replaced by someone who is likely in a worse situation than you who could not afford to quit even if they wanted. Net result, an employee that is less likely to complain or leave when things start going off the rails.

Sometimes (not always) it's better to try effecting change from the inside.

>Quitting in protest is overrated. It assumes a level of economic stability only available to the very wealthy.

That would be "quitting in protest without that costing you anything special".

As for "quitting in protest" period, well, tons of people have quit in protest and risked their "food on the table" for ethical reasons...

Heck, tons of people have risked their lives (and even repercussions against their family), and quit or refused to do things they were ordered to for ethical reasons.

It doesn't take financial stability to do so -- just having a spine.

And here we're talking about sought after engineers at a major company (that can always get another job), and that already make cool 100,000+ a year and most have some savings in the bank.

It should be even easier for them to step down than to some poor guy with 3 kids and hand-to-mouth wages - that might even be blacklisted. And yet many people did the right thing under those circumstances.

And the big issue with trying to codify broad moral statements is that you either devolve into restrictive legalism or you get ever better at interpreting specific rules to meet your desired outcomes. It's almost like the problem of human behavior is complex and can't be solved by a tech company with good intentions.

>Google at this point is 80k+ full-time-employees, that I can guarantee will read that phrase to mean different things.

It's not like this matters. Those 80k+ employees are not the one's that take decisions anyway, their superiors are, and any major bad thing Google does is highlighted from way above.

And it's not necessary for those employees to understand "don't be evil" to mean something particular. It's enough that they moral standards. If they do, they can see what's evil and what's not. If not, whatever the code of conduct was writing wouldn't matter.

> Google's code of conduct[0] still has "don't be evil" in it. The very last paragraph/line in the document: > > And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!

And get fired for doing so.

http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/02/google-employee-fired-aft...

Pretty much: Please speak up so that we can remove you.

(Almost) all of us live in an at-will state.

出る釘は打たれる

"The nail that sticks out gets the hammer."

This really comes down to the lack of protections we individually have regarding: having a place to sleep, food, medical care, and more. No work means none of those.

To cite the XKCD comic, Tim was being an asshole and Google showed him the door.

That line is a shadow of its former self (from a few months ago). The only reason it remained there is so that they can still claim that it's "there".

Compare that to this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180421105327/https://abc.xyz/i...

If you're someone who likes to follow trends, then it should be clear to you that Google is trying to get rid of both such comments/values from the company, and will probably start purging the people that still believe like that inside the company, too, as the company starts working with authoritarian regimes and building weapons of death.

Having ethical people inside the company will be like shooting itself in the foot, as it tries to move forward with these projects.

They also changed the implication from it applying to the company, to Googlers as individuals.

...which rather defeats the point of having any systemic ethical statement. People are gonna follow their own ethics anyway, google just now pretends to have a say when actually just not considering ethics at all.

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