Hacker News Reader

Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

Pretty bold. A lot of people are saying this wont work, but speaking from my own experience, you'd be surprised what companies are amicable to when it comes to business.

Im an engine mechanic by trade, and our shops handle bids for cash strapped local governments that outsource their motor pool maintenance. We do things like fire trucks and police cars, but we were working on a new regional idea as a "service center" for municipalities that purchased MRAP combat vehicles for their police departments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP

We all, especially the veterans I work with, hated this idea. MRAP's are for combat, not police work, and have a dangerous propensity to roll over in city streets or escalate already violent situations. 14 of us sent a signed letter to the owner and senior management detailing our major concerns and heard nothing back for about a month. Then out of the blue we got a call for a meeting with 3-4 very senior managers at a local irish bar.

They paid for dinner and tried to explain how the business would be extremely lucrative. we would all see major bonuses, we could hire more workers, and grow the business faster than just large truck repair. It took 3 very emotional hours, but we eventually talked down a handful of people from making a very wrong decision.

for a week after, we were all sort of stunned that it actually worked at all. Tire cages meant for MRAP tires were cut up and turned into random parts holders, or as new hangers for air lines...one even replaced our mailbox post.

View on HN

You deserve massive credit for striking a blow against this madness. A great example of how working people have more power than they think if they're willing to risk dollars and cents for matters of right and wrong.

I say that fully realizing that not everyone is in the financial position where they can risk a fight with their employer. You can't expect everyone to be Ghandi.

> A great example of how working people have more power than they think if they're willing to risk dollars and cents for matters of right and wrong.

I believe this is key. If more folks at more organizations were brave like this and willing to take the risk, a good chunk of the problems our civilization is facing might be greatly improved.

Worker's unions helped win the majority of our rights in modern democracies. I wish this fact was more widely appreciated.

Unions are rarely formed unless conditions are particularly bad. One upon a time in this country, the national guard with machine guns might have been called out to clear a strike/protest. Most people are very happy being ignorant of their surroundings or influence of.

The most I've ever done is threaten to quit if a project for the RIAA was accepted by my employer when I was invited into the pre-pitch meeting. It just depends on a specific case.

I'm part of a very privileged workforce and our situation, while not great, was a lot better than the average worker. We still managed to form a union. It can be done.

> Worker's unions helped win the majority of our rights in modern democracies. I wish this fact was more widely appreciated.

The problem with modern unions, particularly in tech, is that the legacy structure is inapt for current problems. Tech workers don't need a union to negotiate compensation, they're compensated fine already. They don't need a huge bureaucratic structure for engaging in long-term detailed negotiations. They don't need a contract at all.

What they need is a no-dues no-fulltime-union-reps union that operates through direct democracy. It does nothing unless the employer is doing something bad wrong. Then if the majority of the union members vote to refuse, either the employer concedes or they strike.

Because it's not about a thousand little things here, it's about a small number of big things. It needs to be able to address those and then go back to being invisible instead of succumbing to feature creep and destroying the host with overhead and principal-agent problems as we've seen with the auto makers.

> they're compensated fine already.

I disagree, given the massive cash reserves the tech companies have.

Yes, having a higher salary would be ridiculous in a lot of these cases, but we should moderate that through legislation that benefits the most people - not by a public company further lining the coffers of its owners.

Apple and Google particularly have a lot of cash just lying around, and that cash is the result of the employee's efforts, and they deserve it. I think if we think their salaries are too high in that case, we need to talk about better taxation systems.

> I disagree, given the massive cash reserves the tech companies have.

They have massive cash reverses because the tax laws have encouraged that rather than paying it to shareholders as dividends. And that level of return is necessary because of the nature of the industry -- you have to spend millions of dollars trying to create the next tech giant before you know whether you've succeeded or not, and most of the time you haven't. The returns to success have to be enough to overcome the high failure rate.

Most of the employees aren't taking the same level of risk. If you work for a company for five years taking home a six figure salary and that company fails, you don't have to give back your salary and in a few months you're working for another company making the same amount of money.

If you think you can do better on your own, risking your own time and money instead of taking outside investment, go right ahead -- but then shouldn't it be you who gets more of the reward if you succeed rather than the people you hire in after you're already an established success?

On the one hand it sounds like you're saying that software engineers are paid enough already, then on the other hand you're saying you think the compensation given to the software engineers that founded the company - which is much MUCH higher than that of the average company engineer is appropriate.

It feels like what you're saying is that the risk of failing in a startup is massive enough for a founder that they deserve literally billions of dollars.

Could you let me know exactly what risks you think a failing startup founder faces that would entitle them to say, a thousand times more dollars than the average salaried employee? Are you saying that because a founder may go bankrupt they are entitled to thousands of times more money? Does this mean that any individual that takes out a loan larger than their assets to start a business is entitled to thousands of times more money than their average employee? Could you help me understand what makes you think that?

> On the one hand it sounds like you're saying that software engineers are paid enough already, then on the other hand you're saying you think the compensation given to the software engineers that founded the company - which is much MUCH higher than that of the average company engineer is appropriate.

Of course, because the level of risk is different. $100,000 guaranteed is worth more than a <50% chance at $200,000, much less a <1% chance. A very high reward is inherently necessary to offset the very low probability of major success, otherwise people aren't going to do it.

> Could you let me know exactly what risks you think a failing startup founder faces that would entitle them to say, a thousand times more dollars than the average salaried employee?

The less than one in a thousand chance of making that much.

> Does this mean that any individual that takes out a loan larger than their assets to start a business is entitled to thousands of times more money than their average employee?

There are many ways to turn a thousand dollars into a 0.1% chance at a million dollars. Then 99.9% of the time you lose the thousand dollars -- and it's your time/money, not the bank's. Nobody is going to give you an unsecured loan to gamble with.

But if you bet on your own horse at 1000:1 odds and win, how are you not entitled to the proceeds?

I'm assuming that you don't think risking making no money is enough to entitle a founder to their entire employees wage. How much does it entitle them to?

The successful entrepreneur makes his money by capital gains in the share or venture capital markets and not by extracting it from his employees. Employees compete with each other for salaries. Employer competes with other employers for both a)market share b) hiring employees -bidding up their prices. By comparing gains from entrepreneurship with regular salaries, you are comparing a stock variable with a flow variable. Even Marx got this part correct

> The successful entrepreneur makes his money by capital gains in the share or venture capital markets and not by extracting it from his employees.

Incorrect, that value is only sustained and increased by the efforts of company workers.

> Employer competes with other employers for both a)market share b) hiring employees -bidding up their prices.

Incorrect. Companies that don't have significant oversight in the form of government regulation or strong unions tend to collude to keep salaries low - which is exactly what has happened in the valley, and has meant that these companies have gigantic cash reserves that they aren't leveraging to hire the best talent.

> By comparing gains from entrepreneurship with regular salaries, you are comparing a stock variable with a flow variable.

No, I'm merely saying that the differences and risks suffered by investors and founders versus regular salaried employees are not a justification for the sometimes ridiculous difference between the compensation of the two.

> I'm assuming that you don't think risking making no money is enough to entitle a founder to their entire employees wage. How much does it entitle them to?

The amount they mutually agree upon. The employee wouldn't agree to work indefinitely for no pay.

The high compensation of successful founders is actually one of the things keeping salaries up, because any of the salaried employees has the option to quit and found their own company. The existing company has to pay well enough to compete with that -- because if what they're paying wasn't actually competitive with that alternative given the relative risk between them, why would anybody accept the salary?

That'd be all very reasonable if we lived in a world where Apple and Google weren't colluding to keep wages down.

Which is why there are laws against that, which are actively being enforced against them.

So you both think people are being paid reasonably and that Google and Apple are colluding with one another.

1) The collusion has presumably stopped now that they're caught.

2) It is possible for both to be true at the same time, because the industry is much larger than Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe. Even if they didn't compete with each other, they still have to outbid Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. -- and pay enough to prevent the workers leaving to found their own companies. It's not unreasonable to expect that the effect on wages was marginal even when it was occurring.

You're having to make a lot of presumptions to have to believe these employees are being paid fairly.

> Tech workers don't need a union to negotiate compensation, they're compensated fine already.

Software one of the highest margins of any industry. They can afford to pay more, especially since they are constantly whining about "shortages" of tech workers.

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/...

> They can afford to pay more

Which is why they already do pay more than other industries.

The best argument you have against that is the anti-poaching shenanigans they've engaged in -- but that's already illegal, so the answer there is a courtroom rather than a union.

No, it really isn't. The court requires someone to notice the pattern, or be aware of the pattern, and be willing to risk their reputation. With a union, the onus is on the business to act right, or risk labour action where the SRE folks walk out, and all the little blinky lights turn off.

> The court requires someone to notice the pattern, or be aware of the pattern

How is that different with a union?

> and be willing to risk their reputation

Class action suit or submit evidence confidentially to the attorney general.

> With a union, the onus is on the business to act right, or risk labour action where the SRE folks walk out, and all the little blinky lights turn off.

If Apple won't hire Google employees then the Google employees can retaliate against Apple by not working for them?

How do you get and pay for the infrastructure of this direct democracy without resources paid for by dues? How do you get the minority in any vote to go along with the result when there isn't any common binding agreement such as a contract that enforces majority rule?

> How do you get and pay for the infrastructure of this direct democracy without resources paid for by dues?

The technology needed to let people submit proposals and let other people vote on them is on the level what individuals do over a weekend as adjunct to a side project.

> How do you get the minority in any vote to go along with the result when there isn't any common binding agreement such as a contract that enforces majority rule?

Why do you need to force them to? By definition the majority will already agree, and then many in the minority would participate out of solidarity because that's the whole point of joining a union to begin with. You don't need 100.0%, a large majority is quite sufficient in general. And anything that actually required 100.0% is already lost, because then they could pay off the cheapest defector or contract it out.

The technology to submit and receive votes on proposals is only trivial until you think about the details, especially those required for security and authentication.

And your picture of humam behavior is all too rose-colored glasses if it's having all members of a minority vote just go along out of solidarity when it's non-binding. I've seen unions vote on issues, and it's often contentious with emotions running high on all sides. If the losing side in any of those could have just said "nope" to accepting the result, they would have. Sometimes they try to anyway.

> The technology to submit and receive votes on proposals is only trivial until you think about the details, especially those required for security and authentication.

This is a major problem for country-level populations. For corporations it typically comes pre-solved by the corporation itself, because each employee would have a company email address or Active Directory account etc. that could be used for authentication. (In theory the corporation could illegally tamper with the results that way, but the tampering would be immediately obvious to the person whose vote was changed.)

> If the losing side in any of those could have just said "nope" to accepting the result, they would have.

Because they're using the union for the wrong stuff. A lot of the votes would be for things like accepting a policy that gives raises to only senior people. No doubt the junior people being screwed over by that policy would strenuously object when they're the 49%, especially when being in the union deprives them of the opportunity to negotiate something else as an individual.

But how many Google employees have that kind of personal stake in a question like whether to censor search results in China?

If tech workers form a union, I'm sure it will look very different to the industrial worker's unions of the 20th century. And so it should, the needs of today are very different. The thing is, apart from the remaining unions from that time, most unions already look very different to that model so this is not really a good argument against unionising.

The other thing you aren't taking into account is the fact that this boom in the tech industry isn't guaranteed to continue forever. There will come a time, maybe pretty soon, where tech workers will become as precarious as those steel workers and autoworkers eventually became. Big tech companies are already putting a lot of effort and resources into educating the next generation of programmers to provide a more competitive labour market and drive down salaries. There's already talk of a coming recession, where I'm sure the belts will be tightened and people will be laid off. When we have a union, we will be more protected from the inevitable exploitation in such scenarios.

The temporarily embarassed unicorn founders among us need to realise that we are the creators of all the value in these companies and, collectively, we have the power to influence their direction and impact on society. We can help secure not only our own rights as workers but also have the power to change society at large and secure better standards of living for all workers (or non-workers). That's why these recent actions by Google employees have been so important. They can set a precedent for how other companies and even states can safely act in future, without fearing repercussions from their most valuable resource - the workers.

I wish more people knew that workers fought and died for those rights.

Its one thing to say maybe you'll quit, or skip your pay check for change, its another to actually put your life on the line for what you know is right.

Since China is known for its countless human rights violations, Are these Google employees also going to...

1. Give up their Chinese-Manufactured iPhones/Android Phones? Tablets? Laptops and workstations??

2. Give up watching movies/shows on their Chinese-manufactured TVs??

3. Stop wearing Chinese-made iwatches/fitbits/etc.??

4. Boycott silicon valley startups that have accepted chinese investments?

5. Boycott every product by US/Foreign company (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, GE, Disney, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, etc.) doing business in China?

There's a difference between boycotting products made in China and protesting against building technologies that enable dictatorial regimes. They do not deserve to be conflated.

They're not "enabling" a dictatorial regime, they're just following the laws of a foreign government. Making a censored search engine isn't "supporting" the government, it's just abiding by it.

A censored search engine is a direct instrument of oppression.

Contracting to build a censored search engine is the moral equivalent of contracting to build a barbed wire fence around a concentration camp.

You're being an active participant that directly assists in making that oppression happen by building tools required for the actual act of oppression, as opposed to building something that merely done in the same country.

"You're not allowed to do anything good ever if you're not already a maximally good person. That would make you a hypocrite, which is way worse than someone who doesn't do anything to help in the first place."

I don't understand the context in which you're posting this quote. pompousprick's argument was that we shouldn't morally prosecute these companies as supporting dictatorships just because they do business in China.

Bargaining power. (Organized) working humans have it...but it will erode as robots and algorithms take on more and more work. An argument for striking while the iron is hot. (No pun intended.)

Historically, whenever there's advancement in technology. Powers that control the current will get challenged, and so far, it has been for the better for the majority.

We've gone a long way from being serfs who have almost no rights, even the right to read and write.. to citizens who can communicate via the internet.

Advancement in technology will/have make current powers obsolete. Robots and algorithms have been taking more work since the stone age.

Better tools, means more surplus, means more time to think critically, more time to comment over the internet, or read books.

The only problem is that we probably won't see any observable improvement in one lifetime. It is however, also very possible that the incumbent powers put an end to our civilization. Hopefully enough people like these Google employees, Snowden, Assange will be there to stop fascism.

I think technology has allowed power to become more and more concentrated. Never before has one state had the power to annihilate entire cities, or land entire armies worth of troops at any point on earth within 24 hours. Never before have large and powerful organisations and governments had the capability to read every word that every person sends to each other and track their every motion around the city with cameras.

Yes there is more surplus, but where is that going? People in developed societies are working more hours now than they were 100 years ago. Wealth inequality has risen to higher levels than ever existed in modern society. I wish it gave me more time to read books...

We definitely need to be more engaged in resisting these dangerous tendencies, particularly with recent political developments. I think organised tech workers have immense power. If Google employees could formalise their current actions and then even unite with other groups across other companies, they would be a force to be reckoned with.

Corruption is a bottom up process.

It only works if everyone goes along.

Be brave and stand up for yourself, what do you have to lose?

- if they're willing

+ if they're willing and able

FTFY

Agreed. But this many Google employees acting collectively, including some very senior and long-tenured Googlers, meet that additional condition.

(Disclosure: having worked at Google I know some names on that list personally, and respect them greatly. I haven't worked at Google since early 2015.)

But this was 139 out of 88K employees [1]. Doesn't seem like that many? How do we interpret the other 87K+?

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti...

It's been a long time since my statistics and econometrics courses, but one conclusion that's definitely unwarranted would be to assume that the rest disagree with the signatories. People who speak up on an issue will always be a small fraction of the larger population of people who share the same opinion.

It would be really interesting stat to know how well heeled the 139 are vs the 88k who can afford to financially bacjk up their principles...

Out of the 88k how many dont care, how many cant afford to care, how many are looking to profit off not caring.

People downthread have remarked on the lack of Chinese signatories, commenting on how the Chinese government tracks their citizens abroad. With ramifications for their family and friends as actual, real possibilities, according to some commenters.

If that were true, then their silence can definitely not be construed as any kind of tacit agreement, or even disinterest.

How many Chinese citizens (or people otherwise susceptible to this purported pressure) work at Google?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18543164

While threats from the Chinese government may be valid, it's more likely that they don't want to / cannot risk their H-1B status or green card priority date. So their immediate threat is more likely (indirectly) coming from USG.

What is the risk, that their status would be changed in response to their involvement? If so, would there be an officially articulated basis?

They can get fired. If they're still an H-1B, that basically requires them to leave the country immediately.

There's a short grace period in practice (usually, and this isn't official) if you have another job all lined up that is ready to sponsor you. But if you were an H-1B applying for a green card via your employer, this basically resets your position in line, unless you're in late stages of the process. And keep in mind that the wait is measured in years for many countries (e.g. for India, >9 years right now unless you're in the "exceptional" category).

> While threats from the Chinese government may be valid, it's more likely that they don't want to / cannot risk their H-1B status or green card priority date. So their immediate threat is more likely (indirectly) coming from USG.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't see why the USG would want to sanction them, especially since this letter has nothing to do with the USG.

If they're discouraged from signing due to their US visa status, the mechanism that makes more sense is that they fear Google could fire them and it would take them longer than 60 days to line up another job that could sponsor them.

> People downthread have remarked on the lack of Chinese signatories, commenting on how the Chinese government tracks their citizens abroad. With ramifications for their family and friends as actual, real possibilities, according to some commenters.

Even as an American with no family in China, I'd be slightly worried that putting my name on such a list might prevent me from getting a visa to visit the PRC. They've shown a willingness to factor politics into visa decisions:

https://www.ft.com/content/b1bd2aec-e333-11e8-8e70-5e22a430c...

That guy didn't even express a stance, like these Google employees have, he just happened to be the acting leader of the club when a speaker the PRC opposed was scheduled to give a talk.

The activation energy to mobilize people is incredibly high, especially on issues that don't directly effect them. And even then it's still huge. People will always debate exactly why, but it does mean that the vast majority of people will remain mostly politically inert.

So far.

Yet 1 person in that company could kill it in 3 seconds even if this didn't happen. That's 1 in 88K.

My wife and I once went around and petitioned all 100 people that lived in a condo complex for a specific issue. About 80 people signed. We didn't even need to present the signature sheet - the one hold out on the board we had to convince had caved after learning about the efforts - not knowing the percentage of signers (only we had the number).

I'm more thinking from the side of all the other employees who either don't care, or have different perspetives on how well the Chinese government might or might not be doing with their tactics. I find the public internet form, especially sites like HN don't promote as much discussion from all angles as we think. I'm sure that anyone from Google who spoke up for moving into China would absolutely be skewered on here. Yet, I know they exist.

There's some statistic that says if one person is willing to speak out, then there's X number of people that agree but are unwilling to speak out. Don't know the accuracy of that, but I've taken it to heart and have been willing to be one of the first to speak out on multiple occasions at multiple jobs. Sometimes things change for the better. Sometimes things don't change, and I force a change by leaving. If nobody speaks up, then the status quo wins.

> There's some statistic that says if one person is willing to speak out, then there's X number of people that agree but are unwilling to speak out.

I've heard this before. I'm not sure if it's a statistic or just a saying. What's the standard formulation?

I could see it being considered both. I've also heard it applied to congress critters and senators. For every person that contacts them, they equate it to equaling a certain percentage of the people they represent. I've heard the weight of a phone call vs hand written letter vs email are different, but that was some time ago. It makes sense that when a small number/percentage of the people make contact out of a group in the thousands that some sort of statistical method would be used. These representatives should pay more attention the people as that is who puts them in their job. It doesn't really apply to corporations as they will just replace the squeaky wheels even if it's not the best thing to do morally/socially. They only care about this quarter's earnings. It's the rare company that will fix the squeak rather than replacing it, and they should be highlighted when it happens.

See Nassim Taleb's minority rule: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

I think I covered ableness in the second paragraph. For a large and growing number of people in the US, taking on that fight could easily mean homelessness. I don't hardly consider them able on grounds of self preservation.

"You can't expect everyone to be Ghandi.". You meant Gandhi.

No, I meant Bapu

No, he meant ગાંધી

> Ghandi

Maybe, you meant to say - Gandhi [0] ?

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

It's Gandhi and not Ghandi. (Couldn't resist correcting, sorry).

> You can't expect everyone to be Ghandi.

If we're talking about Ghandi, the man that fought for Indian rights (but not for Africans and in fact was a racist against them). And that is probably for the best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTxNSU2k6l4

Damn, good for y'all for sticking to your values. How did you argue against the inevitable "if we don't take this contract, dude across the street will"?

>How did you argue against the inevitable "if we don't take this contract, dude across the street will"?

Collective action. They can hire 14 new guys, but they won't have any to instruct the new employees in their work.

Google is well aware of the spyware that the Chinese govt is using to oppress it's ethnic minorities, but they don't lift a finger to thwart it. They don't blacklist the app that the government requires Muslims in Xinjiang to have on their phones at all time[1]. They could easily blacklist it.

How far is Google willing to go to be friends with China? Mass detainment and ethnic cleansing are well within the realm of possibility, especially in the likely event of an economic crisis.

Will Google help sniff out their Anne Franks? Imagine trying to operate an underground railroad against the full force of Google. There are so many ways that machine learning and modern private surveillance can determine things like if there are extra uncounted people living in an area.

If Beijing did decide to solve the Uyghur problem, would Google cover for them and purge search queries?

No, this is not at all hyperbolic or reaching. American corporations did business with our enemies right up until they were forced to stop during WWII. American machines have been used to commit horrific atrocities. And read Chinese history. Read about what China has done as recently as a few decades ago.

I'm glad to see Google employees taking a break from their virtue pageantry to actually take a stand on something that matters, finally.

[1]: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turn...

Here is a thought for you:

If Google actually were to do anything to help they Anne Franks of China, do you think they would announce it to the world to debate on HN, or do you think they would do it in secret?

I'm sure they're unhappy about the dragonfly publicity, so I don't understand the point you're making.

Perhaps. But "Maybe Google is just pretending to be evil" does not give me much comfort. Especially as I have friends who are ethnic minorities in SE Asia.

this 100%. The business made a business decision : either veteran, that is, most valuable assets get mad and all sort of problems affecting productivty/quality happen or, a few not-yet-realized business opportunities disappears.

That was very pragmatic. Both sides wins.

> Pretty bold

It's interesting you would label this as such.

In what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and a massive proponent of free speech and human rights, you think it's bold to write a letter on the internet to your extraordinarily famous employer?

If it's considered bold in the USA involving Google, I shudder to think about anyone else doing this anywhere else.

In the year 2018 I would hope it's very much not bold to do so.

Publicly calling out your employer is bold anywhere. Perhaps less so in countries like the US where that sort of speech is protected, and in sectors like tech where the speakers are likely to be well-off and not fungible, but doing this sort of thing publicly always puts you at risk of losing your job (for "unrelated performance reasons") and of being quietly blacklisted by future employers (for "poor culture fit" or any other easy excuse).

> In what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and a massive proponent of free speech and human rights, you think it's bold to write a letter on the internet to your extraordinarily famous employer?

Free speech only applies to the government though? Your employer is still free to fire you.

Sure you won't be put in jail but for most people losing their job still certainly affects their livelihood.

Free speech is a value, not just a legal right.

Corporations are explicitly tyrannies. Check out Corporate Confidential for a flavor of what a typical corporate employee could expect for signing a letter like this.

Not to be cynical, but did another company take over that work for them? Did the police get their MRAPs?

This is a problem that my employer faces. We have a strong concept of corporate responsibility, and plenty of opportunity for employee pushback, but we repeatedly see our decisions simply subverted by competitors who don't have any sense of morals and just go where the money is. It becomes a nasty tradeoff where you think about building/doing things that don't feel good, just to maintain a position to have a positive influence on _other_ areas, where a competitor might simply act without morals everywhere. It's not fun to think about these things in a market with bad incentives.

Hence regulation.

Wait, because your competitors will maintain MRAPs “they have no sense of morals”?

Your morals are your own? Why do you insist on imposing them on others?

I mean, all I'm trying to say is that most companies are subject to the competition pressure in their market regardless of internal employees' morals, and it becomes hard to justify "standing up for your beliefs" in a business sense that isn't just "shut down the business or change industries," if there are inherent moral issues in the current industry.

When I say "have no sense of morals," I'm talking about competitors who were acquired by large PE firms a decade or more ago and do not have any internal discussions about the morals of what their employees are building/maintaining. They operate entirely by asking what clients want and then trying to build what they can of those requests.

I'm mostly talking about incentives and market pressures, not "imposing morals on others" or other such emotional nonsense that you are reading into here.

Because that's the only way to solve moral co-ordination problems?

If you leave a morally odious contract on the table (lets say it's cutting up human babies for baby veal) knowing your competitors will take the project, enrich themselves, expand, and develop the capacity to engage in larger, even more odious business, then what's the proper course of action?

Do you cut up babies because fuck morals? Or do you try to get no one to cut up babies? What if you have imperfect information and aren't certain if your competition would do it? What if they have imperfect information about your intentions and decide to take the deal purely on that basis?

Should be straightforward to recognize how corrosive this cycle gets.

EDIT: some people seem to be upset with the baby example. Just exchange that with anything you find clearly morally unacceptable. Like selling reverse mortgages to elderly people with limited capacity, or signing people up for ponzi schemes or adding intentionally addictive additives to a harmful consumable product, etc.

I get what you mean and it's a case by case basis, if people didn't try and push any morals we would all live in vacuums where all we have is the law to tell us what is _right_.

A lot of people have no problem with their countries governments manufacturing and/or selling arms to dictatorships that inflict harm on innocents and supply extremists e.g. UK-Saudi arms trading. As far as some are concerned the UK is just doing what another country may do instead.

If that one employer made it public that they chose not to deal with MRAP repair, I would wholly choose to do business with them and spread the word that they have are a responsible corporate citizen like wildfire.

And you'd have half your city boycott it because they refuse to support the boys in blue.

Great story dude. We can't pretend more people don't think like this. People working in and around corporations can make a difference by talking about it with other people. Thanks for sharing!

Great story - random question --- but how did you find out about HN? (I'm just asking because you implied you don't work in software, etc.)

Well, his profile says... "Linux fan".

ah i missed that. thanks

Thank you for standing up for what's right... :) If only more individuals & businesses stood up against militarism in our communities!

The key here is you acted together. Individuals acting alone have very little bargaining power. But once employees start acting together with a single purpose their power gets very difficult to ignore.

Whether people believe unions are a good idea or not, the key is to organize into something that allows people to work together and find common ground to address common problems.

Well done buddy, it's great to hear about people taking a principled stand, especially when money's involved.

It's not just about the equipment the police force use, it's also about the training. Given military equipment, the police force will also get military training matching the equipment they get. Military knowledge and tactics should not be used used to police a civilian population.

Thank you for standing up to this.

Thank you. We literally need more people exactly like you in this world. The militarization of the police force is something that started with George W., continued unabated with Obama, and will probably be accelerated under Trump, and it is anti-democracy in my opinion.

Thank you for sharing this; the world needs many more people who actually live and act on their ethical boundaries.

Thanks for standing up

Thank you for committing yourself to non-aggression.

Wow. Great story, thank you for sharing this.

You are the heroes we need.

Beautiful and inspiring story.

Wow! So basically, someone managed to risk police offier lives with their ill thought out plan and people on HN are applauding them?

What should a police crew use against a criminal equipped with high caliber armor piercing guns?

> What should a police crew use against a criminal equipped with high caliber armor piercing guns?

The Army?

I wonder how this policy would interact with something like the Posse Comitatus Act.

Would it effectively require applying the label "terrorist" or "national security threat" to any criminal who shows they are prepared to use lethal force against a law enforcement officer?

Yeah, life isn't "Die Hard", if someone is using "high caliber armor piercing guns" against the local PD, then classifying them as "domestic terrorists" and calling in specialists to deal with them seems appropriate to me.

Police have to deal with enough crap that they shouldn't be expected to handle paramilitary situations as well, is what I'm saying.

As a counterexample, remember the "Bundy standoff"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff That's the kind of situation where the Posse Comitatus Act means you don't send in the Army. However, if they had shot a bunch of people I'm sure they would have had to face at least the National Guard, eh?

Gun control legislation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com