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Comment by LIV2 | Hacker News Reader

How long until the staff at Microsoft/Amazon strike?

Powerpoint is by far the most important piece of software in the military...used in planning for literally every mission from where to build latrines to mission planning for seal teams. Do you think Microsoft employees should strike over the use of Powerpoint?

I remember seeing video of ISIS actively using Google Earth images in order to coordinate their attacks, and they were not the only one in Syria using this Google product.

Google earth started as a CIA contract.

With a different company that Google bought

Strike about what?

A large percentage of the technology we use daily found its roots in projects funded by DARPA and related entities.

Businesses need customers to pay the bills, the salaries, and perks enjoyed by those employed by these companies. Someone is going to provide services to the government, so it Makes sense to compete for the business.

It is reasonable to wonder if there is going to be infighting about this decision at Microsoft and Amazon, because Google employees have already demonstrated that it is possible.

And when this topic came up with Microsoft, Satya went on record saying they were continuing with pursuing the business.

Coordinating with the Chinese (a foreign) Government to implement spying and censorship as Google (and Cisco prior) did, at least for me, is completely different than competing for hosting contracts with the government.

Not everyone is American - what may be foreign and untrustworthy to one person, may be native and honorable to another.

It is not black and white at all, which makes some of the hoo-haa about this all a bit strange to me (with people saying "... but this is helping our military keep us safe!..." neglecting to consider the other side of the coin of the citizens of another country on the receiving end etc etc)

True, but in the context of the employees (in the US) they are either American citizens or on some form of US Visa. It would seem somewhat contradictory to be a non-Citizen protesting the policies of a US company while employed at that company on a visa issued by the US government.

Also, having had a relative that was high up in one of the services and dealt with logistics. Not every contract involved with the Pentagon is specific to a direct conflict effort. It could be HR/Personnel systems, inventory tracking, etc.

During my undergrad/grad years, I worked under a DARPA grant around weather prediction leveraging GOES imagery. Money coming under the auspices of the DoD, but related to research not specific to a military usage. Amusingly, some campus individuals who were anti-DoD put up wanted posters of the professors involved with work under this same grant. (I know different than providing cloud services, but just an example of government military budget going towards efforts that dovetail into civilian uses)

> they are either American citizens or on some form of US Visa. It would seem somewhat contradictory to be a non-Citizen protesting the policies of a US company while employed at that company on a visa issued by the US government.

With respect I disagree.

I don't think it is contradictory at all - you are not obliged to have unwavering and unquestioning support for whatever the company you happen to work for, or the country you happen to live in, decides to do. It is 100% ok to disagree with what your employer or country is doing.

Just because someone is on a visa, you think that they suddenly are not allowed to have an opinion or any morals? Please - take a step back and think this through from different perspectives than your own. Many people on a Visa/dual-nationals/US-natives etc still have full and complete lives outside of the US - friends, family, colleagues, property, cultural, etc. You cannot expect people to abandon all that and just go along with the US military killing innocent men, women and children outside in their home countries/near-by countries just because they have a job and/or are living in the US. [1]

1 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/after...

There will be no Google-comparable response. Amazon and Microsoft are very different companies and cultures compared to Google. Microsoft and Amazon have much smaller, diluted blocks of the culture that spurred the infighting at Google.

If Bezos says they're going forward with it, they're going forward with it. If a couple hundred AWS engineers mutiny, Bezos will gladly show them the door and replace them. That's how it would work at Amazon for better or worse.

Providing database solutions to the whole military is much more morally grey than helping the military build a ML model to bomb people more "efficiently"

At least, to me

Amazon already has a cloud computing contract with the government, https://aws.amazon.com/federal/us-intelligence-community/.

If there were to be protests in Amazon, it would have happened already.

How much % do you think cares about protesting a gov contract?

Um... never? Why would they strike? If anyone cared, and I don’t think anyone does, they would just leave.

Why would they strike?

Google employees went on strike because of a government contract to improve AI used in the targeting of drone strikes. The fallout of that project lead to Google dropping out of the running for this contract citing its "AI principles".

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-will-not-bid-for-th...

Microsoft employees are not like Googlers. There was a protest letter that was passed around and I think it got more ex-MSFT than actual employees to sign it.

I suspect a few people from both companies will complain but it won't be enough to dictate change. MSFT employees complained about the company working with ICE and while that did get a response, it didn't get the contract canceled.

Do you think the hiring process at Microsoft somehow selects fewer people with strong political views?

Or perhaps the employees are the same, but the corporate executives and culture encourages or discouraged certain behaviors?

Google is wired to have more "activist" type people. I don't think Microsoft has that type of culture based on the people that I have spoken to that work there, though I'm sure they exist.

I think there is a big difference as well to work on something generic that the military happens to use as well like a database or truck compared to building something which is mainly part of a weapon. Luke a drone targeting system or a truck mounted AA gun.

That’s not really the same thing as generic cloud services. At a certain point you need to draw a line for responsibility. Is it renting computer time? Probably not.

I think most people would distinguish between government vs. military contracts (despite the outsized proportion of government spending that the military occupies).

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