Github provides software lifecycle management services. It is apolitical. I do not believe we should be trying to police the providers of apolitical software.
If they are successful here, the activists will not declare “mission accomplished”. Nope. They will then search for other contracts to be cancelled. And then there will be infighting as to why one should remain and another cancelled as disagreements mount.
Don’t get into politics when you’re providing enterprise services. Stay away from it as far as you can.
I am totally for the argument that enterprise services servicing specific entities is apolitical, and discussing the merits thereof. But I believe this is a slippery slope fallacy that weakens your argument and is hyperbolic.
A legitimate logical fallacy of the "slippery slope" variety is when one observes a transition from state S_0 to state S_1 via some step/action X taken, and without evidence or justification (!) assumes/claims that the step/action X will therefore be repeated indefinitely until the system evolves to state S_2, S_3, S_4, ... S_n (where S_n is presumably a state we all consider to be undesirable). The "without evidence or justification" part here is EXTREMELY important. If you actually have evidence or justification of a slippery slope, it is not a fallacy; it becomes a valid argument.
Tip: When you see what looks like a slippery slope fallacy at first glance, it's probably best to give the opposing argument the benefit of the doubt by asking for evidence/justification for the induction (S_0 -> S_1) -> S_N. In most cases, some evidence will be provided to justify. If you disagree with the justification, the debate continues in that direction (which is good, because this is productive).
It's the same on some level as freedom of speech. We "kinda" used to have a general standard about what we disallowed. But that's being challenged in recent years, and from my perspective, is only being driven by outrage rather than actual discussions to figure out a good and clearly defined common ground that acts in the best interests of our entire society.
Is it a slippery slope fallacy?
If we do A then B must happen and I think if we do A then B will happen are two different claims. The latter does not explain the reasoning and is thus not a slippery slope.
To give an example.
If we legalize same sex marriage, polygamy will become legal because of it.
This is a slippery slope slope because it is directly saying one will cause the other just because the first one will happen.
I think if we legalize same sex marriage, polygamy will eventually become legal. (Unsaid reasoning behind the opinion: Upon re-evaluating the existing laws in our push to legalize same sex marriage, combined with an existing acceptance of polyamory, we will see that there is no justifiable reason to keep 3+ adults who wish to form a family from doing so, and though the laws will be a bit more difficult to accommodate them, we will lose any sense of 'wrongness' that is used to justify the ban.)
This is not a slippery slope. The original claim is just not displaying their logic behind their opinion, but that does not mean their logic is a slippery slope.
The difficulty is that in the English language, the two can be written the same way and one won't know the intent without asking the author.
Just to use an absurd example, let's imagine an alternate universe where Hitler and the Nazis were in power in the U.S. here in 2019. Would it be acceptable, then, for Github to cancel their contracts? Or would that be playing politics too?
Please note: I'm not suggesting ICE is equivalent to Nazis. I'm simply suggesting there is a limit to your assertion that enterprise services should always avoid politics. It's easy to bucket politics as this thing that doesn't really matter. We're privileged as hell in the U.S. in 2019 that that is mostly true. But for the majority of world history, politics has dire consequences for major segments of the population.
With respect to ICE, they absolutely are violating some pretty fundamental human rights. I don't think it's beyond the pale for technology companies (often heavily reliant on immigrant labor) to take a stand here.
1. Release parents and children into the US regardless of legal status.
2. Keep children in jail with their parents.
3. Separate children by sending them back to their country.
4. Separate children by placing them somewhere in the US (either with family or social services).
5. Send the entire family back to their country they came from.
Keeping innocent kids in jail is not right. Separating kids is not right. Having open borders is not practical. Sending back people to their own country is not right.
There is no solution. Many people who make the same argument as you would say just let them into the US but it is not practical when you have a welfare system. Many who criticize the current system even Bernie Sanders [0] says you can't have open borders since it would cause too much strain with our welfare system.
So what is the solution?
[0] https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/bernie-sanders-ope...
And yes, crossing the border Illegally is illegal by definition.
What else do they do to violate human rights?
The thing is while we disagree with those companies and their government, there isn’t a mechanism to address those issues. Just like there wasn’t a way to address the Gulags.
That has to be addressed by the people internally in that jurisdiction. It has to be addressed by the laws available. Fortunately the US is better at following our own system of laws that say China where on paper people might be better off than us, but sadly their constitution is simply a formality.
So your question is not answered very simply and does not have a simple solution. For example, we were not about to invade the USSR over the Gulags, we were not about to invade China over its multiple purges, despite the horrendous atrocities. I can think of Vietnam as the only country invading another to stop mass systemic purges when they went into Cambodia.
By your line of reasoning, no one in the west should’ve have supported divestment from South Africa during apartheid, even though that was a wildly effective strategy.
You don’t wait for power to grow a conscience, you force it into a corner with your own and the solidarity you build with others.
We do some of those things with DPRK, Iran and Russia, among others. Still, some countries are more resilient than others of more stubborn than others and will press on. Iran is a decent example. We sanction and apply other pressures, they go in killing and persevere despite all that.
Most everyone nowadays seem to wander around thinking their views are obviously correct, and the people who disagree with them are either ignorant, immoral, or arguing in bad faith.
Rationally that doesn’t make sense. No one knows everything, and everyone has blind spots. Most people are doing their best to have decent opinions.
So we have this kind of genius political and economic system that assumes everyone is going to be biased and small minded, and mostly just act in their own interests as they perceive them, and yet things mostly come out pretty ok.
With that in mind, it follows that corporations should mostly just pursue profits, even though that doesn’t sound right. But certainly they should not take stances on the “issues of the day” ... especially if they are publicly held companies.
Your scenario doesn’t make sense because our system is designed so that voting and legislating and regulating and so forth address the hypothetical Hitler problem. The corporation has a different role to play.
If corporations actually mostly pursued profits, there'd be nothing left but fire.
Rather, corporations should (according to an extension of your argument, which I don't necessarily agree with) pursue the goals of the people who make up the corporation. Except that doesn't really happen; corporations are rather a power-multiplier for those in charge of them, subject to the constraints of the corporate structure that forces those people to prioritise profit over their own goals.
Thus, it makes sense for people to lobby large companies en-masse; they can't use the corporations as force-multipliers, but they can use their ability to threaten the companies' profit sources (and so direct the companies' motivations) to their shared interest.
I glossed over a lot of steps in my hacker news comment about a specific context.
The context is some people trying to get github to take a stance, an opinion, about a department of the us government.
It’s hard to be creative enough to imagine a more partisan or divisive topic, where moral consensus is effectively impossible.
Within this context is is absolutely safe to describe the role of the for profit (public in this case) corporation - as opposed branches of the government, or non profit organizations, or unions, or groundswell movements or any of the various emergent structures you might want to throw in here - as seeking profit.
...at least, that's what IBM claims happened to its German subsidiary during WW2: https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss
(I think my favorite part of that book is learning that Hitler literally gave Watson a medal.)
Many here are slave to the money god and have a capitalism-derived definition of morality. It's a VC forum after all it isn't _that_ surprising :/
How can they avoid it? Refusing to take some action is still making a decision.
That's good. Someone in Github will have to calculate the cost of doing business with such entities.
Up to this point, doing business with socially despicable entities had no cost--now it does. It's time for business to have to evaluate that cost.
That it furthers your goals is not relevant to Github's accounting.
Is it?
Are there not people that will prefer to do business with companies that don't engage with such despicable entities? Are there not companies that specifically want to do business with those who engage such despicable entities? (Hint: there are several funds and private equity groups that do just that.)
However, Github's current actions certainly give me pause as to whether I should continue doing business with them--especially for $50,000. Really. $50,000. That's a price to be celebrated with an entity that kills children?
Yeah, I think I avoiding github just jumped up my priority list--a lot.
Do ex felons get rejected? Does every Russian and Chinese national have to swear not to work for their governments?
No. Don’t get into that business. The people through politicians can set policies.
Corporations ARE political entities--at the state level, to boot. It's only recently that "corporations solely exist to make profit for shareholders" has perniciously taken root. Corporations used to have to at least acknowledge "the public good" in order to get a charter. People have forgotten this.
Perhaps it's time to bring it back.
Claiming that there are no political consequences for your actions is simply burying your head in the sand. You have a measurable effect on the world around you. If you do something, you are responsible for the effect it has on the world around you. You don't get to just dump toxic waste into the environment and claim it's an externality so it's not your problem. Your political effect on the world is just as real as any other effect you have on the environment, you are responsible.
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-31...
Doesn't sound very apolitical.
The analogous action for GitHub to Blizzard’s would be booting a user ICE doesn't like to maintain friendly ties with the latter. That hasn't happened.
GitLab modified their customer acceptance so that it gives them an option to refuse a client, saying that they will reach such a decision on a case-by-case basis: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...
...while Chef's CEO openly said that they will not renew their contract with ICE and CBP, as well as to donate the equivalent revenue of their current contracts to charities that help people impacted: https://blog.chef.io/an-important-update-from-chef/
> After deep introspection and dialog within Chef, we will not renew our current contracts with ICE and CBP when they expire over the next year. Chef will fulfill our full obligations under the current contracts.
It’s not it being your own government vs. a foreign government that’s at issue. It’s what they’re doing to people.
that's some authoritarian nonsense
However, ICE will do what they are told and allowed to do and I don't see how this makes any difference. If they're forced off GitHub, they'll just take more taxpayer money to migrate to another platform because those above them in the hierarchy support what they're doing. The anger toward ICE is valid, but just like in medicine, treating a symptom does nothing toward treating the root cause.
imagine if someone told you that it won't make a difference to give you a painkiller for your broken leg because it won't cure the broken leg.
the root cause is not easily accessible. but that doesn't mean all other approaches to lightening the burden are useless. it means that a plurality of approaches will be necessary to solve the problem.
No, it is not.
Choosing to do business with the PRC is political. Period.
If that means the PRC will develop their own services and not have access to the rest of the world, fine.
The "China will open up" rhetoric was wrong. Since it was wrong, it's time for the West to change tack.
I fully support the rights of employees to peacefully encourage their organizations to weigh the moral components of business decisions. It is obvious that, left to their own devices, large businesses will support slavery, genocide, and any number of horrors in the pursuit of profit - something has to restrain their behavior and it certainly isn't going to come from the C-level without serious pressure being applied.
It is immeditately political the moment you sell your product to people working along politically charged lines, for political ends. It is no different (speaking of being political or apolitical, that is) to US companies selling software to the Chinese state. You have posited that technology is neutral without anything to back that up, and in opposition to the current scholarship on the intersection beween technology and politics[0].
[0] https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/portal/files/615442/gui...
I mean, yes? Working with China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, etc. are stances.
Imagine if companies started bowing down to this kind of behavior and stopped supporting politically contentious entities. There is a large portion of the country who would agree that Planned Parenthood is doing things just as bad as ICE. Should companies stop supporting Planned Parenthood because large groups of people are offended by their services?
The domestic government organization is highly controversial along political lines.
” There is a large portion of the country who would agree that Planned Parenthood is doing things just as bad as ICE. Should companies stop supporting Planned Parenthood because large groups of people are offended by their services?”
I mean, yes, thats exactly what happens. Planned Parenthood was dropped from the government medical service program as a provider. Several organizations are often criticized for working with the police- we have a thread on the front page right now about the DoJ being given personal info via Google.
Let's say GitHub was working with domestic intelligence agencies to add backdoors to various repos for the sake of increasing US security. Would you say that is apolitical?
Or does it only become political when you disagree with it?
You know there’s a clear distinction between directly serving an organization and serving an individual that happens to work for an organization. Don’t be disingenuous now.
They would become political the minute they make a choice of who can visit which site. Providing services to an organization is not political at all. The NRA or Chineese government using Windows does not make Microsoft political (for that reason).
The stance that you’ll sell to anyone regardless of politics is a political choice. It has, past and present, been used to absolve oneself for one’s choices and provide cover for terrible things
People react negatively to this (by downvoting my comments, for instance) because acknowledging one’s responsibility is frightening.
I'm the ISP on your area, and whoops- I won't let my internet be used by LGBT activists. I'm Tesla and won't sell cars to people who get Coal powered electricity. I'm Google and I won't let Republicans search on my site. I'm the electric company and won't let my power be used for abortion clinics. I'm Microsoft and I won't tell software to Gay people. I'm Apple not selling their phones to people who hunt.
I assume you would support those above scenarios? There are two options. Be a-political in your business dealings, or be political. There is no middle ground.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather live in a world where companies act a-politically then ones that don't.
Well yes, that's generally how moral choices work.
Not to Godwin, but it is the perfect example here: was it okay for companies to provide goods and services to the Nazi regime, which facilitated the atrocities they committed? We don't need to conjure up scenarios, we have plenty of real-world current historical ones that illustrate the point. Boycotts of South Africa in the 80s, for instance, played a part in bringing down the apartheid system. Would it have been better for the companies involved to instead declare their "apolitical" stance and make sales to that regime?
Why is "just following orders" not an acceptable defense for personal wrongs, but "just doing business" okay?
>I don't know about you, but I'd rather live in a world where companies act a-politically then ones that don't.
But again, there's no such thing as " a-politically". That's a political choice to support the status quo.
For example, the 80s and 90s the gay rights movement came to prominence, and fought against both legal and social discrimination against homosexuals. If a company said, "Look, we're not taking a position either way, we just want to do business and not get into politics, so we're not going to address this", that's a facially "apolitical" stance. But that stance, then, is then one that supports the then-current reality that legal and social discrimination against homosexuals still existed.
Companies make choices of who they partner with based on PR all of the time. GitHub isn't immune to this. I don't want to support companies partnering with organizations I don't like, whether it's ICE or e.g. Nazis or ISIS.
How is this not the mother of all slippery slopes?
Should all political parties - apart from the one you currently support - ought to be denied service from, well, any and every possible service provider?
Companies make or break partnerships based on how they affect public opinion (see the recent Chick-fil-A situation)
Which particular fragment of "public opinion"?
Allowing public opinion to directly and immediately govern whether something is allowed to happen risks handing power to tiny but vocal - or simply well-funded - groups.
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
Have you considered the extent to which your opinion is influenced by the long-running political propaganda campaigns designed to villainize ICE as much as possible and discourage hard realistic discussion about solving problems? I'm not saying you have to agree with ICE'd methods or what they are doing, but the border situation is not as simple as political opportunists would have you believe.
I ask largely because from what I have read (from multiple sources that I trust), the claims made about ICE are largely true - in that they are engaging in inhumane actions against people at the border. To me, from what I have read, it seems well-documented and supported with a lot of testimony, first-hand accounts, video, and images. Satellite photos, even.
That's why I'm curious why you're asserting that it's propaganda. I don't see evidence of that.
ICE doesn't conduct border operations, that's the domain of Border Patrol. Considering you don't even know this basic fact, what else might you be completely wrong about?
I’ll also note that you are yourself not accurate in stating that “ICE doesn’t conduct border operations” - in fact, ice.gov/about says specifically:
> The ERO directorate upholds U.S. immigration law at, within, and beyond our borders.
Thus it is not accurate to say that “ICE doesn’t conduct border operations” - they themselves say they do.
I think what you’re trying to do is set up then knock down a straw man: I never said anything about patrolling borders, and I’m well aware that CBP is the agency literally patrolling the border. You picked a specific interpretation of a broad statement in a blatant attempt to make me look dumb, which goes against what HN ostensibly stands for.
OK, I'll bite. You originally stated: "...in that they are engaging in inhumane actions against people at the border. To me, from what I have read, it seems well-documented and supported with a lot of testimony, first-hand accounts, video, and images. Satellite photos, even."
What, exactly, are you referring to? What ICE operations have occurred at the border involving any of the above claims?
> I think what you’re trying to do is set up then knock down a straw man: I never said anything about patrolling borders, and I’m well aware that CBP is the agency literally patrolling the border.
No, I assumed that your reference to "satellite photos" at the border involving ICE is probably wrong considering the border itself isn't really their domain. Whatever the ERO directorate "upholding U.S. immigration law at" the border may mean, it probably doesn't involve any spectacular incidents captured on satellite photos or video. But maybe I'm wrong and you have a source to show me otherwise.
> You picked a specific interpretation of a broad statement in a blatant attempt to make me look dumb, which goes against what HN ostensibly stands for.
Not knowing the exact specificity of what government agency performs what functions in a particular area doesn't imply stupidity; so no, I wasn't attempting to make you look dumb. I was, however, attempting to get you to consider that you could be wrong. [Edit: reading my original comment again, I will concede it was a bit of a smug snipe. Clearly too smug, considering what you found on the ICE about page.]
As to the original request for information, while not unreasonable at all, it would take some time to competently source and present. But I will note that to me it seems obvious that the rhetoric surrounding ICE really only started in earnest after Donald Trump took office. I never observed this level of frothing criticism of that agency under the Obama administration, even though Obama's ICE, by and large, operated exactly the same way.
Do you disagree with this assessment?
1- His administration took a bad situation and made it objectively worse, and people (rightfully) got upset about that. Across all border-related agencies, things seemed to take a nosedive: Obama’s DHS(? ICE? I forget which one specifically) wasn’t in court arguing that they had no legal obligation to provide soap to detainees, for example.
2- People absolutely overlooked a lot of what Obama’s administration did wrong. That’s a fair criticism: I know I personally should have paid more attention.
I think what bothers me about your question is that it seems to imply that one shouldn’t be upset about things because “the other guy did it.” But that doesn’t excuse this administration. And I’m furious that Obama’s administration did similar things, now that I know! And if Obama’s administration were still somehow in charge... I would loudly protest them as well.
It’s wrong, no matter which administration is doing it.
I don't think it is fair to make a judgement that this is a politically charged action rather than just business as usual.
The decision to continue to service specific entities is a political move, same as selling weapons to Saudi Arabia or Iran, or the stance the NBA has taken with China regarding its pro-HK player. It’s why finance institutions have some amount of checking that they’re not being used to help wire funds to terrorist groups.
Now government discounts are common way if you are expanding to Federal or State government clientele. For Enterprise the discounts will have a different name or flavor thats about it.
If some one prove a case that a rabid anti-immigration activist salesman or executive gave this service pennies on dollar to ICE, you can argue for walking back on this contract, otherwise its Enterprise Sales doing what it is supposed to do.. make it rain and improve top-line.
Even if it’s not in their name.
Only time that would be reasonable is if your democracy is failing. Would you say that USA's democracy is failing currently?
Well that's quite the pigeonhole, and I will not duck my head to enter.
I refute your premise as fundamentally un-American. As a business, you are under no obligation to compete for government contracts. That notion, IMO, would be a sure sign of a broken democracy. I'd describe such a policy as authoritarian. It's happened before, under martial law; a constitutional mechanism to temporarily suspend democracy. It's happened elsewhere, under communist regimes.
Of all things, the third amendment informs how the founders might address this. Don't see that one every day.
There's nothing "apolitical" about that.
Don't change the topic. This is the sweeping assertion I was addressing.
Plenty of things are apolitical.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Personally, I don't find the view that "nothing is apolitical" to be silly.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Clarifying that "all" should be "most" is a good contribution. Writing off the comment with an insult is not. Especially if you don't even offer an example of one of the "plenty of things" to justify your claim.
In a casual forum, people use casual language, like using "all" for "most". Context matters, as when the comment is in response to saying something isn't political by an overly-narrow definition of "political"
I would posit that common sense obviated the need to justify this particular claim. As in, performing your morning dump rituals, for example, isn't a "political" act. Does that really have to be spelled out?
The reality of the world is that no company operates in a vacuum. If a political organization gains power it wouldn't have had because you willingly entered into a contract with it, you are absolutely responsible for that. Pretending otherwise is just trying to absolve yourself of the real harm that you have done.
If people were more cognizant of the effects the things they made put out into the world, we'd be living in a better one. Claiming you have no responsibility doesn't absolve you of anything.
No.
When I buy coffee (or chocolate), I make the choice that even though I am not sure the coffee doesn't involve slave labor, I am okay with buying it. Perhaps if I'm completely unaware of the slavery involved or the ineffectiveness of no-slavery certification I can claim ignorance, but that lasts only until someone informs me.
So while I disagree with what they were literally saying (because of that tree), I think the more limited message they were (at least in my opinion) meaning has far more truth to it.
any organization or person with a capacity to be aware of politics and the consequences of their actions is political.
Ice needs to find a new tool and the people at Github who didn't like it can pat themselves on the back and say "we did something"
The problem is that all the energy and effort they are putting into this, doesn't fix the fundamental underlying issue that caused this problem in the first place.
It is a "feel good" move by the people at GitHub, if they don't like what is going on they should quit their jobs and write software for an activist group, or many activist groups... There are plenty of ways their talents could be put to use making actual change!