Comment by wrs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wrs | Hacker News Reader

“Oil and gas companies use cloud computing so I’m not going to work on cloud computing” doesn’t seem much more valid to me than “child pornographers use encryption so I’m not going to work on encryption”. It’s a technology that exists, and people will use it to further their goals no matter what you personally do.

There is a simple, well-established way for society to discourage certain activities without damaging the shared infrastructure for other activities. It’s called a tax. If the externalities you (we) are concerned about were reflected in a carbon tax, it would not be up to individual employees to disproportionately risk their livelihoods and families like this. The project spreadsheet would come out differently for a reason that directly corresponds to the societal problem.

So to me the moral imperative is to make sure that tax comes into existence, rather than making a not-very-impactful personal sacrifice that you may or not be able to afford.

Taxing externalities is great, and we should totally do that.

However, your ordinary political vote as 1 of 300,000,000 Americans is probably less impactful than your job as 1 of 100,000 Googlers. And you still get to vote regardless of your job status. Heck, this post is on the frontpage of hn getting viewed by thousands of people in relevant industries.

Certainly most ex-FAANG employees can afford more financial sacrifice than your typical person. I think there is a tradeoff here, and at certain levels it can make sense.

This reminds me of arguments about protests vs. legislation (e.g. "why are you making a protest instead of trying to change the law?"). You aren't a legislator. You can't just write a bill and conduct a vote on it tomorrow. Instead, you make public protests to bring attention to your cause and build support.

E.g. if Google can't get its employees to work for oil and gas companies, maybe they should lobby for a carbon tax so that they become acceptable companies again.

My reaction is specifically to quitting Google, not just making a noise. You should always make noise. But quitting Google damages every customer of Google, most of whom are probably doing beneficial things, so the effects are mixed. And doing it for this reason doesn’t even directly address the underlying problem.

So if you’re making a sacrifice like this to send a message, let it be “support a carbon tax”, not “don’t work for oil companies”.

The analogy is a bit extreme, don't you think so? Isn't there a difference between developing a technology and actively taking part in selling it for a use-case that you disagree with?

IMO it's not. First of all, I doubt many of the engineers here are actively selling the technology to the oil and gas companies directly, or even working on features that are especially designed for oil and gas companies - if they are, I think they have a little more of a case.

Second of all, the relevant point here is that cloud computing capabilities are by default available to any purchaser, just as encryption is available to any user of products that contain it. From a utilitarian standpoint, I think most would agree that encryption and cloud computing are of overall benefit to the world. One might believe that, from a utilitarian standpoint, it would be better to not provide material assistance to oil and gas companies, since they do result in a lot of damage to the planet (although I personally believe the more effective route is to instead actively favor the development and deployment of renewable energy). But that argument is the same in principle as one favoring restrictions on the use of encryption by child pornographers for utilitarian purposes, to say nothing about restrictions on the use of encryption by enemies of your nation (which was the basic argument by the US government in the 1990s about restricting the use of encryption by non-Americans).

Google had a "VP of Oil, Gas, and Energy" so it's not like they are building off-the-shelf software that oil and gas companies happen to purchase. Google is making a concerted effort to accommodate those companies specifically.

I suspect the main function of that VP is sales and marketing, not inventing different technology. The technology remains essentially usable by everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com