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Comment by jimmyjim | Hacker News Reader

In the words of Elie Wiesel, "Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor. Never the victim. Never the tormented." It obviously doesn't feel quite right to equate this whole fiasco to what Wiesel was talking about, but I just cannot think of a quote more fitting than that.

Too often people think inaction implies neutrality . It does not. It's an enabling behavior. Passivity is a free permission slip for the status quo to persist onward.

In the end you do have to pick and choose your battles. For me personally, this time I simply had to do it -- I transferred. It was a very clear choice for me, frankly I don't see why it isn't also a clear choice for you either (it's not that difficult to make the change, if you have the docs handy, etc.), but hey, whatever suits you.

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It isn't a clear choice, because the service they provide is something I didn't have a problem with, and moving would mean extra work and effort I'm not willing to pay. Why am I not willing to pay the price?

Because, as I wrote, I'd have to do the same thing with every other company who's services I use, when I don't agree with their decisions, or find their CEO someone who should be locked away and never spoken of ever again.

If I'm starting to boycot companies based on what they support, then I will do it with all of them, not just a single one. However, that is not possible.

I'm not neutral, either. I'm not going to use GoDaddy for any more domains in the future (partly due to their support for SOPA, partly for other reasons). I just won't move my domains from there, because it's not worth the effort.

Not to argue about this particular decision so much, but in general the argument that you can't do X good thing because it's not possible for you to do the same in all similar contexts in your life simply doesn't hold water. It's your prerogative to draw the line for effort you'll allocate to this particular goal. Some decisions will fall below that line, and some above it.

It's basically saying you can't pick any of the cherries off of the tree, because some are on much higher branches than others.

That's fine; if you don't have the time to clamber around on a ladder -- e.g., research the ethics behind every company you give any money to -- you pick the low-hanging fruit. So when you can make a fairly low-cost choice to move away from a company with a history of dubious ethics that you already know of, you do it.

Or if you have an hour to spare, you can choose the single largest flexible expense in your life and improve your related decisions based on a little research.

There's always low-hanging fruit. If you want to make your life (and the world) a better place, that's where you start.

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