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Comment by pantsforbirds | Hacker News Reader

It's wild to see how much hate Anduril gets from the same people who have statements supporting Ukraine in their READMEs or have licenses preventing Russians from using their software.

How can you demand support for Ukraine, but then get upset by the people who are meeting actual needs for the war effort?

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hey you know i think cops aren't all bad, but when they knock on my door i still don't invite them in.

Anduril exists to protect the order. same as cops, only focused externally instead of domestically. but in a global project where people collaborate with each other as individuals, it's all the same. don't talk to the cops: you only stand to lose.

Anduril started by building tech to hunt poor people crossing the southern border of the US. Their CEO is a right wing extremist. How you can say this is the same as supporting Ukraine against Russia aggression is obviously telling more about you than about anyone else.

Of all the things to be upset with a "defense" company over, actual literal defense (as in border monitoring and sensors) is a funny one. That stood out to me in the open letter as well. Why not the weapons systems that are apparently "somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile"? Would people be as upset at Boeing as a sponsor, or would that just be boring? Would people be as upset if Google or Facebook were sponsors? Google of course runs a global surveillance network, and says they're proud to offer AI services to the DoD:

https://cloud.google.com/gov/federal-defense-and-intel

Yes I believe it's acceptable to be upset at any company that undermines democracy. That very likely includes most big tech companies, and absolutely includes Google and Facebook.

I suppose what's interesting to me is why is no one (except maybe you) upset over e.g. this sponsorship list for LinuxCon:

https://events.linuxfoundation.org/archive/2022/open-source-...

with Google right there as a diamond sponsor and Meta as a platinum sponsor. IBM is also a diamond sponsor, and we've all heard about them and the literal Nazis (and the time they got a license exception for JSLint to be able to use it for evil).

Or perhaps the same people are upset over things like Linux sponsors, but everyone ignores them in that context?

The LWN article indicates 24 maintainers have removed themselves, which appears to be ~0.7% of the maintainer list. Were these people particularly impactful? Is there an actual crisis here?

I also don't really get it; are they going to use a different (worse) OS because of this? Or just stop pushing changes upstream for packages they care about (either staying out of date or maintaining a personal fork)? It seems like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

You can be upset about something and powerless to push back.

An even bigger irony is that one of major community moderators who is mad is an “ethical software engineer” working at Google.

Be the change you want to see within companies. Of course, these companies can - and have - fire the activist employees as well if they become too obstructing, like the ones that were protesting Google Cloud doing business with Israel: https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/17/24133700/google-fires-28-...

An employee isn't going to change Google to exit the mass surveillance and mass propaganda businesses any sooner than they're going to change Raytheon to exit the missile business. It's fundamental to what the company does.

The relevant comment is misinformed. The person they're referring to without naming is Irene Knapp, who left Google (presumably over her qualms). She's named in some press articles about the Google walkouts in 2020, e.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/18/magazine/goog...

> The LWN article indicates 24 maintainers have removed themselves, which appears to be ~0.7% of the maintainer list. Were these people particularly impactful? Is there an actual crisis here?

Maybe a handful of them. One of them was an extremely prolific (#3 contributor to Nixpkgs) and active contributor that no doubt everyone will miss. There's at least one other name I recognize on the list. But most of them are pretty small-time maintainers so far.

> I also don't really get it; are they going to use a different (worse) OS because of this?

They're saying they're going to fork. There's one fork emerging already, but idk if it'll be the one. I hope a productive and usable fork does arise (and that eventually it can rejoin Nix) but I'm pessimistic that any will survive.

Because people die crossing the border, and the whole enterprise of militarizing the border and criminalizing unauthorized crossings of individuals is a historical extreme which has only recently emerged.

When its naming was honest, the Department of Defense was called the Department of War. It's that notion of 'defense' we should have in mind when we ask whether the 'defense' industry should have a role in policing the border.

Because virtue

> Anduril started by building tech to hunt poor people crossing the southern border Seems pretty inaccurate to describe the usage of surveillance drones as "hunting poor people". I believe drones were a mostly bipartisan approach to monitoring the border vs building a border wall / expanding the border barrier or whatever we are calling it now.

> Their CEO is a right wing extremist He's not an extremist? He's just a regular Republican. I'm legitimately curious why you think he's an extremist.

> How you can say this is the same as supporting Ukraine against Russia aggression Anduril has been directly supporting Ukraine with its technology since the very start of the war. You do realize that, right?

Hundreds of people die preventable deaths every year trying to cross that border. Exposure, dehydration, drowning, etc. If you don't know anything about where these people are you can't do anything to help them.

Even if you support open borders, this technology is essential.

How many of them were helped thanks to Anduril products?

Nobody publishes statistics on this directly but we know that in recent years that the number of border crossers that have to be rescued from dehydration and heat exhaustion is in the hundreds per week.

Given that AST's towers/software identify objects of interest to CBP, it's probably safe to assume that number is high.

What is the purpose of Anduril's products; to help suffering migrants, to keep them out, or some other purpose?

I'm not convinced that a company named after a sword has good intent no matter how well their PR department tries to package it.

The way this actually works is that militarization occurs most heavily in geographically favorable parts of the border, so that the least surveilled parts are the most physically dangerous to cross. In this way, increased technological sophistication at the border increases the number of deaths in border crossings.

Border Patrol isn't out there rescuing thirsty migrants. In fact, they're known for destroying life-saving water caches and brutalizing activists who try to provide water or medical aid to people wandering that part of the desert.

You seem to have swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Not every non-'democrat' is a 'right-wing extremist', they are just... not 'democrats'. As to the use of their products on the border that mostly speaks against those products given the 7+ million who have made it across those borders in the last 3 years - or maybe they are not used to 'hunt poor people crossing the southern border

People who donate to Trump are not just non-democrats. Stop your bullshit.

First: shouting insults does not make your argument stronger, it merely suggests a lack of content.

People who donate to Trump are mostly people who are fed up with the way the USofA is being run by the current incumbent, i.e. they are people who are fed up with the bullshit. The mere fact that you don't like Trump as a person does not make those people non-'democrats' (you forgot the quotes around that word, 'democrats'). The type of rhetoric you're spouting polarises the discourse and does nothing for the democratic (sans quotes) process. May the best candidate win, granted the choice goes between two sub-optimal candidates [1] but that seems to be the way things go in that/your(?) country.

As an aside, can you tell me what irks you so much about Trump's policies - not Trump as a person, his policies - which makes you think so bad of people who support him? I think it safe to assume those people support him because they liked his policies, not because they are enamoured of his personality. Now that even CNN - not directly a MAGA propaganda outlet - publishes that More than half, 55%, of all Americans say they see Trump’s presidency as a success while [r]egarding Biden’s presidency so far, 61% say it’s a failure [2] there does seem to be a majority of people who support those policies versus the current ones.

[1] Biden being a long past hist due date habitual liar and grifter who has made his family profit wildly from his near half century in government, Trump being an egomaniacal billionaire who likes nothing better than to be at the centre of attention and is more than willing to let silly details like truth slide to get to that position.

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/politics/biden-trump-nost...

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