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Comment by janj | Hacker News Reader

Starting an unnecessary war is a big deal. Denying due process and torturing detainees is a big deal. The Patriot Act was one of the most un-American acts of Congress. Rice had a significant role in destroying the values I once thought were vitally important in claiming American exceptionalism. We can never get that back. We are now a country that starts unnecessary wars, tortures detainees and denies due process and spends vast resources on surveilling every citizen and she had a role in that. We will never be the country we once were before Rice and the Bush administration. I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this.

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> I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this.

I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act. If the tech community dumps anyone from any party who supports these policies, that's awesome.

Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, Mark Benoiff at SalesForce, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google all gave large contributions to Obama, who extended the patriot act, defended bush torture, and maintains a 'kill list' that took the life of an american citizen without trial. None of them are getting this kind of outrage.

I would love it if they were! I'd love it if we held these tech leaders accountable for the horrendous policies their supported leaders have put in place. You can't say you value your users' privacy and then give money to candidates who don't share that value, unless you say "but these other policies that he supports matter more to me" - and then fine, give us a list of what you value more than protecting my privacy. Show me where I fall on this list of yours. A president who decides he supports gave marriage when it's poitically convient is not as important to me as a president who insists on defending my privacy.

So far this looks to be partisan. I hope it isn't. To be honest, I miss having GWB as a president, because then the smart people were all outraged at the horrible stuff the president was doing. Now the president is still doing the same horrible stuff, plus some new stuff, but the smart people aren't as upset anymore.

I was fooled by Obama during his first campaign but learned quickly during his first term that he is no different. I might be a bit partisan in thinking if we had a democratic president during 9/11 we might not've gone to war with Iraq but we'll never really know.

I have simplified my life, reduced my consumption, don't own a car, grow my own food, try to avoid using Wall Street whenever possible when I do make purchases. I'm trying to create a very local life, this has allowed me to believe I'm being consistent with my core values. Oh yeah, I'm much less political than I was 10 years ago.

Removing clutter and unnecessary consumption gives you a lot more time to read and think. I am trying to minimize the waste in my life as well, and focus on local sustainable efforts. Reducing news consumption has freed up a lot of time for me. Keep voting with your money and time and hopefully we'll reach a tipping point. Good luck on your journey!

Don't worry, the smart people who are self-consistent are still upset.

One battle at a time.

> I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act.

Of course it does. That's the logical conclusion. Why wouldn't it? There isn't any informed person in 2014 who is unable to realize Obama has been worse than Bush as far as torture and war go.

And yet Bush is universally hated and Obama was elected to a second term. I think we are in agreement as to our feelings about this, but your snark is subtle if we are :-)

Bush was elected to a second term.

> Obama has been worse than Bush as far as torture and war go

Please remind me how many wars did Obama start based on fake intelligence.

Obama may not be the president the world hoped he would be, but Bush is on a whole different league. If the US is much less secure today than it was before 9/11, you can thank Bush and his cronies (Rice included) for that. That situation also severely limits what your current president can do.

Bush isn't actively dropping bombs on schoolhouses. Bush isn't actively detaining and torturing people in black sites. These are things that were pioneered by Bush and perfected by Obama.

If you hate Bush, you need to hate Obama, or you're simply an unreasonable hypocrite. This isn't up for debate.

Totally agree.

Bush started your country down a path that has led it towards unprecedented insecurity and cost countless lives, both Americans and foreigners, and he did it on a crucial moment when he had the option to act differently. Obama is left with little choice in a lot of regards - the world - and your country - is already the wreck Bush left us with. Just leaving Iraq on day one would lead the country to a certain civil war and most likely another yet theocracy that hates the US (and this one for reason I can completely understand). Just closing Guantanamo would unravel an insane chain of resentment that most probably should have been faced rather than postponed.

I hate neither. Bush was grossly incompetent. Spectacularly incompetent. Dangerously incompetent. Again, Obama is a huge disappointment, but I suspect he, under less grim circumstances, would have been a much better president than he is now. In so many ways, his hands are tied. A president - any president - is limited in his actions to what's legally and politically possible and that severely restricts his actions. Even with his hands tied, Obama is light years ahead of his predecessor.

Do you consider the drone campaigns in Yemen, Pakistan and Somilia to be wars?

How has Obama been worse about torture than Bush? AFAIK he stopped the torture programs that Bush started.

He should do more, such as prosecuting the torturers. We will see if he releases the key information in the Senate report. But I wouldn't call him worse.

Obama went back to just killing suspected terrorists, instead of torturing them.

> I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act.

I agree people should oppose wrong-doing by both parties and not be partisan about it, but not all sins are the same and they do not all require the same response. I don't Obama and Bush are the same, unless the criteria is a binary has/not sinned (in which case all Presidents -- and you and I -- are the same).

I do agree that Obama has done many wrongs.

You're equating

A. a campaign donation

and

B. starting an unjust war that killed hundreds of thousands and destroyed a society

Big deal as it may be, the parent comment was placing the discussion in a plane you totally missed in your response.

The type of blackballing practiced by this campaign is similar to the kind of blackballing that ousted Brendan Eich. It is also a slippery slope.

Slippery slopes are dangerous. At each step of the way, you can reason about your present decision and easily justify it. Add all the steps and the picture is suddenly not so pretty. That is where the parent comment author aimed its reasoning.

You can only reason about slippery slopes by taking the long view; seeing where the slope leads to. Your comment takes the short view.

Slippery slope is also a logical fallacy, so there's that.

it's a logical device. it is not always a logical fallacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Thank you for educating me, I didn't know that. However, I feel that in this case, my point still stands.

My comment only stated that responding to a long term analysis of this issue with a short term analysis is wrong because, if this is a slippery slope, it can only be detected with a long term view.

I can't see your point. Which is natural, as you haven't explained it.

My point is that your use of slippery slope was a logical fallacy. You haven't provided the analysis itself. Would you like to do that?

Was it? How? I can't read into your head. I don't know how you got to that conclusion.

Is qualifying the present situation as a slippery slope central to my argument? What if the present situation is not a slippery slope. Is my argument false? It isn't:

One comment takes a long term analysis and tries to determine if we are in a slippery slope. The reply ignores the long term view and looks at the particular situation.

Looking at the particular, short term situation is ineffective for determining if we are in a slippery slope. (this sentence is the crux of my argument)

Yeah, sorry, you don't get to just declare "fallacy!" and not explain yourself.

People aren't logical entities, so the fact that slippery-slope arguments are "logical" fallacies is completely irrelevant.

We define the values we hold as a society through our actions and choices and that is the way it should be. I didn't necessarily agree with the Eich ousting but it shows a shift in values that I agree with.

The perpetrators of the Iraq war and the Patriot act have been able to avoid repercussions for their actions. I find this very distasteful because of my strong feelings about what these actions have done to my country. I believe it should've been obvious that the Iraq war and the Patriot act went very much against the core values of my country. I like to think I am taking the long view in that I'm hoping this reaction might influence similar decisions in the future and shape the values of this country in a way that is more consistent with where they were before the Bush administration. This can only happen if elected representatives believe there will be repercussions to making very disastrous, anti-American decisions.

Luckily we elected the polar opposite to Bush, who turned out to do things pretty much the same as Bush. Nothing that you are saying started or ended with Bush. We did similar things for a hundred years before Bush, and we are doing worse things now with Obama. The hatred of Bush and his administration is just bizarre. The Patriot act was voted for by Congress and continually extended by both R's and D's.

> Luckily we elected the polar opposite to Bush, who turned out to do things pretty much the same as Bush.

This has contributed to my belief that our current political system has failed we the people, even though it is operating exactly as intended. I was fooled by Obama's first campaign but quickly realized he's no different. I don't know what the answer is but inaction is too boring. I'm trying to reduce the amount of money I send to Wall St believing that they are behind many of the gov's ills. I'm also trying to reduce general consumption as much as possible believing that the taxes we send and lobbying by corporations pumped into the federal government are also at fault. My goal is to see a drastically reduced Wall St and federal gov without blaming R or D.

Coincidence or not, this is my first comment ever with a negative voting score. I guess downvoting is blackballing on a small scale: silence all those who have dissenting views.

I always upvote well written comments, regardless of my personal agreement with the view. I loathe this face of Hacker News I'm seeing today.

I'll upvote each and every 0 or -1 comment that is well written (as in: not a one liner, not a joke, presenting an opinion). It's my small effort towards the Hacker News I like, where quality of writing is valued instead of herd mentality.

fwiw, i upvoted your comment as I thought it was a well written response that didn't include flaming or anything of the sort. The fact that it is negative shows a sad reality.

You act like someone else in her position would have done something different. Everyone hated Bush. Spending too much money, unnecessary war, over reaching surveillance. Obama will be our hope and change! Yay! Hmm, spending significantly more money, continuing unnecessary wars, and reaching significantly further into surveillance. When the war started 64% of Americans were in favor of it. Sure it turns out they didn't have a nuke, but they had already used bio weapons. While it cost way more in terms of lives and money than anyone would have liked, the world is likely a better place without Saddam Hussein.

If you want to boycott any company that has politicians on their board, that's one thing. To boycott Dropbox because of Rice is absurd. She is an incredibly smart, talented, and connected person capable of doing a good job on their board.

Incredibly smart, talented, connected and absolutely unethical person.

I am boycotting Dropbox not because Rice is on the board, but because the board voted in favor of her joining. After this I simply don't trust any high ranking official at Dropbox to be the user of their products.

You should also boycott a lot of other companies then. Pretty much anyone who has a politician connected to them. All of the big tech company leaders gave a lot of money to Obama, and I'd consider the spying on US citizens to be fairly unethical. Please stop using Google, Yahoo, and Apple products.

I do not use Apple and Yahoo products and limiting my use of Google products. So what?

Sounds like you just happen to be doing whats convenient for you. Down with Dropbox! But I still need Google so I'll keep using them but just a little. FWIW, Microsoft and IBM were also top donors for Obama.

Soooo If I can't commit fully to supporting only ethical tech companies I should either retreat to the cave or lose the right to boycott any tech products? Is that an argument that you are making? If yes, that's just ridiculous.

I'm just suggesting that the outrage in general over Condi and Dropbox is a bit hypocritical, and not really about her past actions but simply her connection to the Bush administration. You can boycott whatever you want, I just find it interesting that in most people here it is very selective. I'm boycotting this company for this reason, but not this other company that does VERY similar things.

To me it just shows that Dropbox isn't as important and has easier replacements than the other companies we are talking about. It would be impressive to convince people to stop using something that doesn't have a good alternative. It just feels a little hypocritical to be gung ho I'm boycotting this company (that I maybe didn't use that much and has 7 easy replacements) but I'm doing it because I'm all about ethics and Condi is terrible.

I am not an American and equally despise bush and obama administrations for iraq war and nsa+drone strikes, respectively. It is your partisanship bias that is showing.

And no, it's not hypocritical. The more boycotts and outrage at tech companies for ethical reasons, the better. Baby steps.

EDIT: Tbh, after thinking about it, I must clarify: No, not equally. Though I think nsa revelations will have some profound negative effects in the long term, starting a war on false premises is worse in my books.

I'm sure since you're casting the first stone you boycott these companies? If not, you should try it. It's really, really hard.

Have you ever tried living without search engines? It's tough. Have you hosted your own email? It's a hassle and emails get lost constantly.

What if I want to boycott the phone companies? Should I quit using a cell phone?

On the contrary. I'm happy to let Dropbox add a smart, talented, and connected person to their board. I'll keep using them and the others mentioned.

That's really the point though. This only shows that Dropbox is easily replaceable, and the others aren't. It doesn't show that people suddenly become more principled.

Do you want to make a wild guess as to who supplied and supported the use of "bio" weapons?

Ok, I really hate so say this, but this has hardly been the first time the US has gone into an unnecessary war. While you have also entered necessary wars, for which we, the other western countries, are truly grateful, you simply cannot say that with the Bush administration this is the first time something like this happens.

For me, an anonymous person living in the Netherlands, it feels like these things happen whenever a republican president is elected. The world expects this, goes along with it, and personally I'm afraid of what will happen when the first republican president post-Obama is elected.

Giving dr Reece this much heat is unfair and missing Grellas' very important point: just like freedom of speech is very important to a free press, freedom of political beliefs are very important in a free market.

Besides the civil war what others have the US started?

Whether we started them or not is mostly irrelevant. We've joined and extended plenty of wars, and given 9/11 I'd say we didn't "start" Iraq and Afghanistan out of the blue. We just didn't know exactly who we were supposed to be fighting.

According to this [1] the US has been in ~117 wars (if I counted right) in 238 years.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Unit...

Making this a R vs D thing is silly. Vietnam was Democrat president. Obama has extended our current wars. Most of our wars have had public support at the beginning, and lost them over time. And as you noted, we've also been instrumental in necessary wars to everyone's benefit.

Hindsight is great and all, but sometimes whether or not a war is necessary can't be seen at the outset. If Saddam had a nuke (and believe me he was certainly trying to get one even if he didn't have one yet), everyone would have considered the Iraq war to be necessary and Bush wouldn't be universally hated. Also, I find it interesting how much sentiment has changed since 2001. After 9/11 everyone was scared, and everyone wanted to find the people responsible and anyone who helped them. 13 years later nobody seems to remember that. The Iraq war was overwhelmingly supported at the beginning. Apparently people just wanted it to be over in 2 weeks.

You are correct that this shouldn't be made a R vs D thing, since that completely besides the point. I agree with all other points you

+ make (sorry I can't figure out how to edit a post on this iOS client)

WW2 Democrat, Korea Republican, Vietnam Democrat, Grenada and Panama Republican (if they even count), First Gulf War Republican, Kosovo Democrat, Second gulf war / Afghanistan Republican.

To me it seems that there is not clear pattern, the most I can get out of it "if there is a president, then we might go to war"

> "if there is a president, then we might go to war"

That's great. According to wikipedia, we've been in 117 wars in 238 years. I'd say you're pretty much right on there.

Truman was the president when the US stepped in to help South Korea, and he was a Democrat, not a Republican.

Good catch, for some reason I thought Ike was in power at that point.

I'm sorry.... You're going to show discontent with the actions of Rice and Bush by boycotting Dropbox.

It's not that I disagree with you in terms of the consequences of the actions of the Bush government, but boycotting Dropbox is like hitting a "Like" button on Facebook to "cure cancer".

I disagree - it's a lot more powerful than that. If it becomes generally known that politicians unethical actions will limit their opportunities in the corporate world after they leave office, it produces a strong incentive to behave more ethically.

Thank you, I was trying to figure out how to say this. For far too long politicians have ignored ethical considerations when mapping out how to maximize opportunities in the private sector.

Clearly that hasn't been the case. All of the major tech companies leaders supported Obama (Google, Apple, Yahoo, etc). He extended the wars and significantly extended the spying on US citizens which is at least as bad if not worse than anything Rice did.

I think it provides incentive to not be a part of the bizarrely hated Bush administration. Since he's unlikely to be president again, it won't have any effect at all.

Yes, it's clear that it hasn't been the case in the past. That's why it's news that it's starting to happen now.

The more it happens, the more powerful it will become. Imagine Google appointed James Clapper to their board. Don't you think there would be a response?

>Yes, it's clear that it hasn't been the case in the past. That's why it's news that it's starting to happen now.

It would only be news if was consistent and applied to everyone. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, etc all supported Obama, and the things he's done with the NSA are at least as bad as what Rice did. Dropbox and Rice are getting fallout because of some bizarre hatred for the Bush administration and not some newfound resolve to be ethical at all times. Yes Google would have fallout for appointing Clapper. They wouldn't have any from Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden or Obama himself, which would be the real equivalents to Dropbox appointing Rice. FWIW, Google also can't appoint Keith Alexander.

So until they day we can universally hold all politicians to account, we should hold none of them to account?

I agree with you that all of these people should have their political records examined when they join corporations. Supporting this action is a starting point to have this become a more widely used tool.

I'm not saying you shouldn't, I'm just suggesting it's not news. I think this is coming from a bizarre hatred of the Bush administration in particular, and not some newfound resolve to hold individuals accountable to ethical actions. If it is simply a new action that coincidentally is starting with Condi, then great. I don't believe that to be true.

Thanks for clarifying your view. I don't see any evidence of this given that the criticism against Dr. Rice are clearly laid out, and many people have explained why they are relevant to Dropbox.

Does it? She probably thinks she behaved ethically. It sure hasn't done anything for politicians in general either.

This isn't something that has happened much yet. It will have an effect if it becomes a regular pattern.

I support your opinion, but have to mention that pre-Bush US was not any better. US was starting unnecessary wars for more than 200 years now, nothing has changed. Note though, that the same is true for almost any other country.

I think you have misconceptions about what American policy has been in the past. Remember all the US backed coups in South and Central America, accompied by mass slaughter of political opposition (e.g. Contras in Nicaragua) often by groups trained in US military schools, the extensive bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with 100k-1m lives lost, all the US backed dictators (Suharto, Irans Shah,...), to name just a few.

Thank you. You rightfully point out that her past actions remain relevant today, and that attempting to dismiss them by labeling them as "merely political viewpoints" does a great disservice to everybody.

This woman is directly and indirectly responsible for destroying hundreds of thousands of lives. That should somehow reflect on her resumé, shouldn't it?

Now she's being placed in charge of people's personal data. That's not just bad politics, it's bad ethics, and it's bad business.

Shouldn't crimes be tried in courts and not online petitions? Does a majority of users get to decide if you've done something wrong enough to disqualify you from a board? A vocal minority?

> Shouldn't crimes be tried in courts and not online petitions?

Criminal punishments are imposed by courts. Things that may arguably be crimes can also have non-criminal consequences.

> Does a majority of users get to decide if you've done something wrong enough to disqualify you from a board?

No, usually that's the existing board that has that authority.

Users, individually, get to decide if the company has done something (including, inter alia, appointing you to the board) that makes them unwilling to do business with the company.

>Shouldn't crimes be tried in courts and not online petitions?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q="forward%2C+not+backward"+obama

Luckily I don't think dropbox has enough employee's for an army nor the desire to use one. I really don't think this affects Dropbox's day to day at all.

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