
Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002) - sfk
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/rice.html
======
dmix
Amazon is building a $600 million datacenter for the CIA. The CIA _did_ all of
the bad things listed in Dropbox article as directed by Bush and Condoleezza,
and they are still actively trying to cover up torture. I've never heard
anyone here not using EC2 over it?

The tech scenes pitchfork mobs are wildly inconsistent.

I have a feeling this one hit a nerve because Condoleezza Rice is famously
hated across the internet and in the press (especially on the Daily Show) and
this isn't really about upholding some strong high-moral consistency that we
all have.

~~~
detokaal
This is a cover up to hide the real motivation: she is a woman and black, and
none of you want her involved in a tech company. Disguise this all you want as
opposition to the war or Bush or whatever. It is really opposition to her
gender and race. This is how you do in silicon valley where blacks and women
are considered token employees hire to look good. So make up stuff about her
and move her out. Now you have your high-tech lynching hiding behind phony
moral outrage.

~~~
samstave
This is the lamest, most ignorant comment I have ever read on HN.

------
m52go
Simply removing Condi as a board member doesn't solve anything. The move to
make her a board member puts the motivations of the entire Dropbox leadership
team in question.

Today, Dropbox hurt its reputation very badly, regardless how this ultimately
plays out.

~~~
Tloewald
And it's such a bizarre move. What's the upside?

~~~
fennecfoxen
They wanted a board member with international experience, as they hope to
expand internationally. Including, as TechCrunch put it, to "deal with foreign
governments that have blocked its use".

~~~
AJ007
We know Gaddafi had a crush on her, but does she provide positive PR for
international users? Certainly there is a more neutral person who could
accomplish the same thing.

~~~
NegativeK
Dropbox isn't going to put her name or face on billboards.

Her connections and knowledge of international stuffs is what Dropbox is
hoping she'll bring.

------
wging
Seems to be down; here's a mirror:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070712113441/http://www-cs-
fac...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070712113441/http://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/rice.html)

------
ionfish
Here is the cartoon Knuth refers to.

[http://www.danzigercartoons.com/archive/cmp/2002/danziger141...](http://www.danzigercartoons.com/archive/cmp/2002/danziger1415.html)

~~~
JasonFruit
Is there a point to the piano name? I know that Bösendorfer is a high-end
piano maker, but it looks like Danziger has altered it to Boshendorfer, or
Buchendorfer, or something like that. Intentional, or just a mistake?

EDIT: I'm an idiot. It's "Bushendorfer".

------
mathattack
It may help to put 2002 in the title, as this relates to the war in Iraq
rather than Dropbox. (It's still interesting, and worth an upvote!)

When people go after her, I wonder, "What about Kissinger?" He was part of a
lot of cold hard decisions in tough times on the world. That said, I would
enjoy his counsel if I wanted to get involved in China. Similar with her,
though her expertise may be more in Russia.

My (non-expert) observation is she was pushed and marginalized by the hawks.
And although the war sounds bad now, the country was very much for it back
then.

~~~
sitkack
Kissinger is widely and wildly despised. East Timor, Cambodia and extending
the Vietnam war by years is his bullshit legacy. If someone can reincarnated
before they die, then Kissinger => Condoleeza

~~~
mathattack
Yes - this is my point. He is despised, but still is knowledgable, and I'd
listen to him about China.

Granted this is about tapping specific knowledge. I would never hire someone
with a morality deficit as an employee. (And maybe it would be dangerous to
have one as the CEO's boss)

~~~
sitkack
I have thought about this, and given his amoral behavior and deeply rooted
ulterior motives I could not trust a single thing he said, or even how he said
it.

There are plenty of experts on subject matter that are not equivalently
tainted.

side note: this is really weird meeting
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10095943/Osborne-
Cl...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10095943/Osborne-Clarke-and-
Balls-to-attend-Bilderberg-Group-meeting.html)

~~~
mathattack
Fair enough. People rarely only sell half their soul.

------
Zigurd
Silicon Valley and the Military Industrial Complex need to see other people.
It was a pretty hot relationship for a while, but the MIC turned out to be
kind of a creeper. They put a camera in the shower, and lied about it. That's
not healthy.

------
zhaphod
People who beat drums of war have so many dollars stuffed in their ears that
they can't hear the cries of people killed by bombs and bullets.

~~~
kelvin0
A bit more polish on that sentence could make it in a poetic gem. Seriously.

------
mbesto
Curious - should we be crucifying Stanford as well?

[http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/users/condi](http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/users/condi)

~~~
Zigurd
Why not? UCB caught quite a bit of flak over John Yoo. If a med school were to
employ one of the psychologists who helped design torture at Gitmo I wouldn't
expect that to remain quiet.

------
not_paul_graham
I really hope that these top posts on HN influence at least some employees at
Dropbox to resign publicly because Dropbox's core (meaty revenue generating)
users aren't HN readers anymore, but the mass market & enterprises that aren't
going to care.

~~~
mark212
You have that backwards. Plenty of corporate managers will look at this
addition to the board of directors and think "A serious adult non-tech leader
just joined, I can now take this company seriously."

------
NotOscarWilde
I think it's important to ask not only whether somebody is a good ideological
representative for a company, but also whether ousting them does us any good.

The parties on both sides of the Rice/Dropbox debate have good arguments:

* Ms. Rice has been a very important representative of a US administration that caused a lot of people to die in Iraq and elsewhere;

* but she is not the only one in the government of that day, and many other (non-bullied) politicians are complicit as well;

* and the current president has not shown much anti-torture sympathies either, yet him being branded a Democrat makes him much less of a target.

I believe channeling energy to make Ms. Rice leave Dropbox solves nothing.
Channeling the same outrage to make the elective system into a non-money-based
race, to make the politicians accountable for what they promise before
elections -- that may solve something.

As a non-American, stating an opinion is about all I can help you with. Good
luck!

~~~
hindsightbias
> solves nothing

Sometimes, the best solution for bad behavior is making it have consequences.

> promise before elections

By that logic, Bush and Rice met their promises. They didn't say they wouldn't
invade anyone, they said they wouldn't do nation building.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
> Sometimes, the best solution for bad behavior is making it have
> consequences.

You do realize this opinion aims to punish somebody because people can't touch
her using the judicial system, right?

~~~
hindsightbias
We have to use the tools available to us, and the only one is the court of
public opinion.

------
gretful
I wonder how many people here will feel the same about, for instance, Rahm in
Chicago, or others of Obama's circle of friends, when they begin moving into
private business? Will they be held to the same standards?

------
raheemm
DK's letter is from 2002. Which makes it even more admirable.

------
detcader
I've seen a lot of comments here pontificate about being above "political
litmus tests." Torture is political? Death on mass scale is political now?
Wiretapping is political? Violation of international law is a political
stance? Noam Chomsky thanks you for proving his points for him.

~~~
sitkack
"Politics" is a hobby that can only be done in private between 5:39 and 5:43.

------
atmosx
Knuth never stops to amaze me. I didn't study CS, so to me he is one of those
places that I probably _never_ go. But still gaze with admiration and a little
bit of terror.

Cached copy here[1].

[1]
[http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://www.google.com/searc...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:http://www-
cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/rice.html&usg=AFQjCNG1MHsVMSR3fgbXAzGoOzQg4eq8ug)

------
jebblue
>> P.S. This is the second time in my life that I have written a letter to a
U.S. government official. The first time was during the Vietnam war.

I wonder if he wrote it to Lyndon B. Johnson asking why he started the war in
the first place or perhaps querying how much involvement he had in the Kennedy
assassination.

------
broken
[2002]

------
MBCook
[2002]

------
mschuster91
"that almost blindly supports Israel's increasingly unjustifiable
occupation"... I wonder why that one hasn't been called out yet. Where are the
Israel fanatics?

------
grifpete
She has been an outspoken apologist for some pretty heinous policies. It is
rational to assume she hasn't changed.

------
fedxc
I am glad to see an American stating the following:

>If we peremptorily strike country X, why shouldn't country X have a right to
do the same to us, and to our children and grandchildren in future years?

------
rhspeer
down for me, this is the google cached version for the lazy:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww-
cs-faculty.stanford.edu%2F~uno%2Frice.html&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu%2F~uno%2Frice.html&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6087j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8)

------
shmerl
_> almost blindly supports Israel's increasingly unjustifiable occupation_

Stopped reading since there, since it sounds like a usual blind rant and not
anything to do with reality or reason. The moment conflict in Israel kicks in,
many otherwise reasonable people lose common sense (it can go in either
direction about the sides of the conflict IMHO). Not sure why it's so really.

Otherwise valid criticism is discredited by such cliche phrases which don't
suit someone like Knuth.

~~~
frou_dh
No one cares about "stopped reading" pronouncements. Spare us and tell your
goldfish instead.

~~~
shmerl
Do you think I care about you not caring? Not in the least. Especially if you
try to tell me not to express my opinion.

~~~
frou_dh
It's the "stopped reading" meme that's obnoxious, and probably a lie too in
this case given the whole thing is less than a page.

~~~
shmerl
It's not a lie. I stopped reading from there, since it discredited his
criticism for me, by showing that he uses stereotypical cliches, rather than
something substantial. In general I agree that Condoleezza Rice has a lot to
be criticized for, but throwing in cliche phrases doesn't help his cause.

------
shrnky
This whole episode reminds me that staunch liberals are no different than
religious fundamentalists AFAIK. Same nature, different nurture.

Both groups hypocrisy knows no bounds.

~~~
mjolk
What hypocrisy are you speaking of? Why do you feel that his questioning the
motivation of war makes Knuth a "staunch liberal?"

------
sparkzilla
Everyone is guilty of having opinions and actions that others do not like so
let's just boycott everything and everybody and be done with it.

------
jgemedina
and she's a dropbox board member!

------
FD3SA
Oh, and for our friendly HN militants, who are coming out in droves to support
the Iraq war:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/17/iraq.oil](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/17/iraq.oil)

Occam's razor is your friend.

------
mtimjones
Why not talk about Obama's war in Afghanistan, or increasing tensions with
Russia, or abuse of spying? Way more relevant than a 12 year old letter...

------
pavelrub
I don't understand what people are admiring here. This "letter" is nothing
more than a meaningless rant by a person whose field of expertise has nothing
to do with politics, economy, international relations or terrorism. Donald
Knuth is a great computer scientist, but hearing him talking about
international politics is like hearing any other random person on the street.

Also: "...and that almost blindly supports Israel's increasingly unjustifiable
occupation".

Seriously?

Let the downvotes begin.

~~~
koevet
What do you find unserious in that statement about Israel?

~~~
pavelrub
Just that regardless of your political inclinations, you need to be extremely
ignorant of the complexity of the situation in the Middle East to be able to
make such clear cut statements about what's justifiable and what's not.

Disclaimer: I live in Israel.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Please correct me if I'm wrong: within living memory, a large area of land
already occupied by many humans was unilaterally declared not to belong to
them anymore, and they were largely either forced out or subjugated to make
way for a different batch of humans who wanted to live, literally, in their
houses.

My nation did something very similar to the Native Americans more than a
century ago, and it's now universally regarded as an atrocity.

Of course none of this means that suicide bombers are justified or that
Israeli children are war criminals. The world is more complicated than that,
as you say; whole generations of innocent Israelis have now grown up on that
land, and no more deserve to be forcibly displaced than the original occupants
did. But I've never heard a convincing justification as to why the occupation
was morally justified in the first place, and it doesn't become _more_
justified with time.

------
boondox
It doesn't get any clearer than that...

------
edw519
You lost me at _almost blindly supports Israel 's increasingly unjustifiable
occupation_.

Why is it that people who know so much about one thing feel compelled to open
their big mouths about something else they clearly know so little about?

~~~
probably_wrong
Which part are you objecting about, the implication that the US blindly
supports Israel, or the implication that Israel's occupations are
unjustifiable?

~~~
Pxtl
Anybody who holds a simple one-sided opinion on Israel/Palestine is wrong,
full-stop.

Criticizing US government officials for their excessive support of Israel is
reasonable. Blanketing all of Israel's various incursions into Palestinian
territory as "unjustifiable" is bad for the discussion and makes an otherwise-
reasonable person look extremist.

------
supergeek133
I can't really handle this... Is this what we've become? So short sighted?

I know few who didn't want to blow up the entire middle east after 9/11,
right, wrong, or indifferent. I'm also fairly sure government was relatively
in agreement about the war when it started.

Unless you hold EVERYONE in the current administration, and everyone in
government in general for the past 20 years regardless of party to the same
standard, stop it here.

Torture? OK. Hasn't stopped. Stealing of information? Hasn't stopped. Didn't
start with them, if you don't believe that, you're ignorant. Just obvious
evidence of it starts here.

In the end, do you think that DropBox leadership didn't think about this? I
hope they did, and were prepared for it.

I'm rambling a bit, but some of the anger here I guarantee won't be directed
equally.

