Reading through the whole set, it's interesting seeing the gradual shift from "mostly positive, with gentle-ribbing" comics to "biting, anti-google" comics. Definitely paints a portrait of someone becoming increasingly disillusioned.
I think there’s a very difficult line to draw between the author souring in Google and Google itself souring. There’s one parallel in particular that I thought was interesting - the org structure one from early on where MS orgs are all pointing guns at each other, then there’s a recent one where Amazon points the guns in whilst Google points the gun out to customers. I would say that’s fairly accurate. But it’s now not throwing stones at the competition. It’s reflection that Google is no better.
It actually feels more like maybe Cornet just radicalized faster than the rest of the company. His reasons for quitting are that Google works with US ICE, that the AI 'ethics' researchers were fired and that Google makes a censored search engine for China. But those first two are both totally reasonable things for the company to have done. Gebru and her friend were both way out of line, and I don't recall anyone freaking out about having particular government agencies as customers when I worked there. Google Earth Pro for the longest time counted the CIA as a key customer, maybe it still does, so it's not like there wasn't grounds for objection.
In the 80s Ted Kosky, a math instructor at South Seattle Community College, suggested to me that if ethical people refused to work for defense companies, then those companies would only be staffed by unethical people.
The subtext being that defense companies are inherently unethical?
Tell that to the Bosniacs, Iraqis who lost everything due to ISIS and were pushed back with coalition air cover help, Kuwait's existence today... etc (and this is coming from an Iraqi)
The HackerNews "Defense Company Bad" trope doesn't hold up to reality as much as HN likes to believe. Life's not as black and white as you might think
Please continue reading the articles past their headlines. Some more context, this has been an elections issue in Iraq since 2014, people who blame irresponsible chain of command (Everyone besides the Maliki faction) and people who blame sectarianism and scapegoat others (Maliki and his friends)
For those who dont want to read more into the articles, this is a good summary
"Decades of free-flowing arms into Iraq meant that when IS took control of these areas, they were like children in a sweetshop."
It's funny how often I see people talk about the US arming ISIS, then posting articles about how ISIS was armed with captured weapons some of which was US in origin as if that supports their point at all.
And it's especially beside the point because ISIS only ever had small arms, some light weapons, and captured vehicles. None of the complicated weapon systems that the these defense companies produce as their bread and butter. There are plenty of things to criticize them on, but acting like they profited off captured ISIS humvees and M4s is absurd.
As they alluded to, there's a few ways to interpret the statement. Another corollary would be to say that ethical people have a moral obligation to work for defense companies, so that someone less ethical doesn't get the job.
That was essentially Kosky's point. I was taking his class, he was a big peacenik (involved with Give Peace a Dance at the time), and I talked to him about working for defense companies, Boeing being the gorilla in the room in Seattle.
And so he said that thing, which sticks with me still.
I saw a headline saying that we should treat Google as a "public good."
You could at least think of all corporations as public goods. And so there's an argument to be made that society and its individuals have the right and responsibility to ensure their health and fitness for purpose.
Defense companies also spend millions in lobbying both directly and threw a whole network of think tanks and people. People with very strong association with those very defense companies both inside and outside of government were very strong driver in lying the US into war in Iraq in the first place and made ISIS possible in the first place.
They have a significant part in lobbying for war, for weapons export, for more spending on military spending and so on.
Defense companies also strongly coordinate with Israel and the Israel lobby to make sure continuous money flows to Israel and Israel can be a first class buyer of US weapons.
They have strong ties to government and make absurd amount of money on many of these projects despite routinely going over budget by absolutely insane amounts.
Yes, companies that build weapons to some extend need to exist but the defense contractors are not ethical in the least and I would not work for them. Maybe in the civilian part of the company, possibly but even that would require a lot of thinking.
> Defense companies also spend millions in lobbying both directly and threw a whole network of think tanks and people. People with very strong association with those very defense companies both inside and outside of government were very strong driver in lying the US into war in Iraq in the first place and made ISIS possible in the first place.
Agree to most of the point, but note that AQI predates the 2003 Iraqi war (founded in late 90s)
> They have a significant part in lobbying for war, for weapons export, for more spending on military spending and so on.
Also agreed, for good or bad (I would say mainly good)
> Defense companies also strongly coordinate with Israel and the Israel lobby to make sure continuous money flows to Israel and Israel can be a first class buyer of US weapons.
That goes both ways, Israel is one of our main partners in defense (and related) research, they are also the US's main ally in the Middle East, Allies trade is nothing new?
> They have strong ties to government and make absurd amount of money on many of these projects despite routinely going over budget by absolutely insane amounts.
Yep, there is a certain culture in those companies that tends to... encourage that behavior. And the lobbying makes that space harder to get into
> Yes, companies that build weapons to some extend need to exist but the defense contractors are not ethical in the least and I would not work for them. Maybe in the civilian part of the company, possibly but even that would require a lot of thinking.
If you want to extend the ethical thinking train, the only companies you can work for are the ones that operate on a mom-and-pop shop scale and there is nothing wrong with that. Applying that critical lens to only defense contractors (not that you are doing right now) is a bit disingenuous
> Agree to most of the point, but note that AQI predates the 2003 Iraqi war (founded in late 90s)
That might be true but there is difference you could drive a container ship threw between the AOI of the 90s and the power they gained in the Civil War and eventually when they grew even further in Syria. The major reason they (and Al-Nusra and friends) were able to grow in Syria is because the US (pushed by the Usual Suspects) with additional money from the Usual Suspects Country Edition flowed billions in weapons to the 'kind, humanist, democracy loving rebels'.
Thankfully ISIS turned back to Iraq and forced the US to switch sides.
> Also agreed, for good or bad (I would say mainly good)
If you think massive weapons export is mainly good then we have to disagree on principle.
I'm sure the genocide enacted on Yemen by US weapons, supported by US engineers and pilots is doing a lot of good. We should sell them more weapons as soon as possible.
Trump literally had the Saudi prince hold up pictures of US weapon system he would buy like he was TV commercial. It was the most embracing and sad statement about US policy that I have seen in one image. No clear message then we don't care about illegal war and mass civilian murder and starvation as long as you buy the new Over-9000 super people shreder.
> That goes both ways, Israel is one of our main partners in defense (and related) research, they are also the US's main ally in the Middle East, Allies trade is nothing new?
I would argue the alliance with Israel is a hindrance to the US goals. When US wanted to get involved military in 1991 Israel did nothing, because if they had been involved everybody else wouldn't have wanted to be.
Israel also stole nuclear secretes and is a rough nuclear power that hasn't signed the NPT. Its incredibly funny how the US has spend 30 years claiming the Iran wants to be a rough nuclear power when their ally in the region is one.
Israel repeatably get the US into trouble and does damn near everything imaginable to insure that the US contains the countries it didn't like. Israel has major ongoing efforts for 25 at least to attempted to push the US into a war with Iran. According to Israel Iran has been '1 year away from nuclear weapons' for almost 25 years now. They produce manufactured evidence to attempt to lie the US into war.
We can of course go further and point out that Israel massacre against civilians in Lebanon was the direct trigger for the 9/11 bombers to join AQ.
We could go on, but sorry I don't buy the 'its a two sided partnership where both parties profit equally' thing.
And even among allies, the relationship between the two counties is way beyond a normal ally. Israel has managed a level of integration that is beyond pretty much any other ally. I don't remember all the details but its far from normal.
> Yep, there is a certain culture in those companies that tends to... encourage that behavior.
Its not a culture in my opinion its explicit operation and continued consolidation has made that pretty much all contract go to the same few companies no matter how bad they are.
In a recent interesting episode at NASA (that I follow more closely then the military) a long term military guy took over Head of Human space flight. In the first major bid, he realized that Boeing bid was utter trash and went against NASA protocol to call Boeing to tell them that they were losing and should adjust their bid. This was found out and he quickly resigned and but people got the story. Sadly he is not in prison.
The excuse seem to have basically been 'well if we don't give the money to Boeing their lobbying will prevent the program from happening'.
If this happens at NASA and was for once uncovered, I don't even want to know what the last 50 years of military contract hide in sins.
Eisenhower speech about the Military-Industrial complex has been used and abused every possible way by people but the core of what he said and the context of why he said it was actually spot on. He wanted to call it the Congress-Military-Industrial complex but that was removed from the speech.
> Applying that critical lens to only defense contractors (not that you are doing right now) is a bit disingenuous
I'm not sure where you get that point. Its certainty not only defense contracts. But I would say the potential for harm is bigger then most.
Otherwise ethical people tend not to think ethically when their paycheck depends on it. Sit and listen to how excited people are for the next privacy destroying product for a year and you might have a good chance of thinking it’s for the greater good.
And other the ethical people bias progress towards ethical industries. As unethical people won't care whether their employer is ethical, the ethical companies have a larger labor pool to draw from.
Perhaps even stronger if the ethical folks are in-demand enough to have choices in where they work.
It looks to me like the same argument for trying to change groups from within: you need to be part of the machine to raise to a position where you can make it move the way you want.
There is surely a lot of possible shades of that, but clearly there are domains where it's not a viable approach. We've seen for instance that changing the police culture from within seems like a dead end. Arguably I wouldn't be sure defense is more open to change.
Sometimes external pressure has a better chance to bring change, and working from the outside to have an impact on that could be as effective depending on the field.
One needs to keep that approach in mind when judging people who are within a system that one as an outsider critizises. There may be people in there who try to change it for the better.
A historical example is the French Revolution. Many people who tried to reform from within still got their heads chopped off. In fact, everybody but the most radical did, and even those ended up paranoid about one another.
Other examples are former socialist eastern countries. Just because somebody was state employed with decision making authority does not mean they were pro-dictatorship. Many realized that to improve things they'd need to work within the system instead of openly opposing and ending up in jail.
These comics are relatively shallow criticisms of the company as powerful as Google. "moral bellweather" seems like an overly generous description of this guy based on these comics.
They're basically just Dilbert with some Google specific terminology.
