10 ms·

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I want to preface this by saying: "before passing judgement, context is always necessary." Mario Savio was a Free Speach

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I want to preface this by saying: "before passing judgement, context is always necessary." Mario Savio was a Free Speach Activist and organized a protest to protect the Freedom of Speech at Berkeley around the 60s. In his speech to protestors, he says "there's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious... that you can't take part... and you've got to indicate to the people in charge that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from running at all!" Applied to free speech, this notion of disrupting the functioning of an organization was lauded, because freedom of speech is just that important. But let's shift to employment. Without employment, it's very hard to survive. And here's a situation where the people in charge has the upper hand in every arena- hiring, pay, work Place behavior... etc. How do we know that the ex-admin wasn't blackmailed by the CEO to come back to work for free to fix something, or future references will be negative? Why are we so quick to side with the employer in this matter when we know nothing of the situation at all? Why do we start calling the employee a felon? He hasn't even been charged yet. My point is, context is important. Fine, corporations have the power to ruin your life as a deterrent to keep you from acting against their interests, and that's just the way society is. And fine, We're not all rational at every instance of life. The calculus of establishing status quo equilibrium of those two conditions/constraints is hard, but without context to the situation, who are we to decide who's right or wrong? Would you label Mario Savio wrong for protesting and urging protestors to prevent the operation of the college from functioning in the name of preserving Free speech wrong? No, because you've learned the context.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
nebabyte 9y ago
speech
- treyfitty 9y ago
  Wow. That just shows just how reliant I've become of autocorrect. It didn't autocorrect, nor did it present a red underline, and I had a feeling "Speach" looked wrong. But I doubted myself and figured autocorrect would have my back.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
xupybd 9y ago
I don't know man. I can't see any situation where these actions are justifiable. Revenge generally helps no one.
- treyfitty 9y ago
  For what it's worth, revenge doesn't require a net benefit to the situation. The word "revenge" is kind of similar to "retaliation" where an actor is purely seeking retribution for a past event without regard. To us, it's not justifiable. Hell, the ex-admin may think so too. But that doesn't mean we should automatically side with the employer and subsequently crucify the ex-admin. We don't have any information yet.
- moron4hire 9y ago
  How do we even know the story is at all truthful? Maybe someone who still works there did something stupid they couldn't recover from and is now blaming it on "an ex-admin" to make it sound nice.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Is your first assumption always that the victim made up a story to cover up their own misbehavior?
    - moron4hire 9y ago
      Is your first assumption that people only post their first assumptions? WTF dude. There are plenty of people in this thread already ready to tar and feather a completely unknown person. I'm just trying to point out that we don't actually know anything about what is going on.
JungleGymSam 9y ago
> Why are we so quick to side with the employer in this matter when we know nothing of the situation at all? It's called collateral damage. There is no context, outside of fantasy, where the admin could be in the right to do this.
- treyfitty 9y ago
  Eh, I'm inclined to agree with you that the ex admin isn't "right" but the essence of my statement is that he may have been carrying out what was his optimal strategy. If you treat people bad, they'll treat you bad. If you nuke Russia, Russia will nuke you. It's the Nash Equillibrium where each party is faced with a game and certain situations call for your best move. But your best move should account for what I'll do, and that should be factored into your initial move. Mutually assured destruction is actually a powerful deterrent. Do we know what the ex-admin's situation was prior to all this? Only then should we pass judgement.
  - kelnos 9y ago
    Morally, I'd say the ex-employee doesn't have a leg to stand on. If the employee had been wronged and their actions only negatively impacted the employer, then I'd be sympathetic, but all of Verelox's customers have been damaged, some of them perhaps irreparably, by this. Getting back at your employer with such huge amounts of collateral damage is never acceptable.
  - cat199 9y ago
    I find it hugely improbably that ex-admin's situation entailed being wronged by all of the customers whom he impacted by this action. You are basically justifying the 'killing of innocents' here..
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      If we assume that the firm did awful things to the employee, we can't also consider those who employed the firm to do those awful things "innocent".
- 9y ago
cnnsucks 9y ago
Mental gymnastics.
idealogue 9y ago
I agree with you. The majority of people in this thread have completely internalized that property rights are more valuable than human rights. Only one comment I've seen has acknowledged that all we have is a single webpage with a single accusation, and yet many people leap straight to the conclusion not only that the individual in question exists and is guilty, but that there can be no justification for a person destroying a business. Businesses destroy people all the time. I for one would like to see the tables turned more often.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  HN is full of baronets arguing in favor of the modern social order -- because while they're not real aristocrats, they're not peasants. Corporations function as de facto titles of nobility in the US, so crossing one is crossing social rank.
  - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
    > HN is full of baronets arguing in favor of the modern social order -- because while they're not real aristocrats, they're not peasants. I think that's very on point. While HN is a technology site, it's also one for "founders" * who aspire join the elite of that social order, which explains the exaggerated empathy for the interests of shareholders and companies. * (and those with fantasies of being one)
    - t123 9y ago
      you have to be "someone" to become "someone", even if you suddenly earned 30% of shares in facebook, it would not make you "part of the elite", there is only so high you can get without [the right] family background (see billy gates who's mother - the less interesting part of the picture - was co-chair at / IBM CEOs personal friend .. so much for the hollywood story of the "deal of the century" ft. young billy and DOS .. aaand FTCvIBM but the cast/story gets even more interesting later on
- xupybd 9y ago
  We have responded to the article based on the information presented. There is nothing to imply human rights have been violated. If such information is presented im sure people will respond in kind.
cbsmith 9y ago
> without context to the situation, who are we to decide who's right or wrong? You can comfortably make a determination about what is right and wrong. We don't know the facts, but if the claims are true, wiping out not just that company's property, but that of their customers, is a crime. Now, sometimes a crime is justified, but I don't think it is a rush to judgement to work from a starting point that criminal behaviour is bad until proven otherwise.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  I disagree. Once again, we can find a scapegoat at the lowest possible level and "stone" them or we can do a proper post mortem and try to learn from it. Why did this happen? How can we prevent it from happening in the future? These are the questions we need to stress. In particular, why does an ex-employee still have access to production? I say when something like this happens and heads must roll, they must roll at the top. Fire the CEO. Fire the board. Leave the sysadmin alone. This is a civil matter. My tax dollars should not pay for a criminal lawsuit. Screw that. Oh and by the way if you're reading this: please help repeal cfaa.
  - kelnos 9y ago
    I think someone at the org needs to be responsible for not ensuring former employees' access is not revoked, but that doesn't mean an employee who takes advantage of that lapse isn't responsible for his/her actions. Put another way, someone at Verelox screwed up and left the door unlocked, but that doesn't mean that the person who walked in broke stuff is in the clear. Look, someone, without authorization, accessed a former employer's network and maliciously destroyed data. That's a crime. Sure, the CFAA is overly broad and is abused, but this is not one of those cases: this is a textbook example of something that should be prosecuted under the CFAA.
    - thanksgiving 9y ago
      I disagree. The point of focus should be verelox and the criminal negligence on their part. Verelox is the criminal, not the victim. The clients may be the victims. We should not equivocate on cfaa. It is good for nothing. Full and unconditional repeal should be our only demand.
bobbob1921 9y ago
Employment is a voluntary transaction, entered into by both parties. One should always focus upon increasing their own skill set such that an employer may be able to make your life temporarily difficult, but your skills and value to an employer (or future employer) are such that they can't "ruin your life".
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Employment isn't voluntartly: there is strong economic coercion to be employed and high degrees of friction are introduced to make that coercion more effective. Urbanization fundamentally has been engineered to create "wage slaves", who are basically modern sharecroppers (though the system has some extra steps).
  - b6 9y ago
    > Urbanization fundamentally has been engineered to create "wage slaves" Suppose someone was born out in the forest, and there were no cities, no societies, no technology. Would you call that person a sustenance slave? Would you say that their foraging was involuntary?
    - marmaduke 9y ago
      the distinction is that there is a willful effort to exploit and to enslave on the part of someone (be it a person, corporation or market
      - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
        > the distinction is that there is a willful effort to exploit and to enslave on the part of someone (be it a person, corporation or market That's right, and it's a shame it's been downvoted.
    - boie0025 9y ago
      Very insightful question. This gives me an alternative context in which to frame the "wage slave" concept. Thank you.
microwavecamera 9y ago
Free speech: telling your boss off, quitting, organizing a walk out, refusal to work, picketing, posting your story online to warn other potential employees and customers just who their doing business with Not free speech: punching your boss in the face, burning the building down, vandalizing the office, deleting all the data on the servers and hurting a bunch of people that had nothing to do with your conflict with management I'm all about workers right and have walked out on many a job because management were raging assholes. I have convictions and I stand by them but conviction and doing the right thing in life often come with sacrifices. I'm currently underemployed because of my convictions but I can sleep at night knowing I'm doing the right thing. The way for us to take back power in the tech industry is to organize, unionize and refuse to work for abusive and exploitative employers. We're the ones with the skills. They need us not vise versa.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

nebabyte 9y ago

speech

treyfitty 9y ago
Wow. That just shows just how reliant I've become of autocorrect. It didn't autocorrect, nor did it present a red underline, and I had a feeling "Speach" looked wrong. But I doubted myself and figured autocorrect would have my back.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

xupybd 9y ago

I don't know man. I can't see any situation where these actions are justifiable. Revenge generally helps no one.

treyfitty 9y ago
For what it's worth, revenge doesn't require a net benefit to the situation. The word "revenge" is kind of similar to "retaliation" where an actor is purely seeking retribution for a past event without regard. To us, it's not justifiable. Hell, the ex-admin may think so too. But that doesn't mean we should automatically side with the employer and subsequently crucify the ex-admin. We don't have any information yet.
moron4hire 9y ago
How do we even know the story is at all truthful? Maybe someone who still works there did something stupid they couldn't recover from and is now blaming it on "an ex-admin" to make it sound nice.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Is your first assumption always that the victim made up a story to cover up their own misbehavior?
  - moron4hire 9y ago
    Is your first assumption that people only post their first assumptions? WTF dude. There are plenty of people in this thread already ready to tar and feather a completely unknown person. I'm just trying to point out that we don't actually know anything about what is going on.

JungleGymSam 9y ago

> Why are we so quick to side with the employer in this matter when we know nothing of the situation at all? It's called collateral damage. There is no context, outside of fantasy, where the admin could be in the right to do this.

treyfitty 9y ago
Eh, I'm inclined to agree with you that the ex admin isn't "right" but the essence of my statement is that he may have been carrying out what was his optimal strategy. If you treat people bad, they'll treat you bad. If you nuke Russia, Russia will nuke you. It's the Nash Equillibrium where each party is faced with a game and certain situations call for your best move. But your best move should account for what I'll do, and that should be factored into your initial move. Mutually assured destruction is actually a powerful deterrent. Do we know what the ex-admin's situation was prior to all this? Only then should we pass judgement.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Morally, I'd say the ex-employee doesn't have a leg to stand on. If the employee had been wronged and their actions only negatively impacted the employer, then I'd be sympathetic, but all of Verelox's customers have been damaged, some of them perhaps irreparably, by this. Getting back at your employer with such huge amounts of collateral damage is never acceptable.
- cat199 9y ago
  I find it hugely improbably that ex-admin's situation entailed being wronged by all of the customers whom he impacted by this action. You are basically justifying the 'killing of innocents' here..
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    If we assume that the firm did awful things to the employee, we can't also consider those who employed the firm to do those awful things "innocent".
9y ago

cnnsucks 9y ago

Mental gymnastics.

idealogue 9y ago

I agree with you. The majority of people in this thread have completely internalized that property rights are more valuable than human rights. Only one comment I've seen has acknowledged that all we have is a single webpage with a single accusation, and yet many people leap straight to the conclusion not only that the individual in question exists and is guilty, but that there can be no justification for a person destroying a business. Businesses destroy people all the time. I for one would like to see the tables turned more often.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
HN is full of baronets arguing in favor of the modern social order -- because while they're not real aristocrats, they're not peasants. Corporations function as de facto titles of nobility in the US, so crossing one is crossing social rank.
- DashRattlesnake 9y ago
  > HN is full of baronets arguing in favor of the modern social order -- because while they're not real aristocrats, they're not peasants. I think that's very on point. While HN is a technology site, it's also one for "founders" * who aspire join the elite of that social order, which explains the exaggerated empathy for the interests of shareholders and companies. * (and those with fantasies of being one)
  - t123 9y ago
    you have to be "someone" to become "someone", even if you suddenly earned 30% of shares in facebook, it would not make you "part of the elite", there is only so high you can get without [the right] family background (see billy gates who's mother - the less interesting part of the picture - was co-chair at / IBM CEOs personal friend .. so much for the hollywood story of the "deal of the century" ft. young billy and DOS .. aaand FTCvIBM but the cast/story gets even more interesting later on
xupybd 9y ago
We have responded to the article based on the information presented. There is nothing to imply human rights have been violated. If such information is presented im sure people will respond in kind.

cbsmith 9y ago

> without context to the situation, who are we to decide who's right or wrong? You can comfortably make a determination about what is right and wrong. We don't know the facts, but if the claims are true, wiping out not just that company's property, but that of their customers, is a crime. Now, sometimes a crime is justified, but I don't think it is a rush to judgement to work from a starting point that criminal behaviour is bad until proven otherwise.

thanksgiving 9y ago
I disagree. Once again, we can find a scapegoat at the lowest possible level and "stone" them or we can do a proper post mortem and try to learn from it. Why did this happen? How can we prevent it from happening in the future? These are the questions we need to stress. In particular, why does an ex-employee still have access to production? I say when something like this happens and heads must roll, they must roll at the top. Fire the CEO. Fire the board. Leave the sysadmin alone. This is a civil matter. My tax dollars should not pay for a criminal lawsuit. Screw that. Oh and by the way if you're reading this: please help repeal cfaa.
- kelnos 9y ago
  I think someone at the org needs to be responsible for not ensuring former employees' access is not revoked, but that doesn't mean an employee who takes advantage of that lapse isn't responsible for his/her actions. Put another way, someone at Verelox screwed up and left the door unlocked, but that doesn't mean that the person who walked in broke stuff is in the clear. Look, someone, without authorization, accessed a former employer's network and maliciously destroyed data. That's a crime. Sure, the CFAA is overly broad and is abused, but this is not one of those cases: this is a textbook example of something that should be prosecuted under the CFAA.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    I disagree. The point of focus should be verelox and the criminal negligence on their part. Verelox is the criminal, not the victim. The clients may be the victims. We should not equivocate on cfaa. It is good for nothing. Full and unconditional repeal should be our only demand.

bobbob1921 9y ago

Employment is a voluntary transaction, entered into by both parties. One should always focus upon increasing their own skill set such that an employer may be able to make your life temporarily difficult, but your skills and value to an employer (or future employer) are such that they can't "ruin your life".

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
Employment isn't voluntartly: there is strong economic coercion to be employed and high degrees of friction are introduced to make that coercion more effective. Urbanization fundamentally has been engineered to create "wage slaves", who are basically modern sharecroppers (though the system has some extra steps).
- b6 9y ago
  > Urbanization fundamentally has been engineered to create "wage slaves" Suppose someone was born out in the forest, and there were no cities, no societies, no technology. Would you call that person a sustenance slave? Would you say that their foraging was involuntary?
  - marmaduke 9y ago
    the distinction is that there is a willful effort to exploit and to enslave on the part of someone (be it a person, corporation or market
    - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
      > the distinction is that there is a willful effort to exploit and to enslave on the part of someone (be it a person, corporation or market That's right, and it's a shame it's been downvoted.
  - boie0025 9y ago
    Very insightful question. This gives me an alternative context in which to frame the "wage slave" concept. Thank you.

microwavecamera 9y ago

Free speech: telling your boss off, quitting, organizing a walk out, refusal to work, picketing, posting your story online to warn other potential employees and customers just who their doing business with Not free speech: punching your boss in the face, burning the building down, vandalizing the office, deleting all the data on the servers and hurting a bunch of people that had nothing to do with your conflict with management I'm all about workers right and have walked out on many a job because management were raging assholes. I have convictions and I stand by them but conviction and doing the right thing in life often come with sacrifices. I'm currently underemployed because of my convictions but I can sleep at night knowing I'm doing the right thing. The way for us to take back power in the tech industry is to organize, unionize and refuse to work for abusive and exploitative employers. We're the ones with the skills. They need us not vise versa.