8 ms·

Agreed. Also this should be the kind of stuff that gets the founders and employees blackballed in the industry as well. Completely morally bankrupt. All of the

Agreed. Also this should be the kind of stuff that gets the founders and employees blackballed in the industry as well. Completely morally bankrupt. All of them.

mistermann 9y ago
Their names should be on wikipedia along with the details of this story.
- rf15 9y ago
  Let's not make this a witch hunt. Yes, the company should be ostracised, but don't ask for every little person remotely involved with them to pay the price of a stupid lead decision.
  - bachmeier 9y ago
    I don't know much about this particular case, so I don't have an opinion on the comments above, but the argument that employees shouldn't be punished for participating in an unethical for-profit scheme doesn't really make sense to me.
    - rf15 9y ago
      Well, there is also the question of actual participation: Let's say [A]dam thinks they're not getting enough data and had this stupid idea to fix the problem, bought a bunch of repos when he had the chance, and told programmer [B]en to patch this in, while [C]hloe in another room is working on the website or tweaks the ML algorithm. How much is she at fault and involved here? What about [D]elilah and [E]ric in Support? Blaming them all individually and equally harshly for being associated with [A]dam is not really justifyable.
    - ben-schaaf 9y ago
      Completely agree, it's the classic Nuremberg defense.
      - rf15 9y ago
        This kind of polarised thinking doesn't really work - usually you don't have a choice if the entire system turns because it happens relatively fast and not all implications are completely clear to you in the beginning, and usually the system will also just plain lie to you to appear much less destructive than it is. Also: Then every single American is at fault for Trump? I mean, they let it happen, right? So they must take responsibility.
        gotchange 9y ago
        Collective punishment and guilt by association are morally reprehensible but getting everyone off the hook is equally wrong irrespective of their rank in the food chain. I am not saying that you necessarily advocated for this position in your comment but I just felt the need to make my point clear.
        ben-schaaf 9y ago
        Of course you can't paint all the employees guilty and leave it at that, that's not what the Nuremberg defence means. If an employee knowingly acts malicious under orders from their boss, then they are just as accountable. To be clear I'm not advocating a witch hunt, but saying all employees are innocent because they were following their bosses orders is a Nuremberg defence.
        rf15 9y ago
        I know - my comments were more about the initial demand, and it's a little bit of a misunderstanding that people immediately compared it to me trying to invalidate the nuremberg trials.
  - HelloNurse 9y ago
    The effectiveness of this line of defense hasn't improved since the Nuremberg Trials. And the directly responsible committers are not "every little person".
  - gotchange 9y ago
    What makes you think that that the coverage of this event to be unbalanced and vindictive? I think that we all agree that this event should be documented and reported objectively as it's newsworthy proved by this very article here and it deserves a mention in a subsection on their Wiki entry.
  - kazagistar 9y ago
    If programming were an engineering proffesion, each engineer would be responsible for ensuring that the code they worked on was ethical at the potential cost of their license. It isn't of course, but there is nothing unusual about demanding personal responsibility for social implications from individual employees like that.
- jameskegel 9y ago
  Am I the only one alarmed by how quickly this comment chain is escalating?
  - mercer 9y ago
    I hope so. This is the kind of thing where a swift and somewhat brutal response is necessary, I feel. I wouldn't necessarily go as far as digitally tar-and-feathering all the developers involved (I've made mistakes myself that were a result of thoughtlessness), but the people in charge should be sent a message that this is not acceptable, and quite frankly I think public shaming/blacklisting is entirely justified when it comes to them.
    - radisb 9y ago
      I wouldn't make so much fuss for some changes that: 1.They have every right to make (it is open source and they have write access to the repo) 2.I have every right to either fork and reverse, or completely stop using.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Yeah. But this is the thread where two proponents of "sending a message" are using the Nuremberg Trials as a case-study. So people should quite obviously chill a bit. Even if the pitchfork-people in this thread only wish bad PR upon this company, thousands of people are reading these threads, and it only takes one slightly unstable personality to think he'll be a hero for the community if he publishes the CEO's honeymoon photos (or whatever). Also, to keep this in perspective: they did nothing illegal. Changing the rules is a much better course of action than vigilant justice if you believe this to be wrong.
      - mistermann 9y ago
        Is publishing honeymoon photos illegal? (I'm presuming nothing compromising.) If the photos were taken in a public place, then they are legal, and then therefore no harm done, right?
sneak 9y ago
I wish our world worked like that, but unfortunately blackballing requires that the median participants of a group have some sort of moral compass. I gave up hope for such things after seeing staff, investors, and speculators tripping over their own dicks to invest in Brendan Eich's latest venture (Brave) and its ICO, with full knowledge of his revolting and public bigotry against gay people. Money trumps morals, it seems.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Thanks for mentioning Brave. I've really been enjoying using it as a browser. Typing this response on it right now. Really hope it gets some traction as it's a cool idea. I think your claim of "bigotry" is a bit overstated and I don't really care about people's political views in this context.
- AsyncAwait 9y ago
  The case with Brendan Eich's past donations is a troubling one, but I also found the way he was forced out of Mozilla questionable and also keep in mind that despite having this black mark on him, he's done many good things too and is not known to have done anything oppressive against anyone since then, yes troubling, but I also think that every person, even less accomplished one, has something they should be ashamed of in their past, so I don't agree that we should hold this one incident against him for the rest of his life, unless he does something to warrant it.
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  Oh please, Brandon chucking Javascript together has caused more pain than his questionable funding of certain interests.
  - ddalex 9y ago
    If we have to lynch somebody for JS, I would prefer to start with IE6 development team.... I still have PSTD /s
  - mort96 9y ago
    Are you serious? Eich wrote it for Netscape in 10 days. If you want to blame anyone, blame those at Netscape who only gave him a week and a half. He did a phenomenal job given the situation.
jacquesm 9y ago
Just like installmonetizer and all those associated with them, right?
detaro 9y ago
Silicon Valley/the broader tech scene is going to look pretty empty if we do that to every employee of every company that has done shady stuff.
- rfrank 9y ago
  You say that like it's a bad thing.

Agreed. Also this should be the kind of stuff that gets the founders and employees blackballed in the industry as well. Completely morally bankrupt. All of them.

mistermann 9y ago

Their names should be on wikipedia along with the details of this story.

rf15 9y ago
Let's not make this a witch hunt. Yes, the company should be ostracised, but don't ask for every little person remotely involved with them to pay the price of a stupid lead decision.
- bachmeier 9y ago
  I don't know much about this particular case, so I don't have an opinion on the comments above, but the argument that employees shouldn't be punished for participating in an unethical for-profit scheme doesn't really make sense to me.
  - rf15 9y ago
    Well, there is also the question of actual participation: Let's say [A]dam thinks they're not getting enough data and had this stupid idea to fix the problem, bought a bunch of repos when he had the chance, and told programmer [B]en to patch this in, while [C]hloe in another room is working on the website or tweaks the ML algorithm. How much is she at fault and involved here? What about [D]elilah and [E]ric in Support? Blaming them all individually and equally harshly for being associated with [A]dam is not really justifyable.
  - ben-schaaf 9y ago
    Completely agree, it's the classic Nuremberg defense.
    - rf15 9y ago
      This kind of polarised thinking doesn't really work - usually you don't have a choice if the entire system turns because it happens relatively fast and not all implications are completely clear to you in the beginning, and usually the system will also just plain lie to you to appear much less destructive than it is. Also: Then every single American is at fault for Trump? I mean, they let it happen, right? So they must take responsibility.
      - gotchange 9y ago
        Collective punishment and guilt by association are morally reprehensible but getting everyone off the hook is equally wrong irrespective of their rank in the food chain. I am not saying that you necessarily advocated for this position in your comment but I just felt the need to make my point clear.
      - ben-schaaf 9y ago
        Of course you can't paint all the employees guilty and leave it at that, that's not what the Nuremberg defence means. If an employee knowingly acts malicious under orders from their boss, then they are just as accountable. To be clear I'm not advocating a witch hunt, but saying all employees are innocent because they were following their bosses orders is a Nuremberg defence.
        rf15 9y ago
        I know - my comments were more about the initial demand, and it's a little bit of a misunderstanding that people immediately compared it to me trying to invalidate the nuremberg trials.
- HelloNurse 9y ago
  The effectiveness of this line of defense hasn't improved since the Nuremberg Trials. And the directly responsible committers are not "every little person".
- gotchange 9y ago
  What makes you think that that the coverage of this event to be unbalanced and vindictive? I think that we all agree that this event should be documented and reported objectively as it's newsworthy proved by this very article here and it deserves a mention in a subsection on their Wiki entry.
- kazagistar 9y ago
  If programming were an engineering proffesion, each engineer would be responsible for ensuring that the code they worked on was ethical at the potential cost of their license. It isn't of course, but there is nothing unusual about demanding personal responsibility for social implications from individual employees like that.
jameskegel 9y ago
Am I the only one alarmed by how quickly this comment chain is escalating?
- mercer 9y ago
  I hope so. This is the kind of thing where a swift and somewhat brutal response is necessary, I feel. I wouldn't necessarily go as far as digitally tar-and-feathering all the developers involved (I've made mistakes myself that were a result of thoughtlessness), but the people in charge should be sent a message that this is not acceptable, and quite frankly I think public shaming/blacklisting is entirely justified when it comes to them.
  - radisb 9y ago
    I wouldn't make so much fuss for some changes that: 1.They have every right to make (it is open source and they have write access to the repo) 2.I have every right to either fork and reverse, or completely stop using.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Yeah. But this is the thread where two proponents of "sending a message" are using the Nuremberg Trials as a case-study. So people should quite obviously chill a bit. Even if the pitchfork-people in this thread only wish bad PR upon this company, thousands of people are reading these threads, and it only takes one slightly unstable personality to think he'll be a hero for the community if he publishes the CEO's honeymoon photos (or whatever). Also, to keep this in perspective: they did nothing illegal. Changing the rules is a much better course of action than vigilant justice if you believe this to be wrong.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      Is publishing honeymoon photos illegal? (I'm presuming nothing compromising.) If the photos were taken in a public place, then they are legal, and then therefore no harm done, right?

sneak 9y ago

I wish our world worked like that, but unfortunately blackballing requires that the median participants of a group have some sort of moral compass. I gave up hope for such things after seeing staff, investors, and speculators tripping over their own dicks to invest in Brendan Eich's latest venture (Brave) and its ICO, with full knowledge of his revolting and public bigotry against gay people. Money trumps morals, it seems.

mythrwy 9y ago
Thanks for mentioning Brave. I've really been enjoying using it as a browser. Typing this response on it right now. Really hope it gets some traction as it's a cool idea. I think your claim of "bigotry" is a bit overstated and I don't really care about people's political views in this context.
AsyncAwait 9y ago
The case with Brendan Eich's past donations is a troubling one, but I also found the way he was forced out of Mozilla questionable and also keep in mind that despite having this black mark on him, he's done many good things too and is not known to have done anything oppressive against anyone since then, yes troubling, but I also think that every person, even less accomplished one, has something they should be ashamed of in their past, so I don't agree that we should hold this one incident against him for the rest of his life, unless he does something to warrant it.
amiga-workbench 9y ago
Oh please, Brandon chucking Javascript together has caused more pain than his questionable funding of certain interests.
- ddalex 9y ago
  If we have to lynch somebody for JS, I would prefer to start with IE6 development team.... I still have PSTD /s
- mort96 9y ago
  Are you serious? Eich wrote it for Netscape in 10 days. If you want to blame anyone, blame those at Netscape who only gave him a week and a half. He did a phenomenal job given the situation.

jacquesm 9y ago

Just like installmonetizer and all those associated with them, right?

detaro 9y ago

Silicon Valley/the broader tech scene is going to look pretty empty if we do that to every employee of every company that has done shady stuff.

rfrank 9y ago
You say that like it's a bad thing.