4 ms·

So the quote can basically mean anything you want it to mean? You just have to bend your definition of evil into whatever shape suits you.

by Muanh 8y ago

meritt 8y ago
There's no bending necessary. Google defined [1] what they meant in their IPO filing. > We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains So it boils down to the simple interpretation: Is helping the U.S. military consistent with doing good things for the world? Public opinion polls conducted in 2016 indicated that 78% of Americans trusted the military to act in the interest of the public [2]. So, at least among Americans, I think it's a reasonable conclusion that a majority of people view the military as doing good. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504142742/ds1a.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504... (page 32) [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/18/most-americans-trust-the-military-and-scientists-to-act-in-the-publics-interest/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/18/most-america...
- repolfx 8y ago
  For what it's worth I also worked for Google for many years. And I'm hardly a shrinking liberal violet. I think it was stupid to fire Damore. But the mental gymnastics on display in this thread are depressing. Is helping the U.S. military consistent with doing good things for the world? Google has always been a global company with most of its users and employees outside of the USA. You can't even stop yourself talking about "good things for the world" here, even though you then immediately go on to talk about Americans only. But even if a slim majority of Americans support the Pentagon's drone strike program, the VAST majority of the world hates it: http://time.com/2986118/drone-strike-poll-pew/ http://time.com/2986118/drone-strike-poll-pew/ Anyway, we don't need opinion polls in this case. A definition of "evil" that doesn't include assassinating defenceless people is utterly useless and might as well be abandoned. The US isn't at war with Pakistan and Afghanistan is hardly a country to begin with, neither country has ever posed a military threat to the USA. So the drone program has simply become a self-perpetuating bureaucratic machine that eats lives on the flimsiest of pretexts and based on the most damningly absurd 'evidence' (like mobile phone signals), with the obvious consequence of mass deaths of innocent people. For instance at red weddings: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/world/middleeast/drone-strike-in-yemen-hits-wedding-convoy-killing-11.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/world/middleeast/drone-st... ... not just once, but multiple times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airs... I find myself so saddened by what Google has become.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    > and Afghanistan is hardly a country to begin with, neither country has ever posed a military threat to the USA. I hate to call out the elephant in the room, but there are about 9,000 people who might disagree with you---3,000 we'd have to assume, because they are dead. Nation-states don't have the excuse of "We're barely a country" when their territory can be used to launch an asymmetric attack by private terrorists on another nation. At best, that's an abrogation of responsibility. Since the Taliban was in charge at the time, I'd call 'abrogation of responsibility' way, way too charitable an interpretation.
    - repolfx 8y ago
      9/11 was not a military attack, it was a terrorist attack, and terrorism is a law enforcement problem. As evidenced by the fact that the USA has been killing 'terrorists' in Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly 20 years now and yet there are still regular Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe.
      - fixermark 8y ago
        The policing and prevention of terrorist attacks on a nation's home soil is a law enforcement problem. Law enforcement can't handle international issues when the originating nation doesn't have cooperative domestic law enforcement. At that point, the issue where attacks on a nation's home soil are being coordinated in the territory of an unresponsive or hostile foreign government becomes a military calculation. The military is a ham-fisted tool to replace the job of domestic law enforcement, but in circumstances where the alternative is "nothing," it's depressingly better than nothing.
  - meritt 8y ago
    > with the obvious consequence of mass deaths of innocent people So the drone program has a very ineffective targeting algorithm, one so bad it has absolutely catastrophic results, and we should be upset they've tried to hire the one company who spent the past two decades refining their world-class targeting algorithms? Nobody targets better than Google. If we want to shut down the drone program, by all means I support that notion, call your legislators though I have a feeling with the current abomination of an administration in place, it's going to fall on deaf ears for a while. But in the meantime, while we are faced with the reality of a drone program, I'm elated to hear they might be getting some much needed help to stop killing innocents.

So the quote can basically mean anything you want it to mean? You just have to bend your definition of evil into whatever shape suits you.

by Muanh 8y ago

So the quote can basically mean anything you want it to mean? You just have to bend your definition of evil into whatever shape suits you.

meritt 8y ago

There's no bending necessary. Google defined [1] what they meant in their IPO filing. > We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains So it boils down to the simple interpretation: Is helping the U.S. military consistent with doing good things for the world? Public opinion polls conducted in 2016 indicated that 78% of Americans trusted the military to act in the interest of the public [2]. So, at least among Americans, I think it's a reasonable conclusion that a majority of people view the military as doing good. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504142742/ds1a.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504... (page 32) [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/18/most-americans-trust-the-military-and-scientists-to-act-in-the-publics-interest/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/18/most-america...

repolfx 8y ago
For what it's worth I also worked for Google for many years. And I'm hardly a shrinking liberal violet. I think it was stupid to fire Damore. But the mental gymnastics on display in this thread are depressing. Is helping the U.S. military consistent with doing good things for the world? Google has always been a global company with most of its users and employees outside of the USA. You can't even stop yourself talking about "good things for the world" here, even though you then immediately go on to talk about Americans only. But even if a slim majority of Americans support the Pentagon's drone strike program, the VAST majority of the world hates it: http://time.com/2986118/drone-strike-poll-pew/ http://time.com/2986118/drone-strike-poll-pew/ Anyway, we don't need opinion polls in this case. A definition of "evil" that doesn't include assassinating defenceless people is utterly useless and might as well be abandoned. The US isn't at war with Pakistan and Afghanistan is hardly a country to begin with, neither country has ever posed a military threat to the USA. So the drone program has simply become a self-perpetuating bureaucratic machine that eats lives on the flimsiest of pretexts and based on the most damningly absurd 'evidence' (like mobile phone signals), with the obvious consequence of mass deaths of innocent people. For instance at red weddings: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/world/middleeast/drone-strike-in-yemen-hits-wedding-convoy-killing-11.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/world/middleeast/drone-st... ... not just once, but multiple times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airs... I find myself so saddened by what Google has become.
- fixermark 8y ago
  > and Afghanistan is hardly a country to begin with, neither country has ever posed a military threat to the USA. I hate to call out the elephant in the room, but there are about 9,000 people who might disagree with you---3,000 we'd have to assume, because they are dead. Nation-states don't have the excuse of "We're barely a country" when their territory can be used to launch an asymmetric attack by private terrorists on another nation. At best, that's an abrogation of responsibility. Since the Taliban was in charge at the time, I'd call 'abrogation of responsibility' way, way too charitable an interpretation.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    9/11 was not a military attack, it was a terrorist attack, and terrorism is a law enforcement problem. As evidenced by the fact that the USA has been killing 'terrorists' in Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly 20 years now and yet there are still regular Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe.
    - fixermark 8y ago
      The policing and prevention of terrorist attacks on a nation's home soil is a law enforcement problem. Law enforcement can't handle international issues when the originating nation doesn't have cooperative domestic law enforcement. At that point, the issue where attacks on a nation's home soil are being coordinated in the territory of an unresponsive or hostile foreign government becomes a military calculation. The military is a ham-fisted tool to replace the job of domestic law enforcement, but in circumstances where the alternative is "nothing," it's depressingly better than nothing.
- meritt 8y ago
  > with the obvious consequence of mass deaths of innocent people So the drone program has a very ineffective targeting algorithm, one so bad it has absolutely catastrophic results, and we should be upset they've tried to hire the one company who spent the past two decades refining their world-class targeting algorithms? Nobody targets better than Google. If we want to shut down the drone program, by all means I support that notion, call your legislators though I have a feeling with the current abomination of an administration in place, it's going to fall on deaf ears for a while. But in the meantime, while we are faced with the reality of a drone program, I'm elated to hear they might be getting some much needed help to stop killing innocents.