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There was a similar "comming to jesus moment" with Google in China. They saw how they had to do the right thing after years of censoring and manipulating data f

by throwaway2048 8y ago

There was a similar "comming to jesus moment" with Google in China. They saw how they had to do the right thing after years of censoring and manipulating data for the chinese government, but only after they got massively hacked, blocked, and essentially forced out of china... However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing.

EpicEng 8y ago
> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. Agreed, and I try not to be too hard on them. I don't think it's a black and white issue personally, the only issue I have is how this implies Google always wants to do the right thing from the get go, which very much seems to not be the case here.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  You should read Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It's not possible to make all the right policy decisions that are right in hindsight and before a sentinal event occurs. Hindsight bias is always 20/20. Anyone making real decisions of consequence will eventually curse hindsight.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    Well Google is now framing this as a moral issue, so did morality change significantly between when they accepted this project and today?
    - killjoywashere 8y ago
      Do you think regret is morally valid?
  - the-pigeon 8y ago
    Sure. But Google has no intention of doing the right thing anymore than Microsoft or Disney does. These are corporations and their executives HAVE to do what they think will be best for the corporation. Not what they think is best for mankind. This is how for profit businesses currently work. And PR saying anything to the contrary is simply not true.
    - zaphar 8y ago
      This is a gross generalization that people trot out as if it were unassailable but never back it up with any support. Corporations are run by people with a complex set of motivations and constraints in which they make decisions. Some of them make decisions with intent to harm. Some make decisions with intent to help. No one person is automatically turned into a ruthless amoral person just be being employed at a corporation.
      - the-pigeon 8y ago
        It gets complicated but it's more about the employees responsibility to shareholders. Not their personal morals. https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_true_that_corporations_are_legally/ https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_tr...
        pmoriarty 8y ago
        And do you know what can happen when a person's own morals or ethics come in to conflict with their responsibility to shareholders? They can quit. They can speak out. They can organize. They can petition for change. They could join the more ethical competition (if one exists), or start their own. This is especially easy to do for employees of a company like Google, with excellent job prospects and often enough "fuck you money" to do whatever they want without serious financial hardship. They are not hopelessly chained to the corporate profit machine. They can revolt -- that is, if their morals are important enough to them. Otherwise they can stay on and try not to rock the boat, or pretend they don't know or are helpless to act. A handful of Google employees chose to act and publicly express their objections. This action got results. More employees in companies which act unethically should follow their lead.
        zaphar 8y ago
        I used to work at google about 5 years ago. While I was there it was clear that Google employed some of the most morally conscience people I've ever worked with. It's why I still trust them to this day with data that I would never trust anyone else with. As long as Google employees continue to have a voice in the company I'll continue to trust them.
baxtr 8y ago
> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. I'd say it is definitely better than not doing a good thing. For me, the real question is this though: considering there is a pattern here (doing the right thing after doing the wrong thing), do you trust they will do the right thing in the first place next time?
ManFromUranus 8y ago
Hmm not really. Google is bad and they should feel bad, you're just handwaving away how bad they are because you like them. Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'm not a good guy what I did is not a good thing, I just fucked up, that's all. Had everything gone to plan the guy would be dead and I would be blameless. Similarly if everything had gone to plan Google AI would now be powering various autonomous murder bots except they realized that they didn't want to be associated with this, not because they have any morals, but because WE DO. They are still bad.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Beleive me when I say that I do not like Google. But what is a person or a group of people supposed to do when they have done something wrong? All they can do is stop doing it, and try to prevent doing it in the future. You can speculate about their motives, I personally beleive it to be PR motivated aswell, but what matters in the end is that it stopped happening.
  - ionised 8y ago
    That's all fine, but that person or group shouldn't expect everybody to love them afterwards. If anything, they should expect distrust and dislike.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'm not a good guy what I did is not a good thing, I just fucked up, that's all. That's an odd analogy considering the the would-be conspirator didn't make a decision to not go through with it. Do you believe Google published this article by accident? And really; comparing Google's actions to murder... c'mon.
ionised 8y ago
> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. Yes, but we should absolutely remember what the original intention was.

EpicEng 8y ago

> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. Agreed, and I try not to be too hard on them. I don't think it's a black and white issue personally, the only issue I have is how this implies Google always wants to do the right thing from the get go, which very much seems to not be the case here.

killjoywashere 8y ago
You should read Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It's not possible to make all the right policy decisions that are right in hindsight and before a sentinal event occurs. Hindsight bias is always 20/20. Anyone making real decisions of consequence will eventually curse hindsight.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Well Google is now framing this as a moral issue, so did morality change significantly between when they accepted this project and today?
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    Do you think regret is morally valid?
- the-pigeon 8y ago
  Sure. But Google has no intention of doing the right thing anymore than Microsoft or Disney does. These are corporations and their executives HAVE to do what they think will be best for the corporation. Not what they think is best for mankind. This is how for profit businesses currently work. And PR saying anything to the contrary is simply not true.
  - zaphar 8y ago
    This is a gross generalization that people trot out as if it were unassailable but never back it up with any support. Corporations are run by people with a complex set of motivations and constraints in which they make decisions. Some of them make decisions with intent to harm. Some make decisions with intent to help. No one person is automatically turned into a ruthless amoral person just be being employed at a corporation.
    - the-pigeon 8y ago
      It gets complicated but it's more about the employees responsibility to shareholders. Not their personal morals. https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_true_that_corporations_are_legally/ https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_tr...
      - pmoriarty 8y ago
        And do you know what can happen when a person's own morals or ethics come in to conflict with their responsibility to shareholders? They can quit. They can speak out. They can organize. They can petition for change. They could join the more ethical competition (if one exists), or start their own. This is especially easy to do for employees of a company like Google, with excellent job prospects and often enough "fuck you money" to do whatever they want without serious financial hardship. They are not hopelessly chained to the corporate profit machine. They can revolt -- that is, if their morals are important enough to them. Otherwise they can stay on and try not to rock the boat, or pretend they don't know or are helpless to act. A handful of Google employees chose to act and publicly express their objections. This action got results. More employees in companies which act unethically should follow their lead.
        zaphar 8y ago
        I used to work at google about 5 years ago. While I was there it was clear that Google employed some of the most morally conscience people I've ever worked with. It's why I still trust them to this day with data that I would never trust anyone else with. As long as Google employees continue to have a voice in the company I'll continue to trust them.

baxtr 8y ago

> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. I'd say it is definitely better than not doing a good thing. For me, the real question is this though: considering there is a pattern here (doing the right thing after doing the wrong thing), do you trust they will do the right thing in the first place next time?

ManFromUranus 8y ago

Hmm not really. Google is bad and they should feel bad, you're just handwaving away how bad they are because you like them. Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'm not a good guy what I did is not a good thing, I just fucked up, that's all. Had everything gone to plan the guy would be dead and I would be blameless. Similarly if everything had gone to plan Google AI would now be powering various autonomous murder bots except they realized that they didn't want to be associated with this, not because they have any morals, but because WE DO. They are still bad.

throwaway2048 8y ago
Beleive me when I say that I do not like Google. But what is a person or a group of people supposed to do when they have done something wrong? All they can do is stop doing it, and try to prevent doing it in the future. You can speculate about their motives, I personally beleive it to be PR motivated aswell, but what matters in the end is that it stopped happening.
- ionised 8y ago
  That's all fine, but that person or group shouldn't expect everybody to love them afterwards. If anything, they should expect distrust and dislike.
EpicEng 8y ago
>Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'm not a good guy what I did is not a good thing, I just fucked up, that's all. That's an odd analogy considering the the would-be conspirator didn't make a decision to not go through with it. Do you believe Google published this article by accident? And really; comparing Google's actions to murder... c'mon.

ionised 8y ago

> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. Yes, but we should absolutely remember what the original intention was.