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Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in

Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. So what stops me, as a Google customer (which I am), to stop doing business with them, given that I see proof after proof that they are working against my interests? This is the same problem as with the Snowden leaks. I don't care if Americans feel more safe with the NSA secretly watching their emails via gag orders, if my privacy as a non-US citizen is being violated, therefore at this point absolutely all US companies are suspects, starting with a negative ranking in my book; at this point I always prefer European ones. Also the usual arguments that countries collaborate with each other is bullshit, because in the EU I can sue companies, or my government, for cheap too, whereas in the US I have no rights. And if you find that acceptable, then maybe balkanizing the Internet isn't such a bad thing after all, lets start with ICANN. > There's also a real chance (though perhaps small) that an industry-wide refusal to cooperate with the US military could have disastrous consequences for the world There's also a real chance that I might get hit by a brick and die tomorrow, yet that doesn't stop me from going out. If you don't have an assessment done by experts of what might actually happen, then such arguments are bullshit.

greyman 8y ago
> I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. Yes, that's exactly the problem. What if in the future, my country and USA will be enemies? It is not very probable, but so wasn't a prospect of war in Ukraine, for example. You just don't know how things will develop, and if a company want's to be global, it shouldn't directly support a military of a specific country.
- slavik81 8y ago
  That's not how things are done today. Military technology is shared widely among allies. If we cannot trust our friends, we are doomed. There might be national secret-sauce here or there, but the major military contractors are all international. Lots of projects involve R&D spread across multiple nations. Things mostly get dicey when looking at nations that are too unstable to trust (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.), or those that are current rivals (Russia, China).
  - oldcynic 8y ago
    Isn't it the case that the only nation getting an F35 comparable to the US version is the UK? It's unclear if even that version is the same. Everyone else seems to be getting some sort of F35 lite export version, including Australia, Italy and possibly others. Is that trusting one's friends or are they too unstable to trust?
    - aurailious 8y ago
      The US generally does not export its most advanced defense technology. Almost all fighter aircraft exports over the past century have have limitations on its equipment. Generally the receiving country replaces some equipment with their own domestic variants. Israel and Japan do this with their US fighter aircraft. Trusting an ally with any version of the F-35 is a big thing. The base F-35 is still going to be a very great fighter aircraft.
    - engi_nerd 8y ago
      There is no such thing as an "export version" of the F-35. All F-35s have the same installed mission systems, the same avionics, and the same mission performance. This was one of the big goals of the program -- to give the US, allies, and other friendly nations a common, capable, 5th generation strike aircraft.
      - oldcynic 8y ago
        That's funny, I've read the claim multiple times in the media amongst the controversy over its procurement. Not least because it took years for the US:UK dispute over technology transfer to resolve during the Bush+Blair years. Even since resolution there's unprecedented restrictions of maintenance in RAF service, requiring some major components returned to BAe in the US when BAe are a British based company. I'm on my way out but a quick search seems to show Israel as having the least restricted version, which is a surprise: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/israel-can-customize-americas-f-35-least-now/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/israel-can-customize-americas-... Some discussion of the Blair era issues: https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/uk-warns-usa-over-itar-arms-restrictions-01549/ https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/uk-warns-usa-over-itar-...
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  What if in the future your country needs the US military?
  - sidr 8y ago
    What if in the future their country ia attacked by the US military for some bullshit made up claims of WMDs? If you weight the outcomes with their probabilities of occuring, they believe that the US military is a net negative. You just have a different cost function and a different pdf of certain events occuring.
  - salvar 8y ago
    Isn't the point here that there are too many what-ifs to state that a strong US military is good for everyone?
chibg10 8y ago
>Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. A multi-national company is still responsible to multiple nations in differing amounts though, no? It shouldn't mean "responsible to no one." And America quite clearly should have some significant claim on Google, even if it isn't all of it (or necessarily even a majority). Furthermore, most of the those non-American countries that Google should be accountable to (i.e. most democratic countries and most developed countries... as that is from where it draws revenue and employees) rely, in large part, on the US military for their own national security. >There's also a real chance that I might get hit by a brick and die tomorrow, yet that doesn't stop me from going out. This misses the point entirely--which was that whether or not the US military is good or bad for the world is a complicated and difficult question to answer. At the very least, this is clear from the large number of democratic countries who have chosen to mostly rely on the US military for their own national security. So the apparent certainty in the moral correctness of those refusing to work on technology for it is unjustified. Again, I'm not saying that these employees are necessarily making the incorrect moral decision. I'm saying that the conversations on this topic seem to overlook a lot of the ethical difficulties associated with their choice.
- smts 8y ago
  Im sorry but google isn't just active in what you call demcratic countries and which country in Europe does the USA protect, the Ukraine? The last military interaction my home country had with the USA, was be accidentally beeing bombed in WW2. And you did great in protecting the dictatorships south of you, really great. So many democracies had to fall, judt because they were left leaning. You've been using your military the get cheap resources in the midfle east, ever since the cold war. So I dont want to work for such a military, even in proxy.
  - Nimitz14 8y ago
    Balkans.
- Atlantium 8y ago
walshemj 8y ago
Sorry to rain on your parade Google is a "US" company - just because its sets up in Europe to get access to cheap labour and as a lobbying tool "look we employ x people in your country" - doesn't make any difference. Eu companies do the same German pro union at home hire dodgy American union busters in the UK for example
- pofilat 8y ago
  How many thousands of employees, including executive roles, does a company need before it is an international company?
- fixermark 8y ago
  Legally, absolutely. If the US declared war on all of Europe tomorrow, there's no meaningful question what Google would do. ... but practically and on the ground, the Google employee base is large and international enough that there may very well be employees with friends or relatives in US military hot-zones where the US has not successfully demonstrated sufficient care about civilian casualties. Their desire to only work for the company in relatively peaceful times is pretty understandable. Nobody wants to wake up one morning and realize they're an IBM employee in 1940.
- trowawai999 8y ago
  Sorry, no. Technically it's a US-based company, but culturally it's multinational, and business-wise, most of its revenue comes from outside the US. Arguing that Google owes special allegiance to the US gov't is like arguing that it owes special allegiance to the gov't of Delaware.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
Google isn't the first or last MNC Does anyone not think of Toyota as Japanese? General Electric is certainly an MNC, but they are quite proudly "American" as is Volkswagen proudly "German." So, it's silly to think that MNC's, by virtue of their MNC nature, jettison their national allegiance in the ultimate case. If you want to make the case that they should be truly "multi-national", then we're off to my favorite possible dystopian world, where a corporation becomes a sovereign entity with the power of a state, which is the ultimate conclusion of such thinking.
- trophycase 8y ago
  We're already getting there with stuff like Foxconn city and private security teams.

greyman 8y ago

> I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. Yes, that's exactly the problem. What if in the future, my country and USA will be enemies? It is not very probable, but so wasn't a prospect of war in Ukraine, for example. You just don't know how things will develop, and if a company want's to be global, it shouldn't directly support a military of a specific country.

slavik81 8y ago
That's not how things are done today. Military technology is shared widely among allies. If we cannot trust our friends, we are doomed. There might be national secret-sauce here or there, but the major military contractors are all international. Lots of projects involve R&D spread across multiple nations. Things mostly get dicey when looking at nations that are too unstable to trust (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.), or those that are current rivals (Russia, China).
- oldcynic 8y ago
  Isn't it the case that the only nation getting an F35 comparable to the US version is the UK? It's unclear if even that version is the same. Everyone else seems to be getting some sort of F35 lite export version, including Australia, Italy and possibly others. Is that trusting one's friends or are they too unstable to trust?
  - aurailious 8y ago
    The US generally does not export its most advanced defense technology. Almost all fighter aircraft exports over the past century have have limitations on its equipment. Generally the receiving country replaces some equipment with their own domestic variants. Israel and Japan do this with their US fighter aircraft. Trusting an ally with any version of the F-35 is a big thing. The base F-35 is still going to be a very great fighter aircraft.
  - engi_nerd 8y ago
    There is no such thing as an "export version" of the F-35. All F-35s have the same installed mission systems, the same avionics, and the same mission performance. This was one of the big goals of the program -- to give the US, allies, and other friendly nations a common, capable, 5th generation strike aircraft.
    - oldcynic 8y ago
      That's funny, I've read the claim multiple times in the media amongst the controversy over its procurement. Not least because it took years for the US:UK dispute over technology transfer to resolve during the Bush+Blair years. Even since resolution there's unprecedented restrictions of maintenance in RAF service, requiring some major components returned to BAe in the US when BAe are a British based company. I'm on my way out but a quick search seems to show Israel as having the least restricted version, which is a surprise: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/israel-can-customize-americas-f-35-least-now/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/israel-can-customize-americas-... Some discussion of the Blair era issues: https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/uk-warns-usa-over-itar-arms-restrictions-01549/ https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/uk-warns-usa-over-itar-...
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
What if in the future your country needs the US military?
- sidr 8y ago
  What if in the future their country ia attacked by the US military for some bullshit made up claims of WMDs? If you weight the outcomes with their probabilities of occuring, they believe that the US military is a net negative. You just have a different cost function and a different pdf of certain events occuring.
- salvar 8y ago
  Isn't the point here that there are too many what-ifs to state that a strong US military is good for everyone?

chibg10 8y ago

>Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. A multi-national company is still responsible to multiple nations in differing amounts though, no? It shouldn't mean "responsible to no one." And America quite clearly should have some significant claim on Google, even if it isn't all of it (or necessarily even a majority). Furthermore, most of the those non-American countries that Google should be accountable to (i.e. most democratic countries and most developed countries... as that is from where it draws revenue and employees) rely, in large part, on the US military for their own national security. >There's also a real chance that I might get hit by a brick and die tomorrow, yet that doesn't stop me from going out. This misses the point entirely--which was that whether or not the US military is good or bad for the world is a complicated and difficult question to answer. At the very least, this is clear from the large number of democratic countries who have chosen to mostly rely on the US military for their own national security. So the apparent certainty in the moral correctness of those refusing to work on technology for it is unjustified. Again, I'm not saying that these employees are necessarily making the incorrect moral decision. I'm saying that the conversations on this topic seem to overlook a lot of the ethical difficulties associated with their choice.

smts 8y ago
Im sorry but google isn't just active in what you call demcratic countries and which country in Europe does the USA protect, the Ukraine? The last military interaction my home country had with the USA, was be accidentally beeing bombed in WW2. And you did great in protecting the dictatorships south of you, really great. So many democracies had to fall, judt because they were left leaning. You've been using your military the get cheap resources in the midfle east, ever since the cold war. So I dont want to work for such a military, even in proxy.
- Nimitz14 8y ago
  Balkans.
Atlantium 8y ago

walshemj 8y ago

Sorry to rain on your parade Google is a "US" company - just because its sets up in Europe to get access to cheap labour and as a lobbying tool "look we employ x people in your country" - doesn't make any difference. Eu companies do the same German pro union at home hire dodgy American union busters in the UK for example

pofilat 8y ago
How many thousands of employees, including executive roles, does a company need before it is an international company?
fixermark 8y ago
Legally, absolutely. If the US declared war on all of Europe tomorrow, there's no meaningful question what Google would do. ... but practically and on the ground, the Google employee base is large and international enough that there may very well be employees with friends or relatives in US military hot-zones where the US has not successfully demonstrated sufficient care about civilian casualties. Their desire to only work for the company in relatively peaceful times is pretty understandable. Nobody wants to wake up one morning and realize they're an IBM employee in 1940.
trowawai999 8y ago
Sorry, no. Technically it's a US-based company, but culturally it's multinational, and business-wise, most of its revenue comes from outside the US. Arguing that Google owes special allegiance to the US gov't is like arguing that it owes special allegiance to the gov't of Delaware.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

Google isn't the first or last MNC Does anyone not think of Toyota as Japanese? General Electric is certainly an MNC, but they are quite proudly "American" as is Volkswagen proudly "German." So, it's silly to think that MNC's, by virtue of their MNC nature, jettison their national allegiance in the ultimate case. If you want to make the case that they should be truly "multi-national", then we're off to my favorite possible dystopian world, where a corporation becomes a sovereign entity with the power of a state, which is the ultimate conclusion of such thinking.

trophycase 8y ago
We're already getting there with stuff like Foxconn city and private security teams.