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I can already see it on HN in a few days/weeks from now: Hiring Australians considered harmful
by Jerry2 8y ago
I can already see it on HN in a few days/weeks from now: Hiring Australians considered harmful
- mirimir 8y agoWell, under the current circumstances, how can it not be? I mean, who pays well enough for employees to risk prosecution and huge fines? The honest ones will just quit. But now that I think of it, does that in itself violate the law, or at least the nondisclosure aspect?
- boyter 8y agoI don’t know if quitting is a valid way out. More likely need to get fired.
- mirimir 8y agoSo what, just be clueless about it, and get caught? This is just so stupid and sad.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y agoPossible canary quitting. "I'm resigning for patriotic reasons."
- mr_toad 8y agoForcing someone to do a job is slavery. And I’d argue that forcing someone to spy on others, to engage in sabotage, and to lie is a violation of basic human dignity.
- Radle 8y agoBeing a citizen awards you with rights and responsibilities. Whether we think that implementing backdoors is morally right, that does not mean that Australian citizens do not have responsibilities to their country. And neither does it mean that the Australian government cannot force their citizen to fulfill their legal responsibilities. A lawful order by your government is not slavery.
- rhn_mk1 8y agoSomething being lawful doesn't imply it's moral. The line is blurred, since slave labor can be enshrined in law as the responsibility to their country, making slavery a lawful order. In my opinion, responsibilities are better fulfilled by things like paying taxes and not being a nuisance.
- threatofrain 8y agoWhy can't it be both?
- mirimir 8y agoTrue. Many countries require military service of one sort or another. And more generally, governments do tend to view their citizens as resources. I recall a great book on the history of data science. But not the title :( One of the drivers, as I recall, was knowing resources to plan wars. Still, the juxtaposition of "lawful" and "government" makes me smile.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago"Seeing like a State", perhaps? http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like-a-state/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like...
- mirimir 8y agoThat seems a great book. But this was more about database design, and statistics. Covering maybe 17th-18th centuries, and focusing on Western Europe. I recall France and Germany, in particular.
- mirimir 8y agoJust to be clear, I was rather agreeing with "Forcing someone to do a job is slavery." And just pointing out that states do that a lot. But they couch it in language about "duty" and so on. I mean, many millions of soldiers died in WWI and WWII. Many were volunteers, sure. But many were conscripts. And of course, having your country conquered may also not be such a great thing, unless your government are jerks. Anyway, I distrust all governments above the village level. I do see the argument for ~state level government. Basically, to deal with groups of jerks. National defense is arguably the only justification for national government. And that's just because there are other national governments, controlled by jerks. So it's sort of like a multi-player protection racket.
- hndamien 8y agoI’m confused, because “I was just taking orders” from the state can get you killed.
- mirimir 8y agoI'm not sure what you're getting at. If you're a soldier, sure it can get you killed, in battle. And if you're a soldier, and your side loses, you may be tried for war crimes. Even if your side wins, you may be tried for war crimes if you follow illegal orders. In modern military, you're trained to refuse illegal orders. But that's an iffy thing, especially in the heat of battle.
- hndamien 8y agoMy point is that I believe those in the Nuremberg trials were following legal orders at the time, but their side lost. And yes, it's an iffy thing to disobey when it may be the morally correct thing to do.
- Retra 8y agoForcing someone to do a job without paying them is slavery. Don't conflate things just to suit a narrative. This kind of law is problematic for legitimate reasons, not made up BS like "it's slavery."
- rmbeard 8y agoThis would possibly suggest it may not be constitutional, so I would at least expect some constitutional challenges.
- flukus 8y agoI'm curious if similar rules are applied to foreign nationals (and software/hardware) of other much more totalitarian regimes like China or Russia? Not defending how retarded our government is, but it seems this is an issue we should have already contemplated as an industry. How many other nations should be banned for similar reasons? Do you really trust those chips made in china?
- mirimir 8y agoI'm pretty sure that the US military, NSA, etc don't. I also gather that Chinese generally face more scrutiny in the US, in at least some industries. And they're more likely to be investigated.
- flukus 8y agoMilitary and NSA are probably cooperative enough with our government that this isn't an issue for them, it was probably even initiated by them. The bigger issue is the private sectors of companies worldwide throwing confidential information into things like JIRA. They can no longer consider that confidential.
- mirimir 8y agoThe context of my comment was China, not Australia ;)
- tinus_hn 8y agoUgh, that awful ‘considered harmful’ trope