4 ms·

> presumably most of the Microsoft employees didn't sign up to work for a company which directly worked on weapons development can’t people pack up and leave?

by kmlx 8y ago

> presumably most of the Microsoft employees didn't sign up to work for a company which directly worked on weapons development can’t people pack up and leave? i mean, there’s probably a queue of other people who will happily work for MS.

eesmith 8y ago
Can't Microsoft not do weapons development? I mean, there's probably a bunch of other profitable projects they can work on. But to the larger point, employees have many ways to provide pushback when management is doing something they don't like. They can complain to their boss, complain to HR, take it up at shareholder meetings, and much, much more. While there is the view that the only possibilities are to follow orders or quit, that isn't very effective management practice for programming. In the intermediate, it means people are no longer enthusiastic about their work, leading to worse quality. People in most fields, not just software development, do more than their job specifically requires. "Rule-to-work" is one way to push back, by doing only what one's job requires. In extremes, it leads to strikes, as you see see with teachers in the last few years. Or even sabotage. These all might reduce shareholder value.
- kmlx 8y ago
  > Can't Microsoft not do weapons development? do you think this question is being asked in the Syrian arms factories? just seems extremely naive to me. it's in the same vein as "can't we all just stop causing global warming?" no, of course not. > But to the larger point, employees have many ways to provide pushback when management is doing something they don't like. They can complain to their boss, complain to HR, take it up at shareholder meetings, and much, much more. Best form of protest is to quit. the worst possible effect for any company is to lose an employee. not for the employee to protest or whatnot, but to actually lose him to a competitor.
  - eesmith 8y ago
    I'm sorry, but I don't see the relevancy to Syrian arms factories. Is your logic that all companies should be engaged in weapons development because there are Syrian arms factories? Nor do I see how my comment is any more naive than your earlier one. (Indeed, my comment was meant to highlight why I didn't find your earlier comment persuasive.) I think that not only is your analogy to global warming incorrect, but it's hard to make any good argument by analogy. Please instead make a counter-argument on the topic itself. You write "Best form of protest is to quit". The history of labor actions show that isn't always true. Strikes - in effect, a threat of collective quitting rather than the slow effect of individual, uncoordinated quitting - can be more effective. (Though of course not always.) I even pointed to the recent teacher strikes as a counter-example, so it's not like you needed to guess what I was referring to. As another example, do you think that the best way for me to object to racist practices as my place of employment is to simply quit? US civil rights law says that not only do I have the right to object, and publicize my objection, but that my actions are protected, such that it is illegal for the company to retaliate. Consider Google recent decision to end its relationship with the DoD's Project Maven. A dozen staff resigned, while thousands signed a petition in protest. Do you think Google would have ended its relationship if only a dozen people resigned and no one else spoke up against it while being employed? How many people do you think would have needed to resign in order for Google to change its mind?
    - kmlx 8y ago
      the whole "stop weapons development" seems a bit naive to me because these weapons will be developed no matter what. i'd just prefer for Microsoft to do it, rather than another much less scrutinised/less exposed outfit. i would like to bring everything out in the open rather than hiding it in some corner of the economy. regarding quitting, I would assume that for any huge corp it's a mixture of staff resigning + publicity + the general "root for the underdogs". but for any other smaller and/or less public corp, I would again assume that staff resigning would count a lot more than any petition no one will see/care about.
      - eesmith 8y ago
        To be more precise, this isn't "stop weapons development" as a general statement but "stop the newly stated weapons development program at Microsoft". It seems like your argument is that since there are 'Syrian arms factories' then every company in the US should be involved in weapons development (presumably so long as it is profitable?). And therefore it seems like you think that every employee should expect that their company may switch to weapons systems development, and so therefore no one should object should that happen? Your statement "[X] will be developed no matter what" has been the justification for a huge amount of unethical practices. Just last month I saw https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/space-childbirth-babies/579064/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/space-ch... about a company trying to justify organizing a birth in orbit by 2024 : > Gerrit-Jan Zwenne, one of SpaceLife Origin’s advisers and Edelbroek’s cousin, is convinced that if this company doesn’t do it, another will. ... “I think at some point this will happen anyway, so we better do it in a very open and transparent manner,” Zwenne says. “If it’s somebody working on his own, in isolation, not in contact with the rest of the world, you may discover that something happens and you can’t reverse it.” Yet that project is, by modern medical standards, completely unethical. I'm sure it would not be hard to find many other unethical examples. Remember too that your argument would also justify using chemical weapons again in WWII, and justify a nuclear first strike, and justify all sorts of other barbaric military practices. We should torture our enemies first, because we know they would torture our troops if they could, and it's better that American Freedom does it first. /s I therefore cannot accept that as a valid argument, and instead see it as being very naive. You write: "i would like to bring everything out in the open" Well, that's not going to happen, so what's your backup plan? That is, name one open military weapons project. Regarding "regarding quitting", since Google and Microsoft are huge corporations, your reply acknowledges that it can be effective for employees to protest without (or before) actually quitting, in order to change policy. Which is what you are seeing here. Why then are you saying that it isn't effective? It does not appear that you know much about the history and effect of labor actions, so I do not believe anyone should trust your assertion that the "Best form of protest is to quit".

kmlx 8y ago
> And therefore it seems like you think that every employee should expect that their company may switch to weapons systems development, and so therefore no one should object should that happen? This assertion is so preposterous I'm not going to reply to it. You have personal issues with weapons systems development. I get it. But why should anyone stay with a company that isn't to their liking? Is it a sense of nostalgia as to "how things were before"? Is it peer pressure? Companies changes, products change, people come and go. It's the course of life. >You write: "i would like to bring everything out in the open" Well, that's not going to happen, so what's your backup plan? It's already out in the open. No backup plan needed. That's what happens when the likes of MS or Amazon are involved. Again, I'd rather keep it that way. You want to send it back to Raytheon so that we don't hear about it again. No, thank you. > Regarding "regarding quitting", since Google and Microsoft are huge corporations, your reply acknowledges that it can be effective for employees to protest without (or before) actually quitting, in order to change policy. Which is what you are seeing here. Why then are you saying that it isn't effective? One can quit and then tell the world about what's going on. That would make the prevailing narrative very convincing. Or one could continue to collect their paycheck while at the same time protest. Making their narrative extremely skewed, even hypocritical.
- eesmith 8y ago
  You've never answered my question, and the only clues you've given lead to that 'preposterous' interpretation. "You have personal issues with weapons systems development" To quote you, "Preposterous." Where have I ever said or even implied that? "But why should anyone stay with a company that isn't to their liking?" Of course they shouldn't. But the entire point of my comments is the flip side - why shouldn't an employee try to change the direction of a company? There's plenty of history to show that that's possible. Your last paragraph is simply that there are only two options: work without public complaint or quit. Over and over again, labor history shows that other options exist and are effective. I would argue even more effective. On the one hand we have the Oakland teachers' strike, where the teachers got what they wanted - http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/this-is-why-oakland-teachers-are-on-strike.html http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/this-is-why-oakland-t... . On the other hand, we have Oklahoma, where over 1/3 of the teachers have left over six years, due to lack of funding, lack of respect, and excess workload - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/02/ok-voting-with-60000-feet.html http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/02/ok-voting-with-60... . But in that case the teachers individually walked out. The narrative of the collectively striking teachers of Oakland has been much more convincing than the narrative of the individually leaving teachers of Oklahoma in making policy change. "It's already out in the open." Umm. Okay, so please define "open", since it appears to be "whatever Microsoft does which Raytheon wouldn't have done." Microsoft doesn't have a long, traditional history of being "open" either, as the AARD code, the so-called 'Halloween documents', and others show. But suppose they are now "open". What is the basis of that openness? Is it part of the corporate charter, or employee contract? If they decide to not be open, or are found to not be open, what should the employees do? It sounds like your only response is "quit", which leaves them in the same place they are now.