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That is true – businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to anyone (apart from protected classes like race or political affiliation, but that probably do

That is true – businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to anyone (apart from protected classes like race or political affiliation, but that probably does not apply here). It's an important right, and probably many businesses would be more profitable and happy if they exercised that right more often. It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust (as well as some allies, though they may be the type to just ask for more, as others on this post have mentioned).

tssva 6y ago
In the US at least political affiliation is not usually a protected class.
- jasonmp85 6y ago
  Seconded. I'm not sure whether the person upthread was earnestly posting that, or surreptitiously doing so as a stalking horse for something else. Either way: not a protected class, and it should stay that way.
- mikedilger 6y ago
  Except in Washington D.C.
49531 6y ago
I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.
- mc32 6y ago
  What if developers find it morally wrong to automate away jobs? Do they get a say? Is it within their moral rights for backhoe operators demand manual ditch digging too because that will benefit their friends who lost jobs to powered equipment?
  - archagon 6y ago
    To some extent, yes. The economy exists for the benefit of humanity and not the other way around. The question is: does the automation help us build things that were impossible before, or does it exist for the sole purpose of cutting jobs and funneling more money to the executives?
    - mc32 6y ago
      Let’s say we’ll go that far and companies accept that... Does everyone refuse to work for Komatsu, John Deere, Liebherr, etc? Is that even possible?
    - takeda 6y ago
      IMO what actually needs to be done is tax on automation that would directly fund universal income. That would actually help humanity.
      - diegoperini 6y ago
        That kills the whole purpose of automation. Automation is preferable because it is supposed to be cheaper while providing equal benefits as traditional production of goods and services. My personal choice here would be a tax for practices that are provably automatable but not yet automated. The result is the same, we are funding a UBI but now businesses are also incentivized for innovation to escape from the tax. I'm probably missing hundreds of reasonable concerns with my simplistic view point though.
        kelnos 6y ago
        > That kills the whole purpose of automation. Automation is preferable because it is supposed to be cheaper while providing equal benefits as traditional production of goods and services. That's the capitalist enrich-the-owners purpose. In my mind, the real purpose of automation is to relieve humans the need to do work so they can live lives of leisure and personal enrichment. Unfortunately, I don't expect us to get there within my lifetime, if ever at all.
- rattray 6y ago
  Yes, I'm glad that GitHub workers are allowed to protest this. It is heartening. That doesn't change the fact that I'm personally disappointed that they're executing that privilege on this particular issue.
  - takeda 6y ago
    "I'm happy that people are allowed to protest, but I don't think they should protest for causes that I don't agree with" "I think ICE needs reforms, but I don't believe a pressure should be put on them to impose changes" Makes me wonder if you truly support people protesting or even agree that ICE is doing anything wrong.
    - rattray 6y ago
      This just seems like a weird, ineffective way to put pressure on ICE to stop detaining people excessively, inhumanely, or lethally. Anger and outrage are valuable, and it's important that we channel them in the right directions.
      - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
        This just seems like a weird, ineffective way to put pressure on ICE to stop detaining people excessively, inhumanely, or lethally. It might very well be, and it's worth debating how much giving business support to an organization whose policies you (possibly vehemently) disagree with is a kind of implicit support of those policies. But, it's also worth asking: if protest by workers to put pressure on their employees to stop giving business support to organizations whose policies they vehemently disagree with is "disappointing," what kind of protest isn't? It seems to me that when we're talking about corporations, who you do and don't sign contracts with -- who you buy from, who you sell to, and what charities you support -- is far and away the strongest signal you can send. If you're sending a signal of support to Black Lives Matter protests, it's nice if you send out a few tweets and update your home page, but it's better if you donate money, services, and/or employee time. And the group you donate those things to is going to send a signal: donating to Colin Kaepernick's "Know Your Rights Camp" is in some sense a more specific, stronger message than donating to the ACLU. So it certainly seems reasonable that asking the corporations you work for (and perhaps work with) to put their money where their PR is in terms of who they do business with also sends a message. No, it's probably not in and of itself going to put much pressure on ICE, but it is a statement of values.
cameronfraser 6y ago
How would businesses be more profitable if they exercised the right to refuse service more? You also realize the people who exercise this right the most do it for reasons you likely don't agree with.
- rattray 6y ago
  Simple: some customers are more expensive to serve than others. Maybe they use a lot of a free service you provide that costs you money. Maybe they require too much customer support. Maybe they return most of the products they buy from you. I've looked at a few datasets where profitability by customer varied pretty widely, including many that were clearly in the red. Most companies just don't break out their costs by customer enough to see it.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Spot on. I’ve worked for companies that have “fired” customers for being more trouble than they’re worth. Generally, it was because of unreasonable support or product demands (e.g. “we need this boutique feature added now,” filing countless tickets for outstanding issues we were working on and had communicated as much to them, etc). If more companies were forced to pause and consider whether taking on certain customers would cause their workers to revolt, we’d all be better off.
munificent 6y ago
> It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust Yes, doing the right thing often is dangerous and earns you hatred from other people doing bad things who love the freedom of hiding amongst a herd of other equally guilty people. The reason we have so much respect for people who take stand and do what they believe is right is because doing so is so hard. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
- rattray 6y ago
  If you're going to risk your business's livelihood to bravely take a stand, it should be in a situation where you can win. Where your bold action will be the turning point towards victory of righteousness. And where the magnitude of that victory is commensurate with the risk of your business's failure. Denying the use of racially biased facial recognition software is a much clearer example where the risks are lower and the impact much, much greater. It's much less clear that a source code repository is the fulcrum that enables 40 children to be jammed into a room without hygiene. Maybe if you worked for a critical supplier for ICE you could have an impact (which I would much encourage).
  - munificent 6y ago
    > If you're going to risk your business's livelihood to bravely take a stand, it should be in a situation where you can win. I fundamentally disagree with this. Your argument is akin to stating that there should never be any casualties in a war. There is no way to effectively win a war without sometimes sending some troops into situations where you know they will die. Compared to soldiers who knowingly lay down their lives in losing battles to help win the war, choosing a moral course of action that merely ends a company seems like a pretty cheap sacrifice.
    - rattray 6y ago
      Within this analogy, I was saying you shouldn't start a war you can't win. It's typical for winners to sustain casualties.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

tssva 6y ago

In the US at least political affiliation is not usually a protected class.

jasonmp85 6y ago
Seconded. I'm not sure whether the person upthread was earnestly posting that, or surreptitiously doing so as a stalking horse for something else. Either way: not a protected class, and it should stay that way.
mikedilger 6y ago
Except in Washington D.C.

49531 6y ago

I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.

mc32 6y ago
What if developers find it morally wrong to automate away jobs? Do they get a say? Is it within their moral rights for backhoe operators demand manual ditch digging too because that will benefit their friends who lost jobs to powered equipment?
- archagon 6y ago
  To some extent, yes. The economy exists for the benefit of humanity and not the other way around. The question is: does the automation help us build things that were impossible before, or does it exist for the sole purpose of cutting jobs and funneling more money to the executives?
  - mc32 6y ago
    Let’s say we’ll go that far and companies accept that... Does everyone refuse to work for Komatsu, John Deere, Liebherr, etc? Is that even possible?
  - takeda 6y ago
    IMO what actually needs to be done is tax on automation that would directly fund universal income. That would actually help humanity.
    - diegoperini 6y ago
      That kills the whole purpose of automation. Automation is preferable because it is supposed to be cheaper while providing equal benefits as traditional production of goods and services. My personal choice here would be a tax for practices that are provably automatable but not yet automated. The result is the same, we are funding a UBI but now businesses are also incentivized for innovation to escape from the tax. I'm probably missing hundreds of reasonable concerns with my simplistic view point though.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        > That kills the whole purpose of automation. Automation is preferable because it is supposed to be cheaper while providing equal benefits as traditional production of goods and services. That's the capitalist enrich-the-owners purpose. In my mind, the real purpose of automation is to relieve humans the need to do work so they can live lives of leisure and personal enrichment. Unfortunately, I don't expect us to get there within my lifetime, if ever at all.
rattray 6y ago
Yes, I'm glad that GitHub workers are allowed to protest this. It is heartening. That doesn't change the fact that I'm personally disappointed that they're executing that privilege on this particular issue.
- takeda 6y ago
  "I'm happy that people are allowed to protest, but I don't think they should protest for causes that I don't agree with" "I think ICE needs reforms, but I don't believe a pressure should be put on them to impose changes" Makes me wonder if you truly support people protesting or even agree that ICE is doing anything wrong.
  - rattray 6y ago
    This just seems like a weird, ineffective way to put pressure on ICE to stop detaining people excessively, inhumanely, or lethally. Anger and outrage are valuable, and it's important that we channel them in the right directions.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      This just seems like a weird, ineffective way to put pressure on ICE to stop detaining people excessively, inhumanely, or lethally. It might very well be, and it's worth debating how much giving business support to an organization whose policies you (possibly vehemently) disagree with is a kind of implicit support of those policies. But, it's also worth asking: if protest by workers to put pressure on their employees to stop giving business support to organizations whose policies they vehemently disagree with is "disappointing," what kind of protest isn't? It seems to me that when we're talking about corporations, who you do and don't sign contracts with -- who you buy from, who you sell to, and what charities you support -- is far and away the strongest signal you can send. If you're sending a signal of support to Black Lives Matter protests, it's nice if you send out a few tweets and update your home page, but it's better if you donate money, services, and/or employee time. And the group you donate those things to is going to send a signal: donating to Colin Kaepernick's "Know Your Rights Camp" is in some sense a more specific, stronger message than donating to the ACLU. So it certainly seems reasonable that asking the corporations you work for (and perhaps work with) to put their money where their PR is in terms of who they do business with also sends a message. No, it's probably not in and of itself going to put much pressure on ICE, but it is a statement of values.

cameronfraser 6y ago

How would businesses be more profitable if they exercised the right to refuse service more? You also realize the people who exercise this right the most do it for reasons you likely don't agree with.

rattray 6y ago
Simple: some customers are more expensive to serve than others. Maybe they use a lot of a free service you provide that costs you money. Maybe they require too much customer support. Maybe they return most of the products they buy from you. I've looked at a few datasets where profitability by customer varied pretty widely, including many that were clearly in the red. Most companies just don't break out their costs by customer enough to see it.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Spot on. I’ve worked for companies that have “fired” customers for being more trouble than they’re worth. Generally, it was because of unreasonable support or product demands (e.g. “we need this boutique feature added now,” filing countless tickets for outstanding issues we were working on and had communicated as much to them, etc). If more companies were forced to pause and consider whether taking on certain customers would cause their workers to revolt, we’d all be better off.

munificent 6y ago

> It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust Yes, doing the right thing often is dangerous and earns you hatred from other people doing bad things who love the freedom of hiding amongst a herd of other equally guilty people. The reason we have so much respect for people who take stand and do what they believe is right is because doing so is so hard. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

rattray 6y ago
If you're going to risk your business's livelihood to bravely take a stand, it should be in a situation where you can win. Where your bold action will be the turning point towards victory of righteousness. And where the magnitude of that victory is commensurate with the risk of your business's failure. Denying the use of racially biased facial recognition software is a much clearer example where the risks are lower and the impact much, much greater. It's much less clear that a source code repository is the fulcrum that enables 40 children to be jammed into a room without hygiene. Maybe if you worked for a critical supplier for ICE you could have an impact (which I would much encourage).
- munificent 6y ago
  > If you're going to risk your business's livelihood to bravely take a stand, it should be in a situation where you can win. I fundamentally disagree with this. Your argument is akin to stating that there should never be any casualties in a war. There is no way to effectively win a war without sometimes sending some troops into situations where you know they will die. Compared to soldiers who knowingly lay down their lives in losing battles to help win the war, choosing a moral course of action that merely ends a company seems like a pretty cheap sacrifice.
  - rattray 6y ago
    Within this analogy, I was saying you shouldn't start a war you can't win. It's typical for winners to sustain casualties.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]