11 ms·

Mission Protocol

101 points by tsax 6y ago

woodruffw 6y ago
> But these conversations often lose sight of the main way our projects produce social good: through good work on our mission. At the risk of being maybe a little plaintive: what happens when that mission is bad? It's not clear to this (government-funded) researcher that good (meaning quality) work, even when it's always open-sourced, translates to a good (meaning ethical) mission.
- wmf 6y ago
  Bad missions can't be fixed by internal activism, so allowing it just wears down everyone involved.
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    > Bad companies can't be fixed by internal activism Maybe I'm misunderstanding that you're saying, but wouldn't this imply that unionisation from within ought to necessarily always fail? It's a pretty textbook example of activism, and is generally pointed to as one of the great strengths of the American midcentury.
    - wmf 6y ago
      I updated my comment to clarify. If a company has a neutral mission (like selling cars or something) but treats workers poorly then activism can fix internal issues. If a company's fundamental goal is harmful (tobacco, war, etc.) then I don't think unions can fix that.
      - woodruffw 6y ago
        I think I understand, but to bring the point home: it's not clear to me that selling cars is, in fact, neutral: they're environmentally destructive (both to manufacture and over the long tail), contribute to unsustainable housing patterns (suburbanization), and are the lynchpin in some of the US's most callous urban development decisions in the last century[1]. This doesn't make an engineer who works at a car startup a bad person. It's just an admonishment to maybe be a little more cognizant of the bigger picture that we're all a part of. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/04/new-york-south-bronx-minorities-pollution-inequity https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/04/new-york-sou...
    - rsa25519 6y ago
      When the GP said "internal activism," I don't think they meant unionization in the sense of worker rights. I think they were referring to workers objecting to projects that hurt other people, rather than workers collectively bargaining wages etc.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    I would rather Google operate as inefficiently as possible due to internal political fights. Not what's intended, but works well enough.
- tyre 6y ago
  It's also playing into the exhaustive narcissism that some Founder wrote down a Social Mission and the best way to help society is to just work towards it. As if employees or the culture at the company or conversation about a changing world or taking in new information and adapting (etc. * 100) could have no positive impact.
- aaron695 6y ago
  I thought that strange too, it's something young people obsessive over perhaps? It just opens up the ambiguity again. It should just be about code (or whatever the project is made of). We need to get back to a system that maximises the project, not bike shedding. https://missionprotocol.org/codeofconduct/ https://missionprotocol.org/codeofconduct/ "Our objective is to focus on the mission we set out to accomplish, which we believe will produce an important social good in the world"
- jacobr1 6y ago
  I think that idea is you start with a the basis of a mutually agreed upon mission, rather than produce rationalization to retroactively justify the work. This can be hard if people came to the project for difference reasons and it is an interesting point, because missions can be narrowly or broadly defined. They can be framed in terms of a variety of ends. But if you can agree on what the common ground looks like ... which might beed a BDFL or steering committee, then you can proceed from that point. I don't think there is any way to get around the potential for misuse or misappropriation though. Either those concerns are in scope or out of scope of the project. The framing of a mission presumes they are ignored unless explicitly accounted for the in the mission itself. Is the mission of the Linux Kernel to build a core of a "free" in the GNU/stallman sense OS? Or is to just build a world-class os for diverse environment that just happens to be copy-left licensed as a means to encourage broad participation? If maintainers of proprietary drivers needs more hoo
aravindet 6y ago
There does not seem to be any text to say this is Coinbase-inspired. The FAQ does refer to Tesla's and Coinbase's corporate mission statements, but there is no claim or indication that this code of conduct is inspired by either. Perhaps that part is commentary added by the submitter?
- zenogais 6y ago
  But it links to the Coinbase blog post in the "Inspirations" section on the front page?
  - aravindet 6y ago
    Ah yes, I missed that. Thanks.
donatj 6y ago
Good is purely subjective. The project by definition targets what the creators thought were good?
- alfalfasprout 6y ago
  This. If it wasn't "good" to someone then why does the project exist in the first place?
- woodruffw 6y ago
  > Good is purely subjective. This is a substantial claim, and requires substantial evidence. Claiming that the Good (meaning the metaethical object) is objective is also a substantial claim, but observe that it's not necessary to be a moral realist to think that things can be, for all practical purposes, bad: in an intersubjective sense, a thing is bad if everybody around you agrees that it's bad. They can all be wrong (and they frequently are!), but I'm going to go ahead and wager that they're not wrong about civil rights, not drone-striking civilians in other countries, indefinite detention of undocumented migrants, &c &c.
  - donatj 6y ago
    To say good isn't subjective is to say there is some part of the universe at some fundamental level that defines good. That's the claim that requires evidence. Show me the "good particle" and then we'll talk. Until then I can only rationally assume something doesn't exist until proven otherwise.
    - woodruffw 6y ago
      > To say good isn't subjective is to say there is some part of the universe at some fundamental level that defines good. Not especially: there is an abundance of immanent ethical theories that define the Good (or Right) in terms of basic things in our grasp: the number of people who go hungry, the number of people who die of preventable diseases, &c. These don't require some spooky or transcendental universal fundamental: they're about seeing people suffer in ways that we can measure, seeing that many patterns of suffering are generalizable, and taking actions to countermand that. (There are also plenty of ethical systems that are both immanent and non-consequentialist. I follow one of them. But it's maybe beyond the point of the original comment to explain them.)
paulirish 6y ago
A code of conduct template developed by someone who realllly wants to remain anonymous. This inspires trust.
- Nicksil 6y ago
  Why do you find it necessary to know who, specifically, is the author of this document?
  - defen 6y ago
    If you view codes of conduct as a form of entryism, an anonymous one at least indicates that the author is not directly looking to raise their own status.
cmsonger 6y ago
> Mission focus produces social good: Working in a single direction on a strong, well-considered mission is the best way to make a socially positive impact. Facebook seems like the obvious counter example to this. The whole statement seems to be: "Trust the business, we know it's going to be good. Ignore the larger societal issues we might be causing."
- rhizome 6y ago
  Facebook lays it out plainly: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them." It's so vague as to never be controversial. However, their behavior in the details...the implementation, if you will.
  - creato 6y ago
    I suspect this mission might actually end up being controversial. It's quite possible that the fundamental mission of facebook is simply a bad idea. Maybe the world is better when it's not so easy to form communities solely based on shared opinions and activities.
  - chucknthem 6y ago
    Their mission used to be "make the world more open and connected". They changed it because it because they've mostly achieved it and being open and connected has a different set of negative externalities.
- stevehawk 6y ago
  But people these days don't have tolerance for 'middle of the road' politicking. You're either for or against. There is no grey anymore. Independent thought is no longer allowed. So you either get the 'trust the business' or 'quit doing business and bring all of your personal shit to the office' groups.
colordrops 6y ago
How about just being honest and saying that the main purpose of the company is to make a profit and let's cut the shit with the superficial social and political stances. It would be great if companies could work towards something greater but the incentives are not aligned with how the system is currently built.
- woohoojoo 6y ago
  ...that would be wrong think. identity & individualism? that's the new creed being pushed from above. ...only it's not new, it precedes the french revolution. divide and conquer. rule by banking elite, who continue to work to institute neomarxism across nations.
- seibelj 6y ago
  There is something gross to many people when you just openly say you want to make money and started / work at company to do so. Not to me however - my philosophy sees nothing wrong with working hard and making money. The mission is important to remind yourself out of all the ways to make money you are doing this one. But convincing free people to voluntarily give you money is proof that you are providing true value to the world, which is a great thing.
  - crmrc114 6y ago
    Who is John Galt? Honestly though, I go somewhere where I can contribute and my efforts and time in exchange for money. Work is work, it's not who I am. That being said I get the point of the Bill Ayres crowd with this zinger "How will you live your life so that it doesn't make a mockery of your values?" Like, yeah- If I was a die hard Catholic I may have issues working writing software to make abortions easier. On the flipside if I were an Environmentalist I am sure I would have issues working at BP drilling in Alaska or something. Dont work for BP and then complain that they are expanding drilling operations. Dont work at Planned Parenthood and then complain about free birth control. Opinions are like bootyholes, we all got em'. Better question is can you sit across from someone you disagree with and accomplish a common goal. That is professionalism. Rise above the differences you may learn that everyone's viewpoint has some shimmer of value- and you are not always right.
crmrc114 6y ago
Seems alright, I don't really think I care for all this masturbating on who has the best CoC. This is a nice way to adopt something that is "Mission Focused". I recall a small but vocal minority at a large employer I worked with wanted us to kick oil and gas companies off our compute grid. Because oil = evil or some such nonsense. Thankfully sanity prevailed. They noisy people left in protest. I hope they find a good job somewhere that plants trees or something.
renewiltord 6y ago
I suspect this is an anti-fragile position, i.e. exposed to varying stressors on a company's purpose, companies that follow this principle will simply sharpen their purpose and objectives and get better at it. It'll be interesting to see if this is a competitive advantage. Personally, I think it is. I would happily accept a PR from a guy who wants to kill me. He can't kill me or hurt me in a PR. Personally, I'd also prefer to (metaphorically) drive right off the cliff at full pace with a bunch of people who also think it's the right way than go nowhere because none of us agree on where to go.
- woodruffw 6y ago
  > I suspect this is an anti-fragile position, i.e. exposed to varying stressors on a company's purpose, companies that follow this principle will simply sharpen their purpose and objectives and get better at it. We might be inclined to ask ourselves what it would have looked like for lunch counters in 1958 to have done the same, and why that doesn't fly now.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    I suspect these lunch counters would've had some very pointed questions about why the law was artificially constraining their potential customer base.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
      It shows the subjectivity and flexibility one has when choosing a mission and framing though. The mission could be "serve the best lunch lunch we can to good 'old souther white people" or more insidiously, to "... to real Americans." People have a amazing ability to self-rationalize and are going to do what they want to do. Setting boundaries on an organization's objectives is certainly a worthwhile thing to do, because coordination is hard and any alignment helps, but it is just going to reflect to consensus of the leadership regardless.
      - remarkEon 6y ago
aazaa 6y ago
> Mission focus is the operational principle that your project’s social responsibility is the effective and focused execution of its mission. ... This brings to mind what Snowden revealed to the world. Few inside the CIA new about domestic warrantless surveillance. Had Snowden followed the "Mission Protocol," we might still not be aware of the laws being broken routinely in the name of security. Following the Mission Protocol seems like a thinly-disguised attempt to get workers to subject themselves to someone else's agenda. I mean, isn't this just a fancy way of saying that the ends justify the means? Every mission is political in one way or another.
- iongoatb 6y ago
  This protocol is meant for non-government agencies, i.e. tech companies. Don't obfuscate the intended purpose of this protocol. There are well-defined, existing whistleblower protocols in government for situations that Snowden encountered.
  - Pils 6y ago
    Did you mean to also exclude tech companies that work with the government (i.e. Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.)? > Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton
    - iongoatb 6y ago
      Gee, thanks for explaining what government contracting is. I wasn't aware. /s Contractors are also protected under existing whistleblower laws. There are clearly codified protocols for reporting and handling instances of governmental abuse. Any contractor that is dealing with sensitive information is working with either a Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret clearance. These projects and clearances are something you are specifically hired for, or voluntarily agree to participate in. https://www.cncsoig.gov/contractor-whistleblower-protection-0 https://www.cncsoig.gov/contractor-whistleblower-protection-... Again, stop obfuscating. You're grasping at straws.
iongoatb 6y ago
Politics have been destroying Silicon Valley. This restores my faith in tech. I believe that the spirit of innovation and diversity of thought still has a chance to prevail if people embrace the philosophy behind Mission Protocol. If employees want to be activists, then they should either pursue activism in their free-time, change their career to further the cause full-time, or create a company with a mission that furthers their agenda. There's no judgement. However, hijacking the mission of large, powerful companies to serve near-sighted political agendas is socially destructive and morally reprehensible.
- rland 6y ago
  Silicon Valley destroyed ['] politics. The reason everything is political is literally because of social media and the internet. I understand that these are hard issues; I don't think SV companies are sitting on the solution under locked doors. But the strategy of "we're totally neutral, whatever happens, happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" is clearly not tenable. Solving that literally requires employees (and stakeholders) to take a stance about the world they want going forward, instead of letting this machine coast. ['] supercharged, made malignant, transmuted, whatever.
not_a_moth 6y ago
> First, a mission statement to define and guide the project, and second, a contact email to ensure violations can be reported. Having been an employee where partisan politics are brought up in the workplace, I applaud that it seeks to provide actual teeth.
jf 6y ago
It’s fun to imagine that this is something written by Raytheon or Lockheed Martin
- shakezula 6y ago
  As cliche as it may be to repeat, companies like that have real value they can benefit from in missions like these, not to mention there is a good argument to be made for preservation viewed as an investment for modern companies with anthropologic climate change at our doorstep.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CryptoPunk 6y ago
This is 100% correct. It's disappointing that this is needed, but in an age where many people are out of touch with principles of social collaboration, sometimes the obvious needs to be spelled out.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
olefoo 6y ago
So what are the KPI's for a mission focused enterprise? And how does this protocol help reach them.
loraa 6y ago
Remember when going to work had nothing to do with bringing your stupid politics to work.
xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
Oh boy, I sure hope this catches on so I can easily avoid working with companies that think like this.

101 points by tsax 6y ago

> But these conversations often lose sight of the main way our projects produce social good: through good work on our mission. At the risk of being maybe a little plaintive: what happens when that mission is bad? It's not clear to this (government-funded) researcher that good (meaning quality) work, even when it's always open-sourced, translates to a good (meaning ethical) mission.

wmf 6y ago
Bad missions can't be fixed by internal activism, so allowing it just wears down everyone involved.
- woodruffw 6y ago
  > Bad companies can't be fixed by internal activism Maybe I'm misunderstanding that you're saying, but wouldn't this imply that unionisation from within ought to necessarily always fail? It's a pretty textbook example of activism, and is generally pointed to as one of the great strengths of the American midcentury.
  - wmf 6y ago
    I updated my comment to clarify. If a company has a neutral mission (like selling cars or something) but treats workers poorly then activism can fix internal issues. If a company's fundamental goal is harmful (tobacco, war, etc.) then I don't think unions can fix that.
    - woodruffw 6y ago
      I think I understand, but to bring the point home: it's not clear to me that selling cars is, in fact, neutral: they're environmentally destructive (both to manufacture and over the long tail), contribute to unsustainable housing patterns (suburbanization), and are the lynchpin in some of the US's most callous urban development decisions in the last century[1]. This doesn't make an engineer who works at a car startup a bad person. It's just an admonishment to maybe be a little more cognizant of the bigger picture that we're all a part of. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/04/new-york-south-bronx-minorities-pollution-inequity https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/04/new-york-sou...
  - rsa25519 6y ago
    When the GP said "internal activism," I don't think they meant unionization in the sense of worker rights. I think they were referring to workers objecting to projects that hurt other people, rather than workers collectively bargaining wages etc.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  I would rather Google operate as inefficiently as possible due to internal political fights. Not what's intended, but works well enough.
tyre 6y ago
It's also playing into the exhaustive narcissism that some Founder wrote down a Social Mission and the best way to help society is to just work towards it. As if employees or the culture at the company or conversation about a changing world or taking in new information and adapting (etc. * 100) could have no positive impact.
aaron695 6y ago
I thought that strange too, it's something young people obsessive over perhaps? It just opens up the ambiguity again. It should just be about code (or whatever the project is made of). We need to get back to a system that maximises the project, not bike shedding. https://missionprotocol.org/codeofconduct/ https://missionprotocol.org/codeofconduct/ "Our objective is to focus on the mission we set out to accomplish, which we believe will produce an important social good in the world"
jacobr1 6y ago
I think that idea is you start with a the basis of a mutually agreed upon mission, rather than produce rationalization to retroactively justify the work. This can be hard if people came to the project for difference reasons and it is an interesting point, because missions can be narrowly or broadly defined. They can be framed in terms of a variety of ends. But if you can agree on what the common ground looks like ... which might beed a BDFL or steering committee, then you can proceed from that point. I don't think there is any way to get around the potential for misuse or misappropriation though. Either those concerns are in scope or out of scope of the project. The framing of a mission presumes they are ignored unless explicitly accounted for the in the mission itself. Is the mission of the Linux Kernel to build a core of a "free" in the GNU/stallman sense OS? Or is to just build a world-class os for diverse environment that just happens to be copy-left licensed as a means to encourage broad participation? If maintainers of proprietary drivers needs more hoo

aravindet 6y ago

There does not seem to be any text to say this is Coinbase-inspired. The FAQ does refer to Tesla's and Coinbase's corporate mission statements, but there is no claim or indication that this code of conduct is inspired by either. Perhaps that part is commentary added by the submitter?

zenogais 6y ago
But it links to the Coinbase blog post in the "Inspirations" section on the front page?
- aravindet 6y ago
  Ah yes, I missed that. Thanks.

donatj 6y ago

Good is purely subjective. The project by definition targets what the creators thought were good?

alfalfasprout 6y ago
This. If it wasn't "good" to someone then why does the project exist in the first place?
woodruffw 6y ago
> Good is purely subjective. This is a substantial claim, and requires substantial evidence. Claiming that the Good (meaning the metaethical object) is objective is also a substantial claim, but observe that it's not necessary to be a moral realist to think that things can be, for all practical purposes, bad: in an intersubjective sense, a thing is bad if everybody around you agrees that it's bad. They can all be wrong (and they frequently are!), but I'm going to go ahead and wager that they're not wrong about civil rights, not drone-striking civilians in other countries, indefinite detention of undocumented migrants, &c &c.
- donatj 6y ago
  To say good isn't subjective is to say there is some part of the universe at some fundamental level that defines good. That's the claim that requires evidence. Show me the "good particle" and then we'll talk. Until then I can only rationally assume something doesn't exist until proven otherwise.
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    > To say good isn't subjective is to say there is some part of the universe at some fundamental level that defines good. Not especially: there is an abundance of immanent ethical theories that define the Good (or Right) in terms of basic things in our grasp: the number of people who go hungry, the number of people who die of preventable diseases, &c. These don't require some spooky or transcendental universal fundamental: they're about seeing people suffer in ways that we can measure, seeing that many patterns of suffering are generalizable, and taking actions to countermand that. (There are also plenty of ethical systems that are both immanent and non-consequentialist. I follow one of them. But it's maybe beyond the point of the original comment to explain them.)

paulirish 6y ago

A code of conduct template developed by someone who realllly wants to remain anonymous. This inspires trust.

Nicksil 6y ago
Why do you find it necessary to know who, specifically, is the author of this document?
- defen 6y ago
  If you view codes of conduct as a form of entryism, an anonymous one at least indicates that the author is not directly looking to raise their own status.

cmsonger 6y ago

> Mission focus produces social good: Working in a single direction on a strong, well-considered mission is the best way to make a socially positive impact. Facebook seems like the obvious counter example to this. The whole statement seems to be: "Trust the business, we know it's going to be good. Ignore the larger societal issues we might be causing."

rhizome 6y ago
Facebook lays it out plainly: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them." It's so vague as to never be controversial. However, their behavior in the details...the implementation, if you will.
- creato 6y ago
  I suspect this mission might actually end up being controversial. It's quite possible that the fundamental mission of facebook is simply a bad idea. Maybe the world is better when it's not so easy to form communities solely based on shared opinions and activities.
- chucknthem 6y ago
  Their mission used to be "make the world more open and connected". They changed it because it because they've mostly achieved it and being open and connected has a different set of negative externalities.
stevehawk 6y ago
But people these days don't have tolerance for 'middle of the road' politicking. You're either for or against. There is no grey anymore. Independent thought is no longer allowed. So you either get the 'trust the business' or 'quit doing business and bring all of your personal shit to the office' groups.

colordrops 6y ago

How about just being honest and saying that the main purpose of the company is to make a profit and let's cut the shit with the superficial social and political stances. It would be great if companies could work towards something greater but the incentives are not aligned with how the system is currently built.

woohoojoo 6y ago
...that would be wrong think. identity & individualism? that's the new creed being pushed from above. ...only it's not new, it precedes the french revolution. divide and conquer. rule by banking elite, who continue to work to institute neomarxism across nations.
seibelj 6y ago
There is something gross to many people when you just openly say you want to make money and started / work at company to do so. Not to me however - my philosophy sees nothing wrong with working hard and making money. The mission is important to remind yourself out of all the ways to make money you are doing this one. But convincing free people to voluntarily give you money is proof that you are providing true value to the world, which is a great thing.
- crmrc114 6y ago
  Who is John Galt? Honestly though, I go somewhere where I can contribute and my efforts and time in exchange for money. Work is work, it's not who I am. That being said I get the point of the Bill Ayres crowd with this zinger "How will you live your life so that it doesn't make a mockery of your values?" Like, yeah- If I was a die hard Catholic I may have issues working writing software to make abortions easier. On the flipside if I were an Environmentalist I am sure I would have issues working at BP drilling in Alaska or something. Dont work for BP and then complain that they are expanding drilling operations. Dont work at Planned Parenthood and then complain about free birth control. Opinions are like bootyholes, we all got em'. Better question is can you sit across from someone you disagree with and accomplish a common goal. That is professionalism. Rise above the differences you may learn that everyone's viewpoint has some shimmer of value- and you are not always right.

crmrc114 6y ago

Seems alright, I don't really think I care for all this masturbating on who has the best CoC. This is a nice way to adopt something that is "Mission Focused". I recall a small but vocal minority at a large employer I worked with wanted us to kick oil and gas companies off our compute grid. Because oil = evil or some such nonsense. Thankfully sanity prevailed. They noisy people left in protest. I hope they find a good job somewhere that plants trees or something.

renewiltord 6y ago

I suspect this is an anti-fragile position, i.e. exposed to varying stressors on a company's purpose, companies that follow this principle will simply sharpen their purpose and objectives and get better at it. It'll be interesting to see if this is a competitive advantage. Personally, I think it is. I would happily accept a PR from a guy who wants to kill me. He can't kill me or hurt me in a PR. Personally, I'd also prefer to (metaphorically) drive right off the cliff at full pace with a bunch of people who also think it's the right way than go nowhere because none of us agree on where to go.

woodruffw 6y ago
> I suspect this is an anti-fragile position, i.e. exposed to varying stressors on a company's purpose, companies that follow this principle will simply sharpen their purpose and objectives and get better at it. We might be inclined to ask ourselves what it would have looked like for lunch counters in 1958 to have done the same, and why that doesn't fly now.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  I suspect these lunch counters would've had some very pointed questions about why the law was artificially constraining their potential customer base.
  - jacobr1 6y ago
    It shows the subjectivity and flexibility one has when choosing a mission and framing though. The mission could be "serve the best lunch lunch we can to good 'old souther white people" or more insidiously, to "... to real Americans." People have a amazing ability to self-rationalize and are going to do what they want to do. Setting boundaries on an organization's objectives is certainly a worthwhile thing to do, because coordination is hard and any alignment helps, but it is just going to reflect to consensus of the leadership regardless.
    - remarkEon 6y ago

aazaa 6y ago

> Mission focus is the operational principle that your project’s social responsibility is the effective and focused execution of its mission. ... This brings to mind what Snowden revealed to the world. Few inside the CIA new about domestic warrantless surveillance. Had Snowden followed the "Mission Protocol," we might still not be aware of the laws being broken routinely in the name of security. Following the Mission Protocol seems like a thinly-disguised attempt to get workers to subject themselves to someone else's agenda. I mean, isn't this just a fancy way of saying that the ends justify the means? Every mission is political in one way or another.

iongoatb 6y ago
This protocol is meant for non-government agencies, i.e. tech companies. Don't obfuscate the intended purpose of this protocol. There are well-defined, existing whistleblower protocols in government for situations that Snowden encountered.
- Pils 6y ago
  Did you mean to also exclude tech companies that work with the government (i.e. Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.)? > Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton
  - iongoatb 6y ago
    Gee, thanks for explaining what government contracting is. I wasn't aware. /s Contractors are also protected under existing whistleblower laws. There are clearly codified protocols for reporting and handling instances of governmental abuse. Any contractor that is dealing with sensitive information is working with either a Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret clearance. These projects and clearances are something you are specifically hired for, or voluntarily agree to participate in. https://www.cncsoig.gov/contractor-whistleblower-protection-0 https://www.cncsoig.gov/contractor-whistleblower-protection-... Again, stop obfuscating. You're grasping at straws.

iongoatb 6y ago

Politics have been destroying Silicon Valley. This restores my faith in tech. I believe that the spirit of innovation and diversity of thought still has a chance to prevail if people embrace the philosophy behind Mission Protocol. If employees want to be activists, then they should either pursue activism in their free-time, change their career to further the cause full-time, or create a company with a mission that furthers their agenda. There's no judgement. However, hijacking the mission of large, powerful companies to serve near-sighted political agendas is socially destructive and morally reprehensible.

rland 6y ago
Silicon Valley destroyed ['] politics. The reason everything is political is literally because of social media and the internet. I understand that these are hard issues; I don't think SV companies are sitting on the solution under locked doors. But the strategy of "we're totally neutral, whatever happens, happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" is clearly not tenable. Solving that literally requires employees (and stakeholders) to take a stance about the world they want going forward, instead of letting this machine coast. ['] supercharged, made malignant, transmuted, whatever.

not_a_moth 6y ago

> First, a mission statement to define and guide the project, and second, a contact email to ensure violations can be reported. Having been an employee where partisan politics are brought up in the workplace, I applaud that it seeks to provide actual teeth.

jf 6y ago

It’s fun to imagine that this is something written by Raytheon or Lockheed Martin

shakezula 6y ago
As cliche as it may be to repeat, companies like that have real value they can benefit from in missions like these, not to mention there is a good argument to be made for preservation viewed as an investment for modern companies with anthropologic climate change at our doorstep.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

CryptoPunk 6y ago

This is 100% correct. It's disappointing that this is needed, but in an age where many people are out of touch with principles of social collaboration, sometimes the obvious needs to be spelled out.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

olefoo 6y ago

So what are the KPI's for a mission focused enterprise? And how does this protocol help reach them.

loraa 6y ago

Remember when going to work had nothing to do with bringing your stupid politics to work.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago

Oh boy, I sure hope this catches on so I can easily avoid working with companies that think like this.