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Friend, are you really conflating a calculator with a system of records knowingly used to enact the Holocaust? I recognize your point, but the valley between th

by chaps 1y ago

Friend, are you really conflating a calculator with a system of records knowingly used to enact the Holocaust? I recognize your point, but the valley between the two things is so large that I'm going to assume you're trolling.

aspenmayer 1y ago
Not at all. I’m saying that IBM has been getting government contracts for a while, and they worked with Nazis in Germany to tabulate undesirables.
- chaps 1y ago
  Okay, but what's your point? The OP question was about what shifted.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    If you believe that IBM carries water for fascists, the history seems to support that. What’s your point?
    - yieldcrv 1y ago
      Alternate take, since social consequences only arise after your client gets invaded by 2 superpowers at once, and you don't really know what a party or government is going to do, the downside is very improbable and its rational to continue contracting with them all
      - aspenmayer 1y ago
        I’m not making a legal or moral argument, merely an observation. I think it’s silly to assume that corporations have values beyond line go up. People have values. Deciding who you work with is a legitimate concern. No one alive today at IBM is likely to be a Nazi collaborator, but the company benefitted from Nazi money. I’m not sure if IBM ever paid any reparations or was ever asked to. I think any company as old and as involved with government contracts as IBM is going to have some conflicts of interest, which says more about the world than it does about IBM. My original point was that I believe the reason the math was so complicated for the Census and indirectly for the IRS regarding taxation in that period, was due to the Census Bureau also being responsible for tracking the frontier line. The release of the 1890 census marked the official closure of the frontier in the American West. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_United_States_census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_United_States_census
        chaps 1y ago
        Thanks for expanding on your point. This is the explanation I was hoping for when I asked you what your point was.
        aspenmayer 1y ago
        Sorry for the meandering nature of this thread. I was mistaken on a point of fact in my original comment, and I wasn't sure whether I even had an answer for you that you would find satisfying once I discovered my error relating to who the tabluating machine was for. I incorrectly recalled it was for the IRS, which was wrong, but the IRS did benefit from the machine being used for the census, because the census determines apportionment and so on. Due to the way the Constitution is written iirc, all members of a district count for representation in the House, not just US citizens. The closure of the frontier was relevant because it signaled the end of unlimited growth in many ways. Many people today (and probably even back then) don't even know that the US had colonies. In a very real way, we colonized ourselves, but the shame of it is that we colonized others, and the US territories which remain are arguably vestiges of the US empire. Our treaties with the Native American tribes have also been willfully misinterpreted, to their detriment.

by chaps 1y ago

aspenmayer 1y ago

Not at all. I’m saying that IBM has been getting government contracts for a while, and they worked with Nazis in Germany to tabulate undesirables.

chaps 1y ago
Okay, but what's your point? The OP question was about what shifted.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  If you believe that IBM carries water for fascists, the history seems to support that. What’s your point?
  - yieldcrv 1y ago
    Alternate take, since social consequences only arise after your client gets invaded by 2 superpowers at once, and you don't really know what a party or government is going to do, the downside is very improbable and its rational to continue contracting with them all
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      I’m not making a legal or moral argument, merely an observation. I think it’s silly to assume that corporations have values beyond line go up. People have values. Deciding who you work with is a legitimate concern. No one alive today at IBM is likely to be a Nazi collaborator, but the company benefitted from Nazi money. I’m not sure if IBM ever paid any reparations or was ever asked to. I think any company as old and as involved with government contracts as IBM is going to have some conflicts of interest, which says more about the world than it does about IBM. My original point was that I believe the reason the math was so complicated for the Census and indirectly for the IRS regarding taxation in that period, was due to the Census Bureau also being responsible for tracking the frontier line. The release of the 1890 census marked the official closure of the frontier in the American West. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_United_States_census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_United_States_census
      - chaps 1y ago
        Thanks for expanding on your point. This is the explanation I was hoping for when I asked you what your point was.
        aspenmayer 1y ago
        Sorry for the meandering nature of this thread. I was mistaken on a point of fact in my original comment, and I wasn't sure whether I even had an answer for you that you would find satisfying once I discovered my error relating to who the tabluating machine was for. I incorrectly recalled it was for the IRS, which was wrong, but the IRS did benefit from the machine being used for the census, because the census determines apportionment and so on. Due to the way the Constitution is written iirc, all members of a district count for representation in the House, not just US citizens. The closure of the frontier was relevant because it signaled the end of unlimited growth in many ways. Many people today (and probably even back then) don't even know that the US had colonies. In a very real way, we colonized ourselves, but the shame of it is that we colonized others, and the US territories which remain are arguably vestiges of the US empire. Our treaties with the Native American tribes have also been willfully misinterpreted, to their detriment.