3 ms·

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. No, in fact, the opposite of this is obv

by miyoji 4mo ago

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.

fastball 4mo ago
How do you figure?
- iAMkenough 4mo ago
  Money that leaves your wallet and goes to Mullvad ends up funding politicians that believe non-whites shouldn’t have speech at all, as a personal choice by a top executive of the company. The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.
  - fastball 4mo ago
    It's a company: the deal is that they help enable free speech of their customers, not everyone on earth or everyone in Sweden or anywhere else. A great litmus test for the (somewhat outrageous) claims in this thread: does Mullvad refuse to provide service to non-white immigrants in Sweden? If yes, then you have a point. If no, I do not think Mullvad is the entity that is confused in this situation.
- miyoji 4mo ago
  Do you typically start companies that are opposed to your values, or do you start companies that align with your values? If you are the co-CEO of a company, will you push it to align more with your values, or less? This isn't a company founded 300 years ago by a long-dead evil man in a business vertical completely unrelated to how it started, it's a baby company with the evil founder still actively involved at the highest level of management. Maybe you can regale me with epic stories about the companies you've worked at where the founder had no ability to influence the company and its values, but that's not been my experience at all, in any human organization anywhere.
  - fastball 4mo ago
    Two things: 1. People definitely start companies with a certain set of values and behaviors (as a company) and do entirely separate things in their private life. This is trivially true. 2. I don't think the personal values and the business mission in this case are even in conflict. You can be a racist and support free speech / privacy. Indeed, I'd actually say the venn diagram of "racists" and "people who vociferously espouse free speech ideals" is more union than it is disjoint.
    - miyoji 4mo ago
      1. You can't separate it out that cleanly, your beliefs bleed into what you do, no matter who you are or what you believe, and vice versa. I also don't think people start companies that are in contradiction with their values, and they definitely don't remain co-CEOs of them. 2. I don't think they're in conflict, either, I think the company's values are the founders' values and I think those values have been revealed to be bad.
      - fastball 4mo ago
        You actually need to demonstrate that though. I have seen no evidence of Mullvad (again, as a company) behaving in a racist or anti-immigrant manner. Until that has been demonstrated, you cannot just say "this guy behaves this way so that is what his company does". Regardless you can always say "I don't want to give this company money because that indirectly is gonna funnel money to an anti-immigrant political party in Sweden", and that is a perfectly valid position to take. But a lot of people in this thread are clearly going a step further than that, ostensibly in an attempt to give them a greater sense of moral superiority than is necessarily deserved.
        miyoji 4mo ago
        > Until that has been demonstrated, you cannot just say "this guy behaves this way so that is what his company does". No, actually, I can say that. I just did. I'll do it again: I think Mullvad is a bad company if they have the absolute lack of morality and foresight to keep this jerk on as co-CEO, his values must and will influence the company, and they won't get another penny of my money for as long as I live. You seem to think that my money should be spent according to your misguided and incorrect demands for rigor in my moral thinking, and that's just not how any of this works, buddy. The way it works is this: if Mullvad wants any of my money, they must prove to ME that they are not evil. The burden is entirely on them, as they want my money, not the other way around. I was entertaining this conversation because you seemed genuinely curious about my opinion initially. I now see that you're actually trying to police my morality and tell me what is or isn't justified about how I make my own moral choices. I am no longer interested in talking to you about this.
dijit 4mo ago
Is IKEA fascist? Because the founder was a Nazi supporter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad I'm not saying this to dunk on IKEA, but sometimes even when there's a sole founder, the mission of the company and the mission of the person who founded it do not necessarily align. EDIT: It also seems that the party is extremely left leaning but is anti-immigration, as a person who lives in Swedens third largest city (which is predominantly non-Swedish, like myself: I am also an immigrant) I can understand Swedes desire to minimise this, it's not a "far-right" topic anymore.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- devindotcom 4mo ago
  Is IKEA's founder alive and currently donating lots of money to a political party advocating for mass deportation of "parasites"? If so let me know and I will stop buying IKEA furniture!
  - dijit 4mo ago
    You seriously didn't buy IKEA furniture 10 years ago? I do not believe you. Regardless: do you think IKEA did more to promote Naziism in the decades that proceeded Ingvars death, or more after? (the answer is of course: the exact same amount, which is none). If you're unhappy making people wealthy who you disagree with, unfortunately I'm going to have to suggest that you disengage with society, your taxes fuel wars (largely against brown people), you're forced to use technology created with slave labour in order to engage with banking applications and you're going to be really mad when you discover what goes into your food. Taking an absolute position against one person who creates a service that would allow you to evade fascism is pretty ironic given the way the world is going regarding online speech.
    - plagiarist 4mo ago
      "Yet you participate in society. Curious!"
myrmidon 4mo ago
An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed? Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet? This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists or LGBT advocates to be hounded in their professional life? Would it have been better for more people to do that? If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth. Plenty of people here basically seem to indirectly advocate for company based censorship and some kind of budget-plutocracy, and no matter how "morally correct" your views are, that is under no circumstances a worthwhile endeavor.
- MichaelDickens 4mo ago
  > An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed? I don't really object to you asking this question, but I do object to you calling a rhetorical question "an honest question".
  - jasonvorhe 4mo ago
    [flagged]
  - myrmidon 4mo ago
    The question is not rhetorical. A lot of people in this thread advocate for hurting Berntssons career for the political views he expressed with his donation. I personally believe that a lot of those people did not think through the consequences at all: Making it acceptable/typical/common for political expression to be punished at the workplace would obviously lead to self-censorship and direct/indirect censorship by employers. My view is that this is utterly incompatible with liberalism (but a lot of the proponents would claim to lean liberal themselves!). I have not found good counterarguments for my current view so far.
- helterskelter 4mo ago
  This is about what customers are comfortable supporting. This guy doesn't just have what many consider to be unpalatable political beliefs, he's one of the biggest funders of what many consider to be an unpalatable political party. Lots of people don't want to give money to something which they feel will in part be funneled to an organization which is antithetical to their views. Realistically, I kind of doubt Mullvad is rolling in swimming pools filled with cash getting syphoned to neonazis, but that brings me to my next point... For many, it's not just an intellectual position but an emotional one. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but you probably won't be able to reason them out of it. It's the same reason I don't listen to Michael Jackson. He's dead and none of that streaming revenue would go to him or to raping children but...yuck. At the end of the day, there's an irony in this guy supporting the very freedoms on the internet which are being used to disseminate criticisms against him, and perhaps inducing people to starve one of the vehicles which helps maintain those freedoms.

by miyoji 4mo ago

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.

fastball 4mo ago

How do you figure?

iAMkenough 4mo ago
Money that leaves your wallet and goes to Mullvad ends up funding politicians that believe non-whites shouldn’t have speech at all, as a personal choice by a top executive of the company. The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.
- fastball 4mo ago
  It's a company: the deal is that they help enable free speech of their customers, not everyone on earth or everyone in Sweden or anywhere else. A great litmus test for the (somewhat outrageous) claims in this thread: does Mullvad refuse to provide service to non-white immigrants in Sweden? If yes, then you have a point. If no, I do not think Mullvad is the entity that is confused in this situation.
miyoji 4mo ago
Do you typically start companies that are opposed to your values, or do you start companies that align with your values? If you are the co-CEO of a company, will you push it to align more with your values, or less? This isn't a company founded 300 years ago by a long-dead evil man in a business vertical completely unrelated to how it started, it's a baby company with the evil founder still actively involved at the highest level of management. Maybe you can regale me with epic stories about the companies you've worked at where the founder had no ability to influence the company and its values, but that's not been my experience at all, in any human organization anywhere.
- fastball 4mo ago
  Two things: 1. People definitely start companies with a certain set of values and behaviors (as a company) and do entirely separate things in their private life. This is trivially true. 2. I don't think the personal values and the business mission in this case are even in conflict. You can be a racist and support free speech / privacy. Indeed, I'd actually say the venn diagram of "racists" and "people who vociferously espouse free speech ideals" is more union than it is disjoint.
  - miyoji 4mo ago
    1. You can't separate it out that cleanly, your beliefs bleed into what you do, no matter who you are or what you believe, and vice versa. I also don't think people start companies that are in contradiction with their values, and they definitely don't remain co-CEOs of them. 2. I don't think they're in conflict, either, I think the company's values are the founders' values and I think those values have been revealed to be bad.
    - fastball 4mo ago
      You actually need to demonstrate that though. I have seen no evidence of Mullvad (again, as a company) behaving in a racist or anti-immigrant manner. Until that has been demonstrated, you cannot just say "this guy behaves this way so that is what his company does". Regardless you can always say "I don't want to give this company money because that indirectly is gonna funnel money to an anti-immigrant political party in Sweden", and that is a perfectly valid position to take. But a lot of people in this thread are clearly going a step further than that, ostensibly in an attempt to give them a greater sense of moral superiority than is necessarily deserved.
      - miyoji 4mo ago
        > Until that has been demonstrated, you cannot just say "this guy behaves this way so that is what his company does". No, actually, I can say that. I just did. I'll do it again: I think Mullvad is a bad company if they have the absolute lack of morality and foresight to keep this jerk on as co-CEO, his values must and will influence the company, and they won't get another penny of my money for as long as I live. You seem to think that my money should be spent according to your misguided and incorrect demands for rigor in my moral thinking, and that's just not how any of this works, buddy. The way it works is this: if Mullvad wants any of my money, they must prove to ME that they are not evil. The burden is entirely on them, as they want my money, not the other way around. I was entertaining this conversation because you seemed genuinely curious about my opinion initially. I now see that you're actually trying to police my morality and tell me what is or isn't justified about how I make my own moral choices. I am no longer interested in talking to you about this.

dijit 4mo ago

Is IKEA fascist? Because the founder was a Nazi supporter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad I'm not saying this to dunk on IKEA, but sometimes even when there's a sole founder, the mission of the company and the mission of the person who founded it do not necessarily align. EDIT: It also seems that the party is extremely left leaning but is anti-immigration, as a person who lives in Swedens third largest city (which is predominantly non-Swedish, like myself: I am also an immigrant) I can understand Swedes desire to minimise this, it's not a "far-right" topic anymore.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
devindotcom 4mo ago
Is IKEA's founder alive and currently donating lots of money to a political party advocating for mass deportation of "parasites"? If so let me know and I will stop buying IKEA furniture!
- dijit 4mo ago
  You seriously didn't buy IKEA furniture 10 years ago? I do not believe you. Regardless: do you think IKEA did more to promote Naziism in the decades that proceeded Ingvars death, or more after? (the answer is of course: the exact same amount, which is none). If you're unhappy making people wealthy who you disagree with, unfortunately I'm going to have to suggest that you disengage with society, your taxes fuel wars (largely against brown people), you're forced to use technology created with slave labour in order to engage with banking applications and you're going to be really mad when you discover what goes into your food. Taking an absolute position against one person who creates a service that would allow you to evade fascism is pretty ironic given the way the world is going regarding online speech.
  - plagiarist 4mo ago
    "Yet you participate in society. Curious!"

myrmidon 4mo ago

An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed? Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet? This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists or LGBT advocates to be hounded in their professional life? Would it have been better for more people to do that? If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth. Plenty of people here basically seem to indirectly advocate for company based censorship and some kind of budget-plutocracy, and no matter how "morally correct" your views are, that is under no circumstances a worthwhile endeavor.

MichaelDickens 4mo ago
> An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed? I don't really object to you asking this question, but I do object to you calling a rhetorical question "an honest question".
- jasonvorhe 4mo ago
  [flagged]
- myrmidon 4mo ago
  The question is not rhetorical. A lot of people in this thread advocate for hurting Berntssons career for the political views he expressed with his donation. I personally believe that a lot of those people did not think through the consequences at all: Making it acceptable/typical/common for political expression to be punished at the workplace would obviously lead to self-censorship and direct/indirect censorship by employers. My view is that this is utterly incompatible with liberalism (but a lot of the proponents would claim to lean liberal themselves!). I have not found good counterarguments for my current view so far.
helterskelter 4mo ago
This is about what customers are comfortable supporting. This guy doesn't just have what many consider to be unpalatable political beliefs, he's one of the biggest funders of what many consider to be an unpalatable political party. Lots of people don't want to give money to something which they feel will in part be funneled to an organization which is antithetical to their views. Realistically, I kind of doubt Mullvad is rolling in swimming pools filled with cash getting syphoned to neonazis, but that brings me to my next point... For many, it's not just an intellectual position but an emotional one. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but you probably won't be able to reason them out of it. It's the same reason I don't listen to Michael Jackson. He's dead and none of that streaming revenue would go to him or to raping children but...yuck. At the end of the day, there's an irony in this guy supporting the very freedoms on the internet which are being used to disseminate criticisms against him, and perhaps inducing people to starve one of the vehicles which helps maintain those freedoms.