[dhuramas]

Extending the example, “if a company A (eg. Marlboro) pays you a salary X to do your fucking job Y ( make cigarettes more addictive) and if you use that money and time on activities Z(whistleblowing, protesting, etc), especially if it negatively affects company A's image / revenues, why shouldn't the company be allowed to fire

I think people feel strongly about certain issues. That doesn’t imply that what they are doing is inherently wrong if driven by those core sentiments. How about we empathize- We can respect both Google’s and the employees’ action without choosing sides.

[ggambetta]

I mean, if you have moral objections, quit. It's not like Google engineers, of all people, are otherwise unemployable.

What I don't understand is to complain about or refuse to do things you morally object to and at the same time insist in keeping collecting a nice paycheck. You can't have both.

[coldtea]

>What I don't understand is to complain about or refuse to do things you morally object to and at the same time insist in keeping collecting a nice paycheck. You can't have both.

Yes, of course you can have both. Companies can and have been improved in their behaviour by employee protests, strikes, union bargaining, and other such measures.

[dnissley]

Historically hasn't this activism always been about improving working conditions?

I was empathetic with the initial walkout since it was addressing working conditions directly (covering up sexual harassment and forced arbitration).

Then the organizers of that action started agitating to change company direction regarding military contracts, censored search engines, and conservative people being on certain boards. While in general I have reservations about all those things, and think people should speak up about them, I don't think that organizing against general company direction should be protected in the same way labor organizing is.

[GuiA]

If you have moral objections but still believe that the company can address them, why would you quit rather than try to change things from within?

[ggambetta]

By all means, try to change things from within, but keep it within. The moment you start leaking internal stuff, betraying the trust of your employer and your peers, you turn it into an us-vs-them situation, and I don't find it surprising that you end up suffering us-vs-them consequences.

At the same time, if your moral objections are strong enough, you should quit immediately. E.g. if your company says good news, everyone! We're opening concentration camps tomorrow!, I suppose the only reasonable action is to quit in disgust (as I said before, it's not like Google engineers are otherwise unemployable). If you stick around you're implicitly saying that your moral objections aren't that strong (at least not as strong as your desire to get a fat juicy paycheck), and sure, try to change from within, but keep it private and keep it civil, without biting the hand that is feeding you.

[megablast]

Exactly. And if you have moral objections to how a country is run, leave. Don’t try to change it.

[ggambetta]

Can't tell whether you're being ironic or not, but that's exactly why I left my home country, and two other countries I used to live in.

[exergy]

I hope he is being ironic. Because it's not always possible to change companies for people, let alone entire countries.

[g_sch]

Everyone has to pick their battles. Sometimes they believe that it's not possible or practical to affect any meaningful amount of change. I can imagine trying to change an entire country as an individual can certainly feel that way. But sometimes people derive a great deal of meaning by fighting for things they believe in. And sometimes they win. I wouldn't be so quick to discount this impulse in people.

[zebnyc]

Not sure if you are being facetious. I am yet to work at a for-profit company which is run like a democracy.

[collyw]

The problem with that approach is much as I think the politicians in the countries I have lived in are incompetent and corrupt, it is still significantly less corrupt that most of the countries in the world.

[ForHackernews]

Thankfully Google is not (yet?) a nation, so this analogy is facile to the point of absurdity.

[exergy]

It wields a heck of a lot more power than many countries on Earth. It's not that fatuous.

[ghostwriter]

only it is economic power, contrary to the power of governments to apply any physical force necessary to make you comply with any rules it imposes on you.

[throwGuardian]

But this sophistry of comparing Marlbro to Google is tiring. While at it, why not just compare things to 1943 Germany?

I say this as an ardent critic of Google: An individual finding irreconcilable differences with a bona fide good employer like Google is unlikely to find any other company fault-free. Tsk tsk: The issue is likely not with the companies.

[meerita]

(make cigarettes more addictive) strawman here. You can be hired to do the opposite of addictive.