[rattray]

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).

[munificent]

> 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]

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]

> 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]

Within this analogy, I was saying you shouldn't start a war you can't win. It's typical for winners to sustain casualties.

[49531]

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]

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?

[robbrown451]

In that case they probably should quit and join a different company. I mean, if they don't agree with the core function of their job, why are they working there?

Regardless, if enough people think it is wrong that the company goes out of business, so be it. I don't think that is likely, but ok. Automation is going to continue to happen no matter what.

[archagon]

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?

[takeda]

IMO what actually needs to be done is tax on automation that would directly fund universal income. That would actually help humanity.

[diegoperini]

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]

> 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.

[thaumasiotes]

> My personal choice here would be a tax for practices that are provably automatable but not yet automated.

If a practice is provably automatable, then it's already automated. That's what proof looks like.

[robbrown451]

How exactly are you going to measure what is automation? Even something as basic as making a function rather than copy-pasting code is automation.Where do you draw the line? Who is going to measure this?

[mc32]

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?

[jancsika]

> 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?

This seems like an unfruitful digression.

OP already agreed that the actions of ICE are immoral and that this action is within the moral rights of the workers.

The main question is about efficacy. That isn't elucidated by introducing a thought experiment where you believe the moral rights of developers are not as clear cut.

[mc32]

For most Americans and, I’d guess most citizens of most countries, enforcing immigration laws isn’t a big debate and enforcement is routine and companies don’t question enforcement by their government.

So the question is can employees who have diverging moralities have direct input on what a company considers moral and immoral outside the common take of the population at large?

[jancsika]

> For most Americans and, I’d guess most citizens of most countries, enforcing immigration laws isn’t a big debate and enforcement is routine and companies don’t question enforcement by their government.

At least for Americans you are wrong on all three counts, and that may be where the confusion is coming.

The workers (and as I already stated, the OP) all agree that there are actions done by ICE that are not only unethical but morally reprehensible. One of the (only) two major parties officially agrees as do a large portion of their constituents.

So your question about views "outside the common take" is interesting but not relevant to this discussion.

[ElFitz]

Can they? It seems so, yes.

Should they? Well, one hardly can force someone to work for one's self nowadays.

Companies aren't democracies. Why should "the population at large"'s opinion matter in anyway? Most people don't even know Github exists, let alone what it's for.

[rattray]

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]

"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]

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]

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.

[rattray]

Yes exactly! There are lots of more effective ways to take action (and changing your twitter pic likely isn't a big one). Donating to BLM causes, employee time, lobbying, etc, as you have mentioned.

In this case, GitHub took actions similar to what you describe, donating $500k to "nonprofits helping communities adversely affected by the Trump administration’s immigration policies": https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-31...

Personally I think $500k is a bit small, and if I were Nat Friedman in this situation, maybe I would have announced a few extra paid leave days for employees engaging in protest, strikes, visiting elected officials to lobby for change, etc.

Nat Friedman's quote on this particular request from employees is "Picking and choosing customers is not the approach that we take to these types of questions when it comes to influencing government policy."

[cpeterso]

These GitHub employees' demands are keeping ICE in headlines in newspapers like the LA Times. That's one effective channel for pressuring ICE.

[craftyguy]

> Anger and outrage are valuable, and it's important that we channel them in the right directions.

It's important to channel them in all directions that could have impact. You never know for sure which 'direction' matters to the group you are trying to impart change on.

[pinkfoot]

Out of curiosity, how does any government detain anyone without - at least as a final resort - lethal force?

[I bet I'll get more downvotes than answers].

[jacobr1]

Another thing to consider is culpability.

Even if there is no direct impact (such as another supplier stepping in) an individual choosing to avoid directly, supporting an organization they cannot morally abide has personal moral value. Probably not in a utilitarian sense, but that isn't the only basis for moral action in humans - see the trolly-problem for the canonical example.

[ByteJockey]

> I think ICE needs reforms, but I don't believe a pressure should be put on them to impose changes

I'm in one of those weird moods where I want to see if I can argue something that sounds weird at first. If that's not your thing just ignore this post.

Putting pressure on ICE isn't going to change anything. Institutions cannot be trusted to reform themselves. In fact, it's going to be worse than doing nothing. The people involved will feel like they have "done their part" and will do fewer useful things in the future than they would have otherwise, mostly because they wasted their time on this thing.

Pressure has to be put on congress to reform ICE. Anything that distracts from that, or makes people feel a sense of accomplishment without furthering that goal is worse than useless.

[chiefalchemist]

ICE doesn't make the law. Yes, there have been actions worthy of investigation. But blaming ICE for doing its job? Is it's ICE's fault there are 12 million undocumented immigrants? That was no accident.

[uhoh-itsmaciek]

What sort of issue do you feel that privilege should be reserved for?

[ianleeclark]

Pretty disappointing. Workers protesting those people who can't stop losing thousands of children at a time.

[cameronfraser]

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]

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]

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.

[tssva]

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

[mikedilger]

Except in Washington D.C.

[jasonmp85]

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.