[orochi235]

To be clear, I'm not trying to say this sort of action should be illegal. Just that I think it's tasteless, shortsighted, and somewhat hypocritical to do anonymously, given that it specifically targets an individual. Which is the other element of this that I find so abhorrent: it's one thing to target an idea, or campaign against someone running for public office. It's another to follow a private citizen around for the rest of his or her life, making demands of anyone who attempts to hire that person. It seems, well, vindictive.

I think I mentioned above that I disagree with basically every decision Dr. Rice ever made while acting as a public official. The Iraq war was a huge disaster, and that was obvious before it even started. But there's a reason we have legal doctrines like qualified immunity: it's detrimental to a public official's ability to perform his or her duties if he or she has to view every decision as a question of personal liability.

Upon further reflection, this isn't nearly as bad as last week's Mozilla witch hunt. You could probably make a legitimate argument in the context of privacy and government surveillance. But given the "success" of that purge, I'm worried that we'll be seeing three more of these campaigns every week. The fact that I've taken a karma beating for (completely earnest) posts I've made in this thread just reinforces my fear that we're becoming a community that finds it harder and harder to brook dissent. And I really thought the kind of person that reads HN was smart enough to see the inherent dangers in that.

Thanks for not calling me an idiot this time. Really made my day.

[mikeash]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to do it again, though. You're arguing that it's a bad thing to hold a public figure accountable for what they do, in a democracy, through purely nonviolent means. You are, in fact, arguing that in a democracy, it's detrimental to an official's ability to perform their job to be held accountable, even something minor like an internet boycott. Does that not imply that things like Congressional oversight and journalistic investigation while they're still in office is even worse? So I need to say it again: idiotic.

Is it tasteless? Maybe. Shortsighted? I don't see how, but I won't argue it strenuously. Hypocritical? Maybe, but I don't really find hypocrisy objectionable in general. Even if I grant all of those, that is a far far far cry from "this is not how we settle political disputes in a civil society." "Civil society" does not mean that we must go around being absolutely and completely polite to each other at all times. It means that we solve our disputes nonviolently. Far from being an abrogation of civil society, this action is a shining example of it.

I'm honestly puzzled at what you're saying because it just doesn't make sense to me. I assume you're not against things like public street protests against a sitting president, but the only difference I can see is purely quantitative. Is it that you think it should stop once they leave office, or what?

[orochi235]

It's pretty smooth of you to call me an idiot, double down on that, and _then_ say you don't understand my position.

This sort of intimidation (of Dr. Rice and anyone who associates with her) may not be violent, but it _is_ coercive. That sort of climate is anathema to "civil society," no matter how narrowly you attempt to define the term. (You didn't need to provide a working definition, by the way; it's obvious you don't think it has anything to do with decorum.)

And yes, there is absolutely a distinction between Congressional, journalistic, judicial or even private oversight of a sitting public official, and public hounding of that person once he or she returns to private life. There's also a difference between airing one's grievances (i.e. protest) and making threats if your demands aren't met. Maybe if you disagree with something I've said, you should try to get me fired, too.

[mikeash]

I don't understand your overall position. I understand that one aspect of it well enough to call it idiotic. I stand by that.

If refraining from doing business with a company and encouraging other people to do the same is "coercive" then you've redefined the word to the point where it has essentially no meaning.

Boycotts, strikes, protests, and other non-violent actions have long and proud histories as part of "civil society".

Given that the "threats" being made here are merely that of switching services, I see no difference between this and a peaceful protest, where the implied threat is "we will vote for somebody else".

Seriously, what do you think people should do here? I assume we can rule out violence. Stopping your use of Dropbox just because you disagree with them is apparently not allowed. Talking about it with other people doesn't seem to be OK with you. You seem to basically be saying that you can disagree as long as you shut up about it and don't do anything with your opinion. Is that not true?

[orochi235]

> I don't understand your overall position. I understand that one aspect of it well enough to call it idiotic.

This assertion ('I admittedly don't understand the context, but I'll gladly render judgment on a single tenet of it!') may seriously have just given me an aneurysm.

Can you cite one boycott or strike that history looks fondly upon that centered around calling for a specific person's head? These tools have traditionally been used to advance policy changes and improve living conditions for whole groups of people, not exact revenge on someone you don't like.

There's nothing wrong with voicing dissatisfaction in, well, basically anything. There's also nothing wrong with terminating a business relationship with an entity who has done something you don't like. Or even tweeting form letters at a company's CEO. That's all beside the point.

I think sometimes, the appropriate recourse is to realize that you're overreacting to something, calm the hell down, and go on with your life.

My problems with this specific situation:

- Trying to organize a popular campaign targeting a specific person's reputation and/or livelihood while refusing to divulge your own identity is incredibly gutless. If you're sure enough of your convictions to take that kind of action, why are you not sure enough to sign your name to it?

- Social tools like boycotts and protests become less effective the more frequently they're used. In isolation, this doesn't really apply. In light of the Brendan Eich mess, it seems like the start of a dangerous (and frankly annoying) trend. Are we going to see boycotts every time an organization makes a decision that someone with basic HTML skills disagrees with?

- When waging any kind of social crusade, there's a line of conduct that you can't cross without abandoning any claim to the moral high ground. You seem to agree with me that violence is on the wrong side of that line. I'd argue that trying to get specific people fired from private industry for essentially unrelated conduct (during their time as a public official, no less) is, as well. Especially when the whole thing really seems to be more about punishment than effecting future change.

- You're still trying to equate declining to vote someone into public office with trying to organize a movement to get someone fired. Those things aren't even close to equivalent.

- You're missing something about the nature of boycotts. They're not designed to demonstrate your disagreement. They're designed to coerce their target to accede to your demands, lest they suffer financial harm. I'm not saying they're innately bad, but they are much more coercive in nature than protests, whose nature I also think you're mischaracterizing. By your definition, there would be no point in protesting any action carried out by any politician in the last term of a term-limited office, right?

- Editing to add one more. The reason we have qualified immunity is that, in theory, you want the best possible people occupying important public positions. (Obviously, things don't often work out this way, but I think it's still important for the incentives to align properly.) When it becomes clear that anyone who holds one of these offices may have to fend off angry mobs for the remainder of his or her professional life, you're making public office less attractive for anyone else who might ever be considering accepting an appointment to it. Which will probably, in the aggregate, make these positions less attractive to the people most qualified for them.

[dnr]

I think one thing you're missing is the extreme power imbalance in this situation: Rice is so successful and well-connected that it's inconceivable that this campaign could deprive her of her livelihood or materially change her historical reputation. At best, she'll lose a board position, which is just a lucrative side-gig, not a full-time job. I would argue that that well-known power imbalance makes it acceptable to "over-reach" slightly past your line (though still far short of violence) and call for things like removal from a specific position.

You're also mischaracterizing the nature of the boycott: the target whose behavior it's trying to change isn't Rice, it's Dropbox. And the goal is their policies around privacy, surveillance, and government cooperation. Rice is a seed that these issues can crystallize around, but anything that happens to her personally is sort of collateral damage.

At least that describes some principled support for this campaign. There may also be some that want her to personally suffer and don't care about Dropbox's policies.

[orochi235]

You make some good points, but her contributions to the US's surveillance program are barely more than a footnote on the campaign page. Most are about past economic or geopolitical misdeeds. I think reading the page in toto makes it pretty clear that the authors object to her hiring mainly on the basis of her perceived character flaws.

I was still fairly outraged over the Eich lynching when I wrote all these posts. I still don't think it's a great precedent to set, boycotting a company over appointing someone to a mostly ceremonial position. (Something that I still think is terribly gutless to do anonymously, no matter who you're targeting.) But I do actually buy the privacy argument. And I have to admit, it's really disconcerting to be put in the position of defending the actions of Condoleezza Rice (or any other prominent Bush 43 official).

[dnr]

Also, there are calls for boycotts every time an organization makes a decision that someone with basic HTML skills disagrees with. We just don't hear about most of them, because they don't gain traction. We hear about the ones that strike a nerve in the community (whichever community we happen to be a part of: there are probably plenty of calls to boycott Mozilla for forcing Eich out). I wouldn't read very much into the fact that these two incidents happened close together. This sort of thing is self-regulating: people have limited capacity for outrage, that slowly recharges over time.

[mikeash]

I'd love to stay and continue talking, but I can't take this thread in general anymore. In another reply the person I was talking to just compared this campaign to an assassination of a priest. Something about this topic is shutting down people's brains.

[orochi235]

I couldn't agree more.

[vdaniuk]

What? Is it really tasteless and hypocritical to target anonymously an insanely well-connected individual that was at some point a #4 in the USG chain of command?

[orochi235]

I guess they don't teach you that until Entrepreneurship 102.

[vdaniuk]

That's actually great that you admit the need for some catching up on learning entrepreneurship. There are nice moocs on edx and coursera and udacity.