News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work by AmericanChopper on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @05:47PM (#21276244)
Trying to choose your customers based on some moral framework is entirely pointless in most situations. Putting aside the fact that whatever framework you decide upon is going to be completely arbitrary. If you take the position that you should only do business with people who’s values are consistent with yours, then you can’t stop at your customers. You need to examine the customer base of your customers, and the customer base of the customer base of your customers, and your entire supply chain, and the supply chain of your supply chain, ad infinitum. To apply this idea consistently is impossible, and to apply it inconsistently is just meaningless virtue signalling.

The idea that you should never do anything that provides utility to any party who’s values are incompatible with your own is not tenable, and it’s simply incompatible with any sort of open or tolerant society.

I think it’s much more sensible to look at the impact you’re having on society as a whole. I wouldn’t work for Facebook or Google, because I disagree with what they’re trying to achieve. But I’d sell them a service if I was offering one on the open market. If I ran a gun factory I probably wouldn’t want to sell them to <insert government that I think is evil>, because I know they’ll take that product and do evil things with it, but I’d sell that same government an SCM service.

There are no comments on this comment yet.