I think I'm getting fatigue for all the $CompanyX condemns the Capitol riots stuff I'm seeing. It's actually outpaced the generic emails I get about how Marriott/Lyft/Uber/Delta/McDonald's/Wells Fargo/public transportation/Pornhub are committed to supporting me during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Every time I log a bike ride in Strava, 15% of the screen is a message from the founders of Strava a out their feelings re: the Capitol rioting.

Is this the new normal? Does every company feel obligated to let its customers know that they condemn terrorism? I don't want corporations to constantly remind me about all the fucked up stuff in the world. I already know that things are fucked up. Just let me have a few minutes of escapism while I ride my bike/buy groceries/check out source code.

Author here. I would not have written this if it weren't for GitHub's actions. Because we're in the same space, I felt it was necessary to speak up.

I would prefer that the original article, not a follow-up discussion on the mailing list, be the subject of this HN discussion:

https://sourcehut.org/blog/2021-01-13-regarding-ethics/

> I would prefer that the original article, not a follow-up discussion on the mailing list, be the subject of this HN discussion

Your original post omitted details that this mailing list post attempted to clarify, although I'm still left uncertain what the answer is. Specifically, is this policy for things done on sourcehut, or for anything a person does, include outside of your service?

> 15% of the screen is a message from the founders of Strava a out their feelings re: the Capitol rioting.

Isn't it what's called influencers, these days everyone tries to be one especially people at the top of the companies both small and large.

I doubt they want to. Its likely just either trying to get ahead of the PR or in response to complaints on social media.

Yes I really appreciate it. Helps me with my socially conscious investing so I don’t have to go look them up individually.

> Helps me with my socially conscious investing so I don’t have to go look them up individually.

Why? Do you otherwise have time for that?

Yes, it’s a well established practice. There’s even funds for that.

Imagine you’re not in a position to enjoy that escapism, and you’re trying to evaluate whether riding/ordering from/sharing data with a company is going to put you in danger because they’re openly or carelessly collaborating with this hateful mob. Some assurance that your existence is valued is probably better than knowing nothing because the company values your comfort more.

What's the most biggest corporation that's collaborated with them? I REALLY doubt that there's any collaborators that I (or most people) have a relationship with.

Microsoft. And they're big enough that who knows which of their customers are too, unwittingly or not.

Centralized platforms are always going to be like this, easier to start on a decentralized platform than it is to migrate to one

https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25n92DiQh7ietE%2BR%2BX%2FI403LQoy...

https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent

et al

Let's be brutally honest here - nobody really cares what Provider A condemns. This is not choir practice! We get enough noise from the MSM.

Sure we do. I care what the average person, or in case commenter, thinks about the situation. In fact more than I care about MSM’s opinion. You certainly seem to care with explicit/implicit cues in a lot of your comments.

I've been raised in a Communist country where absolutely everything was politicized and everything was lead by the one and only ideology. Every ideological enemy was an existential one, which deserved nothing else but a total annihilation! It didn't go well and it didn't end well either!

Engineering and politics should not mix. I try to pick providers which are neutral and focus their energy on building good products, not activism.

I'm curious if your opinion on this extends to, say, IG Farben providing Zyklon B to the Nazis (or IBM providing information services to same). At some point 'politics' just becomes 'ethics'. Participation in an activity is not "neutral", it is endorsement.

"Just following orders" isn't even a valid defense for soldiers - why should it apply to corporations who are free to refuse business?

> I'm curious if your opinion on this extends to, say, IG Farben providing Zyklon B to the Nazis

Wasn't IG Farben already taking in political money to find such chemicals?

> Research by Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry led to the founding in 1919 of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH (Degesch), a state-controlled consortium formed to investigate military use of the chemical.

of which IG Farben was a part. So it seems like this would suggest to not add politics (la military weapons research) to engineering

What's "political money"? Does it come in different denominations to regular money? Should IG Farben have refused to do business with the Nazi regime on ethical grounds?

I'm confused - should companies pick and choose who they do business with, or shouldn't they?

Well it'd be a company explicitly avoiding getting into politics wouldn't it?

I don't think anyone has spoken against companies getting to pick and choose in this chain, just on what merits they should pick and choose on

Aren't we a bit abusing the historical terms lately? Do you know what Fascism is? Do you know the difference between Fascists and Nazis? What is the difference between them two and the Communists?

Yeah far right authoritarians are fascists by definition.

No. Fascists are authoritarians by definition, but the one-dimensional spectrum of "rightwing" and "leftwing" is not suitable for any treatment of fascism that is based in history.

"Fascism" and "right-wing authoritarian" are synonymous, and that loss of nuance is giving us blind spots

EDIT: "Fascism" and "right-wing authoritarian[ism]" are [not] synonymous

From Merriam-Webster: "In simplest terms, fascism refers to a specific way of organizing a society: under fascism, a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people in that society, and allows no dissent or disagreement."

"Left" and "right" here don't mean a whole lot in regards to fascism imho, just as Hitler and Stalin weren't all that different.

Fascism is anti-conservatism, too. You can't call conservatives "fascists" then.