Sourcehut blog condeming Trump and supporters

Re:Sourcehut blog condeming Trump and supporters by dTal on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:24AM (#25791241)

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?

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Re:Sourcehut blog condeming Trump and supporters by its-summertime on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:37AM (#25791400)

> 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

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Re:Sourcehut blog condeming Trump and supporters by dTal on Friday January 15, 2021 @12:27PM (#25793413)

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?

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Re:Sourcehut blog condeming Trump and supporters by its-summertime on Friday January 15, 2021 @08:29PM (#25799006)

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

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