Considering there are hundreds or thousands of users on this site who have taken cash—either directly or indirectly—in exchange for building the world's most egregious examples of privacy-abusing software that were formerly only memes in 80s sci-fi movies. Yet they choose to focus their energy on getting upset over things they don't understand and can't control—like immigration enforcement.

No, my conscience is clean.

It’s worth pointing out that a non-insignificant subset of tech workers know the impacts and still don’t give a fuck though.

@anoym - There isn’t something inherently bad about working for law enforcement or national security agencies as long as what you’re doing cannot be used now or in the future unethically. But too be honest I think this is a ‘don’t hate the player’ type things, if palantir didn’t exist, another company would take its place - privacy legislation is the only thing that prevents it, not relying on ethics of the masses.

All Law enforcement and Nat Sec of the United States is inherently unethical, or at minimum tied to ethically questionabke tactics. We have the highest incarceration rates in the world, death penalties ect. Our Military isnt exactly ethical in its missions, pretty much since WW2

You're basically saying "There isnt anything inherently wrong about working for the 4th Reich"

This is a childishly simplistic view of the world

What complexity is it you'd like to add?

For instance, the local cops checking in on grandma, or those checking in on a troubled child are really not the bad guys. You WANT them when you need them.

Not all LEOs are brown shirts, In my experience, few are, but they give the lot a bad rap.

Treating LEOs uniformly as evil is just counterproductive

Why would I want cops doing that instead of social workers or teachers doing it?

No one becomes a cop because they want to be nice and help vulnerable people. Some might say they did but that is some coping technique. Being a cop involves exerting violence towards people who are vulnerable and desperate, and to become one you have to be fine with this. Some would say that this alone is enough to deem a person ethically dubious.

Even if one would accept the premise that society requires some degree of organised violence towards its members, one would also have to handle the question of accountability. Reasonably this violence should be accountable in relation to the victims of it, and police institutions inherently are not.

I think that we should also not that the other person above used "childishly" to denote something negative, apparently they don't think of kids as the light of the world and childish as something fun and inspiring. This is something that makes me quite suspicious of their morals.

Maybe you and I have vastly different experience with police. Disclaimer: From a rather small US state.

Your other note is also well taken, it does however not imply that anything a kid or teen does is OK or automatically positive.

Finally, it's OK to be suspicious. I am too. What I am saying is that one cannot just make the decision "all cops are evil or must be treated as such" and then hope for a good outcome in all cases. I argue it's a better policy to keep an open mind and decide on a case by case basis.

Fine, to you it is unthinkable that the institution as such might be immoral and would need to be abolished to achieve a semblance of a just society.

However, many others have come to this conclusion and made a rather long tradition out of their arguments.

Yes but I don't have a definitive map of who are the good ones, so we must treat it as a life or death situation and suitably defend ourselves in an interaction with any of them.

No, I’m not ‘basically’ saying that. Stop putting words in my mouth.

> legislation is the only thing that prevents it

I strongly agree. There's even the argument to be made that if no legislation exists, even if you're anti X, you might get incentivized to build a company for X just so it's not a fan of X at the helm of the top company for X.

Blaming it on the employees is pointless. It's the law that should dictate what's allowed and what isn't and if the lawmaking or enforcement isn't working you probably want some "good" people in those companies.

Laws are a reflection of the collective ethics of the masses, or at least they should be in a democracy.

Is it worth pointing out? It seems counterproductive to respond to a call to action by sarcastically complaining about the people being called to action.

The call is coming from inside the house.

As effective calls to action often do! It's almost tautological when I say it this way, but if you want people working in ad tech to oppose ICE you have to convince them it's good for people working in ad tech to oppose ICE.

Perhaps the conflict is that you just want to make people who work in ad tech feel bad, and don't care whether or not they enable ICE? That's fine, I suppose, there's industries I feel the same way about. But then we don't have much to talk about and I'm not sure what you hope to gain from being here. To me opposing ICE is very important - I think tobacco companies are pretty bad too, but if ICE sent out a request for cartons of cigarettes I'd shovel praise on them for declining.

That’s the voice part of exit, loyalty, voice is it not?

> you have to convince them it's good for people working in ad tech to oppose ICE.

Yes—and one of the tools we have for that is shunning.

If enough of us who are appalled and disgusted by the state of things, and the people who willingly lend themselves to creating said state, make our disgust with those people known, it can lead to some of them choosing to act differently, because they care about being thought well of by their fellow techies.

I agree with what you're saying, but shunning has to be selective to be effective. People have to believe that you won't shun them if they avoid the terrible things you're trying to stop. It's too much to simultaneously beef with ICE, adtech in general, Tesla, $8 donuts, and anyone who lives in a trendy neighborhood.

A lot of them are even proud of being the loyal partners of the US intelligence community, which includes DHS and ICE.

Hey there, I quit a job over similar concerns, knowing it would lead to a >70% decrease in comp. Without a significant nest egg or wealth, whether personal or through family.

Now let me say the same: But those tools buy Teslas and $8 donuts and cardboard apartments in trendy neighborhoods for people too young to understand how money works.

There, now there's no longer a high horse concern.

>...I quit a job over similar concerns, knowing it would lead to a >70% decrease in comp. Without a significant nest egg or wealth, whether personal or through family.

Hey, thanks for doing the right thing.

Thank you!

It takes real courage and it costs to have principles. And just like I detest those that fall for the money I have insane respect for those that stand up.