[tossthere]

I’ll be honest, mostly I just think that this is a very idealistic and naive reaction.

The world is extremely complicated and full of unfortunate realities that humanity just doesn’t have any solutions for.

There are people who can recognize that, and who try to do the best they can.

Then there are people who can’t recognize that, adopt an overly simplistic model of the problem and its environment, become convinced that there’s a simple and obvious solution, and then start attributing malice and blame to anyone who refuses to go along with their terrible idea.

I also think: “If they worked here they would know better.” The people here are by and large very good and thoughtful people genuinely trying to make the world a better place, and whatever negative feelings you have about how Google uses its power, if Google were gone it would create a power vacuum in the market that would be filled by companies that were 100x worse.

That’s how I feel about the mission and the morality of it all.

I also feel genuinely concerned for the future of anyone who would deprive themselves like this, as a vague form of protest that nobody ever notices, in the hopes that it might aggregate to something meaningful someday. That seems like a very ineffective and sad approach to living your life.

My own personal views, not Google’s.

[popeathlete]

Don't know what you meant when you divided "people" into those two categories, but it's either truism or irrelevant. Google is just a name, the point is it has a lot of power and even if a lot of people are "good" that doesn't mean they won't change, fuck up or be replaced at some point with a team that is less ethical. It's like it is with nukes. No one should have a weapon capable of such destruction.