Bowing to censorship? Bowing isn't necessarily done happily.
Or maybe more ideas are also in play? Perhaps recognizing the existing power dynamics? Perhaps playing the game over a longer time frame?
Not all ethicists recommend "dying on your sword" so to speak. Sometimes it is useful to maintain influence and fight another day. These things are far from simple.
If you want Apple to push back on censorship in China, let's talk about the details. What would China likely do in return?
Indeed. I'd suggest everyone in our industry study ethics, particularly with an eye towards its (i) philosophical foundations and (ii) cultural differences. If one of those underpinnings doesn't grab your interest, try the other.
There is a rich body of ethical writing around individual behavior. When that discussion starts to involve groups of people, ... yikes ... it becomes even more complex.
Stargate: wow! With that kind of return on investment on $20 M, psychic readings for $10 a pop sound like a bargain in comparison. At worst, the readers are good at reading some signals hiding in plain sight and prompting some self reflection.
> To top it off, Mark’s vision of VR and how stubborn he is with the infamous Metaverse will really just push FB to bankruptcy. Unless an activist investor pushes them to fire him and change course.
Let's make this testable. Bankruptcy by when? Saying, e.g. "at some point" or "eventually" is very problematic to falsify.
I've noticed statements of this kind often have a lot of caveats; e.g. ...
> unless an activist investor pushes them to fire him and change course
... typically there are many other unspoken/unwritten caveats/exceptions as well. When this happens, the statement becomes unfalsifiable. In such cases, I treat the statement more as a normative criticism (here, "Mark's vision of VR and how stubborn he is") rather than a testable prediction.
> You have the option already to hold on for 5 years+.
The difference is having the option. :) Behavior tends to be different if you don't have the option to sell during a window of time.
In this hypothetical case it might serve as a built-in grace period. Companies that otherwise might have failed if measured and punished quarter by quarter might have time to build a product over five year time horizon.
Your behaviors are not beneficial for yourself or for this community. You seem to think you are standing up against a troll. But your words reveal a person making a bunch of guesses based on only one point of view. Based on this, you lash out.
I am not trying to get you banned. That would not have much long term benefit. That would not help you either. You would just get angrier I'd guess.
I'm trying to have a conversation to help you see another point of view. So far, you have not answered my questions. You have not asked clarifying questions. Fair?
Are you really so confident in the things you are saying? I think you will benefit if you can at least temporarily reduce your sense of confidence in your assessments. This might help you to not lash out at people that you think are your enemy.
Here are some questions for you to consider privately. You probably don't want to answer them here with someone you seem to detest so much... Why are you so angry? Why so accusative? Have you asked friends or a trusted person to assess your behavior? Do you have some kind of ethical or moral code? What is it? Does it justify your choice of words (a kind of behavior) here? Have you experienced any traumatic life events? Do you know where the hate is coming from?
Answer my questions, at least to yourself? Or continue being angry and not address them?
Your choice. Maybe. Do you have a choice? Could you reply kindly if you tried? Or are you locked in a counter-attack mentality? What could break the pattern?
What would make you happy (or relatively less unhappy) here? For me to admit that your claims are correct? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to say things that aren't true.
I have not insulted you, and I'm not going to. Everything you are doing is quite human, and all of us have done some parts of it or worse ourselves. This doesn't mean it is useful or helpful.
Your ideas, at least as written here, are flawed and quite unreasonable, and that's ok. Improve yourself and start caring, and your life can get better. Believe it or not, I care. Seriously.
> Since I left AWS in 2020, I’ve been super-careful not to share things from behind the scenes. I can’t actually remember the details of the nondisclosure agreement, but I have strong feelings about the ethics. This story, though, doesn’t reflect poorly on anyone and I’m pretty sure nothing in it is material to any business plans at AWS or elsewhere.
"Can't actually remember"? Yikes.
"I'm pretty sure" ... based on...? Not working there any more?
"Strong feelings about the ethics?" Dude. Contracts are not about your feelings about ethics.
Mr. Bray doesn't have -- or didn't take the time to find -- a signed contract from two years ago.
My point? There are many incredible technologies, but not all are "secret weapons" that justify a seismic industry shift. Not all are suitable or able to upend existing technologies.
Fitness of purpose is contextual. Some of the most amazing innovations in computer science cannot be captured by one industry. Most do not lead to widespread disruption.
> This is false. People invest on many year horizons all of the time when they believe in the company.
Granted, but they usually have the option to sell at many points along the way.
Think about an alternative financial instrument. What if you could invest $X in a public company (and get a higher rate of return because of the higher risk) but you lose the ability to sell until five years have passed?
This is one kind of option that might be worth trying. I want to see more mechanisms promoting long-term investment in our public markets. (Bonds are not identical to what I described BTW.)
The lack of these kinds of options (sure, bonds exist but I've not noticed them used with any notable significance in public companies) is why people talk about the short term quarterly focus of Wall Street.
Saying everyone is replaceable is a first-degree approximation. The next level of detail would talk about, at least: (a) how much knowledge gets lost; (b) how many person hours -and- "wall clock time" it takes to rebuild that knowledge; (c) the amortized cost (or benefit) of losing that person
One problem with a humorous (yes, I am not all serious all the time) comment like this is while there could be some degree truth to it -- provide a source if so, please -- it smacks of exaggeration.
Privacy is not a one dimensional thing. Just like security, it exists in context, relative to a threat model.
Think about the threat model for an "everyday" person. It is different than an American journalist contacting sources in the United States, which is different than a journalist in Russia or China.
Or maybe more ideas are also in play? Perhaps recognizing the existing power dynamics? Perhaps playing the game over a longer time frame?
Not all ethicists recommend "dying on your sword" so to speak. Sometimes it is useful to maintain influence and fight another day. These things are far from simple.
If you want Apple to push back on censorship in China, let's talk about the details. What would China likely do in return?