Cloudflare dropped the Nazis because they started to claim Cloudflare was agreeing with them. The value produced by hosting Nazis is pretty low which is why they have had issues ever since. If, however, they were a lucrative clientele, rest assured their free speech rights would be purchasable.
Insofar as the value outweighs the negatives, someone's going to do it. What google does is valuable, what they offer is valuable, and that's why it's going to be self replicating. Even if Alphabet closes tomorrow, we'll find it all patched up in the future.
> Some of it is that, but engineers tend to be more pragmatic and willing to change their mind with new evidence
Going solely off the assumption this is true, which I don't entirely believe, the fact of the matter is: this is still not politics. We are a small profession operating on a small forum and for any of the discussion to be any more than farming engagement, the discussions have to escape the internet--leading to your next point.
> Google engineers can push back on this fundamentalist ideology instead of continuing to implement it.
At which point they could be fired and replaced with someone willing to do so. It's self replicating.
> Which goes to the very point of having hard discussions about these topics that we aren't having.
A bunch of programmers kvetching on a forum doesn't do anything. It isn't politics, it won't solve any of these "hard discussions," and everyone will continue to talk past one another. These discussions are entirely cultural at this point--it's comparing batman to superman.
> So if we posit that those animals are sentient and feel suffering, and far out number the number of bovine slaughtered, would we not cause more suffering haversting a field.
What do you feed the cows with? The same things that humans instead could eat. So, not only are you hurting the cow, but you are also hurting the critters in the process of feeding the cow.
> Also: mono cultures of plants a can destroy landscapes
Okay, rotate the plants and have off-periods to not over harvest.