this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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This protest achieved nothing so far.
If you want to actually make a difference, leave Google, go do bioinformatics (am biased here), exact agriculture or any other shit that actually solves real problem.
All I see in those rallies a bunch of people that work at Google to maximize their earnings that are mad when Google does the same.
It's achieved a lot of people talking about it and has achieved damage to the Brand.
Which is better than nothing.
That's bullshit the damage will be recovered within a week.
And some people lost their jobs. then again, if they're against their employer's policy maybe they should've resigned in the first place.
If they want effective change they should retain their job and tear down the org from the inside.
Then donate to causes they care about using their income.
Laudable, but highly ineffective when the org is Google. A few people rallying in the street against Google are not gonna change it, from inside or out.
Oh wow, people are talking about it.
In the real world, not enough techies are willing to work on solving problems related food shortages (for example), while people are starving to death.
That's because in the real world we're all fighting to escape the threat of homelessness and starvation which is a constant spectre haunting any "techie" who is paying attention enough to see what's going on.
Personally speaking: when me and mine are safe I'll be dedicating 100% of my remaining life to outreach, teaching and non-profit work.
But as long as you're dependant on another man to feed you every week you're not safe: you're helpless. That's true regardless of if that man is a non-profit or if it's a megacorp.
I'm not rich, I chose to earn less money and live a lower quality apartment.
We don't have many years to work on solutions. You may never have enough for you and yours.
You're referring to the people in Gaza starving to death because of food shortages, right ?
Ten percent of humans suffer from hunger. This is much bigger than just Gaza.
Starvation is not the same as Hunger, it's a significantly more advanced stage of the thing.
I believe there's even a 5-level UN scale for it and Gaza is at the worst level.
PS: Not seeing why it's not valid to worry and act on both, by the way: doing something about World Hunger is not in any way incompatible with doing something about the Gaza Genocide.
Your whole point is grounded on the Falacy called a False Dilemma Falacy that you used a few posts ago, hence why it's not logical - it's really not an EITHER-OR choice, especially for people working at Google which is a company that does absolutelly nothing at all when it comes to reduce World Hunger.
What is your strongest example of a problem related to starvation that can be solved with technology?
Green revolution?
The newest solution I know of is using optimization algorithms to vastly reduce the cost of experiments on vegetables storage. They not only showed how to optimize storage, they also showed how to store certain types cheaply for 4 times long.
One of the issues is food distribution, and that will help there.
Except that the issues with distribution have nothing to do with efficiency, they have to do with politics, economics, and corruption. Last I checked, we had or could produce enough food for everyone on the planet, but getting it to the right places was impossible for reasons that can't be fixed with technology.
Improvements in storing vegetables can reduce waste, which is a good thing in and of itself, but aren't going to feed people in famine-stricken areas that have no vegetables to store.
Improvements in storage allow for longer transportation. This is but one example.
There are many other improvements, from more efficient water usage to reducing the need for other costly interventions.
Some may be possible to allow richer agriculture in poorer areas, reducing the need for distribution.
The point is, the main problems in most places with serious hunger issues are food being confiscated by government or militias, turned back at borders, or left to rot in port warehouses because no one's sure what set of palms need to be greased before distribution will be permitted. Tech can't fix those problems. As for improvements in local agriculture, that helps when the cause of the famine is natural, but not so much when the issue is farmers getting shot at in the fields or having their produce stolen at gunpoint.
I'm not saying the protest solved the issue, I was merely explaining why I disagreed with your arguments. Please don't try and make me say things I didn't.
As for the protest achieving nothing, I'm not sure how you back up that claim. It definitely changed how google is perceived by a few people who care a lot more about the genocide than they do about online privacy and ads. It also, sadly, probably made more employees afraid to express themselves on their workplace.
There are countless ways to try and make a difference. I could argue that your work in bioinformatics is meaningless in a capitalist world and that you should either take up arms and organize raids to execute CEOs or do nothing (I actually disagree with this point, it's just an extreme example).
Let's not discourage the people who try and do things. Maybe they make mistakes, maybe they could be more efficient... but at least they try.
Of course they're mad. They went to work at Google, not Lockheed Martin or "insert other weapons manufacturer here". And it's a good thing ! Of course they still sold their time and skills to a shitty company and had an overall negative impact on the world, but they still care about human suffering when they are aware of it, and I prefer that to people who don't care at all.
Pegasus, and probably other tools, can infect phones through ads. Google's ads network is a weapon.
People get to decide what is a "real problem".
I don't see how finding out your labor supports genocide isn't a real problem.
My message comes within a context.