Googlers Are Protesting Company’s Deals with Big Oil
Two questions here.<p>One, it is my understanding that most plastic is made directly from oil. If we dropped fossil fuels tomorrow and stopped extracting oil for energy production reasons...wouldn&#x27;t we <i>still</i> need oil companies to manufacture plastic? I understand there are growing movements to reduce plastic usage as well, but I also think there would be construction niches that only plastic can serve (say, car bumpers). Is the next move synthetic plastic and then we can say goodbye to oil forever?<p>Second, in response to this quote:<p>&gt; “If Google is going to confront its share of responsibility for the climate crisis, that means not helping oil and gas companies extract fossil fuels,” Ike McCreery, an engineer in Google’s cloud division<p>You know that saying, if you&#x27;re going to do a job, do it right? This is my problem with these tech deal protests. The purpose of all technology is to make work more efficient and more correct. If we deny access to technology for political reasons, aren&#x27;t we making the problem worse by making it easier for these companies or orgs to make mistakes? For example, imagine if ocean mapping companies denied data requests by oil rig operators. Chances are they&#x27;re still going to drill (because shareholders demand it), but now they&#x27;ll be in the dark and the odds of an uncontrollable spill happening shoot up. Similarly, if ICE is denied tech access, it severely harms the <i>good</i> parts of the org (human trafficking &#x2F; child exploitation prevention, catching violent illegal immigrants). It is possible for an organization, especially at the scale of a government agency, to do both good and bad at the same time. Hell, I&#x27;m sure even Googlers have similar thoughts about certain teams within Google itself.<p>I&#x27;m sure that losing GitHub access won&#x27;t hurt ICE that much, and losing Google Cloud is just a bump in the road for oil companies, but the end goal of these protests is to get as many service providers on board as possible. While it is every company&#x27;s right to choose its customers, there seems to be a common theme among tech protests that we are <i>only</i> doing harm. The article quotes Google Anthos as one of the services provided in the contract. From a quick glance Anthos appears to be some sort of glorified Kubernetes thing.<p>I hope it is not controversial to state that Kubernetes can be used for both good and evil. It is a containerization platform, not a moral arbiter.<p>&gt; “It’s devastating to think the infrastructure I’ve helped build over the last five years would be used to help incarcerate climate refugees,” they said.<p>Again, it cannot be that black or white. The same software that manages prisons can also manage orphanages and homeless shelters. You can use an Excel sheet for a lottery...or genocide.<p>The only way we can stop bad things from happening for sure is to vote. Cancelling contracts will not deter bad actors as long as they can hire someone else to do the same work, and even if every company in the Western world declines a contract on moral ground (which they are privileged to do, given they make enough money to actually get a say in what contracts to take), there are hundreds of thousands of companies in the 3rd world that will do anything for the same contract. I mean, there was an article about a Polish troll farm on the front page of HN just yesterday. Do you think a simple protest will stop them?<p>Here&#x27;s a thought: Google is one of the richest companies in the world. They could donate $10 million to every politician in Congress right now if they vow to vote yes on legislation banning fossil fuels entirely. $10M would be enough to live comfortably till the end of your days, Big Oil lobbyists and Fox News positions be damned. For a measly $5B Google could end climate destruction tomorrow.<p>Bribery is legal in the U.S. through lobbying. Why do we only let bad actors use it? We have trillion dollar companies with heavy liberal bases and they <i>still</i> donate to Republicans!<p>I don&#x27;t think these Googlers are wrong to protest these contracts, but I guess the point I&#x27;m trying to make is that their time would be better spent trying to buy off the Federal government and instituting wide scale regulations that would kill every oil company immediately, rather than trying to cut out a few contracts. Gotta start small though, I know.