zlacker

My question is not so much about ICE, who I personally feel would be reasonable to refuse to do business with in the current circumstance (caveat: I'm not an expert here and could be wrong). My question is about next "unethical" organization that GitHub has a contract with, and the next and the next after that. Do employees have veto power on revenue-generating contracts, generally? Or is ICE an exceptional case? Should new contracts undergo a vote among employees? What if 51% of employees oppose ending the contract with ICE? Would the other side be satisfied then?

I don't see either approach being morally wrong (granting or denying to employees contract veto power), they're both just different ways of governing an organization. These seem like the underlying questions however, and it seems to me that those calling to end the ICE contract should be prepared to answer them.

>>sequoi+(OP)
Slippery slope is a logical “fallacy”, just like ad hominems or mistaking correlation with causation, to name two examples that, for reasons escaping me, are pointed out incessantly on HN while the former rarely is.

>>IfOnly+Q7
I'm not clear where slippery slope ends and generalizing a question such as "how does GH/MSFT determine who to do business with?" or putting a decision into context begins. I don't see this as being at "the top of a slope" as much as already being on the slope. This was not an isolated request, from TFA: "At Microsoft-owned GitHub, the parent company’s concession only served to reinvigorate internal opposition to a controversial contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." So this is not a one-off question, the question of ICE is already part of a sequence of demands/concessions.

To use a metaphor, Alice: give me a dollar; Bob: OK here's a dollar; Alice: Thanks but now I need five dollars; Bob: are you just going to ask me for $10 next? Where does this end? Alice: Aha! That's a slippery slope fallacy.

Slippery slope says “if you do A then it will lead to B and eventually Z.” At the moment, we’re not at “A” we’re already at “B,” so I think asking about the rest of the sequence is reasonable.

If management is making concessions to satisfy the workforce's sense of ethics, I think it's reasonable for management to say "OK, after this concession will your sense of ethics be satisfied for the time being? Or is this part of a larger package of demands, and if so what are they?"

To ask a party making concessions to not consider the context at all, the lead up or the implied consequences ("if you did X you'd be a hypocrite to not also do Y") is unreasonable.