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Okay, but we can agree that IBM powered the holocaust, and that those tattoos on survivor’s arms represented the punch cards for IBM systems, right? Because re

Okay, but we can agree that IBM powered the holocaust, and that those tattoos on survivor’s arms represented the punch cards for IBM systems, right? Because really, when there’s a profit to be made, American companies are there to fill a “need”, right?

kortilla 5y ago
What point are you trying to make?
- srswtf123 5y ago
  Every corporation has secrets they’d like to hide. No one is beyond reproach. I don’t think anyone is disputing that — but every thing Google is doing is the result of fallible humans acting in pursuit of profit. It doesn’t matter who or when. What matters is that people put aside their ethics in pursuit of profits. I think that needs to end. </soapbox>
imglorp 5y ago
That's horrifying. I was not aware. The horror is hundreds of IBM employees were directly involved in extermination activities; literally maintaining tabulation machines on prem, as it were, in the camps. I hope every HN reader has the awareness and moral strength to resist, where the corporations are unable, the next time such à job comes. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/52879 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/52879
- endominus 5y ago
  I wouldn't get my hopes up. The number of times I've seen people, even here, equate legality and morality is frightening.
  - lelanthran 5y ago
    > I wouldn't get my hopes up. The number of times I've seen people, even here, equate legality and morality is frightening. I have literally never seen anyone here argue that "murder and genocide isn't morally wrong if it is legally right". Are you sure you aren't equivocating "I don't support $FOO political position" with "I support murder and genocide"? Because I have seen a number of people argue that some aspect of their personal moral code, which isn't currently written into law, should be written into law and enforced on the rest of the people who don't have that moral code.
    - endominus 5y ago
      No, I wasn't even thinking of political positions. I'm not trying to dog-whistle around red-tribe/blue-tribe signaling, I actually mean what I said. I was in a comment thread some time ago about the ethics of self-driving cars. Another user believed that they should base the decisions of who to save on the cultural mores, history, and laws of the region where they are sold. On the one hand, it's hard to see a business doing otherwise. On the other, that's exactly how we get Zyklon B and legal slavery in the third world. I was discussing the trolley problem with a lawyer a few years ago, and her conclusion to the dilemma, no joke, was literally "It depends if I would be legally culpable in the country I'm in." Which is a very legalistic, and utterly amoral answer.
      - lelanthran 5y ago
        My apologies, I read your comment more uncharitably than you intended. > Another user believed that they should base the decisions of who to save on the cultural mores, history, and laws of the region where they are sold. This brings up a different issue: the product will then be considered amoral in the particular region that it is deployed in. That's the problem with using "morals" as a yardstick - it's too subjective because every culture has their own set of morals, and these morals change over time anyway. For a product sold in multiple regions, it makes sense to follow the cultural mores of that region. If you don't like their morals, don't do business with them.
- srswtf123 5y ago
  I wonder how much has been spent over the years suppressing this?
- ahoka 5y ago
  Wait till you read about Academi or McKinsey. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china... https://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-city-paid-mckinsey-millions-to-stem-jail-violence-instead-violence-soared https://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-city-paid-mckins... https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/01/blackwaters-descendants-are-doing-just-fine/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/01/blackwaters-descendants...
- gambiting 5y ago
  Holy shit, that's an incredible story. I live right in front of Auschwitz and I had no idea. Also that quote from the article, from IMB's spokesman: "We are a technology company, we are not historians." That's fucking rich. Imagine Bayer saying the same when questioned if their company used to make Zyklon B.
simonh 5y ago
It sounds like German employees in Germany and it’s territories working for the german subsidiary did work for the German government yes, and after the war was declared they did some very shady stuff. Similarly American citizens working for German companies in America did work for the US government during the war. I don’t really see what’s surprising about any of this. The implication seems to be that the US directors of IBM were supposed to do something about it, but I’m not sure what. Of course if some of these contracts for the concentration camps and such were tendered during peacetime, and this was known and it was possible for the US operation to exercise oversight, that would be incredibly damning.
- hnbad 5y ago
  This comment is peak HN. Congratulations.
  - lozenge 5y ago
    The Just World Fallacy is incredibly strong in this one. Sure, the US imprisoned its citizens of Japanese ethnicity during WWII, a practice approved by its highest court, but they would never imprison Jewish people just for their ethnicity, right?
    - simonh 5y ago
      If I'm committing a fallacy, it's probably just assuming that individual American IBM executives probably wouldn't have actively and knowing facilitated genocidal policies. Also that if German IBM employees did do so, that's on them, not necessarily US execs who may have had no knowledge or awareness of it. That turns out to be false though, it's seems apparent that US execs had a pretty good idea what their machines were being used to do at last up to 1942. Not in detail, they probably weren't aware of the specific activities happening at say Treblinka, I don't think anyone in the US did, but they were aware that German government policy was the registration and oppression of Jews and other minorities and that IBM machines were facilitating it.
      - 5y ago
durnygbur 5y ago
Americans will fuell all sides of the conflict to reap the financial and political profits, disregarding human lives including unaware civilians. With their official army, intelligence agencies, corporations, and many other entities we have no clue about. The fascinating part of the deal of IBM with Nazi Germany is that it boils down to _tracking_of_individuals_. Their personal profile, location, capabilities, health status.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar like this. It's generic and predictable, and therefore off topic. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mapgrep 5y ago
  You really have a thing about people pointing out when genocide happens. Do you not believe in the Holocaust, dang?
  - dang 5y ago
    Now you're trolling. Please stop.

kortilla 5y ago

What point are you trying to make?

srswtf123 5y ago
Every corporation has secrets they’d like to hide. No one is beyond reproach. I don’t think anyone is disputing that — but every thing Google is doing is the result of fallible humans acting in pursuit of profit. It doesn’t matter who or when. What matters is that people put aside their ethics in pursuit of profits. I think that needs to end. </soapbox>

imglorp 5y ago

That's horrifying. I was not aware. The horror is hundreds of IBM employees were directly involved in extermination activities; literally maintaining tabulation machines on prem, as it were, in the camps. I hope every HN reader has the awareness and moral strength to resist, where the corporations are unable, the next time such à job comes. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/52879 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/52879

endominus 5y ago
I wouldn't get my hopes up. The number of times I've seen people, even here, equate legality and morality is frightening.
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > I wouldn't get my hopes up. The number of times I've seen people, even here, equate legality and morality is frightening. I have literally never seen anyone here argue that "murder and genocide isn't morally wrong if it is legally right". Are you sure you aren't equivocating "I don't support $FOO political position" with "I support murder and genocide"? Because I have seen a number of people argue that some aspect of their personal moral code, which isn't currently written into law, should be written into law and enforced on the rest of the people who don't have that moral code.
  - endominus 5y ago
    No, I wasn't even thinking of political positions. I'm not trying to dog-whistle around red-tribe/blue-tribe signaling, I actually mean what I said. I was in a comment thread some time ago about the ethics of self-driving cars. Another user believed that they should base the decisions of who to save on the cultural mores, history, and laws of the region where they are sold. On the one hand, it's hard to see a business doing otherwise. On the other, that's exactly how we get Zyklon B and legal slavery in the third world. I was discussing the trolley problem with a lawyer a few years ago, and her conclusion to the dilemma, no joke, was literally "It depends if I would be legally culpable in the country I'm in." Which is a very legalistic, and utterly amoral answer.
    - lelanthran 5y ago
      My apologies, I read your comment more uncharitably than you intended. > Another user believed that they should base the decisions of who to save on the cultural mores, history, and laws of the region where they are sold. This brings up a different issue: the product will then be considered amoral in the particular region that it is deployed in. That's the problem with using "morals" as a yardstick - it's too subjective because every culture has their own set of morals, and these morals change over time anyway. For a product sold in multiple regions, it makes sense to follow the cultural mores of that region. If you don't like their morals, don't do business with them.
srswtf123 5y ago
I wonder how much has been spent over the years suppressing this?
ahoka 5y ago
Wait till you read about Academi or McKinsey. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china... https://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-city-paid-mckinsey-millions-to-stem-jail-violence-instead-violence-soared https://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-city-paid-mckins... https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/01/blackwaters-descendants-are-doing-just-fine/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/01/blackwaters-descendants...
gambiting 5y ago
Holy shit, that's an incredible story. I live right in front of Auschwitz and I had no idea. Also that quote from the article, from IMB's spokesman: "We are a technology company, we are not historians." That's fucking rich. Imagine Bayer saying the same when questioned if their company used to make Zyklon B.

simonh 5y ago

It sounds like German employees in Germany and it’s territories working for the german subsidiary did work for the German government yes, and after the war was declared they did some very shady stuff. Similarly American citizens working for German companies in America did work for the US government during the war. I don’t really see what’s surprising about any of this. The implication seems to be that the US directors of IBM were supposed to do something about it, but I’m not sure what. Of course if some of these contracts for the concentration camps and such were tendered during peacetime, and this was known and it was possible for the US operation to exercise oversight, that would be incredibly damning.

hnbad 5y ago
This comment is peak HN. Congratulations.
- lozenge 5y ago
  The Just World Fallacy is incredibly strong in this one. Sure, the US imprisoned its citizens of Japanese ethnicity during WWII, a practice approved by its highest court, but they would never imprison Jewish people just for their ethnicity, right?
  - simonh 5y ago
    If I'm committing a fallacy, it's probably just assuming that individual American IBM executives probably wouldn't have actively and knowing facilitated genocidal policies. Also that if German IBM employees did do so, that's on them, not necessarily US execs who may have had no knowledge or awareness of it. That turns out to be false though, it's seems apparent that US execs had a pretty good idea what their machines were being used to do at last up to 1942. Not in detail, they probably weren't aware of the specific activities happening at say Treblinka, I don't think anyone in the US did, but they were aware that German government policy was the registration and oppression of Jews and other minorities and that IBM machines were facilitating it.
    - 5y ago

durnygbur 5y ago

Americans will fuell all sides of the conflict to reap the financial and political profits, disregarding human lives including unaware civilians. With their official army, intelligence agencies, corporations, and many other entities we have no clue about. The fascinating part of the deal of IBM with Nazi Germany is that it boils down to _tracking_of_individuals_. Their personal profile, location, capabilities, health status.

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads into flamewar like this. It's generic and predictable, and therefore off topic. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mapgrep 5y ago
You really have a thing about people pointing out when genocide happens. Do you not believe in the Holocaust, dang?
- dang 5y ago
  Now you're trolling. Please stop.