9 days after writing in defence of a Free Palestine, Paul Biggar is dropped from his director role at CircleCI
Paul Biggar (@paulbiggar@hachyderm.io)
His original post , titled I can't sleep, is some brilliant writing. When we talk about the chilling effect that criticism of Israel creates in industries everywhere (including ours) this is what that looks like.
I don't know what to do, but I know these are not my people. Who can work with people whitewashing genocide. Are we supposed to pretend it's business as usual as we send our friends' intros, frolic at conferences, discuss monetization strategy.
To Ed Sim, Erica Brescia, Michael Dearing, and especially Matt Ocko, we're done [47]. I'll never pitch you again, never ask for help, never send intros or recommend you. I'm done with Boldstart, and DCVC, and Harrison Metal, and Redpoint. (I’m also done with Bessemer [48] and Sequoia [49] and First Round [50].)
Damn, the balls on this guy. Very inspiring
Nothing short of heroic - too many people in a similar situation find themselves saying that it's awful what's happening, but there's nothing they can do about it.
Well, it turns out there is. Inspiring as hell.
Not supporting the Nazis had financial impact on people. Some American compagnies in fact gladly did business with the Nazis and made bank from it . But after a while they still managed to scrape some morals from the bottom of the barrel and say "hey this Genocide thing is maybe not okay".
Paul can stand proud for standing up for his morals. Sadly seems like many western companies and even the entirety US congress loves to sell their souls for genocidal Nazi stuff these days. Modern day America would have been a dream come true for Hitler.
Paul is a chad. He also got kicked out of ycombinator for outing the founders skipping vaccine lines and encouraging others to do the same.
Does someone know if anyone maintains a list of companies or organizations where this kind of bullshit has gone down, with link to sources? Could be useful to keep track.
I can't believe how quickly we went from pretending we thought murdering civilians was a bad thing to concluding it's merely a matter of killing the right civilians.
There's a conversation going on in that Mastodon thread where one dude is proposing a static site fueled by a fact-checked list, but that's the only thing I've seen other than BDS.
Thanks - here's a direct link to the conversation, for anyone interested.
I will preface this by saying that there are risks to being openly involved.
There are people work to avoid taking actions that may benefit Israel:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctions
Definitely doesn't help that most of the damn US has some form of Anti-BDS laws. Because everybody knows Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism right guys?
Grear idea! I'm curious if theres an equivalent for BLM that can be forked
You are gonna want to clarify that.
If you want a precise list you need to precisely define the bullshit you’re referring to. You want a list of companies that have done what exactly?
Did we used to conduct war in a way that was safe for civilians? I’m not aware of that history. The war in Gaza looks like war to me. The same way we have been practicing it since we picked up our first sticks in anger. Murdering civilians is a consequence of war. The “good guys” fire bombed Dresden and nuked Japan.
I would give more examples but being honest I am straining to think of other wars in human history that were worth fighting. I am drawing a blank. All of it is pointless slaughter. At least in Gaza you can understand that the Israelis were provoked to war. Can’t say the same for the US in most of our wars.
The circumstances of Gaza seem to warrant them attacking their captors. I don't support any attacks on civillians, but Israel being attacked seems to be a result of a failure on their part to make peaceful change possible.
Did we used to conduct war in a way that was safe for civilians?
No.
I’m not aware of that history. The war in Gaza looks like war to me.
The Israelis say they are prosecuting a war against Hamas.
How many members of Hamas have been killed? How many remain?
It's extremely rare to see someone like Paul Bigger whose morals are not for sale
somebody had to be the bigger man about the situation
When there is a war, there are war crimes - it's not surprising, it's not new and it's not special. Every single time, regardless of nationality, race, creed, invader or defender. Every single time. You give a lot of people guns, teach them to de-humanise the enemy and then put them through unimaginable stresses, it's inevitable that some will do bad things. Those who orchestrate such actions and trigger events like this know, accept and want these atrocoties to achieve their own ends.
I respect Paul Biggar for having an opinion and writing a well researched and unimpeachable personal blog about it. Why should any of us who hold feelings have to suppress them?
It's sad that he's become yet another victim of this unwinnable war, it's even sadder that he won't be the last.
This is today's reality on the Internet. We used to think it would free us from capitalist control of public discourse. Hahahaha no, anyone saying anything contentious without good anonymity can be fired from their job or face other consequences.
Actions have consequences, and that's ok.
That is, sincerely, such a hugely refreshing statement in any current affair. I don't mean to distract from his more specific points, but that key insight really shows integrity in a way that I wish didn't seem so rare.
What is the insight from your perspective?
Most people who find themselves fired for their viewpoints decry "cancel culture". To be clear, booting him of the board was an act of censorship. This acceptance of (the existence of) consequences helps to indicate how strongly one holds to their values.
He addresses related notions in his essay. Why he chose to accept the consequences in advance and why some others may not be able to. It makes it real.
He attacked their investors by name and said they support a genocide. Either they back him and everyone looses their job or they fire him
It isn't a shock. Right or wrong, if you call out your boss/board/investors, you should expect to be fired. Corporations are required to protect their shareholders, not make a moral stand. I hope the gentleman here understood that -- when you choose to take a moral stand, it isn't going to be without consequences. It's one of the reasons we generally admire people who took a stand (and ended up judged "correct" by history).
AH. Well then… that makes a bit more sense lol
"Loses."
No Investor, even a billionaire, is going to fire everybody.
Or, they back him and acknowledge that they supported genocide but have since realised how wrong they were?
Ya, he's an idiot who thought he was bigger than The mission and got shown he's not. You're not coming out ahead acting like that.
Don't worry, Bari Weiss will come to his defense any time now.
Between the recent breach and the clear sentiment behind their staff, I really don't know why anyone chooses CircleCI over GitHub / GitLab Actions.
My friend used to drive me nuts because he kept getting ads about them so he parrot the ads bullshit at me just to grind my gears.
Like CI/CD is a space full of eatabled and power opensource options, why am I paying for a proprietary app.
Not free but definitely wonderful
This is why I hate startup culture. When you give off your equity to capitalist fat cats, you make yourself a bootlickers of mainstream discourse, even if that discourse is calling for genocide.
It is sickening the double standards we have. And all because of money and powerful lobbies.
Fuck CircleCI
Such a powerful article! Standing up for what's right, I would always invest in such a person if I had any say in it.
He should probably leave the US and go to Europe (where his Irish passport entitles him to work). He’s certainly not going to work at a Fortune 500 company any time soon, and any firm that hires him is likely to find itself reciprocally blacklisted.
Ireland is generally supportive of Palestinian freedom, given their history. This extends back well before the recent horrific Hamas terrorist attacks. Israel and Ireland have a rocky relationship, including Israel using fake irish passports for agents. Ireland is not antisemitic, but Israel obviously tries to paint them that way.
Genuine question: What's this have to do with open source?
Makes sense. Thanks!
Don't give CircleCI my money, got it
What I don't understand is him getting sacked. While he did name a few people and cut ties, I don't see the people named couldn't stand up with him after being named. It seems as if they really support the war crimes in Gaza.
In his blog post he explicitly said two things:
That doesn’t leave much room for others to work with him
I don't mean to undermine anything when I ask this. The article was very good, thank you sharing. I wanted to ask if circleCI made any floss software, or if paul biggar was a contributor to particular open source projects.
I don't know. I posted it here because CicleCI is a popular tool for Open source projects.
It's valid and relevant. Thank you for sharing to this community.
What an article. I have no words, but that's always the case when thinking about Gaza
Is there a mastodon frontend that doesn't require JS? I can't load the toot you linked-to
I have no idea, but here's a screenshot:
.There's brutaldon, but it requires you to sign in unfortunately.
That should read "when we all suddenly and in unison begin using the same phrase", rather than "when we talk about" (regarding the term "chilling effect").
Pretty common at the workplace.
I miss the days where the worst thing anybody did at work was tell too many fart jokes and maybe got a coaching from HR because Karen from accounting is a stuck up bitch and told.
Now, everybody has to be some political or social justice hero. I'm there to do my job and go home. If I worried about every single bad thing that happens in the world, I'd be a nervous unproductive wreck.
It's funny that people really think they're different than those in Germany, 1942
Yeah because standing up against genocide is such a political social justice hero thing to do.
Think before you speak next time.
Look I'm a coward too. But let's not try to rationalise away our inaction on top of it
This is what happens when you support terrorists
You might wanna read the blog post before commenting. Unless you mean being Palestinian is the same as being a terrorist, then you might have a bigger problem.
Fuck, such an accurate picture
Yeah that'd do it
This doesn't have to do with Jews