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I worked there for a similar length of time, but more recent (2012 - early 2019). The internal political discourse over that time definitely mirrored the rest o

I worked there for a similar length of time, but more recent (2012 - early 2019). The internal political discourse over that time definitely mirrored the rest of the world: becoming increasingly heated and divisive during 2016 and largely escalating since. On the whole, it felt like it pushed the company in a positive direction --- internal discussions mirroring #metoo led to more visibility of sexual harassment and accountability for leadership. The discourse around the James Damore memo, as divisive as it was, felt like it still led to a broader understanding of the negative perspectives women in tech had to deal with constantly. Most importantly (IMO), Google's product choices and politics are not inseparable --- Google is far too large and influential to pretend otherwise, and discussing these topics acted as a watchdog of sorts. Internal discussions about a potential censored search engine product in China resulted in pressure on leadership to change course, and pressure on Cloud bidding on the JEDI contract led to Google withdrawing from that bid. Shutting off that political discourse feels like it'd be a huge blow to "oversight" from concerned Googlers --- particularly the ones who felt it was worth staying and using their influence internally to push Google toward creating a more just world.

LordFast 7y ago
Disclaimer: my comment below is directed at the culture of Google, and following in the train of thought from your comment. It's not directed at your comment or you. Reading this comment just makes me feel baffled. How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. There's no framework established within the confines of a corporation to deal with any of these sorts of social problems, and it shouldn't. Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same.
- lmpostor 7y ago
  > How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? That of a regular human being with rationalized opinions through the lens available to them? For some reason only because Google has a lot of power to control the dialogue you ask them to bury their head in the sand? Or are we going to pretend that there hasn't been an arms race of sorts to game search results across nearly every topic and as such one might consider removal of what one considers to either be harmful, false, or manipulative to be a part of doing the "right" job? What's the quote again, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing " -- Edmund Burke And as far as Google goes, I think it would be easy to rationalize that (if I was a Google member) I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information).
  - einhverfr 7y ago
    All opinions can be rationalized through a particular lens can they not? Are you asking Google to be a voice of reason in the debate over global labor markets and liberalization of SE Asian economies for example? Doesn't that give you a wolf-and-lamb problem, to reference Aesop?
  - LordFast 7y ago
    Let me clarify: - A non-decision by Google management to not place limits on its internal culture is a decision in itself, and has consequences that we are currently experiencing. - "Justice" is not something for a profit-seeking company to have influence or power over. This is my personal belief. I believe there are other channels that are better designed to address those issues. - My belief on this subject is limited to the above.
  - RaceWon 7y ago
    > I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information). That does Not mean that Your Opinion would be a correct one--actually the opposite could just as easily be true.
  - smsm42 7y ago
    Everybody thinks they have better tools than everybody else to know what's right and what's wrong. In most cases, they are mistaken. The cost of being mistaken for a company that has power to control significant amount of information available to humanity is enormous. That's why in the US there are direct prohibitions on government suppressing points of view. You could think - why should there be one? Of course, if the government would suppress normal people, like you and me, it would be bad. But why not bad people? Why don't we elect a very good government, an excellent one, with the best tools and information we have, and then let it do whatever it wants, no limits? Except we know it won't work. The power corrupts, and what we'd get would be the worst tyranny, regardless of how pure were the initial intentions. Why would we delude themselves into thinking if we call it "Google" and replace elections with technical interview it would go any better?
- sarbaz 7y ago
  Should people act in ways that disagree with their sense of justice? Should people be allowed to speak out against things that other people do, but that disagree with their sense of justice? I don't see how you can call it "arrogant" for people to act in accordance with their moral and ethical standards. We don't have the power to force the world do line up with our personal sense of justice. But we do have the power to make our lives and the lives of those around us more just, according to our own personal interpretation of that concept. Do you really think that striving for justice isn't OK?
  - einhverfr 7y ago
    I think the problem is that the US has developed for various reasons (including a lack of discussing politics) a series of echo chambers and people don't connect politically beyond their echo chambers. In urban California, among software developers, you are likely to have one or two political views represented at most, and these represent a small racial and class-based cross-section of urban California. The first of course is the Neoliberal views of the Rainbow Capitalism camp that brought us Hillary Clinton's candidacy. If there is a second view it is the Business Liberalism view of the elite GOP members such as the Koch brothers. You aren't going to get the political concerns of rust-belt America, or the political concerns of black families down in Watts recognized, nor will you get the communitarianism of rural America in there either. And so that sense of justice gets warped, even regarding national issues of the US today. What happens when these things go world wide? Someone's sense of justice gets offended by economic orders where procreative/childrearing families hold businesses which are inherited and passed on to kids, and where there are solid gender roles associated (my kids' second culture for example)? I guess we better do what we can to make the world safe for American Capitalism to come in and liberate people from family expectations. But that means opening up such cultures to economic exploitation by foreign business and that harm is waved away as if it doesn't matter. The arrogance does matter, because the arrogance can easily lead to outright economic colonialism ("for their own good" as much now as a century ago). The way to hold it in check is for other viewpoints to actually be entertained and discussed.
    - nickstinemates 7y ago
- ssalazar 7y ago
  > An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Google is one of the largest technology corporations in existence, controlling the flow of information for huge swaths of the world's population. They have no choice but to "play politics" as many of the decisions they make can have tremendous impact on global policy and society. > Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same. No. More and more, technology firms and the individuals within them are realizing their own responsibility to consider the ethical implications of the systems they are building.
  - caseysoftware 7y ago
    Private corporations acting in quasi-government ways is risky at best and terrifying at worst. While some of the checks & balances in civil+legal society have been broken, many are still there and there are repercussions when they're broken. A corporation doesn't have the same mechanisms - public rules (aka laws), processes, appeals, accountability, etc, etc - built in and there's limited recourse when their definition of "right" and others' conflicts. Frankly, it's begging for regulation.. and that's not even considering the potential monopoly angle.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    What do you mean by they have no choice? Societies have different views and values, and the most intransient of these tend to be reflected in their laws. Companies can offer their product while avoiding politics by simply obeying the laws of a nation. For instance online pornography is a political topic yet the answer is clearly determined by nations: very illegal in Saudi Arabia, kind of legal in the UK, completely legal in the US. Companies can respect cultural views and values by simply gearing their behavior to obey the laws of the nations in which they operate. Since some people would prefer to avoid seeing pornographic results regardless of laws companies can offer an option to remove such results - which is exactly what they do. Nice, simple, no involvement in politics except perhaps determining whether 'adult results' should be opt-in or opt-out. The last 'people' you want involved in politics are mega-corporations because they are one of the few groups that actually have the power to manipulate elections, corrupt politicians, and generally break democracies. In my opinion it's likely that the world will gradually 'progress' towards worldwide overt corporatocracy, but there's no reason we should embrace this in any way shape or form on the way there. If nothing else your post is a strong argument for why companies such as Google should be broken down. But, getting back to the original point, I think it's possible if not likely that that's already impossible -- thanks to their involvement in politics and the influence it has undoubtedly gained them.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  > How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? I certainly know what is better for the world than the majority of the US.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? Probably. But lots of people realize they've been wrong before, might be wrong on this occasion, and therefore don't just put their ideas over everybody else's. That's the non-arrogant way to handle that, I guess.
  - caseysoftware 7y ago
    No, it takes extreme arrogance. People who look at someone else and think "you should just.." are normal. We all do that. People who look at the world and say "everyone should just.." are the height of arrogance and epitomize the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
    - Buge 7y ago
      Is Google saying "everyone should just.."? It sounds like jgunsch's comment is about "what should we (Google) do?". That is, should Google bid on the JEDI military contract, should Google make a censored search product in China.
- salty_biscuits 7y ago
  I think the logic is backwards. In today's world government policy is the shadow of business interests, not representative government of the people like it is supposed to be. So I am glad for political discussions inside these large organizations, it seems like an escape valve for a broken system. The biggest problem with it is that it is not representative, as organizations are often unfairly hierarchical (and hence some people get an unfair amount of influence) and the workers in these organizations aren't often a representative cross section of society.
- agentofoblivion 7y ago
  I think you raise a good point about the nature of a for profit organization and it’s design being optimized for a particular thing, which is very much not a thing meant to generate good answers to tricky political questions that impact a whole lot of people/things. In reality, it’s headquarters is in a politically radical place where conservative voices have a helluva hard time speaking up because they could face career backlash by dissenting with the overwhelming majority views in those rooms, which are not representative samples of America. Google decision makers are not designed to be accurate representatives of America’s constituents. Ideals aside, I think there’s a clear business reality that the radical left employee base is giving google a lot of headaches. Many might argue this is for the better, but that’s mostly because they have similar political sentiments. It seems like woke culture has made google a very tense place and is gobbling them up.
  - pm90 7y ago
    Blaming radical “lefties” and exaggerating their negative influence is a favorite tactic used to demonize that part of society. This is analogous to the now discredited argument of leftist students silencing and tensing up college campuses in the US. And it is a similarly disingenuous argument.
- Buge 7y ago
  >An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Most large companies have lobbyists. That's much more "playing politics" than simply deciding not to bid on a military contract.
- jtolmar 7y ago
  These "arrogant" Googlers aren't changing the magnitude of Google's impact on people's lives. Google's impact will still be there if they go away. There is no option that makes it go away. The choice is between the company's workers trying their best to come up with a just way to pilot it, or Google's impact being directed entirely by its executives and profit motive.
  - Simon_says 7y ago
    They changed the impact of Google on my life. I completely excised Google from my life after a couple high-profile incidents at Google indicated they the company would use its power for political gain.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  How arrogant do have to be to not lie, steal, cheat, and kill? Not at all because acting according to your morality is a basic part of being a human or member of society. There's no reason that changes because you take your fun hat off and put your work hat on.
- tjpnz 7y ago
  >How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? I'm often stuck in the elevator with Googlers (our office is on the same floor as one of theirs). Some of the stuff that I end up overhearing is particularly jarring. It's not really the opinions but the self entitlement that makes me wish we had faster elevators.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Agree. In the US, we have government to take these things on. We have rule of law. And rights. Both government and individuals are subject to these. With Google, there is no rule of law or rights. Goggle does not have a constitution. If you have a problem with them, what can you do? Nothing. There is no right to question your accuser. There is no right to protect agains unreasonable search/seizure. There is no right to free speech. No right to privacy. And so on. There is only what Google arbitrarily decides to do. And if you're not in the majority as Google defines it, then it just sucks to be you. This is why unregulated monopolies are intolerable. The US is founded on the principle that powers are separated to keep any one entity from getting too much and being able to infringe on the rights of citizens. Google is way over that line, with monopolies in many areas. Add the partisan activism, and this is a very toxic brew.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
malvosenior 7y ago
> The discourse around the James Damore memo, as divisive as it was, felt like it still led to a broader understanding of the negative perspectives women in tech had to deal with constantly. Damore was fired for his contributions to this "conversation". Hardly just. > particularly the ones who felt it was worth staying and using their influence internally to push Google toward creating a more just world. How about just returning what I'm actually looking for when I search for something? Or not killing products off when they get traction? Google users don't care at all about the politics of Google employees, they just want the product to actually work which seems to be less important that ever internally at Google.
- jshowa3 7y ago
  Damore was fired for his contributions to this conversation". Hardly just.* According to what you said in this post, It was completely just as Damore basically wrote a dissertation about things that were completely unrelated to any work done for any Google product. All that work would've been tantamount to a complete waste of company time and could be grounds for a firing. Google users don't care at all about the politics of Google employees I care a great deal about how Google employees or any employee at any company are treated. You should too since most people spend their lives at companies and policies and laws surrounding them impact people directly.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    My understanding is that Damore was asked for his response to a training class he had taken. That would make the dissertation, as you call it, a work assignment. Is that understanding incorrect?
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      Yes. For a number of reasons, not least of all that such feedback optional, and to be sent to the people who managed the class. So it wasn't an assignment, and sharing it with everyone wasn't the way to handle it.
manigandham 7y ago
> "Google is far too large and influential" This is precisely why these discussions should be limited and isolated to groups who need to specifically work on them for products.
whiddershins 7y ago
Where in your comment do you show any indication you understand your views are very much both subjective and opinion and based on your necessarily limited lived experience? In the few concrete examples you have, your wording implies a one sided take on various controversial topics. People who think like that aren’t creating a “just world” by any definition I agree with. It’s more an example of the truism that the most dangerous people are the ones who are convinced they are acting from a place of moral correctness. These people aren’t the solution, they are the problem. And they can’t be reasoned with because they can’t see that, which is why they can’t stamp the problem out.
TheOperator 7y ago
I felt the Damore affair exposed a perverse situation. Essentially anybody denying that there were an equal number of women equally inclined towards and capable of performing in a certain industry is used as proof of systemic discrimination. Leaving that uncontested also proves systemic discrimination since there are less women in the field proving the sexism. Then when people get upset that they're being discriminated against and lash out that also proves the sexism. Yet when I talk to just about every ordinary person on the street there is just about nobody who believes women and men have a 50:50 inclination towards all types of work besides fringe egalitarians. If an honest discussion cannot take place that yes women are discriminated against, but that yes men and women DO in fact differ, then affirmative action will inevitably stop being about stopping sexism and start being about forcing equity as time goes on. You would have to apply a LOT of oppressive systemic sexism and force a whole lot of people male and female into jobs they're bad at and unhappy with to fix inequity in tech. Currently the reaction to people pointing out the looming problem is to fire that autistic employee for sexism and for the CEO to make a public apology. Damore was just ahead of his time. Affirmative action hasn't distorted tech enough to destroy itself yet.
PeterStuer 7y ago
History is full of nasty stories of groups of people pushing towards creating a 'just' world. Absolute conviction of righteousness leads to polarazation leads to extremism as nuanced opinions are projected onto the anti-pole. 'You are either with us or against us', 'You are part of the (our) solution or part of the problem', 'the end justifies the means', 'you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs' ... The art of moderation seems completely lost as people are swept up in a never ending exaggerated and overexposed arena that requires pledges of allegiance and virtue signalling, demonization and sacrificing above and beyond all reason. I'm not advocating everyone just shut the hell up, but the moment you when asked would not be able to switch sides in a debate and plead the opposite's case because you are so far down the path that you can not imagine anything but 'pure evil' as the motivations behind your opponent, you are no longer a valid contributor to the conversation, you are just part of a lynch mob out for blood.
lenkite 7y ago
"..using their influence internally to push Google toward creating a more just world" The above statement terrifies me. We didn't elect anyone at Google to do this for us.

LordFast 7y ago

Disclaimer: my comment below is directed at the culture of Google, and following in the train of thought from your comment. It's not directed at your comment or you. Reading this comment just makes me feel baffled. How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. There's no framework established within the confines of a corporation to deal with any of these sorts of social problems, and it shouldn't. Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same.

lmpostor 7y ago
> How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? That of a regular human being with rationalized opinions through the lens available to them? For some reason only because Google has a lot of power to control the dialogue you ask them to bury their head in the sand? Or are we going to pretend that there hasn't been an arms race of sorts to game search results across nearly every topic and as such one might consider removal of what one considers to either be harmful, false, or manipulative to be a part of doing the "right" job? What's the quote again, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing " -- Edmund Burke And as far as Google goes, I think it would be easy to rationalize that (if I was a Google member) I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information).
- einhverfr 7y ago
  All opinions can be rationalized through a particular lens can they not? Are you asking Google to be a voice of reason in the debate over global labor markets and liberalization of SE Asian economies for example? Doesn't that give you a wolf-and-lamb problem, to reference Aesop?
- LordFast 7y ago
  Let me clarify: - A non-decision by Google management to not place limits on its internal culture is a decision in itself, and has consequences that we are currently experiencing. - "Justice" is not something for a profit-seeking company to have influence or power over. This is my personal belief. I believe there are other channels that are better designed to address those issues. - My belief on this subject is limited to the above.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information). That does Not mean that Your Opinion would be a correct one--actually the opposite could just as easily be true.
- smsm42 7y ago
  Everybody thinks they have better tools than everybody else to know what's right and what's wrong. In most cases, they are mistaken. The cost of being mistaken for a company that has power to control significant amount of information available to humanity is enormous. That's why in the US there are direct prohibitions on government suppressing points of view. You could think - why should there be one? Of course, if the government would suppress normal people, like you and me, it would be bad. But why not bad people? Why don't we elect a very good government, an excellent one, with the best tools and information we have, and then let it do whatever it wants, no limits? Except we know it won't work. The power corrupts, and what we'd get would be the worst tyranny, regardless of how pure were the initial intentions. Why would we delude themselves into thinking if we call it "Google" and replace elections with technical interview it would go any better?
sarbaz 7y ago
Should people act in ways that disagree with their sense of justice? Should people be allowed to speak out against things that other people do, but that disagree with their sense of justice? I don't see how you can call it "arrogant" for people to act in accordance with their moral and ethical standards. We don't have the power to force the world do line up with our personal sense of justice. But we do have the power to make our lives and the lives of those around us more just, according to our own personal interpretation of that concept. Do you really think that striving for justice isn't OK?
- einhverfr 7y ago
  I think the problem is that the US has developed for various reasons (including a lack of discussing politics) a series of echo chambers and people don't connect politically beyond their echo chambers. In urban California, among software developers, you are likely to have one or two political views represented at most, and these represent a small racial and class-based cross-section of urban California. The first of course is the Neoliberal views of the Rainbow Capitalism camp that brought us Hillary Clinton's candidacy. If there is a second view it is the Business Liberalism view of the elite GOP members such as the Koch brothers. You aren't going to get the political concerns of rust-belt America, or the political concerns of black families down in Watts recognized, nor will you get the communitarianism of rural America in there either. And so that sense of justice gets warped, even regarding national issues of the US today. What happens when these things go world wide? Someone's sense of justice gets offended by economic orders where procreative/childrearing families hold businesses which are inherited and passed on to kids, and where there are solid gender roles associated (my kids' second culture for example)? I guess we better do what we can to make the world safe for American Capitalism to come in and liberate people from family expectations. But that means opening up such cultures to economic exploitation by foreign business and that harm is waved away as if it doesn't matter. The arrogance does matter, because the arrogance can easily lead to outright economic colonialism ("for their own good" as much now as a century ago). The way to hold it in check is for other viewpoints to actually be entertained and discussed.
  - nickstinemates 7y ago
ssalazar 7y ago
> An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Google is one of the largest technology corporations in existence, controlling the flow of information for huge swaths of the world's population. They have no choice but to "play politics" as many of the decisions they make can have tremendous impact on global policy and society. > Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same. No. More and more, technology firms and the individuals within them are realizing their own responsibility to consider the ethical implications of the systems they are building.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  Private corporations acting in quasi-government ways is risky at best and terrifying at worst. While some of the checks & balances in civil+legal society have been broken, many are still there and there are repercussions when they're broken. A corporation doesn't have the same mechanisms - public rules (aka laws), processes, appeals, accountability, etc, etc - built in and there's limited recourse when their definition of "right" and others' conflicts. Frankly, it's begging for regulation.. and that's not even considering the potential monopoly angle.
- rjf72 7y ago
  What do you mean by they have no choice? Societies have different views and values, and the most intransient of these tend to be reflected in their laws. Companies can offer their product while avoiding politics by simply obeying the laws of a nation. For instance online pornography is a political topic yet the answer is clearly determined by nations: very illegal in Saudi Arabia, kind of legal in the UK, completely legal in the US. Companies can respect cultural views and values by simply gearing their behavior to obey the laws of the nations in which they operate. Since some people would prefer to avoid seeing pornographic results regardless of laws companies can offer an option to remove such results - which is exactly what they do. Nice, simple, no involvement in politics except perhaps determining whether 'adult results' should be opt-in or opt-out. The last 'people' you want involved in politics are mega-corporations because they are one of the few groups that actually have the power to manipulate elections, corrupt politicians, and generally break democracies. In my opinion it's likely that the world will gradually 'progress' towards worldwide overt corporatocracy, but there's no reason we should embrace this in any way shape or form on the way there. If nothing else your post is a strong argument for why companies such as Google should be broken down. But, getting back to the original point, I think it's possible if not likely that that's already impossible -- thanks to their involvement in politics and the influence it has undoubtedly gained them.
Aeolun 7y ago
> How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? I certainly know what is better for the world than the majority of the US.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? Probably. But lots of people realize they've been wrong before, might be wrong on this occasion, and therefore don't just put their ideas over everybody else's. That's the non-arrogant way to handle that, I guess.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  No, it takes extreme arrogance. People who look at someone else and think "you should just.." are normal. We all do that. People who look at the world and say "everyone should just.." are the height of arrogance and epitomize the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
  - Buge 7y ago
    Is Google saying "everyone should just.."? It sounds like jgunsch's comment is about "what should we (Google) do?". That is, should Google bid on the JEDI military contract, should Google make a censored search product in China.
salty_biscuits 7y ago
I think the logic is backwards. In today's world government policy is the shadow of business interests, not representative government of the people like it is supposed to be. So I am glad for political discussions inside these large organizations, it seems like an escape valve for a broken system. The biggest problem with it is that it is not representative, as organizations are often unfairly hierarchical (and hence some people get an unfair amount of influence) and the workers in these organizations aren't often a representative cross section of society.
agentofoblivion 7y ago
I think you raise a good point about the nature of a for profit organization and it’s design being optimized for a particular thing, which is very much not a thing meant to generate good answers to tricky political questions that impact a whole lot of people/things. In reality, it’s headquarters is in a politically radical place where conservative voices have a helluva hard time speaking up because they could face career backlash by dissenting with the overwhelming majority views in those rooms, which are not representative samples of America. Google decision makers are not designed to be accurate representatives of America’s constituents. Ideals aside, I think there’s a clear business reality that the radical left employee base is giving google a lot of headaches. Many might argue this is for the better, but that’s mostly because they have similar political sentiments. It seems like woke culture has made google a very tense place and is gobbling them up.
- pm90 7y ago
  Blaming radical “lefties” and exaggerating their negative influence is a favorite tactic used to demonize that part of society. This is analogous to the now discredited argument of leftist students silencing and tensing up college campuses in the US. And it is a similarly disingenuous argument.
Buge 7y ago
>An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Most large companies have lobbyists. That's much more "playing politics" than simply deciding not to bid on a military contract.
jtolmar 7y ago
These "arrogant" Googlers aren't changing the magnitude of Google's impact on people's lives. Google's impact will still be there if they go away. There is no option that makes it go away. The choice is between the company's workers trying their best to come up with a just way to pilot it, or Google's impact being directed entirely by its executives and profit motive.
- Simon_says 7y ago
  They changed the impact of Google on my life. I completely excised Google from my life after a couple high-profile incidents at Google indicated they the company would use its power for political gain.
austhrow743 7y ago
How arrogant do have to be to not lie, steal, cheat, and kill? Not at all because acting according to your morality is a basic part of being a human or member of society. There's no reason that changes because you take your fun hat off and put your work hat on.
tjpnz 7y ago
>How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? I'm often stuck in the elevator with Googlers (our office is on the same floor as one of theirs). Some of the stuff that I end up overhearing is particularly jarring. It's not really the opinions but the self entitlement that makes me wish we had faster elevators.
tomohawk 7y ago
Agree. In the US, we have government to take these things on. We have rule of law. And rights. Both government and individuals are subject to these. With Google, there is no rule of law or rights. Goggle does not have a constitution. If you have a problem with them, what can you do? Nothing. There is no right to question your accuser. There is no right to protect agains unreasonable search/seizure. There is no right to free speech. No right to privacy. And so on. There is only what Google arbitrarily decides to do. And if you're not in the majority as Google defines it, then it just sucks to be you. This is why unregulated monopolies are intolerable. The US is founded on the principle that powers are separated to keep any one entity from getting too much and being able to infringe on the rights of citizens. Google is way over that line, with monopolies in many areas. Add the partisan activism, and this is a very toxic brew.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

malvosenior 7y ago

> The discourse around the James Damore memo, as divisive as it was, felt like it still led to a broader understanding of the negative perspectives women in tech had to deal with constantly. Damore was fired for his contributions to this "conversation". Hardly just. > particularly the ones who felt it was worth staying and using their influence internally to push Google toward creating a more just world. How about just returning what I'm actually looking for when I search for something? Or not killing products off when they get traction? Google users don't care at all about the politics of Google employees, they just want the product to actually work which seems to be less important that ever internally at Google.

jshowa3 7y ago
Damore was fired for his contributions to this conversation". Hardly just.* According to what you said in this post, It was completely just as Damore basically wrote a dissertation about things that were completely unrelated to any work done for any Google product. All that work would've been tantamount to a complete waste of company time and could be grounds for a firing. Google users don't care at all about the politics of Google employees I care a great deal about how Google employees or any employee at any company are treated. You should too since most people spend their lives at companies and policies and laws surrounding them impact people directly.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  My understanding is that Damore was asked for his response to a training class he had taken. That would make the dissertation, as you call it, a work assignment. Is that understanding incorrect?
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    Yes. For a number of reasons, not least of all that such feedback optional, and to be sent to the people who managed the class. So it wasn't an assignment, and sharing it with everyone wasn't the way to handle it.

manigandham 7y ago

> "Google is far too large and influential" This is precisely why these discussions should be limited and isolated to groups who need to specifically work on them for products.

whiddershins 7y ago

Where in your comment do you show any indication you understand your views are very much both subjective and opinion and based on your necessarily limited lived experience? In the few concrete examples you have, your wording implies a one sided take on various controversial topics. People who think like that aren’t creating a “just world” by any definition I agree with. It’s more an example of the truism that the most dangerous people are the ones who are convinced they are acting from a place of moral correctness. These people aren’t the solution, they are the problem. And they can’t be reasoned with because they can’t see that, which is why they can’t stamp the problem out.

TheOperator 7y ago

I felt the Damore affair exposed a perverse situation. Essentially anybody denying that there were an equal number of women equally inclined towards and capable of performing in a certain industry is used as proof of systemic discrimination. Leaving that uncontested also proves systemic discrimination since there are less women in the field proving the sexism. Then when people get upset that they're being discriminated against and lash out that also proves the sexism. Yet when I talk to just about every ordinary person on the street there is just about nobody who believes women and men have a 50:50 inclination towards all types of work besides fringe egalitarians. If an honest discussion cannot take place that yes women are discriminated against, but that yes men and women DO in fact differ, then affirmative action will inevitably stop being about stopping sexism and start being about forcing equity as time goes on. You would have to apply a LOT of oppressive systemic sexism and force a whole lot of people male and female into jobs they're bad at and unhappy with to fix inequity in tech. Currently the reaction to people pointing out the looming problem is to fire that autistic employee for sexism and for the CEO to make a public apology. Damore was just ahead of his time. Affirmative action hasn't distorted tech enough to destroy itself yet.

PeterStuer 7y ago

History is full of nasty stories of groups of people pushing towards creating a 'just' world. Absolute conviction of righteousness leads to polarazation leads to extremism as nuanced opinions are projected onto the anti-pole. 'You are either with us or against us', 'You are part of the (our) solution or part of the problem', 'the end justifies the means', 'you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs' ... The art of moderation seems completely lost as people are swept up in a never ending exaggerated and overexposed arena that requires pledges of allegiance and virtue signalling, demonization and sacrificing above and beyond all reason. I'm not advocating everyone just shut the hell up, but the moment you when asked would not be able to switch sides in a debate and plead the opposite's case because you are so far down the path that you can not imagine anything but 'pure evil' as the motivations behind your opponent, you are no longer a valid contributor to the conversation, you are just part of a lynch mob out for blood.

lenkite 7y ago

"..using their influence internally to push Google toward creating a more just world" The above statement terrifies me. We didn't elect anyone at Google to do this for us.