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When it's my personal viewpoint on hacker news, which is pretty much always? No. Despite your claims in other threads about employees, i am not the company i w

When it's my personal viewpoint on hacker news, which is pretty much always? No. Despite your claims in other threads about employees, i am not the company i work for. I also don't agree with them on a lot of issues, FWIW. When and if i speak for that company, i'll tag it as me speaking for that company so you know. Otherwise, you should always assume it's just my viewpoint, just like you assume anyone else's view is their viewpoint. Anything else would make for a really crappy place to have discussions. (I find it funny that every sibling comment basically says i shouldn't have done that, and says "you should discuss the thing, not the biases", which is a fair point. Meanwhile, you are saying we should discuss the biases).

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
If you're going to complain about biases in an article or comment, you have to highlight your own. Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed. Another example is if you review a product, you should disclose if you are being paid for the review, if you received the product to review for free, or even just if you got a discount on it in exchange for a review. It doesn't make it any less your opinion, it's just denoting the potential bias in your statements based on your relationship.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  "If you're going to complain about biases in an article, you have to highlight your own. " This is pretty ridiculous. I don't expect people having an opinion on child sex trafficking and talking about biases those article authors have to disclose whether they were abused as children, and are thus biased etc. I'm not the one who wrote and published an article in a major news site. I'll point out he didn't disclose his biases in his biography either, so apparently he doesn't agree with you, since he's literally complaining about google's biases. "Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand." Which is 100% totally and completely irrelevant to discussion of either someone else's biases or the topic of hand. If someone wants to start a separate discussion of my biases, that's fine too, but it could not be more orthogonal. > Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed." Why stop at companies? When discussing the california drought, should people living in areas affected point out they have a direct vested interest in one outcome or another (because they pay more, because it means water restrictions for them, because ...)? and again, FWIW: I am neither a significant shareholder, nor do i have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. If Google was regulated, or whatever, it would have literally no effect on me. In any case, i'm not going to continue this line of discussion. I have no plans to change what i do, because i think it would make for a much worse discussion forum. you are welcome to do what you want.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > This is pretty ridiculous. I don't expect people having an opinion on child sex trafficking and talking about biases those article authors have to disclose whether they were abused as children, and are thus biased etc. That's not analogous. This is not about pre-emptive disclosure of bias. It is about disclosing the author's bias without disclosing your own, which constitutes dishonestly representing yourself as an uninterested party while maligning the author for pushing an agenda. It's unfair at best, and intentionally deceptive at worst. An analogous situation would be like this: someone reads an article about child sex trafficking and criticizes it because of the author's bias, without mentioning their own relevant bias. What you did is analogous: you criticized an author for having an anti-Google bias, without mentioning that you work at Google.
angersock 10y ago
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
- DannyBee 10y ago
  While a cute quote, I don't remember Upton providing any empirical or real evidence for this statement :)
  - angersock 10y ago
    One could easily cite the number of engineers who draw paychecks at Google, Facebook, and other places who seem to be unaware that massive surveillance software doesn't just write itself. :)
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      yet if you query those engineers, i would guess they both understand that, oppose mass surveillance heavily, and oppose anyone in their company writing it. So that would mean upton was wrong, or their paychecks don't depend on any of that :) (whether they have power to stop it, or work to stop it is not what upton was talking about, and a completely different question)
      - angersock 10y ago
        I think it's reasonable to argue that continuing to show up to work shows a lack of understanding at some level, either of their own commitment to doing Good or of how their continued employment assists Bad.
twblalock 10y ago
> (I find it funny that every sibling comment basically says i shouldn't have done that, and says "you should discuss the thing, not the biases", which is a fair point. Meanwhile, you are saying we should discuss the biases). They are just pointing out your hypocrisy.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  no, he just has an axe to grind from other threads.
pc86 10y ago
If you are pointing out that the author has certain anti-Google biases I would think it would be incumbent upon you to point out that you work for Google and might have biases on the opposite end of the spectrum. I think most people can read criticism about their employer and not immediately dismiss it because they happen to like their employer. However, after your reading your responses here it seems hypocritical and downright dishonest that you didn't disclaim your affiliation before posting a comment that basically says "Oh it's Epstein lol whatever he's a hack"

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

If you're going to complain about biases in an article or comment, you have to highlight your own. Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed. Another example is if you review a product, you should disclose if you are being paid for the review, if you received the product to review for free, or even just if you got a discount on it in exchange for a review. It doesn't make it any less your opinion, it's just denoting the potential bias in your statements based on your relationship.

DannyBee 10y ago
"If you're going to complain about biases in an article, you have to highlight your own. " This is pretty ridiculous. I don't expect people having an opinion on child sex trafficking and talking about biases those article authors have to disclose whether they were abused as children, and are thus biased etc. I'm not the one who wrote and published an article in a major news site. I'll point out he didn't disclose his biases in his biography either, so apparently he doesn't agree with you, since he's literally complaining about google's biases. "Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand." Which is 100% totally and completely irrelevant to discussion of either someone else's biases or the topic of hand. If someone wants to start a separate discussion of my biases, that's fine too, but it could not be more orthogonal. > Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed." Why stop at companies? When discussing the california drought, should people living in areas affected point out they have a direct vested interest in one outcome or another (because they pay more, because it means water restrictions for them, because ...)? and again, FWIW: I am neither a significant shareholder, nor do i have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. If Google was regulated, or whatever, it would have literally no effect on me. In any case, i'm not going to continue this line of discussion. I have no plans to change what i do, because i think it would make for a much worse discussion forum. you are welcome to do what you want.
- twblalock 10y ago
  > This is pretty ridiculous. I don't expect people having an opinion on child sex trafficking and talking about biases those article authors have to disclose whether they were abused as children, and are thus biased etc. That's not analogous. This is not about pre-emptive disclosure of bias. It is about disclosing the author's bias without disclosing your own, which constitutes dishonestly representing yourself as an uninterested party while maligning the author for pushing an agenda. It's unfair at best, and intentionally deceptive at worst. An analogous situation would be like this: someone reads an article about child sex trafficking and criticizes it because of the author's bias, without mentioning their own relevant bias. What you did is analogous: you criticized an author for having an anti-Google bias, without mentioning that you work at Google.

angersock 10y ago

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

DannyBee 10y ago
While a cute quote, I don't remember Upton providing any empirical or real evidence for this statement :)
- angersock 10y ago
  One could easily cite the number of engineers who draw paychecks at Google, Facebook, and other places who seem to be unaware that massive surveillance software doesn't just write itself. :)
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    yet if you query those engineers, i would guess they both understand that, oppose mass surveillance heavily, and oppose anyone in their company writing it. So that would mean upton was wrong, or their paychecks don't depend on any of that :) (whether they have power to stop it, or work to stop it is not what upton was talking about, and a completely different question)
    - angersock 10y ago
      I think it's reasonable to argue that continuing to show up to work shows a lack of understanding at some level, either of their own commitment to doing Good or of how their continued employment assists Bad.

twblalock 10y ago

> (I find it funny that every sibling comment basically says i shouldn't have done that, and says "you should discuss the thing, not the biases", which is a fair point. Meanwhile, you are saying we should discuss the biases). They are just pointing out your hypocrisy.

DannyBee 10y ago
no, he just has an axe to grind from other threads.

pc86 10y ago

If you are pointing out that the author has certain anti-Google biases I would think it would be incumbent upon you to point out that you work for Google and might have biases on the opposite end of the spectrum. I think most people can read criticism about their employer and not immediately dismiss it because they happen to like their employer. However, after your reading your responses here it seems hypocritical and downright dishonest that you didn't disclaim your affiliation before posting a comment that basically says "Oh it's Epstein lol whatever he's a hack"