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> What this whole episode really seems to show is how authoritarianism has crept into our lives and how incredibly difficult it is to resist it even amongst hig
by jdavis703 9y ago
> What this whole episode really seems to show is how authoritarianism has crept into our lives and how incredibly difficult it is to resist it even amongst highly educated people.
How is this any different than if I was to exercise my "free speech" to insult my CEO and found myself fired? This was a private corporation, operating in an at-will employment state. Now if the government had taken steps to censor speech, one could argue that we're in an authoritarian regime. But workplaces have always (at least since I've been working), been places where we voluntarily subject ourselves to private authority, or else quit or are fired.
- slavak 9y agoI think the problem people have with this is that Google was (and still is) promoting themselves as a place where expressing differing opinions is welcome and encouraged, and the internal forum where he posted this was apparently used and promoted as just that. (A sort of "Google-only Reddit," as some Googlers describe it.) I think it's widely accepted that work is generally a place where discussion of politics and gender relations is not appropriate. I know I do my best to avoid arguments on those topics at work, and that's fine. But when your employer explicitly encourages carrying out this kind of discussion in specific work-only forums, and then turns around and punishes you for it when some people throw a hissy-fit, that's gonna leave a bad taste in many people's mouths. To use your example, if I insulted my CEO and got fired for it no one would be surprised. But if my CEO was soliciting honest feedback on their performance and then I got fired for pointing out some stuff they dropped the ball on, I'd be (understandably, I think) quite upset.