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> But for the right, it became a potent symbol of the tech industry’s intolerance of ideological diversity. To me, totally missing the point. Not just "for the
by anewhnaccount2 9y ago
> But for the right, it became a potent symbol of the tech industry’s intolerance of ideological diversity.
To me, totally missing the point. Not just "for the right". To many who would consider themselves mostly aligned with left wing politics, myself included, this is just the latest in a long line of media (social and news) driven forced punishment for people guilty of expressing a viewpoint or just generally doing something a bit poor taste in public. It doesn't really matter if they've done wrong. It's not a considered or proportional type of response.
Sure, there are far bigger injustices in the world than someone losing their job, but this sort of thing is wrong because it's for the wrong reason. It's headlines driven HR.
- vasilipupkin 9y agoI'm sorry, if you spend your time at work writing manifestos that ignite culture wars instead of working - you should be fired. Wanna write a manifesto? Create a blog post. I would be fired if I wrote a manifesto like this at my job - without any publicity
- FTA 9y agoNot that I agree with the statement, but it could easily be the case he wrote it on his own time and shared it at work on their internal Google+. Unless you have a source for your accusation, in which case I stand corrected.
- DiNovi 9y agoEven if you wrote it on your own time, sharing it with internally with your coworkers is toxic.
- jabv 9y agoSerious: do you see that your response is exactly what the memo was about? He's claiming that the pre-judgment that the topic is toxic is harmful. To argue against him by re-asserting that which he questions will not be persuasive.
- DiNovi 9y agoAre you saying my argument - that sharing a 10 page personal essay, or whatever to all your coworkers is toxic - is invalid, because in it, he asks not to be prejudged? That's ludicrous. You don't do things that make potentially thousands of your coworkers uncomfortable internally just because you want to make a point. Human Resources is a thing for a reason. Put it on medium and be done with it.
- jabv 9y agoI think you may have raised a good point - was this the appropriate forum/channel/whatever to offer his observations, questions, and criticisms? He suggests that Google has a culture of sharing pretty openly and of offering criticism and even commentary on important issues. It would be good to have additional evidence of this to evaluate whether his statement was indeed matched to the appropriate environment. (I am not and have not been a Google employee, so IDK for sure. I know that at my company, there are indeed particular fora in which this sort of thing could be raised. I can imagine at some companies this would not be possible, so you raise a great question. Thanks!)
- jamesrcole 9y agoIt was a memo about a matter that's internal to Google, so I don't think publicly publishing it would have been appropriate. And doing so would have surely created an even larger furore.
- traverseda 9y agoHe shared it on the forum specifically for talking about diversity and gender politics?
- anapaix 9y agoSundar Pichai tweeted in support of allowing transgenders in the military, on work time. Would you say that, too, is "toxic"? it's politics on work time, right?
- vasilipupkin 9y agoSundar Pichai is the CEO. He decides how to run the company. If you are a 28 year old software engineer, you should focus on software engineering. By all means, grow to be a C level executive and change the culture. But google is a private company and those who own it and run it are perfectly entitled to want to not have junior software engineers stir up culture wars inside the company If investors who own google don't like the culture Sundar is supporting inside their company - they can fire him and if they do, it's their business.
- flukus 9y agoSo you were fine with Brendan Eich being against gay marriage because he was CEO? Because he's CEO do you think everyone at mozilla should have been prevented from supporting gay marriage?
- vasilipupkin 9y agoJeez. No. But when Brendan Eich was CEO, it would have been totally fine for him to fire people who distribute internal memos arguing for gay marriage. See the difference ? You can be for or against whatever you want, work is for work though
- jshevek 9y agoWhy is it toxic?
- rtx 9y agoHe wrote it on a plane ride to China.
- marcoperaza 9y agoI'm not commenting on this specific case, but if you've spent any amount of time in NameABigCorp lately, you've surely realized that various points of left-wing politics are pursued as official points of dogma. So it's not as if politics are being kept out of work in the first place. I'm all for keeping politics out of the workplace, except for verbal conversations between colleagues. But that's just not the case right now.
- vasilipupkin 9y agoNsmeABigCorp is owned by investors, yes? Those investors hired management to run it a certain way, yes? Don't like it? Start your own and run it the way you want
- marcoperaza 9y agoWhen the corporation in question controls a major part of the spaces that have replaced the institution of the public square, so central to the functioning of a republic, their political actions deserve scrutiny. If they claim to be open to diverse opinions, yet behave in a manner that suggests otherwise, then citizens need to start paying attention.
- vasilipupkin 9y agoI agree, I'm merely pointing out that suftware engineers who aren't focused enough on their immediate duties and instead stir up culture wars by writing manifestos would be fired by most companies not just google
- marcoperaza 9y agoDo you think an employee at a tech company would be fired for sending out a 10-page memo about why trans people should be allowed in the military? How about a 10-page memo about why they shouldn't? Both are obviously incredibly unprofessional, but only one would probably face life-changing punishment in reality. Ideally you set the tone that both are unacceptable, that the only political discussion acceptable beyond interpersonal conversation is the politics of the company's self-interest. Both starting an internal political battle, as as well tweeting externally about an already-started one, should get you fired. But that's only fair if you set that tone and expectation.
- jamesrcole 9y agoDid they write it on work time? I don't know, myself.
- jshevek 9y agoWhy do you assume he did it at work? Maybe you are unfamiliar with Google's culture. Employees are encouraged to engage in conversations about the culture and values of the company, using mediums like this. Google is not rigid about "work time", preferring that you are productive.
- DiNovi 9y agoThis is wrong. He was fired because he can't reliably review his peers if he thinks they are genetically inferior to him. Also, 10 page manifestos to your company are never good ideas. has everyone forgotten Jerry McGuire?
- dijit 9y ago2 Things. 1) He never insinuated that anyone was biologically inferior just that there is marginal statistical proof that -on average- women prefer to work less hours, and more flexible hours; his "idea" was to promote a culture that adopted this, rather than using hiring quotas, in order to achieve the diversity goal which he also claims to wish for. That you claim he was calling people "inferior" only shows your own bias. 2) It's not a "Manifesto" that's what gizmodo called it but it was, at best, a memo, at worst, the first post on an internal forum thread hoping to discuss this matter.
- navait 9y agoHow is a 10 page treatise on something not a manifesto?
- SmirkingRevenge 9y agoI think the point is that "manifesto" is a term that is a bit loaded, as it conjures up images of things like the uni-bomber or serial killers, or some kinds of ideological militants, for a lot of people. Priming your audience with terms like "Anti-diversity screed" and "manifesto" all but guarantee a sizable portion of people will read the document with major prejudice and bias. And that's the kind of thing those of us who value diversity ought to loathe. We certainly need a whole lot more charity in our conversations on sensitive issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
- navait 9y ago> think the point is that "manifesto" is a term that is a bit loaded [[Citation Needed]]
- nova22033 9y ago>for people guilty of expressing a viewpoint How about this scenario? Writes a manifesto 1. Google is intolerant of opposing views 2. Hitler did nothing wrong. Gets fired. THIS PROVES MY POINT ABOUT GOOGLE BEING INTOLERANT.
- StavrosK 9y agoI don't think opinions should just be dismissed outright. I think there's a scale on a) how inflammatory they are and b) how well-argued they are. "Hitler did nothign wrong, let's kill the Jews" should be judged differently from "Maybe Hitler was right on some points, here's why:".
- intortus 9y ago"Expressing a viewpoint" is a disingenuous reduction. Viewpoints, and their expression, can cause extensive harm to others, as was the case here.
- anapaix 9y agoboo-hoo. science doesn't care about your feelings. His ideas were scientifically accurate and are widely supported in the scientific community: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-anxious-sex/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-anxious-sex/ leave the emoting/bitching for your next flat-earther/climate-denier meeting.
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't violate the guidelines by posting uncivilly like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jshevek 9y agoWhat harm did this viewpoint cause to others?