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Fairly disappointing article title, but it is true. Google executives and other management personnel from other tech giants have internal and external fiduciar
by russdpale 9y ago
Fairly disappointing article title, but it is true.
Google executives and other management personnel from other tech giants have internal and external fiduciary responsibilities to uphold inside their own organizations. Google firing the engineer is, unfortunately, what many companies would choose to do when faced with the same public dilemma.
And while it sucks, one has to wonder if our outrage at the termination of an outspoken engineer is somehow spawned from an unrealistic expectation placed upon google as the 'good guy'? Or is it from an unrealistic optimism born in the late twentieth century and early twenty first that the internet, and its leading companies, would somehow chart themselves on morally superior course?
In my humble opinion, I am not totally sure google qualifies as a truly private enterprise, and as such they should have a greater interest in the stakeholder. And in that context, our outrage makes much more sense, and is more justified.
- bad_user 9y agoOh I wouldn't jump to conclusions so fast. I actually like them more for firing that guy. That whole manifesto was wrapped in scientism, using facts selectively to advance the author's viewpoint, with the conclusion being a non-sequitur. More aggravating however and the reason for why you shouldn't be outraged is that, regardless of any truths mentioned, it's inevitable for such an essay to not cause outrage within the targeted groups. This is because we are only human. Now think of the company. Google and Apple are the most powerful and rich companies in the world. And one of their employees writes an essay under the pretense that "it's bad for business" and that: (1) outrages many of their other employees (2) hurts their public image, no matter what they do next Of course they fired him. It's unreasonable to expect otherwise. Repeat after me: a company is not a democracy, a company isn't a meritocracy either, a company is property and that property ain't yours, unless it's your company. Also, you know what's really, really funny? The right wanting companies to be able to fire anybody for any reason, except for this particular reason. That smells like a double standard.
- humanrebar 9y ago> The right wanting companies to be able to fire anybody for any reason, except for this particular reason. The conservative columnists I've read on this think that Google was legally entitled to fire Damore, but they failed their eithical obligations to follow the golden rule, promote a culture of honest discussion, and actually promote diversity of thought in their organization. There may be some alt-right columnists saying other things, but they don't really follow logical principles as much as fight as partisans in the culture war. So you're right that they're hypocritical. To them it's beside the point since the left is already being unfair, etc. But if you can figure out a way to get them to care, let me know. There could be an interesting argument invoking the prisoners' dilemma and game theory saying conservatives should use liberal laws while they exist. Maybe they're getting at this with the "but SJWs" stuff.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago> Also, you know what's really, really funny? > The right wanting companies to be able to fire anybody for any reason, except for this particular reason. That smells like a double standard. Despite what big media companies would like you to believe, and despite what our first-past-the-post voting system does to our selection of parties, most people in "the right" don't think like the stereotypical right-winger just like most people on "the left" don't think like a hyper-liberal.