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90 points in less than an hour. This guy's fight for his right to be wrong is surprisingly energising to this community. I'm even sympathetic to the criticism
by matt4077 9y ago
90 points in less than an hour. This guy's fight for his right to be wrong is surprisingly energising to this community.
I'm even sympathetic to the criticism of Google. But for the life of me I can't figure out why this particular employment dispute gets this sort of billing... Arguably the US government (an entity endowed with something literally called "the monopoly on violence") just pardoned someone who build an actual concentration camp (his words) in the middle of the US. And had his goons start criminal investigations against journalists. And, you know, continued actually killing people after being told by a court that he should maybe not do that.
Now the victims were mostly brown and did not have enough stock options to coast for the next decade, so it maybe somewhat hard to relate to for the community. But no matter how hard I try, I can't see reason why one story is running to the top every second day, and others are nowhere to be found.
- kbart 9y agoMaybe because here's a technical community. I'm much more interested in news about leading tech companies than some local crime lord in a foreign country.
- zentiggr 9y agoI suppose Maricopa County could in some ways be considered foreign territory, but bastard Joe was an American county sheriff in an American state...
- kbart 9y agoYou do realize that "foreign" depends on a perspective? What is "foreign" for me isn't necessarily "foreign" for you. HN readers are from all over the world, and I'm sure much more of them knows what Google is and thus more interested in related news than some "bastard Joe from Maricopa County".
- seanf 9y agoThis article is not about the memo guy.
- matt4077 9y agoIndeed. It's yet another poor sob Google tries to silence by getting him onto the New York Times front page :) I stand corrected, and pledge to actually read the article next time around,
- jbreckmckye 9y agoThe cynical explanation: 1. We work in tech, and some of us have already developed opinions on Google. We have small worlds and in them some things seem disproportionately large. 2. Most posters are American. Examining how the US state uses violence is never going to be comfortable for them. 3. Decades of misinformation have created a layer of innuendo and whataboutism around acts like whistleblowing and certain kind of political protests. Google is under fire because it simply hasn't yet operated the kind of propaganda machine available to other organs of our economy. 4. People have already been 'primed' to respond to this story by a slow buildup of other stories. Your story hits a blindspot. The good news is that continued messaging, continued posting can gradually overcome that effect if it's targeted at the right people.
- matt4077 9y agoI think you're the first person I can ever tell that you're not actually as cynical as you may think :) The cynical explanation–and this is just purely hypothetical–is (for a pathologically cynical mind) that a Google engineer who gets fired after circulating a call for unionising, or complaining about the lack of day-care options on campus, wouldn't even register within this community.
- metaphorm 9y agoI don't follow you on making a connection between Joe Arpaio and the story in the linked article. In what way are they connected?