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>But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten an

>But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their coworkers verbally over the coals. The idea that as long as you aren't yelling, swearing, or actively insulting someone you are not treating them poorly is one of the biggest failures of Google (and other Bay Area companies') internal culture. Verbal abuse is not ok, but even polite disagreement can be a career limiting move in such an environment. And let me be clear: I'm not talking James Damore "I'm just expressing an alternative opinion" low boil misogyny. That kind of thing is unacceptable. But it's really easy to slip into an echo chamber, especially when a lot of what Bay Area companies work on is qualitative. (E.g. pretty much anything related to UX, policy)

cromwellian 9y ago
Google has lots of polite disagreement internally, just look at Steve Yegge's memos.
- weberc2 9y ago
  This isn't evidence against the echo chamber claim. An example of valid evidence might be rational debate about a conservative memo, as opposed to censorship, demonization, slander, etc.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Google has internal Republican and Libertarian newsgroups and has had them for years. Damore's central issues have been debated for a long time on those kinds of lists and never censored. What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence. Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      > What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence. Most of the egregious cases (including the Google Memo) involve liberals who are censored, harassed, or assaulted by progressives for openly inquiring or pointing to inconsistencies in the progressive narrative. Based solely on the frequency of these starkest of cases, I don't know how anyone could reasonably conclude that the evidence is paltry. Everyone should be allowed to ask questions and express (at least moderate) political ideas without fearing for their safety or income. This has nothing to do with privilege, and it shouldn't be a right conferred only to the extreme left. > Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion. Prior to the last few years, I've only ever heard the term applied to conservatives, who ostensibly failed to live up to the formerly-progressive value of open-mindedness. Conservatives have always been taken to task for failing to abide by progressive values (tolerance, free speech, open-mindedness, etc). Now progressives are under the same gun and it's all "poor progressives! why aren't conservatives faulted for failing to live up to progressive values?"; at any rate, the term is still widely (and justifiably) applied to conservatives.
    - _Tev 9y ago
      Existence of one echo chamber doesn't disprove existence of another echo chamber. And considering public did not see those old internal debates (there was not even a quote or reference to them in official statement about the firing), google now looks from the outside like that echo chamber.
- bkeroack 9y ago
  Counter-example: Michael Church (who was also aggressively banned from HN, not coincidentally)
  - wheaties 9y ago
    One uses sock puppet accounts and has been banned from Wikipedia, the other does not...
    - bkeroack 9y ago
      Oh I'm not defending him. Some of his points were interesting but he seemed determined to piss everybody off to the point of no return. However that stuff happened after he got himself fired from Google. My point is that Google is not particularly tolerant of dissent, or at least a specific type of dissent. Even back then (it seems worse now).
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> I'm not talking James Damore "I'm just expressing an alternative opinion" low boil misogyny. That kind of thing is unacceptable. Why is his cultural questioning of potential causes for gender disparities bad, yet we're supposed to avoid falling into an echo chamber for other issues? If issues can't be questioned, doesn't that itself form an echo chamber?
- pc86 9y ago
  Because greggarious happens to disagree with James Damore, therefore he is bad.
- pm90 9y ago
  Mostly because the language he used and the way he tried to promote his viewpoint was construed as hostile by almost every woman working at Google, or at least a significant number of them. The choice isn't b/w being an echo chamber and expressing views which make coworkers uncomfortable for their gender.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Idk, I didn't see an issue with it. He discussed the issue on an internal forum designed for such discussion using plenty of citations and sociological terminology. The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.
    - pm90 9y ago
      > The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. On the contrary, I think that alone is sufficient reason. Its hard for me to go into detail about this right now. But as an employee working with other people, one must be aware of the effect one's actions and words have on fellow coworkers. In this case, the correct approach would have been for him to perhaps engage with a smaller group of people, not post a manifesto where it could be accessed by everyone at Google, which is a large number of people. Depending on the feedback, he could have change the wording to be perhaps more appropriate, and engaged in an honest conversation with HR. There is no evidence that he did any of these things. Again, its common decency to be aware of one's words on fellow coworkers. With social issues, its not just facts, but also how you chose to express those facts that matter. You could say: but why shouldn't anyone be allowed to express anything? Why place so much burden on someone to express their true thoughts? Its because we choose to live in a society that doesn't censor the views of its members but also places reasonable restrictions on what/how they can be expressed. So its not that his views shouldn't be expressed, but they weren't done appropriately.
specialist 9y ago
"...but even polite disagreement can be a career limiting move in such an environment." So. You're saying that Google is pretty much like every gig I've ever had.
pm90 9y ago
Every big company suffers the echo chamber problem to some extent or the other. And while Google engineers are a diverse lot, most of them (rightfully) consider themselves as some of the smartest people out there, and sometimes can be rather pig headed about looking at issues from a different paradigm. This is especially true on political (rather than scientific) issues.

cromwellian 9y ago

Google has lots of polite disagreement internally, just look at Steve Yegge's memos.

weberc2 9y ago
This isn't evidence against the echo chamber claim. An example of valid evidence might be rational debate about a conservative memo, as opposed to censorship, demonization, slander, etc.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  Google has internal Republican and Libertarian newsgroups and has had them for years. Damore's central issues have been debated for a long time on those kinds of lists and never censored. What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence. Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    > What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence. Most of the egregious cases (including the Google Memo) involve liberals who are censored, harassed, or assaulted by progressives for openly inquiring or pointing to inconsistencies in the progressive narrative. Based solely on the frequency of these starkest of cases, I don't know how anyone could reasonably conclude that the evidence is paltry. Everyone should be allowed to ask questions and express (at least moderate) political ideas without fearing for their safety or income. This has nothing to do with privilege, and it shouldn't be a right conferred only to the extreme left. > Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion. Prior to the last few years, I've only ever heard the term applied to conservatives, who ostensibly failed to live up to the formerly-progressive value of open-mindedness. Conservatives have always been taken to task for failing to abide by progressive values (tolerance, free speech, open-mindedness, etc). Now progressives are under the same gun and it's all "poor progressives! why aren't conservatives faulted for failing to live up to progressive values?"; at any rate, the term is still widely (and justifiably) applied to conservatives.
  - _Tev 9y ago
    Existence of one echo chamber doesn't disprove existence of another echo chamber. And considering public did not see those old internal debates (there was not even a quote or reference to them in official statement about the firing), google now looks from the outside like that echo chamber.
bkeroack 9y ago
Counter-example: Michael Church (who was also aggressively banned from HN, not coincidentally)
- wheaties 9y ago
  One uses sock puppet accounts and has been banned from Wikipedia, the other does not...
  - bkeroack 9y ago
    Oh I'm not defending him. Some of his points were interesting but he seemed determined to piss everybody off to the point of no return. However that stuff happened after he got himself fired from Google. My point is that Google is not particularly tolerant of dissent, or at least a specific type of dissent. Even back then (it seems worse now).

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

> I'm not talking James Damore "I'm just expressing an alternative opinion" low boil misogyny. That kind of thing is unacceptable. Why is his cultural questioning of potential causes for gender disparities bad, yet we're supposed to avoid falling into an echo chamber for other issues? If issues can't be questioned, doesn't that itself form an echo chamber?

pc86 9y ago
Because greggarious happens to disagree with James Damore, therefore he is bad.
pm90 9y ago
Mostly because the language he used and the way he tried to promote his viewpoint was construed as hostile by almost every woman working at Google, or at least a significant number of them. The choice isn't b/w being an echo chamber and expressing views which make coworkers uncomfortable for their gender.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  Idk, I didn't see an issue with it. He discussed the issue on an internal forum designed for such discussion using plenty of citations and sociological terminology. The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.
  - pm90 9y ago
    > The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. On the contrary, I think that alone is sufficient reason. Its hard for me to go into detail about this right now. But as an employee working with other people, one must be aware of the effect one's actions and words have on fellow coworkers. In this case, the correct approach would have been for him to perhaps engage with a smaller group of people, not post a manifesto where it could be accessed by everyone at Google, which is a large number of people. Depending on the feedback, he could have change the wording to be perhaps more appropriate, and engaged in an honest conversation with HR. There is no evidence that he did any of these things. Again, its common decency to be aware of one's words on fellow coworkers. With social issues, its not just facts, but also how you chose to express those facts that matter. You could say: but why shouldn't anyone be allowed to express anything? Why place so much burden on someone to express their true thoughts? Its because we choose to live in a society that doesn't censor the views of its members but also places reasonable restrictions on what/how they can be expressed. So its not that his views shouldn't be expressed, but they weren't done appropriately.

specialist 9y ago

"...but even polite disagreement can be a career limiting move in such an environment." So. You're saying that Google is pretty much like every gig I've ever had.

pm90 9y ago

Every big company suffers the echo chamber problem to some extent or the other. And while Google engineers are a diverse lot, most of them (rightfully) consider themselves as some of the smartest people out there, and sometimes can be rather pig headed about looking at issues from a different paradigm. This is especially true on political (rather than scientific) issues.