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> Yonatan Zunger, a high-ranking veteran engineer who left Google eight months ago, says the internal culture has become a textbook case of the "paradox of tole

by lykr0n 9y ago

> Yonatan Zunger, a high-ranking veteran engineer who left Google eight months ago, says the internal culture has become a textbook case of the "paradox of tolerance," the notion that if a society is tolerant without limit, it will be seized upon by the intolerant. To me, this could all be solved by HR releasing a document on what can and can not be discussed on company time and where the lines are. And if a document exists, enforce it on both sides. Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
seattle_spring 9y ago
> not talk about politics in the work place. I honestly wish this was the law.
- Yetanfou 9y ago
  This could only be the law if and when politics did not influence decisions in the workplace. As that is not - and can not be - the case it does not make sense to ban talk about politics, no matter how futile such talk often is.
  - ztjio 9y ago
    A far simpler problem exists: you can't actually define what is or is not politics.
    - fleitz 9y ago
      Especially with the Marxist / feminist view that everything is politics. I was discussing space exploration (you’d think this would be a pretty safe topic) at work and suddenly it turned into how space exploration was ruining everything because then people thought they could escape global warming instead of doing something about it. The conversation ended when I asked the guy how many kids he had he said none cuz global warming, I said that was too bad cuz I was teaching my kids to 4x4 and their superior 4x4ing genes would out breed his inferior genes that convinced him not to have kids and that my kids were going to 4x4 on mars once we had finished ruining this planet. Guy basically had an aneurism right there on the spot, one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever witnessed at work. I figured it was too much of a troll to actually work but he went fully ballistic
- monktastic1 9y ago
  > I honestly wish this was the law. Like, honestly honestly, or jokingly honestly? What if I say "I wish I were allowed to speak about politics at work" at work? That's political. Do I get a fine? How about "am I allowed to talk about this?" If it's a gray area and we start debating it, which one of us gets shipped to the gulag? Who gets to decide what's politics? Isn't even that question political?
  - seattle_spring 9y ago
    I don't know. Whatever would prevent my co-workers from talking about politics for the entirety of lunch, every single day.
    - bipson 9y ago
      And here comes the view of someone that is interested in politics and is reminded daily of how politics makes everyone's lives worse than necessary: I wish my coworkers (and my fellow citizens for that matter) would be interested in politics just a little more, so they would realize what is happening around them, and know what they are talking about whenever they touch politics and legislature. My opinion is gradually becoming a minority view all over Europe, with people fleeing to either extreme. The thing is: We were once "politically uneducated" here in Europe. It made the "third Reich" as a mass phenomenon possible, because a lot of people joined this movement blindly and with enthusiasm and did not realize where this train was heading until it was way too late (and they were completely delusional). When the allies took over they tried to make sure we would be and stay politically educated, so this would never happen again (spoiler: it did not work). How ironic that America is spearheading the movement to normalize extreme views.
      - seattle_spring 9y ago
        Do you think that circlejerking about the latest headlines every single day constitutes as being "politically educated?" Watching a bunch of people get mad every single day does nothing to further my, or anyone else's, political education.
      - 9y ago
- 13years 9y ago
  This might sound good, but the result of such is tyranny and loss of free speech. Politics easily being a fuzzy term which can be adapted to fit a very wide range of ideas gives those few in power who set the rules the ability to silence whatever they wish. It would better if there were more initiatives to improve intellectual discourse so people could like actually talk to one another. The less we talk, the further apart we will grow
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Keyword: Talk. I'm not so sure that online communities are the best place for political discussion. Direct person-to-person communication allows for much more subtle, nuanced conversation and doesn't seem to turn into dumpster-fires nearly as often as online.
    - ghthor 9y ago
      Its also much less likely for someone to copy and leak the conversation in it in person.
fleitz 9y ago
Insanity.
jatsign 9y ago
It's very hard, probably impossible, to come up with a specific list. The list will either be incomplete (the trolls are cunning) or overly broad and spark anti-authoritarian feelings. If you've ever been an online forum mod, or similar, you'll know that the larger the "board" gets, the more out of whack it gets. When a company, or forum, is small, and most people know each other, at least a bit, they tend to stay civil. Past some point, that goes out the window. Not talking about politics is a good idea, but it's very hard to specify what is "politics" and what is not.
- lykr0n 9y ago
  I think the simple line that could be drawn is the separate politics and policies. I think[0] it could be fine to discuses a heavy handed immigration policy while not discussing the politician behind it. One has a chance to yield a good discussion, while the other does not. [0] If everyone involved has an implicit mutual respect for the other person, which seems unlikely.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > heavy handed immigration policy That discussion is unlikely to go well if any of your co-workers are immigrants. You can't discuss "should you be in this country or should you and your family be deported" in front of someone dispassionately. Edit: the last few times I've discussed "heavy handed immigration policy" at work it has been because co-workers have had to deal with the Home Office and I'm commiserating how difficult it is. One guy got tripped up by "the middle initial on your ID wasn't present in the name field of this form" (or vice versa).
    - geofft 9y ago
      This is more or less what David Gudeman, the other plaintiff in Damore's lawsuit, wandered into: > Gudeman further stated that at the suggestion of another Googler, he searched Gilani’s story of being profiled, and found “zero evidence for the claim that [Gilani] was targeted just for being a Muslim.” Gudeman posed more questions about the FBI’s motives for looking into Gilani such as the fact that Gilani had recently visited Pakistan, and that the FBI could have possibly found something interesting about Gilani’s trip or the region that he visited. If you're going to have a rule about not discussing politics in order to uphold a productive workplace culture, it seems like a very good place to start is that your coworkers should not be able to say something with the subtext "Maybe the FBI had a reason to investigate you for being a terrorist."
mieseratte 9y ago
That was my take away from the Damore lawsuit. If the posts are at all indicative[0] of the type of allowed conversation at Google, then the inmates are truly running the asylum. Regardless of personal political affiliation, I would never want to work at Google given what seems like an insane lack of reason in their HR policies. [0] - I realize the lawsuit would obviously want to make it look as bad as possible.
- lykr0n 9y ago
  I brought up the same point in a previous post. There is a line somewhere, and it seems that Google has blown past it miles ago. Is it a lack of HR resources? HR indifference? Failure to define policies? I'm not sure which is worse, that there are people at Google who (and I know the lawsuit is using extreme examples) have these extreme left-wing views who are in positions to force their views on a large unsuspecting populous, or Google for not fixing the problem.
dominotw 9y ago
> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. Depends if diversity is considered "politics". There are lots of diversity measures inside all companies and to say don't discuss these is a bit weird. Perhaps only certain HR professionals can be "allowed" to discuss diversity initiatives?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
geofft 9y ago
> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. There's a lot to be said about this approach (and I had a good conversation about this with someone I know who works at Google and leans conservative / Republican but not alt-right, and is unhappy that internal social media is tied to business-related communication - blocking someone who posts a lot of partisan political stuff apparently means that you can't communicate with them in an emergency, if they maintain one of your dependencies, which seems like a pretty bad design). But I think there are two reasons it's not a completely simple solution. The first is that Google, as the article says, encourages you to "bring your whole self to work." Heck, Google even encourages you to bring your dog to work. Google encourages you to stay for lunch and probably dinner. Google encourages you to form bands with your coworkers, go on hiking trips with your coworkers, etc. There's a lot of deliberate attempts at promoting social cohesion beyond just normal traditional professional relationships, and by all accounts, that's a lot of why Google is as successful as it is. Requiring "Don't talk politics at the workplace" involves not talking politics over meals, on weekend team trips, and so forth, which is unlikely to be enforceable and also seems like it would hurt the genuine social bonds these things are trying to promote. The second is that "politics" includes things like "Is it valid to be trans" or "Are certain races inferior to others." I'm not going to deny that this is "politics;" the generalized question of whether whole swaths of people are deserving of recognition under their claimed identity has been part of politics since basically the first empire captured its first nation. But it's unavoidable for a large company to pick an answer one way or another. A hypothetical Google running at the time of Cato the Elder, with Roman and Carthaginian employees, could not avoid the "political" question of whether Carthage should be destroyed and its residents sold into slavery.
- blattimwind 9y ago
  > "Are certain races inferior to others." Something that always rubs me the wrong way when reading about these issues is that people in (for now) mostly American spheres use both the word and the concept "race" so uncritically [1], with no reflection at all. Heck, if we consider the US Government, then "race" is an official property of humans (see e.g. bop.gov Inmate Locator, which literally has a drop-down labelled "race" with choices like "White" and "American Indian"). [1] It should go without saying that using a different word for the same concept means you're still using the same concept. It's essentially the same as the good-old-fashioned euphemism treadmill.
matt4077 9y ago
The idea of "checking your politics at the door" implies that there is an apolitical baseline, which, in this case, is wrong. Note that the debates at Google are not about "is Trump an idiot?". They are about political issues affecting decisions made by Google. In these debates, not bringing up politics is equivalent to continuing the status quo. That's not avoiding politics, it is simply accepting the politics underlying the status quo. It may sometimes appear to be "neutral" because people have grown accustomed to it, but it isn't.
bjt2n3904 9y ago
Yonatan Zunger also had this to say about the memo [1]. > at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you [...] a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face [...] You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment. TL;DR - Yeah I mean, violence against you is totally justified because of what you said -- but if there is violence, it's your fault. Nothing in Damore's memo justifies violence as a response. Zunger just stops short of advocating a violent response. I don't think he's someone I'd ever want to work for, or pay heed to. 1 - https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788 https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
- xapata 9y ago
  Did Zunger assign fault in that statement? I didn't read it like that. It's a prediction, not a prescription. Your summary is misleading. He didn't "justify" violence. Saying that jaywalking is risky is not an ethical statement about cars.
  - bjt2n3904 9y ago
    Yes, he did assign fault. The words he used were: "it's your fault". If I'm assaulted in the workplace for a political viewpoint I anonymously posted, the fault is with the assaultee. Not with the assaulted. However, Zunger flips the blame. Didn't you see this coming? You should have known opposing the majority viewpoint would be met with violence. For workplace safety, I have to fire you. Ironically, he seems to blame tolerance on this. It seems the man doesn't understand what the word means. Edit: > Saying that jaywalking is risky is not an ethical statement about cars See my response above to joshuamorton.
    - dcole2929 9y ago
      A) It wasn't posted anoymously and B) yes while it's absolutely the fault of the assailant, the assaulted does bare some blame depending on what was said. If you walk up to someone an say hey your mom is an <insert derogatory term> and get punched in the face. You can't say there wasn't a reasonable expectation of violence as result of your actions. Yonger is quite correct in that intentionally or not, for better or worse, Damore created a situation in which it would be very difficult to put him on a team anywhere. While work place violence is rarely the answer, and I sincerely doubt anyone at google would raise themselves to that level the fact of the matter is that even the risk of that puts Google in an impossible situation.
ProAm 9y ago
> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. I agree but hard to do when your company pays political lobbyist.
j45 9y ago
Tolerance doesn't solve much. It's hard to tolerate people merely tolerating each other. Acceptance comes through dialogue, and mutual understanding. Sadly, there's a lot of "open minded people" who are pretty close minded to openly entertain a viewpoint that isn't their own, let alone be able to look in the mirror. It can be easier (and lazier) to trivialize, dismiss, degrade the viewpoints of others, or be a crybully, rather than have a sincere look at yourself in a conversation. Add into the mix reasonable themes of fragility, privilege that one group has been raised with (not entirely their choosing but a responsibility to work on), and in another experience at the expense of others, another group having an unfair go for a number of fair reasons. The reality is bias exists. The best candidate does not win if the decision makers are not of the best and of the most open temperament. I read somewhere that some of this may be a majority having the experience of a minority for once - and maybe that can help drive a better conversation and mutual understanding. One thing is for sure, being quiet won't work, and freedom of speech without being thoughtful with your words won't help either.
- Clanan 9y ago
  > Acceptance comes through dialogue, and mutual understanding. Do you have any actual empirical evidence or research for this? This reads like window-dressing for thought-police. "You don't accept our views? Sounds like you need more dialogue (re-education)." In a business setting at least, tolerance allows individuals with different beliefs and motivations to work toward shared goals.
  - j45 9y ago
    Areas of empirical evidence and research are plenty - maybe you can look instead of using it as the first shot across the bow? Topics like Truth and Reconciliation will grease logic wheels into a nicely polished mirror and uncover other areas of study. Sorry another person's reality can be effortlessly maligned as window dressing to you. Happy to chat offline and you can report back here - email is in my profile. Happy to do a hangout too. A reality is it's easy to marginalize and dehumanize those you haven't had to sit down, face to face and have an interaction with and have to consider that they might actually hold you to task as much as you are holding them to task. Getting along with others doesn't only involve logic and the mind. Interpersonal skills are not purely logical, they require a balanced ability to use one's emotions with intelligence and maturity. In business settings, teams that practice deep horizontal loyalty generally outperform teams that borderline tolerate each other but would prefer not to. Similar effects happen on sports teams that have proverbial Cinderella runs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_reconciliation_commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_reconciliation_commi... http://horizontalloyalty.com/#/title http://horizontalloyalty.com/#/title
lj3 9y ago
> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. You don't have to talk about politics to be political at work.
arkades 9y ago
The issue that emerged with the Damore memo is that this seems to be a topic of conversation promoted at a google as part of their pro-diversity efforts. Normally I’d say “they’re ALL idiots for talking about this at the workplace, and ALL deserve to be fired,” but when your employer is making you attend discussions on this topic... well, it’s fair game, isn’t it?
reaperducer 9y ago
> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. That used to be common sense. You don't talk politics or religion at work. It's even in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. But that's from the 1960's, and SV is compelled to re-invent anything older than 2002.
Balgair 9y ago
I mean, they can't do that, 1st amendment and all. I'm not saying that talking 'politics' at work is wise thing to do, but in the US at least, all people have the explicit right to do so. There have been a fair few SCOTUS cases on this one.
- mordero 9y ago
  The 1st amendment only applies to government control of speech. You may have the right to your speech, but the company doesn't have to employ you [0], especially in an at-will state. [0] https://www.americanbar.org/publications/insights_on_law_andsociety/15/winter-2015/chill-around-the-water-cooler.html https://www.americanbar.org/publications/insights_on_law_and...
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Damn. We'll then, yeah, I guess Goog could do that. It's be a death-knell for their company culture, but they could then. Thanks for the link!

by lykr0n 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

seattle_spring 9y ago

> not talk about politics in the work place. I honestly wish this was the law.

Yetanfou 9y ago
This could only be the law if and when politics did not influence decisions in the workplace. As that is not - and can not be - the case it does not make sense to ban talk about politics, no matter how futile such talk often is.
- ztjio 9y ago
  A far simpler problem exists: you can't actually define what is or is not politics.
  - fleitz 9y ago
    Especially with the Marxist / feminist view that everything is politics. I was discussing space exploration (you’d think this would be a pretty safe topic) at work and suddenly it turned into how space exploration was ruining everything because then people thought they could escape global warming instead of doing something about it. The conversation ended when I asked the guy how many kids he had he said none cuz global warming, I said that was too bad cuz I was teaching my kids to 4x4 and their superior 4x4ing genes would out breed his inferior genes that convinced him not to have kids and that my kids were going to 4x4 on mars once we had finished ruining this planet. Guy basically had an aneurism right there on the spot, one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever witnessed at work. I figured it was too much of a troll to actually work but he went fully ballistic
monktastic1 9y ago
> I honestly wish this was the law. Like, honestly honestly, or jokingly honestly? What if I say "I wish I were allowed to speak about politics at work" at work? That's political. Do I get a fine? How about "am I allowed to talk about this?" If it's a gray area and we start debating it, which one of us gets shipped to the gulag? Who gets to decide what's politics? Isn't even that question political?
- seattle_spring 9y ago
  I don't know. Whatever would prevent my co-workers from talking about politics for the entirety of lunch, every single day.
  - bipson 9y ago
    And here comes the view of someone that is interested in politics and is reminded daily of how politics makes everyone's lives worse than necessary: I wish my coworkers (and my fellow citizens for that matter) would be interested in politics just a little more, so they would realize what is happening around them, and know what they are talking about whenever they touch politics and legislature. My opinion is gradually becoming a minority view all over Europe, with people fleeing to either extreme. The thing is: We were once "politically uneducated" here in Europe. It made the "third Reich" as a mass phenomenon possible, because a lot of people joined this movement blindly and with enthusiasm and did not realize where this train was heading until it was way too late (and they were completely delusional). When the allies took over they tried to make sure we would be and stay politically educated, so this would never happen again (spoiler: it did not work). How ironic that America is spearheading the movement to normalize extreme views.
    - seattle_spring 9y ago
      Do you think that circlejerking about the latest headlines every single day constitutes as being "politically educated?" Watching a bunch of people get mad every single day does nothing to further my, or anyone else's, political education.
    - 9y ago
13years 9y ago
This might sound good, but the result of such is tyranny and loss of free speech. Politics easily being a fuzzy term which can be adapted to fit a very wide range of ideas gives those few in power who set the rules the ability to silence whatever they wish. It would better if there were more initiatives to improve intellectual discourse so people could like actually talk to one another. The less we talk, the further apart we will grow
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  Keyword: Talk. I'm not so sure that online communities are the best place for political discussion. Direct person-to-person communication allows for much more subtle, nuanced conversation and doesn't seem to turn into dumpster-fires nearly as often as online.
  - ghthor 9y ago
    Its also much less likely for someone to copy and leak the conversation in it in person.

fleitz 9y ago

Insanity.

jatsign 9y ago

It's very hard, probably impossible, to come up with a specific list. The list will either be incomplete (the trolls are cunning) or overly broad and spark anti-authoritarian feelings. If you've ever been an online forum mod, or similar, you'll know that the larger the "board" gets, the more out of whack it gets. When a company, or forum, is small, and most people know each other, at least a bit, they tend to stay civil. Past some point, that goes out the window. Not talking about politics is a good idea, but it's very hard to specify what is "politics" and what is not.

lykr0n 9y ago
I think the simple line that could be drawn is the separate politics and policies. I think[0] it could be fine to discuses a heavy handed immigration policy while not discussing the politician behind it. One has a chance to yield a good discussion, while the other does not. [0] If everyone involved has an implicit mutual respect for the other person, which seems unlikely.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > heavy handed immigration policy That discussion is unlikely to go well if any of your co-workers are immigrants. You can't discuss "should you be in this country or should you and your family be deported" in front of someone dispassionately. Edit: the last few times I've discussed "heavy handed immigration policy" at work it has been because co-workers have had to deal with the Home Office and I'm commiserating how difficult it is. One guy got tripped up by "the middle initial on your ID wasn't present in the name field of this form" (or vice versa).
  - geofft 9y ago
    This is more or less what David Gudeman, the other plaintiff in Damore's lawsuit, wandered into: > Gudeman further stated that at the suggestion of another Googler, he searched Gilani’s story of being profiled, and found “zero evidence for the claim that [Gilani] was targeted just for being a Muslim.” Gudeman posed more questions about the FBI’s motives for looking into Gilani such as the fact that Gilani had recently visited Pakistan, and that the FBI could have possibly found something interesting about Gilani’s trip or the region that he visited. If you're going to have a rule about not discussing politics in order to uphold a productive workplace culture, it seems like a very good place to start is that your coworkers should not be able to say something with the subtext "Maybe the FBI had a reason to investigate you for being a terrorist."

mieseratte 9y ago

That was my take away from the Damore lawsuit. If the posts are at all indicative[0] of the type of allowed conversation at Google, then the inmates are truly running the asylum. Regardless of personal political affiliation, I would never want to work at Google given what seems like an insane lack of reason in their HR policies. [0] - I realize the lawsuit would obviously want to make it look as bad as possible.

lykr0n 9y ago
I brought up the same point in a previous post. There is a line somewhere, and it seems that Google has blown past it miles ago. Is it a lack of HR resources? HR indifference? Failure to define policies? I'm not sure which is worse, that there are people at Google who (and I know the lawsuit is using extreme examples) have these extreme left-wing views who are in positions to force their views on a large unsuspecting populous, or Google for not fixing the problem.

dominotw 9y ago

> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. Depends if diversity is considered "politics". There are lots of diversity measures inside all companies and to say don't discuss these is a bit weird. Perhaps only certain HR professionals can be "allowed" to discuss diversity initiatives?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

geofft 9y ago

> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. There's a lot to be said about this approach (and I had a good conversation about this with someone I know who works at Google and leans conservative / Republican but not alt-right, and is unhappy that internal social media is tied to business-related communication - blocking someone who posts a lot of partisan political stuff apparently means that you can't communicate with them in an emergency, if they maintain one of your dependencies, which seems like a pretty bad design). But I think there are two reasons it's not a completely simple solution. The first is that Google, as the article says, encourages you to "bring your whole self to work." Heck, Google even encourages you to bring your dog to work. Google encourages you to stay for lunch and probably dinner. Google encourages you to form bands with your coworkers, go on hiking trips with your coworkers, etc. There's a lot of deliberate attempts at promoting social cohesion beyond just normal traditional professional relationships, and by all accounts, that's a lot of why Google is as successful as it is. Requiring "Don't talk politics at the workplace" involves not talking politics over meals, on weekend team trips, and so forth, which is unlikely to be enforceable and also seems like it would hurt the genuine social bonds these things are trying to promote. The second is that "politics" includes things like "Is it valid to be trans" or "Are certain races inferior to others." I'm not going to deny that this is "politics;" the generalized question of whether whole swaths of people are deserving of recognition under their claimed identity has been part of politics since basically the first empire captured its first nation. But it's unavoidable for a large company to pick an answer one way or another. A hypothetical Google running at the time of Cato the Elder, with Roman and Carthaginian employees, could not avoid the "political" question of whether Carthage should be destroyed and its residents sold into slavery.

blattimwind 9y ago
> "Are certain races inferior to others." Something that always rubs me the wrong way when reading about these issues is that people in (for now) mostly American spheres use both the word and the concept "race" so uncritically [1], with no reflection at all. Heck, if we consider the US Government, then "race" is an official property of humans (see e.g. bop.gov Inmate Locator, which literally has a drop-down labelled "race" with choices like "White" and "American Indian"). [1] It should go without saying that using a different word for the same concept means you're still using the same concept. It's essentially the same as the good-old-fashioned euphemism treadmill.

matt4077 9y ago

The idea of "checking your politics at the door" implies that there is an apolitical baseline, which, in this case, is wrong. Note that the debates at Google are not about "is Trump an idiot?". They are about political issues affecting decisions made by Google. In these debates, not bringing up politics is equivalent to continuing the status quo. That's not avoiding politics, it is simply accepting the politics underlying the status quo. It may sometimes appear to be "neutral" because people have grown accustomed to it, but it isn't.

bjt2n3904 9y ago

Yonatan Zunger also had this to say about the memo [1]. > at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you [...] a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face [...] You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment. TL;DR - Yeah I mean, violence against you is totally justified because of what you said -- but if there is violence, it's your fault. Nothing in Damore's memo justifies violence as a response. Zunger just stops short of advocating a violent response. I don't think he's someone I'd ever want to work for, or pay heed to. 1 - https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788 https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...

xapata 9y ago
Did Zunger assign fault in that statement? I didn't read it like that. It's a prediction, not a prescription. Your summary is misleading. He didn't "justify" violence. Saying that jaywalking is risky is not an ethical statement about cars.
- bjt2n3904 9y ago
  Yes, he did assign fault. The words he used were: "it's your fault". If I'm assaulted in the workplace for a political viewpoint I anonymously posted, the fault is with the assaultee. Not with the assaulted. However, Zunger flips the blame. Didn't you see this coming? You should have known opposing the majority viewpoint would be met with violence. For workplace safety, I have to fire you. Ironically, he seems to blame tolerance on this. It seems the man doesn't understand what the word means. Edit: > Saying that jaywalking is risky is not an ethical statement about cars See my response above to joshuamorton.
  - dcole2929 9y ago
    A) It wasn't posted anoymously and B) yes while it's absolutely the fault of the assailant, the assaulted does bare some blame depending on what was said. If you walk up to someone an say hey your mom is an <insert derogatory term> and get punched in the face. You can't say there wasn't a reasonable expectation of violence as result of your actions. Yonger is quite correct in that intentionally or not, for better or worse, Damore created a situation in which it would be very difficult to put him on a team anywhere. While work place violence is rarely the answer, and I sincerely doubt anyone at google would raise themselves to that level the fact of the matter is that even the risk of that puts Google in an impossible situation.

ProAm 9y ago

> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. I agree but hard to do when your company pays political lobbyist.

j45 9y ago

Tolerance doesn't solve much. It's hard to tolerate people merely tolerating each other. Acceptance comes through dialogue, and mutual understanding. Sadly, there's a lot of "open minded people" who are pretty close minded to openly entertain a viewpoint that isn't their own, let alone be able to look in the mirror. It can be easier (and lazier) to trivialize, dismiss, degrade the viewpoints of others, or be a crybully, rather than have a sincere look at yourself in a conversation. Add into the mix reasonable themes of fragility, privilege that one group has been raised with (not entirely their choosing but a responsibility to work on), and in another experience at the expense of others, another group having an unfair go for a number of fair reasons. The reality is bias exists. The best candidate does not win if the decision makers are not of the best and of the most open temperament. I read somewhere that some of this may be a majority having the experience of a minority for once - and maybe that can help drive a better conversation and mutual understanding. One thing is for sure, being quiet won't work, and freedom of speech without being thoughtful with your words won't help either.

Clanan 9y ago
> Acceptance comes through dialogue, and mutual understanding. Do you have any actual empirical evidence or research for this? This reads like window-dressing for thought-police. "You don't accept our views? Sounds like you need more dialogue (re-education)." In a business setting at least, tolerance allows individuals with different beliefs and motivations to work toward shared goals.
- j45 9y ago
  Areas of empirical evidence and research are plenty - maybe you can look instead of using it as the first shot across the bow? Topics like Truth and Reconciliation will grease logic wheels into a nicely polished mirror and uncover other areas of study. Sorry another person's reality can be effortlessly maligned as window dressing to you. Happy to chat offline and you can report back here - email is in my profile. Happy to do a hangout too. A reality is it's easy to marginalize and dehumanize those you haven't had to sit down, face to face and have an interaction with and have to consider that they might actually hold you to task as much as you are holding them to task. Getting along with others doesn't only involve logic and the mind. Interpersonal skills are not purely logical, they require a balanced ability to use one's emotions with intelligence and maturity. In business settings, teams that practice deep horizontal loyalty generally outperform teams that borderline tolerate each other but would prefer not to. Similar effects happen on sports teams that have proverbial Cinderella runs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_reconciliation_commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_reconciliation_commi... http://horizontalloyalty.com/#/title http://horizontalloyalty.com/#/title

lj3 9y ago

> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. You don't have to talk about politics to be political at work.

arkades 9y ago

The issue that emerged with the Damore memo is that this seems to be a topic of conversation promoted at a google as part of their pro-diversity efforts. Normally I’d say “they’re ALL idiots for talking about this at the workplace, and ALL deserve to be fired,” but when your employer is making you attend discussions on this topic... well, it’s fair game, isn’t it?

reaperducer 9y ago

> Or you know, not talk about politics in the work place. That used to be common sense. You don't talk politics or religion at work. It's even in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. But that's from the 1960's, and SV is compelled to re-invent anything older than 2002.

Balgair 9y ago

I mean, they can't do that, 1st amendment and all. I'm not saying that talking 'politics' at work is wise thing to do, but in the US at least, all people have the explicit right to do so. There have been a fair few SCOTUS cases on this one.

mordero 9y ago
The 1st amendment only applies to government control of speech. You may have the right to your speech, but the company doesn't have to employ you [0], especially in an at-will state. [0] https://www.americanbar.org/publications/insights_on_law_andsociety/15/winter-2015/chill-around-the-water-cooler.html https://www.americanbar.org/publications/insights_on_law_and...
- Balgair 9y ago
  Damn. We'll then, yeah, I guess Goog could do that. It's be a death-knell for their company culture, but they could then. Thanks for the link!