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Posting from a throwaway account for obvious reasons. There are a lot of internal discussion groups - it is just an internal Google groups thing so anyone can

Posting from a throwaway account for obvious reasons. There are a lot of internal discussion groups - it is just an internal Google groups thing so anyone can create a group about anything. Often they are purely work related (e.g. groups for specific tools/services/teams that people can join), but there are some that are not work related. I'd say that these sort of political debates are the extreme outliers. I've never encountered any significant political debate/argument during my 6 years at Google, but then I don't go looking for it on the groups. From my experience people at google are well-mannered, polite and respectful; disagreement of course occurs but is usually handled professionally without much fuss. What does happen though is that although we do have an online tool to vote up questions for the TGIF meetings, you get "regulars" who ask in-person questions at TGIF in Mountain View. These people are often fine, but there are a couple who clearly have their own political/moral axe to grind. I find these people the most irritating, since unlike the questions which have been voted up to the top on the online tool, they don't need votes to ask their questions. This can give their opinions -minority or majority held- more apparent credibility than they might otherwise deserve if it had been left to the online voting only. There is also a lot of focus from certain groups on purely US related things - e.g. asks about allowing people to volunteer if they are conservative or democratic in the HR system. These blinkered people asking these in-person questions in California don't realise that they live in one country, and that the political parties in that country aren't the same as the ones in others (most countries are not a two party polatised system like it is in the US) TL;Dr there are jerks if you go looking for them but 99.9% of the time yiu just do your job and no one wants to know or cares what your political or moral views are.

john_moscow 8y ago
>e.g. asks about allowing people to volunteer if they are conservative or democratic in the HR system. Sorry, what? You have to formally register your political views with the HR?
- asfasgasg 8y ago
  No. Read it more carefully. There is someone who asks that they be allowed to register which political view they favor. There is no such system to actually register one's political views.
- talmand 8y ago
  Can't know which people to mistreat if you can't label them from the beginning. Regardless, I believe the statement was more like certain groups are trying to get something in the HR for people to volunteer such information. Not that the company has it as mandatory. Which, by the way, is an incredibly horrible idea. Not only does it open the door for certain people to mistreat other people, as I said; it also creates the situation where certain types of people will treat others that don't volunteer such information as suspicious. As in, "what do you have to hide?"
dogma1138 8y ago
People should really stop using the wrong comparisons. Liberal/Authoritarian Progressive/Conservative Democrat/Republican Progressive means that you want to change society while conservatives want to preserve it as it is. The Nazi party was as progressive as it can get since they wanted to restructure all of German society and the whole world, so were the Bolsheviks neither of them were particularly liberal or democratic. A purely conservative society will stagnant and decay a purely progressive one would result in chaos. The tool that mediates this in a modern democracy is bureaucracy which provides resistance to change but ensures that once it reaches critical mass it would go through. Which is why the extremes of both political ends attack or try to circumvent it.
- tropo 8y ago
  You'll love this I'm sure. It fits your definition of "progressive" nicely. https://i.redd.it/48eammnzuav01.jpg https://i.redd.it/48eammnzuav01.jpg
- cmurf 8y ago
  The denotation of the words progressive/conservative in isolation is as you say, but in a political context, the meaning can be 180 degrees from denotation. It is typical words are selected as half truths and outright propaganda. And I think you're avoiding complex social origins, culture, era and the inherent contradictions within all organizations (and people, by extention). e.g. Democratic People's Republic of Korea is certainly not in any meaningful way democratic, it is a hereditary dictatorship. The former German Democratic Republic likewise was in no meaningful way democratic or a republic. The words socialist and socialism are likewise commonly usurped to impugn or to attract; they are signals that work or don't work based on time, geography, culture, history, neighbors. It's an exercise in anti-denotation, and appeal to emotion, and it is strategic.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    This is exactly why it’s important because words do have a meaning. Calling the left at large liberal when today significant portion of it could not be further from it is something that needs to be called out. Having a comparison which says “Democratic” vs “Conservatives” is also harmful as you now paint one side as authoritarian. I want to have clear definitions and for words to have meaning specifically to avoid any confusion in regards to the issues you have mentioned and many more. If we take the the US an example I think you would want to make a distinction between civil war republicans and those of today just as you would want to make a distinction between the democrats that institutionalized racial segregation through Jim Crow and those of today. So I do not believe I’m avoiding anything I’m just not picking and choosing based on what would benefit my agenda. Identify politics is poison in general and if we must resort to it in since casss we must make sure that we use the clearest definitions possible and use them correctly.

john_moscow 8y ago

>e.g. asks about allowing people to volunteer if they are conservative or democratic in the HR system. Sorry, what? You have to formally register your political views with the HR?

asfasgasg 8y ago
No. Read it more carefully. There is someone who asks that they be allowed to register which political view they favor. There is no such system to actually register one's political views.
talmand 8y ago
Can't know which people to mistreat if you can't label them from the beginning. Regardless, I believe the statement was more like certain groups are trying to get something in the HR for people to volunteer such information. Not that the company has it as mandatory. Which, by the way, is an incredibly horrible idea. Not only does it open the door for certain people to mistreat other people, as I said; it also creates the situation where certain types of people will treat others that don't volunteer such information as suspicious. As in, "what do you have to hide?"

dogma1138 8y ago

People should really stop using the wrong comparisons. Liberal/Authoritarian Progressive/Conservative Democrat/Republican Progressive means that you want to change society while conservatives want to preserve it as it is. The Nazi party was as progressive as it can get since they wanted to restructure all of German society and the whole world, so were the Bolsheviks neither of them were particularly liberal or democratic. A purely conservative society will stagnant and decay a purely progressive one would result in chaos. The tool that mediates this in a modern democracy is bureaucracy which provides resistance to change but ensures that once it reaches critical mass it would go through. Which is why the extremes of both political ends attack or try to circumvent it.

tropo 8y ago
You'll love this I'm sure. It fits your definition of "progressive" nicely. https://i.redd.it/48eammnzuav01.jpg https://i.redd.it/48eammnzuav01.jpg
cmurf 8y ago
The denotation of the words progressive/conservative in isolation is as you say, but in a political context, the meaning can be 180 degrees from denotation. It is typical words are selected as half truths and outright propaganda. And I think you're avoiding complex social origins, culture, era and the inherent contradictions within all organizations (and people, by extention). e.g. Democratic People's Republic of Korea is certainly not in any meaningful way democratic, it is a hereditary dictatorship. The former German Democratic Republic likewise was in no meaningful way democratic or a republic. The words socialist and socialism are likewise commonly usurped to impugn or to attract; they are signals that work or don't work based on time, geography, culture, history, neighbors. It's an exercise in anti-denotation, and appeal to emotion, and it is strategic.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  This is exactly why it’s important because words do have a meaning. Calling the left at large liberal when today significant portion of it could not be further from it is something that needs to be called out. Having a comparison which says “Democratic” vs “Conservatives” is also harmful as you now paint one side as authoritarian. I want to have clear definitions and for words to have meaning specifically to avoid any confusion in regards to the issues you have mentioned and many more. If we take the the US an example I think you would want to make a distinction between civil war republicans and those of today just as you would want to make a distinction between the democrats that institutionalized racial segregation through Jim Crow and those of today. So I do not believe I’m avoiding anything I’m just not picking and choosing based on what would benefit my agenda. Identify politics is poison in general and if we must resort to it in since casss we must make sure that we use the clearest definitions possible and use them correctly.