4 ms·

Definitely the latter - people trying to convince others that their views on war, or abortion, or taxes, or political party are the correct ones. These are als

Definitely the latter - people trying to convince others that their views on war, or abortion, or taxes, or political party are the correct ones. These are also people who are intelligent, educated, and quite arrogant, so the fireworks were pretty spectacular.

duxup 7y ago
I gotta admit I'd take a peek too to watch the fireworks. But also a bit shocked how many people feel that participating is a good idea.
- derefr 7y ago
  I'd maybe participate if it was some kind of... workplace-internal 4chan. An anonymous forum, but only available through an Enterprise SSO gateway. Otherwise, yeah, that seems crazy.
  - duxup 7y ago
    Many moons ago I worked for a company that did some outsource work for another company who asked for responses to an anonymous survey. So I responded. 1. I shouldn't have gotten the survey as I didn't work for the company who sent it, but nobody at either company was very smart or careful because it went to everyone. 2. I misread the email and didn't notice it wasn't my company asking for responses it was the company we did outsource work for. I made some pretty tepid constructive criticism. So did a couple other people. The next day we were in a conference room with people we never met before angry that we responded to the survey. They hadn't realized we were actually sent the email just like everyone at the company (like I said these were not smart people) ... It also raised the question about how anonymous this survey was. Of course it wasn't, you could see in the URL when responding your name, email address, etc ;)
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      I believe saying ‘this survey is anonymous’ should be illegal if it really isn’t.
- itronitron 7y ago
  I hope google provided free popcorn as well as free lunches.
xvector 7y ago
And this was common workplace discussion!? This seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t know why you’d want to introduce the divisiveness of politics to your workplace.
- arkh 7y ago
  > And this was common workplace discussion!? It must be US culture there: everywhere I've worked (in France) arguing about politics was always ok. Even fun when you get people of differing views who can explain how they came to those so you can debate. Things must be boring when you have to limit yourself to safe subjects.
  - humanrebar 7y ago
    Working class Americans talk about politics a lot. It's the professional and aristocratic types who care about decorum.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Generally not out in the open, but on internal groups (message boards) or email chains. Keep in mind the vast majority of people working at Google don't care - the people looking to engage politically are a minority group and found each other on the intranet.
  - bcaa7f3a8bbc 7y ago
    > a minority group and found each other on the intranet. Interesting. When your company is big enough, the intranet becomes a community that mirrors the Internet in general...
- lagadu 7y ago
  That's only a US thing. In the rest of the world (well, I can only speak for a few european countries) discussing politics is normal office chat. Why wouldn't you want to discuss current and thought-provoking issues with your peers?
paulddraper 7y ago
It'd be more reasonable (though still not a great idea) if that were water cooler talk. So the biggest possible incident is a handful of people. When it's conversation forums with thousands of people...critical mass is achieved, and it runs amok.

duxup 7y ago

I gotta admit I'd take a peek too to watch the fireworks. But also a bit shocked how many people feel that participating is a good idea.

derefr 7y ago
I'd maybe participate if it was some kind of... workplace-internal 4chan. An anonymous forum, but only available through an Enterprise SSO gateway. Otherwise, yeah, that seems crazy.
- duxup 7y ago
  Many moons ago I worked for a company that did some outsource work for another company who asked for responses to an anonymous survey. So I responded. 1. I shouldn't have gotten the survey as I didn't work for the company who sent it, but nobody at either company was very smart or careful because it went to everyone. 2. I misread the email and didn't notice it wasn't my company asking for responses it was the company we did outsource work for. I made some pretty tepid constructive criticism. So did a couple other people. The next day we were in a conference room with people we never met before angry that we responded to the survey. They hadn't realized we were actually sent the email just like everyone at the company (like I said these were not smart people) ... It also raised the question about how anonymous this survey was. Of course it wasn't, you could see in the URL when responding your name, email address, etc ;)
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    I believe saying ‘this survey is anonymous’ should be illegal if it really isn’t.
itronitron 7y ago
I hope google provided free popcorn as well as free lunches.

xvector 7y ago

And this was common workplace discussion!? This seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t know why you’d want to introduce the divisiveness of politics to your workplace.

arkh 7y ago
> And this was common workplace discussion!? It must be US culture there: everywhere I've worked (in France) arguing about politics was always ok. Even fun when you get people of differing views who can explain how they came to those so you can debate. Things must be boring when you have to limit yourself to safe subjects.
- humanrebar 7y ago
  Working class Americans talk about politics a lot. It's the professional and aristocratic types who care about decorum.
bduerst 7y ago
Generally not out in the open, but on internal groups (message boards) or email chains. Keep in mind the vast majority of people working at Google don't care - the people looking to engage politically are a minority group and found each other on the intranet.
- bcaa7f3a8bbc 7y ago
  > a minority group and found each other on the intranet. Interesting. When your company is big enough, the intranet becomes a community that mirrors the Internet in general...
lagadu 7y ago
That's only a US thing. In the rest of the world (well, I can only speak for a few european countries) discussing politics is normal office chat. Why wouldn't you want to discuss current and thought-provoking issues with your peers?

paulddraper 7y ago

It'd be more reasonable (though still not a great idea) if that were water cooler talk. So the biggest possible incident is a handful of people. When it's conversation forums with thousands of people...critical mass is achieved, and it runs amok.