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Disclaimer: my comment below is directed at the culture of Google, and following in the train of thought from your comment. It's not directed at your comment or

Disclaimer: my comment below is directed at the culture of Google, and following in the train of thought from your comment. It's not directed at your comment or you. Reading this comment just makes me feel baffled. How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. There's no framework established within the confines of a corporation to deal with any of these sorts of social problems, and it shouldn't. Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same.

lmpostor 7y ago
> How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? That of a regular human being with rationalized opinions through the lens available to them? For some reason only because Google has a lot of power to control the dialogue you ask them to bury their head in the sand? Or are we going to pretend that there hasn't been an arms race of sorts to game search results across nearly every topic and as such one might consider removal of what one considers to either be harmful, false, or manipulative to be a part of doing the "right" job? What's the quote again, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing " -- Edmund Burke And as far as Google goes, I think it would be easy to rationalize that (if I was a Google member) I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information).
- einhverfr 7y ago
  All opinions can be rationalized through a particular lens can they not? Are you asking Google to be a voice of reason in the debate over global labor markets and liberalization of SE Asian economies for example? Doesn't that give you a wolf-and-lamb problem, to reference Aesop?
- LordFast 7y ago
  Let me clarify: - A non-decision by Google management to not place limits on its internal culture is a decision in itself, and has consequences that we are currently experiencing. - "Justice" is not something for a profit-seeking company to have influence or power over. This is my personal belief. I believe there are other channels that are better designed to address those issues. - My belief on this subject is limited to the above.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information). That does Not mean that Your Opinion would be a correct one--actually the opposite could just as easily be true.
- smsm42 7y ago
  Everybody thinks they have better tools than everybody else to know what's right and what's wrong. In most cases, they are mistaken. The cost of being mistaken for a company that has power to control significant amount of information available to humanity is enormous. That's why in the US there are direct prohibitions on government suppressing points of view. You could think - why should there be one? Of course, if the government would suppress normal people, like you and me, it would be bad. But why not bad people? Why don't we elect a very good government, an excellent one, with the best tools and information we have, and then let it do whatever it wants, no limits? Except we know it won't work. The power corrupts, and what we'd get would be the worst tyranny, regardless of how pure were the initial intentions. Why would we delude themselves into thinking if we call it "Google" and replace elections with technical interview it would go any better?
sarbaz 7y ago
Should people act in ways that disagree with their sense of justice? Should people be allowed to speak out against things that other people do, but that disagree with their sense of justice? I don't see how you can call it "arrogant" for people to act in accordance with their moral and ethical standards. We don't have the power to force the world do line up with our personal sense of justice. But we do have the power to make our lives and the lives of those around us more just, according to our own personal interpretation of that concept. Do you really think that striving for justice isn't OK?
- einhverfr 7y ago
  I think the problem is that the US has developed for various reasons (including a lack of discussing politics) a series of echo chambers and people don't connect politically beyond their echo chambers. In urban California, among software developers, you are likely to have one or two political views represented at most, and these represent a small racial and class-based cross-section of urban California. The first of course is the Neoliberal views of the Rainbow Capitalism camp that brought us Hillary Clinton's candidacy. If there is a second view it is the Business Liberalism view of the elite GOP members such as the Koch brothers. You aren't going to get the political concerns of rust-belt America, or the political concerns of black families down in Watts recognized, nor will you get the communitarianism of rural America in there either. And so that sense of justice gets warped, even regarding national issues of the US today. What happens when these things go world wide? Someone's sense of justice gets offended by economic orders where procreative/childrearing families hold businesses which are inherited and passed on to kids, and where there are solid gender roles associated (my kids' second culture for example)? I guess we better do what we can to make the world safe for American Capitalism to come in and liberate people from family expectations. But that means opening up such cultures to economic exploitation by foreign business and that harm is waved away as if it doesn't matter. The arrogance does matter, because the arrogance can easily lead to outright economic colonialism ("for their own good" as much now as a century ago). The way to hold it in check is for other viewpoints to actually be entertained and discussed.
  - nickstinemates 7y ago
ssalazar 7y ago
> An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Google is one of the largest technology corporations in existence, controlling the flow of information for huge swaths of the world's population. They have no choice but to "play politics" as many of the decisions they make can have tremendous impact on global policy and society. > Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same. No. More and more, technology firms and the individuals within them are realizing their own responsibility to consider the ethical implications of the systems they are building.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  Private corporations acting in quasi-government ways is risky at best and terrifying at worst. While some of the checks & balances in civil+legal society have been broken, many are still there and there are repercussions when they're broken. A corporation doesn't have the same mechanisms - public rules (aka laws), processes, appeals, accountability, etc, etc - built in and there's limited recourse when their definition of "right" and others' conflicts. Frankly, it's begging for regulation.. and that's not even considering the potential monopoly angle.
- rjf72 7y ago
  What do you mean by they have no choice? Societies have different views and values, and the most intransient of these tend to be reflected in their laws. Companies can offer their product while avoiding politics by simply obeying the laws of a nation. For instance online pornography is a political topic yet the answer is clearly determined by nations: very illegal in Saudi Arabia, kind of legal in the UK, completely legal in the US. Companies can respect cultural views and values by simply gearing their behavior to obey the laws of the nations in which they operate. Since some people would prefer to avoid seeing pornographic results regardless of laws companies can offer an option to remove such results - which is exactly what they do. Nice, simple, no involvement in politics except perhaps determining whether 'adult results' should be opt-in or opt-out. The last 'people' you want involved in politics are mega-corporations because they are one of the few groups that actually have the power to manipulate elections, corrupt politicians, and generally break democracies. In my opinion it's likely that the world will gradually 'progress' towards worldwide overt corporatocracy, but there's no reason we should embrace this in any way shape or form on the way there. If nothing else your post is a strong argument for why companies such as Google should be broken down. But, getting back to the original point, I think it's possible if not likely that that's already impossible -- thanks to their involvement in politics and the influence it has undoubtedly gained them.
Aeolun 7y ago
> How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? I certainly know what is better for the world than the majority of the US.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? Probably. But lots of people realize they've been wrong before, might be wrong on this occasion, and therefore don't just put their ideas over everybody else's. That's the non-arrogant way to handle that, I guess.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  No, it takes extreme arrogance. People who look at someone else and think "you should just.." are normal. We all do that. People who look at the world and say "everyone should just.." are the height of arrogance and epitomize the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
  - Buge 7y ago
    Is Google saying "everyone should just.."? It sounds like jgunsch's comment is about "what should we (Google) do?". That is, should Google bid on the JEDI military contract, should Google make a censored search product in China.
salty_biscuits 7y ago
I think the logic is backwards. In today's world government policy is the shadow of business interests, not representative government of the people like it is supposed to be. So I am glad for political discussions inside these large organizations, it seems like an escape valve for a broken system. The biggest problem with it is that it is not representative, as organizations are often unfairly hierarchical (and hence some people get an unfair amount of influence) and the workers in these organizations aren't often a representative cross section of society.
agentofoblivion 7y ago
I think you raise a good point about the nature of a for profit organization and it’s design being optimized for a particular thing, which is very much not a thing meant to generate good answers to tricky political questions that impact a whole lot of people/things. In reality, it’s headquarters is in a politically radical place where conservative voices have a helluva hard time speaking up because they could face career backlash by dissenting with the overwhelming majority views in those rooms, which are not representative samples of America. Google decision makers are not designed to be accurate representatives of America’s constituents. Ideals aside, I think there’s a clear business reality that the radical left employee base is giving google a lot of headaches. Many might argue this is for the better, but that’s mostly because they have similar political sentiments. It seems like woke culture has made google a very tense place and is gobbling them up.
- pm90 7y ago
  Blaming radical “lefties” and exaggerating their negative influence is a favorite tactic used to demonize that part of society. This is analogous to the now discredited argument of leftist students silencing and tensing up college campuses in the US. And it is a similarly disingenuous argument.
Buge 7y ago
>An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Most large companies have lobbyists. That's much more "playing politics" than simply deciding not to bid on a military contract.
jtolmar 7y ago
These "arrogant" Googlers aren't changing the magnitude of Google's impact on people's lives. Google's impact will still be there if they go away. There is no option that makes it go away. The choice is between the company's workers trying their best to come up with a just way to pilot it, or Google's impact being directed entirely by its executives and profit motive.
- Simon_says 7y ago
  They changed the impact of Google on my life. I completely excised Google from my life after a couple high-profile incidents at Google indicated they the company would use its power for political gain.
austhrow743 7y ago
How arrogant do have to be to not lie, steal, cheat, and kill? Not at all because acting according to your morality is a basic part of being a human or member of society. There's no reason that changes because you take your fun hat off and put your work hat on.
tjpnz 7y ago
>How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? I'm often stuck in the elevator with Googlers (our office is on the same floor as one of theirs). Some of the stuff that I end up overhearing is particularly jarring. It's not really the opinions but the self entitlement that makes me wish we had faster elevators.
tomohawk 7y ago
Agree. In the US, we have government to take these things on. We have rule of law. And rights. Both government and individuals are subject to these. With Google, there is no rule of law or rights. Goggle does not have a constitution. If you have a problem with them, what can you do? Nothing. There is no right to question your accuser. There is no right to protect agains unreasonable search/seizure. There is no right to free speech. No right to privacy. And so on. There is only what Google arbitrarily decides to do. And if you're not in the majority as Google defines it, then it just sucks to be you. This is why unregulated monopolies are intolerable. The US is founded on the principle that powers are separated to keep any one entity from getting too much and being able to infringe on the rights of citizens. Google is way over that line, with monopolies in many areas. Add the partisan activism, and this is a very toxic brew.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

lmpostor 7y ago

> How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? That of a regular human being with rationalized opinions through the lens available to them? For some reason only because Google has a lot of power to control the dialogue you ask them to bury their head in the sand? Or are we going to pretend that there hasn't been an arms race of sorts to game search results across nearly every topic and as such one might consider removal of what one considers to either be harmful, false, or manipulative to be a part of doing the "right" job? What's the quote again, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing " -- Edmund Burke And as far as Google goes, I think it would be easy to rationalize that (if I was a Google member) I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information).

einhverfr 7y ago
All opinions can be rationalized through a particular lens can they not? Are you asking Google to be a voice of reason in the debate over global labor markets and liberalization of SE Asian economies for example? Doesn't that give you a wolf-and-lamb problem, to reference Aesop?
LordFast 7y ago
Let me clarify: - A non-decision by Google management to not place limits on its internal culture is a decision in itself, and has consequences that we are currently experiencing. - "Justice" is not something for a profit-seeking company to have influence or power over. This is my personal belief. I believe there are other channels that are better designed to address those issues. - My belief on this subject is limited to the above.
RaceWon 7y ago
> I have access to better tools than most to make a decision (more information). That does Not mean that Your Opinion would be a correct one--actually the opposite could just as easily be true.
smsm42 7y ago
Everybody thinks they have better tools than everybody else to know what's right and what's wrong. In most cases, they are mistaken. The cost of being mistaken for a company that has power to control significant amount of information available to humanity is enormous. That's why in the US there are direct prohibitions on government suppressing points of view. You could think - why should there be one? Of course, if the government would suppress normal people, like you and me, it would be bad. But why not bad people? Why don't we elect a very good government, an excellent one, with the best tools and information we have, and then let it do whatever it wants, no limits? Except we know it won't work. The power corrupts, and what we'd get would be the worst tyranny, regardless of how pure were the initial intentions. Why would we delude themselves into thinking if we call it "Google" and replace elections with technical interview it would go any better?

sarbaz 7y ago

Should people act in ways that disagree with their sense of justice? Should people be allowed to speak out against things that other people do, but that disagree with their sense of justice? I don't see how you can call it "arrogant" for people to act in accordance with their moral and ethical standards. We don't have the power to force the world do line up with our personal sense of justice. But we do have the power to make our lives and the lives of those around us more just, according to our own personal interpretation of that concept. Do you really think that striving for justice isn't OK?

einhverfr 7y ago
I think the problem is that the US has developed for various reasons (including a lack of discussing politics) a series of echo chambers and people don't connect politically beyond their echo chambers. In urban California, among software developers, you are likely to have one or two political views represented at most, and these represent a small racial and class-based cross-section of urban California. The first of course is the Neoliberal views of the Rainbow Capitalism camp that brought us Hillary Clinton's candidacy. If there is a second view it is the Business Liberalism view of the elite GOP members such as the Koch brothers. You aren't going to get the political concerns of rust-belt America, or the political concerns of black families down in Watts recognized, nor will you get the communitarianism of rural America in there either. And so that sense of justice gets warped, even regarding national issues of the US today. What happens when these things go world wide? Someone's sense of justice gets offended by economic orders where procreative/childrearing families hold businesses which are inherited and passed on to kids, and where there are solid gender roles associated (my kids' second culture for example)? I guess we better do what we can to make the world safe for American Capitalism to come in and liberate people from family expectations. But that means opening up such cultures to economic exploitation by foreign business and that harm is waved away as if it doesn't matter. The arrogance does matter, because the arrogance can easily lead to outright economic colonialism ("for their own good" as much now as a century ago). The way to hold it in check is for other viewpoints to actually be entertained and discussed.
- nickstinemates 7y ago

ssalazar 7y ago

> An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Google is one of the largest technology corporations in existence, controlling the flow of information for huge swaths of the world's population. They have no choice but to "play politics" as many of the decisions they make can have tremendous impact on global policy and society. > Play the right part, do the right job, and let others with the right skills and tools do the same. No. More and more, technology firms and the individuals within them are realizing their own responsibility to consider the ethical implications of the systems they are building.

caseysoftware 7y ago
Private corporations acting in quasi-government ways is risky at best and terrifying at worst. While some of the checks & balances in civil+legal society have been broken, many are still there and there are repercussions when they're broken. A corporation doesn't have the same mechanisms - public rules (aka laws), processes, appeals, accountability, etc, etc - built in and there's limited recourse when their definition of "right" and others' conflicts. Frankly, it's begging for regulation.. and that's not even considering the potential monopoly angle.
rjf72 7y ago
What do you mean by they have no choice? Societies have different views and values, and the most intransient of these tend to be reflected in their laws. Companies can offer their product while avoiding politics by simply obeying the laws of a nation. For instance online pornography is a political topic yet the answer is clearly determined by nations: very illegal in Saudi Arabia, kind of legal in the UK, completely legal in the US. Companies can respect cultural views and values by simply gearing their behavior to obey the laws of the nations in which they operate. Since some people would prefer to avoid seeing pornographic results regardless of laws companies can offer an option to remove such results - which is exactly what they do. Nice, simple, no involvement in politics except perhaps determining whether 'adult results' should be opt-in or opt-out. The last 'people' you want involved in politics are mega-corporations because they are one of the few groups that actually have the power to manipulate elections, corrupt politicians, and generally break democracies. In my opinion it's likely that the world will gradually 'progress' towards worldwide overt corporatocracy, but there's no reason we should embrace this in any way shape or form on the way there. If nothing else your post is a strong argument for why companies such as Google should be broken down. But, getting back to the original point, I think it's possible if not likely that that's already impossible -- thanks to their involvement in politics and the influence it has undoubtedly gained them.

Aeolun 7y ago

> How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? I certainly know what is better for the world than the majority of the US.

luckylion 7y ago
> Not very much? Doesn’t everybody think like this in one way or another? Probably. But lots of people realize they've been wrong before, might be wrong on this occasion, and therefore don't just put their ideas over everybody else's. That's the non-arrogant way to handle that, I guess.
caseysoftware 7y ago
No, it takes extreme arrogance. People who look at someone else and think "you should just.." are normal. We all do that. People who look at the world and say "everyone should just.." are the height of arrogance and epitomize the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
- Buge 7y ago
  Is Google saying "everyone should just.."? It sounds like jgunsch's comment is about "what should we (Google) do?". That is, should Google bid on the JEDI military contract, should Google make a censored search product in China.

salty_biscuits 7y ago

I think the logic is backwards. In today's world government policy is the shadow of business interests, not representative government of the people like it is supposed to be. So I am glad for political discussions inside these large organizations, it seems like an escape valve for a broken system. The biggest problem with it is that it is not representative, as organizations are often unfairly hierarchical (and hence some people get an unfair amount of influence) and the workers in these organizations aren't often a representative cross section of society.

agentofoblivion 7y ago

I think you raise a good point about the nature of a for profit organization and it’s design being optimized for a particular thing, which is very much not a thing meant to generate good answers to tricky political questions that impact a whole lot of people/things. In reality, it’s headquarters is in a politically radical place where conservative voices have a helluva hard time speaking up because they could face career backlash by dissenting with the overwhelming majority views in those rooms, which are not representative samples of America. Google decision makers are not designed to be accurate representatives of America’s constituents. Ideals aside, I think there’s a clear business reality that the radical left employee base is giving google a lot of headaches. Many might argue this is for the better, but that’s mostly because they have similar political sentiments. It seems like woke culture has made google a very tense place and is gobbling them up.

pm90 7y ago
Blaming radical “lefties” and exaggerating their negative influence is a favorite tactic used to demonize that part of society. This is analogous to the now discredited argument of leftist students silencing and tensing up college campuses in the US. And it is a similarly disingenuous argument.

Buge 7y ago

>An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Most large companies have lobbyists. That's much more "playing politics" than simply deciding not to bid on a military contract.

jtolmar 7y ago

These "arrogant" Googlers aren't changing the magnitude of Google's impact on people's lives. Google's impact will still be there if they go away. There is no option that makes it go away. The choice is between the company's workers trying their best to come up with a just way to pilot it, or Google's impact being directed entirely by its executives and profit motive.

Simon_says 7y ago
They changed the impact of Google on my life. I completely excised Google from my life after a couple high-profile incidents at Google indicated they the company would use its power for political gain.

austhrow743 7y ago

How arrogant do have to be to not lie, steal, cheat, and kill? Not at all because acting according to your morality is a basic part of being a human or member of society. There's no reason that changes because you take your fun hat off and put your work hat on.

tjpnz 7y ago

>How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? I'm often stuck in the elevator with Googlers (our office is on the same floor as one of theirs). Some of the stuff that I end up overhearing is particularly jarring. It's not really the opinions but the self entitlement that makes me wish we had faster elevators.

tomohawk 7y ago

Agree. In the US, we have government to take these things on. We have rule of law. And rights. Both government and individuals are subject to these. With Google, there is no rule of law or rights. Goggle does not have a constitution. If you have a problem with them, what can you do? Nothing. There is no right to question your accuser. There is no right to protect agains unreasonable search/seizure. There is no right to free speech. No right to privacy. And so on. There is only what Google arbitrarily decides to do. And if you're not in the majority as Google defines it, then it just sucks to be you. This is why unregulated monopolies are intolerable. The US is founded on the principle that powers are separated to keep any one entity from getting too much and being able to infringe on the rights of citizens. Google is way over that line, with monopolies in many areas. Add the partisan activism, and this is a very toxic brew.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]