4 ms·

Not if the woke crowd gets their way. They got a guy fired from AAPL because they felt "unsafe" due to a book he wrote 6 years ago where he called some SF women

Not if the woke crowd gets their way. They got a guy fired from AAPL because they felt "unsafe" due to a book he wrote 6 years ago where he called some SF women useless in a zombie apocalypse. Feeling "threatened" or "violated" by not being able to apply to a job seems just as reasonable.

hasmolo 5y ago
this feels a little disingenuous. the dude is a public facing exec that said shitty stuff about women, working at a company that heavily signals it won’t be like that. it seems like a lower level employee with the same views wouldn’t write a book including them or be liable for those views. context is important
- waheoo 5y ago
  It shouldn't matter what his role is. Saying some off the cuff stuff a few years ago in an obscure book doesn't make a workplace unsafe. That is disingenuous. I've seen people fired for similar "unsafe" bullshit. Literally anything can trigger these deranged individuals. They're just out to play victim and get attention. And no, I don't think all toxic workplace behaviour is like this, many places have narcissists and similar types roaming the halls making things extremely traumatic for many people. That stuff is real and I feel for the people that get out through the ringer by these environments. But a book? 6 years ago? In the context of a zombie apocalypse hypothetical? Get the fuck outa here.
  - hasmolo 5y ago
    “ They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.” so this is ok because he’s saying they’re only useless in an apocalyptic scenario? he’s literally saying that the core of women is useless in the “real world”. i understand that it can feel like there’s a group of anonymous “woke thugs” wondering the internet trying to get people. if you feel that way it might be useful for you to try and empathize with why someone would feel that way.
    - refenestrator 5y ago
      If I recall, the context was that he was dating a woman who was a bit of a tomboy and saying how cool it was that she was better at power tools and such than he was, and this comparison to typical SF tech women was part of that extended riff. It wasn't part of an incel monologue about 'femoids' or something. Ultimately, if we let this continue, it becomes a war on flavor and humor, where no rhetorical fun is allowed lest someone take it the wrong way.
      - hasmolo 5y ago
        your point is fair. i agree with the idea that allowing outrage to drive all conversations is terrible. at the same time, i feel like i’d have known better than to generalize like this and publish it. i understand there’s context about how/why it was said. i’d really love to be able to express my thoughts that border on “anti-woke” but i don’t. i feel like the only way for us to be honest about our feelings is to be anonymous. i guess at some level i would hope this person would’ve been smart enough to know that. there’s a social game we all have to play, and just because it sucks we can’t not deal with it.
        ghaff 5y ago
        In a modern social media world, it's generally a pretty bad idea to make over the top controversial statements even if they have a context and you don't intend them to be taken seriously. And it's probably worth noting that in this case, it became an issue because the person in question wrote them in a published book and was being hired for a fairly high-profile position. But it can just as easily be some 20-something who posts something on Twitter (or gets captured for YouTube)that goes viral, given they're essentially disposable from the perspective of their current (and potential future) employers. And I don't even blame the companies. They're just looking out for their own interests and individual current or potential future employees have pretty much zero weight as balanced against any public PR hit.
  - nzmsv 5y ago
    Dude was hired as a senior exec. Part of the job description is being a public persona representing the company. And the majority of the public disagrees with him. What are we taught to do as engineers when we don't agree with the majority? Disagree and commit. What did he do? Throw a temper tantrum along the lines of "how come Dre gets to be sexist and I don't". Forget opinions, he screwed up a basic job requirement. It's OK, we all make mistakes, and his was big enough to get canned. Life goes on.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Only part of 1 passage was in the context of an apocalypse hypothetical.
- Nimitz14 5y ago
  > context is important Funny you say that while clearly knowing nothing about the context of his comments!
ausbah 5y ago
I'm sure how this is relevant to the discussion of possible discrimination on the basis of geographical location. either way, for others who want more context to what you are referring to - you're speaking about the rapid hiring then firing of Antonio García Martínez by Apple due to several excerpts from his book "Chaos Monkeys" that many employees took as racist and sexist. The most notable of which being: "Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel…British Trader, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who would end up a useful ally in that postapocalypse, doing whatever work—be it carpentry, animal husbandry, or a shotgun blast to someone’s back—required doing." “PMMess, as we’ll call her, was composed of alternating Bézier curves from top to bottom: convex, then concave, and then convex again, in a vertical undulation you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Unlike most women at Facebook (or in the Bay Area, really) she knew how to dress; forties-style, form-fitting dresses from neck to knee were her mainstay.” “In his ill-fitting polyester polo shirts with color palettes stolen from the late seventies, he reminded me of the bored auto-rickshaw drivers in front of Connaught Place, Delhi, who’d overcharge you a hundred rupees to go down the street to Paharganj. “So is there anything we can do compensation-wise, Antonio?” asked Chander in his thick Indian accent.” Feel free to interpret this how you may. [1] https://jezebel.com/apple-hires-gets-rid-of-man-who-called-women-soft-and-1846892854 https://jezebel.com/apple-hires-gets-rid-of-man-who-called-w...
- bob33212 5y ago
  The message is loud and clear. If you write a book or say anything and then want a job after that you should expect no one to read the book except with the goal of finding the most offensive sentence and interpreting that as the most racist or sexist way possible. Look at it another way. What if someone said "I am not a supporter of gay marriage", would it be OK to call that person homophobic and cancel that person? What about people who were supporters of that person at one time? Should they be canceled too?
  - 5y ago
jakelazaroff 5y ago
Literally yesterday, conservatives pressured AP into firing someone because of her social media history [1]. If you want to take that stance, at least stop pretending it’s a “woke” issue. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Emily-Wilder-Associated-Press-Israel-Palestine-AP-16192391.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Emily-Wilder-Associa...

hasmolo 5y ago

this feels a little disingenuous. the dude is a public facing exec that said shitty stuff about women, working at a company that heavily signals it won’t be like that. it seems like a lower level employee with the same views wouldn’t write a book including them or be liable for those views. context is important

waheoo 5y ago
It shouldn't matter what his role is. Saying some off the cuff stuff a few years ago in an obscure book doesn't make a workplace unsafe. That is disingenuous. I've seen people fired for similar "unsafe" bullshit. Literally anything can trigger these deranged individuals. They're just out to play victim and get attention. And no, I don't think all toxic workplace behaviour is like this, many places have narcissists and similar types roaming the halls making things extremely traumatic for many people. That stuff is real and I feel for the people that get out through the ringer by these environments. But a book? 6 years ago? In the context of a zombie apocalypse hypothetical? Get the fuck outa here.
- hasmolo 5y ago
  “ They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.” so this is ok because he’s saying they’re only useless in an apocalyptic scenario? he’s literally saying that the core of women is useless in the “real world”. i understand that it can feel like there’s a group of anonymous “woke thugs” wondering the internet trying to get people. if you feel that way it might be useful for you to try and empathize with why someone would feel that way.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    If I recall, the context was that he was dating a woman who was a bit of a tomboy and saying how cool it was that she was better at power tools and such than he was, and this comparison to typical SF tech women was part of that extended riff. It wasn't part of an incel monologue about 'femoids' or something. Ultimately, if we let this continue, it becomes a war on flavor and humor, where no rhetorical fun is allowed lest someone take it the wrong way.
    - hasmolo 5y ago
      your point is fair. i agree with the idea that allowing outrage to drive all conversations is terrible. at the same time, i feel like i’d have known better than to generalize like this and publish it. i understand there’s context about how/why it was said. i’d really love to be able to express my thoughts that border on “anti-woke” but i don’t. i feel like the only way for us to be honest about our feelings is to be anonymous. i guess at some level i would hope this person would’ve been smart enough to know that. there’s a social game we all have to play, and just because it sucks we can’t not deal with it.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        In a modern social media world, it's generally a pretty bad idea to make over the top controversial statements even if they have a context and you don't intend them to be taken seriously. And it's probably worth noting that in this case, it became an issue because the person in question wrote them in a published book and was being hired for a fairly high-profile position. But it can just as easily be some 20-something who posts something on Twitter (or gets captured for YouTube)that goes viral, given they're essentially disposable from the perspective of their current (and potential future) employers. And I don't even blame the companies. They're just looking out for their own interests and individual current or potential future employees have pretty much zero weight as balanced against any public PR hit.
- nzmsv 5y ago
  Dude was hired as a senior exec. Part of the job description is being a public persona representing the company. And the majority of the public disagrees with him. What are we taught to do as engineers when we don't agree with the majority? Disagree and commit. What did he do? Throw a temper tantrum along the lines of "how come Dre gets to be sexist and I don't". Forget opinions, he screwed up a basic job requirement. It's OK, we all make mistakes, and his was big enough to get canned. Life goes on.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Only part of 1 passage was in the context of an apocalypse hypothetical.
Nimitz14 5y ago
> context is important Funny you say that while clearly knowing nothing about the context of his comments!

ausbah 5y ago

I'm sure how this is relevant to the discussion of possible discrimination on the basis of geographical location. either way, for others who want more context to what you are referring to - you're speaking about the rapid hiring then firing of Antonio García Martínez by Apple due to several excerpts from his book "Chaos Monkeys" that many employees took as racist and sexist. The most notable of which being: "Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel…British Trader, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who would end up a useful ally in that postapocalypse, doing whatever work—be it carpentry, animal husbandry, or a shotgun blast to someone’s back—required doing." “PMMess, as we’ll call her, was composed of alternating Bézier curves from top to bottom: convex, then concave, and then convex again, in a vertical undulation you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Unlike most women at Facebook (or in the Bay Area, really) she knew how to dress; forties-style, form-fitting dresses from neck to knee were her mainstay.” “In his ill-fitting polyester polo shirts with color palettes stolen from the late seventies, he reminded me of the bored auto-rickshaw drivers in front of Connaught Place, Delhi, who’d overcharge you a hundred rupees to go down the street to Paharganj. “So is there anything we can do compensation-wise, Antonio?” asked Chander in his thick Indian accent.” Feel free to interpret this how you may. [1] https://jezebel.com/apple-hires-gets-rid-of-man-who-called-women-soft-and-1846892854 https://jezebel.com/apple-hires-gets-rid-of-man-who-called-w...

bob33212 5y ago
The message is loud and clear. If you write a book or say anything and then want a job after that you should expect no one to read the book except with the goal of finding the most offensive sentence and interpreting that as the most racist or sexist way possible. Look at it another way. What if someone said "I am not a supporter of gay marriage", would it be OK to call that person homophobic and cancel that person? What about people who were supporters of that person at one time? Should they be canceled too?
- 5y ago

jakelazaroff 5y ago

Literally yesterday, conservatives pressured AP into firing someone because of her social media history [1]. If you want to take that stance, at least stop pretending it’s a “woke” issue. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Emily-Wilder-Associated-Press-Israel-Palestine-AP-16192391.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Emily-Wilder-Associa...