5 ms·
> last week Alphabet, Google’s parent, had to deal with another internal petition circulating among employees, this one calling on the firm’s leadership to make
by yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
> last week Alphabet, Google’s parent, had to deal with another internal petition circulating among employees, this one calling on the firm’s leadership to make a statement “recognising the violence in Palestine and Israel”.
It's a special kind of hubris to believe that despite over a thousand years of conflict in the region, the right people to comprehensively understand and solve the problem are some people who make a search engine from the other side of the planet.
- tshaddox 5y agoIt doesn’t sound like the internal petition was calling for the firm to solve the conflict. That would be unrealistic, but it’s not at all the case here.
- lliamander 5y agoWhat then is the purpose of demanding others make a public stand on an issue over which they have no practical control?
- tshaddox 5y agoThere are plenty of purposes. Why are you and I talking about the issue right now despite presumably having little influence over the outcome?
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoWe are willingly engaging in a discussion, which is different from compelling people in a position of power over others to make a statement.
- nailer 5y agoThe grandparent was asking what those purposes are, not what amount of them there are.
- tshaddox 5y agoAnd I offered one place to look for an answer: one’s own purposes for engaging in this very discussion.
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoThe logical conclusion here is that you're implying that you can't engage in a discussion without first forcing your employer to vocally take a position on the issue.
- lliamander 5y agoThey are not the same. We engaging here in this discussion are genuinely trying to influence a situation over which we have some modest influence (all the while refining our ideas and maybe even learning something). These activists primary motivation is to achieve the high the comes from exerting power over other people.
- nailer 5y agoWhatever your supposed answer is, it’s not obvious. People spending time on HN very clearly have a different purpose from people demanding their employer take a stand on some political position.
- lliamander 5y agoI think we're in a much better position to change the culture at Google by having a discussion here on HN than Google is to improve the Palestine/Israel situation by making a statement. I would even say it's a noteworthy possibility, given that many people who are or will be influential at Google read HN. But the distinction here about having a discussion vs. making a demand is also relevant. When someone is demanding you make a statement for seemingly no purpose, the real purpose is to assert control over you.
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoThen it would seem the statement is inconsequential — at least in my view. How is it constructive to point out a conflict which is already at the forefront of everyone's minds because of mass civilian deaths and the associate global media coverage?
- drewcoo 5y agoI am not a Googler. I can only use Google to search for context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/18/22441236/jewish-google-employees-support-palestine-letter-anti-zionism-israel https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/18/22441236/jewish-google-em...
- swyx 5y agoits a very interesting conundrum because both agree it is inconsequential: - the left get mad because it is "the least we can do" - the right get mad because it is performative ultimately people who have made up their mind on what the right thing to do is aren't really listening to those who disagree because they have believe they own the moral or procedural high ground.
- whymauri 5y agoYeah, GP is kinda strawmanning.
- flyinglizard 5y agoIt was calling for a "safe space for anti-Zionism", which is just another term for the abolishment of Israel. Fun times.
- jdgoesmarching 5y agoNobody is fighting over theological differences, they are fighting over land. Specifically, land that was conquered by the British who promised it to both parties, failed to manage a compromise, tossed the problem to the UN who drew up horrible borders, then allowed Israel to settle beyond those borders without consequence. The entire history of this issue is roughly 100 years old and almost entirely due to imperialism and mismanagement, not some ancient bickering over who has the most correct supernatural beliefs. That’s a line we are taught to feel ok about ignoring the issue, which conveniently benefits Israel.
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoI am aware of all of the context you have provided, thanks. You're mostly right, but I don't think it's correct to say that the "entire history of this issue is roughly 100 years old". At least in the minds of many of the people in the riots — because this isn't exclusively a conflict between militants — it is about who owned the land first. Who's right here? Well, it's disputed. That's… why there's a war.
- barbacoa 5y agoMajority of the Jewish immigrants after the creation of Israel were ethnic Arab Jews that were expelled from their Islamic Arab countries. This conflict go back much more than 100 years.
- Google234 5y agoSorry, I’m not buying that you can just ignore religion. There’s a reason that there are essentially no Jews left in any of the other Arab states in that area.
- tomp 5y agoThe belief that without Western / British "imperialism and mismanagement", Jews, Muslims (Shia and Suni) (and Christians) would just peacefully co-exist in Jerusalem is ... wishful thinking at best.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
- monoideism 5y ago> It's a special kind of hubris to believe that despite over a thousand years of conflict in the region, The recent conflict in Israel/Palestine dates from the early 1900s, with a big acceleration around 1946-48. Prior to that, the last longterm conflict in the region was over 500 years beforehand, in the Crusades. But yeah, I agree that it's big hubris for some relatively ignorant and pampered American kids to believe they can solve it, or even properly understand it.