4 ms·

It might not be intended to limit thought, just to avoid liability, but does it limit thought anyway?

by sa1 5y ago

skybrian 5y ago
It might have some effect, but Googlers can read all the same stuff on the Internet as everyone else.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  Have you ever been a devout practitioner of a religion whose views on the world differ in key parts from the established scientific consensus? Have you ever been affiliated with a political party that was highly popular (or a monoparty even) in your country but was held in contempt by the rest of the world because of how totalitarian/inhumane it was? In both cases, you could read whatever, even critical information about your values. But you would have an explanation ready — enemies envy and slander us, they either know they lie or they are repulsed by the God's light because of how corrupted they are, they are not aware of the whole truth... You would have a whole arsenal to explain things away, because you are committed, and your commitment makes it hurt to realize that the purpose your values serve is not very noble, or that you're a part of something atrocious. It's the human nature.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Google’s internal memegen website does not confirm that. I’ve never seen anything so critical of Google.
  - skybrian 5y ago
    I understand what you’re getting at and there is certainly a lot of closed-mindedness going around. I don’t think any organization is immune to this. But there are also a lot of employees who have strongly opposed various Google policies and engaged in various political activity based on that, so the groupthink doesn’t seem to be working very well? Also, the company leaks like a sieve these days. Even before that, there were a lot of internal debates. (They just didn’t leak as much.) It’s in part because of these debates that you need policies; people sometimes say careless things in heated discussions. (Former Googler, but it’s been a while.)
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      Isn't continuing to work for a company that has policies you strongly oppose an example of successful groupthink? I suppose you could make a case for continuing if the policies are/have been/could realistically be changed. But if that's unlikely?
      - nitrogen 5y ago
        When a company is large enough[0], it's probably not unreasonable to start thinking of it as a municipality, or even a small country. There are probably people who live in my city who I wouldn't like, there are probably policies of my city I don't like, but I still live where I live. Similarly, at a large enough company, if your work is good, but some other division of the company is bad, should you leave the company(city/country)? Or just avoid the bad division? [0] Leaving aside the question of whether it's a good thing for companies to get that large.
        aix1 5y ago
        Thank you for this, the analogy really resonates.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
Well, I'd say it does. My understanding is that if you're not limited in what you're thinking, but severely limited in how you are allowed to think about it, your freedom of thought is limited nonetheless. And it's limited, by necessity, even outside working hours, lest your tongue/fingers slip and you utter a bad word in your Googler capacity so that a liable deed gets a liable name and there won't be any lawyering around this. Heck, it's almost, though not entirely, like a brainwashing cult! I guess in China they also force their Uighur camp operators to not even think about what they do as "torture", but "reeducation". It makes them happier in their workplace.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  How people think about things and what people put in legally discoverable media like email are worlds apart. As a basic aspect of corporate survival, it's important to keep that in mind. The overarching concept is "don't make it hard for the company to do business." The point of those trainings is that the words to avoid have legally-defined meanings that may or may not be what the Googler intended, but are likely to be interpreted in an antitrust sense in a court of law. The underlying concept is "don't talk like a lawyer if you're not one of our lawyers." Watching what you put in email (as described in this article) is in the same training where Googlers are given the overarching advice "always communicate via email as if those emails are going to show up on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow."
  - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
    Doesn't negate my point in the least. The fact alone that there exists such an extensive training specifically about monopoly-related stuff hints that there is extensive monopolistic behavior liability for which only hinges on whether it's acknowledged as such in the internal communication. Also, it adds a whole new (new?) meaning to any press release or a blog post from Google using any of the terms from the right column if you substitute them with the terms from the left column. They say "dedicated to providing the best services to our users", you see "dedicated to eliminating our competitors".
refenestrator 5y ago
Working there in the first place limits thought. Nobody wants to think of themselves as part of the problem. The language, at best, just makes the cognitive dissonance a little easier.
- kyrra 5y ago
  Googler, opinion is my own. When I started at Google in 2015, in my first week here chatting with some peers, some of them were complaining about some of our policies around Android and that they much preferred Apple (the person didn't work anywhere near Android, but was complaining about it more as a user). There are many people at Google that have issues with various parts of Google's businesses. Some are more vocal about it than others. One great example was Brad Fitzpatrick complaining about the first-gen Nest smoke alarms (2015): https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/566072337020112896 https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/566072337020112896
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    Those are minor product quibbles. I'm not saying Google is the great Satan or anything, I'm just saying it's impossible for most people, especially the typical Googler, to simultaneously work at a place for a nice paycheck and think it's bad for society. Everyone justifies, whether it's Phillip Morris or Google.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

It might not be intended to limit thought, just to avoid liability, but does it limit thought anyway?

by sa1 5y ago

It might not be intended to limit thought, just to avoid liability, but does it limit thought anyway?

skybrian 5y ago

It might have some effect, but Googlers can read all the same stuff on the Internet as everyone else.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
Have you ever been a devout practitioner of a religion whose views on the world differ in key parts from the established scientific consensus? Have you ever been affiliated with a political party that was highly popular (or a monoparty even) in your country but was held in contempt by the rest of the world because of how totalitarian/inhumane it was? In both cases, you could read whatever, even critical information about your values. But you would have an explanation ready — enemies envy and slander us, they either know they lie or they are repulsed by the God's light because of how corrupted they are, they are not aware of the whole truth... You would have a whole arsenal to explain things away, because you are committed, and your commitment makes it hurt to realize that the purpose your values serve is not very noble, or that you're a part of something atrocious. It's the human nature.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Google’s internal memegen website does not confirm that. I’ve never seen anything so critical of Google.
- skybrian 5y ago
  I understand what you’re getting at and there is certainly a lot of closed-mindedness going around. I don’t think any organization is immune to this. But there are also a lot of employees who have strongly opposed various Google policies and engaged in various political activity based on that, so the groupthink doesn’t seem to be working very well? Also, the company leaks like a sieve these days. Even before that, there were a lot of internal debates. (They just didn’t leak as much.) It’s in part because of these debates that you need policies; people sometimes say careless things in heated discussions. (Former Googler, but it’s been a while.)
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Isn't continuing to work for a company that has policies you strongly oppose an example of successful groupthink? I suppose you could make a case for continuing if the policies are/have been/could realistically be changed. But if that's unlikely?
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      When a company is large enough[0], it's probably not unreasonable to start thinking of it as a municipality, or even a small country. There are probably people who live in my city who I wouldn't like, there are probably policies of my city I don't like, but I still live where I live. Similarly, at a large enough company, if your work is good, but some other division of the company is bad, should you leave the company(city/country)? Or just avoid the bad division? [0] Leaving aside the question of whether it's a good thing for companies to get that large.
      - aix1 5y ago
        Thank you for this, the analogy really resonates.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

Well, I'd say it does. My understanding is that if you're not limited in what you're thinking, but severely limited in how you are allowed to think about it, your freedom of thought is limited nonetheless. And it's limited, by necessity, even outside working hours, lest your tongue/fingers slip and you utter a bad word in your Googler capacity so that a liable deed gets a liable name and there won't be any lawyering around this. Heck, it's almost, though not entirely, like a brainwashing cult! I guess in China they also force their Uighur camp operators to not even think about what they do as "torture", but "reeducation". It makes them happier in their workplace.

shadowgovt 5y ago
How people think about things and what people put in legally discoverable media like email are worlds apart. As a basic aspect of corporate survival, it's important to keep that in mind. The overarching concept is "don't make it hard for the company to do business." The point of those trainings is that the words to avoid have legally-defined meanings that may or may not be what the Googler intended, but are likely to be interpreted in an antitrust sense in a court of law. The underlying concept is "don't talk like a lawyer if you're not one of our lawyers." Watching what you put in email (as described in this article) is in the same training where Googlers are given the overarching advice "always communicate via email as if those emails are going to show up on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow."
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  Doesn't negate my point in the least. The fact alone that there exists such an extensive training specifically about monopoly-related stuff hints that there is extensive monopolistic behavior liability for which only hinges on whether it's acknowledged as such in the internal communication. Also, it adds a whole new (new?) meaning to any press release or a blog post from Google using any of the terms from the right column if you substitute them with the terms from the left column. They say "dedicated to providing the best services to our users", you see "dedicated to eliminating our competitors".

refenestrator 5y ago

Working there in the first place limits thought. Nobody wants to think of themselves as part of the problem. The language, at best, just makes the cognitive dissonance a little easier.

kyrra 5y ago
Googler, opinion is my own. When I started at Google in 2015, in my first week here chatting with some peers, some of them were complaining about some of our policies around Android and that they much preferred Apple (the person didn't work anywhere near Android, but was complaining about it more as a user). There are many people at Google that have issues with various parts of Google's businesses. Some are more vocal about it than others. One great example was Brad Fitzpatrick complaining about the first-gen Nest smoke alarms (2015): https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/566072337020112896 https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/566072337020112896
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- refenestrator 5y ago
  Those are minor product quibbles. I'm not saying Google is the great Satan or anything, I'm just saying it's impossible for most people, especially the typical Googler, to simultaneously work at a place for a nice paycheck and think it's bad for society. Everyone justifies, whether it's Phillip Morris or Google.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]