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I'm not sure what this comment was meant to clarify - the article already made this clear. If anything, your comment's reference to parents adds confusion rathe

I'm not sure what this comment was meant to clarify - the article already made this clear. If anything, your comment's reference to parents adds confusion rather than clarification.

jancsika 4y ago
There are commenters below going on about tech cliques and the 80s D&D scare. This ain't that.
- wardedVibe 4y ago
  Almost like they didn't read the article... They're very clear about the allegations
  - jancsika 4y ago
    Frankly, I don't understand rule that prohibits barking at commenters who clearly didn't read the article. That's what I'm routing around here, and as a side-effect I'm annoying at least one bona fide reader.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
      This comment of mine will be off topic, which pollutes the comments here. This is why the rules prohibit chastising people for not the reading the article. Correct them and or down them. No need to chastise them as well.
      - Zenbit_UX 4y ago
        Disagree, shaming someone for poor behavior is how a society operates.
        Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
        Oh right I forgot addiction and obesity are not at crisis levels in America. This might be how you and many people think society operates. Unfortunately that’s a dangerous delusion. This reductionist argument is dehumanizing and casts the issuer in an unearned air of superiority. Exhibit A. Trump is likely to be the most shamed person in existence and is to this date entirely unrepentant. The fact that shaming has appeared to work on some in his mafia cannot be intelligently construed as evidence for the effectiveness of shame as a tool to correct behavior without controlling for confounding factors which has not be done with any serious rigor on a societal level.
  - turdit 4y ago
xg15 4y ago
I mean, we got comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770714 so maybe some clarification is necessary.
brianlash 4y ago
Clarifications like these are helpful to people like me who tend to read the comments before making a decision to read the article.
decebalus1 4y ago
The comment section is muddying the waters by gathering all sorts of organizations or company cultures (OMG working at Facebook is a cuLT) or cliques under the 'cult' umbrella. I believe the comment is very valuable and should be at the top so that HNers who don't read the articles don't get the wrong impression about what this is about.
wrycoder 4y ago
And yet it’s the top comment, for some reason.
- zymhan 4y ago
  I think child comments become parent comments if the original parent is removed by mods
jollybean 4y ago
The article presents the slightly paranoid perspective of one person. I don't think anyone should come to understand the nature of an organization by arbitrary outsiders. A lot of it is going to be hearsay. That said, I'm inclined to believe most of it, and least the 'gist' of it. I wouldn't be so fully quick to judge either the cult and certainly not it's members either. There are a lot of reasons people can be involved. And many of those reasons can be positive, even if the system or it's leaders are corrupt. I think it's mostly safe to assume the group is probably a cult in the 'bad sense', but not without accepting that there is going to be a lot of grey there. Also, man, Cali. It's like Florida but with more education and money so the 'funny business' is just like a different form. Maybe Google has too much money, and possibly not a strong a cultural foundation as it needs.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  One person? Paranoid? The author linked to a ton of external evidence, articles, and even podcasts about the cult. It’s not like the author is making up potential fiction
  - jollybean 4y ago
    Podcasts about a weird group are not 'evidence', and they certainly are not evidence that some Google employees are nefarious or did anything wrong. Has there been an investigation, charges? What happened? When? To whom? Objectively. You are using the word 'evidence' when there isn't really any yet - I'm indicating 'we don't really know' a lot about this. 'The Leaders Spent Money on Lavish Things' is worse than evidence, because it's an emotional appeal. Canadian Diplomats just spent $100K on just liquor for a single flight overseas. I'm sure Brin/Page and their billions have bought a few toys. It's 'Patriarchal' and 'White Supremacist'? Is that an allegation or evidence? Because those words are used a lot these days. The author clearly had a bit of a breakdown - and for what reason? Because people 'belonging to some group' worked with him? Were they harassing him? Doing nefarious things? Acting unprofessionally towards others? Trying to press people into the group? Shaming others? It doesn't seem that way. It seems like the author reacted in a way that others didn't seem to need to, for some unknown reason. People are laid off all the time - how do we know he was let go because he indicated there was a 'cult' in Google? What were the circumstances? 'Cliques' happen all over the place, it's not uncommon at all. Maybe a 'flag' to notice, but not otherwise. And especially - what relation do members have to the leadership who where there seem to be serious allegations? i.e. what did the English Teacher know about the Choirmaster fondling the kids? Where they involved? Looking the other way? Were victims then participating in victimizing others? Did people take preacautions? Was it bad apples, systematic? What is being done at the school? ... because weird things happen. I witnessed a high school teacher run off with a student - odd, but legal and technically consensual. Hey, it's Cali, some people have orgies, it's not a new thing. Some people run around naked in the desert on Labour Day Week/Weekend and some of them have group sex in a weird pyramid looking building, I know this because I (accidentally) witnessed it myself, at Burning Man, an event that many Googlers attend. Does that make them 'Cult Members'? Was someone pressed into the orgy? Were they on drugs? Does that count as 'consent'? What if they consented, but given the nature of the org they were apart of, changes that nature? And then felt ashamed afterwards? Or maybe someone straight up raped someone? Sergei Brin is known to have had sex with staffers, on Google Campus. [1] Does that make him an evil cult leader? I mean, consensual sex in the context of 'power imbalance' changes the nature of consent? How does that behaviour implicate other Googlers? And leaders? Was there an investigation? I have some experience looking the nature of 'cults' and I believe they are usually misrepresented - for better and worse - I'm not being defensive of them, other than to say the documentarian narrative is usually a big hyperbole. It takes a big more effort to arrive at the truth. Aside from people's odd but understandable reactions to them, I believe most 'rank and file' members of these odd groups to be generally good people, maybe, on average, actually much kinder than most people. But also very naive. Again - the author clearly had a serious emotional reaction to his situation, and therefore, irrespective of the 'goings on', it's going to be hard to take that as a firmly reliable narrative. And - while there are some serious allegations that I hope are investigated, these things are complicated, and it's I think wrong to start to throw people into the fire, especially those peripherally involved. Consider that they could also be victims. I'm looking forward to more details, hopefully taken up by press with good capabilities and credentials. [1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-excerpt-google https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-exc...

I'm not sure what this comment was meant to clarify - the article already made this clear. If anything, your comment's reference to parents adds confusion rather than clarification.

jancsika 4y ago

There are commenters below going on about tech cliques and the 80s D&D scare. This ain't that.

wardedVibe 4y ago
Almost like they didn't read the article... They're very clear about the allegations
- jancsika 4y ago
  Frankly, I don't understand rule that prohibits barking at commenters who clearly didn't read the article. That's what I'm routing around here, and as a side-effect I'm annoying at least one bona fide reader.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
    This comment of mine will be off topic, which pollutes the comments here. This is why the rules prohibit chastising people for not the reading the article. Correct them and or down them. No need to chastise them as well.
    - Zenbit_UX 4y ago
      Disagree, shaming someone for poor behavior is how a society operates.
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
        Oh right I forgot addiction and obesity are not at crisis levels in America. This might be how you and many people think society operates. Unfortunately that’s a dangerous delusion. This reductionist argument is dehumanizing and casts the issuer in an unearned air of superiority. Exhibit A. Trump is likely to be the most shamed person in existence and is to this date entirely unrepentant. The fact that shaming has appeared to work on some in his mafia cannot be intelligently construed as evidence for the effectiveness of shame as a tool to correct behavior without controlling for confounding factors which has not be done with any serious rigor on a societal level.
- turdit 4y ago

xg15 4y ago

I mean, we got comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770714 so maybe some clarification is necessary.

brianlash 4y ago

Clarifications like these are helpful to people like me who tend to read the comments before making a decision to read the article.

decebalus1 4y ago

The comment section is muddying the waters by gathering all sorts of organizations or company cultures (OMG working at Facebook is a cuLT) or cliques under the 'cult' umbrella. I believe the comment is very valuable and should be at the top so that HNers who don't read the articles don't get the wrong impression about what this is about.

wrycoder 4y ago

And yet it’s the top comment, for some reason.

zymhan 4y ago
I think child comments become parent comments if the original parent is removed by mods

jollybean 4y ago

The article presents the slightly paranoid perspective of one person. I don't think anyone should come to understand the nature of an organization by arbitrary outsiders. A lot of it is going to be hearsay. That said, I'm inclined to believe most of it, and least the 'gist' of it. I wouldn't be so fully quick to judge either the cult and certainly not it's members either. There are a lot of reasons people can be involved. And many of those reasons can be positive, even if the system or it's leaders are corrupt. I think it's mostly safe to assume the group is probably a cult in the 'bad sense', but not without accepting that there is going to be a lot of grey there. Also, man, Cali. It's like Florida but with more education and money so the 'funny business' is just like a different form. Maybe Google has too much money, and possibly not a strong a cultural foundation as it needs.

throwoutway 4y ago
One person? Paranoid? The author linked to a ton of external evidence, articles, and even podcasts about the cult. It’s not like the author is making up potential fiction
- jollybean 4y ago
  Podcasts about a weird group are not 'evidence', and they certainly are not evidence that some Google employees are nefarious or did anything wrong. Has there been an investigation, charges? What happened? When? To whom? Objectively. You are using the word 'evidence' when there isn't really any yet - I'm indicating 'we don't really know' a lot about this. 'The Leaders Spent Money on Lavish Things' is worse than evidence, because it's an emotional appeal. Canadian Diplomats just spent $100K on just liquor for a single flight overseas. I'm sure Brin/Page and their billions have bought a few toys. It's 'Patriarchal' and 'White Supremacist'? Is that an allegation or evidence? Because those words are used a lot these days. The author clearly had a bit of a breakdown - and for what reason? Because people 'belonging to some group' worked with him? Were they harassing him? Doing nefarious things? Acting unprofessionally towards others? Trying to press people into the group? Shaming others? It doesn't seem that way. It seems like the author reacted in a way that others didn't seem to need to, for some unknown reason. People are laid off all the time - how do we know he was let go because he indicated there was a 'cult' in Google? What were the circumstances? 'Cliques' happen all over the place, it's not uncommon at all. Maybe a 'flag' to notice, but not otherwise. And especially - what relation do members have to the leadership who where there seem to be serious allegations? i.e. what did the English Teacher know about the Choirmaster fondling the kids? Where they involved? Looking the other way? Were victims then participating in victimizing others? Did people take preacautions? Was it bad apples, systematic? What is being done at the school? ... because weird things happen. I witnessed a high school teacher run off with a student - odd, but legal and technically consensual. Hey, it's Cali, some people have orgies, it's not a new thing. Some people run around naked in the desert on Labour Day Week/Weekend and some of them have group sex in a weird pyramid looking building, I know this because I (accidentally) witnessed it myself, at Burning Man, an event that many Googlers attend. Does that make them 'Cult Members'? Was someone pressed into the orgy? Were they on drugs? Does that count as 'consent'? What if they consented, but given the nature of the org they were apart of, changes that nature? And then felt ashamed afterwards? Or maybe someone straight up raped someone? Sergei Brin is known to have had sex with staffers, on Google Campus. [1] Does that make him an evil cult leader? I mean, consensual sex in the context of 'power imbalance' changes the nature of consent? How does that behaviour implicate other Googlers? And leaders? Was there an investigation? I have some experience looking the nature of 'cults' and I believe they are usually misrepresented - for better and worse - I'm not being defensive of them, other than to say the documentarian narrative is usually a big hyperbole. It takes a big more effort to arrive at the truth. Aside from people's odd but understandable reactions to them, I believe most 'rank and file' members of these odd groups to be generally good people, maybe, on average, actually much kinder than most people. But also very naive. Again - the author clearly had a serious emotional reaction to his situation, and therefore, irrespective of the 'goings on', it's going to be hard to take that as a firmly reliable narrative. And - while there are some serious allegations that I hope are investigated, these things are complicated, and it's I think wrong to start to throw people into the fire, especially those peripherally involved. Consider that they could also be victims. I'm looking forward to more details, hopefully taken up by press with good capabilities and credentials. [1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-excerpt-google https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-exc...