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Right, because they didn’t know it wouldn’t last hence taking the risk. The message is being written after the fact, and the message isn’t a lie per-se, rather,

Right, because they didn’t know it wouldn’t last hence taking the risk. The message is being written after the fact, and the message isn’t a lie per-se, rather, it’s a human framing of the situation with the subtext of we are a company and a company is not a job factory but a shareholder value factory. Every message every company ever writes that leans on any amount of humanity is, in your characterisation, a lie… and while, sure, that’s technically true, we all take part in this big theatre production where we expect companies to pretend to have humanity — your problem is with all of us participating in this system pretending a company gives a single solitary fuck about any of us. These performative messages are just one small part of the performance, writing an “honest” message where they say “you’re all fired and we don’t care” wouldn’t change anything. They’d still be doing a million other pieces of performative humanity.

subradios 4y ago
I think we can give Google executives a little more credit. They care a bounded amount. A rough approximation of how much they care would be the rational incentives to not produce a culture of fear in the regular workforce + the amount of being nice to employees that Google can afford due to their dominant market position. Similarly, when I shop for employers there are fringe benefits, cultural differences, etc that matter - but they aren't going to matter in the face of another $100,000 in salary. Definitely wouldn't go somewhere else for a few hundred bucks tho.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  I don’t think nice things can be characterised as caring, though. If their decisions were actively harming the company in order to benefit the humanity of their employees, that would be reasonable evidence that they care, but I don’t think we can interpret every nice thing for a person as caring. For example, providing benefits above and beyond what other companies provide has a clear justification for the business: happier employees means better work from people that are better retained. A good question would be: if Google stood to benefit from making their employees lives miserable, would they do it? I’d argue, yes, absolutely, and there’s much evidence of it. For example, Google (and many other big tech companies) pay human moderators low wages to do work that causes psychological damage. Caring about people as people and not employees isn’t demonstrated by giving them nice benefits around the edge, it’s demonstrate by putting their humanity above their employment.
  - subradios 4y ago
    Google does not have evidence that their outrageous salaries couldn't be cut some and still maintain the line outside of the door. The gyms and perks are not purely a cynical ploy to make people stay later. Google wouldn't make their employees lives miserable to increase revenue by 0.1%, because they care - the people at the top aren't literal lizardpeople. This is where I bring in "bounded", because if that same choice would increase revenue by 100%, Google execs do it every time. The exact lines change depending on local customs and competition (Google is a dominant market monopoly, so can afford gyms and adult playgrounds and all the really cringe Google perks) but it's also why low margin businesses have shittier working environments - there's more competition and less room for executives to care.

subradios 4y ago

I think we can give Google executives a little more credit. They care a bounded amount. A rough approximation of how much they care would be the rational incentives to not produce a culture of fear in the regular workforce + the amount of being nice to employees that Google can afford due to their dominant market position. Similarly, when I shop for employers there are fringe benefits, cultural differences, etc that matter - but they aren't going to matter in the face of another $100,000 in salary. Definitely wouldn't go somewhere else for a few hundred bucks tho.

phphphphp 4y ago
I don’t think nice things can be characterised as caring, though. If their decisions were actively harming the company in order to benefit the humanity of their employees, that would be reasonable evidence that they care, but I don’t think we can interpret every nice thing for a person as caring. For example, providing benefits above and beyond what other companies provide has a clear justification for the business: happier employees means better work from people that are better retained. A good question would be: if Google stood to benefit from making their employees lives miserable, would they do it? I’d argue, yes, absolutely, and there’s much evidence of it. For example, Google (and many other big tech companies) pay human moderators low wages to do work that causes psychological damage. Caring about people as people and not employees isn’t demonstrated by giving them nice benefits around the edge, it’s demonstrate by putting their humanity above their employment.
- subradios 4y ago
  Google does not have evidence that their outrageous salaries couldn't be cut some and still maintain the line outside of the door. The gyms and perks are not purely a cynical ploy to make people stay later. Google wouldn't make their employees lives miserable to increase revenue by 0.1%, because they care - the people at the top aren't literal lizardpeople. This is where I bring in "bounded", because if that same choice would increase revenue by 100%, Google execs do it every time. The exact lines change depending on local customs and competition (Google is a dominant market monopoly, so can afford gyms and adult playgrounds and all the really cringe Google perks) but it's also why low margin businesses have shittier working environments - there's more competition and less room for executives to care.