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> Anti-Semitism appears to be rampant throughout Google’s workforce. If someone would have told me 5 years ago that in just a few years, Google employees would

by rdtsc 3y ago

> Anti-Semitism appears to be rampant throughout Google’s workforce. If someone would have told me 5 years ago that in just a few years, Google employees would be accused of anti-semitism, or any -ism, really, I would have never believed it. They were on the frontlines "punching nazis" and fighting rising fascism here in US, and here they are, being accused of anti-semitism, themselves.

hintymad 3y ago
In recent years the left labels anyone who opposes them nazis. Oh, ANTIFAS are like SS but they are anti-facists. So, I’m not sure that anti-nazis argument holds water
- rdtsc 3y ago
  It reminds me of Putin and his excuses for attacking Ukraine -- fighting fascists, of course. How can the Americans oppose that, he is doing exactly what they are doing. They are brothers in arms, really.
underdeserver 3y ago
Not sure how else you would label spraying "Kill all the Jews" in a toilet stall.
- rdtsc 3y ago
  Oh sure, I agree. I am not saying those are not, just that it's so shocking to find it's Googlers.
  - underdeserver 3y ago
    Ever since that video 8 years ago of a college kid yelling at a professor at Yale [1], it seemed to me that a non-negligible part of American youth, much of it in highly regarded universities (such as Yale, Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford) does not understand, nor want to understand, nuance and proportionality. You don't protest violence by being violent yourself. Rank-and-file Googlers in the US tend to be young (<30) and from those universities or their like. Certainly seems to be the case in this article. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_screaming_at_professor_yesterday/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_sc...
    - rdtsc 3y ago
      What's even more disturbing is that there are groups and interests which are actively controlling these students opinions. One would think these would be the best and brightest at those universities, and consequently the best and brightest at Google. Surely, they should be hardest ones to use as ideological drones. One case I remember, for instance, which illustrates this drone control well was the bakery incident at Oberlin college. At some point during the discovery, there was an email from an "organizer" how they will unleash the students. I thought that a rare case of controller putting in writting and acknowledging how the whole mechanism works. [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/448711-oberlin-college-case-shows-how-universities-are-losing-their-way https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/448711-oberlin-college... > Raimondo replied saying she would “unleash the students” if she was not convinced “this needs to be put behind us.” It would be interesting to find out who is unleashing the Googlers in this case...
- jedimind 3y ago
  yea because you bothered to verify who actually did that, if that's all it takes then anybody can just spray such things against their own tribe and create artificial hysteria.
  - rdtsc 3y ago
    That is a fair point. This should be investigated. I have heard of incidents like that at the nearby college. The police got called and eventually it turned out a member of the target group wrote the message.
edanm 3y ago
It's been pretty well-known and much commented on that "the left" is full of anti-semites. E.g. the Black Lives Matter movement was often accused of being at best indifferent to anti-semitism. (No comment from me on the truth or otherwise of that sentiment, I'm just pointing out this isn't exactly a new thing.)
nerdjon 3y ago
It concerns me that this is being labeled as anti-semitism. > At an Amazon shareholder meeting in May, anti-Nimbus Amazon employees said they will support a resolution requesting a third-party investigative report on whether “customers’ use of its products and services with surveillance, computer vision, or cloud storage capabilities contributes to human rights violations or violates international humanitarian law.” That seems like a fairly basic request? It seems like in a lot of areas, in the last 6 months we can't even have a conversation about what is going on without anything except 100% support for Israel being labeled as "anti-semitism" which is really dangerous to do. We don't even expect that level of blanket support for the actions of our own government. We should be able to critically look at what is going on regardless of who is doing it without trying to hand wave it away with a single word.
pcthrowaway 3y ago
The protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace... are you suggesting they're an anti-semitic group?
- tptacek 3y ago
  Many Jewish people do believe that, yes. JVP is not a mainstream group. They tread pretty close to the line on things like the Blood Libel in their rhetoric, and, in particular, in a long-term campaign they've run linking police violence in the US to Israel (a risible claim, for what it's worth). I'm not saying they're antisemitic. I'm not qualified to render that kind of judgement. You can easily argue that the ADL isn't either --- the ADL has problemicized itself in a bunch of ways too in the last few years. But you probably shouldn't be shocked when people make that claim; it's a common one.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    If people are arguing that a Jewish peace advocacy group is antisemitic, I think they've lost all conception of what that word means. They're using the word "antisemite" to mean anti-zionist or anti-Israel, or anti-occupation. "Anti-semitism" is a hatred of Jewish people or discriminatory attitudes towards them. There is a large contingency of Jewish people who believe Jews are better than other people (this idea is at least one of the beliefs underpinning the existence of Israel). Calling Jews who push back against this narrative anti-semitic is like calling white people who oppose white supremacy anti-white.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      There are lots of white anti-white racists, there are Black anti-Black racists, and there are indeed Jewish antisemites. You're adopting a position of shock and disbelief that (some) Jewish people find JVP problematic. I'm telling you: that's not helping the credibility of your argument, because this is an old, well-covered controversy, and the points that JVP's critics raise aren't superficial. You don't have to agree with them, but to suggest that those critics have "lost all conception" of what "antisemitism" means mostly suggests that you're unfamiliar with JVP. (I don't know what I believe about JVP! My confidence in any assessment is very low. What I do know, though, is that if I were doing persuasive work, like, say, getting a ceasefire resolution passed in my municipality, I would do my best to keep JVP's name off the enterprise.) For a clearer example of this phenomenon, unrelated to JVP, see Jewish Currents, also frequently cited in discussions to insulate arguments from accusations of antisemitism.

by rdtsc 3y ago

hintymad 3y ago

In recent years the left labels anyone who opposes them nazis. Oh, ANTIFAS are like SS but they are anti-facists. So, I’m not sure that anti-nazis argument holds water

rdtsc 3y ago
It reminds me of Putin and his excuses for attacking Ukraine -- fighting fascists, of course. How can the Americans oppose that, he is doing exactly what they are doing. They are brothers in arms, really.

underdeserver 3y ago

Not sure how else you would label spraying "Kill all the Jews" in a toilet stall.

rdtsc 3y ago
Oh sure, I agree. I am not saying those are not, just that it's so shocking to find it's Googlers.
- underdeserver 3y ago
  Ever since that video 8 years ago of a college kid yelling at a professor at Yale [1], it seemed to me that a non-negligible part of American youth, much of it in highly regarded universities (such as Yale, Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford) does not understand, nor want to understand, nuance and proportionality. You don't protest violence by being violent yourself. Rank-and-file Googlers in the US tend to be young (<30) and from those universities or their like. Certainly seems to be the case in this article. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_screaming_at_professor_yesterday/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_sc...
  - rdtsc 3y ago
    What's even more disturbing is that there are groups and interests which are actively controlling these students opinions. One would think these would be the best and brightest at those universities, and consequently the best and brightest at Google. Surely, they should be hardest ones to use as ideological drones. One case I remember, for instance, which illustrates this drone control well was the bakery incident at Oberlin college. At some point during the discovery, there was an email from an "organizer" how they will unleash the students. I thought that a rare case of controller putting in writting and acknowledging how the whole mechanism works. [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/448711-oberlin-college-case-shows-how-universities-are-losing-their-way https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/448711-oberlin-college... > Raimondo replied saying she would “unleash the students” if she was not convinced “this needs to be put behind us.” It would be interesting to find out who is unleashing the Googlers in this case...
jedimind 3y ago
yea because you bothered to verify who actually did that, if that's all it takes then anybody can just spray such things against their own tribe and create artificial hysteria.
- rdtsc 3y ago
  That is a fair point. This should be investigated. I have heard of incidents like that at the nearby college. The police got called and eventually it turned out a member of the target group wrote the message.

edanm 3y ago

It's been pretty well-known and much commented on that "the left" is full of anti-semites. E.g. the Black Lives Matter movement was often accused of being at best indifferent to anti-semitism. (No comment from me on the truth or otherwise of that sentiment, I'm just pointing out this isn't exactly a new thing.)

nerdjon 3y ago

It concerns me that this is being labeled as anti-semitism. > At an Amazon shareholder meeting in May, anti-Nimbus Amazon employees said they will support a resolution requesting a third-party investigative report on whether “customers’ use of its products and services with surveillance, computer vision, or cloud storage capabilities contributes to human rights violations or violates international humanitarian law.” That seems like a fairly basic request? It seems like in a lot of areas, in the last 6 months we can't even have a conversation about what is going on without anything except 100% support for Israel being labeled as "anti-semitism" which is really dangerous to do. We don't even expect that level of blanket support for the actions of our own government. We should be able to critically look at what is going on regardless of who is doing it without trying to hand wave it away with a single word.

pcthrowaway 3y ago

The protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace... are you suggesting they're an anti-semitic group?

tptacek 3y ago
Many Jewish people do believe that, yes. JVP is not a mainstream group. They tread pretty close to the line on things like the Blood Libel in their rhetoric, and, in particular, in a long-term campaign they've run linking police violence in the US to Israel (a risible claim, for what it's worth). I'm not saying they're antisemitic. I'm not qualified to render that kind of judgement. You can easily argue that the ADL isn't either --- the ADL has problemicized itself in a bunch of ways too in the last few years. But you probably shouldn't be shocked when people make that claim; it's a common one.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  If people are arguing that a Jewish peace advocacy group is antisemitic, I think they've lost all conception of what that word means. They're using the word "antisemite" to mean anti-zionist or anti-Israel, or anti-occupation. "Anti-semitism" is a hatred of Jewish people or discriminatory attitudes towards them. There is a large contingency of Jewish people who believe Jews are better than other people (this idea is at least one of the beliefs underpinning the existence of Israel). Calling Jews who push back against this narrative anti-semitic is like calling white people who oppose white supremacy anti-white.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    There are lots of white anti-white racists, there are Black anti-Black racists, and there are indeed Jewish antisemites. You're adopting a position of shock and disbelief that (some) Jewish people find JVP problematic. I'm telling you: that's not helping the credibility of your argument, because this is an old, well-covered controversy, and the points that JVP's critics raise aren't superficial. You don't have to agree with them, but to suggest that those critics have "lost all conception" of what "antisemitism" means mostly suggests that you're unfamiliar with JVP. (I don't know what I believe about JVP! My confidence in any assessment is very low. What I do know, though, is that if I were doing persuasive work, like, say, getting a ceasefire resolution passed in my municipality, I would do my best to keep JVP's name off the enterprise.) For a clearer example of this phenomenon, unrelated to JVP, see Jewish Currents, also frequently cited in discussions to insulate arguments from accusations of antisemitism.