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I partially blame Google for fostering an environment where these employees genuinely thought that they could spend their working time advocating for social cau

• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• theptip 3y ago
  Do you have references for the “intimidated and threatened” bit? Is there a claim it went beyond a peaceful protest?
  • paxys 3y ago
    If you go in to the office and there are dozens of people sitting at your desk waving flags and having political protests and refusing to let you enter and do your job, what would you call that exactly? Is that a safe working environment? How do you think an Israeli employee in that same office would have felt on the day of the protests? These protests don't happen in a vacuum. The entire purpose is to disrupt day to day work and make people take notice.
    • courseofaction 3y ago
      Is this a problem? Having your country commit genocide should be very confronting. Is there a particular right to defend this?
      • Scarblac 3y ago
        Despite confident sounding statements like that, there's nowhere near consensus that genocide is being committed in this war.
        • drewmcarthur 3y ago
          well, only if you ignore the court rulings by the ICJ
          • deleted 3y ago
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        • courseofaction 3y ago
          You're right, I'm confident in my analysis that this is genocide but it's an emotional and difficult argument. Rather than get bogged in semantics, I'll settle for ethnic cleansing and argue from there: Israel has systematically displaced Palestinians with their own population for decades against international law. Israel has placed civilians in a conflict zone to occupy land. This is not a controversial set of facts and I encourage you to follow it up. Israel is absolutely breaking international law: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/un-human-rights-chief-deplores-new-moves-expand-israeli-settlements-occupied https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/un-human-rig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement Israel has used civilians for military objectives in occupied land. The civilians comprise part of Israel's hostile, occupying force against the owners of the land, no? The narrative that Hamas attacked simple peaceloving people and deserves to be crushed mercilessly is an oversimplification which ignores all context. Despite insightful sounding statements like yours, there's nothing added to the conversation by saying 'its complicated'. You muddy the mud.
      • lp0_on_fire 3y ago
        Bringing your performative politics into the workplace is a problem, yes. I am 100 percent positive that if the shoe were on the other foot here, these former google employees would be screaming bloody murder. Protest on your own time and let the rest of us do our jobs and go home to our families. This is no different than protesters blocking roads or airports. At best you get a few minutes of fame on the nightly news and at worst you end up alienating people who would otherwise be sympathetic to your cause.
        • courseofaction 3y ago
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem - The banality of evil, evil requires people to 'just do their jobs'. The thing is, if you were a palestinian male you would likely be bombed in your home with your family once you got there. I'd be pretty pissed off about that too, and feel obliged to inform the people working on the system that killed you that they are doing some plainly evil shit. I refer to this: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ Edit: The flagged of truth. :P
        • throwaway44773 3y ago
          The right equivalent would be a christian proselytizing to his colleagues. He’d end up with HR complaints quite quickly.
        • yencabulator 3y ago
          The question was would you feel "intimidated and threatened", not whether it's a problem or appropriate for the workplace.
          • lp0_on_fire 3y ago
            By definition something that is intimidating or threatening is inappropriate for the workplace so I don't see the point you're trying to make.
            • 3y ago
      • matrix87 3y ago
        would you go up to a Russian coworker and get in their face about Ukraine? people have a right to feel at ease in the workplace. if you think that your politics come before that, you aren't mature enough to work in a professional environment
        • mandmandam 3y ago
          > would you go up to a Russian coworker and get in their face about Ukraine? Is the company supplying arms to Russia? Is the coworker the boss who lied about doing so? Have the Russians killed 15,000 children in 6 months with the aid of those weapons? Let's keep these analogies somewhat accurate.
          • matrix87 3y ago
            > the company Where in my comment did I say anything about the company? GP was referring to making specific coworkers feel uncomfortable on the basis of ethnic identity If you think your politics take precedence over having a workplace where people can be productive without feeling under threat, consider freelance work If you disagree with your employer on such a fundamental level, maybe consider a different employer? If you leaving isn't enough to make them change their mind, what more will this degree of protesting accomplish?
            • lern_too_spel 3y ago
              A lot of people are talking about Nimbus now. Would they be if these employees had simply quit?
          • 0xBDB 3y ago
            > Is the company supplying arms to Russia? Is the coworker the boss who lied about >doing so? Is there some evidence that this is a defense/military-related project despite Google's public denials that that is the case? Honest question, I have no idea.
    • o11c 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • tonfreed 3y ago
        Ok, so should James Demore be reinstated? All the did was post something that no one had to even read on an internal page.
      • lupusreal 3y ago
        So if bomb threats are intimidation, nothing short of bomb threats can also be intimidation? Explain yourself.
        • o11c 3y ago
          Did I say that? No, I was referring to the fact that Israel is bombing every place where Palestinians live, and Google is helping them do it.
          • lupusreal 3y ago
            Actively bombing people, as Israel is doing, is far more than intimidation. In my view they're committing a genocide. But how does this make the other not intimidation? If you weren't implying that the other doesn't qualify as intimidation, then your comment makes zero sense.
    • neilk 3y ago
      Yes, that is perfectly safe. And obviously so. It may be upsetting, or disruptive to work, or a firing offense, but per your description nobody was in danger.
    • frakkingcylons 3y ago
      No I would not feel like my safety was threatened. I can imagine much more concerning shit than people sitting and holding signs.
      • ALittleLight 3y ago
        It's not about feeling like your safety is threatened physically or that you will be hurt or killed. I agree "threatened" or "safety" language is slightly out of place - but I'm not sure what the right alternative is. The issue is, imagine you disagree with these protesters. Do you feel comfortable saying "Actually, I support Israel because X, Y, and Z. This isn't really a genocide, blah blah blah." I think most people would not feel comfortable disagreeing with a small crowd loudly protesting. Nor should you feel comfortable, in my view, expressing that opinion at work. That opinion might make other people with contrasting opinions feel uncomfortable. It might make them hate you. Work isn't about opining on politics or current affairs, it's about, in Google's case, slightly altering your login form or cancelling products. Employees at work should focus on their jobs, or privately talk with people they are comfortable around - not really a problem if two friends and coworkers have a small political debate over lunch, more of a problem if there is a conversation imposed on unwilling participants. The issue is that some people violate this unspoken agreement and force their political fixations on everyone else.
        • mandmandam 3y ago
          [flagged]
        • deanCommie 3y ago
          [flagged]
          • taskforcegemini 3y ago
            but if genocide was the goal, wouldn't Israel already be done? and isn't genocide the goal of the Palestinians (or Irans Government)?
  • aaron695 3y ago
    [dead]
• blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
  The intimidation factor doesn’t get talked about enough. The internal activists are almost universally far left, reflecting the political leanings of the Bay Area. Anyone who speaks up with a different idea on any political topic will get attacked by a mob of these people. That means angry patronizing replies, getting criticized in public (outside of internal discussions), getting complaints sent to HR, etc.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • infamouscow 3y ago
    There's at least one company that infiltrate various large companies just to observe, record, and compile lists of these ideologues doing activism in the workplace. I hear they're doing well selling the evidence to other companies that want nothing to do with these people. As the Overtone window continues to shift back, it would be wise for those captured by idealogical stupidity to earnestly apologize. They've irreparably soured themselves to most people over the last few years, and unlike the past, I think the damage is too great this time to just move on. People have to take responsibility and be held accountable. For every James Damore, there's 10 nameless people as effected, but without the name recognition. It hasn't been easy for them. I can understand why retribution and vengeance are more important than moving on.
    • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > one company that infiltrate various large companies just to observe, record, and compile lists of these ideologues doing activism in the workplace Do you have an example? Because one, that's HR's job. And two, I'd be blown away if a large company's HR would outsource such a sensitive assignment.
      • tanseydavid 3y ago
        The poster is alluding to Project Veritas I think.
• racional 3y ago
  Google isn't "fascist" for firing you because you barricaded yourself in the CTO's office, The term "fascist" was very clearly not in reference to the firing, but to the objectively obnoxious and intimidating internal memo that was sent out afterwards. Along with the cavalier firing of people who were apparently not involved in the protest itself, but just stopping by to chat. Flagged, it seems, for pointing out what the language of the article plainly indicates.
  • o11c 3y ago
    Vouched after double checking that this is, in fact, plainly indicated in the article. (For those unaware, if you have "showdead" on in your profile, then click on a particular comment's timestamp, you can vouch to undo flags. Outside of threads like this, most flags are valid so showdead is annoying.)
• drewmcarthur 3y ago
  > your corporate job isn’t a democracy why not? shouldn’t it be?
  • faust201 3y ago
    May be you should open a company hire some of these IT workers and then post the results. (not sarcasm but genuinely to prove)
  • pixl97 3y ago
    I mean, I don't think corporations should be a democracy. This said, I don't think they should have any political power whatsoever. A corporation that operates as a fascist entity will demand fascist lobbying and laws and thereby lessen the democratic county it is operating in.
    • drewmcarthur 3y ago
      i agree companies shouldn’t have political sway, but why shouldn’t the place you spend so much time and effort for be democratically governed? what’s the argument that government should be, but industry shouldn’t? that’s the whole basis of Elizabeth Anderson’s “Private Government”
      • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > why shouldn’t the place you spend so much time and effort for be democratically governed? It’s inefficient [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
        • drewmcarthur 3y ago
          good point. why did all these countries become democracies in the first place? we should revert to autocracy /s
          • 3y ago
• wilsynet 3y ago
  There are almost two hundred thousand employees at Google. No matter what environment Google fosters, there are always going to be 0.01% who think it’s OK to stage a protest in the office.
  • mandmandam 3y ago
    If your company's products are being used to murder thousands of thousands of women, children, babies, etc - after you were lied to - then yeah it's "OK" to stage a protest in the office. In fact it's damn near mandatory. Everyone has a duty to prevent genocide, legally and morally.
    • cogman10 3y ago
      True, but you shouldn't then expect to show up to that same job the next day after protesting. I mean, perhaps if we had better worker rights, but still even in the most progressive nation I wouldn't expect an office protest not to warrant the company firing the employees doing the protest. When unions strike, they don't do it at their desks. I'm sympathetic to why these employees protested, but also think it's unreasonable for them to think they could keep working at google after the protest.
      • mandmandam 3y ago
        No one said the employees expected to keep their jobs. This is a strawman. And it's not what I'm challenging with the above comment. OP claimed it's "not OK" to protest in the office, even when the protest is against mass murder of innocent people.
        • cogman10 3y ago
          > That it seemed a bit much in response to Google employees just sitting-in, in their workspace peacefully, saying, “Hey, drop Project Nimbus or come talk to us about it. Have some sort of conversation with us.” It was a complete overreaction on Google's part to not only fire everyone who was and wasn't involved, but then also threaten everyone else in the company who would dare think to stand up against this. And people are taking notice that it feels like a very fascist environment. That was from the article.
• rakoo 3y ago
  > Your corporate job isn't a democracy. Herein lies the crux. We want to live in a democracy, but fundamentally undemocratic entities run the world and act on it in ways none of the citizens decided. The obvious next step is to dismantle those undemocratic places, or at least reduce their actions to what citizens decide, but we're far from it. If the clear response is to fire those employees, the clear response to this should be to fire google
  • twoodfin 3y ago
    The family is a fundamentally undemocratic institution. The demos does not get to decide how spouses interact or how parents raise their children anywhere but at the extremities. Nobody wants to live in a totalizing democracy.
    • mandmandam 3y ago
      > The demos does not get to decide how spouses interact or how parents raise their children anywhere but at the extremities. For 99% of human history, they did actually. But that whole argument is a red herring. OP is dead right: If your megacorp aids genocide, there should be consequences. Firing employees who dare to make noise about it is just peak dystopia shit and we'd be mugs to accept it.
      • runarberg 3y ago
        [flagged]
      • skissane 3y ago
        > For 99% of human history, they did actually. No. Do you think, in mediaeval France, the King cared about the internal relations of the family of some random townsperson or peasant? Do you think any of the aristocracy cared? Do you think the Church cared? No. And that is the norm of human history – unless it gets to the point they have to pay attention to it, what ruler wants to be bothered with the details of the private family lives of their millions of subjects?
• NomDePlum 3y ago
  There was a fairly benign protest, from what I can tell. Whether you agree with the rationale or not, those staging the protest have come to a conclusion that Google, through the services they deliver, is aiding the killing of innocents. Is that unreasonable to protest? Sure it might make fellow employees uncomfortable, but is that not the point? It's not disputable that tens of thousands of innocent children, women and men have been killed by Israel? Is it? That your organisations capabilities are likely to have been used to kill those people feels like something that should make all employees think about the company that employs them, it is sort of relevant to all employees, is it not?
  • bradfox2 3y ago
    Then they should quit if their personal beliefs no longer align with the company. The expectation that they can do anything outside of working for the company on company objectives while on company time and not face consequences is insane to anyone that's worked at a non-SV tech company.
    • SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
      I don't think that should be the first step. Trying to voice your frustrations is an important first step, maybe leave if you eventually find the organisation impervious to change, but simply leaving as a first step isn't the right way to do things.
    • Starman_Jones 3y ago
      If your recommendation for airing their grievances still results in their unemployment, why on earth should they quit instead of doing what they did?
      • fjkdlsjflkds 3y ago
        Makes sense to protest and raise hell before you get fired (or quit), in such a context, yes. What doesn't make much sense is to act surprised and complain that you got fired afterwards. Getting fired is exactly what one would expect when an employee is not only misusing their working time, but also disrupting everyone else's work, and actively trying to publically undermine the company's image (e.g., by suggesting that Google is supporting literal genocide, without any actual evidence of such).
• nebula8804 3y ago
  idk man there is a small slice of 0.01% engineers that truly move the needle. For the record I am not one of them. How many of these people are focused on a cause rather than adding another 0 to their bank accounts? Those people are probably long gone from Google but if any are left, why increase the chances of them leaving?
• SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
  Google wanted the social cache, without the actual cost. Like most people I've encountered, they wished to be seen to be good, responsible, conscientious, fair, and principled, and as with most people I've ebcountered, they wanted it without having to actually deal with the consequences of being any of those things.
• aaplok 3y ago
  > Your corporate job isn't a democracy. If corporate jobs aren't democratic, what kind of political organisation are they under?
  • lotsoweiners 3y ago
    The corporations are democratic but the voters are the shareholders/board. It is the employee’s job to execute the orders they are given not decide the direction of the business. It is very odd that this needs to be explained on this site.
    • aaplok 3y ago
      But this is not what I asked though. GP, and you in turn, both contend that the employees are not under a democratic regime within the corporation. I understood that point the first time it was made, and I don't disagree with it, so I didn't really need you to explain it again to me. Democracy is a form of political organisation, and since GP brought it up to describe the relationship of the employee to the corporation, I infer that they assimilate the corporation to a polis. So what I am asking is what you would call the type of political organisation that describes the relationship of the employee to this "polis" ( the corporation). Feudalism? Monarchy? Theocracy? It's likely none of these three either, but then what describes it best? Edit: For what it's worth, your description of the corporation as a democracy, where the employees provide labour but are not consulted on decisions sounds like Athenian democracy where the employees play the role of the slaves. I think that this is in tune with the conventional Marxist view of salaried work in capitalist societies. So I guess that's one answer to my question.
• salawat 3y ago
  Funny how everyone thinks it's not okay for other people to opine on what you do, but still reserve the right of it when it's hypothetically you pulling the strings. Self-referential inconsistency leads only to unrealized madness.
• Log_out_ 3y ago
  So, you would fire all of France?
• raydev 3y ago
  > these employees genuinely thought that they could spend their working time advocating for social causes and staging protests while staying happily employed and cashing their paychecks/vesting RSUs Reading the interview, there's no indication the organizer thought this.
• idkdotcom 3y ago
  A lot of people, particularly those raised in non democratic countries, or are first generation Americans who grew up in families that came from non democratic countries, have this distorted notion that "democracy" means that every entity in the United States must be governed democratically. They fail to understand that in the United States, "democracy" refers strictly to certain parts of the government. Other entities that exist in society, whether it's for profit companies or non profit entities, can be governed anyway they want as long as they are consistent with government laws -themselves enacted by representatives of the people. Citizens having a say in deciding who sits at the top of the government is a revolutionary idea. Differentiating government from people is another revolutionary idea. These two ideas triggered America's founding in contraposition to the form of totalitarian governments that had been the norm in Europe until the 1700s. I fully blame Google for fostering this environment. In fact, Google's two co-founders, particularly Sergey Brin, were very proud of this being in Google's DNA. Here is the upside. Given Google's power -although its influence to set norms in tech has diminished in recent years- I hope incidents like this set a new normal in which when you go to work for a tech company, you are measured exclusively for your contributions on the technical domain -whether they are technical, sales, or what have you. I always found the idea of "bringing your whole self to work" complete BS. This example illustrates why.
  • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    > I fully blame Google for fostering this environment. In fact, Google's two co-founders, particularly Sergey Brin, were very proud of this being in Google's DNA. You do know that Brin and Paige both grew up in non-democratic Communist countries, right? Or is this related to your argument?
    • idkdotcom 3y ago
      [dead]
• gklitz 3y ago
  > No, Google isn't "fascist" for firing you because you barricaded yourself in the CTO's office, intimidated and threatened fellow employees and live streamed the entire charade. Someone walked by the sit-in, talked to the people protesting, security checked their badge and they got fired. That seems pretty fascist to me. It also makes it quite clear that this action wasn’t taken due to the protest or actual actions, it was an action against their belief. Likely because these types of thoughts and beliefs could lead to financial damage to Google. Also reading between the lines of the threat they sent out, the message is pretty clear. If you don’t support Israel you better shut up about it and pretend like you do. If we catch you reading a poster somewhere that’s spreading any other message you will be terminated immediately for thought crimes.