"This is why we’re taking a stand."
By writing a Medium post? What about offering resignations?
I might be downvoted to hell but man... writing a post is not taking a stand.
We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
481–490 of 888 posts
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even when a company places values over profits, it is still in an attempt to maximize profits over the long term. This might sound weird but some people (and companies) don't subscribe to the notion that money is the only thing that matters.
Shareholders do.
Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't expect that all (or even most) shareholders think that only money matters.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. But this many Google employees acting collectively, including some very senior and long-tenured Googlers, meet that additional condition. (Disclosure: having worked at Google I know some names on that list personally, and respect them greatly. I haven't worked at Google since early 2015.)
But this was 139 out of 88K employees [1]. Doesn't seem like that many? How do we interpret the other 87K+? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti...
There's some statistic that says if one person is willing to speak out, then there's X number of people that agree but are unwilling to speak out. Don't know the accuracy of that, but I've taken it to heart and have been willing to be one of the first to speak out on multiple occasions at multiple jobs. Sometimes things change for the better. Sometimes things don't change, and I force a change by leaving. If nobody speaks up, then the status quo wins.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this was 139 out of 88K employees [1]. Doesn't seem like that many? How do we interpret the other 87K+? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti...
Yet 1 person in that company could kill it in 3 seconds even if this didn't happen. That's 1 in 88K. My wife and I once went around and petitioned all 100 people that lived in a condo complex for a specific issue. About 80 people signed. We didn't even need to present the signature sheet - the one hold out on the board we had to convince had caved after learning about the efforts - not knowing the percentage of signe…
I'm more thinking from the side of all the other employees who either don't care, or have different perspetives on how well the Chinese government might or might not be doing with their tactics. I find the public internet form, especially sites like HN don't promote as much discussion from all angles as we think. I'm sure that anyone from Google who spoke up for moving into China would absolutely be skewered on here. Yet, I know they exist.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> a massive proponent of free speech and human rights Yeah, 'human rights', right, so that's why they're so[1] focused[2] on separating families[3], and I guess 'free speech' is what allows the POTUS to be a racist[4], fear-mongering, corrupt[5] liar[6]? Or is 'free speech' the thing that allows denial[7] of climate change[8] even while California burns to the ground? And I guess with 'human rights' that goes along…
Nobody is "focused on separating families" and if you think so you've just fallen victim to divisive propaganda. I'm not sure why you scare quote free speech and then use an example of free speech to somehow disprove free speech. Free speech isn't supposed to be just for propagating popular ideas, that's the entire point FFS. >And I guess with 'human rights' that goes along with the USA's tendency to start senseless[…
>Additionally, the US produces enough domestic oil that it makes no sense to go after conflict oil even if that was a thing.
This was a post-Bush II, Hillary Clinton-driven innovation[1]. She helped popularize the practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that has unlocked previously inaccessible domestic oil supplies. Before then, oil prices were virtually dictated by OPEC. Bush II's foreign policy was informed by this fact, and the ongoing war in Iraq he started opened their resources up to western multinational oil corporations[2]. Under Saddam, the oil in Iraq was extracted by a company that had been nationalized in 1961[3].
1. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/hillary-clinton...
2. http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/list-of-international-oil-c...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#His...
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#486I think, what these employees don't realize is: Even when a company places values over profits, it is still in an attempt to maximize profits over the long term. By placing values above profits, it increases it's goodwill with customers thus increasing it's moat and it's retention, as well as it's employee retention. This strategy made sense in the early days. Not anymore. As Google's position becomes increasingly st…
The "values over profits" approach was always more of a recruitment tool than a PR tool. It did give a nice PR boost, but realistically Google's been the best choice of search engine since it came out in 1998. They don't need additional customer goodwill for people to keep using them, they just need to continue to give good results for esoteric queries. Since 2005, though, good engineers have had lots of options for…
> Since 2005, though, good engineers have had lots of options for where to work, many of which pay better or have more growth potential than Google.
Growth probably, but very few actually pays better than Google considering all the perks and work life balance you would get from working for Google. And since the startup boom is almost over, it is even more so like that now...
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#487Let's assume that this event is Google officially jumping the shark (in terms of workplace desirability, which has decreased due to moral turpitude and a gradually lowering engineering bar).
Who's the new Google? Is there a company that can pick up the mantle of near-universal desirability to software engineers? I don't think it's any of the other FAANGs.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
Censorship in the EU is generally intended to protect individuals; censorship in China is meant to protect the ones doing the censoring. The EU has democratically elected governments; China is an authoritarian dictatorship. Those are differences in kind, not just degree.
I'm sure the Chinese would say exactly the same thing that the EU does about their system; it "protects" individuals from what they don't need to know. Comments like this make me glad I live in the USA. We don't discriminate on what types of censorship are acceptable or not. Less extraordinary exceptions (Child pornography, Libel), any censorship is in violation of our constitution and most closely held core values.
I also live in the USA. I think the differences between our censorship and the EU's are mostly of degree, but I wouldn't disagree too strongly with you if you think otherwise.
>I'm sure the Chinese would say exactly the same thing that the EU does about their system; it "protects" individuals from what they don't need to know.
I'm sure they would. I'm also sure that Donald Trump would say that he's not a liar. That doesn't mean it's an argument we need to take seriously. You can make judgments for yourself - I believe that the EU leadership is more or less acting in good faith (and is likely to continue doing so), and the CCP is not. That's a meaningful difference.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#489> MRAP's are for combat, not police work While they were designed for combat, they are effectively the same thing that Brinks uses to transport money. They are meant to stop bad things from killing the people inside. They have 0 offensive weapons. They are entirely defensive vehicles that have been used to rescue downed officers, civilians in harms way (gunfire), and multiple times in natural disasters where other ve…
Right - an MRAP is a 'battlefield taxi' - it's a basic vehicle to move around a hostile area - it's defensive. You aren't doing anything offensive from inside an MRAP unless it has a remote weapons station on top. Great for collecting casualties.
Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
#490If you think that denying information to Chinese people because their Orwellian government demands it is the same as the stone you use to grind your obviously conservative axe on, you may need to pause and think a bit more on it.