101–110 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In most professional settings, it’s considered a norm not to talk about sex, politics, and religion unless your business is dealing with one of those areas specifically.
This is wonderful when your very existence isn’t political. So cis het white men. For the rest of us we don’t have this luxury. This is the pinnacle example of white and male privilege.
What are you complaining about? Clearly you don't mind racism and sexism.
>I think they just overestimated the ability of their employees to respect each other when they hold differing world views. I think this can be quite difficult to do just because of the political views involved. For example, how should a gay man respect a colleague who honestly thinks that homosexuality should be punished with death. In such a case, I would say that even asking the first individual to tolerate, much…
Do you think that's a good example of the kind of things Google staff debate about?
No shit. I guess Google can no longer assume that there is a single correct world view that all good and smart people hold. Who knew.
Google's culture was predicated on hiring intelligent, emotionally-continent adults. Free discussion of politics wasn't banned during my time there because everyone was capable of understanding precisely the opposite of what you're describing: that differing views on the world exist and are attributable to more than just whether someone is a good or bad person.
When you scale to a hundred thousand employees, you can't keep your bar that high, and you have to start letting in people who more closely resemble the average narrow-minded, maximalizing dumbass. For a little while that meant the company needed to bow to the more culturally-powerful regressive left (esp when things leaked, for PR reasons), but as the culture war heats up, the only winning move for a company with a (classical) liberal founding culture is to discourage political engagement at all.
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Even if your place of work has a hand and a demonstrably relevant position in a lot of global political discussions?
That's really the crux of the issue. I agree that people should probably leave most of their personal beliefs at home... unless it's something that directly related to what the company is doing. So Google employees are supposed to just shut up or leave?
An important question, I think. It would seem some think they should, and some probably think they should do both.
Brings to mind the attitude of "shutup and play ball" when sports athletes try to use their platforms for some aspect of social change or another.
An attitude I find personally disheartening, but I'll stop there because these discussions never end well.
The problem is that what constitutes politics? Guns shouldn't be political, who you have sex with shouldn't be political...but in our current climate, they are both considered political. ..and no debating? Most people at Google are shades of left. It sounds like they are just trying to drown out dissenting views once again.
Everything is political, and politics affect everything. If you think there are no politics in something it's likely that the politics involved in it are not close to you, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Identity isn't political, until you have one that isn't an accepted norm. Sexual orientation isn't political, until people want to deny you insurance over yours. Race isn't political, until people refuse to s…
No shit. I guess Google can no longer assume that there is a single correct world view that all good and smart people hold. Who knew.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I am transgender, lesbian, asexual and polyromantic, and none of these things have I ever had so much as a discussion about at my office, nor have they sparked any 'political' discussion. (I work at one of the major 5 banks in Canada).
Serious question, how does being lesbian (sexual attraction description) go along with being asaxual, which I understand to mean the lack of sexual attraction to others?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In most professional settings, it’s considered a norm not to talk about sex, politics, and religion unless your business is dealing with one of those areas specifically.
This is wonderful when your very existence isn’t political. So cis het white men. For the rest of us we don’t have this luxury. This is the pinnacle example of white and male privilege.
Because honestly, all you need to do, in order to form a perfect political opinion, is google for it. No further effort required.