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Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

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Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#861

Post by freshhawk »

scoobyyabbadoo wrote: post #832
freshhawk wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Justice" is not something for a profit-seeking company to have influence or power over. But since they do in reality, especially if they are profitable and thereby gain power, it seems like something that should be discussed. It would be great if they actually didn't have influence or power over justice, definitely, but they do.

Why should a bunch of tech workers be administering justice? We've elected government officials to handle that.

"Freedom is a verb", "citizenship", whichever of the many versions of the objection to that idea are all available.

We elected officials to administrate it only, these ideals are done by everyone.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#862

Post by freshhawk »

eldavido wrote: post #841
freshhawk wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> traditional cultural strictures against talking about money, politics, and religion That is not a particularly widespread tradition globally or historically. And I personally think everyone should be incredibly skeptical of it. I've never met anyone with power who followed this tradition, and plenty who are kept powerless by the always-one-sided application of these traditions. These subjects are difficult to discu…

Another view might be that it's impolite or rude to bring it up. Consider that other people might not want to talk about these things, and by bringing them up yourself, you're prompting others to share their own opinions, which they may not (for whatever reason) feel comfortable sharing. There's also the reality that many of these conversations just aren't productive. Best-case scenario, one person talks, the other t…

The unproductive version is a big problem, precisely because people don't have the social skills to navigate it because it is so often taboo. So the options are to make it taboo or to adapt.

"don't speak about these important things, we don't have the EQ to handle this conversation" is a strong pro-status quo political stance to take and couching it in apolitical terms is dishonest.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#864

Post by djtriptych »

Worked at Google for a short time (2013-2014), during the height of Trayvon Martin and other murders of black folks around then. The internal discussion could really be hard to read for me (I'm black). Still, I don't think it should really be stopped. I was glad to be able to express my actual opinions at work.

I think they'll have a really hard time totally stopping it though. Internally it's really like a college atmosphere, at least in terms of exchanging ideas via their intranet. I was amazed that it was so open in that way, and I hope they find a way to keep that culture alive.

On the other hand, it was hard to work with people that help views that I considered racist or nearly so. No easy solution here.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#865

Post by erikpukinskis »

bjourne wrote: post #848
taway90210ca wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Do you really think that striving for justice isn't OK? The problem is that one person's justice is another person's genocide. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Consider the typical political discussion around Israel and Palestine. Both sides feel they are on the verge of being wiped out, with or without merit. Both sides feel they can do anything and everything to avoid that presumed outcome. "Striving for justi…

> You dont want to talk about that stuff in the office, because there is not going to be any just solution. There are going to be asshats in the office that can't handle being wrong or the fact that not everyone is sharing their views. Political discussions aren't toxic - immature people who can't handle disagreement are. It is not great that we are letting those people ruin the workplace for the rest of us. I'm pret…

It seems clear alt-right is being deliberately made to look bigger than it is. Same various “extreme leftists”.

I fear you’re making a grave mistake by thinking the volume level is correlated with actual humans.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#866

Post by numakerg »

malvosenior wrote: post #809
justforyou wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search is an intensely political issue, we're just used to ignoring that particular aspect.

Search is entirely a technical problem. There are literally no politics involved.

That could be the case if the distribution of views were evenly stratified, but they are not. Even the application of very simple mechanics can subtly amplify the views of the majority.

Search is one example, as is jury selection.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#867

Post by erikpukinskis »

paulddraper wrote: post #689
jshowa3 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore was fired for his contributions to this conversation". Hardly just.* According to what you said in this post, It was completely just as Damore basically wrote a dissertation about things that were completely unrelated to any work done for any Google product. All that work would've been tantamount to a complete waste of company time and could be grounds for a firing. Google users don't care at all about the pol…

> It was completely just as Damore basically wrote a dissertation about things that were completely unrelated It was a completely inconsistent. Damore was not fired for debating politically-sensitive HR proposals. Many people were involved in the same conversation, with the same degree of relevance to Google's products. Damore was fired because his proposal was contrary to the majority. --- It's possible to maintain…

If your assertion were true, all people who ever voiced a minority opinion would be fired and that’s clearly not true.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#868

Post by numakerg »

djtriptych wrote: post #864

Worked at Google for a short time (2013-2014), during the height of Trayvon Martin and other murders of black folks around then. The internal discussion could really be hard to read for me (I'm black). Still, I don't think it should really be stopped. I was glad to be able to express my actual opinions at work. I think they'll have a really hard time totally stopping it though. Internally it's really like a college a…

>The internal discussion could really be hard to read for me (I'm black)

Was it a minority of people who had views that were hard to read or the majority? I was under the impression that most people at Google were not supportive of his acquittal.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#869

Post by humanrebar »

arkh wrote: post #582
xvector wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this was common workplace discussion!? This seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t know why you’d want to introduce the divisiveness of politics to your workplace.

> And this was common workplace discussion!? It must be US culture there: everywhere I've worked (in France) arguing about politics was always ok. Even fun when you get people of differing views who can explain how they came to those so you can debate. Things must be boring when you have to limit yourself to safe subjects.

Working class Americans talk about politics a lot. It's the professional and aristocratic types who care about decorum.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#870

Post by GuiA »

g9yuayon wrote: post #782
fortran77 wrote: post #553

This is an eye opener. > [Google] employees discussed at length [on internal message boards] whether Trump’s win meant it’s time for a violent revolution. “How do people cope with this?” one employee wrote. “I’ve never been part of a military or war effort before. … I don’t know how useful I’ll be.” It's about time Google tells people to take their political revolution talk somewhere else other than company internal…

This sounds like mobs in the French revolution. You don't agree with my political view, so you deserve the guillotine. And people do this all in the name of justice and righteousness.

Clearly if the starving, downtrodden French people had sought a polite debate with the king instead, it’d have ushered the age of democracy and human rights much faster.
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