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Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

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Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#181

Post by thundergolfer »

busterarm wrote: post #136
malvosenior wrote: post #5

I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists are now regretting their decision. For a long time it was common knowledge that you would try to keep stuff like that out of the workplace. The past 10 years have been an about face to that strategy and now we're seeing more or less complete chaos internally at these previously pro-politics (some kinds of politics) workplaces. My guess is th…

Also Kickstarter, who is dealing with an internal unionization fight that's pitting the employees against each other.

Isn’t it pitting some employees against management? I’ve seen the articles discussing dismissals of prominent members of the union fight, but haven’t seen anything about employees fighting each other because of the unionisation.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#182

Post by curryst »

dredmorbius wrote: post #146
manigandham wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it absolutely isn't. Adding an arbitrary and incendiary meaning to what others say is a major problem. You can create as many enemies as you want that way and it just fuels more division.

Pointing out the inherent privilege-preserving effects of discouraging challenge to the status quo is not adding an incendiary meaning. It's lifting a latent consequence to the level of manifest evidence. This understandably makes some people uncomfortable. It challenges beliefs, it challenges self-worth, it challenges value systems, it challenges worldviews. None of these invalidate the underlying concept that shelt…

It is adding incendiary meaning. You are assuming the intent of someone else not wanting politics in the workplace. You assume it means that they are content with the status quo and would like to maintain that.

The reality is that many people keep politics out of the workplace because they dislike the amount that bringing politics to the workplace can affect the cohesion of their team/department.

You're creating a strawman argument.

You clearly value the change that can be brought by bringing politics into the workplace. That's totally cool, your value system is different than that of some other people. All they're asking is that you take their viewpoint without assigning your assumed reasons to it.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#183

Post by Loughla »

manigandham wrote: post #100
wry_discontent wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on Earth do you figure? They're all big corporations owned by capitalists. How could they even come close to far-left? They only seem far-left if you're a reactionary drowning in "Ben Shapiro pwns the libz with LOGIC" videos on YouTube.

I said "between" left and far-left, and that's the majority politics of the employees. Also capitalism has nothing to do with left-vs-right. By your definition, every corporation is right-wing by the fact that it's a corporation and all leftists want communism.

What are you honestly trying to accomplish in this thread? What is the point of all of your overgeneralizing and contradictory statements? What are you doing this for?

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#184

Post by bitwize »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #153
bitwize wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"White men ain't shit in tech" => no action taken despite being technically a CoC violation

What’s that from?

https://mobile.twitter.com/kimcrayton1/status/11694053018183...

This is the person who led the movement to successfully deplatform Charles Max Wood, btw.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#185

Post by utopcell »

blaisio wrote: post #80

It makes sense, if I was CEO and only 20% of employees were attending, and whatever I said at the meeting got leaked, I'd cancel them too. And I think most people would. Also, I think a lot of people just want to go to work and work, they don't care about politics or even business strategy.

(1) 20% is 20,000 people; (2) almost everyone sees the summaries the next days; (3) TGIF is [was] not about politics. I agree that leaks is what seems to have brought TGIF down though.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#186

Post by sagichmal »

ngngngng wrote: post #36
daenz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not that I agree or disagree with his opinion You just outed yourself. I wish I was joking, but anything other than instant condemnation of what he wrote gets you labelled.

You phrased this funny, and I think that's why you're getting downvotes since the sarcasm wasn't obvious. You're right though, what we just saw with the linux foundations tone policing and the Lindsay Shepherd situation absolutely confirm this. There is a very effective group of activists that can make life hell for you if you don't hate the same things as them with the same fervor.

This is a deeply disingenuous interpretation of events, to the extent of being a lie.

Damore, Woods, and that other dude who went on a misogynist Twitter tirade for a full day, were all deliberate assholes in public. There were consequences for that. This is just and correct.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#187

Post by dragonwriter »

manigandham wrote: post #172
reroute1 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just linked 'diversity' to left and far-left, isn't that the same thing that started this side thread? How is that site linked with activism or left politics? You mentioned a "pretty clear" connection. I could just as easily say it's a decision for the economics of the company and you're projecting your own politics into that, confusing capitalism with left/right? But you know your example is a political decision…

"Diversity" based on identity politics and physical characteristics (race, gender, skin color) is a left-wing position. Hiring the best people for the job is a universal capitalistic non-political position. Is your counter argument that this "diversity" is also part of the right-wing party?

> "Diversity" based on identity politics and physical characteristics (race, gender, skin color) is a left-wing position.

It's actually a centrist neoliberal capitalist position; the left-wing positions sees neoliberal identity politics and checklist-diversity catering to it as a tool of the capitalist class to distract from economic justice issues. (There are left-wing identity politics, but they aren't focussed on diversity, they are focussed on addressing the unique economic and social justice issues facing particular identity communities as well as the more general cross-cutting issues facing the working and under class as a whole.)

In the US neoliberal identity politics might seem like a relatively left-wing position only because the two major political parties consist of one that ranges from Right to Far Right and one that ranges from Center-Right neoliberal capitalist to the moderate Left of Democratic socialism, with the dominant faction being (clearly until the current election cycle, and by all indications still though less solidly now) firmly planted in the center-right neoliberal capitalist camp.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#188

Post by joshuamorton »

manigandham wrote: post #123
joshuamorton wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, should people who are inherently political, say gay, trans, or non-binary folk not exist in the workplace?

Again, nobody in this entire page has said anything like that. How did you come up with this statement? And no, the vast majority of people don't consider those characteristics to be political at all and really don't care. Come in, do work, go home, and don't hurt anyone. It's not a complicated political argument.

> Again, nobody in this entire page has said anything like that. How did you come up with this statement?

Something about lying with dogs and fleas. I'm happy to listen if you elaborate on what exactly you mean by political. Though I'll caution by stating that in general, I find that most "political" issues can be phrased as consequences of ethical concerns (if there weren't underlying ethical disagreements, there wouldn't be political issues).

Let's take as an example the act of a company contracting with CBP. This is "political", in the sense that it is, to many, clearly an act of protest against the current administration. On the other hand, if one has ethical objections to separating children from their parents, or any number of other things, there can be a moral (and if one is an ACM member, an organizational) imperative to escalate when you have ethical concerns.

In essence, if I believe the family separation policy hurts people, and my company may enable that policy, do I have a moral imperative to escalate my concerns about the hurt we're causing? Or is doing so "political" and therefore inappropriate to mention at work?

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#189

Post by sagichmal »

weberc2 wrote: post #154
amznthrowaway4 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Most moderates are fine with consequences for racism/sexism/etc, but we object to willfully misinterpreting one's political opponents as espousing racism/sexism/etc in order to justify their persecution. It's the weaponization of those consequences that we object to.

You see weaponization, I see regular old consequences.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#190

Post by lucasmullens »

shadowgovt wrote: post #79
kccqzy wrote: post #7

This reminds me of this sentence from a Wired article[0] in August: > TGIF's transformation from candid conversation to press conference was pretty much complete. As a Googler I'm totally not surprised this is happening. The writing has been on the wall for a very long time. [0]: https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery...

It hadn't really been practical for years to have an "all hands" with a 100,000 person company. Time constraints alone had already put pressure on the whole concept. Humans don't scale that way.

Yeah, but somehow it managed to work pretty well as a 50,000 person company. I'm not exactly sure why this number was the tipping point.
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