361–370 of 864 posts
Thanks to so many of you for not disappointing me!
Seriously, bros... invest in a reflective surface & gaze into it from time to time!
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In what will be an entirely self-serving, "everything is evidence for my existing worldview" claim... ...I would promote race-blindness as the solution to this. The more we talk about and focus on race, especially in a zero-sum context like "buy black-owned", the worse the racial tensions and competition will become. People confuse cultural power with economic power...just because many powerful people/businesses supp…
Yes, antiracism must be measured by its effects. Google's campaign had antiracist intentions, and racist effects. That doesn't mean we should all give up on effective antiracism, though. This tactic/campaign/etc. was not antiracist. Others can be. It's not clear at all why this should be taken to mean that "the more we talk about race...the worse the racial tensions and competition will become." The conversation arou…
At the same time, Google unveiled a "Black owned businesses near me" on Google Maps. How has that been received? We need look no further than Twitter: (the Tl;Dr. racists are using this to lower all ratings of these Black owned businesses) https://twitter.com/dmetaxak/status/1362856231212212224 Google recently added a feature allowing users to search for "Black-owned businesses near you". They're advertising it all o…
In what will be an entirely self-serving, "everything is evidence for my existing worldview" claim... ...I would promote race-blindness as the solution to this. The more we talk about and focus on race, especially in a zero-sum context like "buy black-owned", the worse the racial tensions and competition will become. People confuse cultural power with economic power...just because many powerful people/businesses supp…
My dad was telling me this yesterday. He saw sectarian conflict growing up in Bangladesh, and working in international public health, he’s been to 70 countries and has had a chance to see ethnic conflict first hand. In his observation, emphasizing differences will increase rather than decrease conflict.
Oddly, this is very similar to how colonial powers divided and conquered countries. They would emphasize differences between groups and treat them differently based on group membership, fueling animosity between them. Obviously the motivation for doing those things here in the US is different. But if you’re telling some kids they can go back to school and others have to stay in remote learning, based on the color of their skin, I’m not sure why would expect the result to be different. Measures like kids getting back to in person learning at different times based on skin color should worry people: see: https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-school-be-antiracist-a-new-....
At the same time, Google unveiled a "Black owned businesses near me" on Google Maps. How has that been received? We need look no further than Twitter: (the Tl;Dr. racists are using this to lower all ratings of these Black owned businesses) https://twitter.com/dmetaxak/status/1362856231212212224 Google recently added a feature allowing users to search for "Black-owned businesses near you". They're advertising it all o…
> We need to ask: is it always a good idea to make marginalized groups more visible? Whom does it benefit? No it doesn’t. And I wish people would stop experimenting with this sort of thing and treating it as some sort of fad. I grew up, as an immigrant from a Muslim country, in a white Republican suburb in the 1990s. And it was great. I can’t imagine what life would have been like today - constant reminders of the fa…
Woah. The accelerationism here is truly scary. If our kids grow up in an environment with this rhetoric then it's not inconceivable we end up back in a segregationist hell-hole. Only needs to be normalized for one generation before the damage is done.
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> News flash: if even Jeff Dean thinks you're an unbearable asshole, you got some issues. Wait, does Jeff have a reputation for being an "asshole" or something?
No, the opposite. Jeff Dean is known for exceptional kindness and humility. He is the kind of person that wouldn't have a problem with a researcher standing up for ethics. Therefore, the implication is that anybody Jeff Dean cannot bear is an unbearable asshole.
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What exactly did this training say? I'm just a little suspicious that Google was saying you couldn't socialize with friends outside the office, since that's unenforceable, not in their interests, and also deeply stupid.
I didn't write that that we couldn't, it was about how we could. For example we shouldn't tell a coworker that he/she's pretty, shouldn't get drunk together, and a lot of behaviour that is considered flirting and getting to know eachother in Switzerland. In US behaviour outside Google is handled by the company as well, but in Switzerland there are very strict privacy laws and culture that forbid companies to control…
I’ve been wondering how sincere the Silicon Valley corporate mantra of Be yourself, Be authentic, be open to management really was. There was so much idealism even on Hacker news. Nowadays I witness the strange contradiction of people bashing giant tech companies while mostly discussing how to found the next giant tech company. A lot of us did genuinely believe it. However as the companies grew and became mega corps…
Nobody intelligent ever thought it was sincere
Of course, in my mind that's a completely separate question from whether or not Google is being evil in this case. As far as that goes, I honestly really don't know the answer.
To minimize chance of getting fired, avoid making people dislike you, try to make people like you.
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Maybe you are right, I was working in Switzerland, not in US. What I remember clearly though is that Google's training contained material about how I am allowed to socialize with coworkers outside work, which may be allowed in the US, but it was clearly against the Swiss constitution (my job security was more important to me than speaking up about this though)
What exactly did this training say? I'm just a little suspicious that Google was saying you couldn't socialize with friends outside the office, since that's unenforceable, not in their interests, and also deeply stupid.
So far every example I ever saw of a conservative complaining about their freedoms and speech being limited, they either don't disclose the full story, or when they do, I never end up agreeing that any valid right of theirs was violated or infringed. Instead it's always just crying about having to be even the most basic level of civilized.
And I'm very much in the Bill Maher camp when it comes to liberal counter-productive hyper righteousness and intolerance. And I'm a leftie who disagrees with the left on guns. Try being that guy at parties.
Yet somehow I don't feel beaten into submission and into hiding my opinions for survival, even the unpopular ones. There must be some mysterious other ingredient involved with these poor hobbled heros. What could it possibly be?