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Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

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91–99 of 99 posts

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#91

> His hiring “calls into question parts of our system of inclusion at Apple, including hiring panels, background checks, and our process to ensure our existing culture of inclusion is strong enough to withstand individuals who don’t share our inclusive values,” they write. So they want to exclude someone for having different opinions to them, in the name of inclusivity? Clown world.

When the "different opinion" involves proclaiming that a whole class of your fellow workers are "soft, weak and full of $#!+" then yes, you should be resolutely excluded from positions of authority since you have willingly forfeited the kind of trust that's required for any such role. Let this guy stay in a pure engineering/IC role if he wants, but he should not be in a management position.

This is out-of-context quoting. The passage in question is actually about a woman he met and how she was not these things. The very next sentence says:

"British Trader, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who would end up a useful ally in that postapocalypse, doing whatever work—be it carpentry, animal husbandry, or a shotgun blast to someone’s back— required doing"

In other words he is comparing personalities and attitudes, not making generalisations about literally all women. But the subset of women he is generalising about are exactly the sort who are now trying to make him unemployable by quoting him out of context (i.e. being "full of shit") and demanding that Apple shield them (i.e. "cosset") by getting rid of a guy who finds other kinds of women more attractive. They also appear to be objecting to a passage that states something about the murder rate and naming of high schools in a particular area, which is presumably factual? So, they're kind of proving his point for him.

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#92
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did not write a fiction novel. He wrote a book about his time working on ads at Facebook. He has now been hired to work on ads at Apple. Pointing this out is not "throwing away all literature".

That's not exactly accurate, because his book was obviously modeled on the 'gonzo' journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, Lester Bangs, and that sort of writer from the 70s. Those writers mixed fiction and fictional devices into their "nonfiction", consciously pushing every edge they could, with the intention of shocking the squares and thrilling the hip. To anyone familiar with that genre, it's clear that such passages a…

I damn sure wouldn’t want Hunter S Thompson to be my manager.

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#93

It's not like Apple is making money from misogynistic music or supports a regime that enforces female sterilization. As long as Apple employees to have a safe space from offensive ideas and people all is okay.

So you think women should feel okay working alongside someone who thinks they are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit? It's not about safe spaces or offensive ideas. It's about enabling sexism and racism to freely propagate while telling minority groups that it isn't harmful despite past experience.

[deleted]

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody forces them to work, and 'known mysogynist' is just a personal attack without merit. What actions did he take against women in general or any woman in particular to be called a misogynist? Remember, if it's only your personal belief, if you dislike the book and the author of it you're free to look for another workplace. But not free to take actions against someone just because you don't like them.

> Nobody forces them to work Right, because women are all still all housewives and don't need to worry about bills or having jobs and the bosses they might have. > What actions did he take against How have you missed the whole "wrote book expressing lots of misogyny" bit?

I dont think i missed the book, i just have a different view of the situation. It's true i didnt read the book, and dont feel compelled to read it, but also dont feel offended by it or have any desire to punish the author. It's just a book, paper covered with some text. Everyone has the right to defend themselves when they are attacked by someone, threatened or endangered by someone's actions. But it's not that type of situation. And so taking actions against the author to harm them, cause trouble or harass in any other way is not self defense at all, it's actually quite the opposite. In addition to that, drawing conclusions from the text of the book to assume the author would mistreat female coworkers goes a bit too far. Author can be a total asshole and have totally messed up views, but if he doesnt act on them then how do you justify harassing him?

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can anything ad related still be growing if most people either trained their brain to ignore/close ads instantly or use adblockers?

Because good advertising still impacts you even if you “know to ignore it”, and there’s lots of ways to advertise to people that aren’t ads in the classic sense. I suspect that adblocker usage is also a lot lower than you expect, with a quick Google showing less than half of people worldwide using adblockers on desktop and adoption below 20% for mobile devices in the US. So there’s still a broad market to target.

I discovered recently that eventually they catch you through persistence. Like YouTube ads, I was busy in another window and couldn't skip the add without interrupting something I was doing which couldn't be interrupted. So I wound up inadvertently listening to the ad, and they said some interesting stuff that make me pan back to the ad and watch it. Eventually ads catch you at an inopportune time, which is inopportune for you, but opportune for them.

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#96
post #83

Under normal circumstances we might turn the flags off on this story because it's an incremental development in an interesting new phenomenon (employee activism influencing corporate decisions—is that a neutral enough way to put it?). In principle, it's on topic, as https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html makes clear. But this thread is so wretched that it deserves every stigma we've got. All: if you're post…

Off topic, but your relentless efforts to make this site civil, even when I’m sure all of us consider ourselves to be that, makes me think about Basecamp.

A company’s internal chat should have a moderator or forbid off-topic (meaning work-related) discussions. Doing neither is naive. Basecamp was right

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#97
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did not write a fiction novel. He wrote a book about his time working on ads at Facebook. He has now been hired to work on ads at Apple. Pointing this out is not "throwing away all literature".

That's not exactly accurate, because his book was obviously modeled on the 'gonzo' journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, Lester Bangs, and that sort of writer from the 70s. Those writers mixed fiction and fictional devices into their "nonfiction", consciously pushing every edge they could, with the intention of shocking the squares and thrilling the hip. To anyone familiar with that genre, it's clear that such passages a…

Taibbi had something to say about this situation.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who...

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#98

As usual, it’s taken out of context. He is comparing Bay Area girls to a girl he was sleeping with whose family moved here from Russia when she was a teenager and who “had spent years backpacking through jobs in rougher parts of the world”. This is the reference to “worldliness”. Being raised in the Bay Area compared to the experience of a family descended from Russia is of course going to result in a different upbri…

[deleted]

Re: Apple employees petition demanding investigation into ‘misogynistic’ new hire

#99
We've reached a point where white women can cancel a Hispanic man for speaking facts that they don't like.

The quote about East Palo Alto being a crime central hood was absolutely correct 10-15 years ago. Ask anyone who went to high school during that time. And they use that quote to fire him?

Woke people gonna woke to make themselves feel better. They are evil: deny and reject reality to make themselves feel better.

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