Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#171

Post by steelframe »

ravedave5 wrote: post #103
underseacables wrote: post #52

The left’s obsession with cancel culture and conducting archeological digs on past comments, tweets, etc is coming back to bite them. I think removing this guy was the right thing to do, BUT I also think a major company like Google needs to set an example: Something someone tweeted more than ten years ago should no longer be relevant and should be ignored. However until that standard is set as example by a major comp…

If this guy were a CTO or something sure. He was chief diversity officer though, there's gotta be a higher standard there.

In 1998 I was running around Italy telling people that Joseph Smith translated magic transdimensional golden plates that a disembodied Native American spirit materialized for him.

Six years later I became an atheist. I've been an atheist for 17 years now.

As someone who has personally undergone an extreme change in disposition on something so fundamental with respect to how one views the cosmos, what you did or said 14 years ago is only relevant to me insofar as what your transformation story has been.

More than anything though, I want to know what person you have become today. Bonus points if you used to think the opposite of what you think today, because you've managed to really grok that state of mind and figured out how to get out of it.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#172

Post by tolbish »

siculars wrote: post #135
tootie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being Jewish is also multi-tiered because it's associated with both a religion and an ethnicity. I'd love to popularize being thought of Ashkenazi and not Jewish. I don't have a familial bond with Israel for probably 17 centuries and I don't really care if I ever did. My culture is more strongly associated with Eastern Europe and we were run out of town on a rail 100 years ago.

If you were your ancestors who were "run out of town on a rail" you would care very, very deeply about your familial bond to Israel. Like yours, my family was run out of town. Unlike yours, many in my family did not run fast enough. If only there was a place they could run to either as first resort or when quota had been reached in other places. If only there was a place that could make running a specific people out…

That's the argument certain Native Americans use to say that they are the only ones whose home is America. Do you see how this argument makes you look?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#173

Post by varjag »

Redoubts wrote: post #150
myfavoritedog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction. Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in t…

it’s really strange… You don’t think there’s anything about it’s recent creation that makes this a special case?

I don't think so.

There's plenty of states with ongoing ethnic strife, and they do face a lot of deserved criticism. However I can't really recall popular, internationally supported calls for their abolition altogether.

The age of state again has not much to with it: for example Lebanon is younger than Israel and has a rich history of ethnic/sectarian conflict. Now there must be people who want to abolish Lebanon, but somehow you never hear them.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#174

Post by bern4444 »

Redoubts wrote: post #150
myfavoritedog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction. Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in t…

it’s really strange… You don’t think there’s anything about it’s recent creation that makes this a special case?

Italy just celebrated the founding of its republic, which was in 1946...

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#175

Post by workallday21 »

Remember just yesterday the same thread from dailymail was remove from YCombinator.

This site is censored to the gills. You can talk all you want about tech stuff, but don't cross the boundaries. That is, until it hits a major paper and then perhaps it can't be ignored.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#176

Post by lawnchair_larry »

door101 wrote: post #164
myfavoritedog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction. Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in t…

> Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction. Because it’s a colonial ethnostate, with massive support from the United States. Israel (the colonial ethnostate) should not exist. Palestine is not an ethnostate, it is the name for the multicultural, multi-ethnic state who rightfully control…

This is incredibly ignorant of the history of the region. It’s also patently untrue. The amount of misinformation that westerners propagate about Israel and “Palestine”, which has never been a country, constantly amazes me.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#177

Post by whimsicalism »

chitowneats wrote: post #142
whimsicalism wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but if you think it was the right thing to do to remove him, then you agree with the methods, you're just showing your hand at not liking the things that most people are "cancelled" over. Your entire comment is a contradiction.

I don't see the contradiction. He's arguing that this is the tit, in response to the left's tat (as in tit for tat). The left either needs to: 1. Play by their own rules (in this case, fire the guy) 2. Stop doing it to their political opponents

These are rules that you've invented, not every "cancellation" results in a firing even for people posting actually racist stuff. Indeed, there are plenty of people with racist posts who are routinely not fired by these companies.

The contradiction is pretty clear - the guy is decrying these tactics, but still saying this person should be fired using exactly those same tactics.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#178

Post by bagacrap »

zasz wrote: post #146
mikewarot wrote: post #78

So, it took some digging, but here is the text https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:luIscB... As you can see, it's a quite well written critique of Israel, and it is definitely NOT anti-Semitic. I find it quite ironic that it took Google's cache to find the thing Google itself wants canceled

It's definitely anti-Semitic! He's acting like _all_ Jews are pro-Israel and therefore pro-slaughtering. That kind of stereotyping is bad.

ok, so s/Jew/Zionist in the post and it's all ok? The thrust of the essay seems to be condemning violence in the name of an identity, whether that's a religious, racial or national identity, and it seems to me Zionists don't make a distinction between Jew and Israeli.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#179

Post by throwusawayus »

throw1103 wrote: post #82
nazca wrote: post #37

Slightly shocking that he didn't get fired. (yet?) They fired Damore for writing an email that was tone-deaf, insensitive, but largely supported by research. Bobb goes on a clearly antisemitic rant, and just gets reassigned. Is Google inconsistent, or has their policy on how to deal with these things changed over the past few years?

A blog post from 13 years ago.. which has since been removed.. is different from an email sent internally. Hopefully nobody will hold me accountable to all the slashdot comments I wrote 10-15 years ago. Taken out of context, I've probably made fantastically horrific statements too.

> which has since been removed

Literally within the past day, along with the rest of his entire blog. This post was still online yesterday!

I also don't see any form of public acknowledgement or apology anywhere on his site or twitter. Perhaps he made one but I just can't find it. I'm not sure how people are affirmatively concluding that his views have changed so substantially since this post.

> Taken out of context

The full post speaks for itself. Nothing is taken out of context here; he's directly making offensive statements about all Jewish people based on stereotypes and actions of the Israeli government, which literally has no relation to the majority of Jewish people in the world.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#180

Post by colordrops »

ostenning wrote: post #6

Here is a classic case of someone conflating the state of Israel and Jewish people and lumping it all together. Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state. People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. His comments are offensive for this reason.

Honest question here - how do you criticize Judaism the religion without being called a bigot? Christians and Muslims are fair game for discourse. Is the Jewish religion and its followers not fair to criticize? They have many of the same arcane and backwards beliefs as other Abrahamic religions.
Post reply on HN