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Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

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Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#41

> In an awkward attempt to decry hate amid the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he listed all the Jews he knew who he said were good people. Employees said his public admission, which omitted major historic Jewish events, made it difficult for public-facing developer advocates who are tasked with being the face and bridge for Google developers internally and externally. It is weird to create a list of "good" Jews. But it…

The issue is in Egypt and other Arab nations they never meet any Jewish people at all. They just see the stereotypes, etc. When you never meet people you can view them as complete evil because you buy the propaganda.

This leads to the contact hypothesis as a means of reducing prejudice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_hypothesis

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#43

Awadallah will land on his feet, but what signal does this send to other holders of hateful ideologies? To me, the signal is: “You can’t change. Not really. If you ever held a heterodox view, ever expressed that view in any medium at any time in you life, or were caught in our surveillance capitalist nightmare systems doing so, you’re dead to us.” How does that inspire anyone to change their view?

> “You can’t change. Not really.

Well, you can though. Let me tell you a different thing that it signals.

It signals, that if you hold a harmful ideology, that not only should you change to it, but that you should be ashamed enough that you will never admit that you even held these ideas in the past.

It is not that hard, for most people (emphasis on most. If you run for senate, or something, it is a different story), to simply lie and say that they never held these opinions in the past.

Incentivizing people who believe these things, to vehemently deny they every held them, doesn't sound too bad of an outcome to me.

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#44
post #37

We definitely don’t have the full story in situations like this. Google can’t and won’t provide their side of the story because it’s internal company HR business. Meanwhile, the employee can and will use LinkedIn to shape the narrative in a way that is beneficial to their reputation. Is the LinkedIn post renouncing their anti-semitism a spontaneous act that triggered the firing? Or were they internally in trouble wit…

Yeah I would be careful about drawing conclusions and assigning blame in this situation because it's hard to know all the factors leading to his dismissal. At the least, it sounds like there were problems with his leadership for months before this: > Employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the frustration with Awadallah’s leadership style had been building for months, leading up to this…

He is a fucking devrel - how much "leadership" can he have?

Fucking posers.

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#45
I fully expected to read his post and dismiss it with the idea that as a leader your first job is to make your employees comfortable and feel safe and respected.

But it’s a genuine, good post. There are so many better ways for Google to have handled this than to just fire like they’ve done with AI researchers before.

The relevant comic is: https://goomics.net/327/

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#46
post #5

As awkward is his note was, this is a public admission that he had bigoted views and grew and is still trying to grow out of them. I wish I was a fly on the wall at Google to understand why that's not acceptable. Growing and learning is necessary and the only hope.

You, xrd, are a fucking loser.

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#47
post #31

"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard." -Sun Tzu You should allow your opposition to at least believe they have an alternative to digging in and fighting you to the bitter end. Even if you have no intention of allowing them to escape or surrender, you should let them believe it's still possible.

When you surround an anthill, you can just stomp on it, though. Corporate political correctness is built on the perceived certainty of being so far on the winning side of history that any other point of view isn't worth considering.

Progress in the long run may seem inevitable, but certainty of victory can be dangerous in the short to medium term. Whig history ignores the possibility of setbacks. Progressive democracies have fallen to authoritarian dictatorships in the past, and there will likely be more examples in the future. Hubris is not your friend.

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#49
post #37

We definitely don’t have the full story in situations like this. Google can’t and won’t provide their side of the story because it’s internal company HR business. Meanwhile, the employee can and will use LinkedIn to shape the narrative in a way that is beneficial to their reputation. Is the LinkedIn post renouncing their anti-semitism a spontaneous act that triggered the firing? Or were they internally in trouble wit…

Yeah I would be careful about drawing conclusions and assigning blame in this situation because it's hard to know all the factors leading to his dismissal. At the least, it sounds like there were problems with his leadership for months before this: > Employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the frustration with Awadallah’s leadership style had been building for months, leading up to this…

There was a fired CEO recently that hackernews was up in arms over because he came out and said that he was fired for microdosing. A couple of days later it came out that he was talking to the press for months without an okay from the board. The first story is never the real story.

Re: Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

#50

I don't understand this new culture of not allowing people to have redemption. The past isn't the present or future. People change, that is what is so problematic with "cancel culture," and digging up old tweets, etc.

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