The author delayed his attempt to do something about the cult and got fired because he planned to do so. It would have been better to be fired after raising concerns to the HR. This would have been both more ethical and would also give a more solid ground for the trial, so that's a bit sad. Yet, that's so much better than the tons of people who knew and did nothing. Good luck to him!
A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
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Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#162Interesting story. From the headline, I thought this was going to be a culture-war type of article. I wasn't expecting evidence of a real cult.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#163I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is a common occurrence across tech. Coming from the Midwest, the West Coast seems full of cults. Talking to people, it doesn’t take long to find someone who was raised in a cult, or has family members in a cult.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#164Not going as far to say "anyone currently at Google is morally compromised" - but anyone who knows about this, and stays is ... not somebody who I'd want to associate with. Or hire for that matter.
If I only worked at companies that weren't "basically evil", I would have to work for myself - and I'm sure if I looked hard enough (and definitely if someone else did), I wouldn't even be able to do that.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is so pervasive and so stealthy that it is hard to even talk about it without sounding like a crackpot You're sitting in the intersection of 'it's pervasive', 'nobody is noticing it', and not listing the evidence for it. So yeah, it sounds crackpotty. > It has become a little more evident recently with the emergence of evangelical Christian activism in politics Christians, evangelical or otherwise, have been gen…
Yep, I get that. I did give two examples, but no supporting evidence. In the case of Menlo Park being owned by the Presbyterian Church, I'm not sure how I would support that short of pulling up dozens of Menlo Park property records. I don't know of any journalism about this. With regards to the LDS church, this is well-known and well-documented. Here's just one easily-found link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-…
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#166I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is a common occurrence across tech. Coming from the Midwest, the West Coast seems full of cults. Talking to people, it doesn’t take long to find someone who was raised in a cult, or has family members in a cult.
A big part of the difference is that- aside from Jehovah's Witnesses, they tend to not be active in proselytizing, and members tend to stay within the groups for longer- their activities rarely make hollywood-style media news because they're not particularly interesting compared to what we more typically think of as cults (i.e. the doomsday cult" in the article).
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#167I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is a common occurrence across tech. Coming from the Midwest, the West Coast seems full of cults. Talking to people, it doesn’t take long to find someone who was raised in a cult, or has family members in a cult.
https://twitter.com/ViolenceWorks/status/1537524983961767936
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#168Suing a cult with hundreds of members is a dumb idea: they'll turn vindictive and will go after you. Instead, you appear mildly suppotive and friendly to them, gather information, give them publicity via media outlets, and give anonymous tips to FBI.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I only worked at companies that weren't "basically evil", I would have to work for myself - and I'm sure if I looked hard enough (and definitely if someone else did), I wouldn't even be able to do that.
YMMV, but there seems to me a difference between "generic corporate sleaze" and "sex trafficking doom cult literally within the system".
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#170I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is a common occurrence across tech. Coming from the Midwest, the West Coast seems full of cults. Talking to people, it doesn’t take long to find someone who was raised in a cult, or has family members in a cult.
These are ultimately as idiosyncratic and subject to community abuse as the 20th century belief communities that syncretize “Eastern” faiths, materialist philosophies, and various other post-globalization sources.
They may look different to you because the front-door teachings superficially make more sense in one than the other from your perspective, but they’re operationally pretty similar.