171–180 of 582 posts
> Members are typically required to give 10 percent of their monthly earnings to the organization.
> one member described being fined $1,500 for having sex with a woman when they weren’t married.
This sounds like something that will take a little more organized effort to stamp out, probably internal investigation, evidence gathering etc. But if this guy figured it out, they didn’t cover their tracks very well anyways ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> I had recently joined the Alphabet Workers Union, the union of now almost 1,000 workers across all Alphabet companies
Doesn't that seem way more likely to explain the sudden firing?
I can't imagine the cult was able to spread within Google itself.
So this is a video production department, which is kind of amazing when you think about it. The aesthetic of the modern corporate/tech video is cultish in character and it would make sense that these people know how to do this. And then it’s also interesting because one could assume that these people could do so because the actual engineers in Alphabet probably aren’t all that focused or interacting with this video t…
I mean they actually told him where they were from (geographically, if not organizationally), so clearly they didn't consider it something that needed to be secret.
Which is interesting, because it gives us insight into their way of thinking [1]. They clearly don't consider themselves to be in any way toxic like the author thinks they are.
Cults are interesting: they provide a sense of belonging and accomplishment to their members, in exchange for something (time, money/tithe, ...). In that respect, they're just another point on the spectrum of human social groups. Including some corporations. Frankly, I (and clearly other commenters here) have difficulty finding a clear ontological distinction between such a cult and, well, the Google corporation itself.
[1] I'm already Othering them, which I'm sure they'd be surprised about
I've received job offers where entire functions are all people who had worked together at a previous company and not hired through acquisitions. I've had teams where majority of the team is from the same university or class. More than 50% of the team having a common denominator is common and it usually starts with one person getting hired in a high enough position where their hiring decisions are not scrutinized.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the LDS never owned BSA. However they were the largest sponsor of BSA for about a century, until a few years ago.
Ah. I knew they were integrated somehow.
So this is a video production department, which is kind of amazing when you think about it. The aesthetic of the modern corporate/tech video is cultish in character and it would make sense that these people know how to do this. And then it’s also interesting because one could assume that these people could do so because the actual engineers in Alphabet probably aren’t all that focused or interacting with this video t…
> they didn’t cover their tracks very well anyways ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean they actually told him where they were from (geographically, if not organizationally), so clearly they didn't consider it something that needed to be secret. Which is interesting, because it gives us insight into their way of thinking [1]. They clearly don't consider themselves to be in any way toxic like the author thinks they are. Cults are interes…
A membership community with secrets and opportunities reserved for members.
There are millions of these around us, and we’re all probably members of several. It seems to be pretty normal throughout history. We just don’t acknowledge it as such because the word was only fairly recently stigmatized.
I 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.
The Midwest is full of tiny communities that would look like cults to someone who hasn't lived here- Amish, Mennonites, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses and more. 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 particular…
West Coast cults have their own particular flavor though, like the Fellowship of Friends.
Then there's this bit toward the end. > I had recently joined the Alphabet Workers Union, the union of now almost 1,000 workers across all Alphabet companies Doesn't that seem way more likely to explain the sudden firing?