A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit • Hacker News Board

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#221

Post by burrows » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

monkeybutton wrote: post #205

nocturnial wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope nobody takes your idea seriously. Most people aren't super-spies who can go undercover and save society from a cult. Just go to law enforcement, report it and listen to what they have to say.

There once was a professor doing research on cults who sent out his grad students to secretly embed themselves in various cults and report on them. Not all of them came back.. And now we get learn about why that was a bad idea in the ethics portion of psychology classes! Yay!

How are you defining “bad idea”?

Professor sent out the grad students. Some of them didn’t come back (died?).

Those are all the facts. Any pontificating about whether it is Good or Bad is just nonsense.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#222

Post by mike00632 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #165

lisper wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

The Business Insider article is I think a clear demonstration of what concerns me about this kind of analysis. The author seems to see strict secularism as the only "normal" way to run a business, declining to recognize a distinction between businesses owned by a religion and businesses whose owners happen to be devout followers of a religion. When simply printing the text "John 3:16" on the bottom of your soda cups…

Bible verses on cups is one thing but Hobby lobby went to court to avoid paying women's insurance. Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays and fights for the right to discriminate against groups it marginalizes for religious reasons. These practices are bad for profit, bad for customers, bad for society, and only good for the religious leaders who take from the earnings without even being a part of the business.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#223

Post by indigodaddy » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

abirch wrote: post #192

Here's the gift link to the referenced NYTimes Article https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/technology/google-fellows...

What is “gift” link? It still makes me sign in to try to read it..

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#224

Post by djcannabiz » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

monkeybutton wrote: post #205

nocturnial wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope nobody takes your idea seriously. Most people aren't super-spies who can go undercover and save society from a cult. Just go to law enforcement, report it and listen to what they have to say.

There once was a professor doing research on cults who sent out his grad students to secretly embed themselves in various cults and report on them. Not all of them came back.. And now we get learn about why that was a bad idea in the ethics portion of psychology classes! Yay!

Do you know when/where this happened? Im not doubting you Im just very curious.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#225

Post by carabiner » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

binbag wrote: post #189

darth_avocado wrote: post #176

I can totally see how this can fly under the radar. "Cults" are common in tech, though not of this type. 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…

In what way are cults common in tech?

"Cliques" I can see. Techies are often delayed adolescents in many ways.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#226

Post by jancsika » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

Just to clarify-- this article is about a modern religious cult.

Modern religious cults are groups that use a whole host of well-known manipulative techniques to trap victims in insular groups which are then difficult to escape after the fact. Leaders of those groups directly abuse those victims physically and/or emotionally (and often drain their bank accounts as well).

This isn't, "My parents are worried about my work/life imbalance."

This is, "My parents are evil and only the leader can keep me from straying again."

While it's mildly interesting that "cult" has a namespace clash with "clique" as well as whatever paranoia 80s moms had about D&D, those things aren't what this article is describing. If you have trouble discerning the difference, please go watch one of the myriad documentaries on Scientology.

Edit: clarification

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#227

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #206

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YMMV, but when you have 100k+ employees - you're gonna have more than "generic corporate sleaze" somewhere in the system.

Not every company then eh?

Big companies aren't inherently evil. Because they're big, the probability that big actors sneek in is higher.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#228

Post by BeFlatXIII » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #197

woah wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to hire. I can imagine that "someone in a high enough position" could have a pretty good competitive advantage being able to hire employees of known and consistent competence without having to slog through resumes and interviews. Once there were a few of this group already working, it would also be easier to close hires with the social pressure. I can imagine that higher ups might be inclined to look the ot…

Here's how you articulate it: the odds that the best people for the job all came from the same class at the same university are slim to none.

The odds that a company truly needs the best ten instead of "anyone in the top 10%" are equally slim-to-none. A cohort of fraternity brothers may give up the theoretical maximum quality in favor of known competency (& weaknesses) here and now.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#229

Post by abirch » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

indigodaddy wrote: post #223

abirch wrote: post #192

Here's the gift link to the referenced NYTimes Article https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/technology/google-fellows...

What is “gift” link? It still makes me sign in to try to read it..

There should be a parameter in the back of the link that lets see this article for free, e.g., unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DLDm8ciPgYCIiG_EPKarskaNw00DCWAdFMNLsoW-dyz_caOEIoRROpr52Ig9EeLi4p74KvW2d8l7T8YYcFyx64JG-oNLU4g7SloxONNDX3Wvba1yUnd1569Jc1c0Wt3SYM2vzHG-VqitZ5jfcjB5p-TWpWdzDK66ezc2h2MdWHbBjd7wkkCaoOCXyIw4nqu_9Xex5SCFnGUHp7_W44jdhfM9odN6z5RAUyLIu82f5CTzw1c_r6QsE5VIPWlL51sLDSqRPqy8K-xvQ-Fqg8r6pV3as5AVxCZ_IifY3WD6yB&smid=url-share

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#230

Post by TulliusCicero » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

dexwiz wrote: post #156

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.

Having mostly worked for west coast companies, I'd be pretty surprised if this was common.

Granted, I was raised mormon, which is like a half-cult, but within tech companies themselves I haven't really seen any of this behavior. Perhaps it's more common in other departments (I'm a SWE), I dunno.