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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

nytimes.com

341–350 of 582 posts

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the little tidbit about him joining the Alphabet Union recently..... Surely not related and they could not have fired him for joining a union right.... right?! As far as I know however that would also be highly illegal - interesting story to follow for sure

It's not a real union and he wasn't an employee.

Real enough that it’s illegal to fire someone for joining

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#342
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At minimum Google could have investigated the odd clustering of employees that indicated some sort of nepotistic hiring practice. Of course they might be doing exactly that, but it's not the sort of thing they can really comment on. Edit: also the self-dealing on hundreds of thousands of dollars in wine.

Well if you expand that to a more generic "employees shouldn't be involved in hiring people who they know and associate with outside of work" then they'd have to fire half the company.

I don't understand why Google would have to answer for a more expansive charge, rather than the one that's actually leveled.

Of course if you expand any principle to an unreasonable extreme it becomes unreasonable but I don't see how this observation has anything to do with anything.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#343
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ dude, they're led by a man who routinely sexually assaults people. Being permissive about that is pretty damning. Kooky beliefs are one thing, but cults combine those with oppressive social structures. It's not that hard unless you're stuck in the middle of one with all it's filtering.

Sexually assaulting people just like Catholic priests or Southern Baptists ministers.

You should look at sexual abuse at public schools if you're interested in the topic

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#344
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.

At one previous company we advertised a job and got five CVs total from it. Anyone who's done hiring knows that the quality of five randomly chosen applicants is not going to be high.

I'm 100% sure that the best person for the job wasn't the referral we ended up hiring, but the real best person was too busy sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop meditating on the meaning of pointers and writing all their code in haiku to send us an application.

You don't get to chose from all the people, you get to choose from the ones your hiring funnel brings in. Sometimes the market is tight and you can't find anyone good.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#345
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a real union and he wasn't an employee.

Real enough that it’s illegal to fire someone for joining

Yea I would imagine that must have factored in. Not at all saying that they should have of course - the opposite - but it seems odd they did not also mention that a bit more.....

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#346

Not really sure what the big deal is. Did the cult hurt this fellow? Abuse him? Discriminate against him? Mob him? No. The article really just talks about his own disapproval of the cult. It wasn't his business what these people got up to, frankly.

Seriously? Sex trafficking & abuse especially of underage people isn't a "live and let live" thing. Neither are co-workers assigning hundreds of thousands of dollars in vendor contracts to themselves or their organization. If you think the author was too far removed from sex trafficking allegations to make an issue of it then this one is still very much appropriate to raise a red flag over.

And, to your point, it's especially appropriate to raise a red flag over a possible retaliatory firing based on him raising concerns.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#347
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh yeah the Midwest is full of cults. There are a ton of radical and fundamentalist Christian offshoots. The only difference between many religions and cults is time. West Coast cults have their own particular flavor though, like the Fellowship of Friends.

So if every religion is a cult then why many mainstream denominations are easy to leave?

You're making it harder for people to actually share how to escape an actual cult by calling every religion a cult

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#348
post #20

Every entity has one or more cults depending on its size, beit university, military, govt's & companies. You cant get away from them unless you live on the moon!

Wish people understandstand how this interplays with politics and national identity. It's an odd feature of humanity and a bug part of why I could never call myself an atheist as that too didn't go far enough with this understanding. Fundamentally religious by default and interesting how that plays in PR and advertisements.

Its all intertwined, religion, politics, etc etc. Cults, cliques, gangs, its all just a play on words by specialists in words and the nuanced differences whilst having similar properties. Something to keep us busy if other things dont keep us busy.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#349
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At minimum Google could have investigated the odd clustering of employees that indicated some sort of nepotistic hiring practice. Of course they might be doing exactly that, but it's not the sort of thing they can really comment on. Edit: also the self-dealing on hundreds of thousands of dollars in wine.

Well if you expand that to a more generic "employees shouldn't be involved in hiring people who they know and associate with outside of work" then they'd have to fire half the company.

There is an argument to be made wrt the deleterious effects of modern recruitment's overreliance on informal personal networks.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#350
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should we forbid Catholics for the same reason? Your answer lies in the distinction between cults and religion. In a nutshell, cults exert control over their members such that they compel them to behave contrary to their own interests. So the modern, practical answer to that question is: No. Your average Catholic is no threat and is very likely to be acting in their own interest, free of undue influence. The Cathol…

Catholicism has certainly compelled people to behave "contrary to their own interests" — e.g. preventing LGBT members from pursuing love, preventing unhappily-married people from divorcing, preventing women with dangerous or difficult pregnancies from seeking abortion; and that's without even referencing the many documented instances of child abuse — so I'm not sure that distinction makes a huge difference.

None of those things are in the best interests of the people involved. Homosexuals who engage in same sex activity are more propense to addictions and self harming behaviour, children of divorced couples do far worse than of couples that remained married. Abortion is killing your own child, and child abuse is reprehensible but it happens at any major institution religious or not, if you don't believe me look up how many kids are sexually harrased at secular high schools or worse see how many secular people want to talk to middle schoolers about sex
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