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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
461–470 of 582 posts
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#462From the podcast: "He was the golden chain to heaven. The only way to get to heaven was to allow him sexual activity with me." ... What makes people join these groups to begin with?? Why do they believe such obvious lies?
I don’t know the answer to your question, but according to Wikipedia, 85% of the world population is religious. So really it’s a small minority that don’t believe in obvious lies.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article presents the slightly paranoid perspective of one person. I don't think anyone should come to understand the nature of an organization by arbitrary outsiders. A lot of it is going to be hearsay. That said, I'm inclined to believe most of it, and least the 'gist' of it. I wouldn't be so fully quick to judge either the cult and certainly not it's members either. There are a lot of reasons people can be invo…
One person? Paranoid? The author linked to a ton of external evidence, articles, and even podcasts about the cult. It’s not like the author is making up potential fiction
Podcasts about a weird group are not 'evidence', and they certainly are not evidence that some Google employees are nefarious or did anything wrong.
Has there been an investigation, charges?
What happened? When? To whom?
Objectively.
You are using the word 'evidence' when there isn't really any yet - I'm indicating 'we don't really know' a lot about this.
'The Leaders Spent Money on Lavish Things' is worse than evidence, because it's an emotional appeal. Canadian Diplomats just spent $100K on just liquor for a single flight overseas. I'm sure Brin/Page and their billions have bought a few toys.
It's 'Patriarchal' and 'White Supremacist'? Is that an allegation or evidence? Because those words are used a lot these days.
The author clearly had a bit of a breakdown - and for what reason? Because people 'belonging to some group' worked with him?
Were they harassing him? Doing nefarious things? Acting unprofessionally towards others? Trying to press people into the group? Shaming others?
It doesn't seem that way.
It seems like the author reacted in a way that others didn't seem to need to, for some unknown reason.
People are laid off all the time - how do we know he was let go because he indicated there was a 'cult' in Google? What were the circumstances?
'Cliques' happen all over the place, it's not uncommon at all. Maybe a 'flag' to notice, but not otherwise.
And especially - what relation do members have to the leadership who where there seem to be serious allegations?
i.e. what did the English Teacher know about the Choirmaster fondling the kids? Where they involved? Looking the other way? Were victims then participating in victimizing others? Did people take preacautions? Was it bad apples, systematic? What is being done at the school?
... because weird things happen.
I witnessed a high school teacher run off with a student - odd, but legal and technically consensual.
Hey, it's Cali, some people have orgies, it's not a new thing. Some people run around naked in the desert on Labour Day Week/Weekend and some of them have group sex in a weird pyramid looking building, I know this because I (accidentally) witnessed it myself, at Burning Man, an event that many Googlers attend. Does that make them 'Cult Members'? Was someone pressed into the orgy? Were they on drugs? Does that count as 'consent'? What if they consented, but given the nature of the org they were apart of, changes that nature? And then felt ashamed afterwards?
Or maybe someone straight up raped someone?
Sergei Brin is known to have had sex with staffers, on Google Campus. [1]
Does that make him an evil cult leader? I mean, consensual sex in the context of 'power imbalance' changes the nature of consent?
How does that behaviour implicate other Googlers? And leaders? Was there an investigation?
I have some experience looking the nature of 'cults' and I believe they are usually misrepresented - for better and worse - I'm not being defensive of them, other than to say the documentarian narrative is usually a big hyperbole. It takes a big more effort to arrive at the truth.
Aside from people's odd but understandable reactions to them, I believe most 'rank and file' members of these odd groups to be generally good people, maybe, on average, actually much kinder than most people. But also very naive.
Again - the author clearly had a serious emotional reaction to his situation, and therefore, irrespective of the 'goings on', it's going to be hard to take that as a firmly reliable narrative.
And - while there are some serious allegations that I hope are investigated, these things are complicated, and it's I think wrong to start to throw people into the fire, especially those peripherally involved. Consider that they could also be victims.
I'm looking forward to more details, hopefully taken up by press with good capabilities and credentials.
[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-exc...
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#464Let me get this straight. This guy's coworkers may or may not have been in a cult. So what? They didn't seem to bother him at work and as far as I can tell it didn't affect his job. But he wanted to turn them in anyways?
If they were doing something illegal, tell the police. If they were doing something unethical at work, inform hr. Otherwise keep your nose out of it
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#465Earlier 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.
OTOH not every job needs the best person for the job. Good enough will often be fine.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#466Earlier 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.
I’m not going to lie, the fellowship of friends sounds awesome. A group of cautiously hedonistic people with real world jobs sounds great.
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#467Just to clarify: Federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion. Google cannot take action against religions (even cults) it disagrees with (even for valid reasons for disagreeing with them), unless it gets over a very high bar of impacting business behavior. The other path leads to far worse outcomes. Morally, we cannot judge what happened here without hearing from both sides. But if action is to be t…
> Google cannot take action against religions (even cults) it disagrees with "Disagreement" is quite an euphemistic way of describing the situation. The said cult has documented history of sexual abuse.
I don't think Google has standing to prosecute sexual abuse. Isn't that the DA's job?
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#468Earlier 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.
That is what DEI boards are for. Stamping out these natural clusters that form via social networks
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Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the parts of the world that were prone to this, we're too atomized, lonely. We've also been more educated through documentaries to be wary of cult compounds. People are very cynical of spiritual belief and skeptical of the intentions of a hierarch. Forming an in-person cult is also harder now because people are more diverse and you have to account for many backgrounds. It's easier to scoop up on trends from a gene…
Pretty heavy stuff for a robot. I prefer robots that keep it funny.
I'm 50 feet tall and made of metal, of course I'm going to be heavy. As the airline companies realized, software weighs nothing, so its removal did nothing to unburden me ;_;
Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cults are not “obscure religious groups.” It varies widely by state (and in federal jurisprudence), but most states have a “free association”-style test: if members aren’t free to come and go, it’s a cult and not a religion. Google would not be exposed to any significant liability here. Particularly not when the cult has a well-documented history of sexual abuse.
Surely that's not true? Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.
That's a problem where it's true...