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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

nytimes.com

501–510 of 582 posts

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I don't understand rule that prohibits barking at commenters who clearly didn't read the article. That's what I'm routing around here, and as a side-effect I'm annoying at least one bona fide reader.

This comment of mine will be off topic, which pollutes the comments here. This is why the rules prohibit chastising people for not the reading the article. Correct them and or down them. No need to chastise them as well.

Disagree, shaming someone for poor behavior is how a society operates.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#502

"Even in Google’s freewheeling office culture, which encourages employees to speak their own minds" James Damore was fired for speaking his mind, he performed logical analysis, not hate speech and was fired.

Not for "speaking his mind" but doing so via an interstaff memo, which is intrinsically not suited to such purposes (and which doesn't really have anything to do with free speech, as such). Logically minded as you are, you understand this distinction, yes?

I agree with that but then Google employees are not encouraged to speak their mind if these technicalities result in disciplinary action. It was not a good idea to release it this way for that matter. Because it is not a channel to speak your mind. Google should make that clear in that case and it probably did not.

I would suggest the same logical agreement with differentiation here although that is a bit childish.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#503
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How different is a cult from a corporation, really?

Having recovered from a high demand religion (which can be considered a modern cult depending on the definition), cults are very different from corporations. I feel like the best definition of a cult is any group that won't let you dissociate with your dignity intact. Most corporations are fine with that. Some aren't. So this suggests substantial differences.

[deleted]

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#504
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> aside from Jehovah's Witnesses, they tend to not be active in proselytizing From [1]: Members are expected to participate regularly in evangelizing work ... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_practi...

Yeah, that's literally what they said.

I'm not a native speaker; I thought proselytising = evangelising work.

Did I get that exactly the wrong way around?

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#505
post #481
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At most of the big corp. Somewhere in my employment letter it says, you are representing company outside of workplace and work hours as well (that is in personal life too). I can be fired if I bring disrepute to company anytime - ex. involved in a weekend nightclub drunken brawl.

As far as I am concerned, your employer takes it too far. What I do on my own time is none of my employer's business , as it were. If I am involved in a weekend nightclub drunken brawl, and no other company, customer, or vendor personnel are involved, and no subsequent legal or social fallout interferes with my working hours, than it's absolutely inappropriate for management to acknowledge these activities. The very…

If you’re in a drunken brawl and nothing comes of it they won’t know. If they know clearly something has come from it.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's not true? Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.

Overview and some good further references to primary sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam

>As of 2014, there were eight Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death, and another thirteen where there were penal or civil penalties such as jail, fines or loss of child custody.

I'd say at least in those eight death penalty countries, you practically are not allowed to leave. And if the state letting you live but is taking away your children from you, you'll too think twice about leaving, too...

In some regions, while apostasy is not official punished by law, people will still punish it extra-legally e.g. by committing "honor killings".

Of course, this does not reflect all of Islam/all Muslims, and what people think about how apostates should be dealt with varies a lot regionally.

If it even is legally (under religious laws) possible to leave the religion is a contested issue between theological scholars, however the bulk of theological scholars seem to consider it an absolute crime against God, but may disagree on whether it's up to people to punish the crime, or punishment be left to God.

But even in Western countries there can be significant support within Muslim communities to harshly punish apostates.

> A similar survey of the Muslim population in the United Kingdom, in 2007, found nearly a third of 16 to 24-year-old faithful believed that Muslims who convert to another religion should be executed, while less than a fifth of those over 55 believed the same. [0]

That said, other religions, including an in particular Christianity, historically haven't been nice to apostates, either.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jan/29/thinktanks.religi...

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#507
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the culture is different in tech. In my game - engineering within the construction industry, failure to disclose a conflict of interest in any kind of procurement over a few $100 is cause for instant dismissal and potentially criminal prosecution if there are kickbacks involved. So the wine procurement is open and shut corruption in my view. If I was betting on the outcome here, I suspect "Dan" from the article…

At least at Microsoft this would also get you fired pretty fast, according to the infamous standards of business conduct.

Even Nelson wouldn't be that irresponsible.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#508

Earlier 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.

> Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.

I personally don't know what Islamic teaching says on the matter, but there seems to be a reasonable number of "ex-Muslim" organisations around the world, the existence of which makes an empirical case that, for practical purposes, you can indeed leave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ex-Muslim_organisation...

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also an odd clustering among early Google employees who all came from a place called "Stanford." It may be difficult to distinguish between these two hiring patterns without asking the sorts of questions that are illegal for employers to ask.

I don’t understand your point. The cult we are discussing here is accused of engaging in grooming and pedophilia. That’s comparable to a bunch of people that went to Stanford?

>The cult we are discussing here is accused of engaging in grooming and pedophilia.

No, sorry, it's not. I don't see that in the article. The leader was accused of coercing sex and having sex with a (as in one) minor[0]. Yes, that's bad, I am not trying to say it's not.

But extending what that leader allegedly did to include all members, or suggesting those members were at least fine with it, or at the very least knew about it and did nothing, is not helpful, honestly. If we did that, we would have to apply the same logic to every Catholic, as the Catholic Church enabled and hid a lot more - and in a lot more systematic fashion - abhorrent child abuse cases committed by their leaders (well, "middle-management" for the most part).

[0] The other victims he allegedly coerced were characterized as "young men", which doesn't mean they are underage.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in this case would be they seem to be hiring almost exclusively from a rather obscure religious group. That means they're illegally discriminating against members other religions.

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.

Maybe this is a linguistic misunderstanding. Languages other than English don’t have different words for “sect” and “cult”. For example in Spanish it’s all “secta”.
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