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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

nytimes.com

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Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#521

Post by InefficientRed »

rexpop wrote: post #481
achow wrote: 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…

> Of course, in many firms, employment is entirely "at will," and subject to employers' most capricious whims. This is not a good thing; the subjugation of one's employment to another's whim is an oppressive imbalance of power.

This is an issue where I could imagine something actually getting done in US politics. Dems would have a hard time opposing a worker's rights issue and Republicans would have a hard time opposing a bill framed as anti-cancel culture. Assuaging people's fear of losing their livelihoods over politics wouldn't solve all our problems, but would probably help lower the temps just a bit.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#522

Post by nitwit005 »

woodruffw wrote: post #355
nitwit005 wrote: post #339

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.

I was not attempting to define a cult, and the definition of a cult does not matter in this context. What matters is if they're discriminating against people who are not members.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#523

Post by cpncrunch »

ineedasername wrote: post #324
cpncrunch wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I can see, those allegations were from the 90s, but still nothing seems to have been substantiated. I'm not saying I condone this cult, but I don't see how it was having any effect on his work. It didn't become a problem until he himself complained to another manager. I mean: if you're going to get worked up about cults, why the fuck are we all watching Top Gun? Shouldn't we be protesting or something? Scie…

Lot's of people do get worked up about scientology and I know people who won't watch Tom Cruise in a movie. Besides, "$X group also does bad things" is a shitty cop out of an excuse to avoid doing something about another group. There's probably not much Google can do about sexual assault/trafficking claims but they can do something about the hiring/firing practices along with crooked procurement practices.

Does this group actually do bad things though? Is there any actual evidence?

I don't think there is anything wrong with suggesting people you know to get hired. If anything the author of this blog post caused his own problems when he blew this up into a big deal and made a lot of accusations based on decades old unproven allegations.

Buying the wine from this group seems to be the only possible issue. If he had simply suggested that maybe they shouldn't be wine from this group and left it at that, there wouldn't have been any problem.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#524

Post by woodruffw »

godmode2019 wrote: post #441
woodruffw wrote: post #355

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.

This is a conversation about US courts and religions as they're practiced in the US.

To the best of my knowledge, apostasy in Islam in the US is no particularly worse than apostasy in Mormonism on the scale of denomination.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#525

Post by swat535 »

incompatible wrote: post #471
godmode2019 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've heard that the Catholic Church considers baptism into the church to be for life, and can make it quite difficult for anybody to remove themselves from official registers. I don't know if there are any equivalent registers in Islam that you'd have trouble deregistering from. Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Like…

Where did you hear such a thing?

As a Catholic, I regularly attend Church and we have many people (even entire families) who either join after a long period of being away or leave the faith all together. We miss them of course but no one sends them death treats.

Additionally, many people move between denominations.

Perhaps you are confusing those with real cults such as: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism ?

I can't however speak for how they operate as I haven't studied them or been involved.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#526

Post by permo-w »

tomrod wrote: post #367
permo-w wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that as a good definition of a cult

To be fair, it's a lived experience that I have found among other cult and high demand religion recoverers.

I believe that it's a common feature amongst a large portion of cults, but my scepticism arises at the use of it as a broad definition of what is or isn't one.

The same way you wouldn't say having a charismatic leader is the definition of what a cult is. It's certainly an aspect of most cults, but not the definition, nor unique to cults

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#527

Post by bradlys »

InefficientRed wrote: post #521
rexpop wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Of course, in many firms, employment is entirely "at will," and subject to employers' most capricious whims. This is not a good thing; the subjugation of one's employment to another's whim is an oppressive imbalance of power. This is an issue where I could imagine something actually getting done in US politics. Dems would have a hard time opposing a worker's rights issue and Republicans would have a hard time oppos…

The problem with this logic is that you assume Dems or Republicans want to help the working class. They don’t.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#528

Post by rsynnott »

swat535 wrote: post #525
incompatible wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that the Catholic Church considers baptism into the church to be for life, and can make it quite difficult for anybody to remove themselves from official registers. I don't know if there are any equivalent registers in Islam that you'd have trouble deregistering from. Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Like…

Where did you hear such a thing? As a Catholic, I regularly attend Church and we have many people (even entire families) who either join after a long period of being away or leave the faith all together. We miss them of course but no one sends them death treats. Additionally, many people move between denominations. Perhaps you are confusing those with real cults such as: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormon…

The Catholic Church in a number of European countries stopped processing requests to formally deregister people, due to mass departures after the sexual abuse revelations, which may be what they're referring to.

For instance, https://www.notme.ie

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#529

Post by GauntletWizard »

rendall wrote: post #490
ineedasername wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can certainly stop them paying themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars by giving themselves contracts as wine vendors.

It turns out the wine is from a nearby vineyard not at Orange House. The connection is that the person running this vineyard is a former member who used to run the Orange House vineyard before he left .

The allegation that the person is a "Former Member" is a valid point to contest. Announcing leaving the cult after a scandal is a good sign, moving to a new winery nearby is pretty neutral, still receiving hundreds of thousands in orders from the cult members is a bad sign. On the balance, probably not enough to convict in a court of law, more than enough for Google to take their own investigation before deciding if they see it as self-dealing.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#530

Post by rsynnott »

anon291 wrote: post #519
incompatible wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that the Catholic Church considers baptism into the church to be for life, and can make it quite difficult for anybody to remove themselves from official registers. I don't know if there are any equivalent registers in Islam that you'd have trouble deregistering from. Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Like…

The difference is that Islam proscribes death for apostates very clearly in its laws, whereas catholicism does not. You're on a list, like a birth certificate. In general, you cannot force another person to erase their memory of you, but certainly not killing you would be good. It's rare in the US, but it does happen in other parts of the world (killed for being apostates). Not going to comment on anything else, just…

While no country actually executes people for apostasy from Catholicism today, the prescribed punishment under canon law was death by burning.
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