Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#111

Post by nodesocket » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:28 AM UTC

carapace wrote: post #101

nodesocket wrote: post #84

I find it a bit absurd when I hear pundits and media types claim that liberal bias doesn't exists in silicon valley tech companies (top to bottom). As somebody who lived in San Francisco for five plus years, I can firmly attest it is more than bias. It's utter disdain, hatred, and prejudice. Just look at how James Damore was handled it should be clear that diversity of thought and individualism is not accepted. It's…

I live in the Bay Area, I grew up in San Francisco, I'm firmly left-leaning in much of my political views. I upvoted your comment because in my opinion you are right, although overstating it a bit. The "Left Coast" is biased. There is a lot of tribal knee-jerk reactivity, and there are rabid haters. (Yeah yeah the right has 'em too. There's a reason Tim Chevlier and David Gudeman were both fired. Not my point.) "Not…

Thank you for understanding the thesis of my comment. It's already getting downvoted unfortunately. The most absurd thing to me is how is this kind of rhetoric acceptable at a company sponsored event? It is obviously politically motivated and totally biased. One speaker nearly started crying about Hillary losing. How is that fair to employees at Google that are conservative?

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#112

Post by ehsankia » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #65

jiojfdsal3 wrote: post #20

"(00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation” and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix the problem." Anyone find this disturbing? They're trying to use AI to manipulate what users 'should' see?

It's only disturbing if you reject the premise of the question in advance—that the concern is addressing inaccurate factual information. Connecting users with good information is literally the function on which Google wad founded, and applying AI to that mission has been a Google vision from very early on. It would be weird and worrying if Google selectively choose not to do that with information that might have poli…

Right, anyone who finds this offensive is implicitly agreeing that removing unfactual results would skew the results to be politically biased.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#113

Post by whytaka » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:35 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #81

panarky wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I value political neutrality in the workplace If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world. Changing things in the world is necessarily and inevitably political. If the workplace appears politically neutral, then one of two things must be true. Either what you're doing doesn't affect the outside world, or there are hidden, unstated political motives at work. I would much prefer my company's…

> If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world. I don't accept that as a truism; most work is maintaining the historically unprecedented comfort that we enjoy as a society and I think that is meaningful. Providing food is meaningful, providing shelter is meaningful, extracting raw resources is meaningful, taxation and welfare are meaningful, taxation and government services are meaningful. I c…

> Providing food is meaningful, providing shelter is meaningful, extracting raw resources is meaningful, taxation and welfare are meaningful, taxation and government services are meaningful. I could go io but that covers the basic point.

I'm amazed to read that you don't think these things don't change the world. And more so that you don't think these things are political!

Agriculture is political. Land development is political. Resource extraction is political. Taxation is political.

As GP said:

> there are hidden, unstated political motives at work.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#114

Post by carapace » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:36 AM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #69

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations seem like they have a comical level of hypocrisy, until you realize that corporations are in it for the money, and will almost always take the most profitable position for them in any given debate. For instance, you will see strong calls to regulate businesses they have to interact with, while actively fighting against regulation of themselves, even on the same issues.

Yes, corporations are in it for the money, and they are hypocrites, etc. I don't think most people have a problem with that (except maybe those who think corporations are moral agents), but what's been happening recently is very concerning: 1. Corporations, always wanting to appeal to younger voters because brand loyalty is sticky, naturally try to position themselves externally as hip/woke/whatever. That means espou…

I think we're seeing the formation of "Morlocks" and "Eloi". Most people can't conceive of or understand the potential power of FB, Google, etc. to form, in effect, a new mode of government.

Even CA is mostly a "red state" outside of the cities.

Speaking to hypocrisy, I haven't watched the video (yet) but I'm sure the "lower classes" of Google will not be represented in the attendees. The service staff at Google are largely made up of a different proportion of races than the technical staff. Fraternizing is discouraged and, in fact, the service staff can get in trouble for it. It's the kinder, gentler racism of the well-to-do left.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#115

Post by fzeroracer » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:39 AM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #107

panarky wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I value political neutrality in the workplace If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world. Changing things in the world is necessarily and inevitably political. If the workplace appears politically neutral, then one of two things must be true. Either what you're doing doesn't affect the outside world, or there are hidden, unstated political motives at work. I would much prefer my company's…

You are part of the problem. Is antibiotics development changing the world? I should hope so. Do bacteria care about which presidential candidate won? Absolutely not. Most fields, in fact, do not involve the acrimonious political issues of the day. The idea that "everything is political" is a lame excuse that activists use to hack politics into spaces where it doesn't belong. Even if a field has some tenuous connecti…

Let's discuss climate change then, because despite that being a field reinforced by science it is also one that is considered highly political in today's environment. Can you claim you're politically neutral if you are not willing to listen to people who deny climate change?

The problem with attempting to force a politically neutral stance is that it allows politics to invade where it shouldn't. Your logic is fundamentally flawed.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#116

Post by adventured » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:39 AM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #46

jiojfdsal3 wrote: post #20

"(00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation” and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix the problem." Anyone find this disturbing? They're trying to use AI to manipulate what users 'should' see?

What media organization on this planet doesn't make decisions about what users should and shouldn't see? Breitbart does it, The New York Times does it, your local news channels do it. Google as a news broker is literally just showing you what Google wants to show you. I don't know why you'd think they wouldn't have a bias, or filter their output based on it. All media does.

None of those is a fraction as powerful as Google, which is an $800 billion goliath with multiple hyper entrenched monopolies. Those monopolies entirely change the equation and expectations.

Search, Android, YouTube. All three of those are either monopolies or close to it. YouTube by itself is worth a solid 20 times what the NY Times is.

Breitbart is maybe worth $100m, a top 100 US Web site with a couple million readers.

The NY Times is a $3.6b business, with maybe 10x the daily readership of Breitbart (and a much more lucrative readership of course).

If those two want to duke it out with each other, fine. Just like with Fox or MSNBC. None of them possess monopoly positions, much less in extraordinarily large, critical information pathways, as with search, YouTube and Android.

If Microsoft had acted in 1999-2000, during its peak Windows monopoly power, to use the desktop + IE in some manner to try to throw the Bush v Gore election in favor of Bush, the Democrats would have more than lost their minds over that. It would have been considered an extraordinary abuse of monopoly power by Microsoft. Google is going to soon find out they've unleashed a political genie that is never going back into the bottle.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#117

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:40 AM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #107

panarky wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I value political neutrality in the workplace If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world. Changing things in the world is necessarily and inevitably political. If the workplace appears politically neutral, then one of two things must be true. Either what you're doing doesn't affect the outside world, or there are hidden, unstated political motives at work. I would much prefer my company's…

You are part of the problem. Is antibiotics development changing the world? I should hope so. Do bacteria care about which presidential candidate won? Absolutely not. Most fields, in fact, do not involve the acrimonious political issues of the day. The idea that "everything is political" is a lame excuse that activists use to hack politics into spaces where it doesn't belong. Even if a field has some tenuous connecti…

Bacteria absolutely care -- or at least we humans care about how it affects bacteria.

Political policy determines how the FDA regulates (or doesn't regulate) drugs, including antibiotics. Political policy determines if taxpayer dollars are spent getting antibiotics to those who need them, or on missiles instead. Political policy determines whether doctors are incentivized to minimize antibiotic prescriptions (and prevent superbugs) or not.

The idea that anything isn't political is unfortunately naive. It's like saying the air we breathe isn't important because we don't notice it.

If we're talking about a company, everything from the regulations it follows, to the ways it negotiates with labor, to the taxes it pays, the liability it passes on to consumers (or doesn't)... it's all political, because it's all determined/constrained by political policy.

Saying that workplaces should be non-political is a political statement, and by definition a conservative one because it embraces the status quo.

You can't escape politics even if you'd like to, and if you're the citizen of a democratic country then one can easily argue it's your civic duty not to escape it, though of course you're free to neglect that duty.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#118

Post by codeonfire » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

codeonfire wrote: post #109

jayd16 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument only makes sense if you think immigrants, lgbtq and women are not every day people.

Once you accept and identify as a label then you are no longer part of the middle. That is one of the main arguments against race quotas and affirmative action. It taints the whole idea of equality and neutrality.

Downvote for truth if you want. Got Karma to burn. Execs that say they want "diversity" want H1B slots for visa slaves. It was brought up in the linked video. 52:40 what they are really worried about. They don't care about equality. People want to flee BRIC nations and google wants cheap labor that can't quit their jobs.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#119

Post by 0x8BADF00D » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:43 AM UTC

caffeinewriter wrote: post #91

woodruffw wrote: post #38

For those interested in watching the video without feeding into Brietbart's ad/engagement numbers, I've mirrored it here: https://yossarian.net/google.mp4

Here's an alternate mirror as well. [link removed] Edit: I'm removing my own copy, since I just realized I didn't set up a contact for that site, and I'd rather play it safe than sorry. Others have mirrored it, and one's on YouTube at present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gPdrlyc84

Why hasn’t anyone hosted it on YouTube yet? Serious question.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#120

Post by nkurz » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #111

carapace wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Bay Area, I grew up in San Francisco, I'm firmly left-leaning in much of my political views. I upvoted your comment because in my opinion you are right, although overstating it a bit. The "Left Coast" is biased. There is a lot of tribal knee-jerk reactivity, and there are rabid haters. (Yeah yeah the right has 'em too. There's a reason Tim Chevlier and David Gudeman were both fired. Not my point.) "Not…

Thank you for understanding the thesis of my comment. It's already getting downvoted unfortunately. The most absurd thing to me is how is this kind of rhetoric acceptable at a company sponsored event? It is obviously politically motivated and totally biased. One speaker nearly started crying about Hillary losing. How is that fair to employees at Google that are conservative?

How is that fair to employees at Google that are conservative?

What obligation do you think that a company should have to respect the political leanings of its employees? While it might be in a company's self-interest not to alienate talented employees with minority political beliefs, do you believe it should be forbidden for the company to "choose sides"?