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Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

cnbc.com

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Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#171

Post by [deleted] »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #151
duxup wrote: post #34

I'm all for some good old civil disobedience as far as every day choices go in the outside world. However, I also think if you're employed somewhere there are reasonable expectations as far as workplace behavior goes that would prohibit the same "protest" or "civil disobedience" type behavior. It is interesting that the protestor immediately declares that they don't wan to work for such a company. It sorta begs the q…

The trouble is that "reasonable expectations" are set by those in power. Slave overs set "reasonable expectations" for slaves, feudal lords set "reasonable expectations" for peasants. In such a world "reasonable expectations" by their nature foster a continuation of the existing power structures. Behavior that challenges "reasonable expectations" does so precisely because of the belief that the continuation of the st…

[deleted]

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#172

Post by dekhn »

smashah wrote: post #102
dekhn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, of course not, and I don't even think you meant that question in good faith. More explicitly: you can be (and are encouraged to be) anti-genocide at google. However, disrupting a public company meeting is definitely a fireable offense.

[flagged]

I don't work for Google (anymore). I did work in cloud and supported their efforts to work with the US military and the militaries of our allies.

I'm going to stop responding to this thread because comparing the IEF to the SS is not a worthwhile thing to do in an internet thread about protests.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#173

Post by user_7832 »

smashah wrote: post #74

Is there a word for the "If I don't get paid for building a baby-killing-machine someone else will" type of regressive attitude that many self-deluded contrarians exhibit in the tech industry? Many such people would be diligent VW/Mercedes/Tesch and Stabenow/Degesch employees during WW2.

The inventor of the Gatling gun famously wanted to save lives. Even with good intentions, he ended up with lots more people dying.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#174

Post by bingleboy »

aaomidi wrote: post #111

When I was at Google, Google was systematically silencing Arabs and Palestinians. They had brought in a specific team to comb through memegen and silence any pro-Palestinian (literally pro the people, while anti Hamas) messaging. While I was there, multiple Googlers actively reached out to me and other Arabs and asked them "Do you support Hamas?" These also weren't just low-level employees either. I had these experie…

For anyone else interested in the facts here is one small source: https://respondcrisistranslation.org/en/newsb/20231102-mistr...

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#175

Post by Yasuraka »

minimaxir wrote: post #32
hayst4ck wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we need tech unions. We should be able to take an ethical stance without getting fired.

They weren't fired for taking a stance, they were fired for how they took the stance.

I suppose he knew he was out either way, at least this way it's harder to cover up.

Google is known to retaliate in backhanded ways when people take a stance in a way that is allowed, such as Ms Koren in 2022

> Agree to move to São Paulo, Brazil, within 17 business days or lose your job.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240226163002/https://www.nytim...

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#176

Post by wilg »

user_7832 wrote: post #109
wilg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not immoral to fire multiple people from a company.

My argument is that it's not automatically right either to fire people, just because it is a common practice. Maybe I should've used another example like lobbying or politicians' insider trading as a practice that's common but not necessarily right.

Sure, common practice doesn’t mean it’s automatically right but it is an indication that it’s generally accepted for reasons that may be valid. So it’s reasonable evidence to cite, and is a method of explaining that your argument now has to account for the general case.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#177

Post by user_7832 »

surgical_fire wrote: post #119
smashah wrote: post #74

Is there a word for the "If I don't get paid for building a baby-killing-machine someone else will" type of regressive attitude that many self-deluded contrarians exhibit in the tech industry? Many such people would be diligent VW/Mercedes/Tesch and Stabenow/Degesch employees during WW2.

[flagged]

You do not need to act in favor of something if you don't want to publicly oppose it. You can quietly do a shoddy job, for example. But if you value professionalism over human life... I don't really have much to comment on.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#178

Post by surfpel »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #158
surfpel wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't like the job, leave it. Meanwhile in your bio: "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" So which is it? Defend those who speak up or demand they leave and berate them as "conceited/pretentious"?

The right applies to government involvement, not social.

Check again, nobody said anything about the American Bill of Rights here. And the natural right is meaningless if your life is destroyed one way or another.

That's "Cancel Culture".

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#179

Post by dekhn »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #30
siva7 wrote: post #2

> Google fired an employee who disrupted an Israel executive’s conference keynote this week, CNBC has learned. Rightfully so. Name me the big tech company who wouldn't fire such an employee instantly.

I'm confused by your logic here, the fact that all other big tech companies would do something is hardly grounds for considering an action "right" in any moral framework I know of. "Unsurprisingly so" I can get behind. But "rightfully" is a stretch I wouldn't agree with.

Saying "rightfully so" does not imply the rightness derives from morality.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#180

Post by salawat »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #116
hayst4ck wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we need tech unions. We should be able to take an ethical stance without getting fired.

Unions are to defend employees rights, not to defend ethical stance on random topic. For political issues there exists normal democratic process, where you can take your stance to the streets, boycott, vote, be elected etc. You must understand that stable and successful democracy is a sophisticated mix of checks and balances, including what powers are given to unions and worker councils. Give them too much power beyo…

I love the built in assumption there that generating value is more important than a stable polity.

Generation of value comes after people have settled themselves into a stable, working equilibrium. Prioritizing value creation above that is just adding a bias meant as a mechanism of control wirlded by those who have already "escaped" that control.

Look back at 1940's for indications of the attitudes when "Unions" were considered too powerful. Shipyard workers were striking for better working conditions at a time when much of the country were worried about the existential threat represented by the Axis Powers.

That war effort generated negative value by any sane definition. Yet the stability of the populace was so prioritized that we fairly effectively neutered the network effects of collective bargaining as a result. To a degree that any European union member would find befuddling. (And never had a concommitant restoration force after the existential pressure was dealt with. Funny how that ratchet works).

The 70's with the ATC strikes and the Administrative response were another example.

Stable and consenting polity > value creation. As evidenced by the fact we will destroy value to achieve a new working equilibrium to build from.

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