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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

#231

Post by aerovistae »

jancsika wrote: post #226

Just to clarify-- this article is about a modern religious cult. Modern religious cults are groups that use a whole host of well-known manipulative techniques to trap victims in insular groups which are then difficult to escape after the fact. Leaders of those groups directly abuse those victims physically and/or emotionally (and often drain their bank accounts as well). This isn't, "My parents are worried about my w…

I'm not sure what this comment was meant to clarify - the article already made this clear. If anything, your comment's reference to parents adds confusion rather than clarification.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#232

Post by throwaway29303 » 

  I had recently joined the Alphabet Workers Union, the union of now almost 1,000 workers across all Alphabet companies, including Google. I told them my story and they advised that I get a lawyer.
Wait, Unions in the USA don't have a legal office to help workers with this kind of legal problems? Or is this specific to AWU?

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#233

Post by nostromo »

whatshisface wrote: post #197
woah wrote: post #193

Earlier 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.

It comes from risk aversion. Firing people is painful and expensive. And it's hard to know how good someone actually is just from interviewing.

So if I've worked with someone previously and know they're not lazy or incompetent, that's worth a ton -- even if they're not the absolute best person for the job.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#234

Post by tptacek »

bena wrote: post #218
tptacek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not integrated. BSA where I grew up, on the South Side of Chicago, was (for instance) extremely Catholic. "Duty to God" is (or was?) a tenet of the organization, dating back to its founding. In the formative years of the BSA, that wasn't strange at all; what would have been unusual would have been members that weren't in some way affiliated with a religion. In fact, Boy Scouts is how I first learned about a b…

Eh. Bad choice of words I guess. The implication is that the BSA and LDS were tight. Apparently to the point that 1 in every 5 scout was also a Mormon. Which is weird when Mormons account for only about 2 percent of the population at large.

I think that's in large part because Scouting was almost obligatory for LDS kids (it isn't any longer, since the LDS church cut ties with the BSA) --- nobody pressured us Catholic school kids to join the Boy Scouts, and most didn't. The troop, meanwhile, met in the basement of my local parish. What I'd just want to call out is that even in the 1980s, the Boy Scouts were openly and emphatically multi-faith. Not just ecumenical, but also going out of its way to teach Scouts that they were going to encounter other Scouts from totally different faith traditions.

The BSA may have been problematic for other reasons! I haven't thought that much about them since I dropped out (I only made it to Scout First Class). It was a sort of inherently conservative organization, as you'd expect just from hearing the Scout Oath. You can see where the Scouting ethos would mesh pretty perfectly with LDS culture.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#235

Post by happyopossum »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #199
swatcoder wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The satanic and brainwashing/deprogramming scares of the 80’s changed the way a lot of people use the word, but for the preceding several millennia cult simply suggested: A membership community with secrets and opportunities reserved for members. There are millions of these around us, and we’re all probably members of several. It seems to be pretty normal throughout history. We just don’t acknowledge it as such becau…

Yes, I think in this context the word "cult" is inappropriate. The word the author was looking for is "clique".

Umm, members of cliques don't ritually abuse each other - that's a cult thing.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#238

Post by jancsika »

aerovistae wrote: post #231
jancsika wrote: post #226

Just to clarify-- this article is about a modern religious cult. Modern religious cults are groups that use a whole host of well-known manipulative techniques to trap victims in insular groups which are then difficult to escape after the fact. Leaders of those groups directly abuse those victims physically and/or emotionally (and often drain their bank accounts as well). This isn't, "My parents are worried about my w…

I'm not sure what this comment was meant to clarify - the article already made this clear. If anything, your comment's reference to parents adds confusion rather than clarification.

There are commenters below going on about tech cliques and the 80s D&D scare. This ain't that.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#239

Post by amscanne »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #214
rendall wrote: post #210

Not really sure what the big deal is. Did the cult hurt this fellow? Abuse him? Discriminate against him? Mob him? No. The article really just talks about his own disapproval of the cult. It wasn't his business what these people got up to, frankly.

What happens when it's time to decide who gets to be a full time Googley Googler and who doesn't? This guy is competing against a bunch of people in a literal cult, what are his odds like? Isn't that harm enough?

Is hiring discrimination alleged to have happened? IIRC, the only decision that is noted in the blog post is the promotion of Dan (who is not in the cult), and the mysterious termination (for which we have no context or details, and the author feels it was orchestrated by the aforementioned Dan).

While I'm sure there's lots of be concerned about with respect to the cult, I'm not sure it's Google's business to ask about and evaluate religious affiliations when hiring (I'm fairly certain this would be illegal?). There are plenty of ways that you can get a shop of closely related people that are more innocuous than hiring discrimination; for example, suppose the cult members worked together as a freelance group that Google used, and they decided to offer them jobs in order to bootstrap GDC. This exact situation would happen if Google acquires a company from a place with a relatively homogenous ethnic or religious makeup -- it is unfair to immediately assume that this is a result of a discriminatory hiring practice. (It's also possible that there are questionable decisions, but I think it depends a lot on the specifics.)

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#240

Post by labrador »

This doesn't sound far fetched to me at all because I still remember Marshall Applewhite and his techie cult pictured dead from suicide in bunk beds wearing uniforms and Nike shoes

If fact, it seems long overdue for another and I'm surprised the pace of these hasn't picked up. That's good news for the day.

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