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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

#251

Post by atty »

7952 wrote: post #182
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #172

So this is a video production department, which is kind of amazing when you think about it. The aesthetic of the modern corporate/tech video is cultish in character and it would make sense that these people know how to do this. And then it’s also interesting because one could assume that these people could do so because the actual engineers in Alphabet probably aren’t all that focused or interacting with this video t…

Obviously it is wrong to influence hiring/firing or purchasing decisions. But do you think there are grounds for removing cults in a general sense from a company? Surely it is an aspect of people private lives in the same way that religion is.

Any sane company does not want to be related to an organization where grooming, sex trafficking and rape are encouraged and practiced, I would think. That seems like more than enough reason to me.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#252

Post by nonrandomstring »

happyopossum wrote: post #235
nonrandomstring wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, more nuance: The shit this "Fellowship of Friends" actually does - that's a cult. I guess wanted to say they're a clique of cult members.

The cult is real. The clique is the group within Google (as opposed to there being a cult within Google), I hope that distinction makes sense.

I've seen this before. At the BBC. Everyone closed ranks around Jimmy Savile and an organisation called PIE (paedophile information exchange). You were literally told you couldn't say anything about it. But AFAIK the rotten group was small, but powerful. Many, many more decent people work at the BBC. As I'm sure applies to Google.

Edit:

I say this because the headline "Cult within Google" is misleading. (I bloody hate Google and everything they stand for - but there's an important distinction to be made)

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#253

Post by cs137 »

swatcoder wrote: post #178
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they didn’t cover their tracks very well anyways ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean they actually told him where they were from (geographically, if not organizationally), so clearly they didn't consider it something that needed to be secret. Which is interesting, because it gives us insight into their way of thinking [1]. They clearly don't consider themselves to be in any way toxic like the author thinks they are. Cults are interes…

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…

These days the preferred (I hate to call it "politically correct") term for what used to be called a "cult" is NRM: new religious movement. Cult is reserved for the minority that are actually deranged, coercive, and dangerous.

Of course, part of the problem is that there are concentric rings, increasingly toxic as one goes higher/closer-in. The outer ring is full of gullible normies who do recruiting and PR, useful idiots who have no idea what's really going on.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#254

Post by jancsika »

wardedVibe wrote: post #248
jancsika wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Almost like they didn't read the article... They're very clear about the allegations

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.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#255

Post by Viliam1234 »

swatcoder wrote: post #178
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they didn’t cover their tracks very well anyways ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean they actually told him where they were from (geographically, if not organizationally), so clearly they didn't consider it something that needed to be secret. Which is interesting, because it gives us insight into their way of thinking [1]. They clearly don't consider themselves to be in any way toxic like the author thinks they are. Cults are interes…

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…

The dangerous organizations were called "destructive cults" (which suggested the existence of non-destructive ones) in the 80's, but people gradually stopped using the adjective, generalizing it too far.

> A membership community with secrets and opportunities reserved for members.

Yeah, but the exact type of "secrets and opportunities" matters. Sometimes (as mentioned in the article) the secret opportunity is a surprise nonconsensual sex with the group leader.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#256

Post by warkdarrior »

rl3 wrote: post #217
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.

>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. Quoting the article: "The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse, human trafficking, forced abortions, and rape within the group, which has some…

> Quoting the article:

> "The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse, human trafficking, forced abortions, and rape within the group, which has some 1,500 members worldwide and makes frequent prophecies of an imminent apocalypse."

Those seem like issues for prosecutors to pursue, not for Google, unless the abuses were happening in Google offices or were sponsored by them.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#257

Post by dilyevsky »

darth_avocado wrote: post #176

I can totally see how this can fly under the radar. "Cults" are common in tech, though not of this type. I've received job offers where entire functions are all people who had worked together at a previous company and not hired through acquisitions. I've had teams where majority of the team is from the same university or class. More than 50% of the team having a common denominator is common and it usually starts with…

Cliques (which is what you’re referring to) in tech and corporate environment in general are common and not necessarily a bad thing. For example, a lot of early google engineers came from dec (sanjay, jeff) and ucsb where urs was a professor as well as stanford (both founders and first employee). Seems like it worked out well for them. It only becomes toxic if they develop a hive mind and start to actively bash/drive away “outsiders”

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#258

Post by xg15 »

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.

I mean, we got comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770714 so maybe some clarification is necessary.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#259

Post by awsrocks »

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.

No post body was provided.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#260

Post by rl3 »

warkdarrior wrote: post #256
rl3 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Quoting the article: "The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse, human trafficking, forced abortions, and rape within the group, which has some…

> Quoting the article: > "The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse, human trafficking, forced abortions, and rape within the group, which has some 1,500 members worldwide and makes frequent prophecies of an imminent apocalypse." Those seem like issues for prosecutors to pursue, not for Google, unless the abuses were happening in Google offices or were sponsored by them.

>... or were sponsored by them.

Quoting again from the article:

"The wine was our most consistent feature, and the invoices I’ve seen suggest we were buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth every year, just from Grant Marie."

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