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

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

#431

Post by whack » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

wemdyjreichert wrote: post #393

whack wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure doesn't help when our President says Mexican immigrants are "drug dealers and rapists", and wants to cut off immigration from "shithole countries".

*hole countries was anecdotal and reported by someone who did disagree very much with Mr. Trump. Just pointing out it's unproven.

You'd have to be extremely biased in your sources, to not believe that Trump said some variant of the above.

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16885312/trump-shithole-countr...

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told the Post and Courier that his South Carolina colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham, who attended the meeting, told him Trump’s reported comments were “basically accurate.”

And Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who also didn’t attend the meeting, told the Washington Post he heard about Trump’s comments before they went public, and they matched the later reports.

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/16/16897016/trump-shithole-shitho...

Anonymous Republican sources have pushed the story that Trump in fact used the phrase “shithouse countries.” According to the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa, and Ashley Parker, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) told the White House that’s what they remember Trump saying in the meeting.

Trump has apparently decided that the controversy is hurting him politically, so his allies are using this minor discrepancy to justify public denials that he said “shithole.”

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

#432

Post by rphlx » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #399

mciancia wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaand that is just another example of what OP is talking about ;)

Can you explain how so? I guess I'm putting forward two points: 1) Being a hateful person with a desire to oppress innocents seems to aptly qualify for the label of monster. 2) Those who equate republicans with monsters do so because of the republicans' current active support and promotion of hateful people and their desire to oppress the innocents. Nothing here seems unfair to me, or irrational. I feel it all simply…

The view that someone is automatically a monster or an "oppressor" because they voted Republican is wrong and offensive in the extreme.

It is possible to vote Republican without wholly supporting - let alone personally imitating - everything that Trump does, just as it is possible to vote Democrat without wholly supporting everything Obama did.

You vote for the party that gives you the most of what you want and has a reasonable chance of being elected. Rarely if ever will you be entirely satisfied with their personal behavior or policies once in office.

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

#433

Post by bduerst » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #390

cromwellian wrote: post #319

Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or eth…

Except there are plenty of rational reasons one might want to restrict immigration by country, as even Gwern has gone over before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767 > immigrant outcomes differ by orders of magnitude by country and that this has considerable implications for the immigration debate and that many of the arguments made by the left for illegal immigration & open borders range from ignorant to…

Of course there are legitimate reasons to control immigration - nobody is saying there isn't - but these are not reasons given by the current white house administration.

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

#434

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #319

Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or eth…

No, it's not about "intolerant of people who are intolerant". There are actually a lot of people who are actually intolerant which are tolerated much better than a conservative in a liberal environment. Surely, the disagreement may be deeper on fundamentals, but the everyday tolerance would be worse.

> There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants.

There's something called "political Turing test". The essence is that if you can not convincingly describe a position of an opposing side - in a way that they'd agree it is close to what they believe in - then you are not fit to discuss this position intelligently. Unfortunately, from the video is pretty clear almost nobody of those who spoke there would pass this test on anything related to anybody who voted for Trump. Yet they feel fully entitled to deny basic respect to people they didn't even bother to understand. And yet they feel smugly morally superior about it.

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

#435

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #211

rdtsc wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its interesting to think about Brietbart putting this out there as some 'evil' thing, Never worked at Google, but as they say it went about as I would have expected based on my outside perspective. Or at least I wasn't stunned by anything in particular... Overall I think what people dislike is the disconnect between the PR message of "all opinions are welcome / we are open / neutral" vs the reality of them being fa…

Just because there’s a semi-uniform political bend doesn’t mean they’re biased in product. The ACLU backed the KKK’s right to March, but clearly doesn’t stand with the KKK’s values. That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as they’d never do the same.

> doesn’t mean they’re biased in product.

What is their product? Sure, if product is Android OS, or some wearable devices, yes, they are not biased anyone can buy and use them.

But are they also involved in filtering news, manipulating search results, tracking phone locations, hosting emails, selling ads, censoring or not censoring youtube videos etc.

Then "products" is not the only way a company like Google is effecting change in the world. They match employee donations to charitable organizations, they lobby the government (more than Verizon, military contractors and Wall St. banks), work with the government on drone AI software. Now they are thinking of moving back into China's market with all the privacy implications there, etc.

I think they are far from a "but they are just making a product and selling it, so leave them alone" type of company.

And of course, we might say here that Google's values match with ours so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And even though their executives cry on camera after their political candidate loses, when they turn around and go to lobby the government or to police youtube videos, they'll regain their cool and be unbiased. I'd like to believe that, but sure we can see why others might not.

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

#436

Post by whack » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #390

cromwellian wrote: post #319

Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or eth…

Except there are plenty of rational reasons one might want to restrict immigration by country, as even Gwern has gone over before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767 > immigrant outcomes differ by orders of magnitude by country and that this has considerable implications for the immigration debate and that many of the arguments made by the left for illegal immigration & open borders range from ignorant to…

> To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one set of countries, and encourage immigration from another, almost always gets you labeled a racist

That is the very definition of racism. You're ascribing negative traits to specific races/ethnicities/countries, and using that as justification for discriminating against all individuals from that demographic.

If you want to advocate for racist policies as being pragmatic and in the public interests, go ahead and make that argument. But at least have the honesty to call it what it is.

FWIW, I don't think racism and stereotypes make for good public policy, no matter how "true" they may seem. This was the same logic used to discriminate against Irish, Italian and Eastern-European immigrants, and I don't think it's worth going down that same road once again. We can build a sensible immigration policy based on individual merit, without debasing ourselves into racist ideologies.

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

#437

Post by antientropic » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #420

OxO4 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 million people? Germany has a total population of 80 million, so something is definitely off with your numbers. What kind of "social issues" have immigrants caused in Sweden?

5 million, typo edited. The second is easily Googlable and not under dispute by anyone.

I did Google it and I found 1.7 million refugee applications in Germany in the period 2008-2017. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis#Asylum...)

Where did you get your 5 million from?

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

#438

Post by rphlx » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #165

Twice it was mentioned that the cause of WWII was boredom. Is this actually a real theory?

At best a crackpot one with no serious support from contemporary leaders such as Churchill, or historians since then AFAIK. Putting the war in the Pacific aside, I think you can place much of the blame for WWII on the election of an extremist in Germany, and that had little to do with any alleged "boredom" in the electorate. A fairly decent case may be made for "anger", "disillusion", "jealousy" and "resentment" though, and I suppose you could make a case for those also being important factors in the 2016 US election.

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

#439

Post by UncleMeat » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #401

jlebar wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, we can barely talk about it. Is your contention that the main thing about the election of Trump that upset the people in this video that he took a cooly rational stance against some forms of immigration? Banning all Muslims -- including citizens and visa holders -- from entering the country does not seem to be aligned with this position. Saying that a judge was unqualified to do his job because of where hi…

No, my contention is that people who want to talk about immigration often get a response sidetracked with talking about Trump & co and whatever their positions are, instead of talking about immigration. (Or worse, lumping any positions into support for whatever they're doing.)

That's fine, but that clearly isn't what happened here. This is very specifically about Trump.

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

#440

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #384

bitlax wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an accurate one, but you're welcome to add any nuance you feel is necessary and let people respond to it.

Well, for one, intersectionality is about how one describes reality, it is by no means normative and a cursory glance at the wikipedia page indicates as much, with citations if one is so inclined to put any effort at all in thinking critically. But are you?

> intersectionality is about how one describes reality

I am sorry, but this is one of the most useless definitions I've read lately. Almost any human activity and any point of view can be described as "about how one describes reality", from quantum gravity theory to buddhism. And, on top of that, it does not contradict the premise bitlax described above.

I am all for thinking critically but if you proclaim that the description above is wrong - and not only just wrong, but so obviously wrong as the wrongness to be obvious to the author, and thus "bad faith" - I think the minimum requirement for you would be to produce a better definition. And "read the wikipedia, it's all there" is not providing a better one.