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We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

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Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#461

Post by TeMPOraL »

AchieveLife wrote: post #427
TeMPOraL wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Innovation" is a buzzword. It's so context-dependent that the word by itself is almost meaningless. Values as people understand them are usually about neither profit nor "innovation". It's about people, morality, and goals other than money.

It's a buzz word in marketing. In strategy, there are 2 types of innovation Incremental and Disruptive Both types give organizations increased power over territory. People are the blood of an organization. Ethics and people determine culture which determines goals. Innovation is the strategic foothold for keeping an organization alive as it travels into the future. EDIT: I want to add that all organizations (even non…

It's a buzzword in marketing, and it's a buzzword in corporate strategy. Or "soundbite", if you wish. It's not as if the latter was a hard science.

> Incremental and Disruptive

I'm guessing you're taking this from a particular philosophy, perhaps a particular known book. Even if the word makes sense in there, it's not necessarily how other people are using it.

For comparison, if you look at the first paragraph of Wikipedia's article on innovation, you'll find so much wiggle room in there that you could call every business "innovative".

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#462

Post by thoughtexplorer »

Obviously Google doesn't place values over profits. Let's be brutally honest here. Nor do the employees.

Are the employees that make $200,000/year donating the extra income to those in need or are they buying things to engage in lifestyle inflation like most people? Are they going to quit Google and work for a non-profit?

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#463

Post by scarcely »

abecedarius wrote: post #349
scarcely wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they hold different views? (they were born in China? they are brainwashed : no they can't possibly hold different views) It's futile to explain yourself to someone if the person will just declare you "brainwashed" if you don't agree with them

The thing is, ideas developed without free criticism are like programs without tests. (Only worse, because most programs aren't core to anyone's social identity, which puts extra pressure on the kind of ideas we're talking about here.) I don't want to discount anyone's views, and it's not an all-or-nothing "they're brainwashed, ignore them", but to the extent the views were formed in a censored environment, I genuine…

Well, presumably the ideas we are talking about are political/social/moral views. To base your acceptance/rejection of them, even in part, on your knowledge of their genesis is already quite intellectually lazy. ("John made such and such claim about topic X. When I consider the claim's intrinsic merits I'm not complete sure what I should think, but given these biographical knowledge I have of John I accept/reject the claim" is only acceptable reasoning when X is an empirical topic (say about genetics) but not when it's a moral/political one)

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#464

Post by rhacker »

taude wrote: post #348
jkaplowitz wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But this many Google employees acting collectively, including some very senior and long-tenured Googlers, meet that additional condition. (Disclosure: having worked at Google I know some names on that list personally, and respect them greatly. I haven't worked at Google since early 2015.)

But this was 139 out of 88K employees [1]. Doesn't seem like that many? How do we interpret the other 87K+? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti...

Yet 1 person in that company could kill it in 3 seconds even if this didn't happen. That's 1 in 88K.

My wife and I once went around and petitioned all 100 people that lived in a condo complex for a specific issue. About 80 people signed. We didn't even need to present the signature sheet - the one hold out on the board we had to convince had caved after learning about the efforts - not knowing the percentage of signers (only we had the number).

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#465

Post by paulcole »

RickS wrote: post #387
nickthegreek wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

examples please

Not OP, and not sure this is what OP's talking about, but I have examples. First, anything piracy related. Previously you could search something like "albumname zip rar torrent" and get vast lists of downloads. It's unclear whether the presence of scam links or the illegality of filesharing prompted the removal of valid results for this class of searches, but it's nonetheless true that this type of search returned us…

>"albumname zip rar torrent"

Your complaint about their service is that they've made it more difficult for you to break the law?

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#466

Post by alexeiz »

Annatar wrote: post #411

Google has been the equivalent of an IT Gulag for a long time. I always pitied the poor souls working there thinking they've racked up some sort of prestige. Not worth the 7000 days in Siberia.

And the funny thing, it's not easy to get in there.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#467

Post by electrograv »

electrograv wrote: post #247
fzss_ wrote: post #213

Hypocrites. Have you considered the human rights of Chinese users? Thanks to the absence of Google, monopoly of Baidu has enabled them to sell ads of unlicensed hospital that literally kills people. A censored version of Google in Chinese will undoubtedly improve the quality of life of Chinese Internet users.

Do you really think Google stepping in would prevent them from selling ads to unlicensed hospitals, etc.? If anything, this represents Google’s willingness to violate the moral standards of their own employees (I’m talking about the majority, and leadership prior to being corrupted by greed) no matter what, so long as it means growing their revenue/profit. It was clearly demonstrated that all Google cares about is mo…

P.S. In fact, here is evidence that Google does absolutely nothing about fraudulent directory listings and ads, like the one you seek to think will be solved by Google moving into China: https://youtu.be/5c6AADI7Pb4

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#468

Post by Quemon »

It is interesting to see the standard to which these big internet companies are being held lately. The mere fact that Google debated and waited many years before jumping into China with a censored search engine puts it into the top of the most ethical for-profit corporations to ever exist, in my book.

All this bad-will seems to come from their advertising business models, which I find is loudly criticized with rather thin arguments, given that these companies are often the only ones defending the users from the dirty tactics of advertisers (who get none of the blame). I've neve seen criticism of coca-cola for using Google's targeting abilities to its advantage and shove ads down our throats for money without a moral concern. And rightly so.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#469

Post by rifung »

grecy wrote: post #178
nimbius wrote: post #33

Pretty bold. A lot of people are saying this wont work, but speaking from my own experience, you'd be surprised what companies are amicable to when it comes to business. Im an engine mechanic by trade, and our shops handle bids for cash strapped local governments that outsource their motor pool maintenance. We do things like fire trucks and police cars, but we were working on a new regional idea as a "service center"…

> Pretty bold It's interesting you would label this as such. In what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and a massive proponent of free speech and human rights, you think it's bold to write a letter on the internet to your extraordinarily famous employer? If it's considered bold in the USA involving Google, I shudder to think about anyone else doing this anywhere else. In the year 2018 I would hope it's ver…

> In what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and a massive proponent of free speech and human rights, you think it's bold to write a letter on the internet to your extraordinarily famous employer?

Free speech only applies to the government though? Your employer is still free to fire you.

Sure you won't be put in jail but for most people losing their job still certainly affects their livelihood.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#470

Post by seunosewa »

Isinlor wrote: post #390

I have a similar sentiment, but it's hard for me to put a finger on it. There is so many things happening over years. I'm wonder how much of this shift in Google could be attributed to Sundar Pichai and how much to just normal process of becoming soulless corporation. Maybe they just have worse PR?

Only founder CEOs really have the luxury of putting values over profits, and that’s because they can’t really be fired. Once they put someone else in charge, that is over, though it doesn’t become clear until much later.
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