Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#871

Post by notzuck » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:43 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #848

taway90210ca wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Do you really think that striving for justice isn't OK? The problem is that one person's justice is another person's genocide. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Consider the typical political discussion around Israel and Palestine. Both sides feel they are on the verge of being wiped out, with or without merit. Both sides feel they can do anything and everything to avoid that presumed outcome. "Striving for justi…

> You dont want to talk about that stuff in the office, because there is not going to be any just solution. There are going to be asshats in the office that can't handle being wrong or the fact that not everyone is sharing their views. Political discussions aren't toxic - immature people who can't handle disagreement are. It is not great that we are letting those people ruin the workplace for the rest of us. I'm pret…

Utter nonsense - the lack of politcal discourse at work does not result in worse politics generally.

Politics at work has long been a no no at most companies and there's no evidence to show this has caused the rise of any extremism.

Work is where you get your work done. There is no room for you opinions on Trump etc, whether positive or negative. Your political views can very easily marginalise others especially when you hold a majority view.

You're asking why people that can't handle politics at work are 'ruining it for the rest of us'. May I turn the question around and why people that want to discuss politics at work are ruining it for the rest of us that don't?

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#872

Post by kartickv » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:44 AM UTC

corey_moncure wrote: post #563

oppositelock wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy discussing politics, at work too, however, you have to do it in a respectful way. Politics is like religion, you will never directly convince anyone of anything, but if you can expose them to new ideas, and watch them either incorporate or challenge these ideas, it's a really rewarding discussion. You also have to limit these discussions to willing participants. In my time at Google, there were tons of people…

>you will never directly convince anyone of anything Policy is the surface level of a deep tree of rational beliefs. No one will ever be convinced of policy because each sees their favored policy as rational due to the underpinning structure of beliefs. Discussions that don't begin with the core beliefs are bound to lead nowhere, you're right.

I agree. A big reason for not achieving something in an activity (whether a discussion, a software project or something else) is not being clear what you want to achieve in the first place.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#873

Post by fromthestart » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:45 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #852

fromthestart wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are rabidly dismissive of the project veritas expose, but articles with quotes like this repeteadly show pervasive bias among Google staff which aligns exactly with the accusations and candid management recordings within the video [1]. The video is admittedly obnoxious and overly dramatic, but the candid clips with exec Jen Gennai strongly suggest that these political biases are leaking into technical work wit…

That video has been debunked as being heavily edited misinformation. Here's Jen's side on it: https://medium.com/@gennai.jen/this-is-not-how-i-expected-mo...

You don't debunk something by saying it's debunked. So her claim is that because she was no longer in the trust and safety team at the time of the video, her opinions are irrelevant?

Of course she's going to claim that the video was "heavily edited." But the validity of the video comes from the fact that there is no context which makes the clips of her speaking any less damning. They clearly indicate a willingness by Google to curate search results.

>The video then goes on to stitch together a series of debunked conspiracy theories about our search results, and our other products.

I'd love to see this debunking.

>Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings. And everything I have seen backs this up. Our CEO has said ”We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda.” He’s somewhat more powerful and authoritative than me.

Oh, well, if the CEO says it, it must be true. This is just a weak attempt at damage control.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#874

Post by humanrebar » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:50 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #754

Excel_Wizard wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political opinion is a very strange protected class, and protection of it seems unenforceable to me.

No stranger than religion, when you think about it. Both are completely arbitrary (a personal choice), people get very emotional and defensive about them, and they seem irrational if you don't share the beliefs.

Conviction is a better word than choice. People don't have a choice if a god exists or if rent control works as intended.

They have convictions and these things are either true or false at the end of the day. It's not purely a matter of preference.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#875

Post by erikpukinskis » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

jasode wrote: post #587

geofft wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was also smaller, which both makes political discussions feel more personal and allows maintaining a political bias in recruiting/hiring because you don't need to fill headcount as urgently. I would absolutely believe that a company of 100 SJWs bringing their whole self to work contracting with a company of 100 MAGA hat wearers bringing their whole self to work would be more productive than putting all 200 of…

>100 SJWs [...] contracting with a company of 100 MAGA [...] would be more productive than putting all 200 of them in a single company and imposing the traditional politeness restrictions of a corporate job. So the question in my mind is, why did Google need to grow? I had trouble parsing what you wrote but I think the question you're asking (growth with employees vs growth by contractors?) is answered by Coase's "Th…

The issue isn’t that contractors are less productive, nor are they less capital efficient. The issue is they are less easily controlled. You can’t just issue a directive via email and expect them to obey it because that will put their legal status as contractors in jeopardy. You can’t just demand they use your equipment or follow corporate policy.

If you are happy just having the job done, and don’t need the ability to control details of execution then contractors are often more efficient. (Depends on the task and the market)

The danger is, you may find your contractors start selling to your competitors. Then you need to compete on your core product.

Most corporate strategies don’t boil down to “have a competitive core product” they boil down to “control as many aspects of your market as you can so the cost of entry is too high for others to follow”.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#876

Post by fromthestart » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

meroes wrote: post #854

bendbro wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen some of their videos. They seem fairly damning, and rebuttals have always been fairly weak. For example, a google exec was captured on video saying: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”. In what context does that statement not amount to silencing conservative perspective on their platform? I completely agree it is their right to do so, and probably benefits the nati…

Trump situation. Not Trump. I am not sure what the context of the discussion was, but I am sure a Project Veritas video doesn't give the whole context. It could be referencing something unrelated to the election. Maybe it was about Net Neutrality or some other anti big tech signaling. Large companies have more sway than smaller ones. The fact that you go from one no-context quote to "silencing conservative perspectiv…

>The fact that you go from one no-context quote to "silencing conservative perspectives" is not good. Please keep thinking critically

There's more context than that single quote, including the other strong evidence of overt bias in other sources, like OPs article. I get the feeling you didn't watch the video.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#877

Post by abeisgreat » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #317

abeisgreat wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if your work directly impacts these things as Google's often does.

The most political most Googlers work gets is what to call variable names. We decided to not use master/slave, so we are A-OK now! But seriously, I know a few roles have immense influence over peoples lives, but most of us just try to efficiently plumb data we don't see between black boxes we don't understand.

Just because you can't see where the data you're plumbing touches the world doesn't mean it doesn't have impact.

I work on one of the edges of those engineering efforts. On one side I see first hand how detached engineers at Google are from the things they build and on the other I see people's lives being defined by using those products / services. That impact is real and I think it's at a level that very few googlers respect because they're not lucky enough to be on an outside edge like me.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#878

Post by ashwinaj » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #260

ashwinaj wrote: post #133

Finally common sense prevails! Get to work on time, eat your free lunch, work, go home. To those of you who disagree; if you want to "make a difference" take a cue from Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther king Jr. etc. Mahama Gandhi didn't work for the East India company while simultaneously fighting for freedom. If you are serious about it put your money where your mouth is and stop being empty vessels.

This insistence on purity seems kind of naive and unsympathetic. I assume real history is more complicated. Do you really think there weren't blacks fighting for civil rights while working for racists?

You can nitpick.

But I'm pretty certain most, if not all, African Americans who worked for racists were fired if they found out that they were part of the civil rights movement.

As Jordan Peterson says, clean up your room before you go fixing the world. Go up from Shoreline towards 101 and see the number of homeless people; what exactly are these enlightened Googlers doing for them other than ignoring them and driving away with their expensive Maserati's, Tesla's etc. and complaining about how expensive it is to live in the bay area. How about NIMBY laws? The list goes on and on..

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#879

Post by kartickv » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 3:33 AM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #528

oppositelock wrote: post #187

I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people. There were definitely groups meant for discussing politics, and loudmouths like me willingly participated in those - however, it was very uncivil. There was a majority view in the company, and if anyone didn't agree with the majority view, the…

Some people can handle civil discussion with people of differing values, and some people can't. I wonder what the difference is, I mean beyond just painting someone who can't as a jerk. I think it has to do with learned skills of emotional self-regulation... someone with those skills is better able to hold their perspective while allowing that of another. But how does one learn that? It might have to do with safety.…

> I also wonder if there's a universal central reason behind why it is important to understand someone else's argument if their conclusion differs than yours.

In fact, if you can't argue for their side as well as they can, you haven't really understood it, so you shouldn't argue.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#880

Post by patmcc » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 3:37 AM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #857

jtolmar wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly one of those people. What is the boundary between "politics" and "not politics?" Who gets to decide? Your employer probably has more effect on your day to day life than your government does. Why would you be allowed to debate what the latter should do but not the former?

> I'm certainly one of those people. What is the boundary between "politics" and "not politics?" Who gets to decide? It's common sense. Anything that revolves around government, elections, laws, etc. > Your employer probably has more effect on your day to day life than your government does. Why would you be allowed to debate what the latter should do but not the former? I meant the exact opposite (I forgot that polit…

>>It's common sense. Anything that revolves around government, elections, laws, etc.

Go ahead and google 'Taiwan' and then 'Canada' or 'Japan'. Taiwan (in the right sidebar thing) is listed differently compared to the others. They're listed as "Country in $X" - Taiwan is not.

That's political. Or is it not? It's "just search", sort of.