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Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

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Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#991

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. You can be critical of Israel's actions. You can also be critical of Israel's existence specifically as a nation that discriminates against non-Jewish citizens. None of this means you are an anti-semite who wants the destruction of Israel, let alone Jews. By and large, for example, the UN security council resolutions that the US keeps single-handedly vetoing are not calling for any destruction. They simply cond…

This is technically true but ignores the complexity of the situation, which is that Israel is essentially at war with groups such as Hamas, which call for Israel's destruction and deny its right to exist. When Hamas starts firing rockets at Israeli civilians, it just isn't clear what response critics prefer Israel show. Israel has little choice but try to destroy and degrade the infrastructure used to fire those rock…

We will never know but I believe this current conflict was provoked by Israel with heavy police presence outside the mosque in Jerusalem.

For what it is worth I have visited Israel and the West Bank, and my sympathies are with Israel as the only democracy in the region.

That does not mean I cannot criticize when it acts wrongly. Sure the whole conflict is incredibly difficult with no easy solutions, but some people want to use it to stay in power.

Of course Hamas is not better, but that is not the expectation for Israel.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#992
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘too many’ is rather shifting the goalposts here. The vast majority of people are criticizing the government not the population. It’s unusual for people to consider a nation’s population rather than their government because a nation’s population is largely irrelevant. It’s not random Americans that have a history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, it’s the US government that does so etc. Israel’s gov…

Sure, but Americans aren't randomly attacked when abroad or out doing normal things, like getting food out or drinks. And yet, Jews are today. It wasn't too long ago that people marched in Charlottesville chanting jews will not replace us. Now there's a massive rise in violence

Jews and Israel should have no connection. Attacking Jews for what Israel does is just incredibly wrong.

Let’s be very clear, any criticisms of Israels actions should not apply to Jews as a race, people or religion and even more so not be used as an excuse to harm or treat any single Jewish person negatively.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#993
post #344

What I find most absurd in all of this is the utter stupidity of beliefs in entirely man made fairytales that have been causing nonstop wars for the past few thousand years. Maybe eventually, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and any other gullible belief systems in fake sky people, written by total nutcases 1k+ years ago and miraculously still followed today, will end. Believing that you're somehow superior t…

Religious flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't do this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#994
post #968

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misrepresenting Kamau Bobb's blog post by cherry-picking a single sentence from it. This is the first paragraph of his post: > If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired. This reconciliati…

I'm choosing a specific sentence that has been highlighted as unacceptable and is meant to disgust. I'm sure there is much more to the book Chaos Monkeys than "SF women weak," yet he was fired for that comment within his book, with no care given to context. Hence the question, why the double standard?

Have I defended the firing of the author of the book Chaos Monkeys? Is it permissible to believe that no one should be fired for what amounts to political views?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#995

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why I stopped calling myself a progressive years ago. In my youth I thought progressive meant trying to continually better yourself and your community. Now the focus seems to be on cancelling any viewpoint that conflicts with yours. The new trend of digging further and further back in the past makes it even more counter to my previous beliefs of the word

The hard left is religious in mentality and approach.

The causal connection here being, of course, "someone's watching me at all times, judging". Such heavy self-censorship, wed to brutal paranoia, necessarily leads to an erosion of "self", a loss of personal culpability. Submission to a higher power – conveniently represented by its clergy.

It's the same playbook, repeated across millennia and societies. The Soviets in 1930s-40s played it out too, with chilling adroitness. They didn't call themselves religious (quite the opposite), but you can easily know the pattern by its fruits.

A chilling lesson for today.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#996

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or social media could implement automatic autodelete, like Snapchat but after a longer time.

The problem with autodelete or timed content is with caching services. There are a number of sites that allow you to see deleted comments. If a social media service is large enough, I imagine the same will be created. Once something is on the internet, it is always on the internet.

That would make them like reddit :/

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#997

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The religious right was also wrong. The 90s were abhorrent. But that doesn't excuse current behaviour from the left today.

I'm curious - is it ever okay to fire someone based on something they posted on their blog?

I think we should try to avoid it at all costs, because otherwise we can't keep a liberal society. Being able to think and express yourself risks offending others. I do not like what this guy had to say, but I'd rather he not get sacked - same with people on the 'opposite' side of the debate. It's gross but we have to stick up for people to be allowed to say gross things.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm not saying the mechanism has changed, mob rule has probably been a thing since humans organised in groups larger than 5, but the scale and level of scrutiny definitely have. I'm not familiar with the case of celebrities or Sinead O'Connor specifically, but no celebrity in my lifetime before the advent of this new wave of cancel culture has been completely cancelled the way they are today (even Michael Jackson,…

"No celebrity in my lifetime before the advent of this new wave of cancel culture has been completely cancelled the way they are today" But they have, this is the very nature of the infamous Hollywood blacklist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist Have you ever read "Time of the Toad" by Trumbo? I think people would be blacklisted in exactly the same way in the 50s; this is all fairly well documented in…

Ah I didn't realise the Hollywood blacklist had been that serious! It's definitely not in my lifetime though, I wasn't around in the 50s. I'm also not sure that's a good example; you're talking about what could be termed a national security threat vs. something like saying you don't agree with unisex bathrooms. As I said, the scale is way out of whack.

I'd definitely be interested to see comparisons that are more like-for-like though, if they exist. I'm not familiar with "Time of the Toad", although from a brief look it seems to also deal with Cold War era issues? Again, this isn't a like-for-like comparison.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#1000

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand what you're saying, you're setting aside the context that [the state of Israel exists and has a controversial military doctrine], and reading the Google guy's post as specifically targeted at people who share the Jewish faith?

The fact that he ends the essay with "If I were a Jew..." and not "If I were an Israeli..." makes it pretty clear to me which group he is referring to. Especially considering the author's other comments praising bigots like Louis Farrakhan

Though not every anti-Israeli is anti-Jewish, fact is, most ardent ones are anti-Jewish. BTW. Anti-Jewish bigotry [ethnic Arab racism and/or religious Islamic intolerance] by Arab Muslim Goliath middle east against the 'other'... is the root cause of "conflict" at least since the Ottomans banned the FALASTIN periofical for racism in 1914. Then the hate mongering by ex Mufti al-Husseini (invertor of the cry 'itbakh al-Yahud' and years later the: 'Kill the J..s wherever they are") in the 1920s pogroms --especially against non-Zionist pious Jews, as in 1921 and 1929-- through his and Ahmad Shukeiri aiding Hitler in WW2. [Yes, that Shukairy who justified the Holocaust in 1946; in 1956 still said Palestine is nothing but southern Syria, first PLO chairman; has invented the apartheid slander in oct. 1961, infamous for his genocidal plans as in "none of them will survive," pre-1967].

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"Jews Urge Arabs To Shun Bigotry..." Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES. July 18, 1930, Page 7:

'JERUSALEM, July 17.--Deep emotional feeling marked the Jewish representatives' final addresses before the League of Nations Wailing Wall commission today. In stirring terms the Jews appealed to the Moslems not to be influenced by religious bigotry but to seek a settlement of the present dispute as generously as possible.'

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"Haj Amin el‐Husseini Dies; Ex‐Palestine Grand Mufti," The New York Times, July 5, 1974:

'In 1952 the Mufti explained ... This land, he pointed out, had belonged to the non‐Jewish peoples of Palestine ...'

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Hamas senior jihadist in his interview to Sky News on May 24, 2021 openly said, the Jews don't "belong" there, as it is all Arab Muslim land:

'“You are not a citizen. We are the owner of this area – Arabic area. This is well known as an Islamic area.”…'

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