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Comment by imaginenore | Hacker News Reader

Good fact-based answers.

But the reaction from the "progressives" is quite telling. Don't they realize that demanding to fire him without refuting his arguments only proves him right?

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Well he's now been fired.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fi...

I'm not surprised. I'd be curious to know if he planned for this. What other outcome could he have expected?

It's outrageous for him to be fired for being wrong given the stereotypes perpetuated daily on public social media by Google employees.

I think it's for the best.

Publicly publishing something that has garnered this reaction from people, it's certain he would've been the victim of discrimination and bias in his workplace.

If Google's workplace is anything like the Twitter comments, I don't believe there was any scenario where he could ever work in any team environment.

However, idealistically, this should not happen. People should be mature enough to accept other people have their own opinions and are perhaps those opinions are not in-line with their own, or are even focused negatively on them.

The same with workplace romance, it's important for both parties to make an effort to maintain stability and cooperation, no matter how insulted and bad they may feel.

he didn't publish it publicly though. it was on the intranet

This is true, but he still attached his name to it and that was the vein I was going in.

“The company was founded under the principles of freedom of expression, diversity, inclusiveness and science-based thinking,”

Clearly, this is either not entirely correct, or they have "evolved"

Actually, fwiw, the company was founded under the principle "do no evil", but they already walked that back before this incident.

The main principle was, I guess, "yes, we can, and you can't".

Perhaps them not realising that is why they behave in such a way. The whole thing is getting utterly bizarre though.

As a progressive I have my reasons for disagreeing with the manifesto but don't care if he's fired. It's a matter internal to Google. I can certainly see why Google fired him - he broke team cohesion in a large and public way. It's embarrassing to the company and the leadership is looking to reunify their team, preserve their image, and put this all behind them as quickly as possible.

People are fired for less all the time. When I was young I worked jobs where I would have been fired if I clocked in a minute late three times using a system that didn't allow clocking in early. Some employers monitor their employees' social media to ensure they don't post anything damaging to the business. I'm guessing 80% of workers in the US have constraints greater than what Google fired for here. Right to work laws provide that option to employers. I'm not in CA and I've heard it's a little harder to fire there but I'm sure Google is well within their legal bounds.

Honestly, the outrage from conservatives here feels hypocritical. They are the ones who have rolled back employee protections across the US in the name of business growth. Apparently that doesn't count for conservatives fired for spouting conservative viewpoints.

Ah yes, let's group all progressives into agreeing to fire him. The comments on the internet have varied widely on that topic even on the "progressive" side, and it's not like we have any political parties calling for him to be fired. This post is just doubling down on the irony of using stereotypes for the stereotypical reaction to a piece filled with stereotypes.

Google officials immediately called for his firing.

Again, is that all progressives?

Or coming from a progressive view point at all. It may be coming from a business perspective of "this drama is bad for business."

On the contrary, being seen as ideologically homogenous isn't going to be good for a business that is meant to provide information to all of the world.

Google are edging ever closer to regulation, and when that happens their stock price will tumble.

I have my doubts that they'd be regulated or actually come "under fire" for firing someone who caused an uproar about gender equality in the workplace.

Unless you are being discriminated against, or someone else is... I don't really think its' a normal employees place to be a political firebrand and post invective messages on the internal company boards.

Honestly if you say something that pisses off 60% of your coworkers to the point that they say they will quit... then you're not a good fit for the company.

I don't think this is the tipping point. I think this is a sign of things to come...

It's a case of leverage. The more Google can be shown to be biased internally or overly 'left', the easier it will be for other countries or the current US government to make the case that they have too much power and act upon this.

Steve Bannon has already said that he wishes to treat tech giants as public utilities [0].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/steve...

I didn't read 'all progressives' but rather that the loudest and least factual agitators do it in the name progressiveness.

Does my alternate interpretation make your comment a tripling down?

Is this comment somehow quadrupling down?

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