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Comment by cnlwsu | Hacker News Reader

Keep politics/religion out of work. Its one thing to rant on reddit at end of day, its another to broadcast it to co workers. What did he expect would happen? His little write up would change everyones mind? Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change. All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side. While the smart people will put heads down and get actual work done at work and talk politics at end of day at a bar with friends/family like the rest of the country.

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I'd mostly agree with you, but this was not an "in general" opinion that he posted to some "off topic" list. It was a direct opinion about the policies of his company. There is no better place to disagree with your companies internal hiring policies, than on an internal mailing list.

In fact, this might be legally protected speech. I don't know how applicable they are but there are a few old pro-union laws on the books that prevent people from being fired because they were talking about improving the workplace or because they discussed discrimination they reasonably felt was happening (it doesn't matter if it actually happened).

There was a political rally in Google Campuses in Feb 2017. So, may be you vanilla comments are generally applicable, Google has sort of exempted itself.

Now some people in Google are creating black-lists of colleagues.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...

That is barely credible given the source is Breitbart.

An aside note: I have noticed that recently (starting about one year ago) there has been a meme of Breitbart not being a reliable source, while its opposite counterpart Huffington Post does not seem to have this reputation. I wonder if there is a better reason for that than just political disagreement, perhaps there are studies on the relative reliability of different sources (online and offline)? Thanks!

Admittedly I have not fact-checked a statistically significant sample of their articles. But their Wikipedia article for instance tells a tale of published falsehoods, conspiracy theories and the like.

The political disagreement is an orthogonal factor, but does play a role, of course.

Are you really too lazy to do your own fact checking on a case to case basis instead of relying on these rediculus memes to keep yourself from reading something that might hurt your feel feels?

If you are alleging that they photo-shopped these screenshots - it would be intellectually honest to present a proof, rather than just smear the source, because you don't like it.

For the record, I am not alleging this in particular. For all I know, it might be true. Although given Breitbart's history reading anything on that site does not hold much value.

After all, they have run stories about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring and continuously deny the scientifically evident reality of climate change, for example.

So, using your logic, I assume nothing in the NYT holds much value to you, because they have run stories (without proving any evidence) about "Trump and the prostitutes" in Moscow?

or the sinking of the maine

Has the NYT ever claimed that Trump met prostitutes in Moscow?

Go ahead, find a link saying they have.

Did Breitbart push the PizzaGate sex ring story? [Yes](https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews/status/789143692540055552), [absolutely](https://twitter.com/AndrewBreitbart/status/33636278100561920).

This is off-topic, so very briefly:

The NYT published at least two stories about an "unverified" dossier on Trump. Admitting it is unverified, yet they claim:

1. "consequences have been incalculable and will play out long past Inauguration Day" 2. "By all accounts, Mr. Steele has an excellent reputation"

Is it just me, or do they (subtly) suggest that, while "unverified", there may be something to the dossier?

If it is unverified (and quite damning), why publish it?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/politics/donald-trump-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/politics/donald-trump-...

>If it is unverified (and quite damning), why publish it?

They are reporting on the effects of unsubstantiated reports, not publishing them as fact. A far cry from BB knowingly publishing falsehoods.

>Has the NYT ever claimed that Trump met prostitutes in Moscow? Go ahead, find a link saying they have.

You skipped over that part. Have they ever claimed that?

Do you have any reason or evidence to support that comment?

From https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/politics/donald-trump-...:

>The chiefs of America’s intelligence agencies last week presented President Obama and President-elect Donald J. Trump with a summary of UNSUBSTANTIATED reports

>The summary is based on memos generated by POLITICAL OPERATIVES SEEKING TO DERAIL MR. TRUMP’S CANDIDACY

>The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel

(emphasis mine)

They make it very clear they were unsubstantiated and generated by people with a clear intent and bias, there is no comparison to BB's knowingly publishing falsehoods.

Please see my reply in another sub-thread.

That's not "now". People were doing this in these recent years.

And it's sort of ... makes sense. You should be allowed to augment your mind with fucking spreadsheets/lists.

It's different if a government/company does it.

It's not the augmentation method that's the problem. It's the apparent fact that managers/etc at Google are apparently building secret lists of people they won't work with because of ideological reasons. That's both morally awful and quite insubordinate.

What should they be doing instead? (1) STFU. (2) Do their jobs.

It's called being professional.

They are noting who they would rather not work with.

That means when they can pick new people for their team(s), they try to pick from those who are not on their shit list.

But if their supervisor tells them to work with X, who happens to be on a no-no list, they won't start a hissy fit. (They might try to influence their higher up to reconsider.)

And in big corps like google it's not too surprising that people with very different worldviews try to stay away from each other.

"they won't start a hissy fit"?

That's not what their comments (in the leaked screenshots) would seem to indicate. On the contrary, they seem ready to go to great lengths, lengths harmful to their employer, to carry out their stated personal policies.

At virtually any ordinary company, they'd be fired for this.

But the memo wasn't a political document, it was a document about google's diversity policies that was geared towards starting a discussion and changing those polices:

Here is a copy of the memo

https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...

> Here is a copy of the memo

A copy that conveniently leaves out all the links and citations, as well as several graphs and charts.

And while they do note that "two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted", one of those charts is quite important given that it's right before he starts going on about how men and women differ on average, but that

"Populations have significant overlap. Reducing people to their group identity and assuming the average is representative ignores this overlap (this is bad and I don't endorse that)"

Anyway, here's the full thing, links and charts included:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

Yup. This is the state of modern journalism. Its not a lie if you ommit something apparently. But its a dick move to fit this bullshit story into their agenda.

I agree, but it should start at the top:

"Eric Schmidt [and a sizeable team of Googlers]* played a crucial role in Team Hillary’s election tech".

https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-...

*from other sources

False equivalency. The left at least advocates for inclusion, and asking your workplace not to discriminate is not "just as bad as" saying women shouldn't be able to be engineers.

> asking your workplace not to discriminate is not "just as bad as" saying women shouldn't be able to be engineers

The former is exactly what the author of the memo did, and they got fired for it.

They advocate for inclusion but oftentimes want their kind of inclusion. For example they may want women to go out and vote, so long as they vote for their candidate. How dare they "vote against their self interest". Like when Hispanics get ostracized for voting republican as if they owe it to Democrats to vote for them.

Agreed, I'm for the political party that just wants people to vote, regardless of which candidate they're voting for. That truly real party that we all know and love.

That's kind of an ideal party. They organize the vote but don't promote any candidate. Just make sure you are ready to vote, if you are willing to exercise your vote.

I don't believe that's true. At least not in the overly generalized way you're presenting it. You can always find extremists and crackpots in any group, and opponents can always project those people as being representative of the group.

This is a human issue that is not confined to liberals and women, or liberals and hispanics. If you go out to rural locales and make a big show about being liberal in a conservative stronghold, people will invariably judge and mistreat you. If you're a conservative in a liberal stronghold and make a big show of it, invariably people will judge and mistreat you. Not everyone, but some. It's not right, I don't agree with it. And I feel like plenty people are moderate enough that they would agree.

But somehow we can't stop the inmates from running the asylum. And our system seems to give greater weight to people who scream the loudest. People are smart enough to know if they scream loud enough they'll get their way. And options like compromise and collaboration take actual work, and why bother with work if screaming and fussing is accessible to everyone without any effort?

Maybe it's the valley, maybe it's been the luck of my draws... Whenever politics surface in the companies I've worked for, it's assumed I'd agree with people's liberal takes. This is both overt and conversational, jovial, and other random conversations and comments. The undercurrent is always liberally bent. I feel that and have always leaned left (in most ways, but not all), although I'm starting to have my doubts as the left seems to want to go hard left with identity politics.

You are conflating two different issues.

Voting is always better than not voting, even when it seems as if your vote makes no difference.

Aside from that though, yes, it is bizarre when people vote for candidates who have a track record of screwing over people like them.

This isn't unique to women.

It's only bizarre from your point of view, or mine. These people are making rational decisions. Some blacks voted for Trump because they also believed in the things he espouses over some individually significant issue. Affluent male whites voted for Hillary when the left were saying Republicans only favor rich people, etc. so "voted against their self interest". People are complicated.

I thought he just released it on his google+ and it became viral?

In which case you are mistaken.

It was an internal memo and was leaked. The leaker is somehow not fired.

Ah okay, thanks!

> Keep politics/religion out of work.

I agree with this. But given how political google is ( remember google's arab spring movement, it's lgbt stance, etc ), maybe google should also be political/religious neutral. Every July, google changes it's frontpage to state their pro-lgbt political stance.

> its another to broadcast it to co workers.

He didn't broadcast it to his coworkers. It was an internal discussion.

> Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change.

Except that leftists extremism is rather normalized in media/corporations.

At google and in the media, you can say there are too many men or too many whites in technology. What would be deemed hateful if only the "genders/races" were switched in the statement is considered "progressive" by the media/corporations.

> All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side.

Google's stance on lgbt, diversity, etc also alienates people.

The problem I have here is that only one side gets to speak while the other side is censored and attack.

I'm pro-lgbt and pro-diversity. But I also don't want censorship, intimidation and oppression.

This sounds like that weird right-wing notion of "censorship", that has become popular recently. Let me elaborate a little…

When I hear "censorship" I am thinking of government agents sitting in newspaper editorial rooms striking out all statements in an article that does not align with the government's point of view. It means actively suppressing certain kinds of information from being distributed.

What is happening here, looks more like this: a Google employee publishes an email. Lots of people in the company find the content objectionable. Subsequently they decide that they do not want to work with somebody having these opinions. I do not see, how that is even close to censorship. It is not like he has a right to keep that particular job. He can still go out on the street and shout his opinion at the crowd.

Censorship, intimidation & oppression are very strong words to describe a situation, where somebody lost their job, because they wrote an objectionable essay on a company mailing list.

There is a difference between a right to express your opinion, which I support, and a right not to face any resistance or social consequences for voicing that same opinion. The latter of which is made up by the political right trying to relabel it as "free speech".

You can't cry censorship every time you are criticized for something you said. And let's be honest here: white men with regressive points of view are still not particularly threatened of not being heard. After all, they are well represented in pretty much every single powerful institution like parliaments, courts and executive boards. They'll manage to get their opinion heard, I'm afraid.

Google firing him may just be good business. Time will tell.

More alarming is how people and the media have misrepresented and reacted to the content, even if they disagree with it.

> This sounds like that weird right-wing notion of "censorship"

I'm not right-wing, whatever that means nowadays. I'm what you would call a liberal from NY.

> When I hear "censorship" I am thinking of government agents sitting in newspaper editorial rooms striking out all statements in an article that does not align with the government's point of view.

Really? So if google blocks all lgbt content, it wouldn't be censorship? Sure there is government censorship, but there is also academic, corporate, cultural, etc censorship. In the US, there was a time when the media refused to show movies/tv shows/etc with interracial or homosexual content. Wouldn't you call that censorship?

> What is happening here, looks more like this: a Google employee publishes an email. Lots of people in the company find the content objectionable.

The unofficial google employee polls seem to indicate he has as much support as he has detractors. But that's besides the point. My argument is that there are many google employees who aren't fans of lgbt, atheist, liberal, etc stances either. Why are only one groups' feelings considered? If many google employees feel offended by some google employee's open lgbt support, should google fire the pro-lgbt employees?

My question is where does it end? If a google employee has a LGBT flag, should that person be fired?

> There is a difference between a right to express your opinion, which I support, and a right not to face any resistance or social consequences for voicing that same opinion.

So you support lgbt and atheists being persecuted in other countries right? They have a right to express their opinions but they deserve resistence and social consequences?

How about everyone deserves the right to their opinion and EVERYONE deserves to be protected from bullying and intimidation?

All this guy did was have a open INTERNAL discussion that was created by GOOGLE ITSELF. Another google employee who was offended leaked this information and then this guy with honest intentions was persecuted.

> You can't cry censorship every time you are criticized for something you said.

Of course not. But the guy lost his job?

I'm all for criticizing the guy. But the mindless attacks against him and him losing a job is what I am against. Okay?

I believe everyone should be able to criticize and be opened to criticize. I don't think anyone should be persecuted, attacked and oppressed over their opinions.

As I said, if this guy got fired for making pro-lgbt statements and it offended a bunch of christian employees and google fired him, would you be defending google? I highly doubt it.

The "right-wing" categorization is probably not that helpful, I agree.

If I understand you correctly, by turning the argument around (against LGBT, atheist, liberal, etc. people) you want to challenge my point that it is okay to criticize and resist certain opinions and draw consequences from them.

I feel like there is a big difference between the scenario at hand and systematic persecution of certain groups of people.

You seem to assign a huge value to keeping a job. Do you think this is equal to being tracked down and killed by police? That's what e.g. LGBT people face in some countries, is that what you mean by that?

From my point of view, that employee actually tried to advance a very hostile political agenda with what he wrote, that might have harmed many people. Of course, this harm is not as visible as being fired, but it does hurt the opportunities for women, who have to try twice as hard in an environment, where you need to fight with people over whether you are even biologically capable of doing your job.

On the other hand, following your example with the guy making pro-LGBT statements: you make it sound like LGBT is some sort of political agenda by itself. But people usually just _are_ lesbian or trans without making a huge fuss out of it… I do not see how this compares to writing a 10-page essay systematically attacking half of your co-workers.

And, no, I would not defend Google for firing somebody for, say, being a lesbian. That's a completely different scenario.

> I feel like there is a big difference between the scenario at hand and systematic persecution of certain groups of people.

What's the difference? Persecution is persecution.

> You seem to assign a huge value to keeping a job.

It's one of the most important aspects of people's lives. One way of oppressing people is through their employment. What better way is there to intimidate and silence people other than attacking their employment?

> From my point of view, that employee actually tried to advance a very hostile political agenda with what he wrote

Care to point out where the hostility is? The guy was participating in a google led private forum. Nothing he wrote can be objectively and honestly construed as hostile.

> where you need to fight with people over whether you are even biologically capable of doing your job.

Pointing out biological differences is science. Saying that perhaps there are biological advantages that kenyans enjoy in long distance running

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/wh...

or that tibetans/himalayans are better adapted to high altitude environments

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/07/tibetans-inherited-hi...

isn't hostile.

To say stating certain biological conditions exist is hostile is a form of anti-science rhetoric that all peoples on all side should be concerned with.

> And, no, I would not defend Google for firing somebody for, say, being a lesbian. That's a completely different scenario.

You say it is a different scenario but you don't explain why? A muslim company asks their employees to discuss on their private channel on how they could be a better company. A pro-lgbt person says we need more lgbt people in the company. Some muslim employees find it offensive and leaks this out to the media and the muslim media wages a media war against this pro-lgbt person. So they fire this pro-lgbt person. How is it any different?

All you are saying is that you just want your side to be protected. The "others" deserve no protection or empathy. That is very worrying.

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