Hacker News Reader

Comment by dubswithus | Hacker News Reader

I don’t understand your point.

The cult we are discussing here is accused of engaging in grooming and pedophilia.

That’s comparable to a bunch of people that went to Stanford?

I think the point was that you can't really go after nepotistic hiring practices alone without also throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Nepotism happens all the time, and it's usually benign, like Stanford grads hiring Stanford grads. We want to work with our friends, people we've worked with before, and people with similar backgrounds as ours.

This comment thread is about what policy, if any, can these people really be investigated or fired for. If association with an organization whose leadership engages in grooming and pedophilia, while distasteful, is a firing offense, then should we be firing all catholics? There seems to be no way to articulate a policy here that a lot of well-meaning people wouldn't run afoul of, and you can't selectively implement policy without then running afoul of discriminatory business practices.

It’s insane to me that children are allegedly being groomed and molested but the topic of the day is nepotism.

The business should do what it thinks is right and deal with the fallout. Take a stand.

People are fired all the time for posting their personal opinions on FB. Especially if they make the company look bad. Fire these idiots for supporting a child molester.

We like it when businesses take a stand on things we agree on. We don't like it when it's about, say, making a gay couple a wedding cake. What stand, exactly, are we saying Google should take? That they don't employee people associated with organizations where leaders engage in pedophilia? If so, we should also have a word with 1.2 billion catholics.

You may not like it, but figuring out policy is important to a functioning society. It's how we avoid descent into fascism and witch hunting.

>If so, we should also have a word with 1.2 billion catholics.

Yes, we should

If that's the attitude you want to take then I wish you luck. It sure sounds good and principled to say such things, but there comes a point where you're no longer building a better society and simply witch hunting. Being guilty by association has a long, storied history in law.

> I think the point was that you can't really go after nepotistic hiring practices alone without also throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The comment just said "investigate"! This is getting very strawmanny.

I tend to agree, but I think that's because people want to see these cult members fired and are working backward from there to find grounds. That's an easy lawsuit at best and illegal at worst.

>The cult we are discussing here is accused of engaging in grooming and pedophilia.

No, sorry, it's not. I don't see that in the article. The leader was accused of coercing sex and having sex with a (as in one) minor[0]. Yes, that's bad, I am not trying to say it's not.

But extending what that leader allegedly did to include all members, or suggesting those members were at least fine with it, or at the very least knew about it and did nothing, is not helpful, honestly. If we did that, we would have to apply the same logic to every Catholic, as the Catholic Church enabled and hid a lot more - and in a lot more systematic fashion - abhorrent child abuse cases committed by their leaders (well, "middle-management" for the most part).

[0] The other victims he allegedly coerced were characterized as "young men", which doesn't mean they are underage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com