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Comment by ein0p | Hacker News Reader

Xoogler here: pointing out such things internally is incompatible with continued employment at Google (see eg Damore’s “echo chamber” essay, the echo chamber got even more airtight since then). So the end result is quite predictable. Moreover, this will continue, and i don’t see how they get out of this hole without firing a bunch of internal “activists” who spend their entire days stirring the pot on Memegen rather than actually working.

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"Bring your whole self to work" is a joke unless you hold progressive opinions. Antifa and "resistance" stickers on laptops or backpacks are fine, as is openly wishing for the death or bodily harm of sitting politicians from the "wrong" party. Diversity groups for just about everyone except you know who. Meetings on work time openly pushing progressive agendas.

God forbid you display MAGA swag or even a Gadsden. Diversity is supposed to yield benefits of expanded opinions. Now there is no diversity. Everyone looks a bit different but the only opinions expressed are in one direction.

Why would you want to display MAGA swag?

Why would you want to display Antifa/ACAB swag? Why would you want to marginalize one of the major political movements in the country, while boosting marginal movements?

Because monoculture is unhealthy.

In case my point there wasn't clear, it's common for people to adorn their property with their support for a campaign, such as lawn signs, bumper stickers, or pins. Such displays are rare at work, as most people have more tact than that, but I've still seen Obama, Hillary, and Bernie campaign logos. A Trump one or "Make America Great Again" one in these environments would be a faux pas to say the least.

If we really cared about "our workforce reflecting our customers", as the mantra goes, we'd want people that empathize with those points of view. Instead there appears to be nothing but active disdain for them in this industry.

Just so long as the Gadsden is next to the thin blue line, go wild. Love a good random giggle throughout my day.

Such a snide and professional remark, nice job

Thanks! For another tip, it goes equally ironically well at rallies for folks trying to impose governmental control over individuals' medical decisions.

Turns out there's more than professionalism at stake.

I'd link the Gadsden flag Wikipedia page but that might also not be professional. Also, why is it unprofessional to point out an ignorant irony that I can find countless examples of? Is it uncomfortable when I point out the obvious cognitive dissonance?

I am familiar with the flag. While it's fun to poke at people who don't know better, this sort of thing cuts both ways. For example, I could find countless examples of people who align themselves with defunding the police, yet lament at the fact that their neighborhood is now suffering from crime.

Either way, your public fear of posting a Wikipedia link says a lot about you.

"diversity" but only of the right kind of course!

Which group/area did you work in? For context.

I mean I'm sure in a company of 140,000 people there's probably many cohesive groups of 100 people that will be super right-leaning. Like, most of the crew at the Jackson County, AL or Montgomery County, TN or Mayes County, OK datacenters. I'm sure there's areas of Google where you can express very right-wing opinions to your team and adjacent teams and still get promotions. Heck it's likely that being openly left-leaning in some groups will get you canned.

In data centers maybe, but in software even moderate conservative positions are inadvisable. I don’t consider myself to be in any way “right leaning” by the way. I’m in favor of universal healthcare and gay marriage yet against allowing biological males in female sports, for example. Don’t like it? Not much I can do about that, I’ll stick to my guns no matter what derogatory label you assign. I’m not overly attached to fat paychecks either.

So, which area/group were you in? Also would you say that expressing your view that "AMAB people shouldn't be allowed to compete in female sports" would get you ostracized at Google during the time you were there? I'd think that's a pretty milquetoast position to hold.

In one of the ML groups, working on LLM training/serving infra, though not in Brain or GDM.

And yes, you’d get some quality time with HR for saying something like that there, and you’d get fired if you keep saying it. People don’t quite appreciate the extent of this insanity there. The internal discourse is completely devoid of anything that challenges even the most insane of DEI tenets.

Sorry, but why would you want to publicly (at company meetings I assume) verbalize this position of yours? Not only once but multiple times? It feels so very strange to me.

That’s the thing, you don’t, at least if you want to continue receiving your paycheck. It’s but one example, there are hundreds more. The other side “verbalizes” their “positions” so often your ears would shrivel up and fall off. The problem is that nobody pushes back on that insanity, and we get what we got with Gemini.

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