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Comment by richrichie | Hacker News Reader

Please answer truthfully. If this sit in were by a group of employees protesting climate change effects of Google’s data-centers and rampant frivolous training of neural networks by anyone, will HR do this? Or that matter any of approved cause de jour (LGBTQ+, Trump, Police brutality against black men, etc).

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Google fired James Damore for writing a memo.

He did a lot more than that.

What more did he do?

Disrupted/hijacked multiple trainings and seminars to push his agenda, and persisted long past the point where it was made clear to him his input was no longer welcome on those matters. He was also arguing a lot on mailing lists with a lot of people about the same kinds of ideas that were in the memo. Basically turned a lot of people off who didn't want to be working with him after that. It was more than just writing that one memo; it was a whole pattern.

Did that merit firing? Eh, I'm not particularly interested in reopening that debate. But it was certainly more complicated than that he wrote that one memo.

I'm fairly sure if Google Google you can't hide — we charge you with genocide is part of your chant you would be promptly terminated regardless of the causes you listed above. Rightfully so.

I support Google firing them. My point is that climate change, LGBTQ+, Antifa, BLM, etc will be treated very differently. Google won’t dare to fire them in those cases.

For example, extinction rebellion crazies get essentially free pass to do whatever they want.

Unless theres a similar situation where there is a similar protest for those causes, and Google does not fire them, then you are just making an empty hypothetical.

I think it's funny that you think that tech workers would protest police brutality against black men, let alone in such a way that would put their jobs on the line.

Microsoft refused to allow police to use some of their facial recognition technology because of this, and it was before BLM.

I would question if that has changed in a significant way since. I also don't know that a single anecdote suffices. I've seen enough just on this site to be confident in my wager. You're going to find more tech workers who are hopping mad about DEI than ones who would risk their employment or perception of their own safety for the safety of black people.

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