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Google's Other Ugly Secret: Some Managers Keep Blacklists (inc.com)
Last week a controversial internal memo written by a concerned Google employee was going viral within the company. The memo, titled "PC Considered Harmful" and since dubbed "the Google manifesto" on social media, argued two points: First, that Google has become an ideological echo chamber where anyone with centrist or right-of-center views fears to speak their mind. Second, that part of the tech industry's gender gap can be attributed to biological differences between men and women. The person who wrote the memo has since been fired, but the internal tussle has revealed one more thing. The Inc reports: The contentious internal discussion revived a concern dating back to 2015: An unknown number of Google managers maintain blacklists of fellow employees, evidently refusing to work with those people. The blacklists are based on personal experiences of others' behavior, including views expressed on politics, social justice issues, and Google's diversity efforts. Inc. reviewed screenshots documenting several managers attesting to this practice, both in the past and currently, explicitly using the term "blacklist." The screenshots were shared by a Google employee who requested anonymity due to having signed an NDA. In additional screenshots, one Google employee declared his intent to quit if Damore were not fired, and another said that he would refuse to work with Damore in any capacity. A Google spokesperson told Inc. that the practice of keeping blacklists is not condoned by upper management, and that Google employees who discriminate against members of protected classes will be terminated. It's not clear whether that principle applies in Damore's case. Although political affiliation is a protected class according to California labor law, the views expressed in the manifesto and echoed by others who oppose political correctness do not seem to merit legal protection.
You may want to research the early days of McCarthyism and the blacklist.
Is this the first firing that was perhaps an overly sensitive reaction concerned with appeasing a very touchy ideological base? Because I can think of a number of other people railroaded out of a job because of online "outrage."
We aren't all that far from an Inquisition (not prongs and tongs type Inquisition, but a "your job depends on agreement" type Inquisition). The most significant thing missing from the equation is that the most vocal social justice voices lack political influence and power. If you see this movement organize politically and get candidates in office, any student of history should recognize that things will get worse for open expression of ideas before things get better.
also girls suck at pooters lol
....Google is a shit company to work for. Avoid.
So, it's like most offices and places of employment? Some people will refuse to work with others for a variety of reasons?
will get to the bottom of these leaks! It's for the good of the country!
...running amok
... Google employees who discriminate against members of protected classes will be terminated.
I am curious: does that include discrimination against those protected classes in the job interview process? Like, say, for example, ageism? I am just saying.
You see, it is easy to visually identify some protected classes and subtly discriminate against them (he is overqualified, or she is not a good fit for the team) in ways that are not obviously discriminatory. But nobody in their right mind talks politics or social justice as part of the interview process. So you hire some people who end being a diversity problem. Don't kid yourself, to Google and similar companies the views expressed which challenge the accepted thinking are not welcomed as part of a healthy and vigorous debate. They are seen as a disease that must be cut out.
We are very tolerant and accepting here. You had better be tolerant and accepting in the same way or we will sack you.
Is there anything wrong with this? I also have a personal list of people I don't want to work with.
it's not as if anyone at Google tries to enforce the list on other companies.
Did they learn nothing from the movie studios that practiced this garbage?
Or in other words, your average democrat. Or in other other words, who cares what the fuck they have to say? Liberalism died in the 60s.
Everything decays. Rots. Stinks, eventually. From the head down, they say.
Everyone has a list of people they will not work with. For example I only work with black porn starlets who swallow and can take my 8" cock.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean that your employer is obligated to give you a podium. In general, so that everyone can get along I'd rather not know that my co-worker is a bigot or a Trump supporter, etc.
Had this fellow made his posting outside of his employment, things would have been different. But he chose to do it at work, and because of the way Google's merit system works (your co-workers grade you), he marked himself as someone who would not fairly grade women co-workers. This so demoralized a lot of his women co-workers that many stayed home from work on Monday. And the CEO called off a family vacation in order to come back and deal with the fallout.
Bruce Perens.
I'm so old I remember when tech companies used to hire individuals based on their ability to do the work. How old fashioned!
Victimhood Identity Politics is in direct opposition to the American principle of individualism. Evidently treating people as individuals doesn't offer SJW types enough opportunities for graft or lording over others to make them conform to their far-left culture war politics.
So we get "Protected Classes," because some animals are more equal than others...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Google has become an ideological echo chamber where anyone with centrist or right-of-center views fears to speak their mind.
How ironic, because the right has itself become an ideological echo chamber. I used to be a Republican, back before moderates were "RINO's". The GOP of that era knew that climate change was real, and debated carbon tax vs cap-and-trade as a solution. The modern GOP either thinks that climate change isn't real, or that it's caused by gay marriage.
Gender equality is a complex issue, and is full of people talking past each other, so I expect little progress to be made anytime soon. Women should feel completely free to join male-dominated fields like programming and science, just as men should feel free to join female-dominated fields like nursing and teaching.
Yes, there is often enough male misogynists, weirdos, and "those guys" in IT that it would make women uncomfortable, and that needs to be nipped in the bud, both for the sake of women and for the sake of business. There are women like that too. People who are jerks in one way are often jerks in other ways too, and those malignant personalities often have deleterious effects on their co-workers irrespective of gender.
But I don't see people fretting about why women aren't working construction jobs, or hauling garbage. That's because even the men working those jobs largely don't *want* to do them. IT isn't hauling the garbage, but it involves long hours, an often stressful work environment, and a relentless grind. Maybe those characteristics aren't as attractive to women as to men. Having worked in IT for 15+ years, it's not attractive to me as a man either. Or maybe women simply have better options.
Maybe 20% women in programming *is* the natural equilibrium. I don't *think* so, but it's possible. Men and women are different, and desire different things. Men desire income (to attract a wife and support a family), while women often prefer jobs that allow them more free time (again to support their family). If you're a woman who desires income, or a man who wants more free time, that's completely fine (I'd definitely prefer more free time over a pay raise), but it's not the average response.
TL;DR: People are all different. Be kind to one another. Don't be a dick.
"Although political affiliation is a protected class according to California labor law"
Yeah.
In the current political climate this doesn't matter AT ALL. NOT ONE BIT.
California universities have been tolerating violent, physically violent attacks against speakers, visitors, guests to their campuses, violence in reaction to their professed political affiliations, violence justified by student, faculty, and others NOT AFFILIATED WITH THESE UNIVERSITIES by THEIR political affiliations.
This is not limited to California, but to recite that California law declares political affiliation a 'protected class', that is, political association is by law in California protected and claimed to be a right of the people to participate in, express, and speak freely without threat of suppression, is not merely disingenuous, it is an affront and insult to those who have suffered actual physical injury because those with opposing views would not tolerate their speaking.
What? Google fires an employee for speaking their mind. Students and others at Berkeley physically assault people gathering to protest these suppressions of free political speech. In California. Some were arrested. And the attitude that contrary speech should be fought against, literally fought against, seems to be spreading.
The truth is, in California, there is a coalition of political groups agreeing that contrary speech can and SHOULD be suppressed and prevented, by physical violence if they choose to. And this is happening nationwide. Worldwide.
And it is justified by the 'greater good'.
The political philosophy that claims to be tolerant, inclusive, caring, and above all better, is the one that espouses violent response to their opposition. This philosophy is led to this by leaders worldwide, unapologetic in their goals and tactics.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
and that Google employees who discriminate against members of protected classes will be terminated.
So firing that guy may or may not have gone overboard a bit. But what do you expect? After all, they just got under fire for not protecting protected classes from discrimination.
Are they supposed to create a work environment more friendly to women or not?
bickerdyke
Over my 20+ year career as an IT Support contractor, I've kept a blacklist of recruiters that I refused to deal with. Tek Systems, Robert Half and Microsoft tops my blacklist.
Tek Systems always call you in for an interview, are more interested in who you interviewed with previously than your qualifications, and never offer a job after repeated interviews.
The San Jose office for Robert Half have recruiters who always get a better job for themselves than trying to help you get a job. I went through six recruiters in three month because of the turnover.
Microsoft requires that the hiring manager considers five applicants even though he plans to hire his drinking buddy. During a six week period in 2005, I had five Microsoft recruiters leading me by the nose for jobs that went to drinking buddies.
I call bullshit.
The only evidence is them saying they have screenshots, and they don't share them. Why not?
Even if people did such a thing, there's no way they'd talk about it publicly over gchat or anything -- it would absolutely get them fired.
I'm starting to think this place is nothing like that warm and friendly work environment they showed us in "The Internship". Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson appear to have just plain lied to us all.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
That right-of-centre manifesto was basically (almost) everything that is offensive in a decent society. The jerk whined about how right-wingers were being treated "unfairly" and in almost the same breath, he was very anti-diversity. In particular, the guy is breathtakingly sexist. He's practically a posterchild for all the things that are wrong with brogrammer culture. And this is despite the other anti-diveristy biases that *already* exist at Google, such as ageism.
While there are a couple valid points buried in that joke of an manifesto, they are completely buried in the mouth-frothing idiocy. The guy was, quite bluntly, an asshole, and I'm glad he was fired. Also, like a cliche right-winger, the concept of irony is completely lost on him.
Complaining that your own narrow-minded, blatantly sexist viewpoint isn't accepted, is NOT an example of the "liberals" being hypocritical. That's the equivalent of complaining that a criminal should not be punished for conforming to "alternative laws".
is google a workplace or a politics place? I have never once cared what someones gender, sexual proclivity or whatever happens to be in the workplace, I just want teh best people to work with...why is that not the philosophy at google? why do we need a score card of what skin color, sexuality, gender or whatever someone happens to be?
So protected speech doesn't merit legal protection in California?
REALLY?
Again, illiberal, authoritarian shit like this, coming out of what's supposed to be the most liberal place on the planet should surprise nobody.
"Think differently, just like me, OR ELSE!"
So, instead of a tolerant, level-headed push to better and broaden society, we have a bunch of bitchy, socially maladjusted children pushing darwinian progressivism, group-think, intolerance and and the kind of antisocial interaction you see in nasty little grade school students.
And California isn't just "okay" with this, it wants the entire fucking state to be this goddamn crazy.
Then they wonder why people are praying for an earthquake or secession to take these fucknuts off our hands...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"In additional screenshots, one Google employee declared his intent to quit if Damore were not fired, and another said that he would refuse to work with Damore in any capacity".
Those are the people who should be fired.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Man, the more we learn about people who work at Google, the more we learn it sucks like everywhere else. I can't imagine the pro-PC going on at Apple, with a gay CEO at the top - not that there's anything wrong with that - unless there is.
Me? I'm just glad I have a boss that's okay with me wasting a few minutes every hour posting on Sla{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER
#DeleteFacebook
Excuse Me? The Libertarian "Meritocracy" that is Silicon Valley is already significantly right-of-center. If you find your views are to the right of the laissez-faire CEOs, vulture capitalists and wannabe entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, then you are not a centrist or even right-of-center, you a full-on right-wing extremist. I'm not saying you can't express your views (no matter how distasteful), but don't pretend to be a centrist.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
First the person involved elicits rather little sympathy for me because he fails to acknowledge that, whether one wants to believe there even is a biological preference for tech work, those women co-workers who actually do the same work are still paid substantially less than their male counterparts at Google. There is no biological preference for being cheated by your employer.
Second, and this gets back to google, affirmative action is meant to compensate for past injustices. When a company does so by trying to hire more women who are also continue to be paid less, it is not doing so. It is simply using affirmative action as a means to get lower paid workers, and in doing so is actually perpetuating those past injustices it is claiming to correct. So there is no like for Google either, try to be a little less evil...
"Google employees who discriminate against members of protected classes will be terminated"
White males are not a protected class, ever. This policy allows any amount of reverse racism and sexism and the victims can never say anything. I can see how white males would not like that, its unfair. How about punishing discrimination no matter whom the target is?
It means something different that your christian roots believe.
Most places that I've worked has had pretty strict prohibitions on discussing politics or religion in the workplace, no matter what flavor of those things is involved. For good and obvious reasons, I think -- such discussions can only lead to grief and strife among people who would otherwise be able to work productively together. I'm a bit surprised that Google allows it.
Also, I'm not clear on what is meant by "blacklist". Typically, that means a list of people who are ineligible for (whatever) that is distributed within an organization and everyone is expected to adhere to.
But the article makes it sound like something rather different: individuals deciding that they can't work with other individuals. This is pretty normal. I know that in most places that I've worked, there have been people that I would go to great lengths to avoid interacting with, and in a managerial role, there have been people who I would not accept on my team because of personality issues.
Is that a "blacklist"? I don't think so. I think it's more about wanting to have teams that can function well together. Being able to get along well in a team is as important as technical skill.
White males are not a protected class, ever.
Not as a class based on those attributes. But as TFS states, political affiliation is a protected class in California (and other states). Religious expression is also protected. Just join a church that wears those pointy white hats and the Venn diagram of members and white males is a near perfect match.
Have gnu, will travel.
are not relevant a fascist is a fascist whether green, red, black or brown. Certain things you cannot say. Certain thing you can say even if they are a lie and be pardoned because they fit into general atmosphere of intimidation.There was a case of Rolling Stone publishing an article about rape on campus. The only problem was hat here was no rape. I suppose that is common. In my company there are number of JW that you cannot touch. Not because they are doing such a good job but because they are such good JW. I had a conversation with my boss last year about the policy of not employing male candidates. There was no way to get this trough, even a discussion was difficult. Since then I am considered a red neck. Now what this means they keep me only because I am good and above average. As soon as I made another mistake this may not count anymore. If these all are not signs of oppression I do not know what these would be. Surely there are no bettering camps just yet. For how long yet? This strange memo of the Google guy has been shown to be true after all - they fired the guy. How odd. I thought they were no evil doers?
Google is an almost 20-year-old company with about sixty thousand* employees. It is not the little startup we all fell in love with in the late 90s. All kinds of people work there now, many of them are *gasp* ordinary, average, humans, the same as you'll find in any large old company. It is not a pixie-dust-fueled fairyland where everyone always gets along.
* 57,100, according to Wikipedia, as of Q2, 2015.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Saying or writing something political incorrect might be considered bad behaviour by some people, but it's protected by free speach. Firing someone for that is even worse and clearly shows that the employer doesn't give a shit about the US constitution.
Yes there is, if you are a Manager.
Managers working at a Company have legal obligations that individual contributors don't have. Just keeping a list like this (never mind acting on it) exposes your Employer to some bad legal consequences.
The song goes like this:
1) Rebel starts a new tech company and it is wildly successful.
2) Company grows like crazy
3) Irresponsible ones with a social agenda are hired by company under false pretenses
4) Place becomes a community of fascism
5) The most productive people leave the company along with the founder
6) Company's revenue collapses
7a) Company goes broke with rats leaving to find another place to screw up
-or-
7b) Founder comes back, cleans house and fixes the place up for their personal legacy
Atari, Apple all went like this. Google is now in the (4) to (5) phase. Their stock could be a great long term short.
The interview process is protected against blacklisting:
1050. Any person, or agent or officer thereof, who, after having discharged an employee from the service of such person or after an employee has voluntarily left such service, by any misrepresentation prevents or attempts to prevent the former employee from obtaining employment, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
1051. Except as provided in Section 1057, any person or agent or officer thereof, who requires, as a condition precedent to securing or retaining employment, that an employee or applicant for employment be photographed or fingerprinted by any person who desires his or her photograph or fingerprints for the purpose of furnishing the same or information concerning the same or concerning the employee or applicant for employment to any other employer or third person, and these photographs and fingerprints could be used to the detriment of the employee or applicant for employment is guilty of a misdemeanor.
1052. Any person who knowingly causes, suffers, or permits an agent, superintendent, manager, or employee in his employ to commit a violation of sections 1050 and 1051, or who fails to take all reasonable steps within his power to prevent such violation is guilty of a misdemeanor.
1053. Nothing in this chapter shall prevent an employer or an agent, employee, superintendent or manager thereof from furnishing, upon special request therefor, a truthful statement concerning the reason for the discharge of an employee or why an employee voluntarily left the service of the employer. If such statement furnishes any mark, sign, or other means conveying information different from that expressed by words therein, such fact, or the fact that such statement or other means of furnishing information was given without a special request therefor is prima facie evidence of a violation of sections 1050 to 1053.
What happened, I thought we were all end-of-life curmudgeons, not 15 year olds just entering the workforce.
Every single person ever keeps a "blacklist" of people they will not work with. There are many reasons one could find themselves on said list, many real, many petty. Maybe a person...
- were a client that didn't pay up for work done
- were a subcontractor that didn't do the work
- were constantly going on about their child/dog/cat
- drank too much during office hours
- smelled
- their food smelled
- kept going on about something political, no matter the spectrum
- you just don't like their face
- they stole your lunch money
- have an annoyING valley-girl/boy vocAL afflectiON
If you're freelancing, you just don't deal with them. If you're in a team/corporate environment, you avoid them. Welcome to life. Can't wait till you discover that you get free television channels by using an antenna (in most parts of the US). Get off my lawn and all that.
So from what I can gather of the slashdot hivemind, diversity which does not grant accommodation for bigotry is internally inconsistent. Of course, if it did, it would be self defeating. I suppose the only logical solution is to abandon the whole idea and just hire white men. How convenient.
Seriously, is "ilsaloving" a real person expressing an honest opinion? Or is "ilsaloving" a sock-puppet and is the post intended as satire? I honestly cannot tell. Are there people in California and/or at Google who sincerely think this way?
Yes, I'm pretty sure that men are better suited to be software "engineers" because they have dicks. Personally, I am also uncomfortable with women driving cars, because they lack this handy appendage.
I often use my dick when driving for hitting the turn signal, changing the radio station, etc. I have no doubt that there are many ways having a dick can aid a software "engineer", but I can't give you any examples because being a software engineer is a menial job in which I have no interest.
Oh, and this is a photograph of James Damore, the hypermasculine and very well-suited for being a software "engineer" former Google employee who totally thinks men are better suited to being software "engineers". (note: in the photo, he is standing between two normal-sized men who are probably not software "engineers" and who almost certainly have both used James Damore like a woman.)
https://heavyeditorial.files.w...
You are welcome on my lawn.
"I refuse to work with so and so because of ___" or "I'll go through the motions of working with so and so but I won't put in my best effort because of ___" are a fact of life.
It's just most people keep these things in their head and off the record until they become an issue.
"Mental blacklists" are okay as long as you are open with your boss about the reasons once they become an issue and you are willing to resign on the spot if your manager tells you that you have to work with someone anyway because your reason isn't acceptable to the company. A co-worker who constantly sabotages projects is usually a good reason to honor an "I don't want to work with him" ultimatum. On the flip side, a co-worker who happens to be of a certain gender, race, or religion you have an issue with is a good reason for your boss to accept your resignation.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
We are making regular additions to Sundar's List for all collective CrimeThinkers: Classical Liberals, Meritocratic Libertarians, Republicans, Christians, Moderates, associated FreeThinkers, Heteronormatives, Cis gender caucasian-males, Leftists refusing to toe the line, as well as scientists discussing inconvenient biological facts. We read your contacts, your email, your queries, your financial transactions, and shortly, your thoughts.
Dissent will not be tolerated
DoublePlus Love,
Danielle Brown
Commissar of GoodThink
ThinkPol, Google Corp
P.S. Support our Hillary2020 Campaign
3rd Day in a Row this POS has been on the list.
What the fuck?
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
what else is new? the human race is far too immature to even think about things like 'we must have the same amount of $GENDER in every job, because equality'. we're still fighting wars, allowing millions to starve, permitting greed to run everything. theres no time for the social stupidities we as a species continue to commit daily in the name of whatthefuckever. c'mon people, get your fucking priorities together.
Regardless of the reason, California is an "At Will" employment state. This means anyone can be fired, for any reason, at any time. When someone is dumb enough to violate the corporate code of conduct, the firing is insanely easy, and entirely justified. He can sue all he wants. I expect Google will not roll over on this, and make him the poster child for why you should pay attention to the employee handbook.
For anyone unclear on why what he wrote wasn't the best idea, substitute the word "black", for the word "woman".
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
"the views expressed in the manifesto and echoed by others who oppose political correctness do not seem to merit legal protection"
So basically, "you may not be discriminated against for being a republican , but we will discriminate against you for any statement of belief that is typical of republican ideology".
Likewise, I've seen it go like this " we abhor an intolerance to people, including discrimination based on religion, however if you actually tell people about any aspect of your religion , especially if it isn't PC you can expect to be fired. After all we are totally intolerant of intolerance, even if that intolerance is a required part of your religion"
Basically , the PC police get to decide who is right and wrong and any disagreement will be punished.
Victimhood Identity Politics is in direct opposition to the American principle of individualism.
And that's where I think this whole LGBTQ+ nonsense is coming from.
You are either heterosexual, homosexual, or bi-sexual. Everything else is complete nonsense.
I think the "trans" people are trying to be edgy (like tattoos and piercings were 25 years ago), be treated better than others because now they are a "minority", or have psych issues and the implicit all the above.
And I think it's so ironic that "queer" is acceptable now because years ago, it was the same as "fag".
I think it's fascinating that someone can read the memo and come to the conclusion that it (or a certain part of it) can basically be summarized as:
To me, that's just bad analysis. If this were a high school book report, I'd give it a D- or F. (I have to admit that I want to try to figure out if you simply didn't read the memo and are bullshitting through your report (grade F) or if you actually did read it but failed to understand it (I'll give you a D-).)
How did you connect the dots from him saying that different groups of people tend to have biases, to the staggering generalization of "a group is not biologically fit..." I'm less interested in debating the ideas themselves, and more interested in why you think the two ideas are the same. (I think you're being sincere and not trolling, which is why your book report is getting a D-.)
I see how part of it happened. You said "Women and men are culturally different, but that's culture, not genetics" and if you have a strong religious belief that women aren't biologically different than men, and if someone makes an argument based on the idea that they are, you're going to see the conclusion as nonsense so why bother to fairly represent it? But don't you see that you did that?
Yet even with that error, you had a choice about how to portray his seems-like-nonsense-to-you point. He clearly didn't say people are fit or unfit, but that on average, people are biased in certain ways. How did biases escalate to fitness?
(You're also objectively wrong that people are biologically biased (distinct from cultural bias) in such an embarrassing way that I wonder if you're also a global warming denier or a creationist, but that's a whole other thing, I'm a lot more interested in why you're flunking your book report than why you're flunking your science classes. I'm so used to everyone flunking science these days .. Republicans have stopped being interesting in that regard, to the point that it's now part of their stereotype. But you sound like a Democrat who failed humanities!)
Social media, specifically facebook, made people think that echo chambers, and never having to be around people with different opinions, was somehow normal and what you should expect in your life.
Now they equate it with abuse. I hope their world falls down on them, a major depression or something, and they all get forced back into reality.
If so, then why is the search engine becoming a pile of garbage with useless results? WTF are they doing?
http://commonsensegovernment.c...
"Tytler's theory set forth a cycle that every democracy goes through, which goes like this. Tytler said the cycle starts out with a society in bondage. Then it goes in this sequence:
Bondage
Spiritual Faith
Courage
Liberty
Abundance
Selfishness
Complacency
Apathy
Dependence
Then starting over with Bondage"
A formal "blacklist" of employees on record is just foolish. Performance reports are one thing (and confidential) but a personal preferences blacklist isn't wise. Anyone who kept this sort of list on any team of mine would be of serious concern to me for two reasons:
1. their clear lack of judgement because if such a list were discovered it would be damming to management and to co-workers.
2. It would show an inability to be flexible professionally. Personal politics are exactly that: Personal. If that can't be kept outside the office then that person by definition is not being a professional.
We all have to work with peers we don't like at some point. Working with people we like is nice, but we are in a office to do a job. Either to earn a paycheck or perhaps something more noble or altruistic. (More are the former)
Very few offices I know will tolerate "not working with" any co-worker unless that co-worker had committed acts that violated basic comfort standards for the office, like abusive verbal behaviour, hazing or stuff like that. To me it's a wonder that a group of presumably intelligent people like those employed at Google would be doing anything like this in a matter that was easily verified.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
This would not be an issue if the American people would demand the anti-trust laws be enforced and companies like Alphabet broken up into pieces. The fools that continue to buy into bogus marketing like "do no evil" are part of the problem for not seeking alternatives.
As an addition to the filtering available, I propose Slashdot allow users to filter out based on specific screen names. A blacklist if you will. I've already got several names of crackpots in mind, and no doubt people will have me on their lists. Win-win.
I find the term blacklist offensive. Why not african-descendant list ?
I've been a programmer for 25 years, my ex-wife is one of the best programmers I know, and I would also say I have worked with very few weak female programmers. The reason the number of women in CS in North America is low and the reason the numbers never recovered after the dot com bust is job stability. Women are just as good as men at CS, they are just as good or better at staying with jobs they don't enjoy. However, they do not enjoy job instability. This is why small startups are skewed even more male than large companies, this is why only women who are truly good stay in CS (because they don't fear ever being unemployed), and it is also why women who are good at STEM will gravitate to doctors, lawyers and other engineering fields that have more stable employment.
All the people who studied CS 20 or more years ago. Think about all the women in your classes and in your first jobs. How many are still writing code? Did they leave because of sexism? My ex experienced mind numbing stupidity towards women's needs but very little sexism from engineers - secretaries and HR is another story.
"... that Google has become an ideological echo chamber where anyone with centrist or right-of-center views fears to speak their mind. "
Concerning the recent manifesto, facts are not biased do not have an agenda. To suggest his views, which have factual basis, are centrist or right of center is ridiculous.
The polite word is "recusal", and it's been in the news a lot lately regarding the U.S. DoJ. "I have personal issues with person X. It's not fair to either of us to try to work together."
Given Google's size, I bet there's at least one divorced couple both working there. It's probably better for all concerned if they avoid each other professionally, no?
White males are not a protected class, ever.
Not as a class based on those attributes. But as TFS states, political affiliation is a protected class in California (and other states). Religious expression is also protected. Just join a church that wears those pointy white hats and the Venn diagram of members and white males is a near perfect match.
No, that's not a near perfect match; virtually all pointy-hat-wearers are white males, but only a minority of white males wear pointy-hats.
Get these managers to reveal their blacklists. If the percentage of genders or races or ages of people in their blacklists deviates substantially from the percentage of genders, races, and ages of people working at Google, then "obviously" they must be discriminating on the basis of gender or race or age, and they need to be fired to "protect diversity in the workplace." Managers whose blacklist percentages deviate only slightly from that of the Google worker population need to be sent to diversity training and re-education courses.
Working as a tech manager for 20 years, I've seen the misogyny and sexual harassment first hand. There were times I had to keep lists of who would work together and who needed to be separated. That is not a "blacklist" unless you're a little snowflake looking for a reason to be offended. That just means you have a large organization and there's always that talented but socially inept developer who has the social skills of a Neanderthal. You try to keep them on, try to work with them on the social aspects. Sometimes it works, most times not.
I did notice there tended to be cultural influences at work in some cases. I'd also argue that the current political climate has increased sensitivity to people who come across as "pussy grabbers."
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It makes me wonder how Google manages to maintain itself technology-wise if it has no traditional hackers among its low-level workers? Traditional hackers tend to be libertarian, which Google may mistake for conservative. And Google tends to scare or insult such people away — it once offered programmer Zed Shaw a junior sysadmin position. Maybe Google is propelled by sheer inertia or is being propped by Wall Street to make Silicon Valley look like the place is still attractive. Who knows? It certainly can't be its technology when it is starting to look like a brightly-painted sunshine-and-fresh-air leftist version of IBM.
--- Andy West http://andywest.org
A lot of big company's have managers that maintain black lists. Hell at Blackboard they used to brag about it to their employees in certain departments before they got bought out, and went through a culture shift.
Some is such a non-inclusive term. Surely the right thing to do is insist that they all keep black-lists. After all, not doing that would make some people feel threatened. So, if they don't keep a black-list they should be fired!
Google, like many other corporations, hold elistist beliefs which are at the core communist. In their "ethical system", all nations are to be crushed, families are to be crushed and to be replaced by "progressive social structures".
These people can be traced back to SPARTA vs. ATHENs and they display a pattern of devilish brutishness. If they ever come to real power, they will repeat the slaughterings of 1789 France, of 1917 Russia and of the 1940s China.
Unfortunately a lot of the NATO elitists share a serious portion of Agenda with these bastards. They also want Brussels to completely dominate the nation states.
Thank god TRUMP is salting their evil plans !
I say: BOYCOTT THEM:
1. Kill your google mail account. Anything else is better !
2. Use Yandex
3. Use Bing
4. Use YaCY
5. Stop using Google Docs. Instread, run your own little Raspberry PI File Server
I say: BOYCOTT THEM:
1. Kill your google mail account. Anything else is better !
2. Use Yandex
3. Use Bing
4. Use YaCY
5. Stop using Google Docs. Instread, run your own little Raspberry PI File Server
Stop using Google Products.
There are plenty of alternatives.
E.g. RPI file servers, tons of other email services like centrum.cz. Yandex, Bing, Baidu, Openstreetmap.org.
Punish these Marxists for their Marxism. Don't be a sheep !
The internet existed well before the Google commies and it will AFTER them !
The Communist Globalists have an agenda on making the comman man and his wife morally weak. To destroy the family, so that "Individuals" can be controlled by the likes of Monsanto, Google, Goldmann Sachs, CNN, MSFT and so on. Their life is too good and they only get "turned on" by playing Masters of The Universe.
Show these bastards the middle finger and stop using their websites, their products.
Have your own garden. Grow your own tomatos and potatoes.
Grow some Russian-Type resilience and stick a fork into these communist-globalists wicked people !
How much are you paid for your pro-Google, pro-Globalist propaganda ?
Face it, you support the anti-freedom wicked Spartans.
I hope your diapers are bleeding 2x today.
And all the diapers of your Fellow Marxists Liars and Warmongers. That includes BRIN, PAGE and SCHMIDT.
To hell with you powermongers and mass murderers !
"There is no biological preference for being cheated by your employer." I see this argument a lot, but I have to wonder if it's really being cheated. If you provide less value to your employer are you worth the same? Often times when I hear "I do the same job as my male counterpart, yet I make less" I wonder if that's really true. Does your male counterpart spend more time gossiping than working? Does your male counterpart get pregnant and expect 3 months off regardless of the impact on the company, its employees, or its customers? Does your male counterpart engage in office politics and backstabbing to get ahead? Does your male counterpart avoid working on difficult accounts? There are many factors even within genders to suggest that not everyone with the same job title should be paid the same. Value to the company should be the determining factor. Of course the other side of that coin is that companies try to pay as little as possible. And if you don't push for what you're worth and you don't articulate the value you add they are more than happy to underpay you. It's a complex issue, and I don't feel like "men make more than women" adequately defines it.
Google must abide to the CONSTITUTIONS of the nations the company operates in. Their Marxist bullshit is their PRIVATE invention.
TRUMP should breathe down Google's neck and force them to reinstate the engineer.
No tolerance against these Wicked Spartans.
Or just destroy Google by means of AntiTrust proceedings. Whatever cure works better is welcome.
FIGHT COMMUNISM !
Just not against, "Protected Classes".
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
This is a message from /pol/ to the straight, white men of Slashdot. The left hates you, they want you dead and gone and they will never come around to our way of thinking no matter how well we argue or how much data we provide. Your technical knowledge matters less to them than whether you're using their preferred pronouns. It is time that we start our own explicitly pro-white pro-male organizations, to the extent allowed by law, and prove our value in the free market. If we unshackle ourselves from political correctness we will once again dominate, financially and technologically.
I fear that in the real world, the protections around age and any other special category tend to make it more difficult for the "protected" people to get a job in the first place.
If 20 people apply and only one gets hired, it's hard for a person to make a lawsuit claiming he/she was rejected just for being in a category, so there's little down-side for not hiring the protected category person. But if the person is hired and doesn't work out for any reason, the company has to worry about a lawsuit for laying the person off. So there's no down-side for not-hiring and a possible bad down-side for hiring.
Thus my fear that these protections will tend to hurt the very people they were intended to help.
I don't think perfection is attainable. But IMHO the best possible situation would be if everyone had a level playing field (no protections for me because of my age, no protections for you because you are a minority or whatever, etc.) and just hire based on fit.
The history of Silicon Valley includes people with no obvious qualifications getting hired (back in the wilder early days) and going on to do fantastic work. The qualifications are not what makes a good worker, the person is. But the more red tape and danger surrounds firing someone, the more qualifications-oriented the hiring process becomes, as the companies strive to never hire someone who won't work out.
Companies like Google reject lots of excellent people, quite late in the hiring process. It's far better for them to reject lots of good people than to let even one bad person in. Again, I don't think perfection is possible, but I think giving more people a chance to prove themselves in the actual work would do a better job of finding the best people.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I also got a blacklist of idiots in the company that I defer to my colleagues.
On average, girls outperform boys at math across the globe, however, there are 2 times as many boys, as girls, among top scorers.
But there is more to it:
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-31751667
One would expect he "oh, it should be a social thing" to perish, after we have Scandinavian example, but nope, old lies are too close to chest, for some, to let them go.
We have been transitioning from the Information Age to the Age of the Narrative. An age where rationality, logic, facts are irrelevant.
The west has been invaded and taken over by the communist godless terrorist religion of political correctness and is too yellow to fight it off so it is enslaved unto extinction, like all other religious eugenic states.
What would be incredible is if the real author was a black muslim imigrant. And this guy was just a pawn waiting to see the backlash against a white male (im assuming) and then watch google backpedal the decision to fire the true author.
In allowing managers to keep blacklists of people who will not work with each other, Google has effectively introduced safe spaces into the work environment. Congrats Google!
Interesting to see that even Wired misrepresents his claims. He says women and men overlap in interests and abilities but that men are generally more interested in tech, so we should stop aiming for 50/50 outcomes. Wired says he "cited purported principles of evolutionary psychology to argue that women are unsuited to be good engineers because they are more interested in people than ideas". Saying "unsuited" wildly overstates what he claimed.
This is deliberate misrepresentation of the sort that his opponents have done from start to finish. For the first time, I understand what all the complaints about SJWs are about.
If you work long hours without the obvious (hours * rate) increase in pay, YOU ARE STUPID! You give up your life so someone else can profit. And you complain about those who don't play that game. I.e. you complain about the people who are NOT stupid!
Yes, I'm in tech, no, I do not work long hours and yes the company is thriving. I work for the time I'm paid and everyone else does too. And everyone gets proper vacations too.
You have been swindled and are actively participating in that swindle. Wake up.
Seriously, dude, I'm called out as an extreme lefty all the time and I read the guy's manifesto *and was not offended one bit*! However, I find the unreasoning and highly emotional reaction to his document to be offensive.
Instead of everyone going "Oh my God, how *dare* he say any of that?!", how about arguing against his claims?
I think it's perfectly possible to pick apart his reasons and counter his conclusions. That can and should be done calmly. It's not difficult. He makes too much of some small biological differences and ignores a lot of pressing cultural background. There's plenty to work with here.
The reaction of "This man is SATAN! BURN HIM!" has been so over the top that I'm questioning what sort of rabid mob I have fallen in with.
In short, people like YOU are making ME feel unsure of what liberalism is now and I think you should reflect on why you and people like you have scored such an own goal.
gweihir -- many DID read his paper. What lots of us dudes here miss is that when one of us leads with "women are more anxiety prone" it is interpreted as "women are disabled" and then we lose ability to engage a dialectic with other side. It's like trying to pickup a girl at a bar and saying "wow, you're the absolutely the most captivating woman here, but that outfit really doesn't work on your body." Both may be true, effort still FAILS. I *really* wanna change these people's minds to see our logic. Us dudes gotta walk in their shoes (heels?) for a moment to better understand what is setting them off, rational or not. Look at my other posts for some approaches that I posit. Rock on.
Yo ArmoredDragon -- I too agree entirely with the paper. However when the counterparty reads "women are more anxiety prone" they translate "women are disabled" or "women are inferior." There is a higher quality approach to arguing for our rational, logical, fact-based side on population talent and preference distribution. I respectfully ask that you look at my other posts here and at the first 1000+ commented article on a tactic that could better get our point across and our ideas into the heads of the backlashers. I really want to upgrade the rationality here and think many of us dudes are largely deaf to what is causing the chicks to go all "RHEEEEEEEE!" Pls forgive me not writing it here. I already wrote it a bunch of times and am taking up too many pixels already. Rock on my fellow honkey mofo. :]
de3 !
Pretty much everyone nowadays knows, from first-hand observation and endless second-hand stories, that women are paid MORE for the same work and have MORE opportunity for advancement. Only religious fundamentalists deny this commonplace fact of life in contemporary America.
Ah yes. That is certainly happening. Also, people read "neurotic" when what was actually there is "Neuroticism", something everybody has a score on. Also, these are all statistical scores, with large areas of overlap and that was stressed in the original text.
I do not think people that read a text like that can actually partake in this discussion in any meaningful way, as they are unable to see facts and degrees, to them everything is either black or white and often completely misunderstood as a consequence. As such, anything they contribute will make the situation worse. At Google, the situation seems to be pretty bad already, and apparently for this reason.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It is about time the hypocrisy of corporate America was exposed.
I'm a longtime Google manager. Here's what I wrote on an internal Google mailing list:
I thought conservatives where all about letting private companies do fuck all in hiring and firing.
Ok, unpopular opinion time:
I for one would love if we could all stop arguing about the details of he said/she said, and have an interesting discussion about the hard questions.
Adaptec - Indian CEO Subramanian Sundaresh fired.
AIG (signed outsourcing deal in 2007 in Europe with Accenture Indian frauds, collapsed in 2009)
AirBus (Qantas plane plunged 650 feet injuring passengers when its computer system written by India disengaged the auto-pilot).
Apple - R&D CLOSED in India in 2006.
Apple - Foreign guest worker "Helen" Hung Ma caused the disastrous MobileMe product rollout.
Australia's National Australia Bank (Outsourced jobs to India in 2007, nationwide ATM and account failure in late 2010).
Bell Labs (Arun Netravalli took over, closed, turned into a shopping mall)
Boeing Dreamliner ES software (written by HCL, banned by FAA)
Bristol-Myers-Squibb (Trade Secrets and documents stolen in U.S. by Indian national guest worker)
Caymas - Startup run by Indian CEO, French director of dev, Chinese tech lead. Closed after 5 years of sucking VC out of America.
ComAir crew system run by 100% Indian IT workers caused the 12/25/05 U.S. airport shutdown when they used a short int instead of a long int
Dell - call center (closed in India because Premji's conmen don't even know how to use telephones, let alone computers)
Delta call centers (closed in India because Premji's conmen don't even know how to use telephones, let alone computers)
Fannie Mae- Hired large numbers of Indians, had to be bailed out. Indian logic bomb creator found guilty.
GM - Was booming in 2006, signed $300 million outsourcing deal with Wipro that same year, went bankrupt 3 years later
HSBC ATMs (software taken over by Indians, failed in 2006)
Intel Whitefield processor project (cancelled, Indian staff canned)
Lehman (Spectramind software bought by Wipro, ruined, trashed by Indian programmers)
Microsoft - Employs over 35,000 H-1Bs. Stock used to be $100. Today it's lucky to be over $25. Not to mention that Vista thing.
Microsoft - Lian Yang, Microsoft-Contracted Engineer, Arrested in Smuggling Plot After Another FBI Sting in Portland in 2010
MIT Media Lab Asia (canceled)
PeopleSoft (Taken over by Indians in 2000, collapsed).
Qantas - See AirBus above
Quark (Alukah Kamar CEO, fired, lost 60% of its customers to Adobe because Indian-written QuarkExpress 6 was a failure)
Rolls Royce (Sent aircraft engine work to India in 2006, engines delayed for Boeing 787, and failed on at least 2 Quantas planes in 2010, cost Rolls $500m).
Skype ( Yarlagadda fired)
State of Indiana $867 billion FAILED IBM project, IBM being sued
State of Texas failed IBM project.
Sun Micro (Taken over by Indian and Chinese workers in 2001, collapsed, has to be sold off to Oracle).
United - call center (closed in India because Premji's conmen don't even know how to use telephones, let alone computers)
Virgin Atlantic (software written in India caused cloud IT failure)
Visium Asset Management - Sanjay Valvani Insider trading
World Bank (Indian fraudsters BANNED for 3 years because they stole data).
Casteism