Unsafe To Share
Further to the eye-widening James Damore saga of August last year, an update of possible interest:
James Damore, the Google engineer who was fired after arguing that the gender gap in tech may be partially explained by sex differences among men and women, just filed a class-action lawsuit against Google in the Santa Clara, Calif., Superior Court. Damore came to fame after he wrote the now-infamous “Google manifesto,” where he pointed out that “differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech.” Filed Monday morning, the class-action lawsuit argues that Google discriminates against white conservative men on the basis of their “male gender” and “Caucasian race,” further alleging that there is “open hostility for conservative thought” in the Google workplace…
The lawsuit also alleges that Google employees were awarded bonuses for arguing against Damore’s views. In one example of this, a female employee was awarded a bonus for speaking out against the “wretched hive of scum and villainy” allegedly represented by Damore’s memo. Email excerpts sent among Google employees after Damore’s memo went public also illustrated pervasive hostility towards conservatives. “I intend to silence these views; they are violently offensive,” wrote senior engineer Colm Buckley in a message to his co-workers. He also wrote to co-workers that there are certain political views “which I do not want people to feel safe to share.”
The details of the lawsuit can be read here and some of the allegations are worth perusing. For instance, those regarding the widespread and enthusiastic use of “shitlists” to exclude and punish employees deemed insufficiently enthused by identity politics; and the apparent indifference of Google’s managers and HR department to harassing, demeaning or racial rhetoric when the targets of such language were white. A phenomenon illustrated by a manager, Chris Busselle, urging white employees – described as “schmucky” and “cheesy” on account of their pallor – to decline invitations to attend conferences; and by another manager, Liz Fong-Jones, who openly professed, in writing, that she “could care less about being unfair to white men.” A view she subsequently described as “absolutely reasonable.”
Update:
For those so inclined, and via Chris, there’s a crowdfunding option to help out with legal expenses.
another manager, Liz Fong-Jones, who openly professed, in writing, that she “could care less about being unfair to white men.” A view she subsequently described as “absolutely reasonable.”
Said about any other group, she’d be fired immediately.
Said about any other group, she’d be fired immediately.
It would, I think, be a serious gaffe and career-jeopardising, rather than a credential, something to boast about, repeatedly and with impunity. Note that Ms Fong-Jones’ comments, which she doubled-down on, were not deemed controversial by her superiors or a basis for complaint. Indeed, the employee who complained about them was the one urged to be more “sensitive.”
If you’ve the time, it’s worth poking through the list of allegations and the various screengrabs, though it’s not a comforting experience. It’s a bit like peering into a creepy parallel universe, the identitarian left’s idea of a bureaucratic utopia. And it does, I think, reveal how “diversity” ideology translates in practice to double standards and nakedly racist sentiment, and a gleeful, almost competitive disdaining of the designated out-group, i.e., straight white males who aren’t overly beholden to the lies and psychodramas of identity politics.
Video of Mr Damore’s press conference regarding the lawsuit can be viewed here.
The details of the lawsuit can be read here and some of the allegations are worth perusing
I’ll say!
I’ll say!
I’m not familiar with the subtleties of California’s employment law, but when managers at a massive company openly boast of purging “toxic whiteness,” as if being white were inherently egregious, and of blacklisting and punishing employees whom they suspect of being ideologically impure – of voting for Trump, or of holding mainstream conservative views, or of simply harbouring reservations about certain “diversity” policies – and who boast of this, often in overtly racial terms, as if this were a credential, a way of advancing within the company – then the words unfair and illegal don’t seem wholly inappropriate.
One might also ask how derailed and dysfunctional a company has become when it gets to the stage of, in effect, denigrating around half of its own workforce in order to appease the pernicious racial dogma of “social justice” devotees.
Just reading it now…
85. Gudeman compared this document [about how men are always wrong if a woman complains about bias] to that which “slave owners would have written for their slaves to help them understand how to interact with their masters,” […]
Since “to google” has become a verb, perhaps “googley” ought to become an adjective? This lawsuit, and the googley behaviour being investigated by the federal government in respect to Harvard’s student selection process, will hopefully be the start of a major pushback (both across the pond and here) against blatantly illegal “reverse discrimination” practices. It’s been a long time coming.
Oh, it’s far worse then just not being a comforting experience. Read the allegations and then ruminate on the power that Google and its many subsidiaries hold in the modern world. Consider that these people seem to hate free speech and the very idea that anyone could hold opposing thoughts to what they deem ‘good’.
After reading a list of the allegations from a Twitter thread started by the law office bringing the suit for Damore I changed my mind from hoping he won, to wanting to see Google burned to the ground and salt scattered in its ashes.
Section 123 reads:
123. Google furnishes a large number of internal mailing lists catering to employees with alternative lifestyles, including furries, polygamy, transgenderism, and plurality, for the purpose of discussing sexual topics.
The word plurality is linked to the following footnote, which I confess I am struggling to comprehend.
After reading a list of the allegations… I changed my mind from hoping he won, to wanting to see Google burned to the ground and salt scattered in its ashes.
It’s interesting that Google’s own vanity and signalling of piety – its embrace of “diversity” dogma and all of the neurotic spite that goes with it – may prove to have inflicted the greatest damage to the company’s image.
catering to employees with alternative lifestyles, including furries… for the purpose of discussing sexual topics.
As Damore’s lawyer Harmeet Dhillon points out, Google’s shareholders may be wondering why the company is spending so much of its time and resources on “toxic whiteness” seminars and “discussing sexual topics,” while policing the private political views of its employees.
And note that, during the press conference video, at least two journalists don’t appear to have read the actual memo that started the saga, mouthing instead the wildly perverse construal favoured by much of the mainstream media.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I can’t help getting whiff of the “We fear the Dane; Let’s cough up the Danegeld” mindset when contemplating the atmosphere at Google. After all, the company was founded by men of pallor and brought to its current dominance by same. I sense a fear of being denounced as a bastion of white, male privilege, so they twist themselves into contortions to (competitively) demonstrate how “woke” they are–all for the purpose of avoiding having to defend themselves and their own dominance in the industry.
A lot of leftists loathe white people. This has been well documented by various people on twitter. White privilege is just a way of shutting up white people while mass immigration is being used as a tool to destroy white societies.
If current trends continue there will not be aa white nation on the earth in 50 years time.
…wanting to see Google burned to the ground and salt scattered in its ashes…
Yes, please, and take Faceplace with it. Regarding google and their supposed high-mindedness, I couldn’t help but notice this:
IOW, for the non-US&A folks here who may not know it, this means they are dodging the onerous California corporate taxes, which seems a tad hypocritical of them as they are not Paying Their Fair Share™.
@Farnsworth
The place of incorporation does not necessarily insulate one from taxes in the location[s] where one does business. Delaware is the most popular choice for business organization because its laws make it very easy to do so and I believe the costs of organization are minimal. Still, business entities are required to register and obtain authorization to do business in every state where they operate, though “operation” is subject to definition. Still, having a big-ass complex and a zillion employees in a particular place undoubtedly counts.
I’ve just spent an hour or so reading the lawsuit. What surprises me is that Google is doing so well, given the calibre of idiots it appears to employ.
“A lot of leftists loathe
whitepeople.”FTFY. Leftists are very big on “the people”, in the abstract (or some specific variation thereof; “the poor”, “the disadvantaged”, etc.) but their concern always seems to fall down when confronted with actual individual people. Which we saw so clearly in Google’s reaction to Damore “advocating for … treat[ing] people as individuals, not as just another member of their group”. That’s simply not something the Left, in its collectivism, can countenance.
New Google slogan: “Don’t be evil. Leave that to us.”
“Mandatory sensitivity training”
https://www.prageru.com/videos/what-happens-when-google-disagrees-you
Sr. Sherman,
I will defer to your legal expertise, and they may be enjoying California subsidies that some of the aerospace firms get, however, google appears, from reading Forbes/Fortune/etc., to have a large history, especially with overseas operations, of tax avoidance. Of course they are not the only ones doing this sort of thing, and from a business perspective, it makes perfectly good sense to use all legal means not to pay taxes, but it still doesn’t square with their overall leftist philosophies of soaking the “rich”.
“Mandatory sensitivity training”
Again, it’s like peering into a creepy parallel universe, in which views that are commonplace and unremarkable, and that are supported both by evidence and everyday experience, are deemed scandalous and unspeakable, and in which those who hold such views, even quietly, are deemed in need of shaming, shunning and punishment.
[ Added: ]
While poking through the examples in the lawsuit, what struck me was the readiness and glee with which managers and employees devised ways to exclude and punish any hint of WrongThought™, any suspected deviation from their own leftist pieties. There are emails and screengrabs showing managers boasting of creating blocklists or “shitlists” of any employees who’d at any time, anywhere, made statements that could be construed as “unsupportive of diversity” or simply “conservative.” Any employees added to such “shitlists” would as a result find themselves unable to work with or even contact the person or groups of people who’d blocked them, often automatically and based on hearsay, and would then be a target for attempts to sabotage promotion or contract renewal.
Since “to google” has become a verb, perhaps “googley” ought to become an adjective?
How about: To be harassed and bullied by leftists is to be “touched by his googley appendage”.
I sense a fear of being denounced as a bastion of white, male privilege, so they twist themselves into contortions…
Related:
http://takimag.com/article/the_brutality_of_the_resistance_david_cole#axzz53bmTzJu6
And:
https://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/insularity/
Divide and control, and as old Mo’ said, be made “victorious through terror.”
Farnsworth,
“Tax Avoidance” sounds so . . . dirty. I am reminded of the sage words of one of my tax professors at Mizzou back in the day about the two fundamental and most important rules of tax law:
Rule 1: When in doubt, deduct!
Tempered by
Rule 2: Don’t be a pig about it.
Anyway, as indicated, one may be subject to the tax laws of multiple jurisdictions, though the place of organization is generally irrelevant to that determination. A certificate of business organization, i.e. corporation, L.L.C., limited partnership, etc., is analogous to a birth certificate. It’s not where you’re born that counts. It’s where you make your money. It get’s complicated, but there are all sorts of rules regarding credits and so forth that ameliorate the problem of being taxed on the same dollar of income multiple times by different entities.
What surprises me is that Google is doing so well, given the calibre of idiots it appears to employ.
Such things used to surprise me. Until I worked at NASA with a few “rocket scientists”. And elsewhere with PhD’s and lawyer types and the few, very few, Ivy Leaguers that I have met (like two). My theory (and I’m guessing I’m not alone but since I’ve never seen anyone else express it, well dammit it’s MY theory) is that many “smart” people are only “smart” because they have lived very sheltered lives. They haven’t had to waste brain cycles analyzing or prepping for various potential physical threats, nor had their ideas threatened by other ideas outside the denomination of The Narrative that they were raised in. And they’ve had plenty of resources to fall back on if they fail. Likely that they were not raised very close to the survival line, such that failure was a viable option. Failure is a very good teacher, up until the point that hubris eventually kicks in. And then you get Google.
Hey, it’s a theory. Obviously still needs a bit of polishing.
They haven’t had to waste brain cycles analyzing or prepping for various potential physical threats, nor had their ideas threatened by other ideas outside the denomination of The Narrative that they were raised in. And they’ve had plenty of resources to fall back on if they fail.
Yup.
There is an insularity among the “elite” which prevents them from seeing how truly fragile their/our existence really is.
I look forward to the social justice warrior lawyers arguing in court that name calling and putting people on shitlists really doesn’t cause any harm.
I also look forward to the make up of the legal team that will be constructed on social justice principles and not on merit.
what struck me was the readiness and glee with which managers and employees devised ways to exclude and punish any hint of WrongThought™… Any employees added to such “shitlists”… would then be a target for attempts to sabotage promotion or contract renewal.
Looks like SJWs are just really awful people.
California, unlike many states, has a law which makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate on the basis of political views. It was adopted in the 1930’s, largely to protect the Left.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=1101
No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy:
…
(b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.
What a lovely application of Alinsky’s advice to “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
I note while Google regarded Damore and other white males as utterly unworthy, their advocacy of other ‘plural’ individuals, eg: a Google employee who sexually identifies as a “yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin” and “an expansive ornate building”
Looks like SJWs are just really awful people.
It is, I think, often the case. And I suppose you have to wonder what kind of person spends so much time and effort – work time, presumably – plotting the exclusion and shaming, or career ruin, of other employees, including people they’ve never met, based on rumours that those people aren’t sufficiently keen on double standards or racial favouritism.
Google has achieved some technical quasi-monopolies, and that buffers them from the full brunt of the marketplace.
But such a toxic culture must hurt their competitiveness. When one feels unwelcome, one tends to go elsewhere, those with talent especially so. Even those who are Designated Victims must find such an environment uncomfortable. If the company allows harassment of white males, how do you know that Asian females might one day be the target? A corporate culture based on anything except merit feels pernicious, and damages productivity.
The good news is that even Google will not maintain its dominant position forever. No technical company does. And their decline might inject some reality into their culture.
“I look forward to the social justice warrior lawyers arguing in court that name calling and putting people on shitlists really doesn’t cause any harm.”
Oh, yes. I really hope they don’t settle out of court, because a hearing will be hugely entertaining.
“The good news is that even Google will not maintain its dominant position forever. No technical company does.”
For various reasons, including but not limited to this suit, I predict that this is the year Google’s downfall begins. It won’t happen overnight by any means, but when the final history is written, 2018 will be The Year It All Started to Go Wrong (unless you backdate it to Damore’s firing). Mark my words.
I predict that this is the year Google’s downfall begins.
I just hope YouTube either gets new management or a decent competitor appears. I’ve looked at a few other video-hosting sites, but none are as intuitive as YT, nor do they appear to have the kinds of videos in which I am interested (DIY woodworking mostly).
I changed my mind from hoping he won, to wanting to see Google burned to the ground and salt scattered in its ashes.
I’ve been of a “burn Google to the ground” mind for at least a decade, and have avoided using any of their services if at all possible. I was furious when they bought YouTube, and I really wish there were a viable competitor. Microsoft may be shit about security and snooping, but Google is infinitely worse. They make the NSA look like amateurs. (Well, most times the NSA makes themselves look like amateurs.)
What surprises me is that Google is doing so well, given the calibre of idiots it appears to employ.
I believe this observation confuses cause and effect. The SJW crowd doesn’t found and foster successful organizations; rather, it finds successful organizations with enough resources to support a few Angry Studies majors, and then inexorably hollows out the organization until it collapses under the weight of so much deadwood. We’re just fortunate that we’re alive to see the collapse happening in tech, media, and the universities all at the same time.
Like Sam and others, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google suffer in the next few years, especially if a couple of juicy sexual harassment suits come to light to add fuel to the fire. We’ll have to see what sprouts up to take its place, and how long it takes the new organization to be co-opted and suffer the same fate.
Perhaps, as the education bubble bursts and the traditional universities collapse, a business school will pop up that teaches entrepreneurs the danger of letting SJWs infiltrate their companies.
“What surprises me is that Google is doing so well, given the calibre of idiots it appears to employ.”
The great (or maybe not-so-great) thing about automation is that you can accomplish so much with so few (competent) people. After the coming robotocalypse, corporations will pay much higher taxes if not employing X employees per Y millions of dollars in revenue.
Which of course means all kinds of phoney-baloney, low-paid, mind-numbing jobs will be created.
But maybe ClimateChange™ will get us first, saving us all from such misery.
the danger of letting SJWs infiltrate their companies
Letting leftists do anything more consequential than clean floors is dangerous.
“Don’t be evil” is apparently situational.
Google may be neck deep in ‘social’ ‘justice’ ‘principles’ but you can be d—-d sure they’re going to use lawyers selected for merit & capability first & foremost.
The SJW crowd doesn’t found and foster successful organizations; rather, it finds successful organizations with enough resources to support a few Angry Studies majors, and then inexorably hollows out the organization until it collapses under the weight of so much deadwood.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/664089892599631872
Hmmm, that didn’t work. This is what that link is supposed to be:
Remember how we predict that when the college-age snowflakes get into the real world they’ll get their comeuppance?
Looks like they DON’T. Instead, they transform a place into Mean Girls writ large.
It doesn’t look like there are enough adults in Google management to read the riot act to the smug bullies and blacklisters.
They also appear to provide entirely too many “social media” forums for employees to interact, which I’ll warrant is where the SJWs got the idea that they were strong enough and righteous enough to deliver smackdowns to the untermenschen.
My company’s HQ is just down the road from Google’s, but we don’t have online socialization forums wherein we’re encouraged to talk about non-work-related issues. God help me if we ever do.
Remember how we predict that when the college-age snowflakes get into the real world…Looks like they DON’T.
Yes, but working for google, Facespace, or any of those other idiots isn’t exactly the real world…
The great (or maybe not-so-great) thing about automation is that you can accomplish so much with so few (competent) people.
What tends to get forgotten is that Google only has one product: AdSense (the context-sensitive ad displays on web pages and all their apps). That’s the only thing that brings in money; everything else is essentially an R&D project. That one product brings in such a firehose of cash, though, that they can afford to float a very, very large enterprise full of failed experiments and useless staff.
A number of my former university colleagues have gone on to work for Google, Amazon and Facebook. To put it charitably, those places are f*cking looney-tunes. There’s a small cadre of technically brilliant people who built the core technology, and a huge mass of hangers-on who are varying levels of competent and deranged.
Yes, but working for google, Facespace, or any of those other idiots isn’t exactly the real world…
Referring to their own headquarters as a campus now seems oddly significant.
“they transform a place into Mean Girls writ large”
.
If I were a major shareholder in, or owner or boss of, such a company I’d be looking to make enormous savings on staffing costs. At the very least I’d look into what proportion of these anguished screeds irrelevant to the business are posted during working hours, and make salary adjustments accordingly, followed by a cull of the worst offenders. (I do know that I sound hopelessly out of touch with the modern workplace, but still think that sanity and reason are on my side.)
Via Iowahawk, a business in North Carolina which seems to have navigated these waters pretty well. Google could a learn something methinks. (By all means, stay for the end.)
Referring to their own headquarters as a campus now seems oddly significant.
A bit of history: that predates Google by a fair bit. A campus proper is any collection of buildings and lands that are part of a common institution; the “IBM Campus” dates back to the 70’s.
That said.
Microsoft originated, and subsequent tech companies aped, the practice of making their work environments as much like university as possible. They did this because university students are accustomed to working in poorly equipped offices for long hours, subsisting on vending machine food, producing brilliant work and loving every minute of it. Several companies go so far as to have “mini-malls” with subsidized medical, hairdressing, and laundry services on site so the employees don’t leave work to go to these things.
Part of this is internal electronic fora on topics that are completely unrelated to work, just like a university community has. They used to be USENET newsgroups (which should give you an idea how long this practice has been going on) and now they’re web fora.
So it’s not an accident or serendipity that the corporate culture at these places so resembles the Clown Quarter of Academia. It’s by design.
Google must be wonderfully successful if they can generate enough cash to pay 80,000 people and still support all of those freeloaders. Imagine their margins if they could dump the deadwood. One wonders how many employees they actually NEED as opposed to how many employees they HAVE.