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by omegaworks 1979 days ago
Google employees walked out to protest the golden parachute offered to two serial sexual harassers on their executive team and the conditions that allowed people like them to rise consequence-free through the ranks at the company.

That you believe it's a "fit" thrown for causes that "don't connect with the average person" is reflecting pretty poorly on your priorities. Nobody wants to believe your boss is skipping over you for promotions because you rejected their sexual advances.
1 comments
kortilla 1979 days ago
The most recent drama was about a researcher having her quitting ultimatum called by a manager. It wasn’t anything to do with sexual harassment or anything about underpaid or unsafe workplaces.
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dragonwriter 1979 days ago
> The most recent drama was about a researcher having her quitting ultimatum called by a manager.

No, it wasn’t. Even to the extent that might be considered a superficially correct description of part of what happened, its not the center of the “drama”, which is more centrally about the treatment which led up to that.

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kortilla 1979 days ago
But that’s the point. The “treatment leading up to that” was a mid 6 figure income and nearly free reign to do research in her field of interest. Not relatable to most of the lower or middle class in the US.
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dragonwriter 1979 days ago
> The “treatment leading up to that” was a mid 6 figure income and nearly free reign to do research in her field of interest.

No, the proximately preceding treatment was restrictions on her research that were inconsistent with those imposed on other Google AI researchers (the extent to which that is due to its subject matter, the extent to which it is due to her internal advocacy on gender and race issues, and the extent to which it is due to her own race and sex is unclear.)

> Not relatable to most of the lower or middle class in the US.

Being singled out for adverse treatment either for raising issues related to gender or race equity or for one’s gender or race are, actually, quite relatable to lots of the lower and middle class in the US, certainly including those in that group who are also black and/or women.

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kortilla 1979 days ago
It being about her gender was heavily disputed even inside of Google. The only thing that can be agreed on was that her research publication was restricted by Jeff Dean and co.

The fact that there isn’t really any direct evidence of gender bias in this case is why this is so unrelatable.

A likely millionaire being asked to defer a last minute publication is not even something that would register as an annoyance to the huge portion of the US workforce that doesn’t give two shits about their job.

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omegaworks 1979 days ago
Google has a white supremacy problem. The James Damore incident was a highly public display of that internal tension. It's a sign they have made little progress resolving it with the firing of Timnit Gebru, an eminently qualified data scientist that focused her work on that exact issue.

A union is not just about how "highly paid" employees are, it can help protect employees from those kinds of institutional deficiencies.

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tenpies 1979 days ago
And this is the problem with the Google Union. The ideologies already commanding way too much of the discussion are going to be hyper-empowered by the union.

By 2025 I imagine that if you Google "conservative" you'll instantly have all your Google Services wiped, get banned from the platform, and be reported to the Progressive Thought Technology Alliance Union, so that Twitter and AWS can do the same to you.

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