zlacker

>>tech-h+(OP)
There are two narratives:

1. These people are rabble-rousers who will never be happy and are disrupting the work environment at Google.

2. These people are highlighting legitimate problems within the company and are trying to enact positive change.

Take your pick. But be aware of both narratives. And be aware that neither of them is unreasonable.

>>leftyt+dn
1. is a bit presumptuous though if you’re going to jump to the conclusion that they’ll never be happy and that this would be a continuous issue after the enacted change that they were protesting for. It’s a rather baseless assumption if the only thing to go off of was an organized protest with well-defined ethical motivations. Unless there’s evidence of rabble rousing intention, it seems that 1. is unreasonable.

With that said, I have not followed this closely. For all I know, that evidence does exist and/or Google leadership has chosen not make said evidence publicly available.

>>nvrspy+4t
People who tend toward 1. would say that Google has bent over backwards to accomodate protesters and has acceded to their demands multiple times, e.g. canceling their project in China and dropping their contract with the US military.

Seems reasonable to me.

>>leftyt+hu
That’s a very good point. As I mentioned in my previous comment, I haven’t followed the situation (or other Google situations like the ones you mentioned) closely. However, I feel a just-as-reasonable explanation is that Google did those things to save face because if they truly felt those were the right things to do, there would be no retaliation and there would be an implicit agreement that the intention was morally motivated and not intended rabble-rousery.

On the other hand if the situations you mentioned are unrelated to the Women’s March, which it seems they are, then I really don’t see them as being relevant to whether or not the people in question were rabble rousers. Protestors are not a constant set of people and each protest and the organizers of said protest have to be looked at individually, at least in terms of determining whether 1. or 2. is most reasonable.

Otherwise, it’s a broad generalization of “protestors”, which would inadvertently make 2. the more reasonable narrative as well because 1. would be moot to the specifics of the particular situation.

>>nvrspy+Rw
> Google did those things to save face

Companies don't have thoughts or emotions. A company's actions are a result of the individuals that make it up. When you see controversy like the China thing or military contracts, that's just how decisions get made in big companies. Someone wants to get money from the military. Some other people don't. They discuss it and the company makes a decision by individuals taking action. People inside Google that wanted to do military contracts heard the counterarguments and didn't carry on. That's all.

Maybe Larry Page thought "hey, this is bad for our brand" and fired all in charge. But that seems very unlikely. What seems likely to me is that the people that wanted to do the project heard the controversy and decided on their own that it wasn't a good idea.

As the company gets bigger, there are certainly more and more of these controversies. It does get hard to manage when you feel personally responsible for what others have done and your voice is not heard. That is why people are leaving.

>>jrockw+DV
"Companies don't have thoughts or emotions."

This statement alone should be enough to reverse Citizens United vs FEC.