My Own Worst Enemy - Massive culture clashes within Google reportedly destroying it from within

[Arika]

22 minutes ago, cj09beira said:

"Google's openness to dissent " considering the whole demore incident they don't seem to be open at all, they have that policy but its just the skeleton of a deadman.

and the outright ban of the "Dissenter" plugin, dissent is literally in the name

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, comander said:

People going into the army are generally more accepting of the idea of hierarchies. 

If that's true then it's a good thing, because they wouldn't last a day otherwise.

1 hour ago, comander said:

Many people are anti hierarchy, or at the very least want society to be organized more like ants. 

 

Many people just don't understand the basic nature of humanity.  They can pretend hierarchies are not necessary and run from them as much as they want, but only ants can be ant like,  humans just lack the capacity to get anything done without a captain and deck hands.

[Tellos]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

If that's true then it's a good thing, because they wouldn't last a day otherwise.

 

Many people just don't understand the basic nature of humanity.  They can pretend hierarchies are not necessary and run from them as much as they want, but only ants can be ant like,  humans just lack the capacity to get anything done without a captain and deck hands.

True to get larger projects done eventually decisions have to be made and groups can struggle. If nobody can have final say and votes end badly you end up with no progress.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

 

 

Let them fight.  Is there anything we can do to help destroy the company?

[Thaldor]

Company rules #1: "Opinions about sexuality, politics, world and things that are far above your paygrade are like penises; it's nice that you have one, but keep your pants on."

 

"But that's oppression!" No, it's just damage control and probably at Alphabet they are learning this the hard way. Encouraging people to talk about politics and other flammable topics at workplace is like asking civil war, it would probably be workable within some small very tight company where everyone has more or less same opinions, but big companies, no chance it could work.

[Doobeedoo]

Google and social haha, talking about politics lulz. 

[matrix07012]

My hypothesis is that Google slowly started going to shit when they started hiring people with degrees other than STEM. 

[RejZoR]

James Damore already shoved us how fucked up, cultist, Google is inside. That's when I ditched it and completed ditching of all Google services afterwards. So, tell us something new we don't know...

[Guest]

On 8/15/2019 at 6:46 AM, colonel_mortis said:

I'm curious about which rivals you're referring to here. Off the top of my head, I'm struggling to come up with many companies that Google could be considered to be trying to catch up with, and none that I would consider ethically questionable. 

Amazon and Apple (through Foxxcon) have both had their interesting stories. 

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

On 8/14/2019 at 2:06 PM, Kierax said:

I am curious are you running Firefox or some other browser? 

Yes, and I would very strongly advocate using it instead of Chrome if you actually give a shit about personal privacy and the increasing reliance the internet has on the deplorable advertising networks. People bitch and whine so much about stuff like the Snowden Leaks, and what PC browser they are using? Chrome. What mobile ecosystem they are using? Android. I can go on for weeks, but I think most get the bigger picture in regards to the sheer arrogance, shortsightedness, and willing hypocrisy surrounding the topic of computer security. At the end of the day, so long as you are using ONE product or service from Google/Alphabet, any sense of privacy you may have is completely fictional; you have willingly surrendered to Big Data, as have I in regards to the video-sharing monopoly of YouTube.

 

"All AV's are bad, please disable Windows Defender and use just common sense" Quoted from everyone who have zero clue about security layering or redundancy, or even the recent advancements in malware and social engineering.

 

I set and enforce the strictest adblocking rules on uBlock Origin and router configs because of the increasing pettiness and brazenness of the networks (including AdSense), and the YouTubers like Linus paint people like me as bad people... LMFAO the irony in that continues to amaze me.

22 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

Pointing out the complete hypocrisy of his belief system.

 

A TL:DR would be: Another ignorant ideologue with no actual education on the world we live in.

 

 

Hypocrisy where, exactly? He shot your silly argument down and smashed it to a million pieces. Not the best retort to use when it can be turned against you.

 

The TLDR statement there is simply too full of chauvinistic ignorance for me to even bother responding to; everybody can already see straight through that smoke and mirrors.

[CarlBar]

18 hours ago, mr moose said:

Many people just don't understand the basic nature of humanity.  They can pretend hierarchies are not necessary and run from them as much as they want, but only ants can be ant like,  humans just lack the capacity to get anything done without a captain and deck hands.

 

And yet  if you loom at many industries, (most recent i saw an article on was pharmacology), small companies with more internal freedom tend to be the one that come up with and/or push new discoveries..

 

The problem with large hierarchies is that either they answer to a lot of people so they tend to stick to the safest possibble options, or they are controlled by someone or a group of someones who mostly answer to nobody and end up pursuing personal projects and aggenda's until they get something wrong, refuse to see it, and inevitably self destruct. So whilst it;s true humanity does not function well as complete freeformers, we also don't produce our bst work when locked into highly regimented order. You have to find a balance.

 

Ironically this kind of internal infighting is the one thing he ye old  cyberpunk dystopian megacorp fiction genre never really saw coming. The treated their hypothetical megacorps as if they where nation states in terms of power, but they never had the internal issues that come wit that. Not that i'd say Google is anywhere close to the old fictional megacorp, but it's interesting to contrast the reality of one of the largest and most influential companies on the planet with what certain people thought would eventually happen.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

And yet  if you loom at many industries, (most recent i saw an article on was pharmacology), small companies with more internal freedom tend to be the one that come up with and/or push new discoveries..

 

There is a difference between encouraging creative input in a field that benefits from more input,  and trying to give everyone the same level of control over direction and decision making.

 

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The problem with large hierarchies is that either they answer to a lot of people so they tend to stick to the safest possibble options, or they are controlled by someone or a group of someones who mostly answer to nobody and end up pursuing personal projects and aggenda's until they get something wrong, refuse to see it, and inevitably self destruct. So whilst it;s true humanity does not function well as complete freeformers, we also don't produce our bst work when locked into highly regimented order. You have to find a balance.

 

It really depends on what you define as "best work",  creative artwork or thinking outside the box? maybe, but even that requires hierarchies of control in order for it to be viable. A Pharmaceutical company is still a highly hierarchical structure without which independent thought on product research would not exist.

 

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Ironically this kind of internal infighting is the one thing he ye old  cyberpunk dystopian megacorp fiction genre never really saw coming. The treated their hypothetical megacorps as if they where nation states in terms of power, but they never had the internal issues that come wit that. Not that i'd say Google is anywhere close to the old fictional megacorp, but it's interesting to contrast the reality of one of the largest and most influential companies on the planet with what certain people thought would eventually happen.

 

If you are talking about companies in a position to control market and influence decision making then google isn't even a drop in the ocean.  Facebook would have a significantly larger effect on social attitude,  Media giants like timewarner and newscorp would have far more as well.  Most people only google what the see on facebook and the news (if they aren't happy with the information they have already received).  People largely are not critical thinkers who run of to fact check what they see or hear.

 

 

[Ithanul]

On 8/14/2019 at 3:35 PM, mr moose said:

Dear Google, any successful group of people is a hierarchy, not a round table. 

 

People are always too different to be able to have equal say in anything and expect the whole to move forward.  This is why you only have one CEO, one president or prime minister, one king or queen  and one chairperson.   If you don't believe me ask yourself why any army has a very rigid and well enforced hierarchy of control.

As our saying in the military:  too many chiefs, not enough indians.

This saying that I have heard in many different military and gov career fields, when too many folks want to be in control and causes conflict within a shop.  Of course, upper leaders keep an open door policy to hear any concerns of troops below them and to address said issues.  But, the leader does have final say in any matters.

[Otto_iii]

I think this forum is not supposed to be politics but i have close family that works at google so i'd say this without getting into anything, hopefully.  Its my own take not their own.

A close family member who works there seems fairly normal, relatively, regular CNN watching city dweller, world traveller (on account of google), and its not hard to talk to them at all even if we differ much, maybe close relation lean some sway for me there as i am often but not always a fairly different viewpoint.  They say in their own words they have some fairly loud people in the company they work with all over who have very different viewpoints, on a day to day basis this isn't a issue, some of these people who would likely be called "suppressed" in the media actually being louder then anybody, nobody takes issue with this professionally in day to day matters, however.  What is more scary with google is that if a more moderate point is brought up that runs counter to social narrative, in say a internal document, then people all sway one way, it is in that sense the internal architecture of the company starts seeming more autocratic then democratic and ruthlessly so.  Its not that people with differing viewpoints cannot live day to day at the company, even being expressive to some degree, its that a actual genuine discussion cannot be easily had in regards to serious matters, such as uploading a viewpoint for critique and internal discussion, in such a case you will often get blasted if its not following the correct narrative. 

Just being a load and outspoken person of any type is feasible at Google, but trying to be moderate but counter mainstream narrative, even if for the best, isn't often allowed even if it should hopefully be the type of thing that would open up real discussion. 
 

On 8/14/2019 at 2:10 PM, Kamina said:

It's not just Google, it's happening across Silicon Valley.

 

Top Tip:  Its pretty much anywhere in the tech industry, the people working at DuckDuckGo are very similar even if they all live far from Cali and their mission seems opposite to that of what Google has become.  Its all high ranking university grads and currently universities lack political diversity worse then ever, and compounding this people are all more sensitive then they've been in ages.  Most people if anything want to think less about politics, if you had good friends, good teachers, and everybody already agreed to certain narratives its seen as best by most people to just play along, at heart they'ed rather just not be involved.