Google Doesn't Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-23/google-doesn-t-want-employees-debating-politics-at-work-anymore <comment><USER6> I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people.

There were definitely groups meant for discussing politics, and loudmouths like me willingly participated in those - however, it was very uncivil. There was a majority view in the company, and if anyone didn't agree with the majority view, the majority engaged in heckling, ridicule, etc. It was already becoming an echo chamber, and as the majority grew, their tactics grew more petty and vicious. However, this was expected in the politics groups, and you knowingly entered that fray.

What seems to be happening a lot lately is that politics are spilling over into large, global mailing lists which target a whole geographic region, so many people get involved, and when a company has 200k employees and contractors, you will find some outliers in there who will pick nasty fights.

It only makes sense that they're cutting down on something that has turned toxic. It's a bit disappointing to hear, since I personally enjoyed the occasional, honest discussion with smart people of other viewpoints - <USER3> good discussions made the much larger number of ridiculous ones, bearable.

<comment><USER7> _I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people._

It sounds like the work culture at Google has rediscovered the emergent factors which gave rise to the traditional cultural strictures against talking about money, politics, and religion.

Good science is repeatable. Given that Google is arguably an intellectually friendly environment, where more people than average understand how to talk in ways that get closer to truth, the inadvertent experiment conducted by Google over the past 15 years or so should hold a lot of weight.

 _It only makes sense that they 're cutting down on something that has turned toxic. It's a bit disappointing to hear, since I personally enjoyed the occasional, honest discussion with smart people of other viewpoints - <USER3> good discussions made the much larger number of ridiculous ones, bearable._

It sounds like the overall cost-benefit tradeoff supports Google corporate's decision. (There were externalities beyond the discussions themselves.)

<comment><USER8> I remember the Founder's Letter included with Google's IPO in 2004 - "Google is not a traditional company. We do not intend to become one." It looks like they became one.

The other interesting takeaway for me is how _long-term equilibria can leave holes that may be exploited by short-term-focused actors_. When Google was young, it's say-anything culture was a big competitive advantage: it let them hire people who were nearly unhireable elsewhere because they were too free with their opinions or too difficult to work with, and it let people be more open about their emotions, which is a prerequisite for creativity. Many of these people were immensely productive, building key systems. But as Google grew, this same culture would've led to the destruction of the company, so eventually management is forced to clamp down on it. Not before making the founders and many employees fabulously wealthy and reshaping the industry, though.

<comment><USER9> Every company becomes a "traditional" company because only traditional companies have survived. If alternative structures worked well then we would've seen them by now.

Also I'm willing to be that a startup's lack of bureaucracy and momentum lets it experiment and move faster rather than just a carefree internal attitude. I've been in midsize companies on both sides of the free-culture spectrum and have never noticed any major difference in talent or capabilities.

<comment><USER10> > If alternative structures worked well then we would've seen them by now

Well let's not go this far. Human civilization has existed for a tiny portion of time, modern civilization even less so. There's PLENTY of time for better structures to be discovered.

<comment><USER11> Within current historical and cultural context, legal and technology frameworks etc the dataset is big enough to give some confidence that better structures won't be found tomorrow or in the next 5 years.

<comment><USER12> Somebody probably said that just before an innovation is made. Many times.

<comment><USER13> For every time someone said it and was wrong, I bet there were a hundred times someone said it and was right.

<comment><USER14> Come on, this isn't a pissing contest. You can both sit down and relax without arguing through such subjective and unsubstantiated opinions.

<comment><USER13> It's not a pissing contest; it's a misunderstanding of giving equal weight to two incredibly different probabilities. When Fox News says it's important to have a discussion about climate change and give 50% time to those for and against it, they are conveniently ignoring that 98% of scientists believe in climate change and 2% don't. But they are essentially saying both viewpoints are equally important, even though one is widely accepted to be true by the scientific community.

Yes, it's certainly possible that thinking different (or being contrarian, or stubborn, or creative, or whatever you want to call it) will lead to something great! It is also extremely unlikely unless you are in a brand new field such as quantum physics 100 years ago that whatever idea you had has already been considered by countless people before you and you are not special.

The reason most startups fail is more than just bad execution. It's because most startups weren't meant to exist because they just don't solve a problem people are willing to pay enough to make the company a profit. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try it if you really think you're onto something - but you should be aware the odds are wildly against you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is pretty strange to me. I've worked in a bunch of very different places, including Intel Corp. and also defense contractors and US government installations, and people generally stayed away from political discussions unless they were around people they already knew were like-minded. The only place I saw political discussion turn really sour was at Intel when we had a contractor who was extremely religious and conservative, and would talk publicly about how homosexuals "offended" him, etc. We ended up not renewing his contract because he was toxic.

At government places, political discussions were generally avoided. The Hatch Act might have something to do with that (it's illegal to campaign for any political candidate at a Federal workplace), but mostly I think people just had good common sense. They did talk a little among themselves in the run-up to the election, but it was in-person, with a buddy, not meant to be a public discussion.

What's really shocking to me here is this revelation that there's actually "global mailing lists" within the company where political talk is happening. This, I cannot imagine ever seeing at any of my prior employers, ever. I honestly can't imagine why any company would tolerate such a use of its equipment this way. It's just a recipe for trouble.

<comment><USER16> Many of my teammates are immigrants. Visa related uncertainty and progress are major parts of their lives. The H1-B renewal lottery colors all future plans. Finally getting a green card is like having a child or buying a house. When the President tweets about blowing up NAFTA, my colleagues on TN-1s can no longer be sure which country they'll live in six months from now. We tried to go for drinks and couldn't get into the bar: my work friend's driver license is expired and she can't get a new one while her visa application is in a queue somewhere at DHS.

If we know each other _at all_ as people, immigration policy certainly comes up.

<comment><USER17> >Many of my teammates are immigrants. Visa related uncertainty and progress are major parts of their lives. The H1-B renewal lottery colors all future plans. Finally getting a green card is like having a child or buying a house.

Getting a Green Card shouldn't be _that_ easy for H1B holders. An H1B visa is a temporary visa and in that time they should be transferring skill knowledge to American replacements.

<comment><USER18> sure buddy. and all the brains the US is importing every year are also just for knowledge transfer.

<comment><USER17> Of course I agree with your sarcasm that it's more likely about population replacement and wage reduction, but I'm just saying the public political justification we were given for H1B was supposedly to temporarily cover our skills gap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article makes it seem like debating politics is a good practices in workplace. It is NOT!

Talking politics in workplace is not professional - different political opinions can wreck marriages, it can certainly wreck your job too! Just think about what if your boss is having a completely different political opinions than what you belief.

Also any major corporations leaning one side of the political party would immediately alienate the other half the political spectrum and may risk losing businesses who believe in the opposition political parties.

<comment><USER20> In the EU, freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion is considered a fundamental right, and is mentioned as such in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Private conversations about politics thus is entirely outside the scope of what the company is allowed to care about. Public comments, for example on global email lists, would be a different topic.

<comment><USER21> Political opinion is a very strange protected class, and protection of it seems unenforceable to me.

<comment><USER22> No stranger than religion, when you think about it. Both are completely arbitrary (a personal choice), people get very emotional and defensive about them, and they seem irrational if you don't share the beliefs.

<comment><USER23> Conviction is a better word than choice. People don't have a choice if a god exists or if rent control works as intended.

They have convictions and these things are either true or false at the end of the day. It's not purely a matter of preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is an eye opener.

> [Google] employees discussed at length [on internal message boards] whether > Trump's win meant it's time for a violent revolution. "How do people cope > with this?" one employee wrote. "I've never been part of a military or war > effort before. … I don't know how useful I'll be."

It's about time Google tells people to take their political revolution talk somewhere else other than company internal discussion boards!

[https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits- james...](https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james- damores-lawsuit-googles-office-environment/)

<comment><USER25> People are rabidly dismissive of the project veritas expose, but articles with quotes like this repeteadly show pervasive bias among Google staff which aligns exactly with the accusations and candid management recordings within the video [1]. The video is admittedly obnoxious and overly dramatic, but the candid clips with exec Jen Gennai strongly suggest that these political biases are leaking into technical work with an intended effect on society.

1.[https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows- whis...](https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whistle-exec- reveals-google-plan-to-prevent-trump-situation-in-2020-on-hidden-cam/)

<comment><USER26> People are rabidly dismissive of Project Veritas and another one of their "exposures" because of their attempts to "make evidence" by tricking people into admitting something, cherrypicking what "evidence" they do display, and having a "answer first, evidence second" mindset to their operation.

If you want to show that Google has "bias against conservatives" or whatever, get it from a reputable source instead of the garbage heap that is Project Veritas.

<comment><USER27> I've seen some of their videos. They seem fairly damning, and rebuttals have always been fairly weak. For example, a google exec was captured on video saying: "smaller companies don't have the resources" to "prevent next Trump situation". In what context does that statement not amount to silencing conservative perspective on their platform? I completely agree it is their right to do so, and probably benefits the nation, but pretending they aren't doing it is terrible optics.

<comment><USER28> Oftentimes the people they say are "executives" are just rank and file employees. I have a friend who is not an executive who got tricked into meeting with a Project Veritas scumbag. Thankfully they realized something was up and left the meeting.

<comment><USER27> That's a good point. In general I'd say outing a rank-and-file employee is bad form. There are exceptions of course, like if the employee's revealed behavior is at par with Edward Snowden. The only example I have is the Gennai one, which is what I'm referring to above. I'd love more examples of Project Veritas behaving badly

<comment><USER27> Note: not implying Gen Gennai's behavior was Snowden tier

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think they just overestimated the ability of their employees to respect each other when they hold differing world views. That's kinda natural once you reach a certain size and your colleagues may as well be randos on the street.

To be fair, that's a learning most businesses stumbled upon decades ago, it's the new generation of "re-invent management" companies that are speedrunning HR policy.

<comment><USER30> I think they overestimated just how willing certain people are to not do their jobs and sit around arguing while being paid.

<comment><USER31> If timewasting was the problem, wouldn't they be clamping down on _all_ unproductive conversation, not merely the political?

I mean, wasting 10 minutes is wasting 10 minutes, whether I'm talking about politics or football or TV.

<comment><USER32> But one is just unproductive (you being idle) the other one is counterproductive (you upset others and divert their attention) and multiply the counter-productivity.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, I've met people with views so different from mine that our professional relationship was at stake.

Once it was a woman who seriously thought white men needed to be excluded from things to make up for all the time they oppressed everyone else. It was like socially-acceptable maliciousness.

When you talk politics, you risk having people reveal extreme views that really accomplish nothing but put a wedge in an environment what's supposed to be collaborative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Ever since the infamous "diversity memo," (which I disagree with,) I've gotten the impression that political discussions at Google turned toxic.

A well run company includes people with diverse political views points. A workplace that's hostile to anyone who leans right or leans left ultimately hurts diversity.

<comment><USER35> Most of the memo was citations of studies of sex differences. People can either agree with the studies or disagree with the research used (it's totally cool with me if you do disagree with the research), but the idea that someone should be punished for talking about research at a company that extols "data driven decision making" as one of it's principles baffles me.

<comment><USER34> The memo made some very poignant points, but then the author expressed some strange opinions that I would never attempt to defend.

(Even worse, there was no reason to put some of these opinions in the memo.)

But what's more scary is Google's official response to the diversity memo. (For context, Google instituted certain hiring policies to increase diversity, which the "diversity memo" questioned.)

If you have the time, I suggest that you go reread the diversity memo and Google's response. Try to read them without taking sides. (It's hard.)

<comment><USER36> I read the memo before reading the media coverage. I was very surprised at how controversial it was. It's claims were pretty modest: it did not claim that women were any less capable than men at technology, and it repeatedly stated that innate differences likely do not account for all of the disparity between men and women in tech. All it argued was that just because a disparity exists we should not assume that it is evidence of discrimination, and that policies designed to engineer an outcome closer to 50/50 are likely creating discrimination rather than reducing it.

<comment><USER34> Ok, now go re-read Google's official response.

Note that they did not respond to "we should not assume that it is evidence of discrimination, and that policies designed to engineer an outcome closer to 50/50 are likely creating discrimination"

<comment><USER36> Right they cited "perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes". From which we can infer that Google believes that claiming that absent any discrimination or social pressure women would not work in tech at the same rates as men as "perpetuating gender stereotypes".

<comment><USER37> You are misrepresenting their point.

There are many reasons why women don't go into IT. And whilst you can look at at it holistically it is ultimately a personal decision.

And so if you take that personal decision and instead make it about some gender stereotype e.g. they aren't physically suited then it discourages women from entering IT.

<comment><USER36> > And so if you take that personal decision and instead make it about some > gender stereotype e.g. they aren't physically suited then it discourages > women from entering IT.

The memo did not claim this. The references to innate differences were only in reference to women's choices. At no point did the author claim they women "aren't physically suited" to IT.

<comment><USER38> He says it right here: [emphasis added]

> I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences _and abilities_ of > men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these > differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in > tech and leadership.

He's saying that women lack the ability to work in engineering and leadership because they are biologically different. His argument isn't limited to preference.

And this is ignoring the fact that his supporting data used the Big5 psych method, which has been debunked as not being scientific in identifying biological differences due to it's lexical nature.

Edit: Damore says that women more having extraversion and empathy, which "leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading."

Saying they are having a harder time is saying they lack the ability.

<comment><USER36> Incorrect, you're overlooking the fact that he's referring to the distribution of ability. Nowhere does he say that women have less ability than men. For instance, for 2/3rds of girls reading is their best subject while for 2/3rds of boys math is their best subject. But, girls actually outscore boys in _both_ reading and math. In fact, I believe he cited a study that referenced this sort of distribution in boys and girls.

The differences in the distribution suggest that girls are more likely to prefer reading (because they're usually better at it than math) while boys are more like to prefer math (because they're usually better at math than reading). He's talking about how the distribution of ability affects preference. It does _not_ say that girls are worse than boys than math - <USER4> actually says the opposite, that girls are slightly better at both math and reading.

<comment><USER38> Ability != Preference

You claimed his argument was limited to preference, I am showing you that Damore was talking about preference _and_ ability. Splitting hairs over distribution is a red herring. Nobody here is assuming that Damore is referring to women the individual, but women as a whole.

> Nowhere does he say that women have less ability than men.

Damore does, in several places: [emphasis added]

>Women, on average, have more:

> \- Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, > higher agreeableness. _This leads to women generally having a harder time > negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading._ Note that > these are just average differences and there's overlap between men and > women, _but this is seen solely as a women's issue._

> \- Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute > to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower > number of women in high stress jobs.

Note that the data he used here is cherry picked from a 90's study that used the Big5 method, which has since been debunked for use in biological differentiation.

<comment><USER36> > You claimed his argument was limited to preference, I'm merely showing that > Damore was talking about preference and ability. Arguing distribution is a > red herring. Nobody is assuming that Damore is referring to women the > individual, but women as a whole.

If this was your takeaway, then I did not explain it well enough. Every individual has a distribution of ability. Some are better at math, some are better at sports, some are better at reading, etc. 2/3rds of boys are better at math than they are at reading. 2/3rds of girls are better at reading than they are at math. However, girls are actually better than boys at both reading and math - it's just that they score better at an even bigger margin at reading.

Is it inconceivable to think that the fact that girls are better at reading than math 2/3rds of the time makes girls more likely to prefer reading as compared to math (and vice versa for boys)? That's the point that Damore was making: the distribution in ability affects boys' and girls' preferences. It does _not_ say that the average girl has less ability than the average boy.

If you want to split hairs, you could say that making this argument is sexist because it says girls score better than the boys on average in both reading and in math. But I get the sense that this isn't the angle you're making.

> Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, > higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time > negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that > these are just average differences and there's overlap between men and > women, but this is seen solely as a women's issue.

> \- Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute > to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower > number of women in high stress jobs.

Both of these points have to do with specific parts of the job (salary negotiation, asking for promotion, dealing with stress). These factors exist in _all_ jobs, not just tech. Furthermore he later offers suggestions to try and mitigate this - he brought these things up because he wanted to offer positive changes.

The point remains: Damore did not write that women "aren't physically suited" (~~your words~~) to tech work.

<comment><USER38> >The point remains: Damore did not write that women "aren't physically suited" (your words) to tech work.

Where exactly did I say that??

> Both of these points have to do with specific parts of the job (salary > negotiation, asking for promotion, dealing with stress) not that women are > less suited for tech work.

Yes, yes, Damore is saying that women lack the ability to lead due to their extraversion, empathy, and neuroticism (anxiety) inhibiting them, _because those are specific parts of the job that require abilities_. Also, you're ignoring now that he said both tech and leadership, and you are now focusing on just "tech work". This is more splitting hairs on semantics to apologize for Damore.

>And he later offers suggestions to try and mitigate this.

Of course he does. He cherry picked data to wrongly fit his hypothesis from the start. Naturally he would conclude with his own ideas on how to mitigate a problem that he misused data to create.

<comment><USER36> The previous commenter wrote, "And so if you take that personal decision and instead make it about some gender stereotype e.g. they aren't physically suited then it discourages women from entering IT." I had mistaken this as your comment.

But you did make similar statement s: "He's saying that women lack the ability to work in engineering and leadership because they are biologically different." You did claim that damore wrote that women lack ability to work in engineering.

> Yes, yes, Damore is saying that women lack the ability to lead due to their > extraversion, empathy, and neuroticism inhibiting them, because those are > specific parts of the job that require abilities. This is more splitting > hairs on semantics to apologize for Damore.

These are factors that affect all industries. Saying that this is evidence that Damore argued that women are worse at tech than men is not valid. And again, he brought this up in the context of suggesting improvements to try and make tech more welcoming to women.

> Of course he does. He cherry picked data to wrongly fit his hypothesis from > the start. Naturally he would conclude with his own ideas on how to mitigate > a problem that he misused data to create.

Let me get this straight: somebody does their best to try and investigate why women have a hard time in a certain field, and proposes ways to make this better. And this is a bad thing?

Even more ironic is that Google and other companies actually _have_ used this research to establish practices that are better for women:

> Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to > Perf [Google's performance reviews] may be doing this to an extent, but > maybe there's more we can do, especially in our interviews.

So he's saying, "women are more cooperative. We should make policies that help cooperative people thrive." He's not saying that women are worse at tech because they're more cooperative or more neurotic. He's saying that Google should be more welcoming to people with these traits and help them reach their full potential.

<comment><USER38> Your comments have devolved into into a gish gallop. You claimed that his paper was based solely on preference, nothing else.

\- Damore said that underrepresentation of women in tech and leadership is because of their differing preferences _and abilities_ due to biological causation.

\- He misrepresents Big5 data to list neuroticism, extraversion, and empathy as biological reasons why women "have a hard time" in leadership. These are not preferences.

\- He claims that women have more anxiety, and as such Google should cater to women's anxiety more to help them with tech leadership. That is not "women prefer".

This isn't the memo of someone who says that women just prefer other jobs, this is someone who misused data to try to fit his hypothesis that women's biological differences mean they are not as capable in tech and leadership.

<comment><USER36> > Your comments have devolved into into a gish gallop. You claimed that his > paper was based solely on preference, nothing else.

Wrong. Now you're not just putting words in Damore's mouth, you're putting words in mine as well.

What I wrote was, "The memo did not claim this. The references to innate differences were only in reference to women's choices. At no point did the author claim they women "aren't physically suited" to IT."

He offers a variety of explanation as to why women have different preferences such as attraction to things vs. people, and the distribution (but not aggregate difference) in ability. The point remains, though, his claims were limited to women's preferences. He used differences in the distribution of ability to explain _why_ this difference in preference exist, but his claim is exclusively about women's preferences.

If if you do insist on focusing in on the mere use of the word "ability" absent the context, Damore did not write that women are any worse than men.

> \- Damore said that underrepresentation of women in tech and leadership is > because of their differing preferences and abilities due to biological > causation.

No, the _distribution_ of ability affects preference. This comment explains this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20782914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20782914)

> \- He misrepresents Big5 data to list neuroticism, extraversion, and empathy > as biological reasons why women "have a hard time" in leadership - i.e. lack > some of the ability requisite for the job.

But crucially, he does not say that this make them worse at tech. Quite the opposite, he says that Google should better recognize extroversion expressed as cooperation in performance reviews. This only hampers them insofar as Google is not creating a good environment, and he's asking google to change that environment.

> \- He claims that women have more anxiety, and as such Google should cater > to women's anxiety more to help them with tech leadership.

Aagain this is not saying that women are worse at tech. Anxiety _can_ be detrimental if the company does not accommodate it, but it is not a barrier to success if tech if the company does. And he is asking Google to be accommodating.

> This isn't the memo of someone who says that women just prefer other jobs, > this is someone who misused data to try to fit his hypothesis that women's > biological differences mean they are not as capable in tech and leadership.

False. At no point did Damore write that "women's biological differences mean they are not as capable in tech", and it only hampers them in leadership insofar as Google does not appropriately recognize the way women display extroversion (and he subsequently offers suggestions to address this). You're trying to portray calls for Google to make its environment more friendly to women as saying that women are biologically worse at tech. This is absurd. It also makes people adverse to offering any suggestions to improve the experience of women in tech. Have an idea that you think will make things better for women in tech? Well, you better keep it to yourself otherwise you'll be branded a sexist.

The incorrect statements you are making about the memo are characteristic of someone that read the misleading (and at times outright false) media coverage of the memo. People who read the memo without being primed to see it as sexist do not make these errors. Make no mistake. Damore was not fired for the words he actually wrote. Remember his memo was circulated for about a month without causing a storm. It was only after the media's misrepresentation coverage that he was fired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm surprised at the lack of skepticism in the discussion here. The term "politics" \- even assuming there is a problem with fiery discussions of what we traditionally view that term to cover - could easily cover dissent over programs like Dragonfly. Most controversy within Google that is publicly known is politically motivated. Don't take this term at face value.

<comment><USER40> Yeah politics is an extremely broad topic. What's common sense to one person is a insane governmental overreach to another. While I don't think politics should hold a large place in the work place I'm always mindful when speech is restricted in pursuit of restricting "toxicity."

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why shouldn't employees of the company with the goal of organizing all the worlds information debate politics? Everything is political. Especially information.

<comment><USER42> Because they have work to do. That's why they're there.

<comment><USER43> Exactly.

If I'm working on a team that is rolling out a new Google drive feature, I really don't need to hear you talk about why drinking straws are a phallic symbol and used by the patriarchy to keep woman down.

We have work to do.

<comment><USER29> I'm sure the oppressed party in your example feels the polar opposite and don't want to hear your whining about how feminism doesn't matter in modern society because it's good enough as is. And I think that's the point :)

<comment><USER44> I assume you're being sarcastic/exaggerating, but even so.

This is just a perfect example of how polarised politics is today. Society just needs to calm down and evaluate itself instead of bickering over nonsense.

<comment><USER45> Yes, every meaningful change in society has come to light because everyone calmed down enough.

<comment><USER44> How is meaningful change in society related to shipping Google Drive features?

Time and a place.

Politics has no nuance or filter anymore. It's all the time on full blast, forever. I hate it.

<comment><USER46> Plenty of Google Drive features are political. For example, allowing people to monitor who has read a document. Or deciding what the default permission set should be for new files. Or whether or not the files should be encrypted at rest. Or whether the Drive client should download and sync everything, or download stuff on demand. Etc, etc.

<comment><USER44> That's a strawman argument. I think we both know there's a distinction to be made between 'political' and mainstream political conversation. Of course if you're stretching the definition it will include everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> A small group of people always ruin these things for everyone else.

ie, the people who can't handle politics and think the worlds constantly on fire so they think they're justified in ignoring social grace and time/place taboos. The internet news machines have generated many thousands of these people.

I feel like they are becoming more popular and giving even less of a shit that other people don't want to be forced to listen to their politics at work or in other forced proximity environments. And then there's the people who judge you for not talking or 'resisting', as if not being politically engaged is equivalent to supporting the 'other side'. Then there's the overly-excited drunken political rants at parties, that's when they really let loose! /rant

<comment><USER48> I hear you, but have you considered that the world's actually on fire? Perhaps you wouldn't notice because you don't live in the Amazon.

I don't mean that seriously, but it does serve a point. How can you tell if people are just ranting "because of the internet" and not because they are suffering and think your political inaction is contributing to their pains?

Because of your comment I will try to be more cautious about people complaining as they might just be attention grabbers but it's also dangerous to fully ignore them because it makes us uncomfortable.

We should be grateful people rant to one another, because it means we still believe we can help ourselves. If this was a dictatorship we were living in there would be no point in complaining to the neighbours.

<comment><USER49> You're proving his point. The Amazon is experiencing a more or less average amount of fire during its dry season as farmers clear/maintain cropland like they do every year. However, the internet media has turned this into sensationalism that captures people like you and turns them into doomsayers.

From nasa.gov:

> As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that > total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the > average in comparison to the past 15 years.

[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in- bra...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil)

Things are not as bad as you think they are, or as bad as crappy internet news sites want you to think they are.

<comment> munk-a Who is to say that the status quo isn't alarming, "things aren't worse than last year" isn't a valid argument that things are fine in any logical setting.

And the internet has helped spread information, some of these issues may have been captured by Nat Geo in the 40s but others will have been missed. A status quo progression may be championed as an issue not because everyone previously accepted it but because no one was previously aware of it.

<comment><USER50> Per the linked article:

"As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years. (The Amazon spreads across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and parts of other countries.) Though activity appears to be above average in the states of Amazonas and Rondônia, it has so far appeared below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to estimates"

A status quo isn't inherently bad, and this one looks like it's been consistent for many years.

<comment> munk-a I wanted to clarify that my statement above isn't specific to this article. I was trying to make a general reply, with consideration to the rest of the thread, to that original point and general statement.

I'm not in a position to evaluate how dire this specific instance is with any sort of confidence in my findings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> How about we do our jobs instead? Yes please!

<comment><USER52> How about judging us on our performance at our jobs then, and not treating us as children?

<comment><USER53> In most professional settings, it's considered a norm not to talk about sex, politics, and religion unless your business is dealing with one of those areas specifically.

<comment><USER52> But do most professional settings go to this extent to police their employees:

> creating a team of moderators to monitor conversations on company chat > boards

<comment><USER54> Most professional settings would not have permitted these company chat boards in the first place.

<comment><USER55> Are you really trying to argue that companies which for example use Slack (or a similar service) are "not professional"?

<comment><USER54> No, I'm arguing that most large, "professional" companies would not have allowed employees to create create chat groups whose sole purpose was to discuss politics or any other non-work-related topic (whether on mailing lists, Slack, or whatever). In doing so, Google was treating its employees more like adults, which is the opposite of what a previous comment in the thread was suggesting.

<comment><USER53> How did Google "treating employees like adults" work out? The only reason an employer goes to work is to make money. The only reason an employer hires someone is to make them money or to save them money.

Bringing anything else into the workplace is an unnecessary distraction from both the employee's and employer's standpoint. I go to work to have money deposited into my account twice a month and go home to spend time with my family and friends. The more time I spend at work spending energy not doing work either I will be less effective or spend more time away from family/friends/hobbies to be effective at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I try to just do work at work, but to play contrarian:

If one agrees with Aristotle in that: "Man is by nature a political animal," the cultural acceptance of no politics at work seems almost nefarious. Most of us spend more time at work than perhaps any other activity, barring sleep.

One could perhaps even hypothesize that without some political discussion at work, people exclusively talk with friends who share their political opinions, causing larger lateralization of political thought.

<comment><USER45> There is also a shared understanding that you don't debate politics with family, which would also be a pretty big block of time for many. Perhaps the forum isn't the problem, its that a good deal of people feel uncomfortable with politics and choose to not engage. I guess what's pretty funny here is we all have a shared understanding that there are problems in politics and the cultural landscape, but also there's a lot of common sense that keeping your feelings bottled up isn't good for anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Since this is google, it is getting interesting:

>organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law)

<comment><USER58> The internal codebase at Google is organized like a bazaar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Where I grew up, the saying went "there are three things you don't talk about in polite company: money, religion, and politics." Where I used to work, I found out someone I worked with a lot didn't support gay marriage. I had a really hard time working with them after that.

Maybe this is the inevitable outcome of trying to make work a social hub. It's great to say that we _should_ be able to discuss anything with anyone, but the reality is that we're not all perfectly mature people and we can't handle it.

</comment><comment><USER60> Worked at Google for a short time (2013-2014), during the height of Trayvon Martin and other murders of black folks around then. The internal discussion could really be hard to read for me (I'm black). Still, I don't think it should really be stopped. I was glad to be able to express my actual opinions at work.

I think they'll have a really hard time totally stopping it though. Internally it's really like a college atmosphere, at least in terms of exchanging ideas via their intranet. I was amazed that it was so open in that way, and I hope they find a way to keep that culture alive.

On the other hand, it was hard to work with people that help views that I considered racist or nearly so. No easy solution here.

<comment><USER61> >The internal discussion could really be hard to read for me (I'm black)

Was it a minority of people who had views that were hard to read or the majority? I was under the impression that most people at Google were not supportive of his acquittal.

<comment><USER60> Loud minority - including a lot of non-US workers as I recall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I wonder if this has anything to do with the recently leaked posts that shows google staff used the google search front end to target specific demographics they expected to vote for a particular candidate and then were shocked and upset when a substantial minority portion of those populations voted for different candidates?

If discussions are leading to credible allegations that a company was promoting candidates using their marketing resources in violation of campaign finance laws, it would be easy to understand why they might want to get those discussions offline.

<comment><USER63> Could you link to the evidence of that, because I think you'll find that upon even a cursory investigation, it doesn't exist.

<comment><USER62> I could, but the google leaked documents have been aggressively removed from any site I've seen them posted on (HN, reddit, etc.) presumably under (BS) legal threat from google. If you give me an email address, I'll send you links privately.

<comment><USER63> I'm <user>@google.com, among others.

I presume your talking about one of the two leaks via veritas. Those don't say what you claim they do. I also expect your assumptions about legal threats are wrong. But such claims are easy to make sans evidence, and they do feel good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I expect them to loosely categorize politics, while still encouraging open corporate discussion of LGBTQ, racial, and other such issues. People may have different opinions about that.

<comment><USER65> "I expect them to block most things, but still allow things I care about but which the "other side" doesn't regard as serious issues."

Fixed that for you. No one is the sole arbiter of what is "important", so I've usually found just not discussing to be the best solution at work.

<comment><USER45> Telling people to stop talking about politics because one don't feel like the discussion is important or productive can be viewed as its own form of covert political discourse. "The status quo is fine, I'm doing fine, discussion to the contrary hurts my worldview".

<comment><USER65> Exactly. Every one regards his issues as too important to be merely political. My point is many people don't agree with your interpretation of what ought to be allowed/banned, and you've presented no reason why those issues in particular ought to be discussed. Again, my best solution is to just avoid talking politics at work.

<comment><USER45> Discrimination in the workplace and society is a perfectly valid reason for talking about politics at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Monkey has shit the bed already though hasn't it.

I never had the need to discuss politics at work. Just don't do it, why open that can of worms. Absolutely no need to do so. One time a coworker asked me and I said "I don't discuss politics at work". Be professional, people.

<comment><USER67> Of course there is a need to discuss politics. It isn't a separate thing that can be divorced from what it's about, i.e. everything. That includes work.

<comment><USER68> I don't understand this view that "everything is political". How can can a discussion on e.g. C++20 coroutines be political?

<comment><USER48> C++20 coroutines are tools to serve a purpose. That purpose is political.

<comment><USER68> Sometimes that purpose is just to tell if two binary trees have the same fringe

<comment><USER67> That's an odd line of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'm not at Google but my guess is that the number of Chinese employees and the current protests in HongKong might create some internal political fights.

<comment><USER8> I haven't been at Google in 5 years but I worked with a lot of Chinese coworkers from all three of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong when I was there (as well as ABCs of those descents). Honestly, I never saw a Chinese employee get into a political argument. Mostly they were just happy to be in the U.S. and draw a Google-level salary. ABCs (including myself) would, but usually about American politics, not Chinese.

I think most Americans underestimate the extent to which most Chinese are apolitical and pragmatic. Chinese culture doesn't have the tradition of civic engagement and vigorous debate that Anglo-American culture does, and skews more towards Exit than Voice. A typical Chinese response to a looming civil war is more akin to "Well shit. Better emigrate (if I can) or pay off the right soldiers and officials (if I can't) so this doesn't harm my family" than to demonstrate in the streets and call for the ouster of the leaders in question. This is a double-edged sword: it's how the CCP maintains social controls that would be unacceptable violations of civil liberties in Western democracies, it's also behind the "model minority" image of Asian-Americans, but it also means that you don't get a lot of disruptive political talk in groups with Asian immigrants.

<comment><USER70> ABCs? I don't understand. What does that mean?

<comment><USER71> American Born Chinese

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I think this was inevitable in the long run. From the very beginning, Google has tried to have the atmosphere of a college campus rather than a normal workplace, probably (at least in the early days before every tech company started doing this) to help them stand out among job applicants as an alternative to stuffier companies.

The thing is though, professional work environments (where there are typically norms around never discussing politics) are the way they are for a reason. Just like Bitcoiners are rediscovering why finance regulations exist, Google is rediscovering why the cool, relaxed workplace ends up causing more problems than it solves.

</comment><comment><USER73> Don't debate politics, but please contribute to our corporate PAC that supports some of the worst politicians.

<comment><USER74> Which politicians?

<comment><USER75> @Pinboard (yes the pinboard.com guy) has been keeping track of political donations from big tech companies. [https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1141838179936243714](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1141838179936243714)

<comment><USER76> What are the chances he has only been tracking donations made to right-wing groups? :')

Edit: very high, it seems [https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apinboard%20PAC](https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apinboard%20PAC)

<comment><USER77> @Pinboard's politics are... not secret.

<comment><USER78> The politics of $RICH_GUY_WHO_WORKS_AT_TECH_IN_THE_WEST_COAST are not secret, I was just laughing at the prospect of a seemingly neutral "project" which is just a way of denouncing companies that use their advertisement power to show how leftist they are (because in this day and age they have no other choice) while, at the same time, they give money to those eeeevil conservatives.

<comment><USER77> At what point has anyone said it was neutral?

<comment><USER79> "Pinboard has been keeping track of political donations from big tech companies" does not seem to imply that it's a completely biased report, but yeah, I should have known better :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What a busy topic!

My first reaction (to the general topic) was, "Well, of course they had to put a stop to that. And international message forums with many participants? What a recipe for disaster."

But then I had to be honest with myself: I'm at work at _least_ 45 hours a week (not at Google, but in tech). My commute time is 45 minutes each way. So out of 11-12 hours of not-me-time, you want me to completely keep my trap shut? That's a hard ask.

Here's an example. Earlier this week, I'm on my way to the subway and I see a fight, and I also see piss on two sets of seats on both sides of the subway car. Then I'm at work and my colleague, unprompted and as I come in, remarks how many more heroin-addled people there are in Midtown, Manhattan than he's ever seen. I then blurt out a rant about the Mayor, criminal justice policies I consider wrong (such as the push to lower incarceration without consequence), and a few other things that were aggressively opinionated and political, in an open office environment. Shortly thereafter I somewhat regretted it (but I never expected any consequences).

We're only human.

It just needs to be channeled. Keep it to your local work friends, or at the bar, or whatever that ISN'T on a message board.

</comment><comment><USER80> To be honest though, I've never been a fan of discussing politics at the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER81> Avoiding topics that are not work related and are likely to make a large group of co-workers angry seems like an obvious, professional thing to do, regardless of the specific policies of the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER82> Talk about work at work. If you meet someone at work who you think you want to be friends with, invite them for coffee before work and talk about non-work stuff then. But at work, just talk about work.

<comment><USER83> Perhaps it's googles culture of making work feel like a second home that makes googlers feel entitled to share their political opinions at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> What's remarkable is how the media narrative surrounding this rule change seems to suggest that it's a bad thing, while the popular response is overwhelmingly positive. I've yet to see one of these articles quote someone who isn't an internal activist or present the perspective of any employee who likes the change.

</comment><comment><USER85> Great. Professional adults don't talk about heated issues at work when it is not necessary. For obvious reasons.

</comment><comment><USER86> It's a basic "work for hire" contract between two parties. No other employer will tolerate this. If you don't like it - quit and write a blog post.

<comment><USER87> Well, no, many jobs are much more complicated than that. Honestly, a contractor relationship where you are taking orders from one person and only have to worry about what they think is refreshingly simple compared to working in a highly collaborative environment.

For example, at Google, your manager is one person whose opinions are important, but things like promotions also depend heavily on peer review and your general reputation.

<comment><USER86> That sort of "plumbing" exists in lots, if not most places. Google is not different in that sense, except for the size.

<comment><USER87> I agree that some things are similar, but I think the differences between jobs matter, even if they aren't unique to one company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> There is a reason you keep away from discussing politics and religion in certain places. We all get excited when discussing them and nothing gets solved. Work is the wrong place for it. Google should have known this by now. It's about time they start doing something about it.

</comment><comment><USER20> By the way, I don't have a problem drawing the line at disruptive political debates. However, I don't trust companies to evenly apply such rules.

</comment><comment><USER89> It's almost as if embracing "the personal is political" makes people feel morally obligated and virtuous for airing every half baked and divisive political opinion. And now they want to put the genie back in the bottle? Far too late.

</comment><comment><USER90> This is the norm at most companies right? Like Microsoft etc.? Whether de factor or de iuro, politics is usually left at home unless it's personal conversations among close colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER91> I bet majority of Google employees are taking a deep sigh of relief now.

It must be suffocating being surrounded with political talks at work when one is trying to do their job well.

<comment><USER87> I left a few years ago, but it was more like internal politics was a fascinating addiction that some people are better than others at ignoring.

Sort of like reading Hacker News.

I wonder if memegen is shut down yet?

<comment><USER92> Memegen is alive. Leadership team still need it for their all hands slides. XD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Google shouldn't even have to say this to a bunch of grown ups. You don't talk about Politics, Religion, Sex, Health and Wealth with strangers.

</comment><comment><USER94> Ownership of a multinational conglomarate corporation whose practices effect the lives of billions requires either governance or real stewardship. Google is driven by one thing making profit. There stewardship is morally defunct. their profits are driven by the sale of the never ending stream of consumer information they glean from the electronic fields where they harvest. That info is all encompassing some you or I would consider private some nonsense. others might percieve that very same data differantly. All of it can be used to map and monitise people, placea, ideas and things. All of it used to know you. To not deamand or hold google accountable for their caveat emptor and lasie fair monopoly is foolish. to allow them or their users a free hand is naive. Ideas are more powerful then weapons. Greed a larger motivator then morals. Google launched in the U.S. has taken those profits and used them to court profits in countrys where their motivations are not the U.S.s motivations but googles remains the same. Harvest information and sale it. Dont ask what the info is used for.

</comment><comment><USER95> Of course Google doesn't want staff debating politics at work.

It can lead to this:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/27/18114285/google- employee...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/27/18114285/google-employee- china-censorship-protest-project-dragonfly-search-engine-letter)

or this:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google- pentagon/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google- pentagon/google-drops-out-of-bidding-for-10-billion-pentagon-data-deal- idUSKCN1MI2BZ)

How is a company expected to make a buck if they have to suffer ethical considerations? The salaried workthings should just do what they're told...

</comment><comment><USER96> If I had to guess, the individuals demanding that google employees be allowed to debate political subjects because "everything is political" are the same people who would argue that consumers of google's services shouldn't expect that google won't censor them. An odd position to take if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER97> Meanwhile, google shuts down more than 200 youtube channels that criticize the hong kong protests. (N.B.: I do not oppose them, im just pointing out how hilariously hypocritical it is for an organization at the center of global politics to be telling its employees not to debate politics.)

</comment><comment><USER28> Genuinely don't know if HN is as reactionary as this comment sections makes it seem or if we're just getting astroturfed by the usual suspects.

I can't be the only one who sees this as a significant crackdown on employee freedoms and an attempt to silence dissent.

</comment><comment><USER98> I feel like Google should have started their orientation with a link to jwz's rba gruntle (not linking because HN people hate what his referral headers redirect does). The lawyer in that article is now an SVP of Legal at Google.

<comment><USER99> > what his referral headers redirect does

What's it do, first time Ive heard of that

<comment><USER100> Display some kind of sketchy image (I think it was a hairy ballsack?) and a mild rant hating on the HN crowd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Finally common sense prevails! Get to work on time, eat your free lunch, work, go home.

To those of you who disagree; if you want to "make a difference" take a cue from Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther king Jr. etc. Mahama Gandhi didn't work for the East India company while simultaneously fighting for freedom.

If you are serious about it put your money where your mouth is and stop being empty vessels.

<comment><USER58> > Mahama Gandhi didn't work for the East India company while simultaneously > fighting for freedom.

LOL!

I worked at Google for about two years as a "TVC" (a programmer in a cubical, not a "real" Googler) and it was like being kidnapped by aliens, after I left that's how it felt: Like I was one of those people who had just been returned to Earth.

One thing that doesn't get talked about in re: Google and values: there's an entire "underclass" of employees that are of definite inferior status. The janitors, re-stockers of cafes, and maintenance people, etc. They wear special uniforms, and are trained not to fraternize with the "real" Googlers. They don't get to ride the fancy buses to and from work.

They are also of a different racial mix. Googlers are generally white or Asian but the staff are generally Hispanic. So there's politics, and then there's politics...

<comment><USER102> This is true of most (perhaps all) big tech (perhaps all) companies.

<comment><USER103> Maybe, but if you loudly espouse progressive values as Googlers seem to do more than most tech workers, maybe you should put some of those values into practice, and actually make a real effort to integrate those contractors into the group?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> > Some employees have used internal chat boards to rally other workers against > some Google projects, helping push the company to end work on a censored > search engine for the Chinese market and an artificial intelligence contract > for the U.S. military.

Oh. So they don't care about bullying or alienating people with unpopular political views, they're upset that employees are questioning their material support of antidemocratic governments. For a second I thought they were actually making something close to a good ethical choice here, I see I was mistaken.

</comment><comment><USER105> They are right. It's ridicule that it has to come to this. Debate politics in your personal time. There's already too much shit keeping people from their workstations (massages, free food, ...)

</comment><comment><USER106> Big tech and hiring practices and internet privacy and google itself are political topics this election cycle. Should googlers not talk debate about tech and hiring and privacy and google?

</comment><comment><USER107> One of the their core values is "don't be evil", isn't that statement inherently political? I think a lot of people chose to work at Google (instead of say Oracle or etc) because of those ideals. Kinda disingenuous to advertise that reputation and then switch to a policy of "actually shut up and do the work".

<comment><USER108> That "core value" was removed some time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> [http://archive.is/xtfde](http://archive.is/xtfde)

</comment><comment><USER110> I don't work at Google. But, I wouldn't even discuss politics with people that I know agree with me. It's just not professional. I am a little surprised it's taken this long for this to come to a head -- the HR department must be breathing a sigh of relief.

</comment><comment><USER111> Google itself is pretty political, just look at their Doodles. So, this will be interesting to watch.

</comment><comment><USER112> I think, inevitably, the saying about work not being a good forum for discussing:

\- religion

\- politics

\- sex

still holds true, regardless of how progressive the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER113> I agree with Google. Don't discuss politics or religion at work. It's not a good look.

</comment><comment><USER114> Am I the only one who thinks it's totally okay for a Company to allow or not allow certain kinds of discussions within their offices. Why is this even a debate ? Companies are not run like democracies !! You dont loke the rule, change the company.

</comment><comment><USER115> No shit. I guess Google can no longer assume that there is a single correct world view that all good and smart people hold. Who knew.

<comment><USER116> This is so hilariously wrong that I don't even know where to start.

Google's culture was predicated on hiring intelligent, emotionally-continent adults. Free discussion of politics wasn't banned during my time there because everyone was capable of understanding precisely the opposite of what you're describing: that differing views on the world exist and are attributable to more than just whether someone is a good or bad person.

When you scale to a hundred thousand employees, you can't keep your bar that high, and you have to start letting in people who more closely resemble the average narrow-minded, maximalizing dumbass. For a little while that meant the company needed to bow to the more culturally-powerful regressive left (esp when things leaked, for PR reasons), but as the culture war heats up, the only winning move for a company with a (classical) liberal founding culture is to discourage political engagement at all.

<comment> the-pigeon I've worked for a lot of small startups some mid-sized companies in California over the last decade.

I would never ever share any views that are non-liberal because when I've seen anyone else do it it didn't go well for them at all. And I'm not at work to change people's political views so there's no reason to take the risk.

I don't think this is a new shift at all. I think it's typical when you have smart but insecure people which is most software engineers.

<comment><USER117> "Over the last decade" is a critical qualification, I think. This phenomenon emerged in the early 2010s, by my best reckoning.

This sounds an awful lot like nostalgic pining for the good old days, but there _was_ a time not too long ago that daring to hold an opinion that others around you disagreed with wasn't an existential threat to your career. Things shifted really hard, really fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER118> Seems like one of those Google internal threads has spilled external onto HN

</comment><comment><USER119> What's wrong with that? Work is for working, is it not?

</comment><comment><USER120> Judging from the comments there are basically two stereotypes of people in this discussion:

1) The people who "just want to do their work". While they might care about the ramifications of what they're doing they don't think about it actively while working on it

2) The people who care A LOT about their ethics and try to respect them in whatever they do

I guess both sides are important and the way Google phrased these new rules doesn't seem to exclude either side but "banning politics at work" surely isn't good for type #2 and, by extension, the company at large.

<comment><USER43> You're mischaracterizing the first group.

If it's _relevant to the work you 're doing_, then politics is fine. If's not, _keep it to yourself_.

<comment><USER120> I would've categorized those people as type #2. People who constantly talk about totally irrelevant topics (no matter if political or not) I would've just regarded as "chatty".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER121> Ok, so are senior executives going to follow that rule?

One recalls the transcript from the all-hands meeting after the 2016 election where Sergey Brin said "Most people here are pretty upset and pretty sad, "I find this election deeply offensive, and I know many of you do too. It's a stressful time, and it conflicts with many of our values. I think it's a good time to reflect on that. ... So many people apparently don't share the values that we have." and in doing so put a target on the back of every centrist and conservative at Google.

</comment><comment><USER122> So, how does protesting google's self-censorship to get into China count as political, and should it be banned?

</comment><comment><USER123> So once China starts to violently crack down on Hong Kong protesters, is Google going to hide it all?

</comment><comment><USER124> I don't blame them. Even aside from the President and GOP media machine attacking them for anti-conservative bias, Why would you want people to talk politics at work in the first place? At work you should be working. Argue about politics on your own time.

(He said, posting from work.)

And the difference is my employer doesn't host Hacker News. I'm posting on my own recognizance.

</comment><comment><USER125> > disrupting the workday to have a raging debate over politics or the latest > news story does not,

Why do googlers engage in this at work? They don't feel their political conversations deserve a wider audience? Or do they feel the wider audience does not deserve their political conversations ?

</comment><comment><USER126> Headline is a lie that the article body quickly contradicts.

</comment><comment><USER127> Yes! It's about time work and politics were made separate.

Political discussion quickly turn toxic. Nobody is convinced of anything, and career harm is a definite possibility.

This is a great, common-sense move. Kudos to Google.

</comment><comment><USER128> I couldn't imagine debating politics at work.

</comment><comment><USER129> It was ok until it started impacting the business... Like when the workers prevented the sale of AI technology to the people droning wedding parties in the Middle East. Yawn.

</comment><comment><USER130> Good. Work should not be a debating society.

</comment><comment><USER131> It's funny how we pigeonhole "things that actually matter" as "politics" and that those things are somehow taboo. I mean, what's MORE worth talking about than human rights, the environment, history, etc.?

<comment><USER132> Not every place where groups of people participate in shared activities must become a forum for political battles.

<comment><USER48> To these people it must. They are aware they're disrupting the workplace but they do it because they have a sense of urgency and responsibility. They are willing to break ties with their fellow coworkers because they carry a larger social mission.

<comment> munk-a That's an interesting point - especially when it comes to the urgency a lot of people feel when considering climate change.

I feel like part of the partisan leak into the workplace might be due to the lack of responsible governance that most Americans are feeling right now - since the entities responsible for fixing the big problems are out to lunch everyone is feeling a need to try and help solve those problems themselves.

<comment><USER132> Most of this political fervor is simple grandstanding. If these people really, truly cared about the issues they advocate, they'd have abandoned their cushy jobs at Google and gone on to make a real difference.

I fully agree that the American consumerist lifestyle has run its course, and has done tremendous damage to the planet. However, those who yell the most loudly about it should also be the ones to quit it first. Go live on a self- sustaining farm in Montana and show the rest of us how it's done. Until then, stop disrupting the office: people are trying to work in order to make ends meet.

<comment> munk-a > should also be the ones to quit it first.

I disagree, that's of the same vein of reductive arguments that try to shame rich people who want higher taxes into paying higher taxes voluntarily - <USER5> these big problems we actually need to act together or there will always be a more efficient way to pursue wealth by over-exploiting the resources other people are leaving on the table to preserve.

<comment><USER132> There's a huge difference between taxes (an aspect of societal behavior encoded in law) and personal lifestyle choices. We (supposedly, allegedly) exist in a political system that allows for some participation by citizens. One could choose to run for office, or campaign on behalf of a political candidate who might pursue progressive policies when elected. Over time this adds up to real change. I can see the point that perhaps slowly nudging a large political system towards real change is too little, too late for some issues. If this is indeed the case, then change must happen outside the bounds of normal political action. Take the tax issue you brought up: there is no law that would levy a tax on wealth. This law doesn't exist. If it existed, and if it were written without loopholes, it would achieve the goal of redistributing all this wealth. Unfortunately, this law isn't a reality, so until that changes we're stuck with other ways of making the rich pay. We can shame them, refuse to do business with them, and so on; but simply bitching about this at work won't move the needle even a little bit.

Personal lifestyle choices, on the other hand, are called that for a good reason: each person can make that choice for themselves. There's a liberal echo chamber in which the choice of one person, along with the right amount of advocacy and education, can be greatly amplified leading to a critical mass of people making a similar choice. Imagine an emergent group that is just like hipsters, but focused on environmentalism and sustainable living instead of rushing to tightly pack themselves into increasingly sparse and really expensive apartments in Brooklyn. Imagine communes springing up in agriculturally productive regions, helped along by technology and innovative thinking, operating fully on renewable energy, and doing brisk business selling food. Make this model repeatable by someone without extensive education, and you have yourself real change.

Google employs plenty of people who have the right ideology, drive, and technical skills to make this happen. Instead all they do is work for a giant advertising and surveillance firm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER133> This isn't new. In 2011, a bunch of right-wingers (people we'd recognize as fascists) got one of the smartest people in tech burned out of Google in 6 months. They did whatever they could for years to ruin his career and may still being doing it. Executives stood by and let it happen.

This is not a new tension.

</comment><comment><USER134> most comments I've ever seen on a HN post I think

</comment><comment><USER135> No debate, just get in line.

<comment><USER97> A good employee is a _quiet_ employee.

<comment><USER136> Agreed. Goes for coworkers too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> >I think they just overestimated the ability of their employees to respect each other when they hold differing world views.

I think this can be quite difficult to do just because of the political views involved. For example, how should a gay man respect a colleague who honestly thinks that homosexuality should be punished with death. In such a case, I would say that even asking the first individual to tolerate, much less respect, the second is itself a form of disrespect.

Now, that is a pretty extreme view for today's society but good for making an example with. It is also not too far off from many views that I have personally seen, especially when you begin to imagine the legal changes involved to implement those views.

<comment><USER138> I've seen people at work defend trans hate as a "conservative value". It's fine if people have different opinions on taxes but to reject people's identity like that, especially one held by some of their colleagues, should cross a line and they shouldn't be able to hide behind "conservative values".

<comment><USER76> That's the point, you should be able to hold that opinion, but you should not publicly state it openly at work in the first place.

<comment><USER139> Taking the other side, how do you counter the "So some opinions are okay to state publicly, while others are not?" I think this is the rub... For any given X, you'll find groups of people that are pro-X, and someone anti-X.

<comment><USER138> Some things shouldn't be okay to say. That intolerance actually hurts people, if someone says "the Nazis were right" that really doesn't end up being a victimless crime, America is an example right now where the rhetoric is leading to actual violence towards certain groups. While I think the government regulating it too much is not good I don't see the issue of doing it collectively as individuals.

Edit: just as a final thought, I've been on both sides of this, I've been silenced and I've silenced other people and honestly they both suck. I hold this view with the believe that some middle ground of things not being okay is the only one that works. If someone thinks that a free for all of ideas works well they are welcome to try it on their social media and at their company and I could be convinced if I could see it work at scale. It's really a practical view more than a philosophical one

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> munk-a From the other side - if the world is on fire but a portion of the population thinks everything is just fine and dandy... is it appropriate for everyone to be politely quite until that portion comes to their own realization that the world is on fire? What if that never happens?

I feel like the gun control debate is particularly relevant - whenever a shooting happens one side calmly says "This is unfortunate but unavoidable given the cost to freedom we'd need to pay to remove firearms - please stop trying to use a tragedy politically" while the other side says "How many times does this need to happen before you realize 12,000 Americans died from this last year and I don't want my kid to be one of them."

Here's an issue where I think half the side thinks the world is on fire and the other is content - without getting into the merits of either side I do think it's unreasonable for the anti-gun control side to continue to argue against having a discussion for the sake of decorum. This is a divide we need to resolve.

<comment><USER140> I agree that it's unreasonable to argue against having a discussion for the sake of decorum. If the discussion needs to happen, it needs to happen, but I think you're ignoring the fact that many anti-gun control advocates think the current state of affairs is fine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you think a conversation is important to have because you believe that such a conversation would reshape the world in a way that is more closely aligned with your preferred policies. Anti-gun control advocates don't want that.

This is exactly why a lot of people don't discuss politics at work. You first sentence also kind of assumes that the side that believes the world is on fire is correct. It would probably be beneficial to allow the discussion of politics at work if the side that believed the world was on fire was indeed always correct, but sometimes they aren't, and what then?

I personally would prefer, for example, if someone didn't try to convince me to do something to save my immortal soul, regardless of how ardently they believe that my immortal soul needs saving.

<comment> munk-a > You first sentence also kind of assumes that the side that believes the > world is on fire is correct. It would probably be beneficial to allow the > discussion of politics at work if the side that believed the world was on > fire was indeed always correct, but sometimes they aren't, and what then?

I was trying to avoid wording the above with any bias one way or the other - presenting both sides in their self-promoted light... The problem is that I think it's unclear when the world is on-fire or not and when you feel that a discussion isn't world ending it might just be that your thoughts are trapped in a bubble and you're having difficulty empathizing with the reason why the other side thinks the world is on fire. Certainly the world isn't on fire in every conceivable way, but evaluating whether a problem warrants a discussion or not is already a potentially opinionated decision.

<comment><USER140> Yeah, I appreciate the lengths you went to to avoid bias! This is spot on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER141> The problem is that what constitutes politics? Guns shouldn't be political, who you have sex with shouldn't be political...but in our current climate, they are both considered political.

..and no debating? Most people at Google are shades of left. It sounds like they are just trying to drown out dissenting views once again.

<comment><USER53> Why do you feel the need to talk about sex at work or guns?

<comment><USER142> This actually made me laugh - I couldn't agree more. Since when is sexuality an open topic at work?

<comment><USER143> I'm guessing you've never worked in a restaurant...

<comment><USER53> I hope you wouldn't compare the level of professionalism expected at a restaurant to what you should expect in an office setting.

<comment><USER143> of course not. I'm just making the point that a lot of folks might go their entire lives without working in such a stuffy environment as the modern office. and yet, life goes on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER144> I am under the impression it was never a debate to start with. A debate implies that both sides are allowed to speak their arguments, yet, Google was actively shutting down and firing people that defended one of the sides.

</comment><comment><USER145> So, wait. The focus will being on getting work done?

That'll never work.

</comment><comment><USER146> And there I was hoping they would solve all the world's problems from their campus in Mountain View.

</comment><comment><USER147> Paywall, but I'd bet this is mostly about forums/Slack/email and not about in person conversations.

I think the problem is that mass communication tools being used at biggish companies and up do not foster productive conversations about controversial topics. Trolling scales too well.

</comment><comment><USER148> The Freemasons figured this out over a century ago to good effect.

<comment><USER148> I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. As a Freemason myself I find the ban on discussion of politics and religion while in lodge refreshing. It's an important facet of the craft that helps us view each other as equals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER149> I really have to wonder: do Google engineers google for things when they can't work out a solution to their problem?

Because honestly, all you need to do, in order to form a perfect political opinion, is google for it. No further effort required.

</comment><comment><USER150> it is amazing how one simple thought escapes google execs - country is split in two halfs. google has strongly affiliated itself with one of the halfs to the point of complete alienation by other half. google would rather stick to its questionable political preferences and lose 50% of the market. sounds like a poor business decision.

</comment><comment><USER151> It's about time Google cracked the whip on this entitled engineers! Maybe they would shut down less products if employees were actually at their posts and kept their noses clean! As an employee of a company, YOU are the one who needs to just show up and do your job without complaints or causing a disruption in the work place!

</comment><comment><USER152> If Google did get split up, maybe the baby Googles could keep their open culture?

Update: I realize that this comment appears sarcastic and ill-meaning, but the top ranked post on HN is about " Deconstructing Google's excuses on tracking protection" as of this moment (Friday, August 23, 2019 2:25 PM PDT) [0]. If we take the following together:

1\. the open culture at Google as a known good quantity for some of the people who like to work there and keep working there

2\. each of the products and services that Google offers today as respective known good quantities

3\. The aggregate of Google's influence with respect to how the products and services in 2. sometimes has negative impacts on the marketplace.

4\. The size of Google causes the open culture in 1. to start being a hindrance to Google itself.

Then it seems obvious to me that the size and breadth of Google is the problem. I genuinely mean all of this in good-faith. If Google stayed small, then maybe services like Google Reader could still be around because the gap between cost and benefit would not have been as wide.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20779964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20779964)

</comment><comment><USER153> If they can actually pull this off (which I doubt), I might consider working there again. I had an offer from them last Dec and turned it down, in part, because this shit is borderline unbearable on the inside (I worked at Google in the past when it was less political, and it was barely tolerable even then).

A good number of people do nothing but stir shit up on the internal forums and mailing lists. They also seem to be "untouchable" because stirring shit typically takes the form of grievance peddling or white knighting, so if you just let them go, their (rather extensive) cliques would give you hell for "discrimination" and write petitions, go to the press, etc, etc, as we've seen after a few higher profile departures over the past couple of years. You don't want to be called a misogynist or racist for disagreeing with literally anything they say, do you?

It'd be good for the leadership to grow some gender-appropriate gonads, and refocus the company on the business side of things for a change. Activism is fine, just not on the company's time, and not when it impacts the business or other employees. Just like I don't want to hear what church (if any) you go to, or what gender you prefer in bed, I also don't want to know what your political preferences are. Nor do I like to feel obliged to share your opinion any of those things, even if you think you're "right". I'm trying to work. You're getting in the way.

This should apply equally to all: as a conservative, I don't want to hear about conservative issues at work either. I want to hear about work, and _only_ work.</comment>


Sierra: Small, light SCSS library - <AUTHOR> http://sierra-library.github.io/ <comment><USER2> What is SCSS?

<comment><USER3> It is a way to generate CSS without going crazy. "Sass is a scripting language that is interpreted into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). [...] The newer syntax, "SCSS", uses block formatting like that of CSS."

Ref: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sass_%28stylesheet_language%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sass_%28stylesheet_language%29)</comment></comment>


Tom Ray's electric-powered evolution machine - <AUTHOR> http://kk.org/outofcontrol/ch15-a.html

<comment><USER2> "Out of Control" was one of the most influential books I had read while in grad school 20 years ago. The book had cataloged number of amazing developments in science. I probably bought a dozen books referenced in this book, on complexity theory, game theory, evolutionary biology, self organizing systems, etc. Given the book is over 20+ years old, it'd be great to know what has happened since then.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I remember reading about Tierra as a kid and getting really excited about where it would go in the future. Didn't hear much about it since, sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If this is interesting to you, another topic to look into is corewars evolvers. A very similar concept, and the results from the programs that are generated are pretty amazing.

[http://www.corewar.co.uk/thorsell/paper.htm#_Toc466352756](http://www.corewar.co.uk/thorsell/paper.htm#_Toc466352756)

</comment><comment><USER5> Needs a (1995) in the title.</comment>


Verifying Concurrent Programs Using Contracts (2017) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~vojnar/Publications/icst17-contracts.pdf <comment><USER2> Interesting.. I've been trying/playing with a home-made modelling language to describe concurrent program flow and job conditions. Mostly in the context of queue-based-workers. The idea that a job can be split up in different parts and be run concurrently. Haven't cracked it yet :/

<comment><USER3> Have you tried TLA+ and PlusCal?

<comment><USER2> Nope! But looking into it now :) Thank you sir !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Seems like the tool they developed to perform verification, has been abandoned since 2014: [https://github.com/trxsys/gluon](https://github.com/trxsys/gluon).</comment>


[NSFW] Errrr... Clit you can play with made with CSS/JS - <AUTHOR> http://clitti.es Using technology for useful stuff. <comment><USER2> Without being graphic, I'm not entirely convinced much research went into how these, erm, parts tend to operate in real life. (See what oozes first.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The budget for research was cut down. You know, the whole economic climate is not helping development of educational tools.</comment></comment>


"Web Developer" Chrome Extension Infected with Adware - <AUTHOR> The "Web Developer" extension (ID bfbameneiokkgbdmiekhjnmfkcnldhhm) has started injecting ads into websites. It looks like Google has since removed it from the their listings, but unfortunately that doesn't help people who already have it installed[1].<p>You may want to check to see if you have it installed so you can remove it.<p>[1] Seriously, why doesn't Google at least notify users who have extensions with reported abuse installed? <comment><USER2> Dammit! Just been hit with this. I've disabled it. But in the 2 hours it was running, it had a lot of permissions. Any damage it could have done?

This has shaken my faith in browser extensions, and I (IMHO) an example of why we need iOS style sandboxing.

<comment> lumpio- And how would "iOS style sandboxing" prevent a browser extension from specifically injecting ads onto a webpage? If an extension cannot access and modify webpages, there's no point in having them in the first place.

At least adding ads is visible to the user. I once noticed a screen capture extension I had was sending every URL I viewed to about 7 different tracking services behind the scenes...

<comment><USER2> I was more referring to browser extensions punching out of the browser sandbox. I'm not a browser extensions developer, but can extensions read/write to your file system for instance, given enough permissions? If I was the hacker, what would be the maximum damage I could do with this particular extension? I guess I'm just a bit worried that's all :-)

<comment> lumpio- Chrome extensions are "sandboxed" in the sense that only the extension code has access to the special APIs behind special permissions. If they just inject some ads onto a page, they won't have access to the extension APIs (they do naturally have access to everything on the page itself, which is why it's still a bad thing).

It would take a reasonable amount of stupidity to manage to download untrusted code and run it in a context that has access to the extension APIs if all you wanted to do is inject ads onto webpages. But no amount of sandboxing is going to stop that, if you give the code the permissions it wants. That's why one should always evaluate both the trustworthiness _and_ competence of the developer before granting them scary permissions.

<comment><USER2> Trouble is the developer seems competent enough, and "Web Developer" is a popular, well-loved Chrome extension. Apparently he fell for a phishing attack [https://twitter.com/chrispederick/status/892786731564417024](https://twitter.com/chrispederick/status/892786731564417024)

I guess it can happen to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like this extension was developed by the same author as the "User Agent Switcher" extension (mentioned in the comments of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888010)).

</comment><comment><USER3> I ran into the same thing this morning.

Any click to dom element or opening new tabs was popping up alerts/confirmations and/or attempting redirects.

Only reason I noticed it was web developer extension was weird console-logs that I had never seen coming from the extension.

Disabled and all the popups have disappeared.

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember that quite some time ago, the Live HTTP Headers extension did this as well

</comment><comment> J-dawg Update from the developer:

[https://twitter.com/chrispederick/status/892780120032681984](https://twitter.com/chrispederick/status/892780120032681984)

</comment><comment><USER5> Who's up for making an open source extension which tracks compromised extensions and warns the user if they have any?

How this could also be protected against similar phishing attacks would be an interesting problem to solve too.

</comment><comment><USER6> I had the extension disabled, so I'm guessing I should be OK, right? Or can Chrome extensions still run stuff even after the user disabled them?</comment>


Ask HN: How does unlimited PTO work out in practice? - <AUTHOR> Many tech companies offer unlimited PTO as a benefit these days. However, there are rumors that this ends up working out worse than standard PTO since there's guilt with taking too much time off. <comment><USER2> If I were in the situation of unlimited PTO I'd probably track myself and take 5 weeks a year, just so that I can keep the guilt out of my conscious. I'd probably make that clear to my manager as well and put it on him/her to let me know if there are any problems.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess I should consider myself very fortunate. It works out very well for me. I've worked under an unlimited PTO policy for several years now (at two different companies).

It does not "depend on management approval." Approval for time off is automatic; it is only necessary to coordinate with your supervisor and/or team to make sure tasks can be handled by coworkers in your absence. Vacations were typically one to three weeks, sometimes longer for international travel or special situations.

There is no "pressure to keep the PTO profile low" or limit the amount of time. It isn't even tracked.

It's not a "loss of a benefit." I've been able to use more time off than before, even with the most generous PTO benefits at prior organizations.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a terrible policy, and unfair across the company as it depends on local manager approval. Have a workaholic manager? Enjoy getting less vacation approved than your peers.

Keep track of it yourself in a spreadsheet.

Don't go under your previous amount (make sure you're still getting your three weeks per year, or whatever), but don't go too far over unless you're really confident.

Don't "bank up" too much virtual time. Like don't say "I'm going to take no time this year and then a whole month next June". Because if you're fired/leave in May, you get nothing.

Evil Life Pro Tip: If you're going to quit soon, and you want to milk the system? Feel free to take as much as you want.

</comment><comment><USER5> From an employer's perspective, they don't owe you anything. This is a good thing for them, because when your company gets acquired by another company which has different policies than your company, they won't owe you a dime. While, if your company has a policy of 20 days off and your company got acquired, they owe you $$ amounting to the PTO days you haven't used up.

Source: happened in my previous company but the acquisition happened right after my 8 week vacation, so I didn't get any $$.

Having said that, I also was very lucky to have a good manager who really didn't mind how much vacation I was taking as long as the work was getting done.

</comment><comment><USER6> Guilt, or pressure come bonus time to keep the PTO profile low so it shows (what some cynical management teams call) "passion"?

</comment><comment><USER7> I find myself taking a lot more one-offs than I did before. Previously, when I would bank PTO, I would avoid taking a day off to do something around the house or play a new video game that came out. Now, I don't worry about it as much and take the time, which I think is the point of having PTO anyway.

I have probably taken 4 weeks off total in the past year.

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't ever forget that this isn't a benefit, it's the loss of a benefit. Let's say you don't take vacation out of guilt or events - under the traditional regime, you'd at least get the hours as accumulated salary. Not any more.</comment>


WebGL Meeting - chat with friends in 3D - <AUTHOR> http://jeromeetienne.github.com/webglmeeting/

<comment><USER2> my guess is that as soon as WebRTC becomes enabled by default projects based on it will dominate Hacker News for a year straight. The possibilities of this tech are incredible.

<comment><USER3> Webcam and Audio APIs are awesome. But the P2P stuff is even moreso. Unreliable data streams - brilliant for games. P2P networking - DHTs in the browser! Combined with Web Crypto, heck, who knows!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, man, this brings me back to 97/98 when people were saying that VRML based 3D chats were just around the corner ;)

[http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/9710/14/3.d.reality.lat/index.ht...](http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/9710/14/3.d.reality.lat/index.html)

<comment><USER5> Wow, OnLive has been around for a long time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not working for me. Not able to see the other participant in the same room. Something special needs to be done?

</comment><comment><USER7> Gee, happened to see this post while attending a regular Sunday night hangout/dance in SecondLife.

</comment><comment><USER8> Syntax error: return not in function on line 98.

<comment><USER9> Line 98: if( hasWebGL === false || hasWebRTC === false ) return;

But that line is not in the body of a function. What it looks like the author meant to do is have an if/else block to check if your current browser has WebGL AND WebRTC.

<http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC#Browsers>

<comment><USER10> im the author, and in fact it was because all that was in a funciton :)

<https://github.com/jeromeetienne/webglmeeting/issues/2>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't see my friend in the same room!</comment>


In Silicon Valley, some men say cosmetic procedures are essential to a career - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/09/silicon-valley-some-men-say-cosmetic-procedures-are-essential-career <comment><USER2> This is a duplicate post.

The article amounts to an attempt to scare older male tech workers into desiring things like Botox treatments. It is not very convincing especially if you know how-to-code.</comment>


30 Days for This? - <AUTHOR> http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_yahoo_designed_in-house.php

<comment><AUTHOR> For context: Armin Vit runs probably the most important blog critiquing identity design and branding. From my vantage, this is the authoritative place for quick reactions to major new identities.</comment>


Show HN: Cromonitor.com - Spy on your competitors A/B & MVT tests - <AUTHOR> http://cromonitor.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Comparing screenshots (difference thresholds) is probably the most complicated part of the process. Currently using Imagemagick which is OK but it could be improved, probably by using Open CV instead.

Any thoughts?</comment>


I still love programming – what's wrong with me? - <AUTHOR> https://avilay.rocks/i-still-love-programming-whats-wrong-with-me/ <comment><AUTHOR> Spurred by a post on AskHN about a dev who has "fallen out of love" with programming, I wrote down my thoughts on being on the IC path as opposed to the management path. Would love to know your experiences around this issue.</comment>