
Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video] - Domenic_S
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/
======
woodruffw
For those interested in watching the video without feeding into Brietbart's
ad/engagement numbers, I've mirrored it here:
[https://yossarian.net/google.mp4](https://yossarian.net/google.mp4)

~~~
mirror_mirror
I'm not positive I've done this correctly, but I tried uploading it to IPFS.
If someone could let me know if that works, I'd appreciate it.

QmX5wjpMyWrtwHQnJ6L8BMAnUGgxwJqnoLbTCJbmWD1gqG - 720p

QmNPNYTMD95vc6PZtH5QFgLTj22cNkWm6TTCi7YGKY3kD3 - 270p

~~~
curtis3389
I've never tried to download something this big via IPFS, but navigating to
[https://ipfs.io/ipfs/<hash>](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/<hash>) seems to just hang

~~~
mirror_mirror
Sorry. It looks like I made a mistake while publishing initially. It should be
working now. I was able to at least verify the lowres version.

[https://ipfs.tube/#QmNPNYTMD95vc6PZtH5QFgLTj22cNkWm6TTCi7YGK...](https://ipfs.tube/#QmNPNYTMD95vc6PZtH5QFgLTj22cNkWm6TTCi7YGKY3kD3)

I may have to do some finagling, since I'm new to IPFS, and never have dealt
with files this large on IPFS either.

Edit:

Looks like the highres version also should be working

[https://ipfs.tube/#QmX5wjpMyWrtwHQnJ6L8BMAnUGgxwJqnoLbTCJbmW...](https://ipfs.tube/#QmX5wjpMyWrtwHQnJ6L8BMAnUGgxwJqnoLbTCJbmWD1gqG)

------
fallingfrog
Wait, you mean there's _bias_ in our media?

All joking aside- I remember watching ed Snowden go from being a
"whistleblower" to a "leaker" in the space of 8 hours. I watched Alexandria
ocasio Cortez go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a know-nothing
(in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours. I remember how all the media were
creaming themselves with excitement over the wmd's they were going to find in
Iraq. I observe how the crimes of saudi Arabia are getting papered over and
not reported right now. So yeah.. not surprising.

~~~
simula67
> Alexandria ocasio Cortes go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a
> know-nothing (in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours

Are you kidding ? She said US military was given $700 billion increase that
they didn't ask for. She said that US unemployment is low becuase everyone has
two jobs. She said ICE has to detain 34,000 people every night by law.
[http://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-
co...](http://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/)

This 'if you criticise Democrat female politicians you must be sexist' line is
incredibly annoying

~~~
supernovae
She was criticized for being female regardless of her misconceptions on
military spending and how many jobs people have. A huge chunk of the world
doesn't give equal forgiving or demands of females as they do males - they
demand more and forgive less. Ever looked at PolitiFact for just about every
other politician? Just look at Serena Williams.. she blabbed and it may be the
end of her career (or a lingering black eye)yet for other males in the sport,
it just means the front page on the newspaper and nothing else the next day...
We can't ignore this. I wouldn't want AI to shape the views of women any worse
than they already are just as we shouldn't use targeted bias in user comments
to make her look unique in light of her male counterparts than ran against her
- of which they all have/had faults and screw ups themselves.

~~~
monochromatic
> She was criticized for being female

No, she wasn't. There are lots of successful female politicians. She was
criticized for being a moron.

~~~
supernovae
Yes, she was. It's a systemic problem in American society. Your comment is
essentially proof of your bias. Unless you want to back it up and say everyone
is a moron because once again, everyone has said things that could
categorically quantify them as a moron - but your holding HER and specifically
HER to a special case.

~~~
monochromatic
>every criticism of a woman is a criticism because she’s a woman

K.

~~~
supernovae
keep kidding yourself (oh, and so glad you can downvote instead of have honest
discussion)

~~~
monochromatic
It’s aactually not possible to downvote someone who replies to you. So it
wasn’t me.

Anyway, keep telling yourself that you understand people’s motives, and that
they’re bad. In the real world, sexism and racism are not nearly as extreme as
you’d think from the perspective of the tumblr echo chamber.

------
ChuckMcM
Wow, they are still using Dory. That is the question collecting software that
Taliver Heath wrote. It was a pretty brilliant idea, people submit questions
and other people vote the questions up (or down) and top ranked questions get
selected automatically.

Its interesting to think about Brietbart putting this out there as some 'evil'
thing, given what their all hands meeting would have looked like if the
election had gone the other way. But from a tech perspective its always
destabilizing to endorse a political ideology just like it is destabilizing to
endorse a religious ideology in what is a collective for economic output.

That said, the previous tech position of 'hands off' (very limited engagement
except for very specific technical issues like ITAR restrictions on strong
crypto) did not do tech any favors when it came to legislation. I'm not sure
what the answer is here other than "its complicated."

~~~
rdtsc
> Its interesting to think about Brietbart putting this out there as some
> 'evil' thing,

Never worked at Google, but as they say it went about as I would have expected
based on my outside perspective. Or at least I wasn't stunned by anything in
particular...

Overall I think what people dislike is the disconnect between the PR message
of "all opinions are welcome / we are open / neutral" vs the reality of them
being fairly uniform in political affiliation. I think they might do better to
just own it and stop pretending. Say something like "yeah we are biased and
proud of it and we stand firm behind these values etc."

~~~
azinman2
Just because there’s a semi-uniform political bend doesn’t mean they’re biased
in product. The ACLU backed the KKK’s right to March, but clearly doesn’t
stand with the KKK’s values.

That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as
they’d never do the same.

~~~
igravious
> That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as
> they’d never do the same.

Which clearly reveals _your_ bias. Well done.

You can't compare Google to the ACLU.

The ACLU has a track record defending free speech and freedom of expression.
As long as the speech and expression does not contravene any laws the ACLU
will defend it – it's _irrelevant_ to them what values the speech and
expression they are defending promotes or espouses. And, when you think about
it, it's very unlikely that the ACLU will be forced to defend speech and
expression nobody has a problem with so they are going to be defending speech
and expression that gets peoples backs up.

Google on the other hand has no consistent track record of being neutral when
it comes to content on their platforms. There's no transparency and insight
into their deliberation processes. So if the group-think at Google comes down
on one side or the other and they don't have a hands-off approach then that's
very worrying. Of course, if you subscribe to Google's version of reality then
you're going to be very happy with that but if you don't then too bad for you.
If tech companies want to alienate a good chunk of their user base then they
better be prepared for the backlash up to and including regulation and
migration away to services that do a better job at upholding the ideals of
free speech and expression.

~~~
camelite
> As long as the speech and expression does not contravene any laws the ACLU
> will defend it – it's irrelevant to them what values the speech and
> expression they are defending promotes or espouses.

Not anymore:

[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACL...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACLU.pdf?mod=article_inline)

~~~
clarkevans
There is an interesting overview of the ACLU as part of the labor movement On
Sept 7th's On The Media, entitled One Hundred Years Of Free Speech.
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-hundred-years-free-
spe...](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-hundred-years-free-speech/)

------
jiojfdsal3
"(00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation”
and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating
that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix
the problem."

Anyone find this disturbing? They're trying to use AI to manipulate what users
'should' see?

~~~
gizmo686
That is literally what Google was founded on. Their core technology behind
their initial success was pagerank, an algorithm whose sole purpose is to
manipulate what people see. They have stayed dominant through a combination of
market forces, and keeping their algorithm near (or, IMO at) the top of the
market for generalized search [0], and have leveraged this competency in other
markets (video, ads, etc).

Beyond just Google, this is an inevitable result of having any which resembles
the internet we know today. The alternative is to go back to human
gatekeepers. While it is arguable if human gatekeepers are better from a
consumption standpoint, it is clear that they are worse from a production
standpoint, as it massivly increases the barriers to publication.

[0] In actuality, I suspect that Google's "algorithm" involves a fair bit of
"cheating" by having humans nudge the results. Political bias aside, I think
not doing this would leave them too open to attack from other players in the
market who do.

~~~
roenxi
I value political neutrality in the workplace, so I have a lot of in-principle
issues with what is being shown here right from the get-go. I didn't wind the
video back to find the exact quote, but we now have publicised evidence of
senior leadership at Google who stood up and said 'obviously our values are
not the same as a big chunk of Americans'. Clearly a lot of them are specific
Hillary supporters, a candidate so unelectable she lost to Trump.

There is a practical difference between pagerank, which is a transparent
algorithm, and a non-transparent magic algorithm that is controlled by a group
who are clearly not engaged with the idea of corporate political neutrality.
Taking the views expressed here as a starting point, logically why shouldn't
they try to tilt the election result using their power?

 _EDIT_ I'm just going to add this in because it just doesn't sit well. It
shouldn't acceptable for leadership in a workplace to stand up and express
pain and dismay at the outcome of a democratic process.

~~~
panarky
_> I value political neutrality in the workplace_

If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world.

Changing things in the world is necessarily and inevitably political.

If the workplace appears politically neutral, then one of two things must be
true. Either what you're doing doesn't affect the outside world, or there are
hidden, unstated political motives at work.

I would much prefer my company's leadership to acknowledge the politics
inherent in our work and openly state their motives and point of view.

Doing otherwise is either meaningless or dishonest.

~~~
quotemstr
You are part of the problem.

Is antibiotics development changing the world? I should hope so. Do bacteria
care about which presidential candidate won? Absolutely not. Most fields, in
fact, do not involve the acrimonious political issues of the day.

The idea that "everything is political" is a lame excuse that activists use to
hack politics into spaces where it doesn't belong. Even if a field has some
tenuous connection to some political principle somewhere, bringing the
political aspect to the fore only creates distractions and sows division.

Workplaces can and should be non-political and denying that political
neutrality is possible is a particularly annoying strain of political
activism.

~~~
dang
> _You are part of the problem_

No personal swipes, please. Your comment would be fine without that.

~~~
quotemstr
Noted. Would "This attitude is part of the problem" have been acceptable?

------
greyman
To be honest, it caught me by surprise how politically unified the whole top
management is, and how strong their political convictions are. It is publicly
known that Eric Schmidt for example supports democrats, but I (wrongly)
supposed that is mostly his personal affinity. Now it seems that not; the
company as a whole supports one political party. Now the question is how is
this reflected in their products (search, Google News, etc).

~~~
minwcnt5
Isn't it more that they're against Trump, and what the Republican party has
become? They are only for one political party because there is only one
alternative. Back in the day, I know that their leadership was close with
people like Colin Powell and Kissinger, so there are probably some traditional
republican values held, it's just that in recent years the party has become
completely toxic.

~~~
lake99
If there is a contemporary personification of Evil, that is Kissinger. It's
not about "traditional republican values" either. As far as I can see, both
your big parties are a continuation of Kissinger's policies.

------
throwaway_trust
To be honest so much corporate speak. Only Sergei's voice seems to be
authentic. Everyone else trying to be extremely careful with their language of
comments even though it's not a public event.

And "misinformation" and "fake news" will be combatted by AI? Seriously? That
is like saying, "I have no clue but I will use some buzzwords". Pichai/GOOG
knows AI better than everyone. I think they still don't have plan for
combatting misinformation.

~~~
gizmo686
I think they are being genuine when they say their plan is to combat fake news
with AI; their business is built around AI. It is one of their core
competencies.

I think they are going to fail, and quietly increase the human involvement
once they realize that their AI isn't good enough. Then they will slowly scale
back the humans as their AI improves, until the next controversy when they
realize that they still need humans.

~~~
abraae
That's a tragic view.

How did we get to the state where the "truth" is such an elusive concept?

Is it so hard to determine whether basic statements are true or false? And to
build larger, higher constructs out of those building blocks? That's basically
what science has been and is.

It seems comically easy to identify fake news in most cases. Was this
inauguration crowd larger than that one? That's a simple question to answer.

~~~
makomk
Two days ago, partisan advocacy site ThinkProgress ran an article with the
headline "Brett Kavanaught said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost
no-one noticed". The reason no-one noticed is because he said nothing of the
sort and ThinkProgess knew as much. One of the fact checkers partnered with
Facebook labelled it as false, they attached the usual warning, and this made
ThinkProgress and a chunk of the left-leaning press furious. They accused
Facebook of "defaming" and "censoring" them to "appease the right wing",
claiming that this was actually some kind of partisan attack on the truth.

That, in essence, is how we got here. There are plenty of loud, vocal
defenders of "truth" out there, it's just that the loudest and most vocal of
them define "truth" to mean "what our side believes".

~~~
amanaplanacanal
It was a bad headline, for sure. I see more attention grabbing headlines every
day.

------
tinkerteller
This is great stuff and chance to see Google’s famous TGIFs. Also rare chance
to hear Larry Page’s changed voice. It’s beyond shocking however that leaders
of search engine business so openly preaching their political views. Given
this is at the highest level, one cannot have confidence that things would
remain bias free. I would have expected these leaders to make sure they keep
their political views to themselves just to be fair to conservative employees
who are ironically minority at Google.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Google was around when W was elected and re-elected and nothing of the sort
happened at their all hands then. It’s absolutely different because the
particular candidate that won is uniquely odious in his approach and policy
proposals that has/could negatively impact the lives of many Googlers.

~~~
xyzzyz
Overall negative impact on Googlers of decade-long war, increased airport
security and PATRIOT act in general has greatly outpaced whatever extra
negative impact Trump has caused so far and will cause in foreseeable future.
I'm not surprised in the slightest that majority of Googlers are not liking
Trump very much; there are plenty of very good reasons to do so. However, as
much as media hype it, let's not pretend that he's so much worse that W in
terms of what actually happened since his election.

------
randomposter44
Part of my decision for leaving Google was the insane left leaning bias within
the company. I never outed myself as a conservative person because I've heard
coworkers equate republicans to monsters.

~~~
jasonvorhe
Maybe being conservative just isn't that smart to begin with?

~~~
stryk
THIS is a not-insignificant part of the problem. right here. You jumped
straight out of the gate with calling the OP stupid. Not even a feigned
attempt at some sort of discussion or debate.

You saw the word "conservative" and BOOM it's right into the Us vs. Them, Me
vs. You, Good vs. Evil. I just don't see how that is healthy, at all, for
anyone or anything including the country. It's childish. Social media and
karma/upvotes/likes/karma/fake-internet-points, whatever you want to call it,
has devolved us into kids on the schoolyard.

United we stand, divided we fall. grow up

~~~
ionised
I mean, if you look throughout history, even at the last century, you see
civil rights actions that were vehemently opposed by conservatives and
traditionalists.

Votes for women, emancipation of slaves, equal rights for women, for blacks,
for gays, for the transgendered, worker protections, abolition of child
labour, mandatory paid leave, maternity leave, environmental protections etc.

The list could go on, and in each and every instance we have had conservatives
and traditionalists fighting them tooth and nail, and losing the battle every
single time.

While the comment the person you replied to is short and lacking in substance,
I do think there is truth to it.

What's that old Buddhist maxim?

 _Change is the only constant in life_ or _You cannot change the wind, but you
can adjust your sails_.

Change is a certainty, but conservatives and traditionalists have made it
their life's work to resist it.

------
cromwellian
Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair
that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just
some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous
society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or
regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally,
regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin.

There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against
immigrants.

~~~
simonsarris
Except there are plenty of rational reasons one might want to restrict
immigration by country, as even Gwern has gone over before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767)

> immigrant outcomes differ by orders of magnitude by country and that this
> has considerable implications for the immigration debate and that many of
> the arguments made by the left for illegal immigration & open borders range
> from ignorant to outright lying with statistics.

In 2014 Havard fellow Eugen Dimant did a study on immigration from corrupt
countries, with the consistent finding that "Immigration from corruption-
ridden countries boosts corruption in the destination country."

[https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/crook-crook-he-still-
crook-a...](https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/crook-crook-he-still-crook-abroad-
effect-immigration-destination-country)

To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one set
of countries, and encourage immigration from another, _almost always_ gets you
labeled a racist, ethno-nationalist, etc. If you don't believe you will be
called that, I invite you to try and discuss them pro/con style (pretending
you are fairly convinced) with some of your more liberal coworkers, and see
what they say.

Just being immigration-skeptic in general now often leads to such charges,
which is absurd. The most basic rational reason of all is very simple: If the
fundamental mechanic of democracy is that the people vote and these votes
matter, then every citizen should have a _strong_ interest in making sure that
the criteria for being a citizen is in place to attract good citizens and
repel bad ones. Instead, we can barely talk about it.

~~~
whack
> _To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one
> set of countries, and encourage immigration from another, almost always gets
> you labeled a racist_

That is the very definition of racism. You're ascribing negative traits to
specific races/ethnicities/countries, and using that as justification for
discriminating against all individuals from that demographic.

If you want to advocate for racist policies as being pragmatic and in the
public interests, go ahead and make that argument. But at least have the
honesty to call it what it is.

FWIW, I don't think racism and stereotypes make for good public policy, no
matter how "true" they may seem. This was the same logic used to discriminate
against Irish, Italian and Eastern-European immigrants, and I don't think it's
worth going down that same road once again. We can build a sensible
immigration policy based on individual merit, without debasing ourselves into
racist ideologies.

~~~
belorn
When the right talk about toxic and destructive cultures and suggest policy to
address it then that is racism and discrimination.

When the left talk about toxic and destructive masculinity and suggest policy
to address it then that is using clear language and decisive action about a
structural issue in society.

We could be making sensible policies based on each individuals own merit and
it would be great. No more women vs men, immigrant vs nationalist, white vs
black. It is the future I would like to have but what I am getting is the
choice between two ideologies who each ascribing negative traits to their own
set of races and gender, with policies to match.

~~~
whack
I'd consider myself a liberal, and I'm opposed to any and all attempts to
discriminate against an entire demographic group, based on negative traits
that are (supposedly) statistically common. Regardless of whether the group in
question is Mexicans/Whites/Females/Males/Muslims. I would consider anyone
espousing such ideology to be racist/sexist by definition. There are certainly
fringe bigots in the left, but I'm sure the majority of Clinton voters feel
similarly as I do.

~~~
belorn
I am glad to hear someone with that view. I would like it to be fringe, and
while the last weeks election here in Swedish is plainly showing how
mainstream generalizations like "mens violence again women" are, I feel like
looking at like it is fringe might just help push it to actually become
fringe.

Equality of this kind is a topic that could create common ground between
liberal left and libertarian right, with policies and laws that focus on the
individual and human behavior rather than groups. It would mean giving up
having a group that each side can point at and blame for all faults in
society, and the cynical in me would say that this means its political
impossible, but it would make for a better world and possible push people to
towards each other rather than apart.

~~~
whack
I agree with you. There's nothing more dehumanizing than being insulted or
discriminated against, because of the demographic group you belong to. I think
we should all speak up against it when we see it happening.

------
dmitrygr
I have no comment on the content of this, since I don't want to get fired for
saying anything remotely close to what I think. I am kind of curious how this
video was obtained however.

~~~
rdtsc
It is interesting that you've been downvoted (as your post is gray when I saw
it), just for questioning that you might face repercussions for adding a
comment. Which kind of proves your point I suppose.

~~~
gizmo686
All it proves is that comments that contribute nothing get downvoted.
Especially when they explicitly draw attention to the fact that they are not
contributing.

~~~
rdtsc
Hmm I thought it nicely contributed a point that then was proved as well. Here
is someone who supposedly works at Google which encourages "to bring your
whole self to work" and where people are "supporting and sharing in open
dialog" (paraphrasing from the video) afraid to make a comment on the video on
a "hacker" news forum for fear of retaliation.

This is not even a Google owned platform just some external forum. So they
think someone will scour the web, find their comment, take down their name,
head over to Google's HR / thought-police dept., report them and they'd face
retaliation. Seems on point with discussion at hand to me.

------
test001only
When people/organisation are categorised in to buckets of left and right
leaning, it becomes difficult to have a clear conversion. What happened here
was a president was elected whose election promises would negatively affect
employees of the organisation. They were right in trying to comfort their
employees, especially being Google who are famously known to pamper their
employees. This is not being left or right, this is just being human.

------
jessaustin
Wow they get lots of comments over at Breitbart. 11k on TFA, 35k on a
soundbite from Cher, 22k for some ridiculous complaint about Serena (hmmm, is
this some sort of theme?), 3500 on some guy having a heart attack. Is this
normal for partisan news sites? They need to figure out some way of monetizing
those comments.

~~~
jacquesm
> They need to figure out some way of monetizing those comments.

The people funding those sites are cleaning up with the votes they've bought
in this way. The comments _are_ the monetization.

~~~
jessaustin
I suppose that's _possible_ , but it seems rather convoluted. Why wouldn't
those hypothetical funders simply bribe _both_ branches of the status quo
party like every other rich asshole does?

I might change my mind about all this if any of the actually-different young
democrats who have forsworn such financing are actually elected this fall...

~~~
jacquesm
I'm not aware of any such ridiculous sites on the left side of the spectrum,
insofar as you could call the democrats 'left', in most countries a party with
their political stance would still be on the right. Some would argue the USA
does not have a functioning left wing party.

~~~
tinco
The USA has no functional political parties. The Republicans won on a zero
integrity populist gambit that is betraying its voter base and the ideals of
the party with every stroke of his pen and typed character.

The Democrats are so mired in their internal politics and fear of having and
identity they produced an agenda and candidate so weak they lost to a senile
compulsive liar.

------
newnewpdro
This video presents as if the leadership is coddling a room full of
kindergartners sad over the loaner class pet going home. Company full of
children.

~~~
codeonfire
Are you surprised? Google invented infantilism of their workers. They invented
basic colors, office slides, and office ball pits. They make new employees
wear propeller hats. They want a naive "ender's game" work force while their
business of monitoring the web browsing and location of hundreds of millions
of people is actually very serious.

~~~
megous
I was wondering about the abundance of propeller hats in the audience, if it's
some insider joke or what. But seriously, new employees have to wear propeller
hats?!

~~~
mikejb
Yes - they're called "noogler hats", and they sometimes even sell on ebay.
(Who buys this stuff?)

------
DyslexicAtheist
HN can be a huge traffic generator, so can we change the URL to youtube
instead of sending traffic to breitbart?

~~~
dash2
I think if the story is worth reading then Breitbart deserves credit for
breaking it, whether or not you think they are bad guys.

~~~
happytoexplain
I disagree - I think there's some level of malevolence and ill will at which
an organization doesn't deserve any help if at all possible, even if they
simply wrote a true story. If we were in some reality where there was no other
way to consume the story, sure, then it's worth linking to them. But we'll
always have other ways to instantly and easily host information.

------
petermcneeley
Twice it was mentioned that the cause of WWII was boredom. Is this actually a
real theory?

~~~
paganel
> Is this actually a real theory?

I'm not a professional historian by any means, but I think Ernst Nolte's
opinion (he was a German historian) that WW2 was actually an European Civil
War fought between fascism and communism is right (you can read an
introduction into the whole discussion on his wiki page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Nolte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Nolte)).
His basic idea was summed up by another historian, Norman Davies (you can
ignore the "leftists" part at the end):

> Ten years later, in The European Civil War (1987), the German historian
> Ernst Nolte (b. 1923) brought ideology into the equation. The First World
> War had spawned the Bolshevik Revolution, he maintained, and fascism should
> be seen as a "counter-revolution" against communism. More pointedly, since
> fascism followed communism chronologically, he argued that some of the
> Nazis' political techniques and practices had been copied from those of the
> Soviet Union. Needless to say, such propositions were thought anathema by
> leftists who believe that fascism was an original and unparalleled evil.

People in the States and generally speaking in Western Europe tend to forget
how much communism (Bolshevism as it was called back then) was seen as a
threat after WW1. I happened to view a video on YT a couple of days ago of
German Radio's official announcement of Hitler's death. I don't know German
but the only word that I could distinctively comprehend was "Bolshevism" (or
whatever its spelling is in German), which shows that even with Hitler dead
and defeat just a few of days away the Germans were still thinking about the
big bad man coming from the East (as far as I could heard no mention was made
in the same announcement about the "Amerikaner").

~~~
piokoch
"People in the States and generally speaking in Western Europe tend to forget
how much communism (Bolshevism as it was called back then) was seen as a
threat after WW1."

Because it really was, Europe was pretty lucky that Soviet army was defeated
in 1920
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_(1920)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_\(1920\))]
before it managed to go further to the West - that was the ultimate communists
goal, as they wanted to spread revolution across whole continent.

In that way not only Eastern and Central Europe countries would experience the
fun communism brings: poverty, inequality, secret police murdering opposition
members and priests, lack of freedom.

~~~
ionised
> In that way not only Eastern and Central Europe countries would experience
> the fun communism brings: poverty, inequality, secret police murdering
> opposition members and priests, lack of freedom.

You say that like fascism didn't exhibit these characteristics as well.

------
andresp
What is most worrisome is the absolute lack of ideological diversity. Google
might want to consider tackling this on their diversity policies and work
groups. In the light of this video and James Damore reports I can imagine that
the company is not a safe space where conservatives can freely express their
points of view without feeling uncomfortable or taking the risk of being
ostracized or penalized throughout their career. It would be interesting to
know what led to this lack of diversity, potentially addressing some
recruitment bias with conservative quotas or positive discrimination while
hiring. Additionally, anonimously investigating whether a compensation gap
exists between conservatives and democrats could identify whether the
discrimination also happens during other stages of the employee career at
Google, e.g. promotions, bonus, projects... This could be done by the company
or enforced by the state itself (like what happens in the UK) and the results
should ideally be publicly available.

------
was_boring
What is normally covered during a Google TGIF all-hands, especially during a
slow week? I imagine this is not the normal.

~~~
d4l3k
It's normally product announcements and any other issues/news about the
company along with a Q&A session with the top leadership.

------
misterbowfinger
I'm honestly confused why they didn't just postpone TGIF and then ignore the
election. Just say someone got sick or something. Let employees deal with the
results themselves and move on.

~~~
jasonvorhe
Because they have a lot of people on staff who were genuinely scared of the
lunatic who just got elected because they're gay, trans, from a different
country, muslim or black.

It's good knowing that the giant behemoth you work for will have your back,
and even support from your peers will do a lot.

------
nodesocket
I find it a bit absurd when I hear pundits and media types claim that liberal
bias doesn't exists in silicon valley tech companies (top to bottom). As
somebody who lived in San Francisco for five plus years, I can firmly attest
it is more than bias. It's utter disdain, hatred, and prejudice. Just look at
how James Damore was handled it should be clear that diversity of thought and
individualism is not accepted. It's a complete echo chamber of shaming culture
who stand on a pedestal of moral superiority.

Another example, Antirez has been absolutely mob shamed into changing
master/slave in Redis by a Google employee. If you are against the change
because it's an industry standard you are called a racist.

~~~
jayd16
I don't think anyone claims Californians working in SF aren't liberal.

What you really mean is you want to be a mildly bigoted in peace and/or demand
attention because historically disadvantaged groups are getting attention
without any backlash while simultaneously telling others to get over their own
insecurities. When people say you have a persecution complex you think its a
liberal agenda.

Case in point, no one thinks caring about industry standards makes you racist.
Not caring about what makes others uncomfortable so you don't have to learn a
new word is what's frustrating. The appropriate response to a silly request
like that is "oh, uh, sure whatever. Just update the wiki."

~~~
spangry
It's not just a simple case of 'update the wiki'. You've actually got to
modify the code and potentially break already established APIs (and break
scripts that parse redis logs).

But putting aside the fact that it's not costless to make these sorts of
changes, it's also pointless. These people will never be satisfied. They're
not offended; they're bullies who want to control other people and virtue
signal to their bully friends. Giving in to their 'little change' just
encourages more bullying, more salami-slicing, more 'little changes' (e.g.
removing any reference to the word 'whitelist', instituting a code of conduct
etc.).

Redis is open-source: if their political sensibilities are so offended, they
can fork the project (like ayojs for example,
[https://github.com/ayojs/ayo](https://github.com/ayojs/ayo)).

~~~
jayd16
By "Update the wiki" I do also mean "sure just do the work yourself." We're
saying the same thing.

That said, fighting against things you claim to have no preference over you're
also partaking in the same control/power trip shenanigans. That's when things
really go off the rails.

~~~
hjrnunes
Not really.

It's not the particular choice of words that bothers people. It's the fact
that they either have to submit to the frivolous power-trippers or die on a
hill they don't particularly want to, in this case defending the word 'slave'.

You're saying they should just submit, despite the fact that they _realise_
the whole point of it all _just is_ their submission.

In other words, submit to the bully because, otherwise, you're just as bad as
him.

~~~
jayd16
The rub is you really don't know what their motivation is. You can suspect but
if they're willing to put in the all the work, it costs you nothing.

Going on some crusade for no gain or loss and only to deny someone else is
just whipping up drama. If you have legitimate complaints, make them.

This doesn't have anything to do with politics. Any argument based around "I
don't care so you shouldn't either" is bound to cause issues.

~~~
hjrnunes
Yes. I don't know their motivation the same way a man is presumed innocent in
a court.

But people are not courts. So I do not need, not is it practical, to act like
one.

However, I do know the justifications their proponents present for it. And I
do know that they're frivolous. They _just_ claim it will somehow make the
world better.

They set up a conjecture - that _abstract_ people _abstractly_ suffer when
they read those words - and proceed to impose a real action based on the
conjecture: _we_ have to delete the words.

Notice how _no actual person_ is presented has having suffered from reading
these words in Python code, let alone questioned (like a witness in a court,
btw). So no _actual_ suffering is presented.

Yet, the actions, the imposition, is concrete. It is actual. Some very actual
people will have something imposed on them directly and indirectly because of
this frivolous conjecture.

And the conjecture is frivolous precisely because it is an extraordinary claim
- that people suffer when they read 'slave' in the context of Python code -
that is presented without a single shred of anecdotal evidence, let alone
proof or demonstration.

------
tcbawo
Is it really surprising that a multinational company would have a preferred
candidate? Although, I'm sure they lobbied extensively for all major
candidates. It is interesting that both major parties seem to want to have
their cake and eat it too when it comes to free speech, "common carrier", and
antitrust issues.

~~~
rsj_hn
No, it's not surprising at all. Every company has a preferred candidate in
pretty much every election, at least the CEO and top leadership certainly
does.

What is surprising is turning an all hands into a kind of mass grieving
funeration for all of their 90K employees, replete with publicly weeping
executives and the entire executive leadership being vocally outraged. Turning
an all hands into a political event like this is both unprofessional and,
frankly, creepy.

~~~
skybrian
To add some context: remember that Google has employees who felt personally
threatened by election results (immigrants and transgender employees). Nobody
knew what Trump would do.

The worst fears turned out to be overblown, but it was hard to make the case
for not worrying at the time. Telling people they had nothing to worry about
would have simply been offensive.

There are few election results that employees would consider to be threatening
like that. It was very much a special case.

~~~
rsj_hn
There are people personally threatened in every presidential election, and
most of those fears are overblown pretty much all the time. Lots of extremist
views in this country and lots of people feeling threatened about pretty much
everything.

Should google have held the same weeping festival in case Hillary won, and
someone was personally threatened that she would start a new war in Syria or
lead to war in Russia? Which could lead to a nuclear war? Of course not. That
would be as ridiculous as what happened now. You don't cater to those kinds of
views in the workplace.

The correct response is not to hold a company meeting about how threatened
anyone feels in an election, but to talk about the new products being rolled
out and what you expect from your employees in their business life. And there
are lots of blogs and opportunities for Google employees to express their
political views outside the company. No public weeping of executives is
required.

~~~
skybrian
Oh come on, you're doing a terrible job of understanding how your political
opponents think.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and certainly not uncivil
ones.

------
wyclif
“We all need a hug,” she then instructs the audience of Google employees to
hug the person closest to them.

------
singularity2001
How ironic that youtube might have contributed to the radicalization of the
world (see recent discussion). They realized too late or valued their revenues
higher than values.

Or they adopted the value of a neutral stance, which is good. At least in
theory; in practice there hardly is any true neutral.

------
DyslexicAtheist
it has become very difficult to not talk about politics & policy when having a
tech discussion at work (and even on LinkedIn) today. The previous stance,
that "tech should be neutral" has been, and remains a cowardly position to
take by management.

Personally not a fan of google's ideology but I really appreciate their openly
addressing the _politics-elephant_ in the room.

~~~
oriol16
Talking politics at work is only ok if it's left wing. Mocking Trump and his
voters, calling people racist and morons, that gets you an applause. Showing
understanding for the opposite site gets you in trouble. That's chapter one of
"surviving in the workplace in 2018".

~~~
davedx
The opposite side, with its “very fine people”?

~~~
oriol16
50 million voters in US only with above average income/education. The fact
they voted for Trump doesn't mean they would share all his faults, and it
doesn't even mean that you can describe them before you can critizice them,
call them offenders, and a long list of "very fine things".

------
on_and_off
I have not watched the whole video but I don't see how that's surprising,
offensive or problematic.

------
justaaron
I should bloody well hope that anyone with a brain has a bias against astro-
turf fake-populist wanna-be dictators.

We owe no consideration to deliberately-destructive trolls seeking to
undermine all notions of civility and social progress merely to feed Rupert
Murdochs empire of faeces further banquet tables full of roasted dead orphans.

Breitbart, OTOH, is precisely a harmful entity seeking to undermine all that
is decent and good.

~~~
justaaron
But no, Google news is not ignoring or de-prioritizing their filth-cum-
journalism.

I am obviously not their target reader, and yet my news.google.com feed
contains plenty of Fox propaganda.

Google obviously has no qualms about a "moron tax"

sheesh, look at Youtube. it's full of alt-right tripe.

~~~
tkmo
Of course this thread is guaranteed to be an absolute shit show, but it's
revealing the level of intense emotiveness shown by your post and the one
before it, and most of all by the Google execs.

Were this directed at a tiny ideological fraction of the population it could
be OK, but we are talking about give or take half of the voters of the USA,
UK, Poland, Hungary, Austria, etc., etc.

And when Google has such a near monopoly on massive swathes of the web that is
quite concerning.

~~~
threeseed
Not sure where you’re getting the numbers to back up your 50% claim. At most
it is around 15% in UK, 30% in the US and somewhat higher in the Eastern
European countries.

Alt right conservatism is not a mainstream ideology anywhere in the world. Nor
will it ever the way things are going.

~~~
tkmo
In proper terms, perhaps, but things like Trump, Brexit, and strongly anti-
immigrant, populist conservative, leaders like Salvini, Orban, etc., in
Europe, are all generally placed in the same camp by the media.

Ultimately we are discussing the visible rage and despisement towards the
winnning side of a national US election vote. That is incredibly concerning
coming from a company as powerful as Google, and we know the same sentiment is
shared across Hollywood and the mass media.

~~~
threeseed
The concern around Trump extends to close to 70% of the electorate according
to recent polling. It isn’t isolated.

And given Trump’s anti-immigrant stance Google executives being immigrants
themselves would have every right to voice their concern.

~~~
tkmo
Trump's stance is anti illegal immigrant which should not affect any Google
execs.

Re: approval ratings, its a moot point. Trump has enjoyed generally similar
approval ratings to Obama (at most single digit percentage points lower) and
ultimately won a free and fair election in a first world Republic.

Having the leaders of a global monopoly megacorporation display this kind of
disdain for the elected leader of the country and everyone who supports him,
and (by implication) similar populist leaders across Europe (and their
supporters), is extremely, deeply, disconcerting.

~~~
hef19898
Electorate college? Gerrymandering?

And I hope you are not seriously stating that a company cannot have political
views opposed to the government? It's either a democratic election (to have a
legitimate government) which implies different opinions regardless of
majorites or not (so that nobody can oppose the government). You cannot have
it both ways.

------
maxehmookau
Brietbart is not journalism. It is a far-right propaganda outfit and its
"work" has no place on a civilised forum such as HN.

~~~
nailer
Exactly how is this video 'far right propaganda'? The people talking are all
Google executives. It's an hour long, there's no cuts or edits.

~~~
maxehmookau
This video is not. Linking to breitbart supports them financially. We should
not do that.

I noticed that people have posted links to the video that Breitbart won't
financially gain from.

------
TheAceOfHearts
IMO, the link should be updated to point to the original source. The Verge
article adds no value to the discussion:

[https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-
googl...](https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-
leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/)

~~~
jsoc815
Don't think it's allowed. I just tried to post it only to learn that someone
else also tried; post is dead.

Not surprised, but think it's a little weird because the leaking of the video
seems like a point for discussion of something happening in the company, SV,
etc., maybe?

Maybe Dang (or someone other minder) will be kind enough to explain.

~~~
dang
That site has been banned on HN for years. We're happy to make exceptions for
specific cases where there's a substantive post, though, like this one.

~~~
lanestp
I have to ask, why a site like Breitbart which has broken a lot of substantive
stories would be banned? I’ve seen less credible left leaning sites on HN. I’m
hoping there is a really good reason because right now I am concerned.

~~~
dang
Because most submissions have been off-topic or otherwise against the site
guidelines. Same reason why we'd ban any site.

~~~
jidjjejdjd
Utterly bullshit.

HN is part of the liberal groupthink.

Fuck your lies you loser.

------
codeonfire
Google has definitely jumped the shark with their political leanings. They
have been sued for implementing hiring quotas and discriminating on race, sex,
and age. You can read the complaint here
[https://www.scribd.com/embeds/372792998/content](https://www.scribd.com/embeds/372792998/content)
While Sergey seems to care about immigrants like himself, lgbtq, and women, he
does not give a flying fuck about age discrimination, which is a legally
protected class in America. Ultimately nothing lasts forever, and
unfortunately there is some truth in right wing characterizations of Google.
People stuck in the middle of the political spectrum, everyday non-racist
people who are not part of any particular "group", have no party or supporters
on either side.

~~~
jayd16
Your argument only makes sense if you think immigrants, lgbtq and women are
not every day people.

~~~
codeonfire
Once you accept and identify as a label then you are no longer part of the
middle. That is one of the main arguments against race quotas and affirmative
action. It taints the whole idea of equality and neutrality.

~~~
jayd16
Identifying as a woman means you are not in the middle?

~~~
codeonfire
A woman that joins a company in mountain view that only hires women is the
same as a man that joins a company in Manhattan that only hires men. Can't
really say you are neutral after that.

------
in3d
My biggest takeaway is that Sergey Brin needs to stick to technology. The
“boredom” explanation for Trump’s victory might be the stupidest one yet.

------
mrschwabe
For additional context, also note Eric Schmidt's consultant role which was
revealed in HRC's leaked emails:

[https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-
in-...](https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-team-
hillarys-election-tech/)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-
eric...](https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-eric-schmidt-
relationship-with-clintons-2016-11)

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/37262](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262)

~~~
mikeyouse
There was essentially no new news in the hacked emails -- People had been
reporting for years that Schmidt was supporting HRC's presidential bid,
including forming a startup to help her with engineering talent:

[https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-
workin...](https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-
hillary-clinton-campaign/)

~~~
mrschwabe
Well it is a confirmation a paid arrangement was in place, which is actually
big deal.

Anyone paid to consult or render services for that campaign should be under
intense scrutiny.

~~~
mikeyouse
They are.. which is why they have dozens of entries in the FEC's disbursement
database since June 2015:

[https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction...](https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction_period=2016&data_type=processed&recipient_name=the+groundwork&min_date=01%2F01%2F2015&max_date=12%2F31%2F2016)

------
notaboutdave
> People didn't vote for our person! Change the algorithms!

This is so corrupt and manipulative it makes me sad.

------
akhilcacharya
I’m fascinated by the parallels between the fascination with this leaked all
hands and the external interest in the interns cultures of elite universities
and the like - is the implication that Googleplex and Harvard Yard share a
similar space in our culture now?

------
iamjk
The video won't load on Chrome for me, but it works on Safari. Is this
Google's doing?

~~~
rsj_hn
I went on Breitbart's site and it loads fine in chrome. Also, Google returns
it as a top search result. So, credit where credit is due.

------
liftbigweights
I see an hour old post on the frontpage with 6 votes. This story has more
votes in less time and is not on the frontpage. I think this is a far more
important news story than "The Known Known".

Edit) So this tech related story is off-topic but the "known known" an
explicitly political and off-topic post is not.

~~~
jarsin
I submitted this way earlier today and got some message from the site I had
never seen before that it was already submitted but it did not show it to me
like it usually does, and it was nowhere to be found.

I think this guy got it through because he did not use the original Breitbart
link.

My recent fox story about google got the silent ban as well.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
You can turn your "show dead" setting in your profile to "yes" to see these.
Some domains are automatically marked dead on submission, usually sites with a
strong bias or who rarely break their own news. As dang noted elsewhere in
this thread, this story is notable and worth sharing, so it's a worthy
exception.

Users with enough karma can vouch for dead stories as well and make them
visible, but since the dead pile is super spammy, most users don't bother to
look in there.

