Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's performance really affects the money printing machine. They blatantly view the company and its resources as a means to further their political goals.

They come across as incredibly entitled and tone-deaf against the actual working class or people actually suffering from oppression (say, women being incarcerated in Iran for decades for taking off their veils, or protesters in HK). No matter how petty and entitled the request, anything denied is interpreted as some larger act of "violence" against them.

What I didn't/don't understand is why management allowed that to happen. Either they actually believe in the political goals themselves, are afraid of the conflict, or believe it just does not matter for the company.

I think what management fails to understand often is that giving in to a demand is not viewed with gratitude but merely as accepting what's naturally right and good. In other words, giving in to demands 1..n does not give you credit when demand n+1 is posed. The ultimate conflict is just delayed.

Each of the major FAAMG companies has a political/dominance issue of some kind, one that comes to mind more immediately than all the political issues associated with those companies. Taking a swag at it:

* Facebook: privacy - exploitation (personal data exploitation)

* Amazon: automation

* Apple: privacy - enforced (withholding from gov't)

* Microsoft: [I'm not even sure, they're flying low.. perhaps monopolization, or government backdoors?]

* Google: politicization/curation

I would suggest that Google's the clearest "ideation" company here, where censorship/curation is the most core part of their business model (Facebook is social media, Google is a borg-like machine collection all of the Internet and then putting algorithms around access to it), and most prone to politicization crossing the internal/external cultural barrier. [edit:spelling]

Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive.

Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.

That’s not whining imo, that’s standing up to exactly the breed of ‘True Evil’ you define here.

We have seen this before in tech: Nazi Germany was probably IBM’s second largest customer at the time. There is a moral imperative to not let something like that happen again.

We should all be disturbed that the executive team at Google felt that Project Dragonfly was appropriate.

If not, why single out Google when Apple / Walmart / ... are allowed to benefit from Chinese market?

This is a straw man argument. The critique made of Google is not that has come to embody "true evil". But that it has (by degrees) slouched towards moral ambivalence, and acquiescence of (yes) evil.

Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.

I think you are perfectly aware that Google is engaged in a lot more than simply the business of serving banner ads.

While I completely disagree with a commentor who calls “not interested in politics” an euphemism, as if they were disgusting and uneducated, your set of scary factoids likely falls right into this category.

I agree with you completely!

The vocal minority you refer to doesn't influence my day to day or month to month. You get people posting manifestos, and people whining about XYZ, but you only butt heads with them if you actively seek them out and want to get offended.

The idea that there are some kind of political commissars reprimanding me for "whitelisting" features for certain customers, or giving out demerits for using gendered pronouns in promo packets, is a paranoid fantasy.

Obviously some people think there's more to life than cashing a large paycheck and writing code. "Not interested in politics" is an euphemism for clueless and easy to manipulate by those that are.

That it is due to a vocal minority doesn't mean it is due to this vocal minority. Not all vocal minorities are equal, and nor should all vocal minorities be treated alike.

Freedom of speech is a great thing. That doesn't mean everyone exercising their freedom to speak results in a positive.

I did not say that the same vocal minority is responsible for all progress. Neither did I say that all vocal minorities are alike. All of this should be blindingly obvious to any adult, unless they're trying to twist words, be pedantic or generally argue in bad faith.

This is obvious and should go without saying. The parent comment gave an example of a positive consequence of an instance of this so-called "vocal minority", since the grandparent comment left no room for any positive angle on this.

I'm seriously confused how this translates into treating all "vocal-minorities" equally or that they all result in a positive.

I do not see this. Grandparent said "a vocal minority", which I interpret as a specific vocal minority. Like when someone says "there is a vocal person in my team who is obnoxious" - it does not imply that all vocal people in all teams are obnoxious.

My point was the example given by the person I responded to is kind of irrelevant. Yes, vocal minorities have done great things for many, many people. The GP to my comment was not talking about those, and listing positive vocal minorities that exist or have existed is irrelevant.

However, I see where you are coming from and thank you for clarifying.

I countered by saying that vocal minorities were able to achieve great things in the past, so implicitly their arguments should be evaluated on their merit.

Or a polite way of saying "I fundamentally disagree with you but don't feel like getting into a debate at work, please leave me alone."

That there exists a vocal minority does not mean they are right. There exists vocal minorities calling for the dissolution of most of your most fundamental rights.

I do this for all manner of things, including political discussions at work. That other people don't hold this as a default position is astounding to me.

Notably absent on their list of demands was the dissolution of most of anyone's fundamental rights.

Conversely, there are also those who are "too political" and want to bring their politics into every aspect of their lives and the lives of those around them. People like this can be as toxic as those they are speaking out against.

...or perhaps they're not interested in talking about politics with you.

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

In other words, you could end up having absolutely no conflicts about scenarios like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Or maybe even end up patting yourself in the back at the end of the quarter for outperforming KPI (e.g. ISP marketshare increase) and get a nice bonus while you are at it.

The problem with your reasoning is that your actions at FAAMNG does not happen in a vacuum.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It sounds as though you believe you're simply describing facts, but that is bewilderingly far from true. To most readers here, saying things like "women tend to behave more childlike and are less willing to take on responsibility" is an extreme provocation. It's also a strangely limited and limiting statement, since we all know many people who would sooner make such a statement about men than about women.

You mentioned empathizing; my guess is that with a bit more empathizing, you wouldn't want to say such things any more. There's too much opportunity to hurt other people and start highly reactive, zero-communication arguments with them—especially on the internet, where the lack of any mitigating information (like tone of voice, gesture, or pre-existing relationship) guarantees that people will project into your words the worst and most monstrous interpretation they can bear, whether you meant them that way or not.

Would you mind taking a look at the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? I think you'll find that several of them apply to threads like this, especially this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

Since I just asked you not to do this and explained why at length, it seems clear that you don't want to use this site as intended. I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

This is not as self-evident as you imply.

Women can be compared with children now?

Anyone in Sierra Leone could claim to a US citizen: "Sugar lobbies are meddling with public school meals and making children diabetic? Lucky you, my country doesn't have public schools and children are starving". This of course doesn't invalidate the issue.

Having lived in a third world country it would be very easy for me to dismiss "they refuse to call me by my preferred pronoun" as whining. After immigrating into the first world, it's a clear realization to me that suffering is relative and that's necessary for civilization to continue progressing through time.

The utility of the example I gave depends on your moral values [1], which admittedly was crafted for the perceived majority of the HN crowd.

The example for me is a sign of respect for the freedom to be who you want to be, in contrast of imposing your morals on others. It's a sign of advancement to me that individuals feel comfortable with themselves, instead of wasting energy hiding trying to conform to an arbitrary standard. I spend less energy calling people how they like to be called than they would spend by being uncomfortable with themselves their whole lives. I won't get into the accounting of energy wasted, take my argument or leave it.

I'm sorry you're being downvoted without explanation - cold shoulders divide people even further.

[1] Moral values change according to time and place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mores

They want to be called a certain pronoun because they want to be thought of as their preferred gender. They don't really care about the pronoun. They care about the opinion it signals. An opinion they don't want people to be allowed to have. In order words, they want to change language in order to change people's thought patterns and mental models. If people were allowed to speak however they want it would break the spell. It would break the suspension of disbelief.

Having your thoughts decided for you is exertion of power and dominance that makes me deeply uncomfortable. It is no small thing to give up.

Morality is something we impose upon ourselves and others precisely to coordinate the polity, in order avoid or manage conflicts (e.g. driving on the left vs driving on the right).

Actually, all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners. You have consistent access to clean water that comes straight to your house, you even have a house, with insulation and carpets no less. You have a cornucopia of diverse and nutritious foods, and your social institutions will even feed you if you're poor! Not only do you have all these necessities, even your poor people have opulent expensive toys like cars, TVs and cell phones!

1. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/west...

This is provably wrong, many people are not whiners no matter which country you look at.

Now the question becomes, how much is this attitude responsible for all the richness you described? If it is partially or fully responsible, then others should adopt it as well, and they'd be better off "whining" as well.

Let's give a scenario, two kids at a table, one shouts "I demand desert". The other responds "Stop whining, I didn't even get to eat anything, at least you got an entree". Whose most likely to get what they want? Maybe the other should have whined instead: "And I demand a full meal!"

Exactly - and managers would do that to tech workers in a second if they could. Let's make the best of our negotiating position while we can.

If worker-boss relationships can't be fixed at a company where the workers are economically valuable and highly educated, how can that be propagated downwards to the rest of the economy? Do people actually want it fixed, or are they more afraid of their fellow workers than their abusive boss?

The average tenure at these companies is ~2yrs, so clearly the money isn't worth it for most people. It's interesting to hear why that is without dismissing any possible problem out of hand.

It's really sad.

And yes, they're also human and discuss whether single-use water bottles are bad enough that they're worth replacing, how best to keep fit so that they don't cost their employer-funded health care program too much in the long run, and yes, like many nerds, they discuss the type of laptop they like best.

But hey, if it makes you feel better to judge people, go for it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting

Our boss knows that having TrackPoint is a "conditions of employment" issue. Yes, it's a privilege... at the same time, it's what we spend 50+hrs of week on, so it needs to not cause ergonomic and usability issues every second of every minute of the day ️

But it gives tech workers in general a really bad vibe. Pompous, spoiled brats.

Of course, most of these people are nice human beings, but somehow they get lost in minutiae and 0th world problems the moment they join some hot startup.

But that whole "don't complain, people have it worse" vibe extends to almost anyone living in the United States vs other countries where money means nothing, rule of law doesn't exist, or the mother country is about to slaughter thousands of people for wanting democracy.

The point is: Maintain perspective, but still continue bitching about the uncomfortable chairs.

Fun fact: when Google employees had Windows laptops, the government of China hacked them, trying to steal identifying information about dissidents.

Do you have state-funded hackers attacking your laptop so they can kill people?

Quite common fallacy and useless misdirection. Article is not about minimum wage work struggles but about a struggle of people with particular skill set in particular environment. Not sure how your inappropriate outburst and lack of focus is relevant here?

Multiple easily findable sources suggest that the median tech salary at Google is well below $150k -- probably more like around $130k.

I get your point about the "whining" -- but while the average Google definitely does better than someone with a non-tech salary -- it most cases they aren't bulge-bracket either, or anywhere near it.

[1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/08/median-t...

[0]: https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/

It's not a valid argumentative tactic to dismiss legitimate concerns as "whining", especially since you haven't addressed the substance of the issue at all, and it's pure what-aboutism and crab mentality to suggest that because somewhere there exist people who have it worse, you shouldn't try to make things better.

Or are you saying that, this kind of article will not win us sympathy from the greater populace, and we should adopt a different strategy in that regard?

Or something else?

And that is also very unacceptable.