[HN Gopher] Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google
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Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google
Author : stego-tech
Score : 201 points
Date : 2025-06-06 13:36 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wordsmith.social)
(TXT) w3m dump (wordsmith.social)
| nickdothutton wrote:
| > It did not even occur to me that it was all a scam, that
| everyone else knew it was all a scam and the actual point was to
| get rich.
|
| I feel that as a GenX'er I should now dispense some wisdom to
| Millenials and Zoomers about life, but I just don't have the
| energy. Read Gaetano Mosca.
| usrnm wrote:
| Millenials are not young anymore, haven't been for some time.
| We know.
| officeplant wrote:
| >Millennials are not young anymore
|
| As a middle of the pack Millennial (late 30s) Its wild to
| think I'm older than my Dad was when he introduced me to
| Slashdot as a young teen.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Some of us are in our 40s. We know how shit works. Almost
| everyone can fall into the trap of telling yourself that "it's
| not that bad", "this is how it's suppose to work" or "If it was
| that bad it would be illegal/have been shutdown", only to later
| get wiser and see it scam, fraud or just the darker side of how
| some companies operate.
| rdlw wrote:
| Thank you o wise one, may you rest and gather enough mana to
| dispense your wisdom next time you comment.
| udev4096 wrote:
| > What is crypto mining if not a textbook Captain Planet villain
| scheme--to kill and raze and destroy for nothing but imaginary
| tokens proving that you did lots of killing and razing and
| destroying?
|
| Are you serious? You complain about the 2008 crisis and
| capitalism and yet completely neglect the true purpose of crypto?
| No wonder you drank the Google kool-aid
| waterlaw wrote:
| What's the true purpose of crypto? It can be used to escape the
| banking system?
| roenxi wrote:
| Asset that can't be involuntarily taken away or printed by a
| government.
| ecshafer wrote:
| It seems like Crypto _can_ be taken away by the government.
| If the government orders you to give up your crypto they
| will just throw you in a cell until you comply. Or as it
| happening more and more often, a guy with a wrench
| persuades you to give it up.
| axus wrote:
| Only if you are "legible" to them.
| koolala wrote:
| It blew my mind they did that with Gold in the US. It's
| really scary what were are capable of.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| Maybe barter should be better, then.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure it can.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-
| announces-h...
|
| > On November 9, 2021, pursuant to a judicially authorized
| premises search warrant of ZHONG's Gainesville, Georgia,
| house, law enforcement seized approximately 50,676.17851897
| Bitcoin, then valued at over $3.36 billion. This seizure
| was then the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the history
| of the U.S. Department of Justice and today remains the
| Department's second largest financial seizure ever.
|
| Having you physically within their jurisdiction (and/or
| drone strike reach) permits quite a bit of leverage. As the
| XKCD comic notes... https://xkcd.com/538/
| oldjim69 wrote:
| >the true purpose of crypt
|
| Fraud?
| udev4096 wrote:
| Clearly there are way too many bad actors now which makes it
| seem like a fraud to anyone from the outside
| jjulius wrote:
| You've essentially just backed up the quote from your first
| post with this comment.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| A system that enables a proliferation of fraudsters _might_
| have an inherent flaw that needs addressing.
| udev4096 wrote:
| As if the banking system is any better. How can any
| legitimate payment system which has no cryptographic
| operations, is highly centralized, where the money can be
| printed out of thin air and way too many other reasons,
| be taken seriously?
| rjbwork wrote:
| Somehow 99.999% of the world's economy takes place upon
| it. Is all economic activity from the advent of banks to
| now not to be taken seriously?
| derektank wrote:
| Because it works, and we've developed massive
| institutions (the federal reserve, FDIC, SWIFT, credit
| rating agencies, and other financial market utilities) to
| keep it working in a way that benefits the vast majority
| of people that use money
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I'm so glad to witness the evolution from "Revolutionize
| finance" to "No worse than banking _most of the time_ ,
| right?"
| x0x0 wrote:
| But what about theft?
| praptak wrote:
| Fraud is a tiny sliver and it would be unfair to judge crypto
| on that alone. There's also ransomware, extortion, payments
| for drugs and theft by North Korea hackers.
| oldjim69 wrote:
| Touche! They have gotten so innovative with it
| kjs3 wrote:
| You missed arms dealing, human trafficking and sanctions
| avoidance, but then there seems to be a lot of cryptobros
| who would think those are features not bugs.
| mmsc wrote:
| >the true purpose of crypto
|
| What's the latest version of this one these days?
| Filligree wrote:
| "Enabling the Dark Economy" is one I've heard.
| jes5199 wrote:
| avoiding monetary control policies?
| chc4 wrote:
| It does seem slightly silly that a through-line of the article
| is disgust at societal power dynamics and surveillance, and
| then not recognize that Bitcoin and other proto-
| cryptocurrencies were invented by anarchist cypherpunks as a
| solution to the same thing in the monetary system.
| mavhc wrote:
| Did it work?
| chc4 wrote:
| "Privacycoins" exist and lots of anarchist cypherpunks are
| able to use them to buy drugs, so I'm liable to say yes
| udev4096 wrote:
| Not for you. Come to think of it, a monetary system which
| is designed on cryptographic operations would never be
| truly understood by people who love being oppressed and
| thrive under the mass surveillance of the banking system.
| You are just a stupid pawn
| monooso wrote:
| If only we were all as smart and enlightened as you.
| windowshopping wrote:
| The author of this article is not slamming the authors of the
| protocol. They're criticizing what it became and what it's
| used for now. There's a difference.
|
| You can not seriously claim that this modern incarnation of
| Bitcoin is what was originally intended. That would be
| ridiculous.
| meesles wrote:
| Very well-written. My main takeaway and constant reminder is that
| our privilege, no matter the size, usually comes at someone's
| expense.
| oulipo wrote:
| Exactly, and it's funny because here everytime we discuss the
| impact of AI on vulnerable population, be it for taking jobs /
| increasing CO2 consumption / destabilizing politics, there's
| always a rich white guy with his cushy programmer job saying
| "but I don't understand, to me all this AI stuff is nice, I can
| work even more comfortably"...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't think I have ever seen someone on HN dismiss concerns
| about AI's impact on other people by saying it's good for
| them personally. I think you have a stereotype of a white guy
| with a cushy programmer job in your head, and you hear him
| saying this when other people of various races say other
| things.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Oh my friend, you are visiting a different hn than a lot of
| us. I nearly got in a flame war yesterday with a noob and
| had to step back because of the density, caught my self
| being bated by a potential troll. Their argument was
| exactly what you're claiming to have not seen.
|
| To be fair I never stereotyped them even in my mind. But
| the audacity and dismissal of others was very bating.
|
| I did my best but still a very poor job of arguing and had
| to step away.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > there's always a rich white guy with his cushy programmer
| job saying "but I don't understand, to me all this AI stuff
| is nice, I can work even more comfortably"...
|
| How do you know they are white?
| jes5199 wrote:
| > Like most employees I blamed myself for not working hard enough
| to get good compensation
|
| ohh. I feel like I understanding something about my peers now
| that I had not caught onto before
| dunkelheit wrote:
| I just love how John Patience became Dzhona Peishensa, like it is
| some exotic slavic woman's name.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Wait until you hear how USSR VLKSM used to denounce the "KLESh"
| in posters.
| Aeroi wrote:
| hmm, disagree with many of the takes in here, although some
| sentences of insight and truth.
| fsflover wrote:
| Can you elaborate?
| sa-code wrote:
| > You cannot make people work for you and hoard all the profits
| while they are stuck with fixed salaries, without in the process
| developing strong feelings on why you're entitled to do that and
| how they deserve it actually.
|
| I wonder why we don't see more software engineering co ops?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Because people don't like risk and if they can make a boat load
| of money without risk they would rather do that than make 10
| boat loads of money with risk.
| rjbwork wrote:
| A combination of a persistent strain of rugged individualist
| libertarian attitudes and ego. Everyone thinking we're better
| than everyone else and if only we could be in charge everything
| would be better than if those other idiots were prevents the
| kind of solidarity needed to do co-ops or professional
| associations or partnerships like lawyers.
| cj wrote:
| Code doesn't make engineers money.
|
| Selling the code does.
|
| Engineers typically aren't very good sales people.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Why not have a marketer at the co-op?
| roenxi wrote:
| That is how a lot of software engineering firms run in practice
| - the good engineers have buy in through stock options.
|
| A lot of engineers are replaceable though. They get less stock.
| neves wrote:
| Meritocracy
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| the myth of
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| Co-ops amplify the people problems and you are now locked in a
| room with people who know how to code but don't know how to
| make money.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Annoyingly this is a hard concept to search because co-op is
| also another word for, basically, an internship.
| tomrod wrote:
| I believe Spain does this.
| JackFr wrote:
| Because someone has to put up the money. And the people who put
| up the money want a return on it, or they will put their money
| somewhere else.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Imagine having 2 or more of the OP in the same organization,
| raging at each other about a tiny, perceived difference in
| outlook. You can easily have software engineering partnership
| but it's clear that a person like the OP would destroy _any_
| organization, no matter the structure, which is probably why
| they describe themselves as an anarchist (i.e. a person with a
| life-long inability to adapt to any give context).
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >OP would destroy any organization, no matter the structure,
| which is probably why they describe themselves as an
| anarchist (i.e. a person with a life-long inability to adapt
| to any give context).
|
| Hardly 'anarchist'.
| izacus wrote:
| Because people who would support a coop and write posts like
| these usually end up being disastrous company leads. Then add
| multiple of them and committees.
| arolihas wrote:
| Oh yeah the horror of not being able to go behind your boss's
| back in a company email. The tragedy of being ignored when
| bringing up office equipment in a discussion about saving costs
| in a tech platform. The inhumanity of having workers hired to
| make food and do dishes on a Friday. The absolute gall to be
| asked a question about the identity you are proud and obnoxiously
| open about. What a dystopia, Brazil would have been better off
| without Google definitely, if only they had polyamorous
| anarchists running things.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| all the instances they discussed highlight the contrast between
| what google presented itself as, vs what it actually was. i
| dont think this person is asking for sympathy, i think they
| hate google for trying to pretend its anything different than
| any other big profit seeking enterprise. sounds like you are
| well on your way to the hostility the author very succinctly
| describes
| kurthr wrote:
| And yet, there are much more pernicious elements to dystopia
| Google has become and ways that it perpetuates them through
| the efforts of people just like this so that they can
| literally have a "free lunch". These are the type of
| complaints that minimize the actual failure of "don't be
| evil" as implemented by their very efforts. Personnel minutia
| distract from the Orwellian prize.
| calcifer wrote:
| > Personnel minutia distract from the Orwellian prize.
|
| The "minutiae" you so casually refer to are _people_. The
| OP understands that:
|
| > The "campus" was pretty open and my then-wife visited it
| a few times; it creeped the Fuck out of her, the
| distinction between people and non-people.
| kurthr wrote:
| Actually, no. Anyone can be "creeped the Fuck out" about
| anything anywhere. It's their right. That's "just like
| uh, your opinion, man". One can be annoyed by business
| processes, vaguely offended by decor, or the stiffness of
| the uniforms at Dachau, and it's kind of irrelevant.
|
| I'll try to be more clear. This reads like reality TV
| drama when there are bigger things going on. It misses
| the dark forest for the brown weeds.
|
| To me the bigger point really IS the corporate
| dehumanization, but the details (other than the white
| gringos laughing about layoffs) distract from the deeper
| issues and sound more like gripes of a coddled coder than
| real criticism. When an individual is more concerned with
| their own personal jokes/disses than the work they're
| doing, you get folks at Enron joking about turning off
| "GrandMa Millie's" electricity in profitable, but
| unnecessary rolling blackouts.
|
| They actually sold out.
| arolihas wrote:
| Thank you :)
| redczar wrote:
| The "obnoxiously open about" part of your post says much
| about you. Your post would have been much better without
| that part.
|
| Google was "obnoxiously open about" do no evil and the
| other stuff described in the blog post. It's natural for
| people who bought into those lies to react accordingly.
| Nothing in the blog post suggests a belief that polyamorous
| anarchists would be better at running things.
| arolihas wrote:
| Yeah it says that I think she sounds obnoxious. Google's
| PR was also annoying. Considering she calls it a dystopia
| and her usage of Marxist terms I do think she believes
| that she has better ideas about how society should work.
| Saying nothing in the blog could suggest that is absurd.
| ranyume wrote:
| It's easier to know how things "should not work", and
| that's a good thing. At least knowing what is not right
| you're allowed to do a quarter of a step in the right
| direction. Being an anarchist herself, I don't think
| she'd know how things should be, only how it should not
| be.
| redczar wrote:
| You didn't say she sounds obnoxious. You said she is
| obnoxiously open about her identity. The phrasing you
| used says much about you.
|
| Nothing in the post suggests that polyamorous anarchists
| would be better at running things. The post suggests that
| there are things Google didn't live up to in terms of
| what it claimed about itself. You should try to analyze
| things unemotionally. Perhaps then you wouldn't make such
| obviously bad conclusions.
| arolihas wrote:
| Well let me be clear, I think she sounds obnoxious in
| general too. What does that say about me?
|
| I think pretty much every example given in this story is
| pretty typical and in line with the expectations a sane
| person should have when deciding to work at a large
| corporation. Clearly the author didn't like it, and I
| think it's fairly obvious that the author thinks Google
| should have done things differently. If that reads as too
| emotional on my end for you I am sorry but I can't help
| but be a human being.
| redczar wrote:
| You do have a capacity to misread and draw the wrong
| conclusion. The emotional part of your original response
| refers to the "obnoxiously open" about her identity
| statement and your ending sentence regarding polyamorous
| anarchists being better about things. Your biases
| interfered with your interpretation of what she wrote.
| Your original post would have been much better had you
| kept these parts out of your response.
| arolihas wrote:
| All interpretations are biased, thanks for letting me
| know what you like and dislike about my post.
| redczar wrote:
| Yes all interpretations are biased. Not all elucidations
| expose those biases to the reader. You had the right
| amount of sarcasm for most of your post but then brought
| in references to gender identity that were not germain to
| your points. They were needless digs that detracted from
| your main points.
|
| Yes, she did bring up the part about being asked for
| terms her community uses. She came across as irrational
| in this part. It's best to just leave it alone or mention
| how she came across irrational without saying she is
| "obvious" about her identity. That line took away some of
| your credibility. At least to me. I could be wrong.
| dingnuts wrote:
| Your comments tell me you're pretty obnoxious in general
| hattmall wrote:
| There's a quote, at least from the movie, where Zuckerberg
| calls people "dumb fucks." I honestly have to think the same
| about anyone that seriously bought into a corporation putting
| "do no evil" in a mission statement.
|
| It is simply not possible to extract billions of dollars
| unless you have ascended above the idea of not fucking people
| over.
| axus wrote:
| Radical transparency doesn't mean you get to say negative
| things!
| JackFr wrote:
| I believe what he likely meant (though not what he said), was
| that radical transparency shouldn't be taken as a license to
| be an asshole.
|
| I say that as a manager of narcissistic assholes who are
| always "brutally honest" and feel that their honesty excuses
| their brutality.
| Aunche wrote:
| You can't have radical transparency without a blameless
| culture. Calling someone out in the open is in bad taste
| anywhere. It's also common sense. As Omar says, "If you come
| at the king, you best not miss." It's possible that the
| author really did just write an innocuous post criticizing
| recruiting practices, but I don't see why their the manager
| would single out the boss if that were the case.
| dsr_ wrote:
| The negative thing being described was the inability of 95%
| of the engineers to use the 20% time which was being
| described by the company as a general perk.
|
| "The company is deceiving people and should reconsider
| messaging to reflect reality" is not a personal attack;
| even in a "blameless" culture, you are expected to note
| that the causal chain includes "Dave hit the wrong button,
| which should not have happened because we should have
| safeguards on the button and reviews to make sure we have
| safeguards on all the expensive/dangerous buttons." Sorry,
| Dave.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 20% time was always for the high performers who can do
| 100% of their work in 80% of the time.
| Aunche wrote:
| That's what she portrayed it as, but it doesn't pass the
| smell test. Why would a manager be yelled at for company
| wide statistics? This and all the other aggressive
| framing suggests to me that she's not a reliable
| narrator. If everywhere you go smells like shit, maybe
| it's time to check your shoes.
| jplusequalt wrote:
| >The absolute gall to be asked a question about the identity
| you are proud and obnoxiously open about
|
| >if only they had polyamorous anarchists running things
|
| This comment comes off as highly reactionary.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Using "reactionary" as a boo light is not a substantive
| comment. If you think he's wrong, argue why rather than just
| going "ew, right wing".
| Supermancho wrote:
| > if only they had polyamorous anarchists running things
|
| The straw man is obvious. There was no coherent argument to
| be made against a constructed absurdity.
| arolihas wrote:
| She says she is a polyamorous anarchist...
| margalabargala wrote:
| That she is one, is fact. That she claimed she or people
| like her should be running things, is an imagined
| strawman.
| arolihas wrote:
| Not really. She clearly thought that Google was doing
| things wrong and that her suggestions to make them better
| and correct them weren't sufficiently heard.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Yeah, because Google at that time claimed to be the sort
| of company that _would_ listen to complaints. Being upset
| with a company for not following their own publicly
| stated policies, e.g. the bait and switch of "20% time"
| plus "we're assigning you at least 40 hours work per
| week" is entirely reasonable and not an implied "and I
| should be running things".
|
| Some people are able to point out problems without saying
| "and I am the solution".
|
| Others are not capable of seeing a problem pointed out
| without assuming the speaker is holding themselves up as
| a paragon of what ought be.
| arolihas wrote:
| Literally everyone can complain about problems. You can
| see in the post she has different ideas of how things
| should be done, how she should be working on different
| things, how she should be allowed to go to Japan, how
| they shouldn't use air purifiers, how people should act
| when a layoff is about to happen, how temp workers should
| be treated and on and on. I'm not even saying all of
| these ideas she had are all wrong or bad. But she clearly
| has solutions and a vision of how Google should operate.
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's only a "boo light" if you think that it's a bad thing.
|
| Do you think that being reactionary is a bad thing?
| ecshafer wrote:
| The GP obviously used reactionary as a negative term to
| dismiss their arguments, and this line of thinking does
| not answer the arguments.
| jplusequalt wrote:
| What arguments did they even make? All they did was make
| a snarky comment against the "vibe" of the article.
| That's why I called it "reactionary"
| jplusequalt wrote:
| >If you think he's wrong, argue why rather than just going
| "ew, right wing".
|
| I'd rather save my energy. Not every comment you see online
| is deserving of respect or a thoughtful response. It's
| clear they weren't willing to actually engage with the
| article and provide a meaningful comment, and I pointed
| that out before disengaging.
| wgjordan wrote:
| _Be kind. Don 't be snarky._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments
| JohnMakin wrote:
| found one
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| you read the whole thing taking notes and ignored the main
| theme? that's some bootlicking good dedication. I'm impressed.
| arolihas wrote:
| I didn't need to take notes. I didn't need to ignore the
| theme
| constantcrying wrote:
| What a terribly written article. I do not understand at all why
| you wouldn't start out by saying that you worked in Brazil for
| Google, instead the reader has to discover that half way in,
| suggesting you were in Phoenix was a really nice move to make
| sure that essential detail was hard to extract. There was "tea"
| promised but the story is literally "I was an obvious nuisance
| because I was the only one who believed corporate propaganda and
| got fired for it", how absolutely uninteresting and I do not
| understand why it would take this amount of space to write down.
| arolihas wrote:
| Didn't even get fired for it, they were laid off because of
| 2008!
| constantcrying wrote:
| Yes, although being on the "annoyed me" list of the boss
| likely played part in whom to fire.
| arolihas wrote:
| They shut down the boss's office in Arizona too
| monooso wrote:
| I experienced no such confusion.
| rdlw wrote:
| It does start out by saying they worked in Brazil for Google.
|
| > The fact that Google fired me...
|
| Normally you have to work somewhere to get fired. I suppose
| that's an assumption I made upon reading that part.
|
| > let us go back in time and space, and journey to tropical
| Brazil in the distant time of 2007...
|
| This article is set in Brazil, in 2007. Did you skip the
| introduction and then complain about the lack of an
| introduction?
| blindriver wrote:
| I feel exactly the same as you. The entire thing is horribly
| written and feels like they think were victimized when I can't
| see where they were.
| breppp wrote:
| This kind of literary genre is popular these days and it
| always ends with being surprised that actions have
| consequences
| throwaway0123_5 wrote:
| From the second paragraph before any mention of Phoenix or
| Arizona:
|
| > let us go back in time and space, and journey to tropical
| Brazil in the distant time of 2007
| jeffbee wrote:
| Man, "bring your whole self to work" was well intentioned but
| ultimately a mistake. Just bring the part that knows how to
| program computers, and leave whatever part this is turned off
| from 9-5.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Obviously. And I do believe the same type of person who wants
| to "bring your whole self to work" also is the most disgusted
| by seeing it implemented. If there had been a culture of
| professionalism you obviously do not ask some random other
| employees about gay slang.
|
| Ultimately work is a give and take. And it gets easier when it
| is clearly defined what is given and what is taken. That is
| what "professionalism" in a work environment is about.
| Pretending that work is some great family adventure can only
| lead to terrible results when conflict inevitably arises.
| cobertos wrote:
| What kind of life is that? To be a sterile, subservient entity
| for the majority of your existence.
|
| Being authentic in the working world helps in so many ways. And
| it works when your goals and the goals of the company align.
| The advice to just shut up and code leads to no good outcomes
| for anyone.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Good ways to bring your unique perspective to a professional
| context: intervening to avoid making some users feel offended
| or excluded, before a project ships to those users.
|
| Bad ways: just yammering about how you are poly, bi, trans,
| and a revolutionary anarchist while we are trying to finalize
| OKRs for the quarter.
| JackFr wrote:
| Your authenticity is not everyone's authenticity.
| cobertos wrote:
| And the opposite is true. There's a balance. For some that
| authenticity really works for them at work (those with a
| general curiosity, an interest in how groups interact and
| work, who are workaholics) and it aligns. For others it
| does not and is unfortunate in its requirement of more
| energy to suppress and lack of natural culture-fit.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Are there parts of your whole self that are not always
| appropriate to bring up? I sure think so. If one team mates
| whole self includes their support for Israel and another
| whole self is their support for Palestine, maybe we can leave
| some of these whole selfs at home, and just talk about work,
| and maybe how our camping trip this weekend was. People
| shouldn't have to be proselytized by any other people's
| extreme religious or political views at work.
| cobertos wrote:
| Very true, there is a balance to be found. The suggestion
| from OP to leave it all at home, to focus purely on skill
| and merit is too black/white.
| pnathan wrote:
| This isn't how people really are.
|
| People have different presentations for different social
| contexts. That's typical and normal. For a working example,
| the social context of the marital bedroom is not the social
| context of the city playground where you mind your kids.
| Differences in clothing, actions, words.
|
| This spans into most areas of life.
|
| You don't have to sterilize your work life - but you do have
| to have _boundaries_.
| cobertos wrote:
| But this is how people really are. Being authentic is
| easier for some because the corporate world more closely
| aligns with the dominant culture. Take the casual ignorance
| of an employee PC background of a sexy woman, because
| that's just how the boys are. Or how women are meant to
| breastfeed out of sight.
|
| People do present differently in different contexts. But it
| is a requirement to file off all your sharp edges to
| participate effectively in the workplace. Intentionally
| limiting yourself, your output, to cater to the social
| conformity of others seems to be an anti-goal. But it is
| what we do.
| Palomides wrote:
| >be a sterile, subservient entity for the majority of your
| existence
|
| yeah, having a job sucks shit, we know
|
| most people don't have the luxury of working a job that's
| worth aligning with
| JohnFen wrote:
| To be honest, I don't even know what "bring your whole self to
| work" means. If it means that I need to mix my personal life
| with my work life or a rejection of behaving as a mature
| professional, then I object strongly to the idea.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| I always assumed "bring your whole self to work" was just a
| nice way to lead into "you don't need work/life balance because
| your work is your life"
| foldr wrote:
| This misses the point. Certain groups of people have always
| been able to bring their whole selves to work. For example, if
| you're straight and married with kids, there's never been a
| problem about casually mentioning these things to your
| colleagues.
|
| In another post, you mention
|
| >Bad ways [to bring your whole self to work]: just yammering
| about how you are poly, bi, trans, and a revolutionary
| anarchist while we are trying to finalize OKRs for the quarter.
|
| Do you know who 'yammers' most about their personal lives?
| Straight people with kids! It's not even close. I _wish_ the
| majority of people doing the yammering were poly, bi and trans.
| It might be a touch less boring.
| jeffbee wrote:
| See, you have improperly conflated reproductive preference
| with sexual orientation and gender expression. That's
| exclusionary!
| foldr wrote:
| No, I haven't. I'm just saying that straight people with
| kids often talk about their personal lives at work (which
| is fine), whereas other groups of people don't always feel
| as free to do the same thing. If we were making a list of
| "kinds of people who are likely to talk lots about their
| personal lives in a work environment", then bi trans poly
| folks would not be at the top of it. If you genuinely
| disagree with any of those points then we can have a
| discussion about it. But I can't really connect your
| sarcastic response with what I originally said.
| lanyard-textile wrote:
| My manager at Google wanted me to change my personal "about me"
| snippet in the introductory email he was about to send out: It
| needed some information about where I previously worked (which I
| intentionally left out -- who cares?? I'm here now!)
|
| I never really thought much of it at the time. Internalized that
| as "oh, I misunderstood the purpose of the email." But it tracks
| with elements of OP's story; the exposition of your identity is
| curated.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Today, the concept of "spyware" has been obsoleted because
| every software is spyware
|
| This is not true. Free software is not.
| krapp wrote:
| It can be. Ubuntu is spyware according to RMS[0].
|
| [0]https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do
| fsflover wrote:
| Of course, it can be, but it's so easy to fix by forking that
| it doesn't matter, unlike with non-free software. AFAIK
| Pop!_OS based on Ubuntu is not spyware.
|
| Also, Ubuntu is not free software. Only some parts of it are
| free.
| moritonal wrote:
| Just a small caveat, that article was from 2012 (13 years
| ago). Things may have changed for the better or worse since
| then.
| axus wrote:
| Mmm. Every time I download an ISO image or clone a Git
| repository, _there is a record_
| fsflover wrote:
| So you are talking about the software running on the
| server.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Free software is not.
|
| A lot of free software is.
| fsflover wrote:
| Give me examples not containing proprietary bits.
| etothepii wrote:
| You are disagreeing about the meaning of the word free.
| fsflover wrote:
| No, the definition is settled and based on the license.
| SSLy wrote:
| self built chromium
| bluedevilzn wrote:
| > And all that with wages well below even the local market in our
| crumbling Third World economy. With no exciting research
| positions nor self-managed time nor compensation, what was the
| advantage over a high-paying job at Microsoft or IBM?
|
| When did Google pay less than Microsoft/IBM?
| esprehn wrote:
| I think the author is taking about Brazil? It wasn't clear to
| me until later in the article.
| rdlw wrote:
| The two-paragraph introduction explicitly places this article
| in Brazil in 2007
| blindriver wrote:
| This entire blog post is so poorly written that I was
| confused as well. They mention Brazil, but they also
| mention Arizona. And for some reason the person who asked
| them about gay lingo wasn't Brazilian so were they in the
| US? It was a very tough read.
| rdlw wrote:
| > Today, for us Latinx to even briefly step in the USA,
| if we don't have an always-on handheld device with
| spyware "social media", its absence is taken as proof of
| criminality. I will never visit Arizona again
|
| This part is talking about VISITING ARIZONA. As in, they
| are not from nor do they live in Arizona.
|
| > One day one of the AdSense people asked me for a little
| meeting. They sat right by my desk, all sleek and
| confident, and said that they had heard I was a
| Gaygler(tm) and were wondering if I could help with one
| of their clients. "Can you tell me some words that the
| Brazilian gay community uses? like slang, popular media
| you like, names of parties, that kind of thing?"
|
| Nowhere does it say that they're not Brazilian. Is this
| because they asked for Brazilian gay slang specifically?
| I assume they just wanted to be specific, to get terms
| used in Brazil. If I ask someone to name some Canadian
| foods, that doesn't mean I'm not Canadian.
|
| I'm not in love with this article or anything but I am
| baffled by the number of people on this website, who I
| assume have rudimentary reading comprehension, getting
| confused by the fact that a different location is
| _mentioned_ , even though the article opens by specifying
| exactly where and when it's set.
| mrisoli wrote:
| Which confused me, as someone from Belo Horizonte who
| started uni just around that time. As far as I knew, Google
| was generally known one of the highest paying companies by
| far back then. It's benefits were unmatched because the SV-
| style of office with all the perks were not commonplace in
| the region, and employee turnover was low to non-existent.
| Even getting an interview if you didn't have a masters or
| phd was pretty difficult if not impossible(without
| connections).
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| Peter Thiel said it better: https://youtu.be/gQPlhycLmMk?t=415
| tomrod wrote:
| > Today, the concept of "spyware" has been obsoleted because
| every software is spyware. Google's "organising the information
| of the world" turned out to be indexing which Gaza families to
| bomb, children and all; "making money in the free market to
| invest in social change" was about bankrolling literal, textbook
| fascism. Today, for us Latinx to even briefly step in the USA, if
| we don't have an always-on handheld device with spyware "social
| media", its absence is taken as proof of criminality. I will
| never visit Arizona again, and my kids will never know a world
| that's not like this; but for me I saw this world being forged up
| close and personal, deep in Mordor where the shadows lie.
|
| This hits home.
| mm263 wrote:
| Seems overly dramatic
| JohnMakin wrote:
| From a place of privilege, it might seem so!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Sure, to make a point though.
| ranyume wrote:
| Dark times when people can become "overly dramatic" for
| things that are essential. A relaxation, and forgotten
| fundamental rights. "It is what it is"
| Aunche wrote:
| > indexing which Gaza families to bomb
|
| Wtf does this even mean? If Hamas used Google docs to plan
| their attack, does that make Google guilty of killing Israeli
| families? Coincidentally, this sort of hyperbole always seems
| to end at the critic's own actions in the chain of complicity
| of evil. I've never heard an activist call claim that they were
| personally funding genocide by paying taxes.
| ranyume wrote:
| Israel has many ties with corporations and governments. This
| might be why, but I'm also not sure what the author's talking
| about. It would be nice to have some context.
| dingnuts wrote:
| the author is grandstanding from an unprincipled stance.
| Israel can choose which families are harboring Hamas
| members and decide which houses to bomb or just bomb
| everything.
|
| Hamas could also surrender after losing the war they
| started, at any time, and stand trial for starting a war.
| Hamas can choose to stop using their children as shields at
| any time. Hamas is to blame for everything.
| ranyume wrote:
| I understand your confusion. The author wrote this
| article for an audience that has the same background as
| her, ignoring that not everyone has the same information.
| So it ended up confusing for a lot of people.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| If a murderer hides in your home, or not, when you and
| your children are inside, whether you like it or not, you
| can be bombed, if said house is in Gaza.
|
| If you live in the US or Israel, you would have hundreds
| of effectives for every house, instead of killing people
| in a ratio of 60 to 1 (and counting)
| dttze wrote:
| They haven't lost the war though. Israel hasn't won. Why
| do you think the IDF are still suffering military losses
| and needing to mobilize?
|
| Also the human shield argument is so 2023 and makes no
| sense at all. If someone still slaughters those supposed
| shields, why would you bother to use them? Why would
| those people allow themselves to be used like that? If
| your enemy has human shields and you go ahead and
| slaughter women and children, you are just as bad if not
| worse than the person doing that. So no, Israel is
| directly responsible for those deaths.
|
| Also the only documented cases of human shields are by
| the IDF using kidnapped Palestinians to clear tunnels for
| boobytraps.
|
| See: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-
| news/2025-05-24/ty-artic...
|
| This also just ignores the fact that Israel is forcing
| starvation on the entire population. And ignores that
| Israel would still continue the genocide even if Hamas
| laid down all arms and surrendered.
| pnathan wrote:
| I was a teen in the 90s, in my circles it was Understood that the
| data was not private.
|
| Some of this in any case sounds like the usual "did not grow up
| in white collar society, got white collar job, got in trouble for
| violating white collar norms" that class-changers go through.
| Lots of !!fun!!.
|
| I too get troubled when the operations staff get "invisible'd" -
| they are members of society too and should be treated with
| dignity. But in a tolerably decent situation, they are recognized
| and respected in their field as well. Even if its the evening
| shift to do the janitorial work. There's nothing _immoral_ about
| having a party and hiring some people to clean up. It's treating
| them as _lower_ than you that is the failure.
|
| Anyway. There's an - as far as I know - as yet unwritten story
| around those of us who came from non-white collar backgrounds and
| found this new world confusing.
| ryandrake wrote:
| As another poster[1] put it, it's important to remember that
| these white collar people's privilege often comes at the
| expense of others, and to _not_ treat them like they are
| furniture in the background--they are people and deserve to be
| recognized and treated as people.
|
| And this is true all the way up to the top! For each of the
| many rungs on the socio-economic totem pole, there are many
| people on that rung who treat everyone on rungs below them as
| if they're invisible robotic servants.
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44201256
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > Google back then prided itself on broadcasting its Best Place
| To Work award, won year after year after year. Younger people
| will have trouble picturing this, but Google used to nurture an
| image of being the "good one" among megacorps;
|
| It's crazy to think about now. Google's image was a big driver in
| my choice to go back to school and start a tech career, my end
| and pretty much only goal was to work at google. I made it
| through several rounds of interviews and got rejected pretty
| late. It hurt really bad at that time, but looking back now, I
| think it was one of the best things that could have happened to
| me.
| kens wrote:
| I was curious about Google's current Best Place to Work rating.
| Forbes puts Alphabet at #2, but there are competing lists and
| Google is #6 on some others.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/lists/worlds-best-employers/
| webdoodle wrote:
| I never sold out. When I sold off the last of my web sites and
| domains (mostly ad driven), I only sold the web sites, and not
| the code that ran them. I had built a very complicated spider
| that scraped all the main social media sites looking for my
| articles, that would suggest places they weren't found that might
| do well. I never built an auto submit bot, but could have easily.
| I submitted them manually to each site, so as not to break there
| TOS. I'd then track the newly submitted articles and see how they
| would spread on social media. I built a basic visualization tool
| that allowed 'seeing' the way information flows in an intuitive
| way.
|
| What I learned about memetics and the way information flows was
| incalculable, and I realized it was like holding a weapon of mass
| destruction. The last thing I wanted to do was allow others to
| understand how it worked, or how to build one. I essentially
| burnt what I built because I didn't want it to fall in the wrong
| hands.
|
| Could someone build it themselves? Probably, but I put 15 years
| of my life into building it, and I did so when the Internet was
| still useful. I only put enough of my thought process about the
| system online to allude to the fact that I had built it, not
| enough for someone to reconstruct it. When I sold the last of the
| sites, I took the code offline and unplugged the hard drive and
| hid it.
|
| It's been almost 6 years since then and the only companies to
| come close are wasting there time with LLM. I do not think the
| current iteration of A.I. is even close thankfully, but at some
| point someone is going to crack it, probably even better than I
| did (I had a limited budget, slow internet, and was working
| mostly by myself).
| normie3000 wrote:
| I love this so mysterious.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Can't tell if schizo or not.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| > Google, if you remember, was the Best Place To Work. It was
| very important that every promising young engineer thought of
| Google as the dream job where everyone is happy. Unhappiness
| isn't allowed. My manager was severely scolded by his manager for
| having dissatisfaction (gasp) within his team.
|
| Gotta love the pure distilled dystopia concentrate here, complete
| with totalitarianism vibes!
| QuercusMax wrote:
| The dictbot story's interpretation of why TVCs (that's what they
| were called when I was at Google; never heard "temps, part-
| timers, and contractors") need to be treated like second-class
| citizens is incorrect.
|
| It's not because they wanted Engineers to feel like golden gods
| to build their egos - it's because they don't want the TVCs to be
| treated as employees under employment law. There was a guy who
| worked in the kitchens who got added to access the music room
| storage closet in PDX so he could keep his guitar there, and we
| were told he had to be removed since he was a TVC. That closet is
| apparently "FTEs and interns only", because if we treat our
| kitchen staff too well they might have to be given the same
| benefits as the rest of us.
|
| It used to be possible for somebody to work their way up from the
| mailroom to the executive suite. This path has been deliberately
| destroyed because the owning class wants to divide employees into
| different classes.
|
| No war but class war.
| neves wrote:
| The article is better than I expected. I'm about of the same age
| of the author and Brazilian, and I can relate to the feeling that
| Internet companies would improve the world
|
| My only nitpick it to charge Google of the invisibility of maids
| and servants in Brazil. Brazil is one of the most unequal
| countries in the world and this is part of the country culture.
| Google is not guilty here.
|
| At least we are improving. Nobody with a brain still think that
| techno companies and billionaires are anything more than comic
| book super villains.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Started off naive and then transitioned to considering Google to
| be representative of all Capitalist enterprises. Progress?
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