I would also say that big tech companies (at least MSFT, Apple and Meta) are consciously all-in in this game. There is nothing else to drive "disruptive" growth in their ovens, and many tech stocks were already going down in 2022 pre-ChatGPT.
If AI fails to deliver its promises or fails to do so in the short timeframes implicitly proposed by the ecosystem, I expect dark times in terms of growth for the tech industry at least for a while.
Anecdote: As a on-off tech shopper dealing with some big providers from time to time, I can sniff the reek of desperation when trying to sell GenAI stuff. And that's weird.
I’d rather we pump and dump new technologies and investment in renewables, scale out compute, and all the transferable benefits for the investment than NFTs.
I’m kind of curious where it all leads to. There’s a non zero chance it’s amazing given what is in my hands today is already amazing compared to what was in my hands 3 years ago.
I don’t think the choice is like AI or curing cancer. I think it’s more like Doge coin and meme stocks or whatever finance fad.
the american at will system at work. I dont judge the content of the protest itself, but that you can be fired for political beliefes is crazy to me as a european
He wasn't fired for his political beliefs. He was fired for persistently heckling a senior leader during a public presentation, which meets anyone's definition of gross insubordination. He could have gone on a tirade about how Google supports putting ketchup on hot dogs and the result would have been the same, in Europe or the US.
Please stop generalizing. As a an european you definitely CAN be fired here for political beliefs if they impact work. Actually you can be fired for anything. Come to Austria and see.
You're not allowed to bring your political beliefs at work, which IMHO is best for everyone. Keep them at home/your private time. Same for religion, sexuality, etc. Your workplace is not your market square for your personal beliefs and activism.
Yes you can. Nobody's stopping you from engaging in politics outsider of work(go vote, write to your congressman, go protest, etc), and nobody'd forcing you to work at a company that does things you disagree with. But at work, you go to do work in exchange for money.
The publicly listed company must do what its shareholders want, it has no obligation to do what its employees want, and as long as the company doesn't break any local government laws and employment laws, then it's in the green. You disagreeing with the company's direction is your own matter to deal with, as in, you are free to walk since the company isn't forcing you to work there against your will.
You have no idea what authoritarianism actually means.
They mean that politics and ideology are what your boss is going by to determine whether to give you or your coworker a raise. Or at the least it plays a large part.
Even if you dont talk about politics you are subject to the forces of it.
But politics is changed at the voting booths or via engagement with your lawmakers, not wit your employer. Your employer will only follow the laws set by the state, not by the employees (unless we're talking about a cooperative which Google isn't)
Also, consider the visibility of their protest after getting fired and discussions like this happening across the web.
And no, not all of those discussions end with "keep politics out of f work" and instead focus on how googlers are or arent complicit in powering genocide in t he e project presentation interrupted.
> instead focus on how googlers are or arent complicit in powering genocide in t he e project presentation interrupted
Yes, and Googlers who are against that can put a stop that by quitting their jobs in protest. You can't go around and publicly slander your company calling them genocidal, while still being employed there, just because they don't do what you'd want them to do, without expecting repercussions when you don't follow your contractual agreement.
You are free to do that after you resign and no longer have the responsibility to follow your contract, which probably stated your job is to be a coding cog, not a PR public speaker for the company policies.
Even in Europe(the German speaking countries), if you publicly accuse your employer of causing genocide, you'd better bring some hard proof to back that up(other than your emotional feelings), otherwise you can not only get fired on the spot but also sued for libel/slander and have to pay defamation damages.
If you were to read a some critiques of neoliberalism you would understand how free market utopianism can lead to authoritarianism/is used as a cover for it. The idea of the absolute duty to shareholders is newer that you would think. It’s an ideological standpoint.
So already you are quoting a political line
Regulatory capture and monopoly are both things shareholders might want but are bad for society.
‘Just doing your job’ doesn’t cut it, we’re are part of a community and should feel a civic duty. That’s what i mean
You're not allowed to bring your political beliefs at work, which IMHO is best for everyone.
Everybody does bring their political beliefs to work, and it manifests in things like how they interact with their colleagues and customers.
Choosing whether or not to provide equal benefits to same-sex couples is a political decision. Providing goods or services to an authoritarian regime is a political act. Your maternity policy is a political act. Even your dress code can be a political act.
What you really mean is that people shouldn’t be bringing to work views outside of a small range you deem uncontroversial.
>Everybody does bring their political beliefs to work, and it manifests in things like how they interact with their colleagues and customers.
Not it doesn't. How people interact with others at work is a function of their personality and professionalism at their job, not a function of their political color.
If someone at work is being a dick, it only shows that he's a dick, but political junkies will try to justify that it must be because he's of the opposite political beliefs they have, because in their head "all those people behave like that".
Ugh. Why is it that political junkies try to involve everyone else in their game? Most people just want to have a normal life and not get wrapped up in your meta-game about politics. Even the portentousness of calling them "political acts". That impressive sounding two-word phrase that everyone in the political game copies each other by using. Ugh. "You can't play your favorite game because you're all playing in my favorite game."
Willfully disrupting meetings? Lol. That's not "one small thing", that's "this guy has no place inside a mcdonalds as a CUSTOMER, let alone inside a company"
This kind of behavior doesn't scale. Eventually you have people that just give in to the hysterics because they just want to do their job and not fight ideological battles and the ideologues take over the company. See: how dei took over google and we got gemini.
If speaking up against supplying surveillance and AI systems (to a state under investigation for genocide) is political, then so is supplying the systems in the first place.
If you have an issue with being protested, maybe don't directly assist the world's most live-streamed set of daily atrocities.
lol what? Standing up and yelling during a meeting is probably the tip of the iceberg. They’re also trying to stage protests, etc.
Nah this person wasn’t working productively any more, as far as I can tell. Worse, they were reducing productivity of others. Possibly making an unsafe work environment.
It’s not about being sensitive or even agreeing. It’s about making product. If we were chopping wood and someone stopped chopping to complain about inner city transit systems. You’d fire them.
Depends on the thing and the place. In Germany you cannot do a Sieg Heil salute in public, for obvious reasons - and even that is loosely enforced. But you're absolutely allowed to protest.
Right to protest is under threat in the UK, but it's a difficult situation.
You have XE protestors shutting down infrastructure. You have Pro-Palestinian/Pro-Hamas marchers chanting extremist stuff like "From London to Gaza, Victory to the intifada", "We will honour all our martyrs", "Praise the martyrs" and "From the river to the sea".
The whole hate speech/free speech thing, and at what point is calling for and glorifying terrorism, and do we as a society allow that?
It's not helped by our incompetent and corrupt government whose primary base is the worst stereotype little Englander. Our police whose handling of protestors ranges from ineffective to Orwellian.
I'm generally pro-Civ-Lib and hands-off, but at this point, it's difficult.
We need to have an adult conversation as a country about where we draw lines, lest we allow extremism to fester or allow authoritarianism to raise its ugly head.
But we're utterly incapable of having an adult conversation about anything. This may change after the general election later in the year, but... It's a hope rather than a certainty.
I agree with the substance of the protest and frankly I respect the bravery of the person who conducted it. But let’s be realistic here: they were not fired for their views, they were fired for the manner in which they displayed them, which was clearly not appropriate for the workplace, and really left Google no choice but to fire them.
It is an expression of political belief, which is what is normally meant in such contexts. I don't see much point in detangling the two, as belief that is not expressed is by definition something that you cannot act against since you don't know about it.
See, you've got that backwards. If your government makes specific political beliefs illegal, and sends you to jail for expressing them, then you are not free.
How recently have you read it? I thought it was a worthwhile read when I first read it 12 years ago, but I picked it up to skim a couple years ago and was struck with how much of it was irrelevant for modern JS due to changes in the language spec.
