Well, I think this why Google has been so good at controlling their employees to stay within the margins of Google’s business interests. It creates a vibrant illusion of consequential debate and “resistance,” while keeping all the real power in the hands of a few executives.
Don’t get me wrong, Google employees have ways to put a stop to things like this project. But they’re not to be found in these pseudo-battles of their internal forums. Employees have to organize outside of company channels, withdraw their labor, or quit like those who were already brave enough to do so.
Agreed. And let's not forget about google's current core business, which always reminds me of this clockwork orange cinema scene: reprograming your brain by forcefully feeding it images, thoughts and other stimuli advertising whoever pays them. Nothing is black or white, but that's already far into "evil" for me. Yet every spark of subversive action is good to take.
This is absurd. The true power of democracy is freedom to speak. To disagree to challenge. Google does this better than any big company I've ever heard of. I literally challenged the CEO in public on the question of the housing crisis in the bay area. He responded and the conversation continued. There have been a dozen times in the last several years when healthy internal conversation at Google has changed policy. Name one time that happened at IBM.
The true power of democracy is...democracy. Google doesn’t have a labor union or worker-ownership, so while executives might be open to appeals, ultimately what you’re describing is an authoritarian arrangement.
I do think employees and users would be better off if Google was democratically controlled in either of the ways described above, but unfortunately that’s not where we are right now.
Don’t get me wrong, Google employees have ways to put a stop to things like this project. But they’re not to be found in these pseudo-battles of their internal forums. Employees have to organize outside of company channels, withdraw their labor, or quit like those who were already brave enough to do so.
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