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Home Front: Culture Wars
No Bias here: Google Top Dawgs discuss their sorrow at 2016 election
2018-09-13
Nothing like creating a hostile work environment for the political dissenters, who have since openly complained about harassment and intimidation from management and colleagues alike...
[Breitbart] A video recorded by Google shortly after the 2016 presidential election reveals an atmosphere of panic and dismay amongst the tech giant’s leadership, coupled with a determination to thwart both the Trump agenda and the broader populist movement emerging around the globe.

The video is a full recording of Google’s first all-hands meeting following the 2016 election (these weekly meetings are known inside the company as “TGIF” or “Thank God It’s Friday” meetings). Sent to Breitbart News by an anonymous source, it features co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, VPs Kent Walker and Eileen Naughton, CFO Ruth Porat, and CEO Sundar Pichai. It can be watched in full above. It can and should be watched in full above in order to get the full context of the meeting and the statements made.

It was reported earlier this week that Google tried to boost turnout among the Latino population to help Hillary Clinton, only to be dismayed as the usually solid Democratic voting bloc switched to the GOP in record numbers. This video shows a similar level of dismay among Google’s most high-profile figures.

These individuals, who preside over a company with unrivaled influence over the flow of information, can be seen disparaging the motivations of Trump voters and plotting ways to use their vast resources to thwart the Trump agenda.

Co-founder Sergey Brin can be heard comparing Trump supporters to fascists and extremists. Brin argues that like other extremists, Trump voters were motivated by “boredom,” which he says in the past led to fascism and communism.

The Google co-founder then asks his company to consider what it can do to ensure a “better quality of governance and decision-making.”

VP for Global Affairs Kent Walker argues that supporters of populist causes like the Trump campaign are motivated by “fear, xenophobia, hatred, and a desire for answers that may or may not be there.”

Later, Walker says that Google should fight to ensure the populist movement – not just in the U.S. but around the world – is merely a “blip” and a “hiccup” in a historical arc that “bends toward progress.”

CEO Sundar Pichai states that the company will develop machine learning and A.I. to combat what an employee described as “misinformation” shared by “low-information voters.”
More at the link

For a shorter sample click here
Posted by:badanov

#13  The left has built up thick walls around their echo-chambers for the last decade or so. If on the military could build tanks and warships out of such strong material as liberal bullheadishness.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2018-09-13 18:41  

#12  Freaking nerds trying to be accepted by the cool kids.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-09-13 11:33  

#11  Maybe I won't read the book. Here is the last part of a lengthy critical review -

I don't actually disagree with any of Haidt's psychological studies. I just come to entirely different conclusion. When Haidt finds ignorance and prejudice, he wants to build a code of ethics out of it. Where I find ignorance and prejudice, I want to educate people and help them to understand the points of views of others. How can this come about? Well, first one must accept that there is a real, physical reality out there, and that certain actions make sense in the real world and others don't. If you compare today's political discussion with that of previous generations, you can see how far we've fallen. For example, read "The Federalist Papers" and compare that to any modern day politician's anti-intellectualism, and you can realize how much America has lost since our founding in terms of critical thinking and honest debate.

The Enlightenment-style system of individual rights has advanced society enormously. Unfortunately, there are still pseudo-intellectuals like Haidt who want to drag us back into the stone age, or worse, towards fascism, religious fundamentalism, or communism. I find this book disturbing and could go on and on about problems I have with it, however I think I've said enough to get my point across.


Maybe the blind squirrel found an acorn, in comment #4?
Posted by: Bobby   2018-09-13 10:25  

#10  New Motto
Don't do evil.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2018-09-13 10:19  

#9  heidt's book is available at Amazon.

perhaps the book is more complex than the snippets suggest. One of the comments on the book suggests -
A great book that explains how Conservatives don't Care as much as Liberals.

And if you've taken offense to that statement, you should read the book.


On the other hand, speaking for myself, I probably don't care as much as a lot of liberals. But I might still read the book on my next vacation.
Posted by: Bobby   2018-09-13 10:19  

#8  My own idea is that emotional NEOTENY drives the liberal mind.

They cannot imagine other people can think differently and the attempt to live at other's expense and expectation of being able to do so is a longing to return to those times.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2018-09-13 08:54  

#7  They seem not to have any problem working hand in hand with the authoritarian regime in China. The Left never has rid itself of its old love of the Plantation system in any form.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2018-09-13 06:38  

#6  I’ve saved that comment to my little collection of Rantburg wisdom, Herb McCoy.
Posted by: trailing wife   2018-09-13 06:18  

#5  BEHOLD!! Direct decendants of the 1960's California flower child hippies!
Posted by: Ebbavirt Clunk4147   2018-09-13 04:11  

#4  a New York University psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, was formulating a theory about why liberals and conservatives have such a hard time productively conversing.

After mucking around in a lot of survey data, he came up with this basic idea: Liberals and people of the left underpin their politics with moral concerns about harm and fairness; they are driven by the imperative to help the vulnerable and see justice done. Conservatives and people of the right value these things as well but have several additional moral touchstones — loyalty, respect and sanctity. They value in-group solidarity, deference to authority, and the protection of purity in mind and body. To liberals, those sincerely held values can look a lot like, in Dr. Haidt's words, "xenophobia, authoritarianism and Puritanism." This asymmetry is the fountainhead of mutual incomprehension and disdain.

Haidt has done good work on the psychology of political persuasion. He's a self-described liberal who discovered some of the personality traits that correlate with political belief. One of the most telling discoveries was that conservatives tend to be curious about what liberals think and why, while liberals see conservatives as inferior "other," inherently incapable of thought.

When faced with questions such as "One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal" or "Justice is the most important requirement for a society," liberals assumed that conservatives would disagree.

http://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/haidt/conservatives-understand-liberals-better-than-liberals-understand-conservatives/

Jonathan Haidt's experiments ask liberals and conservatives to fill out questionnaires about their values, then to predict how someone from the opposite tribe would fill out the questionnaire. He finds that conservatives are able to predict liberals' answers just fine and seem to have a pretty good understanding of their worldviews, but that liberals have *no idea* how conservatives think or what they value.

http://www.aei.org/publication/liberals-or-conservatives-whos-really-close-minded/
Posted by: Herb McCoy   2018-09-13 01:40  

#3  They definitely have core values. They just interpret the words differently than we do. What, for instance, is evil? To me, creating an Orwellian atmosphere of RightThink is evil. Obviously, they disagree.
Posted by: trailing wife   2018-09-13 01:00  

#2  Seconded by my American ass, Raj. :-)

Core values? Ah, that's just for show.
Posted by: gorb   2018-09-13 00:47  

#1  I don't give a fuck anymore - break them up. 'Don't be evil', my French ass.
Posted by: Raj   2018-09-13 00:18  

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