I'm not sure how one excuses the other really (especially since the other is a corporation of 100k+ people). This tit-for-tat behaviour really spirals into destructive retaliations which are bad for everyone.
The benefit of what doubt? No matter how much you distrust Google, we can’t really presume they’re guilty of hypothetical accusations that haven’t actually been made.
Then again the activists have proven to be pretty dishonest themselves. Timnit lied about who fired her, hid the fact that she gave an ultimatum and has now dedicated time to publicly smear and attack everyone at Google, including listing people who should be fired (by name!) on Twitter. Not to mention the abusive behaviour she showed towards the FB head of AI on Twitter who stopped posting as a result. She never apologised, although she demands apology from Google coworkers.
The other activist was fired when she deployed political messaging code in production while hiding the whole process from her team and manager.
Do those strike as a people that will honestly present their story and would be good to work with? Ones that happily lie and fudge the truth to drive their agendas?
Because in my experience people who act like this, no matter what skin color they have, are corrosive and abusive to work with.
Google is doing something unethical, even if Google wasn’t doing something unethical before they decided to name and blame an employee on a personnel matter before completing an internal investigation to establish the facts. There’s a good reason why even under direct questioning with the most serious internal indications but an ongoing internal investigation, companies simply decline comment on personnel matters.
Of course, if they weren’t trying to poison the well about an imminent revelation of some greater unethical behavior on their part, they probably wouldn’t have engaged in the obvious unethical behavior. So...
Isn’t that a one sided expectation though? Timnit Gebru publicly tweeted about this second activist losing email access. By calling Google out in such a public manner, I feel like Google is forced to respond publicly, to set the record and prevent the early viral spread of these activists’ one sided take/misinformation. Otherwise what happens is journalists like Kara Swisher source entire stories from these activists, plaster it across their platforms, and Google then faces another manufactured outrage PR issue.
Edit: another comment here also claims that Google’s statement was made because Axios reached out to them regarding this story after Timnit Gebru’s tweet. So there you have it.
Yes, Google’s ethical responsibility in a current employer/employee relationship with Mitchell is different than Gebru’s ethical obligation to her former employer with whom she is already in a public, contentious battle.
And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell.
If we accept Google's own claims, they have an automated indication which leads to suspicion of that and on ongoing investigation, not even something where they are prepared to claim an actual violation. i.e., exactly the circumstances where every half competent organization would decline comment (potentially citing “personnel matters” until they'd actually completed an investigation.)
So you say you suspect they have an ongoing investigation, and that would be "circumstances where every half competent organization would decline comment"
What substantiates this conclusion? They can have an investigation ongoing, and share the cause for said investigation. In the statement they explicitly establish that this doesn't imply guilt of the account owner.
I think even more than that they simply do not have a choice. Yes, it sucks that Apple's suppliers are unethical, but what am I supposed to do if I want to Snapchat my girlfriend or talk to my friends, or have a phone that is compatible with itunes/apple music? If my choice is between Apple and Google, how do I know that Google's ethics are any better? Am I supposed to spend hours and hours of my life investigating whether one is marginally more ethical than the other?
We simply have to stop making consumers responsible and accountable for every unethical thing a company does. Why is the status quo that every company is evil and that's ok? You'll see AMEX commercials imploring you to "shop local" during the pandemic but where is their relief for small business? Why is it my responsibility to save them but business as usual for those that want to exploit me?
How near does it need to be to be near an all time high? If we say within 5% then it looks like, outside of the catastrophic period between 2000 and 2012, the graph spent the vast majority of its time there.
What does drawndown have to do with ATH? The SPX is ~50 points (1.3%) from its ATH right now (3663 as of Friday close) vs ATH of 3715 on 12/9. It's reasonable to say "close to ATH".
If you are upper middle class it is possible to pay zero taxes. Between tax loss harvesting, 401ks, opportunity zones, and LLC formation, a citizen can legally pay no taxes some years. It's a bit of a learning curve but none of the mechanics are particularly difficult.
"Once income and spending exceed this level, taxes must be paid. Unless…
Unless that income comes from qualified dividends or long-term capital gains. In this case, a married couple can have $24,400 a year in income AND $78,750 in investment income, TAX-FREE"
If you can get 78k$ yearly investment income from index funds, you already have a net worth of several million $, and you're thus already among the people that don't need to work (or you had some incredible luck for smaller investments)
It's two statements. 1) childlessness is a selfish choice. 2) this is sad and misguided. That second statement, without evidence or argument, is arrogant and patronizing. Non-inclusive even.
"One of the big reasons for UBI is the belief that an individual can better assess their own needs and wants, and procure them more cheaply than the government"
Perhaps, but many of the major problems we have today are tragedy of the commons situations, and that's precisely when we need government to step in, not just leave it up to individuals.
