I feel like working there or at similarly high paying companies in tech is the path of least resistance for the average person to be able to build up enough capital to escape from being a wage slave and start worker-owned/non profit alternatives. Also, at least from what I've seen in social media and in the company I work at, there are a lot of well-meaning libs folks in the field with potential for radicalization.
No line needs to be drawn right now -- there are no revolutionary tribunals, no truth and reconciliation commissions, and there's not even a large leftist party that needs to define what membership means. This is not a very helpful framework at the moment.
Right now the most useful framework is something like (1) people who won't even listen, (2) people who will listen but aren't moving left soon, and (3) people who will listen and become leftists pretty quick. I'm sure some Google workers are in Group 3, and probably are fair amount (if not most) are in Group 2. There's no reason to write those people off, and we can't afford to write people off too easily in general.
I can see the idea that some jobs are incompatible with being a serious leftist. But Google is way too big and way too removed from the most direct harms of capitalism to make a blanket statement about Google employees.
We should also be careful about making litmus tests for leftism that require enormous life changes (e.g., quit your nice job and find something else) solely for the sake of ideological purity. Someone quitting their job at Google doesn't bring us any closer to socialism. If anything, stuff like the unionization attempts at Google (which wouldn't be possible without at least proto-leftists) moves the ball forward.
Oh yeah definitely not advocating just taking whatever job that pays the highest. Like I'd probably only take a job with the military if I thought I could get away with sabotaging it for a reasonable amount of time. But if the choice is between say joining the Google Docs team for $150k vs random local tech company for $70k, I'd take the Google job. Obviously, if there was a better company that paid highly or a company that didn't pay as high but is building an open source worker-owned Uber alternative, then that would be ideal but especially for new grads, those options often aren't available due to limited openings or lack of experience.
I guess the way I see it is that while $70k is good money, I'd still be exploited by capitalists and it would take me 8 years before I'm comfortable enough financially to start working full time on building open source, non-profit, worker-owned Uber whereas with $150k, it'd take less than 4 years. Also, for new grads, I imagine the experience that they'd gain at Google/FB would be more relevant to building open source worker-owned Uber than Random Local Tech Company.
While Google and FB are indeed the big bad, I'm not sure working for them, especially at entry level positions, will necessarily cause much harm. Like working on a product that got killed, you'd basically be paid to work on something that was causing them to lose money. Also, like I mentioned, I believe there are a lot of reasonable people working at these companies so if you do get put into a harmful project, then you could switch teams or at least blow the whistle/radicalize folks before getting canned.
I believe the actual working conditions there vary from team to team like with any other employer although I've heard Google is more chill in general compared to other places.
You really don't. The left is totally fucked and has no chance of even doing meaningful damage to capital in the west right now. That needs to change and that means taking anyone that will help in the fight.
I feel like working there or at similarly high paying companies in tech is the path of least resistance for the average person to be able to build up enough capital to escape from being a wage slave and start worker-owned/non profit alternatives. Also, at least from what I've seen in social media and in the company I work at, there are a lot of well-meaning
libsfolks in the field with potential for radicalization.deleted by creator
No line needs to be drawn right now -- there are no revolutionary tribunals, no truth and reconciliation commissions, and there's not even a large leftist party that needs to define what membership means. This is not a very helpful framework at the moment.
Right now the most useful framework is something like (1) people who won't even listen, (2) people who will listen but aren't moving left soon, and (3) people who will listen and become leftists pretty quick. I'm sure some Google workers are in Group 3, and probably are fair amount (if not most) are in Group 2. There's no reason to write those people off, and we can't afford to write people off too easily in general.
deleted by creator
I can see the idea that some jobs are incompatible with being a serious leftist. But Google is way too big and way too removed from the most direct harms of capitalism to make a blanket statement about Google employees.
We should also be careful about making litmus tests for leftism that require enormous life changes (e.g., quit your nice job and find something else) solely for the sake of ideological purity. Someone quitting their job at Google doesn't bring us any closer to socialism. If anything, stuff like the unionization attempts at Google (which wouldn't be possible without at least proto-leftists) moves the ball forward.
Oh yeah definitely not advocating just taking whatever job that pays the highest. Like I'd probably only take a job with the military if I thought I could get away with sabotaging it for a reasonable amount of time. But if the choice is between say joining the Google Docs team for $150k vs random local tech company for $70k, I'd take the Google job. Obviously, if there was a better company that paid highly or a company that didn't pay as high but is building an open source worker-owned Uber alternative, then that would be ideal but especially for new grads, those options often aren't available due to limited openings or lack of experience.
deleted by creator
I guess the way I see it is that while $70k is good money, I'd still be exploited by capitalists and it would take me 8 years before I'm comfortable enough financially to start working full time on building open source, non-profit, worker-owned Uber whereas with $150k, it'd take less than 4 years. Also, for new grads, I imagine the experience that they'd gain at Google/FB would be more relevant to building open source worker-owned Uber than Random Local Tech Company.
While Google and FB are indeed the big bad, I'm not sure working for them, especially at entry level positions, will necessarily cause much harm. Like working on a product that got killed, you'd basically be paid to work on something that was causing them to lose money. Also, like I mentioned, I believe there are a lot of reasonable people working at these companies so if you do get put into a harmful project, then you could switch teams or at least blow the whistle/radicalize folks before getting canned.
I believe the actual working conditions there vary from team to team like with any other employer although I've heard Google is more chill in general compared to other places.
I literally can't imagine thinking that is a luxury you have right now.
deleted by creator
You really don't. The left is totally fucked and has no chance of even doing meaningful damage to capital in the west right now. That needs to change and that means taking anyone that will help in the fight.
deleted by creator