For me, toxicity often boils down to these questions: Are you acting in good faith or not? Are you acting to resolve a disagreement and advance knowledge, or is the primary function of your speech to inflame and provoke? Do you accept that it is possible for smart people to disagree with you, or do you believe any disagreement is completely unacceptable?
When I view Gebru's Twitter argument with Lecun throug the above lens, it is pretty obvious to me that she is behaving in a toxic manner.
In that fracas, she emphasizes emotional appeals and "you just need to listen to us" and "I'm so sick of this". She also takes a page from the AOC school of argument where you (the rhetorician) play the meta-game where you judge who is allowed to participate in discourse (hint: everyone who disagrees with me is excluded!). It's a useful trick, for once you have purified the field your arguments will easily win.
Lecun later offered an olive branch and apology, but, true to form, Gebru doesn't offer any hint of awareness that she also may be responsible for the toxic devolution of the conversation. She personally blamed Lecun for her getting trolled, whilst failing to acknowledge that he was also being trolled by her supporters.
Later, and separately, when Google calls her on her resignation bluff, she employs the "call out" tactic, where she accuses Jeff Dean of personally firing her in an obvious attempt to shame him. This whole affair reeks of a PR play (and thus, not acting in good faith). That, to me, is highly toxic.
Wow, this is really well articulated and a great analysis of modern Twitter-driven social complaint. Please consider expanding this (IE, iterating over the various techniques used to "win" social arguments on Twitter). You can see her other tweets and replies, but I'd also include and contrast less progressive tweeters (such as the president's supporters).
She is defining herself and her existence using critical theory, and so her perception of experiences is filtered through that world view. That will always create a "toxic" environment, not to mention just make a person miserable to be around.
Critical theory is useful for the purpose of study and quantification of different social bias, norms, tends, values, or whatever other social aspect you want to slice up. The problem is when people use those divisions to identify themselves. It forces people to identify with a certain group, when in reality the divisions are often not nearly as clear cut as they are defined. But over time people are pressured socially into moving closer to how their group is defined, and what may have once been a false dichotomy becomes a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts; where the social interactions are entirely defined by "my tribe" vs "their tribe". My tribe is all good, theirs is all bad, therefor we are justified in treating everybody in their tribe as less than human. Even is cases where there is very real injustice and evil taking place, allowing oneself to be defined by these groups does nothing to resolve the problem. It only serves to shore up divisions and conflict between groups, making it worse.
It is unfortunate that the admonition to "love your neighbour as yourself" is no longer held with high regard.
Nitpick. Jesus Christ raised the bar to 'love your enemies'.
43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
I know you are referring to 'that thread', but in this email (from the article) she said:
"So if you would like to change things, I suggest focusing on leadership accountability and thinking through what types of pressures can also be applied from the outside. For instance, I believe that the Congressional Black Caucus..."
Skipping parts of the chain of command to deal with grievances is usually a toxic behaviour. Trying to skip the entire corporation and going straight to the government counts too, IMO. This woman has opportunities, abilities and successes that most of us can only dream of and she's using that to try and make Google a vehicle for political goals not quite articulated here (this email is obviously not written for public consumption, it is light on specific details apart from her thinking there are insufficient women hired). I can see the complaint against her, she's already got an advantage in life and now she's using her access at Google to try and strengthen her hand and weaken that of her coworkers.
If you've got strong reasons to believe your chain of command is going to respond not at all (or worse, badly) to your grievances, then going outside that chain is not toxic, but simply attempting to be effective.
xibalba|5 years ago
When I view Gebru's Twitter argument with Lecun throug the above lens, it is pretty obvious to me that she is behaving in a toxic manner.
In that fracas, she emphasizes emotional appeals and "you just need to listen to us" and "I'm so sick of this". She also takes a page from the AOC school of argument where you (the rhetorician) play the meta-game where you judge who is allowed to participate in discourse (hint: everyone who disagrees with me is excluded!). It's a useful trick, for once you have purified the field your arguments will easily win.
Lecun later offered an olive branch and apology, but, true to form, Gebru doesn't offer any hint of awareness that she also may be responsible for the toxic devolution of the conversation. She personally blamed Lecun for her getting trolled, whilst failing to acknowledge that he was also being trolled by her supporters.
Later, and separately, when Google calls her on her resignation bluff, she employs the "call out" tactic, where she accuses Jeff Dean of personally firing her in an obvious attempt to shame him. This whole affair reeks of a PR play (and thus, not acting in good faith). That, to me, is highly toxic.
dekhn|5 years ago
andbberger|5 years ago
bitbang|5 years ago
Critical theory is useful for the purpose of study and quantification of different social bias, norms, tends, values, or whatever other social aspect you want to slice up. The problem is when people use those divisions to identify themselves. It forces people to identify with a certain group, when in reality the divisions are often not nearly as clear cut as they are defined. But over time people are pressured socially into moving closer to how their group is defined, and what may have once been a false dichotomy becomes a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts; where the social interactions are entirely defined by "my tribe" vs "their tribe". My tribe is all good, theirs is all bad, therefor we are justified in treating everybody in their tribe as less than human. Even is cases where there is very real injustice and evil taking place, allowing oneself to be defined by these groups does nothing to resolve the problem. It only serves to shore up divisions and conflict between groups, making it worse.
It is unfortunate that the admonition to "love your neighbour as yourself" is no longer held with high regard.
anonvenger|5 years ago
43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
mring33621|5 years ago
I really enjoyed this deck of hers, which I found as a result of reading this thread:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rcG8KVmjRUWWNSg-R6cTBlAScP9...
roenxi|5 years ago
"So if you would like to change things, I suggest focusing on leadership accountability and thinking through what types of pressures can also be applied from the outside. For instance, I believe that the Congressional Black Caucus..."
Skipping parts of the chain of command to deal with grievances is usually a toxic behaviour. Trying to skip the entire corporation and going straight to the government counts too, IMO. This woman has opportunities, abilities and successes that most of us can only dream of and she's using that to try and make Google a vehicle for political goals not quite articulated here (this email is obviously not written for public consumption, it is light on specific details apart from her thinking there are insufficient women hired). I can see the complaint against her, she's already got an advantage in life and now she's using her access at Google to try and strengthen her hand and weaken that of her coworkers.
zhengyi13|5 years ago
joshuamorton|5 years ago
Not if you've already attempted to escalate up the normal chain of command. In such cases it's often considered morally required.