Daniel Povey, the Johns Hopkins professor who was fired for an assault with boltcutters against protesting students, was moving to Seattle to work at Facebook. His plans have changed.
Daniel Povey, the research professor whom John Hopkins University fired for trying to break through a student sit-in with bolt cutters, won’t be working at Facebook after all, according to The Baltimore Sun. Facebook previously confirmed that it had hired Povey and he was soon set to work there. But Povey now says that he isn’t prepared to work at Facebook because its “progressive ideas” parallel those of academe.
Facebook? Progressive? The privacy-obliterating, money-grubbing-capitalist, information-selling organization was too progressive for him? Jeez. That says a lot about Povey’s commitment to freedom. As does his alternative.
He plans to work with an unnamed Chinese company or university in speech recognition and machine learning, the Sun reported. “There are several operations in the Seattle area who do this kind of thing, so I wouldn’t even have to move,” Povey said. “I will feel more relaxed among the Chinese because they don’t have American-style social justice warriors.”
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong…
Let’s see him storm those protests.
Also, the Pacific Northwest is full of angry progressives. Is he even aware of where he is going?
Perhaps Povey plans to week-end at that armed white supremacist colony near Spokane. They seem to be more his kind of folks.
he is just “talkin’ shit”
I don’t believe the spin on it at all
uncle frogy
It’s true, no-one expects the Chinese to pursue social justice.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they retracted the offer. In fact, it would surprise me if they did not, after he made this self-sabotaging comment: “I just wouldn’t expect to last very long at any big Silicon Valley company after expressing the kinds of opinions I have expressed in my leaving message.”
It is far easier and less expensive not to hire in the first place than to fire somebody or even handle the fallout of a sudden resignation. This guy just said he’ll probably quit. I know how this story ends. Let’s cut to the chase. I would absolutely retract the offer. It is possible that they restart negotiations or something, but he really must think he’s indispensable with this approach. Sorry, Bub. Nobody is. “We at facebook figured you’re not that into us after all.”
Actually, this happened to me, not over politics, but I had (I thought) an actual offer with a salary quote and was just being introduced to some VP. I quoted the Groucho Marx line about joining a club that would accept someone like me as a member (hey, doesn’t a little self-effacing humor break the ice?). Anyway, I effectively sabotaged things (maybe it was something else I said) and played phone tag with the manager who wanted me for another week before we came to a mutual decision not to pursue it further. I wasn’t shattered or anything, but I did learn a lesson about keeping my big mouth shut.
As for facebook being “progressive”, well no, they’re a giant money-making privacy-violating corporation, but he’d be working with people who are least claim to have progressive values, and he’s right it would be similar to academia. Johns Hopkins is not an incredibly liberal institution for that matter (or wasn’t 25 years ago). If he couldn’t cope there, I don’t facebook would be more amenable.
He’s probably right that he’ll do fine in China. Hong Kong aside, there is still a more interest in economic success than in political change (or was last time I checked). I loved traveling to China in 2004. What a break from all the terrorism hysteria in the US at the time.
It might feel like a letdown though, if he has nothing to whine about.
There are Chinese companies or universities in the Seattle area? Even if we charitably infer that he means Chinese-owned, or branches of Chinese universities abroad, does he really think that such organizations would operate under Chinese rules, and not American ones? And would he really be happy if they did?
“Mr Povey, do you understand that you will be expected to not express derogatory opinions about the Chinese government or the Chinese people, and that doing so will result in immediate termination?”
Owlmirror@6 Sorry, I didn’t read carefully. I thought he was traveling abroad for work. I agree that a Chinese-owned company in Seattle will probably have a similar workforce to other tech companies there.
If you read the original Baltimore Sun article, you can see Povey write, about Facebook:
So, yeah. Facebook accepting trans* is a much too progressive leap for him.
(While the Baltimore Sun article does not use [sic], I strongly suspect that the spelling in Povey’s quoted words is as it was in his e-mail)
Hates SJWs, decides to live in SJW Land
Please! We call it SJW-stan now!