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Comment by crusso | Hacker News Reader

No, the jump/push analogy is too contorted to be meaningful. Employers and employees have a relationship that has processes that have common meanings and names like "resigned" or "fired".

There's no accepted relationship if you push someone threatening to jump. You're just an a-hole committing assault and possibly murder.

Is there a link to the letter that she sent? That could help to clarify.

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There is. You probably can Google for it.

The demand is something around exposing the identities of the peers who reviewed and rejected her paper. If Google doesn't give her the identities of those peers, she say she will leave the company.

Comparing to suicide is a bit much though. When considering death, everything else becomes secondary, so we can't use that analogy for comparison.

The push/jump illustration holds just as well if you are at the edge of a pool. You don't need death on the line to understand the difference between who is making the decision.

"If you eat dinner today, I'll commit suicide." - I'll probably skip dinner to save life.

"If you eat dinner today, I'll quit my job" - then, I'll probably tell person that they can quit their job. I'm not gonna skip my dinner for that.

I hope this illustrates that, when death is involved, everything else becomes secondary, and we prioritize not death over everything.

So, it's a bad analogy to use in Timnit's situation where she will quit if she doesn't get to see the identities of peer reviewers. This situation is not life and death.

Sure, but you left out the actual situation:

"If you eat dinner today, I'll quit my job" - then, you fire them and get on with dinner.

If I eat dinner, you will want to quit and I want you to quit. Both want to part way.

We can agree to disagree on being fired or not being fired.

But why would 'being fired' (or not) matter since both sides want to part way?

The debate about her being fired or resigning is a debate about who to believe about what led up to it. People who insist she resigned see her saying she was fired as evidence of a victim complex and publicity seeking. People who insist she was fired see Google saying she resigned as evidence of unfair treatment and dishonesty.

> People who insist she was fired see Google saying she resigned as evidence of unfair treatment and dishonesty.

I don't see any unfair treatment. Her ultimatum isn't satisfied, so both part way.

This group of people also hyper-focus way way too much on this part, which is not the important.

It's much better to focus on other stuffs like her paper didn't get approved because o A, B, and C. Or how Google suppresses her paper because of X, Y, Z.

Instead these people are yelling that Timnit was fired unfairly when she was the one who gave the ultimatum first...?

I actually spent a bit of time searching for a letter she sent with an ultimatum to her management. I've seen this referenced multiple places as "the email that got a Google researcher fired": https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

But that doesn't seem right. That looks more like a different type of letter, sent to a wider audience than just Timnit to her manager(s).

I've seen referenced that there was a timeframe for when she was going to quit that she mentioned. I see no such reference in that letter.

Maybe there's a real copy of the letter floating around. My guess is that people pretend that they've seen "the letter" but only read this other one I referenced above.

I'm happy to be proved wrong, though. I have no dog in this fight except to understand the truth of the situation. If you've seen a different letter than shows her ultimatum and time frame, please share.

I've been following this story quite closely and afaik I know the email Gebru sent that included her 'do this or I quit' ultimatum hasn't beenade public. The email you link to is an an earlier email that, like you say, was sent to a wide group of people within the company

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