SHAKEN LEADERS. New Jobs, identities & Activism

an excerpt from chapter 4, Oracle Attacks the General Assembly

To know about company culture has never been so essential, for once hired, you must abide by the norms of their public social charter. A good example of this showed-up in Nashville when Oracle, in May 2021, announced plans to build a massive corporate campus, thus, promising to bring thousands of high-paying jobs to the city. The Metro Industrial Development Board went to work but so did Oracle “activism.” Like a bolt of lightning, the company’s diversity people immediately attacked House Bill 1182 signed by Governor Bill Lee meant to protect school children from gender bathroom and locker-room sharing when athletics are involved.
To Oracle's diversity people and legal team, HB1182 crossed the line; it was bias, discriminatory and violated rights of LGBTQ+ students. The company then invited more than 80 corporate leaders to sign a letter stating their position, shared by the ACLU: Tennessee is anti-LGBTQ+ – and furthermore, Oracle will pursue a fight with a Republican-led House which, they state is endangering transgenders in schools.

A job seeker who may oppose such a political and social environment within the Oracle halls in Nashville may not wish to apply. This demands a career-assessment mentality.
robertpwaters.com

           The Bucket Man

Introducing a short story of fiction, The Bucket Man is my initial creative piece on a cultural theme: homeless people. The idea originated while passing a homeless hangout on my commute - the site is actual and stands between a small creek, Walmart parking lot, a raucous suburban intersection, with a hospital just up the road.

Robbie Raine, our main character, is a homeless man with sensibilities, imagination, history and most importantly, hope for the future. The short story is told from his perspective as memories weave together with other homeless characters including one from the "good clean people" - who has a hidden story of his own.

 proceed to amazon.com/author/robpwaters     

The river has been flowing through our city for ages and ages. Someone was always inventing a system or method to cross over. Since I was a child I’ve never seen a river where there is no bridge. 
 
This is metaphorically what many technology firms are facing with one distinction: as the river of natural human experiences flows ever onward, big tech keeps building more digital innovations whereby society must figure out how to cross each bridge to artificial, digitalized and silently coded futuristic ways of living.
 
Then mishaps, algorithmic errors, deaths, unexpected and unplanned things happen. Some bridges not only let good people cross over; the routes are utilized by bad people too, like state and nation cyber criminals. What can we do but frame digital innovation with ethics? right versus wrong, good vs bad, helpful vs hurtful, just vs unjust, imitation vs genius, bias vs inclusion.
A rational mode of ethical pursuit by technologists is to create many styles of bridges. High quality bridges for the wealthy, low-tech bridges for the poor, generic bridges for skeptics, renewable bridges for environmentalists. And, they also build bridges anywhere. A river isn’t necessary for a bridge to be built.  A bridge is progress, an invitation to journey - into my brain, my home, my children's lives, my past, my genome. And, my future.
 
You can see why big tech’s ongoing conundrum agreeing on ethics breaks down. They can’t agree on or decide at Google; they can’t decide at any big tech firm!  Transforming  humanity from our natural world of man+environment to their future world of genetically altered humans in genetically altered environments - is hard. The one side of the river doesn’t resemble the other. But until we understand their ideology, which is to accelerate human evolution through counter-natural devices can we fight for the right to be human-as-created. 

​Robert P. Waters
​The Prophetic Backbone. an eBook on amazon.com