7 ms·

Why Google’s firing terrifies social conservatives so much

14 points by JSONwebtoken 9y ago

furxryfgrva 9y ago
It should terrify everyone. It's a flagrant attempt at depriving someone (and their family) of access to food/home/healthcare/etc just because they voiced their opinion.
- lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  Lol. Employment isn't a protected right. Voicing your opinion is one thing, trying to use provable false statements to create a toxic work environment for one third of your coworkers is a PR disaster, terrible for moral, and 100% grounds for termination.
  - furxryfgrva 9y ago
    > provable false statements They aren't false. > create a toxic work environment for one third of your coworkers The people creating a toxic work environment are those who are attempting to blackball capable, veteran engineers in order to bring incapable and subpar people into the workplace simply because they were born a different gender or skin color. > and 100% grounds for termination. Firing someone for political beliefs is not grounds for termination, and never has been.
    - YuriNiyazov 9y ago
      This right here is actually the source of the problem. The current social environment tells you "here are topics that you have to discuss with utmost sensitivity, even if you are completely confident you are right, and have all the evidence." Your (and presumably, the google employee that got fired) response? "Nah, I am right, so fuck your rules" It doesn't work that way.
    - craigsmansion 9y ago
      > They aren't false. Correct. It's worse: they are irrelevant. It buried the lede of unsubstantiated and toxic conclusions under some marginally related statistics and science. As a whole it wasn't a scientifically sound argument by any metric. > The people creating a toxic work environment are those[..] The people determining whether a working environment is toxic for them is the majority of people working in that environment. Whether you feel it shouldn't be considered toxic is a different matter. > Firing someone for political beliefs is not grounds for termination, and never has been. Anti-social behaviour, whether based on religion, political beliefs, or plainly being a jerk, is always a good reason for termination in larger companies. It's what keeps a work force together. P.S. "subpar people"? Maybe you meant to say "Untermenschen"?
      - LyndsySimon 9y ago
        > toxic conclusions How can a conclusion be "toxic"? A conclusion is either consistent or inconsistent with the evidence at hand.
        Yetanfou 9y ago
        A conclusion is "toxic" when it poisons the desired outcome and/or goes counter to the narrative. Evidence does not play a major part in this, other than to be quoted when it supports the narrative or dismissed or smeared when it doesn't (viz. Obscurantism [1] and Moral relativism [2]) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
  - bberrry 9y ago
    What statements in particular are you calling false? Genuinely curious.
    - lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
      On the off chance you're being sincere, this entire list basically (cited directly from the work itself). ● They’re universal across human cultures -- Some are, such as physiological differences (muscle mass, skeletal structure, etc) and a general gradient assertiveness but that leaves a lot of other traits with a high degree of variance (and ignores the fact that a population of engineers is not randomly selected so isn't appear guasian with respect to averages of the global population)[0][1] ● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone -- citation needed ● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males -- I can't imagine that's a statistically significant sample and still citation needed ● The underlying traits are highly heritable -- citation needed ● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective -- evolutionary psychology is not mature field and has a lot of issues [2] Just as an aside, extraordinary claims (ie this group that has been historically disadvantaged is really just inferior) requires extraordinary evidence. Im lumping baseless statements in with statements directly contradicted by existing study. His misunderstanding of the central limit theorem in producing the graph included in the memo compounds things. There's really no reason to believe any given distribution of people, especially given the people working at google are a very specific selection from the total population. His citations [3] only really loosely correlate with the thesis and certainly don't point to the universality that he depends on. Really the crux of the issue is the faulty axiom that women (or anyone really) working at google (or anywhere with a selection process)should display traits as if they were randomly selected from the population. Which kills all of his other arguments. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem [1]:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Costa3/publication/11825676_Gender_Differences_in_Personality_Traits_Across_Cultures_Robust_and_Surprising_Findings/links/00b7d52db42cda259e000000/Gender-Differences-in-Personality-Traits-Across-Cultures-Robust-and-Surprising-Findings.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Costa3/publication... [2]:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016230959290021U?via%3Dihub http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01623095929...
  - micahbright 9y ago
    > Employment isn't a protected right. Nice - you just proved that diversity programs are unnecessary with far fewer words than James Damore.
    - mcphage 9y ago
      > Nice - you just proved that diversity programs are unnecessary This merely shows why they're not legally mandated. "Necessary", or "desirable" is another matter entirely.
      - micahbright 9y ago
        So, to bring things full circle: Are you saying it's necessary or desirable to lower the bar for people to fill quotas, however, when someone writes something that you obviously haven't read or understood, it's rightful that they should be terminated for those opinions that you don't even seem to have grasped. I mean, you do realize that "trying to use provable false statements to create a toxic work environment for one third of your coworkers is a PR disaster" is utterly false.
        mcphage 9y ago
        > Are you saying it's necessary or desirable to lower the bar for people to fill quotas What do you mean by "lower the bar"?
- tentakull 9y ago
  boohoo.
bberrry 9y ago
I'm skeptical about the benefits (and underlying assumptions) of "affirmative action" diversity hires but I certainly wouldn't classify myself as socially conservative. There are so many loaded terms on these subjects that needlessly and counterproductively labels people and those labels come with a lot of baggage.
zzalpha 9y ago
Many of the left seek to win culture wars not on the merits of arguments and ideas but simply by punishing and silencing any who disagree. As though that's a unique aspect of "the political left". Folks in the GOP, for example, definitely don't have litmus tests that distinguish a "true" conservative from a RINO. His team is clearly better than your team! Honestly, it's pretty clear this op-ed is every bit the polemic as any other writing on this topic, and it's about as reliable an analysis as a result. It does nothing to move the conversation forward in any constructive way. Again: As a Rorschach test for your sociopolitical affiliation, the memo is a smashing success. It manages this by, from the very start, couching the discussion in terms of left-right political affiliation, immediately putting the "left" on the defensive and the "right" cheering him on. After that it's just a lesson in confirmation bias. Edit: As a random aside, am I the only one who feels like this thing is packed with MRA dogwhistles? "males are biologically disposable", "when a man complains about a gender issue affecting men, he is labelled as a mysogynist and a whiner", "humans are generally biased towards protecting females", etc. This guy would've done himself a huge favour by having someone read and critique this thing before sending it out. Even a straightforward rewrite to remove some of these unsupported, content-free statements would've clarified his thesis and cut out some of the obvious flamebait.
petraeus 9y ago
Its an attack on the status quo, white males are terrified, understandably...

14 points by JSONwebtoken 9y ago

It should terrify everyone. It's a flagrant attempt at depriving someone (and their family) of access to food/home/healthcare/etc just because they voiced their opinion.

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
Lol. Employment isn't a protected right. Voicing your opinion is one thing, trying to use provable false statements to create a toxic work environment for one third of your coworkers is a PR disaster, terrible for moral, and 100% grounds for termination.
- furxryfgrva 9y ago
  > provable false statements They aren't false. > create a toxic work environment for one third of your coworkers The people creating a toxic work environment are those who are attempting to blackball capable, veteran engineers in order to bring incapable and subpar people into the workplace simply because they were born a different gender or skin color. > and 100% grounds for termination. Firing someone for political beliefs is not grounds for termination, and never has been.
  - YuriNiyazov 9y ago
    This right here is actually the source of the problem. The current social environment tells you "here are topics that you have to discuss with utmost sensitivity, even if you are completely confident you are right, and have all the evidence." Your (and presumably, the google employee that got fired) response? "Nah, I am right, so fuck your rules" It doesn't work that way.
  - craigsmansion 9y ago
    > They aren't false. Correct. It's worse: they are irrelevant. It buried the lede of unsubstantiated and toxic conclusions under some marginally related statistics and science. As a whole it wasn't a scientifically sound argument by any metric. > The people creating a toxic work environment are those[..] The people determining whether a working environment is toxic for them is the majority of people working in that environment. Whether you feel it shouldn't be considered toxic is a different matter. > Firing someone for political beliefs is not grounds for termination, and never has been. Anti-social behaviour, whether based on religion, political beliefs, or plainly being a jerk, is always a good reason for termination in larger companies. It's what keeps a work force together. P.S. "subpar people"? Maybe you meant to say "Untermenschen"?
    - LyndsySimon 9y ago
      > toxic conclusions How can a conclusion be "toxic"? A conclusion is either consistent or inconsistent with the evidence at hand.
      - Yetanfou 9y ago
        A conclusion is "toxic" when it poisons the desired outcome and/or goes counter to the narrative. Evidence does not play a major part in this, other than to be quoted when it supports the narrative or dismissed or smeared when it doesn't (viz. Obscurantism [1] and Moral relativism [2]) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
- bberrry 9y ago
  What statements in particular are you calling false? Genuinely curious.
  - lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
    On the off chance you're being sincere, this entire list basically (cited directly from the work itself). ● They’re universal across human cultures -- Some are, such as physiological differences (muscle mass, skeletal structure, etc) and a general gradient assertiveness but that leaves a lot of other traits with a high degree of variance (and ignores the fact that a population of engineers is not randomly selected so isn't appear guasian with respect to averages of the global population)[0][1] ● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone -- citation needed ● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males -- I can't imagine that's a statistically significant sample and still citation needed ● The underlying traits are highly heritable -- citation needed ● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective -- evolutionary psychology is not mature field and has a lot of issues [2] Just as an aside, extraordinary claims (ie this group that has been historically disadvantaged is really just inferior) requires extraordinary evidence. Im lumping baseless statements in with statements directly contradicted by existing study. His misunderstanding of the central limit theorem in producing the graph included in the memo compounds things. There's really no reason to believe any given distribution of people, especially given the people working at google are a very specific selection from the total population. His citations [3] only really loosely correlate with the thesis and certainly don't point to the universality that he depends on. Really the crux of the issue is the faulty axiom that women (or anyone really) working at google (or anywhere with a selection process)should display traits as if they were randomly selected from the population. Which kills all of his other arguments. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem [1]:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Costa3/publication/11825676_Gender_Differences_in_Personality_Traits_Across_Cultures_Robust_and_Surprising_Findings/links/00b7d52db42cda259e000000/Gender-Differences-in-Personality-Traits-Across-Cultures-Robust-and-Surprising-Findings.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Costa3/publication... [2]:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016230959290021U?via%3Dihub http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01623095929...
- micahbright 9y ago
  > Employment isn't a protected right. Nice - you just proved that diversity programs are unnecessary with far fewer words than James Damore.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > Nice - you just proved that diversity programs are unnecessary This merely shows why they're not legally mandated. "Necessary", or "desirable" is another matter entirely.
    - micahbright 9y ago
      So, to bring things full circle: Are you saying it's necessary or desirable to lower the bar for people to fill quotas, however, when someone writes something that you obviously haven't read or understood, it's rightful that they should be terminated for those opinions that you don't even seem to have grasped. I mean, you do realize that "trying to use provable false statements to create a toxic work environment for one third of your coworkers is a PR disaster" is utterly false.
      - mcphage 9y ago
        > Are you saying it's necessary or desirable to lower the bar for people to fill quotas What do you mean by "lower the bar"?
tentakull 9y ago
boohoo.

bberrry 9y ago

I'm skeptical about the benefits (and underlying assumptions) of "affirmative action" diversity hires but I certainly wouldn't classify myself as socially conservative. There are so many loaded terms on these subjects that needlessly and counterproductively labels people and those labels come with a lot of baggage.

zzalpha 9y ago

Many of the left seek to win culture wars not on the merits of arguments and ideas but simply by punishing and silencing any who disagree. As though that's a unique aspect of "the political left". Folks in the GOP, for example, definitely don't have litmus tests that distinguish a "true" conservative from a RINO. His team is clearly better than your team! Honestly, it's pretty clear this op-ed is every bit the polemic as any other writing on this topic, and it's about as reliable an analysis as a result. It does nothing to move the conversation forward in any constructive way. Again: As a Rorschach test for your sociopolitical affiliation, the memo is a smashing success. It manages this by, from the very start, couching the discussion in terms of left-right political affiliation, immediately putting the "left" on the defensive and the "right" cheering him on. After that it's just a lesson in confirmation bias. Edit: As a random aside, am I the only one who feels like this thing is packed with MRA dogwhistles? "males are biologically disposable", "when a man complains about a gender issue affecting men, he is labelled as a mysogynist and a whiner", "humans are generally biased towards protecting females", etc. This guy would've done himself a huge favour by having someone read and critique this thing before sending it out. Even a straightforward rewrite to remove some of these unsupported, content-free statements would've clarified his thesis and cut out some of the obvious flamebait.

petraeus 9y ago

Its an attack on the status quo, white males are terrified, understandably...