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You know, when you're wrongly accused of being sexist, attempting to clear your name by having an hour-long, preening conversation with Stefan "The evil that wo

You know, when you're wrongly accused of being sexist, attempting to clear your name by having an hour-long, preening conversation with Stefan "The evil that women do is generally invisible to society which is why there’s so much violence in society" Molyneux doesn't seem like the best option.

pteredactyl 9y ago
Yea Stefan was not the greatest choice. But I thought he did well on Bloomberg, even though Emily Chang had it out for him. Cancelling the Town Hall is a cop out.
- danso 9y ago
  It's not much of a "town hall" if employees are afraid to participate.
  - thrway2k17 9y ago
    Google employees that asked questions for Town Hall were already leaked & doxxed by somebody within Google and posted on various websites/youtube. Seems like somebody high up at Google is trying to destroy internal trust or the upper management went completely insane with digital maoism a'la 'Hundred Flowers'.
  - williamle8300 9y ago
    Agreed. Sundar's memo was just posturing... "We want you to feel free to express different opinions..." Proceeds to fire Damore...
    - ghgggh5555 9y ago
      You should emphasize "feel" as well. Then it makes more sense
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      Might not be a crazy idea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign Invite everyone to freely share ideas. Make lists, then kick out those with the "wrong" ideas. The are often comparisons between large corporations' command economy and the now failed countries with centralized command economy. But perhaps there are interesting parallels about how large corporations discover and weed out those with undesirable ideas and how totalitarian regimes do it. It goes into hyperbole territory there, I know, but perhaps there are some common underlying mechanisms...
      - williamle8300 9y ago
        Wow... I never knew about this. This is a direct correlation between Google's "damage control" strategy and Marxism.
      - danso 9y ago
        Why should Google fire people for having the "wrong" ideas, when Google has made it clear that they'll fire people whose ideas conflict with its code of conduct? https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Damore asserted that his ideas should be heeded by Google (from the very first paragraph: "This needs to change"). And he makes assertions about how Google has been poorly conducting himself: https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncensored-memo-with-charts-and-cites-339f3d2d05f https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso... - Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts. - I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts. - Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is being spent to water only one side of the lawn. Why should Google tolerate these claims at face value? And Google truly disagrees with these assertions and their underlying principles, why should it respond with something less than severing ties with an employee who literally demanded, "This needs to change"? And if Google did respond with something less than termination (nevermind what kind of sanction would be possible), how are other employees not supposed to interpret that other than a concession to some degree, i.e. that Google has doubts, and agrees with Damore that women-in-tech initiatives are a form of discrimination, and is "misguided"? Or that when it comes to complaints about diversity issues, that colleagues or management having "empathy" necessarily opens up the risk of "harbor[ing] irrational and dangerous biases"? No need for Google to use subterfuge to fire people with conflicting ideas. They say it loud and clear that they expect employees to agree ("follow both its spirit and letter") with the Code of Conduct. And Googlers are all smart enough to see that the Code of Conduct uses language that leaves the interpretation of things more open than narrow: "Google prohibits discrimination, harassment and bullying in any form – verbal, physical, or visual, as discussed more fully in our Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation."
  - throwaway12124 9y ago
    This fear would be a little more credible if we hadn't already read that the original memo caused widespread "terror" in a number of employees.
    - jacalata 9y ago
      Or if there was a history of alt right groups doxxing and harassing people they disagreed with, which there is - see Gamergate.
      - flukus 9y ago
        > Or if there was a history of alt right groups doxxing and harassing people they disagreed with, which there is - see Gamergate. There was plenty of that from both camps.
averagewall 9y ago
I'd blame the public for applying guilt by association. Damore didn't agree to those things himself.
jshevek 9y ago
I think that was a terrible choice, which I believe reflects some of the naivete which informs several aspects of how he has handled this overall situation. Guilt by association is an irrational and awful way to defame someone, and he leaves himself open to it.

pteredactyl 9y ago

Yea Stefan was not the greatest choice. But I thought he did well on Bloomberg, even though Emily Chang had it out for him. Cancelling the Town Hall is a cop out.

danso 9y ago
It's not much of a "town hall" if employees are afraid to participate.
- thrway2k17 9y ago
  Google employees that asked questions for Town Hall were already leaked & doxxed by somebody within Google and posted on various websites/youtube. Seems like somebody high up at Google is trying to destroy internal trust or the upper management went completely insane with digital maoism a'la 'Hundred Flowers'.
- williamle8300 9y ago
  Agreed. Sundar's memo was just posturing... "We want you to feel free to express different opinions..." Proceeds to fire Damore...
  - ghgggh5555 9y ago
    You should emphasize "feel" as well. Then it makes more sense
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    Might not be a crazy idea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign Invite everyone to freely share ideas. Make lists, then kick out those with the "wrong" ideas. The are often comparisons between large corporations' command economy and the now failed countries with centralized command economy. But perhaps there are interesting parallels about how large corporations discover and weed out those with undesirable ideas and how totalitarian regimes do it. It goes into hyperbole territory there, I know, but perhaps there are some common underlying mechanisms...
    - williamle8300 9y ago
      Wow... I never knew about this. This is a direct correlation between Google's "damage control" strategy and Marxism.
    - danso 9y ago
      Why should Google fire people for having the "wrong" ideas, when Google has made it clear that they'll fire people whose ideas conflict with its code of conduct? https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Damore asserted that his ideas should be heeded by Google (from the very first paragraph: "This needs to change"). And he makes assertions about how Google has been poorly conducting himself: https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncensored-memo-with-charts-and-cites-339f3d2d05f https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso... - Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts. - I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts. - Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is being spent to water only one side of the lawn. Why should Google tolerate these claims at face value? And Google truly disagrees with these assertions and their underlying principles, why should it respond with something less than severing ties with an employee who literally demanded, "This needs to change"? And if Google did respond with something less than termination (nevermind what kind of sanction would be possible), how are other employees not supposed to interpret that other than a concession to some degree, i.e. that Google has doubts, and agrees with Damore that women-in-tech initiatives are a form of discrimination, and is "misguided"? Or that when it comes to complaints about diversity issues, that colleagues or management having "empathy" necessarily opens up the risk of "harbor[ing] irrational and dangerous biases"? No need for Google to use subterfuge to fire people with conflicting ideas. They say it loud and clear that they expect employees to agree ("follow both its spirit and letter") with the Code of Conduct. And Googlers are all smart enough to see that the Code of Conduct uses language that leaves the interpretation of things more open than narrow: "Google prohibits discrimination, harassment and bullying in any form – verbal, physical, or visual, as discussed more fully in our Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation."
- throwaway12124 9y ago
  This fear would be a little more credible if we hadn't already read that the original memo caused widespread "terror" in a number of employees.
  - jacalata 9y ago
    Or if there was a history of alt right groups doxxing and harassing people they disagreed with, which there is - see Gamergate.
    - flukus 9y ago
      > Or if there was a history of alt right groups doxxing and harassing people they disagreed with, which there is - see Gamergate. There was plenty of that from both camps.

averagewall 9y ago

I'd blame the public for applying guilt by association. Damore didn't agree to those things himself.

jshevek 9y ago

I think that was a terrible choice, which I believe reflects some of the naivete which informs several aspects of how he has handled this overall situation. Guilt by association is an irrational and awful way to defame someone, and he leaves himself open to it.