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Sexism is not free speech. It's immoral and constitutes hate speech toward more than half the population of this planet. Libertarians who say any speech should

Sexism is not free speech. It's immoral and constitutes hate speech toward more than half the population of this planet. Libertarians who say any speech should be allowed do not relate to the fact that what you say in words can and will be expressed by yourself and others in their actions. Condescension towards --and unjust treatment of-- women, and the feminine in general, is a consequence of the same sexist thoughts expressed by Damore. You can't be both for it and against it. Our speech and actions both originate from our thoughts.

Stratoscope 9y ago
Do you have some examples of hate speech from the memo?
- idibidiart 9y ago
  The whole premise that women are less represented in tech because of biological differences as opposed to deeply ingrained gender bias.
  - brailsafe 9y ago
    Go on
    - idibidiart 9y ago
      "Go on" is the main trick I used in making IRC chatter bots back in the 90s... as in when my pattern matching fails to find a sentient thing to say.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - brailsafe 9y ago
        Very similar trick my chatter bot is using here but it hasn't found a sentient thing to respond to :-)
        idibidiart 9y ago
        Upvoted!
  - Stratoscope 9y ago
    Personally I would find it more informative to see specific examples from the memo that illustrate your point, rather than just a general impression. Something like "the author wrote 'abc', which I consider to be hate speech because..." It's not a burning issue for me, so if you don't have examples, that's fine. I was just hoping to be enlightened a bit on this, but no worries either way.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    That's the conclusion, not the premise. I happen to disagree with the conclusion, because the argument is flawed, but I do not think that it constitutes hate speech. There is not enough hate in it. I mean, Damore makes proposals for diversity programs that he believes would be better at getting women into programming, based on this conclusion. That doesn't seem very hateful to me.
    - idibidiart 9y ago
      He concluded it before he started writing it. So call "conclusion" that what you want but I call it as the premise. Dude, you need a girlfriend, a women friend, a daughter or a mother whom you respect in your life. Then you'll understand the ways in which acts like this hurts them so deeply. It's terrible.
      - yorwba 9y ago
        > He concluded it before he started writing it. So call "conclusion" that what you want but I call it as the premise. Fair enough. > Then you'll understand the ways in which acts like this hurts them so deeply. I'm self-reflective enough to know that I'm unlikely to ever be as good at predicting emotional reactions of others as most people. That said, I have been deeply hurt by statements that made me feel less valued than I thought I deserved. That does not mean that they were hate speech. Even at the time, I was fully aware that they were justified, which made them hurt even more. Amusingly, trying to think of an instance of this reminded me of the time in high school when I was supposed to write an essay on gender roles in the work place. I made an evo psych argument that gender specific division of work made sense in the ancestral environment, but that conditions had changed and attempts at segregation were failing to realize this. My teacher marked me down for "not engaging with the question" (or something like that, my memory is hazy). I was so mad at myself for going off on that tangent.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
brailsafe 9y ago
What sexist thoughts are you referring to?
imron 9y ago
I said it again in another comment, and I'll say it again here, the only speech worth defending is speech that you don't agree with and/or find offensive. No-one tries to stop you from saying nice things that they already agree with.
- idibidiart 9y ago
  That does not qualify as a logical argument. Just a random impulse. A random impulse is not a logical argument. It's like saying the only act worth defending is the one you find offending.
  - imron 9y ago
    It's not a random impulse at all. At the individual level you have very little choice over who will try to control your speech. Maybe today it's someone who agrees with you, but maybe tomorrow it will be someone who disagrees with you, and because you have limited control over that it's better to make sure that you don't allow people to limit speech - even speech you disagree with. And this is why you have the ACLU defending Milo: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-represent-someone-milo-yiannopoulos https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-represe...
    - idibidiart 9y ago
      @Google did not take away Damore's right to free speech. They fired him for promoting his sexist thoughts b/c they're deeply offensive.
      - imron 9y ago
        I never claimed they did. If anything, they've given him a voice that he didn't have before (so congratulations to whichever person at Google disagreed with James and decided to leak the memo to Gizmodo. The law of unintended consequences strikes again). My comment was only in reference to your claim that 'sexism is not free speech'. Whatever you think of James and his memo, and whether it is sexist or not, there is nothing in there that wouldn't be protected as free speech if it came down to that.

Stratoscope 9y ago

Do you have some examples of hate speech from the memo?

idibidiart 9y ago
The whole premise that women are less represented in tech because of biological differences as opposed to deeply ingrained gender bias.
- brailsafe 9y ago
  Go on
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    "Go on" is the main trick I used in making IRC chatter bots back in the 90s... as in when my pattern matching fails to find a sentient thing to say.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - brailsafe 9y ago
      Very similar trick my chatter bot is using here but it hasn't found a sentient thing to respond to :-)
      - idibidiart 9y ago
        Upvoted!
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  Personally I would find it more informative to see specific examples from the memo that illustrate your point, rather than just a general impression. Something like "the author wrote 'abc', which I consider to be hate speech because..." It's not a burning issue for me, so if you don't have examples, that's fine. I was just hoping to be enlightened a bit on this, but no worries either way.
- yorwba 9y ago
  That's the conclusion, not the premise. I happen to disagree with the conclusion, because the argument is flawed, but I do not think that it constitutes hate speech. There is not enough hate in it. I mean, Damore makes proposals for diversity programs that he believes would be better at getting women into programming, based on this conclusion. That doesn't seem very hateful to me.
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    He concluded it before he started writing it. So call "conclusion" that what you want but I call it as the premise. Dude, you need a girlfriend, a women friend, a daughter or a mother whom you respect in your life. Then you'll understand the ways in which acts like this hurts them so deeply. It's terrible.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      > He concluded it before he started writing it. So call "conclusion" that what you want but I call it as the premise. Fair enough. > Then you'll understand the ways in which acts like this hurts them so deeply. I'm self-reflective enough to know that I'm unlikely to ever be as good at predicting emotional reactions of others as most people. That said, I have been deeply hurt by statements that made me feel less valued than I thought I deserved. That does not mean that they were hate speech. Even at the time, I was fully aware that they were justified, which made them hurt even more. Amusingly, trying to think of an instance of this reminded me of the time in high school when I was supposed to write an essay on gender roles in the work place. I made an evo psych argument that gender specific division of work made sense in the ancestral environment, but that conditions had changed and attempts at segregation were failing to realize this. My teacher marked me down for "not engaging with the question" (or something like that, my memory is hazy). I was so mad at myself for going off on that tangent.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

brailsafe 9y ago

What sexist thoughts are you referring to?

imron 9y ago

I said it again in another comment, and I'll say it again here, the only speech worth defending is speech that you don't agree with and/or find offensive. No-one tries to stop you from saying nice things that they already agree with.

idibidiart 9y ago
That does not qualify as a logical argument. Just a random impulse. A random impulse is not a logical argument. It's like saying the only act worth defending is the one you find offending.
- imron 9y ago
  It's not a random impulse at all. At the individual level you have very little choice over who will try to control your speech. Maybe today it's someone who agrees with you, but maybe tomorrow it will be someone who disagrees with you, and because you have limited control over that it's better to make sure that you don't allow people to limit speech - even speech you disagree with. And this is why you have the ACLU defending Milo: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-represent-someone-milo-yiannopoulos https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-represe...
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    @Google did not take away Damore's right to free speech. They fired him for promoting his sexist thoughts b/c they're deeply offensive.
    - imron 9y ago
      I never claimed they did. If anything, they've given him a voice that he didn't have before (so congratulations to whichever person at Google disagreed with James and decided to leak the memo to Gizmodo. The law of unintended consequences strikes again). My comment was only in reference to your claim that 'sexism is not free speech'. Whatever you think of James and his memo, and whether it is sexist or not, there is nothing in there that wouldn't be protected as free speech if it came down to that.