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> It implies that people who wanted Damore to be punished did/could not reach that conclusion if they had exercised rational thinking and reasonable judgment.

by flukus 9y ago

> It implies that people who wanted Damore to be punished did/could not reach that conclusion if they had exercised rational thinking and reasonable judgment. If one thing has become painfully obvious it's that most people calling for his head did not read the memo at all (the evidence is in this thread). Others only read it after the media had framed it how they want. Others misinterpreted it, possibly intentionally. Others still think he deserved to be fired because he CC'd it to the whole company. That is not acting in a calm and rational manner.

danso 9y ago
On what empirical basis is it "painfully obvious", without using circular reasoning or omniscient mind-reading, that the people who support Damore did read and properly interpret his memo, and did so without being irrationally affected by preconditioned biases about the state or importance of workplace diversity? More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd? Correlation does not equal causation.
- yorwba 9y ago
  It also painfully obvious that most people who support Damore also didn't read and properly interpret the memo. This is all the more reason to not fire him during the ongoing shouting match. It signals that an outraged mob can force Google to terminate an employee, even if this isn't what happened and Google just calmly evaluated their options.
- flukus 9y ago
  > On what empirical basis is it "painfully obvious", without using circular reasoning or omniscient mind-reading, that the people who support Damore did read and properly interpret his memo, and did so without being irrationally affected by preconditioned biases about the state or importance of workplace diversity? I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either. > More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd? Because their statements indicate that, here is what Sundar Pichai wrote: > “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.” The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    > I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either. https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-james-damore-the-only-set-of-balls-left-at-google/ https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-ja... does seem to try very hard to get a meme going that displays Danielle Brown as pure evil. > The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it. Actually, it does. Women on average are more prone to anxiety Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. which suggests that women are less able to handle stressful jobs. Of course Damore's suggestion is to make jobs at Google less stressful, but if someone wants to feel outraged at that, they absolutely can.
    - flukus 9y ago
      > Women on average are more prone to anxiety This is a statement about women in general, a substantiated, cited and refutable one. It is not a statement about his colleagues who (probably) have a different distribution of traits than the general population. 40% of Americans are obese, that doesn't mean 40% of your colleagues are, are be surprised if the obesity rate of google is the same as the general population. > Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. This was a suggestion on how to make the population of google more representative of the population in general.
      - AstralStorm 9y ago
        The main question is, why? Google attempts to be a company bringing innovative solutions and making way more money than an average or median. Why should they go for equalization? (Diversity is not the same as matching the average or median.)
        flukus 9y ago
        1. Diversity has some inherent strengths, it's not a bad thing unless it's forced. There are probably several other types of diversity that may help google, people from blue collar backgrounds for instance. 2. Google could theoretically double their employment pool and enjoy the side effects of that, like lower wages. That's good for Google if it doesn't backfire. Edit - I love it when they go through your history and even down vote the posts they agree with.
aslkdjaslkdj 9y ago
Do you assume that the people who disagree with the memo don't have the capacity or will to read through a mere 10 pages? How patronizing can you be?
- flukus 9y ago
  > Do you assume that the people who disagree with the memo don't have the capacity or will to read through a mere 10 pages? No, I assume that people making completely unfounded claims about the contents of the memo (we've seen them in every single thread about it) have not read the memo.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  The point is, many people - even here, on HN - didn't read the full memo themselves. Instead, many of them depend on summaries from journalists (or, should I say, clickabiters), grossly representing the original document. Honestly, when you read articles like "Shocking quotes from the anti-diversity manifesto", I perfectly understand why some people decide they have absolutely no intention to read the whole thing. And I'm not sure the blame is completely on them.

by flukus 9y ago

danso 9y ago

On what empirical basis is it "painfully obvious", without using circular reasoning or omniscient mind-reading, that the people who support Damore did read and properly interpret his memo, and did so without being irrationally affected by preconditioned biases about the state or importance of workplace diversity? More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd? Correlation does not equal causation.

yorwba 9y ago
It also painfully obvious that most people who support Damore also didn't read and properly interpret the memo. This is all the more reason to not fire him during the ongoing shouting match. It signals that an outraged mob can force Google to terminate an employee, even if this isn't what happened and Google just calmly evaluated their options.
flukus 9y ago
> On what empirical basis is it "painfully obvious", without using circular reasoning or omniscient mind-reading, that the people who support Damore did read and properly interpret his memo, and did so without being irrationally affected by preconditioned biases about the state or importance of workplace diversity? I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either. > More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd? Because their statements indicate that, here is what Sundar Pichai wrote: > “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.” The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it.
- yorwba 9y ago
  > I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either. https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-james-damore-the-only-set-of-balls-left-at-google/ https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-ja... does seem to try very hard to get a meme going that displays Danielle Brown as pure evil. > The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it. Actually, it does. Women on average are more prone to anxiety Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. which suggests that women are less able to handle stressful jobs. Of course Damore's suggestion is to make jobs at Google less stressful, but if someone wants to feel outraged at that, they absolutely can.
  - flukus 9y ago
    > Women on average are more prone to anxiety This is a statement about women in general, a substantiated, cited and refutable one. It is not a statement about his colleagues who (probably) have a different distribution of traits than the general population. 40% of Americans are obese, that doesn't mean 40% of your colleagues are, are be surprised if the obesity rate of google is the same as the general population. > Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. This was a suggestion on how to make the population of google more representative of the population in general.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      The main question is, why? Google attempts to be a company bringing innovative solutions and making way more money than an average or median. Why should they go for equalization? (Diversity is not the same as matching the average or median.)
      - flukus 9y ago
        1. Diversity has some inherent strengths, it's not a bad thing unless it's forced. There are probably several other types of diversity that may help google, people from blue collar backgrounds for instance. 2. Google could theoretically double their employment pool and enjoy the side effects of that, like lower wages. That's good for Google if it doesn't backfire. Edit - I love it when they go through your history and even down vote the posts they agree with.

aslkdjaslkdj 9y ago

Do you assume that the people who disagree with the memo don't have the capacity or will to read through a mere 10 pages? How patronizing can you be?

flukus 9y ago
> Do you assume that the people who disagree with the memo don't have the capacity or will to read through a mere 10 pages? No, I assume that people making completely unfounded claims about the contents of the memo (we've seen them in every single thread about it) have not read the memo.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
The point is, many people - even here, on HN - didn't read the full memo themselves. Instead, many of them depend on summaries from journalists (or, should I say, clickabiters), grossly representing the original document. Honestly, when you read articles like "Shocking quotes from the anti-diversity manifesto", I perfectly understand why some people decide they have absolutely no intention to read the whole thing. And I'm not sure the blame is completely on them.