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Obviously I have my own worldview and biases. That being said, I've tried painstakingly to develop a worldview that is accurate and not based on wishful thinkin

Obviously I have my own worldview and biases. That being said, I've tried painstakingly to develop a worldview that is accurate and not based on wishful thinking. Yes, I do base what I eat on nutritional facts, rather than just cultural norms. For instance, I don't eat vegetable oils hardly at all. I do periods of water fasting to initiate autophagy in my body. Neither of those things is culturally common in my circles, in fact, the vast majority of people around me are fairly unhealthy. "Everyone is equal" is absurd, fantastical thinking. A criminal serial killer with a 70 IQ is not equal to Einstein by any metric. Whereas, the precept of, "Everyone should be given equal opportunity under the ruleset," is a noble ideal worth pursuing at nearly any level of policy. When I read Damore's memo, I was nodding, not because I was being uncritical, but because he's right, as far as I can tell. He's saying Google is chasing a fantasy of equal outcomes, rather than providing equal opportunities. That's correct, they are. His suggestions were to treat people more as individuals, rather than ham-fisting treatment based on perceived group identity. I think that's very obviously a better approach. And like most responses to his memo, you can't say (or haven't said) a single thing you think he is wrong about. You can't, or won't, dispute a single line he said. Just because you come from a good family, and believe that centrism is always the way to go, doesn't mean you're automatically right.

chubot 9y ago
By "you are part of the problem", and the article and I are saying the debate is too extreme. I'm not saying he's "wrong"; I'm saying the "because science" people are just as naively contributing to the debate as the "James Damore says women are inferior" people. As I mentioned (and you didn't address), the argument that there shouldn't be any training programs directed toward women leaves out any science about discrimination against women. It's possible that everything he said is 100% true, but that there should still be programs at Google directed toward women (as he argued against). That's what I meant by "reducing workplace policy to science is a fallacy". The problem is the "100%, facts that are completely true" mindset. Certainly you may use nutritional science to guide what you eat, but it's not 100%. Nutritional science is a great example because many of those studies have been overturned -- some would argue MOST such studies are false. You should read a little about the philosophy of science. I think what he said should have been said, although he could have done it in a more constructive way. And I think it's likely that someone on the opposing side leaked the memo on purpose, to get him fired. I saw a lot of these types of internal manifestos in my time at Google. Usually they don't leak, and a logical motive here would have been to force Google's hand and get him fired.

chubot 9y ago

By "you are part of the problem", and the article and I are saying the debate is too extreme. I'm not saying he's "wrong"; I'm saying the "because science" people are just as naively contributing to the debate as the "James Damore says women are inferior" people. As I mentioned (and you didn't address), the argument that there shouldn't be any training programs directed toward women leaves out any science about discrimination against women. It's possible that everything he said is 100% true, but that there should still be programs at Google directed toward women (as he argued against). That's what I meant by "reducing workplace policy to science is a fallacy". The problem is the "100%, facts that are completely true" mindset. Certainly you may use nutritional science to guide what you eat, but it's not 100%. Nutritional science is a great example because many of those studies have been overturned -- some would argue MOST such studies are false. You should read a little about the philosophy of science. I think what he said should have been said, although he could have done it in a more constructive way. And I think it's likely that someone on the opposing side leaked the memo on purpose, to get him fired. I saw a lot of these types of internal manifestos in my time at Google. Usually they don't leak, and a logical motive here would have been to force Google's hand and get him fired.