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Why are we drawing the connection that he was fired for being a conservative? Tons and tons of people in the valley are their own special breed of techno-libert

Why are we drawing the connection that he was fired for being a conservative? Tons and tons of people in the valley are their own special breed of techno-libertarian and they seem to be totally secure in their jobs. He was fired for being political at work. Don't be political at work. No one wants someone walking around their workplace talking about the evils of abortion. No one wants your coworker to ask if you'll sign an ACLU petition on trans rights while you're microwaving your pasta. No one wants to sit down at their email and see something like FW: My Thoughts on Women and the Workplace with Damore's pdf attached.

kbenson 9y ago
> He was fired for being political at work. Don't be political at work. Well, more specifically, I think he was fired for being political in a way that caught outside attention and caused bad PR. Plenty of people are political at work, whether they be work politics or otherwise. This is a "You made the company have to weigh in on something that is way over your pay grade, and that's not something we're going to take a chance happening again with you." Executives and boards don't like when they have to stop what they're doing and put out a PR fire started by a low rank employee, whether that employee expected that outcome or not. That the firing of the employee causing problems at the executive level coincides with a way to combat the PR just makes the decision all that much easier.
- ivoras 9y ago
  Whoa, there - doesn't the fact that a low ranking employee, to use the phrase, can cause a global scale shitstorm, mean that just maybe, there are actually problems which were swept under the rug for too long?
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Not necessarily. All that person has to do is tap into a controversial topic that divides people and involves the company. E.g. "Big pharma researcher says our system is killing people." If it wasn't already done and old news, if it happened to get traction we'd have the same situation. And let's not kid ourselves, he's probably not the first there to state this or even the first to share his views. He is the first that had it turn into big news because it went viral, but content isn't the only factor in something going viral.
- fche 9y ago
  Some of the later claims of the low-level employee absolutely justify the dumpster-fire: if diversity-related meetings go deliberately unrecorded to stop paper trails, if special second-chance privileges are given to diversity hiring candidates, .... that's pretty rotten stuff.
moduspol 9y ago
Would he have been fired if his position (similarly political) were for a stronger, more liberal diversity policy? Of course not. That's the difference here. It was a work-provided place soliciting feedback on the company's diversity and hiring policies. Politics are already present in the existing policy.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  If his liberal diversity policy was "white men shouldn't be hired, they are unfit to do the job" then yes he probably would have been fired still. That would be the actual alt-left equivalent here.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    He neither suggested women shouldn't be hired, nor that they are unfit for the job. Read the memo.
    - milcron 9y ago
      He did suggest that the natural percentage of women in tech would be below 50%, and it would take "authoritarian" measures to reach 50% or greater.
      - dguaraglia 9y ago
        Indeed, and that's where the argument that he's "all for equality" falls flat on it's ass. I call that kind of reasoning "benevolent bigotry": "ohhh, of course black lives matter! But you know, black people are predisposed to be criminals, so it's understandable if they get shot more frequently..." It's unbelievable that in 2017, in a field that is vastly dominated by males, someone would have the gall to claim "trying to introduce more diversity is repression." Can you imagine if the roles were reversed, and the nurses association said "well, we don't really want more males in the profession because they are clearly not biologically ready to deal with people. We'd love to have them, but clearly they are not interested so we'll set a quota on how many can be certified per year"? The same people defending Damore would be flipping their shit.

kbenson 9y ago

> He was fired for being political at work. Don't be political at work. Well, more specifically, I think he was fired for being political in a way that caught outside attention and caused bad PR. Plenty of people are political at work, whether they be work politics or otherwise. This is a "You made the company have to weigh in on something that is way over your pay grade, and that's not something we're going to take a chance happening again with you." Executives and boards don't like when they have to stop what they're doing and put out a PR fire started by a low rank employee, whether that employee expected that outcome or not. That the firing of the employee causing problems at the executive level coincides with a way to combat the PR just makes the decision all that much easier.

ivoras 9y ago
Whoa, there - doesn't the fact that a low ranking employee, to use the phrase, can cause a global scale shitstorm, mean that just maybe, there are actually problems which were swept under the rug for too long?
- kbenson 9y ago
  Not necessarily. All that person has to do is tap into a controversial topic that divides people and involves the company. E.g. "Big pharma researcher says our system is killing people." If it wasn't already done and old news, if it happened to get traction we'd have the same situation. And let's not kid ourselves, he's probably not the first there to state this or even the first to share his views. He is the first that had it turn into big news because it went viral, but content isn't the only factor in something going viral.
fche 9y ago
Some of the later claims of the low-level employee absolutely justify the dumpster-fire: if diversity-related meetings go deliberately unrecorded to stop paper trails, if special second-chance privileges are given to diversity hiring candidates, .... that's pretty rotten stuff.

moduspol 9y ago

Would he have been fired if his position (similarly political) were for a stronger, more liberal diversity policy? Of course not. That's the difference here. It was a work-provided place soliciting feedback on the company's diversity and hiring policies. Politics are already present in the existing policy.

kllrnohj 9y ago
If his liberal diversity policy was "white men shouldn't be hired, they are unfit to do the job" then yes he probably would have been fired still. That would be the actual alt-left equivalent here.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  He neither suggested women shouldn't be hired, nor that they are unfit for the job. Read the memo.
  - milcron 9y ago
    He did suggest that the natural percentage of women in tech would be below 50%, and it would take "authoritarian" measures to reach 50% or greater.
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      Indeed, and that's where the argument that he's "all for equality" falls flat on it's ass. I call that kind of reasoning "benevolent bigotry": "ohhh, of course black lives matter! But you know, black people are predisposed to be criminals, so it's understandable if they get shot more frequently..." It's unbelievable that in 2017, in a field that is vastly dominated by males, someone would have the gall to claim "trying to introduce more diversity is repression." Can you imagine if the roles were reversed, and the nurses association said "well, we don't really want more males in the profession because they are clearly not biologically ready to deal with people. We'd love to have them, but clearly they are not interested so we'll set a quota on how many can be certified per year"? The same people defending Damore would be flipping their shit.