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How so? This comment kind of sums up what Damore was suggesting. Also, I think Damore's 50/50 diversity logic stoked lot of bad feelings both for and against.

How so? This comment kind of sums up what Damore was suggesting. Also, I think Damore's 50/50 diversity logic stoked lot of bad feelings both for and against. No diversity policy aims for 50/50, rather help raise the percentage of under represented (in this case women) more than what was in the past. He modelled his whole memo based on this 50/50 diversity split and went on to suggest that biologically 50/50 representation is not at all possible, which may be true but that is not the point or aim of a diverse workplace.

imartin2k 9y ago
Actually, I don't think you can sum up a lenghty "manifest" about a tricky topic in a few sentences without misrepresenting its points and losing the nuance. That might be one of the core reasons why the whole thing got out of hand. I read the memo 3 times over several days just to make sure that I don't miss a key thing (and I'm still no fully sure). But I bet a hell lots of people who commented on it didn't even read it thoroughly once. One could argue though that Damore should have expected this (but maybe he actually did. I can totally imagine that he had mentally prepared himself before to get fired over this).
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  > Actually, I don't think you can sum up a lenghty "manifest" about a tricky topic in a few sentences without misrepresenting its points and losing the nuance When you want to prove a paper wrong you don't need delve on every nuance, you just need to prove the base premise is flawed. Not sure why Damore deserves a different treatment, when clearly he's trying to build an argument and proposes "solutions" based on it. > One could argue though that Damore should have expected this Oh, I'm pretty sure he was looking for this.
  - imartin2k 9y ago
    "When you want to prove a paper wrong you don't need delve on every nuance, you just need to prove the base premise is flawed. " Even if so, that assumes that the base premise actually has been correctly identified. His base premise was not "women are worse engineers than men". Yet this is what most critics and media argued against. His base premise was about differences in the average distribution of traits, which is a completely different thing, doesn't say anything about abilities of an individual, and actually is not that flawed. There is plenty of scientific evidence pointing towards that direction. It's not total consensus but describing it as "flawed" would be pretty ignorant, as far as I can interpret the scientific status quo. But understanding this base premise required that people actually would have put some own thought into what they read, and were open to nuance.
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      No, the main premise is that Google is fostering a culture of discrimination by trying to increase diversity. The whole "women are different" argument was just a strut to build that premise. Why bring up "leftist ideals" if he's just trying to make an argument about diversity? (That's an honest question, BTW, not trying to be inflammatory)

imartin2k 9y ago

Actually, I don't think you can sum up a lenghty "manifest" about a tricky topic in a few sentences without misrepresenting its points and losing the nuance. That might be one of the core reasons why the whole thing got out of hand. I read the memo 3 times over several days just to make sure that I don't miss a key thing (and I'm still no fully sure). But I bet a hell lots of people who commented on it didn't even read it thoroughly once. One could argue though that Damore should have expected this (but maybe he actually did. I can totally imagine that he had mentally prepared himself before to get fired over this).

dguaraglia 9y ago
> Actually, I don't think you can sum up a lenghty "manifest" about a tricky topic in a few sentences without misrepresenting its points and losing the nuance When you want to prove a paper wrong you don't need delve on every nuance, you just need to prove the base premise is flawed. Not sure why Damore deserves a different treatment, when clearly he's trying to build an argument and proposes "solutions" based on it. > One could argue though that Damore should have expected this Oh, I'm pretty sure he was looking for this.
- imartin2k 9y ago
  "When you want to prove a paper wrong you don't need delve on every nuance, you just need to prove the base premise is flawed. " Even if so, that assumes that the base premise actually has been correctly identified. His base premise was not "women are worse engineers than men". Yet this is what most critics and media argued against. His base premise was about differences in the average distribution of traits, which is a completely different thing, doesn't say anything about abilities of an individual, and actually is not that flawed. There is plenty of scientific evidence pointing towards that direction. It's not total consensus but describing it as "flawed" would be pretty ignorant, as far as I can interpret the scientific status quo. But understanding this base premise required that people actually would have put some own thought into what they read, and were open to nuance.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    No, the main premise is that Google is fostering a culture of discrimination by trying to increase diversity. The whole "women are different" argument was just a strut to build that premise. Why bring up "leftist ideals" if he's just trying to make an argument about diversity? (That's an honest question, BTW, not trying to be inflammatory)