36 ms·

Many of the more reasonable criticisms of the memo say that it wasn't written well enough; it could've been more considerate, it should have used better languag

• ryanbrunner 9y ago
  I think one thing that struck me from the linked article was the point that the memo wasn't structured to invite discussion. It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". I think advancing points is fine, but if you're after productive discussion rather than an adversarial debate, you need to proactively invite discussion. And if an adversarial debate was what he was after, that does strike me as inappropriate work communication.
  • 52-6F-62 9y ago
    This is rather the page I've been on (outside of my personal disagreements). You put it more concisely than I have previously.
  • ahugebeach 9y ago
    It was a politically charged topic, he would have been crucified either way. But by phrasing the memo the way he did, he covered himself legally. I wouldn't be surprised to hear everything was run by a lawyer first.
    • CydeWeys 9y ago
      What could possibly make you think he sought legal representation before writing that document? He was just looking for an argument/discussion.
  • johnp_ 9y ago
    It was apparently a live-document (like etherpad) and the intention was get feedback directly in-line if I understood correctly. Not an unusual way of doing things for an engineer.
    • jancsika 9y ago
      It's usual for an engineer to understand something outside their field of expertise by submitting a draft of what they know to others who aren't domain experts, either? Wouldn't an actual engineering process have started by submitting a document for feedback from somebody whose field of expertise deals with unequal gender representation in the workplace?
      • emsy 9y ago
        He has a master in systems biology.
  • annexrichmond 9y ago
    I disagree. He mentioned in an interview[1] that he was looking to be proven wrong which is what led him to share it with the Skeptics group at Google, which is when the document propagated. He had actually wrote the document weeks prior but was unsatisfied with the lack of discussion on his document. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU
    • kristianc 9y ago
      That seems an odd approach tbh. Many 'Skeptics' groups (Skeptic / Rationalist YouTube) online at least would agree with his reasoning. It strikes me as odd that he was seeking to take down an ideological echo chamber but published it initially in the echo chamber most likely to agree with him.
      • Moshe_Silnorin 9y ago
        The skeptic tribe is extremely politicly polarized.
      • bkirkby 9y ago
        His first group he sent it to was a diversity group. I think it reasonable that a skeptic group who, ostensibly, would side with reason would be a next logical step.
        • andrewingram 9y ago
          Yes, even if they agreed with the echo chamber idea on the whole, they'd still seek to point out flaws and fallacies in his arguments.
      • thinkfurther 9y ago
        > That seems an odd approach tbh. If that's odd, then what is firing just to prove him right?
        • kristianc 9y ago
  • nicolashahn 9y ago
    Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). Plenty of far more aggressive articles and essays have been written from the opposite side that have not been criticized in the same way. And for the record, I did not get any aggressive tone from his paper. I thought he was as polite as he needed to be and made the necessary caveats. I think many people were just so unprepared to hear any argument from an opposing viewpoint that they read into it what they wanted to.
    • Blackthorn 9y ago
      > Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). This was addressed in the article. This burden has fallen on women since they were teenagers. To expect them to do it yet again, to have to defend themselves at work this time, is ridiculous.
      • totalZero 9y ago
        The burden of responding to something that is (at the very least presented as) evidence? I don't think it's possible to have a discussion if you don't expect and allow pro-affirmative-action stakeholders to respond with their own evidence and reasoning, in turn.
        • Blackthorn 9y ago
          He could have brought up his concerns to hiring authorities in the company, whose job it is to refute diversity myths. Not expect people who have had this burden placed on them for their entire adult life to do it yet again.
  • canoebuilder 9y ago
    It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". We shouldn't really take someone's degree of divergence from reality as somehow being a point in favor of their argument. When people remove themselves so far from reality, ignoring significant mounds of evidence, nearly anything not divorced from reality is going to have the effect of an "evidence bomb."
  • megous 9y ago
    I think if you want to critique author's approach to discussion, you need to learn first what it actually was.
  • nailer 9y ago
    I read the full memo ( https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncensored-memo-with-charts-and-cites-339f3d2d05f https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso...) and it didn't seem like that at all. Saying that discrimination exists but differences in gender representation aren't necessarily caused by discrimination didn't seem like 'you're all wrong', not do the 'suggestions' seem like something someone writing authoritatively would make. Not a female engineer so appreciate I may be missing something - what is it?
    • lowbloodsugar 9y ago
      The first page or so is not about gender diversity, but about "Left biases" and "Right biases" and the statement that "the media, and Google lean left". He then follows with "Google's left bias has created a politically correct monoculture". So the difference is between these two statements: a. I believe X, and b. You are all leftists. Leftists believe Y. Y is wrong. The answer is actually X.
      • nailer 9y ago
        Saying Google's culture leans left doesn't mean everyone in Google is a leftist. Nor does acknowledging bias imply that people with that bias is wrong - just biased, Eg looking at a specific part of a larger picture. There's a difference.
  • xienze 9y ago
    Be honest here -- do you _really_ think there's a way to present the argument that --gasp-- men and women might be different in their abilities that _wouldn't_ trigger a meltdown? I think this memo really highlights the fact that there are Some Things You Just Can't Talk About.
    • unityByFreedom 9y ago
      No, you can't, because there isn't evidence that biological differences cause people to choose different careers. Why would put forth a theory that is opposed to a company's values of equality if you don't have proof? Most evidence points to socialized factors, not biological ones. If Damore really cares about this issue, he should study biology and make his case there. He will do more to move the debate forward from within the relevant scientific community by gathering evidence than from the outside.
      • thinkfurther 9y ago
        > because there isn't evidence that biological differences cause people to choose different careers. Oh? What about basketball players or jockeys?
        • emsy 9y ago
          Not sure what got you downvoted. There's even a South Park episode about it where Kyle has a surgery to become a black basketball player, which kind of goes in the same direction.
          • thinkfurther 9y ago
            I was just thinking about height. Of course biology affects career choice, and a lot of other things. Doesn't mean men are engineers and women are nurses, but to pretend biology doesn't affect anything is more than hilarious. Which makes people who think that laughable, and they probably don't like it. But hey, you can't prove obedience by agreeing that the sky is blue or a circle is round, it's gotta be something more, like "biology doesn't affect career choice". So whatevs, if it's not that it's something else ^_^
  • randyrand 9y ago
    As someone with a very debate-loving personality, I disagree. Saying how I'm wrong is the best way to start discussion. Now of course, not everyone will be the same. But for those that like to debate and have discussions, then just tell me why you think I'm wrong and we can go from there. I don't need you to coddle me.
  • fiblye 9y ago
    I think a large number of people in tech simply have a straight-to-the-point style of talking. They don't follow through with the HR-like "we appreciate your thoughts and comments, but going forward, we must politely decline to touch base again" style because the expectation is just to say "you're wrong and here's why." What's inviting to some people is insincere to others. What's straight-faced discussion is rude and problematic to others. It's hard reaching a middle ground, because when you try finding a middle point for a group the size of the whole tech industry about such a divisive topic, at least one person will accuse you of trying to appease (insert enemy political group here) and see it as worse than just taking a side.
  • EGreg 9y ago
    Wasn't it posted on a board Google specifically set up for posts like this?
  • futun 9y ago
    That's a good roadmap for future discussion. One must note that it is not a roadmap the left uses. Ever.
  • ImSkeptical 9y ago
    I don't see what's wrong with an "evidence bomb" and I've never seen the complaint that someone's position had too much evidence behind it. If Damore had no evidence, he'd be dismissed as a misogynist with no evidence. When he presents evidence, you dismiss him as an evidence bomber.
  • GreaterFool 9y ago
    I don't think anyone needs a special invitation to have a discussion! "Hey Alice/Bob, I read your memo and I disagree. here's my point of view...".
  • tboyd47 9y ago
    Exactly. People seem to get confused easily about what "discussion" means. Discussion requires real interaction between humans with different views. It doesn't seem like Damore really tried to do that. His apparent goal with the "memo" was to change the policy of his company. So much of philosophy is really just identity politics disguised as rational inquiry.
  • mcguire 9y ago
    One thing I find problematic about the memo is that it conflate three issues: Google's diversity programs, Google's echo chamber, and the left/right politics. If you want to talk about diversity programs, the other two appear to be attempts to shut down further discussion. If you want to talk about the problem of living in an echo chamber, diversity is, or ought to be, an example, not the focus. If you want to talk politics at work, don't.
• aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I do not think that anyone's ability to write should disbar them from discussion. We can not expect perfection from others. Instead we should try to understand them as human beings, and interpret them with generosity and kindness. You are completely right, but on the other hand if you are going to invoke "science" and you present your writing as scientific (he did), you have a higher bar. If you fail to be objective (see semi-related assertions about Marxism), or your writing obscures the point you are attempting to make, then you've failed as a writer of scientific content. If your writing isn't good enough, then don't release a memo to your workplace of tens of thousands of smart and ideological people. Put it on a blog, write it anonymously, but expect whatever criticism you get.
  • michaelchisari 9y ago
    It seems to be completely lost on a lot of HN people that Damore's memo was not very scientific at all for the subject matter he was tackling. It was written in a certain intellectual language that often provides a veneer of authority for those who agree with his conclusions and lack the domain knowledge to understand the nuances of why he's wrong. But a lot of these "bio-truth" type of arguments do the same thing. Google had plenty of reason to rethink his employment, not just because of his poor judgement, but because of the fact that he tackled a new (to him) science is such an unreasoned and unscientific way. All it would have taken was for him to run the essay past a couple of people with solid domain expertise, and they would have pointed out the dozens and dozens of problems with his assertions, reasoning and perspective. As people have pointed out on HN before, there is something about computer science that leads people to believe they can out-think experts in other fields at their own game. And while reaching outside of your expertise is to be encouraged, it should come with a certain humility that is not common in our industry.
    • deleted 9y ago
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    • Artistry121 9y ago
      >>All it would have taken was for him to run the essay past a couple of people with solid domain expertise, and they would have pointed out the dozens and dozens of problems with his assertions, reasoning and perspective. I don't think this squares with truth. There is at least one PH.D psychologist who mentioned the memo was generally correct.
• virtuabhi 9y ago
  There are many, many reasonable criticisms of the memo that do not focus on writing style. Here are a few examples - https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-damores-google-memo/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/13/james-damore-google-memo-youtube-white-men-radicalization https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/13/james-dam... https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-document-about-diversity-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin?share=1 https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
  • exergy 9y ago
    That wired article was excellent. And it proves one thing to my mind. Regardless of everything else, Damore's memo has lead me to vastly expand my knowledge of the debates in this domain, through just being a curious observer watching it all unfold. It's been wonderful, if extremely provocative, in generating proper debate on the subject, focussed on all possible angles, from writing style, to science, to hiring policies. Amidst all this, Google firing him is the biggest shame.
    • zbobet2012 9y ago
      The wired article truly is fantastic. And IMO it should be on the front page of HN, not this thread.
    • thanatropism 9y ago
      What? The Wired article basically says "the social sciences of gender are still up for grabs/worthless, unlike nuclear physics".
      • exergy 9y ago
        Different strokes I guess. I liked that the authors took great pains to stick to highlighting the nuanced nature of the debate. They agreed with Damore where pertinent, but also disagreed with a lot of the conclusions that he derived.
• joe_the_user 9y ago
  I'd actually say just the opposite - the memo seemed to be written as well and in as conciliatory manner as it could be written and the memo made good (or at least plausible) point and bad points. But the bad points were so bad that it was appropriate and necessary to fire Damore. Essentially, as analogy, there's no way for a person to say "Black people are inferior and shouldn't be hired", as a message broadcast through their entire workplace, and not have that person be creating a hostile work environment for African Americans. If that person says "I don't mean in general, I mean inferior just for this occupation, I don't mean inferior, just 'differently talented, they've got great rhythm'", it doesn't matter, if that person says "here's a study which says this, we should consider this in an open minded fashion" it doesn't matter. The message is unacceptable. That person is done, that person should be done.
  • dguaraglia 9y ago
    The memo makes a whole case against "the Left" (capitalization from the memo) and how "leftists" are violent. That doesn't sound like "conciliatory manner" to me, especially considering he makes a blanket statement about Google "leaning left."
    • rpiguy 9y ago
      The blanket statement that Google leans left is empirically true. You also seem to have misread his comments about violence, as he claims the left tends to be more compassionate. Did you read the memo?
      • mempko 9y ago
        An advertising company cannot lean left by construction.
        • mantas 9y ago
          Today's left has went a far way from socialism and whatnot. It's funny how today's far right cares about "common man" and labour rights more than far left which is busy with identity politics. For example, in Europe more and more labour is voting for right wing parties. While left is becoming more and more rich/educated urbanite.
• CydeWeys 9y ago
  I am well aware of my inabilities to tackle this issue properly, so ... I don't write a big document about it and circulate it. Discretion is an issue here too. If you are not capable of addressing an issue in a productive manner, then don't, especially if it's not even related to your job. James was hired as an engineer to work on engineering stuff; he wasn't hired as a sociologist to work on diversity stuff. He made the choice to inject himself into something in an ill-advised manner when he could've instead simply not done so.
  • pg_is_a_butt 9y ago
    right... and i was just hired to pour this Zyklon B down this chimney... why should i question any other aspect of my employment or my employer's actions.
  • bluGill 9y ago
    He was like it or not thrust into it though by the choices google has made, or appeared to make. When your hiring demographics do not roughly match graduation demographics you are not being honest. There is every appearance that google is discriminating against males in their efforts to search out women. This might be best for google overall, but he is a male which means it is not in his personal favor.
    • brianberns 9y ago
      > When your hiring demographics do not roughly match graduation demographics you are not being honest. Or maybe the graduation demographics are biased and Google is just trying to correct them?
      • seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        How is Google correcting biased graduation demographics via hiring practices?
        • goialoq 9y ago
• grey-area 9y ago
  Instead we should try to understand them as human beings, and interpret them with generosity and kindness. Advice Damore would have done well to heed when writing his essay. You should also note there are serious questions about its validity - this is not just a matter of tone or style. https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-damores-google-memo/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-...
  • sol_remmy 9y ago
    > You should also note there are serious questions about its validity - this is not just a matter of tone or style. Then why don't you summarize the article's points so people are free to give a rebuttal
  • semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    So I read that, and it's not so much "serious questions about validity" as "overall weak agreement disguised as rebuttal". The main takeaway in the form of disagreement is that social science findings are mostly untrustworthy/not usable?
    • moduspol 9y ago
      > The main takeaway in the form of disagreement is that social science findings are mostly untrustworthy/not usable? No, I think they're fine as long as they're consistent with the idea that sexism and oppression are the only relevant factors. Otherwise, better keep that science to yourself.
      • dang 9y ago
        Please don't post ideological snark to HN, regardless of what your underlying point is. It poisons discussion and we can all use less poison right now.
    • grey-area 9y ago
      The point I took away was that this is not settled science at all and he was cherry picking results in order to buttress a conclusion which he'd already made, but also that the differences between men and women on average simply are not large enough to explain the disparities in tech, not even close. There are many other rebuttals which focus on other points, for example if the reason for disparities in women and men in tech is biological, why was the balance significantly altered within a few decades from the 70s to now?
• deleted 9y ago
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• deleted 9y ago
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• stavrianos 9y ago
  From outside, there's no fundamental difference between a good argument and a persuasive one, even though they're ideally orthogonal. If there's an argument that seems good, and you don't understand why people don't accept it, the delivery is the simplest (or perhaps just least well understood) thing to update.
• notreallythough 9y ago
  This interview is literally a criticism that says very little about his style of writing. When they talk about "how" he approached this subject, it has to do with overall tone and the medium of delivery, not the nuances of his writing style. > If he had spoken with some of them individually and spent some time trying to better understand their views on the issues, I suspect he would have done a better job choosing words that would have inspired debate rather than hostility. That's it. He didn't talk to a single woman at Google about this manifesto before spreading it like gospel. All he had to do was talk to other people.
  • CydeWeys 9y ago
    I have some people at work whose opinions I value highly that I occasionally run ideas and documents by before disseminating things to a wider group. It's very helpful, and has sometimes caught potential damaging misinterpretations before they were spread too widely, allowing me to reword things. I definitely agree that if he'd simply had a few women he knew and trusted at work read it before he disseminated it widely then this all might have been avoided. If he didn't know any women at work that he trusted with this then that itself is a huge problem.
    • turtleofdeath 9y ago
      For what it's worth, he did run the document by others at Google and -- based on what I've read -- they were the ones who spread the document, not he. That's not to say he didn't intend to do it at some point, but that it was through his efforts to get said feedback that the fire started.
    • semi-extrinsic 9y ago
      > If he didn't know any women at work that he trusted with this then that itself is a huge problem. Given the fact that he was fired over this, i.e. Google thinks it's very bad, and assuming he had a hunch this was so, is it reasonable to believe he should be able to trust a female coworker with this memo not to file a complaint? Put more generally: is it reasonable that one should expect one's coworkers to keep silent about a fireable offense?
• sebow 9y ago
  He was a "coder" for Google, not a writer.And even for his status the memo was written pretty-well, people are just still questioning it for mostly other reasons.
• pvg 9y ago
  Scott Alexander is used as an example of 'better venue' and 'less objectionable phrasing', which is different from 'good writing'.
  • meowface 9y ago
    Yes, but aside from that, he is a very good writer.
    • pvg 9y ago
      No. He isn't.
      • meowface 9y ago
        Defend your statement.
• ianmiers 9y ago
  It's not the quality, it's the intent. He went for an adversarial debate, not a discussion. The memo reads as him knowingly and intentionally starting a fight. My assumption, from reading the memo, was that he was expressing an opinion he knew to be controversial, knew would upset people, but wanted to make a point of proving he was right anyway in the face of those upset people. It reads a lot like the vaguely provocative way people write about such things on twitter/reddit/here. In a work environment, that approach can and will get you fired. It should cause you career problems even if you do it for mundane things like type theory, or memory management, or distributed systems. Do it on something controversial and cause a huge problem for the company, and of course they are going to fire you. Especially since in this context adversarial = hostile work environment.
  • nsnick 9y ago
    Why is a debate worse than a discussion? We strive for debate on all other topics? If you actually want to challenge assumptions you must debate and evaluate the merits of someone else's argument. A discussion would just be you think x and I think y. A debate puts warrants behind the claims in those beliefs.
    • bduerst 9y ago
      Adversarial debate is worse than discussion for reasons that these interviewees said: >The discussion around this has followed the trajectory of most of the polarizing mass discussion in the last few years; everyone comes out the other side with their opinions more calcified than ever, and more convinced than before of the intractability of the other side. Damore wasn't walking into this ready to discuss and/or learn, he wanted to blast his opinion internally with no intention of attempting to change it.
      • nsnick 9y ago
        What you have posted is a claim. It needs a warrant.
        • 9y ago
• weberc2 9y ago
  I strongly agree. The double-standard is remarkable though. Merely questioning the liberal position with less than a perfect rhetorical command is nearly criminal, but if you endorse a liberal position, you can be incorrect and even downright hateful toward your position, and lots of respectable (sometimes powerful) people will defend you against any criticism. I always catch a lot of flak for calling out liberal advantages (I'm a moderate liberal, for whatever that's worth), but pretending they don't exist hasn't exactly been doing wonders for the tone of our political discourse either.
• nsnick 9y ago
  What I understand from this situation is that he ran through a minefield and stepped on a few mines. Could someone else have run through that minefield and not stepped on any mines... probably. Is it reasonable to expect some one to be able to run through a minefield and not step on mines? No. Should we prevent people from running through the minefield...?
  • taysic 9y ago
    Is it worth it? As far as I can tell, it's a voluntary initiative by Google which is well meaning. And I question if it really "hurts" anyone. Hiring processes are never perfect but Google seems to do a good job out of anyone.
    • nsnick 9y ago
      The minefield is not the hiring process. The minefield is the discussion of gender in hiring.
• rayiner 9y ago
  > I do not think that anyone's ability to write should disbar them from discussion. We can not expect perfection from others. Instead we should try to understand them as human beings, and interpret them with generosity and kindness. I'm a huge proponent of the principle of charity, but I found it impossible to apply to the Google Memo. Not because I'm deeply mired in political correctness (I have a range of views people in my circle consider right-wing) but because it's so badly reasoned it makes it hard to presume good faith on the part of the writer. Damore points to studies showing that, e.g. women are more agreeable and more people-oriented. From that, he concludes women on average are less likely to prefer programming. We can diagram this reasoning as follows (the arrow with the line through denotes a contraindicator): Women -> (agreeable + people-oriented) -> [???] -\-> programming As you can see, there is an unstated premise: (agreeable + people-oriented) -\-> programming Damore's argument thus reduces to a bit of begging the question. We assume that programming is a "masculine" profession. Thus, being agreeable and people-oriented, which are feminine traits, must be contraindicators for preferring a career as a programmer. We have no studies that show this--we just assume it. Edith, by the way, demolishes that assumption: "For example, students and professors I met in college that grew up in the USSR thought engineering was stereotypically women’s work." That demonstrates how the "gender" of various professions is a social construct. In India, where men are over-represented in teaching, it's not considered a job for "agreeable" "people-oriented" women. It's men's work. Law was historically considered men's work (it's analytical and adversarial, and could be called "people oriented" only if you hate people). But that view has been redefined as more women enter the profession. Likewise for medicine, accounting, etc. Accounting is an archetypally "masculine" profession (locked away in a back closet crunching numbers), but today more than half of accountants are women. The moral of the story is that if you're going to make a controversial point, it had better be a good point. Damore's memo wasn't just badly written, it was badly reasoned, and deserved the scorn heaped on it.
  • taysic 9y ago
    Well said. I thought the memo was well written with poor reasoning as to causation. Though the memo said there were influences outside of biology, it spent no time exploring them.
  • 9y ago
• stickfigure 9y ago
  I think this is what you're looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity I've always assumed this was an official rule of Hacker News commentary, but now that I look for it, I don't see it explicitly mentioned in the guidelines. Yet it somehow seems to be woven into the fabric here. The opposite is to paint your opposition as despicable as possible to show that you are righteous and just. I feel like I've been getting way too much of this from Facebook in the last couple weeks.
• gnicholas 9y ago
  One interesting point that hasn't attracted much attention is that the author self-identifies as being on the autism spectrum [1]. If this fact were better-known, would accessibility advocates defend his memo — and possibly even attack its detractors for not being sensitive to his neurological differences? 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/JamesDamore/comments/6thcy3/im_james_damore_ama/dlkpb8k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/JamesDamore/comments/6thcy3/im_jame...
  • 013a 9y ago
    Liberal ideology doesn't have a flowchart path for that one.
    • goialoq 9y ago
      Here's the flowchart: If you have a personality behavior disorder, you are entitled to respect as a person, but you aren't entitled to behave poorly at your job. Similarly, if you cannot fulfill the physical requirements of a job due to disability, you are not entitled to that specific job.
  • ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    He uses high neuroticism as part of his argument against female software engineers, high neuroticism is associated with autism. So it seems that even he isn't being sensitive to his own neurological differences.
    • TearsInTheRain 9y ago
      > He uses high neuroticism as part of his argument against female software engineers At no point did he argue "against female software engineers"
      • ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Apart from say the bit where he said women couldn't cope with stressful jobs as well as men and that's part of why they're underrepresented at Google i.e. the bit about neuroticism, that I was talking about.
• jhayward 9y ago
  I think the most empathetic comment on the memo that I read was that it would have been to everyone's benefit if Damore had showed it to several more experienced engineers and incorporated suggestions. No matter who you are, you can use an editor.
  • jdoliner 9y ago
    Damore did do exactly this. The memo was only ever released in the context of "I'm looking for feedback on this and open to being proven wrong.
    • jhayward 9y ago
      This seems to be a disingenuous take to me. I don't think you can honestly say publishing it to 10's of thousands of readers constitutes editorial consultation and advice. Editing and review consists of find a small (one handful) number of trusted friends and mentors whose insight you value, having them read it and make suggestions and comments, perhaps multiple cycles, and only then publish to people you don't know and are hoping to persuade. It troubles me that this kind of (IMO) disingenuousness shows up again and again in regard to the memo. Not just in this specific comment, but multiple times whenever someone points out a flaw there is always a response of "but he really did do that, you just took it wrong". No, I didn't, and neither did others. He screwed up.
      • SamReidHughes 9y ago
        Didn't he publish it on one internal message board, which most people generally don't read? That hardly constitutes 10's of thousands or readers.
        • jdoliner 9y ago
          To wit, basically no one did read it, or at least no one responded to it. Until it was leaked to the media and became the media storm we're now witnessing.
      • 9y ago
• khana 9y ago
  Yes! This is progress is made.
• PeanutCurry 9y ago
  My main criticism of the memo has been the external discussion it provoked. Like anyone who's been following the story I obviously have my own feelings on it. But, what seems to be missing is the social context to judge if he was out of line in how he delivered his memo or simply because he delivered it at all. I don't know how often memos of this nature circulate around google and that's important context because a lot of the discussion really seems to boil down to "How do we feel that this guy got fired". Do other employees send out memos that also contemplate diversity in tech/google with similar length and calls to action? If so, do those employees send out their messages via the same channels that this employee sent out his memo? Without understanding more about the social context the employee was operating in a lot of necessary context is missing imo.
• erikpukinskis 9y ago
  There is some irony there, because a common tactic for derailing complaints of sexism towards women is "maybe you're right but you said it in a way that hurts people's feelings, so we're going to ignore you. Try again next time." I think the challenge is there is disagreement about who is the aggrieved party. Are women aggrieved because the memo made them feel unwelcome, or is Damore the aggrieved party because he was raising a grievance?
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    I think Damore is aggrieved because Google leadership had chances to provide more constructive criticism, missed those chances, then resorted to a draconian resolution. Also, I don't know why aggrievement needs to be exclusive. More than one party can be aggrieved.
• alexandros 9y ago
  In fact, the incredible Scott Alexander has also explained the point you raise in "Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor" [1]. [1]: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demands-for-rigor/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demands...
• frik 9y ago
  Interesting is that all Google related news (in the last two weeks) got flagged/hidden ("it's the algorithm", "it's the user", blabla). And now HN had time to post their own opinion piece - this one stays.
  • dang 9y ago
    That's false and nasty. You've made up so many groundless insinuations against us over so many years that at some point I'm just going to give up and ban you; I don't think it's reasonable to expect patience with false accusations to be infinite. In the meantime, here are three comments that explain how moderators had nothing to do with this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023486
    • jblow 9y ago
      I don't think it's false and nasty. I was thinking the same thing ... quite objectively. There were at least two discussions that I thought were very reasonable, and they got flagged into oblivion very quickly. So I don't know why the YC link gets to be the exception. It feels wrong. Maybe it is due to the users, but if that is so, it feels wrong enough to give me a pretty big loss of faith in the dynamics of the community.
      • jblow 9y ago
        It occurs to me, maybe this is another instance of the left engaging in silencing tactics and maybe that is a weakness in the flagging algorithm. I can't vote "don't flag this". So if there are approximately two sides to a discussion, and one side wants to flag it to silence the discussion, then the discussion is going to get flagged no matter what. So the side that wants to silence just selectively silences the opinions they don't agree with, and they win.
        • 21 9y ago
• chisleu 9y ago
  Most importantly to me, it was written directly as a response to a request for comments on the subject. People made it out to be a rant someone just threw out there, but it wasn't. It was also published a month before, and internal polls at Google found it to be non-offensive. That doesn't stop people from whipping up mass hysteria about it.
  • weberc2 9y ago
    Personally, I like how the criticisms have shifted from outrage over statements Damore never made (and contexts in which he never posted) to sharp criticisms of his "unprofessional delivery" as though a post on a discussion board needed to be better than most published academic content. I can't frankly imagine a more conciliatory delivery. Of course, we mustn't blame the folks who are cultivating faux outrage; this is clearly James' fault... /s
• hacknat 9y ago
  The memo suffered from a lack of 2nd order thinking. If Google really is using its diversity programs to "lower the bar", that's what should have been proven and addressed, whether men and women have innate differences in talent for certain occupations is irrelevant. It's Google's perogative/obligation to find and retain the best talent. I suspect that's what the purpose of their diversity programs are for. If they're not, and they are truly attempting to "lower the bar" for ideological reasons, then by all means call them on it, but the labor market will punish them for you. The whole memo was an irrelevant red herring to the topic of Google's hiring practices.
  • PeanutCurry 9y ago
    I don't see the correlation between diversity programs and retaining the best talent. Not because diversity isn't important, or because it's a negative thing, but because in general diversity programs function by more closely examining/attracting a subset of a larger total population of workers. You could still of course find the best talent within those subsets, but the implication is still that you could just as easily miss the top talent that isn't in those subsets.
    • hacknat 9y ago
      Why is it binary? I'm pretty sure you can focus on both. Also, it's not hard to get candidates that are non-diverse, almost by definition the status quo favors their hiring, hence the diversity programs.
      • PeanutCurry 9y ago
        I didn't mean to imply that both can't be done at the same time. I thought you meant that diversity programs were an inherent part of finding the best talent when you wrote > "It's Google's perogative/obligation to find and retain the best talent. I suspect that's what the purpose of their diversity programs are for." To me this meant that to find the best talent it's more effective to focus on subsets of the total talent pool, which didn't make sense to me.
  • 9y ago
• goldbeck 9y ago
  > I do not think that anyone's ability to write should disbar them from discussion. And perhaps it shouldn't! It might, however, limit their ability to write at length about sensitive, culturally-deep issues at work without getting fired and having their career stained. Similarly, perhaps one's ability to write code shouldn't disbar them from a hackathon, but if they write a bunch of hacky code for a quadcopter and it flies into the audience, well, then they're in a bit of a pickle indeed.
• scandox 9y ago
  > I’m just exhausted by having this same damn argument over and over again since I was a teenager and the amount of time and energy I keep having to spend to counter it. This is a human being and a colleague. I really think people ought to satisfy a very, very high evidential and expressive bar before they do this to other people. I don't say this as a dictum or law, but as an ethical suggestion.
• kutkloon7 9y ago
  I actually think it was written really well. It could have been better, of course. But I probably would have done a worse job at it.
• exelius 9y ago
  There are socially appropriate ways to start a discussion. Taking your concerns directly to a senior leader -- who can explain the other pieces that are being missed here, such as empathy for end-users -- provides a wider view of why diversity programs exist and why companies consider them critical to success. If you want to build products exclusively for men, by all means, staff your teams with all men. But bringing a diversity of experience into all levels of a company makes that company's products and engagement experience better for everyone. This is especially true when you're talking about a consumer-focused product (like many of Google's products are).
• technologia 9y ago
  I agree that we need to treat James as a human being who is allowed to be flawed, but there's something to be said about why he added the biology component to his argument that wasn't necessary and simply distracted from the core argument. I would simply say that if he had cut that portion out, the conversation that is happening right now might become more productive and focused on hiring practices outside of Google. While I do agree that sometimes these new practices fail, it has done more good for organizations implementing similar practices than bad. Speaking as a minority engineer, I don't like the fact that I have to constantly prove myself just to have people then assume that my beyond-the-norm performance is simply middling for my ethnicity; I've had to eat a lot of crow, but I take solace in the fact that others are able to come on-board because of these moments where you take the hits. I don't known if I'm being clear, I empathize with Edith and all about having to "overcome the bias that we were hired based other factors beside our skills" and I wish there was a better way but I feel like there is some cultural requirement that we have to bear the burden for the people who come after.
  • weberc2 9y ago
    > there's something to be said about why he added the biology component to his argument that wasn't necessary and simply distracted from the core argument. I would simply say that if he had cut that portion out, the conversation that is happening right now might become more productive and focused on hiring practices outside of Google. I'm not sure I agree. First of all, the article by Scott Alexander referenced in this post makes mostly the same arguments, and the post praises its content for being better presented. I can't tell much of a difference in presentation; certainly not one that justifies praise for Alexander and crucifixion for Damore. Secondly, 99% of Damore's critics are outraged about things he never remotely said; it was only after their accusations were thoroughly debunked that they shifted their criticism to his presentation. I seriously doubt any of the outrage is sincere; it seems far more likely that Damore made a suitable target for folks projecting their insecurities or even their legitimate victim experiences.
    • technologia 9y ago
      We'll have to agree to disagree then, I'm not trying to compare what he has written to others; I realize that others are reacting more strongly, but I only mentioned that point to move past it. The rest of what I said is more towards how it feels as a minority and how it feels to me being affected by diversity policies (that isn't to equate what every minority, race/gender/etc., experiences in the way of adversity, etc.).