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Can you explain more about what you find repugnant about Mr. Damore's conclusions? Repugnant is pretty loaded (emotive) word.

jordigh 9y ago
Let's begin by why Damore felt the need to write this in the first place: he was taking a diversity workshop. He was so offended by having to attend a lecture on how to be nice to disadvantaged groups that he wrote that wall of text. "These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive. Instead focus on some of the non-discriminatory practices I outlined." The discriminatory practices he's referring is to have a few women-only classes. From my understanding, there also exist classes for everyone. Requesting to remove women-only is repugnant because those classes and similar initiatives have increased women's participation without reducing the number of men nor the opportunities for men. Wanting to get rid of those classes is just the holders of the status quo fighting to keep the status quo. "Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts. " This is beyond stupid, having more women in something positive isn't the same thing as having more women in something negative. There are nuances and differences and wanting to have more women murdered is nothing like wanting to have more women in tech. "In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility" This is just an example, but the whole memo is written in a conservatives vs progressives or right vs left. This is divisive and confrontational. Bringing in more people shouldn't be a matter of two warring tribes, of which we must all pick a side. I don't know about you but there are some things I like about how things are now (conservative?) and some things I want to change (liberal?) We're all a mishmash of opinions, not football teams. "Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts." It's impossible to be emotionally unengaged. There isn't some kind of division between thought and emotion, and emotion isn't the antithesis of rationality. We're all frail creatures with biases, emotions, thoughts. We're not machines, and even the machines we build exhibit our own emotions and biases. So, no we should not de-emphasise empathy like he says. We're humans and we should be empathetic towards each other. "Reconsider making Unconscious Bias training mandatory for promo committees." We all have biases. I have them, and so does Damore but he calls them rationality. By trying to remove training about those biases, he's trying to safeguard his biases even further. Then there's the further damage that his document did... it has created a hostile atmosphere. Damore was right to be fired because who would want to work with a guy who is very rational about why women aren't statistically suited by nature for certain roles within the company?
- ithilglin909 9y ago
  There’s a quote: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. It’s misattributed to Aristotle, but it’s a worthwhile thought. You’ve written a lot, but said nothing to address any of Mr. Damore’s statements head on, with an argument as to why he’s incorrect, just that his ideas are bad and create negative emotions in you. I don't agree with some of his memo, but if I was to sit down and write something against it, I'd try to consider what he'd said rationally, without language like "repugnant" and "beyond stupid". I agree that we're not robots, but if we don't put reason before emotion, we're also not adults. As to your last question, I really won't have a problem working with him.

jordigh 9y ago

Let's begin by why Damore felt the need to write this in the first place: he was taking a diversity workshop. He was so offended by having to attend a lecture on how to be nice to disadvantaged groups that he wrote that wall of text. "These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive. Instead focus on some of the non-discriminatory practices I outlined." The discriminatory practices he's referring is to have a few women-only classes. From my understanding, there also exist classes for everyone. Requesting to remove women-only is repugnant because those classes and similar initiatives have increased women's participation without reducing the number of men nor the opportunities for men. Wanting to get rid of those classes is just the holders of the status quo fighting to keep the status quo. "Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts. " This is beyond stupid, having more women in something positive isn't the same thing as having more women in something negative. There are nuances and differences and wanting to have more women murdered is nothing like wanting to have more women in tech. "In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility" This is just an example, but the whole memo is written in a conservatives vs progressives or right vs left. This is divisive and confrontational. Bringing in more people shouldn't be a matter of two warring tribes, of which we must all pick a side. I don't know about you but there are some things I like about how things are now (conservative?) and some things I want to change (liberal?) We're all a mishmash of opinions, not football teams. "Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts." It's impossible to be emotionally unengaged. There isn't some kind of division between thought and emotion, and emotion isn't the antithesis of rationality. We're all frail creatures with biases, emotions, thoughts. We're not machines, and even the machines we build exhibit our own emotions and biases. So, no we should not de-emphasise empathy like he says. We're humans and we should be empathetic towards each other. "Reconsider making Unconscious Bias training mandatory for promo committees." We all have biases. I have them, and so does Damore but he calls them rationality. By trying to remove training about those biases, he's trying to safeguard his biases even further. Then there's the further damage that his document did... it has created a hostile atmosphere. Damore was right to be fired because who would want to work with a guy who is very rational about why women aren't statistically suited by nature for certain roles within the company?

ithilglin909 9y ago
There’s a quote: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. It’s misattributed to Aristotle, but it’s a worthwhile thought. You’ve written a lot, but said nothing to address any of Mr. Damore’s statements head on, with an argument as to why he’s incorrect, just that his ideas are bad and create negative emotions in you. I don't agree with some of his memo, but if I was to sit down and write something against it, I'd try to consider what he'd said rationally, without language like "repugnant" and "beyond stupid". I agree that we're not robots, but if we don't put reason before emotion, we're also not adults. As to your last question, I really won't have a problem working with him.