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'I see things differently': James Damore on his autism and the Google memo

f055 9y ago
I don't know why, but nowadays more often than not I see people ostracised and punished for different beliefs rather than discussed and argued with. I know firing and shutting people down is the easier thing to do in the short term, but discussing and understanding, maybe even convincing or reaching a consensus, is something really good in the long term. It all feels like the balanced, centric attitude has been lost for the exclusive extreme right or left approach. How did we get here?
- krapp 9y ago
  But... there was a great deal of discussion about this. You can still find the threads here, every possible aspect of this was argued up and down. It doesn't require an "extreme" approach to disagree with him or his assertions, although it is true that most people who agreed with, or disagreed with, Damore's essay didn't bother to actually read it, or engage with the content. The extremists showed up first, as they tend to, and strawman fought strawman for the high ground, then came the more reasoned, well-researched and thought out criticisms. Google, however, is a business and isn't obligated to "reach a consensus" on anything, or to try to convince an employee about anything regarding their political views. What Google did was a business decision, because the bad publicity his essay created and its effect on Google's work environment.
  - abnry 9y ago
    We still need to remember that Google bills itself as a company open to new and challenging ideas. Leadership matters and even if the decision to fire was based purely on publicity and work environment concerns, Google showed it cares more about a certain ideology and keeping its employees happy in their ideology than actually having debate.
    - krapp 9y ago
      It is possible that Google is hypocritical in that the public culture it projects doesn't match its actual corporate culture, but they would hardly be the first company for which that was the case. But it's also possible that Damore wouldn't have been fired if the memo he published hadn't gone viral. I don't know one way or the other but that seemed to me to be more about damage control than suppression of political views.
- alphabettsy 9y ago
  There’s absolutely nothing new about that. On major topics there were public witch hunts and blacklists, ex McCarthyism. This guy didn’t engage in debate though, he posted a memo that really doesn’t open a door to dialogue. And as someone who runs an organization, the workplace is not the place for an open debate on gender and diversity. That’s only appropriate for a closed door session. His decision to quickly go on to make a round of videos with Alt-right activists and anti-feminists spoke volumes in my opionion. He didn’t try to engage with people with alternate views, he engaged with people that hold even more extreme views.
  - vorotato 9y ago
    Genuinely concerning that people are trying to shut down your discussion, right after supporting a complaint that people are trying to shut down discussion.
  - abnry 9y ago
    What does "open a door to dialogue" even mean?
    - alphabettsy 9y ago
      Putting up a note on your roommates door to complain about their loud sex then leaving does not invite a discussion. Asking if you can talk about it later does.
- vorotato 9y ago
  So his beliefs could be constituted creating a hostile environment for other employees. It's not a new thing. You're free to share your ideas, except the idea that your other employees should not be there because of a protected status such as religion, race, gender etc. It's a liability for Google to keep that employee on if they are unwilling to recant the statement as they would be enabling discrimination. It's been this way since 1964.
bmcusick 9y ago
People who are color blind see things differently too. That doesn't mean red doesn't exist; just that they can't see it. It should be obvious though that Damore wasn't fired for his views per se. There's probably plenty of people still at Google with similar views. He was fired because he aired views in a way that upset a lot of people, and Google is a business that needs to manage a workplace that's collegial and cooperative. Firing Damore was more practical than firing the 20% of the Google workforce that didn't want to work with him anymore.
- bmcusick 9y ago
  Just to expand on that, I want to point out that there's two ways to look at people who choose to air controversial opinions. 1) Say they're wrong. Argue the facts. Point out that historically speaking, similar predictions or theories have been presented by others and none of them have proven to be correct. 2) Point out that in an organization the size of Google, even an organization like Google that hires very academic and smart people, only a percentage of them care to debate a particular set of views. Another (larger) percentage are just going to write you off because they don't have the time or the inclination to discuss that thing; they have too many other things on their plate. So you're kind of a moron for antagonizing xx% of the people you need to work with on a daily basis. You're deliberately breaking the "No Brilliant Jerks" rule. So the professional consequences should be perfectly predictable before you ever opened your mouth, and no one is at fault but you for getting fired.
  - whiskyseagull 9y ago
    Point 2 is a red herring. No one is arguing that it wasn't in Google's short term interests to suppress thoughts that were controversial to a large part of it's work force. The debate, at least on the surface, is about whether his arguments have merit. Underneath all that is the real debate: should we able to express ugly, unpleasant, or unfortunate truths in public as facts? The left lately seems to want certain things to be beyond discussion, and that list seems to grow as time goes on.
    - 9y ago
notacoward 9y ago
It's kind of ironic that Damore is basically trying to put a diversity/victim spin on his own actions, after deriding such concepts at Google. I'm not buying it. Being on the autism spectrum means having trouble interpreting social signals, but even pretty deeply autistic people can learn to recognize signals like being told flat-out that one's behavior is hurtful. Awareness is not Damore's problem. Persisting despite awareness is a whole different issue, and one that he needs to own up to before any real progress can be made. Because I know many people at various points on the spectrum, I find it offensive that he would use that as an excuse. He's continuing to harm others by feeding into stereotypes and misunderstandings that we should be learning to avoid.
- vorotato 9y ago
  Autism, and mental illness is not an excuse, especially for adults. Obviously it can be more challenging to behave correctly, however you must own up to what you did, that it was wrong, and that you do your best to make it up to the wronged parties.
- whiskyseagull 9y ago
  There's another irony in the article: "Damore’s girlfriend has agreed to meet only after being assured that, like her, I disagree with her boyfriend’s views." Unfortunately this has become typical in some parts of the left and that is why you see a resurgent right. Trying to maintain a position by refusing to hear arguments against it is not a good long term strategy and gives moral strength to the other side.
  - vorotato 9y ago
    What's ironic there? If you're a conservative you don't want to go blabbing to some liberal rag. In the same way if you're a liberal you probably shouldn't speak to conservative tabloids. All media likes to twist and contort narratives, because it's in their economic best interest to do so. So, no it's not ironic, and I wouldn't blame you for doing the same.
    - 9y ago
bitcharmer 9y ago
Why has this been flagged? Is there something wrong about having a discussion on HN about these topics?

f055 9y ago

I don't know why, but nowadays more often than not I see people ostracised and punished for different beliefs rather than discussed and argued with. I know firing and shutting people down is the easier thing to do in the short term, but discussing and understanding, maybe even convincing or reaching a consensus, is something really good in the long term. It all feels like the balanced, centric attitude has been lost for the exclusive extreme right or left approach. How did we get here?

krapp 9y ago
But... there was a great deal of discussion about this. You can still find the threads here, every possible aspect of this was argued up and down. It doesn't require an "extreme" approach to disagree with him or his assertions, although it is true that most people who agreed with, or disagreed with, Damore's essay didn't bother to actually read it, or engage with the content. The extremists showed up first, as they tend to, and strawman fought strawman for the high ground, then came the more reasoned, well-researched and thought out criticisms. Google, however, is a business and isn't obligated to "reach a consensus" on anything, or to try to convince an employee about anything regarding their political views. What Google did was a business decision, because the bad publicity his essay created and its effect on Google's work environment.
- abnry 9y ago
  We still need to remember that Google bills itself as a company open to new and challenging ideas. Leadership matters and even if the decision to fire was based purely on publicity and work environment concerns, Google showed it cares more about a certain ideology and keeping its employees happy in their ideology than actually having debate.
  - krapp 9y ago
    It is possible that Google is hypocritical in that the public culture it projects doesn't match its actual corporate culture, but they would hardly be the first company for which that was the case. But it's also possible that Damore wouldn't have been fired if the memo he published hadn't gone viral. I don't know one way or the other but that seemed to me to be more about damage control than suppression of political views.
alphabettsy 9y ago
There’s absolutely nothing new about that. On major topics there were public witch hunts and blacklists, ex McCarthyism. This guy didn’t engage in debate though, he posted a memo that really doesn’t open a door to dialogue. And as someone who runs an organization, the workplace is not the place for an open debate on gender and diversity. That’s only appropriate for a closed door session. His decision to quickly go on to make a round of videos with Alt-right activists and anti-feminists spoke volumes in my opionion. He didn’t try to engage with people with alternate views, he engaged with people that hold even more extreme views.
- vorotato 9y ago
  Genuinely concerning that people are trying to shut down your discussion, right after supporting a complaint that people are trying to shut down discussion.
- abnry 9y ago
  What does "open a door to dialogue" even mean?
  - alphabettsy 9y ago
    Putting up a note on your roommates door to complain about their loud sex then leaving does not invite a discussion. Asking if you can talk about it later does.
vorotato 9y ago
So his beliefs could be constituted creating a hostile environment for other employees. It's not a new thing. You're free to share your ideas, except the idea that your other employees should not be there because of a protected status such as religion, race, gender etc. It's a liability for Google to keep that employee on if they are unwilling to recant the statement as they would be enabling discrimination. It's been this way since 1964.

bmcusick 9y ago

People who are color blind see things differently too. That doesn't mean red doesn't exist; just that they can't see it. It should be obvious though that Damore wasn't fired for his views per se. There's probably plenty of people still at Google with similar views. He was fired because he aired views in a way that upset a lot of people, and Google is a business that needs to manage a workplace that's collegial and cooperative. Firing Damore was more practical than firing the 20% of the Google workforce that didn't want to work with him anymore.

bmcusick 9y ago
Just to expand on that, I want to point out that there's two ways to look at people who choose to air controversial opinions. 1) Say they're wrong. Argue the facts. Point out that historically speaking, similar predictions or theories have been presented by others and none of them have proven to be correct. 2) Point out that in an organization the size of Google, even an organization like Google that hires very academic and smart people, only a percentage of them care to debate a particular set of views. Another (larger) percentage are just going to write you off because they don't have the time or the inclination to discuss that thing; they have too many other things on their plate. So you're kind of a moron for antagonizing xx% of the people you need to work with on a daily basis. You're deliberately breaking the "No Brilliant Jerks" rule. So the professional consequences should be perfectly predictable before you ever opened your mouth, and no one is at fault but you for getting fired.
- whiskyseagull 9y ago
  Point 2 is a red herring. No one is arguing that it wasn't in Google's short term interests to suppress thoughts that were controversial to a large part of it's work force. The debate, at least on the surface, is about whether his arguments have merit. Underneath all that is the real debate: should we able to express ugly, unpleasant, or unfortunate truths in public as facts? The left lately seems to want certain things to be beyond discussion, and that list seems to grow as time goes on.
  - 9y ago

notacoward 9y ago

It's kind of ironic that Damore is basically trying to put a diversity/victim spin on his own actions, after deriding such concepts at Google. I'm not buying it. Being on the autism spectrum means having trouble interpreting social signals, but even pretty deeply autistic people can learn to recognize signals like being told flat-out that one's behavior is hurtful. Awareness is not Damore's problem. Persisting despite awareness is a whole different issue, and one that he needs to own up to before any real progress can be made. Because I know many people at various points on the spectrum, I find it offensive that he would use that as an excuse. He's continuing to harm others by feeding into stereotypes and misunderstandings that we should be learning to avoid.

vorotato 9y ago
Autism, and mental illness is not an excuse, especially for adults. Obviously it can be more challenging to behave correctly, however you must own up to what you did, that it was wrong, and that you do your best to make it up to the wronged parties.
whiskyseagull 9y ago
There's another irony in the article: "Damore’s girlfriend has agreed to meet only after being assured that, like her, I disagree with her boyfriend’s views." Unfortunately this has become typical in some parts of the left and that is why you see a resurgent right. Trying to maintain a position by refusing to hear arguments against it is not a good long term strategy and gives moral strength to the other side.
- vorotato 9y ago
  What's ironic there? If you're a conservative you don't want to go blabbing to some liberal rag. In the same way if you're a liberal you probably shouldn't speak to conservative tabloids. All media likes to twist and contort narratives, because it's in their economic best interest to do so. So, no it's not ironic, and I wouldn't blame you for doing the same.
  - 9y ago

bitcharmer 9y ago

Why has this been flagged? Is there something wrong about having a discussion on HN about these topics?