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This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Ru

This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn't engage with left wingers and maybe he was indeed just appealing to the right. [1] I don't want to use "right wing" in a disparaging way. I think classical liberalism is perhaps right of center today. I think some of the right wing narratives make sense, but with big caveats. The far right is just a slip away, though. And they would hunt people like me down... Edit: I don't mean right wing in a disparaging way. I enjoy Joe Rogan (his interviews with NDT and Lawrence Krause are a lot of fun), Dave Rubin (his interview with Faisal is fantastic) and Jordan Peterson. But they are clearly classical liberal, which is arguably right of center today. Maybe I was extreme in saying far right is just a slip away. I think similar things can happen on the left too of course. Let just not go to the "far-*"...

fzeroracer 9y ago
It's really sad that we have people still arguing about the intent of his memo when his actions afterwards make it quite clear what his stance actually was. And to make sure that people know: He's a liar. Even if you ignore him intentionally misrepresenting his PhD status, he boldly lied about his FIDE chess master status.
echoBravoDelta 9y ago
The fact you'd like a gay liberal as right-wing is disconcerting but I agree, and independently, came to the same conclusion that is is strange how many shows he popped up on so fast.
ddlsmurf 9y ago
Or maybe the "left-wing" like tech crunch just flat out lie about him repeatedly. I don't appreciate any the right wing youtubers you cite, but judging by the quality of this article, I'm glad he had other opportunities to speak. In this instance I do think the left wing is stifling expression and I can't abide by that, if you think I'm exaggerating, read the memo he didn't publish but request internal criticism of, and he was fired for it by google.
viridian 9y ago
This is a minor aside, but I don't think Joe is a conservative. I think that he said during the midnight election comedy stream that had he not promised to vote for Gary Johnson when he came on the show, that he would've had to pull the lever for Hillary. He doesn't like social justice stuff, but other than that, he's kind of a big hippy.
- jonny_eh 9y ago
  and denies the moon landing. That doesn't make him right wing, but it sure makes him a less credible person. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/26/joe-rogan-me-and-penn-and-the-moon-hoax-take-iii/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/26/jo...
  - viridian 9y ago
    He denied it 11 years ago you mean, by that blog post. He has changed his stance, as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k You should listen to his episode with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, they talk about the mindset of denialism quite a bit.
    - jonny_eh 9y ago
      I had no idea, thanks!
perseusprime11 9y ago
Never knew joe organ was right wing. I've been listening to his podcasts which seem pretty good.
- viridian 9y ago
  I don't think he is, a gave a couple reasons why here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099356 But this has been a big topic of debate on his podcast subreddit as well. I think it mainly comes from the guests he has on, but Joe has written on Twitter about how getting left leaning guests on to talk politics is just a lot harder. Russell Brand is great and all, but no one else really seems interested for whatever reason.
- H99189 9y ago
  He's not, but if you're a gallon of gasoline, the remotest spark can seem like a huge threat to your very existence, which is what I took the overreaction to the memo to be. He spoke his mind, with citations, and he was torched for it, and the left wing outlets except for Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin had no interest in letting his real story come out, because the overreaction, the firing and the ongoing assault on his character is shameful if you ask me.
  - lurr 9y ago
    > the left wing outlets except for Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin had no interest in letting his real story come out Which ones did he ask to speak on?
- propman 9y ago
  He's not "right wing". Hating SJWs and the extreme left isn't right wing. People are complicated and labeling someone as right wing to invalidate someone's every position is as bad as what the right does to the left. He is if anything fairly moderate with a slight libertarian streak, especially when it comes to drugs. I don't agree with lots of his positions and he's definitely not some really smart guru, but I like that he's an average guy with an open mind who lets speakers of all viewpoints express themselves in a very welcoming way. I mean hosting Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein, both on the 2 ends of the political spectrum and making it a very intellectually stimulating dialogue is a breath of fresh air in today's gotcha media. You know CNN and fox have an agenda when they bring opposing viewpoints on their show, trying to invalidate their ideas. In joe rogan's podcasts that never seems to be the case, instead discussion leads to more moderate viewpoints rather than debates and winners. Only really see that on PBS lately. That said, I do find many of his guests abhorant and just skip a fair bit of his podcasts.
splintercell 9y ago
> Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn't engage with left wingers and maybe he was indeed just appealing to the right. Have you watched any of his right wing outlet interviews? Literally on every interview he mentions "Nobody from left reached out to me, only the right wing outlets reached out to me". I'd definitely recommend watching his Dave Rubin interview (even though you think he is a right winger). If you were him, you'd rather go out and present your side, than to be portrayed in whichever smear light the media wants to portray you. There are people who lost the narrative from both left and right (like Milo) and that is definitely worse than losing the support for only one side. Also, hypothetically it sounds great that you show up to both sides on a divided issue like this, but that isn't possible anymore in the polarized society we live in (a great example of this is you classifying Dave Rubin as 'right wing', just see how many people are calling you out on it).
ihsw2 9y ago
It's no different than moderate Muslims having no social refuge other than where Salafist-Jihadists (eg: al-Qaeda, Isil) roam freely -- modereate conservatives have no social refuge other than blatant racists and sexists, neo-nazis, and other generally unpleasant undesirables. This is the danger of progressive supremacy and the only way out of this hell-hole is encouraging true diversity and inclusiveness -- diversity of thought that includes right-wing conservative viewpoints in addition to those of the left.
- wheelie_boy 9y ago
  Yes, it is good and valuable for a society to be tolerant of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance. The left has intolerant people as well. "No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other." However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right.
  - winston_smith 9y ago
    > The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance. This is nonsensical. Tolerance is the region between what you like and what you fight. There are lots of obviously bad things you shouldn't tolerate (like murder), and lots of mildly distasteful things you should. Someone else being less tolerant of something than we think they should be isn't some special category of evil. As with anything else, you have to decide whether a particular case is bad enough that you must fight it, or ambiguous enough that it isn't worth the conflict.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    The left has intolerant people as well...However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right. The intolerant left seems to have Berkeley buttoned up.
- lurr 9y ago
  I would argue they made that bed for themselves.
ryguytilidie 9y ago
Wait, Joe Rogan is considered a right wing youtuber? I listen to his show all the time and I'm a pretty big liberal and while he sometimes does the whole "everyone is sooooo PC now" thing, he also talks negatively about Trump, the GOP and right wing politics constantly. I also listened to the James Damore episode, and while I thought James did a good job of making his point and Joe did an AWESOME job of interviewing him while not taking sides, it felt like James was pretty disingenuous and lacked a general understanding of how to behave in a workplace as well as how to treat other people.
- mistermann 9y ago
  > it felt like James was pretty disingenuous and lacked a general understanding of how to behave in a workplace To be fair, it can be difficult for some people on the autism spectrum to work in environments where you have to run objective reality through various "politically correct" adjustment filters before reacting to it.
  - ryguytilidie 9y ago
    So it sounds like you agree with me that he lacked an understanding of how to behave in a workplace?
    - mistermann 9y ago
      I agree only in a sense similar to how people in a wheelchair lack the capability to access public spaces in the same way as non-disabled people do. It's funny how even in a highly logical technical community the conversations on certain topics are the same as you'd find elsewhere.
      - ryguytilidie 9y ago
        To be clear, your analogy is that this fellow lashing out at certain groups of his coworkers can be attributed to their mental disorder you've diagnosed and you've then decided that this is the same as a person in a wheelchair being unable to access certain areas? I'm understanding this correctly? You're sure this is an analogy you think is passably decent let alone one that can be be followed up with you mocking other people afterward...? What are we hoping to accomplish here?
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jblow 9y ago
If people "on the left" won't allow him to speak, where exactly do you expect him to go? It's like the people on the right saying Edward Snowden is obviously a traitor/spy because he went to Russia. Uhhh... something very obvious is being ignored there. Also, come on ... Joe Rogan is definitely not right-wing. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin do not self-identify as right-wing. And your [1] just seems a little extreme. "The far right is just a slip away from the reasonable right, therefore the reasonable right is dangerous?" But you don't apply that same idea to the left? Why not? The real pattern here is that he went to the shows that would have him as a guest for reasonable discussion.
- roenxi 9y ago
  > If people "on the left" won't allow him to speak, where exactly do you expect him to go? Adding to this; we should bear in mind that while nobody specific speaks for "the left"'s moral judgments, at least some people literally won't allow him to speak. Secondly, he was never trying to be a martyr and we shouldn't expect him to be one. He was posting a controversial opinion on a message board marked for controversial opinion. He was clearly putting in a solid attempt to be objective and to employ facts and evidence. He has some academic exposure to the fields he was talking about. He didn't expect to be targeted the way he was; he likely wasn't trying to set himself up as a hero of free speech; and he doesn't have to do a walk of shame through hostile talk shows to justify his intentions if he doesn't feel like taking the (unjustified) heat.
  - notfromhere 9y ago
    He sent out a company-wide memo on a very controversial subject pretending to be an expert. I don't know what he expected, but that was stupid.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  This has nothing to do with being right or left. It is simply a human decency thing. A manager and company is responsible for everyone and after he shared such views with his name you could never keep him and have him working along side women. Google did exactly what they had to do. It is not complicated.
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stcredzero 9y ago
If the memo wasn't enough I read the memo. If one is familiar with the research and evolutionary biology, there is nothing in there to react that strongly against, unless one takes a biased, insincere reading of what he actually wrote. him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Those were the only people who would talk to him without trying to make it a hit piece, same as Bret Weinstein. Stefan Molyneux, Not sure what Mr. Molyneux is, but given his Libertarian bent, he really doesn't fall in with the mainstream North American right. I'm really skeezed out by his past calls to his audience for "de-fooing" which reads like a cult leader asking his followers to isolate themselves from society and listen only to him. Jordan Peterson Terms himself a classical liberal, but also terms himself a conservative, which isn't contradictory. He's been kinda "adopted" by a northern Native American tribe. People who try to paint him as "Alt-Right" aren't actually listening to what he's saying, and are effectively in an evidence-free cloudcuckooland. (He isn't anti-trans. Rather, he's against some nefarious anti-science and compelled speech tactics employed by activists who claim to speak for all trans people. He has received numerous letters from trans people in support of his message.) I have yet to see genuine criticism of him which stands up to scrutiny. Mike cernovich Don't like this guy, or his politics. Why do you lump this guy and Molyneux in with people like Jordan Peterson? Doesn't make any sense to me, except as a poison pill. Joe Rogan Would have passed perfectly fine as a liberal in the 90's. I think the far left doesn't like him simply because he won't play along with their politics. I find him refreshingly honest and highly intelligent. (Yes, he was a moon hoaxer at one point, but unlike a lot of stupid people, he had the wherewithal to listen to arguments and change his mind.) Dave Rubin Terms himself a liberal, also a "classical liberal." He's made a turn towards Libertarianism. He strikes me as sincere in wanting to give everyone a chance to be heard. I think he has intellectual integrity, and as such, he's willing to change his mind. His sincerity and intellectual integrity are the best things he has going for him, though I judge him to be just at a layperson's level intellectually. Steven Crowder I don't think Mr. Crowder is as funny or as smart as he thinks. I think he falls down a bit in terms of his intellectual honesty and in his scholarship. (Or course, he uses the "comedian" card to get out of that.) I think his effort to expose Antifa was creditable, but I wish he did a better job of having substance. All of these topical comedians are 10X funnier when they have substance. Colbert used to be funny, and it's because he had that. etc. is suspicious. [1] Given that you grouped all these people together, I find your list very suspicious.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Just like Trump seems stuck in some kind of info-loop with Fox News, Damore seemed to get most of his memo ideas from those youtubers in the first place. He's got a footnote in it about how complaints about gay rights are just an attempt by Marxists to undermine capitalism for goodness sake! In an internal corporate communication about how to better deal with diversity. The mind boggles.
- lurr 9y ago
  marxists.... peterson?
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Your comment is too brief to parse properly but yes Peterson talks about "Cultural Marxism" on his YouTube channel and so does Damore in the famous memo.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  I wondered what you were ranting about so I skimmed Damore's memo : >Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.” Hard to do not roll my eyes when reading this. Even though I feel that there is a fringe a the feminist movement for which being a white male is a crime, this is just a fringe and I don't think it has anything to do with socialism other than these are 2 things that Damore hates.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    You haven't been on the Internet in the past few years, have you? :). The fringe, while a small minority, has also been the loudest part of the feminist movement in this decade, and it's the impact of that fringe that can be seen responsible for such overreaction to Damore's memo.
lurr 9y ago
> YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Some of these aren't like the others.
forgottenpass 9y ago
Um, guilt by association much?
throwaway292939 9y ago
He mentioned in one of his interviews that very few left wing outlets would even invite him to interviews. Of the ones that did, it was heavily edited to present a certain bad narrative of him.
just2n 9y ago
The way I read these actions weren't "running to the right" rather "fleeing from the biased leftist media." For one, Rubin is left leaning, so is Peterson, though because they're generally fair, they get consistently mislabeled, but that's also how I imagine it must feel in his situation. Let's say you're a shy/introverted engineer working at Google. You are going to a bunch of diversity events because it's an easy way to progress in your career. You find things you disagree with, or think are potentially illegal, but overall agree with the end goal: more women / PoC at Google, and so put forward an analysis that supports the same goal, even asserting that diversity is a good thing, but indicating that Google's methodology is problematic, and possibly illegal. You shop it around, including to HR, who rejects it, get lots of constructive criticism and feedback from peers, revise it, and continue hoping you eventually do cause a good change in your organization. Someone then sees it, gets angry, and proceeds to leak it to the press. A few days later, nearly every mainstream news organization has an article calling you a woman-hating sexist, calling your memo a "screed" and treating you like some kind of Nazi. Peers you've never spoken to start sending you threatening and hateful messages, not having even read your work, instead relying on clearly defamatory claims made by "news" organizations, totally misquoting what you've said, and even putting words in your mouth. Then you're fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" when you've explicitly drawn a line in your work between societal expectations on gender expression and biological predisposition due to sex, that is, you're fired for something you didn't actually say or do, and it's final, there's no appeal. You're this young guy here, with such negative publicity, and stuck in a part of the country that's 90% leftist or left-leaning, being called all sorts of horrible things by thousands of people you don't even know. You check Twitter and see your name is associated with some of the most hateful words you could imagine. Now, in this situation, do you respond to CNN who has just printed their 17th hitpiece on you, and hope they'll be fair to you, because you're not assertive enough to deal with the confrontation required if they start putting words in your mouth or asking leading questions? Or do you seek to tell your side of the story from people who are already presenting the story in a more neutral way?
collyw 9y ago
He did an article in the Guardian where he revealed his autism. It was very surprising considering the dreadful opinion piece the Guardian had done on the memo before that.

fzeroracer 9y ago

It's really sad that we have people still arguing about the intent of his memo when his actions afterwards make it quite clear what his stance actually was. And to make sure that people know: He's a liar. Even if you ignore him intentionally misrepresenting his PhD status, he boldly lied about his FIDE chess master status.

echoBravoDelta 9y ago

The fact you'd like a gay liberal as right-wing is disconcerting but I agree, and independently, came to the same conclusion that is is strange how many shows he popped up on so fast.

ddlsmurf 9y ago

Or maybe the "left-wing" like tech crunch just flat out lie about him repeatedly. I don't appreciate any the right wing youtubers you cite, but judging by the quality of this article, I'm glad he had other opportunities to speak. In this instance I do think the left wing is stifling expression and I can't abide by that, if you think I'm exaggerating, read the memo he didn't publish but request internal criticism of, and he was fired for it by google.

viridian 9y ago

This is a minor aside, but I don't think Joe is a conservative. I think that he said during the midnight election comedy stream that had he not promised to vote for Gary Johnson when he came on the show, that he would've had to pull the lever for Hillary. He doesn't like social justice stuff, but other than that, he's kind of a big hippy.

jonny_eh 9y ago
and denies the moon landing. That doesn't make him right wing, but it sure makes him a less credible person. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/26/joe-rogan-me-and-penn-and-the-moon-hoax-take-iii/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/26/jo...
- viridian 9y ago
  He denied it 11 years ago you mean, by that blog post. He has changed his stance, as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k You should listen to his episode with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, they talk about the mindset of denialism quite a bit.
  - jonny_eh 9y ago
    I had no idea, thanks!

perseusprime11 9y ago

Never knew joe organ was right wing. I've been listening to his podcasts which seem pretty good.

viridian 9y ago
I don't think he is, a gave a couple reasons why here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099356 But this has been a big topic of debate on his podcast subreddit as well. I think it mainly comes from the guests he has on, but Joe has written on Twitter about how getting left leaning guests on to talk politics is just a lot harder. Russell Brand is great and all, but no one else really seems interested for whatever reason.
H99189 9y ago
He's not, but if you're a gallon of gasoline, the remotest spark can seem like a huge threat to your very existence, which is what I took the overreaction to the memo to be. He spoke his mind, with citations, and he was torched for it, and the left wing outlets except for Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin had no interest in letting his real story come out, because the overreaction, the firing and the ongoing assault on his character is shameful if you ask me.
- lurr 9y ago
  > the left wing outlets except for Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin had no interest in letting his real story come out Which ones did he ask to speak on?
propman 9y ago
He's not "right wing". Hating SJWs and the extreme left isn't right wing. People are complicated and labeling someone as right wing to invalidate someone's every position is as bad as what the right does to the left. He is if anything fairly moderate with a slight libertarian streak, especially when it comes to drugs. I don't agree with lots of his positions and he's definitely not some really smart guru, but I like that he's an average guy with an open mind who lets speakers of all viewpoints express themselves in a very welcoming way. I mean hosting Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein, both on the 2 ends of the political spectrum and making it a very intellectually stimulating dialogue is a breath of fresh air in today's gotcha media. You know CNN and fox have an agenda when they bring opposing viewpoints on their show, trying to invalidate their ideas. In joe rogan's podcasts that never seems to be the case, instead discussion leads to more moderate viewpoints rather than debates and winners. Only really see that on PBS lately. That said, I do find many of his guests abhorant and just skip a fair bit of his podcasts.

splintercell 9y ago

> Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn't engage with left wingers and maybe he was indeed just appealing to the right. Have you watched any of his right wing outlet interviews? Literally on every interview he mentions "Nobody from left reached out to me, only the right wing outlets reached out to me". I'd definitely recommend watching his Dave Rubin interview (even though you think he is a right winger). If you were him, you'd rather go out and present your side, than to be portrayed in whichever smear light the media wants to portray you. There are people who lost the narrative from both left and right (like Milo) and that is definitely worse than losing the support for only one side. Also, hypothetically it sounds great that you show up to both sides on a divided issue like this, but that isn't possible anymore in the polarized society we live in (a great example of this is you classifying Dave Rubin as 'right wing', just see how many people are calling you out on it).

ihsw2 9y ago

It's no different than moderate Muslims having no social refuge other than where Salafist-Jihadists (eg: al-Qaeda, Isil) roam freely -- modereate conservatives have no social refuge other than blatant racists and sexists, neo-nazis, and other generally unpleasant undesirables. This is the danger of progressive supremacy and the only way out of this hell-hole is encouraging true diversity and inclusiveness -- diversity of thought that includes right-wing conservative viewpoints in addition to those of the left.

wheelie_boy 9y ago
Yes, it is good and valuable for a society to be tolerant of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance. The left has intolerant people as well. "No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other." However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right.
- winston_smith 9y ago
  > The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance. This is nonsensical. Tolerance is the region between what you like and what you fight. There are lots of obviously bad things you shouldn't tolerate (like murder), and lots of mildly distasteful things you should. Someone else being less tolerant of something than we think they should be isn't some special category of evil. As with anything else, you have to decide whether a particular case is bad enough that you must fight it, or ambiguous enough that it isn't worth the conflict.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  The left has intolerant people as well...However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right. The intolerant left seems to have Berkeley buttoned up.
lurr 9y ago
I would argue they made that bed for themselves.

ryguytilidie 9y ago

Wait, Joe Rogan is considered a right wing youtuber? I listen to his show all the time and I'm a pretty big liberal and while he sometimes does the whole "everyone is sooooo PC now" thing, he also talks negatively about Trump, the GOP and right wing politics constantly. I also listened to the James Damore episode, and while I thought James did a good job of making his point and Joe did an AWESOME job of interviewing him while not taking sides, it felt like James was pretty disingenuous and lacked a general understanding of how to behave in a workplace as well as how to treat other people.

mistermann 9y ago
> it felt like James was pretty disingenuous and lacked a general understanding of how to behave in a workplace To be fair, it can be difficult for some people on the autism spectrum to work in environments where you have to run objective reality through various "politically correct" adjustment filters before reacting to it.
- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  So it sounds like you agree with me that he lacked an understanding of how to behave in a workplace?
  - mistermann 9y ago
    I agree only in a sense similar to how people in a wheelchair lack the capability to access public spaces in the same way as non-disabled people do. It's funny how even in a highly logical technical community the conversations on certain topics are the same as you'd find elsewhere.
    - ryguytilidie 9y ago
      To be clear, your analogy is that this fellow lashing out at certain groups of his coworkers can be attributed to their mental disorder you've diagnosed and you've then decided that this is the same as a person in a wheelchair being unable to access certain areas? I'm understanding this correctly? You're sure this is an analogy you think is passably decent let alone one that can be be followed up with you mocking other people afterward...? What are we hoping to accomplish here?

deleted 9y ago

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jblow 9y ago

If people "on the left" won't allow him to speak, where exactly do you expect him to go? It's like the people on the right saying Edward Snowden is obviously a traitor/spy because he went to Russia. Uhhh... something very obvious is being ignored there. Also, come on ... Joe Rogan is definitely not right-wing. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin do not self-identify as right-wing. And your [1] just seems a little extreme. "The far right is just a slip away from the reasonable right, therefore the reasonable right is dangerous?" But you don't apply that same idea to the left? Why not? The real pattern here is that he went to the shows that would have him as a guest for reasonable discussion.

roenxi 9y ago
> If people "on the left" won't allow him to speak, where exactly do you expect him to go? Adding to this; we should bear in mind that while nobody specific speaks for "the left"'s moral judgments, at least some people literally won't allow him to speak. Secondly, he was never trying to be a martyr and we shouldn't expect him to be one. He was posting a controversial opinion on a message board marked for controversial opinion. He was clearly putting in a solid attempt to be objective and to employ facts and evidence. He has some academic exposure to the fields he was talking about. He didn't expect to be targeted the way he was; he likely wasn't trying to set himself up as a hero of free speech; and he doesn't have to do a walk of shame through hostile talk shows to justify his intentions if he doesn't feel like taking the (unjustified) heat.
- notfromhere 9y ago
  He sent out a company-wide memo on a very controversial subject pretending to be an expert. I don't know what he expected, but that was stupid.
jacksmith21006 9y ago
This has nothing to do with being right or left. It is simply a human decency thing. A manager and company is responsible for everyone and after he shared such views with his name you could never keep him and have him working along side women. Google did exactly what they had to do. It is not complicated.

deleted 9y ago

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stcredzero 9y ago

If the memo wasn't enough I read the memo. If one is familiar with the research and evolutionary biology, there is nothing in there to react that strongly against, unless one takes a biased, insincere reading of what he actually wrote. him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Those were the only people who would talk to him without trying to make it a hit piece, same as Bret Weinstein. Stefan Molyneux, Not sure what Mr. Molyneux is, but given his Libertarian bent, he really doesn't fall in with the mainstream North American right. I'm really skeezed out by his past calls to his audience for "de-fooing" which reads like a cult leader asking his followers to isolate themselves from society and listen only to him. Jordan Peterson Terms himself a classical liberal, but also terms himself a conservative, which isn't contradictory. He's been kinda "adopted" by a northern Native American tribe. People who try to paint him as "Alt-Right" aren't actually listening to what he's saying, and are effectively in an evidence-free cloudcuckooland. (He isn't anti-trans. Rather, he's against some nefarious anti-science and compelled speech tactics employed by activists who claim to speak for all trans people. He has received numerous letters from trans people in support of his message.) I have yet to see genuine criticism of him which stands up to scrutiny. Mike cernovich Don't like this guy, or his politics. Why do you lump this guy and Molyneux in with people like Jordan Peterson? Doesn't make any sense to me, except as a poison pill. Joe Rogan Would have passed perfectly fine as a liberal in the 90's. I think the far left doesn't like him simply because he won't play along with their politics. I find him refreshingly honest and highly intelligent. (Yes, he was a moon hoaxer at one point, but unlike a lot of stupid people, he had the wherewithal to listen to arguments and change his mind.) Dave Rubin Terms himself a liberal, also a "classical liberal." He's made a turn towards Libertarianism. He strikes me as sincere in wanting to give everyone a chance to be heard. I think he has intellectual integrity, and as such, he's willing to change his mind. His sincerity and intellectual integrity are the best things he has going for him, though I judge him to be just at a layperson's level intellectually. Steven Crowder I don't think Mr. Crowder is as funny or as smart as he thinks. I think he falls down a bit in terms of his intellectual honesty and in his scholarship. (Or course, he uses the "comedian" card to get out of that.) I think his effort to expose Antifa was creditable, but I wish he did a better job of having substance. All of these topical comedians are 10X funnier when they have substance. Colbert used to be funny, and it's because he had that. etc. is suspicious. [1] Given that you grouped all these people together, I find your list very suspicious.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

Just like Trump seems stuck in some kind of info-loop with Fox News, Damore seemed to get most of his memo ideas from those youtubers in the first place. He's got a footnote in it about how complaints about gay rights are just an attempt by Marxists to undermine capitalism for goodness sake! In an internal corporate communication about how to better deal with diversity. The mind boggles.

lurr 9y ago
marxists.... peterson?
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Your comment is too brief to parse properly but yes Peterson talks about "Cultural Marxism" on his YouTube channel and so does Damore in the famous memo.
on_and_off 9y ago
I wondered what you were ranting about so I skimmed Damore's memo : >Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.” Hard to do not roll my eyes when reading this. Even though I feel that there is a fringe a the feminist movement for which being a white male is a crime, this is just a fringe and I don't think it has anything to do with socialism other than these are 2 things that Damore hates.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  You haven't been on the Internet in the past few years, have you? :). The fringe, while a small minority, has also been the loudest part of the feminist movement in this decade, and it's the impact of that fringe that can be seen responsible for such overreaction to Damore's memo.

lurr 9y ago

> YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Some of these aren't like the others.

forgottenpass 9y ago

Um, guilt by association much?

throwaway292939 9y ago

He mentioned in one of his interviews that very few left wing outlets would even invite him to interviews. Of the ones that did, it was heavily edited to present a certain bad narrative of him.

just2n 9y ago

The way I read these actions weren't "running to the right" rather "fleeing from the biased leftist media." For one, Rubin is left leaning, so is Peterson, though because they're generally fair, they get consistently mislabeled, but that's also how I imagine it must feel in his situation. Let's say you're a shy/introverted engineer working at Google. You are going to a bunch of diversity events because it's an easy way to progress in your career. You find things you disagree with, or think are potentially illegal, but overall agree with the end goal: more women / PoC at Google, and so put forward an analysis that supports the same goal, even asserting that diversity is a good thing, but indicating that Google's methodology is problematic, and possibly illegal. You shop it around, including to HR, who rejects it, get lots of constructive criticism and feedback from peers, revise it, and continue hoping you eventually do cause a good change in your organization. Someone then sees it, gets angry, and proceeds to leak it to the press. A few days later, nearly every mainstream news organization has an article calling you a woman-hating sexist, calling your memo a "screed" and treating you like some kind of Nazi. Peers you've never spoken to start sending you threatening and hateful messages, not having even read your work, instead relying on clearly defamatory claims made by "news" organizations, totally misquoting what you've said, and even putting words in your mouth. Then you're fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" when you've explicitly drawn a line in your work between societal expectations on gender expression and biological predisposition due to sex, that is, you're fired for something you didn't actually say or do, and it's final, there's no appeal. You're this young guy here, with such negative publicity, and stuck in a part of the country that's 90% leftist or left-leaning, being called all sorts of horrible things by thousands of people you don't even know. You check Twitter and see your name is associated with some of the most hateful words you could imagine. Now, in this situation, do you respond to CNN who has just printed their 17th hitpiece on you, and hope they'll be fair to you, because you're not assertive enough to deal with the confrontation required if they start putting words in your mouth or asking leading questions? Or do you seek to tell your side of the story from people who are already presenting the story in a more neutral way?

collyw 9y ago

He did an article in the Guardian where he revealed his autism. It was very surprising considering the dreadful opinion piece the Guardian had done on the memo before that.