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The author only matters since he is being cited as someone with insight, and has written a response to the "Google memo" that I found to be particularly telling

The author only matters since he is being cited as someone with insight, and has written a response to the "Google memo" that I found to be particularly telling. In a vacuum, yes. Saying certain things may incite a violent response. But we're not in a vacuum. Let's look at three scenarios, and ask the following questions: Is violence expected? Is violence understandable? Is violence justified? A - While drunk at a bar, a man repeatedly says derogatory things about another man's wife. A fight breaks out between the two of them. B - While at a KKK rally, a young black man calmly discussing afrocentrism is jumped and beaten by a mob. C - While at an LGBT rally, an old white man hostilely quoting Leviticus is jumped and beaten by a mob. In the first scenario, this is targeted harassment. We should anticipate a violent outbreak. If you were to poll a diverse group of people, most people would say the violence was understandable, but not justified. This scenario bears the least similarity to our situation -- although I will make one comment. This is the only scenario where violence could be justified. If the provocateur becomes violent (or makes threats), a violent response MAY be expected, understandable, and justified. In the second and third scenario, violence is an expected result. While some people within these groups may feel the violence was understandable, the real question lies with the groups organizers. I suspect that the LGBT group would denounce violence, even though the man had bad intentions. (I wouldn't expect as much from the KKK.) To relate this to Google, Zunger is a leader. He excuses the violent response of the employees, and blames Damore for inciting the violence. (This is an INCREDIBLY poor position to take.) While it's fair to question whether Damore was the provocateur from example C, or the debater from example B, it's unfair to blame him for a violent response.

joshuamorton 9y ago
Like I said already: Zunger isn't blaming anyone. He's making a statement of fact. The fact, which is true, is that damore wrote a memo. The fact, which is true, is that having read this memo, many of Damore's coworkers would not be willing to work with him. These are facts. They're not attempts to assign blame or fault, they are objective statements about the state of the world. As soon as you say the word "justified" or "understandable", you're not responding to Zunger, you're responding to a strawperson. There is no excusing, justification, or blame in the article. There are statements of fact. You're conflating causality and blame. Zunger only discusses the former, and there is a huge difference between them. You're transforming his statements on causality into ones on blame when they clearly aren't. Damore wrote a thing. That thing hurt people. Cause, effect. No blame. Hawaiian government employee pressed button. A million people were alerted of an impending missile by accident. Cause, effect. No blame. (To be clear, with Hawaii, the blame, imo, falls onto the design of the system, and not the guy who happened to misclick). In another post you claim that Zunger uses the phrase "it's your fault" (an assignment of blame), But the word "fault" doesn't appear in the essay. Zunger specifically says that Damore's action "has caused a significant harm" to his colleagues. But that, too, is a statement of causality, and is not assigning blame. (I think this is telling by the way: to justify, to yourself, your disagreement with Zunger, you managed to invent things the essay didn't actually say, without even realizing it!) To be very clear on this, I think that violence is potentially expected in all three cases you mentioned, and justified in none of them. The exact argument Zunger is making works in the reverse, by the way. "You came out as trans to the office, all of whom are staunchly on the religious right and as a result now refuse to work with you. This is...problematic for your employer, and makes you decidedly less valuable from the perspective of your employer. This is problematic.". Am I blaming the trans individual? I certainly don't think so. Zunger's argument is almost entirely a utilitarian one: You have made yourself less valuable to the organization, and either we get rid of you, or we get rid of a lot of other people. The choice is, unfortunately for you, obvious. And that's the case irrespective of who is "at fault".

joshuamorton 9y ago

Like I said already: Zunger isn't blaming anyone. He's making a statement of fact. The fact, which is true, is that damore wrote a memo. The fact, which is true, is that having read this memo, many of Damore's coworkers would not be willing to work with him. These are facts. They're not attempts to assign blame or fault, they are objective statements about the state of the world. As soon as you say the word "justified" or "understandable", you're not responding to Zunger, you're responding to a strawperson. There is no excusing, justification, or blame in the article. There are statements of fact. You're conflating causality and blame. Zunger only discusses the former, and there is a huge difference between them. You're transforming his statements on causality into ones on blame when they clearly aren't. Damore wrote a thing. That thing hurt people. Cause, effect. No blame. Hawaiian government employee pressed button. A million people were alerted of an impending missile by accident. Cause, effect. No blame. (To be clear, with Hawaii, the blame, imo, falls onto the design of the system, and not the guy who happened to misclick). In another post you claim that Zunger uses the phrase "it's your fault" (an assignment of blame), But the word "fault" doesn't appear in the essay. Zunger specifically says that Damore's action "has caused a significant harm" to his colleagues. But that, too, is a statement of causality, and is not assigning blame. (I think this is telling by the way: to justify, to yourself, your disagreement with Zunger, you managed to invent things the essay didn't actually say, without even realizing it!) To be very clear on this, I think that violence is potentially expected in all three cases you mentioned, and justified in none of them. The exact argument Zunger is making works in the reverse, by the way. "You came out as trans to the office, all of whom are staunchly on the religious right and as a result now refuse to work with you. This is...problematic for your employer, and makes you decidedly less valuable from the perspective of your employer. This is problematic.". Am I blaming the trans individual? I certainly don't think so. Zunger's argument is almost entirely a utilitarian one: You have made yourself less valuable to the organization, and either we get rid of you, or we get rid of a lot of other people. The choice is, unfortunately for you, obvious. And that's the case irrespective of who is "at fault".