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The way this whole thing played out makes me sad, because the guy did bring up a good point - current-day social justice leaves little avenue for well-meaning b

by dejawu 9y ago

The way this whole thing played out makes me sad, because the guy did bring up a good point - current-day social justice leaves little avenue for well-meaning but unaware (perhaps through privilege) people to start conversations and learn about the reasons and motivations for certain efforts such as affirmative action and changes in vocabulary. Damore was indeed punished for speaking out, just as he feared. Then he started retweeting Breitbart articles and selling "Goolag" t-shirts and threw his credibility out the window, and solving the problem of "how do we bring people on-board with the diversity thing without scaring them off" is again put off to another day.

awesomepantsm 9y ago
I got the feeling there was more stuff he said that never leaked but who knows
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  There wasn't. There are extensive leakers in google on both sides of the fence who would have leaked the fuller doc if one existed.
Consultant32452 9y ago
I feel like the progressive left THRUST Damore and anyone who might have similar thoughts/questions into the welcoming arms of the alt-right. I'm disappointed with the "Goolag" t-shirts, but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. So this socially awkward nerd did what any sensible person would do, rode the wave that was sent his way the best he could. Consider his professional options compared to a standard "former Googler." They destroyed him, it was terrible.
- tclancy 9y ago
  He has no agency? He chose to speak up and then he chose to go down the path he did. It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port in a storm of his own making. Allow me to pour out a beaker of Soylent for the poor, downtrodden white man.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port It's an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to put people like Dave Rubin, Gad Saad, and Steven Pinker into the category of "Alt-Right." (The first two being an openly gay man in a gay marriage, and a Lebanese jew.) There is no logic there. Basically, if you're not a true believer who has drunk the Kool-Aid, you must be one of the lurking enemy harboring evil thoughts. Sorry, but there are a lot of people who are happy to live and let live, but who have different ways of interpreting the world.
    - Buldak 9y ago
      The comment you replied to does not describe those figures as alt-right. On the other hand, the very first person Damore engaged after being fired was Stefan Molyneux, who is undeniably alt-right. It's also insipid to suggest that being gay or Jewish precludes being alt-right or otherwise bigoted. What would that make Milo Yiannopoulos?
      - freedomben 9y ago
        I agree with you, although I had never heard of Stefan Molyneux until that interview came out, and I wouldn't be surprised if Damore hadn't either. He was probably really glad to be able to speak his mind, and may not have realized what he was doing. I'm definitely giving him the benefit of the doubt here, a position which I admit is somewhat undermined by him (apparently) tweeting out Breitbart articles. I listened to most of his interviews tho, and he didn't sound alt-right to me at all. He sounded pretty Libertarian/Classical Liberal (he describes himself as a Classical Liberal)
      - stcredzero 9y ago
        the very first person Damore engaged after his firing was Stefan Molyneux, who is undeniably alt-right. I try to avoid Molyneux as much as possible. Keep in mind that the term "alt-right" is overloaded terminology. Roaming Millenial has a video where she outlines 4 broad categories of "alt-right." Not all of them are White Supremacist. Molyneux, I would just categorize as a very cultish Libertarian. Molyneaux should be rejected because of observations of his actual morality, with regards to questions of free inquiry. You might know additional bad things about him. However, it's "insipid" (your word) to judge James Damore's ideas based on association. It's also insipid to suggest that being gay or Jewish precludes being alt-right Just as insipid to put Gad Saad, Dave Rubin, and Steven Pinker into that category, based on what they say and the positions they take. The fact that they are gay or Jewish should at least get you to question the narratives pushed by media and take into account their actual positions. Hint: The narratives with regards to those 3 are false, and are unprincipled attempts to silence through association, probably because the critiques and information they supply pretty much demolish those narratives. What would that make Milo Yiannopoulos? Milo is, as far as I can tell, genuinely is anti Alt-Right, where that term encompasses the more radical 3/4ths of Roaming Millenial's categorization. He may well line up politically with some segment of the online community which rejects identity politics, but which is still far right. He also displays a problematic morality as evidenced by some of his actions. In my estimation, he's half activist and half opportunist.
- eridius 9y ago
  > but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. Why are you writing this in the passive, as if this is an unfortunate thing that happened to him? He did all of that to himself. That memo created a hostile workplace and Google had no choice but to fire him. The outcome here isn't terrible, it's exactly what should have happened.
  - simonebrunozzi 9y ago
    Nope. 100% disagree with you. Nobody should be fired for speaking out and/or starting a meaningful conversation. The opposite is censorship.
    - eridius 9y ago
      Creating a hostile workplace is not “meaningful conversation”. The memo constituted pretty blatant harassment of all his female colleagues. You don’t have the right to say whatever you want. People absolutely should be fired for harassing and discriminating against their colleagues (which is effectively what the memo was). It’s toxic and incredibly hurtful and cannot be tolerated.
      - titanix2 9y ago
        An hostile workplace is one firing an employee for the mere act of sharing an opinion. As the memo was not directly addressed to any female and did not insult them it is clearly not harassment. Questioning the hiring policy is not like attacking people directly. This is sad to see how much everything got conflated in an angry prêt-à-penser ideology that justify every of its excesses against the non believers.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        eridius 9y ago
        No you're right, he didn't address harass a single coworker. Instead he harassed all of the women he work with at the same time. Just because he didn't name names doesn't mean it's not harassment; he deliberately insulted an entire demographic of people, and then tried to pretend it was "scientific" when it was just a load of bullshit, as if that makes it any better. If his memo was railing against, say, the Irish, would you still think he wasn't harassing any of his Irish colleagues? > any female Now I understand. Go back to redpill please.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed I'm frankly ashamed at the behavior of my classmates, who were so enthusiastically throwing him under the bus, without really knowing anything about him. I found it very odd that people who had no basis of judging his software engineering skills had very strong opinions about them. I'm reminded of a documentary film about North Korea, where during one segment of a meeting, people went up to the front of the room and took turns condemning the United States, and were cheered the more fanatical they sounded. There is indeed "thought-crime" in the United States, and this category is at times conveniently expanded to to encompass any questioning of the new orthodoxy at all, with no basis but irrational, emotional ones.
  - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
    He did not commit thought crime. He espoused out of date views in a company that is modern, and trying to harness the future. They did not like it. End of story.. Poor Social Conservative Justice Warriors need to stop whining already. Everyones out of tears for you since trump won.
  - Arainach 9y ago
    Team interaction is a software engineering skill. The ability to work with a diverse set of people and bring them together rather than disparaging and dividing them is a software engineering skill. I would rather have a good programmer who got along with my team than a great one that wrote such memos.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      Then perhaps Google shouldn't ask for feedback on their courses. Seems rather disingenuous to say the least.
      - alsetmusic 9y ago
        > Then perhaps Google shouldn't ask for feedback on their courses. Seems rather disingenuous to say the least. My impression is that he circulated his “feedback” among employees. I would be surprised if that was requested by Google.
- ikeyany 9y ago
  For a company supposedly full of smart people, you'd think they'd be able to gracefully handle so called "problematic" views like Damore's.
  - refulgentis 9y ago
    His views _as stated_ necessarily meant _some_ women he worked with weren't qualified to be his coworkers because of their gender. You have a right to free speech, not to alienate your coworkers.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      Could you point out that specific passage? As I read it he specifically went out of his way to say that all of the women he worked with were qualified.
      - refulgentis 9y ago
        He literally says that those hiring practices can lower the bar. Sure, maybe he's saying that the bar for white/Asian men is higher than intended rather than that the bar for women and minorities is lower than intended, but you can't honestly argue that he isn't saying that women and minorities could be clearing a lower bar than white/Asian men.
        said 9y ago
        I urge you read the memo yourself. He said Google lowers the false negative rate for women.
        refulgentis 9y ago
        From a statistics point of view, this statement is dispositive: "...decrease the false negative rate, not increase the false positive rate." The interaction between type I and type II errors virtually always have an inverse relationship. You cannot decrease one without increasing the other. It is, for example, one of the difficulties in making good medical diagnostic tests. P.S. snarky commentary such as 'read the memo yourself', implying I'm lying about having read it, doesn't contribute to civil discussion.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  You lot are always blaming others, such as the "Progressive Left", for your own dumb decisions. The "you made me this monster" whinging does not hold water. It's the typical pathetic argument of the pathology. James Damore chose to speak and do these things. "They" (Whoever they are) did not destroy him, He is not destroyed in anyway, he just made a total fool of himself in a lawsuit, that's all. Any damage caused to him or his reputation he did so with his OWN words and actions, and those who are really at fault are those who got him giddy with victimhood by egging him on and told him he could take on one of the worlds biggest private companies, instead of telling him to wise up and chill out.
- skywhopper 9y ago
  Even at this point, he would likely be easily able to get another engineering job if he wished. So I think you are vastly overstating the damage to his career. For sure, if he had admitted he was wrong or at least naive, and shut up about it, he'd have no problems at all. By doubling down on his statements and participating in lawsuits against Google, he's making himself less and less attractive to future employers. But you severely overestimate the impact this will actually have on his prospects. But if we're talking about consequences of his actions, what about all the women whose careers he was advocating for destroying? Who, had he continued to work at Google, would have felt entirely unwelcome, untrusted, and unrespected? What is the impact on their careers when they face constant questioning of their very legitimacy merely because of their sex?
  - freedomben 9y ago
    > what about all the women whose careers he was advocating for destroying? Would you kindly provide a source for this? Preferably from the memo itself?
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Based on your comments it's quite clear that you either did not read his memo or do not understand statistics. Secondly, even if you take the most egregious possible interpretations of every sentence he wrote and try to take them out of context as much as possible to put them in a bad light, the national outcry is still completely unnecessary and disgusting. Fine, fire him, but he's about as meek and mild as they get, not some David Duke monster. He should've never made the news.
- surveilmebro 9y ago
  As someone who was an actual classmate of Damore, I can attest to his lack of character in this regard. I understand that the tone of his memo made it appear to have come from a thoughtful humanist, but this was a careful deception. In every social or professional encounter I've had with him, he's at least made somebody (particularly women) uncomfortable. In several cases these incidents led to meetings and reprimands. I am certain that he was already fully in the alt right camp, and did not say so aloud because he is a smart person capable of recognizing bad PR.
  - SiVal 9y ago
    Well, maybe you have insider knowledge about how much he actually disagrees with those on the left at Google--or maybe you don't. But either way, those who are fully in the alt-left camp at Google seem to consider themselves completely free to make anyone who disagrees with them uncomfortable and to go far beyond that: to force them to undergo indoctrination "training", or to be fired outright to make examples of them to others who might be tempted to openly question leftist dogma that may or may not actually be correct. At Google, those on the far left don't seem to feel the need for "careful deception" when it comes to expressing their opinions of/to coworkers they disagree with. They don't act as though they are required to make those with different opinions "feel safe". They have every reason for confidence, because "safety" just means "privilege": We get to blame and criticize you, but you aren't allowed to respond, because we (not you) are entitled to "safety".
    - deanCommie 9y ago
      Only when it comes to things that the right is is indisputably on the wrong side of history and hasn't figured it out yet (gay rights, gender rights, etc). Its not like the alt left yet to preach about communism or unions or taxation with the same privileged safety. Subjects like this get a lot of reasonable discussion from both sides at left leaning companies. But when it comes to things like diversity? And you are a company full of the most intelligent people in the world? Yeah, sorry if you haven't realized that "unconscious bias" is a real thing, you don't deserve a safe space to question it, you are being wilfully ignorant.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
We're not talking about children, we're talking about adults. Literate, tech savvy, affluent, college graduates. How would you imagine those folks educate themselves? Easily, by relying on the abundant resources available to them. The internet, books, youtube, etc. There's a ton of material out there, if you actually care, if you think it's important to educate yourself the resources are available. He did not do that, because he wasn't seeking to inform himself, he was seeking to advance an agenda, to encourage others to adopt a prejudice that he held. Also, I'm getting really sick and tired of these comments that bemoan the fates that have befallen these individuals who have substantially brought it upon themselves and give short shrift to the impact they've had on others. Damore was "merely asking questions" but the questions he was asking were things like "do women deserve to be the equals of men in this field?" and so forth. As both google management and the judge here have correctly pointed out, communicating in that way is incredibly damaging. It's unprofessional, it's discriminatory on its face, and it has no place in a modern work environment. The man is a grown-up, he should be smart enough to know how to broach a difficult subject of conversation if he is seeking to learn more about it or to explore controversial topics. Similarly, you can't just blunder into a discussion about race relations in the 21st century by leading off with questions like "are people of color equal to whites?" or "was slavery really wrong?" Because, again, those are on their face discriminatory, exclusionary, and harmful. And to claim that Damore was in any way trying to advance the cause of diversity is just plain counter-factual. It is clear, especially after the end of his google employment, that he has a much different agenda.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  His agenda was to make Google aware of some of the consequence of their diversity politics, something they themselves had asked for feedback on. He didn't ask whether women deserved to be equals and just the fact that you think that shows just how ignorant many commentators are in this case. If you actually are interested in hearing his version of the story, not just your own wrongly informed and biased one here is a good interview to provide you with some of the proper contexts. Then tell me what exactly it is that he has done wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOSD0XK0r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOSD0XK0r8
ThomPete 9y ago
Why is his credibility thrown out the window just because he retweets Breitbart articles? This sounds like a really lazy way fo reasoning.
rayiner 9y ago
That’s an untenable charitable reading of Damore’s memo. You don’t “start conversations” and “learn” by drawing conclusions, such as the lack of women in tech can be explained by genetic predispositions. And he wasn’t talking about “changes in vocabulary.” He was attacking core assumptions about what a fair society should look like. If you want to learn, you ask questions. You try to understand the other point of view until you can explain it and address it on its own terms. Damore never tried to do that. To use a technical analogy: it’s like a C++ programmer writing a rant about how JS dynamic typing must be for people too dumb to learn C++, and the ending it with “but I’d love to ‘learn’ more about JS!” Nobody is going to assume good faith.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  What core assumptions was he attacking specifically? Can you point to specific in his memo?
  - rayiner 9y ago
    It’s a core assumption that when it comes to employment, men and women are generally similar at a cognitive level and equally well suited to different white-collar professions. We adopted that presumption as a protective mechanism, when we came out of a long period of invoking pseudo-scientific ideas about differences between men and women to justify sexism.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      Can you point to anywhere in his memo where he claims that men and women's cognitive level is different? Again I have read this quite a few times and I don't see it. So can you point me to exactly where he claims that?
      - tptacek 9y ago
        These kinds of objections will draw approving nods from people who already agree with you, but to everyone else, the implication that differences in IQ variance between men and women lead the "top of the curve" to be naturally overpopulated with men is exactly what it sounds like: a claim for the intellectual superiority of men. Sure, there are dumb men; maybe they're even dumber than the dumbest women! But if you're looking for the best, that logic says, you're going to end up mostly with men. But put that aside and just try to engage with the simultaneously naive and arrogant assumption that the people Google hires --- people, we assume, like Damore --- must somehow represent the top of that curve. Because what they do is just so demanding. I work in this field, at a pretty deeply technical level, and when I hear other people in it make arguments premised on the notion that what we do demands the pinnacle of human cognitive ability, I just want to hide under a rock from embarrassment.
skywhopper 9y ago
If he had stuck to the point about how ignorant-but-well-meaning people can trip over rapidly changing "acceptable" discourse, then none of this would have escalated as it did. That's an argument that can be made, and there's definitely things Google and other companies could do to address that problem. He went much further, though, basically asserting that women engineers didn't belong at Google, and that in fact the job of software engineer is (and should be) designed to exclude women's typical strengths and preferences (as if general traits of the biological sexes have anything to do with individuals' aptitude and preferences). By so doing, he created a hostile workplace for women at Google. If that type of talk is tolerated within the company, what woman would feel comfortable working in a technical role?
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Can you point to where he says any of what you claim? I have read that memo quite a few time and see no such claims anywhere.
  - skywhopper 9y ago
    Here's a couple: Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people- oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this). Women on average are more cooperative [...but] Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn't necessarily disadvantage those that have them
    - depressedpanda 9y ago
      That doesn't at all prove your claim that he "basically asserted that women engineers didn't belong at Google".
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      How does pointing out difference in interest and a pretty well-established fact that women on average are more cooperative by any metrics prove that he should have claimed that women do not belong on google? In fact, his point is that technology is not even for most men which he has made clear in other interviews.
hypersoar 9y ago
If Damore was really concerned about a lack of ability to "start conversations", then he should've approached his memo with a shred of humility. He decries Google's diversity efforts but does little to suggest he's done much research into that topic itself. In fact, he barely mentions their specific programs at all. Here [1], by the way, is an interesting overview of diversity programs. It mentions that voluntary diversity training (contrasted with mandatory training) is among the more effective tools for this. IIRC, it was Damore's attendance of such that got him all riled up. Edit: here's the link: [1] https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail
- ThomPete 9y ago
  He is writing it as feedback (which was encouraged by the HR team) to the very people who set up the program, why on earth would he need to do mention that specifically? He wasn't writing it to you. What in that memo makes you feel that you can claim he didn't start with a shred of humulity? Can you point to any specifics?
- freedomben 9y ago
  > He decries Google's diversity efforts but does little to suggest he's done much research into that topic itself. I take it you either didn't read the memo, or read the version of the memo with all the references removed (Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, and surely others)
  - UncleMeat 9y ago
    "that topic itself" refers to the diversity program, not his Google scholar searches.
mcguire 9y ago
Was Damore "well-meaning but unaware" before his post? Did he, in good faith, attempt to "start a conversation and learn"?
adrianmonk 9y ago
> punished for speaking out It wasn't merely that he spoke out. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Saying "women, on average, have more neuroticism" is not how you start a dialog. It's how you start an argument. Let's not debate whether it was a factual statement, but suffice it to say that "what I said was factual so there's nothing wrong with it!" isn't a defense. There are a million statements that are factual that you don't write down and distribute throughout the whole company. Secondary goals aside, Google's main purpose is to build internet services and make money. If I were Google's management, I'd feel justified in firing him for having the poor judgment to approach things in a way that embroiled the whole company in a fight. The lost productivity alone from the distraction must have been costly to the company. It's possible he was just trying to help, but you don't hire/employ people for good intentions; you do it so they'll be a functioning gear in a bigger machine. If they can't do that, they aren't fulfilling their purpose at the company.
- curyous 9y ago
  "women, on average, have more neuroticism" is provably true. It's been measured. It's a shame that we can't start a discussion with the truth
  - stryk 9y ago
    source? (not trying to be snide or anything, I'm actually curious if there's a source for that)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - waterhouse 9y ago
      For context, one should note that the word "neuroticism" is not used as a regular English word, but is one of the "Big Five" traits in psychology, which comes from factor analysis of personality surveys. Its "definition" would be something like "An underlying quality that correlates with answering 'Agree/Strongly Agree' on these questions and 'Disagree/Strongly Disagree' on those questions". Damore did not note this in his memo, which made the statement more offensive than it should have been. With that established, if we go to Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Age,_sex_and_geographic_patterns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Age,_sex_and_geogr... "A 2013 review found that groups associated with higher levels of neuroticism are young adults who are at high risk for mood disorders and women.[22] For sex, the same review found that "research in large samples has shown that levels of N (neuroticism) are higher in women than men. This is a robust finding that is consistent across cultures. This is especially the case during the reproductive years, but is also visible in children and elderly." It furthermore said that EEG responses showed clear differences between the sexes in individuals with high N levels, but no functional MRI studies have yet been performed to investigate the differences in sex regarding N. However, there is a reason to suspect physiological differences to play a role because of previous studies that showed for example, a correlation between the size of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and N in female teenagers, so "the issue of sex differences in N and the implications for understanding N’s neurobiological basis deserve more detailed and systematic investigation."[22] A 2010 review found personality differences between genders to be between "small and moderate," the largest of those differences being in the traits of agreeableness and neuroticism.[37] Many personality traits were found to have had larger personality differences between men and women in developed countries compared to less developed countries, and differences in three traits—extraversion, neuroticism, and people-versus-thing orientation—showed differences that remained consistent across different levels of economic development, which is also consistent with the "possible influence of biologic factors."[37] Three cross-cultural studies have revealed higher levels of female neuroticism across almost all nations.[37]" The abstracts of both of the cited studies are visible, though the full articles seem to be behind paywalls.
PricelessValue 9y ago
> Then he started retweeting Breitbart articles and selling "Goolag" t-shirts and threw his credibility out the window What does that have to do with his credibility or his arguments? His arguments stand on its own merits. Externalities has no bearing on argument. If he said 1+1=2 and then retweeted a breitbart article, does that mean 1+1 no longer equal 2?
- jakelazaroff 9y ago
  Given that Breitbart, Stephen Molynieux, etc, all basically support the least charitable interpretation of the memo (that women are genetically less predisposed to engineering), his active association with them makes the claim that the memo was a good-faith attempt to improve diversity rather hard to swallow. Examples: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-conclusions-about-sex-differences-are-largely-correct/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-c... http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why-there-ought-to-be-a-cap-on-women-studying-science-and-maths/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why...
  - PricelessValue 9y ago
    > Given that Breitbart, Stephen Molynieux, etc, all basically support the least charitable interpretation of the memo (that women are genetically less predisposed to engineering) So? Are you saying you disagree? Then state your case. > his active association with them makes the claim that the memo was a good-faith attempt to improve diversity rather hard to swallow. Why does it make it hard to swallow? What does damore stating a fact that women being more predisposed to more social careers rather than engineering have anything to do with his stance on diversity? Are you saying that men should be forced out of engineering and women should be forced into it? So should we take over norway, get rid of women's rights and force the norwegian women to go into engineering? > http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-c.. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-c.... That link is about an NYU professor who says data and analysis backs up damore's claim. > http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why.. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why.... A lot of good points there.
PrimHelios 9y ago
>well-meaning Damore cherry-picked Wikipedia articles to claim women are biologically inferior with the intent of causing an uproar, that's not at all "well-meaning". Buried deep, deep down, he had somewhat of a point, but it wasn't at all the point he was trying to argue for.

by dejawu 9y ago

awesomepantsm 9y ago

I got the feeling there was more stuff he said that never leaked but who knows

oh_sigh 9y ago
There wasn't. There are extensive leakers in google on both sides of the fence who would have leaked the fuller doc if one existed.

Consultant32452 9y ago

I feel like the progressive left THRUST Damore and anyone who might have similar thoughts/questions into the welcoming arms of the alt-right. I'm disappointed with the "Goolag" t-shirts, but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. So this socially awkward nerd did what any sensible person would do, rode the wave that was sent his way the best he could. Consider his professional options compared to a standard "former Googler." They destroyed him, it was terrible.

tclancy 9y ago
He has no agency? He chose to speak up and then he chose to go down the path he did. It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port in a storm of his own making. Allow me to pour out a beaker of Soylent for the poor, downtrodden white man.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port It's an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to put people like Dave Rubin, Gad Saad, and Steven Pinker into the category of "Alt-Right." (The first two being an openly gay man in a gay marriage, and a Lebanese jew.) There is no logic there. Basically, if you're not a true believer who has drunk the Kool-Aid, you must be one of the lurking enemy harboring evil thoughts. Sorry, but there are a lot of people who are happy to live and let live, but who have different ways of interpreting the world.
  - Buldak 9y ago
    The comment you replied to does not describe those figures as alt-right. On the other hand, the very first person Damore engaged after being fired was Stefan Molyneux, who is undeniably alt-right. It's also insipid to suggest that being gay or Jewish precludes being alt-right or otherwise bigoted. What would that make Milo Yiannopoulos?
    - freedomben 9y ago
      I agree with you, although I had never heard of Stefan Molyneux until that interview came out, and I wouldn't be surprised if Damore hadn't either. He was probably really glad to be able to speak his mind, and may not have realized what he was doing. I'm definitely giving him the benefit of the doubt here, a position which I admit is somewhat undermined by him (apparently) tweeting out Breitbart articles. I listened to most of his interviews tho, and he didn't sound alt-right to me at all. He sounded pretty Libertarian/Classical Liberal (he describes himself as a Classical Liberal)
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      the very first person Damore engaged after his firing was Stefan Molyneux, who is undeniably alt-right. I try to avoid Molyneux as much as possible. Keep in mind that the term "alt-right" is overloaded terminology. Roaming Millenial has a video where she outlines 4 broad categories of "alt-right." Not all of them are White Supremacist. Molyneux, I would just categorize as a very cultish Libertarian. Molyneaux should be rejected because of observations of his actual morality, with regards to questions of free inquiry. You might know additional bad things about him. However, it's "insipid" (your word) to judge James Damore's ideas based on association. It's also insipid to suggest that being gay or Jewish precludes being alt-right Just as insipid to put Gad Saad, Dave Rubin, and Steven Pinker into that category, based on what they say and the positions they take. The fact that they are gay or Jewish should at least get you to question the narratives pushed by media and take into account their actual positions. Hint: The narratives with regards to those 3 are false, and are unprincipled attempts to silence through association, probably because the critiques and information they supply pretty much demolish those narratives. What would that make Milo Yiannopoulos? Milo is, as far as I can tell, genuinely is anti Alt-Right, where that term encompasses the more radical 3/4ths of Roaming Millenial's categorization. He may well line up politically with some segment of the online community which rejects identity politics, but which is still far right. He also displays a problematic morality as evidenced by some of his actions. In my estimation, he's half activist and half opportunist.
eridius 9y ago
> but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. Why are you writing this in the passive, as if this is an unfortunate thing that happened to him? He did all of that to himself. That memo created a hostile workplace and Google had no choice but to fire him. The outcome here isn't terrible, it's exactly what should have happened.
- simonebrunozzi 9y ago
  Nope. 100% disagree with you. Nobody should be fired for speaking out and/or starting a meaningful conversation. The opposite is censorship.
  - eridius 9y ago
    Creating a hostile workplace is not “meaningful conversation”. The memo constituted pretty blatant harassment of all his female colleagues. You don’t have the right to say whatever you want. People absolutely should be fired for harassing and discriminating against their colleagues (which is effectively what the memo was). It’s toxic and incredibly hurtful and cannot be tolerated.
    - titanix2 9y ago
      An hostile workplace is one firing an employee for the mere act of sharing an opinion. As the memo was not directly addressed to any female and did not insult them it is clearly not harassment. Questioning the hiring policy is not like attacking people directly. This is sad to see how much everything got conflated in an angry prêt-à-penser ideology that justify every of its excesses against the non believers.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - eridius 9y ago
        No you're right, he didn't address harass a single coworker. Instead he harassed all of the women he work with at the same time. Just because he didn't name names doesn't mean it's not harassment; he deliberately insulted an entire demographic of people, and then tried to pretend it was "scientific" when it was just a load of bullshit, as if that makes it any better. If his memo was railing against, say, the Irish, would you still think he wasn't harassing any of his Irish colleagues? > any female Now I understand. Go back to redpill please.
stcredzero 9y ago
he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed I'm frankly ashamed at the behavior of my classmates, who were so enthusiastically throwing him under the bus, without really knowing anything about him. I found it very odd that people who had no basis of judging his software engineering skills had very strong opinions about them. I'm reminded of a documentary film about North Korea, where during one segment of a meeting, people went up to the front of the room and took turns condemning the United States, and were cheered the more fanatical they sounded. There is indeed "thought-crime" in the United States, and this category is at times conveniently expanded to to encompass any questioning of the new orthodoxy at all, with no basis but irrational, emotional ones.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  He did not commit thought crime. He espoused out of date views in a company that is modern, and trying to harness the future. They did not like it. End of story.. Poor Social Conservative Justice Warriors need to stop whining already. Everyones out of tears for you since trump won.
- Arainach 9y ago
  Team interaction is a software engineering skill. The ability to work with a diverse set of people and bring them together rather than disparaging and dividing them is a software engineering skill. I would rather have a good programmer who got along with my team than a great one that wrote such memos.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Then perhaps Google shouldn't ask for feedback on their courses. Seems rather disingenuous to say the least.
    - alsetmusic 9y ago
      > Then perhaps Google shouldn't ask for feedback on their courses. Seems rather disingenuous to say the least. My impression is that he circulated his “feedback” among employees. I would be surprised if that was requested by Google.
ikeyany 9y ago
For a company supposedly full of smart people, you'd think they'd be able to gracefully handle so called "problematic" views like Damore's.
- refulgentis 9y ago
  His views _as stated_ necessarily meant _some_ women he worked with weren't qualified to be his coworkers because of their gender. You have a right to free speech, not to alienate your coworkers.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Could you point out that specific passage? As I read it he specifically went out of his way to say that all of the women he worked with were qualified.
    - refulgentis 9y ago
      He literally says that those hiring practices can lower the bar. Sure, maybe he's saying that the bar for white/Asian men is higher than intended rather than that the bar for women and minorities is lower than intended, but you can't honestly argue that he isn't saying that women and minorities could be clearing a lower bar than white/Asian men.
      - said 9y ago
        I urge you read the memo yourself. He said Google lowers the false negative rate for women.
        refulgentis 9y ago
        From a statistics point of view, this statement is dispositive: "...decrease the false negative rate, not increase the false positive rate." The interaction between type I and type II errors virtually always have an inverse relationship. You cannot decrease one without increasing the other. It is, for example, one of the difficulties in making good medical diagnostic tests. P.S. snarky commentary such as 'read the memo yourself', implying I'm lying about having read it, doesn't contribute to civil discussion.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
You lot are always blaming others, such as the "Progressive Left", for your own dumb decisions. The "you made me this monster" whinging does not hold water. It's the typical pathetic argument of the pathology. James Damore chose to speak and do these things. "They" (Whoever they are) did not destroy him, He is not destroyed in anyway, he just made a total fool of himself in a lawsuit, that's all. Any damage caused to him or his reputation he did so with his OWN words and actions, and those who are really at fault are those who got him giddy with victimhood by egging him on and told him he could take on one of the worlds biggest private companies, instead of telling him to wise up and chill out.
skywhopper 9y ago
Even at this point, he would likely be easily able to get another engineering job if he wished. So I think you are vastly overstating the damage to his career. For sure, if he had admitted he was wrong or at least naive, and shut up about it, he'd have no problems at all. By doubling down on his statements and participating in lawsuits against Google, he's making himself less and less attractive to future employers. But you severely overestimate the impact this will actually have on his prospects. But if we're talking about consequences of his actions, what about all the women whose careers he was advocating for destroying? Who, had he continued to work at Google, would have felt entirely unwelcome, untrusted, and unrespected? What is the impact on their careers when they face constant questioning of their very legitimacy merely because of their sex?
- freedomben 9y ago
  > what about all the women whose careers he was advocating for destroying? Would you kindly provide a source for this? Preferably from the memo itself?
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Based on your comments it's quite clear that you either did not read his memo or do not understand statistics. Secondly, even if you take the most egregious possible interpretations of every sentence he wrote and try to take them out of context as much as possible to put them in a bad light, the national outcry is still completely unnecessary and disgusting. Fine, fire him, but he's about as meek and mild as they get, not some David Duke monster. He should've never made the news.
surveilmebro 9y ago
As someone who was an actual classmate of Damore, I can attest to his lack of character in this regard. I understand that the tone of his memo made it appear to have come from a thoughtful humanist, but this was a careful deception. In every social or professional encounter I've had with him, he's at least made somebody (particularly women) uncomfortable. In several cases these incidents led to meetings and reprimands. I am certain that he was already fully in the alt right camp, and did not say so aloud because he is a smart person capable of recognizing bad PR.
- SiVal 9y ago
  Well, maybe you have insider knowledge about how much he actually disagrees with those on the left at Google--or maybe you don't. But either way, those who are fully in the alt-left camp at Google seem to consider themselves completely free to make anyone who disagrees with them uncomfortable and to go far beyond that: to force them to undergo indoctrination "training", or to be fired outright to make examples of them to others who might be tempted to openly question leftist dogma that may or may not actually be correct. At Google, those on the far left don't seem to feel the need for "careful deception" when it comes to expressing their opinions of/to coworkers they disagree with. They don't act as though they are required to make those with different opinions "feel safe". They have every reason for confidence, because "safety" just means "privilege": We get to blame and criticize you, but you aren't allowed to respond, because we (not you) are entitled to "safety".
  - deanCommie 9y ago
    Only when it comes to things that the right is is indisputably on the wrong side of history and hasn't figured it out yet (gay rights, gender rights, etc). Its not like the alt left yet to preach about communism or unions or taxation with the same privileged safety. Subjects like this get a lot of reasonable discussion from both sides at left leaning companies. But when it comes to things like diversity? And you are a company full of the most intelligent people in the world? Yeah, sorry if you haven't realized that "unconscious bias" is a real thing, you don't deserve a safe space to question it, you are being wilfully ignorant.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

We're not talking about children, we're talking about adults. Literate, tech savvy, affluent, college graduates. How would you imagine those folks educate themselves? Easily, by relying on the abundant resources available to them. The internet, books, youtube, etc. There's a ton of material out there, if you actually care, if you think it's important to educate yourself the resources are available. He did not do that, because he wasn't seeking to inform himself, he was seeking to advance an agenda, to encourage others to adopt a prejudice that he held. Also, I'm getting really sick and tired of these comments that bemoan the fates that have befallen these individuals who have substantially brought it upon themselves and give short shrift to the impact they've had on others. Damore was "merely asking questions" but the questions he was asking were things like "do women deserve to be the equals of men in this field?" and so forth. As both google management and the judge here have correctly pointed out, communicating in that way is incredibly damaging. It's unprofessional, it's discriminatory on its face, and it has no place in a modern work environment. The man is a grown-up, he should be smart enough to know how to broach a difficult subject of conversation if he is seeking to learn more about it or to explore controversial topics. Similarly, you can't just blunder into a discussion about race relations in the 21st century by leading off with questions like "are people of color equal to whites?" or "was slavery really wrong?" Because, again, those are on their face discriminatory, exclusionary, and harmful. And to claim that Damore was in any way trying to advance the cause of diversity is just plain counter-factual. It is clear, especially after the end of his google employment, that he has a much different agenda.

ThomPete 9y ago
His agenda was to make Google aware of some of the consequence of their diversity politics, something they themselves had asked for feedback on. He didn't ask whether women deserved to be equals and just the fact that you think that shows just how ignorant many commentators are in this case. If you actually are interested in hearing his version of the story, not just your own wrongly informed and biased one here is a good interview to provide you with some of the proper contexts. Then tell me what exactly it is that he has done wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOSD0XK0r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOSD0XK0r8

ThomPete 9y ago

Why is his credibility thrown out the window just because he retweets Breitbart articles? This sounds like a really lazy way fo reasoning.

rayiner 9y ago

That’s an untenable charitable reading of Damore’s memo. You don’t “start conversations” and “learn” by drawing conclusions, such as the lack of women in tech can be explained by genetic predispositions. And he wasn’t talking about “changes in vocabulary.” He was attacking core assumptions about what a fair society should look like. If you want to learn, you ask questions. You try to understand the other point of view until you can explain it and address it on its own terms. Damore never tried to do that. To use a technical analogy: it’s like a C++ programmer writing a rant about how JS dynamic typing must be for people too dumb to learn C++, and the ending it with “but I’d love to ‘learn’ more about JS!” Nobody is going to assume good faith.

ThomPete 9y ago
What core assumptions was he attacking specifically? Can you point to specific in his memo?
- rayiner 9y ago
  It’s a core assumption that when it comes to employment, men and women are generally similar at a cognitive level and equally well suited to different white-collar professions. We adopted that presumption as a protective mechanism, when we came out of a long period of invoking pseudo-scientific ideas about differences between men and women to justify sexism.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Can you point to anywhere in his memo where he claims that men and women's cognitive level is different? Again I have read this quite a few times and I don't see it. So can you point me to exactly where he claims that?
    - tptacek 9y ago
      These kinds of objections will draw approving nods from people who already agree with you, but to everyone else, the implication that differences in IQ variance between men and women lead the "top of the curve" to be naturally overpopulated with men is exactly what it sounds like: a claim for the intellectual superiority of men. Sure, there are dumb men; maybe they're even dumber than the dumbest women! But if you're looking for the best, that logic says, you're going to end up mostly with men. But put that aside and just try to engage with the simultaneously naive and arrogant assumption that the people Google hires --- people, we assume, like Damore --- must somehow represent the top of that curve. Because what they do is just so demanding. I work in this field, at a pretty deeply technical level, and when I hear other people in it make arguments premised on the notion that what we do demands the pinnacle of human cognitive ability, I just want to hide under a rock from embarrassment.

skywhopper 9y ago

If he had stuck to the point about how ignorant-but-well-meaning people can trip over rapidly changing "acceptable" discourse, then none of this would have escalated as it did. That's an argument that can be made, and there's definitely things Google and other companies could do to address that problem. He went much further, though, basically asserting that women engineers didn't belong at Google, and that in fact the job of software engineer is (and should be) designed to exclude women's typical strengths and preferences (as if general traits of the biological sexes have anything to do with individuals' aptitude and preferences). By so doing, he created a hostile workplace for women at Google. If that type of talk is tolerated within the company, what woman would feel comfortable working in a technical role?

ThomPete 9y ago
Can you point to where he says any of what you claim? I have read that memo quite a few time and see no such claims anywhere.
- skywhopper 9y ago
  Here's a couple: Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people- oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this). Women on average are more cooperative [...but] Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn't necessarily disadvantage those that have them
  - depressedpanda 9y ago
    That doesn't at all prove your claim that he "basically asserted that women engineers didn't belong at Google".
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    How does pointing out difference in interest and a pretty well-established fact that women on average are more cooperative by any metrics prove that he should have claimed that women do not belong on google? In fact, his point is that technology is not even for most men which he has made clear in other interviews.

hypersoar 9y ago

If Damore was really concerned about a lack of ability to "start conversations", then he should've approached his memo with a shred of humility. He decries Google's diversity efforts but does little to suggest he's done much research into that topic itself. In fact, he barely mentions their specific programs at all. Here [1], by the way, is an interesting overview of diversity programs. It mentions that voluntary diversity training (contrasted with mandatory training) is among the more effective tools for this. IIRC, it was Damore's attendance of such that got him all riled up. Edit: here's the link: [1] https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail

ThomPete 9y ago
He is writing it as feedback (which was encouraged by the HR team) to the very people who set up the program, why on earth would he need to do mention that specifically? He wasn't writing it to you. What in that memo makes you feel that you can claim he didn't start with a shred of humulity? Can you point to any specifics?
freedomben 9y ago
> He decries Google's diversity efforts but does little to suggest he's done much research into that topic itself. I take it you either didn't read the memo, or read the version of the memo with all the references removed (Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, and surely others)
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  "that topic itself" refers to the diversity program, not his Google scholar searches.

mcguire 9y ago

Was Damore "well-meaning but unaware" before his post? Did he, in good faith, attempt to "start a conversation and learn"?

adrianmonk 9y ago

> punished for speaking out It wasn't merely that he spoke out. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Saying "women, on average, have more neuroticism" is not how you start a dialog. It's how you start an argument. Let's not debate whether it was a factual statement, but suffice it to say that "what I said was factual so there's nothing wrong with it!" isn't a defense. There are a million statements that are factual that you don't write down and distribute throughout the whole company. Secondary goals aside, Google's main purpose is to build internet services and make money. If I were Google's management, I'd feel justified in firing him for having the poor judgment to approach things in a way that embroiled the whole company in a fight. The lost productivity alone from the distraction must have been costly to the company. It's possible he was just trying to help, but you don't hire/employ people for good intentions; you do it so they'll be a functioning gear in a bigger machine. If they can't do that, they aren't fulfilling their purpose at the company.

curyous 9y ago
"women, on average, have more neuroticism" is provably true. It's been measured. It's a shame that we can't start a discussion with the truth
- stryk 9y ago
  source? (not trying to be snide or anything, I'm actually curious if there's a source for that)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - waterhouse 9y ago
    For context, one should note that the word "neuroticism" is not used as a regular English word, but is one of the "Big Five" traits in psychology, which comes from factor analysis of personality surveys. Its "definition" would be something like "An underlying quality that correlates with answering 'Agree/Strongly Agree' on these questions and 'Disagree/Strongly Disagree' on those questions". Damore did not note this in his memo, which made the statement more offensive than it should have been. With that established, if we go to Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Age,_sex_and_geographic_patterns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Age,_sex_and_geogr... "A 2013 review found that groups associated with higher levels of neuroticism are young adults who are at high risk for mood disorders and women.[22] For sex, the same review found that "research in large samples has shown that levels of N (neuroticism) are higher in women than men. This is a robust finding that is consistent across cultures. This is especially the case during the reproductive years, but is also visible in children and elderly." It furthermore said that EEG responses showed clear differences between the sexes in individuals with high N levels, but no functional MRI studies have yet been performed to investigate the differences in sex regarding N. However, there is a reason to suspect physiological differences to play a role because of previous studies that showed for example, a correlation between the size of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and N in female teenagers, so "the issue of sex differences in N and the implications for understanding N’s neurobiological basis deserve more detailed and systematic investigation."[22] A 2010 review found personality differences between genders to be between "small and moderate," the largest of those differences being in the traits of agreeableness and neuroticism.[37] Many personality traits were found to have had larger personality differences between men and women in developed countries compared to less developed countries, and differences in three traits—extraversion, neuroticism, and people-versus-thing orientation—showed differences that remained consistent across different levels of economic development, which is also consistent with the "possible influence of biologic factors."[37] Three cross-cultural studies have revealed higher levels of female neuroticism across almost all nations.[37]" The abstracts of both of the cited studies are visible, though the full articles seem to be behind paywalls.

PricelessValue 9y ago

> Then he started retweeting Breitbart articles and selling "Goolag" t-shirts and threw his credibility out the window What does that have to do with his credibility or his arguments? His arguments stand on its own merits. Externalities has no bearing on argument. If he said 1+1=2 and then retweeted a breitbart article, does that mean 1+1 no longer equal 2?

jakelazaroff 9y ago
Given that Breitbart, Stephen Molynieux, etc, all basically support the least charitable interpretation of the memo (that women are genetically less predisposed to engineering), his active association with them makes the claim that the memo was a good-faith attempt to improve diversity rather hard to swallow. Examples: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-conclusions-about-sex-differences-are-largely-correct/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-c... http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why-there-ought-to-be-a-cap-on-women-studying-science-and-maths/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why...
- PricelessValue 9y ago
  > Given that Breitbart, Stephen Molynieux, etc, all basically support the least charitable interpretation of the memo (that women are genetically less predisposed to engineering) So? Are you saying you disagree? Then state your case. > his active association with them makes the claim that the memo was a good-faith attempt to improve diversity rather hard to swallow. Why does it make it hard to swallow? What does damore stating a fact that women being more predisposed to more social careers rather than engineering have anything to do with his stance on diversity? Are you saying that men should be forced out of engineering and women should be forced into it? So should we take over norway, get rid of women's rights and force the norwegian women to go into engineering? > http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-c.. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/14/haidt-google-memo-c.... That link is about an NYU professor who says data and analysis backs up damore's claim. > http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why.. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/heres-why.... A lot of good points there.

PrimHelios 9y ago

>well-meaning Damore cherry-picked Wikipedia articles to claim women are biologically inferior with the intent of causing an uproar, that's not at all "well-meaning". Buried deep, deep down, he had somewhat of a point, but it wasn't at all the point he was trying to argue for.