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Neither of those makes you alt right. You'll find absolute free speech advocates on both the left and the right. It's more of a libertarian/authoritarian issue

Neither of those makes you alt right. You'll find absolute free speech advocates on both the left and the right. It's more of a libertarian/authoritarian issue than a left/right issue. Only extremists on the left would disagree that sex differences are partially/fully biological (depending on how you're defining biological and sex).

philwelch 8y ago
> Only extremists on the left would disagree that sex differences are partially/fully biological (depending on how you're defining biological and sex). Unfortunately, there were enough “extremists” to get both Larry Summers and James Damore fired.
- sagarm 8y ago
  Summers and Damore exercised their first amendment right to free speech. Their employers decided they did not want to deal with the entirely predictable controversy both caused and exercised their first amendment right to freedom of association. Seems like the first amendment is intact to me.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    > Summers and Damore exercised their first amendment right to free speech. Since the government had no part in what happened to them, this is true in a trivial sense. However, it does not support whatever argument you are trying to make. > ... first amendment right to freedom of association People like to trot this out as an defense but they forget that freedom of association is not unlimited precisely because of its use in the past for discrimination. (Deeply ironic, is it not?) For example, the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Fair Housing Act of 1968 restrict freedom of association in that they require businesses and landlords / property sellers to serve people in protected classes in a fair manner. Some states even already offer limited protection from employers who discriminate against political affiliation; see, for example http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=1101 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection... .
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  I'm unfamiliar with Larry Summers, but Damore wasn't just claiming that there were biological differences between the sexes. He was also claiming that those biological differences made women less suited to work in technology and leadership related positions.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Having read Damore’s memo, that’s categorically false, but of course he was smeared as having said that.
    - wilsonnb3 8y ago
      Having also read Damore's memo, it's not categorically false. His stance was that women are, on average, more cooperative, more prone to anxiety, and less driven by status than men. He says that those traits explain the gender gap in tech employment because the current tech culture is high stress, requires long hours and hard work, and is highly competitive. In other words, women are (on average) less suited to work in technology and leadership positions because of their biologically determined personality traits.
      - philwelch 8y ago
        The overall conclusion, which I seem to recall Damore taking great pains to clarify, is that individual women who happen to be competitive, driven, and resilient to stress can and do thrive in the tech industry, while individual men who lack those traits can and do struggle, but the differing distribution of those traits across the entire population will affect population-level statistics even absent overt discrimination. Rounding that off to "women are less suited to work in tech" is completely dishonest, because there was never any claim that each and every woman is less suited for the tech industry than a man. A more accurate summary would be, "fewer women are suited to work in tech".

philwelch 8y ago

> Only extremists on the left would disagree that sex differences are partially/fully biological (depending on how you're defining biological and sex). Unfortunately, there were enough “extremists” to get both Larry Summers and James Damore fired.

sagarm 8y ago
Summers and Damore exercised their first amendment right to free speech. Their employers decided they did not want to deal with the entirely predictable controversy both caused and exercised their first amendment right to freedom of association. Seems like the first amendment is intact to me.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  > Summers and Damore exercised their first amendment right to free speech. Since the government had no part in what happened to them, this is true in a trivial sense. However, it does not support whatever argument you are trying to make. > ... first amendment right to freedom of association People like to trot this out as an defense but they forget that freedom of association is not unlimited precisely because of its use in the past for discrimination. (Deeply ironic, is it not?) For example, the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Fair Housing Act of 1968 restrict freedom of association in that they require businesses and landlords / property sellers to serve people in protected classes in a fair manner. Some states even already offer limited protection from employers who discriminate against political affiliation; see, for example http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=1101 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection... .
wilsonnb3 8y ago
I'm unfamiliar with Larry Summers, but Damore wasn't just claiming that there were biological differences between the sexes. He was also claiming that those biological differences made women less suited to work in technology and leadership related positions.
- philwelch 8y ago
  Having read Damore’s memo, that’s categorically false, but of course he was smeared as having said that.
  - wilsonnb3 8y ago
    Having also read Damore's memo, it's not categorically false. His stance was that women are, on average, more cooperative, more prone to anxiety, and less driven by status than men. He says that those traits explain the gender gap in tech employment because the current tech culture is high stress, requires long hours and hard work, and is highly competitive. In other words, women are (on average) less suited to work in technology and leadership positions because of their biologically determined personality traits.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      The overall conclusion, which I seem to recall Damore taking great pains to clarify, is that individual women who happen to be competitive, driven, and resilient to stress can and do thrive in the tech industry, while individual men who lack those traits can and do struggle, but the differing distribution of those traits across the entire population will affect population-level statistics even absent overt discrimination. Rounding that off to "women are less suited to work in tech" is completely dishonest, because there was never any claim that each and every woman is less suited for the tech industry than a man. A more accurate summary would be, "fewer women are suited to work in tech".