8 ms·

It is an odd thing that a company can on the one hand become known as the one firing an engineer who tried to open an honest discussion on a hot subject like 'g

• topmonk 8y ago
  It's not about a moral compass, it's about attracting top talent. The universities push this ideology, so if you want to get the alumni from the universities to work for you, you have to abide by the tenets.
  • claydavisss 8y ago
    You mean, you have to pretend you abide by the tenets...
  • agumonkey 8y ago
    The limit of profit based entities. Capitalism today but probably as old as humans.
  • nradov 8y ago
    Except that the notion of "top talent" appears to be a myth. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/07/22/the-talent-myth https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/07/22/the-talent-myt...
    • vertline3 8y ago
      Interesting link, I just skimmed it but I don't think it quite showed top talent is a myth, but rather that our ways of measuring that talent is flawed, this syncs up with ideas from Moneyball as well. We know that pitching is a talent, but we struggle to project who will be the future star due to our preconcieved biases. So in the story they found a stronger correlation between tacit knowledge than simply IQ for instance.
• paraditedc 8y ago
  Re [2]: https://paraditedc.com/2018/09/30/pdc-2-social-credit-system/ https://paraditedc.com/2018/09/30/pdc-2-social-credit-system... Disclaimer: I wrote the post.
• nova22033 8y ago
  >because that engineer was deemed to lack a moral compass Did Google say he was fired because he lacked a moral compass?
  • moduspol 8y ago
    Did they actually fire him for the reason they said?
    • late2part 8y ago
      So far, legally, yes.
• pimmen 8y ago
  The cost of firing the dev was whatever he could claim in a wrongful termination suit. Which is, what, millions of dollars? The benefit of firing him is that you appease the devs of the future who demand that their company take a stand on divisive issues. The opportunity cost of not getting in on the Chinese market by being complicit in human rights abuses is in the billions, and possibly some direct costs if you generate badwill (so, let's add the cost of keeping up a farce for the employees just to be thorough, which is probably in the millions). As long as you keep everyone in the dark about what you're doing you can reap the benefits.
  • creaghpatr 8y ago
    Opp cost could be even higher. If a Chinese company builds the next great (censored) search engine, they could turn around and launch an uncensored version in the US, challenging Google's monopoly on de-listing 'hate speech' in search. Would be ironic, but only as ironic as Google launching a search engine in China.
    • brandmeyer 8y ago
      > they could turn around and launch an uncensored version in the US It is far more likely for such a competitor to turn around and launch a censored version in the US, just changing the censorship criteria. Can you imagine the impact of a partnership between the Murdoch empire and a search engine with ideological censorship built-in?
    • plasticchris 8y ago
      It's poor justification for evil that someone else might do it.
  • repolfx 8y ago
    The cost of firing Damore was much, much higher than that. It sent a message to the entire world that Google is staffed by extremists who systematically cannot be trusted to provide unbiased services or search results for anything involving women or feminism. It caught the attention of conservative politicians. It killed dead the idea that Google is run by logical, data driven people (as Damore's memo was basically a big pile of data and studies), and judging from what my friends who still work there think, it created huge cynicism in the developer workforce too. It very much did not "appease the devs" unless you are naive enough to believe that Damore is some outlier in disliking diversity programmes in tech firms.
• grey-area 8y ago
  firing an engineer who tried to open an honest discussion on a hot subject like 'gender discrimination' That's not an accurate summary of Damore's motives, or the reasons for firing him. on the other hand bending over backwards to assist an oppressive - but lucrative - dictatorship in implementing a real-life version of Oceania's Ingsoc Corporations are amoral by design. So I don't find this odd at all, but is an incredibly dangerous development.
  • drakenot 8y ago
    That's not an accurate summary of Damore's motives, or the reasons for firing him. What is then?
    • jbob2000 8y ago
      I really think he was just a naive, young guy who perhaps was motivated by "being correct" and "logical" over more pragmatic ways of living and socializing. He was fired because a bunch of right wing nut jobs started attaching themselves to him (and by proxy, google) and the last thing Google wants is their name attached to these people, so they threw the baby out with the bath water.
      • djschnei 8y ago
        Who are the rightwing nutjobs? Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin?
        • jbob2000 8y ago
          The first people that approached him were the guys from Project Veritas, veritably right wing nut jobs. Joe Rogan has a libertarian slant, and while not a right wing nut job himself, he does have a large right wing following who definitely appreciated hearing from Damore. And here's your boy Dave Rubin: "In an interview in March 2018, Rubin said he would vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election if a progressive like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Gavin Newsom is running against him.[29] Rubin also characterized President Trump as a political moderate, saying "he's a Democrat in a lot of ways", and spoke favorably of Trump's cuts in government regulations.[30]". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Rubin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Rubin
• digitalzombie 8y ago
  > It is an odd thing that a company can on the one hand become known as the one firing an engineer who tried to open an honest discussion on a hot subject like 'gender discrimination' because that engineer was deemed to lack a moral compass It wasn't an open honest discussion. He wrote some memo and it was pass around the Google until some people found out and got offended. If he wanted an honest discussion he shouldn't be passing notes around like it's highschool. The memo apparently ended up being pass by more and more people. That's not how you approach this or many topics that are sensitive. I think his lack of common sense and clarity screwed him over really. This is my understanding base on this article: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzbm4a/employees-anti-diversity-manifesto-goes-internally-viral-at-google https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzbm4a/employees-... Gizmodo have the full letter: https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320/amp https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di... This is before we even approach this sensitive topic, regardless how anybody feel about it, he have already messed it up from the get go.
  • dx87 8y ago
    He didn't pass around a memo like a highschool student, he posted it on an internal message board that was created as a place for employees to write about controversial topics.
    • digitalzombie 8y ago
      Do you have a source for that? Because I've sourced my stuffs and showed how I base my discussion and form my thoughts on my subject with those sources. If I am wrong I would like to learn from it. Otherwise just posting this means I have to take your word for it without any evidence and I don't do that.
      • explainplease 8y ago
        You read one article about it, and now you're demanding that he feed you links? You're on the Internet. Google is the topic of discussion. If you cared about the truth as much as you claim, you would do your own homework and seek out your own sources. I guess you really are a digital zombie.
• UncleMeat 8y ago
  Damore's memo had asides about cultural marxism and claimed that the expected opposition to his post would prove that he was right about political correctness. Although he cited research, he made conclusions based on that research that were not derived from the evidence. Damore might have considered it an "honest" discussion from his perspective, but there was no chance that it was actually an even handed analysis. The memo was poisoned by his words from the start.
  • skgoa 8y ago
    I completely agree with that criticism, but that's still not grounds for just firing him and for certain parts of the media branding him a misogynist.
  • repolfx 8y ago
    Which conclusions, exactly? He claimed that writing the memo would put his career at risk because left wing opponents would attempt to purge him. In fact the memo wasn't even primarily about gender, it was about anti-conservative bias at Google. This claim was proven entirely correct by what happened next. The reason he used the phrase "cultural Marxists" is because Marxists have historically relied heavily on purging institutions or ideological opponents, suppression of speech, insistence on conformity and relentless lying about people they dislike. Given that all these things have happened to Damore it appears to be an apt analogy.
• LiterallyDoge 8y ago
  Aren't these consistent? They're both just a large corporation censoring things it doesn't like.
• clubm8 8y ago
  They're neoliberals. It makes perfect sense. They're liberal on social issues, conservative on econ/foreign policy issues. Examining their actions through this lens makes everything clear. To give an example outside technology, think of prisons - largely staffed by and filled with men. A democratic socialist or a libertarian would want to close prisons. A neoliberal wants the prison to hire more female guards.
  • n4r9 8y ago
    Isn't the simpler explanation that they want to make as much money as possible? Firing Damore saves their reputation and having a good reputation is key to making money. Expanding into China opens up huge opportunities for making money.
    • clubm8 8y ago
      >Isn't the simpler explanation that they want to make as much money as possible? Yes, as I said, they're neoliberals ;)
  • beaconstudios 8y ago
    I want to agree with this, but social progressivism isn't associated with neoliberalism in my mind. I thought neoliberals were socially classical liberals (freedom of spsech/markets/association/etc)? I always thought of the predominant startup politics to be a crony capitalism/social progressivism mashup. Either way, I laughed.
    • clubm8 8y ago
      >I want to agree with this, but social progressivism isn't associated with neoliberalism in my mind. I thought neoliberals were socially classical liberals (freedom of spsech/markets/association/etc)? I think it depends how you define social progressivism. They buy into basic tenets - for example, gay marriage. Basically, progressive when displayed alongside a far right party.
      • 8y ago
• oconnor663 8y ago
  > who tried to open an honest discussion I mean, that's precisely what people disagreed on. One side thinks his way is the best and most obvious way of getting to the truth, and the other side thinks he's a deliberate provocateur who's loose with his facts. There's nothing wrong with being on a side, but at the same time we shouldn't paper over that it is A Side.
  • repolfx 8y ago
    Damore clearly wanted an open and honest discussion, which is why he wrote so politely and provided citations for all his arguments. The resulting meltdown and repetitive lying about his memo just goes to show how right he is. Nobody has successfully defeated his arguments which aren't even complicated, they're obvious and common sense. Instead they just try to shoot the messenger.
    • oconnor663 8y ago
      > which is why he wrote so politely This is kicking the can down the road on noticing the disagreement. Some people think he wrote in a perfectly reasonable, rational way. Other people think he wrote in a deliberately provocative way, to cause a stir. It's certainly possible to use polite-sounding language in deliberately provocative ways. Just to go with the most extreme possible example, if I wrote an article about any conceivable version of "was the Holocaust really as bad as people say?", it wouldn't be enough to just word the whole thing politely. I'd have to be extremely considerate of my audience audience to write something like that, and of the real world context in which my audience was going to read the article, and what it would mean in light of their experiences. My motivations for choosing that topic would be under intense scrutiny, since everyone has heard heard similar-sounding things before from horrible people. If I'm not extraordinarily considerate about those things, I'm either an idiot, or I'm deliberately causing trouble. Anyone can see that, right? Some people feel that way about Damore's arguments. They feel the content is inherently hurtful, such that starting an "even-keeled, rational-sounding debate" about it is inherently rude, at least without doing a lot of work to acknowledge the feelings context. And then obviously lots of other people feel differently. That's a big disagreement, and you don't have to be an insane person to be on either side of it.
• nashashmi 8y ago
  If the denominator you are looking at is morality, then those actions are at odds. But as others have said, the common denominators are profit, social credits, employee demands (only a few people resigned b/c of the china initiative), suppression of individual opinions and elevation of collective opinions, corporate leadership, corporate power, innovation and culture that leads to innovation, etc. Anyone else care to identify other parallels between these two actions?