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What percentage of people publicly criticizing the memo and attacking Damore do you think actually read it in full? Worth noting the first couple outlets (Vice

by banads 6y ago

What percentage of people publicly criticizing the memo and attacking Damore do you think actually read it in full? Worth noting the first couple outlets (Vice, Gizmodo) did not post the full memo when they dropped the story.

acdha 6y ago
Probably as high a percentage as his supporters. Trying to deflect criticism by saying people hadn’t read it was a common way to avoid critically thinking about it, and it became comical when people were making very specific comments which clearly indicated familiarity. I remember someone writing a very detailed critique of the way it was oversold it as based on science despite misrepresenting the scientific consensus[1], and even then you could easily find people saying that the reason she didn’t agree with him was that she hadn’t read it or that buzzfeed published the text first without charts, even when she was discussing the original studies he was claiming as support. 1. https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boots-on-what-the-evidence-says-about-mr-damores-google-memo-bc93c8b2fdb9 https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot...
jlebar 6y ago
How does the fact that people criticized the memo without reading it in full speak to OP's point about the memo having been taken out of context? I'll also suggest, reading this memo was incredibly painful for many of my female colleagues and friends inside and outside of Google. I don't think they should have to read the entire thing carefully in order to have an opinion on it. Indeed, I am not a well-read expert in many schools of thought that I nonetheless object to. > Worth noting the first couple outlets (Vice, Gizmodo) did not post the full memo when they dropped the story. OP's claim was that this was intentional with the goal of creating sensational clickbait. I guess the idea is, the full memo was tamer and, had it not been excerpted, people would not have reacted as strongly. Do you agree with this?
- banads 6y ago
  Yes of course if it had not been excerpted and retitled as "Anti-diversity memo", people would have been less primed to have a knee jerk reaction, or to even click the link in the first place. >How does the fact that people criticized the memo without reading it in full speak to OP's point about the memo having been taken out of context? Because you can't begin to know what someone meant unless you read what they wrote.
  - jlebar 6y ago
    OK, if I'm understanding this right, the argument is that because the document was not initially printed in full (i.e. with figures and citations) in the press (and had inflammatory headlines), many people got the wrong impression about it. That seems like a testable hypothesis. 1. If it were true, I'd expect a significantly higher proportion of Googlers to be on his side than the proportion non-Googlers, since all Googlers had access to the full memo. Is that true? 2. If it were true, I'd expect a significant number of people who ended up reading the whole memo to say, I initially had a negative reaction, but after seeing X specific figure or citation, I changed my mind. Has anyone in this thread said that? If not, why not? (Is your feeling that first impressions are everything, and after that, people's views are ossified past the point of being able to change?)

by banads 6y ago

acdha 6y ago

Probably as high a percentage as his supporters. Trying to deflect criticism by saying people hadn’t read it was a common way to avoid critically thinking about it, and it became comical when people were making very specific comments which clearly indicated familiarity. I remember someone writing a very detailed critique of the way it was oversold it as based on science despite misrepresenting the scientific consensus[1], and even then you could easily find people saying that the reason she didn’t agree with him was that she hadn’t read it or that buzzfeed published the text first without charts, even when she was discussing the original studies he was claiming as support. 1. https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boots-on-what-the-evidence-says-about-mr-damores-google-memo-bc93c8b2fdb9 https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot...

jlebar 6y ago

How does the fact that people criticized the memo without reading it in full speak to OP's point about the memo having been taken out of context? I'll also suggest, reading this memo was incredibly painful for many of my female colleagues and friends inside and outside of Google. I don't think they should have to read the entire thing carefully in order to have an opinion on it. Indeed, I am not a well-read expert in many schools of thought that I nonetheless object to. > Worth noting the first couple outlets (Vice, Gizmodo) did not post the full memo when they dropped the story. OP's claim was that this was intentional with the goal of creating sensational clickbait. I guess the idea is, the full memo was tamer and, had it not been excerpted, people would not have reacted as strongly. Do you agree with this?

banads 6y ago
Yes of course if it had not been excerpted and retitled as "Anti-diversity memo", people would have been less primed to have a knee jerk reaction, or to even click the link in the first place. >How does the fact that people criticized the memo without reading it in full speak to OP's point about the memo having been taken out of context? Because you can't begin to know what someone meant unless you read what they wrote.
- jlebar 6y ago
  OK, if I'm understanding this right, the argument is that because the document was not initially printed in full (i.e. with figures and citations) in the press (and had inflammatory headlines), many people got the wrong impression about it. That seems like a testable hypothesis. 1. If it were true, I'd expect a significantly higher proportion of Googlers to be on his side than the proportion non-Googlers, since all Googlers had access to the full memo. Is that true? 2. If it were true, I'd expect a significant number of people who ended up reading the whole memo to say, I initially had a negative reaction, but after seeing X specific figure or citation, I changed my mind. Has anyone in this thread said that? If not, why not? (Is your feeling that first impressions are everything, and after that, people's views are ossified past the point of being able to change?)