5 ms·

What you are describing is the motte. What happened to James Damore was the bailey. Did he fail a critical vibe check / badly fail to read the room? Sure. Give

What you are describing is the motte. What happened to James Damore was the bailey. Did he fail a critical vibe check / badly fail to read the room? Sure. Given the political climate I'm not surprised he was fired. But is everyone already forgetting what things were like?

rbanffy 2y ago
> Given the political climate I'm not surprised he was fired. He was fired because he placed himself in a position where at least half the company would refuse to work with him.
- xyzzy123 2y ago
  Not disagreeing with you. It didn't matter if he was wrong or right, his mistake was entertaining the notion that people would entertain an earnest (if misguided) discussion when in fact that whole topic was taboo.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    Questioning the status quo is very different from drawing conclusions the way he did. It should never be taboo to question whether DEI practices are fulfilling their goals or harming other metrics.
    - lazide 2y ago
      It definitely has been taboo to have that discussion for many, many years.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    The topic is not "taboo". In an organization where compensation is based on non-anonymous peer review, you cannot have a person going around with their thesis that women are objectively inferior engineers. That person has to be fired (directly into the sun, when practical).
    - badc0ffee 2y ago
      > you cannot have a person going around with their thesis that women are objectively inferior engineers Did you read his memo[1]? That's not really what he's saying. He's ham-handedly trying to look for reasons that explain the gender gap in engineering. His thesis is that fewer women want to do that kind of work than men, not that those who do take the job are worse at it. > That person has to be fired (directly into the sun, when practical). Meow! [1] https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Damore.pdf https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/...
      - jeffbee 2y ago
        His "memo" is a self-serving retcon of real events, which conveniently (for him) elides most of the insane things he said internally on mailing lists, Google+ posts, and in person.
    - Amezarak 2y ago
      Damore was very clear that he did not believe women are objectively inferior engineers. What should we take away from the fact that so many repeat something he did not say and did not mean, and what should we do with people who misrepresent someone's easily accessible views? In fact, he thought it was so important that people understood that he was not saying this that near the beginning of his memo, he posted an image of two overlapping normal distributions that makes his point (wrong or right) very clear. I think the fact that people have to resort to misunderstanding and misleading about what people like him say is very telling about the "religious" status of these beliefs. You see the same type of apologetics when Christians try to attack atheism. NB: This post is not an endorsement of anything Damore said.
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      > their thesis that women are objectively inferior engineers This is not even remotely what the memo said. The thesis of the memo is that not every gender disparity is due to bias or discrimination, and that directives to achieve equitable outcomes run a real risk of causing discrimination. If someone said that men make up 90% of murder convictions not because the courts and police are biased against men, but because men commit 90% of murders, is that sexist against men?
- mistermann 2y ago
  Is this based on a quote from management? How did they measure who didn't want to work with him, did they survey the entire company?
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    Considering he more or less said women are less intelligent than men, I would guess at least about half were very offended.
    - toomim 2y ago
      No, he didn't say that. Don't misquote.
      - rbanffy 2y ago
        He posited that women might be less inclined towards programming due to inherent traits, such as being more people-oriented, suggesting that biological and psychological differences between men and women might explain the underrepresentation of women in tech. So, maybe, not less intelligent, but, maybe, a poorer fit for a software engineer position than a person less "people oriented" and, therefore, that a lot of the women working as software engineers at Google were hired over more fitting men, because they were women.
        dekhn 2y ago
        Arguing about the meaning of what Damore wrote, and what he thought/intended, is a huge waste of time. Just about everybody who read it comes to a different interpretation of what he meant to imply. Then folks argue endlessly (on forums like this, memegen, elsewhere) about their different interpretations. A better writer with more experience could have written a doc that was basically "some aspects of the training in our DEI classes is not scientifically supported, but is being used as a cudgel to change people's behavior" with a few examples.
        2y ago

rbanffy 2y ago

> Given the political climate I'm not surprised he was fired. He was fired because he placed himself in a position where at least half the company would refuse to work with him.

xyzzy123 2y ago
Not disagreeing with you. It didn't matter if he was wrong or right, his mistake was entertaining the notion that people would entertain an earnest (if misguided) discussion when in fact that whole topic was taboo.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  Questioning the status quo is very different from drawing conclusions the way he did. It should never be taboo to question whether DEI practices are fulfilling their goals or harming other metrics.
  - lazide 2y ago
    It definitely has been taboo to have that discussion for many, many years.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  The topic is not "taboo". In an organization where compensation is based on non-anonymous peer review, you cannot have a person going around with their thesis that women are objectively inferior engineers. That person has to be fired (directly into the sun, when practical).
  - badc0ffee 2y ago
    > you cannot have a person going around with their thesis that women are objectively inferior engineers Did you read his memo[1]? That's not really what he's saying. He's ham-handedly trying to look for reasons that explain the gender gap in engineering. His thesis is that fewer women want to do that kind of work than men, not that those who do take the job are worse at it. > That person has to be fired (directly into the sun, when practical). Meow! [1] https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Damore.pdf https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/...
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      His "memo" is a self-serving retcon of real events, which conveniently (for him) elides most of the insane things he said internally on mailing lists, Google+ posts, and in person.
  - Amezarak 2y ago
    Damore was very clear that he did not believe women are objectively inferior engineers. What should we take away from the fact that so many repeat something he did not say and did not mean, and what should we do with people who misrepresent someone's easily accessible views? In fact, he thought it was so important that people understood that he was not saying this that near the beginning of his memo, he posted an image of two overlapping normal distributions that makes his point (wrong or right) very clear. I think the fact that people have to resort to misunderstanding and misleading about what people like him say is very telling about the "religious" status of these beliefs. You see the same type of apologetics when Christians try to attack atheism. NB: This post is not an endorsement of anything Damore said.
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    > their thesis that women are objectively inferior engineers This is not even remotely what the memo said. The thesis of the memo is that not every gender disparity is due to bias or discrimination, and that directives to achieve equitable outcomes run a real risk of causing discrimination. If someone said that men make up 90% of murder convictions not because the courts and police are biased against men, but because men commit 90% of murders, is that sexist against men?
mistermann 2y ago
Is this based on a quote from management? How did they measure who didn't want to work with him, did they survey the entire company?
- rbanffy 2y ago
  Considering he more or less said women are less intelligent than men, I would guess at least about half were very offended.
  - toomim 2y ago
    No, he didn't say that. Don't misquote.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      He posited that women might be less inclined towards programming due to inherent traits, such as being more people-oriented, suggesting that biological and psychological differences between men and women might explain the underrepresentation of women in tech. So, maybe, not less intelligent, but, maybe, a poorer fit for a software engineer position than a person less "people oriented" and, therefore, that a lot of the women working as software engineers at Google were hired over more fitting men, because they were women.
      - dekhn 2y ago
        Arguing about the meaning of what Damore wrote, and what he thought/intended, is a huge waste of time. Just about everybody who read it comes to a different interpretation of what he meant to imply. Then folks argue endlessly (on forums like this, memegen, elsewhere) about their different interpretations. A better writer with more experience could have written a doc that was basically "some aspects of the training in our DEI classes is not scientifically supported, but is being used as a cudgel to change people's behavior" with a few examples.
        2y ago