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Maybe it's okay for people to be outraged about some things.
But is it okay to campaign towards the goal of firing someone for expressing an opinion they feel outraged about?
Following this logic, any who express such ideas to others should be sanctioned as if they committed physical violence.
It's no great stretch to find examples through history of this in different social contexts.
It's interesting to note that the only reason this is a news story is because "a Google engineer" wrote it. If the essay had been published entirely anonymously, then it would have attracted no attention at all, like a dozen similar essays. The story is the source, not the content.
The story is not "a Google engineer wrote it". The story is "a large fraction of Google circulated and endorsed it". That's what makes this news.
It's interesting to note that the only reason this is a news story is because "a Google engineer" wrote it. If the essay had been published entirely anonymously, then it would have attracted no attention at all, like a dozen similar essays. The story is the source, not the content.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/1...
Justin Keller was a nobody.
I mean, what this person wrote, I heard it on various occasions in different formulations from various people. Even a woman (a Psychologist student at that time) once told me she'd rather have a male dentist and a male president.
I imagine tech industry to be brutal for woman, but so are probably a lot of other areas like construction works, virtually anything with hand-labour involved, not to speak about the military.
Anyways, it's great that people in the tech industry speak what they think. Maybe things change faster this way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The story is not "a Google engineer wrote it". The story is "a large fraction of Google circulated and endorsed it". That's what makes this news.
Have there been any articles / pieces about it from women working at Google? I'd be interested in hearing that perspective.
Maybe it's okay for people to be outraged about some things.
Sure is! People can be offended all they want. Where things get really iffy is when they want 'justice'. It often means that they try to get that person fired or lambasted in front of their peers. I don't see how that's at all constructive, let alone 'justice'. At the very least, it leads to even more divisiveness, instead of rational discussion. As a thought experiment: have you ever seen someone change their mind o…
As someone who forms opinions, I care more about the argument than how poorly it was argued. Is it biased, or even racist or sexist, of me to have such a view?
Edit: I wish the author of this piece sounded less frightened.
What happens when the lone voice is in the right, and the mass of people are in the wrong, and all of the preponderance of current science and wisdom is against the lone voice? It's no great stretch to find examples through history of this in different social contexts.
Maybe it's okay for people to be outraged about some things.
But is it okay to campaign towards the goal of firing someone for expressing an opinion they feel outraged about?
It depends what the opinion is, and what job the person holds, and the relationship between those two things. The idea that the coercive power of government should not be deployed against expression doesn't mean all ideas or equal or that there are never conditions where expression should have negative consequences.
(In fact, any answer to your question implies that there are ideas that are unacceptable to express.)