Live data from Hacker News

Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

bloomberg.com

511–520 of 863 posts

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Milo not espousing alt right views? He was employed by Breitbart.

How is Milo not espousing alt right views? He's an active and vocal critic of the Alt-Right. He devoted an entire chapter of his book to criticism of the Alt-Right. Just what views of his would you cite as "Alt-Right?" Can you back those up with quotes? As far as I can tell, he's an amoral opportunist who will stoop to saying vile things, but he's not Alt-Right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blJfibQnTgU He was empl…

I just find it amusing that in a thread about someone who stated maybe all women are genetically less suited to engineering, we are supposed to understand the differences among four or five distinct fringe right-wing ideologies, and refrain from general remarks based on the behaviors of one group or another.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#512
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an untenable charitable reading of Damore’s memo. You don’t “start conversations” and “learn” by drawing conclusions, such as the lack of women in tech can be explained by genetic predispositions. And he wasn’t talking about “changes in vocabulary.” He was attacking core assumptions about what a fair society should look like. If you want to learn, you ask questions. You try to understand the other point of vie…

You strike me as reasonable. I would appreciate if you could answer a couple of questions. 1. If there are indeed biological differences between sexes that could help explain different aptitudes/predispositions for different intellectual pursuits, should it be firable to say so? 2. If boys and men are discriminated against in order to pursue equal outcomes, should they be allowed to voice opposition? I won't challeng…

> If there are indeed biological differences between sexes that could help explain different aptitudes/predispositions for different intellectual pursuits, should it be firable to say so?

First, I'll note that "should it be firable" in the question is a little bit ambiguous. I'm interpreting it as "should a company be allowed to fire an employee for this", and not as "should a company fire an employee over this".

If you believe in at-will employment, then yes. Truth does not protect you from being fired.

I'm not a huge fan of at-will employment in general, but I think even in this context the 1A freedom of association makes it problematic to prevent companies from firing people for their speech. Even truthful speech.

As an individual has the right to speak, without interference from government actors, the employer has the broad right to choose who they associate with. Restricting that right is problematic.

> 2. If boys and men are discriminated against in order to pursue equal outcomes, should they be allowed to voice opposition?

Of course they should be allowed to voice opposition. The government should not interfere with their speech in any way. Further, the government should not discriminate against those individuals based on that speech.

However, as they are allowed to voice their opposition their may be social consequences for doing so. Speech often carries social consequences—some I agree with and some I don't. For me, how appropriate or proportional those social consequences are depend very significantly on the content and tone of the particular voiced opposition and the social response. That makes it somewhat harder to respond to a general question.

You are free to challenge my responses. I'm happy to discuss these ideas.

Some similarly constructed questions I would return:

1. If there are not biological differences between sexes that could help explain different aptitudes/predispositions for different intellectual pursuits—but a coworker asserts that such differences exist, that your sex is the one with less aptitude—could you see how upset employees and applicants of that sex?

2. If women have traditionally been discriminated against in this industry, and a co-worker voices support for this ongoing discrimination in a way that makes them uncomfortable, should they be allowed to complain about that co-worker? Should their complaints be taken seriously?

I similarly won't challenge you if you answer.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#513
Real question: having seen that many good engineers are hesitant to work at a company with very limited diversity, we have endeavored to increase diversity by hiring qualified junior engineers from less represented groups. Is this acceptable?

These are completely qualified folks, for the job of junior engineer. We purposely, from the category of all qualified junior applicants, hired those that also were from less represented groups.

Is this perceived (by “you”, I suppose) as “acceptable”?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an untenable charitable reading of Damore’s memo. You don’t “start conversations” and “learn” by drawing conclusions, such as the lack of women in tech can be explained by genetic predispositions. And he wasn’t talking about “changes in vocabulary.” He was attacking core assumptions about what a fair society should look like. If you want to learn, you ask questions. You try to understand the other point of vie…

You don’t “start conversations” and “learn” by drawing conclusions, such as the lack of women in tech can be explained by genetic predispositions. No, but you can start conversations and learn by asking questions. What silences conversations and prevents learning is a menacing attitude towards to having conversations and asking questions. He was attacking core assumptions about what a fair society should look like. A…

But he wasn't asking questions. The document wasn't an invitation to explain where he was mistaken. By all accounts he was given feedback on his ideas before the final memo went out. In the very text he says that opposition to these ideas demonstrates bias and he therefore dismisses the very idea of being wrong.

This wasn't some intellectual debate.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#515

Reading the comments in this thread is disheartening. It mostly consists of either false claims of what Damore actually said or pre-conceived interpretations of his memo as being anti-diversity without a single, not a single reference to his memo.

My favorite part:

"Men’s higher drive for status

"We always ask why we don't see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life.

"Status is the primary metric that men are judged on4, pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail. Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths."

I pity those poor men, forced into high-paying, high-status, but unsatisfying jobs like programming, management, coal mining, and garbage collection.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. Why are you writing this in the passive, as if this is an unfortunate thing that happened to him? He did all of that to himself. That memo created a hostile workplace and Google had no choice but to fire him. The outcome here isn't terrible, it's exactly what should have happened.

Nope. 100% disagree with you. Nobody should be fired for speaking out and/or starting a meaningful conversation. The opposite is censorship.

> Nobody should be fired for speaking out and/or starting a meaningful conversation

Do you also strongly disagree with the concept of at-will employment?

If not, how do you reconcile the concept of at-will employment with this statement?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am naive it should be perfectly easy to point to where I am wrong. I am not sure what agenda exactly you think I am pushing.

Is this not you? https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/956166173019836416 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/928650370104152065 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/867119704569237505 If someone is parroting a Peter Thiel quote in November of 2017 it's pretty obvious what agenda they are pushing. You, and Damore and so many others, are trying to dress up the regressive status quo as if it's something new, some…

If someone is parroting a Peter Thiel quote in November of 2017 it's pretty obvious what agenda they are pushing.

Whoa, association by identity proves agenda? Can you get anymore witch-hunt than that? (Or have any less intellectual honesty?) I didn't agree with Peter Thiel's position on Trump, and I met one of his "fellows" and was pretty unimpressed. But those 3 quotes are pretty astute in my opinion. They are also fairly innocuous.

You, and Damore and so many others, are trying to dress up the regressive status quo...

If you can't do any better than name-calling, you don't even deserve a response. In fact, if you think you are impressing anyone outside of your echo-chamber instead of doing the exact opposite, then I'm kind of embarrassed for you.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#518
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Milo not espousing alt right views? He's an active and vocal critic of the Alt-Right. He devoted an entire chapter of his book to criticism of the Alt-Right. Just what views of his would you cite as "Alt-Right?" Can you back those up with quotes? As far as I can tell, he's an amoral opportunist who will stoop to saying vile things, but he's not Alt-Right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blJfibQnTgU He was empl…

The leaked emails documenting his correspondence with various alt-right figureheads paints a different picture. https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart...

One suggestion.

Listen to an interview with him and here he present his opinions. He is provocative but mostly just an annoying showman. His harshest stance is on islam which given he is gay seems fairly understandable.

Joe Rogan has a good interview with him (which is the one that got him fired from Breibart.)

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has no agency? He chose to speak up and then he chose to go down the path he did. It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port in a storm of his own making. Allow me to pour out a beaker of Soylent for the poor, downtrodden white man.

I think it's plausible that had the memo not been leaked externally he'd still have his job. In that respect he truly didn't have agency.

I read the memo. There is no way that any normal company would have tolerated something like that being posted on work servers. It was far away from views that normal society tolerates.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore did not specify that all his coworkers were qualified. Damore believed Google lowered the bar, hence the statements I've made explaining how he offended his coworkers. It is reasonable to believe Google _hasn't_ lowered the bar, and if you did, you would be offended by a long document warning about gender-biased consequences of lowering the bar. I'm not sure how productive this thread is. I'm very surprised by…

So I'm not afraid to eat crow when it's due. I've re-read the memo and you're right, in the memo he did not specifically state that everyone was qualified. I must have been thinking about an interview I saw of him. I agree with you that it's reasonable to believe that Google _hasn't_ lowered the bar, but I don't see what difference that makes. There is a very applicable quote here by Albert Maysles, "Tyranny is the d…

The letter does bother me and I would have fired him, but I share some sympathy for having this blow up on a world stage. Is there any good timeline on how that happened? I'm pretty sure the leak (not the firing) is what made it national news... Do we know yet how that happened or how it circulated internally before that?
Post reply on HN