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James Damore and three others end Google suit

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Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#151

Post by JSavageOne »

ergothus wrote: post #56
daenz wrote: post #16

I remember at a previous job, a female engineer talking to other engineers when the Damore story broke. She said "I can't believe he said that women can't be good engineers" and indicated he deserved to be fired. As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all , but even making the distinction makes you one of "them" and politicizes the workplace. It's just dis…

> As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all, As someone that also read it, those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying. A facade of misrepresented psuedoscience doesnt change the intent, motivation, or reality.

> but that is very much what he was saying

No it's not. Nowhere in the paper did he say that women can't become good engineers. You're literally defaming his work. Either support your accusation with evidence, or don't comment.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#152

Post by FeepingCreature »

hckr_news wrote: post #116
jashmatthews wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He skipped over classical liberal and very quickly gave interviews to prominent alt-right figures like Stefan Molyneaux.

He also tweeted during the middle of this, "The KKK is horrible and I don't support them in any way, but can we admit that their internal title names are cool, e.g. 'Grand Wizard'?" So... shrugs

I mean.

He's not wrong.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#153

Post by FeepingCreature »

exogeny wrote: post #60
daenz wrote: post #16

I remember at a previous job, a female engineer talking to other engineers when the Damore story broke. She said "I can't believe he said that women can't be good engineers" and indicated he deserved to be fired. As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all , but even making the distinction makes you one of "them" and politicizes the workplace. It's just dis…

This view to me is just as tone deaf at Damore's piece itself. Whether or not you agree or disagree, it clearly had an impact of making a very large and significant segment of female employees at Google feel as if they were biologically inferior or otherwise not suited to do their jobs. You can sit here and say "Oh, that's nuts, that's not what he said" - but you're also not hearing the same internalized misogyny and…

I'd say the reporting about Damore had a larger impact than Damore ever did.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#154

Post by ralfd »

ergothus wrote: post #107
koheripbal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so disappointing to read this. I don't see how his thesis of "everyone needs to be treated by their individual merits because personal variances grossly outweigh any gender bias" can be interpreted as sexist. He was literally preaching for equality. His point was that affirmative action programs do companies a disservice by making minority/women employees seem like they didn't get there through their own merit,…

Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confi…

> Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence.

I'm sceptic to this claim because discriminatory and derogatory behavior in medicine or law are much more widespread. And female students flock to these professions.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#155

Post by waheoo »

jashmatthews wrote: post #92
look_lookatme wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what he said. He said on average women do not prefer the field, and optimizing to change that observable fact is a fool's errand. I don't have an opinion on whether he's right or wrong but I don't think he shouldn't be able to make that argument...

> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate Damore deliberately chose to cast doubt on whether the women Google hired were as good as the men. Otherwise, it's easier and less controversial to just argue that any form of discrimination is wrong.

It doesnt cast doubt though..

You cant have so much more women than the rest of the industry without that being true. There literally is not enough women coming through engineering schools to allow for that without you a) discriminating against men based on sex, and b) lowering the bar for women.

There is no doubt. It is a mathematical given.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#156

Post by BubRoss »

unnouinceput wrote: post #86
olivermarks wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly...

...And we quietly read and comment on HN

I hope you aren't trying to make some sort of point about hypocrisy here. No one here is claiming they are posting on a public forum "quietly".

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#157

Post by james_s_tayler »

joelhoffman wrote: post #122
amazingman wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an oddly paternalistic point of view.

People do form a lot of their personalities as small children, after all.

It also has a large genetic component at the same time.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#158

Post by bobmcbobface »

magic5227 wrote: post #112
manigandham wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the summary is that men and women have different interests (in average across billions) which creates a tendency to choose different professions. This division is even more pronounced in the most egalitarian and free societies. Lack of interest in a subject does not mean a lack of capability.

If a society tells a woman she's not likely as interested in something, guess what profession she is more likely to choose? Not the one she's being told she won't be happy with.

Seriously, who in society is doing this?

20 years ago there was a lot less of a push for women in tech and you actually did hear lots of people espouse this view, now the programmes and encouragement is everywhere and the social cost of a different view is your job.

What is being argued and and what is happening don't seem to correlate.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#159

Post by dang »

alexis_fr wrote: post #139

The James Damore affair made me realize that women and defenders of women are highly bad faithed, and I hadn’t noticed before how much women were incompetent. Before that I used to believe we were on a level playing field. After that I noticed that women are aggressively defended and despite that, it has been a century that they didn’t succeed. I clearly don’t want to work with women anymore, and since I’ve started o…

You can't post like this here. No more of this, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#160

Post by sullyj3 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #59
streamingvac wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My coworkers have no problem discussing Donald trump and republicans. They laugh about our president a lot. Yet when I bring up the Chinese government, silence could be heard.

Are they discussing politics or bonding over their contempt of Trump? Those are quite different things.

I despise Trump, but claiming that talking about his shortcomings is an apolitical conversation is totally disingenuous. Politics isn't this bloodless process of determining the best policies by rational debate, as much we'd like it to be. Politics, as often as not, consists entirely of making the other team look bad, to raise the relative status of your own team. That's just how humans operate.
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