James Damore and three others end Google suit • Hacker News Board

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#271

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

pinkfoot wrote: post #253

door99 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the fact that most programmers used to be women! The problem is that our community isn’t very friendly or welcoming to women. How can we make that cultural change?

> The problem is that our community isn’t very friendly or welcoming to women Be precise, how is your community not friendly to women in ways you cannot fix in five minutes? If its obvious, its trivial to list them, if its subtle then its worth doing the exercise. We have to accept they may just not want the gig. Just like most men don't go into pre-school teaching.

> Be precise, how is your community not friendly to women in ways you cannot fix in five minutes?

Techbros. Techbros everywhere. It's not what people want to hear, most people would love it if the field and the educational pipeline leading to it had more professional norms all-around. But it's a real thing. (FWIW, I don't think of Damore as part of the problem, indeed his proposals would help a lot if widely adopted.)

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#272

Post by rbanffy » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #103

duxup wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious what the agreement is if only because it didn't seem like he had much in the way of a strong with case.

Are you serious? He was fired for his political views.

Is sexism a political view?

Edit: burn, karma, burn

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#273

Post by ak39 » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #247

coldtea wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for being politically insufferable In other words for hurting their bottom line by demanding Google be better (each in their preferred way) for society and its employees?

> In other words for hurting their bottom line by demanding Google be better (each in their preferred way) for society and its employees? Yes? If I hired someone to clean my apartment and instead of cleaning my apartment he or she spent the whole time writing up long diatribes demanding that I be better, per his or her understanding, for society and my employees you can bet I would not be hiring that cleaner again!

Let's continue with your cleaner analogy:

You hired the cleaner to clean. They do their job as per agreement. You are satisfied and so are they. Then one day they find out that in addition to cleaning normal office mess, they are now cleaning blood. Blood from victims of the company's activities. Should they remain ignorant of the company's real societal impact? Should they voice their opinions to fellow cleaners? Should they take advantage of the purported freedom to speak their minds their companies advertised during their hiring?

Life rarely offers us an easy black or white judgment on complex realities.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#274

Post by LurkersWillLurk » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

jacobmoe wrote: post #229

gameswithgo wrote: post #174

Google has fired a few people, liberal and conservative, for being politically insufferable. Multiple people in the news about this on various places in political spectrum. It doesn’t mean they were wrong.

There's been endless discussion about Damore. In particular podcasts you'd think that the firing of a random engineer at Google ranked alongside 9/11 as a defining event in modern history. If I circulated a memo to my co-workers that not only opposed a new policy from management, but did obvious harm to the expressed intent of that policy, I might be fired. It doesn't matter if the memo I circulated would have gotten…

I can't tell if you're trying to say that a policy from management is beyond all reproach or if "these things just happen in the real world". Either way, the former shouldn't be true and the latter should be wrong. Of course, correctness doesn't stop anyone from being terminated, but that's not the point.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#275

Post by crowbahr » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

convery wrote: post #231

ekianjo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to consider the possibility that they were the only people who he could actually talk to. Not that he wanted to be in such channels in the first place.

My first thought as well. You see liberals invited onto conservative outlets for genuine debates / opinions. Rarely see liberal outlets do the same as guilt by association, causing anyone who's ever been in the same room as an 'alt-right' to be tainted, seem to be rampant.

Most news agencies besides Fox struggle to get Republicans to agree to appear on the show.

CNN famously lambasted Republican lawmakers for refusing to appear after the shootings in Dayton and El Paso last year.

What you have described is that liberal lawmakers are willing to face adversarial news coverage while conservatives are unwilling to do so.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#276

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

Smaug123 wrote: post #140

Would it be too much to ask that we collectively say "The Damore thing is obviously a [scissor statement]( https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ ), on which otherwise-reasonable people bafflingly manage to hold different views very strongly, and we should stop talking about it forthwith because no good can come of it"? Nothing new can be said on the subject, vanishingly few people can be persua…

I think it would be much more valuable to address why it works as a scissor statement. The fact that it does is obvious in the debate, but it's unclear why/how it does that.

I wonder how much of it comes from people first seeing opinionated reporting, misleading excerpts, or edited versions (one of the key statements - that differences in populations cannot be applied to make decisions about individuals - was part of a diagram [1] that was missing in initial leaks), or not having seen it at all.

However, I believe it acts as a scissor statement even for people who started by reading the full version, which is extremely interesting, and which I'd love to understand.

[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideo... page 4 top

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#277

Post by XorNot » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

alexpetralia wrote: post #142

magic5227 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there any evidence that would convince you that interests can diverge, independent of society (nurture)? Your argument relies on the assumption (yes, an assumption, not evidence) that society exclusively determines our interests. You do not admit a role for biology. There is little scientific evidence that supports this view.

Is there any evidence (say, the numerous studies on this very topic) that would convince you that the pipeline of many careers has systemic discriminatory effects driving particular genders and races out of those fields?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#278

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

spangry wrote: post #238

mabbo wrote: post #184

Damore committed the ultimate sin in the corporate world- he caused a huge PR mess. Let's set aside the content of his memo (I personally don't agree with what he said) and just appreciate that he made a mess. As has been said before, if your CEO learns your name for the same reason he has to end his vacation early, you probably should start polishing up your resume.

If making a mess is what gets you fired, shouldn't google have gone after whoever leaked the memo, instead of Damore?

They are likely a) harder to find b) firing Damore is more likely to satisfy the loudest group while firing the leaker is going to rile them up more.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#279

Post by NullPrefix » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

muglug wrote: post #67

look_lookatme wrote: post #12

Damore does not fit into the neat ideological right or left classification but it would be impossible for an institution like Bloomberg to have nuance on this issue. Just because some deplorable lifted him up doesn't mean he should be defined specifically on an ideological axis. But, of course, who gives a fuck. The rage machine rages on.

He chose to appear on at least one show that routinely promotes white-nationalist talking points – I don't think his politics is really much of a question.

White nationalist as in kkk or white nationalist as in conservative?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#280

Post by dirtydroog » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #83

ergothus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

Would you hire someone who was really good at something but hated doing it?