Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

James Damore and three others end Google suit

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#461

Post by searchableguy »

DonHopkins wrote: post #431
searchableguy wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have time to go through all of that. Evan emails seem like nothing burger. Sorry, have you ever met college students or even school students? Both girls and boys. Because they all call each other names, fat/bitch/slut shaming is done more by other girls to girls than boys. Again, only saw emails. Even then, all of that seems more outlier than any programming community. Not everyone is a billionaire programmer…

Why would I "please show you" anything after you just proudly announced that you didn't bother reading what I just finished showing you? If you wanted to make a stronger argument, you should at least pretend to have read what you're glibly dismissing out of hand, instead of preemptively admitting that you don't bother reading what anyone else says, and that there's no point in replying to you. HN is not a forum for a…

I did read through it hence the criticism but I didn't go past the Evan Spielberg and Mark Zuckerberg articles. If someone writes an article based on the emails, you would look at the emails because they are the source.

Why should I bother reading opinion of a writer when I can look at the source?

If your first few links don't show the problem, people wouldn't be willing to put in effort. I thought that was obvious.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#462

Post by ashtonkem »

ekianjo wrote: post #219
azinman2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he did become an alt-right / Fox News / conservative machine darling.

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.

Possible, but he also didn’t have to go on TV with them. You can’t go on a TV channel repeatedly and then try to pretend that it doesn’t affect your reputation in one way or another.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#463

Post by JSavageOne »

ravenstine wrote: post #439
JSavageOne wrote: post #408

It's annoying that Bloomberg refers to the memo as being "political" and expressing "political conservatism". The memo was attempting to explain the underrepresentation of women in tech via biological differences. That has literally nothing to do with politics, and framing it as such misrepresents and discredits the contents of the memo.

Is this what conservatism actually is, now? I'm just wondering because, although I agree that nothing Damore said was conservative in a traditional sense, maybe conservatism has just been made more broad in recent years. For instance, I don't believe that I'm conservative at all, but my liberal friends and family tend to classify me as "conservative". I find it baffling because most of my beliefs are pretty permissiv…

Yea I'm about the farthest left on the political spectrum as one can get without being outright communist, so it's hilarious if anyone calls me "conservative" for thinking that maybe just maybe biology influences our life choices, and that people should have the freedom to express their opinions and debate issues without being censored or shamed for having contrarian viewpoints (kind of like what the memo, which is titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber", talks about, and which ironically got the author fired).

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#464

Post by thosakwe »

ravenstine wrote: post #390

Damore was not offered a chance to receive forgiveness by either the company or the outrage mob, therefore I don't respect what people generally have to say about whether what he did was right or wrong. It's astounding that people are still debating this in this very HN thread. A society of any size that makes virtue claims while simultaneously adding an undue price to being wrong or insensitive deserves to be mocked…

1. I don't recall him ever "asking for forgiveness," or doing anything besides doubling down on his memo.

2. The "outrage mob" isn't real. You know who got James Damore fired? Himself. It's especially telling that you, and people who defend him, attribute zero fault whatsoever to the person who actually wrote the memo.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#465

Post by twomoretime »

glenda wrote: post #450
twomoretime wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's naive is bending over backwards to pretend that men and women are identical, after millions of years of sexually dimorphic evolution. It's absurd that this is even a debate in our society. Scientific? Everything we know about genetics, hormones, and psychology clearly points to gendered differences and if you objectively look at the data, at the very least you must concede that you cannot conflate inequality o…

I never mentioned any of the theories in your response. There are all kinds of people who study gender in society from every possible angle, Damore doesn’t strike me as an expert in the field. Just a typical engineer who thinks he knows everything.

This appeal to authority is enormously frustrating when the authorities are also blindly political.

Think for yourself. The physical differences between men and women are patently obvious, and how they translate to different performance in sports is clear. We understand why men and women are different physically - because specialization had strong selective pressure.

Now why on earth would this specialization only apply to physical differences?

And if you're still not convinced, and if the consistent studies showing differences in verbal/spatial IQ and the like aren't enough, how can we use brainscans to differentiate between cis and trans people?

This is literally only political because, for this issue, one side in western politics is determined to deny reality in order to shape the world into what they think it should be. That's childish idealism - you cannot solve a "problem" without addressing it's actual causes.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#466

Post by ravenstine »

glenda wrote: post #450
twomoretime wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's naive is bending over backwards to pretend that men and women are identical, after millions of years of sexually dimorphic evolution. It's absurd that this is even a debate in our society. Scientific? Everything we know about genetics, hormones, and psychology clearly points to gendered differences and if you objectively look at the data, at the very least you must concede that you cannot conflate inequality o…

I never mentioned any of the theories in your response. There are all kinds of people who study gender in society from every possible angle, Damore doesn’t strike me as an expert in the field. Just a typical engineer who thinks he knows everything.

That's a dismissive viewpoint. To be consistent with your view, nobody should be commenting in this thread.

Moreover, a person's field of expertise doesn't have any bearing on whether their ideas are correct. It may go to explain why their views are the way they are, but it doesn't necessarily follow that a person is wrong about something scientific because they aren't a scientist, for instance.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#467

Post by pinkfoot »

pydry wrote: post #294
pinkfoot wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

* Intellectual posturing and oneupsmanship in software teams. Participating in intellectual dick waving. * A strong focus on being "right" over working collaboratively (especially in domains with no right answers). * Hyper competitiveness - to the detriment of effectiveness. * A lack of empathy (e.g. PRs with "your code sucks, suck it up and stop being such a baby"). These things are hardly good from the perspective…

Your average insurance company's software team behaves like this? Whilst tweaking the payroll software?

Because, if you really, really want gender parity, most programmers don't work at Uber or Snapchat. They work in mundane jobs at faceless companies.

Even more so when you leave the USA. (Since this is about principle).

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#468

Post by JPKab »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #445
glenda wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in theory, but it’s a bit different. If he is making the workplace less comfortable for particular groups of people then I certainly would have no issue firing him. You are free to hold any belief you want, but once you’re in my ear with some misinformed ideas that are potentially hurtful to a large group I am free to tell you to be quiet or leave. Of course, it’s your right not to listen to me... bu…

What happens if two groups/sides are equally discomforted by the other? Do you silence/fire them both? Is it majority rule?

In this case, you satisfy the group that spends disproportionate amounts of time weaponizing social media, activists, and blog journalists for their cause.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#469

Post by DonHopkins »

searchableguy wrote: post #461
DonHopkins wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I "please show you" anything after you just proudly announced that you didn't bother reading what I just finished showing you? If you wanted to make a stronger argument, you should at least pretend to have read what you're glibly dismissing out of hand, instead of preemptively admitting that you don't bother reading what anyone else says, and that there's no point in replying to you. HN is not a forum for a…

I did read through it hence the criticism but I didn't go past the Evan Spielberg and Mark Zuckerberg articles. If someone writes an article based on the emails, you would look at the emails because they are the source. Why should I bother reading opinion of a writer when I can look at the source? If your first few links don't show the problem, people wouldn't be willing to put in effort. I thought that was obvious.

Oh so you're a nihilistic skeptic that those were authentic misogynistic emails from Evan Spielberg, and that it's only the opinion of the The Atlantic and Tech Crunch and all the other sources who wrote about it, including the Provost of Stanford University himself?

https://vator.tv/news/2014-05-31-stanford-denounces-spiegel-...

>In a letter sent to that was sent out to the entire Stanford undergraduate community, and obtained by the Huffington Post, Stanford University Provost John Etchemendy called the e-mails "crude, offensive, and demeaning to women."

>"Like most of you, male and female, I found those messages abhorrent. I am writing now to convey clearly that the sentiments expressed in these emails do not reflect what we, as members of the Stanford community, expect of one another," the letter said.

Have you got anything to stand on better than your "boys will be boys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" argument?

Can you provide some evidence for your conspiracy theory, such as a quote of Evan denying that he wrote those emails, or Stanford University Provost John Etchemendy retracting his statement that Evan's e-mails were "crude, offensive, and demeaning to women"?

Is there a source for your conspiracy theory, or did you make it up yourself just now? I thought you had better things to do with your time that defending the honor of Frat Bros. So give me a link to your proof Evan Spielberg didn't send those emails.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#470

Post by lawnchair_larry »

glenda wrote: post #460
xtreme wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he is making the workplace less comfortable for particular groups of people then I certainly would have no issue firing him. Would you be okay with firing an LGBT person because they "made the workplace less comfortable" for some conservative employees?

Sure, if they are publishing documents about how straight people are less effective at their job then they’re causing unnecessary issues in the workplace.

Bad analogy, because Damore didn’t do that. I don’t know why this falsehood lives on, the paper is public, and it clearly says not that.
Post reply on HN