James Damore and three others end Google suit

I am going to be honest, I consider myself on the left side of the spectrum, but I am disgusted by the outrage culture on Twitter etc. Besides censorship, I believe it's a tactic by neoliberal types to pretend to be on the left by virtue signaling, but not actually addressing any of the economics I care about, (medicare for all, free college etc.), so I actually agree with you there.

That being said, what I also dislike is someone who seems to have no core beliefs whatsoever and instantly runs to the "intellectual dark web" bashing "the left", without acknowledging that what he refers to is a rather vocal minority, nor acknowledging the authoritarian tendencies of "the intellectual dark web" and basically just going with whoever is willing to air his grievances in a completely sympathetic, uncritical manner. It smells of opportunism, rather than some sincerely held belief.

Then there's the question of whether it is wise to communicate such issues across your company in the manner that he did. I am not saying it's right, but the world is a certain way and if one wants to change it, he/she needs to also be prepared for the consequences.

>Journalist using the words "frat" [...]

No actually: widely respected Pulitzer Prize and other award winning New York Times journalists quoting senior government official using the word "frat":

“The culture clash between public and private sectors has been jarring,” The Times reports. “The senior official described the Kushner team as a ‘frat party’ that descended from a U.F.O. and invaded the federal government.”

>The only place I see this term slung is in the media [...]

So basically, EVERYWHERE.

>[...] and HN

A subset of everywhere.

>[...] or people making up abstract bad guys [...]

I SPECIFICALLY cited Evan Spiegel by name as a bad guy, a Frat Bro, and a Tech Bro: what's so abstract about that? The leading literary magazine The Atlantic, a highly respected 150-year-old publication, specifically described Evan Spiegel by name as "the Frattiest Bro of Them All" and "the ultimate frat guy". And as you should well know, Travis Kalanick is the SPECIFIC bad guy at Uber responsible for its infamously toxic Tech Bro culture.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/snapc...

>Snapchat, the App Frat Bros Love, Was Started By the Frattiest Bro of Them All

>Evan Spiegel, the CEO and cofounder of Snapchat, has created a massive, popular application. It's basically a frat boys dream, and as it turns out, Spiegel was the ultimate frat guy during his time at Standford.

There are certainly many other names I could name and specific examples of toxic Tech Bro culture in the tech industry I could cite, but you're absolutely incorrect to say that I'm just "making up abstract bad guys".

Do you really believe the problem is that the bad guys are too abstract? The media and lawsuits have certainly named other specific bad guys at other specific toxic nepotistic sexist companies before, like Eric Akerman and Scott Henry and Euen Thompson at Magic Leap, for example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725347

https://www.vrandfun.com/magic-leap-settling-sex-discriminat...

>Magic Leap Settling Sex Discrimination Lawsuit with Former Employee (vrandfun.com)

>"Eric Akerman, vice president of IT, is a high school buddy of Abovitz. He is a loud and outspoken and several misogynistic comments have emanated from his department and from him."

>"Vice president of IT Akerman, on Nov. 8, 2016, told a large group of people who asked why he voted for Trump that it was 'because Melania is hot.'"

>Campbell met September 28, 2016 with Magic Leap CFO Henry and Head of Operations Tina Tuli for a conference call with the CFO and leadership team at R/GA, an award-winning international advertising agency that was Magic Leap’s advertising agency of record. During the call, Henry said of the product under development, “I’m sitting here between two beautiful ladies. They’re not going to want to put a big ugly device over their pretty faces. And I have an office with glass doors, I don’t want people to see me with these beautiful girls with ugly things on their faces.” Later, one of the male R/GA executives on the call asked Campbell if Henry frequently made sexist comments like he had made. A female executive at R/GA also was offended by Henry’s remarks.

>Euen Thompson, an IT Support Lead, on November 16, 2016, gave a tutorial to a group of seven new hires, including two women, how to use Magic Leap’s IT equipment and resources. One woman asked Thompson a question in front of the group and Thompson responded, “Yeah, women always have trouble with computers.” The women in the group, in apparent disbelief, asked Thompson to repeat what he said and Thompson replied, “In IT we have a saying; stay away from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries.”

Could you point me to your source for that quote?

I'm not coloring his response when I call it a divisive political opinion piece. It's explicitly framed as "the politics of the majority of people at Google is a big problem". And whether or not their initial request technically was broad enough to include his response isn't the issue.

Either Damore was reasonably smart, and he knew that this would at best be enormously divisive. Or maybe he was just incredibly clueless. (Personally I think it was the former.) When bosses (or anybody) ask for something, technically complying with the literal meaning of their words is not enough. One has to consider goals and context, and respond accordingly.

No, it really isn't debatable. That's the widespread consensus view. Personality traits are judged based on responses to surveys. When you ask large groups of people the same surveys and evaluate them the same way you consistently find women score higher on neuroticism than men. This is a widely repeated finding that is consistent across generations.

A paper on neuroticism in older women compared to older men - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2031866/

"testing gender differences at the level of latent traits revealed higher levels of Neuroticism (d = .52) and Agreeableness (d = .35) in older women than older men. The consistency of these findings with prior work in younger samples attests to the stability of gender differentiation on Neuroticism and Agreeableness across the lifespan."

A paper trying to asses the genetic component to personality traits - http://midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/1779.pdf

"Research has found observed phenotypic sex differences in the BFM. Women, for instance, tend to have higher mean levels of Agreeableness and Neuroticism than men (Chapman, Duberstein, Sörensen, & Lyness, 2007; Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001; Feingold, 1994)."

A paper looking at personality trait differences across the world and in other cultures - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijop.12265

"In terms of the personality traits known as the Big Five, men tend to score lower than women in neuroticism and agreeableness"

A paper looking at gender differences in neuroticism and extraversion across 30 different countries - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/14018323_Gender_Dif...

"Women obtained higher means than men on neuroticism in all countries, and men obtained higher means than women on psychoticism in 34 countries and on extraversion in 30 countries."

A paper on neuroticism differences in men and women among college students - http://mpsi.umm.ac.id/files/file/723%20-%20728%20Djudiyah%20...

"Table 1 showed that there was significant difference of neuroticism level between males and females (t-test = 2.138, df =49, PI could go on for a long time just finding different studies on this topic and quoting their results, but there is no need to. That women have higher rates of neuroticism is likely the least debatable and most scientific thing Damore asserted. Can you find a single study or paper where it was concluded that women had anything but higher levels of neuroticism?

I trust that you will either have one or more such references, or you will admit that this claim is scientific and not really debatable. If you admit that, I would expect some revision of your general opinion given that this is an example of one of what you believed to be one of the more significant things Damore got wrong.