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Thought Police

blog.cleancoder.com

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Re: Thought Police

#11

Post by avs733 »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #6
rbanffy wrote: post #3

It's... more complicated than that. Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. When proved wrong, he'd adjust his mental models of the world in accordance with what he learned. It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Unfortunately, Edward decided to try to st…

It doesn't matter how Edward spread his ideas. He was fired because he had a thoughtcrime.

No, he was fired because he was speaking about things he is not an expert and was a dick about it and made his company look bad. Imagine if Damore (sorry...Edward) had been forced to accept some social scientist's interpretation of computer science. The uproar would be unimaginable.

Knowledge and expertise is transferable to aid in developing understanding of a new area of thought, however knowledge and expertise in one area is not automatically transferable to expertise in another area.

Re: Thought Police

#12

Post by richmarr »

rednerrus wrote: post #7
rbanffy wrote: post #3

It's... more complicated than that. Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. When proved wrong, he'd adjust his mental models of the world in accordance with what he learned. It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Unfortunately, Edward decided to try to st…

Isn't working with people you disagree with part of corporate life? Do you think there are no conservative people at your company who have to deal with the incessant anti-conservative tech culture? I assume that occasionally they want to punch us in our faces. They show up for work and get their jobs done. The problem with enforcing these policies when we agree with them is we have to enforce them when we don't agree…

> Isn't working with people you disagree with part of corporate life?

But working with people who say you don't deserve to be there is not.

James explicitly complained about "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate". Decreasing the false negative rate categorically does not lower the bar, it just makes the bar more accurate.

In making that statement however, James told everyone hired through that program that he thinks they're not good enough to work at Google.

Re: Thought Police

#13

Post by icthysilia »

zamalek wrote: post #5
rbanffy wrote: post #3

It's... more complicated than that. Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. When proved wrong, he'd adjust his mental models of the world in accordance with what he learned. It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Unfortunately, Edward decided to try to st…

> It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Although he had some bad ideas it was a long memo with some valid concerns. > Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. There is the crux of the problem. In a genuine discussion about these issues both parties would…

I feel like The Google Memo has become this kind of litmus test for understanding workplace social dynamics, and ironically, is one of the reasons for emphasizing things like diversity, etc.

The reason this person was fired was not because of the argument they outlined, but because they communicated this position via a long, widespread memo without appreciating the ramifications of doing so. The "hostile workplace environment" part isn't the argument per se, it's the fact that they're asserting this very publicly in a decontextualized way.

The employee could have written a 20 page memo about coffee being poisonous, and how it shouldn't be allowed at Google functions, with all sorts of scientific support they marshaled, and if they sent it out in the same way I guarantee that they would get checks on their "socially incompetent and unpleasant to work with" list, even if they wasn't outright fired for doing so.

Now, instead of coffee, you're talking about gender and sex, where there are people in the workplace who have reason to feel threatened. This doesn't mean those women are correct, or that the memo-writer's position is incorrect, but that writer distributing that memo in that way shows a lack of appreciation for social behavior.

Add to this that Google is a private company, and that employee is asking to be fired.

It's really simple: they could have kept the same opinions, and brought them up at specific times, with a limited subset of people, when it was practically relevant--such as when discussing a specific hire, or when the topic is being discussed with a limited number of need-to-know people.

Frankly, this is a time when I think how you talk about minorities in the workplace does matter. It's not thinking there shouldn't be quotas that's the problem, it's how you bring that up.

Re: Thought Police

#14

Post by rbanffy »

zamalek wrote: post #5
rbanffy wrote: post #3

It's... more complicated than that. Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. When proved wrong, he'd adjust his mental models of the world in accordance with what he learned. It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Unfortunately, Edward decided to try to st…

> It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Although he had some bad ideas it was a long memo with some valid concerns. > Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. There is the crux of the problem. In a genuine discussion about these issues both parties would…

> In a genuine discussion about these issues both parties would have left the table uniquely enlightened

These discussions happen. It's just that Edward was never invited to them. His lack of knowledge ended in him making the assumption no discussion was ever held and that corporate policies were decided by whim and prejudices.

Re: Thought Police

#15

Post by sever5 »

richmarr wrote: post #12
rednerrus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't working with people you disagree with part of corporate life? Do you think there are no conservative people at your company who have to deal with the incessant anti-conservative tech culture? I assume that occasionally they want to punch us in our faces. They show up for work and get their jobs done. The problem with enforcing these policies when we agree with them is we have to enforce them when we don't agree…

> Isn't working with people you disagree with part of corporate life? But working with people who say you don't deserve to be there is not. James explicitly complained about "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate". Decreasing the false negative rate categorically does not lower the bar, it just makes the bar more accurate. In making that…

His argument was the program was flawed by bad metrics and wouldn't accomplish its goals, not directed at an individual.

Re: Thought Police

#16

Post by rednerrus »

richmarr wrote: post #10
rednerrus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't working with people you disagree with part of corporate life? Do you think there are no conservative people at your company who have to deal with the incessant anti-conservative tech culture? I assume that occasionally they want to punch us in our faces. They show up for work and get their jobs done. The problem with enforcing these policies when we agree with them is we have to enforce them when we don't agree…

> ...incessant anti-conservative tech culture Not sure I'd silo this as a tech culture thing. Education has been shown to negatively correlate with conservatism so it'd be reasonable to expect to see low numbers of conservatives in any field with higher educational barriers. http://www.people-press.org/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-g...

I can't tell if you are ironically making my point or not.

Re: Thought Police

#17

Post by [deleted] »

avs733 wrote: post #9

Whenever possible I rely on folks who are better writers than me to express ideas I agree with. This is one of those cases. From a journalist I respect: "k, let's nip this in the bud right now: James Damore is not a whistleblower, just as any other sniveling white dudes crying about the presence of people of color and/or women at their workplace are also not whistleblowers. Having personal biases and misogynistic vie…

[deleted]

Re: Thought Police

#18

Post by richmarr »

sever5 wrote: post #15
richmarr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't working with people you disagree with part of corporate life? But working with people who say you don't deserve to be there is not. James explicitly complained about "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate". Decreasing the false negative rate categorically does not lower the bar, it just makes the bar more accurate. In making that…

His argument was the program was flawed by bad metrics and wouldn't accomplish its goals, not directed at an individual.

I quoted him directly. He said the program lowered the bar by decreasing false negatives. Having a hard time squaring that with what you're saying his intention was.

Re: Thought Police

#19

Post by mcphage »

> The people and companies in this posting are fictional. Any resemblance to any real individuals or companies is coincidental. The events described herein are solely about the fictional individuals and entities, and should not be interpreted in any other context.

Honestly I found this to be the most telling line in the whole article. Why include it? As readers, we're under no obligation to pretend to be so stupid we can't see through such a transparent falsehood.

Maybe that's part of the problem with the larger conversation as well. Pro-manifesto articles usually lead with "look, here's all the places in the manifesto where the author wrote that they support diversity"—does that mean that, as readers, we need to accept those statements uncritically, ignoring everything that it includes rejecting diversity?

There are people out there who feel that if they preface their statements with "No offense, but ...", they are thereby absolved of any responsibility to not be offensive. That's not how communication does (or should) work, however.

Re: Thought Police

#20

Post by zamalek »

icthysilia wrote: post #13
zamalek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's entirely possible this happened and he just didn't change his mind. Although he had some bad ideas it was a long memo with some valid concerns. > Had Edward used the proper internal channels, his bad ideas would have reached the people in charge of policies and he'd have a chance to debate them and be proven wrong. There is the crux of the problem. In a genuine discussion about these issues both parties would…

I feel like The Google Memo has become this kind of litmus test for understanding workplace social dynamics, and ironically, is one of the reasons for emphasizing things like diversity, etc. The reason this person was fired was not because of the argument they outlined, but because they communicated this position via a long, widespread memo without appreciating the ramifications of doing so. The "hostile workplace en…

> when it was practically relevant

I can completely agree with this. It was a very disruptive (not the good kind) message - he likely exasperated the problems that quotas cause for other employees. The article mentions that the diversity manager should also be sacked and, while I never like to imply that should be done, someone did hand Edward a loaded gun; a person that was hired to prevent situations like that from happening.

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