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James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

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Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#201

Post by TheRealPomax »

threeseed wrote: post #160
john_moscow wrote: post #87

He doesn't have a choice really. With the PR mess he got himself into, no big company will ever hire him. Imagine the possible headlines "Microsoft hires the James Damore, the male supremacy advocate fired from Google". Nope, regardless the technical skill or his actual personality, his public image is forever ruined. So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organization…

No that just isn't how life does or should work. You make mistakes in an industry and you own the impacts to your reputation. He has done serious harm to the work of so many by his actions and absolutely deserves to own the consequences. And let's be serious here he has zero chance of winning against Google.

You seem unfamiliar with the power of litigation. The case won't be about "him being fired", but about showing there is any pattern for bias in Google with respects to the three stated criteria. And if they can show that bias exists, then still without making this about him, specifically, the court can be asked to apply punitive measures against google (which their client "happens to benefit from, being part of the group that Google has demonstrated bias against").

Initial filing for a court case is crucial for establishing what we're actually sueing over, and this will be an interesting one, because the chances of his legal team winning this one are definitely non-zero.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#202

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #123
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really a difference if you believe the reason women "wind up" lacking the skills for X is due to biology? Asserting biology makes it essentialist, it's the same as saying "women are worse at X."

Yeah, there is. "Women are worse" implies that there's a gendered difference after applying the "is an engineer" filter. "Fewer women gain entry into the class of engineers" doesn't imply anything about ability afterwards. And for what it's worth, James Damore explicitly called out this distinction, saying that he was not making a claim about any sort of skill differential between male engineer and female engineers.…

>Yeah, there is. "Women are worse" implies that there's a gendered difference after applying the "is an engineer" filter.

...No it doesn't. That's just something you're adding to preserve the distinction.

>Like, male and female high jumpers that make it over a certain height of bar are approximately as good at jumping. There's more men in that category. This all might be playing semantics, but I think there's a real thing here to disentangle, and it'd be nice to say one without implying the other.

Yes yes but the problem comes with Damore's reasoning for why there are more men in that category - biological determination of better programming ability.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#203

Post by stillhere »

jbob2000 wrote: post #71
Jonovono wrote: post #27

I never really saw too much issue with what he wrote. It seemed a lot of people were mad at him for things he never said. It's been awhile since I read his document, but I remember expecting it to be so bad from all the uproar I was hearing, but after reading it I couldn't find much to be angry about. Can someone enlighten me - i'll admit, this may be a highly ignorant topic of mine.

It was more about the timing. The memo came shortly after Trump was elected, when many women and minorities were feeling defeated. It was not the climate to try and hold reasoned debate.

In my experience the left was not capable of having reasoned debate even before the election. They prefer to shut it down.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#204

Post by r00fus »

dopamean wrote: post #179
thenayr wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, he could realize what a monumental fuck up he made and try and make a difference for the better. The dude literally let himself be paraded around by the alt-right and neo-nazi groups as a hero. -----------EDIT below--------------- Zero sympathy for this dirtbag. He's un-hireable because he deserves to be. Future advice for Damore wannabees When alt-right Twitter agrees with your world-views, you're doin…

That was really what did it for me. I read the document and I'll be honest, I didn't really hear the dog whistles and I didn't get particularly worked up about it. I thought it kinda read like pseudo-science and that was about it. But then the dude appeared on Mike Cernovich's show and was all over r/the_donald and I was like, "oh this is who this guy is." I hate to judge someone by the company they keep but this guy…

> I hate to judge someone by the company they keep

This is literally the way we (as humans) are built to test veracity. Only in a few cases does this litmus test fail.

It's a good test, just like "follow the money". It can be abused (joe jobs, false flags), but works a vast majority of the time.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#205

Post by microcolonel »

dopamean wrote: post #179
thenayr wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, he could realize what a monumental fuck up he made and try and make a difference for the better. The dude literally let himself be paraded around by the alt-right and neo-nazi groups as a hero. -----------EDIT below--------------- Zero sympathy for this dirtbag. He's un-hireable because he deserves to be. Future advice for Damore wannabees When alt-right Twitter agrees with your world-views, you're doin…

That was really what did it for me. I read the document and I'll be honest, I didn't really hear the dog whistles and I didn't get particularly worked up about it. I thought it kinda read like pseudo-science and that was about it. But then the dude appeared on Mike Cernovich's show and was all over r/the_donald and I was like, "oh this is who this guy is." I hate to judge someone by the company they keep but this guy…

> But then the dude appeared on Mike Cernovich's show and was all over r/the_donald and I was like, "oh this is who this guy is." I hate to judge someone by the company they keep but this guy's company was particularly bad (imo).

I got the impression that he accepted those interviews because they were the only ones that would be conducted fairly. Especially considering he was subjected to at least one hostile and unfair interview.

We can't have a world where you can destroy somebody by endorsing them. This turns every undesirable into a perfect hitman.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#206

Post by dragonwriter »

mikeryan wrote: post #24

Will watch this with interest AFAIK discriminating against conservative white men isn’t illegal. It’s not a protected class. There must be some twist here.

> Will watch this with interest AFAIK discriminating against conservative white men isn’t illegal.

He is alleging three separate basic things (it's really a triple-class action; there are three separate classes that the case seeks to represent)

(1) Violation of California's law against employer control/coercion of employee political activity.

(2) race discrimination,

(3) sex discrimination.

(There's other charges, but they are basically derivative of those.)

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#207

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

chasing wrote: post #185
john_moscow wrote: post #87

He doesn't have a choice really. With the PR mess he got himself into, no big company will ever hire him. Imagine the possible headlines "Microsoft hires the James Damore, the male supremacy advocate fired from Google". Nope, regardless the technical skill or his actual personality, his public image is forever ruined. So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organization…

> I hope they will settle for an amount sufficient for retirement and the dude's life won't get ruined due to a stupid political game he didn't even realize he was playing. "Ruined?" Because he might have to take a non-tech job? Please. He went to a diversity training event which should've given him a clear idea of Google's stance on the issue. Then he published an internal memo arguing against that stance. He knew t…

Actually, someone else released his memo externally.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#208

Post by lr4444lr »

taytus wrote: post #74
lr4444lr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think the firm is taking an upfront fee or retainer for this? I assume they are expecting a settlement from Google/Alphabet so that the company can put an end to this PR nightmare once and for all, from which they will take a cut.

Google's PR Nightmare? Honest question: Don't you think that the one with the PR nightmare is Damore?

I think Damore's future is irrelevant, and that Google wants him to disappear off the face of the earth - not court a massive virtue signaling performance.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#209

Post by beebmam »

paulgb wrote: post #18
Veen wrote: post #3

From the article: > women may not be equally represented in tech because they are biologically less capable of engineering Why do news outlets persistently misrepresent what he actually said? I've read his memo and just about every news article says it contains claims that it doesn't. I have no view on whether he's right or not, but I remain shocked at the misrepresentation of his views throughout the tech media.

Is the quote you pulled not saying the same thing as this from Damore's memo? > I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Edit: ebbv beat me to it

Let's not forget that the metrics for "ability", especially in a field like software engineering, are highly unscientific.

People barely have any idea about how to hire a software engineer, much less judge someone's true "ability".

Preferences are also very complicated. People may prefer things very differently given the environment. That quote, along with many others, demonstrates the absolute lack of genuineness on the part of Damore.

Damore throws away any pretense of being objective/scientific when he makes claims like this based on metrics that are hardly measurable. A decent scientist would recognize that making claims with very serious implications like this is greatly irresponsible.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#210

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

Whatever you think of the memo, you have to be a little concerned about the precedent this would set if companies were not allowed to discriminate based on 'political' views. Should I be forced to hire a neo-nazi or a terrorist sympathiser so long as they're up to the job?
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