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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

#261

Post by agentultra »

paulgb wrote: post #188
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.

I'm a former Googler (left before the memo) and I was upset by the memo because, in implying that the hiring bar was lower for women, it contained the thinly veiled corolloary that my female colleagues were less capable than my male colleagues. That did not match my experience at all.

And Google's own internal project confirmed that what makes an engineer at Google successful is their ability to communicate and empathize with other people. Traits which this "biological selection" narrative disfavors.

Discrimination of gender, race, and sexual preference is demonstrably real. This suit is a farce and I hope he loses.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...

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

#262

Post by geofft »

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #147
carrja99 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organizations Isn't that what he's been doing through his twitter account where he muses whether people join the KKK because they have cool titles? Or his interviews with people like Milo?

>Isn't that what he's been doing through his twitter account where he muses whether people join the KKK because they have cool titles? That was just a joke, stop pretending he is a neo-nazi.

I'm very tired of this "joking" thing. Neo-Nazis (and historical Nazis before them) use jokes to cover their actual, earnest beliefs, and then go "it's just a joke bro" to shield themselves from criticism from those who disagree while gaining earnest support from those who agree. From the Daily Stormer style guide:

"The unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we are joking or not. There should also be a conscious awareness of mocking stereotypes of hateful racists. I usually think of this as self-deprecating humor - I am a racist making fun of stereotype of racists, because I don't take myself super-seriously.

"This is obviously a ploy and I actually do want to gas kikes. But that's neither here nor there."

I admit that he's almost certainly not playing by the alt-right's playbook - but he should be smart enough to realize that he's playing into the alt-right's playbook, and if he's not that smart, he doesn't have any business getting a job at Google or Microsoft. There are absolutely ways to express the points he's trying to make without letting yourself be turned into an alt-right poster-boy (and they're also more effective at convincing his ostensible target audience, namely senior decision-makers in large tech companies).

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

#263

Post by lilycaliber »

lukev wrote: post #116
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.

What? Did we read the same memo? One of his central points is that the representation gap between men and women in technology is due to different biological distributions. From the 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 leader…

maybe gender non confused women are simply NOT INTERESTED in the current realm of the engineering tech world? Of course I have NO expertise in this matter whatsoever as a NON DEGREED NON GENDER CONFLICTED HIGH IQ FEMALE. I wonder how many of these comments here are posted by the Googly butted employees of Googly butt INC. ON COMPANY TIME?!!! Whatever it is you THINK Google is supposed to provide youre NOT providing it now, ARE YOU? SMH glad I left the corpo tech world and LEARNED ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD! Goats and ducks and earth itself doesnt give a good diddly squat about "how you identify sexually or otherwise!" Maybe its already "correcting" the warped offspring and you are merely RESPONDING to natural biological evolutionary mandates? By insisting that you are "non binary"? LOL Ma Natures got the last laugh on all of you pretending to be so freaking intelligent and "open minded"! LOL LOL Betcha there arent any white papers allowed on THAT concept! Glad and grateful I escaped it all long before this ridiculous obsession with "identity" became the humanity and technology destroying epidemic it is now. You CLAIM to be leading edge thinkers and creators and developers! WTF are you socially challenged misfits "creating" here? You claim to be creating better intelligence artificially. CREATORS HEAL THYSELVES OR GET OUTTA THE KITCHEN! Humanity and life itself hasn't any time or energy left to waste on this incredible amount of navel inspecting!!! WE ARE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS!! DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IT YET??? SHUT UP ABOUT HOW YOU "IDENTIFY" AND DO YOU F*N JOBS! [ there was a time when this was a common declaration among the most productive workplaces. AND IT WORKED! ] you have literally destroyed the future for us ALL with your ARGUING for your OWN limitations!

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

#264

Post by mnglkhn2 »

threeseed wrote: post #199
viridian wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I largely agreed with the memo. I have coworkers and friends who fell on either side of the camp, but more in the agree camp than disagree. Should we just purge half the developers in Columbus for Silicon Valley wrongthink? edit: looks like thenayr updated his post a couple of times since my reply. When written only the first two lines were present.

(1) Your anecdotal evidence is literally worthless. You need to provide some statistics that 50% of developers support him. I can easily self select 100% of developers who disagree with Damore. (2) If you agree/disagree with Damore that's great. It's your right as a person to have opinions and no company can criticise you for that. What you can't do however is publicise these issues on any forum. It's simply not a to…

If you agree that one's opinion is "anecdotal" then why do you even bother expressing your opinion?! Unless you think your opinion is more relevant than OP's.

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

#265

Post by [deleted] »

lukev wrote: post #116
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.

What? Did we read the same memo? One of his central points is that the representation gap between men and women in technology is due to different biological distributions. From the 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 leader…

[deleted]

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

#266

Post by threeseed »

swsieber wrote: post #191
jstanley wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Distribution of...abilities” suggests “women are worse.” No, it doesn't. It suggests fewer women are good. It doesn't suggest that the women in the field are any worse than the men in the field, it just explains why there may be fewer women than men.

It doesn't even suggest that. Other interpretations include that women are better at non-programming skills than men, pulling them away from tech. (That would be a plausible explanation for there being less women in tech than men, given the two groups have equal tech abilities)

The more obvious reason is women are sick of having to deal with an industry full of people like Damore.

I know I am.

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

#267

Post by rainbowmverse »

microcolonel wrote: post #205
dopamean wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unf…

>> I got the impression that he accepted those interviews because they were the only ones that would be conducted fairly.

An exact opposite bias doesn't cancel out into fairness.

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

#268

Post by dragonwriter »

MBCook wrote: post #153
carrja99 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organizations Isn't that what he's been doing through his twitter account where he muses whether people join the KKK because they have cool titles? Or his interviews with people like Milo?

But can he sustain that? Or is he something of a ‘flavor of the month’ that people will stop carrying about in a year or two? Is this just an attempt to extend his relevance a bit longer?

The right-wing media is very good at picking up flavor-of-the-month figures and giving them sinecures; this practice is well-funded by wealthy right-wing activists as a reward mechanism.

As long as Damore doesn't publicly stomp on any critical bit of right-wing orthodoxy I'm sure he'll land safely in right-wing media, regardless of the outcome of any legal cases he's involved in.

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

#270

Post by ng12 »

threeseed wrote: post #239
ng12 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this stuff has been studied for years: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4129348/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157091/ Maybe these studies are wrong, maybe the conclusions Damore drew were wrong (I certainly think they are). However, I think witch-hunting people for asking questions about sensitive topics is a much more clear and…

I just don't think you understand the problem here. Nobody is arguing that men and women aren't biologically different. Of course they are. The point is whether those biological differences significantly affect your ability to be a professional engineer. And you or Damore have provided zero evidence of this.

I don't agree with him. I just think the witch-hunt is intellectually dishonest. I highly suggest reading the memo if you haven't.

To rephrase what I'm talking about: some studies say women are less good at spatial reasoning than men -- maybe you can make an argument that Task X requires spatial reasoning skills. Assuming that argument is true it would stand to reason that statistically more men are capable of doing Task X than women. That's a far cry from saying women lack the ability to do Task X.

To refrain, I think Damore's conclusions are probably wrong. However I think there's a shocking abundance of willful ignorance whenever this topic gets raised.

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