371–380 of 423 posts
By firing the employee, Google is sending a strong signal that they will not tolerate a diversity of opinions. That does not bode well for them, for a restrictive intellectual environment is anathema to the kind of intelligent people they want to hire to keep the company competitive.
Quoting Sundar Pichai (Google CEO), emphasis mine: > At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint) . They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings,…
It's all fake altruistic bullshit marketing/PR/corporate speak. It's just modern advertising and branding.
And they try to one-up each other so you just get bombarded with this happy-language about all of these beautiful non-monetary things that they somehow seem to care so much about.
These poses are just "corporate white lies". They are not meant to be tested.
It's similar to companies saying things "we are like a family".
And that is the adult version of "your dog has gone to the farm for a while".
It's crap fed to you to distract you from the brutal reality so your resources can be extracted more smoothly for longer.
Hear it, but don't believe it.
And this dumb bro thinks he has a legal case.
I'm also amused with the pro-business anti-government types are the first to go wailing to the government for intervention on behalf of their first amendment rights which do not apply to an employer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can express your minority views as long as those views don't violate company policy. That's reasonable. You certainly wouldn't expect to keep your job if you published a memo saying you should be able to call black employees "nigger" because _cite some pseudo science here_. That's a minority view, isn't it? The expectation that every minority view can or should be safely expressed is both naive and unreasonable.
I agree with you, but _cite some pseudo science here_ might actually be a solid citation (eg. Wikipedia or any other reputable study). What then? On another note, I watched the 100m men's final this Saturday and noticed white men are worse at running than black men. Would that be racist towards whites if the stats were confirming my opinion?
The Google code of conduct is pretty clear. It is a primary duty of every employee to actively create an environment where others don't feel harassed or intimidated. If your science fact harasses or intimidates others, then science loses in that case and the code of conduct, and a harmonious workplace, wins. Google has a set of values, and priorities, and those might not be your priorities but you have the choice of working elsewhere if you feel those values don't line up with your own.
Science and facts aren't the end all. I know plenty of folks who are super smart, know a tons of facts, and are miserable people to work with. I would never hire them, or join a company where they work.
[...] stomped Harvard University President Lawrence Summers for
mentioning at a January 14 academic conference the entirely reasonable
theory that innate male-female differences might possibly help explain
why so many mathematics, engineering, and hard-science faculties
remain so heavily male.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/02/why-fem...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
'...our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”' What's confusing or unclear about that? It's crystal clear to me that Google prioritizes a workplace free of harassment over your individual ideology. If your ideology makes other employees feel harassed or intimidated, you'll have to leave…
It could not be much more unclear and I can assure you that this has nothing to do with some googlerian "cleverness". Science is not an ideology or opinion; in a diverse environment, reasonable positions are disputed by arguments, not power play. Exercising an executive bias to intimidate the employees into subscribing to a specific ideology is nothing this code of conduct were able to prevent. The coc could not perf…
"Women, on average, have more neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)." isn't a reasonable position at Google, or any other big company. If for no other reason, to protect the company from being sued for gender discrimination.
Neither are any of the following statements reasonable:
"Blacks on average are... [insert some negative]".
"Jews on average are... [insert some negative]".
If an employee can't figure that out, you should fire them with zero hesitation. Open dialogue at a place of employment has many limits, and it will never be the top priority. If you say something that offends enough other employees, you're going to get fired, and that's not going to change no matter who you work for.
The word "neurotic" was the single thing that got this blown up. Had that not been used this would have skated by mostly unnoticed. I guess also got the author would also have been added to these blacklists. The author might as well have used the "B" word with all the SJW's around at Google.
The funny thing is that it's a scientific term, part of the most useful personality model in psychology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. Having read the original memo, if anything in there actually violates Google's Code of Conduct, then they need to have a serious discussion about the CoC itself (and how they interpret it).
Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this is partially why people got so upset at that Googler. You understood what I said, but you're somehow displeased I didn't phrase it in the way you would have and are reading a direction of duty/responsibility that isn't in my comment nor in my thoughts.
I totally get that. I think it's probably natural to think stuff like this is completely trivial and the tactic of people who are "looking for excuses to be offended" or "looking to play the victim". But I take issue with a number of things in that first sentence of yours I quoted, and your comment here to which I'm replying. I'll try and be as explicit as possible because I think one of the major duties of allies is…
But I was making a movement from a point made in the Google document that inspired visceral reactions and then leading FROM that point TO a more nuanced point which becomes apparent when the rest of my post is included:
> And I think that's really what was missing from his piece; why do these differences exist and isn't it possible they are constructed rather than innate? He lists a few reasons he is convinced they are not, including their consistency across cultures, but I remain unconvinced all of his list of differences can be explained in this way.
> Particularly leading. There are way too many studies that show the biases women have to deal with in that regard and assuming they have no impact on behavior is silly.
The context is relevant to understanding any sentence.
> natural to think stuff like this is completely trivial and the tactic of people who are "looking for excuses to be offended" or "looking to play the victim"
Yes, particularly when the rest of a three paragraph response clarifies any confusion that might have occurred.
> in this context, men are (largely) the ones who have trouble with assertiveness in women when it comes to leadership
Inaccurate if you're trying to say men respond more poorly to assertive women than other women. Accurate if you're saying in this context the demographics mean more men are present to respond. Seems relevant since you want to say
> men are worse employees because they can't handle a women being assertive
Which is definitely NOT what I am trying to communicate and is honestly offensive and not backed by data. Feel free to reference studies if you disagree and think men are particularly prone to respond to assertive women in the office more poorly than other women.
> But the difference is that my sentence emphasizes the fact that men are the problem, whereas your sentences emphasizes the fact that women are the victim of the problem.
I don't think men are the problem. I think society is the problem, and, possibly, biology to a degree. What degree? I haven't the foggiest.
> sexism exists
Sexism exist in everyone in every culture. Every woman is sexist. Every man is sexist. Agreed. The question is degrees and how aware people are of their biases so they can compensate for them.
> "intent is irrelevant"
We'll just have to agree to disagree. Intent is never irrelevant.
> I'm sure you didn't mean to do all the stuff I've pinned on you here, and maybe you still disagree that you have done it.
I did it. I'm happy to have done it. If I had agreed with your premise that men were the problem, I would still have disagreed with your changes to my paragraph since it lacks the movement of meeting people where they are and then moving to add nuance/clarification. Regardless, I don't agree with your premise.
> But many people will feel that you have done these things when they read your sentence, and you should at least treat their feelings as valid, try to understand why they feel that way, and consider some changes to how you phrase things.
Thanks for sharing. Your feelings are definitely valid in the sense you are feeling them. I've engaged pretty thoroughly with your comment. I simply disagree and, after considering changing how I phrase things in the future, have concluded that would be contrary to my goals.
Though I do appreciate you sharing your perspective. It's good to stand up for you believe in and promote your perspective on how people should act and behave. I'll continue to do the same.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Irrespective of the original memo, and this is something I've felt more strongly in the past couple years, it's just not safe to share dissenting viewpoints in tech anymore. It is not safe to share your viewpoints anywhere where it is not considered germane: and the workplace is high on that list. A firm will fire someone who becomes annoyingly political or who makes a public ass out of themselves on social media.…
part of the problem is that the organisations themselves have become extremely political. Google is known to be a very left-leaning company and I can imagine that working inside such a political organisation, especially one that talks a big talk about being logic and reason-driven, would cause one to want to express their views.
This is not true if only for the fact that organizations have always engaged in politics. In one of the worst cases, the United Fruit Company lobbied the US President to overthrow the elected government of Guatemala. In one of the most benign cases, Subaru sponsored gay pride events and publicly supported LGBT groups in the 1990s.
Besides that, everything else you've said is useless hyperbole. Get your history together before you go spouting nonsense.