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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#461

Post by Sabinus »

ThomPete wrote: post #359
Buldak wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you replied to does not describe those figures as alt-right. On the other hand, the very first person Damore engaged after being fired was Stefan Molyneux, who is undeniably alt-right. It's also insipid to suggest that being gay or Jewish precludes being alt-right or otherwise bigoted. What would that make Milo Yiannopoulos?

Stefan Molyneux is not alt-right where do you get that idea from? Milo was one of the most hated people by the alt-right, his husband is black, how much more do you need for him to most probably no being alt-right?. I refuse to believe that anyone who sincerely and honestly spent any time looking into the actual opinions of Milo, Ben Shapiro, Molyneux etc and not just cherry-picked soundbites would make such claims a…

How is Milo not espousing alt right views? He was employed by Breitbart.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#462

Post by droopybuns »

If we are all honest with ourselves, we acknowledge that we have our opinions about how most men think and how most women think.

The difference between being cast out and being celebrated is that the latter keeps their opinions to themselves. This guy self-immolated for foolishness.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#463

Post by ncallaway »

leereeves wrote: post #298
ncallaway wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't have a legal right to engage in science-based discussion of anything at your workplace! This is the point that I think most people aren't getting. It seems like people are starting from the position that one should be able to have free and open conversations in the workplace. That a company shouldn't be able to fire an employee for dissent. But this is _absolutely_ not the case with at will employment. If…

This is probably worth repeating: According to the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Act grants workers the legal right to discuss work-related issues with each other. https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights This comes from Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act: "Employees shall have the right to...engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual ai…

Yes, and the specific details of this case are not protected by the NLRA. Also according to the NLRB.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#464

Post by stcredzero »

ThomPete wrote: post #359
Buldak wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you replied to does not describe those figures as alt-right. On the other hand, the very first person Damore engaged after being fired was Stefan Molyneux, who is undeniably alt-right. It's also insipid to suggest that being gay or Jewish precludes being alt-right or otherwise bigoted. What would that make Milo Yiannopoulos?

Stefan Molyneux is not alt-right where do you get that idea from? Milo was one of the most hated people by the alt-right, his husband is black, how much more do you need for him to most probably no being alt-right?. I refuse to believe that anyone who sincerely and honestly spent any time looking into the actual opinions of Milo, Ben Shapiro, Molyneux etc and not just cherry-picked soundbites would make such claims a…

The downvoters are mindless ideologues who can't argue, only mash arrow buttons.

Re: Ben Shapiro -- As far as I can tell, he's a religious conservative, with a certain cosmopolitan flavor of rationalist deism, which completely falls in line with his particular religious beliefs. He's also one of the most effective and vocal critics of the Alt-Right. He's actively regarded as an enemy by most of the Alt-Right. Anyone who tries and tell you that Ben Shapiro is Alt-Right is an unprincipled ideologue who doesn't care about facts, only political power.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#465

Post by dmoy »

refulgentis wrote: post #362
Natsu wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a confusingly-written part that I've seen a lot of people misinterpret in that particular way. My understanding of what he was trying to argue was this: Imagine you have a skill-based RPG, where you gain skill in some task only by doing it and men and women are completely identical in every single way. Now imagine that more women enjoy alchemy, but more men prefer to spend their time mining. In this game, b…

From a statistics point of view, this statement is dispositive: "...decrease the false negative rate, not increase the false positive rate." The interaction between type I and type II errors virtually always have an inverse relationship. You cannot decrease one without increasing the other. It is, for example, one of the difficulties in making good medical diagnostic tests.

I'm not clear why this is being down voted, this was drilled pretty hard into my head the first time I had a job that relied on stats.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#466

Post by Consultant32452 »

refulgentis wrote: post #406
Consultant32452 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you sound like you're using double-speak. If Google has indeed lowered the bar for some minorities then it's Google who is exhibiting the soft bigotry of lowered expectations, not Damore for simply pointing it out. If Damore has simply incorrectly interpreted Google's hiring policy, then Damore is still not a bigot based on this statement. Damore went out of his way to specify that all of his coworkers…

Damore did not specify that all his coworkers were qualified. Damore believed Google lowered the bar, hence the statements I've made explaining how he offended his coworkers. It is reasonable to believe Google _hasn't_ lowered the bar, and if you did, you would be offended by a long document warning about gender-biased consequences of lowering the bar. I'm not sure how productive this thread is. I'm very surprised by…

So I'm not afraid to eat crow when it's due. I've re-read the memo and you're right, in the memo he did not specifically state that everyone was qualified. I must have been thinking about an interview I saw of him.

I agree with you that it's reasonable to believe that Google _hasn't_ lowered the bar, but I don't see what difference that makes. There is a very applicable quote here by Albert Maysles, "Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." With that in mind, I would like to plainly state my position here. I personally don't find Damore's memo to be unsettling, even though I disagree with some of it. If it were my company, I might have stopped at a firm one-on-one in HR with him. But I don't have all the details available internally and it's not my company. I fully support Google's right to fire him over the memo.

The problem I have is that a nobody with no power was publicly destroyed for cheap political points by the national media and general public. None of us here should even be having this discussion because a random nobody at Google with some incorrect ideas about diversity should never make national headlines with phrases like, "anti-diversity manifesto." This is a random socially awkward super-nerd, not David Duke.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#467

Post by dragonwriter »

stcredzero wrote: post #213
leereeves wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I…

> > were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. > I find this disturbing. I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, f…

> The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him.

Motivation isn't what defines harassment; effect on others is what is relevant to harassment; not only is imputing a motive not necessary to finding harassment in the act of presenting the memo as he did, it isn't relevant to that conclusion.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#468

Post by fzeroracer »

The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech) ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed on a biological level between 1984 and today.

I also take umbrage with his civil suit against Google because it amounts to no more than a document meant to doxx google employees by revealing their names and political positions ranging from benign to the more 'punch nazis' level of discourse. There was selective censorship applied such that people he agreed with were protected, while people he disagreed with were brought out in front of the crowd. I have seen pictures floating around designed to make it easy to effectively target said employees facebook, twitter etc accounts.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#469

Post by andrewprock »

leereeves wrote: post #377
andrewprock wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Several people have claimed that. I dispute that claim because that's not what I see in the memo. It matters little what you see in the memo. Google and the NLRB saw enough to terminate his employment, and to uphold that termination. This is generally how at-will employment works.

> It matters little what you see in the memo. You don't care what the memo actually says? Then what's the basis of your opinions on this matter?

I generally support the rule of law, freedom of association, and due process.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#470

Post by ncallaway »

leereeves wrote: post #377
andrewprock wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Several people have claimed that. I dispute that claim because that's not what I see in the memo. It matters little what you see in the memo. Google and the NLRB saw enough to terminate his employment, and to uphold that termination. This is generally how at-will employment works.

> It matters little what you see in the memo. You don't care what the memo actually says? Then what's the basis of your opinions on this matter?

He didn't say it doesn't matter what's in the memo.

He said it doesn't matter how you interpret the memo.

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