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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

#541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn…

Just like Trump seems stuck in some kind of info-loop with Fox News, Damore seemed to get most of his memo ideas from those youtubers in the first place. He's got a footnote in it about how complaints about gay rights are just an attempt by Marxists to undermine capitalism for goodness sake! In an internal corporate communication about how to better deal with diversity. The mind boggles.

marxists.... peterson?

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

#543
post #193
post #95

> illegal hiring quotas Whether or not this is illegal, or true, this is an anti-pattern. If you want representation (and PR) hiring quotas are great; however, if you truly want to empower they work against your goals. At the end of the day any person who walks into a job because of a quota will question, "did I get this job because of my gender/race/creed/orientation?" While you have provided them with opportunity i…

Making someone question whether they are qualified is better than not hiring them at all. Quotas are useful if you have reason to believe that your hiring process is biased and you are missing out on qualified candidates. That way you're not passing up too many candidates from specific groups that you're having a hard time characterizing.

That's not a binary choice. There are both women that would have been hired anyways, and ones that wouldn't. The quota benefits the second group at the expense of the first.

Some of the best female engineers I know hate pro-diversity movements because of this.

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

#544

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…

> due to a stupid political game he didn't even realize he was playing If he didn't know exactly what he was doing he deserves whatever happens to him for being so oblivious to the world around him.

I think this is where a conversation about professionalism needs to happen. Professionalism is a two way street, we should expect professionals to avoid needless controversy but we should also expect professionals to let things like this memo slide - if some autist's manifesto on a company's listserv makes it impossible for you to do your job, you're not a good employee.

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

#545
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn…

It's no different than moderate Muslims having no social refuge other than where Salafist-Jihadists (eg: al-Qaeda, Isil) roam freely -- modereate conservatives have no social refuge other than blatant racists and sexists, neo-nazis, and other generally unpleasant undesirables. This is the danger of progressive supremacy and the only way out of this hell-hole is encouraging true diversity and inclusiveness -- diversit…

I would argue they made that bed for themselves.

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

#546

After reading the memo and after reading most of the comments here that claim that users also read the memo makes me very afraid on the state of educated people in America. I cannot believe that most of you still go with the media narrative that Damore claimed "women are worse than man at engineering" while this is a very obvious misrepresentation of what he wrote in order to fill a narrative. This is all part of a p…

What? He actually does say that... > 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. [...] > This is all part of a politically driven agenda that destroys everyone trying to question the unique, politically-correct acceptable way o…

And that is what decades of replicated science confirms.

Here is a female first authored study from 2013 focused on the topic of Damore's memo exactly.

http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometri...

> The findings suggest that the persistent – and usually neglected average large advantage of boys in mechanical reasoning (MR) — orthogonal to g – might be behind their higher presence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines.

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

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, in our society, there is NO option to say you were wrong and walk it all back. Once it's out there on the internet, you are crucified for life with it. Its sad because the "crime" doesn't fit the punishment.

Brendan Eich seems to be doing ok now. The furor that severed his relationship with Mozilla doesn't seem to have impacted Brave, and that was just a few years ago.

By doing ok, you mean he is no longer a CEO of company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that he helped create, but instead he is running a startup that hardly anyone heard about. At what point you’d say he no longer does ok? When he’s homeless?

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

#548

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…

> "Ruined?" Because he might have to take a non-tech job? Please.

There are more tech jobs than those at Google, Facebook, etc.

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

#549
post #525
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.

Americans, even those who attend good schools, do not understand statistical claims. This leaves them susceptible to all kinds of flim flam, especially when they are invested in an idea.

> Americans, even those who attend good schools, do not understand statistical claims.

I'm having some difficulty understanding your statement. Would you mind clarifying a few things?

- Do you mean all Americans, or just some?

- When you say "do not understand", what do you mean by that?

- I'm unclear as to why you specifically mentioned Americans. Are you comparing them to some other group(s)? And if so, which one(s)?

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

#550
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never knew joe organ was right wing. I've been listening to his podcasts which seem pretty good.

He's not, but if you're a gallon of gasoline, the remotest spark can seem like a huge threat to your very existence, which is what I took the overreaction to the memo to be. He spoke his mind, with citations, and he was torched for it, and the left wing outlets except for Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin had no interest in letting his real story come out, because the overreaction, the firing and the ongoing assault on his ch…

> the left wing outlets except for Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin had no interest in letting his real story come out

Which ones did he ask to speak on?

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