James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google • Hacker News Board

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

#571

Post by winston_smith » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

wheelie_boy wrote: post #395

ihsw2 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, it is good and valuable for a society to be tolerant of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance. The left has intolerant people as well. "No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other." However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right.

> The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance.

This is nonsensical. Tolerance is the region between what you like and what you fight. There are lots of obviously bad things you shouldn't tolerate (like murder), and lots of mildly distasteful things you should.

Someone else being less tolerant of something than we think they should be isn't some special category of evil. As with anything else, you have to decide whether a particular case is bad enough that you must fight it, or ambiguous enough that it isn't worth the conflict.

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

#572

Post by cholantesh » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

lurr wrote: post #518

vowelless wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned, I don't disparage "right wing". I actually enjoy Joe Rogans podcast, and also Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson. All three of them are solidly classical liberal, which is probably right of center today (individualism vs. collectivism, equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome, etc). But AFAIK, damore never came to the young Turks, Chapo trap house, which are leftist podcasts. I could be wrong.

> All three of them are solidly classical liberal, which is probably right of center today Classical liberal just seems like yet another rebranding by people who don't want to just call themselves conservatives. I've yet to hear a "classical liberal" who doesn't seem like yet another libertarian/conservative.

Jordan Peterson especially sounds like every traditionalist Catholic I know. Which is fine, but at least they wear their stripes proudly.

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

#573

Post by zpallin » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

mbrumlow wrote: post #527

zpallin wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is the crux of the problem with his lawsuit. Political views are not a suspect class in US law afaik. What Damore may be trying to do is establish a legal understanding that the political discrimination (which definitely happened) was connected to racial discrimination (which would need to be proven in court). If Damore can do that successfully, he should be able to win the lawsuit. But I don't think it's po…

From my understanding he was getting death threats and misrepresented. He did the only thing he could do and try and set his name strait. The person who leaked it to vox should be on the chopping block.

I agree that the person who leaked the memo against Damore's intent should be punished similarly (and I hope Google did).

However, the death threats and misrepresentations of his text were not simply a factor of it being published globally. From what I have heard, the discussion was already heated inside of Google before it even got leaked.

Also, I don't think Damore was ignorant to the fact that his content was divisive in nature. I think he knew exactly what he was trying to say and knew what kind of reaction it would provoke.

I really think he needs to own it, and the lawsuit just proves the point to me why he was fired. He's not a "team player"; can't own up to his mistakes. Sure, perhaps this lawsuit will make it easier for people to discuss politics in the workplace without being fired, but his actions telegraph his intent, at least to me.

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

#574

Post by manigandham » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #436

manigandham wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity based on outward appearance is one of the most convoluted and ridiculous movements ever. We cannot spend decades trying to show that appearance is absolutely meaningless to talent, skills, and motivation, and then regress right back to it to show off "diversity". Also nobody ever seems to ask: diversity of what exactly? What's the target? Life experience? There is no qualitative score for that, nor is any s…

> diversity of what exactly is the target? Life experience? Clearly not when every company recruits from the same 10 schools.

Surely you can agree that every student is an individual and just because they go to the same college does not mean they all have the same background?

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

#575

Post by lurr » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #484

chasing wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Then he published an internal memo arguing against that stance."

Feedback was explicitly solicited, and he published it in that forum. If the company doesn't want views that might contradict current policy, it should not solicit feedback.

He should have made a better argument then.

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

#576

Post by Chaebixi » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

5ilv3r wrote: post #485

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you change what he said it sounds worse" lol, is that seriously your argument?

It's a very good argument. Behavior that is ok for one group should be ok for another group, and viceversa. That is a truth of equality.

> It's a very good argument.

In the best case, that argument only has a little utility. However, it's a pretty bad argument now, since political correctness only allows you to make those kinds of swaps in certain cases. Nowadays, it can only be use to amplify the outrage against an already-identified villain.

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

#577

Post by lurr » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #285

mightykan wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“... a stupid political game he didn’t even realize he was playing.” Bullshit! He’s smart enough to work at Google but didn’t realize he was playing a stupid game? I am glad that his life is ruined and that he is toxic and non-hirable. I hope this lawsuit doesn’t go anywhere (very likely since Google has all the money, resources and motivation to crush it).

> I am glad that his life is ruined There’s nothing toxic about that! As for whether or not he knew what he was doing...he may have written this thing, but he did so in an area that was designated for that sort of thing. He wasn’t the one that started emailing it to the entire company. So it’s fair to say he thought he was just having a discussion in the topic with whatever this skeptic group at Google was, and other…

If it's internal then don't write shit that will get you fired. I think forwarding it is a shitty thing to do, but he should have kept in mind that potential.

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

#578

Post by bertil » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #480

You need a very minimal amount of social skill to succeed in programming - just enough to not piss coworkers off too badly while working together on projects. Past that, you get mostly quiet and controlled environments, managers willing to let you work on your special interests, and generally get left alone to stare at your screen and type things out. This is one of the best working environments you can find for auti…

Your argument that “inclusivity-in-tech [is] ableist for wanting to destroy this niche in the pursuit of making the programming niche more welcoming to other groups” is interesting and probably a much better way to represent a claim similar to Damore in a far less offensive way to women. I can personally name a handful of non-neuro-typical people who would wholeheartedly agree (half of them females because my friends are frustratingly non-representative).

However, if you check the ratio of people even moderately high on the Asperger’s scale among programmers, it is much higher than other more social profession but still a small portion overall. That difference doesn’t come close to explaining the gender gap. Maybe you care for all introverts (who resent interruptions) including the majority of introverts who are neuro-typical. I do believe most programmers are introvert but I’m not familiar with the gender distribution of introversion but I’d be surprised if it were large enough to explain the gender disparity in tech.

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

#579

Post by lurr » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

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.

Okay, replace engineering with management and that's exactly the argument he made.

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

#580

Post by odorousrex » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

lnino wrote: post #559

The merit (or lack thereof) of his claims and views matter little in this case. The case is visible enough and touches on politically relevant points enough so that there will be tons of people on both sides willing to fund this case all the way to supreme court. Then there is the problem with how damaging discovery would be to the company. It will probably will get settled fast, with Google paying him a few years wo…

It simply comes down to money.

Damore was fired because he was bad for business. Not because he's white, male, conservative, or the contents of his memo. Had the memo not been leaked publicly, I have no doubt he'd still be working at Google and his memo ignored and/or forgotten. He simply became too much of lightning rod for Google to continue to employ him.

Google will settle for the same reason. It is better for business to pay him off and make sure he never talks about it again, than to drag this out.

The only people who will be financially better off in this whole deal will be the lawyers, and nothing will be resolved in reference to the larger issues surrounding this case.