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James Damore and three others end Google suit

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Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has everything to do with politics. Go take a look at the various declarations of secession when the slaveholding US states tried to quit and form the Confederacy. A number of them explicitly mention that a system of racial slavery is fine because black people were naturally inferior, which is how in the 1850s one would have said "biological differences". That was very obviously politics. Further, there's an eno…

The trouble is that there are well known physical[1] and psychological[2] differences between the sexes. The same isn't true between races. It may still be political, but the arguments against it shouldn't be the same. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans?wpro... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology?...

You're missing the point. America has seen 5 centuries of bogus arguments of the form, "the unequal status quo is in fact fine because biology". As I said right in the comment you're replying to, this happened with gender just as much as with race.

Given that these arguments have been consistently proven wrong but always come back in a different form, the 21st-century versions should be carefully scrutinized to see if they're the same politically motivated reasoning. And we should never pretend that they're not political, however much they're cloaked in objectivity. Indeed, people who value science should especially object to political argument wrapping itself in a lab coat.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has everything to do with politics. Go take a look at the various declarations of secession when the slaveholding US states tried to quit and form the Confederacy. A number of them explicitly mention that a system of racial slavery is fine because black people were naturally inferior, which is how in the 1850s one would have said "biological differences". That was very obviously politics. Further, there's an eno…

The trouble is that there are well known physical[1] and psychological[2] differences between the sexes. The same isn't true between races. It may still be political, but the arguments against it shouldn't be the same. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans?wpro... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology?...

attributing underrepresentation of woman in STEM probably needs a significantly higher level of evidence than just "biological differences"

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are appropriate and inappropriate avenues for disagreeing with corporate policy; publicly on a large mailing list is going to get you in hot water no matter what the policy is.

I guess I take issue with this. Google encouraged discussion and disagreement on large mailing lists, unlike most companies. It doesn't seem right that Google would simultaneously sollicit such feedback and then punish somebody for giving them negative feedback.

That’s certainly a fair argument.

It’s unclear exactly what the limits of such a forum are; if I were to hypothetically respond with a pro-nazi screed, I think that most people here would be fine with me being fired. But there’s certainly a gray area.

I will say that it was extremely short sighted of google to setup such a forum in a public and non-anonymous manner. That was just begging for trouble.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#664

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You mean like how domestic violence is just consequences for the victim's behavior?

Domestic Violence is about power and control caused of the DV Perpetrator/Aggressor towards the survivor. DV perpetrators use a myriad of tactics to control the relationship with the "victim": financial, physical, emotional, children, and sex. While the "victim" does bear some responsibility, it's usually with regards to how they are unable (or unwilling) to end a relationship with a DV perpetrator.

Damore should have just got a new job. I think I agree with this analogy.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#665
post #642

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Not at all. When companies give power to employees, they expect that it be used responsibly and roughly in line with the goals of the company. If I give somebody root access and they just rm -rf everything because it seems like fun, or because they're trying to prove some sort of point, then I'm going to fire them. Google correctly gave employees a lot of power to have internal discussions because they thought that w…

Someone abusing root access to destroy data doesn't compare at all to punishing unpopularity in a falsely "open" forum. Analogies tend to suck in debates, but yours is particularly bad.

The problem was not just "unpopularity". Many people at Google have surely said many unpopular things, and Google didn't fire them.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would certainly upset one of my preconceived notions about this whole affair. Could you provide a source on that?

Actually Google has been much harsher on the extreme left crowd at Google since then. They didn't say it officially but I think they realized that both sides were to blame for this PR mess and just bashing one side will make the other way more vocal and aggressive in the future.

Seems like you are right, given their firing of the opposite political spectrum: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/11/27/goo...

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#667
post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what the implications of that statement were. I think assuming that women at Google have higher levels of neuroticism is fair, but once you start to posit that as an actionable truth is when real information is needed.

Please note the shifting goal posts. At the start of this comment thread you were saying that Damore's memo was certainly unscientific, and now you are arguing that there needs to be a higher bar for action than the fair assumptions that Damore made. Keep in mind that Damore is a single person giving feedback to a diversity course. He doesn't have the resources, time, or mandate to survey Google's employees to test w…

It seems like he was cherry-picking studies that fit a personal theory he held before the feedback was ever requested. I would consider that to be unscientific.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#668

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> I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in societies where people are made pariahs if they make such mistakes. I agree with this statement, but I think it's a sentiment that is in tension with everything else you've said so far. I don't believe Damore has said that he thought his memo or its contents were a "mistake." He has totally failed to engage with the critiques of his position and has instead focused on critiqui…

Hey, I really appreciate replies like yours. Damore definitely hasn't backstepped on his memo in any way, although that doesn't necessarily mean that he couldn't have been given the option to begrudgingly disavow his position in order to remain at Google. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that was possible for him. I guess that's the point I was trying to make. Whether he failed to engage with critiques of his posit…

What evidence do you have that Damore was not given a chance to disavow his memo?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#669
post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point me to your source for that quote? I'm not coloring his response when I call it a divisive political opinion piece. It's explicitly framed as "the politics of the majority of people at Google is a big problem". And whether or not their initial request technically was broad enough to include his response isn't the issue. Either Damore was reasonably smart, and he knew that this would at best be enormous…

He was clueless, insofar as he made the mistake of trusting a giant corporation to be a good steward of a political space.

It wasn't a political space. It was a corporate space that Damore used for an explicitly political end.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Politics is about how resources should be spent > how things “ought” to be Those are the same thing. > Posting a disagreement about policy is inherently political Yes if his memo was a paragraph saying "We should change our gender policy to X, Y, and Z", then yes it would be political. Instead it is a 10 page document explaining how biological differences may explain gender imbalances, and the implications of this.…

I don’t dismiss things by calling them political, although apparently you do. I just think it’s insanely naive to believe that you can write a 10 page document on a gender related company policy and not have it become political quickly. You can’t post a 10 document article in response to a corporate policy about gender in hiring and not expect that to be interpreted as an argument against said policy. Whether or not…

> You can’t post a 10 document article in response to a corporate policy about gender in hiring and not expect that to be interpreted as an argument against said policy.

The memo certainly challenged Google's corporate policy. So what? You think anyone who has an opposing view on a corporate policy and can back their view up with facts and evidence should be fired?

Personally I'm not big on authoritarianism/totalitarianism, but maybe that's just me.

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