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

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

#691

Post by wan23 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #418

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

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, even based on outward appearance, has real-world advantages for companies. Or at least, lack of it can lead to making serious errors that can lead to underserving or even insulting customers.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/07/01/google-apolog...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/08/09/faceapp-spa...

https://www.rt.com/viral/400927-robots-racist-sexist-bank-lo...

http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-huawei-smartphone-bea...

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

#692

Post by OCASM » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

lurr wrote: post #470

I wonder how much evidence google has of people who were pissed off by Damore's memo. Cause really, that's all it should take. "He made his continued employment here impossible because he pissed off his coworkers". Sounds like a completely valid reason to fire me.

Is Damore responsible for the failure of some of people in managing their own emotions? "He's saying things we don't like! Fire him!" That doesn't seem valid to me.

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

#693

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:27 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #398

praestigiare wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim that there is a pattern of bad diversity hires, but your anecdotes are just as easily explained by confirmation bias: You see an incompetent male engineer, and you write him off as an idiot and forget him. You see an incompetent woman, and she becomes evidence that there is a problem with diversity programs. You remember evidence that supports your narrative. Obviously my statement is not evidence either. I…

It depends on whether the incompetent male engineers are just as incompetent as the incompetent female engineers. For instance, she mentioned a female developer who couldn't write SQL queries. Are the incompetent male developers at that same level of incompetence? Of course taking this into account cannot completely eliminate selection bias, and the sample size either way is probably too small to be all that meaningf…

[deleted]

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

#694

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:29 PM UTC

Zanni wrote: post #565

lurr wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't. At all. The issue is that it doesn't matter. Women might be less interested in tech, as in if you took 100 men and 100 women and measured their interest the men might be higher. That doesn't mean no women are interested in tech, or that those who are interested are less competent. I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in…

That's shifting rapidly. Women are very close to 50% of medical school graduates as of 2015. [1] [1] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medical-school-gra...

Women reached parity in law school graduation about two decades ago, but still lag in practicing law, becoming partners and becoming judges today so it may not be changing all that rapidly just based on that single statistic.

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

#695

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:30 PM UTC

folknor wrote: post #680

_m8fo wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. How do you know that they were hired just because of their minority status?

Because there are explicit examples of this with supporting evidence given in the lawsuit.

No, there aren't. There are alleged examples and supposed evidence of lots of things in the lawsuit, but that isn't one of them.

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

#696

Post by lifeformed » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:33 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #568

paulgb wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a former Googler (left before the memo) and I was upset by the memo because, in implying that the hiring bar was lower for women, it contained the thinly veiled corolloary that my female colleagues were less capable than my male colleagues. That did not match my experience at all.

Affirmative action is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer or have suffered from discrimination within a culture[1]. Google is an affirmative action employer[2]. If women are favored over men, then wouldn't it make sense that a less skilled woman has the potential of being selected over a more skilled man? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action [2] https://careers.google.co…

That's assuming that there's only a handful of people to pick from. But if your top choices are all top tier developers, then slicing it up by gender or ethnicity shouldn't make a difference.

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

#697

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:34 PM UTC

SyncSystems wrote: post #497

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

> As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and wil…

I don't think OP said that it made it OK. (It doesn't). I think OP was saying that people like her had to fight through worse - not to say it doesn't matter, but to place it in perspective and context.

Say 100% discrimination is the KKK lynching people. Say 50% discrimination is redlining and refusal to hire. Then what are white males facing? Maybe 10%? Yes, it matters. And also yes, it's not in the same league as what other groups have had to face.

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

#698

Post by akvadrako » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:35 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #675

FabHK wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Whether or not the Big Five are appropriate for the analysis or not, or whether they're ultimate truth or not, doesn't really matter for the point I and GP were making: Damon's terminology is jargon from differential psychology and easily misunderstood. ("Women score higher on neuroticism on average" does not mean "Women are too neurotic to work as engineers in big companies", or whatever.) 2. I think it takes mor…

1. And my point is that even with it's correctly understood, it is still incorrect. I agree that the entire document was overly vague and open to interpreters inserting their own ideas, usually tied to their own political identity. 2. Appealing to number of citations is an appeal to popularity (fallacy) because it avoids criticizing the content. It's also not "unseating" the big five, just demonstrating how the big f…

So your point is that, even though the reporters neglected to explain (or understand) the term neurotic, they were justified because the ultimately correct explanation is that it's meaningless in context?

In that case, the only proper response is to report that the word neurotic is not scientific.

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

#699

Post by OCASM » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #628

Shank wrote: post #194

Just for once, I'd like a story like this to turn out positively. Not in that James wins or loses this lawsuit, but that something could be positively gained in his life from this experience. Being fired from Google has been traumatizing. He's gone farther and farther into the "unrecoverable from a PR standpoint" zone, and that's really horrible. 10 years from now, he's going to have a hard time finding employment or…

The right wing and egging him on did not help him. It probably contributed to him not realizing the mistake he has made. Saw an interview with him and saying he needed to have his GF filter what he writes. I was thinking no that is not the issue. Instead do not share these things if they are in your head. Swear him saying that just made it worse. He clearly still does not get it.

He did nothing wrong.

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

#700

Post by OCASM » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 11:38 PM UTC

odorousrex wrote: post #580

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 bu…

He was fired for going against the "feminist" narrative that dominates Google.