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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

#771

Post by stale2002 »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #630
stale2002 wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is illegal, according to California law. It is illegal to prevent people from engaging in politics, in California.

This is not about politics. It is about basic human decency. There have been some that have since they to make it a social political thing. But the courts do not care about such things. You could never have someone like Damore on a team once they shared such an opinion. He should have kept it in his head. Why now nobody will hire him.

I mean, the law is the law. The person I was responding to specifically suggested making politics not allow at work.

This suggestion is illegal.

California law is extremely pro employee.

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

#772

Post by stcredzero »

jhanschoo wrote: post #746
stcredzero wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Many of the media interpretations of what James Damore wrote were very biased, and effectively amounted to hit pieces. His use of terms like "Trait Neuroticism" were direct uses of psychological terms which just sound bad as everyday English. Evolutionary Biology also tends to have a "dismal" feeling to it, like Economics can. One can't take fie…

I agree. It seemed to me that Damore's memo was nevertheless fallacious, though nevertheless totally unworthy of the criticism that he received. Unlike in fields we are used to, psychological results have remarkably little prescriptive power given the inherently complex and malleable nature of social structures, and it's still pretty much up in the air how much or little effect nature has on preferences and to what e…

There is a silver lining to all this for me: it shows that whereas women used to have little voice in the public sphere, "American women" as a class now have a sufficiently loud voice

There is nothing good about someone who has a "sufficiently loud voice" -- if that loudness comes not from principle and merit, but from emotional toxicity.

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

#773

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

tziki wrote: post #644
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…

> 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 will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. More recent studies don't show any bias against women in callback rates. In fact, some show slight…

another study supports this claim:

"The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview."

"Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door."

source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

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

#774

Post by lawnchair_larry »

_m8fo wrote: post #505
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…

> 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 the hiring manager personally told me that was why he hired the person and why the white guy and Indian guy was not getting a call. More than once. And one of them even said that this was a direct order from their manager. They were told to improve diversity metrics. When you tell a direct report to do something, you should not be surprised when they do it.

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

#775

Post by dguaraglia »

dguaraglia wrote: post #29
mikeryan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure Gawker would agree with you.

Gawker wasn't sued for libel.

Next time someone complains about me "jumping the gun" for talking about brigading on posts regarding Damore, I'll point them to this comment, where I state a 100% correct, non-controversial, non-offensive fact and I still get downvoted. Hard to explain, huh?

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

#776

Post by grzm »

dguaraglia wrote: post #775
dguaraglia wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gawker wasn't sued for libel.

Next time someone complains about me "jumping the gun" for talking about brigading on posts regarding Damore, I'll point them to this comment, where I state a 100% correct, non-controversial, non-offensive fact and I still get downvoted. Hard to explain, huh?

This is a highly contentious thread with a lot of participants and over 740 comments at this point. I don't think you can reach any meaningful conclusion other than HN members are human and behave in all variety of ways, rational, and otherwise.

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

#777

Post by lawnchair_larry »

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #768
mistermann wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watch a fair amount of Microsoft technical videos, and just off the top of my head I can think of 3 people who are very likely to be diversity hires. Although at the same time and despite being pretty far right on the political spectrum, I think there is some truth to the idea that big companies "should" hire visible minorities over and above those that are fully qualified, but it shouldn't be done at the expense o…

I don't think minorities should be hired to be "visible", that doesn't sit right with me. Hiring minorities and even people from different economic backgrounds, country of origin etc is good for getting different perspectives and different ways of approaching problems. The hard truth is if you only hire white guys from Stanford you've got a ton of overlap in their background and the way they think. If you only hire b…

There is nothing but debunked studies to back up your last statement as a generally applicable one. Obviously, it depends on the job.

Designers, sure, it's very eqsy to think of examples where diverse backgrounds improve business outcomes. But let's not pretend that there is any difference in business outcomes if Foxconn's assembly lines snapping iPhone parts together are entirely Chinese hands vs if they were to equally represent all members of the united nations.

Asserting that there is a benefit needs to be seriously qualified, as it can certainly be everything ranging from a benefit, to negligible, to an actual handicap.

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

#778

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

s73ver_ wrote: post #735
maoistinquisitr wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the heckler's veto. Free speech is a cultural matter, not just a protection from the federal and state governments.

But now you're getting into the "free speech for me, not for thee" part. You're basically saying that Damore is entitled to free speech and protection, but that Google and his former co-workers are not. Remember, who you work with is part of the freedom of association which is a component of free speech.

This is a strawman I'm very hard pressed to find anyone in HN at least who would deny Goolgle's right or another other party's right of writing a rebuttal to his claims. A free and open internal debate is exactly what Damore was trying to start. Firing to me at least is not speech, it's an inherently violent act.

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

#779

Post by andrewprock »

stcredzero wrote: post #770
andrewprock wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that this is biological, as opposed to cultural?

In short, yes. You should look up the book which is cited in this video, and you should listen to the discussion of the prologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw Since the human brain and its interaction with culture is very complicated, more research is needed. But a fair reading of what we have so far would seem to indicate: it's both. Beware of ideological just-so stories that make you feel good. Also,…

It looks like there is only indirect evidence, and no direct evidence. In fact, the whole discussion smells far too much of "correlation means causation" to get anything useful out of it.

There are some great weasel words like: "there is good evidence ... play a role ..."

Without a hypothetical mechanism, this is all quite speculative.

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

#780

Post by flukus »

lurr wrote: post #609
013a wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The document went through multiple layers of abstraction. Very few people actually read it. Instead, some news outfit reported on it relatively accurately, then a less scrupulous outfit wanted clicks so they sensationalize it, then a third party reads both of those articles and averages their opinion on it somewhere in the middle. Repeat. As the information becomes more popular, we get sponsored snap stories and Face…

> Very few people actually read it. You need to learn that people can have a different opinion then you, having read the same document. > Damore was fired because of the outrage, not because of the article, but the outrage was manufactured by a sensationalist click machine and information overload culture literally championed by the company he was fired from. Correct, and that's why his lawsuit is BS. He caused outra…

> Correct, and that's why his lawsuit is BS. He caused outrage both externally and internally.

How did he cause an external outrage? Did he leak the document to the press? Did he speak to the press at all?

There are quite a few people to blame for the external outrage, but he is not one of them.

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