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Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

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Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#781

Post by bjourne »

vl wrote: post #610
RealityNow wrote: post #290

It's incredibly ironic that a company that apparently cares about diversity enough to have a "Vice President for Diversity" fired an employee for presenting an opposing viewpoint - to their diversity policy of all things. Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concern…

>Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop). In this context Google’s behavior is rational, and this guy tried to fight it with reason and argument (I was laughing…

> There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop).

That's bullshit. Write a "manifesto" about how senior executive compensations are to high, the company should be taken over by the employees and that private ownership of properties is a crime. That's the REAL leftist position. Then send that manifesto out to thousands of employees on the company's internal mailing list and see how long you last.

People fail to see the point... Yes, there are many "leftist" positions. The above is one of them. The point is that expressing that position on an internal mailing list most certainly puts your employment in jeopardy. It doesn't matter what the position is (abortion, drug legalization, gay weddings, military attacks on civilians, foreign relations, ...), what matter is where you express it.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#782

Post by pokemongoaway »

postnihilism wrote: post #676
kromem wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're so concerned with the advantages of wealth and education inequality, why are we still using race (a bad proxy, given the spread and distribution around the averages - the whole point of the original document) as the determining factor instead of just asking for tax returns/education records for special programs? And regarding gender - let's consider the example of salary negotiation. Now, if you research, yo…

My comment about 'White Male Persecution Complex (PC)" was tongue and cheek. I should have known that would be a mistake in this conversation. I have many white male coworkers (as you'd expect given the demographic statistics for tech) and I have nothing but the utmost respect for their ability. I don't harbor any assumption that, "that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life." I don't think that…

So you weren't able to backup your assertion about his misogyny, but you leave your politics at home - even though you mentioned you just worked for Google? The thing is, there are a lot of people who react the way you do these days - so do you think this guy's views on gender politics are so bad that he should be prevented from engineering software? That's pretty far out, isn't it?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#783

Post by bowlofpetunias »

wyclif wrote: post #31

Fun fact: the author of the memo earned a PhD in Biology from Harvard. Google can fire him and get away with it, but it's going to be tough, very tough, for him to be falsely characterized as someone who is misinformed or unscientific. And the court of public opinion may well be more important in this controversy than any court of law.

Nope, it's very easy to characterize him as misinformed and unscientific, since he published the evidence in writing.

Plenty of bigots have degrees. There are nazis and muslim fundamentalists with degrees. Extremist ideology tends to override unwelcome facts.

The memo speaks for itself.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#784

Post by jneal »

I'm honestly curious...if diversity is such an important issue to so many people, why do large sports organizations such as the NFL, NBA, etc, still separate women into their own leagues and not allow them into the "men's league"? And probably in the range of billions of people support such organizations.

I personally feel are humans are equal regardless of race sex origin or any other factor. If you are a human, you have every right that any other human has and there is no place for discrimination of any kind.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#785

Post by belorn »

jkoll wrote: post #650
zouhair wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem I had with his "memo" is that, for a text that is about a hot and controversial topic, it lacks (more like doesn't contain any) references to backup his points. A lot of factoids and nothing to back them up.

Unedited version of the memo: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

Thank you. Its comments like yours that make me wish we had a FAQ/info box per 1000+ comments threads so that we can read first hand and get a personal interpretation first before digging through the comments, including the commentary in the article.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#786

Post by lurker69 »

clairity wrote: post #562

just reading quickly through the document (memo? manifesto? commentary?), it's obviously highly political, both in positional language and ideological couching. the author may believe he is being completely logical in his thinking, but it's full of post-hoc rationalization. * disappointed * should the guy have been fired? probably. it's political and divisive and disrupts the workplace. but he'll bounce back. it's no…

I think he knew very well what he was doing.

>As a child, Damore was a chess champion, earning the FIDE Master title, putting him in the >99th percentile, according to his CV.

and

> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.

Should explain it well. He knew very well what result will be, thats why he put his name on memo. He knew that SJWs at google will pressure HR to fire him. Apparently he prepared the ground with NLRB complains. And if you have read full non redacted memo with sources and pictures you can see he was very careful with wording and he pointed out that controversial things are not his opinions but he provided other sources for them. There is nothing Google can use on real court (they have enough to convict him according to SJW norms in echo chamber court though) to prove that he was misogynistic.

Also he is getting a lot of support from right leaning and centrist media. I would say that way more people support him than support Google firing him.

Timing is also in his advantage. Recently google disabled youtube and gmail account of Jordan Peterson, youtube announced thy plan to isolate videos with controversial views despite not braking ToS, and accusation that google manipulates search results to favor left talking points are around for long time. There are a lot of articles, blogs and videos about those topics currently and this is quite effective smearing campaign against google that pushes users to think about alternatives to google products.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#787

Post by thex10 »

icelancer wrote: post #612
thex10 wrote: post #366

As a minority woman in tech I'm not bothered much by his document, but that's only because I don't work with this guy or folks like him. His manifesto doesn't pain me, but that's only because I have a secure job coding all my favorite things with people who don't spew this kind of unsubstantiated crap to my colleagues, giving them spurious reasons to doubt my abilities and inherent qualities. My sympathies are with t…

>that's only because I don't work with this guy or folks like him How do you know this for sure? They may not want to speak out.

The people around me might be pondering all sorts of strange things - if they're not disrupting my life as they work through those thoughts then that is OK with me.

I can mind my own business. I'm not really into the 'dig through someone's life history to find the one objectionable thing and then destroy their lives for it' trope.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#788

Post by lurker69 »

nancye wrote: post #363

I'm not one to root for people to be fired for holding what I'd consider dumb or ill-informed opinions, but at the same time, as a woman, do I actually want to work on a team with someone who thinks I'm biologically unsuited to the job I'm doing and who is presumably judging my work more harshly and waiting for me to fail at things, who may have the power to review me poorly and affect my long-term career prospects?…

Its a question what was worse for PR.

Firing him just proved his point. He said that google created environment, where people whos opinions are not completely aligned with left echo chamber dogma, cant express their views safely. ... And he was fired for exactly this.

Right leaning and centrist media is not on googles side here. And seems that he plans on suing:

> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.

Mind you if you read actual manifesto with pictures and sources, you will see he was very careful with words. He carefully sourced all controversial points and mentioned multiple times that this are not his personal views. But pro feminist blogs and media misrepresented this memo, like PS SJW culture usually does. This was enough for vocal minority to pressure google HR to fire him, wihtout actually reading real memo and relying solely on biased interpretations.

On court he has the upper hand.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#789

Post by [deleted] »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #714
tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case. If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool. I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far l…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#790

Post by peak_body_yo »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #714
tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case. If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool. I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far l…

I disagree that gender and race disparities in tech is even a problem. The majority of careers have gender and race disparities. It is normal. There needs to be good reasoning for why tech is more special than the hundreds of other careers that enjoy this same phenomenon.
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