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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

#821

Post by wpietri »

eloff wrote: post #785
wpietri wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your notion is that whatever an employee does should be fine as long as it technically complies with a the wording of vague, general request made by a coworker? That would be one way to run a company, I guess. But I've never heard of one that actually works like that.

If you want to have an insightful discussion, one should refrain from making strawman arguments. I think Demore's memo has little place in a company, but neither does the diversity program that spawned it. Better to keep politics out of the work place. But given the context, it was fully justified, regardless of its merits or lack thereof and I think the person who leaked it committed a real sin here, as did the comp…

You can't keep politics out of the workplace. Your notion that diversity programs shouldn't exist is enormously political, and company having them or refusing to have them is political either way. Especially here in America, where the rights and privileges of white men have been intensely political topics for literal centuries. You are practicing politics right here, right now.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#822

Post by ALittleLight »

ashtonkem wrote: post #811
ALittleLight wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating going on a talk show to share your story and being friends with people. I also don't really get your point. It seems like you're saying some people will incorrectly judge him because of the talk shows he went on. Okay, so?

You didn’t read fully. I made it clear that group membership is one thing that people will judge on. Group membership would plausibly include those who go onto specific TV shows. And yes, literally my entire point was that people will judge him for going on talk shows.

Ok, I agree. Some people will judge him for going on talk shows.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#823

Post by wpietri »

ALittleLight wrote: post #760
wpietri wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please show me your source for the claim that they asked him for feedback?

Sure. Wikipedia has a description of it citing a Guardian article. "James Damore was spurred to write the memo when a Google diversity program he attended solicited feedback." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

That's an article about Damore's POV, so I believe the correct way to express it is that Damore claims he wrote it in response to a request for feedback. And given that he put it up with a go link, it's pretty clear he didn't just submit this as an email to the D&I team. He published it internally, hoping to spark discussion. So I think it's disingenuous to talk about this as if it were something Google's managers ordered him to do. Damore set out to cause a stir and got one.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#824

Post by fzeroracer »

pnako wrote: post #818
fzeroracer wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't follow suit with the history of computer science however. Women were a large amount of computer science grads back in the 70s and 80s where it was even more difficult and arguably less social then modern development. Nowadays software dev is highly collaborative and social. It faced declining amounts of graduates that were women from the late-80s and onwards compared to engineering and the physical scien…

Women are the majority of CS grads in Saudi Arabia, and you'll find that they are many women studying CS in third-world countries that typically are less "gender egalitarian" than Western countries. In wealthy, western countries giving men and women the choice of what to study without having to think too much about where they'll end up in society, that's where you see the most gender imbalance. https://en.wikipedia.o…

Yes, but to make this argument you would have to demonstrate that the West somehow became much more gender egalitarian in the past 30 years in order to explain the drop in CS grads.

So what happened from the late 80s to now that resulted in women gaining more freedom and therefore shifting them out of CS? And more specifically: Why has this only affected computer science? The gender equality paradox supposedly holds for the entirety of STEM and yet we've seen woman graduates in STEM steadily rise across the board except for CS. Therefore that would make CS an outlier and not the norm.

That's assuming the gender equality paradox holds true which is likely not the case considering the issues with the assertion brought up in the Wikipedia article you linked (which I hope you read).

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#825

Post by naasking »

Daishiman wrote: post #803
markdog12 wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> young, white males who use the internet way too much What does "use the internet way too much" mean?

It means they don't socialize, are not pragmatic, have little understanding of the issues most people actually care about, lack the capacity to empathize with people with radically different life experiences.

Apart from "don't socialise", you've described literally everyone, everywhere.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#826

Post by wpietri »

mdorazio wrote: post #799
wpietri wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read that? In particular, see the Hughes vs Pair quote: "A cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress exists when there is ‘(1) extreme and outrageous conduct by the defendant with the intention of causing, or reckless disregard of the probability of causing, emotional distress; (2) the plaintiff’s suffering severe or extreme emotional distress; and (3) actual and proximate causation of t…

So I'm guessing you're not a lawyer then and just enjoy talking about things with authority on HN as though you are an expert. I'm disappointed yet again, but not surprised since that seems to be the norm here. Please stop doing that - it makes this community worse. Yes, I did read it, thanks for being condescending and violating HN guidelines. As I said already, I sat on the jury for a similar case that did go to tr…

You have absolutely no idea what the intent of the person posting was. None. You are making things up to suit your position.

You having sat one one whole jury does not make you an expert in this topic.

I am not "cherry picking". I quoted the whole standard. It has three parts. I pointed to the part that in my view clearly does not apply. If you think it does apply, feel free to argue it. But standing on your expertise of being in the same room with lawyers once does not cut it for me.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#827

Post by kortilla »

jlebar wrote: post #612
banads wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also assume anything you say can/will be purposefully taken out of context and twisted in order to create rage click bait to satisfy someone's ideological crusade, or to generate revenue for a dying industry which is incentivized to cater to the lowest common denominator just to survive.

Literally his whole memo was posted online, in full. I struggle to understand the context that was missing.

The memo was, but very few people read that and instead read what was spoon fed to them by their ideological rag of choice. Look how many comments on this HN post alone claim he said things he didn’t (the google women engineers were worse, women can’t code, all women are neurotic, etc).

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#828

Post by ALittleLight »

wpietri wrote: post #823
ALittleLight wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Wikipedia has a description of it citing a Guardian article. "James Damore was spurred to write the memo when a Google diversity program he attended solicited feedback." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

That's an article about Damore's POV, so I believe the correct way to express it is that Damore claims he wrote it in response to a request for feedback. And given that he put it up with a go link, it's pretty clear he didn't just submit this as an email to the D&I team. He published it internally, hoping to spark discussion. So I think it's disingenuous to talk about this as if it were something Google's managers or…

I said Damore was asked for feedback not that his managers ordered him to write the document and then fired him for it. Damore claimed he originally wrote it as feedback for a diversity meeting he attended and then shared it for broader feedback.

To my knowledge this account has never been contested by Google or anyone else and is the agreed upon account. I agree it is possible that Damore is lying about why he wrote it, and that if Google said he wrote it under some different circumstances there would be ambiguity because Damore's own account could be self serving - but, just because it is possibly Damore is lying doesn't mean we should assume he is. There is no dispute about why he originally authored the memo, is there?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#829

Post by kortilla »

pjc50 wrote: post #608
humanrebar wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll point out that this aphorism concedes that certain categories of interesting discussion are not possible, and it's a little neutral about that prospect for my taste. It also concedes that "The New York Times" cannot be trusted to value that kind of discourse more than gotcha narrative chasing.

All sorts of discussion aren't possible unless the participants can be sure that the others are acting in good faith and not likely to engage in needless hostility or reprisals outside the discussion. The term for this environment is "safe space", but they're unpopular for some reason.

No, “safe space” has long been taken over to indicate spaces where people can be without worrying about being exposed to an idea that triggers a sensitive area for them regardless of intent or good faith.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#830

Post by kortilla »

wpietri wrote: post #669
piflon wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was a political space. The topic was literally about gender hiring policies.
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