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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

#851

Post by TeMPOraL »

manigandham wrote: post #560
pillowkusis wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many companies aren’t promoting “diversity” to support an ideology, they do it because it has specific PR and legal outcomes that help their image. Companies with high diversity metrics get praised in the press. Companies with low diversity metrics get negative attention. Diversity metrics are also a solid defense in real courts and the court of public opinion when race/gender/sexual harassment claims come up…

That seems to me like an idealogy of its own, but what exactly are diversity metrics measuring then? Appearance and other unchangeable physical traits? How unfortunate since they have nothing to do with interests, abilities, or character.

Yes.

> Appearance and other unchangeable physical traits? How unfortunate since they have nothing to do with interests, abilities, or character.

As GP pointed out, companies aren't really after that.

When a company does not discriminate on race or gender, it generally stays silent about it, because "not actively discriminating" is just normal hiring on merit. When a company boasts about their diversity program, there's a strategy behind it. Maybe it's because the management believes increasing diversity beyond the industry distribution creates a better working environment (as you indirectly point out, the connection here is speculative). Or maybe they know it's good PR, and also a diverse workplace creates a nice CYA for the company in case of a disgruntled employee filing in a bullshit harassment lawsuit.

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

#852

Post by kpdxxx »

microcolonel wrote: post #655
john_moscow wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually lived in Germany for a few years before moving on to North America, so I can somewhat compare. IMO, people in US are generally more competitive than in Europe, but in the current political climate this unfortunately leads to more backstabbing and more dirty play. Europe has its holy cows as well. Try publicly questioning the Syrian refugee program or come up with scientific evidence that nationals coming f…

> Europe has its holy cows as well. Try publicly questioning the Syrian refugee program or come up with scientific evidence that nationals coming from war conflict zones have a higher chance of becoming criminals - you'll get crucified the same way. Boy, and don't even begin to mention that refugee programmes in Europe are probably the least effective way to evacuate people from a warzone (and that the majority of pe…

European governments don't actively evacuate people from warzones at grand scale. Stop with the propaganda.

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

#853

Post by TeMPOraL »

lurr wrote: post #503
omegaworks wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. The history of women in tech completely contradicts your belief. The lack of representation is a real problem, we can debate how to fix it, but to claim it doesn't exist is baseless and harmful. https://hackernoon.com/a-brief-history-of-women-in-computing...

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…

> I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why?

It's not that shallow. Using your example, the interesting things become visible when you dig down into different types of work done in the medical profession. Scott Alexander has a very convincing piece on the whole topic:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

The issue of interest is tackled in section IV of the post. If you scroll down to the end of the section, there are interesting charts there, showing gender distribution of doctors among medical specialties. The distribution happens to align nicely with the theory of differences in interests, explored in that section.

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

#854

Post by TeMPOraL »

stcredzero wrote: post #743
koonsolo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be from US. As a European, I find all these things very absurd. Like the guys with the "dongle" joke that both got fired [1], and if I remember correctly, so did the woman reporting them. Maybe you should all start by treating each other with more respect, whoever it is. And don't go witch-hunting. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes...

And don't go witch-hunting. Sometimes old cultural artifacts go away in the "mother country" but persist in "the colonies." Seems like the witch-hunting mentality is something that's stuck around in the US, infecting both the political Right and Left.

And now as the colony is culturally (among other things) the most powerful/dominant actor on the stage of the world, the mindset is infecting the "old world" back.

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

#855

Post by orbat »

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #376
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 hate the fact that you need to state "you're a mixed race woman in tech.". I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the outrage culture instilled in big part by a bigoted academic clique.

> bigoted academic clique

Ah, everybody's a bigot but the actual bigots

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

#856

Post by TeMPOraL »

on_and_off wrote: post #670
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Trump seems stuck in some kind of info-loop with Fox News, Damore seemed to get most of his memo ideas from those youtubers in the first place. He's got a footnote in it about how complaints about gay rights are just an attempt by Marxists to undermine capitalism for goodness sake! In an internal corporate communication about how to better deal with diversity. The mind boggles.

I wondered what you were ranting about so I skimmed Damore's memo : >Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race pol…

You haven't been on the Internet in the past few years, have you? :). The fringe, while a small minority, has also been the loudest part of the feminist movement in this decade, and it's the impact of that fringe that can be seen responsible for such overreaction to Damore's memo.

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

#857

Post by hnaccy »

huffpopo wrote: post #486

Even if James Damore does not win Google has a number of practices that could be considered embarrassing if they were to be made public. I know a number of Googlers who confide to me privately about their experiences. Traditionally they would not have an outlet to express their grievances because no-one really cares. I'm hoping this lawsuit will give them and others a chance leak some of these practices. I'm interest…

Could you describe some of these practices?

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

#858

Post by rmc »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #453
ironjunkie wrote: post #171

After reading the memo and after reading most of the comments here that claim that users also read the memo makes me very afraid on the state of educated people in America. I cannot believe that most of you still go with the media narrative that Damore claimed "women are worse than man at engineering" while this is a very obvious misrepresentation of what he wrote in order to fill a narrative. This is all part of a p…

What? He actually does say that... > I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. [...] > This is all part of a politically driven agenda that destroys everyone trying to question the unique, politically-correct acceptable way o…

Sounds like he was a bad culture fit.

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

#859

Post by stephenr »

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #661
stephenr wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she mentioned a female developer who couldn't write SQL queries I'd wager a third of the nodejs "developer community" could be described that way. The key thing is was she hired to write sql queries?

Yes, that is part of her job, but it wasn't covered in the interview process from what I've been told.

I've worked with plenty of tech and related people who didn't understand basic technologies we expect in a given field.

I tend to reserve judgement until their effort can be judged. If he or she is slow but learning and improving, I'd accept (and probably raise with a manager) that the hiring process is flawed and try to help him/her.

If its just utter idiocy, I'm less forgiving.

I literally had a business analyst come to me - the new guy at the time - on her last day after several years of working in the org and ask me what her email address is.

Or the BA who insisted she didnt need to write a clear and specific spec for a feature, because she could just open up dreamweaver and put some buttons on a page.

Those sorts of people I have zero fucking time for, and will drink merrily when they quit/are fired.

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

#860

Post by TeMPOraL »

lurr wrote: post #577
jrs95 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am glad that his life is ruined There’s nothing toxic about that! As for whether or not he knew what he was doing...he may have written this thing, but he did so in an area that was designated for that sort of thing. He wasn’t the one that started emailing it to the entire company. So it’s fair to say he thought he was just having a discussion in the topic with whatever this skeptic group at Google was, and other…

If it's internal then don't write shit that will get you fired. I think forwarding it is a shitty thing to do, but he should have kept in mind that potential.

Maybe he had faith in Google being managed by smart people, who understand the necessity of not policing internal feedback.
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