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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

#871

Post by kpdxxx »

OCASM wrote: post #700
odorousrex wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i.e. "What are all the women and brown people doing in MY office?"

In all seriousness, there's no such thing as a general "feminist narrative" at Google.

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

#872

Post by manfredo »

vorotato wrote: post #90
dmitrygr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, workplace discrimination due to politics is illegal [1] In USA, discrimination due to sex is illegal. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

Yes, discrimination against men, and or white people is illegal. They can show though that they hire plenty of white men. You are correct in California you cannot discriminate against employees due to politics, however I'm sure they'd be able to show they hire plenty of republicans. It is also an uphill battle for Damore since he'd basically be claiming that he was discriminated against at the same time as arguing th…

> however I'm sure they'd be able to show they hire plenty of republicans.

Would they? Do you work in Silicon Valley, and if so how many Republican members did you meet on the teams you worked on. In 6+ years of work, my count is exactly 1.

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

#873

Post by dqv »

DuskStar wrote: post #736
dqv wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article has Professor Grant himself (the guy who is cited in all of these discussions) rebutting what Scott wrote in the blog post. It's well worth the read.

Which article? Not the feature from TC, I'd presume. If there's a good rebuttal to what Scott wrote out there, I'd love to read it! There's Grant's response added by Scott to the comments [0], but I don't think that really qualifies as a rebuttal. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

I used poor wording - it's just Grant's response, not a rebuttal. I appreciated that Scott included it.

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

#874

Post by johan_larson »

I think this lawsuit is a sign that Google's management miscalculated. The last thing they wanted was for this issue to drag on. They don't want to be on the front lines of the culture war. They want to build great things and make piles of money.

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

#875

Post by chourobin »

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…

I’d like to leave this here: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/08/22/damore-jackass

“Now, unleashed from any pretense of evenhandedness or detachment, we get a succinct summary of his argument: the notion that women should, based on merit and talent, constitute a larger percentage of the tech industry is like believing in Santa Claus. A fantasy.

Fuck this guy”

Damore is just an asshole. Fuck that guy.

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

#876

Post by folknor »

dragonwriter wrote: post #713
folknor wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in paragraphs 174 to 198, but specifically 179 to 181.

Nothing in 174-198 is supported by evidence in the filing (this isn't unusual at this stage, since that's not generally required in an initial filing, but your claim was of evidence), except 188, which is part of an allegation of adverse politically-motivated job treatment, not hiring based on race/gender. So, no, there are no examples with evidence of people hired just for minority status in the lawsuit filing.

Yes there is, there's an email embedded in the paragraphs I outlined.

You might think that's not direct evidence, but it's evidence that supports the story in the paragraphs I outlined.

It says explicitly in paragraph 179: "Upon information and belief, the Google employee was not selected due to the fact that the hiring managers were looking solely for “diverse” individuals, and as a Caucasian male, the Google employee did not help fill their mandatory (and illegal) quotas."

And then "the Google employee’s former director initiated a “Diversity Team Kickoff” with the intent to freeze headcount so that teams could find diversity candidates to help fill the empty roles. Google was specifically looking for women and non-Caucasian individuals to fill these roles."

I think _you_ think that _I_ think this is damning proof and that the case is settled, and I've never claimed that. I just said that there are examples of people being hired because of their diversity status, with supporting evidence.

I'm not saying the evidence is true, or that it's directly related, but it _is_ "supporting evidence".

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

#877

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

flukus wrote: post #707
gizmo686 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the complaint: "23. Damore was diligent and loyal, and received substantial praise for the quality of his work. Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance ratings, placing him in the top few percentile of Google employees. Throughout the course of his employment with Google, Damore received approximately eight per…

Sounds like he was pretty good, but I wonder about this part: > Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance How are these ratings done, by the team/manager or externally? IME when it's done by the same team then reviews are more about politics than performance.

so let me get this staright: when Damore is being rated politics have an effect on ratings and promotions

when Damore speaks out against politics affecting hiring and promotion, he is wrong

I'm fascinated how one can reconcile both beliefs

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

#878

Post by smrtinsert »

stcredzero wrote: post #538
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 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…

Just because a media outlet might have been aggressively attacked his memo, doesn't mean his arguments are valid. He cherry picked various pieces and came to conclusions that weren't causal. At the end of the day, his perception of what is happening at Google is just that, perception.

My guess is that he will be settled with to avoid the annoyance or simply destroyed in court.

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

#879

Post by petraeus »

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…

You know what makes me even angrier, social injustice

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

#880

Post by towndrunk »

cobookman wrote: post #719
towndrunk wrote: post #55

I find this kind of funny... The king of search finds it too hard to compile data. http://fortune.com/2017/05/27/google-gender-wage-data-report...

it wasn't that it was too hard. It was that there's a cost to compile the data, and Google shouldn't have to pay 250k to compile a data inquery just `because`. Just like you aren't asked to strip search when going through TSA, `just because`. There needs to be a legitimate reason and suspicion.

I think the reason was government contracts.
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