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Google Fires Author of Divisive Memo On Gender Differences (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Alphabet Inc.'s Google has fired an employee who wrote an internal memo blasting the web company's diversity policies, creating a firestorm across Silicon Valley. James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the note, confirmed his dismissal in an email, saying that he had been fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes." Earlier on Monday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a note to employees that said portions of the memo "violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace." But he didn't say if the company was taking action against the employee. A Google representative, asked about the dismissal, referred to Pichai's memo. Damore's 10-page memorandum accused Google of silencing conservative political opinions and argued that biological differences play a role in the shortage of women in tech and leadership positions. It circulated widely inside the company and became public over the weekend, causing a furor that amplified the pressure on Google executives to take a more definitive stand. After the controversy swelled, Danielle Brown, Google's new vice president for diversity, integrity and governance, sent a statement to staff condemning Damore's views and reaffirmed the company's stance on diversity. In internal discussion boards, multiple employees said they supported firing the author, and some said they would not choose to work with him, according to postings viewed by Bloomberg News.
That seems harsh. Does this prove the part of his post about being scared to disagree?
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom." --Justice Edward Terry Sanford
I'll bet anything the guy got a solid severance package though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Obey the party line or be fired and banned from the industry.
For such an "inclusive" and "tolerant" company, they sure are quite Soviet in their treatment of dissent.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
With so many other employees refusing to work with him, he effectively poisoned his own well.
But hey, I'm sure some conservative outfit will employ him, right?
Just like they take in all the unwanted children produced due to making abortion hard to access, and such. /s
I have been on work related travel in Africa and Europe the past couple of weeks and had just started my family vacation here this week. I have decided to return tomorrow as clearly there’s a lot more to discuss as a group — including how we create a more inclusive environment for all.
And now we know why he was fired: due to his rant the CEO had to cut short his holidays. This is definitely a firing offense.
"At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint)."
And to prove that their fears are well founded, Google will simply fire one of them. Got a minority conservative viewpoint? Don't you dare to express your view or suffer the consequences.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
Google specifically flagged the fact that the fired employee had said women are "neurotic" and show "a lower stress tolerance" (and criticized women for being "agreeable" rather than "assertive").
An interesting question for discussion might be whether we agree or disagree with what the fired employee said. That is, do you think women are "neurotic" and show "a lower stress tolerance" (and that their careers suffer because women are "agreeable" rather than "assertive").
They just proved Damore's point about conformity at the company. What good is gender diversity if everybody is forced into goodthink?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
> The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender.
This is particularly disturbing. EVERYONE is judged based on everything, down to subconscious eye movement.
Words do not equate to violence and being offended is not something to avoid at the cost of others.
What shockingly ignorant, backward thinking set of concepts.
Thanks for trying to regress the culture. No less, from a company founded on the monetizing the populist search for knowledge.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
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Everyone knows me.
If he takes them to court and can prove that his statements are scientifically backed at the statistical scale, they they aren't stereotypes and it would be wrongful termination right? I would LOVE to see that happen. So tired of the like that says everyone is genetically the same. It's literally shouting at proof to try and scare it into falsehood.
To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.
Did he actually suggest that women are less biologically suited to be programmers? My reading was he was trying to explain why women don't want to become programmers, not that they are less good at it when they choose to do so. I didn't read anywhere in the thing where it said women are worse programmers.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Slashdot is fake news for fake nerds. Tech news does not belong.
If it blew up this big and became known as the "anti-diversity memo" he probably should have asked a few of his female coworkers to proof read it before hitting send.
More importantly, POPULATION AVERAGES ARE NOT THE SAME AS AN INDIVIDUAL!!! For example, it's clear that ON AVERAGE more men appear to commit violent crimes. Does this mean that ALL men are more violent than all women? NO! You can have a super peaceful man who wouldn't hurt a fly and a woman who is a murderer. Google mischaracterized the memo very badly. The author did NOT suggest that this applies to ALL women. It's a very stupid way to miss the point and I will certainly avoid buying anything from Google while they are so fascist in their approach to RESPECTFUL DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. The guy was VERY NUANCED in what he said. Google's just being pathetic here.
Telling 1/3 of your colleagues that they are not as biologically suited to working at your workplace as you are isn't violent, but it is hostile. I don't know what the law is in the United States, but hostile work environments are serious shit in all sensible jurisdictions.
It's also contrary to the evidence, irrational, and stupid, any of which could by itself be a firing offense at Google.
TL;DR Precious little broflake's feelings are hurt, film at 11.
I mean, firing people over an _opinion_, formulated without aggression and without attacking anyone - that's harsh. I'd be scared shitless in such an environment that I might accidentally say something that bothers the SJWs and be fired for my troubles. And it's a great demo how, once again, "diversity" means "you'll agree with me or I'll silence you."
An employer who acts like this is not worth working for.
It seems like Google has made it clear that their work environment is definitively hostile towards anyone who dares question feminist dogma.
Of course, the only way they'll learn that lesson is if they're taken to court over this, for unlawful firing.
I am not conservative , right winged. I am left winged (a look at my post history for the last 10 years should show that) and for TRUE equality of opportunity, something we did not have until recently with women and skin color minorities being suppressed consciously or unconsciously by the work environment, HR, and the various team leaders. But i am for a good discourse because women and men are different on how they handle situation, how they view social activities, and how they will have bias. This naturally impact on how they will for example chose a job, and while part of it is socially learned, part of it is inherent to sex (I avoid gender due to the pitfall of TG). And that is where I break peace with many of my friends on the left side. I am against equality of outcome. Because you then inherently 1) spit of all sex science and spit on the difference between women and men 2) add inefficiencies by having less good candidate over take better candidate to match an outcome "more women , more minorities". Naturally the converse is that since society move slowly, minorities and women would have been screwed for longer had we not have the equality of outcome. That may be true too. But that still does not make it right or better than equality of opportunity. But where it goes to the "wrong terribly wrong" deep end, is when you get fired for having this opinion like this seem to be in this case. Granted I did not read the full memo, but what I overflew seem to be quite clear : google bent over and fired him to avoid looking "sexist". And thus died any discourse right or left at google.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
All Google did was confirm that James was right about the intolerance of the SJW bullies who run the show.
Fuck Google. I'm glad I don't use any of their products or services. Hopefully Microsoft will bury them.
Gee, when a guy writes a anti-woman-programmer rant and it goes viral -- I wonder why it is that women would turn their noses up at programming?
Must be because they're not good at it, not because of loud-mouth douchebags with baseless opinions.
It does not matter.
If you are not the boss starting a high profile political shitfight in your workplace that gets the attention of the press is a bad move no matter what your politics are.
That word "research" gets a serious workout on this site despite it being almost always misapplied - how is looking up wikipedia "research"? So he cited something, maybe the journalist at Gizmodo thought it wasn't authoritative? Maybe they didn't dig down to where it came from etc before deadline. I've been told it's better to leave a quote out instead of finding you've accidentally quoted something originally from the Onion. Besides - the real story (as far as the journalist would see it IMHO) is that someone started a political shitfight at google. The details and justifications are not that difficult for those interested to find out this time since it's all online.
The backlash is coming, just look at the election of Trump which is the result of over-stressing the "minority" dogmas.
Some men are assholes, it doesn't mean all men are, but every man is equally punished for what a few assholes do.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I've worked with a lot of Indians. I can almost always guess their rank in the company hierarchy based on their surname. The despicable caste system is alive and well in America.
Are you really so naive to think that - are you on your Dad's account or something or did we just get you before the first coffee of the day?
It's not about any *ism. It's about being critical of the company wide employment policy and ultimately the CEO himself. Any correspondence with feminist or any other dogma is co-incidental.
Pick a very public fight with management on an emotive issue, get it into the press and shit happens. Of course he got fired. He was demonstrating a lack of loyalty in a very public way and the issue itself doesn't matter.
How relevant is feminism in the millenial "bro" locker room environment of Google anyway? It's just a bullet point in the hiring policy to stop the place looking like a juvenile sausagefest to the outside world.
Why bad press? If they kept him, it would be good press as far as anyone who agrees with him. And the backlash against 3rd wave feminism is quite strong. That's the problem with injecting politics into decisions which are purported to be based on non-political reasons. You always piss off some people and make other people happy when you get into serious politics.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The backlash is coming, just look at the election of Trump which is the result of over-stressing the "minority" dogmas.
No, the election of Trump WAS the backlash: that was frustrated people lashing out against an establishment, that they feel is stacking the deck against them. What is coming - and is already underway - is the realisation that Trump is just as much part of the establishment, and that trying to cure America's ailments by electing him is like overdosing on laxatives to cure diarrhea. And I don't think the people who keep ranting against PC and equal rights for minorities actually are against treating everbody fairly; they just want to feel that they themselves are being given a fair chance too, but their attention is being directed towards things that sound stupid, so they don't realise that it is the rich and powerful who are the real problem.
+1
That "manifesto" was the most offensive document I've seen come out of Google. That dude is seriously deranged, and I'm glad he was fired. Frankly, I'd be afraid of working with someone that unstable. He actually argues for less empathy, as if we could apply the Golden Rule without it. If he had empathy at all, he would realize how much he hurt people. My definition for an ass-hole: someone who hurts others and does not care. What an ass-hole.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
You still don't understand. Trump is a warning shot, not a consequence.
This is exactly why stifling dissent and discussion is so dangerous. Obviously you never even read his "rant". Instead you've concocted a straw man based on what you think he was saying instead of what he actually said, and have judged him based on the straw man rather than what he actually said.
He is a self-identified liberal who completely supports women in programming and STEM. He was explaining why gender equality in programming may never be possible (at least not without giving women the unfair advantage of lowered standards). He never said they weren't good at programming. He said they weren't as interested in doing it as men were, and listed various biological reasons why this might be, backed up by references to scientific research supporting his assertions.
If we can silence and fire someone presenting scientific evidence just because it contradicts popular norms, then our society is in serious, serious trouble. I seem to recall something similar happening to Galileo when he claimed the Earth went around the Sun.
Yeah yeah aggressive asshole male bosses are hugely popular with everyone.
With respect (I'm sure you are good at something) the title of it alone is asking for a fight with the CEO, let alone what follows (eg. accusations about management being blind to things etc). In addition, the undergraduate fumbling with psychology included is frankly embarassing even to someone who didn't study the topic formally like myself. Take a look again considering it from the point of view of Google's management and I'm sure you'll work that out.
Free speech in the workplace, especially an American corporate workplace, shouldn't be expected unless you are prepared to work for free (or get kicked out the door).
While it would be nice if such a thing would be tolerated and other workplaces would tolerate it, the "we own you" attitude is very strong in corporate America. A CEO can talk like that, but down the ladder it's seen as far too much biting of the hand that feeds you.
Even if he's 100% correct (not my opinion, it looks like a pile of emotive overly political whiny shit, but let's say it is 100% correct under that) it is a bit confronting and a one-way ticket out of the building unless done outside and preferably anonymously.
All Google did was confirm that James was right about the intolerance of the SJW bullies who run the show.
Yup. He even got his comment mostly right:
"a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence."
should have said:
"a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by firing dissenters."
A good way to sum up the essay is that the author set up a social minefield and played hopscotch making sure he hit every one of the mines.
He's even had a dig at evangelicals just as an analogy - so much for "stop alienating conservatives".
Of course he was going to get fired as soon as this angry "I'm the victim" bro-screed came to the CEO's attention.
Someone at Gizmodo should be shot or sued for editing the memo, "Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber," by removing the references—"hyperlinks," as they call them. The hyperlinks are to many scholarly journal pieces and otherwise respectable publications. Without the references to back up the author's claims, he just looks like a boob to most folks.
Here is a link to a PDF that contains all the hyperlinks to references and also two missing figures left out from the Gizmodo version.
https://assets.documentcloud.o...
On the SAT, males score about 30 points higher in math than females. Programming is highly related to math and algorithmic work - and thus one would expect the average male to do better at programming than the average female. Yes, there are superstar women programmers! But the average would most likely be a bit lower in performance than the average male - just based upon the SAT math score difference. Is that sexist? Or is that just looking at physiological differences in how we're wired and extrapolating from that?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Obviously you never even read his "rant". Instead you've concocted a straw man based on what you think he was saying instead of what he actually said, and have judged him based on the straw man rather than what he actually said.
No, it's worse then that. They've concocted a straw man based on what they've been told by people who are pushing the agenda that he's anti-woman. This is exactly the same bullshit that was used against gamergate, when they pushed the narrative that the people who spoke up against shitty game journo's were "white males, who live in their parents basements and are misogynists."
When presented with the exact opposite, like the women defending this guy's view? They ignore it, pretend they don't exist. Just like how the progressives ignored the minorities and women in gamergate, or simply called them house n*iggers, uncle toms, have internalized misogyny, and so on.
You watch, and in the next 2 days you'll start seeing hit pieces against the people who spoke in favor or defended his views will be smeared, attacked, and dragged through the mud. And it won't surprise me if the "progressive 'we believe in free speech -- really' social justice" supporters, also try going after their jobs to boot.
Om, nomnomnom...
Who decided that certain groups of people should be a "protected class",
Uh, the democratically elected leaders, right?
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
Brendan Eich called. He wants his browser back...
Where I live it is sometimes the opposite of this. During our last military confronation, people were fired for writing facebook statuses against the war. There are companies whose policy is not to hire people who skipped conscription, and in general "leftist" is mostly equated with tratior. Sure, there are few companies that are more left leaning and act the opposite, but to me it feels the same. Everybody knows that without a workplace you will starve, thus they decide to threaten you with hunger in order to make you comply.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
When that message got leaked it directly affected the company's image, and action had to be taken.
It'd be far worse for Google not to do anything about it because that would be interpreted as Google sharing the message, which had too many assumptions, some very few valid criticisms, and sugarcoating of quite frankly some very nasty prejudice and sexism.
"Doing something about it" does not mean publicly firing the guy.
I think a more appropriate response would be a statement affirming that this memo that is contrary to Google's views and that the problem is being dealt with internally. Then refuse to comment any further. In fact, Google shouldn't even have acknowledged the origin of this memo.
These are internal matters, and how Google deal with it is none of our business.
Google shot themselves in the foot the moment they publicly replied to the memo. The only winning move from the start was not to acknowledge it in the first place, and then if they wanted, fire him down the road for whatever reason. Instead Google could not stop themselves from showing they were ideologically motivated, just as this memo accuses them of.
Hiring someone because of their gender is not treating everyone equally. Hiring someone because of their sexuality isn't equality. Hiring someone based on their race isn't equality. But apparently in the land of political correctness and soc-jus, these are all forms of equality.
That in truth, isn't equality. None of those people being treated as such are being treated as an equal, they're all being given special handicaps in order to get that position.
Om, nomnomnom...
Like all demagogues, Trump's message was basically "it's not your fault you lost your job or can't pay the bills, it's these other people's fault and you are victims." Blame immigrants, blame feminists, blame environmental protections, blame LGBT rights.
The blame has to be simple too. These problems are often complex, but the demagogues message has to be a slogan, a simple "get rid of X and everything will be fine again".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is what I was responding to. I have worked with many bullying dickheads and I never considered them bold or dominant, I considered them to be dickheads. I didn't say anything about sexual harassment which is the worst kind of assholery.
Agreed, because SJW double-down. The firing would have been immediate, as in if they had a time machine, would have killed-his-parents-to-prevent-his-birth...level of firing. In all my life, SJW are the most hateful, spiteful, vindictive little bitches to walk the planet.
Life is not for the lazy.
Too bad people can agree that genetics can guide physical traits, but somehow mental predispositions are completely exempt and everyone is born with absolutely identical brain and is equally good at every mental task as anyone else.
The fact that the original "bell curve" research contained errors doesn't prove the thesis was false. It only meant the results weren't conclusive and that the research methods should have been improved. Unfortunately, any research that fails to flawlessly prove an unpopular thesis is immediately marked as taboo and any further improvements and corrections of the errors to obtain conclusive results are met with so much opposition no scientist dares to touch it again.
Currently, the state of science *suggests* the bell curve theory is at least partially correct. But since nobody dares to conduct conclusive research (lest it proves the theory some more but they make another mistake, and are ostracized forever) all that's done is finding some more flaws in the original research in attempt to reduce its credibility a little bit more.
Normal scientific process:
Thesis -> plan of experiment -> gathering experimental data -> analyzing data -> conclusions -> discussion of error -> adjustment of thesis and plan of experiment -> back to gathering experimental data; endless loop until no more flaws can be found.
Scientific process on controversial issues:
Thesis -> plan of experiment -> gathering experimental data -> analyzing data -> conclusions -> shitstorm about errors -> shaming and punishment of scientists -> mothballing the research forever.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Yes, I did read it. Did you?
https://medium.com/@Cernovich/...
"I hope it's clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don't fit a certain ideology. I'm also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I'm advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism)."
There is nothing in there that is offensive, full stop. Misrepresenting the respectful and dispassionate analysis this man did as bigoted or hateful can only happen through malice or ignorance.
So, dateline 1960, black person in a majority white company writes about how Jim Crow laws aren't fair. Pisses off nearly every white person working at the company, causing a bigger disruption to the business than tardiness.
Explain to me exactly how it would be fair to fire this disruptive negro.
Every single white male got that, eh? But other people, not you, are the bigots. I see.
Congrats on being posting the umpteen millionth slashdot eugenics post. First of all, since you are such a fan of the scientific method, allow me to refresh you. Until you find a BIOLOGICAL part of the brain that is significantly different in men and women, and can show that it influences a certain pattern of behavior, by contrasting it with men and women who have say, damage in the same area, you aren't concluding anything. All you can say with confidence is that you have drawn a statistical correlation with women and stem fields. You know precisely dick about what is causing it. And blanketly blaming it on their boobs is about as scientific as astrology.
And, for argument's sake, lets assume that you are right. That women have a genetic propensity to be . That means precisely dick in the real world too. Every human alive has a genetic propensity to avoid self harm, but I watched a friend of mine burn his tattoo off of his arm with an iron. If a company thinks it can benefit from the perspective of a certain number of female engineers and wants to hire them, you shouldn't assume they are just looking for housewives with glasses. There are plenty of ladies I have worked with that can handle the stress as well or better than men.
Just because you don't know any says more about your dating life than it does about the genetic propensities of women.