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Google May Be In Trouble For Firing James Damore (inc.com)
Google fired engineer James Damore after he wrote a 10-page document about "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber." taustin writes from a report via Inc. about the potential legal trouble the company may face from firing the "anti-diversity" engineer: Whether Demore is right or wrong, whether one agrees with him or not, Google may have legal trouble for firing him. Employees are protected by federal law when they discuss working conditions with other employees (and this was an internal memo). His memo could be considered whistleblowing, which is also protected (and it is very clear that he was fired as retribution). And, in California, political opinions are protected in the work place as well. Just because one side is wrong doesn't mean the other side is right.
They won't get in trouble because he is a white male. Second they will simply offer a settlement, and then silence him. This will go away.
Whistleblowing implies that he was disclosing potentially illegal activity that google was engaging in. Having a code of conduct that forbids creating a hostile work environment for women is not illegal, therefore he is not whistleblowing.
We've gotten to the point where Google thinks that asking tough questions and seeking answers is less valuable than ideological conformity. Even without legal repercussions, this is not a good look for Google. It undermines the idea that tech is a bastion of the enlightenment.
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
The only people calling him the "anti-diversity" engineer are those that haven't read a word of his memo.
TL; DR; No they won't.
California is a Right to Work state, so they don't really need a reason to fire him. Furthermore, the Feds aren't exactly strong protectors of "whistleblower" status, and I wouldn't call what he did whistleblowing in the first place. That should be reserved for out illegal activity, not having a snit fit because you think Becky is getting treated better than you.
California has also clear laws regarding unlawful employment discrimination. Writing a memo pushing forward the agenda that diversity policies in the workplace is a bad idea will not fly well in courts.
PS: "Political opinions"? Besides Damore's nonsensical positions on left vs right and even an incredible paragraph on Marxism and how gender politics is somehow class warfare 2.0, what roles would politics play on his overall point that "discrimination to reach equal representation" is unfair?
It'll be interesting to see lawyers try to justify denigrating the intelligence of women as "whistle-blowing" or "discussing working conditions".
True, right up to the point your opinion conflicts with the majority. Then you'll be shut down, marginalized, and removed.
Do Know Evil!
Almost certainly he was asked to voluntarily leave and agreed to. He will have been told things like "there is no future here for you" and "we don't see any more projects being suitable for you".
He will have been given some deal like "we'll give you pay for the next 3 months while you find work if you'll sign this resignation letter, absolving us of any wrongdoing.".
Where is your proof he resigned voluntarily?
No. He was fired.
But he's not a woman, so why is the law sticking up for him?!
On the one hand this memo is not the best thing ever to be written... it contains the same moral and intellectual certainty that afflicts programmers generally (and many on this site), and I just generally reject that sort of certainty, especially from someone young and sheltered. Any discussion that tries to lump massive groups of population and assign traits to them is going to fail, and it's also going to harm individuals who are assigned to that group who don't fit the traits assumed. (And you can't get around that by liberally sprinkling the phrase 'on average'.) A policy towards trying to break the human urge to hire copies of yourself should be assumed to be a good idea, in my opinion. You don't know what other sections of society will bring so it's probably a good idea to have representation from them. At the same time diversity of opinion should be encouraged, but a lecture to the entire company about how some groups are generally going to be less good at the job is more than just opinion, it's actively causing other people problems.
On the other had, firing him doesn't feel like the right thing to do at all, atleast not until he's proven that he's such a dick that nobody will work with him anymore (if that was to be the case). He's young and certain, and I think wrong. But that's not enough of a reason, if he's doing the job and open to rational debate then I can't see why he should be pushed out so quickly.
I remember very well some years ago we had a lawyer who did represent clients in lawsuits against their employers post about it. He said his standard advice was not to sue, even if the client had a really strong case. He pointed out that such lawsuits are almost always won by the employer and the client just ends up wasting a lot of time and money when they could just move on to a new job and get on with their lives. I'll point out that the infamous Ellen Pao case is a perfect example of this. I felt like she very likely was in the right to sue, but the vast majority of Slashdotters strongly disagree with me. The jury standards for her trial only required 75% or more of the jurors to agree on all the counts to reach a verdict. 9 out of 12 jurors favored the employer in this case, but 25% of them felt like she was wronged. This just shows you how difficult it is to win these kinds of cases. Google may have little choice but to defend themselves simply to make the point that they don't agree with what Damore said. And Damore was really stupid to write a 10 page or so diatribe about this subject and share it with co-workers, one of whom clearly ratted him out, and believe that there would no repercussions from sharing opinions he had to know that Google was not going to like or agree with.
In The US of A, any company can fire you at anytime for any reason. That is the law.
James Damore's document appears to be misogynistic in tone, which reflects on him, which in turns roots mostly from anger. The document he wrote is very close to another document called, "Men Are Better Than Women" by Dick Masterson, but in a very pompus and, if I dare, reads as a undergraduate's take on why he isn't getting dates.
From a business perspective, regardless of the "business culture" at Google, the following trues should always be held true, for legal reasons.
Neruos's "Top 10 Truths" from "Don't climb the ladder, get people to push you up it."
1. Respect the chain of command
2. Follow proper business process
3. Peer review your ideas with your direct peers or your direct manager
4. Never bring personal issues into the work place or involve them with your colleagues on business time or business grounds
5. Never discuss politics, issues of a sensitive nature or beliefs with your colleagues on business time or business grounds
6. Never attack anyone, but raise the gaps as constructive suggestion that have a direct relation to a project or responsibility you own
7. Always be bias about an idea, never about your colleagues, improve the idea, you can never improve your colleagues, they have to do that themselves
8. Proposals should accomplish things, define them to improve, even for things you don't own, it shows you are invested
9. Never complain in an email or instant message to anyone, treat ever message as being seen by leadership, 99% it is
10. Do not use the audience of the business as your test subjects, instead go anonymous and direct them in small parts to it, this gives you something called the cold/hot control group
It's not whisteblowing (he didn't claim illegal activity really), and while you can say he was discussing working conditions, another group of people claim that it represents harassment, and the latter argument seems likely to prevail. He might have had a better chance if he didn't outright claim that women were inherently not cut out for those jobs and instead just stuck to complaining about diversity being too highly prioritized and that the culture was suppressing any criticism of that.
In general, if you write a '10 page manifesto' about anything, you are probably going to come off as a nutjob and probably won't go well for you professionally.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I've just read his document. I must say, that was a very rational appeal to Google to bring more harmony and freedom into its culture.
I must also say I see no hostility to anyone whatsoever. All he said was "Let's get away from this cult and be as productive (through enabling each and every Google employee to reach his full potential) as we can be".
And he was fired for it. And THAT is exactly where the hate for SJWs comes from.
For a long time I was kinda miffed that I don't have the background to have a chance to work for Google. Now I'm kinda glad... I don't think I would have liked that environment very much.
Actually sucker this is the pinnacle of capitalism. This guy made trouble in the workplace and they sacked him for not having the right attitude. If you build a multi-billion dollar corporation you too can exterminate lowlife employees for having their own ideas. Instead of which you are lowlife who supports right wing propaganda about freedom - which is the freedom of big dogs to eat little dogs, just like happened to this guy.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Since we are talking in the subjunctive tense...
Google may have found itself in trouble for not firing James Damore. He contributes into the peer performance review system there, and he had openly expressed an opinion that women, as a category, aren't on a par with men with respect to coding. That presents a liability to Google from a different direction.
Google is obviously worried about its reputation in the eyes of the (ir)rational consumer.
Was it the person doing the internal discussion or the person that leaked the discussion that did more damage?
captcha: impetus.
As disgusting as one may find this "opinion" piece, either engaging in a discussion or admonishing him to keep his expression out of work (if there's a reason to fear disruption of the work atmosphere) would have been much wiser.
Not because That Folks can now depict themselves as victims (srsly?), but because this would be Just The Right Thing.
If you consider the memo a "screed" or a temper tantrum it means you likely didn't read any of it. Even if you disagree with it, it's clearly written rationally and well articulated, with citations to boot. Every critic assessing the content instead of the cover basically agrees with that, even those who argue against it.
Just because one side is wrong doesn't mean the other side is right.
Gotta love that unbiased, non-judgmental journalistic addition. I mean, of course Mr. Damore was in the wrong, right? How dare he internally reveal concerns for company direction... especially with wrong ideas.
By the way, all of you defending what he wrote, you're wrong too. Remember, everything is racist, everything is sexist.
We will never be the change to the weather and the sea
All along, this was just his retirement plan. Why continue working with people you hate when you can get paid millions just to stfu and go away? He is probably already shopping for boats.
The weirdest thing about all this are the critics who label Damore's firing as Orwellian while overlooking the greatest data aggregation exercise in human history.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
I'm still not seeing Google take any action towards the real problem here. What are they going to do about the hostile environment they have made for conservative employees?
He is not anti-diversity, even though the mainstream media like to repeat this as if it had any basis in reality, in fact he comes up with many interesting ways to increase diversity. Its the current methods that do not work at google for increasing diversity that he is criticizing.
Also linking the original, unmodified memo might be a good idea too:
https://diversitymemo.com/
https://assets.documentcloud.o...
And for those that use Zeronet:
http://127.0.0.1:43110/1MUeJj6...
This is what drives people away from mainstream media and leads them to label them wholesale as fake news.
In order to not offend each other, we should all stop communicating our thoughts and cease all social interactions.
I now apologize profusely for the insolence of my post.
Oh. And my sarcasm. I fucking apologize for that too.
I must say I'm completely dumbfounded by the public reaction to all of this. I didn't read the memo, but at worst it was one person at a company who had a wrong opinion. From all the media outrage over the past couple days you'd think Google had declared war on an entire gender.
In a company that big you're bound to have people with all sorts of opinions. Some of those opinions will be ignorant. The way to solve ignorance is with discussion, education, and patience. The reaction to this memo was the opposite of all those things.
This is why attempts to solve gender and minority issues continue to meet such resistance. The cacophony had reached such incredible volume that Google had no choice. I'm sure they knew they were on shaky ground but there was really no other out for them.
The whole screed...
Scientist after scientist are coming forward saying that his paper is well thought out, well researched, well written, and in line with current scientific understanding.
...read like a child who was upset that things weren't the way he thought they were all along
No, thats you guys, who keep lying about whats in the paper, and keep slandering the person that wrote it.
I wonder if Slashdot's poster logs can be subpoenaed to show that all you anonymous people are working for Google on Googles behalf slandering the person you wrongfully terminated. Pretty sure that "I was just following orders" is not a defense against slander.
"His name was James Damore."
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
The may be in trouble for firing him, but they would have been in trouble, too, if they didn't.
Or can you tolerate someone against diversity and hostile towards women when you're under scrutiny and already in trouble for not being diverse enough and having a workplace climate hostile to women?
All that is left for Google now is to guess which side will be cheaper to settle with.
bickerdyke
It's "ok" to fire a conservative, heterosexual male. That's what the left does. Google would only be in trouble, if they fired a black, transgendered, homosexual, pregnant, disabled person.
The media and regressive companies like Google love to pander to people of another color or gender.
As opposed to pandering to white males which your post seems to imply you would prefer? If you want to argue that there is a better way to help disadvantaged groups, by all means let's hear it. But to dismiss efforts to diminish the demonstrably negative impact of racism or sexism as "pandering" says more about you than it does about the problem. You are resorting to name calling which is kind of pathetic.
This guys document was well-written and scientifically based.
Well written does not equal correct. Just because we have freedom of speech does not mean that anything you say should be considered factual. And to call it "scientifically based" is to insult science. It was not a scientific paper nor was it based on scientific papers and it certainly did not use any scientific methods. This was an opinion piece which casually referenced some cherry picked "evidence". He's entitled to his opinions but don't insult our intelligence by claiming there was any scientific rigor to his rant in an attempt to justify his actions.
But the regressiveleft hates any facts that contradict their delusions, very similar to religion.
As does the political right. What exactly is your point?
Every big company just makes these things go away. Google is going to reach into the couch cushions, pull out a few million bucks, and give it to the guy. It's all about risk management; I'm sure they want this whole thing to disappear so that they're not dragged in front of the media every single time a court date comes up.
In my opinion. they were right to get rid of him. Regardless of the content of what was published, you don't start a highly politically-charged fight, drag your employer into it, and expect to keep your job. Especially when the CEO has to cut his vacation short -- I'm sure that was the last straw. I've been nothing but professional in my career, and there have been _plenty_ of times I could have unloaded on this or that in a public forum but chose not to.
And besides, aren't we beyond this "women are inherently different" thing? Being in IT, you do work with a lot of guys and there is a definite gender gap. But, part of me thinks women are just being rational and avoiding what can be a stressful, thankless job if you're in the wrong environment. It's not all, or even the majority of men I've worked with, but I have worked with some very vocal men who border on the MRA level. But when you get down to the root of the problem, most of them are unmarried/unmarryable, or worse, on their second or third wife and paying large amounts of child support. From what I've seen, that's where a lot of the bitter complaining comes from, and if I was getting 50+% of my salary siphoned off each pay period I'd probably be bitter too.
... of his critics at Google...
I have news for you, and you probably don't want to hear it. If we put every one of his critics there who supported his firing into a big room, you could swing a dead cat in any direction and not hit someone who is less than 200% more certain that they are absolutely following the righteous path in burning this little heretic. In fact, the actual Spanish Inquisition was kinder and more compassionate to real heretics than they are; it gave you a chance to be spared punishment by confessing and repenting. These people don't. You could crawl over broken glass while telling them how right they are and most of them would still treat you as less than fully human.
Please. The entire thing is filled with ad-hoc and uncited conclusions. Count the number of "normally"s and "in average"s on Damore's document without any backing if you don't believe me.
... was sending out what he wrote immediately, rather than sitting on it for a few days, re-reading it, editing it, and having it reviewed by a trusted friend, and re-writing it before unleashing it. At least it reads that way to me. I think much of what he had to say has validity and should be discussed, both at Google and in society at large; but he said it in a manner which lacked diplomacy and tact, was poorly written, and suffered from contradictory logic. The lad was onto something, and might have been praised and promoted instead of fired if he had turned down the self-righteousness by an order or two and hadn't gone off half-cocked.
I hope Google at least makes the effort to separate the wheat from the chaff in what Damore wrote, rather than dismissing the whole thing out-of-hand.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
We couldn't get O.J. for murder. We couldn't get Al Capone for (murder, racketeering, etc.). We couldn't get Google for its anti-competitive, consumer-hostile bull-sharts... just had to wait for them to slip up in some other way, I guess. Even if we have to go the whiny SJW route, watching hulking behemoth corporations get kicked in the nards is cathartic.
He falsified his credentials. Harvard says that he does not have a PhD from Harvard. Everything else is a distraction. He can be fired for that alone.
The guys who fired him agree totally with what he said, they just disagree with his right to say it. That's political correctness.
Prior to reading this thread, I would have guessed that 80-90% of slashdotters could accurately summarize a memo written by a PhD. Now my estimate is at 30% and falling.
I get disagreeing with him. I agreed in parts and disagreed in parts. If you entirely disagree, I can easily see and understand that.
But why can so few who disagree with a ten page (!) memo not find a single verbatim quote to attack?
People--he gave you lots of material to work with! Use it!
They won't get in trouble because he is a white male.
They won't get in trouble because they technically have done nothing wrong. They fired a guy for not having the right political view point which, as I understand it, is not protected in the US like it is elsewhere.
The ironic thing is that they are missing the entire point of diversity which is that a disparate collection of world views leads to finding better ideas and solutions to problems. To put it in terms familiar to Slashdot it's like the Federation and the Borg and Google just showed they are the Borg.
I got out of coding because I was sick of being treated like an idiot, only to have my work appropriated by the same dudes. I was sick of inappropriate boob stares and fumbled flirting, and questions about my girlfriend.
I did love coding, but the bullshit got too much. I work in family medicine now, which is way better just for the sake of actually being respected.
This whole discussion is a bunch of guys just trying to justify themselves with moral arguments, when the reality for women in tech is shit.
> (He has a Ph D from Harvard)
Incorrect. He lied on his linkedin profile, he only has a masters degree.
James Damore, the fired Google engineer who wrote the now-infamous memo on diversity at the company, has removed mention of PhD studies in biology from his LinkedIn profile.
The removal comes after Wired writer Nitasha Tiku confirmed with Harvard that Damore has not completed his PhD. Damore did complete a master's degree in systems biology in 2013, Harvard told Wired.
Damore's biology studies became a crux of a right-wing argument that he had credibility in claiming biological differences between men and women could account for lacking gender diversity at Google.
http://www.businessinsider.com/james-damore-removes-phd-studies-linkedin-2017-8
His falsifiable claims were well supported by the science
Even if we concede that to be true (and I do not), that doesn't mean that his conclusions from that evidence are correct and his conclusions are anything but scientific.
By firing him, they've created a hostile work environment for empiricists.
This was not a dispassionate empirical argument. I've read the memo in its entirety. This was a rant against what he perceived as ideology that he did not agree with. He's entitle to that opinion but don't insult my intelligence by claiming it was some masterpiece of empiricism.
If you think that believing the science is sexist, then call me a sexist, but it's also a political statement to want to make decisions based on the science.
This wasn't a scientific paper. It was a political opinion piece which casually referenced some cherry picked "evidence" in an effort to seem more credible.
And the enemy is us (Google ...Remember Don't Be Evil?).
In their effort to encourage inclusiveness and tolerance, they have become intolerant and exclusive. No doubt others have similar misgivings, but are keeping their mouth shut now that Googles intolerance of dissenting views has been exposed. Google has become the very thing the claim to stand against.
Seems to be a common theme in the SJW Universe.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'm seeing there's lots of support for diversity of sex, skin color and national origin in the Valley, just not for opinions or viewpoints. Troubling on so many levels..
I agree that this is capitalism, and I certainly agree that Google has the right to fire Damore (even as I personally find that action repugnant). That being said, political correctness can still be repressive, socially speaking. The state is not the entity that exercises power within the country. For example large corporations also wield power in a capitalist system (particularly those with $500+ Billion market caps, and particularly those with a history of employment price fixing and collusion).
Google should find and fire the person that leaked this document.
While we can laugh at google for pulling stupid shit like this, they won't give a fuck because they'll only have to pay a fine (and if anyone can pay one without a hit, it's them). There's one way they can be hit hard, and that's BOYCOTT. Stop using search, youtube, drive, even gmail. Let's see how long they'll keep being SJWs.
He never brings of the topic of suitability. His section about biological differences only discusses why genders tend to choose certain professions.
That's pure sophistry.
Its contradictory to say that biological differences cause end results and then to turn and say that those biological differences do not affect suitability for those end results.
That's like saying that because men lack uteruses they don't bear children, but they are still suitable to bear children.
He made Sundar Pichai cancel his family vacation. Having the CEO cancel a vacation does tend to lead to firings.
Someone wants to make trouble (and Damore may well be part of this commentary), but at the end of the day it can be interpreted that Damore's writing can be a disruptive element in the workplace. "An employee does not have free reign [sic] to engage in political speech that disrupts the workplace". Creating undue anger or contention in the work place can certainly be disruptive and detrimental to morale. That alone will cover it. Also, the memo appears to have been the breaking point, but not alone the root cause. Documentation showing his skill is not on par with his peers or the standards of Google can turn a "retaliation" into something overdue, and needed to happen before the work environment was affected. All employers have the right and duty to protect their work environment from harmful elements. I think this is simply a tool to pressure Google into a generous settlement, but if it goes to court, aside from Google being able to drag this out to the point it bankruts Damore, they can simply state they were protecting their good standing employees from a harmful element, who was already on shaky ground anyway. I'm not sure if this applies, but if this is an "at will "employee I think they can be fired for any reason but I'm not a lawyer nor is it clear he was an "at will" employee.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
What scares me is not that this guy was fired for his personnal opinion that doesn't fit the general PC narrative in the company. What scares the shit out of me is that this same company practicaly controls the world's information. This same company has the ability to change public opinion worldwide just by changing the order of their search results. This is much more scary than the poor guy being fired.
I have a legal right to express my concerns about the terms and conditions of my working environment and to bring up potentially illegal behavior, which is what my document does, Damore told the New York Times.
According to Dan Eaton, an attorney and ethics professor at San Diego University, the engineer certainly has grounds for a case on two fronts. First, federal labor law bars even non-union employers like Google from punishing an employee for communicating with fellow employees about improving working conditions, Eaton writes.
And second, because the memo was a statement of political views, Eaton says Google may have violated California law which prohibits employers from threatening to fire employees to get them to adopt or refrain from adopting a particular political course of action.
An international corporation with armies of both lawyers, Google knew all this. They decided to take their chances with state and federal law anyway rather than stick up for one of their employees and risk public backlash. Thats an incredibly telling decision from a company that has mastered everything from artificial intelligence to self-driving cars.
In short, the tech titan is scared. Not of losing talent. Not of legal fees from the pending litigation. And not of a potential settlement. No, Google just doesnt want to stir up outrage from the left and so they squashed speech.
None of those studies explicitly call out the results as based on gender, however the driving biological cause is testosterone exposure during development.
Ugh. That's a false conclusion based on plain old bad science. Testosterone exposure in the womb isn't even close to defining the biological differences between men and women. Its just a single factor. If you extrapolate from that to draw conclusions about things not stated in the studies then you are just looking for justification for pre-determined biases. That's not scientific, its anti-science.
In fact, it borders on conspiracy theory - "this secret knowledge is not politically correct so these subversive scientists found a way to get the truth out using coded language that sneaks past the censors."
Well you certainly appealed to a few of the mods. Tell us again about all these "lowlifes." I mean, I'm assuming you have some firsthand knowledge of that.
You're right that there's nothing anti-capitalist about Google's move. Your quick character judgments, though, make it pretty evident that you're not applauding capitalism on display; you're applauding some guy you don't agree with receiving punishment... Just like an upstanding moral person would, I'm sure.
We will never be the change to the weather and the sea
Give me a break; everyone who disagrees works for Google?
Google didn't cover itself in glory, but some turd writing certainties about *anything* in life "science" and distributing it throughout his employer deserves whatever is unleashed on him.
Or let's phrase this another way. You have a coworker write and distribute a long missive that is counter to the culture the entire company has tried to cultivate, and they work in an at-will state. What do you think the consequence of that is?
The most recent well-known example of this situation is South Africa when it was under Apartheid rule. I'm sure there are plenty of other instances.
Because, under apartheid, the black controlled government discriminated against the majority black underclass. Just like majority white male google management is discriminating against white males. Its totally the same!
I'm sure there are plenty of other instances.
I'm sure you are wrong.
I've just read his document. I must say, that was a very rational appeal to Google to bring more harmony and freedom into its culture.
An appeal maybe but not a terribly rational or well argued one. It was a stupid approach to a problem that he doesn't really appreciate and he very clearly does not understand the politics involved.
I must also say I see no hostility to anyone whatsoever. All he said was "Let's get away from this cult and be as productive (through enabling each and every Google employee to reach his full potential) as we can be".
No that is NOT all he said. And if that is all you took out of it then you are politically naive. It never occurred to you that people might try to couch their (unfortunate) ideas in terms that seem more palatable?
I must also say I see no hostility to anyone whatsoever. All he said was "Let's get away from this cult and be as productive (through enabling each and every Google employee to reach his full potential) as we can be".
It basically is an argument against what he perceives as so-called "political correctness" in pursuit of gender equity. He tries to be more clever than that but that's what he's saying. He claims to be a "classical liberal" but it's pretty clear that he is not based on his arguments. He makes population arguments and then assumes these must apply on the individual level.
And he was fired for it. And THAT is exactly where the hate for SJWs comes from.
If you hate someone because they are fighting for equal rights in the work place then that says more about you then it does about them. He was fired because he embarrassed the company and its public image with a poorly written and ill considered rant that can easily be interpreted as sexist. Even if his intentions were pure (and it's not clear they were) it was a stupid approach to the problem and his getting fired should surprise no one. Did he really think writing that paper was going to result in meaningful change or that it contained some special insight which had occurred to no one else?
While California says you can't be fired for HAVING a political opinion, you can be fired for expressing it.
In the rest of the US, your boss can walk in and fire you just for posting a Pro-Trump picture on your personal facebook page. Alternatively, he could just ask every Republican to raise their hand and then tell everyone who didn't raise their hand, "You're fired".
California banned this practice.
However, your boss can still fire you for wearing a Trump hat to work or sending an internal email that advocates for Hillary Clinton.
Whistleblower Protection
You are a pretty weird whistleblower if you complain internally about a public practice. I cannot imagine anyone EVER considering this a case of whistleblowing.
That would be like an Apple engineer sending around an internal memo about the small battery in their new phones, and then people calling that "whistleblowing". You can't blow the whistle on something that everyone knows about!
Right to Discuss Working Conditions
May be viable. Unfortunately, the memo didn't really discuss working conditions. It discussed business practices. Working conditions addresses how the business practices have an impact on the employee. He was discussing how he felt they were wrong-headed and misguided. Those might be fair assessments, but they are not addressing HIS working conditions.
Did he work more hours because of the hiring practices?
Did he get less time off?
Did it impact him in any demonstrable way?
Scientist after scientist are coming forward saying that his paper is well thought out, well researched, well written, and in line with current scientific understanding.
Citations please?
I wonder if Slashdot's poster logs can be subpoenaed to show that all you anonymous people are working for Google on Googles behalf slandering the person you wrongfully terminated.
That sounds like a phenomenon generally referred to as "paranoia" - the false sense that people are out to get you. I'm not out to slander anyone, but this whole business of late reeks of a desperately beguiled assortment of white man-boys who think they should have received more in their lives by virtue of their race and gender.
Sorry bros, I'm one too, and I've had to work hard all my life and appreciate that, despite my "privilege" things don't just fall in my lap. Sometimes effort alone is not enough - there's the whole social world where connections and character count for as much as your abilities. Maybe engage in some self-examination to determine if perhaps you're lacking something in that department?
No one's out to get you specifically or in general, but your success is not guaranteed. In fact, in the arch-capitalist model the uber-wealthy are erecting around our declining progressive era, individual success is highly unlikely and ultimately limited, unless you happen to be super lucky or part of the cadres of the world's wealthiest families.
If you think it's hard being a male chauvinist pig at Google, you should try being a Christian. We have to hide and be sure we never mention our faith, or else we are more or less prosecuted to termination by the Leftist Google Thought Police.
Do liberals even have any other emotions anymore? I think outrage is the only one they have left.
You seem hung up on the choice of a binary example - an example chosen to clearly expose the bad logic at work. Saying its "averages" does not negate the underlying assumption that biology makes genders more suitable for different roles.
Over half the country is female - that's a HUGE pool to "statistically" pull from. Google employs ~75,000 people, but only 17% of engineers and 21% of upper management are female. Your argument rests on the assumption that out of the 100+ million working age women, there aren't ~100 or so suitable women to make it to upper management? Really? Come on!
I wonder how many of the right wing nuts posting in this forum about how Damores evidence about gender is science based and backed up by studies, etc, then turn around and argue that climate change is not caused by humans.
Defamed, you mean. Slander is spoken.
You're right about the rest. It's amazing how many people will read long opinions without actually reading the original. Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit, they might not have even finished reading the headline. Sexist white male? Must complain without figuring out if it's true or not!
I think it's best to give an analogy here:
Women in general have less upper body strength than men, so fewer women can qualify to serve as combat infantry.
Women who do qualify to serve as combat infantry have the sufficient upper body strength to serve as combat infantry.
Even if it were true that women in general were less proficient than men in computer science, women who qualify as software developers at Google are proficient in computer science.
A problem with the memo is that it applies statistics which may be true for the general population, but are most certainly not true for the top 0.1% of the population in intellect. And that is why any woman who is worth her salt as a software developer is infuriated by this memo.
Interesting how many websites that link to parts of the original stress the use of the word "full". But the version they post is missing the citations and graphs. This is and word like "screed" are disingenuous and may be intended to silence the competing ideas contained. Some people are then making hasty judgements about the paper because of the were they get their news. Of course this is a short jump to see people saying this was just the author's opinion, not backed by science, etc.
On this issue, the progressives are acting like their enemies the "science deniers".
This is perhaps the closest I have found to the original document: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.html
But let's be clear here: we are talking about statistical differences, not biological determinism; many women are more aggressive, have better spatial reasoning skills, have higher IQ, etc than many males. It is true in a sense that women in general can beat men in general in any field (and the converse is also true). But if you are talking about salary statistics and job demographics, you also need to talk about group statistics for cognition, IQ, and reproductive strategies.
Google isn't doing themselves any favors with this. Their ideological distortion of science may play well with immature college graduates who don't know any better, but it's not going to go over well with more mature employees. In fact, to people who have gone through making career decisions, turning down promotions, raising kids, etc., such sex differences are simply a matter of personal experience. In leaked internal surveys, it looks like more than 1/3 of employees generally agreed with Damore. And his firing certainly makes a mockery of Google's statement to tolerate other views and want to engage in open debate.
Uh.. according to (approximately) 100% of the people who actually read the memo instead of reading deliberately-misleading summaries of it (believe it or not, some people have portrayed the memo as him saying women are poorly suited to be engineers, whereas not a single person who read the memo can find anything even loosely resembling an indirect implication of that), he wasn't wrong about anything. He just talked about how different people have different opinions and different biases, and professionals need to be able to live with that instead of freaking out like Republicans at a LGBT parade.
And that's common sense. Don't act like a Republican. Sounds like Google is full of people like that, apparently operating under the amusing label of "alt left" which, now that I think of it, isn't a bad description of Republicans. Hmm. Hey, self-labeled "liberals," I think you might have more in common with the other guys than you think. You basically agree with Republicans on every single "big picture" aspect, what the relationship between citizens and government should be, how tolerable it is to be intolerant, the worthlessness of freedom, and the need to centralize all political power. It's just the little things that you disagree with them about. But you behave just like them.
OTOH, California's "you can't fire people" law is pretty fucking stupid, so even though this guy did nothing bad and got a bum rap, it might be good if Google got away without legal consequences, so that the stupid law gets undermined a little more (and maybe invalidated in court, if we're really lucky but I don't see how that would happen).
He, like the official whitehouse line, are 100% against whistleblowers.
Moreover, Google are better off without him, even if it costs them. Morons and assholes are better off poisoning someone else's company, not your own. And if anyone doesn't like it, they are free to leave the employ. If they aren't, then that is a problem with the employment structure in the USA not with Google.
I suspect he'll settle out of court with Google and work instead on a book deal. He's obviously stirred up a lot of interest and attention; might as well vent more formally and make some cash off it.
It's also in Google's interest to not have it go to court to avoid bad publicity.
Table-ized A.I.
that's how it's done.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Citation? Those words are not in his doc.
Your quote is a lie. Therefore the rest of you post is worthless.
HAND
Notice how you got modded down. You lied about knowing conservatives who are against what he posted, you lied about it being s screed written by a child throwing a tantrum, you lied about hating Mother Jones, and you lied about posting discredited links.
You didn't read it at all. You just wanted to get your digs in without taking a real stand, and make sure you threw in something about hating libertarians as well.
Slashdot readers figured you out, and voted you down accordingly.
But I'm abandoing Google. Search engine changed. Primary email, changed. Browser, about to be changed.
The damage to the company's image by doing nothing was worth orders of magnitude more than any possible wrongful termination settlement.
Now you really shot yourself in the foot. 0.1 % you say. Well I've news for you. The male variability is larger than female. The top 0.1 % intellectuals in the world are mostly men. As well as the bottom 0.1%
Working for Google however requires moderate to good intelligence so your claim and my rebutal are not applicable.
The difference in motivation is real across the whole population. As far as I understand being coding monkey in US is highly stressful job. Then less women will take it : bad return of investment. Nothing to do with toxic environment unless you mean toxic for both genders. Men simply are willing to put up with tough conditions more willingly than women for many reasons one of which is that women are born winners and men are born losers (regarding survival health longevity and above all reproduction success). The losers know that no one gives a shit so we struggle and endure more...
Google acts as Communists did in former Warsaw Pact member countries or in China during the "Cultural Revolution" where people were forced to take part in ideological group meetings where they had to "self-confess" their ideological sins, beg for mercy from the group. If they didn't they ended up getting fired, black-listed from employment or thrown to jail.
Check out history.
It is absolutely terrifying that history repeats itself in the developed Western countries.
Women stay home from work after man insinuates women may be more emotionally driven.
He mentioned the code of conduct says "create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."
Yet the firing shows that speaking your mind at Google isn't safe. This firing will intimidate others, it showed a huge bias toward 1) a specific political belief , and 2) over sensitivity to the complaints of a specific group who was offended by the paper even as they misinterpreted what it said, and if this goes to court in California I expect the outcome to show that the firing was illegal discrimination, either by Google losing or settling.
What an ironic day for inclusive rhetoric.
Reply to public response and misrepresentation
I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.
Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber.
Despite what the public response seems to have been, I've gotten manypersonal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired. This needs to change.
Numerous Liberals left the Democratic party because they have become a party of extreme Leftists promoting ideas more in line with Marxism than text book Liberalism.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
If a company fires you for filing a complaint with the government, for cooperating with the government in an investigation of the company, or for bringing lawsuit against the company, it qualifies as retaliation. However, Google currently denies this, they say they were not informed of his complaint or lawsuit before deciding to fire him. So while he has other paths to a successful lawsuit, the retaliation angle might not be very successful.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Californians will quickly change the law to only protect those people they agree with.
If they fire him: trouble
If they don't fire him: trouble
Not only that, the EEOC will often take up a minority discrimination case, so you have a company defending itself against the deep pockets of the Federal Government.
The EEOC will sometimes take up a discrimination case. Most people who face discrimination and look for help do not have the EEOC pick up their case. Instead they ask the EEOC to help, wait a while, have the EEOC say no, look for a plaintiff's lawyer, have consults with one or two, and ultimately the lawyer usually doesn't decide to take them on as a client because the lawyer would have to bankroll the litigation and it's in some way not the perfect case for them.
Seriously, I've known people who have faced discrimination to make the "hostile work environment" stuff you hear about seem like child's play who will never get their day in court.
Discrimination cases will sometimes be effective even for white males, but they are much less common. There is also a lot of discrimination in juries that affects what justice is available for a variety of other matters.
Real lawyers write in C++
Tell me again, which is the ONE wrong side?
Scientist after scientist are coming forward saying that his paper is well thought out, well researched, well written, and in line with current scientific understanding.
Scientists are pretty unified on AGW, too, yet you Repugs keep trying to deny that. Do you only listen to them when it conveniently fits your point of view?
Yeah, when will the educated white male finally get a fair shake at the stick, hmm?
What a warrior for social justice you are... /ironic.
And, yes, I am an MRA, and your brand of bullshit hurts mens' rights as much as faked claims of rape hurts the fight against sexual assault of women.
No. Scientist after scientist are coming forward and saying he fundamentally missed the point. For example here is the scientist that Damore himself quoted explaining the risks with the simplistic thinking displayed in the document:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences
> Using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality is like surgically operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm. Moreover, men are more emotional than women in certain ways, too. Sex differences in emotion depend on the type of emotion, how it is measured, where it is expressed, when it is expressed, and lots of other contextual factors.
Not unless he is making a crime public. Instead he wrote an internal memo discussing legal (but controversial) management practices.
Just because it makes you *feel* a certain way doesn't make it a crime.
Now he may well be covered under laws intended to protect union organizing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Let's say my employer does something totally legal but also totally bullshit. Our widgets cost twice as much as competing widgets but last half as long. Some VP says "our sales team isn't aggressive enough!" and there are constant meetings about how sales, not the product, needs to improve. Meanwhile, I write a memo about how sales might have an easier time if the widgets didn't totally suck, and you can't improve the sales team anyway because Jim is an alcoholic but you fools will never fire him because he's the president's nephew.
The memo gets out. Oops.
This embarrasses the company. This isn't about right or wrong, legal or illegal. It's about how anyone who sees the memo, sees that we know our widgets suck, and we're doing stupid things to work around the problem, and we have corrupt whiff about us.
You definitely do shoot the messenger. I wouldn't be fired for anything about the widget, just as Demore wasn't fired for anything related to a hostile work environment. I would be fired because I wrote a disparaging truth about the company. Yes, I didn't mean for it to get out, but it did. I shouldn't have ever said what I said in writing or without security to make sure nobody outside the company ever got ahold of it.
Google is embarrassed. This memo has shed some light on how not-serious they are. The public now knows they have a VP of diversity, for example, instead of everyone being required to have some common sense.
A VP of diversity. Holy shit. What's next, a VP of not-smearing shit on the bathroom walls? A VP of keeping people out of gas chambers? We're going to have meetings about how you shouldn't spit tobacco on the floor in the clean rooms? Perhaps one of the corporate goals is, "We're going to cut down on expense account fraud by 20% this year!"
One thing's for sure: if anything in the above paragraph is happening at your company, you sure as fuck don't write about it (since it might get out) or talk about it in public. If you do, you'll be fired. I bet it's in your employee handbook, where ever you work. Don't disparage the company, and yes, telling the truth can be disparaging.
Google is all about diversity, so why don't they have a woman as CEO? Don't they have a single woman that is qualified? No woman with a Harvard PhD or MBA that knows how to run the business? Not a single one? Hmmm.
It does not matter if I agree with the guy who was sacked, we live in a world where the corporation is within its rights to do almost whatever it likes with its workers. I note that it is a "leftist" concern to protect workers rights. Capitalism makes money, it does not make society, we give that to the politicians to arbitrate.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
What kind of topics and what is the general tone/aggressiveness of posts in the forum this took place in? I'm pretty sure there'd be a lot of anti-Trump stuff, probably stuff to offend conservatives and references to "rednecks" and stuff like that. Wikileaks would be a good place for this.
I work for Google myself and read the memo as it was being forwarded around on an email chain...
Firing here is not the right move, I actually think this guy speaks some sense within the document and many others
agree, but wouldn't speak up as diversity is forcefully injected into everything at Google, even the BAME group!!!!
Google has created a hostile work environment for non-liberal white males.
There should be legal recourse to prevent further discriminatory behavior.
Remember, in the United States of America,
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What makes Google think it has more authority than the Congress of the United States of America to suppress a citizen's freedom of speech via retribution??
Maybe Google's in the wrong country - maybe it should be forced to move to Russia!
Or maybe it will find itself in the Socialist Republic of California, where your rights to express your opinion are protected [as long as you're a communist proggy]?
Remember Pasadena getting rid of its health director who was a black Seventh-Day Adventist because they didn't agree with his religious views?
(http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-pasadena-leave-20140502-story.html)
CA's proving that it's a progressively hypocritical and highly bigotted state time-and-time again with its sili-loyalist corps right in the lead!
provide a link to all these scientists. thanks.
>You are a pretty weird whistleblower if you complain internally about a public practice. I cannot imagine anyone EVER considering this a case of whistleblowing.
Imagine that you can count your black co-workers on one hand and your office is cleaned by mexicans working minimum wage and yet the place is obsessed with microaggressions and getting jobs for (rich white) women.
That's not quite the situation at google but it's a pretty normal situation in any tech office that likes to pretend to be progressive. I think saying the emperor has no clothes is pretty close if not whistleblowing.
Modern day 3rd feminism is just a costume that privileged white chicks wear to dress up as an oppressed class. Name me any tech company that has recently made hiring black people the same priority as hiring women. What about diversity hiring policies? It's almost always some young pretty white chick hiring a bunch of asians, indians, and trans engineers because... rich white girls don't value their college opportunity and squander it studying bullshit. Of course some of them end up as professors or VP or maybe if they're lucky they write for buzzfeed but mostly they just end up in shit careers.
The guy took 10 pages to write "I don't know understand science and don't like women". Imagine what his code looks like.
Funny, I am going to use less of googles services and products because of shit like this and shit like you. I hope he gets a yuuuge lawsuit that bitch slaps the smug self satisfied social justice religion off the planet.
Don't be^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Be Less Evil
I love how every public forum is now an open cesspit!
That's the first time I ever saw a search engine get paranoid!!
On the subject of SJW and MSM not understanding the idea of an average or a bell curve.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Us4wcMtl4
The polish MEP in question here gets the same problem..... original interview can be found from this link, but the muppet version is much funnier :)
WHAT scientists? Red State scientists that say AGW isn't actually real? Liberal scientists? REAL scientists or just "My Uncle Bubba the guy who cleans monkey cages at the CDC?"
Everyone is missing the big picture.
I wasn't surprised when OJ got off. Nicole get it right "OJ will kill me and he will get off because he is OJ SImpson."
When it was I watched the George Zimmerman trial in the background. The trial came down to this. Only one witness saw a part of what was happening. What he saw was one guy pounding another. He tried to get him stop by yelling and the guy wouldn't. Medical evidence should that Zimmerman was beaten up, Martin was not.. Whatever you say about the appropriateness of the law, the law and the facts were on Zimmerman's side. The verdict should not have come as a surprise.
Look at the big picture and you won't be surprised.
First off. The article says he is a whistleblower and some people here take exception to that. They are correct for thje wrong reasons. A whistleblower is someone who takes a complaint outside the workplace.Damore kept it in house. That however does not change the law. He was bringing ptential illegal activity to the attention of management.
Second. I won't be surprised if Google wins a court case. Juries can be fickle.
Third. I won't be surprised if Damore won. I think this is more likely, though by how much, I do not know. The liked article is a rehash of an oped piece written by a practicing San Diego labor lawyer. I would say his perspective on the case is more informed then most of us.
Fourth. There are five things that people are ignoring:
In short there are a lot of things that are game changers that we don't have any idea what they are. Who distributed the memo to most of the Google staff? What are the terms of the forum he was using? What happens in their diversity classes? Was he having performance problems before the memo happened?
It's only when the case gets t o court that we will see what the answers are.
I also don't think the guy wants to settle and Google can't make him.
So pull up a chair and get the popcorn ready.
I would say he got lucky he only got fired.
Can company sue employee for Defamation?
The pendulum has swung too far IMO. Maybe my experience is atypical, but in my 18 years in operations / development 1 out of 10 "diverse" employees are keepers. 9 out of 10 are promoted / hired in large part to the diversity they would bring; then the lack of capability/ability rolls onto the backs of their co-workers who are too afraid to push back against hiring mgt./ HR for fear of being labelled bigots.
My guess is hiring for diversity over ability/capability, like has been demonstrated in my career, potentially could end up being a detriment to the entire company's bottom line. It's seems reasonable that there becomes a slow incremental "dumbing down" due to the lack of emphasis on hiring for ability. I know I've docked 100's of hours of hand-holding of "diverse" staff who are way in over their head, many of whom came and went without really contributing a single useful thing during their tenure. I'm sure many of my contemporaries have similar experience, and see the culture shift in much the same way.
Can you guys stop feeding the eco chamber for this guy already?
The overreaction for and against this guy is plenty enough reason for firing him. Sorry if reality is too hard for some to take. Wake up and look around what's happening, you cannot be this blind.
Google isn't a governmental or public company, he didn't "whistleblow" anything (for it to be categorized as whistleblowing it needs to be revelations of illegal nature happening inside the company), Google interpreted his article/screed/document/whatever as being in violation with internal policies, he overstepped his position and send the message everywhere inside the company.
I'm not sure if he's involved in leaking the whole thing externally, but he became a liability the moment the message left the building.
Him staying as an employee became unsustainable. Furthermore, there's a metric ton of criticism in his piece that we really can't say for sure if it's justified or not, but it's a piece of vilification that exposes just one side of the equation from a very personal and particular viewpoint. It's a PR and HR disaster, and people were fired for way less than that. Do you guys not follow cases were CEOs were put out of their positions for one line Tweets and inept Facebook posts? Several of those weren't even criticizing the company they worked for, but it put the person in an unsustainable position inside the company.
Set your bias aside and think about it. There's a good reason Google does not discuss matters of policy and how it works on their diversity program in public. It's exactly because the company wants to avoid all sorts of overreactions that are happening right now because of what this guy wrote. The boycott that is being promoted by tons of people is a direct consequence of his actions, even if it has more to do with him being fired. On the other side, there were calls for firing him up before it happened. There's a whole ton of people taking what the guy wrote alone in faith, just because he build his article well, taking a single point of view as the truth of what happens inside the company, often exacerbating it, and throwing all sorts of unfounded accusations against the company as a whole because of it.
His piece, by itself, brought political polarization around the company, something that I'm plenty sure Google was trying to avoid at all costs. It undermined a whole ton of money, work and effort that Google must've spent in recent years.
Do you really know if Google is, internally and for it's employees, an extreme leftist paradise? Do you really know if dissent is shut down there without discussion? Specially those that are being so extremely adamant against Google in the past few days, think about how much trust you are putting in the testimonial of a single person. Has anyone else inside the company come out in support for his words? Is it really because now you know everything that's happening inside Google or is it just your confirmation bias because you already didn't like the company anyways, or the ideas James is going against?
Google won't be in trouble for firing the guy exactly because of posts just like this one. Google can show the cause and effect as to why they needed to let the guy go. If you think you are helping his case with posts like this one, you are not. Private companies are not public forums. They have policies in place with what sort of discussions are allowed to be made of matters that happens inside the company, they have proper channels to voice your opinions, and they keep strict control going through PR not to let disasters like what's happening right now spiral out of control.
Stop trying to stretch this story. It's over. If Google gets in trouble for this, fine, come back with something useful to discuss. This is just clickbait and sensationalization.
At will. His behavior violated code of conduct. Done.
Subpoenas work both ways Trumpflake. You'd best hope they don't ask because anyone as butt hurt as they are about this likely has all kinds of interesting things to say about you; because no one who doesn't have a personal interest in this would be this defensive and given how you seem to have an unlimited amount of comment credits that tells me you work for Slashdot.
Don't want the company skeletons to come out of the closet.
Notice how google tends to win at trial a lot? Wonder why that is.
I don't work for google, but I love making you think I do. :D
Trigger. Trigger. Triggery trigger.
Nietzsche was absolutely batshit insane, though, so unfortunately while quotes by a well known philosopher may appear impressive, their application is limited. It is however fair to say that the alt-right seek to destroy existing morals through the apparent paradox generating mental judo that can be boiled down to "by not accepting my intolerance you are intolerant." The correct response is to recognise this for what it is, then punch the fuckers in the face, thus also neatly answering the question "is it right to punch a Nazi?"
No. It is perfectly valid to list PhD studies without a PhD at the end
Damore wrote "PhD, Systems Biology" on his linked in profile.
All this pontificating about what he did not do is fucking ridiculous
Way to use an ad-hominem to elucidate your understanding of statistical distributions.
There's plenty of people who have read the slanted media reports and not the original document, without bringing Google shills into the mix. Those types of operations are usually done by state actors, and large state-linked corporations like some in the oil industry.
Although I agree with the main thrust of the paper, if not all its finer points, I find it very hard to feel sorry for the man. He knew what was going to be fired if he let this loose. People get fired all the time for way less. He could have published it truly anonymously. He's not going to have trouble finding another well paying job in his field - jobs that most could only dream of. He probably has a bunch of offers already. And if his lawsuit holds up, he might even walk out with a golden parachute. He strikes me as the annoyingly "edgy" type that likes to make a scene. I doubt any whistleblowing laws apply though.... No whistle was blown here but his own. The diversity initiatives at Google aren't a secret.
The politicians manipulate the market for votes (propaganda) the same way the corporations manipulate the market for sales (advertising). So why not let the corporations run the country. Eliminate the politicians. Give the job to the proven successes. That's what evolution does.
Different standards of evidence for different systems of justice.
Its not like the video proved there was no rape. It just showed was that she lead the guy from the club to the uber.
The judge simply did not think it could be proved to the level required for a criminal conviction.
It certainly doesn't show what happened after they entered the dorm's front door.
And, damn, that line from the defendant is damning, “Without evidence, there’s no way to prove that consent did happen or didn’t happen. It’s just one person’s word against another.” Really makes you think he's got a guilty mind. "You can't prove it!" is something guilty people say.
That some subjects are too taboo to openly discuss in the US.
Regardless of how much data exists to back up or justify a claim, you dare not speak the words lest you get crucified for it.
Free speech is really only free as long as what you say coincides with popular opinion.
Nietzsche was absolutely batshit insane, though
Is the quote batshit insane? No, it's a reasonable warning written in poetic fashion, so you're just engaging in ad hominem.
It is however fair to say that the alt-right
The "alt-right" is an overused boogeyman phrase. The origin of "alt-right" came out of Richard Spencer's movement for white nationalism. It has since been generically applied to anybody that goes against the "progressive" left.
seek to destroy existing morals through the apparent paradox generating mental judo that can be boiled down to "by not accepting my intolerance you are intolerant."
Discrimination in the form of quotas, "diversity" hiring practices, and dogmatic political positions is not "tolerance". The "progressive" (in actuality, authoritarian, racist, and sexist) left then goes through mental judo that any opposition to this Marxist ideology is "intolerance".
The correct response is to recognise this for what it is, then punch the fuckers in the face, thus also neatly answering the question "is it right to punch a Nazi?"
Thanks for demonstrating your fascism.
Why is it that you get violent when someone points out your hypocrisy?
Way to take the moral high ground.
California is an "at will" state. If you're employed at will then you can leave when you like and also can get fired at your employer's whims with no justification required.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It was Motherboard and Gizmodo that caused him to CHOOSE to cancel his vacation. Deliberately fanning the flames. Then we have people like Yonatan Zunger DIRECTLY LYING about the content of the memo. (by the way I used to respect Zunger, but has has now proven to actually be a lying opportunistic self righteous asshat at heart, and I won't be following anything he writes from now on).
To be more specific.
Things Zunger claims the memo says:
- We should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers.
-(women are) biologically unsuited to do their jobs.
- (women are) worse engineers
Things the memo absolutely DOES NOT SAY. I scoured the original PDF in detail to be certain. They are NOT stated, implied, or quite frankly, even hinted at:
- We should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers.
-(women are) biologically unsuited to do their jobs.
- (women are) worse engineers.
Starting to see a pattern here?
Zunger also claims it "flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades" which is absolute BS, as indicated by the serious scholarly research that the document actually cites and links to, which Gizmodo conveniently left out and most people, including Zunger apparently don't even know about, having never actually read the original document before spouting off about it!!! What a moron.
Now, how about some of the things the document actually DOES say:
"Once we acknowledge that not ALL differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination, we open our eyes to a more accurate view of the human condition which is necessary if we actually want to solve problems" "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women /may/ IN PART explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." (emphasis added).
"Allowing and truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work though can keep more women in tech."
"Political orientation is actually a result of deep moral preferences and thus biases." "Neither side is 100% correct and both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society or, in this case, company. A company too far to the right may be slow to react, overly hierarchical, and untrusting of others. In contrast, a company too far to the left will constantly be changing..., over diversify its interests..., and overly trust its employees and competitors."
"People generally have good intentions, but we all have biases which are invisible to us."
"Of course, I may be biased and only see evidence that supports my viewpoint. In terms of political biases, I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and reason. I'd be very happy to discuss any of the document further and provide more citations."
"I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes."
"Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this..."
Really sounds like he's just a woman hater out to dive all females away from tech, right? Right...? RIGHT?? No, actually wrong! Too bad nobody took the time to read it in detail before passing judgement.
And while I'm ranting. Zunger says Damore doesn't understand engineering and how it's all collaborate-ey because Damore suggests making software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration and allowing those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive, in order to help increase women in tech (and specifically at Google). Now, why might he suggest this? Because it obviously _hasn't been his experience_ at Google in Mountain View over the last several years (otherwise he wouldn't need suggest that it should be improved). Even when Zunger is actually on the same side as Damore he still manages to pass judgement and condemn him for.. basically, for agreeing - for crying out loud!
In short, Zunger's writeup on this topic is one of the absolute worst I've EVER seen outside of the Alt-right's own crap, and yet people actually buy into it and take him at his (lying) word. It sure generated lots of clicks though. Well done... asshat.
But since he is a white male no law protect while males against such discrimination. I secndon him. All those victimization and diversity is a whole bull... just to get easier job entries and acces easier to high paying jobs. How come they don't get accepted just using the same standart as everyone else's? I am black give me easy money, I am woman, give me easy money.
TLDR
men and women are different
(generally) men are in positions of power because that's what they strive for, women are not because they don't like it
i like diversity
stop making programs to promote diversity targeting women and minorities
programs should target individuals
stop alienating conservatives
stop being so left leaning
basically what i got out of all the bs this dude wrote was
he generalized a lot
he doesn't like special programs to promote women and minorities
men and women are different
men are in their positions because they worked for it, it's in their nature
women are in their positions because they're built that way
google is left leaning
stop being mean to right leaning conservatives
what a load of crap
This case makes me feel even more politically isolated. Trump is the worst president ever in every category. Congress is barely functional. People on all sides increasingly just subscribe to blanket agendas and fail to consider the details. I am on the left as far as general thinking and agenda goes, but there is way to much behavior like we see here among this group. It's obvious that this wasn't an a reasonably presented argument about the companies policies rather than the "anti-diversity rant" it has been made out to be.
He isn't a whistle blower, nor was he complaining about work conditions. He's a misogynistic pig.
(He's not a PhD. Just sayin')
It cracks me up that you didn't see the intentional self-contradiction in that little bait or the change of title to emphasise the playfulness. You're stuck so far up your own arse, I don't even... this is a comment thread, not world war 3.
I dunno, maybe you're so far up your own ass that you think people should notice minor title changes, and tell the difference between real illogical SJWs and pretend SJWs? If it was an attempt at sarcasm, it needed bigger cues.
Geez... let's try answering this seriously, no really!
Is the quote batshit insane? No, it's a reasonable warning written in poetic fashion, so you're just engaging in ad hominem.
If you have ever read any Nietzsche, between the lines you can hear the pain, the rage against it, all that anger, and the anguish of where he wants to be and do, and what he cannot, screaming out from every page. He was certainly insane later on, opinions vary over what led to this - syphillis, mercury treatment for it, whatever; but prior to that he was not a well man and suffered greatly for it. Not to belittle his work, he fought hard; however, believing something to be profound because it sounds profound is not a sign of high intelligence. It does make it a very quotable quote, though. I suspect that it appeals to a certain adolescent mindset that, although not suffering any prolonged physical pain, somehow still manages to generate the same kind of rage from feeling oppressed, whether rightly or not.
I want to distance myself from the "alt-right" as they have begun to show signs they may be a cuckoo short of a clock, although I suspect my own ideology could not be separated from theirs even using a very powerful microscope.
I've taken the liberty of fixing that for you.
Discrimination in the form of quotas, "diversity" hiring practices, and dogmatic political positions is not "tolerance".
There's a good reason that is counterintuitive, instead of taking the shallow view, please at least keep an open mind and have a look at this, don't fret, dogma is not included. If you then still think "well, that doesn't apply in this case", consider that no system exists in a vacuum, and that prejudice is naturally present in everyone. It's quite easy to channel, all you do is turn down control from your neocortex a little bit, let all that pent up rage flow out your limbic system and obsess over any particular group or thing really hard. Do it often enough to the same group and the association sticks.
apparent paradox generating mental judo that can be boiled down to "by not accepting my intolerance you are intolerant."
The "progressive" (in actuality, authoritarian, racist, and sexist) left then goes through mental judo that any opposition to this Marxist ideology is "intolerance".
QED. Personally I have not read any Marx, apart from Harpo.
punch the fuckers in the face, thus also neatly answering the question "is it right to punch a Nazi?"
Thanks for demonstrating your fascism.
An interesting fact: contrary to the views of the far right in the US, the Allies were not the fascists during WW2 and the Nazis were not the oppressed, surprisingly it was the other way around. Hard to believe, I know! They have documentaries, and everything.
"Employees are protected by federal law when they discuss working conditions with other employees (and this was an internal memo)."
I'd like to see a citation to the specific law you are thinking of.
"His memo could be considered whistleblowing, which is also protected (and it is very clear that he was fired as retribution)."
I was fired under similar circumstances by Oracle Corporation and no lawyer I ever spoke to suggested that such a thing was so.
"And, in California, political opinions are protected in the work place as well."
And yet, if you take 15 to 20 minutes and read https://web.archive.org/web/20... ... you will see that Zionists, running Oracle Corporation, did whatever they wanted.
For instance, based on information and belief, Alan Tottle, Oracle VP, concealed his executive diary from my lawyers, during discovery. Never saw it. No one mentioned it, either - not even my own lawyers.
I think the fix was in.
And so we see there is a vast gap between what we tell ourselves is true, and what is shown, by scientific method, to be false.
Geez... let's try answering this seriously, no really!
So you want to continue your passive-aggressive, serious, not serious, bullshit games? Ok, I'll play along and take you seriously, because there are SJW idiots that make just as ridiculous arguments that do take it seriously -- perhaps even you.
however, believing something to be profound because it sounds profound is not a sign of high intelligence
It's a reasonable warning written in poetic fashion, regardless of who wrote it or under what circumstances.
I've taken the liberty of fixing that for you.
You've taken the liberty of strawmanning, because you lack the intellectual integrity to engage in honest debate.
prejudice is naturally present in everyone
Indeed, but quotas are not the answer. Prejudice comes in many forms, by the way, not just the pigeon holes of race or sex. But a monoculture of political thought doesn't bother the identity-politics pushers. Not only do they not take "affirmative action" to correct it, they actively seek to enforce it.
QED. Personally I have not read any Marx, apart from Harpo.
You personally do not have to have read Marxist ideology for it to exist or for you to be following it. Engage that neocortex.
An interesting fact: contrary to the views of the far right in the US, the Allies were not the fascists during WW2 and the Nazis were not the oppressed, surprisingly it was the other way around.
An interesting fact: if you run around endorsing and/or committing thug violence while tarring any dissenters to your ideology with a nasty label for the "other" to justify your violence, you just might be a fascist.
IBM famously posted 'Think' signs all around their buildings
Apple famously posted 'Think Differently' in their stores and in advertising campaigns.
Google will soon be putting up signs that say 'Think Like We Do'.
Progress!
Ken
There is no other system of Justice that matters.
And yes, in America, you have to PROVE something. If you can't prove it, then you can't convict or otherwise punish.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Since we are all weighing in on this. I think google is wrong for firing this employee, yes he had an extreme view, but imo it wasn't a firing offense. Googles action Tells me the company isn't so special after all and folks that work there sell their soul to the company store, just like most places. my opinion.
Most employees at this level are "At Will" which means they can be fired at any time for virtually any, or no reason. When Google is under investigation for hiring and salary gender bias to publish a document of this nature internally shows poor judgment and can only cause harm, not avoid it. He may just be missing genes critical to good judgment, and Google should get a DNA test before he leaves for better screening in the future.
This document should have been released as a public blog - attributed to his name and not associated with Google. Having read the document, he makes the same point embraced by slave owners and those fighting to keep women from voting. This class of society has a role today tied to their heritage. Slaves were seen as inferior because of the color of their skin, and women could not vote responsibly because of biological tenancies to hysteria. Just saw a Senator accuse McCain of voting irrationally due to his Brain Tumor. And here I thought his coming back and enabling the vote to go to conference was due to tumor.
As an Oregonian, I note that we just pushed the envelope a bit in reversing those trends with the CRISPR cleaning and repair of blastocysts at the genetic level. I expect that within a generation, (20-30 years or less) women will be freed from the biological consequences and risks of child production. Sex will still be on the menu, but child production will be a conscious effort where egg and sperm are combined and the successful blastocyst screened and cleaned for genetic defects before entering a uterine replicator to cook. This removes the physical impositions of child birth on women - and that will be a very Brave New World. Given Mr Damore's paper, he will be caught unaware when this occurs.
Most people in here are left-leaning, and not only is Damore a liberal, but he even finds time in the document to specifically whine about climate deniers. He also actually cites very reputable and wide-reaching studies that support the points he _actually makes._ Note that NONE of his points assert, imply, or even hint that women are biologically unsuited for software engineering nor that Google shouldn't hire more women. Those are actual lies made up by his critics. I've read the original (pdf) document in detail, and looked up the references and links to personally verify this. He's mainly making suggestions to help make tech jobs more attractive to women and help them be successful in those roles, but he suggests doing this in other ways rather than by reverse-discriminatory programs. He is also big on treating people as individuals rather than as members of groups (note: this is the basically _opposite_ of stereotyping) and encouraging more diversity of thought regardless of race, gender, or background. Anyone claiming he says women are worse engineers, are biologically unqualified, or that we should give up "making it possible" for women to be engineers or that they don't belong in engineering and technology roles, etc, is straight up LYING. It does not say anything of the kid, period.
Next time, try actually reading the document. It would help you understand why even liberals are "defending" him. He's being attacked mostly based on misrepresentations, exaggerations, and things he did not actually write. That's unfair and uncalled for, so we try to defend him from it.
His memo could be considered whistleblowing
You don't fire whistle blowers. You put them in jail, remember?
*IF* there were truly such a thing as "race" and *IF* you could demonstrate that inferior intellect (or strength, or stamina, or whatever) was an objectively measurable attribute of that race, then discriminating against that race on the basis of that characteristic would be entirely reasonable and perfectly moral.
The whole point of opposing racism is that these differences are *made up* and are not real. People get a hard time because of unimportant but obvious differences that enable a spurious "us" vs "them" distinction to be made.
The guy wrote an honest dissertation that makes a lot of sense. The Powers That Be in Google were unable to point out any actual errors and therefore resorted to throwing sand and firing the guy for speaking the truth. He will likely get a handsome payment to shut him up.
1. He stuck his neck way out there on some highly controversial statements, many of which he is wrong on. 2. The things he was right about mostly fall under the heading of, "You're not wrong , you're just an asshole." Assholes are not a protected class. Hell end up with nothing. Possibly not even hush money from Google.
All he has now is a career as spokesperson for manosphere-loving, alt-right cretins.
I see the reasonable points many others have made here about why he should not be fired, even if (hypothetically) everyone agreed his post (while carefully worded), may have propagated discriminatory views.
However, I would think many companies have in their contracts a clause that says if you do anything that causes embarrasment to the company, that's a fireable offense. I can understand this, I think, even though I would indeed worry that it could have happened to me when I was working at a big company, and would love (in theory) to have had some kind of protection to not lose my livelihood from it (aside from complete silence).
I think my last company had a social media policy, that somehow extended to even personal twitter accounts - forcing us to say that we worked for that company in our bio, but that our views were our own, but still making us responsible for any fallout. Not sure if enforceable.
The thing that really does need addressing is the people whose knee-jerk reaction to "They're different" is "You're saying they're inferior to straight white men!" (strike descriptors as needed) since that reflects their own concealed bigotries.
It's important to remember that the spread of cognitive differences does not follow stereotypes--and there's sets of things that men typically suck at compared to women. Some of this is very possibly due in significant part to differences in how they conceptualize the problem...
That last thing is the key to why you want an actually-diverse group approaching the problem: You can expect them to find a good solution faster in most cases. Think of it as an extension of the observation that to somebody who only has a hammer, most problems will look like nails.
At least $10 million.
I'm a lifelong Democrat but, I'm getting sick and tired of this SJW B.S. It's like walking on egg shells. You cannot discuss ANYTHING with ANYONE without fear of a SJW warrior overhearing and summoning the inquisition.
Liberalism used to mean that no subject or point of view was taboo; that liberals used to be secure enough in their own intellect that they didn't fear hearing something they disagreed with. Remember those days? When it was only extreme conservatives who tried to silence non-conforming voices?
Given the audience here are tech nerds, not squishy-stuffs nerds: I don't think you'd even manage to get a proposal that involves manual screwing with prenatal hormone exposures to the ethics review board. You'd have to prove that there is a benefit to society that would sufficiently outweigh the harm done to the people in the study. You generally also are expected to have put some thought into how to fix what you break--or, at least, lessen the consequences thereof. Given that we don't really have a clue here, it's only going to be passed to the ERB if they're in need of a good laugh.
What we know about exogenous gondal hormone exposure during incubation can be roughly summarized as 'Bad Things.' We're only starting to get some idea what is going on during pregnancy--you'd probably get as close as you ever could ethically to this by data mining a properly designed study monitoring womb conditions so you can establish the requirements for an artificial womb. (This is taking into consideration the issue of funding the effing study, and honestly such a study could be data mined for a lot of other things that you'd never be able to do directly. And, well, it needs to be done if you want a safe, effective artificial womb.)
Since you deleted and did not offer any reaction to the main salient point, I've more than enough to go on now. You're just fuelled by your own hate and are repeatedly pressing what you see as hotbutton triggers trying to get a reaction. It's boring, I was hoping for something more.
An interesting fact: if you run around endorsing and/or committing thug violence while tarring any dissenters to your ideology with a nasty label for the "other" to justify your violence, you just might be a fascist.
Logically correct, or you might be from any one of a number of entirely unrelated political or philosophical movements, or none at all. Fascism, like Marxism, is a fairly broad but still specific political ideology. It's cute that you throw around both words as your insult/weapons of choice while demonstrating no understanding of what either of those terms actually means.
"Defeat anyone challenging your bigotry with this one simple trick!"
You see, the point is that challenging intolerance does not make you intolerant, and much as you would like cowed and frightened opponents due to your own inherent intellectual cowardice, that isn't going to happen here.
In the words of Marx, honk honk!
Since you deleted and did not offer any reaction to the main salient point
I've responded to all your bullshit.
You're just fuelled by your own hate and are repeatedly pressing what you see as hotbutton triggers trying to get a reaction.
No, that's just your strawman and you're projecting. It's not about hate, it's about being against discrimination. This memo was not against women, it was against quotas, a blindness to gender preferences and science, and an intolerance to differing political thought. It was about meritocracy and treating people as individuals, along with a nudge that some accommodations for women in the workplace could be made for mutual benefit. But you don't want to have that discussion, and go right to "punch a Nazi".
You see, the point is that challenging intolerance does not make you intolerant
Your kind defines your own version of "intolerance", call people a Nazi if they don't agree, and then use that to justify threats or act of violence. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Maduro, etc. All you authoritarians are the same -- if you don't get your way, resort to violence.
And oh, the irony of the SJW advocating and achieving burdensome government regulation then deciding no benefit should come of it, selective enforcement of regulations because he doesn't like the victim's politics, and the irony of not being able to even see the completely reflexive symmetry of hypocrisy.
Pot, meet a much blacker kettle.
Call me a SJW, but this is what troubles me: For hundreds of years women and minorities have had the short end of the stick. Now as soon as there may be any indication that this is reversed, the system must immediately be fair. Better to err on the side of caution, and give women and minorities a little extra padding for the next 100 years. After that we can see is we can get the pendulum to end up somewhere in the middle.
At one place you say
> Any discussion that tries to lump massive groups of population and assign traits to them is going to fail
and then you turn around and do it yourself....
> You don't know what other sections of society will bring so it's probably a good idea to have representation from them
One of the PhDs in this article says it better than I ever could:
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/