Slashdot Mirror
James Damore Explains Why He Was Fired By Google (wsj.com)
In an exclusive Wall Street Journal post, the engineer responsible for the anti-diversity "Google manifesto," James Damore, explains why he was fired by the company: I was fired by Google this past Monday for a document that I wrote and circulated internally raising questions about cultural taboos and how they cloud our thinking about gender diversity at the company and in the wider tech sector. I suggested that at least some of the male-female disparity in tech could be attributed to biological differences (and, yes, I said that bias against women was a factor too). Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai declared that portions of my statement violated the company's code of conduct and "cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace." My 10-page document set out what I considered a reasoned, well-researched, good-faith argument, but as I wrote, the viewpoint I was putting forward is generally suppressed at Google because of the company's "ideological echo chamber." My firing neatly confirms that point. How did Google, the company that hires the smartest people in the world, become so ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument? [...]
In my document, I committed heresy against the Google creed by stating that not all disparities between men and women that we see in the world are the result of discriminatory treatment. When I first circulated the document about a month ago to our diversity groups and individuals at Google, there was no outcry or charge of misogyny. I engaged in reasoned discussion with some of my peers on these issues, but mostly I was ignored. Everything changed when the document went viral within the company and the wider tech world. Those most zealously committed to the diversity creed -- that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and all people are inherently the same -- could not let this public offense go unpunished. They sent angry emails to Google's human-resources department and everyone up my management chain, demanding censorship, retaliation and atonement. Upper management tried to placate this surge of outrage by shaming me and misrepresenting my document, but they couldn't really do otherwise: The mob would have set upon anyone who openly agreed with me or even tolerated my views. When the whole episode finally became a giant media controversy, thanks to external leaks, Google had to solve the problem caused by my supposedly sexist, anti-diversity manifesto, and the whole company came under heated and sometimes threatening scrutiny.
In my document, I committed heresy against the Google creed by stating that not all disparities between men and women that we see in the world are the result of discriminatory treatment. When I first circulated the document about a month ago to our diversity groups and individuals at Google, there was no outcry or charge of misogyny. I engaged in reasoned discussion with some of my peers on these issues, but mostly I was ignored. Everything changed when the document went viral within the company and the wider tech world. Those most zealously committed to the diversity creed -- that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and all people are inherently the same -- could not let this public offense go unpunished. They sent angry emails to Google's human-resources department and everyone up my management chain, demanding censorship, retaliation and atonement. Upper management tried to placate this surge of outrage by shaming me and misrepresenting my document, but they couldn't really do otherwise: The mob would have set upon anyone who openly agreed with me or even tolerated my views. When the whole episode finally became a giant media controversy, thanks to external leaks, Google had to solve the problem caused by my supposedly sexist, anti-diversity manifesto, and the whole company came under heated and sometimes threatening scrutiny.
He was trying to open a dialogue about problems with the way things were being run at work. What he did and where he did it was entirely appropriate.
You might like working at a stagnant company where everybody is scared to rock the boat, but I would prefer to get things like this out in the open so that the company can improve.
James Damore Explains Why He Thinks He Was Fired By Google
Fact of the matter is, as he was the firee, not the firer, he cannot speak authoritatively as to why he was fired by his employer. His employer is probably not going disclose the exact statements that led to the firing either, because any employer sufficiently large to have an HR department is going play its cards close to its chest to avoid creating grounds for lawsuit or to minimize those grounds.
Everyone on the planet old enough to have life experience develops one's own set of biases. Generally it's wise to take care when expressing one's biases or when acting upon them, because if someone is indiscreet then one's indiscretions may lead to consequences. Mr. Damore did not exercise discretion and it has cost him.
Fundamentally the workers in a business are not the owners of the business, and unless employees have reached sufficiently lofty positions in the company then they're to follow legal policy, not to set or otherwise determine policy. Granted, a tolerant employer can be better to work for, but there again, that kind of tolerance goes both ways, and an employer is only going to tolerate so much intolerance. In the eyes of his employer, Mr. Damore appears to have crossed that line.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
My favorite quote from the manifesto:
"Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males"
I've been able to survive this long as a software engineer without discussing castration in any email or company blog posts. It's really not very difficult.
Here is a simple rule of thumb, If your CEO has to cancel a vacation because of your actions, which inexplicably involve discussing castrated males, you should prepare your resume...
Bullshit. He was lecturing. And really, even if he's right, what message is he sending to his female colleagues, that somehow his male brain gives him at least a statistical edge over them?
Is Google being harmed by its gender policies? Was he? At the end of the day, one presumes he was hired as a software developer or engineer, and not to write screeds against his employer's hiring practices.
There's evidence pointing in both directions, and the jury is still out on how much of the gender disparity in areas like the STEM fields derives from biological/cognitive differences and cultural differences. Unless this is an area for which he actually has sufficient background to back up his statements, not only is he well out of his own field, but he is very much encouraging stereotypical sentiment.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you can community-organize a "drama" about something, you can get anyone at Google fired, regardless of facts.
Considering that conservatives had to invent their own definition of truthiness and rely on alternative facts to create a world view that conforms to their narrative, you really can just shut up.
But... he never wrote that men are superior to women. He just argued that differences in preferences -- in what careers men tend to find fulfilling and interesting and hence pursue, versus the careers women tend to find fulfilling and interesting -- could explain much of the gender imbalance in software development.
Didn't read the memo, huh? Just the media articles about it, right? It's obvious.
Here's a link for you; https://diversitymemo-static.s...
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The company got political first. Rather than focusing on what was relevant to the bottom line they have been doing social experiments. They do these political diversity seminars... they invite employees to comment.
Its going to court. And that will be that. If the court agrees with you then so be it. But if you are familiar with US labor laws... then you have to be aware that google has some liability and vulnerability here. The firing can easily be argued as retribution for complaining about labor conditions. Which I believe is a violation of US labor law.
All of this is very ironic because the people defending google are members of the same broad ideological faction that put these rules into place in the first place. And it could easily lead to an issue where the labor unions have to side against their presumptive ideological allies out of self defense... because the precedence set by google winning this would put those entities in threat.
There is a lot of tough talk coming from the SJW dude bros... they want everyone to know that anyone that has a problem with this is a pussy and a whiner. The hypocrisy of this is obvious and won't be explored beyond this sentence. However, the "everyone who complains is a pussy" or a snowflake or whatever argument doesn't really work in a labor dispute in a court room. So... Looking at US labor law... Google looks like they're in trouble.
But the courts are unpredictable sometimes. We'll see what happens.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Is Google being harmed by its gender policies? Was he? At the end of the day, one presumes he was hired as a software developer or engineer, and not to write screeds against his employer's hiring practices.
Then what of other employees' calls for his punishment and declaring that they'd refuse to work with him? Were those people hired to issue screeds and ultimatums regarding personnel issues? Should they be canned too?
If you were one of his female peers, how would you have felt about contining to work alongside Mr. Damore, knowing now that he likely felt you had got your job through what he viewed as prejudiced and unfair hiring practices?
The problem with someone like Mr. Damore is that their views, whether well researched or not, create toxic work environments, precisely the kind of environment that many organizations are trying to eliminate through increasing diversity. There's more to a job than just duties, there's also being able to get along with your peers, and not basically denigrate some portion of them as unworthy beneficiaries of unfair hiring practices.
Now I think Google management probably could have handled this better, either by putting a letter to file and either moving him out of the department he was in, or at least demanding some sort of an apology or explanation. But the fact was that he pulled the pin on a metaphorical grenade, and if he was unaware of the events that would follow, then I suggest that Mr. Damore may have his own set of cognitive and behavior issues.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There's a huge logical fallacy in Damore's argument, and this guy nailed it. Damore's argument boils down to this:
A) There are biological differences between men and women, as science has shown.
B) Men and women, on average, do different things in the workplace, as statistics show.
C) Therefore, A causes B.
D) We are trying too hard to change this because A causes B.
This has all been such a complete waste of time.
Google isn't a democracy, and just because people won't openly condemn a coworker doesn't mean he hasn't poisoned the well.
There isn't a Fortune 500 company, or indeed any company of over a couple of hundred employees that probably would keep this guy on now. If he didn't know he was going to get fired, or at the very least penalized for this memo (even if he never intended it to get to the wider audience it ended up in the hands of), well then maybe Mr. James Damore ain't so fucking bright himself.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In the end, he still says his gender has the edge in technical fields. He can couch the claim all he wants, add all the qualifiers he can think of, but his ultiamte statement was "people with an XY chromosome are more likely to be good in technical fields than people with XX chromosomes." Couple that with the fact that Google does have diversity hiring quotas, he's heavily inferring that at least some of his female peers don't deserve the job they're in.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How many times are we going to have this same (group) argument?
#DeleteChrome
Bullshit. He was lecturing. And really, even if he's right, what message is he sending to his female colleagues, that somehow his male brain gives him at least a statistical edge over them?
What do you mean by a statistical edge over them? His argument wasn't that male engineers were better than female engineers, simply that women may be less likely to want to have careers in computing. You may want to actually read his document.
Is Google being harmed by its gender policies?
If they're passing up talented hires due to a quota system, then yes they are. Also, from what some other posters have said in previous /. stories related to this, affirmative action is illegal in California, so they may be running afoul of the law.
There's evidence pointing in both directions, and the jury is still out on how much of the gender disparity in areas like the STEM fields derives from biological/cognitive differences and cultural differences.
Almost all of the evidence (at least everything I've seen) points to it being largely biological. I've seen a lot of people claim it isn't, but they have yet to post all of this evidence that supposedly suggests otherwise. I think that many here are more than willing to consider this other evidence, but so far no one has actually posted any of it.
Unless this is an area for which he actually has sufficient background to back up his statements, not only is he well out of his own field, but he is very much encouraging stereotypical sentiment.
Apparently he has a Ph.D. in biology, so he's probably got more background than most people here. Also, if it really is factual, I don't think it's fair to call it a stereotype. You wouldn't tell me I was being stereotypical if I told you that men were taller than women.
that somehow his male brain gives him at least a statistical edge over them?
He cited references that evidence this, AND it is extremely likely that he is 100% correct on the matters he discussed.
When the truth is being ignored.... it is a good thing to point out the errors/falsehoods being assumed.
Unless this is an area for which he actually has sufficient background to back up his statements
You are carrying an Ad Hominem fallacy. His background, work history, personal beliefs, etc, have absolutely
nothing to do with the validity of the arguments he has made either way. Arguments are to be judged based on
the sources, and evidence related to the premises of the argument, and the principles of logic used to consistently evaluate arguments.
It's a fact that the average male could use physical force to rape the average woman.
Would you think it appropriate that that be placed in a company memo?
Not everything that is true (and there is still considerable debate in the psychological and neurological communities about precisely what the gender-based cogntiive and behavioral differences are, but let's give Mr. Damore the benefit of the doubt) should be vocalized. Part of getting along in societies, big or small, is learning what to say at times, and when to say it. When you're basically going to call out a portion of your coworkers as undeserving of their job (and let's be blunt, that is his argument, no matter how he tried to qualify it), well, you can hardly be surprised when people react pretty fucking poorly.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If he didn't know he was going to get fired, or at the very least penalized for this memo (even if he never intended it to get to the wider audience it ended up in the hands of), well then maybe Mr. James Damore ain't so fucking bright himself.
Indeed! Even if you (in the general sense, not the parent) agree, it's still clear he had a staggering lack of good judgement. Would you want someone like that in charge of production code?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How many days in a row are the conservative trolls that help run /. going to be posting more, and more, and more of the same story? When will their victim card get worn out? How about we move on to something that's actually somehow related to science or technology instead of more whining.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
If these women and minorities got the job under lower standards, then he would be correct. That's a simple fact.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
He didn't hint that women are biologically inferior. He did say that women are, on average, interested in different things. Haven't you noticed? Go read the memo.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Not so bright? If he was a liberal in an age of conservative values, he would be called "brave". I call him brave for speaking his mind, which Google, up until this incident, encouraged their people to do. Open minded, is no longer open at Google.
FWIW, even if he *had* completed his PhD, how does that make him an expert?
Anecdotally, in my experience PhD's that have no additional experience aren't any more "expert" than PhD drop-outs. It appears that navigating the academic politics and simply the luck of getting your adviser to approve a research project for your doctorate that won't bore you to tears until you drop-out is about the only "skill" PhD's have on PhD drop-outs in most fields. Of course give me a post-Doc with 5 years doing real research, and then you might find a real statistical difference on the "expert" scale.
He wasn't trying to advance the state of neuroscience or sociology, as he is completely unqualified to do either. And he wasn't trying to present a scientific consensus, because there is no consensus on these issues: they are pretty complicated and the jury is still out.
Finally--and this is the surest indication that there was no science happening here--he wasn't talking to people who themselves are experts in neuroscience or sociology.
He was a non-expert talking to other non-experts; cherry-picking data to support his "beliefs". That's not science, that's politics.
And not just any politics, political speech that's claims that women are genetically predisposed towards different technical work than men. That is speech that creates a hostile work environment.
And that's game over.
Don't do it at work. Put it on your blog. I would fire you for wasting everyones time with your personal issues.
Except... you know... he posted it to the internal Google forum SPECIFICALLY MADE BY GOOGLE FOR DISCUSSING SUCH THINGS WITHIN THE WORKPLACE
Google: Here is a forum for discussing workplace diversity issues.
Employee: Oh hey, I have some well researched thoughts.
Google: You are fired for discussing workplace diversity issues.
I'm not arguing the "he was lecturing" point because you're totally right. And that's a perfectly fine reason to fire someone if they're supposed to be working instead. But then things get weird:
Here we go again. Instead of accusing you of not reading the memo, I'd like to ask: did you read it? (And I don't mean a story about it or someone's annotations; I mean that actual memo.) And if you did, do you think it says something like that?
(This is regardless of whether he's right or wrong, and I'm even less interested in whether or not Google made the right decision about firing him. I'm just trying to figure out what people who read it think the memo says, or even implies.)
People disagree so wildly about the mere contents of the memo, that most discussions are pointless flamefests because people are talking about different things. But also, when we disagree about the contents of the memo, that makes me think you didn't read it. So it starts us off with some good ol' fashioned mutual disrespect. Damn, this has turned out to be some of the hottest flamebait ever. But is it about sexism, reading comprehension, or sabotage by trolls deliberately misrepresenting it? I can't figure it out.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
So... standing up for what you think is right, despite knowing there may be negative consequences, shows "a staggering lack of good judgement?"
So MLK wasn't a civil rights leader, he was just some angry, ranting guy with bad judgement?
Fuck if I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
So... standing up for what you think is right, despite knowing there may be negative consequences, shows "a staggering lack of good judgement?"
It all rather depends on what you think is right and why you think it.
So yes, writing a manifesto on some rather contentious points about an area he's not above the level of "rank amateur" in, filled with fallacies, poor referencing, wild extrapolation and unsourced claims and then posting it to the whole company when his bosses declined to act on it---yeah that's poor judgement.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What do you mean by a statistical edge over them? His argument wasn't that male engineers were better than female engineers, simply that women may be less likely to want to have careers in computing. You may want to actually read his document.
His language was far less nuanced than that. He basically took some very valid research into culture and time invariant differences in preferences between men and women (which, if you read the source material, the researcher acknowledged as correlation and not something he has established as causation, but it does suggest a biological link) and -- like a typical Libertarian -- jumped to conclusions and stated definitively that this means women find software engineering less interesting and that's what's causing the disparity.
Ignoring that in particular, software is drastically non-diverse *even compared to other STEM fields* by a huge margin.
Ignoring that the possible biological link to "thing based" interest doesn't necessarily translate into disinterest in computers (computer science, prior to the 1970's, was predominantly female).
Ignoring that -- even though he admitted there is systemic bias -- that there shouldn't be counter-measures for said systemic bias.
Almost all of the evidence (at least everything I've seen) points to it being largely biological. I've seen a lot of people claim it isn't, but they have yet to post all of this evidence that supposedly suggests otherwise. I think that many here are more than willing to consider this other evidence, but so far no one has actually posted any of it.
This is false. Even the original study that started most of this (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/) acknowledges:
1. It's correlation. Though the fact that it's culturally invariant suggests a biological link.
2. It's only really relevant for *one axis* of a 5-axis personality measurement (thing vs people interest).
3. It's based on self-reporting. Where people report their own *relatively* interest compared to what they think their place falls in society.
So much of it is non-conclusive (and the author, a proper scientist, acknowledges this). But it *does* suggest there is some biological link to one axis of a personality trait.
The problem is that blogs, armchair pundits and apparently young and impressionable Libertarians take a scientific finding of a possible link and does that classic "science says men are X and women are Y!".
What's sad is that normally, this type of behavior would be laughed at for being the sensationalist over-simplification that it is by critical thinking minds. But somehow, because it re-affirms some pretty deep-seated existing stereotypes, it's not thought of as critically by otherwise critical thinking white men.
But way to go with trying to make him into an expert in cognitive studies, because he went part way through a biology PhD. In my part of the world that's called a fallacious appeal to authority.
Actually, you were the one guilty of the "appeal to authority" (or lack thereof) originally since your first post clearly suggested we should dismiss his arguments because he was not an expert. Given this, it is the height of hypocrisy to criticize the person who effectively refuted your argument of committing the error which you made. This is doubly true when the only reason he mentioned the engineer's credentials was to show that you own fallacious "appeal to a lack of authority" was wrong because the engineer did actually have some expertise in the area!
... writing a manifesto on some rather contentious points about an area he's not above the level of "rank amateur" in, filled with fallacies, poor referencing, wild extrapolation and unsourced claims and then posting it to the whole company when his bosses declined to act on it---yeah that's poor judgement.
Good thing the so-called "manifesto" isn't any of those things.
Stop lying.
More than amateurish too.
And yet, you've waxed eloquent on how unqualified he was. This, despite other professors saying his paper represents the current science.
You never read the paper, and all you can do is attack because it conflicts with your worldview.
Am waiting for you to actually post a scientific rebuttal.
Bullshit. He was lecturing. And really, even if he's right, what message is he sending to his female colleagues, that somehow his male brain gives him at least a statistical edge over them?
Yes and no. Neuroscientists no longer even debate the issue of whether men and women are hardwired differently prenatally, as the evidence supporting this has been very strong for a very long time now. This means that the social liberal position of men and women (and indeed other races) being a blank slate that would otherwise develop identical behaviors, preferences, and mannerisms if raised identically can not be true. Or put another way, the tabula rasa theory is false.
Because they are different, therefore, they can not be equal. However, this does not conclude or even suggest that one is inherently superior to the other. What it does conclude is that, inevitably, different people will excel in different things more than others, with phenotypes and genotypes absolutely playing a role somewhere.
So on one side yes, women can overall be one or both of:
1. Less likely to be interested in tech work to begin with than males
2. Less likely to be as adept at tech as males
But on another side no, in that it does NOT mean that women can not be as interested and adept or more interested and adept than a typical male.
This is also why you'll never be able to meet diversity/affirmative-action quotas that are pegged to match the general population (i.e. 49% male, 51% female, 14% black, etc) without sacrificing something else. Furthermore, equality and diversity are in fact mutually exclusive of one another (there is no tabula rasa.) In order for any two people to be equal, you'd have to create a perfect clone of somebody, and even then they would diverge over time as their experiences change. So you have to pick either equality or diversity, but you can't have both.
No, he does not have a PhD in biology. He apparently abandoned that before completion.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Maybe Mr. Damore isn't quite the champion of the victimized male that people want to believe. But way to go with trying to make him into an expert in cognitive studies, because he went part way through a biology PhD. In my part of the world that's called a fallacious appeal to authority. So tell me, are you genetically predisposed to such faulty logic, or was that a cultural artifact?
This. Something else went on that he's deliberately not telling us. His own memo opens with "Reply to public response and misrepresentation". Reply to what I have to ask?
CEO's don't get called back from holiday to deal with a politely worded memo that goes against the groupthink. That's what HR deals with no matter how "Lib-rle" the alt-right thinks the organisation is, as others have said Google is a Fortune 100 company, this means HR is done properly. Given that the memo is dated July 2017 and he was not fired until the 7th of August... What happened between that time?
Meanwhile, Damore has been crying foul all over alt-right media but ignoring major publications without an obvious bias. What was he saying about Google's ideological echo chamber? Even the WSJ only counts as semi-legitimate having become yet another Murdoch mouthpiece.
Reading between the lines, his actual philosophies are much harsher than the memo eludes to and likely got into an argument with other employees. Something was said or done that was harsh enough for a lot of employees to make a complaint about, harsh enough that a CEO had to be called back from holiday. If this is true, trying to create a media circus will eventually backfire, especially the way he's currently doing it. The only thing saving him would be that it is illegal for Google to release the actual details on why he was fired, if he sues, this comes out.
We've heard Damore's side of it, I'd like to hear Google's, which is probably being parsed by some very high priced IR lawyers as we speak. As always there's three sides to the argument, your side, their side and the truth.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
In fact, he wrote a 10-page memo identifying the problem. Go read it, it's enlightning.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB