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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 didn't write a manifesto, he wrote an argument for reviewing some of their procedures and practices at the company. I write such memos all the time, however the company I work for isn't Google, and it's mostly having to do with manufacturing processes rather than HR practices because that's the area in which I personally work. However, I really don't see the difference, a process is a process and they should be reviewed and changed when there is valid reason to do so, be it manufacturing or HR or otherwise.
You /.ers really need to read The Circle. I guess there was a movie but I didn't see it. This situation, with the groupthink and victimhood, is eerily familiar to several scenes in that book.
Except that it would have received an A- in a masters level psychology class.
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/
I am a white male in my 40s, and I recently quit the engineering profession because of just this kind of political bullshit. Companies that used to be devoted to the pursuit of science and technological achievement have been co-opted by the social justice movement, and it makes for a very hostile work environment.
I quit because a certain team of HR administrators decided that white males over 40 were no longer welcome at the company. White males over 40 (and only those of us over 40, mind you) were required to take QUARTERLY diversity training and sign oaths of affirmation of our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
The last straw came when, as a manager, I was told that I was no longer allowed to determine my raise distributions and that my director would dole out my raise pool. Guess what - not a single white male over 40 in my group (myself included) were given raises the last two years.
So I said screw it. I quit. Now I'm a certified financial planner and I couldn't be happier. I don't make as much money yet but I'll be damned if I'm not thrilled to go to work every morning again. That's something I haven't felt in a decade.
Where do you work? I have to assume that it isn't in Silicon Valley, or some other heavily leftist area.
What you're saying is perfectly true in any reasonable area, where leftism has been kept in check. But it doesn't hold true in areas where leftism is running rampant.
It was leftists who brought genitalia and -isms and -phobias into the workplace.
I don't think you truly appreciate what it's like to work within an organization that consists mainly of Millennials (aka "hipsters"), especially ones who are on the far left of the political spectrum. It's the kind of thing you can't really understand unless you've experienced it, it's so unbelievable.
The workplace doesn't revolve around work or business, like is typically the case. Such a workplace revolves around so-called "social justice" and other leftist ideologies. Work is secondary to matters of political ideology.
If you haven't experienced this yourself, perhaps the best example you can publicly see is the Rust programming language project. Its Code of Conduct should give you a sense of what the situation is like.
There's a paragraph within the Rust Code of Conduct that states that it's unacceptable to exclude people, yet that very same paragraph also threatens to do just that against people deemed to be offenders! With some emphasis added:
When working in a leftist organization, you'll find it challenging to not discuss gender, sexuality, racism, homophobia, sexism, and all sorts of other -isms and -phobias on a frequent basis, even if you're a software developer! The absurd thing with leftists is that they could very well go after you if you don't discuss such things as frequently as they do, because to them the lack of discussion indicates that you're a "bigot".
If you've never experienced a leftist Millennial workplace, then I don't think you could truly appreciate how unusual of a situation it can be. Talking about "castration" (or more likely, transsexuals) could very well be a common occurrence.
Debra W. Soh is an expert in neuroscience. (PhD in sexual neuroscience from the University of York.)
Yep. She's also an author for that esteemed peer review journal Playboy, and did her thesis on investigations of sexuality via fMRI, which has famously been used to detect emotions in a dead salmon.
You haven't heard his interview? You haven't read any of the articles dealing with this subject in a straightforward way?
Google had a standing requested ideas from him, and others. This was not just some random thing he thought up.
Here is an interview with him, another worker at Google, and Jordan B. Peterson.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU
Check it out if you are actually concerned with facts.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Deal with it! There are huge amount of women who are smarter than you! Really huge. A lot smarter.
And there is nothing you can do about it. No matter how much "evidence" you have against it - you all sound like holocaust-denies.
Yes... he's not qualified to speak on Neurosciences because he's not been specially trained in. But somehow the Minster of Diversity at Google somehow IS qualified to arbitrate over what is and is not the current state of neurosciences. And thus can automatically claim that this could only be another example the White Male Patriarchy (TM), instead of someone who had a differing interpretation of that statistical data.
Yeah makes perfect sense. Totally couldn't be that some leftist ideologue not even connected to this situation head about it and decided to have a witch hunt on social media.
But he's not making an argument based on individuals, he's making what he believes to be a statistical analysis. No, he doesn't say Martha two cubicles down is unworthy of her position, he is saying that there are a percentage of Google's female employees who shouldn't have been hired for those positions. His concession that individual abilities may vary is simply his way of trying to couch his argument so he isn't calling out Martha specifically. After all, she may be that statistical outlier that is qualified!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
From the memo:
"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)"
Not "less willing to deal with stress", just simply a lower tolerance for stress. He then doubles down by suggesting reducing stress as a way to counter this weakness.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I would suggest that he got fired for everything between the headings of "Personality differences" and "The harm of Google's biases", where he belittles every traditionally feminine strength. His belief that the male way of being an engineer is inherently better than the female way of being an engineer demonstrates a deep ignorance of what the company is trying to do and the way he handled it is exactly the sort of thing the company is trying to get rid of.
Quite the opposite, it supports those claims rigorously.
You see, programming is an economically sound choice in China, and the economically sound choice far overrides any personal preference in countries where being poor equals being abused to death or getting sold off into marriage (this also includes Iran, another country with a close to 50% parity). Hence, you would expect to see 50% parity in students assuming that male and female students are equally likely to pass the admission tests.
In order for this thesis to hold, we would also need to look at countries where the economical motivation is close to 0. A good choice for this would be the Nordic countries, well-known for having the strongest social security nets around. What does the distribution look like there?
Let's have a look. These are the number of applicants to the various CS programs in Sweden ("datavetenskap") for the second semester of 2016. They are split into three columns: University, Number of female applicants, number of male applicants, (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong since my Swedish isn't that good)
Univ/högskola Kvinnor totalt Män totalt
Göteborgs universitet 60 345
Högskolan i Skövde 38 339
Karlstads universitet 3 9
Linköpings universitet 5 50
Linnéuniversitetet 29 65
Linnéuniversitetet 1 18
Malmö högskola 111 571
Mälardalens högskola 59 408
Stockholms universitet 192 848
Stockholms universitet 40 116
Umeå universitet 28 278
Umeå universitet 33 285
Umeå universitet 4 18
Uppsala universitet 91 604
Uppsala universitet 9 52
Uppsala universitet 1 7
Uppsala universitet 5 22
A quick normalization on these two lines will tell you that in Sweden about 15% of applicants to CS programs are female. And this is from Sweden, the equality capital of the world.
So, when there is no strong economic incentive and no social norms to push women away from CS (assuming there ever was), you can expect around 15% of CS majors to be female. Unless you think the women are more free and equal in Iran and China of course.
by posting someone's lucrative writing gigs, attacking their thesis, without posting it, or having a scientific discussion.
You've committed a classic ad hominem.
Nope. The grandparent committed a classic argument ad authoritum - arguing that, because she has specific credentials, therefore her opinion is reliable. I countered by showing that her credentials are suspect, pointing out both that she has not been published in peer reviewed journals and that her thesis topic has been discredited.
You're welcome. HTH. HAND.
Nobody argued with him - they vilified him in the press, lied about what he said, and then fired him.
Show me a single moment where anyone from #Goolag leadership actually addressed his arguments, rather than simply paraphrasing them into the most unflattering light.
And again, race != sex. Race is an illusion with no biological basis. Sex is real, tangible, quantifiable, and measurable. It's like you're criticizing Buddhism because it's a religion like Islam, and Islam kills homosexuals. The two aren't the same thing, and your continued attempt to smear Damore with racism by association is both hurtful and unfair.