'I See Things Differently': James Damore on his Autism and the Google Memo (theguardian.com)

"James Damore opens up about his regrets -- and how autism may have shaped his experience of the world," writes the west coast bureau chief for the Guardian. An anonymous reader quotes their report: The experience has prompted some introspection. In the course of several weeks of conversation using Google's instant messaging service, which Damore prefers to face-to-face communication, he opened up about an autism diagnosis that may in part explain the difficulties he experienced with his memo. He believes he has a problem understanding how his words will be interpreted by other people... It wasn't until his mid-20s, after completing research in computational biology at Princeton and MIT, and starting a PhD at Harvard, that Damore was diagnosed with autism, although he was told he had a milder version of the condition known as "high-functioning autism"...

Damore argues that Google's focus on avoiding "micro-aggressions" is "much harder for someone with autism to follow". But he stops short of saying autistic employees should be given more leniency if they unintentionally offend people at work. "I wouldn't necessarily treat someone differently," he explains. "But it definitely helps to understand where they're coming from." I ask Damore if, looking back over the last few months, he feels that his difficult experience with the memo and social media may be related to being on the spectrum. "Yeah, there's definitely been some self-reflection," he says. "Predicting controversies requires predicting what emotional reaction people will have to something. And that's not something that I excel at -- although I'm working on it."

Comments

Re:Not Asperger's?

[ShanghaiBill]

According to my psychologist, it's the same thing.

Yes, they are the same thing, but "Aspergers" has been dropped from the DSM, so "high-functioning autism" is now the technically correct term.

Re:autism or not, reason should override "feelings

[AmiMoJo]

If anything the problem is that his memo tried too hard to be rational, to the point where it blinkered him to issues that don't have simple statistical definitions.

For example, he says that women are on average more neurotic, and that explains some of the gender gap. The problem with this argument is that it minimizes the other issues that cause the gap, which was in fact the entire point of his memo. It's also a huge generalization and the conclusion massively exaggerates the significance of the test results.

Damore also undermines his claim to be rational with his tweets. Once fired and free to speak his mind without filter, it becomes obvious what his biases are.

https://twitter.com/JamesADamo...
https://twitter.com/JamesADamo...

A since deleted tweet documented here also demonstrates just how naive Damore is, and how he fails to understand historical context before making bold statements.

because it would hurt feelings is not acceptable

Unfortunately, it is very hard to have a rational conversation about these issues because Damore supporters mod down any dissent as "flamebait" or "troll".

Re:autism or not, reason should override "feelings

[gweihir]

Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshit.

Not by any halfway sane and rational analysis. In fact it was very far from it. Sure, he gave rational and fact-based arguments (i.e. "valid" arguments) for some things that a specific faction of the population does not want to hear, but it is you giving propaganda-lies as a non-factual response. The truth hurts and many people cannot deal with it. You are just one more example of that.

Re:autism or not, reason should override "feelings

[gweihir]

For example, he says that women are on average more neurotic

Actually, he quotes well-established and absolutely solid science that says that "women score higher on neuroticism". That is a bit different from your statement. And it happens to be a verifiable fact. Your whole wording screams "lie" when seen in comparison to what he actually said.

Re:Damore isn't the one who should rethink things

[gweihir]

Thanks for continuing to prove to everyone you didn't read a damn thing for yourself and have no clue what you're talking about.

That is continuing to fascinate me. Back when this shit storm started up, I went and read the original memo and I had serious trouble finding real connection between what was claimed about it and what was there. It went way beyond functional illiteracy, most people just never did read it and made claims about knowing the truth about it without even having seen the words that he wrote and they just unquestioningly believed very, very skewed reports on the content.

And that is the real issue here: People are not even a bit rational anymore, they immediately want a crusade and a burning-at-the-stake when anybody is rumored to have disagreed with how they see things, no matter the actual facts. That is a sure sign of a society in decline, a society that rapidly approaches the point where it cannot even solve tiny problems because it cannot see what is. That is not good at all.

Re: Damore isn't the one who should rethink things

[Shadow of Eternity]

How about instead of a random blogpost we listen to four different scientists with expertise in this subject including a non-white woman whose doctoral dissertation is in this field. The memo was well written, well cited, backed by a majority of actual scientifically sound evidence as opposed to fraudulent garbage put out by gender studies departments, and he represented all of those fields incredibly well to the point that the people attacking him have had to constantly flat out lie to do so.