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'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."
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."
Nope nope nope nope. Duck Google.
implication that a rational argument should not be offered (and should be regretted once offered)because it would hurt feelings is not acceptable. autistic state of author of argument is irrelevant.
NO, intolerance of what you believe is just as bad as intolerance of what you are. Intolerance is intolerance. It's the same thing. There is no excuse for Google's behavior.
Everything instantly gets turned up to 11.
L'Idiot
This sounds like Asperger's Syndrome to me (which I'm aware is on the Autism spectrum), I'm wondering how that's different from "high-functioning Autism."
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
That's why when I attend funerals, I make a speech suggesting that there is no evidence of an afterlife, and that the deceased's death was objectively meaningless. Don't even ask what I say at weddings.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
...He's a snowflake. Trolling aside, apparently Damore was "wronged" our society, but let's not forget that women and minorities are ALSO wronged by our society, and in my opinion THIS problem is much larger scale/urgent/severe... BTW I tend to agree with his girlfriend "She maintains Damore was, for the most part, naive and wrong..." His mild autism should make him very cautious before opening up in a public setting. We need more simple tools like "The Rock Test" https://medium.com/@annevictor... to help people like him and "nerdy-nerds" participate fully in our society without offending/hurting others. Anyway good to see that the guy is not necessarily set on his views and apparently is listening...
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I don't he's right in this regard. His original analysis of intellectual monoculture was better. I say this because also normal people are also having similar problems. I think the line of reasoning proposed by Mr. Damore here is dangerous as it implies that difficulties to conform to the lunacy of this new authorian left is some sort of mental illness. We've seen that before and it wasn't pretty.
Knowing what angers the modern intelligenzia requires constant following of their social media environment. I believe that is, in part, the purpose of the whole thing. For example, they don't make noice about trans-people because they are worried about their well being. (If they would, they would ask them for an opinion and figure out quite quickly that they don't want to be the battle ground of the next proxy culture war. On the contrary, they want to be left alone.) The whole point is to signal ideolgical group identity and demand conformity.
So this clown now pretends to be a minority and demands to be treated specially?
Fuck him. He already has shown that he's a simple racist, confirmed by his association with the fucking Klan.
If you want to see why there was such a backlash to his memo, I think it can be made clearer in light of the #metoo discussion we are presently having. The scales are tipped the way they are these days because of corrupt men at the top taking what they feel is entitled to them, including unwanted groping, kissing, and outright rape. While the general public may be shocked by what is transpiring, it has been known to HR departments for decades. In the case of the major tech firm I used to work for, it was always quietly dealt with or outright swept under the rug, paying a quiet settlement and forcing the victim into a nondisclosure agreement. The victimizer got a slap on the wrist but was consideres too important to let go. That's the backdrop for this memo and why it landed with a wet splat. It is callous to those who have had illegal things done to them against their will at work. Those are just the women with the courage to come forward. Many never speak out.
I don't have much sympathy for DaMoore, he could have made his helpful suggestions directly to HR. He wanted the most attention though. It was a totally voluntary thing he did. Ducking behind autism doesn't save him and doesn't make what he did less callous or more correct. His memo reads like the old trope of telling women to smile more to the eyes of someone with this background.
Posted as A.C. for obvious reasons.
"From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink — greetings!"
That is a rational rebuttal that requires input of the emotional nature. Atheists hate heretics as much as the next person. You would understand this if your morality was not inconsequential because you have a criminal mind.
If you want to see why there was such a backlash to his memo, I think it can be made clearer in light of the #metoo discussion we are presently having. The scales are tipped the way they are these days because of corrupt men at the top taking what they feel is entitled to them, including unwanted groping, kissing, and outright rape. While the general public may be shocked by what is transpiring, it has been known to HR departments for decades. In the case of the major tech firm I used to work for, it was always quietly dealt with or outright swept under the rug, paying a quiet settlement and forcing the victim into a nondisclosure agreement. The victimizer got a slap on the wrist but was consideres too important to let go. That's the backdrop for this memo and why it landed with a wet splat. It is callous to those who have had illegal things done to them against their will at work. Those are just the women with the courage to come forward. Many never speak out. I don't have much sympathy for DaMoore, he could have made his helpful suggestions directly to HR. He wanted the most attention though. It was a totally voluntary thing he did. Ducking behind autism doesn't save him and doesn't make what he did less callous or more correct. It's as wrong as goatse (shock site, as in, DONT CLICK) His memo reads like the old trope of telling women to smile more to the eyes of someone with this background.
I see the point of your analogy - it's a good one, except that it's undermined by the fact that while what you say about death and meaning is true, Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshit.
He's just another brotard (one of many who have crawled out from under their rocks in the wake of gamergate and the rise of trumpist nazi-ism) who accidentally stumbled into a little notoriety with some offensive disparagement of women and is now using autism as an excuse for his arsehole behaviour.
Autism may well make human interaction difficult for him, but he lives in a world full of humans and it's up to him to figure out - by himself, or with help if he needs it - how to live in it without clumsily pissing other people off.
Claiming autism as an excuse is the "trigger" defence of the brotard and (just as those who are easily triggered have no right to expect that others will know about - or give a fuck about - their triggers), he has no right to expect that others will know or give a fuck that his obnoxiousness is connected to his autism. It's certainly not an excuse that deserves instant forgiveness, he'll have to do a fuck of a lot more than that.
Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshit.
That's a very cheap claim to make without any reasoning. That's probably it's so popular on Twitter and such (mostly because reasoning doesn't fit into 140 characters).
It's certainly not an excuse that deserves instant forgiveness, he'll have to do a fuck of a lot more than that.?
He doesn't need any excuse or forgiveness. It's not like he stole something or killed someone.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's the normies who are incapable of understanding the other point of view, but the autist can understand all POV simultaneously.
He wanted the most attention though. It was a totally voluntary thing he did.
He wanted the most attention, so he posted something in a closed newsgroup? What kind of logic is that?
Posted as A.C. for obvious reasons.
What obvious reasons, BeauHD (1)?
Ezekiel 23:20
Wow saying men and women are different and have different abilities and interests is misogynistic ?
Thankfully this sort of stupidity's days are numbered and the number is a small one.
It is good that he started reflecting. But he still has a long way to go. He got a friendly journalist for this article and that is OK, since he also got a lot of the other kind lately.
But even this author cannot help noticing, that he has been cherry-picking and using studies where even their authors say, that his conclusion are not supported by the studies. It is not presenting (disputed) facts that drew the fire to him, but putting them into an invalid context to (badly) veil his misogynistic undertones.
In my impression his (not well written) memo was mainly a whiny complaint about brilliant men like him having to put up with diversity issues. It is rather that attitude that will make him hard to employ because companies (like Google did) will judge him to be a risk for their image. And I do not see him working on this issue yet.
His bad luck was that this memo drew a lot of attention. But he did everything to get this attention and to his own demise he succeeded with it.
I hope he will not end up as a pariah in the tech industry. But two things need to happen for that: He has to fully understand what he did and others need to give him a second chance. The chances for either do not seem good at the moment.
Will you do my Eulogy? That is literally the most comforting thought you could have when someone dies. Don't worry ... nobody is in danger of spending an eternity in Hell; any Hell you experience is karmically based on your behavior and the behavior of those in your sphere of influence in the here and now, and any way you slice it he's good now.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Observing reality as it is should override "seeing things differently". So there's something to work on.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
So you didn't read the memo?
You should watch this guy get interviewed, he's a hell of a lot nicer than you...or me.
I don't share your optimism. A very large number of people is deeply invested in the idea that society can be created as an utopia. They feel actively threatened by statements contradicting that view, and will not stop at anything to destroy the threat.
Damore's memo was not only factual but about as uncontroversial, well-written, and polite as a memo could be. The fact that one of the world's most powerful companies is being managed by emotional infants, that feeling leaders (I won't call them "thought leaders") are pressuring him to recant, and that even on Slashdot there are people attacking him, is pathetic and embarrassing.
If humanity is too emotional to even deal with obvious, mundane, and benign facts, there isn't much to say in favor of humanity.
Maybe the problem isn't with autists, but with the absurdly defective normies.
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".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
well, yeah, it is misogynistic when you use phrasing like that "men and women are different and have different abilities and interests".
it's not misogynistic if you say, instead, something like "individuals have different abilities and interests".
making it about gender, as if all individuals of a given sex are the same and have the same interests and abilities, is what makes it misogyny, you dumb fuck.
Oh, i'm sure you do.
that's the impression I get from reading this and every other article about it.
The overdiagnosis of autism and Aspergers is not useful. Many of us have difficulties in social situations. Being officially diagnosed provides an excuse to stop trying. It also provides an excuse for other people to write you off, and ignore what you say.
Damore's letter was on point. Google, and apparently most of Silicon Valley, is stuffed full of SJWs and political correctness, and this needs to stop. Diversity is oh so important, as long as it does not include diversity of opinion. Having a non-PC opinion cannot be tolerated, in fact, counts as a micro-aggression against whoever chooses to feel offended that day.
It's a total shame that Damore is retreating into an autism diagnosis. Piss off the SJWs? The best defense is a good offense. Don't apologize, don't excuse yourself. Instead, keep right on telling them that they're full of shit.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
See, instant -1 Flamebait. The problem is not progressives being offended, it's the right wing snowflakes who can't stand any hurt feelings or suggestion that they are wrong. It's an epidemic on Slashdot and the wider internet.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshi
I actually found it rather presidential...
Where is the outrage toward "transgender" people who insist not only that "gender" is indeed concrete rather than wholly abstract but at the same time entirely separate from sex and defined in a wholly subjective and ambiguous way by every individual as they desire moment-to-moment?
How is that not completely contradictory to every aspect of feminist and egalitarian principals? Such individuals rather than asking to be treated fairly and equally want to be stereotyped according to their own self-stereotype which incorporates many misogynistic aspects and champions them as ideals!
You said "Thankfully this sort of stupidity's days are numbered"; just wait and see how much worse it will continue to get.
This is a fundamental rejection of rationality and objectivity on a frightening scale in our society. "I don't care if I'm right or wrong, this is how I feel."
It's true that many people have difficulty even if we've not been diagnosed with anything.
I disagree that it gives someone an excuse to stop trying. It shines a light on what may be wrong and hopefully there are things they can try to improve the situation.
I do agree with the flip side of what you said as far as providing others with an excuse to write you off. It's easy for people to just say someone has a problem or a condition and should therefore not be paid any attention to.
And how would one go about being diagnosed anyway? Do people actually go to the doctor if they're not physically ill? Yeah, of course they do, but many do not. Bad experiences or other underlying conditions may actually make them anxious or even fearful of talking about how they interact with and view the world.
I love watching people like you try so desperately to flip the term "snowflake" around that, like every other slur you've invented, you just throw it randomly in sentences as a sort of generic grammatical exclamation point.
Also those two tweets are both perfectly rational and one is supported by so much hard data that it's an entire field of research unto itself in political science. Right up through the end of the Vietnam war, and continuing today in less developed countries, women were and are substantially more conservative socially and politically than men. This is an objective fact. It's a direct result of the fact that those roles evolved over thousands upon thousands of years to ensure human survival during the millenia we went without modern medicine and birth control and an information-age economy.
As for not challenging women just look at what happens to people that do. Literally an entire slur has been invented just to silence people who disagree with women about anything, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
An official diagnosis (which I got 23 years ago at age 46) can provide the excuses you mention - but it doesn't have to. An individual's awareness of their own profile of cognitive strengths and weaknesses can lead them to seek workarounds for, or make extra effort in, problem areas. Other people's informed awareness can lead them to try meeting an autistic individual halfway in reaching understanding; a useful strategy in general. Neither of those sound anything like a retreat...
Defend the down-modding of my post as flamebait. Explain why it is purely inflammatory and malicious.
Otherwise you have to accept that it's just people who are offended and upset trying to silence anyone who disagrees with them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
... that the people who are loudest in claiming to be highly empathetic never make the slightest effort to empathize with those who are not naturally empathetic. Isn't that odd?
And if we are so enthusiastic for inclusiveness and diversity and not offending anyone, how come there is no tolerance of those who identify as autistic or near-autistic?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Posted as A.C. for obvious reasons.
TFTFY.
Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshit.
That's a very cheap claim to make without any reasoning.
It's been reasoned many times before. For example here are two rather well written articles about it:
https://www.quora.com/What-do-...
https://www.economist.com/news...
Now, the defenses in respnse to these articles involve giving huge amounts of benefit of the doubt to the point of ignoring almost everything implied or that follows from the arguments in the memo. That's one option I guess except that here's James Damore in his own words:
https://www.salon.com/2017/09/...
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jam...
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jam...
I think it's clear from these comments that my (and others) inferences about where the memo was coming from were actually correct.
Anyway bring on the -1 trollbait mods! If there's one thing James Damore supporters can't stand it's the free speech they claim to support.
And one more thing: if you actually support some varian of improving things for men, then don't support this guy and his bullshit about gender roles. If you've ever pointed out how few men there are in certain jobs here, then don't support Damore's bullshit about gender roles because that is enforcing that separation. If you've ever complained about how men often pursue dangerous, but well paid jobs (contributing to increase workplace deaths for men) then don't spport this gender role bullshit because that's where a lot of the pressure comes from.
IOW this bullshit is bad for men and women. If you're a man and not a feminist you should still not support it because its bad for you. This guy and his army of supportes are trying to coerce you into a mould whether you want to be in it or not via this enforcement of gender roles.
It should be your choice not theirs.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Diversity has won over merit. The people who made things great let themselves be chased out.
Look to asia to pick up the technological torch as the west dies. At least they can feel good in having believed a liberal fantasy before they die out.
It's been reasoned many times before.
That's not exclusive with the fact that cas2000 didn't offer any reason.
Ezekiel 23:20
I certainly like an environment in which everyone is happy and friendly. Yet when we promote this sunshine and sugar cookie type of behavior we take a huge risk. At this very moment our nation is under a severe attack that will have very long lasting, negative consequences. Our national leadership is corrupt evil and dangerous. I certainly hope that people get in the face of the right wingers and push back hard. Being rude and dismissive is at times totally appropriate behavior. If Attila the Hun is on your lawn with a sword it is time to destroy, not time to hold out a welcome sign.
Here is an article, arguing that social norms such as "do not discriminate", ironically are discriminatory to people born with a different brain type that is incapable of following these norms, or something. Anyway, this would be a perfect example of that.
Are you saying that testosterone and estrogen don't give men and women different benefits? Men, on average, have significantly higher levels of testosterone than women. Woman, on average, have significantly higher levels of estrogen than men. These biological differences make them better and worse at different things. It's an objective fact.
All you've done is rephrase it so someone's PC narrative mind doesn't get hurt in the process, to which I say, who cares?
It was a statement that needs about as much reasoning and evidence to back it up as "fire is hot".
while there are some circumstances where evidence and reasoning might be required for such a statement, conversational english is not a physics conference, nor does it always have to involve wasting hours giving free remedial education to misogynist retards.
His memo was fine. There was only controversy because it was misrepresented completely. Plenty of non-autistic people get hit by this type of witch hunt and they also tend to have difficulty seeing it coming.
It's entirely inflammatory and malicious because you're trying to paint him as an asshole. If we remove the "feelings" factor from the KKK portion, many geeks / nerds will find titles like "grand wizard" pretty cool. It's not hard to see that point. You're being the snowflake by over reacting to it and spinning a narrative to paint the guy in a negative light. Your post was modded correctly. Perhaps understanding nuance in a persons statements rather than kowtowing to a PC narrative would suit you better long term.
Bingo. You find arguments that you disagree with offensive, because you feel that they are making someone you like look like an asshole. You can't set that feeling aside and simply make a counter-argument, you want the post removed from your sight so it can't upset you any more.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Calling something "flamebait" doesn't mean it's offensive. Calling it flamebait means you think it's something that's done with malicious intent. Here you go again, trying to insert feelings into an argument.
No, that's not all I've done.
I'll give you a concrete, personalised example to make it easier for you to understand:
If I say that you, personally, Kneo24, whoever the fuck you are in real life, are a fucking moron then that's not sexist. That's just a factual observation.
If I were to say that all, or even most, men are fucking morons then that WOULD be sexist. And it wouldn't be at all hard to find examples to disprove it.
see, that's the difference between loathing an individual for what they say or do rather than an entire class of people for what they happen to be? simple, right? and obvious.
now fuck off back under your rock.
It was a statement that needs about as much reasoning and evidence to back it up as "fire is hot".
Actually, I beg to differ. It's not that there aren't cases where you can say that but this is rather far from them.
Ezekiel 23:20
The reasonable thing to do is evaluating the consequences of your action.
A lot of people, in particular women, are driven by emotions, cannot apply reason, and will seek refuge in morals and groupthink.
He should have known that Google is no ivory tower full of scholars, able to analyze and see the merit of his memo without going hot-headed and triggering zealotry.
I'm actively campaigning to get more women at my startup, as different is *better.* Diversity of *thought* is critical to an organization. Something Google could internalize.
Danmore should probably get a bit of a hall pass re anticipating emotions. He's clearly brilliant and articulate, but also clueless if he didn't anticipate the reaction from a mono culture of same think.
It's ironic to call him a brotard, as I'm sure the bros have always shunned him due to his being socially inept.
beg away, although you really don't need my permission to be wrong.
You can't set that feeling aside and simply make a counter-argument, you want the post removed from your sight so it can't upset you any more.
It's even worse than that. Because it makes them look like an asshole, they want the information removed from the sight of others so that nobody knows they're an asshole, so they can keep being a shitlord.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If I say that you, personally, Kneo24, whoever the fuck you are in real life, are a fucking moron then that's not sexist. That's just a factual observation.
That's a subjective observation.
Not a single thing you wrote covers the fact that men and women are different, in part, due to biology. You're not even trying to refute it. No, instead, you would rather sort to name calling and telling me to fuck off precisely because you don't have an argument.
He doesn't need any excuse or forgiveness. It's not like he stole something or killed someone.
Today you are a piece of shit because you think only murder or theft are harm.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Flamebait means it is designed to provoke an emotional response, specifically offense and anger. Calling something flamebait is literally saying it offends you.
There is no -1 Disagree or -1 Wrong mod. The correct response is to post a rebuttal. A rebuttal to the actual argument, not an accusation of malice.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Stand up for your rights to think differently and be able to speak out!
This!
Flamebait means it is designed to provoke an emotional response, specifically offense and anger.
Yes, that sounds like someone might have some malicious intent in their actions through and through.
Calling something flamebait is literally saying it offends you.
That's not necessarily true. You can see things as a malicious act and not be offended by it. You don't need to deal in absolutes here.
The correct response is to post a rebuttal. A rebuttal to the actual argument, not an accusation of malice.
You aren't the thought police. You don't get to decide what is and isn't the correct response. It's frowned upon to moderate and comment (anonymously). It's always been that way. This is why you can't comment and post under your username in the same discussions. If you do, it undoes any moderation that you did. You get to choose one option. Some people chose to moderate the content of your posts. Deal with it.
You're incorrect in the definition. Misogyny is *hate* of women. Look it up. Maybe there's a pejorative word for those who recognize that there are differences in the sexes. That, for the vast majority, those sexes are physically attracted to each other. And , that's OK. Actually, it's critical for the survival of the species.
It's *OK* that on the whole there and differences in the way that men and women think and act. I for one welcome different ways of thinking, and being.
Except that as groups men and women perform differently with different strengths and weaknesses even if individual men or women may not match the average of their group.
There's nothing misogynistic about treating groups as groups so long as when it's an individual you treat the case in regards to that individual.
Woman are more likely to get breast cancer, so maybe we should target breast cancer education at women... that doesn't mean ignoring men who get breast cancer, just that we have to treat groups as groups.
Isn't that what happened to Damore? He made a bunch of arguments, the left claimed they were 'offensive'. And by 'offensive' they mean 'we can't come up with a coherent counter argument, we must stop him speaking'.
It's weaponized offense really. Back in the old days of course this sort of thing was the tactic used by religious fundamentalist types and was denounced by people like Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens.
https://www.goodreads.com/quot...
"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
Now it seems like the social justice left think that 'What you said is offensive' means 'You must be silenced/fired/beaten up'. In fact they've invented a whole new term - speech they don't like isn't just offensive, it's 'oppressive' to the oppressed groups they claim to speak for.
Normally they'll say something like 'silencing this sort of speech doesn't violate the First Amendment because it's not the government doing it'. Which is true in a narrow, legalistic American sense, but completely irrelevant. It's perfectly possible for freedom of speech to be violated by non governmental entities - e.g. the KKK was not a governmental organisation and was able to shut down speech they didn't like. Right now AntiFa is non governmental and does the same thing. Mobs can be incited online to get people fired or banned. All of these things violate free speech but probably not the First Amendment.
Of course a lot of people on the US have argued for Europe style hate speech laws as well, which would violate the First Amendment. E.g.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...
Countries throughout Europe have seen the danger in certain hate speech and have created laws that punish racist incitement without compromising their democratic values on free speech. These laws protect Jewish and other minority residents and show that societies clearly value their safety and security in their countries. These laws have not prevented all acts of racism and violence from occurring, as the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France remind us, but they send the right message to vulnerable minorities and galvanize public and police support to prevent future atrocities.
If the Oklahoma chant happened in, say, Germany and the n-word was replaced with a derogatory epithet for the Jewish people, and the method of murder was changed from lynching to something employed by the Nazis, the perpetrators would be in jail right now and few outside the extremist right would argue that an injustice was done. How can so many in American society condone this incitement as youthful indiscretion and even redirect blame away from the perpetrators to the people who have had to suffer the oppression inflicted by those who spew these vile words?
America can learn something from the international community, where the legacy and dangers of certain types of speech are better understood. We too must find an effective way to monitor and forbid dangerous speech, without unjustly infringing upon freedom of speech. We should have started the discussion long ago.
Now you know why it's irritating when people try to silence your arguments rather than trying to address them. Congratulations. You know why people despise the left.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
like every other slur you've invented, you just throw it randomly in sentences as a sort of generic grammatical exclamation point
You mean just like "SJW". Actually "snowflake" was used as a gramatical exclamation point already, the argument being:
You dislike X, only snowflakes dislike anything, therefore you're a snowflake, therefore your arguments are invalid.
Turnabout is fair play, bro.
Also those two tweets are both perfectly rational and one is supported by so much hard data that it's an entire field of research unto itself in political science. Right up through the end of the Vietnam war, and continuing today in less developed countries, women were and are substantially more conservative socially and politically than men.
Except you know, that's not true. You can find examples where it's true, and you can find exaples of the polar opposite. For example every pre-agrarian society observes is much more egalitarian.
It's a direct result of the fact that those roles evolved over thousands upon thousands of years to ensure human survival during the millenia we went without modern medicine and birth control and an information-age economy.
that's kinda bullshit. Agrarian and later societies are only over the last 15,000 years or so, which is not much in evolutionary terms. It's the hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years of evlution towards modern humans as hunter gathereres that you should be concentrating on if you want to make evolutionary arguments.
Literally an entire slur has been invented just to silence people who disagree with women about anything, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.
No it hasn't, that's called "making shit up".
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I don't think I agree with AmiMojo about Damore's motives, but nonetheless you might want to read that, and step away from the keyboard for a moment: you claim some (from what I can see) are pretty objective statements about Damore are "malicious" - presumably because they don't paint him in a good light, and then claim AmiMojo is the one "inserting feelings into an argument."
I do agree with AmiMojo about the moderation: an apparently easily offended moderator, and many responding them, have decided that because the facts make Damore look bad, that it must be a sign of malice to be even mentioning them.
The problem here is that it isn't. Damore's words had (and have) real life consequences. Despite the claim he was totally non-sexist when writing it, that isn't actually true when analyzing the arguments he used. Damore worded his essay in a way designed to make it look pro-diversity while cherry picking and exaggerating facts to cause an opposite impact.
Some have suggested Damore's honesty and intentions should be questioned because of that. That's a reasonable thing to do.
But... I'm not sure they're right. I think it's more a cause of an expert in one field (computing) thinking that makes him an expert in others and failing spectacularly trying to prove the real experts wrong.
I say that because I'm a nerd too, and while I was never stupid enough to start claiming minor biological differences explain women's poor advancement in careers they should have no problem with, I certainly have been stupid in the past latching onto "contrarian arguments" about everything from the Civil War to economics.
You see this on Slashdot all the time. How many people here disagree with the 97% or so of climate scientists on Climate Change, for example? It certainly is more than 3%. Are these people experts in climate change? Do they have all the figures available to them? Do they have insights that Michael Mann et al don't?
No? No, what they are are really good developers. Their friends consider them geniuses, because they can do things with computers that other people can only dream of. And they keep getting told that all the time, that they're geniuses.
And so, when they wade into another field of study, one they know little about, it's a trainwreck.
Damore didn't lose his job and become unpopular because he's autistic. And he probably didn't because he's the next Harvey Weinstein or Roger Ailes. No, I suspect he lost them because he's a typical computer nerd going through a contrarian phase.
That should be a learning experience for most, but nobody here wants to hear it, because the experts being wrong is a sexier story.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I can never decide if the heat death of the universe making everything ultimately pointless is comforting or horrendous.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
All he is doing here is playing a victim card. It's bullshit.
Their logic, and it's stretching the definition of the word, is along these lines:
Normal person: Men are generally taller than women.
SJW: What, like Danny DeVito and Michelle Obama?
Then something gets designed that's unusable because anthropometry is fundamentally racist, because it just is.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
implication that a rational argument should not be offered (and should be regretted once offered)because it would hurt feelings is not acceptable.
Many arguments purported to be rational are in fact, specious, unfounded, and biased. Furthermore, indifference to "hurting feelings" is often utilized as a means to disparage people who react dis-favorably to one's preferred argument, purporting that emotions are bad things to have, and thus you can use that to dismiss anybody who disagrees merely because they phrase something as "I feel" even if they are actually using the phrase to indicate a particular rationale.
It's actually quite a flawed and irrational approach that makes Spock cry because it is so illogical.
autistic state of author of argument is irrelevant.
Tell that to James Damore then. Of course, more likely than not, he's the one who thought his MRA-driven ideals would necessarily be accepted, and all would quickly toe the line once his preferred truth was exposed.
Generally speaking, I don't disagree with the overall theme of what you're trying to convey, but I do disagree with a couple parts of it. I'll address those below.
I don't think I agree with AmiMojo about Damore's motives, but nonetheless you might want to read that, and step away from the keyboard for a moment: you claim some (from what I can see) are pretty objective statements about Damore are "malicious" - presumably because they don't paint him in a good light, and then claim AmiMojo is the one "inserting feelings into an argument."
It's not unreasonable to call something flamebait, when the sole purpose is to "inflame". It's not unreasonable to call that a malicious act when you're doing that to malign someones character. It's all a carefully crafted narrative, perhaps not by AniMojo, but they are spreading it none the less. Let's be realistic here. Salon is a great example of an outlet that pushes social justice narratives through and through, and works to malign people they ideologically disagree with. It works well for Salon because people are driven by their emotions.
The links to tweets AniMojo posted previously to the Salon link are again, trying to somehow paint him as a bad person. There is next to no discussion around those ideas coming from AniMojo. It's more or less, "look at these ridiculous things he's saying!" Ok, why are they ridiculous? I have seen a lot of this on the Internet over the years and it's pretty easy to spot when someone wants actual discussion and when someone is pushing a narrative. This is narrative pushing, whether AniMojo realizes it or not. A more thoughtful post would have went into some discussion about this.
Damore didn't lose his job and become unpopular because he's autistic. And he probably didn't because he's the next Harvey Weinstein or Roger Ailes. No, I suspect he lost them because he's a typical computer nerd going through a contrarian phase.
He lost his job because someone in Google made it public. While it was contained in Google for a month or so, no one fired Damore for it. Google will 100% try to protect their image given the recent lawsuits over wage discrimination and the fact that they're very vocal about trying to have gender parity. It's hard to say for 100% certainty that he would have kept his job at Google if this never went public, but the fact that a month later it was still fine until the public leak, I'd be willing to make that bet that he would still have his job.
>"autism or not, reason should override "feelings" "
Common issue nowadays. These two videos explain it better than I can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That's a weird comment to make. Are you accidentally posting on the wrong article? This one is about James Damore, the guy who was fired from Google after writing a screed about female engineers that was based entirely on his feelings. The evidence he cited in it either didn't say what he was claiming it said (there was quite a bit of cherry-picking bits of claims without understanding the context that made those claims not actually agree with his points) or was previously debunked. He was fired in large part because the memo he wrote showed such a complete inability to understand research and form logical arguments from evidence that he was clearly incapable of doing his job. He followed that up with things like claiming that the way his personal Google search results were tailored was some kind of proof that everyone secretly agreed with him (in a series of tweets which he has now deleted, surprising nobody), showing that he didn't even understand the basic workings of one of the major products of the company that he had worked for.
Well, no, the issue was that he ignored decades of arguments on this subject, but that they didn't exist. People assumed that if he had done that much research he must have been aware of them, and ignoring them is a common tactic used by actual misogynists.
To be clear I don't think he was being malicious or that he hates women, he just tried to tackle a very difficult subject (because it relates to people he works with every day) in a very badly misjudged way. He ended up sounding like a typical "rational" misogynist, and didn't make any effort (even to this day) to clarify.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Do you understand the difference between an opinion and a law? Because my opinion is that the correct response is a rebuttal, only you think I'm trying to police it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I am autistic and I too have that same difficulty that James Damore has. I always have someone else look at a letter or document first to get their interpretation, even when I am invited to give my own unadulterated opinion. Why? Well, in the neurotypical (i.e. non-autistic) world people rarely say what they mean. The hidden meaning behind this opinion invitation could be, "Please compliment and flatter my decision or do not bother me. You risk sneaky retaliation if you disagree." I have to remember that the workplace is not a democracy, and in rigid oligarchies, you tow the line or your expunged.
James Damore made the classic mistake that some high functioning autistics make, they fire from the hip and sometimes act impulsively in matters that they are unable to understand or visualize the ultimate outcome. I found that it was key to recognizing this to make my behaviour more socially acceptable and I had to learn how to put myself in someone else's shoes, so to speak. If I have to send a letter or document that I even suspect might offend or alienate, I *always* have a neutral third party read it and then tell me their interpretation. Also, like some people on the sprectrum, I tend to have no filter and do not suffer fools very well so I have to take extra caution when dealing with people so I do not alienate them.
I actually suspect that James Damore was not really fired as a result of his memo itself but rather as a result of a behavioral-threat model. Damore's memo might have erroneously pinged a warning sign for workplace violence and Google let him go out of an abundance of caution. This is also the problem with the classic behavioral-threat model, it is geared towards analysis of non-autistic behaviour. Autistic behaviour could easily be misinterpreted as potentially dangerous. Most autistics however do not suffer from anti-social personality disorder or psychopathy. The differences between classic autism and Anti-Social Personality Disorder are rather stark. The easiest way for Google to rid itself of this perceived threat was just to terminate him for discrimination.
Google revealed themselves as evil the moment they publicly replied to the memo. The only non-evil move from the start was not to acknowledge it in the first place, and then if they wanted to be secretly evil, fire him down the road for whatever reason. Instead Google could not stop themselves from showing they were ideologically motivated, just as this memo accuses them of.
I've been using duckduckgo.com for search, and it's fine. It's not 2001 any more, the horrid results of Yahoo and the others aren't relevant any more. God help me I've even used Bing a couple of times. And hey, if it is that rare occasion you can't find something, go ahead and use Google just that once. But please stop using them on a daily basis because they're evil.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
James Damore is STILL claiming things that are completely divorced from reality. For example, his latest tweet as of this posting claims that societal norms prevent men from challenging women (https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/930614205081837568). Could anyone who has ever interacted with mixed groups of men and women actually believe such a thing? Hell, just to take Twitter where he made that claim as an example, there are easily thousands of examples of women getting dogpiled by men they don't even know for saying absolutely anything that those men disagree with. Even if your position in ALL such cases is that the woman is definitely wrong and also being an asshole about it, that makes it pretty clear that Damore is either lying about what he experiences or living in a fantasy world. And if you've ever worked in a workplace that has both men and women in it you know that it is definitely not the case that women's ideas and suggestions go unchallenged by men. Why do we need to keep having articles about this idiot? Even if he is autistic, that isn't the problem, and frankly trying to dive behind an autism diagnosis to excuse a pattern of dishonesty is just cowardly.
You're saying SJWs at Google are in mourning 24/7, therefor Damore should treat them as funeral attendees all the time and never say anything upsetting.
I don't think there's a progressive word for that. Look how to them the word 'hate' means 'you said something I disagree with'. It's especially hateful if other people are likely to agree with you, btw.
You're judging someone by completely ignoring what that person has straightforwardly written, and basing your conclusions entirely on what is implied, or more accurately what you cynically infer.
I think you'd have to provide some proof that you are indeed a psychic mind-reader.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Completely with you on this. I was diagnosed at 40 and haven't disclosed to my colleagues or management team. I have however been able to address some of the social interaction challenges that were causing me workplace problems.
In my personal life I tend to tell people, but if I act like a twat then I'll be treated like one anyway.
The main area it makes a difference is with romantic partners. Saves a lot of time and bullshit to just let her know upfront.
Slashdot should have a "snowflake trigger" category.
getwith the times.
It now means that some hypothetical entity might potentially be offended by it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You can tell who is really in charge these days by saying "women are good X, men are good at Y, women are bad at Z, men are bad at Q" and the only part people care about is that you said women are bad at something.
My grandfather was tortured by marxists. /s
I won't feel "safe" as long as marxists draw breath in this world.
My lived experience trumps everything so I can't be proven wrong nor can my reality be subordinated to any other.
Also, because I'm a progressive mind-reading psychic, all marxist thought and speech, however benign on the surface, carry implicit violence that only I can determine and everyone has to defer to me as to where, how, and to what degree they manifest in regular everyday speech. I don't care what you say, only what you "imply", and I know exactly the kind of evil bigotry you're implying with those sweet saccharine words of goodness. Now, I think you sound like a bad person. If you disagree or protest, I'm going point out how that's exactly what bad people do when they are called out which then proves you're bad.
I'm a minority Asian so down modding me is violence, all you mod point privileged shitlords I know who you are.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
FTFY.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
He doesn't need any excuse or forgiveness. It's not like he stole something or killed someone.
In a modern corporation, getting crosswise with HR is an equivalent offense.
The age of your account is probably close to 18 years old based on the user ID. In all this time you have yet to figure out that "thought police" isn't necessarily a reference to a legal entity, and that, the moderation system here is the way it is. It makes me wonder why you stick around participating in a system like this.
You have not debunked anything he said. NB the article in TE is just a biased BS typical of TE these days. The publication deteriorated much under new editor/owners.
Well when technology makes men obsolete for procreation the problem will disappear eventually. I am not saying somebody is working with this specific goal but eventually it will happen.
You see, the moderators' lived experiences make them feel that your posts are violent.
You can't argue with that because arguing against moderation judgment is exactly what violent flamebating people do.
You just need to accept that you are a bad person and apologize for your violence.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You haven't given an example at all, just sweeping generalities and personal attacks. An example would be mentioning someone like Nicola Adams. It still wouldn't disprove his general point, however.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well, there's your problem. You're working on your problem using Excel.
#DeleteFacebook
It couldn't possibly be the case that, for the reason highlighted, he's a tad pissed off, could it?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Pretty much. But it gives the "Emotion first!" people a pseudo-justification for their completely ridiculous reaction. You know, those people that want "safe spaces" at a place of learning and growing, were anything should be happening except that you can comfortably stick to your established misconceptions. Anti-reason and anti-understanding is on the raise. And, if not stopped and firmly put in its place, it will kill society.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The person one before is not an atheist. He is a nihilist and that is a religious stance.
(In actual reality, he is just an evil sadist troll, because he does not care about consent of his victims.)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Right. But people didn't say "Oh you ignored this study, here's a link". They just tried to silence him by getting him fired. Gizmodo accused him of writing an 'anti diversity screed', and reproduced it without any of the charts and hyperlinks
https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-...
Vox called it a 'sexist screed' and said it reflected a 'divided tech culture' and said it ignored 'well documented gender biases'
https://www.vox.com/identities...
Vox didn't try to address his arguments, they all said he was
The memo's stereotype-based arguments and cries for less empathy sparked immediate controversy
In Damore's memo, he states that women are more "neurotic" and have a lower "stress tolerance" than men, and that these characteristics - not systemic harassment, routinely being passed over for promotions, or other well-documented instances of sexism in tech culture - are the reason why women do not succeed as often as men do in the high-pressure industry.
He also argues that men have a "higher drive for status" than women, and suggests that this factor, rather than well-documented gender biases in the workplace, may be responsible for the lack of women in leadership positions both at Google and in the tech industry as a whole.
Finally, Damore calls for Google to "De-empathize empathy," arguing that "being emotionally unengaged [with the issue of diversity] helps us better reason about the facts." He decries political correctness, discounting the very concept of unconscious bias and arguing against unconscious bias training for Google employees.
Google's VP of diversity said it 'it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender. and also refused to link to it because "itâ(TM)s not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages". I.e. no one addressed his arguments - they caricatured them and effectively labelled him a heretic to the diverse faith.
And you haven't addressed his arguments. You put rational is scare quotes, implying he's actually motivated by sexism.
And I think we can all agree that as traumatic as being downvoted on slashdot is, it's not as bad as being fired. Also look at the the difference in institutional power between the two sides of the argument. The CEO and VP on one side and some hapless engineer on the other. As soon as the engineer disagreed with them, they fired him. Which was a sign to other engineers not to argue with their ideas.
Not to mention most of the media immediately sided with Google and denounced him.
In the old days the left would say that racism/sexism was 'prejudice plus power'. I.e. that white men could be sexist and racist because they held institutional power, but non whites and non men could not be because they did not. The problem with that is that the left holds institutional power these days, at least in the media and at Google. So in that case Damore could at worse be prejudiced, not actually sexist.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
And there you have outed yourself as an anti-reason fundamentalist. This argumentation is not valid in anything a bit more complex and the questions this is about are pretty complex.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually, you can claim that most men are fucking morons without being sexist. After all, most humans are fucking morons, and all men are humans, so it would be true unless stupidity were disproportionately relegated to women.
Of course, you aren't even bothering to give a good faith argument, because the claim is that there are statistical differences on certain traits between men and women. Now, you might argue about the balance of biology vs. society in accounting for those differences, but they are merely statistics. The difference is also largely moot in the context of Google and diversity, as even possibly changing them would require changing society, and society is much larger than Google.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
In actual reality, you have a problem with the truth and said reality. The moderators just pick up on that.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
For clarity, I use quotes around rationalism because his arguments have the superficial appearance of being such while actually failing to integrate decades of debate and rebuttals on the subject.
I'm not implying he is sexist.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And you feel the need to mod posts down just in case this hypothetical entity is offended?
That's even worse.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Simple: There is no mod option for "malicious propaganda lies"
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It is good that he started reflecting. But he still has a long way to go.
To address a problem, one must first admit that they have a problem. James Damore attempted to address disparity issues in a rational, scientific manner. He relied on the research that was at hand, and made a few assumptions. Approaching a social problem scientifically and methodically is befitting a high functioning autistic person. I know because my family is full of them.
Whether his facts are right or wrong, does not negate the fact that he tried to start the conversation. Society is simply not ready to listen or even engage, instead deferring to labeling James a misogynist.
Under pressure, Google executives lack the will to approach the subject rationally. No matter the content of the paper, Google executives were concerned that the fallout could hurt sales. Google executives took the easy way out by firing James Damore and publicly distancing themselves from his paper. If they were really interested in solving the problem of wage disparity, gender gaps, and racism in the workplace, they might also try using the scientific method. The first steps of which are:
-Ask a question
-Do background research
-Construct a hypothesis
Let's try this out with a similar question: If children are our most precious resource, then why are day care workers (who are mostly female) paid so poorly?
Now, do the background research, construct a hypothesis, update your resume, and prepare to be crucified.
Wait... You thought I meant literal law enforcement... After you used the same metaphor... Ok.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Scientist, biologist, realist...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You seem to regard arguments that you disagree with as "malicious propaganda lies".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No one really knows what it is, but it is diagnosed whenever someone exhibits behaviors that offend others. Then the sufferer can blame whatever he or she did on autism, and the whole thing is forgiven and explained. And if you don't accept this, you have no compassion.
The first guy is just as full of shit as he claims the "liberals" are. (Did not watch the second one, my quota of stupidity for today was amply filled bu the first guy.)
The sad fact of the matter is that there are people that try to see what is actual truth (a minority, that typically coincides with the 10-15% independent thinkers) and that there is a vast majority that will do and say anything to justify their misconceptions and will make zero effort to find out what is actually going on, as they themselves are "obviously" right. Sure, you find the anti-fact, anti-reason people in large numbers on the political right and the political left in the US. Whether you are a tree-hugger or a climate-change denier does make little difference in the end: You are a person that denies rationality. In the end, the problem is people that go with emotion and ego over ratio and facts. They are a vast majority and they think they are doing it right. And they are basically the source of all evil in the world.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Hey guys, did your realise that when a butterfly like flaps its wings in Australia it could totally change the direction of a hurricane in America? It's cosmic, man...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Economist is basically your British propaganda tribune, not a science journal of any authority. They speak for certain political creed, and not in the business of finding the truth about the biology of human species.
Your own argument has words like bad for X, bad for Y. It is not that scientific.Damore spoke th truth, and offered solutions based on the truth. Too bad this autist didn't notice he did it Ina Society that is actively denying th truth and seeing it as its own mission to social engineer based on , well, lies.
Right. But people didn't say "Oh you ignored this study, here's a link".
Except they did.
They just tried to silence him by getting him fired.
Nope. See above. They did say that. You ignore it because it suits your own agenda.
It only took you two complete sentences to lie in order to start serving your own rhetorical agenda, by which you commit the very same sin you denounce in others.
Sorry, but your hypocrisy is repugnant as you are yourself are interested in the very same disparagement which you profess to lament in others.
Well, either that, or you are so lacking in self-awareness you can't see your own fault.
Neither is good for you. No matter how much you keep insisting that no one has addressed his arguments, it only makes you wrong, and that you do so when exposed to the contrary facts, well, that makes you a liar.
But hey, no surprise you end up denouncing the left. Now let's see you examine the right's actions, their frenzy of defensive support, full of false protests, their own "virtue signaling" and well, conduct just like yours.
Oh wait...that'd take too much work, wouldn't it?
Sorry though, you shouldn't throw stones from your glass house. We can see inside. Not that you should start throwing stones if you build a house of straw, sticks, or bricks, but well, that isn't advice, it's merely informing you of your own mistaken apprehensions.
That's really why there is a problem with Damore and many, if not most, of his apologists, because of how you've already set yourselves up on a pedestal of false sanctimony upon which you go around denouncing anybody who dares to criticize you.
Interesting that.
John Wyndham has a scifi text about it.
For clarity, I use quotes around rationalism because his arguments have the superficial appearance of being such while actually failing to integrate decades of debate and rebuttals on the subject.
Why should anyone making any argument about anything, also include some arbitrary set of counter arguments?
Even if he had, the inquisition would just say they're the wrong ones and condemn him anyway. Zealots won't accept challenges to their orthodoxy.
disability? Jesus H Christ.
A story about a guy with autism and 265 comments without my name being mentioned. Either my trolls are getting lazy or they're finally leaving me alone. Only time will tell.
I only read The Economist one, but if you think that's a "well written [sic] article" then you have pretty low standards.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Lotta neck beard shitheads here.
Wish I could mod you up but I've been running off at the mouth again... ;)
The whole episode is simply pathetic.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Sticks and stones will break my bones but words are oppression and require federal regulation.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
You make this far too easy for yourself. Hence you are very obvious for others. My advice is to try harder.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is an objective fact. It's a direct result of the fact that those roles evolved over thousands upon thousands of years to ensure human
See this is where "your side" looses it. Science? "thousands and thousands of years"? What, you have the fossilized records to prove this?
It is like "your side" is shoving it into female's faces that "hey baby, you've been subservient to males for thousands and thousands of years! It is like it is built into your DNA or something, so might as well get used to it as that is how it is going to be in this here software development team"
Have you considered that this apparent bias between the sexes (which I don't dispute), can be swapped within a generation?
I used to own a development business in the 90's. Not once did I ever get a female developer applying to our positions. Looking back I don't know how I would have handled it. In honesty I would have been on "your side" and said "Female? She obviously wouldn't know a thing, I am going to have to teach her everything".
Now I have changed my mind after working in a modern large scrum team with females in it. All of them can kick my ass when it comes to programming, and I am the old hand expert with "experience". There is one male whom everyone hates and wants to have kicked off the team. My advice to "your side" is to try and get along with the new way of doing things.
Are you saying that testosterone and estrogen don't give men and women different benefits?
That's such a weak-ass hand-wavey defense of stupidity. You, Damore and all the others making that argument have completely failed to show what specific benefits apply to the kind of mental work that is relevant to engineering.
Yeah, its easier for men to put on muscle mass. And too much testosterone tends to make people behave like assholes. Neither is of much value in tech.
Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence that gender differences in mathematical ability are due to socialization, not biology. For example, two neighboring villages in india, one with oppressed women, one with empowered women. The former has women who suck at math, while in the later village women are just as good at math as the men.
Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshit.
That's a very cheap claim to make without any reasoning.
No reasoning required, any reasonable educated person could see that it’s bullshit.
What are you going to do next? Defend slavery? That could never happen in America!
Oh wait.
Here's my take. After the 2016 election, all the women were very upset. All the things they were going to do, a new society, breaking the glass ceiling and all that gone. So now they're mad. Call it sour grapes or whatever and they're going to take it out on the men. We don't like it and therefore we're going to upset the apple cart. As demonstrated here, men are arguing among themselves at who's fault it is and walking on eggshells trying not to make the situation worse. This Damore guy just got caught in the crossfire. Too dumb to duck when he should have. Takeaway: Women have always been poor losers, or that old chestnut "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
When applied to someone like Damore, I'm not convinced this is a real diagnosis. It reflects who holds power over diagnosis.
If scientists hold the power, like in the ninteenth century, women incapable of or trained to project a disgust for scientific thought will be overdiagnosed with "hysteria" and prescribed vibrators or sedatives.
If social justice warriors hold the power, like now, men who contradict them using reason will be diagnosed with "autism" for failing to privilege feelings over reason.
The autism "movement" disturbs me and, I think, may become deeply embarrassing once we understand the causes of actual autism, or simply after a few years of reflection. Both the "extreme male brain" hypothesis that suggests all men exist on a spectrum of brokenness, and overdiagnosis turning into a way of defining "normal" as exclusive of behaviours a lower caste of engineers must cultivate, seem like cultural constructs, new forms of scapegoating gender-war and nerd-shaming.
... but my ISP is Spectrum.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
> Fire is hot
That's not a quantitative statement. Like most people who decried the memo (like the Quora link, just wow), there's a fundamental mismatch in what constitutes evidence and the bar for deducing conclusions. In the realm of carcinogens, far lower statistical deltas are used to make food safety determinations (in europe and the US) than what appear in the behavioral models in recent studies on gender proclivities. The memo was based on existing scientific analysis, despite the constant refrains that his memo was not, which is not to say there aren't differing views and studies. There always are and, in this case, almost exclusively by career ideologues. No equality of outcome behavioral study matches Finland's futile attempts, where there are still wide disparities in distribution that match biological gender. The idea that differing views are equally weighty, is just more of the same wishful equality of outcome hand waving. Damore's citations were relevant and removed early on in the smear attacks. That does not make the document baseless nor change existing behavior that you can re-examine. This is yet another particularly high-profile inconvenient truth that is not accepted, despite existing data.
You fail to make a compelling argument that changes the facts of the matter and you have had a lot of time to construct a coherent argument. I think you are just wrong on this one, due to bad ideology. Good Luck in the world.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
"well written [sic]
I think that's the first time I've seen someone try t otake the moral high ground on slashdot over pedantry around hypenens.
Well-done!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You asked if I understood the difference between opinion and a law.
His only difficulty is being a normal fucking human being.
"Microaggressions"? Fuck you, you're sowing the wind and you're going to get aggression.
Way to miss-characterize Damore's memo. Damore's memo wasn't about one's ability to do the work, but that the gender differences means people are more or less inclined towards doing certain tasks. He even suggested ways Google could better reach their lofty goals of gender parity by taking advantage of that.
Could you state which things are "betterly" or "worsely" done by men or women due to their biological difference?
Cheers,
everyone
it's about time we start diagnosing these feeble monsters. i blame all wars on their herd reactions.
Since when our testosterone and estrogen levels are measured while applying for a job?
What a piss-poor, goalpost-moving non-response. How, exactly, does estrogen make women "less inclined" to doing technology "tasks?"
And for the record, he made the same assumptions about race too. He just didn't bother to even try to rationalize that, just casually throwing race in along with gender.
> it is misogynistic when you use phrasing like that "men and women are different and have different abilities and interests".
Please be cautious. It is often decried as misogynistic, but in terms of life insurance, medical insurance, and even the Olympics Committee handling transgender athletes, it is not.
Because they all lie all the time and routinely violate paths of office.
But then there's Cody Mathieson, who spoke at a Boston DevOps gathering about how "Binary is for Computers" and proclaimed that all workplaces should be entirely non-gendered whatsoever. It took me a while to stop laughing when I realized that some people in the room were taking her seriously. And then I laughed even harder when I realized that this what her employer, ZipCar, were spending their resources on instead of actually dealing with Lyft and Uber in the marketplace. Lots of non-gendered bathrooms? Check. Sensitivity training? Check. Finding ways to improve their services and make Zipcar a viable tool with Uber around? Not so check.
The problem for a bunch of companies as they grow is that they start spending their resources on internal political goals instead of the reality of the market
âMicro aggressionsâ(TM)? Somebody is in his ear about his straight talk (aka speaking truth to power). He doesnâ(TM)t need to be shamed for being honest. There was noting intellectually dishonest with his statements and the research that backed them. He was being genuine and the perpetually offended got offended. The autism doesnâ(TM)t matter. He shouldnâ(TM)t have mentioned it because weakens his original paper as some sort of apology. Donâ(TM)t apologize, man. They are living in an alternative sjw reality which is far away from the meritocracy you and many of us expected them to be.
Comforting, my friend.
The guy had no tech background, and was basically a wannabe doctor who couldn't even finish a biology phd, but since he dropped out of harvard the fucktards at google hired him right away without considering if he was a rich privileged dickhead with no empathy for anyone. I blame Google HR and their horrible hiring practices for bringing such a turd on board.
He wanted the most attention, so he posted something in a closed newsgroup? What kind of logic is that?
That's just where it started, not where it ended up. He then went on to do interviews with the least reputable. He showed zero discretion by talking to all those alt-reich types who, not coincidentally loved his fatuous rationalizations and his story of victimhood.
Do you realize that stating that the universe will expand unbounded?! Everyone knows that spacetime will eventually stretch until it causes an volume of lower minimal vacuum energy which will nucleate, expand, and replace the laws of physics with a higher gravitational constant that will result in a big crunch. ;-)
Score: -1 -- ahh the taste of melted snowflake downmods, your sad little lashing out in response to arguments you can't refute is the most delicious sign of obeisance.
James Damore is not a scientist specializing in evolutionary neurology and his memo was not a scholarly work. You can tell this easily because the memo wasn't submitted to a journal of neurology or even sociology, it was posted to an internal company forum aimed at software engineers. It was also poorly researched and cherry-picked studies (some of which apparently have been discredited).
If it's not science, then what is it? It's opinion, it's politics, and it's written with the specific intent of marginalizing an entire group of people with statements like 'women are better suited for pair programming because they are hard-wired for cooperative interaction'.
Guess what, that kind of thing annoys people. Google got a *lot* of internal feedback from engineers that were offended and there were serious concerns that this would affect recruiting. At that point they did what businesses do, they made a business decision.
"If there's one thing James Damore supporters can't stand it's the free speech they claim to support."
I really don't think you have any idea of what it is you have actually said here. You've removed all possible context from this situation. The fact is, Google asked for feedback regarding this issue. Damore just happened to comply in a way that didn't fit with the existing Google corporate culture. You need to stop being a disingenuous prick about this. Damore only shared his memo with the internal powers-that-be at Google. The memo was leaked by an nefarious actor, and then Damore was fired. He was literally fired for giving private feedback that he was prompted for by leadership inside of Google. That goes beyond how you feel about the content of the memo itself, and speaks to the gravity of how much you truly misunderstand the ideas of free speech. The fact that people like yourself exist is fucking scary. It is completely possible to disagree with the contents of the memo, and still support the principles that should've allowed him to write it in the first place. There is no dichotomy here.
Shut the fuck up, please.
There is scientific consensus that men are, on average, taller than women. There is absolutely no scientific consensus that men are better wired neurologically for software engineering than women, which is what James Damore wrote.
Flamebait means it is designed to provoke an emotional response, specifically offense and anger. Calling something flamebait is literally saying it offends you.
Thinking something is designed to provoke offense doesn't mean it actually offends you.
There is no -1 Disagree or -1 Wrong mod. The correct response is to post a rebuttal. A rebuttal to the actual argument, not an accusation of malice.
When something is designed to be offensive rather than be convincing and likely motivated by a desire to cause offense rather than to discuss varying points of view there is often no point in making a rebuttal - there isn't actually a discussion happening after all.
What happened to having thick skin? If the world is going to revolve around tippy toeing around sensitive narcissistic divas we might as well start ww3, at least you know what to expect from that.
The problem is not progressives being offended, it's the right wing snowflakes who can't stand any hurt feelings or suggestion that they are wrong. It's an epidemic on Slashdot and the wider internet.
No. The problem is *both* sides are acting exactly like this and are unable and unwilling to meet in the middle. This is why nothing is getting done in politics, too. The polarization is nearly bipolar at this point, with no middle ground.
Both sides have snowflakes. Both sides are sick and tired of being trod on for so many decades. That's how I see it. Both sides have had it up to *here* with the other. It's the same on both sides, folks.
This isn't limited to the internet and /. either. The internet just serves as a gigantic amplifier.
This inability to see each other's point of view will be our doom. I fear the winner will be chosen mainly by luck - by who happens to have control of Government at the moment when the SHTF. It may be progressives, it may be conservatives. I really feel it'll be luck - a matter of timing, not design.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
The one written by a female software engineer at Google claiming that men are inherently inferior, violent, and evil and should be reduced to 10% of employees?
Lol. No, I think his point was context is everything. You intentionally, I hope, pretending to not get the context in an effort to make a point is delicious in it's irony and stupidity. Oh btw, merry catfish is telecine but you don't deserve a response under my own nick.
It was a poorly research psuedo-sciencey political manifesto, couched in a lot of faux-rational language. Anyone with half a brain recognizes it immediately for what it was.
I personally wouldn't have fired him for it, but I would have shut that shit down. Google was dealing with a near-mutiny of offended internal engineers and real consequences for their ability to recruit, so I don't fault them too much for making the business decision to fire the guy.
but at least he didn't whip it out and start jacking off
"I'm glad I was caught; I was mentally deranged. Now I am cured.
I ask only to be shot while my mind is still clean."
And if we are so enthusiastic for inclusiveness and diversity and not offending anyone, how come there is no tolerance of those who identify as autistic or near-autistic?
Ain't nobody got a problem with autistics being autistic. They do have a problem with assholes being assholes. The fact that some assholes happen to be autistic does not mean being autistic means we have to be assholes. As an aspie myself, I'm kinda pissed you are trying to use my tribe as a shield for assholes. Like we don't have enough problems to deal with, you gotta try and use us for your own assholery? That's a real asshole move, big league.
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.
To Progressives and other collectivists pushing identity politics, truth is a WMD and writing truth where others may read it as Damore did is a WMD attack. Pointing out that men and women naturally tend in general to have different likes and preferences is anathema to the gender-nazis pushing the 'patriarchy' meme, and threatens its fundamental underpinnings. It's no surprise they react violently
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It's the ultimate free pass.
What he wrote does not exist in a vacuum.
There's a huge amount of context, for example the large number of studies he didn't cite. The claim being made is that his memo was well researched. If that's the case he knew about others but didn't refer to them, and chose to make his arguments from the ones he did cite. That in itself has meaning.
Secondly, words do not exist in the bland state on the page. He is clearly making inferences from what he's read in his sources about what they mean and how they relate to his particular argument, since none of them address the exact situation at google.
You are therefore arguing on one hand he can make use of inferences and implications assessing his sources, but it's wrong of me to make use of inferences and implications when assessing him.
I personally think that's a massice case of double standards.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
He then went on to do interviews
You do interviews, you're seeking attention. You don't do interviews, you're hiding because you can't back up your arguments.
He showed zero discretion by talking to all those alt-reich types
Talking to the wrong people? Clear evidence of witchcraft — er, I mean wrongthink — er, I mean ... well, we all know what I mean.
He associated with people, so he's guilty by association. With people who are guilty by association with people who are guilty, in turn, by their association. They're all witches (or whatever — something bad anyway). The true faith must be defended!
Pretty much. But it gives the "Emotion first!" people a pseudo-justification for their completely ridiculous reaction. You know, those people that want "safe spaces" at a place of learning and growing, were anything should be happening except that you can comfortably stick to your established misconceptions. Anti-reason and anti-understanding is on the raise. And, if not stopped and firmly put in its place, it will kill society.
Ah, somebody who wants to disparage those who have emotions, eh? Perhaps you're the one who is anti-reason and anti-understanding, after all, you're putting people into what is, for you, a very convenient box, when you can throw them out.
All in the name of your own putative support for reason and rationale behavior. Interesting.
You're making your own pretenses rather obvious, perhaps you might want to think about that. Maybe you can't handle the truth.
> Lena Dunham though, I can't find any case there except for her defence of a Girls' Writer who was accused.
Dunham wrote about doing something to her little sister's vagina in one of her books.
The Daily Mail of all things actually covers it pretty well with excerpt's from Dunham's book as well as Dunham's tweets on the topic, such as:
"And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid's vagina, well, congrats to you."
I should note that they revised the book to say that Dunham's age at the time of this was 7, not 17, as originally printed.
Damore was writing in an environment where sexism and discrimination are commonplace and encouraged. He had the temerity to question one of the justifications used for this sexism ... and he was fired for it. His words had real-life consequences, yes - but why is that a bad thing, if the consequence is for people to question discriminatory policies?
He associated with people, so he's guilty by association
This ain't a court of law. You are known by the company you keep. Lots of legitimate reporters were willing to interview him. Instead he chose the illegitimate because they were willing to coddle him.
No goal posts have been shifted. Do you even understand what that term means? You want to cry about non-response's, but you make these wild accusations that are either completely wrong, or don't bother backing them up.
If you read the memo more carefully, without your rage blinders, pages 2 - 5, discuss the differences between men and women. He spells it out there. What part specifically do you not understand?
As far as him discussing race goes, he doesn't just casually lump it in there with gender biases. The whole discussion in the memo is about Googles diversity initiatives. That part seems to be more observational of what's happening at Google than anything else.
Perhaps in your next response could lay off the hyperbole and have an actual discussion, that is, if that's something you're capable of doing.
I wonder if the commenters are just as aspie as Damore.
No goal posts have been shifted. Do you even understand what that term means?
Lol. Why don't you tell me? First you said "These biological differences make them better and worse at different things. It's an objective fact." When I said those biological differences are not relevant to doing the job you explicitly said it wasn't about "ability" (i.e. being better at 'things') and instead its about being "inclined."
Goal posts moved.
What part specifically do you not understand?
Lol. You are asking me what part I don't understand? The problem here is that you don't understand anything but the most facile, surface level meaning of what he wrote. You are like a color-blind man telling everyone that the sky isn't blue.
As far as him discussing race goes, he doesn't just casually lump it in there with gender biases.
Lolwut? Yeah, he threw it in with lines like this:
However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices ...
Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race ...
Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races ...
Focus on psychological safety, not just race/gender diversity.
And... that's it. He throws race in but makes zero effort to explain it.
Perhaps in your next response could lay off the hyperbole and have an actual discussion
Me: You are ridiculous.
K24: Stop being mean to me! If you don't take my vacuous bullshit seriously then you are the stupid-head!
Ah the mods go up and the mods go down.
Seems I've been modded flaimbait that people supporting James Damore really do hate dissenters more than anything. Flaimbait is not for arguments you disagree with. I've posted sources and reasoning.
If you disagree, post a response, that's what a properly thresded forum like slashdot is for. If you mod flaimbait for disagree it only means you can't rebut.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I am pleased that more people are realizing the tactics that AmiMoJo has been using for many years.
I love watching people like you try so desperately to flip the term "snowflake" around
Yeah, who does he think he is? That's our word. He has no right to use it!
I missed that on my first read. Thanks.
It was a poorly research psuedo-sciencey political manifesto, couched in a lot of faux-rational language. Anyone with half a brain recognizes it immediately for what it was.
Ironic projection in two sentences. Impressive.
If someone is fully sexually mature it isn't considered paedophilia. People drawn to young teenagers are more properly termed ephidophiles (so?). Or so law and order said. 15 year olds getting married was a thing once it is true, or even 13 which statistically is kind of risky from a reproductive sense. Also a man losing 3 or 4 wives in childbirth was a thing. A lot of dead young girls and a lot of unmarried old men. Things have gotten better mostly. Birth control in developed countries has damaged the reproductive strategy of the edgy sexy "badboy". Now it is the supportive nice guy who used to raise his kid and the bad boy's that is having more reproductive success. Not sure how that will change society.
I don't share your optimism. A very large number of people is deeply invested in the idea that society can be created as an utopia.
The entire history of civilization has been steady progress towards increased fairness. Your argument is exactly what we would expect from someone arguing against the magna carta or the US constitution back when they were being written. Or against fire departments, public schools and universal healthcare.
They feel actively threatened by statements contradicting that view, and will not stop at anything to destroy the threat.
That is some serious projection right there. Ayup.
What obvious reasons, BeauHD (1)?
So he can continue to push the envelope towards abuse of his unlimited mod points.
Found the autist.
Nazi
Just for your information, the first thing Russian leftist revolutionaries destroyed were fire departments because they were instruments of the oppressing Czarist state. Street police and public sanitation followed.
So just you wait for more social progress. It will come.
Just for your information, the first thing Russian leftist revolutionaries destroyed were fire departments
Spacial thinking and coordination is better in men, for example. So make sure your dentist is a man.
And make your project manager a woman so she will not be as dominating and ego-clashing with your autist code developers( all men of course because women are not interested in coding).
That the radical "inclusion" philosophy ends up making everyone feel uncomfortable and excluding people more towards the autistic end (which is more people than I think most people understand.) is highly ironic.
However I would say to Damore that his paper was very carefully worded, but there is no amount of careful wording that will satisfy the radical leftist bubble. He engaged in wrongthink, and there is no escaping from that.
There is a theory, scientifically well regarded, albeit contested and controversial, that autism is just the extreme case of maleness. Men are less interested in people and more interested in things. Same diagnosis as being autistic. Personally I think there might be something to this. Half of men are probably bordering on autistic behavior. They wouldn't be diagnosed with it, but their thinking is close.
Fascinating. I am an actual scientist with a lot of experience reviewing papers and spotting bullshit in them, quite a few of them with statistical arguments. Apparently, I do not qualify as "having half a brain", because my finely tuned bullshit detector did not even ping once in reading his text. Sure, there were areas of uncertainty where more research was needed, but he clearly marked them. And there were some opinions, also clearly marked.
So no, anybody that immediately recognized it as what you would like it to be is full of it. Same as you.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
He doesn't need any excuse or forgiveness. It's not like he stole something or killed someone.
But ... but .. he said stuff they didn't like!
Off with his head!
I'd rather hear it straight from an autistic. At least they say what they mean at all times, and they don't mince words, lie or attempt to manipulate. We live in a screwed up social world.
My bullshit meter went off as soon as I realized that the author was writing about neurobiology, he was presenting opinions that are clearly in the minority [in fact virtually non-existent] among experts in that field, but rather than presenting his 'research' to neurobiologists he was presenting them to software engineers.
If I have a problem with the standard template library I don't go post a manifesto to a chemistry forum.
It's only a Utopia if you believe in a life of "continual victimhood" where it pays great money to hate on white men in a family court system more than willing to cater to the stereotype that men have it coming to them, and that those men need to be continually shamed for all the magical and unearned blessings bestowed at birth. You had better pay up or you're going to jail buddy.
Forget the vast vast majority of homeless are men, or that the vast majority of suicides are middle age white guys.
If life was such a grand Utopia with femenism at the helm, we wouldn't have any of that!
For over 30 years ago I have been watching people whing and whine about ever smaller real and imagined insults. At 73 I figured I'd likely be dead by the time it came to a head. Now I am not so sure. The reductio ad absurdum situation has everybody being perpetually insulted, mentally crippled, and cowering in basements just because somebody else is still alive. We're approaching this with frightening rapidity. I expect within the next few years to see some major construction project go up with major design flaws because somebody considered it a nasty micro-aggression to call designer's attention to the design's fatal design errors.
Have fun, children. You let yourselves be duped into this world view. Now you get to live with it a heck of a lot longer than I do.
{o.o}
A self-diagnosed developmental disorder contracted by reading the Wikipedia page about the condition. Having Asperger's means that you are smarter than everyone else and it totally forgives all of the lazy anti-social choices you make in life.
There are literally women with more testosterone than you, so you should be treated like a woman.
That's why when I attend funerals, I make a speech suggesting that there is no evidence of an afterlife, and that the deceased's death was objectively meaningless. Don't even ask what I say at weddings.
Wow, I'm an atheist, and if you did that at the funeral of someone in my family, I'd break my up to now lifelong non-violent behavior and punch you in the face. Saying something mean when someone is grieving is just stupid.
Go home Damore, you're drunk.
Have you been tested? Autistic people who don't know they are autistic, or who just ignore on fact, but don't seek non-autistic help when deal with the healthy world care on like you are. Some to the point that they get themselves fired despite their bullet proof logic based on some scientific facts they have found in isolation.
isn't that more of a problem???
Given the amount of PR flak that Uber has gotten for their executives' behavior towards women, sensitivity training is in fact appropriate. And if you think that it somehow detracts from their ability to develop services any more than dealing with the shitstorm that companies deal with for not having their nondiscrimination ducks in a row, then you probably need to get your head checked.
Perhaps, but I'm not a expert, and I've yet to see an expert debunk his cherry picking. Some would claim he was just trying to present his evidence.
That's a bit circular. They question his intent and then use that as justification to question his intent. I'm not sure why you need the rationalization. Seems the guy is mildly autistic, so the whole point is that he's probably hard to read. However, it's fine if you don't like what he wrote, and you can support that with arguments.
He claims many experts support him. Also he has some background in these areas (PhD student.) Previous slashdot comments linked to a blogger that did a good job of defending him. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017... It's a bit long, but much better than any articles I found that attack his position. Again, I'm not an expert, and I could be swayed. In fact, the expert, Adam Grant, he debunks politely rebuts his comments. By the time I got the far, I was a bit drained, and I found Grant's arguments somewhat persuasive. However, the blogger did a sound job dismantling the points. (Though the blogger's reply was a bit rude which might have stopped a productive back and forth.)
Now you might wonder why few experts vocally supported Damore. (I think a few did.) However, it's not surprising that supporting experts did not want to get involved in this firestorm...
I think the is an interesting issue. For the most part, neither side of the slashdot debate are experts. How do they determine which experts to listen to. Why should they even believe that 97% of the climate scientists believe in climate change? What experts give them this information? If they are not listening to experts, how do they form their opinion?
The case for social science is even more complex. I think the most damning argument against Damore is not that he thinks he can beat the experts, it's that maybe there are no good experts in this area. I think this is the real danger; if all science is lumped together, questionable research can be used to weaken the strong work. Personally, I assume climate science fits in the strong camp, but I don't have the time to do extensive research myself, so I have to pick my experts.
Chris Mesterharm
For example, he says that women are on average more neurotic, and that explains some of the gender gap.
This is point to which everyone, who criticizes him, latches on. Unlike the rest of the memo, I am on the fence on this point. If used as an industry term (the industry being the formal study of human psychology), his use of the term is correct. But the neurotic in the context of modern psychology has a different interpretation than it does in plain English. Damore may have muddied the waters a bit because, as someone who formally studied biology rigourously, he might have thought that his readers owe him the deference of interpreting his usage of the word as a formal term. But, because he was addressing a general audience, that expectation was not necesserily justified.
Once he realized that this word was not being taken as he meant, he probably should have course-corrected with an addendum specifying that he was using the word in the narrow professional meaning, as it is used in psychology. Instead, he dismissed the criticism by stating on a few occasions that the word has a specific meaning in psychology and that while that may cause confusion, his use was accurate.
He was, however, being defensive. This, however, is somewhat understandable since he was thrown into a public controversy without being prepared for it. The shouting match which ensued speaks more about lack of training to resolve conflicts (by both sides of the debate) than it does about either side being right or wrong.
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.
His current legal argument, as he stated in a few public appearances, is that the point of the memo was to suggest creative ways to address the gap in order to reduce it. So the "entire" point of the memo was not as narrow as just identifying the issues.
But that's his argument. I would argue that it doesn't minimize other issues. It may de-emphasize other issues by drawing his readers' attention to his usage of "neurotic" and, in so doing, it undermines his intent. But that's only the case if the readers of the memo choose to ignore the balance of the memo and put all their emphasis on this short passage from it. Again, he didn't realize that would be the case when he wrote the original, but he should have made an addendum once it became clear.
Once fired and free to speak his mind without filter, it becomes obvious what his biases are.
I don't think you can fairly judge a person's intentions during their attempt to be introspective if you try to observe them when they are beaten down and put on defensive. When people are introspective, they are often much more aware and critical of their own biases and often try to genuinly correct for them. When people are defensive, they embrace and defend their biases.
A since deleted tweet documented here [salon.com] also demonstrates just how naive Damore is, and how he fails to understand historical context before making bold statements.
The series of tweets doesn't show that he was naive. It shows that he was ill-informed on a topic which he used as an example for the purposes of constructing an analogy. But he was anything but naive. If you disregard the origins of KKK (as described by Tyson) and only view them in the context of the modern world (as DaMore was doing), DaMore's analogy would work. But he was already on the defensive and posting snap replies using ill-researched references. I don't think you can accuse him of naivette, because he did not double down, but erased the tweets. Presumably he did that after researching Tyson's claims. While it is true that DaMore could have taken the high road and acknowledged that his statements were made in haste, taking a high road is not something you can expect from a 26-year-old who is bein
And exactly what makes it "stupid"? Is it that it can't possibly be true, or that it goes against feminist orthodoxy?
Remember, you're the one reading "can't" into "don't". That is, Damore said that biological differences explain why women don't take certain jobs. He never said that women can't take certain jobs, but that's certainly how people are reading it.
Women can do tech jobs just as well as men -- and you can tell because there are tons of women in tech in patriarchal societies where fathers decide what jobs their daughters will do (like India, or the US before the '70s). But when you tell women that they can be anything they want to be, fewer of them actually want such tech jobs.
dom
Guys, that's disgusting. Really. Fact is, women being raped by men is (still) the rule, the other way around is (still) the exception. What you are doing is called "whataboutism".
The world *I* want to have (and I am a white male Western guy) is a world where *both are the exception*. Best zero, but I know that's unattainable.
Do some women abuse the "new power" they have now, with calling out? You bet. Women are (gasp!) humans, and capable of abusing power as we guys are. Shit happens.
But something like Weinstein, abusing his power over women all his career long (and people around him knowing) is so boringly normal that I nauseate when I think of it. *That's* fucking gotta change, and I accept some fallout along the way.
Now get back to discuss the current case about Denmore and Google (no, I don't like either how it was handled).
Actually, he made it quite explicit, in many of his interviews, that:
1. No mainstream reporter, except Fox News, was willing to cover him. A point that Dave Rubin has repeated many times. Hence, the "echo chamber" thing in the memo.
2. All mainstream media went out to smear him as "anti-diversity". They removed all the references in his memo, and claimed that he called women "neurotic" (which he never said).
That's why we were, and still are, outraged.
He was fired in large part because the memo he wrote showed such a complete inability to understand research and form logical arguments from evidence that he was clearly incapable of doing his job.
He was commended on being one of the top performers at Google (within top 3%). The reason stated for his firing was "perpetuating gender stereotypes". Get your facts straight, please.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Putting up shelves. Having babies.
It's left as an exercise for the reader to work out which way round.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You literally claimed someone was helping and supporting the KKK just because they thought the phrase "Grand Wizard" was cool sounding, which it is. That's an utterly repugnant thing to claim on its face let alone to use as an underhanded smear tactic when you've got nothing on them otherwise and are flat out lying about things they said and did.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Except actual experts in the field including non-white women whose doctoral dissertations were in this field say the exact opposite.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I claimed he was inadvertently helping the KKK. That word is important.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
That's why when I attend funerals, I make a speech suggesting that there is no evidence of an afterlife, and that the deceased's death was objectively meaningless. Don't even ask what I say at weddings.
All weddings should start with the words "Divorces are expensive".
Besides, I think we as a culture have things backwards. A funeral should be a joyous occasion full of festivities where we remember someone who has lived, enriched our lives with their mere presence and made a mark on many people. Weddings on the other hand should be sober and somber occasions where one reflects on the freedom they have lost and the responsibilities they have gained.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Damore's memo was just misogynist bullshit.
That's a very cheap claim to make without any reasoning. That's probably it's so popular on Twitter and such (mostly because reasoning doesn't fit into 140 characters).
It was bullshit that had no rational basis, but was worded to sound so. A lot of people cant tell the difference sadly.
Basic scientific rigor was missing, it relied on information/soundbites taken out of context, broad generalisations were made to apply to individuals, extrapolations were exaggerated and evidence that did not fit his conclusion was ignored. Whilst I wont say it was strictly misogynistic (I've read and heard far worse) I will say it came of as angry towards women, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's not misogynistic but he definitely misunderstands.
However a lot of people are championing it because they they think it helps in playing the white male victim card.
Now I fully expect to see this modded down because I dare to question the document, let alone the victimisation of white males.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
No mainstream reporter, except Fox News, was willing to cover him. A point that Dave Rubin has repeated many times. Hence, the "echo chamber" thing in the memo.
lol, that's a lie contradicted by his own words in the linked the BI article he's quoted whining that he's afraid the "mainstream" reporters won't uncritically interview him, not that they refuse to interview him. He's hiding from them because they won't respect his safe-space.
Also logic fail on your part thinking something he wrote in the memo proves something you think happened after he wrote the memo.
They removed all the references in his memo, and claimed that he called women "neurotic" (which he never said).
lolwut? Have YOU read the memo? He literally wrote this:
Women, on average, have more: ... ... ...
o Openness
o Extraversion
o Neuroticism
Furthermore, he didn't even try to base that claim on any biological factor, in fact all he did was link to wikipedia (srsly? wikipedia, wtf?) - completely undermining his claimed point of view.
Seriously, are all you damore acolytes total fucking idiots? Is that biological or did your parents just drop you on your head?
> Putting up shelves. Having babies.
Just a typical day at work for a google engineer!
I was with you up until the end. Damore didn't lose his job because he's going through a contrarian phase; he lost his job because labor relations in this country are fucked and employers may destroy a worker's livelihood at whim.
If you haven't read it please consider doing so, it contains solid insights:
https://blog.ycombinator.com/a...
Many of the engineers agree with certain aspects of the original memo while respectfully debunking the logical fallacies it presented.
Enjoy.
because there is insufficient or conflicting data. The scientific consensus [as I understand it] amongst neurobiologists is overwhelmingly that race & sex are not predictive traits for knowledge worker performance; and there's no neuro-biological explanation that leads us to any such conclusions..
Amongst sociologists, on the other hand, there is an overwhelming consensus that economic & cultural factors have a huge impact on how demographic categories are sorted into professions
So, if you're asking me what I believe, I'd say that 'cultural factors' are the most-likely explanation for why some demographic categories are under-represented or over-represented. That doesn't mean I believe it is due to direct racism or misogyny from tech companies, either, BTW; because that theory struggles to explain why male of Asian descent are over-represented in tech relative to their population, and why Asian females enter tech at higher rates than white females.
You're basically saying that software engineers have done a thorough review of neurobiology and have determined that this entire field is operating in an unscientific way. The only hope for advancement in the field of neurobiology is C++ hackers posting psuedo-sciency bullshit on internal company forums.
I'm not following. You're simply pointing out that there are some crazy people on both sides? Agreed.
then that must represent scientific consensus of the entire field. Also there's no such thing as climate change and the Earth is flat.
I would follow you up with the statement that there is also no scientific evidence that there is no immaterial afterlife since it's impossible to test something immaterial and that the deceased may, in fact, be in a horrible hellish environment or surrounded by hundreds of virgins, but that we won't know for sure until we die ourselves and either visit the deceased in hell or hear about his whereabouts in a virgin paradise. Either way, the deceased's death might be subjectively meaningless or very meaningful depending on what actually awaits him (and us) on the other side.
It's a miracle that science advanced as far as it did before we had computer programmers who have the unique ability to push the frontiers of every scientific field.
Understandable especially the way they have been puffing themselves up lately. It isn't growth of their movement though just the last desperate actions before the tidal wave of common sense that is rising.
It wouldn't have been long ago that my original post would have been moderated to oblivion here, by the very sort of people you describe.
Compared to something like a nuclear explosion its difference from absolute zero is a rounding error.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
FFS you're all falling all over each other to make a martyr out of this fool.
Fact of the matter is that he was full of shit.
Now that he's throwing fellow people with autism under the bus as a cop-out is really crass.
What an awful person...
It's good to see that you don't understand the memo.
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can make me feel I deserve it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It's not whether we can create a utopia, it's how we can move towards one. There's a lot of disagreement on what a utopia would be, and far more on how to get there.
I first realized this when I realized that a Marxist friend was as patriotic as I was. Both of us wanted what was best for the country. We had very different ideas of what that was, and extremely different ideas of how to get there, but the desire for a better country was there.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The funny thing is that it's the belief that men and women think differently that should bring understanding of transgender people. If they were the same, it wouldn't matter whether your body came with a penis and testicles or boobs and vagina. If they're different, then there's the chance that they'll get mixed up sometime, and we'd have a woman's mind in a male body or a men's mind in a female body.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The irony is that treating people the same regardless of gender is exactly what some places do. They demand what the typical masculine mind will give and the typical feminine mind will have trouble with. You can get what you asked for and still not be happy. I'd rather see appropriate treatment of individuals than one-size-fits-all treatment.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The relevant question here isn't whether he was correct, but whether he tried. It read to me like he got a lot of things wrong, but was making a slightly inept attempt at writing a good essay. For purposes of the furor around this, how true his essay was is irrelevant.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I don't care about the heat death of the Universe. I'm not going to be around for it anyway. Heck, I won't be around for the Sun's increasing brightness boiling off all the water on Earth, so I'm not going to sweat that either.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
New elemental forces emerged when the universe cooled down. New forces will continue to emerge because the universe is still in the process of cooling down. For example: is BEC magnetar possible? https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.3986
No, no it isn't. Any more than me saying you're allegedly a child molesting cannibal is different than just calling you one. It's a weasel word.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
You don't know what inadvertently means, do you?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Found another moron in ignorant denial.
That's why when I attend funerals, I make a speech suggesting that there is no evidence of an afterlife, and that the deceased's death was objectively meaningless. Don't even ask what I say at weddings.
Not equivalent. When you are invited to speak at a funeral, do they ask you to discuss your opinions on the afterlife or do they ask you to say something about the deceased?
Mr. Damore was asked to talk about what he wrote about; therefore, the two situations are not equivalent and you have no point to be made by using your alternate situation.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen