I don't agree with this guy, but it make me nervous to think he was fired for political views.
If you read both Pichai's memo and the NLRB's decision, they are completely clear on this point. A large part of the memo (the parts addressing Google's corporate culture in particular) was fair comment and legally protected whether you agree with it or not. The pseudoscientific gender stereotype part was not legally protected, and that is the part that was so egregious and so hostile that it eventually became a firing offence.
If he had just made the political points and Google fired him, he would have had an excellent case.
The firing of Damore over a controversial memo going public says much about Google's considerations and priorities regarding their employees - if you get caught publicly holding an unpopular opinion, would you want to be working for somoene who can be easily pressured to dismiss you, or would you prefer to be working for someone who actually values you?
It depends on the opinion, whether it's merely unpopular or something bigger, and the means in which the world found out.
Not all unpopular opinions are equal. If a climate science denier or young-earth creationist worked for Google, and they decided to tell the whole company about it in a memo, citing misunderstood academic research in "support", we wouldn't be having this conversation. The particular brand of pseudoscience that Damore was using to support his argument may be less popular, but it's still just as damaging to Google's pro-science, pro-evidence, pro-reason reputation.
Both Pichai and the LRB essentially made the same point, in different words: A lot of what Damore said in the memo was fair comment, good debate material, and legally protected. It's only the pseudoscientific stereotyping that crossed the line.
He could have written a much better memo which came to the same conclusion about Google's corporate culture, but didn't.
To be fair, it's possible that he didn't because he couldn't. Hiring someone who hasn't completed their postgraduate degree (and hence hasn't completed their research apprenticeship) for a research position is always risky. If you then accidentally tell the world that you don't know how to understand a scientific paper, that's a bit of an own goal. If Damore can find someone who values that in an employee, good luck to him.
And if people who are willing to make pseudoscientific claims in public or even semi-public feel nervous about whether they are valued at Google, that might be for the best.
Nearly a decade ago, the Tea Party Movement began its own irrational and loud stranglehold on conservative politics. There were loyalty oaths and identity politics. The Republican party is still trying to re-discover itself and its integrity having sold itself to the more ignorant side of populism.
I know what you're saying, but I think you're missing some of the history before that. The rise of populism is a reaction to the kind of Straussian fundamentalism that took over conservative politics a few decades earlier. It's hard to say when this really "began", but the place I'd identify is the Powell Memorandum of 1971. It really picked up momentum in the aftermath of Watergate.
In the late 70s, fundamentalists started hostile takeovers of conservative institutions such as the NRA and the Southern Baptist Convention, and eventually the Republican Party.
The populists have a point. It may be ignorant and irrational, but it is a reaction to the kind of heavy-handed paternalism that had already ruined conservative politics.
There is no way to make a contrary argument any more. All further discussion is prohibited to anyone who wants a job.
The last time I heard that, it was about climate science. The time before that, it was about evolution. It wasn't true either of those times, either.
Here in the real world, if someone can actually disprove the prevailing wisdom in some academic field, it would make their academic career. History is full of examples, especially in fields where non-academics are convinced there's a grand conspiracy to prevent it from happening.
This is a clear case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't", though.
Whatever you think of the memo, whatever you think of Damore, there is no getting around the fact that after it became a public shitstorm, the consequences of letting him stay were always going to be objectively worse than the consequences of firing him.
Define "nasty things", please. And while we're at it, please define "hostile" as well.
See, here's the problem with this: Harassment is inherently subjective. The same thing can be enjoyable to one person, and ruin another person's life.
That's why (to pick one example) all sane legal frameworks say that, unless it is over some clearly objective threshold to begin with, it's not illegal/fireable unless it continues after you've been asked to stop.
[...] it has always been a running joke that âoeyou should be a weather forecaster, the only job you can be wrong more than half the time and keep your jobâ.
The reason why it's a joke is that fund managers and venture capitalists easily beat meteorologists on this metric.
History has literally zero examples of what happens when technology remaps the fabric of society.
Well I don't know about that. Introducing movable type to Europe caused the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the scientific revolution. The power loom, cotton gin, and steam caused mass urbanisation.
I haven't done a poll, but I'm pretty sure that most Bernie supporters would readily concede that Michelle Bachmann is not a nazi, even if they think that Richard Spencer is.
And that's just products that are less useful. There are also plenty of products which are completely useless because only the "ideas guy" and/or the funders would actually buy one.
Good design is mostly invisible. You won't find success stories. What you'll find is failure stories where a non-diverse team failed to notice something blindingly obvious.
For the majority of the world that didn't get that joke, a bit of Internet searching reveals that the Unilever product that every other English-speaking country calls "Lynx", the US and Canada call "Axe".
Slashdot Mirror
If you read both Pichai's memo and the NLRB's decision, they are completely clear on this point. A large part of the memo (the parts addressing Google's corporate culture in particular) was fair comment and legally protected whether you agree with it or not. The pseudoscientific gender stereotype part was not legally protected, and that is the part that was so egregious and so hostile that it eventually became a firing offence.
If he had just made the political points and Google fired him, he would have had an excellent case.
The firing of Damore over a controversial memo going public says much about Google's considerations and priorities regarding their employees - if you get caught publicly holding an unpopular opinion, would you want to be working for somoene who can be easily pressured to dismiss you, or would you prefer to be working for someone who actually values you?
It depends on the opinion, whether it's merely unpopular or something bigger, and the means in which the world found out.
Not all unpopular opinions are equal. If a climate science denier or young-earth creationist worked for Google, and they decided to tell the whole company about it in a memo, citing misunderstood academic research in "support", we wouldn't be having this conversation. The particular brand of pseudoscience that Damore was using to support his argument may be less popular, but it's still just as damaging to Google's pro-science, pro-evidence, pro-reason reputation.
Both Pichai and the LRB essentially made the same point, in different words: A lot of what Damore said in the memo was fair comment, good debate material, and legally protected. It's only the pseudoscientific stereotyping that crossed the line.
He could have written a much better memo which came to the same conclusion about Google's corporate culture, but didn't.
To be fair, it's possible that he didn't because he couldn't. Hiring someone who hasn't completed their postgraduate degree (and hence hasn't completed their research apprenticeship) for a research position is always risky. If you then accidentally tell the world that you don't know how to understand a scientific paper, that's a bit of an own goal. If Damore can find someone who values that in an employee, good luck to him.
And if people who are willing to make pseudoscientific claims in public or even semi-public feel nervous about whether they are valued at Google, that might be for the best.
Nearly a decade ago, the Tea Party Movement began its own irrational and loud stranglehold on conservative politics. There were loyalty oaths and identity politics. The Republican party is still trying to re-discover itself and its integrity having sold itself to the more ignorant side of populism.
I know what you're saying, but I think you're missing some of the history before that. The rise of populism is a reaction to the kind of Straussian fundamentalism that took over conservative politics a few decades earlier. It's hard to say when this really "began", but the place I'd identify is the Powell Memorandum of 1971. It really picked up momentum in the aftermath of Watergate.
In the late 70s, fundamentalists started hostile takeovers of conservative institutions such as the NRA and the Southern Baptist Convention, and eventually the Republican Party.
The populists have a point. It may be ignorant and irrational, but it is a reaction to the kind of heavy-handed paternalism that had already ruined conservative politics.
There is no way to make a contrary argument any more. All further discussion is prohibited to anyone who wants a job.
The last time I heard that, it was about climate science. The time before that, it was about evolution. It wasn't true either of those times, either.
Here in the real world, if someone can actually disprove the prevailing wisdom in some academic field, it would make their academic career. History is full of examples, especially in fields where non-academics are convinced there's a grand conspiracy to prevent it from happening.
This is a clear case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't", though.
Whatever you think of the memo, whatever you think of Damore, there is no getting around the fact that after it became a public shitstorm, the consequences of letting him stay were always going to be objectively worse than the consequences of firing him.
What we're really saying, then, is that nobody has the "freedom" to work for Google.
Define "nasty things", please.
And while we're at it, please define "hostile" as well.
See, here's the problem with this: Harassment is inherently subjective. The same thing can be enjoyable to one person, and ruin another person's life.
That's why (to pick one example) all sane legal frameworks say that, unless it is over some clearly objective threshold to begin with, it's not illegal/fireable unless it continues after you've been asked to stop.
[...] it has always been a running joke that âoeyou should be a weather forecaster, the only job you can be wrong more than half the time and keep your jobâ.
The reason why it's a joke is that fund managers and venture capitalists easily beat meteorologists on this metric.
History has literally zero examples of what happens when technology remaps the fabric of society.
Well I don't know about that. Introducing movable type to Europe caused the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the scientific revolution. The power loom, cotton gin, and steam caused mass urbanisation.
I agree it's never happened this fast, though.
How many are needed to forecast the weather, given the technology available today?
How many local weather reports need to be written each day, and how much human expert time does each one take to produce?
I don't know either.
Poe's Law is a harsh mistress.
In other words, Trump is pushing against the water for three years, [...]
He could always just declare war on Neptune.
(Yes, I know Caligula didn't really do that. Don't care, it's a good story.)
That works right up to the point where Gandhi gets nukes.
I haven't done a poll, but I'm pretty sure that most Bernie supporters would readily concede that Michelle Bachmann is not a nazi, even if they think that Richard Spencer is.
Damn. Well... what about Francisco Franco?
FUCK JOHN BIRCH.
We only hail the hero
from whom we got our name.
We're not sure what he did,
but he's our hero just the same.
For those who don't get the reference.
Nice try, but PepsiCo actually seems to care about women in their own weird tone-deaf corporate way.
I would say Ada counts as close enough to "modern".
I have never swapped out a smartphone because something better came along. It has always been because the old one died and could not be repaired.
Four years is the maximum lifespan so far.
Rich white psychopaths always have the option of becoming CEOs.
You mean stop offering delivery.
And that's just products that are less useful. There are also plenty of products which are completely useless because only the "ideas guy" and/or the funders would actually buy one.
See also: Juicero
Good design is mostly invisible. You won't find success stories. What you'll find is failure stories where a non-diverse team failed to notice something blindingly obvious.
Things like trackballs that are less useful if you're left-handed, or voice recognition systems which can't handle various accents, or the JSF helmet that would kill most women if they tried to eject while wearing it.
For the majority of the world that didn't get that joke, a bit of Internet searching reveals that the Unilever product that every other English-speaking country calls "Lynx", the US and Canada call "Axe".
I still have my grandad's axe. It's had two new heads and five new handles, but it's the same axe.