Google fires diversity critic

[Fojos]

It is in every sense.

You have no idea of the pressure and stress and heavy load of responsibility that is put on you in such a position.
Anecdotal: We had many high ranking managers commit suicide because of the pressure.

You know another fun, anecdotal fact? All high ranking women managers act like men. Just watch how they express themselves and their mannerisms.

Ps.: Bonus sexist remark: The woman engineer in the linked interview: Looks like a guy.

http://m.pnas.org/content/106/36/15268 not just anecdotes. Women with more testosterone make significantly different choices in their careers.

[Underverse]

You don't seem to understand what neoliberalism means..

I think he's trying to describe a phenomenon with words that have already been used for something else. His point is pretty clear though.

[Deleted]

Hmm, so a dude writes a "manifesto", in which he claims his company to be an outright authoritarian regime and that memo "leaks" to the public? What exactly did you expect? That they go and kiss his conservative snowflake butt and beg him to lead them to enlightenment?

[Underverse]

Treat people as individuals:

Don't condemn entire racial or gender groups on the basis of the actions of a few; condemn ideas and idea groups instead.

Don't withhold resources from anyone on the basis of race or gender.

Don't give anyone special treatment on the basis of race or gender.

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Hmm, so a dude writes a "manifesto", in which he claims his company to be an outright authoritarian regime and that memo "leaks" to the public? What exactly did you expect? That they go and kiss his conservative snowflake butt and beg him to lead them to enlightenment?

I don't think you read it. Not much of a manifesto, anyway. And I don't think he's a conservative either, rather a progressive who is defending conservatives. Give him a chance.

[Isadora]

I feel like at least 80 % of the people replying in this thread have never worked in a company.

Let me make this easy: This isn't about gender or sexism, it's about an employee speaking out against his company. Nothing else. It's the same as a pilot from an airlines writing in his twitter "My airline that I work for has shit security procedures". It doesn't matter how right or wrong you are, in almost every contract I ever had, this sort of thing was forbidden.

So they fired him. It's that simple and it's that normal.

[Hisholyness]

You talk shit about your company in public and let yourself get caught, you get fired. That's the way it has always been.

And please read up what "freedom of speech" means and what it protects you from.

Going into the memo I thought it was going to be a neo-nazi bashing women and men. Its actually an unbiased, fact-driven article that highlights the issues faced by a group and how it is morally unjust. It is far from controversial

[Queen of Hamsters]

The memo did not say women weren't made for tech. That's misrepresenting what it is about.

The author argues that tech should be made more attractive for women by adjusting the culture in it rather than arbitrarily forcing quotas. If the domain can stand on its own, it should attract more qualified women, it's plain logic.

Somehow, it was perceived as an attack against women. How in hell is fighting to make your workplace more attractive to diversity rather than pure arbitrary numbers sexist/racist is beyond me.

My thoughts exactly.

In fact, I think this arbitrary pushing for "equality", just creates gaps between the genders. How often is it not argued that a woman only got her position due to having a vagina rather than a penis? It's being used by exactly the sort of groups that are ACTUALLY sexist/racist as a confirmation of shit they believe in.

The right person for the job, that's all that is needed. If the right people turn out to be mostly white men even if the employer is entirely open to women and other skin colours, then so be it I suppose?

[Underverse]

I feel like at least 80 % of the people replying in this thread have never worked in a company.

Let me make this easy: This isn't about gender or sexism, it's about an employee speaking out against his company. Nothing else. It's the same as a pilot from an airlines writing in his twitter "My airline that I work for has shit security procedures". It doesn't matter how right or wrong you are, in almost every contract I ever had, this sort of thing was forbidden.

So they fired him. It's that simple and it's that normal.

Yes. I think people are generally fine with this idea (or at least, they should be, as you say). But the firing of the employee isn't the only item of interest here. This employee brings up some legitimate points that we should be talking about.

[Tinykong]

Forced equal representation is just as bad as forced discrimination.

[Deleted]

Love the notes at the end - "I may be biased and only see evidence that supports my viewpoint. In terms of political biases, I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and reason."

Basically saying - "I'm not a racist... BUT"

[Zeth Hawkins]

And we're supposed to feel sorry for him ?

This will get you super duper fired at any job I've ever had.

It would seem that neither of you have read Mr. Damore's memo.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...ho-Chamber.pdf

[Zarc]

Ironically the author of this memo is a liberal progressive.

No he isn't. He explicitly stated he considers himself a classical liberal. That is not the same thing as "liberal progressive". I have huge respect for classical liberalism, our form of government is built on those values. Though given that there are people like Dave Rubin going around branding themselves as classical liberals even though they clearly aren't my instinct is to be a bit suspicious of anyone declaring themselves as such these days.

This is neo-liberalism at its worst. I'm a liberal myself, let me state (and a socialist to boot), but this is the kind of thing the Right calls us out on. This is the height of hypocrisy. This is the sort of thing neo-liberals decry conservatives over close-mindedness and then commit the same heinous acts, just from the other side of the political spectrum. Neo-liberals want to say everyone has the freedom to speak and the freedom of ideas... but you better agree with them or you're a fascist demagogue. It was well-written and his opinion. Nothing he said was offensive whatsoever.

Conservatives, let me just says, not all Liberals are crazy neo-Liberals like this. I apologize for this kind of BS coming from our side of the aisle.

What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with neoliberalism, neoliberalism is the name given to the late 20th century revival and/or radicalization of classical liberal economic policies championed by people like Milton Friedman, Margaret Tatcher, Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan and associated with their immediate successors from the supposed left of center, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, because they left those policies intact and/or enacted more such policies. This issue seem to be related to cultural and/or social issues, not economic ones.

[tankbug]

Was this guy a neo-nazi?

No, it was an example. I'm not referring to the man who got fired from Google.

[Deleted]

Treat people as individuals:

Don't condemn entire racial or gender groups on the basis of the actions of a few; condemn ideas and idea groups instead.

Don't withhold resources from anyone on the basis of race or gender.

Don't give anyone special treatment on the basis of race or gender.

- - - Updated - - -



I don't think you read it. Not much of a manifesto, anyway. And I don't think he's a conservative either, rather a progressive who is defending conservatives. Give him a chance.

It's right there, in the first paragraph:

Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
[...]
lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.

I agree with some parts that follow, and disagree with other parts. But this memo went viral, so what exactly did you expect?

[Zeth Hawkins]

Sorry, nobody wants the wrong kind of diversity by keeping troublemakers employed. Employees are there to work, not to mouth off far-right propaganda and lies, lowering the productivity and morale of everyone else at work.



It's not a happy occasion for the troublemaker involved.

But for the other people who are not interested in toxic working environments will rejoice.

Good job Google for cleaning up their working environment for people who are only interested in honest work and detest evil.

Which sections of Mr. Damore's memo promote "toxic working environmens" or are "evil"?

[Dontrike]

Why is some random fuck getting fired such a big deal? Unless you know the guy this shouldn't matter to anyone at all and the fact this is going to be blown out of proportion and made into some huge fucking deal that the U.S. has to hear about for the next two months is astounding.

[Akka]

It would seem that neither of you have read Mr. Damore's memo.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...ho-Chamber.pdf

Gonna have to eat a crow, in fact I didn't and judged based on the misrepresentation made.
I haven't read all the article yet (and TBH I don't think I'll do it in its entirety), but from what I've skimmed, in fact his arguments are at least reasonably sound (not necessarily true, but they appear to be at least honest).

I admit I simply don't have enough interest to bother reading the whole, but yeah with a cursory but less superficial look, it seems there is some sort of excessive reaction to it (though, again, it entirely depends on how he put his manifesto and how it was received ; even if he were entirely right, if his initiative ruined the work mood, his presence would cause too much disruption and Google would be justified to let him go).

[Shibito]

It'd be a nicer place to work if they fired all the conservatives.

All the conservatives I know are, frankly, jerks.

I would say jerks are jerks regardless of their political alignment

[Underverse]

Heh. I know women think that this is some kind of sexist thing, but I'll let you in on a little secret: It happens to all of us, too. Everyone has asshole bosses and co-workers. Shit, pretty much all the coding I did over the last two years doesn't have my name on it now because the director decided to take credit for it all.

The only difference might be that men are more likely to be highly vocal or aggressive about defending their work, but if you think it doesn't happen to everyone, you're way off base.

And no, the logic of, "If something bad happens to a woman, it's sexism." doesn't fly.

It's happening to me right now!

[xanzul]

Well, if nothing else, it's not the kind of thing that you put out there as an employee talking about your employer in any way.

You are doomed at that point, it's pretty inevitable. A lot of things in the memo actually are perfectly reasonable and could be sensible, but gender is completely fucking radioactive right now. Touching it is a flat out mistake unless you're either firmly within the zeitgeist or are some kind of fringe academic. For the moment, anything other than, "Women are totally equal in every way and probably superior at everything and us men should be paying them reparations for how mean we are and giving them all the best jobs while we work garbage collection." is a one way ticket to being up shit creek.

No one has been able to demonstrate women aren't equal in any meaningful way. Get the fuck out of here.