What's the problem with scrutiny? If these policies are based on premises that aren't true, wouldn't it be better to discard them in favor of policies that are based on premises that are true? How would we do that without a discussion?
Sorry, why do we assume that those premises are true? And which premises in particular, because much of that memo consists of begging the question and/or the author's personal opinion. For example, in the 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." Uh, OK. Obviously "shaming into silence" is not in any part of Google's stated mission. But I guess that's because it's an unconscious bias, and if only Google were truly woke, they'd realize that, right?
Or how about:
> We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and whiner
So the memo's author is apparently a prophet of truth but can't even use Google (or Bing, if you will) to look up the times that men have sued on allegations of discrimination? If there weren't law that protected men, those lawsuits would not be brought to court by a competent lawyer, nevermind won (as in the case of Hooter's):
So given the memo's author inability to look up simple case law, you'll have to excuse my hesitance in not accepting that all of his premises are either true or relevant to Google's diversity efforts. Which is why I ask for any empirical evidence that would support his allegations that Google's hiring processes chase diversity in a way that is harmful to the company's performance or even in a way that is unreasonable. Given that Google's stock seems to be still doing quite well, that it still seems to be hiring people of the author's political mindset (including, obviously, the author himself), and that Google's demographic numbers are not anywhere near reaching parity with overall demographics, I'd say the burden of evidence is on the memo's author.
You don't have to show that Google is actually succeeding in it's efforts to bring in "diversity" and equalize representation among it's workforce to match the general population to question the premise that the purported effort is based on. You don't even have to show that they are making a serious effort. Most likely they aren't. It's very likely they know full well what kind of people are likely to make valuable contributions to the company and they are probably not eager to jeopardize that.
If that is the case, then as far as I'm concerned, you don't even have to show that there is a real harm to the purported victims (as Damore sees them), it is enough to question what the big charade is based on. Are the premises that this supposed diversity push is based on valid? If not, what exactly are we doing here?
Yes, perhaps you don't have to argue all of that. But Damore did. Perhaps if he hadn't made those assertions, his memo wouldn't be seen as particularly interesting or controversial.
But we don't have to engage in such hypotheticals. Let's consider the premise that Damore's memo is simply a call to debate based on science and facts. In my opinion, such a non-biased, open-minded essay would not include this kind of assertion:
> We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and a whiner [10]. Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is being spent to water only one side of the lawn.
Only someone ignorant of basic facts and history would make this sweeping claim. And only someone ruled by his emotions would be unable to take a step back and do a Google search to see if anti-discrimination law has been used on behalf of men. Given that kind of massive error, or inability to recognize one own's ignorance, I don't think we should continue assuming that Damore's premises are factual or coherent in their arrangement. Which is why I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in saying that it'd be better if he could have actual empirical evidence on the harm of Google's diversity programs. Just because his memo contains facts doesn't mean that it's truthful, if those facts are used loosely to further the author's emotional appeals.
edit: Fixed the formatting to show that [10], in the original memo, refers to a footnote and contains a hyperlink.
The footnote:
[10] “The traditionalist system of gender does not deal well with the idea of men needing support. Men are
expected to be strong, to not complain, and to deal with problems on their own. Men’s problems are more
often seen as personal failings rather than victimhood, due to our gendered idea of agency. This
discourages men from bringing attention to their issues (whether individual or group-wide issues), for fear
of being seen as whiners, complainers, or weak.”
Nobody ever said that the memo was perfectly conceived or written. If you're saying he overstated his case in the passage you quoted I would probably agree. But the standard for inviting a conversation is not a perfectly formed argument from the get-go, a standard like that would make it impossible to have a conversation at all. So I'm still not clear on what exactly he wrote that would earn him exile and banishment in the judgement of a reasonable person open to having a discussion on the topics he raised.
If you follow the metaphor, the idea of shaking a toilette to fix it is stupid as is hiring an electrician. Rationally, you'd find another plumber, maybe choosing a different selection metric.
Extending the metaphor, the electrician has a long record of saying demonstrably untrue things about both water, electricity, and plumbing.
And the idea that alternatives look worse is just more stupid denialism, the idea that literally all alternatives are worse than someone who poops on all the furniture is just non-credible nonsense and begs for ridicule because it is that ridiculous. It's not rational.
Regardless of what you think about Trump, he distinguished himself enough from the rest of the field that he became the only viable choice for enough people at the right stages to push him through. Apparently your lofty rationality isn't developed enough to see that. What does rationality even mean in this context? I'd love to know where you draw the line between a rational choice and an irrational one when it comes to voting.
The idea that only professional politicians should be admitted to office would've incensed the left 10 years ago. These days, because Trump made it in instead of say, Jon Stewart, the left is suddenly very pious about political office.
Of course people without professional political career can be presidents, even great presidents sometimes.
However, if the main differentiating factor of your favorite candidate is that he had zero experience in politics, it's hard to take that argument seriously.
People considered Bernie Sanders an outsider, and he's been a senator since 2007. Trump isn't an "outsider": he's simply unqualified.
It depends. If you consider political experience (especially extensive political experience) to be a marker of corruption and ingrained hypocrisy, political inexperience can look good by comparison. There seem to be enough people sufficiently cynical these days to see it that way.
That is the sole datapoint a thinking, rational, ethical person needed to know to properly character assess Trump. If you still voted for him, you either liked that sort of blatant Nixon southern strategy 2.0 type of bigotry; or you're dismissive of it as a problematic attribute in a leader for this country.
And sure, Clinton necessarily must have been a fundamentally flawed candidate, hindsight being 20/20, to lose to that. But I put more blame on Democratic and Republican parties for sabotaging the Electoral College with party loyalists. Dead people would have done a better job, randomly selected people likely would have too, and contemplative people even more reliable. The two parties get way more blame from me for this setup to failure, than the people I think are deeply ignorant people in some form of denial for having voted for the Celebrity Chaos Clown.
>If you still voted for him, you either liked that sort of blatant Nixon southern strategy 2.0 type of bigotry; or you're dismissive of it as a problematic attribute in a leader for this country.
Ok, but neither of those are irrational, they are judgements based around premises that are different than yours. You can argue whether those premises are rational, or ill informed or whatever, but then you're basically just wading into the usual swamp of political discourse - these issues haven't been definitively resolved and just dismissing the whole stance out of hand by calling it irrational doesn't get you anywhere. You're effectively just venting.
So he went out of his way to make it clear that he's not referring to individuals when he talks about averages and you still take it personally. What would be good enough for you, short of killing the entire discussion?
His words are in conflict with each other. He's not referring to any given individual, but he is referring to the system that got those individuals into Google, often due to alleged unfair/discriminatory practices. That inherently means he must view at least some of those individuals as unqualified. That's a conflict, and the end result is that some individuals in Google may take it personally (independent of other reactions around identity this evokes). Is that so hard to empathize with?
Also, why you do you accuse me of taking it personally? I do not. I also would never tell anyone they should take it personally. But I can understand why they would, and we know some people have. It seems presumptuous to me that we should tell those most-implicated by this memo dealing with emotionally-charged topics directed toward subgroups they are a part of (that have historically not been treated fairly) that they shouldn't take it personally. That does not mean I think Google will prevail in a lawsuit (which probably won't happen as a settlement seems most likely) based on the publicly-available facts.
Feelings have nothing to do with it. Maybe it is actually the case that some people were given an unfair advantage in the hiring process and don't belong there. The way to examine that possibility is to examine the process and have a discussion about what is fair and proper, not shut down the conversation and exile anyone who brings it up. By the way this is exactly what is happening from the other side: white males are supposed to be unfairly advantaged. I don't hear your side denouncing those sorts of arguments on the basis that it might make some of those white males feel bad to bring up the argument.
Feeling have quite a bit to do with hostile work environments. If you feel that your workplace is intimidating, hostile, or abuse because of your membership in a protected class, that is directly related to determining whether a hostile work environment exists. It's not the only criteria.
> The way to examine that possibility is to examine the process and have a discussion about what is fair and proper, not shut down the conversation and exile anyone who brings it up.
I'm not disagreeing with that at all!
> By the way this is exactly what is happening from the other side: white males are supposed to be unfairly advantaged.
That is the allegation, yes. At Google, it may be true, it may not be true. If you feel white men are disadvantaged because there are no special avenues just for them to find coaches/mentors, etc., then fine. I'd disagree that such things disadvantage white men because they don't need or benefit from those specialized avenues the way minority groups do, but that's a different debate.
If white men are in fact being held to a different standard of job performance for same roles at same levels, then yes, that's unethical and illegal. I would not and do not support that, and have personally (in my real-world job) redefined hiring criteria that did this. I have actual skin in the game here.
> I don't hear your side denouncing those sorts of arguments on the basis that it might make some of those white males feel bad to bring up the argument.
Ah, this is "my side." You've turned this into some sort of culture war. I haven't advocated for this person's firing, and I don't state that it was either the right or wrong thing to do as I'm not close enough to the situation. But because I don't immediately take up the banner for him, I'm on the "other side."
Give me a break. This isn't cut-and-dry stuff. That was my original point, and indeed my first sentence in the thread. It was not "this guy is a sexist/racist and everyone who agrees with him needs to shut up."
So what? I feel an "alienating atmosphere" at snooty high end boutique art galleries where people sip Champagne and talk about the nebulous genius it took for someone to throw feces at a picture of the Madonna, or whatever. They are attracted to each other and to the subject they are interested in. Sometimes you just don't belong, for whatever reason, even if you're totally drawn to the subject. That's life. Grown ups are supposed to learn to cope with it, not whine like children.
No. Grown ups are supposed to solve their problems. Solving the problems of sexual harassment and discrimination is exactly what the industry is trying to do.
If you disagree with the approach, fine. Please suggest a better way to handle the situation. If telling women to cope with it is your sole suggestion, then don't expect very many people to agree with you since women with a passion for engineering should not be driven out simply on the merit of how they were born.
The kind of soft discrimination that you're complaining about is a fact of life. Any industry who's life blood consists of relatively immature young men is going to have this kind of problem. What people like you are proposing is complete upheaval of basic behavioral tendencies to accommodate a few special cases. What exactly do you even want? Are you sure you know? If you want a social work atmosphere full personable people get into sales, tech is not the industry for you. That goes for men, women and everything in between.
