James Damore's labor complaint went over about as well as his trash diversity manifesto Google was well within its rights when it dumped controversial bro-grammer James Damore in mid-2017. This is according to legal advice given to America's National Labor Relations Board by its associate general counsel Jayme Sophir. In a just-released memo to the board, she explained the Chocolate Factory did not break US …
One has to wonder. Damore has a MS in Sociobiology from Harvard, and the Science in his "manifesto" has been backed up by essentially the whole Sociobiology Community. But you'd never know that from The Register's reporting. The Register is just as anti-Science as Trump is in his Climate Change denial, except The Register's position is SJW-snowflake approved.
RE: "Damore has a MS in Sociobiology from Harvard"
Socialist biology scientists are the bollocks, aren't they? Dealing in hard irrefutable facts, and only the facts.Nothing soft or fuzzy with their science. Those guys know what they're on about. See Damore for an example.
Socialist biology scientists are the bollocks, aren't they?
Typical anti-Science name calling , just like a Climate Change denier. And spamming the forum. Just like a typical SJW-snowflake. Can't hold a coherent discussion, because you are offended by facts you don't like, and feelings are more important than truth. So I'll quote an old white guy to really set you off:
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle
> Damore has a MS in Sociobiology from Harvard, and the Science in his "manifesto" has been backed up by essentially the whole Sociobiology Community.
About his degree: good for him. Many people hold graduate degrees. Having a graduate degree is not a license to twat.
But: he didn't get fired because of his degree. He got fired because he is a toxic twat at work.
About his "manifesto" having been backed up by essentially the whole Sociobiology Community: Can you provide a reference for this assertion? As in, a list of all the Sociobiologists that have signed their name in support of Damore's idiocy.
Something tells me you won't be providing this list anytime soon. Because if you did, it would be a really small list.
I can't wait to hear how his Civil Lawsuit goes, now that the NLRB has already established that his firing was appropriate. Which is evidence admissible in Court.
Ta-ta. Love what you did with your hair.
Can you provide a reference for this assertion?
Well, if you actually worked in the Sciences, it would be simple for you to confirm that assertion. But since you don't have a Science education, much less work in the Sciences, I'll provide a popular reference to get you started.
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/
> But since you don't have a Science education, much less work in the Sciences
And you happen to know that.
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/
WOW! Four Scientists! At Quilette!
Hmm, let'see. What is Quilette? It's certainly not the American Journal Of Psychology. But let's inquire.
Quillette is an online magazine founded by Australian writer and former psychology graduate student Claire Lehmann. The publication has a primary focus on science, news, culture, and politics.
Quillette was launched in 2015. The website drew significant public attention on August 7, 2017 after publishing the responses of four scientists (Lee Jussim, David P. Schmitt, Geoffrey Miller, and Debra W. Soh) to James Damore's controversial memo "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber". The website was temporarily shut down by a DDoS attack following publication of the piece.
Sounds very authoritative.
Do you have any references from the National Enquirer? Cause that would be the cherry on top insofar as I'm concerned.
Take it from someone with two post-graduate degrees - namely yours truly: Scienting is not your strong suit.
Quillette ... Sounds very authoritative.
Sounds like science is not your strong suit. Science is not authoritative by nature; it's quantitative. If you're looking for authority, the field you are looking for is academia.
If you want to dispute the validity of the response on Quillette from a scientific perspective, you need to invalidate the premises, methodology, or logic of the response. Attacking the "authority" of the source is not a valid argument against it.
and the Science in his "manifesto" has been backed up by essentially the whole Sociobiology Community
If Sociobiology or whatever this bullshit is called at Harward is backing some of his conjectures like "women are less resistant to stress" it needs ejection out of Harward.
For being utterly unscientific.
If anything women are significantly more resistant to long term recurring stress. No man has managed flying > 900 combat bomber missions in WW2. No man in the allied forces has managed 16 combat bomber sorties in 24h. There are women who did. Similarly, in other countries (not USA) it is women who sit in front of the early warning radar screens. Not men. Day after day after day with their job being the harbinger of WW3. If that is not endurance to stress dunno what is.
There are plenty of other places where his document is complete and utter bullshit.
One comment on the article - while the man is clearly an arsehole and so are most of his supporters we should not drop to his troglodyte level.
I missed one more thing just to stick the final nails into the coffin of this once and for all.
There are women who did and lived to 82 years old after that..
For a comparison basis - my mother's step-father was subjected to a similar level of stress in WW2. He is one of the possibly less than a few hundred submariners in the allied fleet who has fought the whole war from day one to May 1945. He was literally attached to the bottle after that and barely made it into his 60-es. He was not the only one too. All of them ended up with what we would call today PTSD. Similarly the lady I referred to in the previous paragraph was not the only one to have a career after the war and live into her 80-es. PTSD? "Sure, I heard of it, it is for someone else".
So my only thought when someone says something about stress tolerance being lower in women is: "You are so full of shit mate, you need to be carted out on a farmer truck to the place where manure is left to ferment before it is put to good use".
so don't use a single wartime anecdote to rebut a different trend. Outliers exist.
First of all. That "wartime anecdote" happens to be a whole regiment. In fact 3 regiments and members of these hold the top positions in the allied combat sortie numbers table. By a ridiculously large margin. That is one matushka (*) of an outlier (pun intended).
Second, while the actual hiring stats of Russian missile command are classified, I know it first hand that they have women attending the radar screens especially at large stationary installations. I know people who used to work in that outfit personally and they happen to be of the "outlier" gender. How many and what is the ratio - no idea and it is not a question I would ask.
So going back to your outlier statement. Let's take it at face value. This gives us a very entertaining scenario - an outlier and anecdote is being used by one of the two major nuclear powers to determine hiring policy of people directly responsible for data which is used for a launch decision.
Let's continue down this line of reasoning shall we? So it being the outlier, let's say whichever Natashka is in charge of the console of the Voronezh radar at Armavir tonight freaks out as she is incapable of handling stress you know. This is what our favorite troglodyte moron and his SocioBiological baboon troop claim based on "scientific evidence".
If they are right - that is happy glowing in the dark for all of us you know.
The fact that we are not glowing for many years running IMHO proves they are wrong.
(*)The lady I used as an example while holding the one-night record in number of bombing sorties is actually 4th I think in the overall numbers. There are several before her with numbers in the 900+ range
Are the women manning the radar screens, while the men fly the jets and refuel the rockets?
A bit like the women manning the word processors and accounting systems while the men install the engine in the chassis, etc?
A lot of occupations became extraordinarily female-dominant once all the suitable men were sent off as canon fodder. But I guess the stress of having to identify blips and blops on a screen is similar to seeing your mate's head blown off right in front of you. (I really don't know: I've done neither.)
PS your little bit of science failed to control for testosterone, which is shown (by science) to reduce one's lifespan. Science seems to think men produce more testosterone that women. So your 80 year old heroine was always going to outlive (on average) your dear old pa (on average).
"If anything women are significantly more resistant to long term recurring stress."
Please link to the population studies which support this conclusion.
Single anecdotes about individuals do not constitute evidence about entire groups, just as taking the average of a group does not define every member of that group. This was the point being made in the memo. Damore was trying to get Google to treat people as individuals, and stop assuming things about every prospective hire based merely on biological characteristics.
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"Considering that there are plenty of excellent female engineers"
Bat far fewer than male engineers. And virtually all really senior engineers are male.
"it's pretty obvious that any 'scientific' theory which suggests women are not suited to scientific careers gets smashed to pieces against a big wall of reality."
Well no, see above. The percentages of successful women in engineering versus men does at least correlate with the theory that women are less suited.
Well no, see above. The percentages of successful women in engineering versus men does at least correlate with the theory that women are less suited.
Not necessarily, after all it's been a male dominated field for social reasons as well, may take a while for the filter to wear off.
"The percentages of successful women in engineering versus men does at least correlate with the theory that women are less suited."
No. It correlates with the theory that the men who get appointed to the senior posts are less likely to appoint women. And that women are less likely to be appointed to the senior posts that do the appointing of junior posts. A view supported, in part, by the the fact of people posting here who believe that women are intrinsically unsuited to engineering.
The same holds true for ethnic minority appointments. But here there is objective proof available, because of the oft repeated studies that show how applications with an Anglo-Saxon name are more likely to get interviews than those with "ethnic" ( i.e. non Anglo-Saxon) names on the identical CV.
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I don't have issues with San Francisco team when they do proper reporting on IT news.
What I do have issues with is when they start substituting reporting with thinly veiled propaganda and trying misrepresent memo by using terms "trash diversity manifesto", "controversial bro-grammer", "scatterbrain screed", "inflammatory claims" and so on.
If I want to read opinion pieces disguised as journalism Goebbels style I will go to HuffPost.
Don't worry. Other sites exist so you don't have to disturb your sensibilities. Fox news, Breitbart. No SJW nonsense there, though occasionally something does creep through and I have to moan about it being different from my opinions. They never listen to me. I wish the daily stormer was still up, or I knew where it existed in the dark. Life sucks for white middle aged male majorities.
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RE: "Oh, thanks man, I did not know that Fox news and Breitbart are IT news sites, I'll most certainly pay more attention to them from now on."
Oh man, you don't know what you're missing. Their science and technology reporting is second to none. Not even the BBC can do it like they can. Ted Cruz and his illegitimate spiritual offspring Nikolas never miss a word of it.
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In other news. 'The Register' advertising revenues declined as people took their journalists advice and stopped reading them...
Do you really think that many commentards will storm off in a huff because they believe women are more suited to arranging flowers and eating lady crisps than, say, being allowed to have level playing field in STEM careers? The Venn diagram showing the intersect between El Reg and Daily Mail readers is pretty small, you know.
I didn't read the article. Took 2 seconds to see that it was SJW propaganda and outright lies, jumped to the comments, and yup, most readers feel the same way even with all the old readers you've lost - and SJWs you've gained.
You lost me a year or two ago. I've been reading a little this year but I've seen enough. This isn't journalism. You're not informing and you're not changing anyone's mind. All you're doing is driving half of your audience away, to more conservative echo chambers.
For the benefit of the men and women on the Clapham Omnibus..
WTF is SJW?
It's a way of categorising the paranoia level of a post. You simply count the number of times "SJW", "TPTB", "MSM", "RINO" or "cuck" appears in a post to give yourself a comparative score.
(Social Justice Warrior, The Powers That Be, Mainstream Media. Republican In Name Only, Cuckold)
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Damore wasn't an engineering graduate. He studied biology. A subject unlike engineering which in the US is 60%+ female. The thing that damore and his supporters missed is that he was only at Google thanks to diversity policies to open up recruitment from other disciplines than engineering and computing that are 90%+ male.
He then later claimed that Google should have training in place for other staff to learn to accommodate autistic people like him who might occasionally act like arseholes, because they add diversity of thinking. So only positive discrimination for him then eh?
The poor lad clearly doesn't have any sense of irony. Another in a long line of privileged people convinced they earned everything they got, and all their failures are the fault of others.
@NerryTutkins, thank you that explained a great deal of what went wrong and why Damore did what he did. Many people who know those with his sorts of fundamental issues know that while they are not fun the other part of the word after the 'da' can appear to apply in spades. One I know will come out with the most egregious things and be unable to understand that their view of the world may not be shared by others. Once the 'bee is in their bonnet' that is the end of the matter they may not have seen the subject or read an article about the matter but they know instinctively that you are wrong.
Some will never be able to work, some will work for a while then blow up and leave economic activity, while others can sometimes find a niche and thrive. Your quote "all their failures are the fault of others" rings especially true in my experience of several real life examples.
According to the Guardian's article, Damore actually studied computational biology, which appears to be a math/stats-focused major (so, likely more male-dominated) separate from actual biology.
(Note: I'm not ranting at you with the below, just jumping off from your mention of his supposedly being autistic.)
It's also not clear whether he's actually on the autistic spectrum or not. The Guardian claimed he was diagnosed in grad school, but Damore later said first that he was just "likely" autistic, then later that he'd just mistakenly believed that a while ago. AFAICT, his interviews only ever mention 2-3 relevant traits, but they're also found in non-autistics.
All I can say is that while the Guardian was doing Damore a favor by casting him as an innocent underdog, it definitely wasn't doing the non-jerkish majority of autistics a favor by reinforcing the old "auties are geeky arseholes" stereotype. Damore's beliefs & insistence that they're "the truth" are both the result of him being a hardcore MRA Red-Pill Libertarian, not because he's theoretically autistic.
The thing that damore and his supporters missed is that he was only at Google thanks to diversity policies to open up recruitment from other disciplines than engineering and computing that are 90%+ male.
The thing that Damore's detractors missed is that he wasn't anti-diversity. What he was against were some of Google's diversity policies which he saw as ineffective, and in some cases illegal.
NerryTutkins: "Another in a long line of privileged people convinced they earned everything they got, and all their failures are the fault of others."
Richard Jones 1: "his sorts of fundamental issues"
Trilkhai: "Damore's beliefs & insistence that they're "the truth" are both the result of him being a hardcore MRA Red-Pill Libertarian, not because he's theoretically autistic."
Wow! What are the chances that three people who knew Damore personally would appear in a single comment thread on The Register!
"Damore wasn't an engineering graduate."
No, he was a science graduate and anyway engineering degrees are commonly a Batchelor of Science / BSc
"The thing that damore and his supporters missed is that he was only at Google thanks to diversity policies to open up recruitment from other disciplines than engineering and computing that are 90%+ male."
No, technology firms often recruit science graduates. He had a STEM degree. Those policies would have reduced his chance as a white male of being hired.
No he didn't. Why is this lie still being spread?
He started from the point of view that the current state is optimal in terms of outcomes for Google and then sought to construct reasons justifying it - the principle reason being that women were not genetically predisposed to hack it in the hot house of male competitiveness.
What he did not do is offer any evidence that the current state was optimal, he just took it for granted that he could not be part of a suboptimal system. He offered no evidence that the outcomes for Google were better or worse as a result of their diversity policies, he just assumed that the candidates being hired under that policy were inherently inferior.
He said I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. - an unqualified statement that makes no reference to whether such a change would have better or worse outcomes for Google, he simply assumes that the result will be worse.
Indeed, it's not clear that he understands what outcomes actually count. He says those willing to work extra hours or take extra stress will inevitably get ahead - by which he means mostly men. Yet that pretty much defines the kind of employee you don't want: the stressed low-productivity presentee.
Now, I suspect that Google is sufficiently chaotic in its hiring and its management that it doesn't have any useful metric for outcomes - they produce too much that they throw away. And if Google don't have those statistics, Damore has none.That leaves the value of their former hiring policy as moot as their more recent policy and Damore's belief in the inevitability of gender imabalance is simply post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It's hard to view an argument based on no evidence that is basically "engineering has always been done this way by tough men and touchy-feely women are repelled by it" as anything other than "women's brains are just not inherently suited to engineering jobs" if you're also asserting those jobs cannot be done differently.
He started from the point of view that the current state is optimal in terms of outcomes for Google
No, he didn't. He was putting forth his opinion that the "current state" of Google's hiring practises were not optimal in terms of outcomes for Google, and gave logical, statistical, and scientifically-backed reasoning to support this position.
The tech industry has had decades of growth, profit, and innovation to show for its male-dominated culture. Google has a multi-billion-dollar multi-national mega-corporation to show for its male-dominated culture. So where is the comparable evidence that gender diversity would produce even better results than that? It seems to me that it's those who seek equal gender representation are the ones making assumptions.
The tech industry has had decades of growth, profit, and innovation to show for its male-dominated culture.
Thank you for providing a stellar example of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.
So where is the comparable evidence that gender diversity would produce even better results than that?
First of, you haven't provided evidence that those results are causally linked to the lack of diversity; you've only shown correlation. Second, take a look at this: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity
McKinsey delivers what clients ask for. It might sometime also be true. If it is politically useful to claim a commitment to diversity, there's a report for that. Obviously there is no call for an alternate report in the current climate.
Provide evidence invalidating their work. Don't simply attack them and assume that that means their work is invalid. That's not how logic works.
@Steve Knox
"Provide evidence?" That's not how shitposting works. You dropped a pseudoscience link as "evidence" in lieu of making a sound argument yourself, and AC called bullshit on you.
You say this McKinsey research proves that diversity makes companies more profitable. In their own words, it only shows correlation. A deeper study may show that companies become profitable, then corporate culture sets in and they start checking off boxes like "diversity", and the company goes to shit but remains profitable for another decade or more thanks to its monopoly position. That's Google to a T.
"He said I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. - an unqualified statement that makes no reference to whether such a change would have better or worse outcomes for Google, he simply assumes that the result will be worse."
Well, it WILL be worse for the qualified folk who are overlooked in favour of a lesser qualified person who helps google meet a quota.
If the Register publishes the truth of what he said, then Antifa terrorists* will storm their offices, burn their dogs and nail their left feet to the floor.
If they report an agreeable lie, it will be debunked over and over in the comments and their website still contains the truth, albeit at enough of a distance that they can convince the terrorists that it wasn't them.
(*Under Obama the DHS and FBI determined that Antifa are domestic terrorists under the label of "anarchist extremists" - picture Rick from The Young Ones with a baseball bat)
IMHO anyone who publicly publishes anything deserves the consequences. And anyone stupid enough to publish something , for no good reason, that will adversely affect their own career deserves all they get.
i.e. What he thinks probably matters little. What he publishes matters more. That he published matters most.
> IMHO anyone who publicly publishes anything deserves the consequences. And anyone stupid enough to publish something , for no good reason, that will adversely affect their own career deserves all they get.
i.e. What he thinks probably matters little. What he publishes matters more. That he published matters most.
What the actual fuck? should I hound you for publishing such a stupid comment? Would you 'deserve all you get'?
> Well, since my comment doesn't stigmatise or offend any particular group ( except maybe the incautious) you would (did) just prove yourself rather stupid to have a go at me on that basis.
Re-read your comment. You suggest that anyone who publishes anything should prepare to have their career ended. You published that comment
No, you reread it. And reread your own comment. There is no logic to your comment. Consequences do not have to be negative or significant. But if you do choose to go public with a comment then you do deserve the consequences. You choose to go public. A positive statement that supports your employer, or is non-controversial is not going to damage your career. The point being that ( and to be fair the person in the article didn't actually intend it it be made public, which is by and by in terms of your comment) if you do choose to make an incautious public statement that is not in the interest of your employer as they see it, it is your lack of foresight about how this could affect your future, rather more than the substance of the comment, that suggests that you shouldn't be in a responsible job. It's about making choices. To go public or not, and accept the consequences if you do.
If you choose to make the point as a matter of principle then you must accept your martyrdom and you have my utmost respect.
If you choose to go public it's your judgement of the value and risks that is under question. If your choice is " (I'll) Publish and be damned" and it's worth it you are a hero and/or a martyr. If it's "Ooh, I didn't see that coming" then your judgement failed you. And poor judgement is an issue in its own right. Whatever the substantive issue is that upsets your employer might be you are still responsible for the decision you make. Including knowing what might be controversial or offensive. And yes, to be fair this guy was let down by a colleague, which should be a cast iron defence.
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So what consequences do you deserve for publishing that comment?
Criticism. Disagreement. If logical and well grounded that's part of normal discussion. Even downvotes. I can take it. I'm an adult.
Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, this is a comment and discussion forum . It really doesn't matter a monkey's what I (or you) think to anyone outside of these columns. Though judging by the tenor of the comments, it matters a lot to some of the commentards in here.
It would be very surprising if anyone here was adversely affected by a comment they make ( and if they don't make it AC if they're potentially identifiable from their details and display name then they would, yes, deserve the real world consequences).
'…fellow Googler reading: "You're a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you."
That employee was given a "final warning" from Google bosses, we're told.'
Damore is fired for writing a carefully argued statistical paper. The other person is allowed to stay despite an offensive rant. That is what happens when political correctness is allowed to trump rational argument.
Whatever science he was using did very little to support his conclusion that Google should stop giving their employees training against discrimination.
To begin with, the biology argument he uses, even assuming it helps explaining the disparity between men and women in engineering, does not magically mean that discrimination does not exist. And then, it does absolutely nothing to explain why black people are so rare in engineering.
And then, it does absolutely nothing to explain why black people are so rare in engineering.
Quite obviously because they choose to be.
There is not one single avenue to education, in Europe at least, that discriminates against black people becoming engineers. There's nothing against oriental folk ..... or hispanic, etc. And there's nothing in favour of white people there either. Loans for education or free education, are available to all irrespective of skin colour.
If some predominantly white continents, such as Europe & North America, prioritise higher education more than predominantly black continents, such Africa, you may get a racial disparity in educated professions. I doubt that is the key reason here, which is why I suggest it is because they choose other professions, because I meet a lot of black people that have chosen the medical profession rather than engineering, IT, legal, or accountancy.
Why are there fewer women in IT? Because fewer of them choose to continue their education in the subject than do men. Nothing, certainly not 'positive' discrimination, will do anything to redress a perceived or actual problematic imbalance until the education component is first addressed. Hiring someone because of their gender or race over a better educated candidate with more experience is the height of stupidity. If you're not capable of hiring the best person before you because of your own racism or mysoginy then you shouldn't be hiring people at all. So far this year none of the candidates I've recommended hiring have been white men, but that's not because I'm trying to tick diveristy criteria, it's just because the best candidates that applied this round weren't white guys. Go figure.
You want to level the numbers, then make IT compulsory up to at least GCSE level. Real IT, not a word processing course - programming, devops, networks etc.
Damore is fired for writing a carefully argued statistical paper.
Damore wrote a set of opinions and associated them with a random selection of what he asserted were facts. However, there are few actual statistics in his paper (there's one about 93% of work-related deaths being of males and another asserting that 95% of humanities and social sciences lean left) and none is actually relevant to his argument (workplace death is not a common problem in IT and he isn't suggesting that HR departments are entirely staffed by social science graduates) .He makes a number of assertions about male vs female characteristics but fails entirely to correlate those characteristics with the tasks staff are required to perform, so they're irrelevant too, regardless of whether they may be true or false. He also has a few links to disputed evidence of bias against men. The only statistical argument I can detect in it is that correlation actually is causation as that seems to be how he explains the present gender balance.
So no, it wasn't anything like a carefully-argued statistical paper and would have been a fail grade if it had been an assignment.
But, I agree that in an "employment at will" situation, I can't seen why "Fuck you" man wasn't fired.
Ok, great. He was out of his depth. I still don't see why the SJW rabble went on an all-out assault to destroy him. That Google campus sounds like a terrifying place to work, I'd be afraid to talk to anyone about anything not work related. I can picture myself being crucified for trying to 'bum a fag' (ask for a cigarette)
He was out of his depth
Having got out of his depth, he dug himself in further by trying to make out his "conservative" facts were being undermined by some sort of liberal conspiracy. You don't get some special status for your argument by pretending it is somehow protected political speech. You can't negate arguments against misogyny simply by calling it "conservative values" any more than you can those against lynching by calling it "traditional justice" . I really don't know how that affected his working relationships with his colleagues, but I can see it might not have gone down too well.
I can picture myself being crucified for trying to 'bum a fag'
You don't have to: see Rule 34.
> You don't get some special status for your argument by pretending it is somehow protected political speech
Not to mention that: In the US there is no constitutionally protected political speech at work.
If someone working at Google is stupid enough to write a memo postulating that men are better than women at doing Google things therefore Google should only hire men, Google is perfectly within its rights to fire that jackass.
Google did not hire Damore to opine about Google's hiring or diversity policies.
>They literally asked for feedback on their diversity and hiring policies following a training session.
"I want someone to tell me", Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched to them all prayerfully. "If any of it is my fault, I want to be told."
"He wants someone to tell him," Clevinger said.
"He wants everyone to keep still, idiot," Yossarian answered.
"Didn't you hear him?" Clevinger argued.
"I heard him," Yossarian replied. "I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what's good for us."
"I won't punish you", Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore.
"He says he won't punish me", said Clevinger.
"He'll castrate you," said Yosarrian.
"I swear I won't punish you," said Lieutenant Scheisskopf. "I'll be grateful to the man who tells me the truth."
"He'll hate you", said Yossarian. "To his dying day he'll hate you."
The plural of anecdote is not data. And you don't even have two anecdotes there.
This is just a comment that you don't trump a paper that has a semblence of scientific thought (true or not) by citing one person as proof that a group of individuals have that property, otherwise I can say 'men are smarter than women, proof Stephen Hawking'. It just doesn't wash. Debunking a claim with utter specious bollocks makes people more likely to believe the claim, whether or not it's true. They think 'if that's the best you have to refute him, he might well be onto something'. That's a bullshit argument as well, but it's how people think.
Under Feral employment law, there was no case as the issue for the firing is not a feral no-no. State law in some cases has broader protections against summary firings. CA law is often broader than the feral law. So Chocolate Factory has won the easy round but the next round may be much tougher (need to CA law on this point).
All the hyperventilating about the feral rejection is a nothing burger. If you knew the feral requirements this case never met any other than a slight chance of a disability (Autism) which was rather doubtful.
A point to consider, Chocolate Factory's handling was rather incompetent and might leave them open to other types of lawsuits which might also stick.
"Therefore, the employer did not violate Se3ction 8(a)(1) of the act" ref
Jayme Sophirs advice to the board was incorrect:
8(a)(1): "you may not .. Threaten employees with adverse consequences if they engage in protected, concerted activity. (Activity is "concerted" if it is engaged in with or on the authority of other employees"
Damore was invited to contribute his views to an internal Google discussion forum. The moderator of which subsequently leaked the memo to the Internet and got him fired. A clearer example couldn't have been made that there is indeed an atmosphere of intolerance at google for those still holding hetero-normative views. There is however room for furries and yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin. What this 'controversial' issue is really about is that Damore was hounded out of Google for being white, male, heterosexual and conservative.
ps: to the editors: the general tone of that article is offensive and unprofessional and it does lower the tone of the place.
Damore was invited to contribute his views to an internal Google discussion forum. The moderator of which subsequently leaked the memo to the Internet and got him fired.
I'm no sure how you came to believe this, but that's absolutely not what happened. Nobody asked him to write that memo. He wrote it on his own, over multiple weeks, asking for feedback to other people who tried to make him tone down some of the most outrageous claims. It eventually went viral in the company, and a random employee leaked it to the internet.
"I'm no sure how you came to believe this"
it's not a matter of what I believe. Damore was invited to attend some diversity programme and subsequently engaged with dialog with certain attendees through a restricted internal discussiion board. And Damore wrote the memo through a twelve hour flight to China. Unlike certain internal commentators, Damore did not call for a “moratorium on hiring white cis heterosexual abled men who aren’t abuse survivors.” and other such lunacy. Such as an entity who self identifies as a ‘yellow-scale wingless dragonkin’, an ‘expansive ornate building’ and a 'plural being’. But here through the magic of the Internet we can make our own minds up:
Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber
“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.”
Damore was invited to attend some diversity programme and subsequently engaged with dialog with certain attendees through a restricted internal discussiion board. And Damore wrote the memo through a twelve hour flight to China.
Damore sent his memo to an internal mailing list open to all Google employees. People politely disagreed with him, and nothing happened.
Four weeks later, he sent it to another internal mailing list that was more widely followed; and then his document went viral internally. After a few days, somebody leaked it, and then it went viral externally. He was fired a few days later.
This post has been deleted by its author
Seem to fit the reported Google culture quite nicely.
Regardless of science (not that any commentards seem to have summoned any) two things seem obvious.
(1) Damore was hounded out at least partly as a result of the malicious publication of an internal discussion. If the paper was grounds for dismissal it should have been passed to management for action. Instead it was leaked with the intent of punishing and publicly humiliating Damore. Despite this the perpetrator was not fired. I do not believe whistleblower protection applies in this case.
(2) The culture as exposed is very probably not attractive to or supportive of intelligent, balanced and motivated women. Whatever his chain of logic he nailed that one.
Oh, and is the term "ad hominem" gender sensitive?
Oh, and don't email anyone anything you wouldn't want to see in the evening news and/or court.
Despite this the perpetrator was not fired
You don't know that. Firings are generally kept secret by all parties. The reason we know about Damore is because nobody bothered to hide something so obvious.
Leaking internal documents and discussions is generally grounds for immediate dismissal. Leakers are fired much faster than Damore was, considering his document was viral inside the company for many days before someone leaked it, and he was fired days afterwards.
If the Google leadership ever figured out who the leaker was, it's absolutely certain that they fired him (or her). Indeed, Google's reputation was far more damaged by the leak than by the document being written in the first place.
In a slightly different approach, this article contains numerous statements that are manifestly untrue and provable so in court. In particular, they can be proven false to the point that no reasonably diligent reporter could reasonably consider them to be true. In England he would have a pretty open and shut case for libel.
I am seriously disappointed in the Register as they normally take a stance of trying to present the truth. I won't join in with the general mudslinging except to say that I would love to find some anti-Damore article that actually presents actual evidence as after many hours of searching I have been unable to find even a single one. Since his memo is actually available it would be perfectly feasible for someone to point out any of his statements that is, in context, incorrect but nobody has bothered to do so.
All those attacking him are doing a serious disservice to their supposed objective of reducing discrimination as they are insisting that as a society we must ignore the real problems and focus on issues which are either largely resolved or barely ever existed. The current action against Google for discrimination against women is a symptom of this problem. If you ignore the real reasons that men end up getting paid more than women then you end up not doing anything about it.
It's all rather depressing, and I'm pretty disappointed with The Register's coverage of it.
I've been too lazy to read his memo. So I've no idea how much sense it makes overall. However I've seen enough large chunks of it quoted - that it seems unlikely that he was just firing off a hate-filled screed. And it doesn't appear on the surface that his motive was malice or trolling.
So even if someone finds his views offensive - I would expect them to have the decency to approach this as something to discuss - rather than just launching the witch-hunt.
That's partisan polics for you. Bringing out all the unhelpful people, who enjoy the heat of a good shouty debate, and the mudslinging. Rather than addressing the actual issues.
There seems to be a modern trend in politics to try to de-legitimise the other side's point of view, rather than actually debate the issues. It's always happened of course, but the temperature seems to have been turned up of late. You see it over Brexit for example. You have the pro-EU people are traitors EUSSR idiots, and then you have the over-the-top remainer types who claim that they can't think of a single argument for leaving. And they do enjoy a nice old barney online - despite the fact that both sides are turning off neutrals with every post.
If there has been Russian interference in recent elections (it's looking increasingly likely) it does appear to be more about encouraging those extreme positions, more than supporting particular candidates. In order to discredit democracy and open debate. Putin's circle know their system is shit, they've no ideology to fall back on, and they know they're criminals. There's not much in the way of a postive case to make for their system, so much better to attack the other system and try to make a false equivalence between theirs and the many failures of democracy.
Finally we come to El Reg. Who I'm fucking disappointed with. Snark I can take. Snark I like. Aim it at companies please. Even at individuals if they deserve it. So funny stories about Aussies getting caught by the fuzz having 90mph blow-jobs is all grist for the mill. Or the other bootnotes stuff. And abusing powerful individuals who deserve it - again fine. Especially the ones that found Uber or Groupon. But unless they want to produce an article that dissects his piece and convincingly shows it to have been written from a position of malice or trolling - then can we please not revel in some blokes career and life going down the toilet as he gets publicly sacked and vilified by a giant lynch mob. This isn't edifying.
Tear down his arguments by all means. But don't tear down individuals who appear to have been accidentally caught up in a massive public shit-storm. If he'd published, then even if unfair, you could at least argue that he asked for it. He didn't, so he didn't.
Oh and dial down the fucking sanctimony everybody. Please.
I'm reminded of something, someone supposedly "offensive" and "shocking" said about this kind of thing once:
"How can you ban language, words? How're words offensive? And why should I have to tolerate your interpretation? I'm the one using the word. Ask me how I'm using it, don't tell me. And if you don't like the way I'm using it, so what? It's my right. It's my freedom of expression. Without that, we're nothing but slaves. My language, now fuck off!!!
In other words, if you don't like someone's message, ask them what they mean, don't just delegitimize them for their argument.
Oh and I'll buy whoever correctly identifies the author a six pack.
'the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected.' Which does not address the only really important question, which is ' Were his statements true?' If the answer is yes, then it does not matter that someone's feelings may have been hurt - tough, get used to the truth!
Accusing someone of sexual harassment for stating industry held analysis is not an argument, it is outrageous. In fact there was not a single hint of an argument or rebuttal to the facts in the whole opinion. It did however contradict itself at least once. There was a lot of statements about what they thought James was thinking, contrary to what he says on the issue, so I guess those putting it together were mind readers; perhaps the CIA can have some use for them? That my go to site on all things IT allows such a ridiculous commentary from a few of its representatives is just sad.
Men who are passionate about Sociobiology, and climate change deniers. We can then think about adding an extra circle to the Venn diagram: Men in both sets who also think Sociobiology, climate change and Venn diagrams are too much for the pretty little heads of the women. I'm guessing that'll big the big, outer circle. Then we start to think about the men in all three sets who also aren't getting any, and how many of those are really pissed off at The Last Jedi with all its strong female roles.
BTW, when will one of these bloody spell checkers include Sociobiology as standard? They include Biology. They include Chemistry. They include Physics. They include Phrenology. Why not Sociobiology?
A Venn of SJW men and soy drinkers.
And, of course, a Venn of liberal men and sexual harassment accused.
A Venn of the statements Trump makes on border protection, and the comments made by Democrats about border protection prior to the advent of Trump as a candidate.
Oh, look, here's a handy video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqaCRzKQmbg
What everyone is ignoring is it doesn't matter if you agree with damore's science. The issue is that it IS science. It's backed by good quality research, even if you prefer some other supposedly better research. If quoting well researched science is now potentially illegal, this opens the floodgates to all manner of abuse.
The issue is that it IS science. It's backed by good quality research, even if you prefer some other supposedly better research.
If your good quality research is contradicted by other good quality research, you're not doing science. Ahem.
That said, no matter how good the science is, it doesn't support Damore's own conclusion that discrimination doesn't exist.
@xpusostomos: Let's try this again; the mods deleted my first reply to you, and I feel very strongly about this.
In short, you won't convince Postmodernists by appealing to Science. To them it's just another subjective viewpoint. Their truth trumps the truth. It's all a big shouting match to them - which they can only win through peer pressure and censorship in "their reality" of social media and forums.
If you value scientific freedom, leave science out of the culture wars.
@ratfox: No, Damore's memo didn't say discrimination isn't a problem.
No, Damore's memo didn't say discrimination isn't a problem.
Oh really? Then why all the biological argument to explain disparities in engineering? What would be the point, if anyway he agreed that women and black people are discriminated against, and that it is a problem?
He was trying to show that the anti-discrimination training at Google was unnecessary, and to support this assertion, he claimed that the differences where due to biological differences rather than discrimination.
The whole biological argument that made people scream so much is irrelevant unless it implies that discrimination is not a problem.
Quoting from Damore's memo:
"Differences in distributions of traits between men and women 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."
"I hope it’s clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad"
He goes on to suggest "Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap" - by accommodating women's biological differences!
The rest of it is a (polite) rant against the SJW cult of Google. Dear God, it sounds like a horrible place to work! He was lucky to get fired before wasting another day of his life there.
Today it has became dangerous to express one's views openly if the views don't fit the narrative of politically correct fascists who for some reason call themselves "liberals".
The self righteous internet mob will attack you via your employer demanding you to be fired because they did not like something you dared to say.
To some of the commentards here:
Do you really have such low opinion of your mothers, wives/girlfriends, sisters, daughters?
Do you see them only good enough to make your dinner, wash your dirty underwear, give birth to you (mothers), have sex with when it suits you even if they said 'please, not tonight' (wives/girlfriends)?
What kind of human beings are you?
I'm taking no sides in this argument. I'm too lazy to have done the research to have an opinion.
But if you want to accuse people of that level of sexism, you need to say who you're accusing and state how you know they hold such opinions. I've seen a bunch of posts I don't agree with, on both sides, but not noticed one that expresses the view that women are only fit for washing cooking and cleaning. If there is one, reply to it with your complaint.
If not, you're part of the problem. Another person taking an extreme position and trying to win the moral high-ground without confronting the issues.
Seeing as you didn't ask me, I'll tell you what those issues are:
1. Has Danone been unfairly hounded out of his job - and possibly had his current life and future career prospects ruined? Is he some evil sexist bastard, or just someone who's got out of his depth and is now being shat upon from a great height by people who love the sounds of their own voices and couldn't give a fuck if they destroy someone's life doing it?
2. The discussion about sexual discrimination. Obviously this is actually the more important matter to society - but if people are going to use someone's life as a way to launch that discussion then they have a duty to be careful about it.
3. You can't get on your high horse and claim to be the more moral, caring person, if you're destroying someone's life in the process without justification.
Do you really have such low opinion of your mothers, wives/girlfriends, sisters, daughters?
Not in the slightest. But I'm also not going to force my daughter to become a programmer to fulfill someone elses half baked notion of fairness.
If she chooses a career in technology then I'll support that and aid it as much as I am able, which will be rather a lot.
If she chooses a career in medicine, I'll support that and aid it as much as I am able, which will not be a lot.
If she chooses a career as an artist or musician, then her mother will be furious.
It's not my choice to control what my daughter chooses as a profession. And it certainly isn't yours. Whatever she does she'll be more than capable of standing on her own two feet and not relying on some artificial quota or selection list. Why on earth would she need such things?
Far easier to dress her in pink and give her puppies to play with?
She likes pink. And blue. And green. etc So pink is verbotten why, exactly? And who doesn't like puppies?
She plays with whatever toys she chooses - I usually let her pick her toys when we buy them. There's no point in my insisting she play scalextric just because daddy wants to. It's not like I grew up envisionining a future where I play teddy bears picnic, but as she's 5, its more important that we play what she wants than what I want.
She'll code, when she's old enough. If only to give her fall back options in case her chosen career doesn't work out. She'll service her own car. And she'll kick ass in self defence. These things are far more important to me than what colour she chooses to wear this month, or what toy she plays with.
Sorry, but its her life and her happiness is so much more important than your demented social engineering experiment. You'll understand that when you grow up. And you'll understand why.
My sister is furious that her daughter likes pink frilly things.
I've not given up on using pink frillies to convince her to take over the world with a giant robot. I mean that's what uncles are for, right?
If gender differences give me some cues how to elevate my niece to high empress of you all then I will take it and you can all bow down like the peons you are.
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