Google Employee's Memo: "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber", Goes Internally Viral - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52552518] Also holy fuck this comment [T]https://puu.sh/x59bV/b9df552694.png[/T] "One side is always more right and things being up for debate is disturbing". Words fail me.[/QUOTE] The fact you're going off on people for not reading this long essay, and then yourself fail to correctly read three sentences is painfully amusing. That quote does not say "One side is [b]always[/b] right." It says, quite clearly (literally the first word), "[b]Sometimes[/b] one side is [b]more[/b] right." This is unquestionably true. If one side said that the Earth is (roughly) a sphere floating in space and orbits around the sun, and another side said that the Earth is a double-helix (HAH! You expected "flat", didn't you?) and it orbits a giant elephant, then it is unquestionably the case that the first side is more right than the other. Continue on with this quote that you failed to read, the notion that "[b]everything[/b] is up for debate is disturbing", that is a natural consequence of the fact the first statement depends on [b]sometimes[/b], and not "always" like you asserted it is. Again, taking my example of sphere-earth-around-sun and double-helix-earth-around-elephant, indulging that second side by saying "Well maybe we can debate this" is blatant intellectual dishonesty. No, you can [b]not[/b] debate that the Earth is a double-helix orbiting an elephant. That is an objective, unquestionable falsehood. It is not true. Period. End of statement. If there were a trend that posited that you should debate such an absurdly and obviously false statement, then that trend would, indeed, be disturbing. [b]Highly[/b] disturbing, because it posits that there is no such thing as solid objectivity and that everything is subjective and up for interpretation, and thus by extension, debate. And that is unequivocally not true.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;52552577]You may want to consider elaborating on that.[/QUOTE] He is probably referring to [url=http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html]an article where it was revealed that Asian students have a harder time getting accepted into universities because of their race[/url]: [quote=LA Times]Lee's next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant's race is worth. She points to the first column. Asian Americans would lose out under affirmative action African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says. She points to the second column. “Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.” The last column draws gasps. [B]Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission. “Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.[/B][/quote] [quote]That perspective has pitted them against advocates for diversity: More college berths for Asian American students mean fewer for black and Latino students, who are statistically underrepresented at top universities. But in the San Gabriel Valley's hyper-competitive ethnic Asian communities, arguments for diversity can sometimes fall on deaf ears. For immigrant parents raised in Asia's all-or-nothing test cultures, a good education is not just a measure of success — it's a matter of survival. They see academic achievement as a moral virtue, and families organize their lives around their child's education, moving to the best school districts and paying for tutoring and tennis lessons. An acceptance letter from a prestigious college is often the only acceptable return on an investment that stretches over decades.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52549832]No but this part does: I want to stress that I'm not calling this dude a bigot, merely that I think some of what he's expressed in the memo is bigoted. I think the section that I'm quoting this from is why google gave him the axe moreso than anything else he wrote.[/QUOTE] why does that part seem bigoted to you?

[QUOTE=catbarf;52550956]He said science shows men are typically better at systems-focused tasks like programming and that a policy of forced diversity was leading to underqualified people being hired. Whether it's scientifically accurate or not, it's publicly questioning the qualifications of all his female co-workers by outright stating that some of them don't deserve to be there. Like I said before, that's practically a textbook example of creating a hostile workplace environment. The people who think it's unfair for him to get fired because he deserves to be 'rationally debated' aren't thinking in the context of a workplace, where an employee's freedom of opinion [I]always[/I] comes secondary to protecting the legal safety and functional cohesion of the company, both of which are directly undermined by this manifesto. If he had raised these concerns in private with his management and then been fired, then I would absolutely call that silencing ideological dissent or however you want to phrase it, because in that case it would actually just have been a matter of personal opinion with no other ramifications. But when it became public and visible to all employees of the company as well as the general public, it became a problem for the company.[/QUOTE] if you're questioning the hiring practices of a company then by definition you're questioning whether some people deserve to be there. "safety and cohesion" while ignoring blatant discrimination within google and its management that's a much bigger threat than a single guy (arguing rather reasonably and with extreme restraint) pointing this out in a memo that gets leaked the guy was bringing up cases of prima facie illegal internal discriminatory practices within google though, and it's actually illegal for the company to fire him for complaining about discrimination

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52552518]Show me where he made that claim. [/QUOTE] Sure. [quote]Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate[/quote] He's literally saying women are being hired [I]because they are women[/I] when they would otherwise have failed to meet the required qualifications and been rejected. Since nobody at the company is wearing a label saying 'Hi I'm an affirmative action hire', it implicitly puts scrutiny on every female employee. Any female employee who worked with him would have to wonder to themselves: Does he respect my ability, or does he think I don't deserve to be here? That's the start of a hostile workplace. He may not have meant it as an attack on their competence, but it's very easy to read that way. And yes, this is a legitimate issue that companies face and needs to be addressed, especially in other contexts. If a boss is hiring friends and family members that aren't qualified for the job, obviously questioning the practice is going to implicitly involve outright stating that some people don't deserve to be there. But the key is that if you do that, you raise those concerns with stakeholders directly. That way they can take your opinion under advisement and determine how they want to proceed. If they reject your advice, you can still work with those potentially-underqualified people and keep your opinions to yourself. Once you air those allegations publicly, chances are you will no longer be able to work effectively with people who think you think they shouldn't be there. So now you've forced the company to choose between you or [I]everyone in the group you called out[/I], and chances are they're not going to choose you. If you have a problem with hiring practices, tell senior leadership, not the entire workforce. If you believe a practice is discriminatory, take it up with HR, not the entire workforce. If you believe illegal conduct is occurring and management and HR aren't taking you seriously, take it up with the Department of Labor and not the entire workforce unless you are [i]damned[/i] sure that you will be protected by relevant labor laws.

[quote]Like, no, it's not about [b]quashing ideological dissent[/b], it's that the employee is creating an overtly hostile work environment for a protected class of co-workers, and if the company doesn't get rid of him ASAP then they're [b]opening themselves up to a lawsuit.[/b][/quote] One directly flows from another. Any internal ideological battle is reflective of an external one. Companies only kowtow to left wing opinions because it affects their bottom lines through legal and social means like public shaming. The latter is only effective as the balance between left and right changes, as it has rapidly since the end of the cold war and as we leave behind what we knew as modernity. Google is just mirroring a method of social control which the employee was speaking out against, it of course has no choice in the matter. It's a top-down thing, and even a company as large as Google can be middleman. This trend is ironically an argument for homogeneity, not diversity, since it's clear one side must win out for there to be some sort of peace. This is bad because what comes when you give up on pushing for a 'diversity of opinion' middle ground is fighting progressives, not talking to them. I think we can all imagine of what fighting the left over power looks like, what happens when the right starts giving up liberal principles because their enemy doesn't believe respect them. It's not pretty and it's a sign of an unhealthy democracy. The intersection of cultural battles/ideological warfare and employment is a plague of modern society. It makes these things impact the lives of people in a way that hits way too close to home, since it's their livelihood.

[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;52552605]why does that part seem bigoted to you?[/QUOTE] I would but catbarf just explained it better than I could

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;52552577]You may want to consider elaborating on that.[/QUOTE] I'm just gonna link stuff. Fangz link is another example of it. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority#Effects_of_the_stereotype[/url] [url]https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/professional-burdens-model-minority-asian-americans/485492/[/url] [url]http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/14/news/economy/asian-americans-disadvantage/index.html[/url] [url]http://asianjournal.com/news/behind-the-model-minority-myth-the-asian-disadvantage/[/url] [url]http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/02/asian-whitewashing-in-hollywood-ghost-in-the-shell-the-great-wall[/url] [url]https://hbr.org/2016/12/why-arent-there-more-asian-americans-in-leadership-positions[/url] [url]http://www.npr.org/2015/05/17/407478606/often-employees-rarely-ceos-challenges-asian-americans-face-in-tech[/url] and it goes on and on.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52552861]I would but catbarf just explained it better than I could[/QUOTE] he explained why the employee's grieviences over hiring practices could be seen as bigoted, but not the specific quote [quote]Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing). These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.[/quote] which you mentioned in your post is bigoted. nothing about this seems bigoted to me, rather assertions of generalities based on research.

[QUOTE=Conscript;52552841]One directly flows from another. Any internal ideological battle is reflective of an external one. Companies only kowtow to left wing opinions because it affects their bottom lines through legal and social means like public shaming. The latter is only effective as the balance between left and right changes, as it has rapidly since the end of the cold war and as we leave behind what we knew as modernity. [/QUOTE] You are trying way too hard to contextualize this in your ever-grander narrative about how the left has eroded Western Civilization. There is nothing to indicate that they "kowtowed" to left wing opinions by firing the person, they probably just thought he wasn't worth the risk of a lawsuit from someone who felt like they might have a case against him based on bias or discrimination, a case that becomes a lot easier to win when you have a 10 page manifesto where the tacit implication that he believes that some of the people (but women in particular) in his work place aren't qualified to be there. Hell if you want to talk about historical context I'd imagine this memo would be a lot more controversial in the 60's, 70's, or even 80's, when the various womens rights movements were in full swing. [QUOTE=Conscript;52552841]Google is just mirroring a method of social control which the employee was speaking out against, it of course has no choice in the matter. It's a top-down thing, and even a company as large as Google can be middleman. This trend is ironically an argument for homogeneity, not diversity, since it's clear one side must win out for there to be some sort of peace. This is bad because what comes when you give up on pushing for a 'diversity of opinion' middle ground is fighting progressives, not talking to them. I think we can all imagine of what fighting the left over power looks like, what happens when the right starts giving up liberal principles because their enemy doesn't believe respect them. It's not pretty and it's a sign of an unhealthy democracy.[/QUOTE] I mean, if you are going to make this an argument over what the left and right fight for power over I'm all for that. As far as I can tell the hard left has control over a handful of universities, a handful of media outlets, and supposedly runs Google as an ideological echo chamber that doesn't accept diversity of opinion. Where as the right has institutional power in the country right now. While you are talking about one guy being cut loose from Google and Trilby Harlow is literally shaking over an internet comment Trump and the Republican party are playing games with the lives of tens of millions of people. If you want to get even more abstract and talk about their refusal to recognize climate change like every other conservative party outside of the UK then you start talking about billions of people. There is a huge illiberal movement in the United States, one with institutional power, but you seem deadset on focusing on the most inconsequential shit while either outright defending the rights erosion of democracy and liberalism, or just casually ignoring it. [QUOTE=Conscript;52552841]The intersection of cultural battles/ideological warfare and employment is a plague of modern society. It makes these things impact the lives of people in a way that hits way too close to home, since it's their livelihood.[/QUOTE] Call me old fashioned but if a company feels like an employee costs more than his worth then it's okay to cut them loose. You call it a plague, but I think forcing an employer to keep hold of someone who is at best demoralizing the people around him (resulting in lost productivity) or at worse outright working against the interests of your company is even worse.

And Goodwill from me vanished, reports of him interviewing stefen Molyneux which as the Alt-right I've come to find doesn't value free speech.

Fuck Gizmodo for stripping his sources, what the hell. That and the way they framed the memo is so disgustingly shady. That's got to be against some code of ethics. I agree with everything he says, but unfortunately I believe he was justifiably fired. Employers don't have to be fair to employees in these instances - his memo leaked, he's a liability to their image, other coworkers are gonna feel like its a hostile work environment (even though nothing objectively hostile was stated and every point he made was factually correct if you read the sources from the full document), and regardless of how right he is he's no longer worth the trouble. He ideally should have brought this up with upper management but I'm guessing he tried that and it went nowhere as shown from corporates's response. At this point he's basically sacrificed his job to get his point across and the news media is already twisting it to be anti-diversity and bigoted. All I can hope for is that eventually people will understand his real points and not brush it off as sexist.

[QUOTE=OmniConsUme;52553694]And Goodwill from me vanished, reports of him interviewing stefen Molyneux which as the Alt-right I've come to find doesn't value free speech.[/QUOTE] I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and hearing his side of the story can't hurt, but choosing to go through Molyneux is a really poor choice.

[QUOTE=Segab;52544248]i want in[/QUOTE] Googler here. It's basically [URL]https://memegenerator.net/[/URL] but filled with adults, mostly engineers, and a better UI However it pretty often gets political and soapbox-y, at least when its in current events (i.e. election, paris attacks), especially with this incident. Literally the only reason this document got traction was because idiots couldn't shut up about it on memegen (complain about it on memegen, more people see it, more people get angry, more people complain about it, etc. Not just an echo chamber but a amplification chamber). imo early discussion should've died and HR should've stepped in and at least screened the damned thing. Instead there's a political shitfest in and outside of Google thanks to leakers on both sides of the aisle. [editline]8th August 2017[/editline] Also Moot, who joined Google awhile back, still has yet to make a meme. Unlikely that he will at this point. [editline]8th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Gbps;52550815] I also I do not believe Google's HR firing him is "proving his point that all liberals are fascists SJW REEEEE" because I think Google's HR department has a stupidly tough choice to make. Do they choose to appear to side with an obviously unpopular, alienating opinion about their employees? Do they denouce the article and separate themselves from the opinion? [/QUOTE] There was blog post by a prominent Googler that recently left (can't remember his name or the link, but its public) that basically said this. Something along the lines of "if I were your manager I could not assign anyone to work with you because everyone now hates you, congratulations!" Leaking it made things worse. Fact is that essay wasn't entirely good or entirely bad. But it was pretty bad and made a lot of sweeping generalizations without citations. I do think he could've left out all the bits about men vs women and instead focused on the echo chamber and perhaps having minority / gender specific classes / recruiting practices (which, btw, I've heard is just that, recruiting, not hiring. I've heard once they're being evaluated for hire/no hire they aren't treated differently) is unfair without being fired*. Instead he goes on this odd men vs women debate. *This is my opinion as a person and not a Googler. I do not represent Google in any way, yatta yatta yatta.

[t]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGtsv1xUwAAcM_y.jpg[/t] I believe this is a very important takeaway.

the interview is going better than I hoped. New Facts: -he shared the memo in sanctioned discussions relating to increasing diversity a month ago -He also has talked to Diversity Officers in diversity seminars before this blew up. -He never wanted this to become viral even internally. with these facts it just sounds like some got hold of the memo and leaked it to a couple employees who leaked it to the press edit: this also means he in fact has a stronger case

[QUOTE=OmniConsUme;52554024] with these facts it just sounds like some got hold of the memo and leaked it to a couple employees [/QUOTE] This is incorrect. He made it public internally and spread it himself. [editline]9th August 2017[/editline] Also that interview was shit and so is that molyneux guy. "Seems to me that programming is all about facts and logic which must mean programmers are conservative" holy shit what a scumbag To be fair to the memo author he dodged a lot that shit, but didn't call it out either

Not surprised that Gizmodo most likely just made up the reasons to remove the sources when leaking the memo.

A bit of speculation, but I'm thinking the document is even more sensitive to Google because of the Department of Labor case (why else would a "VP of Diversity" exist in a company?). With Google trying to get the DoL off its back, and then this guy comes up and releases a document critical of the environment its allegedly created, which then goes viral internally and then viral publicly, it's no wonder he got fired. Apparently James says the reason for getting fired is for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" which seems like either James is lying or the reason was made exclusively by the VP of Diversity because the reason that I would have thought would be used is something along the lines of breach of contract on a NDA or some sort of anti-disparagement clause.

[QUOTE=Segab;52544248]i want in[/QUOTE] Back in my days those were called "office in-jokes".

[QUOTE=Dave_Parker;52554126]That's the reason the CEO gave though[/QUOTE] Oh wow. CEO doesn't sound too smart with diffusing the situation.

Shitty situation for everyone, but I think the firing was justified--Google just gave a poor excuse for doing it

[QUOTE=Dave_Parker;52554166]What would you say is the reason they should have given?[/QUOTE] I mean if they were being honest, they'd say he was making them look like shit in front of a global audience, and it caused a PR nightmare in a company already dealing with accusations of sexism. If they wanted a euphemistic excuse, "creating a hostile work environment" would be at least a little better. Certainly not "perpetuating gender stereotypes".

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;52554075]This is incorrect. He made it public internally and spread it himself. [editline]9th August 2017[/editline] Also that interview was shit and so is that molyneux guy. "Seems to me that programming is all about facts and logic which must mean programmers are conservative" holy shit what a scumbag To be fair to the memo author he dodged a lot that shit, but didn't call it out either[/QUOTE] well too be fair didn't see full interview because Molyneux sucks

[QUOTE=Dave_Parker;52555304]There's another interview with Damore and Jordan Peterson [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agU-mHFcXdw"]here[/URL][/QUOTE] That's the incomplete one. [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU&feature=youtu.be[/url] That's the full one.

[media]https://twitter.com/OwenBenjamin/status/894957917123878913[/media]

So..., uh Internal poll reveals more than half of google don't agree with the firing. [URL="https://amp.businessinsider.com/many-google-employees-dont-think-james-damore-should-have-been-fired-2017-8"]https://amp.businessinsider.com/many-google-employees-dont-think-james-damore-should-have-been-fired-2017-8[/URL]

Three years ago I applied for an internship at Venmo in NYC. I passed the phone screen and a programming challenge, and was flown out there for a final onsite interview. If I passed that, then I'd get the job. The onsite interview consisted of 3 interviews by different engineers. In total there were 4 female engineers and 3 male ones. Towards the end of the onsite interview I asked one of the male engineers what they were looking for in a candidate. He talked about the typical stuff you'd look for in a software engineer, and then went on a tangent about cultural fit. "Basically, we're trying to not hire white males." And then he laughed. I didn't get the job.

I already had a feeling that they were discriminatory before I even applied (they recruit from the Recurse Center, which discriminates against [url=https://www.recurse.com/diversity]white males and asian males through its grant program[/url]), but I was blown away the interviewer actually said that... I'm sure that's grounds for a lawsuit. But yeah, that's part of the reason why I went indie. The tech industry is fucked.

[media]https://twitter.com/AlexRubalcava/status/896029916558270464[/media] these ads are right in front of google's offices. there was apparently more but couldnt snap them in time.