Comment by thex10 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thex10 | Hacker News Reader

As a minority woman in tech I'm not bothered much by his document, but that's only because I don't work with this guy or folks like him. His manifesto doesn't pain me, but that's only because I have a secure job coding all my favorite things with people who don't spew this kind of unsubstantiated crap to my colleagues, giving them spurious reasons to doubt my abilities and inherent qualities.

My sympathies are with those who work in more precarious situations. I'm no authoritarian, but I'm ok with this guy getting fired - he used his platform unwisely and at this point the damage control gained by firing him probably outweighs whatever benefit the company might get by keeping him.

However, I'm plenty perturbed by the willful lack of understanding all around these parts about (at the very least) - how diversity programs work / what they do - how hiring works - how oppression works - how public words can affect others

>that's only because I don't work with this guy or folks like him

How do you know this for sure? They may not want to speak out.

The people around me might be pondering all sorts of strange things - if they're not disrupting my life as they work through those thoughts then that is OK with me.

I can mind my own business. I'm not really into the 'dig through someone's life history to find the one objectionable thing and then destroy their lives for it' trope.

Damore wasn't disrupting other people's lives either. Or at least nobody has alleged he was, except via the oil-covered argument that "by expressing his concerns he has disrupted my mental wellbeing".

You very clearly cannot tolerate people who disagree with you: you just expressed support for firing him. That means people around you absolutely WILL hide their true feelings from you because they will perceive you as a witch-hunter who is out to get them.

You are making a hostile workplace environment and you can't even see it.

I actually think his writing the document itself was not as disruptive as the resulting outrage and debate.

I'm not a witch hunter but I'm flattered you want to assume I'm one simply because I'd rather hunker down and do my job than be forced into a debate about the perception of hiring policies.

Although it is tough to tell, it definitely seems like Gizmodo may have stripped out some of his sources. From Gizmodo's preamble:

> Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt that there were probably sources. As has been noted in the original YC post about this, it seems like he gets a lot of his info from this study:

http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x

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