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Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

> > Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.

To which the diversity proponents are quick to rally a mob and get the guy fired. Open and honest discussion indeed.

If you are so insecure in your ideological position that you can't even have a discussion about it without calling foul, I'd consider that the best possible sign that you actually need to have that discussion.

It's the only way to make sure that it's properly rooted and based on fact, and to legitimize it, and by proxy, the means you use to further it.

Sticking your head in the sand to avoid criticism will probably do the exact opposite, and sure as hell wont further your cause.

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Except it wasn't a call to open discussion, it was an anonymously published manifesto that directly affected other members of the company. You can't just publish a manifesto about the benefits of slavery without some backlash, you can't publish your opinion that we should repeal the laws against religious discrimination without backlash either, nor can you publish your opinions about race or gender without expecting backlash because publishing those opinions inside a company where those groups are present is inherently threatening.

It's been accepted for a long time that the place for arguments against racial, religious, or gender programs is not the workplace. I'm a man and I find his manifesto an issue, he said things about men that are blatantly untrue, and frankly unhealthy as well, and I wouldn't want to work with him.

People's opinion on their coworkers is for private discussions with their manager and HR, and don't get precedence over their colleagues comfort and security at work. It's been that way since black people got rights and women got the vote.

Give me a break.

1. It wasn't published anonymously

2. What he's saying is not even close to promoting slavery or legally allowing religious discrimination

3. The entire point of the screed was that the diversity issue isn't talked about openly but should be. The response by Google's diversity chief literally says:

> Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions.

So your assumption that these things should not be discussed at Google is wrong, at least in the eyes of their Diversity chief, who's opinion I would think is highly relevant in this case

Finally, like many others in this thread deride what's said in this article as untrue and unhealthy without ever backing it up. Obviously I'm not saying the article is 100% right, but most the claims he makes about men and women have scientific backing, they are just not regularly discussed. As others have noted his premises about men and women being biologically different are basically a summary of this study:

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

> You can't just publish a manifesto about the benefits of slavery without some backlash

And that's the problem. In a truly open forum for ideas and discussion I would expect ideas about, like your example cites, the benefits of slavery to be actually freely discussed without negative consequence to the people involved. We don't get better as a society by not examining ideas in detail frequently.

I think your point was already addressed with:

>People's opinion on their coworkers is for private discussions with their manager and HR, and don't get precedence over their colleagues comfort and security at work.

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