Google Memo: Fired Employee Speaks Out [video]
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First off, I think his manifesto contained more nuance than has been attributed to it. I agreed with some points and disagreed with others. I think the length was a bit excessive but it's not the kind of thing that would make me raise an eyebrow. Still, by publishing to to the entire company, he was openly challenging the views of his employer and forcing them to respond in spades. It was a move with no real upside but plenty of potential downsides.
Now, with half of Twitter eager to write him off as an alt-right douchebag, what does he do? Yup, gives an interview on an alt-right YouTube channel. This is a brilliant coup for Peter Molyneux but for DaMore there is absolutely no upside to being associated with those guys.
Thing is, I don't think DaMore is a bad person. I think he is earnestly trying to understand the current diversity fad and to spark a debate around its causes and effects. But he has quickly turned himself into a pawn in everyone else's game.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I agree with you. Journalists and reporters are going to circle around DaMore like vultures. They only love the drama and don't give a damn about the debate.
If anything, I believe he's in a bit of a tough situation. After valuing arguments and facts so much, he can't help but follow the facts wherever they may lead.
He clearly made a mistake in how he said things not in what he said. The latter is more winded than necessary and nuanced than many give him credit - a draft collection of thoughts for internal discussion in a small group of non judgemental friends. One political problem he clearly ignored is that it hit a company embroiled in wage discrimination lawsuits.
Whether the company overreacted probably will be decided in court - details matter and we do not have all of them e.g. how common is it that employees mail the whole company.
No... I can see something of me (from 20 years ago) in him. Engineer (or is he even a 'real' one given his degree?), male, mid-20s... I don't find his lack of understanding exactly how "political" people and society actually are (and predominantly so, to the detriment of capital T-truth) to be unexpected. People can be, and tend to be, willfully manipulative, and it takes some life experience to get a handle on that knowledge.
In my mid-20s, I was a government contractor working on a large DoD project. Some impromptu hallway meeting with the bigwig PM running the whole thing led me to going blahblah with him explaining how easy it might be to do something he'd dreamt up the day before. I was just being an engineer who didn't understand social systems very well. So a few hours later, I get sort of chewed out by various PMs on our side as this 'idea' which was not in the contract and not in scope was now in scope... Part of the learning experience of how business actually works, and building things (hell, everything) is secondary to profit. The actual engineering part is secondary to organizational related bullshit - always.
Basically, I think engineers need more exposure to the humanities and stuff like this might not happen. That is another essay entirely, explaining how STEM subjects became excessively important since the 60s, to the detriment of society. The stereotypical engineer does not understand social systems very well, I certainly didn't. But at this point in my life, I think understanding them is far more important than knowing a bunch of tech that will generally be obsolete in a few years; understanding how insane Western society is in some respects has become easy.
I didn't read all of his manifesto, it was tedious and I understand enough social psych et al already... There is a balance that needs to struck and all the ideologues on both sides don't care for things to be in balance.
Everything else in the parent comment, I agree with. Now I read that female Google employees may be suing re: the wage gap etc. Hmmm... I actually blew off two attempts from Google years ago to interview me :) I didn't want to go through their stupid interview process and had already had enough of large badly managed orgs (i.e. the DoD). The pay would have been nice though (a joke!)
An essential point made in some answer by a real scientist on Quora on how wrong Damore was in so many things was Damore's reliance on "biology" being at the heart of his argument/worldview/etc. It was the way Damore phrased some sentence that made me realize it shouldn't be a surprise he is now 'out' as an alt-righter.
I have realized this obsession with biology is the mark of a large portion of conservatives who seem incapable of grasping the complexities of modern day society. Actual science that muddies this view w/ facts gets ignored... The reasons for this are complex and tie back to how conservatives' brains are different in some respects to liberals and how that affects psychological operations. Biology is certainly important, but to boil down higher level things like society and psychological stuff to only that and then base your philosophy / world view on such reduces humans to little more than talking animals, which is at the heart of conservative thought. By "animal", I mean to imply all the connotations of that word. 'Biology' is a the primary filter they view the world through, and other filters lie on top of that. Instead of a multiplicity of filters, all at the same level, that when integrated, show a more holistic view of things.
So to cut this short, .... get a handle on dealing with complexity, I guess. Aspire to be a philosopher-king. Understand how your personal issues color your interpretation of things and affect your values (e.g. go to therapy or drop some acid). And take some acting classes to get a handle on a completely different way of interpreting the world.
And lastly, realize you are just a cog whose sole purpose is to provide surplus labor to the owners of a company. Embarrass the company and you will get fired. Google has strict clauses about not doing things that might result in public blowback (i.e. that don't write a book about a large software company clause in the employment contract). I can't imagine Damore didn't violate something like that and they should have fired him on that basis, not the more politically advantageous one of 'gender issues, diversity', etc. But Google is getting in legal hot water because of their pay imbalance from what I hear, so they used this whole thing to their advantage because now they seem like they aren't evil and do pay women (or try to) at equitable rates. See how an understanding of humans' hidden motives works? That's why you should take acting classes.
And this is the main reason he was fired, and also the reason Google never addressed the merits of the memo, just discarded it in a very general terms. Having the relevant data, they would be able choose some arguments against, but they never will.
It's bullying plain and simple, which I absolutely abhor. And I won't entirely fault Google for it. In this case they're just a proxy through which certain politically powerful groups exert control over those that dare dissent. They're in a tough position in-between the whole debate. And as accepted, they've chosen the historically-accepted solution to this problem: Pander to the offended. Nuance or fact are irrelevant.
Like one of the other posters mentioned, this will only embolden and give ammunition to the other side. I.e. the one that is bullied by this action. When we can't have reasonable debate on touchy topics, you only breed resentment. It will blow up eventually.
You can save yourselves the pain of watching the whole thing and just go to the summary:
https://youtu.be/TN1vEfqHGro?t=1758
I believe it's the most important part of the video and also a link that you can send to people who think they know better what the author of the memo meant.
I only lasted five minutes.
I was pretty sure you were quoting a comment but the "I only lasted five minutes" in combination with the quote made your comment somewhat ambiguous and I really didn't want to watch the whole 45 minutes just to figure out if he said that or not.
Maybe i'll write my open white paper,throw together some thinly veiled arguments, sprinkle some graphs and draw the conclusion that conservatives are total dickheads?
Not all you understand. Just biologically speaking. I'm not saying they are. I'm actually very pro conservative. But they are dicks right? I just want a debate in the open about some the evidence I can't be arsed to write. Maybe?
I'm surprised to see "feminists" supporting management. We are at war with management for equal pay. It doesn't matter how or where I was recruited, equal work should mean equal pay. Management is never your friend.
Google, put your money where your mouth is. Make salary and bonus information public.