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Comment by Method-X | Hacker News Reader

>Damore argues that a company that was completely free of bias and discrimination would not end up with a 50/50 gender split in all job functions because there are population differences in some traits that might influence the jobs men and women seek out and succeed at. His memo is structured as an argument against a position he refers to as “the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment.”

Finally, someone actually gets it.

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I think the problem is: maybe this is what the memo intended to say, but what it actually said is slightly different. In order to support this position, the post authors had to...

* throw away the biology argument, because it is impossible to prove

* throw away the claims about leadership, because they are poorly defined

* make an explicit contrast between abilities and interests, a point the memo didn't clarify

Had the author made only that point, it would have been much better received, I think.

The problem is everything else.

I think part of the problem is Damore's age and experience level. From everything I've managed to gather, he was well intentioned. But the stuff he said violates the "dinner party" rule of what you aren't supposed to discuss in mixed company. He was posting to a board that supposedly allowed, even encouraged, that discussion but the reality is that google was just giving lip service to that discussion, they didn't think anyone would actually go there.

I feel for google, this puts them in a tough spot. That said, I think they acted too quickly on this one. I'm baffled that google, with all their money, didn't plop a pile on Damore and tell him, sorry dude, this is a rats nest you have stirred up, you need to go away quietly with your bag of gold. Firing him just escalated it and now he's suing and it's gonna be in the news cycle that much longer.

Not to mention slipping in race ever so subtly in only the conclusions after the arguments have been made against gender diversity. Nope. Can't take those weasel words junk seriously.

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