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Comment by Blackthorn | Hacker News Reader

> The thoughts of one twenty-something engineer posted to an internal message board (for these kinds of discussions I might add) does not create a hostile workplace or harm Google in any way.

Considering how all sixteen of my female teammates were pissed off about it, I'm going to go ahead and say you are demonstrably wrong.

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How many men take offense to hiring quotas but keep their mouths shut so they don't end up like Damore? You just set up an environment where how someone feels is more important than logic/reason/truth and that is never a good position to be in.

Some people take offence to the fact humans are related to apes and that the earth is more than 6000 years old. Doesn't mean we should tip toe around their ridiculous sensitivities.

Does your workplace have a very large group of young Earth creationists? Does it go out of its way to recruit them? If so, have you posted a ten page memo that says that the hiring bar has been lowered by that effort?

Ok, what happened to Demore would be like me working at a company of young Earth creationists who had an internal message board for discussing controversial religious subjects and then firing me because I brought up natural selection. Is it wrong for me to bring up natural selection or is it wrong for my hypothetical company to entrap me?

That's...a surprisingly good simile.

Yes, it would be wrong of you to do that. You remember how in the Big Lebowski, Walter asks The Dude "Well, am I wrong?" and The Dude replies "You're not wrong, Walter. You're an asshole."

You don't want to be Walter.

So are you literally defending the act of firing people who tell the truth?

I'm defending the act of firing people who are assholes. Whether they're telling the truth or not is irrelevant.

The problem is that 'asshole' is completely subjective. You can have someone state a fact that a tiny hurts a tiny group of peoples' feelings and they will think he/she is an asshole. That can't be a fireable offense.

Suggest that a piece of code is un-maintainable and that the group should rebuild it and there is a good chance someone will think that makes you an asshole.

You can't go around firing everyone because some idiot gets triggered.

We're talking about a specific case here where twenty thousand people in the company managed to get pissed off, not one person.

I wouldn't even think about bringing up natural selection to my young Earth creationist coworkers. Not touching that with a 10 foot pole, it would only end badly. There's a reason they say don't talk about politics or religion with your coworkers. Harmony is good for getting work done and I go to work to work.

I'm saying that as some who has actually worked with young Earth creationists before.

I won't speak for all young Earth creationists, but I don't have a problem with natural selection as a means of selecting from existing genetic diversity within a kind, especially as that process is observable and repeatable around us.

Where I contend with evolutionists is the typical narrative that the existence of natural selection implies a process that creates said (structured, positive) genetic diversity from which to select. This latter process is disputed, not the former.

I would be curious to hear your colleagues perspective.

Nope.

Someone taking offense is not demonstration of anything, other than someone taking offense.

The post I was responding to said that it did not create a hostile working environment. I explained how it did do that. Are you trying to claim that causing offense to a large group is not creating a hostile working environment?

Controversy and hostility are not the same thing.

It's too fickle a criterion for fairly firing someone. Especially if you consider he likely didn't mean to offend anyone.

If you think he did mean to offend people, the firing makes more sense.

I don't think "he should have known better" is very fair when neck deep in a discussion about diversity. Sometimes diversity looks like someone not knowing cultural rules.

Hostile work environments are created because of impact, not intent. It doesn't really matter what you meant to do if your actions made thousands of women feel diminished in the workplace.

I also don't think Damore's totally naive when it comes to diversity issues. He did a lot of research and evidently even discussed his concerns with HR. I think it's pretty clear he knew what he was getting into.

> It doesn't really matter what you meant to do if your actions made thousands of women feel diminished in the workplace.

So it's objective and fair? Or it is too fickle but it doesn't matter?

> I think it's pretty clear he knew what he was getting into.

I think he would have hired a publicist and lawyer before publishing the memo if he knew what was coming.

(let me just disclaim right away that I'm pretty liberal)

> So it's objective and fair? Or it is too fickle but it doesn't matter?

Whatever the ideological or scientific opposite of Damore's memo is, I would never publish it to anyone -- not even a single person -- at work. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that discussing race or gender issues at work is out of bounds, regardless of your position.

> I think he would have hired a publicist and lawyer before publishing the memo if he knew what was coming.

Aha that's probably true but I'm not talking about the backlash. I'm saying he knew he wasn't just asking to be proven wrong about migratory patterns of ducks. He's aware diversity is a sensitive topic.

> I don't think I'm alone in thinking that discussing race or gender issues at work is out of bounds, regardless of your position.

But most tech employers already broach the subject in many ways. It's not right that employers get to have controversial opinions, including during work hours, but employees do not.

Things like this need to be addressed if we want corporate power to be moderated.

> But most tech employers already broach the subject in many ways. It's not right that employers get to have controversial opinions, including during work hours, but employees do not.

What controversial opinions are you talking about?

Well, apparently all this is still controversial. There are rumors that Zuckerberg might be running for office. CEOs and other leaders giving speeches about politics and participating in political demonstrations. Lobbying the government about political issues unrelated to the core business of the company.

To be clear, I don't think all those things are necessarily bad. But I think letting corporations and corporate leadership have free reign and a big microphone while expecting employees to censor themselves is inconsistent to say the least.

No I mean what position does Google have that is controversial?

> It's not right that employers get to have controversial opinions

Well diversity programs is the obvious one. The fact that Damore wrote the memo and so many agreed shows that they are controversial.

x% of the population are Trump voters.

They tend to be offended if you criticize Trump.

Therefore, you are not allowed to criticize Trump.

What does this have to do with a hostile working environment?

To quote you:

> Are you trying to claim that causing offense to a large group is not creating a hostile working environment?

'hostile work environment' is a technical term, isn't it?

One person taking offense is not demonstration of anything. Sixteen out of sixteen taking offense comes a lot closer to demonstrating that it was offensive, though.

I mean, 90% is bigger than 90% of the other numbers. Like 40% for instance.

What is truth when you have a gun to your head.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? We're trying for a higher level of discussion here. (Trying and failing, but we can always fail a bit better.)

My apologies. Comment was low effort and not clear enough on the point it was making.

To substantiate that comment:

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth/

What powers should define truth? Sensory / populist / ability to take life.

How many of them read the memo, as opposed to misleading characterizations of it ("Women can't do engineering", "misogynist", etc)?

All of them.

>You don't get to determine how people receive a message. You >can only take care to send it in a way that would be >received well. If everyone in a large and diverse group > >receives the message poorly, the problem is not with the >group. >If you're worried about an angry mob firing you, start >communicating with care.

This is absolutely false I do get to tell the group how to receive the message. When a group is intolerant the problem is with the group. When people were against interracial marriage and intolerant of other opinions the problem was with the group. When people were against African Americans riding in the front of the bus, the problem was with the intolerant group.

No candy coating, sensitivity training, or messaging was required to tell the angry, intolerant mob that they were wrong, just like they are here.

> This is absolutely false I do get to tell the group how to receive the message.

I only hope for your sake that you learn otherwise before you put your foot in your mouth in a very big way someday, rather than after.

Suppose that fifteen of them were pissed off and one was not. Would the sixteenth have felt psychologically comfortable in your team expressing the fact that she was not pissed off?

I am saying that they shouldn't have been so pissed off. The bar shouldn't be so low for defining a hostile workplace. Anyone could then get an intolerant mob together and get someone fired for expressing themselves.

You don't get to determine how people receive a message. You can only take care to send it in a way that would be received well. If everyone in a large and diverse group receives the message poorly, the problem is not with the group.

If you're worried about an angry mob firing you, start communicating with care.

Apparently one of the things that prompted the memo is that google is not diverse. There are plenty of different skin colors and genders, butit's an ideological echo chamber.

Additionally people are not protected from offense in the workplace. They're protected from harassment and an abstract memo that doesn't single out individuals is not harassment.

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