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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

My impression has not been that the memo is when political discussions turned toxic, but merely the first time it very publicly breached the sacred wall of non-disclosure with the outside world. Prior to that, most everyone seemed content to be upset with each other internally.

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And they never punished the woman who leaked that internal memo.

I thought that memo was foolish and short-sighted. I don't agree with it.

However, it would have been better solved by a manager first asking him "do you really think it's a good idea to post this at work?" and having him tone it down than trying to publicly shame him and get him fired.

Google picked the wrong side on that. They should have made an example of the leakers.

> it would have been better solved by a manager asking him "do you really think it's a good idea to post this at work?"

Are you aware that Google solicited that feedback?

You're making things up: the leaker was, afaik, never identified. Certainly not publicly. Nothing says they were a woman, except you.

As someone who vehemently disagree a with damore and is glad he was fired, I'd also prefer it if the leaker was fired, but it seems that I'll never know if that happened.

She was identified internally. And was recently promoted.

I've seen no evidence of this, and I keep track of such things. An explicit search turns up no evidence of such things. If you have evidence of such things, please share it with me (I'm easy to find @google), but in the absence of such evidence, I'm going to continue to claim that this is wholly unfounded nonsense.

I'm sure there may have been some of that. But supposedly (IIRC) he didn't just post it at work, he very diligently attempted to increase it's exposure through word of mouth, mailing lists, and speaking at internal events.

I think Damore's fatal flaw was naivety. He thought his opinions would lead to a better Google and he thought Google wanted to hear arguments that would lead to an improved Google. He clearly lacked the awareness to realize he was not speaking to a receptive audience to the ideas he had. And he wrote something that lacked the... emotional awareness... to understand where the opposing view came from or how his memo would be received.

You can furthermore see that naivety in how quickly he ended up accepting offers and olive branches from alt-right personalities. It seemed like he wasn't aware who he ended up 'siding' with.

I had a weekly improv class with him and while I don't think that's enough to get a good read on who someone truly is, I think you may be projecting on the naivete bit. In the midst of the chaos he was generating, he had ample opportunity to redact, change, apologize, debate, or even acknowledge other viewpoints, but he chose to broadcast adamantly.

Even as he knew his opinion was generating controversy he didn't take any steps to admit, control, or deal with it, instead he reveled in it. He knew what he was doing.

Yep. I don't know how someone can read him as "naive". He immediately went to new sources like Breitbart and PV.

Do you know if he contacted Breitbart and PV, or if they contacted him? Because if a Breitbart journalist said to him, "We see your opinion, we think it's terrible you're being silenced, we'd love to interview you and give you a chance to say your piece", then it would be very fitting with "naive" for him to say "Sounds good!"

This article mentions Damore was diagnosed in his mid-20s with high-functioning autism. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam...

I'm autistic myself. Damore trying to deflect criticism by saying he's autistic is insulting.

From the linked article:

> He does not once, however, use his autism to excuse his actions. He is fiercely resistant to portraying himself as any kind of victim, and says he never informed Google of his autism diagnosis. “I’m not sure you’re expected to,” he says, “or how I would even do that.”

I mentioned it as a point in favor of the "naive" theory. The article also supports it:

> Damore concedes now that he “wasn’t really skilled enough to push back on anything” in some interviews. It’s frustrating, he adds, that he’s now associated with the “alt-right” when he’s “more of a centrist”. He admits he did not look too deeply into Duke’s background when the photos were taken, and asks me not to publish the image of him in a “Goolag” T-shirt with this article. “I can definitely see how it was damaging, but it was a free professional photo shoot and I wasn’t really familiar with politics then,” he says. “I was pretty busy and ignorant.”

> Was his interview with the “alt-right” personality Milo Yiannopoulos an error? “It’s hard to say,” he replies. “I don’t really know what the long-term consequences of any of my actions are.”

He offended a broad class of people. Women shouldn't have to pick and choose who they feel comfortable working with around the office. Or worse, be forced to work with that guy. Once he expressed views like that, his fate was sealed. You don't punish the victims.

Shortly before the memo, there were stories and comments in HN about problems inside Google.

I vaguely remember a story about someone in HR getting fired because they didn't pull a white male out of the running for a job. (The details are too fuzzy at this point.)

If you are going to bring up controversial anecdotes like this the onus is on you to actually have clear facts behind it.

This isn't that kind of message board

I think Hacker News is probably the only message board that IS that kind of message board.

This one?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16500974

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