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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

Damore was not offered a chance to receive forgiveness by either the company or the outrage mob, therefore I don't respect what people generally have to say about whether what he did was right or wrong. It's astounding that people are still debating this in this very HN thread. A society of any size that makes virtue claims while simultaneously adding an undue price to being wrong or insensitive deserves to be mocked and ridiculed. You don't have to agree with anything Demore said, but the fact that Google openly encouraged political discussion, yet had an unwritten rule that if you say anything to upset a particular political demographic that you are terminated, is patently absurd. Companies shouldn't be encouraging employees to be political. We would never tolerate companies that encourage religious discussion but fire employees that say things against the Christian faith.

If you're going to come into this thread to refute Damore's memo and downvote people who don't tow your petty little line, your need to reexamine your principles, if you've got one.

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I am going to be honest, I consider myself on the left side of the spectrum, but I am disgusted by the outrage culture on Twitter etc. Besides censorship, I believe it's a tactic by neoliberal types to pretend to be on the left by virtue signaling, but not actually addressing any of the economics I care about, (medicare for all, free college etc.), so I actually agree with you there.

That being said, what I also dislike is someone who seems to have no core beliefs whatsoever and instantly runs to the "intellectual dark web" bashing "the left", without acknowledging that what he refers to is a rather vocal minority, nor acknowledging the authoritarian tendencies of "the intellectual dark web" and basically just going with whoever is willing to air his grievances in a completely sympathetic, uncritical manner. It smells of opportunism, rather than some sincerely held belief.

Then there's the question of whether it is wise to communicate such issues across your company in the manner that he did. I am not saying it's right, but the world is a certain way and if one wants to change it, he/she needs to also be prepared for the consequences.

The “IDW” is really just a name for a handful of folks who were attacked by outrage mobs for misrepresentations of their intellectual curiosity. It’s barely a coherent entity, and most certainly not authoritarian. What an odd charge.

And who wouldn’t talk to people willing to listen?

I find someone like Jordan Peterson to have some authoritarian tendencies for sure, but his fans would probably call them "strong opinions". That's fair, abet I doubt that generous interpretation would be extended to someone they disagree with.

Just notice how the IDW feels strongly about free speech, but when it comes to the issue of Palestine and specifically incentivizing disinvestment from Israeli occupied territory in the West Bank, they suddenly have less than nothing to say about it, not to mention the issue of U.S. States passing anti-boycott laws censoring BDS and yet crickets from the IDW.

Being selective in your concern for free speech and only criticizing one side seems hardly "intellectual" to me and I can't take it seriously.

P.S. While the IDW is not exactly defined, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dark_web#Associat... has a decent list.

"X has been silent on Y," is generally not a fair criticism. Not speaking about a topic is the norm, since time is finite and there are uncountable numbers of issues to discuss, even within a specific topic.

Except they know about the issue, were pointed to it multiple times, even by me and are always quick to proclaim that 'Israel has the right to defend itself'.

Dave Rubin for example has had several offers from some prominent left-wing commentators to debate the issue, among others, yet he's always busy or some other excuse.

Sam Harris definitely knows about it as well, (has even spoken about BDS itself, just not their censorship), Ben Shapiro too, yet besides "Israel has the right to defend itself", (which is not the issue), crickets.

This is not an issue like whether they have played Animal Crossing, this is an issue where several states already are in violation of the First Amendment, an issue, they claim, is above all for them.

This is wilful ignorance because it would require leveling criticism at some of the same people they usually praise, instead of the usual college students and Twitter mobs, that's the issue.

Do members of the IDW avoid criticizing Israel because they support Israel, or because they think criticizing Israel would make it too easy for their opponents to label them as antisemites?

I don't think there is any way of knowing, but I suspect different individuals listed on that page have different reasons and motivations for saying what they say and not saying what they say. I'd bet on Ben Shapiro genuinely supporting Israel, but some of the rest I'm not sure about (I suspect at least some of those on that list are genuinely antisemites. For instance: https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/ukip-candidate-carl-benja...)

Anyway my point is it's much easier to judge people based on what they say, rather than what they don't say.

> Do members of the IDW avoid criticizing Israel because they support Israel, or because they think criticizing Israel would make it too easy for their opponents to label them as antisemites?

That I do not know for sure, but isn't their trademark to speak openly regardless of what their opponents would label them as?

It's easy to attack college students. If they're afraid to criticism Israel, they can't claim to stand for free speech regardless of what they opponents think, as they often do.

> but isn't their trademark to speak openly regardless of what their opponents would label them as?

That's not clear to me, no. To be frank it's not clear to me the 'IDW' categorization has much worth at all if it includes people as diametrically opposed as fervent zionists and antisemitic neonazis. It's a very loose categorization at best.

Your last line invalidates everything you just said.

The point is not whether he is deemed unpopular or takes a risk....the idea is that the ability to have that conversation should be honored. It is a debate and if there is an argument to be made, let it be made.

If the majority disagree that is their right but respecting the fact someone has a differing opinion is the point.

"Great minds think alike....lesser minds seldom differ".

Let's take your statement and apply it to something else. Are you indicating the early women of the #MeToo movement got what they deserved for speaking up about the disgusting acts committed against them in the early days? The ones whose careers were destroyed?

This cuts both ways and what we are looking for is balance.

You seem to be attacking an argument I did not make.

I agree that the ability to have a conversation should be honored by the broader society, hence why I dislike Twitter outrage culture.

This is separate from whether there would be consequences for your employment at a company wishing to minimize negative PR around itself.

So to reiterate, his ability to have the conversation outside of work should absolutely be tolerated and protected. Within a work environment however, it is currently unreasonable to expect the same free speech rights as one is guaranteed from the state, regardless of my opinion that this should not be the case.

Therefore getting dismissed should not be a surprising outcome.

I'm cautious about approaching culture war threads, but I have to ask this question:

What is your definition of "neoliberalism?" To my understanding, it is a center-left economic ideology that promotes globalization, free trade, and cooperation between nations as a way to lift up the poor. Neoliberals might be critical of some of the policies that you point out (e.g. free college) due to implementation concerns.

However, isn't this orthogonal to one's attitude to culture war controversies? At least from my experience lurking r/neoliberal, the people there seem reasonable and don't seem to be the overzealous "outrage culture" types, but they perceive that "neoliberal" has become a negative label associated with center-left people who disagree with say, some of the policies proposed by Sanders.

I'm usually apprehensive about getting involved in these culture war threads; please understand that I'm not advocating for any political position, I just want to understand what "neoliberalism" means from your point of view.

The issue with neoliberalism is that it does little to 'lift the poor' in practice, yet maintains strong rhetoric to that effect.

With regards to medicare for all and free college, I am an European, where these policies have been implemented to various degrees rather successfully.

My issue is with the way neoliberalism seems to be clinically used to rhetorically support many left ideas, while in reality not doing anything to get them close to reality, if not outright undermining them.

They're the ultimate 'human interventionists', so where neoconservatives will just outright acknowledge they're in it to show America's muscle, get U.S. business access to new markets, confront a competitor etc. the neoliberals tend to use a more veiled language, but ultimately peruse similar policies.

So while the Iraq War was drawn up by neocons, the Libya intervention was drawn up by neoliberals. The difference? Neoliberals used much more soft, humanitarian language, for what was ultimately a disaster of similar proportions to Iraq, including the return of slave markets.

That is my problem with neoliberals, the cynical use of floury, high-minded language in persit of ultimately goals not so different from neoconservatives after all.

Thank you for your reply. I think I understand this better now.

Thanks, I just found the perfect example to illustrate too:

https://twitter.com/RepJoeKennedy/status/1258900004623835136

1. I don't recall him ever "asking for forgiveness," or doing anything besides doubling down on his memo.

2. The "outrage mob" isn't real. You know who got James Damore fired? Himself. It's especially telling that you, and people who defend him, attribute zero fault whatsoever to the person who actually wrote the memo.

> 2. The "outrage mob" isn't real.

How am I supposed to take you seriously when you're denying the sheer amount of negative media attention, all the outrage Tweets, and the general sentiment in online discussions like this one that are happening years later?

We can discuss the extent of the outrage mob, but your idea that there's no outrage mob at all is baffling.

> You know who got James Damore fired? Himself.

No, he didn't get himself fired. His employer fired him.

> It's especially telling that you, and people who defend him, attribute zero fault whatsoever to the person who actually wrote the memo.

"Zero fault"? Your telepathy is way off, because I didn't say once that Damore has no fault.

The outrage mob "isn't real", yet you are so quick to dismiss those who think that Damore is defensible.

1. Calling it an outrage "mob" is dishonest, and that's why I say it doesn't exist. It's not mob mentality. Did it occur to you that there are reasons that many people could have been outraged by what he wrote? Calling it a "mob" is just you dismissing that.

2. Yes, he got himself fired. Nobody made him write that, and even after writing it, nobody made him post it on a large mailing list where an entire workforce could read it.

3. You don't think his actions were what caused him to get fired. So whose fault was it, if not his? You're more intent on making a statement against the "outrage mob" than actually acknowledging why doing what Damore did might get you fired at any company.

Again, it's especially telling that you and the people who defend Damore attribute zero fault to the person who actually wrote the memo.

> Calling it an outrage "mob" is dishonest

> Again, it's especially telling that you and the people who defend attribute zero fault to the person who actually wrote the memo.

I've been honest and I replied in good faith, and yet you just sidestep and lump me in with some made up group of people whom you say attribute "zero fault" to Damore. You didn't listen to me at all. You didn't even ask me what faults I would attribute to Damore after I denied your perception of what I'm thinking. Why should anyone have a conversation with you?

If you're replying in good faith, you should either defend your "outrage mob" accusation or apologize for it.

So they can just dismiss things I say and pretend they can read my mind, but I am supposed to either defend or apologize for it because someone says so?

EDIT: I mistakenly thought your comment was from the person I was having the conversation with.

Thanks for the correction. That's an easy mistake to make here! I've done it myself.

It literally is a mob.

>The "outrage mob" isn't real.

You have got to be kidding me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shaming

You mean consequences for your behavior?

"You mean consequences for your behavior?"

Outrage mobs are by definition 'consequences for some behavior'.

But the implication that someone should be vilified globally for having an earnest and not entirely unreasonable intellectual opinion makes his responders an 'outrage mob'.

Damore had no malice, ill will, his opinion was made ostensibly for some positive will, among a relatively private group.

If he was beating his wife, then there'd be a legit consequence for his behavior right? And some outrage would be justified.

But that's obviously not the case.

The response is the most 'outrage mob imaginable', with people still 'outraging' themselves on HN years later.

> not entirely unreasonable intellectual opinion

Despite reasoning his point of view well, it does not mean it's right, healthy, or valid.

And while Sexism and Racism are not equal, there do parallel in many ways.

How different is his memo than writings that discuss how the Negroid is a lesser form of human species, and there for it's condition is justified?

Scientifically, there is very little, if anything, that differs between a man and woman performing a job in tech. Why then do women continually report about discriminatory behavior in the work place?

Are they just making things up?

You are crossing streams.

This is not about whether Damore was 'right or wrong' - it's about whether he was within his right to make a reasonable statement and not get publicly murdered for it.

Also - your comment has also demonstrated the intellectual dishonestly against him by misrepresenting the thrust of his argument.

There are considerable differences between genders, this is not a scientifically controversial position, and in an entire 24 years of general upbringing, imbued with gendered differences and possibly marginal - but material - biological differences, is going to yield very different outcomes.

There are many fields in society that have unequal gender ratios and it's not remotely specific to 'tech'.

It's obviously a thorny subject, which requires some dispassionate thinking. We don't need people screaming 'Nazi' at the first hint that they might think someone, somewhere committed a 'thought crime' against their personal and very narrow view of the world.

This is the kind of bigotry that is not 'right, healthy or valid'.

The mob is much, much scarier than Damore.

> It's obviously a thorny subject, which requires some dispassionate thinking. We don't need people screaming 'Nazi' at the first hint that they might think someone, somewhere committed a 'thought crime' against their personal and very narrow view of the world.

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty...

"Women are just as equal as men" does not seem to be a very narrow view of the world.

> This is the kind of bigotry that is not 'right, healthy or valid'.

What bigotry is that--calling sexism for exactly what it is?

> Scientifically, there is very little, if anything, that differs between a man and woman performing a job in tech.

Thst wasn't the argument made. The argument wasn't about job performance, but job preference.

> You know who got James Damore fired? Himself

He didn't fire himself, Google fired him.

> It's especially telling that you, and people who defend him, attribute zero fault whatsoever to the person who actually

It's funny that you and the people who attack him always seem to completely ignore everything the parent comment you're replying to said, and write a comment that basically amounts to "but, you're wrong!"

Damore, trying to make an earnest intellectual contribution, got a lot of people really upset, and they campaigned to have him destroyed.

This is the most visceral and obvious example of an outrage mob possible.

I feel bad for anyone who disagrees with this. Their bias prevents them from seeing the world as it truly exists.

I feel bad for anyone who believes that their political opinions just happen to represent "the world as it truly exists".

Google is entirely full of vindictive people with blatantly political opinions - many who have acted with obvious malice towards others, so spare us the hypocrisy.

If this were truly a matter of 'opinion rocking the boat' - then there would be a bunch of other firings, policy changes etc. - but that is not the case at all.

Damore's action was explicitly political. Its whole point was that Google was just too darned left, and foolish for being so.

One can't reasonably try to reach a large audience with something intentionally upsetting and then be surprised that those people are in fact upset. Freedom of speech cannot mean freedom from other people's speech.

> It's especially telling that you, and people who defend him, attribute zero fault whatsoever to the person who actually wrote the memo.

'Zero' and 'whatsoever' are simply wrong. It's a strawman.

> The "outrage mob" isn't real.

I would certainly characterize the collective behavior of the Google employees as a mob. You can see it for yourself in the exhibits in Damore's suit:

https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/201804...

Numerous employees take the stance that violence is acceptable, as long as it's directed towards hateful people. Numerous employees vowing to shun, ridicule and ignore anyone who remotely suggests support or agreement with any part of the memo. Numerous employees taking the stance that dissent is a violent act for which violence must be returned. Shamelessly of all, a senior Site Reliability Engineer vows to "keep hounding Damore" until one of them is fired.

This is not acceptable behavior for a group of people that are ostensibly at the top of their field. They are not faultless. They share, at minimum, some of the blame.

Of course, if you meant your statement to be hyperbolic, then you are being flippant, and needlessly so.

#2: Nothing wrong with having opinions. He shouldn't have been fired over them, especially considering he was directly encouraged to pronounce them.

Pretty sure you don't want to admit the outrage mob is real because you are part of it.

> The "outrage mob" isn't real.

If you mean this in general (not just the Damore thing), with the likes of twitter, it's pretty well documented that the outrage mob is real.

Receive forgiveness? Pardon me, but where exactly did Damore ask for forgiveness? People very rarely accept apologies from people who don't offer them.

You don't need to ask forgiveness in order to receive it.

Google could have done the following:

- Recognize that any damage caused by the memo had been done. The toothpaste was out of the tube.

- See that Damore's memo wasn't written with malice or intention to make people feel uncomfortable.

- Allow Damore to keep his position so long as he does not participate in such political discussion at the company again. This would have been reasonable, given that there's been no word that Damore was anything but a competent employee.

Instead, they chose to fire him over something political, which was inevitably going to blow up into a news story and a talking point on social media. Nowhere in Damore's story, to my knowledge, did his employer offer him any sort of option, despite everything he had done being within company policy(and his opinion being solicited).

This isn't to say I misunderstand why Google did what they did. But, had they been a more benevolent organization, I'd have hoped that they not simply get rid of employees that make one relatively minor mistake.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in societies where people are made pariahs if they make such mistakes.

Could you please show me where Damore says he made a mistake and apologized for it?

I don't think this was minor, and I don't see any indication it was a mistake. One doesn't accidentally write an 8-page memo, especially an explicitly political one.

But even assuming it were a minor mistake, then it was absolutely on Damore to own that. I'd never fire somebody for a mistake. But for doing something harmful and then refusing to admit error, let alone make amends? I don't see an option other than firing, because there's no reason to think the person won't keep right on making "mistakes" that are similar or worse.

> I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in societies where people are made pariahs if they make such mistakes.

I agree with this statement, but I think it's a sentiment that is in tension with everything else you've said so far. I don't believe Damore has said that he thought his memo or its contents were a "mistake." He has totally failed to engage with the critiques of his position and has instead focused on critiquing the responses of others.

The essential aspect of allowing people to recover from mistakes is that person meaningfully engaging with what they did wrong (which does not have to be a blanket apology). An excellent example of engaging with wrongdoing (even serious wrongdoing) can be found in Dan Harmon's apology for his behavior towards a coworker[1]. The person who's made a mistake must identify what they think the mistake was!

Does having people yell at you make this harder? Of course it does. People still have a right to complain about the things they find upsetting. Damore himself was complaining about something that upset him when he wrote his memo. You've spent a good amount of space pointing out (correctly, I think) that Google is still obligated to do "the right thing" even though Damore complained[2]. I think if you want to hold Google to account, it's equally fair to ask for accountability from Damore (with the understanding that Damore, being a single human, may struggle a little more to act perfectly than a giant corporation).

[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/get-a-spine/act-one-5 [2] Personally, I think Google did do the right thing.

Hey, I really appreciate replies like yours.

Damore definitely hasn't backstepped on his memo in any way, although that doesn't necessarily mean that he couldn't have been given the option to begrudgingly disavow his position in order to remain at Google. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that was possible for him. I guess that's the point I was trying to make. Whether he failed to engage with critiques of his position really doesn't change whether his circumstance was fair or reasonable.

I don't think the analogy of Dan Harmon completely holds up.(though to be fair all analogies fall apart at some level) The two "mistakes" aren't really equivalent. Damore was solicited for his input, and provided a reasoned feedback with the intent of helping people(whether it was wrong or misguided is a separate issue), whereas Harmon was doing something that an average reasonable person would recognize as victimizing someone. I think most people have the capability to deserve a second chance, but Harmon's case is different in that he was shown to be predatory, however low-level it may have been. I don't think someone can credibly call Damore a predator or dangerous. If they can, then the very act of you and I talking about this could be seen by someone as potentially predatory. Of course, I find that idea absurd. In any case, I think it's possible that Harmon could also be allowed to recover from his mistake given enough time and displayed sincerity. And that's likely going to happen, if it hasn't already, since he's an entertainer. (I stopped following him and Rick and Morty, so I don't have a good idea) Damore will be ridiculed by a good number of people for the forseeable future.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding, because I don't think Google should be held to account. It's likely they were in their right to fire him at their will, even if I think the more optimal decision would have been to limit the damage of Damore(and treat him like a human) rather than ultimately make the issue more public than it needed to be. At the same time, Damore didn't seem to grasp what his peers, the company, and the public actually wanted. Perhaps he didn't care. This is why I get pissed internally when people claim that I think I believe Damore did nothing wrong.

Sorry if that was rambling and didn't have much of a point. I spent way more time replying to people this morning about "James Damore" than I thought I ever would, so my brain's scattered.

What evidence do you have that Damore was not given a chance to disavow his memo?

> that doesn't necessarily mean that he couldn't have been given the option to begrudgingly disavow his position in order to remain at Google. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that was possible for him.

Looking at the very basic timeline of events, I'm really unsure this is true. Wikipedia says there was about a month between the initial memo and his removal and that Damore did add an addendum to the memo generally denouncing sexism (though, I think, not engaging with the critiques of his writings as "sexist")[1]. I suspect that if he had, in that addendum, retracted some or all of what he had said, he had a real opportunity to keep his job.

That said, I also want to question the idea that a just and fair resolution of a mis-step should necessarily include an opportunity to be perfectly restored to your previous situation. It's common, for instance, for a project to go in what turns out, in hindsight, to be the wrong direction. The people in charge of that project might be removed to let someone with fresh eyes come in - not because they're being punished, but because that's how humans work. People removed in that way are seen to have...performed suboptimally, but not failed exactly. I think it's totally possible that Damore writes a memo that is filled with sexist tropes and ignorant reifications of sexist hierarchies and is removed from his current position, but it's understood that his response enables him to go on to new positions. An older example of this is the standard of conduct for US judges, which says that even the appearance of impropriety is banned. I think Google is well within its rights to remove people for the appearance of sexism and those people who appeared sexist have the opportunity to demonstrate that they're not, in fact, sexist and go on to further positions.

Again, I don't believe Damore has tried very hard to prove that he doesn't actually hold sexist views.

>I don't think the analogy of Dan Harmon completely holds up.

I think you're quite right about the difference between their contexts. I thought Harmon's apology was just a great example of addressing serious misdeeds after the fact. Harmon's apology was positively received by his victim and, as far as I know, he's gone on to success in new ventures[3].

> I don't think someone can credibly call Damore a predator or dangerous.

I think I generally agree with what you're saying here but I think the word "dangerous" deserves more examination. One of the core tenants of the critique of Damore's work is that it supports a generally misogynistic world view. He's highlighting that women perform differently than men on certain measurements and that those measurements are also associated with being an effective engineer. This ignores the problem of how these terms come to be defined - if nearly all engineers are men, any measurement of the 'good' engineers will find they almost all test 'like men.' So saying that the weakness of female engineers is revealed by their failure to test 'like men' is ignoring the historical slant to the data. To me, that is dangerous. You can see this same problem in the Amazon AI that scored resumes from women more poorly because Amazon had previously hired few female engineers[4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

[2] https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-unit...

[3] It's worth saying that lots of people who have credibly been accused of sexual assault also go on to great success. The idea that accusations destroy someones career are overblown.

[4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automatio...

Your initial proposition is one I find hard reconcile > Damore was not offered a chance to receive forgiveness by either the company or the outrage mob, therefore I don't respect what people generally have to say about whether what he did was right or wrong

I'm not sure the onus is on the other party to "offer" a chance to receive forgiveness when they have been offended or wronged? That's generally not how society or even the legal system functions. The accused has to "show" remorse and "ask" for forgiveness, otherwise what's the point of offering something you either don't want or don't deserve?

> Damore was not offered a chance to receive forgiveness by either the company or the outrage mob, therefore I don't respect what people generally have to say about whether what he did was right or wrong.

Are you saying that it's wrong for people to judge actions as right or wrong without first offering to forgive the person who did the action?

That's an interesting standard, I've never heard something like that before.

How do you handle the fact that the statement itself does not meet the criterion it's advocating? That is, you're saying it's wrong for people to do X, but you didn't offer forgiveness first. Isn't that what you're saying one shouldn't do?

> We would never tolerate companies that encourage religious discussion but fire employees that say things against the Christian faith.

Surely there exist church-backed business encourage discussion about certain religious topics and would fire you for holding beliefs that don't comport with their particular religion? I'm thinking e.g. church-backed hospitals. Or even churches themselves, although perhaps you wouldn't consider them to be a "business".

But more to the point, I wonder if there are limits to what you've defined as "political". What if my political belief is that Black people are intellectually inferior to white people (and that explains why there are disproportionately fewer Black people in tech). Am I not allowed to have a workplace where some political discussion is allowed (say, a newsroom) and at the same time not tolerate this (or any?) belief?

There was also unacceptable levels of vitrol against damore within the Google communications. I remembre reading physical threats, doxxing, insulting etc. A swath of people behaved in a reprehensible manner in response, in a way that would clearly be fired or reprimanded in a day to day situation.

> Damore was not offered a chance to receive forgiveness by either the company

How do you know that?

I'm a Googler who has zero insight into the Damore case, and opinions are my own.

That being said, in all my experience, Google does not fire for making (honest) mistakes, and Google does not fire on the first offense. If you want to get fired, you typically need to intentionally and maliciously violate express policy, repeatedly.

I don't know if that was the case with Damore, it's just how things are typically handled.

People always pretend this shit is about "professionalism" or whatever while ignoring that if you have leftist political opinions you can run wild rubbing them in people's faces and nothing whatsoever will happen to you.

It's so utterly and transparently self-serving, it's disgusting.

Im only posting the memo at hand. I know I didn't read it initially.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

I think the outrage mob in this case is entirely justified. Damore has had plenty of opportunity to apologize. As much as he had a chance to not say anything at all. Political debate is one thing. Misogyny is another. He created a hostile environment. He got fired. I'd be fine knowing this ruined his life.

This is how free speech dies. I despise Trump and the right, but the outrage mob and the left is just as bad (and probably more effective) with their ability to destroy peoples' livelihoods for expressing any opinion or questioning the left's dogma.

No it isn't. Free speech means you can't be prosecuted for speech. It doesn't mean people can't hate you. You're literally up here telling me I shouldn't speak. What's the difference between saying women are inferior and saying sexists are inferior? The answer is that I'm actually correct.

> "Free speech means you can't be prosecuted for speech. It doesn't mean people can't hate you."

Would you have said that to people in the civil rights movement or the labor movement? They were hated and mistreated by many as well and yet your words would have justified that.

The sword always cuts both ways. Your viewpoint will hurt causes you believe in just as much as causes you oppose.

Slippery slope? Nope. You're thinking like a programmer where rules have to be rigorously defined. Humans are capable of being reasonable. We are capable of distinguishing hateful speech without an algorithm.

I’m pretty sure that google’s “unwritten rule” is THE unwritten rule of society though, which is basically beware of pissing off the mob / be insufferable at your own peril. Asking companies to seriously outline every facet of life there is the ultimate guardrails culture request.

I agree with you in theory, but it’s a bit different. If he is making the workplace less comfortable for particular groups of people then I certainly would have no issue firing him.

You are free to hold any belief you want, but once you’re in my ear with some misinformed ideas that are potentially hurtful to a large group I am free to tell you to be quiet or leave. Of course, it’s your right not to listen to me... but if I’m your boss you can expect to be fired.

That's why you wouldn't open the floor for political discussion. You're missing the point.

I am fascinated that on HN of all places people are suggesting that engineers should never be allowed to express opinions about workplace policy.

They are allowed. But they also need to take responsibility for the consequences of their message. If you alienate half of your colleagues, you'll probably get fired.

Google didn't fire Damore when he wrote the memo. They didn't fire him when he shared it for feedback. They didn't fire him when it was internal discussion. They fired him when it leaked to press and there was a social media furor.

The idea that Google fired Damore for anything other than bad publicity is not supported by evidence. They asked him for feedback. He provided an intelligent and well researched document. They debated it. A social media mob got mad, and Google, being greedy cowards, fired Damore.

So many truths shift on how we paint the timelines. This is a very important angle to consider.

Could you please show me your source for the claim that they asked him for feedback?

Sure. Wikipedia has a description of it citing a Guardian article.

"James Damore was spurred to write the memo when a Google diversity program he attended solicited feedback."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

That's an article about Damore's POV, so I believe the correct way to express it is that Damore claims he wrote it in response to a request for feedback. And given that he put it up with a go link, it's pretty clear he didn't just submit this as an email to the D&I team. He published it internally, hoping to spark discussion. So I think it's disingenuous to talk about this as if it were something Google's managers ordered him to do. Damore set out to cause a stir and got one.

I said Damore was asked for feedback not that his managers ordered him to write the document and then fired him for it. Damore claimed he originally wrote it as feedback for a diversity meeting he attended and then shared it for broader feedback.

To my knowledge this account has never been contested by Google or anyone else and is the agreed upon account. I agree it is possible that Damore is lying about why he wrote it, and that if Google said he wrote it under some different circumstances there would be ambiguity because Damore's own account could be self serving - but, just because it is possibly Damore is lying doesn't mean we should assume he is. There is no dispute about why he originally authored the memo, is there?

When you talk about how "Google fired Damore" and "They asked him for feedback" you imply that the firer and the feedback-re are the same entity. But there's no reason to think that's the case. A more plausible interpretation is that somebody running D&I programs said something general, like "we welcome feedback on our programs". But there's no evidence that he specifically was asked, and even if he were, sharing it broadly appears to be his own idea. In which case, the general request for feedback is irrelevant to him getting fired.

Damore was both asked for feedback and fired by Google. Sure, it was different individuals at Google who did each, whoever presented the diversity the diversity conference asked for feedback and the decision to fire Damore was made, I believe, by Pichai.

I never said it was the same individual though, I said it was Google. I think it's splitting hairs to take what I wrote "Google asked for feedback and fired him" read it as a claim that it's somehow the same individual firing him, and then try to dispute the unintended interpretation you just invented.

Regarding sharing it broadly being Damore's idea - true. He shared it first as feedback and then tried to develop the ideas further by sharing within the company. For opinions not verboten by Google, this is common at the company.

This does not mean that it was irrelevant he was asked. Google talked to Damore about diversity and asked for his opinions. He was working to provide it and fired by Google for it.

Your construction seems to imply that Damore was fired for sharing his diversity feedback more broadly. I don't think that's true. Damore wasn't fired or censured when he gave the original opinion and not when he shared internally. He was only fired when social media began brewing an outrage mob. The point is, it shows Damore wasn't doing anything objectively wrong. He wasn't punished until popular subjective opinion went against him. He wasn't fired for his opinion or for sharing it internally, he was fired because people were tweeting about it and Google lacks the intellectual and moral integrity to stand behind their people against mean tweets.

It is definitely not splitting hairs. The "but Google asked him to do it and then fired him" line of defense hides relevant details. He wasn't assigned to write it, he wasn't assigned to publish it, and he wasn't assigned to not back down despite how much trouble it was causing.

It's true that sharing opinions is a common activity. But that again elides key facts. A highly political document attacking company programs and company culture was not the sort of thing people normally pass around for discussion.

Your notion that Damore just, gosh golly, thought he was sharing some helpful feedback is hard to square with the content or with his subsequent behavior both before and after his firing. I think what fits better with the text and his behavior is that he was engaging in political activism, and was well aware that he was going to cause a stir.

I agree that it's possible Damore wouldn't have ended up being fired under a variety of circumstances. Maybe it's true that if it hadn't hit the press, he'd still be there. Although given that what made news was the level of internal upset it was causing, he could well have been fired anyhow. And regardless, any employee should know that, "Don't cause the company a giant PR problem" is a reasonable rule to follow. Indeed, that apparently is explicitly part of Google's orientation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23124750

Damore was asked to provide feedback at the diversity program. He did and shared his document for internal feedback and discussion. Damore was fired for this.

Your objection is that saying "Google" did each of those things "hides relevant details". I disagree given that I've explicitly stated those details in this thread. Taking a single sentence and complaining it lacks details which are readily available in the wider context seems like splitting hairs.

Your point about "what fits better with Damore's text and behavior" may be your opinion. I don't share it though based on Damore's text clearly offering suggestions to improve diversity and different ways to think about it. To me, it seems much more likely Damore interpreted the Google diversity people as being honest actors and gave his honest feedback.

Your final point about how Damore should've known he would be fired is true, and I agree he should've realized Google is not an honest actor and doesn't want genuine feedback. That's kind of beside my broader point though, which is to highlight Google's lack of integrity in this instance. Damore was naive and trusted Google, he should've known not to. We agree there.

Setting that point aside, do you think if Damore was genuinely trying to give advice, and I know you don't think that, that he should've been fired for it?

I think a person genuinely trying to give advice doesn't act the way Damore did.

But let's say you're right, that his very best effort to collaborate with his colleagues was a divisive attack on their politics. That his very best effort to collaborate involved sticking to his guns to the point it was causing a major internal problem, and then a notable external one. In which case, he's so uniquely bad at collaboration that I don't think they could do anything other than fire him.

But personally, I don't think Damore was almost uniquely incompetent.

Damore's memo was not a "divisive attack on their politics". On the other hand, lying about his memo to describe it that way does seem like a divisive attack.

I don't think you're being honest or fair here and don't see the benefit of continuing a conversation with you.

The go link was "pc-considered-harmful". I think Damore clearly understood that what he was doing was political. And starting from "PC", a right-wing caricature of left-wing positions, could not be anything other than divisive. If you'd like to argue that was somehow all accidental, that he was just incredibly bad a communication, feel free.

I'm being perfectly honest, and I'm doing my best to be fair. If you don't like that, well, I did my best.

I strongly object with characterizing being inclusive and mindful of how your speech affects others as a "left-wing positions". It's basic politeness.

I certainly would think so. But nonetheless, the US right has been attacking the US left for that for decades. As long as the politeness is being applied to historically disfavored groups, anyhow.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that in the parent comment's particular case, knowingly inviting discussion and then firing people when you get butthurt is stupid.

Not at all. When companies give power to employees, they expect that it be used responsibly and roughly in line with the goals of the company. If I give somebody root access and they just rm -rf everything because it seems like fun, or because they're trying to prove some sort of point, then I'm going to fire them.

Google correctly gave employees a lot of power to have internal discussions because they thought that would benefit them as a company. And the great bulk of people used that responsibly. Damore didn't and paid the price.

Someone abusing root access to destroy data doesn't compare at all to punishing unpopularity in a falsely "open" forum. Analogies tend to suck in debates, but yours is particularly bad.

The problem was not just "unpopularity". Many people at Google have surely said many unpopular things, and Google didn't fire them.

Why?

A lot of people here want to be the boss of their own start-up, which means they won't want their future (perhaps hypothetical) employees organising against them.

What happens if two groups/sides are equally discomforted by the other? Do you silence/fire them both? Is it majority rule?

I don’t have a good answer. But at that point some kind of outside discussion facilitation is probably necessary.

What's the most human narrative you're welling to place on Damore, that he might agree with? I'll try to think up a few...

1) Damore may have felt just as uncomfortable as his coworkers with what was being said, just in the opposite direction.

2) Damore, being a little spectrumy, attempted to derive an answer to a question about gender inequality in a cold and rational way, having no understanding that what he wrote would upset people. That's not the same as suggesting what he wrote is "correct." Correctness is irrelevant. As a person also on the spectrum, I can relate to this happening all.the.time. It's very difficult to understand what will upset people if you don't already have a mental rule about it. And rules are narrow.

I can agree with #2 - I don’t believe he saw this memo as being particularly political or as an attack against anyone.

In this case, you satisfy the group that spends disproportionate amounts of time weaponizing social media, activists, and blog journalists for their cause.

They solicited feedback. He gave them feedback that was well reasoned and well supported with citations, regardless of whether it was true or not. They didn't warn him, they fired him and the outrage mob wanted to ensure he never worked again.

If you're going to solicit feedback and then fire someone because you don't like it - at least specify that it must be non-dissenting feedback. Be honest here about the dishonest game being played.

That not even vaguely what that memo was. It was a blatantly political argument. Its go link was "pc-considered-harmful". Its central thesis was that Google leans too far to the left.

I think we're talking about the same memo, just a different take on it. To be clear, it was a response to a solicitation of feedback on a diversity program.

If a company can't handle honest, carefully researched and presented feedback - they shouldn't ask for it.

Your notion is that whatever an employee does should be fine as long as it technically complies with a the wording of vague, general request made by a coworker?

That would be one way to run a company, I guess. But I've never heard of one that actually works like that.

If you want to have an insightful discussion, one should refrain from making strawman arguments.

I think Demore's memo has little place in a company, but neither does the diversity program that spawned it. Better to keep politics out of the work place. But given the context, it was fully justified, regardless of its merits or lack thereof and I think the person who leaked it committed a real sin here, as did the company for firing him.

You can't keep politics out of the workplace. Your notion that diversity programs shouldn't exist is enormously political, and company having them or refusing to have them is political either way. Especially here in America, where the rights and privileges of white men have been intensely political topics for literal centuries. You are practicing politics right here, right now.

A diversity program is inherently political, as you said. I don't think it has a place in a company. Again, I think leave your politics at home. You seem to think that's not possible, but that's how I would do things, were it up to me.

It's got nothing to do with men's or women's rights. I'm dismayed by that whole argument. Let the meritocracy rule and the chips fall where they may.

Not having a diversity program is also political. The concept of meritocracy is political. Claiming that the things fitting with your political biases are non-political is political.

If that's the case everything is political. I'm not sure I accept that.

What I want to say is I don't care about left or right or the agendas of either. Focus on the product, the customers, and the fight. Alexander the Great never had a diversity program. I'm not going to say he was the pinnacle of morality here, but maybe it's a good idea to focus on the important things if you want to be successful.

Wanting to ignore America's long history of sexism and racism is a political position. Wanting to ignore the effects of those is a political position. Your contributions here are political activism.

If you want to be a reactionary, fine. But please own it.

I'm not sure if reactionary is the label, but I'll own whatever side doesn't have diversity committees at work - or HR departments if I'm allowed to dream.

Well I'm glad we both agree you're now a political activist.

>but once you’re in my ear with some misinformed ideas

How the hell do you expect to get anything done in a society if you presume that any hurtful idea is misinformed?

How can you seriously pretend that gendered differences in humans magically stop above the shoulders? You're denying realty. It's black and white.

You can bend over backwards and sweep rational arguments like Damore's under the rug, or you can accept that consistent inequality of outcome across the time and culture is very obviously indicative of at least some degree of intrinsic cognitive differences.

I don’t think it is a rational argument though?

Saying "that's not rational" without stating why is rather hypocritical.

> If he is making the workplace less comfortable for particular groups of people then I certainly would have no issue firing him.

Would you be okay with firing an LGBT person because they "made the workplace less comfortable" for some conservative employees?

Sure, if they are publishing documents about how straight people are less effective at their job then they’re causing unnecessary issues in the workplace.

Bad analogy, because Damore didn’t do that. I don’t know why this falsehood lives on, the paper is public, and it clearly says not that.

You're technically correct, still is not unreasonable to argue that accusing google of quote "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate" might have a net effect of caste a shadow over certain groups being competent enough or being "diversity hires".

So pointing out a mathematical fact about the hiring practices of your company is wrong? Google decided to implement the policy that minorities who almost passed the bar(but didn't) get special treatment.

A simple example: "On the current political climate, political platforms are being built around being "anti-pc". With the past evidence we have about astroturfing campaigns it's possible that there are some paid posters even here on HN peddling political right wing propaganda."

I'm not saying anything false, but you can clearly see that this is not only a bad faith argument, but actually poisons the discussion, and still it can be argued that indeed we need to be wary about astroturfing and social network manipulations.

I wouldn't have fired Damore, but let's not kid ourselves by saying "we're simply stating facts". Mainly because that's not really the conversation, the tacit implication of "minorities who almost passed the bar", but letting them in anyway, is that the "bar" might be wrong, and that the company might be getting more results with this kind of hires than just measuring "mad hack skillz". Damore rightly points out that "without evidence this is just veiled (left) ideology" the point where he misses is that there has been at least attempts to get this evidence, we can discuss the results and even if they're valid (reproducibility crisis), but Damore just plain ignore's it. The only extension he has to offer about this point is: "[7] Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”" which is just bullshit by the account of anyone who knows the basics and history of marxism or social science. So these are not even "facts", but youtube tier analysis.

This is a strawman argument, but I will assume you made it in good faith given how widely Damore's claims have been misrepresented.

From what I recall in the memo, I'm pretty sure he never said that women were less effective at their tech jobs (fortunately, because there isn't any evidence remotely suggesting that !)

What he did is that, when Google asked for feedback on their mandatory diversity training, he challenged the prevailing view being taught in these classes about why less women get into tech than men (basically: not because of inherent lack of interest but because of societal pressure)

He pointed out that the latest science on "interesting in things vs people" disagrees, and he supported his argument with citations.

In a company that prides itself on making data-based decisions, starting a discussion in this way with a reasonable argument (even if later refuted) ideally shouldn't be a firing offense.

Now, was it politically, humanly, emotionally smart for him to say things in this way without consideration for their impact on coworkers ?

Of course not. But still, I can't help feeling somewhat sympathetic to someone with child-like naiveté who spoke the uncomfortable scientific truth (or at least, a very reasonable theory) that adults don't want to hear.

First of all, there are plenty of businesses that would do exactly this. It is legal in most US states.

OK, but I don't think it's right. Here's why.

We as a society have said, employers can "discriminate" (meaning "choose") employees on some axes but not others. They can discriminate based on where you went to college, where you've worked previously, how friendly you seem to be, but not based on your gender or race. That's true even if working with a Black person or a woman would make some people uncomfortable.

The question, which I'll leave as a question, is, what's the difference between these two sets, and in which one does LGBTQ identity belong and why?

>If he is making the workplace less comfortable for particular groups of people

Not just any group of people, naturally, but particular groups.

Politics necessarily makes certain groups uncomfortable. A discussion of wealth redistribution makes the rich incomfortable, should such things be impermissible? Politics enables certain groups to be favoured, and others to be disfavoured. This is a good reason to ban politics in general, but if you allow it, you need consistent rules regarding which sorts of views are permissible, rules that aren't themselves political.

Being rich isn’t a protected group in the workplace.

There's a certain irony to saying that, considering the whole point of a workplace is to make someone richer, usually the already rich.

>This is a good reason to ban politics in general, but if you allow it, you need consistent rules regarding which sorts of views are permissible, rules that aren't themselves political.

It is impossible to have apolitical rules regulating which political discussions are allowed.

Hell, just banning political discussion - any political discussion - is a political act. It's always a political act.

If your company had a sizable portion of racists, and an employee said something anti-racist that made the racists feel uncomfortable, would you feel compelled to fire the anti-racist?

I'm a big believer in the principle of freedom of speech. It's sad that employees don't have freedom of speech in the workplace.

> Companies shouldn't be encouraging employees to be political

Yet the very act of any type of business dealing is inherently political. To deny that is to misunderstand the word itself. It's a shame that people have weaponized this term (political) and use it as a pejorative. Similar to the term social justice 'warrior', for people showing solidarity.

To not see this truth is to be culturally grandiose, in my opinion. Read Yash Tandon's 'Trade is War' for more.

If you have a mediocre employee that's ruining the productivity of less mediocre employees would you keep them around?

All the rest is noise. He simply wasn't worth keeping. Google keeps sexists, racists, and the like in it's executive and senior ranks. The difference is Google thinks they're worth it.

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