Comment by telchior | Hacker News Reader

Comment by telchior | Hacker News Reader

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Trying to give it the article a more positive reading: at least for myself, I can imagine several opinions I could express in the United States which would count as "heresy". I'd imagine that if those opinions were said out loud (whether or not I really believed them) my employers would fire me, friends would unfriend me, etc.

But, I can't really think of any supporting real-world stories where that reaction wouldn't be justified. There are two that come to mind:

- Justine Sacco, the woman who was fired for tweeting a joke that she hoped she wouldn't get AIDS on her trip to Africa. I don't think the joke is necessarily indicative of some deep inner evil, but the lady was a PR exec; it does tend to indicate that she was probably dangerously incompetent at her actual job. Firing seems like the right response.

- Amy Cooper, the lady in New York who called the police on "an African American man threatening my life" in Central Park. He was a bird-watcher asking her to keep her unleashed dogs under control. Widely reported that she was fired for racism. But again, is this really a case of being fired for heresy? Or could it have perhaps just a case of the employer realizing their employee is a dishonest sack of crap? God knows what kind of havoc a person like this might wreak inside a company.

Those two are probably the most widely reported in the past few years. People here are referencing firings in academia; maybe those would give more nuance.

> Amy Cooper ...

Not saying what she did was justified, but there is more to the story.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-centr...

> "May 2020 testimony provided by Jerome Lockett, a black man who said Christian had “aggressively” threatened him in the park. Among the details: “when I saw that video, I thought, I cannot imagine if he approached her the same way how she may have genuinely been afraid for her life.” He continued, “If I wasn’t who I was, I would of [sic] called the police on that guy too.”

Also see the talk page for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_birdwatching_inci...

Neither was fired for work performance. I think anything else is a distracting justification, not a reason.

James Damore was fired by a mob who boldly proclaimed "I didn't read his manifesto. I didn't have to".

None of these firings were for honest reasons, but all just to appease the mob. A mob who at least in the last case didn't bother to even find out what he said.

There are many more examples. I could list them on and on, but I'm surprised you've only heard of the two.

There was the lady who appeared to scream in a cemetery

If those two are truly the only ones you can think of then I'd recommend you google this a bit better, and to read "So you've been publicly shamed".

Hell, a year ago you'd be kicked off the internet (social media platforms) as a racist (wat?) for saying the lab leak theory was plausible.

And of course then there's the chilling effect.

James Damore was fired by Google, not a mob. The people at Google who made this decision read his "manifesto."

Okay, would saying "a mob bullied Google into firing James Damore" instead be better?

Presumably the executives who fired him are intelligent people who can draw their own conclusions about what he did or didn't say.

(I find it revealing that the reaction on HN is fundamentally that Damore was fired by a conspiracy. The executives must actually agree with him but were "bullied" by woke people or something, as though it's not possible that corporate leadership could find what he said problematic).

Corporations kowtow to the demands of Twitter mobs all the time, why should Google be an exception?

In terms of firing people who don't deserve to be fired?

The thing you're claiming is that the company/decision makers think damore was right (or that his opinion was irrelevant) and fired him only to save face.

I don't think that happens regularly. I think sometimes someone points out that an employee is racist and the company fires that employee, but that's not "kowtowing", it's a combination of not working with assholes and taking customer feedback. I don't think the thing you're talking about happens much at all.

> I don't think the thing you're talking about happens much at all.

It doesn't happen much because it's not often a sufficiently large mob gets into a frenzy about firing someone. Can you point to any instances where the mob unjustly called for blood and the company/decision makers refused to kowtow? Brendan Eich was fired by a mob (consisting of Mozilla employees and Twitter users). His crime? Donating $1000 to a heretical political cause years earlier. Corporations always kowtow to the demands of sufficiently large mobs regardless of if the demands are just because not doing so means you'll have mutinous employees on your hands.

Fox news all the time, there were calls to fire some people responsible for firing timnit which never happened, etc. So yes. You just never hear about them because "company ignores Twitter drama" is the null hypothesis.

> Presumably the executives who fired him are intelligent people who can draw their own conclusions about what he did or didn't say.

Yes, but is it fair to say that they probably made the decision based on what's best for the business?

"Make the mob go away" is a rational decision to make. And one that's done all the time in this world of public shaming (see book "So you've been publicly shamed").

Damore does not have a cash value higher than the productivity lost by many other employees turning into a mob instead of working.

Maybe they would have fired him without the mob. But I don't think so.

> Damore was fired by a conspiracy.

No, I say by mob justice (the mob) and capitalism (best decision for the business).

No conspiracy needed.

Could it not also be said that a group used their free speech to convince a private company to end it's employment with an at will employee?

There are plenty of things that you should be allowed to do, but that you shouldn't do.

In my experience, people will do anything they're allowed to (and often much that they aren't, but that's another issue).

In the same way that shouting down a speaker, preventing anyone from hearing it, is exercising free speech.

That is to say: Debatable.

It seems like an inescapable paradox of free speech, no?

I don't think this is unsolvable/inescapable, and I think we need to solve this.

In my opinion DoS isn't speech. DoS prevents not just a the speaker from talking, but denies all the listeners hearing it. Just like fraud isn't "free speech".

It's not a paradox of free speech that I can't reneg on a verbal contract, or written contract.

Free Speech is about the free exchange of ideas. DoS is literally the opposite of that.

The right of your fist ends where my face begins.

It's possible to argue that it's speech to express your displeasure with a person or their position by interrupting them. And demonstrating or doing a stunt during speech, is fair.

But if it goes so far that your intention is no longer to communicate your displeasure, but to deny speech, then it's like claiming "freedom of movement" to move your fist into someone's face.

The line isn't clear, and I literally mean it's debatable.

James Damore was in fact fired for workplace behavior it should be noted. His manifesto was a document discussing Google’s actions and policies and was distributed to coworkers.

Written as response to a request for such comments, and distributed in the forum designated for such comments, yes?

There are many reasons outside of work performance to fire people. For example: someone who lies on their resume, then does a generally good job. That's generally a fireable offense in isolation from performance (though hopefully not as an automatic decision).

You assert that the two I named were fired from public pressure, but that looks to me like self-confirmed speculation based on what you want to believe. Were I a business employing either of those two people, I believe my own reaction would be to fire them. Not for woke reasons; they're just walking, talking disasters. Why employ assholes and idiots?

Anyway, since you mention it I do recognize more of these names, including the ones mentioned by the book you cited. They didn't come immediately to mind. But let's say James Damore is the best example in support of Paul Graham's essay (and far more nuanced and potentially sympathetic than the two I named). He argued (in part) for biological determinism, which is definitely "heresy"; and it's definitely possible to imagine a world in which that would lead to debate rather than firing.

If the essay had actually named a figure like Damore, would it have been more convincing? I can't answer for everyone but for me the answer would be: slightly more convincing, but not a great deal more. There's just a lot more to the story than "this person got fired for woke heresy", and it's not that convincing to do this kind of hand-waving simplification.

> There are many reasons outside of work performance to fire people. For example: someone who lies on their resume, then does a generally good job. That's generally a fireable offense in isolation from performance

Ok. "Work performance" may be too narrow in its obvious interpretation. What I mean is "quality of performance of your duties". Lying to your employer legitimately reduces trust that you'll continue to be able to perform your duties.

But let's say someone goes to private sex parties in their own time, full of consenting adults. That has nothing to do with your performance at work.

> You assert that the two I named were fired from public pressure, but that looks to me like self-confirmed speculation based on what you want to believe

Do you believe they would have been fired if this had not been made public?

You're right that I don't have proof, but I think my position here is self-evidently true.

> If the essay had actually named a figure like Damore, would it have been more convincing?

I think PG feared it would derail the discussion to just be about Damore. That his whole essay would be dismissed by large sets of people as merely "A Damore defence", without reading neither it or Damore's "manifesto".

And exactly as his essay describes it would be dismissed as x-ist, to shut down debate.

So… yes and no. It would be clearer, but risk being less effective in achieving his goals.

Also less timeless, which he explicitly mentions as a goal.

> James Damore was fired by a mob who boldly proclaimed "I didn't read his manifesto. I didn't have to".

I assure you, the vast majority of us who criticized him read his writings quite thoroughly.

Maybe. I too only have anecdotes about it.

I saw several senior leaders (in industry and in the mob) say exactly what I quoted.

And privately I asked several angry people "did you read it?". Most said no, and some came back later saying "yeah that was not actually what they told me it was".

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