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> It was completely just as Damore basically wrote a dissertation about things that were completely unrelated

It was a completely inconsistent.

Damore was not fired for debating politically-sensitive HR proposals. Many people were involved in the same conversation, with the same degree of relevance to Google's products.

Damore was fired because his proposal was contrary to the majority.

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It's possible to maintain both that widespread workplace political discussion is a poor idea, and that Damore was unfairly treated relative to his peers.




If your assertion were true, all people who ever voiced a minority opinion would be fired and that’s clearly not true.


I think everyone else took notice that expressing conservative opinions in writing was a fireable offense.


Do you really think that there are no liberal opinions that are fireable? Like if I said all men are rapists, you think that’s a safe thing to say at work?

I think people took notice that saying “women earn less money because their genes make them less good at stuff” is a fireable offense. I actually don’t believe conservatism has anything to do with it.


Damore didn't say that, but that didn't stop lots of people lying about what he wrote.

I guess those few of us who actually read his memo will have to keep repeating this over and over against the wall of lying about it, but one more time - Damore argued women were less interested in computing, and that's why they are "underrepresented". He explained why they might be less interested and showed that this isn't controversial at all, neither with scientists nor anyone who ever tried to interest a pretty girl in the merits of AVX512.

He explicitly didn't argue women were worse at computing though. He said that very clearly.

You ask what liberal opinions get you fired at Google. I'd also like to know that. Here is a petition by nearly 1500 of them which claims border control is comparable to the Holocaust. That's unbelievably extreme, but apparently nobody was fired for it.

https://medium.com/@no.gcp.for.cbp/google-must-stand-against...


For someone who claims to be trying to tackle the misinterpretation of Damore, no where in the medium post you linked does it say what you claim it says. It doesn't compare CBP to the Holocaust. It sites the human rights abuses that it is enabling that has lead to the death of 7 people by forcing these people into indefinite detention for what could be, at worst argued, a misdemeanor. They're held enmasse in cages in warehouses which fits the textbook definition of a concentration camp. It's surely not as bad as the Holocaust (which this petition doesn't claim what you claim it does), but it's not any better.


It says:

In working with CBP, ICE, or ORR, Google would be trading its integrity for a bit of profit, and joining a shameful lineage. We have only to look to IBM’s role working with the Nazis during the Holocaust to understand the role that technology can play in automating mass atrocity.

That's pretty direct. Working with ICE would be a "mass atrocity" and "we have only to look at IBM's role working with the Nazis during the Holocaust to understand".

You say, "It doesn't compare CBP to the Holocaust" but I'm going to have to disagree. Why bring up the Nazis at all if they aren't making that comparison, which a plain reading of their words absolutely seems to do?

They're held enmasse in cages in warehouses which fits the textbook definition of a concentration camp

Huh, and now you seem to be doing it too.

No, it fits the definition of a prison, which is where you'd expect them to be given that they're breaking the law. Are all prisons concentration camps now? No, concentration camps are defined by the fact that they imprison identity-based groups of people who haven't committed any normal crime - e.g. political prisoners, disfavoured ethnic groups and so on.

It's surely not as bad as the Holocaust (which this petition doesn't claim what you claim it does), but it's not any better.

This last part is a puzzle to figure out. It's not as bad, but also not better - those two things are in contradiction.

I don't think comparing immigration laws of any country to the Holocaust is helpful at all, as that would make literally every country basically the same as the Third Reich, which they clearly are not. And not only those Googlers are doing it but now you are too!


It's not direct. IBM was just an example to illustrate the point of what CBP is doing in terms of following a lineage of supporting mass atrocity, of which indefinitely detaining people in an inadequate facility is a mass atrocity. They aren't making an equivalence like you claimed. They could've used Japanese internment camps. However, people know what the Holocaust is a lot more.

A prison is when you're incarcerated in your own cell and not a crowded cell. A prison provides adequate comfort that meets a minimum standard of care for inmates. A prison is not putting 30 people in one room, putting 30 people in a fenced in cage, providing lack of hygiene products and having 30 people to a single toilet. They're not provided space blankets and given no bed.

A concentration camp, by definition is deliberate incarceration of a minority group in inadequate facilities to sometimes perform labor or be exterminated. Going through this one by one:

1) They're being incarcerated even for claiming asylum (which is legal in the US) and crossing a port of entry is not illegal.

2) They're being incarcerated indefinitely which is also illegal.

3) They're an identity group (ie. of latin heritage). There are no detention centers for Canadian immigrants.

4) They're placed in warehouses in cages with little access to hygienic facilities. They're placed in mass groups with no beds or individual cells. This fits the inadequate facilities criteria.

So yes, that fits the definition of a concentration camp pretty clearly.


> women earn less money because their genes make them less good at stuff

That's a poor paraphrase.

A more accurate one would be "Women earn less money on average because on average they are less interested in earning due to long-standing innate differences."


You're right; the criteria was incomplete.

Damore was fired because his proposal was contrary to the majority and it became widespread knowledge.

Were Damore's part of the discussion never leaked, then I assume it would have been a slap on the wrist or just a shrug.


There is some variance in the level of emotional, economic stake between issues.




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