
Google’s fired engineer: James Damore’s claim against search giant revealed - YouAreGreat
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/11/03/googles-fired-engineer-james-damores-claim-against-search-giant-revealed/
======
funkythingss
These cowards don't link to the original:
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-
Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf)

Instead, they link to the heavily edited Gizmodo hit piece, that has the
sources removed. Dishonest

~~~
StevePerkins
Looking at the poster's history, I imagine this was "laziness" rather than
"cowardice".

For an example of cowardice, take note when this thread is almost certainly
flagged and buried within the next hour or two.

~~~
aaron-lebo
That's such an unfair way to paint your opposition.

This is how Damore does "evidence" and proves sources:

 _De-emphasize empathy - I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on
diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why
people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s
pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and
harbor other irrational and dangerous biases[0]. Being emotionally unengaged
helps us better reason about the facts._

Right because Damore is so objective and the people he is trying to engage are
emotional cripples. Here's his "source" for that:

[https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-
empathy](https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy)

This is not what objective research looks like.

~~~
StevePerkins
I'm not sure if you're addressing me, OP, Damore, or just yelling into the
aether. I certainly haven't said anything TO address regarding the content of
Damore's original paper.

For the record, I found Damore's reasoning to be terribly flawed. However, I
happen to also believe that squashing all public discussion in its wake is
foolish, cowardly, and entirely counterproductive from a practical standpoint.

If you're afraid to pull bad reasoning out in the open and cleanse it with the
sunshine of better reasoning, then it just festers and grows in the shadows.

~~~
pdkl95
The problem is you're implicitly assuming this (and other recent "culture war
topics" is actually about reasoning and legitimate attempt at debate. It
isn't. This is about controlling narratives and _reframing_ offensive goals so
they become a legitimate political opinion.

Most of these calls for a "debate" are not trying to actually debate anything.
They are trying to make enough confusing noise and repeat their talking points
as often as possible.

For a much better explanation of how this works - and why it's a trap which
educated, well meaning, politically-interested people seem to be particularly
vulnerable - see this short video essay:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM)

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _It isn 't._

That's not something that you may simply unilaterally declare. I don't recall
anyone appointing you final judge of what peoples' motivations are.

Remember " _I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your
right to say it._ "? Authoritarian liberals are trying to grab the authority
to dictate what we may and may not discuss and we mainstream liberals must
prevent that at all costs, lest we lose the soul of the liberal movement
itself.

~~~
pdkl95
I didn't "simply unilaterally declare" my point - I included a link to a video
that provides a much better explanation than I can give in a short post.

> appointing you final judge of what peoples' motivations are.

I not claiming such authority. I'm a stranger on the side of the road who
thought it would be a good idea to offer warn you the bridge you are about to9
drive over is unstable. You have the freedom to heed my warning and find
another route, or you can ignore me and drive over the bridge. Maybe it's time
to use Bayes' Theorem if you like that kind of inference?

> [general appeal to emotion using platitudes about free speech]

Is someone's speech being banned? Free speech does not mean you are guaranteed
an audience.

This is a nice example of the reframing technique I was talking about.
Nobody's speech is being restricted, but countering your points would mean
arguing about the subtleties of free speech doctrine, instead of what my post
was actually about: the current tactic of endlessly calling for "debate" that
never actually becomes a debate.

No, I don't have a lot of evidence on hand at the moment. All I can offer
right now is the conclusions from my firsthand observations of this technique
over the last ~20 year. You have the freedom to use this information as you
wish.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _I 'm a stranger on the side of the road who thought it would be a good idea
> to offer warn you the bridge you are about to9 drive over is unstable. You
> have the freedom to heed my warning and find another route, or you can
> ignore me and drive over the bridge._

Note the verbal sleight-of-hand pdk95 uses (and I don't mean the obvious false
dichotomy): he presents his behavior as a kindness to others, the hidden
assumption being that his viewpoint (assessment of the bridge's instability)
is an unassailable truth that we should not question. Ironically, he is using
the same sort of rhetorical trickery as the kind he condemns his opponents for
using.

I don't know about the rest of you but the more frantically someone assures me
that their statements are totally correct and that I need not verify them for
myself or listen to differing opinions, the more suspicious I get. What
exactly are pdk95 and people like him so terrified of? Is it that we are not
clever enough in their opinion to recognize bad ideas and reject them
ourselves?

Take the third choice. Inspect the bridge yourself and make up your own mind
whether it's stable.

> _Is someone 's speech being banned? Free speech does not mean you are
> guaranteed an audience._

Odd, I don't recall mentioning banning anywhere in my post.

------
Viliam1234
So sad to see yet another article linking the version of memo edited by
Gizmodo, instead of the original one.

Just imagine: You write "X". A malicious website writes "he wrote Y". Somehow
it becomes an important topic for the whole planet. And almost all newspapers
link the "he wrote Y" document.

Is this an exceptional incompetence, or a standard in journalism? Is it a new
standard of the clickbait era, or was it always like this?

------
moomin
I work in the UK. It’s much, much harder to get rid of someone without losing
a case than it is in California. You know what? If someone’s disruptive,
aggravates his co-workers or embarrasses the firm in public, they’re gone.
They can get taken to industrial tribunal, they lose and just chalk it up to
the cost of doing business.

Google took a few days to think about it before firing Damore. I’m sure they
worked out the cost/benefit.

Yeah, they’ll fight this (and the line of argument sounds like a reach) but
even if they lose, it’s just the cost of doing business. They might tighten up
their process for firing people to avoid the particular vulnerability, but
they won’t stop doing it.

------
danpalmer
This article mentions that in California there is no protection of freedom of
speech in employment (i.e. a company can terminate you for voicing an opinion
it doesn't want voiced), but this seems to be the premise of Damore's unfair
dismissal claim?

On that basis, I can't see him having much of a chance.

~~~
rhapsodic
_> This article mentions that in California there is no protection of freedom
of speech in employment (i.e. a company can terminate you for voicing an
opinion it doesn't want voiced), but this seems to be the premise of Damore's
unfair dismissal claim?_

Uh, no, actually, it's been reported many times in many other places that
Damore's claim is that he was speaking out in an effort to improve working
conditions at Google, and _federal_ law prohibits the dismissal of an employee
for engaging in that sort of activity.

[https://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-
ed/articles/2017-08-22/why...](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-
ed/articles/2017-08-22/why-fired-engineer-james-damore-may-have-a-federal-
case-against-google)

~~~
Berobero
> effort to improve working conditions

I'd assume the bar for this, though, is far higher than just claiming it.
Obviously we're not not dealing with a clear cut poor working conditions like
no restroom on site, or constant verbal abuse, etc; the meat of the contention
seems to be that he wasn't allowed to discuss company policy with coworkers in
regards to a politically sensitive subject, and that people with political
views that don't cleanly align with that policy feel ostracized. That seems
pretty close to "my freedom of speech wasn't protected".

Regardless, it feels like the litigation is somewhat lacking in merit unless
Damore can cleanly tie it back issues that made his day to day job difficult
to perform (i.e. bona fide poor working conditions).

------
rhapsodic
I hope Damore wins.

~~~
funkythingss
Me, too. Just so ironic how the responses of Silicon Valley/Media proved his
point exactly.

~~~
aaron-lebo
He made sizable list of claims, criticism of any of them is not evidence of
what he was saying.

My belief that you are wrong about Damore doesn't make you right. This should
go without saying, but you made a new account to say that.

~~~
randallsquared
> This should go without saying, but you made a new account to say that.

...due to fear of the consequences of publicly holding a non-mainstream
opinion in a culture-war subject, I assume. While I agree that merely being
contrarian doesn't make the GP right, I also believe that calling them out for
trying to protect themselves isn't very helpful.

~~~
aaron-lebo
They've got nothing to protect themselves from. It's not hypocritical for that
same poster to accuse others of cowardice and then hide in anonymity?

~~~
zaptheimpaler
They were criticizing a media outlet for not posting an original source, they
used the word cowardice but its very different from the sense you use it - as
a label of a personal behavior rather than a company. So it doesn't seem
particularly hypocritical to me. When Damore is being tried in the court of
public opinion, it matters a whole lot that the media publishes something
different from what he wrote.

Many people such as Damore, have had their careers destroyed over saying
things that are not "correct". Those on the "correct" side face no such
consequences. So yeah hiding in anonymity makes a whole lot of sense for one
side and is completely unnecessary for the other.

~~~
aaron-lebo
If you can't accept the unintended consequences of your actions, don't take
action.

Most jobs will fire you for being a nuisance. James was at Harvard and Google,
he should be fine landing on his feet.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Yeah, well they didn't take the action of posting publicly to avoid said
consequences just as you suggest, which you then criticize them for.

