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So recently a senior engineer at Google released a memo concerning how he believed that some of the diversity actions the company has taken has been negatively effecting company productivity and that there's a problem with how the internal atmosphere at Google seems to be actively hostile against certain opinions. Here's a link to the actual memo: https://imgur.com/a/OacRm
Obviously, this has sparked a rather massive firestorm both from several news sites and employees within Google, most of which are actively calling for the termination of this employee and basically a witchhunt of everyone who supported him.

In reality, what I find really suspicious about this is how apparently this memo was released a day after the new algorithms in Youtube that limit certain videos for "hate speech" went live. Perhaps something rather negative is going on at Google that a certain employee doesn't seem to agree with, and now is being actively prosecuted for it. Hmmm, I wonder what other case like this was rather similar. cough Snowden cough

Huh? Hiring people based on their sex/gender over their qualifications leads to a less qualified team? Who would have thought?

Also, I appreciate anyone who puts a TL:DR in their memo.

Also, Also, Seems pretty fitting that someone calling out ideological silencing is being ideologically silenced. I think things like this should be given more attention, seeing how influential google is, hard bias and censorship within the company is very worrying.

>"how the internal atmosphere at Google seems to be actively hostile against certain opinions"
>"most of which are actively calling for the termination of this employee and basically a witchhunt of everyone who supported him."

Kinda confirming it.

I actually feel like that was the underlying point of the whole memo, it was distributed within Google to prove to outside viewers that this echochamber does indeed exist.

Third paragraph

Firstly, I would like to say that although I don't agree 100% with this document, it's admirable that someone within Google is attempting to speak for the "other side" of the political spectrum. I live in an extremely liberal dominated city, where anyone who supports Trump, expresses controversial non-liberal opinions, etc. is ostracized. It's common among both political parties to dismiss someone on the other side of the spectrum as "evil", which is a terrible way of approaching things. Even though I'm a liberal and live around liberals, I try my best to understand how conservatives think and why they might support something that I don't. I believe what this employee is trying to say is that Google doesn't do this. Beginning a witchunt against this dude is effectively proving him right: rather than discussing why his ideas might be right or wrong, everyone is instead going REEEEEEEE he said something against women fire him right now!!!.
I personally don't agree with his viewpoints on women but he should be free to express his concerns about the company without fear of getting fired from his job. I do agree that Google (along with many other companies) have an obvious political bias and that this should be stopped. /longpost

Honestly its pretty damn terrifying how simply expressing an opinion can cost you your job, or cause large groups of people to devote their time to harassing you.

I mean i agree that freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

If your 'choice' is to either remain silent or have your life become a living hell can it still be seen as a freedom?

The only difference between current "freedom" of speech and actual no freedom of speech right now is that in the later you'll either get fined or arrested on top of everything else.

Basically, you seem to get all the social stigmatization from committing a crime without actually committing a crime.

I still find it a little suspicious how this memo was released a day after Google instigated all those anti "hate speech" algorithms to bury troublesome content.

Who cares? Google is a public company and they can do whatever they like, no? And if their diversity policy is indeed negatively affecting their productivity, well, it's their loss, they are less competitive, and are only hurting themselves. They/their shareholders are punished by the market already. This situation is concerning only if the government does stuff like that (hello, Canada).

Just to be clear, I say this as a reactionary, I'm not shilling for dem SJWs.

First of all, I feel real bad for whoever made this. He was just a senior engineer and now he's being pounced on by basically every major media outlet as presenting an "anti-diversity" memo. Gotta suck. Even if I disagree with his points, they weren't that bad.

Secondly, don't compare this to Snowden. Snowden released leaks of an insane, unprecedented nature, and was forced to hide around the world for it to prevent being put in prison for his entire life and possibly psychologically tortured the entire time (solitary confinement, like Manning). If things go really bad this dude will just have to get a job at a local deli or something.

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Given the nature of the issue, and the fact that this is a glorious trips thread (54000), I've decided to prudently investigate the issue beyond just the OP.

First of all, the amount of news organizations calling this an "Anti-Diversity" memo is astounding. He's against the practices Google has been using, not calling for an all-white Google. It's a brilliant case study in how shitty and yellow-journalism online media has become. It particularly disturbs me how even Reuters has done this, given it seemed to me like it's managed to, for the most part, avoid bad journalism in the past.

The general response has been knee-jerk, anti-intellectual, and lazy. In fact, I think it probably was actually set up against him. Read this, from the Gizmodo article that broke the story:

The text of the post is reproduced in full below, with some minor formatting modifications. Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted.

They basically removed his sources. You seem like a much bigger idiot when the news media posts what you said and removes all your sources, unsurprisingly.

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All that being said, I have serious reservations about the article arguments the memo makes.

Something being "bad for business" is a bold claim that's been repeated time and time again. Beyond the fact that I'm unsure he could've really cited anything that'd be strong enough proof, it's just generally a bad argument – not everything revolves around making money.

It is contradictory that he accuses Google of having a left bias, yet under his description right bias involves hierarchy and, most notably, authority – which he later accuses Google of having too much of (authoritarianism). It was really unnecessary and made it feel like he didn't think out what he was saying very well. The whole "well neither side is correct" jazz made me kind of ugh inside too, and I hate left-right political placing, but those are more minor peeves.

His criticism of social constructionism and the social studies world comes off bad, as someone who's checked out this issue personally. While I don't believe gender is 100% societally constructed (different debate), his approach comes off as almost arrogant. It's a huge risk to say that the majority of experts are wrong on something, and a software engineer criticizing social sciences rubs me the wrong way.

The very last section seemed like a big serious of things I just don't agree with. Demoralizing anything sounds like a horrible idea, as morals tend to touch just about everything to some degree or another. I reject utilitarianism so his suggestion we look at it through costs and benefits alone is not agreeable to me. His section on empathy comes off as a wordier and more respectful "reelz > feelz" moment, when feelz are a gigantic proportion of how humans function. To remove emotions from the equation seems roughly analogous to removing the human element, and treating everything like machines. Lastly, his approach to political correctness is really weird when you read the footnotes (not provided in the link in the OP).

Political correctness is defined as “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against,” which makes it clear why it’s a phenomenon of the Left and a tool of authoritarians.

…Wouldn't it make sense to avoid that kind of stuff?

Also lol @ this veiled suggestion of "cultural marxism"

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.”

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TL;DR People are being huge dicks about this, especially the media, unfairly so, although that doesn't absolve this guy of having bad arguments.

Perhaps this is a narcissistic way of thinking, but wouldn't you much rather know you were hired for a job based on your skills your workplace sees as valuable, or that you were hired to fill a quota?

The problem is the whole idea of a company whose basic deal is the distribution of information being guilty of bias and silencing differing opinions, especially one of Google's size and influence, is extremely troubling.

@Rivers

At the end of the article with his suggestions I believe he means for them to help with productivity of the company as a whole.

Because when you think about it, a giant company like Google should function differently than say, a single person or a small business. In order to be the most efficient, they should value the merits of a person over personal issues or their gender or race. And like he said in the article, that means they shouldn't let emotions cloud their judgement. Now don't completely obliterate them, but don't let them be the defining thing on whether or not you hire a person.

As for his criticism of social issues, like you even stated, it's very possible that that's just information he got from another source (a source that was then deleted by various editing news outlets, those pictures I grabbed aren't the originals, I just put them on Imgur in order to deny those news outlets clicks because I don't feel right letting them get paid for this). I guess we'll just never know whether or not that's either something he came to a conclusion to or if he's just parroting something someone more qualified said.

As for comparing it to Snowden, sorry if I touched a nerve or something but I only used the comparison for how things happened.

Big organization does something shady behind people's backs > Employee doesn't agree with said practices > Employee leaks information about practices to the public

Of course I know they're different levels of severity. I mean Google just hiding certain search results and Youtube channels (while still morally wrong) is obviously a lot less worse than the NSA spying on people.

Honestly I am not surprised that having a different opinion get get someone fired, it’s nothing new. Ridiculously vapid and childish I know, but the aftermath will be their own doing and I would be enjoying my popcorn seeing Google crumble as employees revolt and resign because of this.

What a shame man.

The Diversity VP of Google a title that commands less respect than professional dog walker, basically ignored the main point that a huge ideological bubble exist and was more upset that a employee would admit that there are differences between men and women. She is so in her bubble that she thinks people would be MORE upset that someone admitted to the differences between men and women and not that they would crucify anyone for wrong think. TL;DR has a video about the whole thing including the letter from the VP

As has been said a couple of times already, I am worried about the open bias that one of the largest providers of information flaunts like it's nothing.

It is not surprising, given that Google is becoming more and more Orwellian in its methods towards combatting wrongthink, and after the whole incident with Peterson I fear that they're becoming more and more bold in implementing draconian policies.
Hell, their new strategies for removing "hate speech" from youtube is troubling in it's own right.

What even gets me about this is they effectively lied to people.

I actually remember a while back when Youtube Heroes was going to be a thing (btw can someone tell me whether or not that's actually still happening or if that was canned?) I ended up getting in a massive argument with an employee at Google about this. Basically, the point I was trying to make is that it would be a very bad idea to give people the ability to mass-flag videos when those videos that are flagged aren't reviewed by real people. They then stated "no, we have a very dedicated staff that looks over those videos." Not only did I say "man, watching Youtube videos as a job, where can I sign up?" but I also cited how several channels like I Hate Everything were just mysteriously deleted for violating the terms of service. Almost as if no one reviewed the videos.

But now at the onset of this new "purgatory" feature (which is basically what it is), Google themselves admitted to using shitty Youtube algorithms to find and hide these videos. Something like this, however, warrants actual human reviewing in order to sort out the ISIS recruitment videos from someone saying Sharia Law is oppressive.

I really hope this whole debacle isn't the last of Google employees rising up against this shit.

Every day it feels like the Think-quisition is upon us. Facts are racist or sexist, and thoughts are a crime. It's quite a sad time to be living in.

So, about that guy: he was fired few hours ago with being blacklisted.

How diverse.
How tolerant.

Send him to "camp" while you are at it.

The engineer filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board shortly before he was fired, which raises the specter of legal action being taken.

It's not all inherently bad. I heard some people who are working on this site called Gap, which is marketing itself as a more tolerant search engine, offered the guy a job in the event he was terminated.

In all honesty, I feel like this memo would've worked better if the guy kept himself anonymous. That way, the company would scramble to find who wrote it and probably start an Imperium of Man-esque Inquisition in order to find the author, which would've then further proved their lunacy.

As well, it seems like this guy sort of sparked a fire within Google, because several other employees are now agreeing with him as well and condemning this action.

Just as an unrelated note, it's been awhile but I remember why I fucking hate mainstream media sites, if not for the bias of the sites themselves, but that they often have comment sections full of people that lean so far one direction they loop back around in a circle, and are so fucking aggressive in their stance that they want to physically hurt those who they don't agree with.

I would have to agree the best option in these cases is to remain hidden as best you can, However the fact that he lit a fire is good as well any him getting fired and black listed didn't do wonders for their PR and in addition basically proved him right when it comes to them. Anyone else they fire for agreeing with him or for disagreeing with how they handled the situation will only hurt them more and depending on their positions in the company it might hurt them a good amount. Plus if they fire all of those people then people who are more moderate might leave being worried about job security. Googles best option is to just take the lumps and shut up for a while any action they take to punish these people will only hurt them.

Google is a hopeless liberal shitpile of a company who's political behavior is beyond inexcusable. It's even worse when you realize the influence over the internet Google and other silicon valley businesses like Facebook have.

Regarding the overarching issue with all this, that is to say "diversity", I've never heard a good argument for why it's inherently a good thing, let alone why it should be actively promoted. Seriously, what benefit is there to your employees looking multicolored when you line them up?

Dude also forgot one of the most important rules for writing a manifesto like this, stay anonymous.

He tweeted out this picture and I don't know how to feel. On one hand, he's right because of the censorship, and on the other hand, he's was being paid 162,000 dollars. What do you think everyone?

The guy is clearly not happy over his termination. I don't believe he made the manifesto to run some right winged agenda like some people would say. As he has said in an interview, he wanted to bring out this issue and hoped someone in the company either supports him or prove him wrong. The leak and the sensationalizing by the media pretty much made Google cut him loose instead.

if anyone's interested, James Damore was interviewed by Jordan B Peterson regarding the manifesto.

Because no one bothered linking to a well-argued counter-point on why this guy deserved his termination, at the very least, (protip: he totally deserved it and it was in no way "censorship"), here is a medium article from a former senior Google staff.

Also this on why the "biological differences" between men and women was not the problem at all with the manifesto.

Also also, a response from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist.

Here's a response to that medium article

And this is a response from 4 scientists on why this dude isn't even necessarily wrong

No he did not total deserve it. You may feel he might have but that doesn't suddenly make it true.

The only scientist here that goes into the actual science admits that “again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace (accounting for, perhaps, a few percentage points of the variability between men’s and women’s performances).” This isn’t scientists defending the science, this is people with qualifications defending the memo for ideological reasons.

For your second link, the first link reeks of alt-right cuckspeak (1984, Dune…) so I won't ever touch that.

Also, this. (Don't get outraged over the clickbait-y title, thank you) with a reference to this.

We can go back and forth posting links til ww get tired.

Here's my main issue with whole thing. Did he deserve to be fired? No. Do I understand why Google fired him? Yes, is was to avoid a PR disatser(which couldn't be avoided either way, I'll get back to that) and set an example, which is exactly why the person who leaked the memo did it. Remember this wasn't something that was to be distributed amongst the public. Which is exactly why the person who leaked it is still anonymous as far as I know.
They forced Google's hand and got him in hot water to be a lesson to anyone else feeling froggy. Other in the company have been coming out to give interviews and statements in support of this dude anonymously. Mainly, because this isn't about men being better or smarter than women. This is about how forced diversity is not great, especially when everyone thinks the same and decide to slience their critics. You just end up with a bunch of people that look different but are pretty much a hive mind.

Back to my first point, once it got out backlash from either side was unavoidable. We become so polarized in politics it almost can't be helped. But instead of firing him we could have had a serious discussion, opened the floor to both sides of the table, try and figure out why he feels the way he does and see if we can sway that. Again still a PR nightmare because he wasn't fired like some people thought he should be, but we gain possitives of ideas being discussed. Opened to the public that benifits everyone at large.

Instead we burned the hertic for expressing his thoughts. Proving him right, turning him into a martyr and Google still having to deal with the bad PR after with no net benefit to anyone. Except well some people fell good tge bad man went away.

Also, if this happened at just a regular software company or some sort of gas/oil company. You'd probably find less people peeved, but this is Google. You know, the company responsible for distributing and handling information. It becomes very troubling when a company with that task and is that big begins to fire people for not thinking the same as others. To then on top of that tout around about diversity.

TheNerdSupreme said:

They forced Google’s hand and got him in hot water to be a lesson to anyone else feeling froggy. Other in the company have been coming out to give interviews and statements in support of this dude anonymously. Mainly, because this isn’t about men being better or smarter than women. This is about how forced diversity is not great, especially when everyone thinks the same and decide to slience their critics. You just end up with a bunch of people that look different but are pretty much a hive mind.

So, you're saying that people are hired not because their credentials made them qualified for the job, but because the company wants more diversity?
Kinda undercuts the work those people put in to earn their degrees, doesn't it? Kinda like how people argue that Affirmative Action makes "undeserving" people attend college, yet ignore Legacy or Donor admissions.

And how would this guy know that people working at Google didn't earn their position based on their credentials? He's a software engineer not being paid to use company resources to spread this manifesto around. If he wanted to talk about this stuff, he could have happily done so on his own time in his own residence.

What, specifically, do you mean by your last two sentences?
Judging by details near the beginning of the document, it was posted on some kind of internal forum or discussion channel, or something of the sort, in an attempt of open discussion with other employees at Google. It's not like he printed hundreds of copies of the manifesto and put them in mailboxes or anything.

He talked about this at Google because he thought it was an issue that should be addressed at Google. All he really seemed to do is just attempt to open up a discussion about this, asking whether or not it'd be productive for the company to reject very well qualified employees over some (possibly) less qualified employees because those are of a minority. Yes, forcing that belief on people would be wrong, but just opening the door to talking about it isn't. And yes, it is possible that those minorities did fairly earned their place by being qualified, but it's also possible they didn't too. Most likely it's a mixture of both really.

As well, another major topic of his memo was that he felt it was wrong that he was pressured to not speak up about these issues. Like he said, he felt like there was a "political echochamber" that prevent both sides of the arguments from efficiently presenting their views, views that aren't even necessarily "wrong" or "evil." Views that were seemingly validated when Google terminated him from his job for it.

All the guy wanted to do was open up a discussion about this. He presented his side of the argument with sources to back him up. What did the other side do? Demonize and eventually terminate him (and probably a good bit of hate mail and death threats for good measure, because radical political groups are fun!). That doesn't seem like a very effective discussion on this issue now does it, because nothing got done in the end except a man got both fired from his job and his fears validated.

In the end, no one wants to force anything. He just wanted to merely discuss it. But apparently discussion about different ideas is "wrongthink" now.

In the end, no one wants to force anything. He just wanted to merely discuss it. But apparently discussion about different ideas is “wrongthink” now.

Yeah, I mean, of course, for a guy who talked about "psychological safety" of his white men co-workers, he didn't think for one second that his memo would, maybe, I don't know, harm the psychological safety of his women and poc co-workers? Just maybe?

As Yonathan Zinger wrote, and he is fucking right about it:

What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs, and that they’re only being kept in their jobs because of some political ideas. And worse than simply thinking these things or saying them in private, you’ve said them in a way that’s tried to legitimize this kind of thing across the company, causing other people to get up and say “wait, is that right?”

[…]


You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.

He wasn't arguing they "aren't good enough" to do their jobs. He was arguing that they could've hired someone better than they were. I mean it's not like they hired homeless people or McDonalds workers to work there. I'm sure everyone there was qualified to some degree. It's just that they could've had someone more qualified than them.

And last time I checked, I didn't see his women and poc coworkers getting shouted down or fired for controversial opinions, which I'm sure at least some of them have had at one point or another.

Merit not minority. It's not fair that someone is chosen or rejected because of something they have no influence over. People can influence how qualified they are at something through education and experience. You can't make yourself black or any other minority.

I'd just also like to add that some of his women coworkers have decided to protest this memo by deciding to take the day off from work. Because it's a great idea to prove how you're not inept at your job by deciding to take a day off of work because someone said something bad who was even fired for it.

Honest question here: did you actually read the manifesto?

Way to gloss over a bunch of the other things i stated to address this one point.

Note what I said again FORCED diversity(meaning meeting quotas) is not great. Especially if everyone thinks and looks at thing the same with no deviance or difference. At that point you don't have any real diversity, it just looks good to those outside looking in.

You wanna know what though? If Google wants to hire based on diversity only as deep as people look. That's fine as long as they are able to do their job properly. So when things like this pop up they can square off at their given assignments and see who comes out on top. It can be as clear and cut as that. You doubt what I can do and think your better/I dont belong here? Lets go toe to toe and see who matches up proper. Instead we get someone questioned that status quo? We must protect it while burying and shaming all dissenters.

Your right though. He should of did this at his own residence on his own time. That wouldn't have changed anything that's happened so far in this whole thing except where/when the memo spreaded.

What is this evidence of """FORCED""" diversity I keep hearing of?

How were the women or black/brown people hired less or not as qualified as they should be?

Spaghetto said:

What, specifically, do you mean by you last two sentences?

Using a company's internal comms channel to spread your ideological manifesto as though it was a pamphlet isn't a good use of one's time as an employee. And considering the material of the manifesto, if I was his superior, I'd probably terminate his employment too.

Tyranid Warrior said:

He wasn’t arguing they “aren’t good enough” to do their jobs. He was arguing that they could’ve hired someone better than they were.

You wanna re-read that? Because that sounds like a contradiction.

Zozzler said:

How were the women or black/brown people hired less or not as qualified as they should be?

It's a dogwhistle argument against Affirmative Action, implying the only reason certain people are hired isn't because of their credentials or skills, but because they're a minority. It's using resentment towards "the other".

I work in IT, and my relatively short experience means that I'm lucky to find a job in the field. That doesn't mean I get stepped over because someone's a minority; it's because I lack the experience they're seeking.

BrentD15 wrote:

Using a company’s internal comms channel to spread your ideological manifesto as though it was a pamphlet isn’t a good use of one’s time as an employee.

It was, in all likelihood (this may have been confirmed by him, but I'm not sure) intended to spark debate within the forum. Think less "ideological manifesto" and more "long, well-researched debate piece with an unpopular opinion".

And considering the material of the manifesto, if I was his superior, I’d probably terminate his employment too.

I've already asked someone this, but did you read it in whole? If you've yet to, you should do that immediately.

If I was his superior, I'd defend him (but, to save my own hide, not specifically defend his statements). After all, diverse opinions and open debate are healthy (and so is reading!).

If you would've bothered to read the rest of my statement in that regard, you'd understand my reasoning.

Take it like this. The company could've hired a white man who was 90% qualified, or a black man who was 85% qualified. How it should be, is that they hire the white man, not because he's white, but because he's more qualified than the black man. However, in this regard it'd be the black man to be chosen because he's black, which negates the 5% the white man had over him.

See, people have a problem with this, one because using something people have no control over as criteria for hiring is fucking stupid, and two, if it were between two white men with one at 90% and another at 85% it would've been the first guy at 90%.

You're acting like the guy accused his coworkers of not being qualified at all, when he stated they're not as qualified as they should be. How an efficient company should work is that they make decisions that are efficient for the company. Hiring the best people is an efficient decision. I mean if I was in charge of a company I'd hire the most qualified, not because I'm a sexist or racist, but because I want the best possible people working for me. It's just fucking logic.

And lastly, it just seems fucking patronizing at a minority's standpoint. I'd want to be hired because of my skills and value, not because I have different skin or genitalia.

The point I was trying to make, though granted I might not have conveyed it has well.