Please quote a part of the Damore original memo where he explained women were inferior (except, maybe, in numbers as far as the computer science field is concerned)?
For those about to jump in and suggest that he only mean the current way of hiring women is bad for business, he later suggests affirmative action to hire more conservatives would be good for business because they are more 'diligent'. Note that men are more conservative then women, so this is a double whammy.
He did not. The TL;DR said:
● Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.
When I read it, he mentions conservatives only in the section "Suggestions / Stop alienating conservatives" where he says:
In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility. We should empower those with different ideologies to be able to express themselves.
It seems to me that you are misrepresenting the memo, as so many others have done. Perhaps you have read some commentary, many of which also misrepresented it, and not the memo itself?
"Stop alienating X" is a call for action, and if that call to action is heeded X will feel less alienated and there will be more of them. Because it's targetted at X it is "discrimination" by the dictionary definition of the term and by the general usage. This is true whether X is "women" or "conservatives". In this kind of context it is sometimes called "positive discrimination". The memo writer uses the term discrimination himself in this way when talking about hiring more women.
The relevant bit you didn't quote makes it clear that he sees business benefits from having more conservatives employed:
"Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is required for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company."
So, taking action to hire or retain more conservatives, good for business. Because they have skills Google needs more of. Taking action to hire or retain more women, bad for business.
He clearly has no problem with affirmative action in itself, as long as the target being helped isn't women (or racial minorities).
When I read "stop alienating conservatives" with the explanation that they should not "need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility", I read that as saying that people shouldn't be openly hostile to other people even if they disagree.
In my opinion, that is not discrimination or "positive discrimination". In my opinion, it's simply being civil to other people.
"Stop alienating conservatives" is a far cry from affirmative action. Personally, I think quota-based affirmative action targeted at conservatives would have similar downsides as quota-based affirmative action targeted at women. (Essentially, when you are optimizing for something other than profit, it's going to cost money.) However, you might have success with a test selecting for high-conscientiousness workers.
Although vertex-four probably did mean to imply what you are challenging, I can still agree with the denotation. Someone who gives a scientific explanation (or worse, a "scientific" "explanation") for the status quo to suggest that nothing can be changed about it, would offend a lot of people. Especially those who are disadvantaged under the status quo and want to see that change.
Edit: Ironically, it seems like my explanation of the things that offend people offended some people. (Or maybe it's something about my tone. Not sure.)
Shouldn't we laugh at and ridicule those people for their outdated beliefs?
What's there to be offended about by something that isn't true?
That doesn't mean the correct course of action is to force societies hand to accommodate someone's hurt feelings.
I argue the correct course of action is for people to develop resilience and emotional maturity.
Laughing them off doesn't get anywhere - these beliefs are not a one-off thing, as much as we wish they were - and complaining about these ideas and the prevalence of them gets seen by people like yourself as "having hurt feelings".
I just don't understand why getting offended is supposed to help. I'm reminded of the former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's "Misogyny Speech" speech.[1]
Being offended means you've lost. The other party has had the desired affect on you: your energy is diminished by their words.
We shouldn't be offended, no. We should feel embarrassed for, we should feel pity for, these poor people who hold outdated beliefs, because they and their beliefs are hold them, and us all, back from a more whole society.
Did any of the great people of history, any of the people who really helped change the world write speeches espousing the benefits of being offended.
What exactly is "being offended" and why is it bad? Where do you see people being offended, and how do you differentiate it from activism? I mostly see people being angry that even in - especially in - particularly egregious instances, many very vocal people still won't believe that there's a problem. That's different from being offended.
How is feeling pity for the people we meet every day who literally think we are less able than men and who are often in positions of power over us supposed to help?
They post to HN every now and again. I can't link because their posts usually get flagkilled, or their accounts are dead from other fuckwittery. But it happens.