If even half of that is true, then I'm really grateful that this lawsuit is bringing these actions to light, this is unacceptable.
EDIT: Really unfortunate that this article got flagged. It's important and we should be able to discuss it.
EDIT. Not commenting on it, but https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTCqvlRXUAILVUL.jpg:large . The fact that there is open discussion on terroristic activities, and the fact that it's not removed over the course of 24 hours. What in the fuck?
Can you elaborate on what of that is the discussion of terroristic activites? Because that seems to be quiet a loose reading of the screenshot.
If I changed it up to say something like "I've never been apart of a military or war effort..." and then someone follows up with "Get in touch with your local Army of God (Christian terrorist group in the US)..." it doesn't take much reading between the lines.
The rest of it...not so much. There is a discussion of a belief "I won't say violence has no place" There is not a discussion of 'The use of intentional, indiscriminate violence as a means to create fear to achieve political religious, or ideological aims'
Fascism is fun: its appeal has the same root as teamwork. Joining up with like-minded people to counter a common enemy, and prioritizing ends over means, is how you get to fascism.
A handy rule of thumb is to flip the motivation in a sentence to its ideological opposite, preferably one that you don't like. If the meaning of the sentence is then abhorrent, rather than acceptable dissent, it's probably a couple of steps too far even when you agree with the sentiment.
Maybe the first part could be considered acceptable but towards the end it seems that they know what they are discussing. And even the fact that the first reply is not "Everything is not so bad, if you feel disheartened, there are numerous local community organization blah blah blah" but "get in touch with your local antifa" says a lot.
While I'm pretty surprised that some of these screencapped discussions and memes would come up in a work environment (does Google have their own internal social network?), I think many of them are worthy of a more level-headed conversation instead of just outraged captions. (For example: why should Google allow disturbing individuals like Steve Bannon on their premises? Or: if a person was actually fired for serial harassment, shouldn't other companies be made to know? Or: why should Google not correct their own frequently erroneous featured snippets? Or even: why should people be passively OK with weirdly sexualized comments aimed at their baby?) I also think that these incidents tend to be born out of good and noble intentions: a belief that justice in the world can be more easily achieved by leveraging institutional power, not a lust for political control and uniformity of thought as some would paint it. In my opinion, as much as these images might anger (especially out of context), they ought to be read and discussed in a more charitable light.
On the other hand, it's true that some of this stuff is rather insufferable, back-patty, and seeping with privilege. Get over yourself, Google. You're a glorified multinational ad corp, not the technical Mecca and savior of the free world.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2014-01/enha...
I think a lot of people would take issue with a snotty teenager telling them they are ignorant if they don't agree that they have privilege. I would also think that a professional setting like Google would not allow garbage like this in official company communication channels.
The SSC blog's discussions are probably higher quality, but the blog's UI makes it difficult to track ongoing conversations, unlike Reddit.
What happened to just showing up, doing the work, then going home?
I sell loans, why do I care about my customer's religion asks the banker, right before finding out that the Quran has specific provisions for appropriately lending and borrowing money.
Edit: His lawyer has made multiple misrepresentations of voter fraud in California, going as far as accusing innocent individuals of voter fraud. She's been investigated by the CA State Bar several times for unethical behavior. As for Damore, he's made several false statements about his time at treatment at Google that have been refuted by multiple non-biased sources.
This is going to be very interesting...
No, you can't predict a person's opinions by their ethnicity and gender. Nicky Haley is an Indian-American woman, and is a leading GOP politician and supporter of President Trump. Clarence Thomas is an African-American male, and possibly the most partisan conservative on the Supreme Court.
But it's not a fact yet, just accusations as you say.
I mean, I've heard Damore be accused of all kinds of things, but I haven't heard anyone say he's a fraud before. I just assumed it's a detail that got lost in the discussion about whether or not he's a terrible sexist and/or racist. I haven't heard of his lawyer before so I wouldn't know anything about that.
Mods: Can you change the title to be more accurate and unflag?
This entire lawsuit seems predicated on the idea that people having non-conservative views is somehow discrimination against conservatives.
It's calvinball as a legal theory.
Example: https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950448063516172288
Damore made such arguments in his manifesto, and based them on research that he utterly misinterpreted. While the cited post may be glib, it is actually backed by solid research on innovation and diversity of experience and thought (e.g., intellectual, racial, gender, etc.). Under Damore's own original argument that he was there shouldn't be any problem with saying that.
Damore was fired for making google look bad, not for his beliefs, and not even for being an obnoxious coworker.
"Without diverse leadership, women are 20% less likely than straight white men to win endorsement for their ideas; people of color are 24% less likely; and LGBTs are 21% less likely. This costs their companies crucial market opportunities, because inherently diverse contributors understand the unmet needs in under-leveraged markets. We’ve found that when at least one member of a team has traits in common with the end user, the entire team better understands that user. A team with a member who shares a client’s ethnicity is 152% likelier than another team to understand that client." [0]
"In this study, we investigated whether the variety of ideas and the innovative qualities of team design solutions are related to team gender diversity. The research participants were 148 engineering students working in 37 teams. These teams were identified as gender balanced or all-male based on their gender composition. Their idea generation outcomes and final design solutions were evaluated using an established variety metric and a new innovation potential metric developed by the authors... Results suggest that diversity, defined by gender alone, may not increase the innovation potential of student design teams but may support innovation in the presence of other factors. Efforts should focus on helping teams better utilize their diversity to improve their ability to be innovative." [1]
"Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women board directors attained significantly higher financial performance, on average, than those with the lowest representation of women board directors," [2]
"We acknowledge that these findings, though consistent, aren’t proof of a direct relationship between diversity and financial success. At high-performing companies, the board or CEO may simply have greater latitude to pursue diversity initiatives, and other management innovations may contribute more directly to superior results. We will continue to explore these issues in further research.
As a starting point, and to get a reality check on the aggregate data, we looked for evidence of diversity’s influence on the actions of individual companies during the volatile 2008–10 time frame our analysis covered. In a number of cases, diversity appeared to play a critical role. At adidas, one of the companies that ranked in our top quartile in diversity and performance, senior leaders have designated diversity as a strategic goal and started building it into the guts of the organization. ... To spur innovation across global markets, adidas is also ensuring diversity in its design centers—and has won a number of awards for product creativity....
One global food company that ranked in the top quartile for diversity completed a series of successful international joint ventures between 2008 and 2010. These actions advanced a strategic goal of geographic decentralization and risk diversification, while ensuring that its products fit the varying preferences of local cultures and markets. The more diverse footprint paid operational dividends as well: at some of these joint ventures’ plants, the company discovered highly efficient manufacturing processes, which it absorbed and then disseminated across its own manufacturing base. Similarly, a leading telecommunications company whose top team hailed from a number of different nations significantly expanded its global network infrastructure and was able to meet ambitious growth targets in emerging markets. " [3]
"Using laboratory experiments, Phillips and her research collaborator, Clayman Institute affiliate Margaret Neale, analyzed the connections between race and innovation. They found that racially homogeneous groups tend to fall into the trap of “group think,” or a situation that occurs “when a group values harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation.” The authors argue that being around others who are similar tricks us into thinking everyone else shares the same information and perspectives. Group think can lead individuals to ignore missing information or alternate explanations that force the development of creative solutions. Furthermore, the consequences of group think are that people are not inclined to contribute individual insights that veer from the group norm or the group’s accepted thoughts. This is especially true of women and minorities, who already are often outsiders and are often underrepresented in many workplaces; to offer criticism risks the potential of being seen as not a team player." [4]
So you have it with students, companies, gender, race, its not about white-male specifically, its about group think. The call out for 'white male 40s' is because that is so often the dominant group in the room in Tech. If tech was dominantly filled with 26 year old black non gender conforming people you would have the exact same concern. Groupthink is real, and when the groupthink group also posess the identity that is how society is normatively represented, its difficult to see.
Those are literally the bookmarks I already had on hand. I would suggest reading on the issue from scholarly sources a little. Be cautious of trusting other people's summations of research, especially those that reinforce your own beliefs.
[0] https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
[1] Fila, N. D., & Purzer, S. (2014). The relationship between team gender diversity, idea variety, and potential for design innovation. International Journal of Engineering Education, 30(6A), 1405–1418. Retrieved from http://www.ijee.ie/
[2] http://www.catalyst.org/media/companies-more-women-board-dir...
[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our...
[4] http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2017/how-does-diversity-spur...
You can claim that I somehow changed the meaning of the original bigoted statement but I didn't. It's a very simple, straightforward bashing of white males.