I think tech workers are easy targets. For instance, we've all heard about the need for diversity in tech, but never hear about accredited investors being < 6 % female and < 1 % black.
Well, if I find out anyone holds nazi ideologies I'm happy to socially "destroy" them over those ideas. I agree that the government shouldn't punish them for those ideas, but I think individual citizens and entities have every right to disassociate and socially punish someone for those ideas.
Now, I'm not saying that Damore's ideas are that extreme. However, it puts an upper bound for me on how much I can agree with your statement. There are ideas that I'm fine imposing social punishments on people for believing.
I agree that Damore probably shouldn't be "destroyed" for his ideas (for whatever a definition of "destroyed" is that obviously isn't literal destruction), but I don't see why being fired is problematic for the way he shared those ideas in the workplace.
Edit: This post previously had a typo that stated: "I agree that Damore probably should be 'destroyed' for his ideas". That was not the original intent, and I've corrected "should" to read "shouldn't"
You stamp this out instead by finding out how the people ended up with those views to begin with, by being able to engage with those who view the world different from you, and by not fueling their hate.
Does this work for ever person - no, but it should be at least attempted.
(fyi - this is more a general comment about social media slayings that are way too common, I'm not being sympathetic to anyone who considers themselves a nazi).
My general views on this are derived largely from Popper and the paradox of tolerance (though, to be honest, I've more read about his writing that his work itself; it's next on my reading list). I don't think, as a society, we should tolerate intolerant behavior.
Which means, again as a society†, I think we should aggressively refuse and reject those with nazi ideologies. As an extension of that, I think we should mildly reject and refuse those with mildly intolerant ideologies. In my utopia, those social consequences would be proportional to the degree of intolerance, and I think you're right and fair to note that social shaming can quickly out-escalate the level of intolerance.
†not as a government; all consequences and punishments I'm speaking of should be social consequences and punishments. I'm fairly absolutist when it comes to 1A protections from the government
I'm the OP whose comment started this mini-firestorm of a discussion and I think you and I are probably very closely aligned. I'll try to state plainly how I feel about the whole situation.
I'll start with a quote by Albert Maysles, "Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." I can definitely see how a percentage of his memo can be interpreted as offensive. I don't know all the internal information about how everyone was behaving, but I'd like to think that if it were my company I would have treated this as a teachable moment and had a frank discussion with him in HR. That said, I fully support Google's right to fire him even if I take the most generous interpretations of the memo, because frankly I'm a huge supporter of at-will employment.
The problem that I have is the way the national media and general public responded to this situation. Damore is a nobody with no power who might have some incorrect ideas about diversity policy. I should have never heard of him. And I definitely should have never heard of him under national front page headlines with titles about an "anti-diversity manifesto." This is a meek and mild super-nerd, not David Duke. Thrusting him into the national spotlight in this way was clearly going to destroy his career and was completely unnecessary.
Which means, again as a society†, I think we should aggressively refuse and reject those with nazi ideologies. As an extension of that, I think we should mildly reject and refuse those with mildly intolerant ideologies. In my utopia, those social consequences would be proportional to the degree of intolerance, and I think you're right and fair to note that social shaming can quickly out-escalate the level of intolerance.
†not as a government; all consequences and punishments I'm speaking of should be social consequences and punishments. I'm fairly absolutist when it comes to 1A protections from the government
In this case how would you socially destroy them beyond pointing out to those around them what they have been hiding?
If I knew someone was a nazi, I would inform those around them. If their employer—for example—refused to terminate their employment, I would move "up the chain", and attempt to apply social consequences to that employer. How that works quickly becomes context dependent, but it expresses in things like boycotts, and other refusals to engage economically with those groups.
>Your post advanced and relied on offensive gender stereotypes to suggest that women cannot be successful in the same kinds of jobs at Google as men. I want to make clear that our decision is based solely on the part of your post that generalizes and advances stereotypes about women versus men. It is not based in any way on the portions of your post that discuss Google's programs or trainings, or how Google can improve its inclusion of differing political views. Those are important points. I also want to be clear that this is not about you expressing yourself on political issues or having political views that are different than others at the company. Having a different political view is absolutely fine. Advancing gender stereotypes is not.