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0 pointsimminentviolet8y ago0 comments

You don't have to show that Google is actually succeeding in it's efforts to bring in "diversity" and equalize representation among it's workforce to match the general population to question the premise that the purported effort is based on. You don't even have to show that they are making a serious effort. Most likely they aren't. It's very likely they know full well what kind of people are likely to make valuable contributions to the company and they are probably not eager to jeopardize that.

If that is the case, then as far as I'm concerned, you don't even have to show that there is a real harm to the purported victims (as Damore sees them), it is enough to question what the big charade is based on. Are the premises that this supposed diversity push is based on valid? If not, what exactly are we doing here?

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danso8y ago

Yes, perhaps you don't have to argue all of that. But Damore did. Perhaps if he hadn't made those assertions, his memo wouldn't be seen as particularly interesting or controversial.

But we don't have to engage in such hypotheticals. Let's consider the premise that Damore's memo is simply a call to debate based on science and facts. In my opinion, such a non-biased, open-minded essay would not include this kind of assertion:

> We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and a whiner [10]. Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is being spent to water only one side of the lawn.

Only someone ignorant of basic facts and history would make this sweeping claim. And only someone ruled by his emotions would be unable to take a step back and do a Google search to see if anti-discrimination law has been used on behalf of men. Given that kind of massive error, or inability to recognize one own's ignorance, I don't think we should continue assuming that Damore's premises are factual or coherent in their arrangement. Which is why I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in saying that it'd be better if he could have actual empirical evidence on the harm of Google's diversity programs. Just because his memo contains facts doesn't mean that it's truthful, if those facts are used loosely to further the author's emotional appeals.

edit: Fixed the formatting to show that [10], in the original memo, refers to a footnote and contains a hyperlink.

The footnote:

[10] “The traditionalist system of gender does not deal well with the idea of men needing support. Men are expected to be strong, to not complain, and to deal with problems on their own. Men’s problems are more often seen as personal failings rather than victimhood, due to our gendered idea of agency. This discourages men from bringing attention to their issues (whether individual or group-wide issues), for fear of being seen as whiners, complainers, or weak.”

The URL of the hyperlink (the text of which is "misogynist and a whiner"): https://becauseits2015.wordpress.com/2016/08/06/a-non-femini...

(Pretty sure "becauseits2015.wordpress.com" would not pass as a useful source on Wikipedia, but YMMV.)

imminentvioletOP8y ago

Nobody ever said that the memo was perfectly conceived or written. If you're saying he overstated his case in the passage you quoted I would probably agree. But the standard for inviting a conversation is not a perfectly formed argument from the get-go, a standard like that would make it impossible to have a conversation at all. So I'm still not clear on what exactly he wrote that would earn him exile and banishment in the judgement of a reasonable person open to having a discussion on the topics he raised.

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