Scrolling through those screencaps, I'd get up and walk out if I saw that on the internal slack where I work. It's one thing for someone to post it, it's another for HR to condone it by not policing 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?
This reminds me of the awful investment banker / hedge fund emails that came out after the financial crisis. Feels like tech is replacing Wall Street, a in bad way.
"military or war effort" ... "I won't say violence has not place..." ... and then discussion on how to protect your PII. Maybe discussion is too harsh a word, but there is a very clear (to me) "I know what you want to do (I do as well), so here is how to go down that road." It reads as something ISIS (or any extremist group) would do to lure people to fight for the cause. Also, with the screenshot being capped off by saying "the government can subpoena this at any time" is a clear indication that they know what they are talking about and how it could be read.
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.
yes, you are correct, if you change the words in a sentence you change the meaning of it.
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'
You need to be really, really careful that you aren't condoning fascistic behaviour just because you agree with its motives and ends.
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.
I see what I said and what the author said as the same thing. You can read it in many different ways, I'm just making the point that the whole thread of discussion should not be tolerated in a corporate environment.
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.
Hmm. I wish there were some dispassionate places left on the internet to discuss this kind of stuff. It seems that the only remaining options are either loathsome mockery (as seen on /r/kotakuinaction or this person's Twitter feed) or breathless defense. Talking to my very liberal friends about these kinds of issues in the real world, we tend to come to a far more nuanced understanding. Where is the equivalent venue online? Even previously-sensible forums like HN or Metafilter now heavily lean towards dismissiveness and mockery when discussing political topics with any shades of gray.
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.
Here's another example of an out-of-context screenshot: the "I'm white!!" comic is not mocking whiteness, but is in fact referring to the artist herself in a cheeky way — a brave and well-meaning teenager who was incidentally bullied off Tumblr after making it. Maybe not work-appropriate, but certainly not "agit-prop" (really?) https://www.buzzfeed.com/aaronc13/this-teenage-artist-was-bu...
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.
Part of this stupid trend that your coworkers also need to be your friends and family. "Since I wouldn't tolerate political dissent at home, I don't tolerate it at work" kind of thinking. Probably also part of a greater trend towards Corporate Nationalism in the US.
What happened to just showing up, doing the work, then going home?
Because not all groups, ideologies, countries, cultures, and other societal divisions act in the same way?
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.
This is not a fact, it's an unproven allegation in a lawsuit filed by a known fraud represented by a lawyer known to have engage in unethical misrepresentations. The lawsuit is hoping to find evidence of this spurious claim of it makes it to the discovery stage.
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.
It's all very interesting. The lawyer is a woman, born in India. She should be very vocal against Damore, right? Instead, she is exposing bigotry inside Google. I see the same screenshots already posted here previously. Of course they have names, dates and all other details, and all this information can be easily checked during the trial. I don't think Dhillon would be stupid enough to make it up.
> The lawyer is a woman, born in India. She should be very vocal against Damore, right?
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.
I didn't say it was a fact, I said it was a summary of what is alleged in the lawsuit. It does include evidence though and I haven't seen anyone deny it. I have also seen Google and other tech giant employees tweet out stuff like this regularly so it seems very likely to be true.
But it's not a fact yet, just accusations as you say.
Could you please cite sources that prove that Mr. Damore is a fraud and that his lawyer has done unethical things? This is the first I've ever heard of either claim.
I don't know how they could make these things up and get away with it:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTCqa-XX0AA6DJs.jpg
There is the name of the person, their message sent to other Google employees, that they got reported to HR - how on Earth could this be an "unproved allegation"? It's all easily verifiable. If Damore and his lawyer were fabricating this, it would be an equivalent of a professional suicide. And an incredibly stupid and pointless thing to do.
In court cases, that is the mission of the attorney: To make their claims look persuasive and indisputable. In many/most lawsuits, if you only hear one side you will find it very persuasive. Wait until you see the other side's persuasive and indisputable arguments before you judge. That's why courts work the way they do, and why cases are not tried in the court of public opinion.
I was giving GP the benefit of the doubt in assuming they were referring to some other incidents outside the lawsuit that showed Damore is a fraud or his lawyer is unethical.
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.
I flagged it (although I suspect others did too). The title removes a conditional clause ('alleges a new lawsuit') that the author or editor thought was important. It asserts as proven fact the allegations of a lawsuit. That is inappropriate within HN.
I flagged it because the discussion is awful; it's ignorant and offers nothing of value; I have no more knowledge than I did before, and probably have absorbed some misinformation.
The intellectual dishonesty in the commentary on those screencaps is embarassing (e.g., "#DiversityAtGoogle means using company resources to recruit for #Antifa."). She seems not just willing but intent on taking them out of context. She even misquotes the complaint (https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446906043400194) to make it seem worse.
This entire lawsuit seems predicated on the idea that people having non-conservative views is somehow discrimination against conservatives.
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.
Please do post the "solid research on innovation and diversity of experience and thought" that says 40-something white men will deliver "fuck-all" when tasked to do something creative or innovative.
It's funny how people expect anyone making an argument for diversity to be a race class and gender scholar on one hand and then reject any work by race class and gender scholars out of the other. You are partially quoting the post in a way that changes the meaning but I'll indulge...These are all primary research sources (or press releases directly from the authors), not commentary
"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.
[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/
None of what you posted suggests that 40-something white males can't innovate. In fact you can't suggest that they can't innovate and say that they're the dominant group in tech unless you believe that all tech developments to date haven't been innovative. That's a contradictory statement.
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.
my initial comment was about each tweet in that thread misrepresenting what was said. Your willingness to accept those misrepresentations and try and have an argument about that is not germane to my original point. But downvote away.
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.