Google done' goofed - fires employee for "opinions"

[bshole]

You should've learned from degens by now to leave understanding science to people who know something about it.



OMG shocker, people act in their self interests. Somebody publish a paper.

I don't think the wealthy should be worried about published papers. A look through history shows exactly what they should be worried about.

 

[agent00f]

I don't think the wealthy should be worried about published papers. A look through history shows exactly what they should be worried about.

Big mouthed american suburban commandos aren't going to do shit.

 

[interchange]

Surely the critical point there is 'that they identify with'. That's not a fixed objective thing. Depending on the situation it can change. At certain moments groups can find they _do_ identify with others (as with the aformentioned gay community raising funds to support the striking miners, or the Parisian poor intervening in support of a slave revolt). It can also change back again, of course.

And with that critical priviso, I'm inclined to think politics is more honest when it's about self-interest, rather than supposed abstract moral principles. I would never vote for a conservative because conservatives don't share my self-interests (which aren't purely individual but embedded in a social identity), not because I think they are evil according to an abstract moral code.

Agree completely. This false representation of our motives leads to a false or exaggerated sense of difference between groups. And if you perceive someone as more different than you than they really are, you are primed to reject their message and rationalize that this rejection is anything other than "I'd rather not think of myself as being like you".

This board is funny a lot of times for that reason. We largely congregate on the basis of our political group affiliations (the most exaggeratedly polarizing affiliation) and are restricted from a ton of information that's usually available in human interactions. If we instead held a mixer where everyone agreed to not talk about politics, I think our groups would be really different.

 

[xthetenth]

David Brooks from the NYT's take on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/...-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region


Interesting topic.

I think this article is a pretty awful discussion of the topic. It accepts without comment the implicit premise of the author of the original document, that differences between women and men make women less likely to have aptitude for software engineering, rather than having the potential to be neutral or beneficial for women. It's not the citations, but the context of them in the paper that is breathtakingly unscientific and hideously biased. It's that part that justifies his prompt firing. This article lets that go without comment. Instead the article makes claims like this:

"Of course subtlety is in hibernation in modern America. The third player in the drama is Google's diversity officer, Danielle Brown. She didn't wrestle with any of the evidence behind Damore's memo. She just wrote his views "advanced incorrect assumptions about gender." This is ideology obliterating reason."

The problem is that what she said is absolutely unequivocally true. His premise was that biological differences necessarily make men superior to women as software engineers, and do so so obviously that even considering anything different is unnecessary. Reason is not asking loaded questions steeped in bias, but considering multiple interpretations of data in order to find what fits best. It's the author who's fighting against reason in the defense of ideology (with some nice citations tagging along for the ride).

This article is a perfect example of how the issue has been framed such that the people who defend its position in the discourse are by necessity complicit in reinforcing and supporting the biases behind the dishonest framing of the issue, and why the memo is toxic to discourse.

 

[Zstream]

No, I just don't think people playing dumb for their cause makes for great discussion.

Pot.. kettle... oh wait, never mind. You're just a tool.

 

[Moonbeam]

Privilege, ethics, justice and fairness are all relative to where you enter the conversation. Diversity raises awareness to those varied entry points. Given some of the emails and message board posts now leaking out of Google, it seems some managers and employees on the blue pill end of the spectrum are engaging in some stereotype perpetuating of their own. I wonder if they too will face termination.

As far as I know, fairness and justice are perceptions that even monkeys can make so I don't know what you mean by relative to where you enter. I think we entered as primates that can actually put word to feelings although they are never the same thing. I don't know what is happening at Google, what emails, what their point is, etc. but I think if we eliminate all bigots there will be only a few people left.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Degen olympics of playing dumb.

I didn't even qualify. You however take the gold...every time.

 

[agent00f]

Pot.. kettle... oh wait, never mind. You're just a tool.

I didn't even qualify. You however take the gold...every time.

"I know you are but what am I" --degens pretending to be particularly dumb children

As far as I know, fairness and justice are perceptions that even monkeys can make so I don't know what you mean by relative to where you enter. I think we entered as primates that can actually put word to feelings although they are never the same thing. I don't know what is happening at Google, what emails, what their point is, etc. but I think if we eliminate all bigots there will be only a few people left.

Modern civilizations are a lot less than bigoted than they used to be in spite of folks like your new friends.

 

[Moonbeam]

"I know you are but what am I" --degens pretending to be particularly dumb children



Modern civilizations are a lot less than bigoted than they used to be in spite of folks like your new friends.

Because of people like me and not you. You are an utterly shameless person who operate under the childish notion that shaming people can improve them. You're a walking self refutation.

 

[agent00f]

Because of people like me and not you. You are an utterly shameless person who operate under the childish notion that shaming people can improve them. You're a walking self refutation.

Seems pretty obvious the embarrassment of racism/misogyny & such has transformed western society despite people like you. No great mystery why you & pals work so hard to prevent that.

 

[Moonbeam]

a

I find that many people even with specific training don't understand the most fundamental thing about ethics. People are often searching for an objectively right answer. If one existed, they wouldn't be searching!

Instead, there are a host of ethical principles and an ethical question rests on deciding how best to balance the fact that there is no answer which satisfies all of them.

In medicine, the AMA defines the pillars as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and (social) justice.

For example, people often spout the Hippocratic oath's "first, do no harm". Well, myself and every other physician has violated that. Sometimes it's because a patient wants to try something we don't recommend but think it's reasonable enough to do and balance autonomy ahead of non-maleficence. Sometimes it's because without a surgery someone is reasonably likely not to survive, they won't have meaningful function in life and it seems better to try. Or to do a chemotherapy that you know will hurt someone but hope it saves their life. Or even to give Jim an emergent cardiac catheterization instead of Bob an urgent one because you've only got one cath lab and Jim needs it more (despite not being able to pay).

Sometimes common scenarios posing ethical conflicts are weighed by society strongly and consistently enough that you can make laws or professional guidelines about how you should handle them. And I would say always, but many professional codes also say that if even breaking the law is deemed important enough for the patient's interest, it is ethical to do so.

But even in very straightforward cases, decisions involving ethics require compromise.

A fine post, I think. I think a lot of the problem is that gray adds complications to black and white that some people can't handle. They are too afraid of taking moral responsibility for their actions. Hope you get a chance to watch that movie, Red Beard.

I believe further that there is a state of consciousness in which the ego does not enter into the calculus and ethics IS what that state produces when it acts.

There is a line that can't be draw with absolute certainty, perhaps, except in the experience, between the actions that result from being awake vs being fanatically certain. In one there is ego but it is invisible to the participant.

I want to tell you also that I sympathize with the fact that you are in a profession that requires actions that can be mistakes and I just want to say that it seems to me you have a character that will always strive to do the best you can. You don't seem to me to run from the possibility of suffering. Life can be so sad but the will to be a positive in the world also adds joy to it. I think you are a doctor in more than name.

 

[agent00f]

a

A fine post, I think. I think a lot of the problem is that gray adds complications to black and white that some people can't handle. They are too afraid of taking moral responsibility for their actions. Hope you get a chance to watch that movie, Red Beard.

I believe further that there is a state of consciousness in which the ego does not enter into the calculus and ethics IS what that state produces when it acts.

There is a line that can't be draw with absolute certainty, perhaps, except in the experience, between the actions that result from being awake vs being fanatically certain. In one there is ego but it is invisible to the participant.

I want to tell you also that I sympathize with the fact that you are in a profession that requires actions that can be mistakes and I just want to say that it seems to me you have a character that will always strive to do the best you can. You don't seem to me to run from the possibility of suffering. Life can be so sad but the will to be a positive in the world also adds joy to it. I think you are a doctor in more than name.

Ethics is real simple to understand in terms of self-interest.

For example why people refuse to understand ethics no mater how simple when it's against their interest to do so.

 

[Moonbeam]

Seems pretty obvious the embarrassment of racism/misogyny & such has transformed western society despite people like you. No great mystery why you & pals work so hard to prevent that.

No, that isn't want changed it, such people are not my pals, and I do not work to prevent it, but you do. As I expected, your answer reeks of shame, but you don't feel it, because you feel deeply humiliated and don't even know it. Your fear is the fear of knowing what you feel.

 

[agent00f]

No, that isn't want changed it, such people are not my pals, and I do not work to prevent it, but you do. As I expected, your answer reeks of shame, but you don't feel it, because you feel deeply humiliated and don't even know it. Your fear is the fear of knowing what you feel.

Sorry I'm not prone to religious conviction.

 

[interchange]

a

A fine post, I think. I think a lot of the problem is that gray adds complications to black and white that some people can't handle. They are too afraid of taking moral responsibility for their actions. Hope you get a chance to watch that movie, Red Beard.

I believe further that there is a state of consciousness in which the ego does not enter into the calculus and ethics IS what that state produces when it acts.

There is a line that can't be draw with absolute certainty, perhaps, except in the experience, between the actions that result from being awake vs being fanatically certain. In one there is ego but it is invisible to the participant.

I want to tell you also that I sympathize with the fact that you are in a profession that requires actions that can be mistakes and I just want to say that it seems to me you have a character that will always strive to do the best you can. You don't seem to me to run from the possibility of suffering. Life can be so sad but the will to be a positive in the world also adds joy to it. I think you are a doctor in more than name.

Thanks. I chose the profession not so much because I don't want to run from suffering but more because I couldn't succeed and found a way to benefit both myself and others by doing the opposite. I'm grateful for it, but I'm not special as a person. I'm the same, but I was somehow granted both uncommon mechanisms to struggle and to succeed, and I'm trying to make the most of each.

And, absent divinity, I think the answer to your puzzle of ego-lessness (!) is that the universe could give a rats ass about whatever collection of quarks we assemble to represent us over any other. And possibly it's purely deterministic anyway, thus we never had any choice in the first place.

 

[Moonbeam]

Ethics is real simple to understand in terms of self-interest.

For example why people refuse to understand ethics no mater how simple when it's against their interest to do so.

Jesus Christ, do you read what you write? You do not understand ethics in terms of self interest. What you understand in terms of self interest is that when there is a morivation, not to see ethics properly, (Always based on an unexamined assumption that what one imagines is in ones interest really is. It usually isn't) it is because of that imagined self interest. You learn nothing about ethics from the fact that so called self interested people don't want to know what it is. You are not telling us what ethics are, only why many people avoid knowing. You, for example are highly unethical when you ridicule people as being intellectually inferior. You have no idea you do this because you were told you were stupid as a child, were emotionally damaged by that, and now, instead of seeking to undo that damage, try to inflict it on other as if it were rightfully their turn. You have become want you hate and you would hate to see it so you don't. I see it. I don't give a shit. You don't make me feel inferior. I am much better at that than you could ever be. I am the monster that I don't like. You're like a bouquet of flowers for me. Your self importance makes me laugh. You try to bring me down but I want something better for you than wasting your life in petty bitterness.

 

[agent00f]

Jesus Christ, do you read what you write? You do not understand ethics in terms of self interest. What you understand in terms of self interest is that when there is a morivation, not to see ethics properly, (Always based on an unexamined assumption that what one imagines is in ones interest really is. It usually isn't) it is because of that imagined self interest. You learn nothing about ethics from the fact that so called self interested people don't want to know what it is. You are not telling us what ethics are, only why many people avoid knowing. You, for example are highly unethical when you ridicule people as being intellectually inferior. You have no idea you do this because you were told you were stupid as a child, were emotionally damaged by that, and now, instead of seeking to undo that damage, try to inflict it on other as if it were rightfully their turn. You have become want you hate and you would hate to see it so you don't. I see it. I don't give a shit. You don't make me feel inferior. I am much better at that than you could ever be. I am the monster that I don't like. You're like a bouquet of flowers for me. Your self importance makes me laugh. You try to bring me down but I want something better for you than wasting your life in petty bitterness.

No, it's trivial to see why people portray themselves or kin as ethical in a way that has nothing to with ethics, for example when you shill for a potential flock. Same as why you pedal that pet psych zealotry as science despite a similar relation between them. Or why people reliably play dumb when it's also in their interest.

Seems pretty illuminating to see the world for what it is, in revealing contrast to what's beneficial to moonbeam.

 

[Moonbeam]

Thanks. I chose the profession not so much because I don't want to run from suffering but more because I couldn't succeed and found a way to benefit both myself and others by doing the opposite. I'm grateful for it, but I'm not special as a person. I'm the same, but I was somehow granted both uncommon mechanisms to struggle and to succeed, and I'm trying to make the most of each.

And, absent divinity, I think the answer to your puzzle of ego-lessness (!) is that the universe could give a rats ass about whatever collection of quarks we assemble to represent us over any other. And possibly it's purely deterministic anyway, thus we never had any choice in the first place.

Divinity is a word with many meanings. With a person who is not religious, a person like myself, I would maybe use words like self realization, awakening, self actualization, enlightenment etc. the experience reported down through the ages of the Hero's journey for the golden fleece, etc. Orpheus sought unity with the beloved and had to go in and through the doors of hell, where the savagery of the dogs that guard the gate lie in wait to repel all visitors. The Sirens scream insults and put you down so that you will turn away. The truth is hidden by its immediate unlikelihood. I think the key to divinity lies on the other side of having relived and re-experienced how we came to believe in the lie that we are the worst in the world. Anyway, divinity may be other than we imagine and have the same result.

 

[Moonbeam]

No, it's trivial to see why people portray themselves or kin as ethical in a way that has nothing to with ethics, for example when you shill for a potential flock. Same as why you pedal that pet psych zealotry as science despite a similar relation between them. Or why people reliably play dumb when it's also in their interest.

Seems pretty illuminating to see the world for what it is, in revealing contrast to what's beneficial to moonbeam.

You are the master of reliably playing dumb. I don't mind. It's your problem not mine. My big problem right now is that I have an itch on my back I can't reach. You're like having a puppy and never having to mop the floor.

 

[agent00f]

You are the master of reliably playing dumb. I don't mind. It's your problem not mine. My big problem right now is that I have an itch on my back I can't reach. You're like having a puppy and never having to mop the floor.

Not a smart move to start emulating your new pals as accused.

 

[agent00f]

I think this article is a pretty awful discussion of the topic. It accepts without comment the implicit premise of the author of the original document, that differences between women and men make women less likely to have aptitude for software engineering, rather than having the potential to be neutral or beneficial for women. It's not the citations, but the context of them in the paper that is breathtakingly unscientific and hideously biased. It's that part that justifies his prompt firing. This article lets that go without comment. Instead the article makes claims like this:



The problem is that what she said is absolutely unequivocally true. His premise was that biological differences necessarily make men superior to women as software engineers, and do so so obviously that even considering anything different is unnecessary. Reason is not asking loaded questions steeped in bias, but considering multiple interpretations of data in order to find what fits best. It's the author who's fighting against reason in the defense of ideology (with some nice citations tagging along for the ride).

This article is a perfect example of how the issue has been framed such that the people who defend its position in the discourse are by necessity complicit in reinforcing and supporting the biases behind the dishonest framing of the issue, and why the memo is toxic to discourse.

It's perfectly rational for someone to say they don't want minorities/women competing for their job/wages, but they won't because it's socially shameful. Thus those people come up with their usual alternative BS excuses, less effective as they might be. Ergo QED why shame/punishment works, and why they try so hard for the next best thing.

The whole exercise is transparent as shit, with the usual suspects getting a case of the vapors when the utter comedy of it is revealed.

 

[DigDog]

on other news, woman on the google campus have found the LIES in the memo that said women are more emotional to be so distressing they had to take some days off.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/19462...en-are-different-women-amanda-prestigiacomo#\

Playing Into Every Female Stereotype, Women At Google Stay Home After Memo For Emotional Reasons

 

[interchange]

It's perfectly rational for someone to say they don't want minorities/women competing for their job/wages, but they won't because it's socially shameful. Thus those people come up with their usual alternative BS excuses, less effective as they might be. Ergo QED why shame/punishment works, and why they try so hard for the next best thing.

The whole exercise is transparent as shit, with the usual suspects getting a case of the vapors when the utter comedy of it is revealed.

What's your strategy to avoid the shame of your racism and sexism?

 

[agent00f]

What's your strategy to avoid the shame of your racism and sexism?

Be less racist/sexist.

 

[Starbuck1975]

"I know you are but what am I" --degens pretending to be particularly dumb children



Modern civilizations are a lot less than bigoted than they used to be in spite of folks like your new friends.

Poor flail. Over 400 posts into the thread and yet to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. So triggered and so concerned over a memo you still haven't read.