Google Memo

[Fife]

DON'T EVER BE THE FIRST TO STOP APPLAUDING

If you are interested, here is a blog post with massive amounts of interesting content/links:

THE GOOGLE ARCHIPELAGO

From the bottom of the post:

At the conclusion of a post today on the hypocrisy of Google firing Damore over his memo but making billions off of gender-based data-mining and targeted advertising code, Rod Dreher links to this scene from the 2006 film on the East German Stasi, The Lives of Others:




Dreher’s captions the clip, “A scene from the Google cafeteria.” He’s likely not all that far off.

[doc_loliday]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-was- ... 1502481290

[PartyOf5]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-was- ... 1502481290

Paywall. I can only see the first few lines.

[pineapplemike]

Those paywalls are weird, sometimes by following a link to the article from certain websites it will work, and sometimes it won't, same URL and everything, I don't know why. Full article:

Why I Was Fired by Google

By James Damore
Aug. 11, 2017 3:54 p.m. ET
3119 COMMENTS

I was fired by Google this past Monday for a document that I wrote and circulated internally raising questions about cultural taboos and how they cloud our thinking about gender diversity at the company and in the wider tech sector. I suggested that at least some of the male-female disparity in tech could be attributed to biological differences (and, yes, I said that bias against women was a factor too). Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai declared that portions of my statement violated the company’s code of conduct and “cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”

My 10-page document set out what I considered a reasoned, well-researched, good-faith argument, but as I wrote, the viewpoint I was putting forward is generally suppressed at Google because of the company’s “ideological echo chamber.” My firing neatly confirms that point. How did Google, the company that hires the smartest people in the world, become so ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument?

We all have moral preferences and beliefs about how the world is and should be. Having these views challenged can be painful, so we tend to avoid people with differing values and to associate with those who share our values. This self-segregation has become much more potent in recent decades. We are more mobile and can sort ourselves into different communities; we wait longer to find and choose just the right mate; and we spend much of our time in a digital world personalized to fit our views.

Google is a particularly intense echo chamber because it is in the middle of Silicon Valley and is so life-encompassing as a place to work. With free food, internal meme boards and weekly companywide meetings, Google becomes a huge part of its employees’ lives. Some even live on campus. For many, including myself, working at Google is a major part of their identity, almost like a cult with its own leaders and saints, all believed to righteously uphold the sacred motto of “Don’t be evil.”

Echo chambers maintain themselves by creating a shared spirit and keeping discussion confined within certain limits. As Noam Chomsky once observed, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

But echo chambers also have to guard against dissent and opposition. Whether it’s in our homes, online or in our workplaces, a consensus is maintained by shaming people into conformity or excommunicating them if they persist in violating taboos. Public shaming serves not only to display the virtue of those doing the shaming but also warns others that the same punishment awaits them if they don’t conform.

In my document, I committed heresy against the Google creed by stating that not all disparities between men and women that we see in the world are the result of discriminatory treatment. When I first circulated the document about a month ago to our diversity groups and individuals at Google, there was no outcry or charge of misogyny. I engaged in reasoned discussion with some of my peers on these issues, but mostly I was ignored.

Everything changed when the document went viral within the company and the wider tech world. Those most zealously committed to the diversity creed—that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and all people are inherently the same—could not let this public offense go unpunished. They sent angry emails to Google’s human-resources department and everyone up my management chain, demanding censorship, retaliation and atonement.

Upper management tried to placate this surge of outrage by shaming me and misrepresenting my document, but they couldn’t really do otherwise: The mob would have set upon anyone who openly agreed with me or even tolerated my views. When the whole episode finally became a giant media controversy, thanks to external leaks, Google had to solve the problem caused by my supposedly sexist, anti-diversity manifesto, and the whole company came under heated and sometimes threatening scrutiny.

It saddens me to leave Google and to see the company silence open and honest discussion. If Google continues to ignore the very real issues raised by its diversity policies and corporate culture, it will be walking blind into the future—unable to meet the needs of its remarkable employees and sure to disappoint its billions of users.

—Mr. Damore worked as a software engineer at Google’s Mountain View campus from 2013 until this past week.

Appeared in the August 12, 2017, print edition as 'Why I Was Fired By Google.'

[doc_loliday]

I believe if the link on a well known aggregator, there is no paywall, sometimes even doing a search for the title allows you to get passed the paywall.

[The Conservative]

This pops up in my LinkedIn feed from time to time, I wonder if Google would have a problem with it.

I do.

[Martin Hash]

This pops up in my LinkedIn feed from time to time, I wonder if Google would have a problem with it.

A list like that, probably longer, could be made about Asians. Then the Black list, and the Female list. Add all the Identity Politics lists up and it's got to be WAY over half all tech jobs & most other jobs are held by people other than White Males BUT if you made a list like that about WHITE MALES, Jesus Fucking Christ, the shit would hit the fan.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's misleading, though.

There are 1.3 billion Indians living just within India. Their best engineers, scientists, and business types tend to leave India for the west in search of a better quality of life. There are only about 320 million people total in the United States, and of those, I suspect only about 150 million or so actual whites. With open immigration from nonwestern nations and absolutely no quota system whatsoever, it's only a matter of time before Indians and Chinese engineers flood these job sectors.

There just are so many potential engineers from those places because their populations are so freaking huge. Somewhere around have of the total human population lives in China and India alone.

Most of the people who live in India are not top-tier anything. I'd guess that our average is quite a bit higher than their average. They are running on a r-selection-based society whereas whites (until recently) ran on a k-selection-based society. You can't really compare them without considering that fact. They have lots of engineers, but they have MANY more people living on the streets who can't read or calculate the change in a financial transaction.

China is a bit different in that their average IQ really is higher than our average IQ. I suspect most of their citizens, if raised in the US instead of China, would fair better in life. Another interesting thing about China is their deliberate transition from the r-selection style society to a k-selection style society in the previous century. They are becoming more like us, but with the higher IQ, whereas we are degenerating with lower IQ each generation.

[DBTrek]

It's misleading, though.

There are 1.3 billion Indians living just within India. Their best engineers, scientists, and business types tend to leave India for the west in search of a better quality of life. There are only about 320 million people total in the United States, and of those, I suspect only about 150 million or so actual whites. With open immigration from nonwestern nations and absolutely no quota system whatsoever, it's only a matter of time before Indians and Chinese engineers flood these job sectors.

There just are so many potential engineers from those places because their populations are so freaking huge. Somewhere around have of the total human population lives in China and India alone.

Most of the people who live in India are not top-tier anything. I'd guess that our average is quite a bit higher than their average. They are running on a r-selection-based society whereas whites (until recently) ran on a k-selection-based society. You can't really compare them without considering that fact. They have lots of engineers, but they have MANY more people living on the streets who can't read or calculate the change in a financial transaction.

China is a bit different in that their average IQ really is higher than our average IQ. I suspect most of their citizens, if raised in the US instead of China, would fair better in life. Another interesting thing about China is their deliberate transition from the r-selection style society to a k-selection style society in the previous century. They are becoming more like us, but with the higher IQ, whereas we are degenerating with lower IQ each generation.

Solid points.

The average Indian lives on $1.80 per day.
The average Chinese lives $7 on per day.
The average American lives on $97 per day.

So it's safe to say most Indians are probably struggling to get by and not off in fancy colleges pulling down engineering degrees.

It was more of a statement on National pride. I suspect Indians could post something like the meme I cited and not get fired from Google. Likewise, I suspect white guys posting a similar meme would be terminated, black balled, and dragged through the press. That's the double standard that troubles me.
I don't have a problem if Indians want to take some pride in the members of their culture that have achieved phenomenal things.
It's something I think all cultures should be able to do without backlash, scorn, or punishment.

[Speaker to Animals]

Maybe not from Google, but maybe from their own ranks. I worked with a lot those guys. I actually like Indians quite a lot. I think they have that ethno-nationalism so strong back home, that they don't want to project it here too. They seem to differentiate between there and here.