> This should go without saying, but you made a new account to say that.
...due to fear of the consequences of publicly holding a non-mainstream opinion in a culture-war subject, I assume. While I agree that merely being contrarian doesn't make the GP right, I also believe that calling them out for trying to protect themselves isn't very helpful.
They were criticizing a media outlet for not posting an original source, they used the word cowardice but its very different from the sense you use it - as a label of a personal behavior rather than a company. So it doesn't seem particularly hypocritical to me. When Damore is being tried in the court of public opinion, it matters a whole lot that the media publishes something different from what he wrote.
Many people such as Damore, have had their careers destroyed over saying things that are not "correct". Those on the "correct" side face no such consequences. So yeah hiding in anonymity makes a whole lot of sense for one side and is completely unnecessary for the other.
If would be nice if people read his memo in the original form, and then made up their mind - whatever the outcome, it would be an improvement. But the chilling effect of collective outrage means no dialog will happen, so it's futile anyway.
Thank you for this. I agree that they are cowards. Damore is completely right, certain members of our society are shaming others into silence for supposed psychological safety.
I also feel that money and political power are on the line too, which just heightens the needs for shaming others into silence, in their minds.
Let's see what happens to our posts.
EDIT: also Damore was attacked non-stop during his interview with Siliconbeat if I remember correctly.
I'm honestly not in the position to judge whether his sources were correct or not. If you read the memo and listen to him (e.g. on the Rubin Report) however you realise he doesn't want to hurt anybody, not even close. He is an extremely intelligent, introverted guy.
But I don't care about it being right or wrong. Google wanted all opinions to be on the table (in theory). Damore is just the latest example of someone (usually a little right wing) to get in trouble for his political opinions. I don't want this shit to come to Europe, I want to be able to have political discussions with my colleagues.
Speaking up for anyone who is unjustly attacked, no matter what political affiliation, is all we can do. I firmly believe Silicon Valley will eat itself. Silicon Valley is so big, because it cared about results, not diversity. Shifting their attention to diversity will increasingly bug investors and/or hurt profits so bad, that the next big tech hub will arise.
It's already arrived to Europe anyway. There is one mainstream view regarding (1) how to solve the immigration crisis, (2) whether or not different cultures and religions are equal, (3) whether or not a nation has the right to make a decision about its future.
If you don't agree about any of these, you're quickly denounced as alt-right, Nazi etc. In extreme cases, you can lose a job. It's not happening frequently though as people are not stupid and learned to keep a low profile. You can discuss things in a more open way with your friends, but you better avoid any online discussions if you can be identified, no matter how reasonable your argument is.
That's such an unfair way to paint your opposition.
This is how Damore does "evidence" and proves sources:
De-emphasize empathy - I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do,
relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on
anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases[0]. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about
the facts.
Right because Damore is so objective and the people he is trying to engage are emotional cripples. Here's his "source" for that:
I'm not sure if you're addressing me, OP, Damore, or just yelling into the aether. I certainly haven't said anything TO address regarding the content of Damore's original paper.
For the record, I found Damore's reasoning to be terribly flawed. However, I happen to also believe that squashing all public discussion in its wake is foolish, cowardly, and entirely counterproductive from a practical standpoint.
If you're afraid to pull bad reasoning out in the open and cleanse it with the sunshine of better reasoning, then it just festers and grows in the shadows.
My point is that downvoting and flagging a dead horse based off of a months old discussion isn't evidence of cowardice. Maybe there's just not much useful there?
The problem is you're implicitly assuming this (and other recent "culture war topics" is actually about reasoning and legitimate attempt at debate. It isn't. This is about controlling narratives and reframing offensive goals so they become a legitimate political opinion.
Most of these calls for a "debate" are not trying to actually debate anything. They are trying to make enough confusing noise and repeat their talking points as often as possible.
For a much better explanation of how this works - and why it's a trap which educated, well meaning, politically-interested people seem to be particularly vulnerable - see this short video essay:
The problem is you're implicitly saying that ANY discussion is a pointless waste. As there will always be people on one more sides who see any other views as illegitimate per se. And there will always be people on all sides using "clickbait"-style tactics to sway people who lack critical thinking skills.
I refuse to accept this premise. Even if some (or even most) discussion is disingenuous or low-quality, I refuse to believe that anything positive can come from declaring any discussion topic forbidden in the public square.
That's not something that you may simply unilaterally declare. I don't recall anyone appointing you final judge of what peoples' motivations are.
Remember "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."? Authoritarian liberals are trying to grab the authority to dictate what we may and may not discuss and we mainstream liberals must prevent that at all costs, lest we lose the soul of the liberal movement itself.
I didn't "simply unilaterally declare" my point - I included a link to a video that provides a much better explanation than I can give in a short post.
> appointing you final judge of what peoples' motivations are.
I not claiming such authority. I'm a stranger on the side of the road who thought it would be a good idea to offer warn you the bridge you are about to9 drive over is unstable. You have the freedom to heed my warning and find another route, or you can ignore me and drive over the bridge. Maybe it's time to use Bayes' Theorem if you like that kind of inference?
> [general appeal to emotion using platitudes about free speech]
Is someone's speech being banned? Free speech does not mean you are guaranteed an audience.
This is a nice example of the reframing technique I was talking about. Nobody's speech is being restricted, but countering your points would mean arguing about the subtleties of free speech doctrine, instead of what my post was actually about: the current tactic of endlessly calling for "debate" that never actually becomes a debate.
No, I don't have a lot of evidence on hand at the moment. All I can offer right now is the conclusions from my firsthand observations of this technique over the last ~20 year. You have the freedom to use this information as you wish.
You wre not discussing this civilly. A democratic process will consider any viewpoint and judge it by its merits. Not dismiss it outright with a handwave "this is just a political technique" that's not how a truly democratic or scientific community responds. This is the response of a tribe afraid of values that do not fit into theirs.
> I'm a stranger on the side of the road who thought it would be a good idea to offer warn you the bridge you are about to9 drive over is unstable. You have the freedom to heed my warning and find another route, or you can ignore me and drive over the bridge.
Note the verbal sleight-of-hand pdk95 uses (and I don't mean the obvious false dichotomy): he presents his behavior as a kindness to others, the hidden assumption being that his viewpoint (assessment of the bridge's instability) is an unassailable truth that we should not question. Ironically, he is using the same sort of rhetorical trickery as the kind he condemns his opponents for using.
I don't know about the rest of you but the more frantically someone assures me that their statements are totally correct and that I need not verify them for myself or listen to differing opinions, the more suspicious I get. What exactly are pdk95 and people like him so terrified of? Is it that we are not clever enough in their opinion to recognize bad ideas and reject them ourselves?
Take the third choice. Inspect the bridge yourself and make up your own mind whether it's stable.
> Is someone's speech being banned? Free speech does not mean you are guaranteed an audience.
Odd, I don't recall mentioning banning anywhere in my post.
I don't care if he was right or wrong, or objective. And I don't claim to have sufficient knowledge about the topic to disprove/approve his points. I care about the right to discuss things without the fear of being smeared. Discussions are essential for us to iron out or positions, learn something new or change our mind. If you simply ignore one side of the issue, people will retract into their bubble, which is the exact opposite of what we need right now.
It's an argument, not a phd thesis. You do not agree that "being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts"? Why is policy based on anecdotes more preferable to detached objective reasoning?
Damore seems to be wanting a policy based on anecdotes because his reasoning is neither objective nor convincing.
Not asking for a phd thesis, just asking for something better than a senior paper. That's not a high bar if your goal is to really change things, is it?
His argument is clearly stated right there and quoted by both of us, that was the point I asked about to which you just sidestepped... you are free to say you're unconvinced of the statement but what is your argument against?
You can ask him for more info and/or and do your own research too, but his paper is what it is. Why not debate it instead of saying that it's not good enough? How does that further anything?
Claiming your argument is objective doesn't make it so. He can state that his goal is objectivity through reduced empathy, but if you don't provide objective evidence (he does not), it doesn't mean anything.
That's fair. So you don't buy overall argument from Paul Bloom, who's a Yale psychologist and seems to have done the research for what it's worth.
I'd say that removing anecdotes and emotions for better policy is rather common sense and often used in many military and business practices. In fact it's even a common TV trope.
Either way, and more importantly, I'm happy to actually have a discussion that could potentially lead to the proper objective research rather than stifling any possible discourse.
No, I just don't believe you can cite an article and suggest that's evidence for your claims without explaining why. Bloom might work at Yale, but that doesn't mean he's right (psychology - that's a quickly moving field) or that his article supports Damore's. If he really wanted a useful discussion, he could have done that for his readers, that's how basic research works.
Bloom even says:
But even if you accept this argument, there is a lot more to life than public policy.
An argument regardless of (or even without) evidence would does not mean it cannot be discussed. That is the fundamental issue of the original post.
However, you are clearly misquoting that article and Bloom's statements, why not just use the actual entire paragraph:
"But even if you accept this argument, there is a lot more to life than public policy. Consider our everyday interactions with our parents and children, with our partners and friends. Consider also certain special relationships, such as that between doctor and patient or therapist and client. Empathy might not scale up to the policy level, but it seems an unalloyed good when it comes to these intimate relationships—the more the better.
I used to believe this, but I am no longer sure."
Bloom's statement is that life includes things beyond policy like personal relationships, where more empathy is always seen as good, however he is no longer sure about that and then goes on to describe why in much more detail.
Yes, and if a scientist is choosing words like "no longer sure", that's not a really strong indicator of belief in it, certainly not a good argument for policy.
If an argument doesn't have evidence, it has less value than something that does, that's why the way people are still talking about it like it's something more interesting than a 4chan post is confusing.
You keep dodging. His point was that you misquoted Bloom to create a perception that he disagrees with Damore.
Also this is more interesting since its an insider opinion by an educated man. You are trying to dismiss Damore outright without counterargument. That's not productive.
He doesn't disagree with him, but "not so sure" isn't a ringing endorsement of anything. It suggests that Bloom is unsure, so if Bloom is unsure about the value of empathy, how strongly can it support Damore? We don't know because Damore doesn't explain it, just links to it as evidence. Again, that's not how you do research.
Not looking to keep this discussion going, take care.
As I said, Bloom goes on to describe his position in much more detail. Have you read the entire article?
I'm not sure why you are so adamant about evidence here. Bloom is just one example of someone who did some research and put together an argument, which was then cited by Damore for a single point in a larger piece. I do believe that particular point is valid (as it's completely accepted in popular culture) but regardless the greater issue is that it can be discussed at all.
You seem to be saying that it shouldn't be discussed at all... because there's no evidence for it? People talk endless about many things that have no evidence and are purely conjecture, just to start exploring a certain perspective (which usually comes before the hard scientific research). Why is that a problem?
Your point was "Damore seems to be wanting a policy based on anecdotes because his reasoning is neither objective nor convincing."
And I don't see how that follows. I think we can at least agree that he's not arguing FOR what he's explicitly AGAINST.
B) "It doesn't mean anything"
See A). The memo may or may not include any facts undisputed or otherwise, but we can certainly get a feeling for its intent, which at least part of was: to criticize Googles policies and possibly open up a conversation about them.
I don't think Google handled that very well.
The way Google has steered advertising on youtube [1,2,3] also makes me think this suit is onto something. At least a better look.
This article mentions that in California there is no protection of freedom of speech in employment (i.e. a company can terminate you for voicing an opinion it doesn't want voiced), but this seems to be the premise of Damore's unfair dismissal claim?
On that basis, I can't see him having much of a chance.
>This article mentions that in California there is no protection of freedom of speech in employment (i.e. a company can terminate you for voicing an opinion it doesn't want voiced), but this seems to be the premise of Damore's unfair dismissal claim?
Uh, no, actually, it's been reported many times in many other places that Damore's claim is that he was speaking out in an effort to improve working conditions at Google, and federal law prohibits the dismissal of an employee for engaging in that sort of activity.
I'd assume the bar for this, though, is far higher than just claiming it. Obviously we're not not dealing with a clear cut poor working conditions like no restroom on site, or constant verbal abuse, etc; the meat of the contention seems to be that he wasn't allowed to discuss company policy with coworkers in regards to a politically sensitive subject, and that people with political views that don't cleanly align with that policy feel ostracized. That seems pretty close to "my freedom of speech wasn't protected".
Regardless, it feels like the litigation is somewhat lacking in merit unless Damore can cleanly tie it back issues that made his day to day job difficult to perform (i.e. bona fide poor working conditions).
I work in the UK. It’s much, much harder to get rid of someone without losing a case than it is in California. You know what? If someone’s disruptive, aggravates his co-workers or embarrasses the firm in public, they’re gone. They can get taken to industrial tribunal, they lose and just chalk it up to the cost of doing business.
Google took a few days to think about it before firing Damore. I’m sure they worked out the cost/benefit.
Yeah, they’ll fight this (and the line of argument sounds like a reach) but even if they lose, it’s just the cost of doing business. They might tighten up their process for firing people to avoid the particular vulnerability, but they won’t stop doing it.
So sad to see yet another article linking the version of memo edited by Gizmodo, instead of the original one.
Just imagine: You write "X". A malicious website writes "he wrote Y". Somehow it becomes an important topic for the whole planet. And almost all newspapers link the "he wrote Y" document.
Is this an exceptional incompetence, or a standard in journalism? Is it a new standard of the clickbait era, or was it always like this?
50 comments
[ 1798 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadMy belief that you are wrong about Damore doesn't make you right. This should go without saying, but you made a new account to say that.
...due to fear of the consequences of publicly holding a non-mainstream opinion in a culture-war subject, I assume. While I agree that merely being contrarian doesn't make the GP right, I also believe that calling them out for trying to protect themselves isn't very helpful.
Many people such as Damore, have had their careers destroyed over saying things that are not "correct". Those on the "correct" side face no such consequences. So yeah hiding in anonymity makes a whole lot of sense for one side and is completely unnecessary for the other.
Most jobs will fire you for being a nuisance. James was at Harvard and Google, he should be fine landing on his feet.
Instead, they link to the heavily edited Gizmodo hit piece, that has the sources removed. Dishonest
I also feel that money and political power are on the line too, which just heightens the needs for shaming others into silence, in their minds.
Let's see what happens to our posts.
EDIT: also Damore was attacked non-stop during his interview with Siliconbeat if I remember correctly.
But I don't care about it being right or wrong. Google wanted all opinions to be on the table (in theory). Damore is just the latest example of someone (usually a little right wing) to get in trouble for his political opinions. I don't want this shit to come to Europe, I want to be able to have political discussions with my colleagues.
Speaking up for anyone who is unjustly attacked, no matter what political affiliation, is all we can do. I firmly believe Silicon Valley will eat itself. Silicon Valley is so big, because it cared about results, not diversity. Shifting their attention to diversity will increasingly bug investors and/or hurt profits so bad, that the next big tech hub will arise.
If you don't agree about any of these, you're quickly denounced as alt-right, Nazi etc. In extreme cases, you can lose a job. It's not happening frequently though as people are not stupid and learned to keep a low profile. You can discuss things in a more open way with your friends, but you better avoid any online discussions if you can be identified, no matter how reasonable your argument is.
For an example of cowardice, take note when this thread is almost certainly flagged and buried within the next hour or two.
This is how Damore does "evidence" and proves sources:
De-emphasize empathy - I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases[0]. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.
Right because Damore is so objective and the people he is trying to engage are emotional cripples. Here's his "source" for that:
https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy
This is not what objective research looks like.
For the record, I found Damore's reasoning to be terribly flawed. However, I happen to also believe that squashing all public discussion in its wake is foolish, cowardly, and entirely counterproductive from a practical standpoint.
If you're afraid to pull bad reasoning out in the open and cleanse it with the sunshine of better reasoning, then it just festers and grows in the shadows.
Besides, come on. Half of this website is dead horses ("Rust vs. Go"... "JavaScript framework X vs. Y"... "Haskell and/or Lisp is awesome"... etc).
Most of these calls for a "debate" are not trying to actually debate anything. They are trying to make enough confusing noise and repeat their talking points as often as possible.
For a much better explanation of how this works - and why it's a trap which educated, well meaning, politically-interested people seem to be particularly vulnerable - see this short video essay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM
I refuse to accept this premise. Even if some (or even most) discussion is disingenuous or low-quality, I refuse to believe that anything positive can come from declaring any discussion topic forbidden in the public square.
That's not something that you may simply unilaterally declare. I don't recall anyone appointing you final judge of what peoples' motivations are.
Remember "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."? Authoritarian liberals are trying to grab the authority to dictate what we may and may not discuss and we mainstream liberals must prevent that at all costs, lest we lose the soul of the liberal movement itself.
> appointing you final judge of what peoples' motivations are.
I not claiming such authority. I'm a stranger on the side of the road who thought it would be a good idea to offer warn you the bridge you are about to9 drive over is unstable. You have the freedom to heed my warning and find another route, or you can ignore me and drive over the bridge. Maybe it's time to use Bayes' Theorem if you like that kind of inference?
> [general appeal to emotion using platitudes about free speech]
Is someone's speech being banned? Free speech does not mean you are guaranteed an audience.
This is a nice example of the reframing technique I was talking about. Nobody's speech is being restricted, but countering your points would mean arguing about the subtleties of free speech doctrine, instead of what my post was actually about: the current tactic of endlessly calling for "debate" that never actually becomes a debate.
No, I don't have a lot of evidence on hand at the moment. All I can offer right now is the conclusions from my firsthand observations of this technique over the last ~20 year. You have the freedom to use this information as you wish.
Note the verbal sleight-of-hand pdk95 uses (and I don't mean the obvious false dichotomy): he presents his behavior as a kindness to others, the hidden assumption being that his viewpoint (assessment of the bridge's instability) is an unassailable truth that we should not question. Ironically, he is using the same sort of rhetorical trickery as the kind he condemns his opponents for using.
I don't know about the rest of you but the more frantically someone assures me that their statements are totally correct and that I need not verify them for myself or listen to differing opinions, the more suspicious I get. What exactly are pdk95 and people like him so terrified of? Is it that we are not clever enough in their opinion to recognize bad ideas and reject them ourselves?
Take the third choice. Inspect the bridge yourself and make up your own mind whether it's stable.
> Is someone's speech being banned? Free speech does not mean you are guaranteed an audience.
Odd, I don't recall mentioning banning anywhere in my post.
If he's wrong, you have every right to discuss this issue with him. That's actually what he wanted, if you look towards the end of his memo. Did you read the original? https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
Not asking for a phd thesis, just asking for something better than a senior paper. That's not a high bar if your goal is to really change things, is it?
His argument is clearly stated right there and quoted by both of us, that was the point I asked about to which you just sidestepped... you are free to say you're unconvinced of the statement but what is your argument against?
You can ask him for more info and/or and do your own research too, but his paper is what it is. Why not debate it instead of saying that it's not good enough? How does that further anything?
I'd say that removing anecdotes and emotions for better policy is rather common sense and often used in many military and business practices. In fact it's even a common TV trope.
Either way, and more importantly, I'm happy to actually have a discussion that could potentially lead to the proper objective research rather than stifling any possible discourse.
Bloom even says:
But even if you accept this argument, there is a lot more to life than public policy.
and
I used to believe this, but I am no longer sure.
However, you are clearly misquoting that article and Bloom's statements, why not just use the actual entire paragraph:
"But even if you accept this argument, there is a lot more to life than public policy. Consider our everyday interactions with our parents and children, with our partners and friends. Consider also certain special relationships, such as that between doctor and patient or therapist and client. Empathy might not scale up to the policy level, but it seems an unalloyed good when it comes to these intimate relationships—the more the better.
I used to believe this, but I am no longer sure."
Bloom's statement is that life includes things beyond policy like personal relationships, where more empathy is always seen as good, however he is no longer sure about that and then goes on to describe why in much more detail.
If an argument doesn't have evidence, it has less value than something that does, that's why the way people are still talking about it like it's something more interesting than a 4chan post is confusing.
Also this is more interesting since its an insider opinion by an educated man. You are trying to dismiss Damore outright without counterargument. That's not productive.
Not looking to keep this discussion going, take care.
You cited an separate but sinilar part of the argument from the wrong side.
When it comes to policy, it is generally accepted that empirical/statistical evidence is a better tool for building an organisation than empathy.
I'm not sure why you are so adamant about evidence here. Bloom is just one example of someone who did some research and put together an argument, which was then cited by Damore for a single point in a larger piece. I do believe that particular point is valid (as it's completely accepted in popular culture) but regardless the greater issue is that it can be discussed at all.
You seem to be saying that it shouldn't be discussed at all... because there's no evidence for it? People talk endless about many things that have no evidence and are purely conjecture, just to start exploring a certain perspective (which usually comes before the hard scientific research). Why is that a problem?
Your point was "Damore seems to be wanting a policy based on anecdotes because his reasoning is neither objective nor convincing."
And I don't see how that follows. I think we can at least agree that he's not arguing FOR what he's explicitly AGAINST.
B) "It doesn't mean anything"
See A). The memo may or may not include any facts undisputed or otherwise, but we can certainly get a feeling for its intent, which at least part of was: to criticize Googles policies and possibly open up a conversation about them.
I don't think Google handled that very well.
The way Google has steered advertising on youtube [1,2,3] also makes me think this suit is onto something. At least a better look.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/21/youtube-g...
2. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/prageru-sues-you...
3. Video by h3h3 I can't find right now
On that basis, I can't see him having much of a chance.
Uh, no, actually, it's been reported many times in many other places that Damore's claim is that he was speaking out in an effort to improve working conditions at Google, and federal law prohibits the dismissal of an employee for engaging in that sort of activity.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-ed/articles/2017-08-22/why...
I'd assume the bar for this, though, is far higher than just claiming it. Obviously we're not not dealing with a clear cut poor working conditions like no restroom on site, or constant verbal abuse, etc; the meat of the contention seems to be that he wasn't allowed to discuss company policy with coworkers in regards to a politically sensitive subject, and that people with political views that don't cleanly align with that policy feel ostracized. That seems pretty close to "my freedom of speech wasn't protected".
Regardless, it feels like the litigation is somewhat lacking in merit unless Damore can cleanly tie it back issues that made his day to day job difficult to perform (i.e. bona fide poor working conditions).
Google took a few days to think about it before firing Damore. I’m sure they worked out the cost/benefit.
Yeah, they’ll fight this (and the line of argument sounds like a reach) but even if they lose, it’s just the cost of doing business. They might tighten up their process for firing people to avoid the particular vulnerability, but they won’t stop doing it.
Just imagine: You write "X". A malicious website writes "he wrote Y". Somehow it becomes an important topic for the whole planet. And almost all newspapers link the "he wrote Y" document.
Is this an exceptional incompetence, or a standard in journalism? Is it a new standard of the clickbait era, or was it always like this?