And Lo, There Came A Great Bunching Of The Panties
“Everyone is allowed to share their opinion. I just hope he gets fired for it.”
Regarding the ongoing ‘Google memo’ saga, I thought I’d lift the following from yesterday’s comments:
To recap. A Google software developer with a PhD in biology writes a polite, conciliatory and politically centrist memo suggesting that there’s a leftist groupthink problem in the company that inhibits open discussion; that men and women on average have differing preferences and abilities, albeit with a large overlap, and so “diversity” policies might benefit from bearing that in mind; and that perhaps people should be treated as individuals rather than as mascots of allegedly oppressed identity groups.
This is immediately met with ludicrous and wilful mischaracterisation by “social justice” Twitter and the ‘progressive’ media, including deliberately deleting the memo’s links to supporting data; a general refusal to engage honestly with the author’s points, or in many cases even to read them; baseless accusations of every ‘ism’ going; personal doxxing; boasts of blacklisting; and demands that the author of the memo be fired for his heresy and never employed again.
On grounds that his arguments are “violently offensive” and in need of being “silenced.” He is, you see, “committing violence” with his statistics. All of which rather proves the author’s point about leftist groupthink and its reliance on distortion, intimidation and outright hysteria.
The employee in question has of course now been fired. Readers who wish to be violently offended can read the memo here.
Update:
Jordan Peterson interviews James Damore, author of the supposedly scandalous and “fascist” memo. Skip forward to 5’10:
“The thing that was disturbing to me about watching the response to you is that, so far as I can tell, there isn’t anything that you said… that violates the scientific literature as it currently stands.”
Update 2, via the comments:
Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men — when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences — are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial.
Update 3:
Allum Bokhari interviews a (pseudonymous) Google employee:
Several managers have openly admitted to keeping blacklists of the employees in question, and preventing them from seeking work at other companies. There have been numerous cases in which social justice activists coordinated attempts to sabotage other employees’ performance reviews for expressing a different opinion. These have been raised to the Senior VP level, with no action taken whatsoever… For conservative employees, this is obviously demoralising, but it is also dangerous.
Update 4:
The Quillette website, which published some strong support of Mr Damore’s memo, is currently experiencing a DDoS attack. A coincidence, no doubt.
Update 5:
When Black Lives Matter hysteria hit its peak, sometime in 2015, it became taboo to criticise identity politics, and later on, it became very dangerous to criticise any member of a minority group at all (even if the criticism had nothing to do with their identity).
Allum Bokhari talks with more (pseudonymous) Google employees.
Update 6:
A compendium of gender research by Sean Stevens and Jonathan Haidt at Heterodox Academy:
Damore is correct that there are “population level differences in distributions” of traits that are likely to be relevant for understanding gender gaps at Google. Even if we set aside all questions about the origins of these differences, the fact remains that there are gender differences in a variety of traits, and especially in interest/enjoyment (rather than ability) in the adult population from which Google and all other tech firms recruit.… Damore was drawing attention to empirical findings that seem to have been previously unknown or ignored at Google.
Unknown or ignored. By our self-imagined betters.
Update 7:
And for those with a taste for irony, here’s video of a talk by Michael Gurian, titled Leadership and the Sexes, given at Google HQ nine years ago. Curiously, the topic of psychological and neurological gender differences was, not too long ago, deemed suitable for discussion by Google management and employees, and indeed advantageous. During the talk, none of the ladies present seem particularly outraged, or oppressed, or in need of a fainting couch.
Update 8:
A Primer On Statistics to Help Quell Your Outrage at the Google Memo.
Do we need any additional evidence of the MSM’s malevolence ?
That’s what I said 20 years ago when a BJ got redefined as not being sex and when the MSM postulated that dropping one’s pants and asking for a BJ from someone whom you could quite reasonably have fired did not constitute sexual harassment while at the same time shaving a woman’s legs most definitely did.
That’s what I said 10 years ago when Rathergate happened, when the Stephen Glass affair was exposed and even made into a movie, when Bernard Goldberg wrote his insider book about media bias.
But now things are gonna change. I can feel it.
I wonder how many people want a Google self-driving car now?
“People felt afraid. People feared for their safety.”
It smacks of the consensus reality position. If enough people believe in something, it is. Party of science, indeed.
Worse, ensure that enough people are made mad and enough *of* the mad believe in a thing, and it will become reality somehow and less mad… or something. Very hard sometimes to discern between deliberate bad faith of the compromising-everyone’s-moral-spine/make-everyone-repeat-claptrap variety and genuinely trying to make enough mad people for the combined magical thinking to work.
A bit like what Terry Pratchett used to joke about with constructive or remedial phrenology, bashing people in the head to put all the lumps in the best places…
This is a bit long, but very worth reading, as it is entirely on point. If I was to pull out a particularly good quote, I’d end up posting the whole thing.
In the Dept of Irony, those who insist there are no significant differences other than physical between men and women are creationists of the very first stripe: the claim that evolution stopped at the neckline is religious dogma through and through.
Which is ironic, considering how those SJWs love clubbing Christians with the science hater stick.
“Now directing to Correctional Camp Block L. Doors are locked for safety. Estimated time of arrival: 10:26 AM.”
…
“Recalculating”
I’m busy preparing chicken.
Well seasoned, I assume…
How long before satire is superseded by reality?
If enough people believe in something, it is.
Reminds me of something…
One of the most laughable things was the guilt by association of “sounding like” a men’s rights activist piece. The only thing it has in common in any way are some of the Hate Facts relied on. But then, the “MRA!!1!” slam has always sought to use more fringe and unsavoury *conclusions* they make to tar their scientific basis, and from a scientific standpoint the MRAs have always had their data more grounded in reality than the 3rd wavers. Even when they come to superficial or impracticable remedy.
Damore’s conclusions, attempting to solve the problems in a liberal way, were 180 degrees counter to anything MRA. Doesn’t matter.
There’s also a certain irony in that a man suggesting a markedly Google search-like approach to internal policy (customizing profile, recognizing interests, filtering material by group appeal, personalizing) should be so crucified.
“If enough people believe in something, it is.”
A continuing theme in Terry Pratchett’s books was that if enough people believe in the Tooth Fairy (or the Verruca Gnome) then it will exist.
there are at least three hundred different genders in existence, and always has been.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Smugly nibbles his pickled egg
Has anyone seen those hippo testicles I was soaking in brine?
This.
Oops–I told that guy at the end of the bar to go ahead and eat them. I thought they were eggs. 😳
Gail Heriot, law professor.
Quite. Though there was an upper limit of stray belief, as tested in Hogfather. Not so sure there’s an upper limit of available lefty derangement.
Also, the formal logic as to why the beings came into existence was pretty sound as far as it went. Disappearing socks – > The Eater of Socks, misery on the consequences of revelry -> Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers.
Look, we can’t be bothered to keep track of *all* the brined testes. Needs to be a better filing system on the things. I told the henchlesbians I needed some boar ones for an experiment and they couldn’t even be found.
As the comment count rises toward 200, the nefarious urge to just post anything and push comments to three pages for the jollies starts to manifest.
Feeling… faint… fingers drawn to… keyboard
Also, there is a man with a clipboard wishing to speak to the proprietor–something about a “health code” and hippos? Not sure what he means–we don’t have those here in the rugged USA.
Health codes, that is. Most zoos have a hippo or two.
As you say, “rabbit in the headlights”!
I’m hoping it will be “rabbit in the briar patch.”
Venn diagram of note: https://twitter.com/Mark_J_Perry/status/895346119739412482
Not satisfied with Damore’s firing, now commences the digging into his past in order to destroy him. And serve as a warning to others who may wish to flirt with dissent from the orthodoxy.
What swell people!
Venn diagram of note
Heh.
Not satisfied with Damore’s firing, now commences the digging into his past in order to destroy him.
Despite the crowing and faux indignation, it took me a while to figure out what this terrible sin actually was, and why it was deemed so newsworthy. It turns out that as a student Mr Damore took part in a comedy skit that involved – brace yourselves – “a masturbation joke.” Well, heavens. I may faint. This crumb, which says more about the author than her target, is of course inflated into a “sexist ideology.”
What swell people!
Why, I wonder, are they always such dreary bitches…?
90% of men have admitted to masturbation. The other 10% are liars.
The attempted exposé of James Damore is typically light on sourcing. Adjectives are thrown about, but no-one seems to know what the supposedly outré joke actually was, except that it was about (gasp!) masturbation. Maybe they need to put their try-hard pants on?
Nobody except H. P. Lovecraft should be allowed to use the word “problematic.”
It’s interesting to me that the masturbation joke should be written up as being demonstrative of a character flaw, rather than as evidence of leftist hate towards him for years. Of course, it depends on what the joke was… but it’s really hard to imagine a masturbation joke that could actually be sexist. I’m trying, though.
Competition:
Can anyone, for the purposes of debate, come up with a masturbation joke that could be genuinely offensive to a member (no pun intended) of the opposite sex?
David,
I assume for the purposes of debate that Wiltshire Constabulary have so far not detected your blog.
Ms Ehrenkranz’s attempt to inflate this mote into AHA! PROOF OF SEETHING MISOGYNY, and a basis for mob opprobrium, says something alright, but only about her.
Feeling… faint… fingers drawn to… keyboard
This comment thread is starting to resemble one of those Depression Era dance marathons. People start dropping like flies but the ones still standing keep swaying to the beat.
Lordy, the comments over there are a real toilet blockage.
This comment thread is starting to resemble one of those Depression Era dance marathons.
WE ARE HARDCORE.
Well, not me personally. I’m off to bed.
Play nicely. And don’t spill italics on the rug.
He’s already courting multiple job offers. Like I said earlier, this was planned.
He had already filed a complaint and found that Google was too good at the plausible deniability game. So he did something that was guaranteed to make them wildly overreact in a way that would expose them.
Look at his “oh gawrsh, shucks” demeanour in those interviews. That’s someone who knows that Google blackballs people who dissent from the orthodoxy, but that is not the demeanour of someone in fear for their career and future lifelong earning potential.
James Damore knew exactly what he was doing.
If I hadn’t read the actual memo long with the cites contained therein, the comments at Darleen’s link would make me think Damore had written a sequel to Mein Kampf. That something like Damore’s memo, which to a rational person would appear anodyne in the extreme, would provoke such vitriol is truly frightening. I have no doubt that many of the commenters, if given the opportunity and absolution for their behavior, would physically destroy the young man. It’s the same bunch which dresses up in black, wears masks and sucker punches people in the street in the name of ending fascism.
Well, not me personally. I’m off to bed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cPhv4tqeho
Faith Goldy of Rebel Media shows us Google’s Social Justice Dream Team. Maybe not totally SFW.
Has anyone criticized Google yet for only dividing the proportional-representation gender pie 50/50 between male and female? Isn’t the trans/non-binary lobby strong enough yet to demand 33.3% of it for themselves?
Sporkatus, did you check in the Christmas decorations box? That’s where boar balls are usually found…
Guardian USA:
http://twitter.com/GuardianUS/status/895385791442112514
Reporting that James’ first interviews are with right wing people.
RIGHTWING I TELL YOU.
Commenters happy to stay in the echo chamber and ignore the heathen unbelieving bigots.
RIGHTWING I TELL YOU.
It turns out that as a student Mr Damore took part in a comedy skit that involved – brace yourselves – “a masturbation joke.”
No worse than performing The Vagina Monologues.
Ms Ehrenkranz’s attempt to inflate this mote into AHA! PROOF OF SEETHING MISOGYNY,
If all women act the way the ones who call themselves “feminists” do, then seething misogyny would be a rational reaction.
No worse than performing The Vagina Monologues.
Female genitals = woke.
Male genitals = cis hetero-patriarchal oppression.*
Not knowing this obvious fact = not woke.
(*Trans genitals = super woke)
If anyone’s interested in a little more black humor in this appalling farce, there’s this:
Sundar to be CEO of Google
“He’s a Tamil Brahmin. Representing the very top of the caste pyramid of the Hindu caste system – the oldest and the only functioning birth and genetics based apartheid system in the World today.*”
*This bit I cribbed from someone named Nick, a commenter over at Instapundit.
“come up with a masturbation joke”
Can it include hippo testicles?
Can it include hippo testicles?
Yes! We aim to include all forms of hippo-testicular joke-related humour/social commentary. However, having discussed this with our legal and HR departments, die, you hippo-heteronormative bastard, die!
This comment thread is starting to resemble one of those Depression Era dance marathons.
Which of us will be number two hundred?
This thread is starting to smell like my son’s gym bag.
Which of us will be number two hundred?
We won’t know till the next page…