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.
[ Surveys wreckage. Brushes debris from hair. ]
So what do we do now?
…or be like Bert…

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I suppose we could spend 100 more comments or so pitying those now abed who were not here on this glorious day, etc.
So what do we do now?
Well, next thread, I suppose. Alexander, weeping, no worlds left to conquer, something of that sort.
Haven’t had a 500 comment post, though.
pitying those now abed who were not here on this glorious day, etc.
As in Henry V Part II: Crispin Day Nights.
See, it’s funny because Henry IV has multiple parts and V doesn’t, and Hollywood…
Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!
…pitying those now abed who were not here on this glorious day, etc.
From this day to the ending of the world… We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…
Band of… what? PATRIARCHY!
[ducks and covers]
I’ve only just caught up with Damore and gotten over my speechlessness.
I mean in America, ‘the land of the free’, where they have the first amendment, at a huge company whose main techskill is logistics, who encourage and enable digital natter amongst staff, someone has been fired for politely stating the obvious biology: that men and women are not the same.
In its schizoid way, Google do concede men and women are not the same. If they were, they wouldn’t have diversity programs and affirmative action for women. What Google seem to want to do is deny the life-choices of those who have career preferences different to that which Google decrees, while castigating anyone who believes in basic biology/psychology.
I made my tiny protest by changing search engines to DuckDuckGo. Anyways, thanks all for injecting a little humour in the desperate state of freedom in the 21stC.
Of course if we’d all followed this advice we would not now be closing in on 300 comments.
The sad thing is, the guy posted his screed on an internal message board intended to allow people to air their views. Then some arsehole decided to leak it to the left-wing tech media.
Then some arsehole decided to leak it to the left-wing tech media.
From “xer” fainting couch, presumably.
Conspicuously missing from any MSM reporting on this has been a single quote from what Damore wrote.
Not. A. Single. Damn. Word.
Instead, we get assertions and feelz.
Now, as to Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. She continued the proud tradition of accusations absent evidence. As a “scientist”, you’d think she would start with facts, and go from there.
Like: What did he say? Was what he said plausibly related to reality? Did he logically link his arguments to a coherent conclusion?
Well, reading Dr. CPW will leave you bereft of reason, but with plenty of feelz. It’s almost as if she didn’t learn a damn thing from Google proving they are close minded bigots by firing the guy who suggested they might be close minded bigots. In her turn, she does a bang-up job reinforcing any impression that might be lurking the land that women are incapable of fact based reasoning.
According to her bio, she is a scientist, activist, writer. I’m pretty sure those don’t scan at all well. Even more unfortunate, she is apparently incapable of simple html (Here’s my CV (email me for an up to date one) …).
She has been published in exactly zero places that matter to an actual scientist.
She tells us that she is Principal Investigator on an FQXi Large Grant, Epistemological Schemata of Astro | Physics: A Reconstruction of Observers. Summary:
Not even the sainted Monty Python could parody this whole confederacy of dunces.
Now it is time to move all my bookmarks to Safari.
The Sussex Sgt has inspired a new hashtag for things you assume have, just have, to be satire but, unbelievably, aren’t: #BeyondElfwick
Richard Epstein weighs in on the legal aspects here.
I can’t believe I missed all the excitement, being on holiday and all. I guess I’ll just have to stick around now for the 400 club. Or is that just being too colonial ?
And it looks like the ol’ gmail address will have to go along with the search defaults, or is that inverted virtue signalling gone a little too far…
In my day no lesbian deserving of the prefix hench- would be seen dead in heels.
But what if they’re also *roller skates*?!
Sorry to join the party so late. I need to correct what seems to be a misconception:
James Damore knew exactly what he was doing.
His interview with Jordan Peterson reveals a different timeline.
After being upset by the secretive and possibly illegal content in the diversity training, he wrote up the memo, then posted it to an internal group called “Skeptics.” He was asking for feedback.
Someone in that group leaked the memo to Gizmodo. Heads exploded. Senior staff shamed him in front of the whole company. Before he was fired he complained to NRLB.
He’s still reeling from the events.
Accounts make it sound like he spammed the whole company with the memo, but he did no such thing. Had the sniveling crapweasel in the Skeptics group not leaked the memo, this all might not have happened.
The leaker had it out for him. The leaker wanted the scalp.
Wotta company.
::spit::
Senior staff shamed him in front of the whole company.
This is why Richard Epstein is saying that the best case Damore has is to sue for defamation, since he was not “perpetuating gender stereotypes” but explicitly rejecting that kind of simplistic thinking in words and graphs.
A different example of panty-bunched mindset.
…the sniveling crapweasel in the Skeptics group…
Sniveling crapweasel is good, but I think the proper term is “informant” or “mole”.
Or stool-pigeon, tattle-tale, snitch, squealer, grass, rat…
Or stool-pigeon, tattle-tale, snitch, squealer, grass, rat…
Unfortunately, G-Man was already taken, but wouldn’t have been problematic, as they say, anyway.
I’ll always remember where i was the day we hit 300 comments…
Someone in that group leaked the memo to Gizmodo. Heads exploded. Senior staff shamed him in front of the whole company. Before he was fired he complained to NRLB.
Ah, I see. It’s been hard getting accurate reporting on this, the news sources I saw implied he had an outstanding NLRB complaint before he wrote the memo.
It’s been hard getting accurate reporting on this, the news sources I saw implied he had an outstanding NLRB complaint before he wrote the memo.
I wondered about that. I don’t think it’s true, I think it’s probably been confused with an NLRB complaint made against Google in the recent past that accused the company of discrimination against women.
From the Peterson interview, Damore said he’d posted it to a (unnamed) group but received no posted feedback for about a month. Then he posted to the “Skeptic” group, after which the document was leaked.
I don’t know whether the NLRB complaint was filed before he was fired, before he posted to skeptic, or before he posted it a month earlier. Given his expressed belief in the illegality or inappropriateness of what came out of the diversity meeting he attended before writing the document, it seems entirely likely he could have filed the complaint very early in this chain of events.
There’s some info here. It seems from the article that the complaint and the firing happened on the same day (Monday), though the NLRB case has Tuesday’s date. I don’t recall Damore being asked whether he filed it before or after. I have read elsewhere that the NLRB prohibits (in some presumably-unenforceable way) companies from firing employees who have filed a complaint. I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash.
A compendium of gender research:
Sean Stevens and Jonathan Haidt, here.
My last comment posted, but isn’t here …
My last comment posted, but isn’t here…
There’s nothing in the spam filter. Try again?
My mistake. I had no idea there were that many more comments.
It’s been lively.
There seems to be a real pattern to these SJW jeremiads — pick a high status/high pay occupation — political office, CEOs, tech jobs, etc. — then start a religious-like war to eliminate the wrong thinkers, or at least pressure them into submission, while demanding government remedial action.
SFAIK, the NYT has not taken up arms against small engine mechanics which, last time anyone checked, was less than 2% female. (Which is also true for any occupation with the term “mechanic” stuck to it.)
Okay, true enough — not high status, or high pay.
But then there is my profession — airline pilot. Back in the dark ages, mid-1970s, women were prohibited from being military or airline pilots. In relatively short order, both restrictions were eliminated, as well they should have been.
Nearly as quickly, women’s presence on the flight deck skyrocketed from 0% to just more than 5%.
And has remained there ever since. The company I fly for is no different than the rest. Right at 5%. We will be hiring 400 pilots this year, and so far about one in 20 has been a woman.
Yet we hear nothing from the SJWs about this patriarchal affront in a high status/high pay career field.
Hmmm. I wonder why.
Perhaps it is because there are absolutely no barriers to entry, plus every woman* who gets the required qualifications and is is not manifestly mentally ill gets hired. Further progress (presuming sufficient skill) is entirely determined by seniority and choice.
Against whom would the jeremiad be directed, except women themselves?
* As well as every other officially aggrieved group. (Interestingly, Asians — granted, not an officially aggrieved group — make upalmost 0% of airline pilots.)
There seems to be a real pattern to these SJW jeremiads

See also just about anything here tagged academia.
http://quillette.com/2017/08/11/stop-equating-science-truth/
Written by a woman. Not that it bloody matters.
last time anyone checked
The most recent stats I’ve found a little more recent (2014) than those to which Mr. Guinn linked (2009), but the data aren’t much different: https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/Nontraditional%20Occupations.pdf.
Lindybeige has recently posted a video (on YouTube, alas) that touches on this. He’s currently going through the _Book of Questions_, one at a time, answering the questions from his perspective. The current question is “Which, if either, of the two sexes do you think has it easier in life, and have you ever wanted to be a member of the opposite sex?” The question was obviously formulated by a benighted sexist who thought that there were only two “genders” and that they were somehow hard-wired rather than fluid!
Written by a woman
Her last sentence it troubling: “Because the deepest truth is that those roles have an ancient and important meaning, which is now desperately out of date.”
Specifically the bolded phrase. How does she know that those roles are out of date? What does “out of date” even mean? Do we no longer need sex roles? Modern tech allows each sex to compete more effectively in the other’s domain, but our brains are still different, and attempts to eliminate or ignore those differences, to declare them “out of date”, strike me as wishful thinking on the part of those who dislike their genetic inheritance.
Given that those societies which eliminate sexual discrimination find themselves naturally becoming more sexually segregated in professions and lifestyles, I find it difficult to accept that the sex-roles dictated by evolution actually are out of date. They appear to bring quite a bit of satisfaction to those who embrace them, else we wouldn’t see so many people doing so when they’re free to choose otherwise.
When a thread just won’t die and the comments they fly, thats Damore…
@Sporkatus,
Is that a hint?:-).
We’ve been commenting on this post so long. It would lack in the romance of Italian American New York to stop now, probably.
Apropos of nothing, are you Ace’s Arthur K., or just using the same profile pic as his Twitter by coincidence?
Written by a woman….
…and a professor at The Evergreen State College, a school which provided some amusement recently. She must stick out like a sore thimb there!
Here’s an article in the Atlantic by a woman who was in IT and then decided to leave:
Some good points there. But the more I look at this, the more I think it’s the contradictions that need to be boiled down even more. Something like: “They say all men are rapists, but if men and women are the same then are all women rapists?” or “What is meant by ‘the patriarchy’ if men and women are the same?”, etc.
I don’t think it was the patriarchy that took Damore’s livelihood away. What I mean by that is that accusations of ‘patriarchy’ or ‘racism’ are pretty much never made in good faith these days. They are simply meant to attract the swarm from their hive, doom for the victim the intended outcome. It seems based on your post above, Ian, that Damore knew this, and I admire him for it.
One can roll up into a ball and hope all the stinging doesn’t hurt too much, or fight back. Preferably with coal oil and a match.
What I mean by that is that accusations of ‘patriarchy’ or ‘racism’ are pretty much never made in good faith these days. They are simply meant to attract the swarm from their hive, doom for the victim the intended outcome. It seems based on your post above, Ian, that Damore knew this, and I admire him for it.
I struggled to grasp your meaning in that for a few moments, and it’s difficult because I (and I think also Damore) don’t operate with the mindset that there is an evil patriarchy of any sort, so it’s not like that view has to be countered by saying it’s a means to generate a mob, though that is undoubtedly what happens in effect. I think it’s a lot simpler to understand “patriarchy” as being a competitive effort amongst men to find the best amongst them who can mate with females. These views (evil patriarchy vs. the Jordan Peterson view of patriarchy) are so divergent that it makes my head hurt to try to reconcile them in any meaningful way. However, for the benefit of this thread I will simply state that I both agree and disagree with you in some unspecified way which we can perhaps work out over the next 80 or so comments.
—
…trying to keep this thread alive, since 8th August 2017…
I can’t imagine any of them would have spent a weekend building a fiber-channel network in her basement.
*Eyeballs seven-handset open source VOIP phone system in spare room*
*Casually nudges server behind couch with foot*
which we can perhaps work out over the next 80 or so comments.

“More power to the internet.”
This is the Death Zone, above 8,000m where the air is thin. Glancing back, I see the discarded oxygen bottles and the frozen, transparent shapes of lifeless hands reaching, grasping for something above the murderous ice…
…this is peak commentary…
Obviously I meant to say translucent, but the air is so thin…
are you Ace’s Arthur K.
Assuming that that was directed at me, nope. I occasionally lurk at the HQ, but I don’t like the comments structure (can’t tell who’s responding to whom without a LOT of scrolling), so I never comment there. Hadn’t noticed that someone else was using the same profile pic.
Thought this relevant yesterday but backed out as I felt I’ve been overposting lately (cue NWA Bored as hell and I wanna get ill so I go to the place where my homeboys chill), plus I felt it was coming from my OCD because it hadn’t been posted yet…No…I…won’t…be…the…first…one…this…time…but seeing as we’re going for a record or something (have the Guinness people been notified?)…
There are four lights
Not to mention, there are two genders….