[civilized]

It's so deeply misinformed to say that Damore posited insurmountable blockers to groups of people not like him. It is impossible for me to understand how someone can claim to have read the document and this is what they understood it to be saying.

First of all, he stressed that the relevant traits exist in abundance in all groups, as each group has a wide range of people within it. He had a giant graph illustrating this at the outset. He couldn't have been more clear.

Second, he was talking about psychological tendencies and preferences, not a literal inability to do tech work.

[RangerScience]

Yeah, that's fair - it's been awhile since all this went down, so I guess my summary of my own take got hyperbolic over the years :/

[civilized]

You get BIG points for being willing to admit that possibility in my book. We all get things horribly wrong sometimes. Especially with, God, the incredible cultural pressure.

I have problems with how Damore expressed himself too FWIW. But I think he was only trying to break an oppressive silence and start a conversation that was being heavily suppressed.

I would have been happy to give him a strong, balanced critique had I been at Google and had I felt it wouldn't get me fired too.

[wussboy]

Thank you to both of you for the humility shown in this discussion.