[joshuamorton]

> I think that the assumption that Google, with 150k (or whatever it was at the time) employees plus candidate employees, roughly approximates population trends is a reasonable starting place for a single author writing up some thoughts. If this were an academic paper we would probably expect the author to consider this at some point. If it's some thoughts the author put together on diversity? Seems like a crazy standard to me.

But we know this to be untrue: Damore's questions come up as a response to the question of "why does Google have an unrepresentatively low number of women" (and from that, the implied "how do we fix that"). To assume that Google's employees match broad population trends is to assume the entire conversation moot. In fact, everyone involved agrees that Google doesn't match general population trends, so if you're having to assume that to justify Damore's takes, something has gone wrong somewhere!

> Google hosts a diversity class, the class asks for feedback, Damore shares his thoughts on diversity

For what its worth, this is a pretty serious misrepresentation of things, and if that were the extent of things Damore wouldn't have been fired. As I understand it, he gave the feedback to HR and nothing happened. He proceeded to post the document in larger and larger discussion groups, until he eventually posted it into a really big group, where it was linked to an even bigger group. That's also a big part of what moves this from "feedback" to "manifesto", its disingenuous to call it "feedback on a diversity class" when you're emailing it to a thousand people, nearly none of whom ever took the class. That's pretty far into thesis nailed to the church door territory.

The other thing that puts it into "screed" territory is that it doesn't have a coherent thesis. Is it about gender diversity? Well a lot of it is, but it also has a significant subtheme about political diversity (and trying to psychoanalyze Google as a "left-biased" company), and has a number of potshots at "the left". Why?

[ALittleLight]

I don't know why you are saying "everyone involved agrees that Google doesn't match broad population trends". Are the men at Google taller than the women at Google? Google employees are probably unusual in variables that relate to their work with computers, but it's not at all obvious that they would be unusual on other traits, like height, for example, or assertiveness, cooperativeness, etc.

Regarding Damore sharing his memo - he shared it in places where the topic was being discussed. He wasn't mailing this to all workers, but posting it in groups that were discussing diversity and asking for feedback. If Damore's memo had reached different conclusions - like say that Google had fewer women because of sexism in education and implicit biases among hiring committees, and he had shared it in the same places, would he have been fired? I think we both know the answer to that.

[joshuamorton]

> I don't know why you are saying "everyone involved agrees that Google doesn't match broad population trends".

The gender balance at Google is not representative of the broad population. Presumably there are axes on which Google's demographics match population demographics, but we're talking about one axis where everyone involved agrees that they don't.

> Regarding Damore sharing his memo - he shared it in places where the topic was being discussed. He wasn't mailing this to all workers, but posting it in groups that were discussing diversity and asking for feedback.

Right, and it got basically no response, until he finally posted it in a very large group that wasn't related to diversity. As I understand it, there were months between when he initially wrote and shared it with D&I people and and when he posted it in the big group where it went viral.

> If Damore's memo had reached different conclusions - like say that Google had fewer women because of sexism in education and implicit biases among hiring committees

I'm not clear what your point is. You seem to be arguing that "because one view is acceptable to express in the workplace, we must be allowed to express the opposite view in the workplace" or something. But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[ALittleLight]

While people agree that the genders are imbalanced at Google that doesn't mean there is any reason to think that traits that typically differ within genders differ in different ways within Google. The example I gave previously is of height, I still think that's relevant. Just because Google is X% female and Y% male and X << Y that doesn't mean that we should necessarily expect females at Google are as tall or taller than males. They might be, but we have no reason to expect that. Why should we default to other expectations for different traits that are unrelated to their work? e.g. cooperativeness or assertiveness?

My earlier point, which you seemed confused about, is that Damore was fired for disagreeing with the orthodoxy. You seemed and seem to be implying that he shared his opinion in an incorrect. You write that he "finally posted it in a very large group" as if this were some crime. And yet, if he were expressing Google dogma, it wouldn't have been a problem. This illustrates that the problem is not where he posted his feedback but simply what he posted.

[RangerScience]

> what not where

Strong disagree that those are the only two possibilities. I hold that most of the issue was how he presented his thoughts.

Regardless, you'd have to prove, first, that "what" and "where" are the only possibilities before your deduction can be solid.