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A comment on Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo.

Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by Afforess on Monday August 07, 2017 @09:40PM (#14952830)
I read the memo and didn't find it particularly persuasive; but this dismissal does further its core point. It's a bit tone deaf of Google to fire an employee concerned about groupthink.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by groupthinkqmark on Monday August 07, 2017 @09:46PM (#14952894)
This is not a workable argument against firing someone. If it were, all you'd have to do is say, "We have too much group-think here," followed by any egregiously awful statement, and you'd be insulated from consequences. That's just not how these things work.

I think any good argument against firing him has to hinge on the truth of what he said besides the group-think claims. Regrettably for him, I don't think there's much to most of it.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by throw_away_777 on Monday August 07, 2017 @11:25PM (#14953811)
The truth of what he said has nothing to do with why he was fired. He was fired for not being politically correct and offending people, not because his arguments were right or wrong. People are usually most outraged by statements which are true or close to true but which they do not want to believe.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by santoshalper on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:40AM (#14954756)
No, we're mostly offended by ideas that are false and actively harm people - like the entirely unproven notion that women suffer from biological weaknesses that make them less likely to be qualified as engineers.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by microcolonel on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:21PM (#14960072)
> No, we're mostly offended by ideas that are false and actively harm people - like the entirely unproven notion that women suffer from biological weaknesses that make them less likely to be qualified as engineers.

All good, except he did not make that argument or anything similar to it. He did not state that women inherently suffer from biological weaknesses of any sort. And no, his ideas did not harm anyone (except perhaps indirectly himself). Literally nobody got hurt except him, he is the sole victim of the ordeal.

I hope that you have read the document in its original form, which is a PDF with some (admittedly weak) references.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by mirko22 on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @08:41AM (#14957169)
But that is only because you did not study psychology in which case you would know that most things in that manifesto are scientifically proven and what he said does makes sense for women AS A GROUP not individually... :/
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by lardo on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @03:46AM (#14955453)
differences
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by themacguffinman on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @06:16AM (#14956230)
Differences that cause someone to be less qualified are called "weaknesses".
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by dijit on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @08:49AM (#14957230)
Except the fact that people who study the field tend to agree with him on most things: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by solidsnack9000 on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @02:33AM (#14955034)
> ...any good argument against firing him has to hinge on the truth of what he said besides the group-think claims.

It's hard to see a fair and general principle underlying this. People who publish false or mistaken things internally should be fired?

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[dead]
Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by the_cyber_pass on Monday August 07, 2017 @10:19PM (#14953216)
Link me the part where he said anything like that.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by sctb on Monday August 07, 2017 @10:48PM (#14953508)
This is the kind of comment that doesn't bar the bar for substantiveness here. Please stop.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by majos on Monday August 07, 2017 @09:43PM (#14952860)
On a related note, what does "internal memo" mean here? Did he forward this to a few coworkers who spread it or cc the whole company or what?
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by iainmerrick on Monday August 07, 2017 @09:50PM (#14952933)
Posted on Google's private Google+ instance (which is very active). Pretty much like sharing it on an internal mailing list, or on Slack.

Seems like it must have gotten a few reshares to go viral enough for somebody to feel the need to leak it. I don't think we really know how widely it was read before it leaked though -- it might have been a big raging controversy inside Google, or it might not.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by refulgentis on Monday August 07, 2017 @09:48PM (#14952903)
Stories say it was intentionally spread in large public forums.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by refulgentis on Monday August 07, 2017 @09:47PM (#14952898)
You can't express vast generalizations that are stereotypes and expect the rest of us to feel comfortable working with you.
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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by bloaf on Monday August 07, 2017 @10:27PM (#14953297)
http://www.spsp.org/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response

> Stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology. Richard et al (2003) found that fewer than 5% of all effects in social psychology exceeded r’s of .50. In contrast, nearly all consensual stereotype accuracy correlations and about half of all personal stereotype accuracy correlations exceed .50.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by gdix on Monday August 07, 2017 @11:42PM (#14953957)
You can if the subject of the stereo-type is a "white dude-bro" or whatever.
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