I personally am Left, Libertarian Left.
I disagree with many of the assertions in the memo, however I do not believe he should have been fired.
Most of the drum beating from SJW's and Diversity Police are from an Authoritarian World view, where tolerance of views they disagree with is not allowed, can not be openly discussed, and should be suppressed by any means necessary
We need to expand the conversation beyond Left / Right, to include what is means to be Authoritarian, or Libertarian
But, and this is important: you don't have any power.
People that are tolerant and acceptable are not the vocal minority. And those in power either agree with the SJW vocal minority, or they are afraid to oppose them.
So what I said above still stands unless their is some concerted effort to change these types of policies and expectations that result in what happened in this scenario.
Now, most people wont write a company wide memo outlining their "controversial" views because they have too strong of a self-preservation instinct.
What I'm pointing out is... are people going to get sick of holding back, keeping their thoughts to themselves, lying so as to avoid judgement. I bet there's a massive amount of readers just on this site that completely disagree with the outcome in this instance.
But they are irrelevant. Because nobody will do anything about it, and the next person to speak up will get fired also. So... nice tolerant open-minded liberals have no power in the face of motivated passionate regressive SJW liberals.
I do not see where that solves the discourse problem, all you end up with is a bunch of Authoritiarna Right companies in a Right Echo Chamber and a bunch of Authoritarian Left companies in a left Echo Chamber
The solution is to get back to promoting true free expression and the idea that "I disagree with what you have to say, but respect you for saying it"
Free Speech is under massive assault, but not from government but from societal sanction which is just as bad and just as dangerous
Societal sanction has a habit of becoming Government Censorship in short order
That won't happen. Because if company leadership, or basically just a group of employees within some company argued for "tolerance" of thought... for example with this Google employee, those individuals would be tarred and feathered just the same.
Does it look like SJW tech industry employees want to discuss and debate ideas?.....
https://twitter.com/polNewsForever/status/894741252977119232
Censorship by any other name is still censorship, and they're not rights if you selectively protect them for "your" causes.
Openness, or simply indifference to personal or political beliefs I thought was the DEFAULT position of most people.
It is sadly not that way anymore... this and many many other examples have shown us all.
Just search twitter for hundreds of tech-industry employees railing against this guy for trying to present a statistical argument against conventional wisdom. They are no doubt celebrating at this moment that he was fired.
Anyone on the fence just needs to ask themselves... what would happen if these same people knew what was in your head? If they heard you speak about your own views? Would they have mercy? Of course not. Who's next?
You can ghettoize yourselves all you want but it will do you no favors.
If you truly believe in what you say you do you would live your life despite the travails, not wail and bemoan them.
Really it's just intellectualism versus a discomfort examining and considering ideas. Even though I have my personal politics, I don't expect many or most to share them and I don't seek to install them over others.
But I do agitate my viewpoint in ways I attempt to be persuasive with. Often I fail, but it's not about 'winning' as some would have it but integrating and synthesizing.
Vote with our feet, and our skills, and go elsewhere. They want to enforce their religion then they can do it without us.
There have to be plenty of people sick of watching what they say, walking on eggshells, and pretending to hold political views opposite of their true beliefs just to avoid the wrath of the regressive left.
This is only going to get worse, and I don't see why we all have to sit back and take it any more.