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Re:Thought Police by avs733 on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @01:00PM (#14971208)
Whenever possible I rely on folks who are better writers than me to express ideas I agree with. This is one of those cases. From a journalist I respect:

"k, let's nip this in the bud right now: James Damore is not a whistleblower, just as any other sniveling white dudes crying about the presence of people of color and/or women at their workplace are also not whistleblowers.

Having personal biases and misogynistic views doesn't mean Damore was exposing institution-wide crimes. What Damore posted essentially boils down to an argument over management styles. Now, he went about this in the dumbest, most sensationalist way possible because he circulated a fucking memo about it and it got posted everywhere. I imagine any company in the world would probably be pretty cheesed off about an employee doing that.

Now, there are institutional crimes at play here, but Damore didn't expose them. For example, Google is currently battling a wage discrimination investigation by the US Department of Labor, which has found that Google routinely pays women less than men in comparable roles. That's a serious issue, not the fact that women are working at the company in the first place.

What's funny about all of this is most of the people (read: white men) complaining about Damore's firing also defend companies' rights to fire employees at will. If they were really concerned about protecting employees' ability to internally dissent without jeopardizing their job, they would strongly support unions and the right to collectively bargain, but they're been silent on those issues. Why? Because this isn't really about protecting workers or "whistleblowers." This is about a group of pissed off white dudes fighting for the rights of other pissed off white dudes to bitch about diversity and bully and intimidate their co-workers who are people of color and/or women. "

Re:Thought Police by xiaoma on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @02:04PM (#14971926)
If you're using phrases like "sniveling white dudes", you're part of the problem.
Re:Thought Police by avs733 on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @03:27PM (#14972708)
naming behavior what it is is the problem?
Re:Thought Police by junkculture on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @10:28PM (#14975815)
Why "sniveling white dudes" and not "sniveling dudes?"

What does his skin color have to do with anything?

Re:Thought Police by slindz on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @04:20PM (#14973194)
Maybe, on average, women don't prefer tech as often? - Grab the pitchforks!

Snivelling white dudes. - Let's call a spade a spade...

Re:Thought Police by avs733 on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @09:48PM (#14975607)
you mean a group of people socialized away from something from the day they are born are socialized away from it?
Re:Thought Police by slindz on Thursday August 10, 2017 @12:12AM (#14976272)
The memo's main point was that it would make sense to focus on diversity efforts closer to the day people are born instead of desperately filling quotas.

He was interested in exploring effective long term diversity instead of the kind a company could point to in a lawsuit as quickly as possible.

But it's much easier to label someone as snivelling and call it a day (also eluded to in the memo - in the title).