His mistake was assuming that people would be able to have an abstract, intellectual discussion of the subject. Unfortunately colleges and universities have spent more than a decade churning out graduates who have been taught that a good tool to attain power and status is to have an emotional, overreaction to anything that let's them assert cultural dominance over someone.

It's never okay to destroy a man's life, but he made a poor choice to have his life destroyed.

I don't know why he did that. People do stupid things all the time.

Centuries of gender discrimination, in a field that is very publicly plagued by it, in a world that is still broken with it, what was Damore thinking?

Everyone has the freedom to act, but no one has freedom from the consequences of the act.

That is a very strange notion of freedom (albeit pervasive). Everybody has the freedom to shoplift but no one has freedom from the consequences of shoplifting.

In a strictly literal sense, which might be the best for getting everyone on the same page, that is true.

No question that Damore made mistakes; most sane people would never have let an opinion like that touch paper during office hours, and google will hopefully review the terrible idea of having a 'controversial opinions' forum.

However, his mistake is the debate's gain - the response is clearly disproportionate on several levels. This is an opportunity to identify the people calling for his life to be destroyed and convince them that their definition of various -isms is calibrated a little too high. Or failing that, to try and get some moderates into positions of power rather than the hard left.

> It's never okay to destroy a man's life, but he made a poor choice to have his life destroyed.

Did he leak the memo to the press to cause the outrage? No he didn't, so he is not responsible for the PR whirlwind created by it. Those who leaked the internal corporate communication are responsible and they should be fired.