Basically, the assumption that there's a single kind of "smartness" that generalizes equally across technical competence, social competence, and awareness of political trends is not a valid assumption. The number of non-neurotypical people that work in tech fields should make this clear.

It's also unfortunate to see such glee at the idea of someone's life being ruined and happiness at the thought of a large megacorporation's large amount of resources being able to do it.

There’s nothing toxic about that!

As for whether or not he knew what he was doing...he may have written this thing, but he did so in an area that was designated for that sort of thing. He wasn’t the one that started emailing it to the entire company. So it’s fair to say he thought he was just having a discussion in the topic with whatever this skeptic group at Google was, and other people decided to turn it into a national political issue to get him fired for it.

step back and listen to what you just said.

Why are you glad about that? You're aware that he's still a human that can suffer, like us, right?

This guy isn't a dictator. Find some balance here.

I want to see James Damore understand the impact of his words and learn from it. I don't want him thrown out of society for a single really big mistake and a poor handling of the consequences.

It's quite evident from reports in the news media, that there was tremendous emotional impact. The fact that so many people could be so extremely triggered is very telling, but it doesn't actually speak to James Damore being some kind of villain, or his words being somehow horrible. If a whole bunch of adults stop behaving like adults and start exhibiting striking intellectual dishonesty, I think this is very revealing indeed.

I ask this as a member of the Left, who wonders: When did the Left stop being the side of free speech and intellectual honesty? When it finally felt powerful enough in the culture to have become corrupted by that cultural power.