Damore is a funny case.

The original memo runs against current mores, and the science is wobbly, but it's not outrageous. Perhaps it's wrong, but it's not outrageous to be wrong! On the other hand, once he was kicked out of Google, he quickly fell in with some nasty characters, like Molyneux.

If you only heard about the memo, and missed or skimmed over the subsequent stuff, it's easy to see Damore as a victim of the dreaded cancel culture. Whereas if you didn't read the memo but saw what he was up to afterwards, it's easy to see him as a straightforward villain.

Stefan Molyneux is a pig but your characterization of Damore is low effort and more or less completely wrong. If you read the memo it is a relatively straightforward review of standard Biology and Psychology research. There's virtually nothing controversial in it. If you have issues with it you have issues with science. Which given the "decolonize" science lunacy recently isn't surprising. China is laughing all the way to the bank as both sides of the political divide in the West largely and the US specifically abandon logic and reason for superstition and dogma.

"your characterization of Damore is low effort and more or less completely wrong".

Your characterization of Damore is equally low effort. The memo is not simply a "relatively straightfoward review of standard Biology and Psychology research". Even if I were to agree that those parts of it were non-controversial, those parts of it are not the point or intention of the memo.

You are completely ignoring the arguments Damore actually makes, that were built on faulty premises and selected studies that validate his worldview. Some of his statements might be non-controversial in isolation, but have been constructed to build a specific narrative about diversity and inclusion. You are also completely ignoring the context in which this memo was distributed, surfaced, and the channels through which it was ultimately publicized.

Damore clearly had an agenda and his own bias against what he perceived as PC-culture at Google. Trying to frame him as some neutral observer of the behavioral psychology of Googlers is ignorant, if not disingenuous.

>have been constructed to build a specific narrative about diversity and inclusion

Just for reference, the first line in the memo is literally: "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes"

But you kapnobatairza, you actually know what was in Damore's heart better than he himself. You are an oracle and a prophet and the bringer of truth. 2+2=5 amirite.

Nice strawman you've built there. Enjoy beating it up.

Damore's evidence was by turns cherry picked, misinterpreted, and unrepresentative of mainstream understanding in the fields it came from. You can read plenty of those researchers complaining about his use of their work. His synthesis is about as scientific as phrenology.

>articles that were both cherry picked and misinterpreted

Which ones?

Your edit is even more misleading and incoherent than your original comment.

Just for fun let's try a few:

Memo line: "Women, on average, have more Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men"

Research summary: "I summarize data from two meta‐analyses and three cross‐cultural studies on gender differences in personality and interests. Results show that gender differences in Big Five personality traits are ‘small’ to ‘moderate,’ with the largest differences occurring for agreeableness and neuroticism (respective d s = 0.40 and 0.34; women higher than men). In contrast, gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d = 1.18), with women more people‐oriented and less thing‐oriented than men." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1751-9004...

Wow.. totally misrepresented the research there...

Memo: "Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average"

Research: "There are no sex differences in cognitive ability but enduring sex differences in competitiveness, life goals, the relative emphasis on agency versus "connection." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0306988060076911...

Omg how misogynistic...

Memo: "Women, on average, have more Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)."

Research: "Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality inventory data from 26 cultures (N =23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas" https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.81.2....

Omg he totally misrepresented the research there...

> If you have issues with it you have issues with science.

Dogmatic statements like these just weaken your case; the idea that some memo was the Golden Standard™ of Science and those who question it are questioning Science itself is clearly ridiculous. It's Trump-level hyporbole. The perfect memo.

Care to point out which lines in the Memo were weren't supported by standard literature?

Molyneux being an extremist does not mean that Danmore must necessarily be an extremist. Contrary to what many people seem to believe, you can appear on a talk show with someone you disagree strongly with, or be interviewed by the same.

And, personally, if I was being lambasted in the mainstream media, I'd be taking whatever opportunities I could to put my side of the story out there, without looking too hard into who was offering a helping hand. I think that's true of just about everyone.

If we're honest, a lot of that is less extreme than a lot of what happens on the "crazy", "woke", "left" these days that we're all kinda accepting and in a lot of cases promoting.

The difference is one is "kinda" accepted and promoted under the guise of "justice", whilst the other is shunned as "extremist" and "far right".

This is not "less extreme" than what you're referencing:

“You cannot run a high IQ [white] society with low IQ [non-white] people…these [non-white] immigrants are going to fail...and they're not just going to fail a little, they are going to fail hard…they're not staying on welfare because they’re lazy...they’re doing what is economically the best option for them...you are importing a gene set that is incompatible with success in a free-market economy.”

I don't understand your point? I can quote left-leaning racists for you too if you like?

The whole point is those white nationalist beliefs are par for the course within that demographic.

You're making generalizations about other groups with no substantive data.

Yes, you _may_ be able to find a left-leaning racist spouting absurdities like this, but it isn't indicative of that group as a whole...the far-right, white nationalist demographic has these vile beliefs as a foundation of their platform.

As if Southern Poverty Law Center was an objective reference.

They're literally direct quotes. Nice try though.

They are direct quotes with citations...

The claims are sourced. You're welcome to present evidence to the contrary.

Here, definitely the latter over the former.

You're painting with a very broad brush there. There are a lot of reasonable, good people that would disagree with your interpretations of those people/podcasts/events. I.e. the debate is far from settled, and it should be open for discussion such as we have here on HN.

These are from the SPLC’s list of quotes:

“I don’t view humanity as a single species...” —Podcast FDR2768, “Collective Guilt for Fun and Profit”, Saturday call-in show, August 9, 2014

“The whole breeding arena of the species needs to be cleaned the f--- up!” —Podcast FDR2740, “Conformity and the Cult of ‘Friendship’,” Wednesday call-in show July 2, 2014

"Screaming 'racism' at people because blacks are collectively less intelligent...is insane." —YouTube video, The Death of Europe | European Migrant Crisis, October 4, 2015

“You cannot run a high IQ [white] society with low IQ [non-white] people…these [non-white] immigrants are going to fail...and they're not just going to fail a little, they are going to fail hard…they're not staying on welfare because they’re lazy...they’re doing what is economically the best option for them...you are importing a gene set that is incompatible with success in a free-market economy.” —YouTube video, The Death of Europe | European Migrant Crisis, October 4, 2015

“...white people will bend over backwards to accommodate you, but when they finally get that they’re just being taken advantage of...you will see a backlash, and that backlash will be quick, decisive, and brutal.” —YouTube video, The Death of Germany | European Migrant Crisis, September 16, 2015

That's Molyneux though, not Damore, right? Because the GP comment spoke about Damore and all the people who "defended" (aka didn't condemn and had actually read the memo) him. That suddenly turned into "praising that sort of thing" and suddenly it's "far right", which turns into back seat moderation in the form of (paraphrased) "do we really want the literal Nazis here?"

It's a terrible comment that belongs on Reddit, not HN.

Molyneux is detestable but SLPC has no credibility. They recently settled a defamation lawsuit against Majid Nawaz an anti-extremism Muslim reformer who they labeled as an anti-muslim extremist. It's in the same vein as people who call Ben Shapiro, an orthodox jew, a Nazi. It's simply ridiculous hysterics.

Which of the quotes are you disputing the accuracy of?

Where did I say I dispute the quotes? I said Molyneux is a dirtbag but SPLC is not a credible org.

The only reason to bring up their credibility in this context is to call into question the accuracy of the quotes.

No... It's to point out that the particular claim to authority that SPLC is the adjudicator on who is racist or not is stupid. OP could have easily posted the quote directly from Molyneux's twitter or wherever he rants at without invoking SPLC.

The only "defense" I saw were against people who were grossly misrepresenting what Damore had said. If you contrive a fiction to push your narrative, expect pushback.

As to what shows Damore appeared on, note that this was after he was fired by Google and pilloried by a large portion of the pitchfork "simplify everything to an easy villain" mob. It isn't surprising that he leveraged the small group that didn't ostracize him.

Damore's essay was horrendously poorly considered. People like Molyneux are effectively clowns playing to an audience that they can monetize. This doesn't change the fact that Damore's core argument was actually fairly reasonable.

The simple reality that every fist-pounding critic needs to grossly misrepresent what Damore said, turning it into some grotesque caricature far detached from truth, is revealing.

It wasn't a mysoginist memo, don't be so low effort. He isn't a scientist but he actually bring up stuff that was already being discussed when I studied sociology and AFAIK it's far from being settled.

Trying to explain inequality or arguing about the performance of current practices are by no mean justification of anything.

Also, it's important to remember that he was fired. And this is central to the whole thing.

IDK, that may be viewed differently from the US, but from my pov it's clear that he was persecuted because of ideological reasons, painting Google as a reactionary organization.

And that's specially bad because Google is extremely powerful. Another stone in the bucket to mistrust Google.

I see you're already getting downvoted?

It's funny because the same people who support James Damore are also anti unionizing which would give them a stronger voice....

What's funny? Unionizing in the advertising/tech industry to push a political agenda is acting like sheep! How does anyone get fooled into this kind of philosophy? Mob rules? Look at the big picture and think for yourself for a change.

Unionizing to protect your job.

It's funny how the managers, executives, board of directors, stockholders, business associations and their lobbyists all act together, pushing the political agenda - acting as a mob, as sheep - coming to a consensus - but we who are actually doing the work are lectured to isolate ourselves from one another, and not be a sheep who join a mob.

Excellent point but you're also advocating for a race to the bottom and us-versus-them mentality, which would certainly weaken your product. If anything we need greater attention to the employment-at-will legal standard in most industries, so that poor management can be dealt with effectively (if at all). Anyway it's hard to believe that widespread corruption could be rooted out by an uprising of young angry geeks :)

Is there actual literature on unionizing in software engineering, or is it mostly impassioned blog posts?