>Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity".
There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop).
In this context Google’s behavior is rational, and this guy tried to fight it with reason and argument (I was laughing hard when I was reading the manifesto) and got steamrolled in the process, proving the argument made in his memo by personal example.
> There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop).
That's bullshit. Write a "manifesto" about how senior executive compensations are to high, the company should be taken over by the employees and that private ownership of properties is a crime. That's the REAL leftist position. Then send that manifesto out to thousands of employees on the company's internal mailing list and see how long you last.
People fail to see the point... Yes, there are many "leftist" positions. The above is one of them. The point is that expressing that position on an internal mailing list most certainly puts your employment in jeopardy. It doesn't matter what the position is (abortion, drug legalization, gay weddings, military attacks on civilians, foreign relations, ...), what matter is where you express it.
These gender ideologies and the application of positive discrimination are an affront to left position. Since more than a hundred years, the left strongest identification trait was the fight to end discrimination. When now discrimination is applied in the name of diversity, that can't be a left value. This is something else, and it comes from somewhere else.
I'm not saying the position does not exist, and I'm not saying the groups purporting them don't look like left groups. But talk with some communists or socialists. They can't get behind this. My point is that this gender movement is its own political/ideological thing, that has just a very small overlap with left identification markers. It uses their style, not more.
This is probably part of the usual problem, that the left-right distinction doesn't really capture the political landscape.
I haven't seen anyone on the left (in fact, anyone aside from Ron Paul [1]) being critical and calling for the end of Affirmative Action and similar practices, which does not surprise me due to to the "no enemies to the left" formula [2]. I invite you to show me a few examples.
Thanks for the links. I can't offer examples, you seem to be right in that there are mostly no public statements from the left against it.
In Germany, with which politics I'm more familiar, it is similar: The political organized left (which is marginal) is for affirmative actions (in the form of quotas for women). The only organization speaking out against them which has some left traits is the (sadly mostly neo-)liberal party.
Interestingly, and that is maybe a good description of my point, the parties implementing quotas for women over here are not left nor progressive. It's the SPD, which is a conservative central party, and the greens, which is a conservative party which fought for environmental protection in the eighties. However, the one remaining left party is also for them. My point may be weak when applied to organized political parties, but I stand behind the ideological argumentation that it is an affront to left values.
>Are you saying that Bernie endorsing Hillary is proof that there aren't conflicting views within the Democratic party?
It is a proof that that the Democrats knows where their real opponents are, and that is in the Republican party.
>Are you saying that Ron endorsing Trump would've been equal to Bernie supporting Hillary?
Pretty much, yes. Both have a non-mainstream and dedicated following. Both were screwed by their respective parties when they tried to get the nomination.
>Qualifications and platform doesn't factor in?
I'm not sure what do you mean by that, unless you are trying to imply that Ron Paul has a serious ideological foundation deriving from the Mises Institute and based largely on Murray Rothbard's 20th century interpretation of classical liberalism upon which the United States were founded in the 18th century, while Bernie Sanders is pushing USA towards the fate of USSR and other similar implementations of socialist ideas that always end in a disaster.
>Here's an example of GOP acting as a herd and DNC acting on policy:
I knew it's war-related even before I clicked the link. Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply in other areas.
No, the leftist position would be writing a well thought out and mild toned argument that the company has pro white male bias in interviewing (which implies that the hiring bar is lowered for white males and that some white males don't belong in the company) and that the company should create initiatives to end this bias.
"I think half of this group should not be allowed in here because of their biology" is not a diverse thought, it's a dangerous one that doesn't need to be entertained yet again (Eugenics, etc etc)
Really? Why is it, then, that the identity politics was dominating the discourse in the USA during the last election, and likely still is? Why do those who question the ethnic discrimination disguised as "Affirmative Action" get slammed by the leftist media, such as Rand Paul by The Guardian (and others) a few years ago?
To be honest I don't think I'd describe any of our prominent media as leftist. Maybe liberal? Maybe just neurotic. Whatever it is, what you're describing isn't really a left thing.
Liberal? Founding Fathers were liberals, I wouldn't call these modern oppression-privilege radicals 'liberals'.
Just to clarify: I do have some respect for some ideas of the class-based left, unlike for the identity-based one. Roughly speaking, I do agree (though for a different reason) with the idea that the intellectual property should not exist.
This market force might actually change in future.
In this case it seems that James planned all this to happen and is gonna sue Google:
> "$1 million in bonuses" was changed to "$100 million as a compensation" after Damore was "fired" by a Mr Kunda Píča whom I have never heard of; Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
And about PR, while vocal left leaning activists might cheer decision to fire him, conservative and centrists media used this as great point to smear Google as leftist propaganda. This is great talking point for proving accusations that google manipulates search results to prefer certain political agenda. Recently Jordan Peterson caused quite a stir when his youtube and gmail accounts were revoked, YouTube decided it will start isolating videos with controversial views even if they dont brake ToS...
This moves will be used by anti PC camp a lot to steer users to alternatives to googles products.
Facebook and Twitter already pushed a lot of potential users away by similar behavior, alternative platforms are getting more and more relevant.
Its hard to say if this vocal PC SJW activists are just vocal minority or actually majority talking with their wallets. Based on results of recent US elections and financial problems of some feminists and left leaning publications, and on majority of comments on uncensored pages; I would say that PC ship is probably sinking fast.
No reason was given. Peterson tweeted about it. And said that even access to his gmail account was revoked for braking policy. He said no details were given.
Then he tweeted that they reviewed revocation it and still didnt restore account.
He then tweeted few influencers like Rubin, Rogan and Harris.
And then he tweeted that his accounts were restored, again with no explanation.
Right media and Youtube anti-SJWs blame this on one Youtube policy to isolate contradicting videos and authors, but I think this was probably mistake by some bot. Maybe Peterson account was mass flagged by some fringe group.
You tube isnt doing themselves a favor with keeping all the details, since this allow those who accuse them of being biased, to use this as an example of censoring anti-SJW personalities.
It's not market forces. It's the fact that they hire so many new grads. Lack of mental/political/ideological diversity in universities leads to lack of diversity inside Google too (and Facebook and ...)
> But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm.
> Again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace (accounting for, perhaps, a few percentage points of the variability between men’s and women’s performances). Sex differences in occupational interests, personal values, and certain cognitive abilities are a bit larger in size (see here), but most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway.
> Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at.
> Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex.
The problem in the employee's memo seems to be correlating scientific data (which is accurate) to groups of people (women) at Google and their qualifications (inaccurate).
There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop).
In this context Google’s behavior is rational, and this guy tried to fight it with reason and argument (I was laughing hard when I was reading the manifesto) and got steamrolled in the process, proving the argument made in his memo by personal example.