/r/ - miscellaneous

Google fucking sucks. But this guy seems like an opportunist.

I mean he's surprised that when your memo soykafting on a major corporate goal is shared across the company, you get fired? Color me shocked. There's soykaf at my job that I think is terrible, but if I cc'd my screed to a bunch of people then it spread across the company, of course I'd get fired. There just isn't such a thing as free speech in a corporation. If you want that, support the union.

There's no way he knew he wouldn't get fired when he pressed send. I guarantee you he had already planned to ride the outrage train into the media, into bookdeals, and I'm guessing eventually into some political appointment or consultant position.

>>560
You seem to be forgetting that he was responding to a request for feedback. He was also only fired after it was leaked to the public which he was not expecting. It was also not a screed.

I agree with the whole no free speech in a company thing though and google can legally fire anyone for any reason. The controversy centers around the fact that google fired someone for using facts and scientific literature to come to a conclusion that they deemed was politically incorrect. Major news outlets covering the story also released a version of the memo that edited out most of the citations in the original paper.

You may be right about him expecting to be fired, but does him wanting to bring the issue into the public eye make him a bad person ? If you watch interviews of him he does not seem like someone who wants to be a public figure

>>559
>le google = communism meme
kill yourself glitterboy

>>561
>facts and scientific literature
*your feelings and opinions + pseudoscience

>no longer employing someone who made you a PR catastrophe is the same as forced labour in Siberia
I will never understand these idiots.

>>561
The controversy comes from firing someone for being critical of what is understood as feminism.

>>563
>your feelings and opinions + pseudoscience
Have you read it ?

None of anything he claims is pseudoscience. Read the memo and tell me which claims he makes that are pseudoscience.

What sounds more like pseudoscience anyway ? The reason 92% of software devs are men is because biological differences between men and women mean that on average men are more interested in certain fields or that the entire software industry is just too mean to women trying to enter it ?
https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015#profile

>>565
nothing he claims is actual science.
he just makes dozens of unsubstantiated claims and sets it as the foundation for his entire conclusion, the entire thing reads like a typical pseudointellectual /b/ post.
can you even tell me what science actually is?

>>561

Request for feedback is corporate code for "tell us how you can help us meet the goal we've already stated."

It's like if my job was like "hey we're taking on CocaCola as a new client, here's the corporate culture training for their company. Email us any feedback."

What they actually want is someone to email volunteering to be an "ambassador" or something like that. If I emailed back that the actual presentation could be polished, I'd be fine.

But, if I emailed back that Cocacola financed deathsquads in Columbia, and that we shouldn't do business with them… no matter how well I cited my claims, I'd get warned. If my email was then circulated across the entire company and endangered the account, I'd get fired.

It's stupid, but that's how it works. Dude knew what would happen. The guy had an ax to grind. Don't worry though, he'll do just fine working on the right wing media circuit.

>>566
If you noticed him making dozens of unscientific claims you should have no trouble listing them here so I can actually argue with you.

>>568
he made no absolutely no claims related to science in any way, just look at the TL;DR he wrote
>Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety,
but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety
this has nothing to do with science
>This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too
sacred to be honestly discussed
also not science
>The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this
ideology.
no science here, either
>Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.
more extremely unscientific soykaf

his paper is entirely philosophical, and while I don't think philosophy and science are mutually exclusive, it makes absolutely no claims that relate to the scientific method.

the only time he says anything remotely scientific is when he says
>Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we
don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.
>Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things
he jumps to the conclusion that just because there are small differences in the averages between men and women that such an extreme difference is justified. that any given women is biologically unsuited for the kind of work they're in.
whether he's wrong or right, his statement is extremely theoretical and again, still has nothing to do with science, since science implies the use of the scientific method.

Google dont want correct, they dont want facts, they want power.

Google are now showing their power and for once people are worried, and I"m not just talking about old mate here. Google have a narrative and they will distort results to support it.

The dumb think is old mate gave suggestions to improve things, gave suggestions based on science on how to encourage more women, and he was kicked to the curb for it.

Men and Women are different, attacking someone for pointing that out and providing suggestions is an arse move.

>>569
>nothing he claims is actual science.
is less clear than
>his paper is entirely philosophical
I thought you meant that he was making false claims about scientific facts.


>he jumps to the conclusion that just because there are small differences in the averages between men and women that such an extreme difference is justified. that any given women is biologically unsuited for the kind of work they're in.
This is a direct quote from the memo are you sure that we read the same document ?

"Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences
are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions."

>still has nothing to do with science, since science implies the use of the scientific method
fairish point. But what about his cited claims that women on average are more interested in people than things ? Are you saying those studies are unscientific or that it's unscientific that assuming that people more interested in other people might not chose to pursue carriers in tech ?

>just because there are small differences in the averages between men and women
Take a look at pic related 2 bell curves with a close average. Look at the tails of both distributions and you can come to the conclusion that most extremely short people are women and most extremely tall people are men. If you assume that the average person can not be a software engineer and that they need to be in the top 10% for traits that make someone good at software engineering, then a small difference in averages does matter.

>>559
Damore is your average techbro dipsoykaf who totally buys into google's game of inflating the egos of everyone they hire with their hiring process, and giving them things like nice cafeterias on-site gyms and what have you.
He complains about hiring quotas but doesnt realise that he is just some average dipsoykaf who they hired (like most people they hire) in order to drain the potential talent pool of competitors…

>anyone being upset about google censorship

Google is a private entity (for now). They, just like you or I, can do whatever they want with their websites. I'm not really excited about any corporation censoring anyone, especially a corporation as powerful as google; however, when google censors you, it's really at the end of the day your fucking fault for not using software that respects your freedoms.

Youtube is not the only video hosting site
Gmail is not the only webmail provider
Gdocs is not the only file hosting (or real time collaboration) service

It comes down to google not being the internet. You're always free to just use a service that respects your freedom.

>>582
the argument the eu courts have periodically been making is that, in the area of Search, google is, essentially, a monopoly.

and, as they periodically have been known to do sketchy stuff with weighting google products as higher in search, or competitors as lower, there are arguments to be made that they are behaving unfairly.

gmail is not the only email provider, but it doesnt matter if you cant find other nice providers on google, as many people do not look on other engines, or deep enough in google to find things.

its, an interesting argument. the Net is a weird place.

wew as much as I hate commies that gulag meme/shilling campain is pretty dumb and uncalled for to say the least

>>582
this doesn't hold true always. Especially if your income relies on people who do use these services..

youtube for instance pretty much gives away music and says to the artists either participate with us and we'll put some filtering in or don't and we won't but you're fucked because everyone uses youtube to rip your soykaf worldwide.

>>584
>the argument the eu courts have periodically been making is that, in the area of Search, google is, essentially, a monopoly.
>essentially, a monopoly
>gmail is not the only email provider, but it doesnt matter if you cant find other nice providers
>(there are other options) but it doesnt matter
Wow, I'm triggered. The EU pretending that other options don't exist is, silly, to put it as kindly as possible.

>>594
Ok, after thinking about it a while, I think your point is that music artists have to use youtube because if they don't their music leaks on youtube anyway and someone else monetizes it.

This in no way negates or offers a counter point to what I've said. Youtube is still not the only video hosting site, and even if you're (arguably) forced to post on youtube, you are not forced to abstain from posting elsewhere / hosting your own content in ways that respect your freedoms.

At the end of the day, trusting google to respect your freedoms is a CHOICE. If your trust is betrayed, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

>>595
>however, when google censors you, it's really at the end of the day your fucking fault for not using software that respects your freedoms.

So you think it is mainly the artists fault in this (youtube) scenario?

>and even if you're (arguably) forced to post on youtube, you are not forced to abstain from posting elsewhere / hosting your own content in ways that respect your freedoms.

I mean it makes no difference to my point whether you can host content your own way as well as having it uploaded to youtube because it's still on youtube. When the choice you want to choose can have awful consequences and pain points you tend to choose another. Now imagine if most of the population feels like that. Or imagine if most of the population is misinformed by propaganda by the same entity.

The fact of the matter is that (for whatever reason) the u.s. government is letting corps arm themselves freely (or at least cheaply enough that they continue) and create pain points for everyone.

LAAAAAAAAAAAAME, this is so boring
>Duh a company in based California wants diversity!? Outrageous.
>I'm gonna shave my neckbeard and remain a virgin in solidarity with James Damore.
I guarantee every one of you who is upset about this would also be defending a company that refuses to hire any person of color.

>>596
>So you think it is mainly the artists fault in this (youtube) scenario?
If an artist posts work to youtube, and that work is censored, and the artist is upset about it, then they should have uploaded to a site / service that respects their freedom. Yes, I believe it is the artist's fault in this scenario.


If someone other than the artist illegally uploads their content to youtube, and that content is censored, I have no qualms with that. I don't want to get into IP laws right now, so shying away from what I personally believe, google absolutely has a right and is infact legally obligated to remove / censor that content.

>because it's still on youtube
If what you care about as a content creator is censorship, then it does make a difference. Uploading to multiple locations can only strengthen your chances of not being censored, and thus protecting your freedoms.

If what you care about as a content creator is people pirating your stuff, and protecting your rights in this case means preventing piracy (which is what I think you're getting at, correct me if I'm wrong) then you may be right, free and open source software can't prevent your content from being pirated. But no software can. It's virtually impossible to defeat piracy. If your audience is large enough then piracy will always be an option for consumers. Using youtube because you believe it's a way to curb piracy sounds misguided to me, but I know very little about youtube's piracy policies.

>Or imagine if most of the population is misinformed by propaganda
I already hold such an opinion haha. If people only use google sites ever, and never hear about sites other than google, then I feel sorry for them, but that doesn't mean google has any obligation to those people to protect their freedom of speech or really to inform them of other sites at all. It is up to them as an individual to protect themselves by using FOSS web services / web services that respect their freedoms or by rolling their own.

>>597
are you a troll

>Durr Google is, liek, communist!

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/08/goog-a08.html
>A growing number of leading left-wing websites have confirmed that their search traffic from Google has plunged in recent months, adding to evidence that Google, under the cover of a fraudulent campaign against fake news, is implementing a program of systematic and widespread censorship.

To the people who aren't corporate cattle and use critical thinking to arrive at legible sources of information - this would be obvious. Unfortunately this cannot be said about the OP.