The Battle Between Google Engineer James Damore and Google Is Over:
More than two years later, the battle between ex-Google engineer James Damore and the company is over, although we won't know much about how it ended. Earlier this week, Damore and three other men asked a California court to dismiss the lawsuit, which claimed that the company discriminated against conservative white men. Google also joined their request for dismissal.
As part of the agreement reached with Google, first reported by Bloomberg , Damore and his fellow plaintiffs are barred from saying anything about the matter besides what's in the court filing , which is not much. Damore's lawsuit has been one of the most high-profiled fights in Silicon Valley in recent years and has made him a darling of the alt-right and conservative media.
Damore was fired from Google in 2017 after writing a memo, titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," suggesting that women are underrepresented in the tech industry because of inherent psychological differences between men and women. The memo went viral inside and outside the company.
[...] Damore proceeded to sue Google for discrimination in January 2018 . Per Bloomberg , three other men who worked for or applied for jobs at Alphabet, Google's parent company, also signed on to Damore's lawsuit. In the lawsuit , Damore's lawyers argued that he and others "were ostracized, belittled, and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and/or males."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:14PM (60 children)
I wonder exactly how big a payout, what dirt, or what legally-actionable actions Google has against Damore.
He can't be in immediate need of money, and he's got to have some serious emotional bitterness against Google for this. Clearly he has quite an ideological position so what would convince him and the others to let this silently get buried.
(Hmm... I guess it's possible that the tides were against him and it was looking like Google would win, and he didn't want the legal precedent... but in that case, I wonder what caused Google to drop things silently.)
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:20PM
A lawyer for the men, Harmeet Dhillon, said they’re prohibited as part of their agreement with Google from saying anything beyond what’s in Thursday’s court filing. Google declined to comment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:24PM
He was probably waiting for a Fox News gig and it never came. Imagine being too deranged even for Fox News...
Google (like Michael Jordon) obviously doesn't care to potentially alienate any customers so that's a no-brainer. Everyone keeps buying
sneakers/del sneaky spyware.(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:29PM (56 children)
That was exactly my thought: Damore is a sellout. Google and the rest need to brought to heel. Liberal/progressive people are all for them today, because the tech companies share some ideas with them. In a decade, when the companies have become more conservative? Progressivites won't like their ability to censor ideas very much - then - but it will be far too late.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:42PM
By then there's be a liberal version of Trump-McConnel taking advantage of all the interesting precedents being set now.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:45PM (15 children)
I think people who agree to be "barred from saying anything about the matter" are doing a wrong. Also IANAL but the complain was dismissed, I think this means cancelled, like in it never happened. Why? Was Google right, was Google wrong, did he run out of money for lawyers, did he decide it is not worth? We cannot know because of speech gag agreement. Basically Google are like "nothing to see here, move along".
But I cannot know what is to be in his shoes in particular so I don't know if he did something unehtic.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:03PM (13 children)
When a settlement is reached, there's no longer any reason for a lawsuit, so the lawsuit is then dismissed, since the issue at bar has been resolved.
I'm not sure why folks are thinking there's something unusual happening. Especially since non-disclosure clauses are pretty much ubiquitous in settlements.
Google probably waved a bunch of money in their faces and they took it. Or it's possible that Google dug up some dirt on Damore et al that they didn't want coming out trial.
Who knows? Better yet, who cares?
Some loudmouth gets shitcanned for, you guessed it, running his mouth. So he sues and it gets resolved before trial -- like 90% of all lawsuits. Nothing to see here.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:11PM
Google agreed to pay for his sex change operation?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 10 2020, @04:46PM (5 children)
He might have lost the battle but with the settlement put himself in a position to win the war. With his war chest, he can fund whistleblower groups from the shadows, and chances are that he's maintained contacts within Google and quite possibly gained other contacts elsewhere in big tech.
I know firsthand that if Google offers you a stalemate, you accept it. Remember that I worked for Boston Dynamics back when it was acquired by Google, and I had to make a similar settlement for similar reasons. And I had to pay a lot for a Jewish lawyer to represent me, because only a Jewish lawyer knows how to fight against an opposing army of Jewish lawyers.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:09PM (4 children)
Hey, dipshit, look back over your previous posts. Is there a single company on the planet you *haven't* worked for? What a lying piece of shit you are.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:15PM (3 children)
The past 4 years have been with only Boston Dynamics. I was transferred to a lot of different departments and saw a lot of different things, but I never claimed to be employed by any employer other than Boston Dynamics for the past 4 years until I became unemployed late last year. People who work for a startups and otherwise for multidisciplinary employers who are in R&D mode see a lot of cutting-edge stuff across a wide variety of disciplines and as such they have some authority to discuss it within the boundaries of their employment contracts.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @05:33AM (2 children)
I contacted Boston Dynamics. They have no record of an alchoholic anti-semite name Ethanol-fueled being in their employ. Never worked there, and if he did, he would have been fired some five months ago, for violating company policy against employees being racist misanderist fucks. Much like Runaway's "alleged" Navel service, I suspect that Eth is a 15 year old in a basement, with no technical expertise or knowledge, or sexual experience, or much of anything except game time with Blizzard. Poor, poor, incel bastard!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @06:36AM (1 child)
Ooo, please do tell! Was it an innie or an outie?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday May 11 2020, @10:55AM
it was orange [modernfarmer.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:51PM (5 children)
They may be ubiquitous but they also strongly imply wrong-doing by the party or parties that want them. There's a decent argument that courts should simply hold them all invalid.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @08:30PM
And it is invariably the party paying out who wants them. The reason in this case is simple: These four aren't the only ones Google has discriminated against and a public admission here would open them up to suits from other victims who can't afford to front their own legal fees but who could get lawyers to work on contingency with something like that on record.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @10:16PM (2 children)
That's the thing about a settlement. Except in class-actions and some other rare cases, the judge has no authority to approve or disapprove a settlement since, in this case as with most settlements, the parties to the lawsuit requested its dismissal.
Since the lawsuit has been dismissed (read: abandoned by the plaintiff), there is no longer any lawsuit for a court to adjudicate. That's pretty much de rigeueur for legal settlements.
If you're really upset about it, you could always sue Damore and/or Google claiming some legal harm because they didn't share the details of their *private* agreement with you. Good luck with that.
Whether you agree with Damore's point of view or not, he's still a loudmouth who insisted on forcing his personal views on others, and even if you try to build him into Larry Flynt's successor as an advocate for freedom of expression, that's still the case.
Whether or not Google was correct to terminate him for running his mouth *was* an open question. It no longer is, as Damore (by requesting dismissal of *his* claims) has accepted Google's actions, likely in exchange for some other considerations.
All the talk of a Damore being a "sellout" or betraying his principles says more about the views of those saying such things than it does Damore.
As I said, nothing to see here.
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday May 11 2020, @12:36AM (1 child)
Just because the court has no say over the formation of an agreement doesn't mean they can't hold certain clauses as invalid should a breach of contract occur. The obvious example that springs to mind would be an employment contract for less than minimum wage. The court has nothing to do with the drafting and sighing of the document but should the employee sue for illegally low wages the court would throw out the wage specified in the employment documents in favor of minimum wage.
By the same token the courts could strike down the non-disclosure agreements that are bundled with most settlements any time the issue is brought before them. IANAL so I don't know if this is discretion judges may have now or would need to be codified in law but one way or the other it could occur that courts hold them invalid.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @01:18AM
You seem to be under the misapprehension that courts and judges are empowered to rule on matters not before them. That's incorrect.
In fact, the judge is likely not privy to the details of the settlement either (if he's a good judge, he can probably make an excellent guess I'd imagine), as the lawsuit has been dismissed (meaning there's no case for the judge to rule upon) and he/she no longer has any relevant legal interest.
As such, the settlement agreement is a separate matter completely. It is not (currently) the subject of a lawsuit or other legal process.
The judge in the just dismissed case could *only* make a legal ruling as to the validity of some or all of the settlement agreement if, and only if, one or both parties (in this case Google and Damore, et al) bring some sort of dispute about the settlement back to the same court and the same judge is assigned the case.
N.B.: IANAL
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday May 11 2020, @12:59AM
A key factor here is that there's a public interest to keep civil cases out of trial as much as possible because the whole thing is a huge burden on everyone involved, and on the taxpayers paying to maintain the system. This trial already lasted two years. If Google was forced to publicly admit wrong-doing, it would likely inspire and undermine other legal cases. Thus, there would be a considerable incentive to drag this case out as much as possible even if Google has to pay all legal costs in the end.
And NDAs can't force someone to lie or withhold information in a subpoena or sworn testimony. So if other lawsuits can show a sufficient reason, they can question everyone involved about the trial and the agreement.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Monday May 11 2020, @01:27AM
This.
Plus, we are not talking about your run of the mill evil corp.
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
And google has got more like 6 gigabytes of data for everybody.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tokolosh on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:49PM (3 children)
Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it. -- P. J. O'Rourke
Who is happy that Trump and McConnell are running the machinery Progressives built?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:30PM
Ha! You wait. One day America will be like Sweden, then you'll be sorry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Monday May 11 2020, @03:32PM (1 child)
The same ones who were unhappy about Obama and Reid running the machinery Conservatives built.
I'm partially yanking your chain here; both Progressives and Conservatives have had their hands in the building of the machinery of power.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Thursday May 14 2020, @02:12PM
Yes, you get it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:50PM (3 children)
Or maybe he's just dealing rationally with a system designed by and for sellouts.
We don't need to posit any sort of 'dirt' is being held by Google here. The fact is, the longer the suit goes on, the more everyone involved (aside from the lawyers) loses. Even with very good case, there's no guarantee of a win at the end. And if the defendant makes a settlement offer that the judge sees as reasonable, but you refuse, the judge can and will hold that against you later.
Alphabet likely made a very good offer here, and the plaintiff was virtually forced to accept it by the prospect of facing a hostile court that would have viewed him as deliberately wasting the courts time by refusing to accept a reasonable offer.
Your other concerns are absolutely valid, but it really shouldn't fall on a private citizen with a lawsuit to safeguard the public good implicated here. That's the job of the US Department of Justice.
Where are they?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:56PM (1 child)
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:32PM
Because they were too busy getting Michael Flynn's back.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday May 10 2020, @04:51PM
Or maybe he's just dealing rationally...
Yeah, he got an offer he couldn't refuse. There's nothing to read into it. No use dwelling on it
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:55PM
Lawsuits are expensive, hard to win, and soul draining. It's good to be a sellout in this situation. They worked at Google to get paid, not to lead a crusade.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:02PM (13 children)
Damore was like one of the autists the nations elite technical schools are graduating by the thousands every year, and the FAANGs had been hiring every year. At their home universities, sitting in their autist clubs and making more or less sophomoric arguments for and against random positions is what they did.
They leave school overconfident of their importance and naive that there are topics that are taboo for discourse. I don't think Damore is envisioning a career as a social reformer, he wants to get back to hacking. He's unpersoned among the other young autists, so he takes a payout and resigns himself to spending the rest of his IT career in banks.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)
At least in banks he can live out his dream of being a lowly beta-male in thrall to the alphas in the exec suite making real money.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:47PM
Probably, but he found out it really is the same at google too. At least in a bank, management will keep everyone pointed at the goal, instead of sending "fuck you"s via company IM like they did at Google.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:41PM (6 children)
Is that worse than all the *,criticalStudies majors who think science is *.ist and that their feelings and lived experience are more useful for society? It's this group that is infiltrating government and big business and pushing anti-science crap.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:55PM (5 children)
They sound an awful lot like fundie nutjobs, don't they? Odd, that...it's almost as if science and reality don't give a damn what we feel.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 10 2020, @04:23PM (4 children)
There are many that would agree with you that facts don't care about your feelings.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 10 2020, @07:07PM (3 children)
And, ironically, most of the people who throw that one out there are working off an entirely feelz-based worldview.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 10 2020, @07:50PM (2 children)
'Feelz' lead to assertions however. While facts may not care about feelings, assertions and repetition do have an impact (enhanced by confirmation bias) on the credulous.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 11 2020, @01:36PM (1 child)
Yeah, you've just described essentially the entire alt-right and most of the non-alt-right...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 11 2020, @03:06PM
He has described a disturbingly large portion of humanity regardless of current political tribe.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:23PM (3 children)
I think Google and similar tech companies are in the wrong here for claiming to be diverse and inclusive and encourage discourse, then fire or censure people and say, "LOL J/K only the discourse approved by the mob-mentality is allowed."
But you are right about topics that are taboo for discourse - Religion and politics (including Social Justice/Identity politics) should be considered taboo for discourse in the workplace, period. Work doesn't get done when people are bitching about non-issues like gays not being gay enough or turf (TERF?) wars between the Chicks With Dicks vs. The Dudes With Clits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:05PM (1 child)
Futas: balls vs. no balls?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:34PM
Won't work. The TERFs, Incelabteilung, and Republican Party want both dick girls and pussy boys dead.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday May 11 2020, @06:46AM
I agree to some extent, and if that's all there is to it, completely agree. But the fact is it isn't. There's definitely prejudices to a person's opportunity today in a lot of organizations based on their various characteristics; some of which are superficial enough to not actually affect their potential are things outside their control like, skin color, age, gender, etc.
Sure you may argue, if its a private company they can do whatever they want - and I'd be inclined to agree, if they made it clear before one signs on the dotted line and have to choice to it; but that isn't the case today either.
So yea maybe all these bitching isn't the right way to go about it, and no I have no idea what's the better way to go about it, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that there exists a problem.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:22PM (2 children)
So what? Everyone involved agrees that the matter is settled. It's also likely that Google's HR department will exercise a little thought before they do something like this again. That's good enough for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:38PM (1 child)
Yes, HR will insist on a mandatory mediation clause going and a ban on unionization. James will be a hero of the true American working man.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 11 2020, @01:05AM
Maybe, but I think they'll also cull the crap that led to this becoming an HR issue in the first place. Even mediation and fantasy anti-unionization rules can't protect you from serious abuses of the law.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by ilPapa on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:55PM (2 children)
Or, there's the distinct possibility that he was full of shit from the beginning, looking for a payday, and just found out he wasn't getting one.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @09:55PM (1 child)
Then why would Google swear him to silence, and not make any statement of their own?
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday May 11 2020, @02:59AM
Then why would Damore be willing to swear to silence? It cuts both ways.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2020, @04:16AM (4 children)
That was exactly my thought: Damore is a sellout. Google and the rest need to brought to heel. Liberal/progressive people are all for them today, because the tech companies share some ideas with them.
And conservatives are completely hypocritical. Under conservative philosophy, Google should have every right to hire or fire whoever they want, for ANY reason at all. Using the judicial system to sue for wrongful termination is completely against the conservative philosophy, and it's doubly so when it's about a company suing because of an employee expressing political views. Remember, liberals/progressives are the ones who wanted and pushed for laws limiting how companies could hire and fire.
Finally, no matter your political viewpoint, what kind of idiot thinks they're not going to make enemies by writing a manifesto and disseminating it to everyone at the company? You're not at work to debate politics on company time, you're there to work, so your employer makes profits, which they use to pay you wages/salary. Is this such a hard thing for so-called conservatives to grasp?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 11 2020, @03:17PM (3 children)
And yet, Grishnakh, there is an unalloyed joy to hoisting a scold on his own petard, using his own arguments. Few of us can resist that, no matter our credo.
You are right that writing a manifesto is mostly not a smart career move (though it did work out for the guy who invented Java), but then you're supposing that the company had not already politicized the workplace by imposing policies and practices meant to discriminate against the plaintiff. Maybe the reader here will see nothing wrong with pillorying a straight white man with conservative beliefs, and is quite happy to see such an individual summarily executed, but the point is that the plaintiff felt he was being discriminated against so he sued, a remedy he still has recourse to despite being a straight white man with conservative beliefs.
I don't know the plaintiff, but after decades in tech I have worked with many like him and they all would prefer to just work and not mix politics in the workplace. Given the current trend of companies going to lengths to show how "Woke" they are, it's more likely the companies themselves are responsible for politicizing the workplace.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @03:39PM
Right. And he's now (presumably) received his payout. Unlike the (unsubstantiated) portrayal of Damore as some sort of white male freedom fighter in the mold of Rosa Parks, acting as a champion of an oppressed* minority**, Damore was expressing his views in a forum in which neither he, nor anyone else, expected to be any sort of *public* venue.
As such, it's pretty clear that Damore isn't a crusading activist carrying the banner of an oppressed minority. That some folks think he is says more about them than it does about Damore.
*https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-people.html
**https://www.statista.com/statistics/270272/percentage-of-us-population-by-ethnicities/
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2020, @10:50PM (1 child)
You are right that writing a manifesto is mostly not a smart career move (though it did work out for the guy who invented Java)
It did? Sorry, I know very little about the story of Java's creation. Was his manifesto obviously going against the current groupthink among the Sun execs at the time? Ruffling feathers is generally a bad idea for your career, though for some risk-takers it might turn out well. But Joy was inventing a new programming language, which is inherently not political (in the sense that gender stuff is nowadays).
but then you're supposing that the company had not already politicized the workplace by imposing policies and practices meant to discriminate against the plaintiff
How was he being discriminated against? Was he held back from promotions and raises? I seriously doubt it. Were his conservative views unwelcome there by his coworkers and management? If so, I don't see the problem here. There's plenty of companies where espousing non-Christian views will get you discriminated against or fired. Are conservatives ready to fight that fight? I'm sure they're not. Damore is not some poor person who was desperate for a job, any job. He worked in one of the most lucrative career fields there is these days, and had a huge salary. If he's too stupid to keep his mouth shut and just do his work, I really don't feel sorry for him at all.
but the point is that the plaintiff felt he was being discriminated against so he sued, a remedy he still has recourse to despite being a straight white man with conservative beliefs.
Except it's hypocritical. Conservative beliefs necessary include the idea that companies should have the right to hire or fire whomever they want. The guy sounds like a total liberal with this idea that he shouldn't be fired for pissing people off with political talk.
I don't know the plaintiff, but after decades in tech I have worked with many like him and they all would prefer to just work and not mix politics in the workplace.
That's demonstrably wrong. He obviously didn't fit this mold, or else he wouldn't have written a manifesto with conservative beliefs and published it for the whole company to see. If he were like what you say, he would have kept his mouth shut, seeing that his ideas would not be received well.
Given the current trend of companies going to lengths to show how "Woke" they are,
As I've said before, there's plenty of Christian conservative companies people like that can go work for, and no one seems to be doing anything to keep them from pushing their Christian beliefs down employees' throats.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 15 2020, @03:04PM
Yes. He wrote a manifesto, a screed, as a kiss-off to the CEO, explaining why he was quitting, how Sun was on absolutely the wrong path, how they should have created a language like Java, etc. The CEO did something very un-Dilbert like and said, "Hold on a minute, let's talk about that." Thus, Java was born.
It does not matter what you think, Grishnakh (it also doesn't matter what I think about the merit of his claims). You can pooh-pooh his reasons all you like, and thus present a caricature of the white males the Left pillories when those white males object to similar claims from women and minorities. But the plaintiff felt he was discriminated against, so he sued. Yes, it's odd, isn't it, that people who are unhappy with how they feel they are being treated can file a lawsuit, even if others in the peanut gallery think it's nonsense?
Is it? Or is it hypocritical of the Left to say employees can sue companies for discrimination if they're minorities, women, gay, etc but straight, conservative, white men can't? Maybe in the case of the plaintiff, it's him saying, "OK, if this is the world you want to live in, Ye champions of social justice, then let's see how it feels when the shoe is on the other foot."
On the contrary, it's manifestly correct. If you were right, and I were mistaken, then this wouldn't be news. It would be so common that nobody would note or care that some white dude sued his employer for discrimination against white dudes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @10:22PM (4 children)
Really? Progressive people tend to be against mega-corporations ruling countries. It's the free-marketeering conservatives who tend to be for letting corporations run wild.
So, not sure where you're getting that idea. Not hating gay people (for example) is not sufficient to get me to like someone; that's just a bare minimum. I support privacy laws so strict that monstrous surveillance engines like Google and Facebook would likely be forced into nonexistence. But sure, I'm "all for them."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2020, @02:41AM (3 children)
Google and company aren't censoring liberal/progressive stuff, no matter how crazy.
They ARE censoring a lot of right points of view, and not all of them crazy.
Read their CoC's, TOS, etc ad nauseum. It's all crap that left/progressives like.
Bottom line, they are courting the left, and don't give a damn about the right. It matters little what you, personally, think of megacorporations.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2020, @03:03AM (2 children)
Want to see the peak of this, look into Twitter protecting "MAPs".
MAP = minor attracted person
NOMAP = non-offending minor attracted person
"anti-contact" does not refer to space aliens
Yes, there is a proud community of self-identifying pedos on social media. You will get harassed or banned for offending them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/01/09/twitter-accused-aiding-child-abuse-allowing-explosion-online/ [telegraph.co.uk]
https://justpaste.it/2yqbx/pdf [justpaste.it]
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2020, @04:10AM
Just one more reason to despise the progressive/left/Democrat side of things in America.
You should be aware though, that this isn't the first time pedos have gained a platform. I don't have time to find references tonight, but NAMBLA was empbraced by the LGBT community, years ago. There are - or were - photographs of NAMBLA bigshots onstage with LGBT figures on the internet, literally embracing each other. The LGBT made statements in regards to the "persecution" of NAMBLA and pedos. Most of that has mysteriously disappeared from the internet.
The LGBT people dropped NAMBLA like a hot potato, when the FBI arrested a bunch of NAMBLA.
Then, came B4UACT, or something very like that. The pedos were trying to build a new network at that time, offering guidance to each other on avoiding arrest, or even detection.
I've lost sight of that crowd, apparently because I don't twit.
And, of course, they also have their network on I2P, if you bother to download and install that. The other network before I2P was pretty much overwhelmed with them.
Yes, they are out there, and they have protection. Without protection, they couldn't thrive.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2020, @04:23AM
search terms in DDG, lgbt embraces NAMBLA brings up a lot of interesting hits. As I say, I don't have time tonight, but there is still plenty of evidence floating around. They have failed to "sanitize" all of it.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:19PM
Right or wrong, confidentiality agreements are standard in settlements. If you want a settlement without one, you pay for it by taking less money (if this is even an option).
If they had dirt on him and used that to strongarm him, I would expect that to be for a voluntary dismissal. If Google's lawyers said "dismiss or we'll expose this" -- that's basically extortion. Attorneys have gotten into very hot water with that sort of thing (think Avenati, though his was "pay or I'll expose" but it's the same thing either way). I would expect Google's lawyers, if they did this, to be far more subtle about it -- it is expected that there will be a war of facts but there is fine and fuzzy line between using those facts in an ethical manner to move toward agreement, and flat out extortion.
Anyway, I think the assertion that google had dirt on him is the least likely. What probably happened is that google has an inexhaustible supply of litigatory capability, Damore does not, and they arrived at a number that was sufficiently high enough for Damore considering his present ability to earn money and the costs of continuing the fight, that he took the deal. It was probably an amount that left him disappointed and disillusioned This is the way life works.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:22PM (2 children)
penis.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:55PM (1 child)
Looks like you got some on your chin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @04:06PM
It looks like a chin but smaller and more receding and there's more of them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:22PM (41 children)
I would have fired annoying shit stirrers no matter their political inclination. It's a place for work, not your soapbox.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:27PM (32 children)
Yeah, basically, you're right. Except - Google stands on it's own political soapbox, spouting all sorts of objectionable shit. Worse, they make you sign off that you agree with all their objectionable shit. So, a little pushback can be expected.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:43PM (19 children)
Yeah basically you're wrong. However it started off, Google tries to maximize shareholder value. If that means putting up adverts involving soy lattes, or if it means lobbying grey haired men in smoky rooms, that's what they'll do.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:46PM (14 children)
So, profits take priority over ethics. Got it.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:55PM
...yes? Welcome to the US before it even was the US?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @04:08PM
There's ethics?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:01PM (10 children)
Corporate officers who in any way prioritised ethics (or anything else) over profits are considered to be violating their fiduciary responsibility. This, combined with the way we keep putting more and more power in the hands of these big corporations, guarantees we will be ruled by the CCP if we don't change something soon.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:24PM (4 children)
Why would anyone pay more than required by law? The only thing holding them back is laws. And they fucking HATE laws - sorry, job-killing regulations.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday May 10 2020, @05:49PM (3 children)
Supply and demand.
And what keeps that from working? Those regulations you love. They're almost always crafted by big business interests and serve those interests. Artificial unemployment weakens the position of the worker in the market and prevents wages from rising to their natural level. Special trade relationships with authoritarian regimes overseas to give our companies access to their slave labor reduces domestic demand for labor even more, to the same effect.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @06:29PM (2 children)
I suppose your belief is that without regulations businesses wouldn't seek out those sources of slave labor?
It seems to me that those regulations are about the only thing preventing them from doing so. Tell me how I am wrong.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 11 2020, @09:12PM (1 child)
why?
"It seems to me that those regulations are about the only thing preventing them from doing so. Tell me how I am wrong."
Most obviously they can't be "the only thing preventing x" when x is not actually being prevented despite having more regulations than any single human could comprehend. That just makes no sense.
Of course you can /imagine/ regulations that might somehow impede such arsehattery, but there are precious few real, existing ones that actually do that. Even the ones that are /sold/ to you as being for that purpose, look more closely, at best that might be half the story. Neither the Legislature nor the Bureaucracy are motivated to shoot the goose that leaves them golden eggs, even if they realize it's killing the whole country longterm.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2020, @06:58AM
The cost of transportation is a major factor. It's cheaper to make many products in one hemisphere, and transport it, no matter how bulky, or how heavy, than to make the same product in the other hemisphere. If energy were expensive, the difference in cost of labor in the various geographical areas would matter less.
And, there you have a huge motivation to keep the price of oil at a point where oil companies profit, but the rest of industry can manipulate markets.
Additionally, you have a motivation among the corporates to drage their feet on the development and production of renewable energy sources. They aren't actually blocking such development, but they do drag their feet, positioning themselves to exploit all of that.
If Wall Street were positioned to exploit renewables, we would be moving full speed ahead, and competing with Europe.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:11PM (4 children)
Buying stock in a company doesn't make the execs your fiduciaries. You are taking a risk that your investment turns out well.
In the past, you demanded a right to take influence on the company in exchange for your money, but in the case of Silicon Valley companies, they seem content to let the founders have all the say.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:53PM (1 child)
Unfortunately, that's only the first few years.
Eventually the founders leave, and the company is run by professional managers instead.
And all they know how to do these days is squeeze out short term gains, at the expense of anything and everything else.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @07:21PM
The Google people have been there for 20+ years, it's not like they left for other pastures. Same with Facebook. Same with Amazon. Same with Tesla.
Companies that have passed their prime, like Yahoo, got bought out by other companies who probably have standard common share classes. Others that have had a long history and many outside execs, like Apple, probably do too.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2020, @04:20AM
If you want to have any direct influence on the way the company is run, you need to buy enough stock to sit on the board of directors. Otherwise, if you don't like the way the company runs, don't invest in it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2020, @07:00AM
You do realize that there are different classes of stock? If the company doesn't sell any voting stock, then you can't buy a vote. If they are selling voting stock, then you might buy a vote. But, having a vote means little if the founders retain 50% or more of the vote for themselves.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @10:42PM
What? Are you new here? Ma Nishtana [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:56PM
Yeah basically you're wrong.
Google is "owned" by two people - Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Like a number of modern "public" companies, the shares are classified (as in broken into classes) and weighted such that Page and Brin alone own the majority of voting power at Google. So they can and do do whatever they personally see as right. And the fact they've turned Google into some sort of pseudo-political entity is that's simultaneously datamining the entire world is, at best, disconcerting. People who call themselves liberal and support Google are idiots because there's little to no doubt that their public ideology is just being used for public manipulation.
See, for instance, operation dragonfly [theintercept.com] - so liberal, right? If somehow you're not aware of what was going on there. Dragonfly was the code word used for a 'Google' like search system being built for China that would include tying users to their mobile numbers enabling easy tracking and 'managing' of users by the Chinese government, as well as coming with preloaded with black lists for problematic terms and concepts such as "human rights." But so long as they make sure to color some crap in rainbows and give some lipservice, you have half the country cheering them on. Again, idiots.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Sunday May 10 2020, @04:41PM
Yes google et al. want to sell ads but that does not mean they are merely reactive and do not try to shape and control society.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday May 11 2020, @01:42AM (1 child)
No, google is leveraging its strength to push a political agenda.
Proof, the doodles.
If they were only after the money, they would try to look as neutral as possible, like an ISP.
Maybe, they don't do it on purpose, maybe it's the political climate in their HQ, but intent is another matter.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday May 11 2020, @06:55AM
True, maybe. There's also no reason why you can't use political agenda as a revenue tactics. A lot of organizations are jumping into the equality/equity bandwagon, some are probably trying to do the right thing, some are probably trying to milk the publicity, some a bit of both.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @08:27PM (11 children)
Regardless of whether Damore is right or wrong, he expressed the conviction that all women and men from some minorities were incapable of being skilled engineers.
If that was coming from a retiree, or an academic, or anyone else outside the industry, the thesis could be examined on its merits. Coming from someone inside the industry, that meant that any team Damore works on for the rest of his career that is not 100% white men is automatically a hostile work environment for the people who aren't white men on the team. He probably won't work in the industry again.
Of course Google was going to fire him. For a brilliant engineer, he's clearly really fucking stupid.
You might be tempted to reply, "he's an engineer, not a psychologist or sociologist so it's understandable if he expressed an opinion without thinking of the psychological or sociological impact". But in fact, he wasn't criticizing a cache design or proposing the use of a graph data structure to solve a problem. He was expressing an opinion in a psychological and sociological domain. Either he was too stupid to see how he was killing his own career, or else he was planning the lawsuit angle from the beginning. Either way, he's an asshole.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dwilson on Sunday May 10 2020, @08:46PM
Did he, though? Is that what the memo he wrote actually said?
Or is that what it's been simplified it to, because it pertained to a complex, multi-faceted situation and a straw-man argument is so much easier to whip up opposition to?
- D
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @09:44PM (5 children)
If you can assert he stated that, you should have no problem providing a link.
You will not because the argument he made is along the same lines as the point raised by Heather McDonald in The Diversity Delusion - lowering requirements to bolster "diversity" leaves people out of their depth and is ultimately unfair to all. Of course the "progressives" have also made the same outlandish claim you make here against McDonald for daring to attribute poor black performance in mathematics to "maladaptive culture". How many sacred cows sacrificed, how many houses of cards come crashing down should people be free to openly express such truisms without being defamed and having their words mischaracterized?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2020, @04:27AM (1 child)
You and these other people have always been free to openly express these ideas. No one is censoring Damore. What you *aren't* free to do, however, is to use your employer's resources as a political soapbox, or to do it on company time, without jeopardizing your employment there.
I've read Damore's memo. It really wasn't very radical at all IMO. However his stupidity was doing all that *at work*, on company systems (he posted this on an internal message forum). Sometimes you can get away with this kind of thing, if you're in the right position, and you don't ruffle too many feathers. Damore apparently was either too idealistic or too clueless and somehow thought writing something like that, at a company in a political climate pushing for more diversity and where that opinion would *obviously* not go over well, and publishing it for everyone in the company to read it, would somehow not piss off a bunch of people and get him canned. The last thing most companies want is one of their line employees stirring things up and pissing people off; even worse if you piss off one of the upper managers or execs.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday May 11 2020, @07:02AM
Eh? Wasn't he just responding to what Google's was doing internally with their own soapbox which is affecting him and ultimately the effectiveness of his team? I would say he's within his right to do so if he sees something wrong. In fact most organizations normally do encourage employees to speak out, though through the proper channels.
So it is likely that his approach is probably the thing that landed him in hot water, no matter whether you're right or not, delivering your message with tact is something everyone should learn regardless of whether in an organizational setting or social - unless you've already established some sort of understanding before hand around being blunt and loud.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @01:31PM (2 children)
I have no problem providing the link, it's the original memo: https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320 [gizmodo.com]
To wit: women can't handle stress like men, they're less motivated and ambitious than men, diversity programs for women and minorities harm the effectiveness of Google's engineering. In other words: white men are better.
For the history of western civilization, white men have benefited from programs that were effectively anti-diversity initiatives. In the US, white men are between 30 and 35% of the general population but around 70% of the members of Congress and 70% of Fortune 500 senior executives. These diversity programs are trying to balance the field after centuries of unfair advantages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @11:30PM (1 child)
> In other words
In your words.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2020, @11:04AM
But, Runaway is a white man, and he's as dumb as a rutabagger and scaredy as a hedgehog.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 10 2020, @09:56PM
Two people have already said it: citations needed.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @12:08AM (2 children)
I read his memo. The whole thing. From an informed background as someone who has studied inequality from the perspective of political economics for many years.
You're wrong; he said no such thing. He did raise questions about the assumptions leading to affirmative action and diversity initiatives, but he most certainly did not preclude the possibility of women being skilled engineers, or minorities likewise.
You're either lying, or misled. If you were misled, go and inform yourself.
If you're lying, shame on you (and readers can figure it out).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @02:16PM (1 child)
Funny, I must have read a different Damore memo than you did.
"I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes" (Sorry, the only biological difference that matters between men and women is that men have a strong advantage when it comes to muscle building and related athletics.)
"Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men" (In other words, he's found a roundabout but crystal clear way of saying that women suck at logical thinking.)
"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs. " (Earlier in his statement he admits the possibility there is still discrimination and mistreatment, but here he ignores the likelihood that women have more stress problems specifically due to discrimination and mistreatment. If I was constantly dealing with colleagues and managers that think they suck at logical thinking, it would make me neurotic too.)
"Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths." (Again, he opened his memo by admitting sexism and discrimination are still problems and then ignores them here. My sister and I worked on road construction crews. She was the only woman on the crew, and she quit after the third coworker felt her up when I was out of view. She reported each harassment to management, nothing happened. The number one reason women aren't in many of those occupations is sexual harassment.)
"research suggests that “greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits.” Because as “society becomes more prosperous and more egalitarian, innate dispositional differences between men and women have more space to develop and the gap that exists between men and women in their personality becomes wider.” We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism." (That exact same argument was made in the 1960s when women were trying to enter law and medicine in large numbers, and they are now more than 50% of those fields. For more evidence that women can be ambitious, logical, and leaders see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_matrilineal_or_matrilocal_societies [wikipedia.org] )
"Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction" (What could he possibly mean by scrutiny in the verse direction? Worrying that a set is too diverse?)
"when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and whiner" (Women have been facing discrimination in hiring, treatment, and promotion and also dealing with workplace sexual harassment for centuries. This is not a solved problem. So yes, a man complaining about gender issues right now is like someone going to the emergency room and demanding they get treated for a paper cut before the doctor checks on a gunshot victim.)
Even today in the US US white men are 30% of the population but 70% of the members of Congress and 70% of Fortune 500 senior executives. Even if Damore's arguments about women were right, you would at least then expect non-white men to hold a proportionate amount of roles in those areas. They do not, because the leftover effects of centuries of systematic discrimination are still in place.
I am all for having an open and honest discussion about issues. In that, Damore is right. But every specific argument he brought is the same nonsense people were using to keep blacks and women from doing almost anything economically and politically in the US a hundred years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @11:37PM
> Sorry, the only biological difference that matters between men and women is that men have a strong advantage when it comes to muscle building and related athletics.
Why is there a female chess championship?
> In other words,
In your words.
> I am all for having an open and honest discussion about issues.
Then why do you keep extrapolating based on your personal prejudices?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:35PM (2 children)
The shit-stirrers are the activist executives pushing their bullshit into the workplace, Damore committed the cardinal sin of challenging their baseless shiboleths.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2020, @04:29AM (1 child)
If you don't like it, don't work there. *Every* company has a particular company culture, and Google is no exception. If you want to work at a place with a bunch of conservatives, go into defense contracting (even here, you'd be surprised though). If you really want to only work with a bunch of hard-line Christian conservatives, I know some weird little defense contracting companies that openly espouse Christianity; perhaps conservatives would like to work at one of these places?
In short, know the culture of your employer. If you become outspoken, and you piss off the people running the company, expect to be fired. This is true at *every* company.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @11:40PM
Google asked for the feedback.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:06PM (1 child)
Except for the fact they encouraged you to talk about it.
It is one of those management fads of 'whole self at work'. You bring your whole self to work and are expected to do so. Most places learned loooooong ago you do not do that because it creates shitshows. It just took google about 17 years to figure it out.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2020, @04:39AM
It is one of those management fads of 'whole self at work'. You bring your whole self to work and are expected to do so.
Management fads come and go, and every large enough company seems to have some fad going on at any point in time. Maybe I just have the benefit of age and experience, but your job as an employee is to ignore these stupid fads as much as you can, while giving enough lip-service to them as necessary to keep your job (which usually isn't very much).
Remember, companies are run by humans, who are not perfect (they're not even perfect at maximizing profits), and are sucpectible to normal human failings, such as fads. Managers want to feel like they're doing something new and great, so they latch onto these things. If you want to play politics and climb the corporate ladder, you have to get good at saying what these people want to hear so you can be part of their little club. If you're fine with staying in your current position (ostensibly non-management), then just ignore all their silliness like everyone else does. But whatever you do, NEVER piss off the managers by telling them their fad is completely stupid, especially if it's tied to politics in any way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @08:36PM
The big problem with this statement is that Google asked for feedback, which Demore gave privately. Whomever in HR that published his memo was the one soap-boxing and that individual was not punished.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday May 10 2020, @10:09PM
If an employer can spout political nonsense at you, you can do the same to them. An employment contract is a two way street. Your comment underlines the importance of employees forming unions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Monday May 11 2020, @01:27AM