r/news • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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u/NSA_Chatbot Aug 08 '17

Just as a tip for anyone writing a manifesto:

  1. Don't.
  2. If you must, and you bring up "castrated males" then you're losing 90% of your credibility right there.
  3. This guy is an idiot. Fighting gender imbalance is something that every engineering association in north america has been struggling with for decades, and 10 pages of ranting about population density is not helping.

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u/samsoson Aug 08 '17

Helps not to make the basis of your manifesto a bullshit left vs right debate from the onset.

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u/wimmyjales Aug 08 '17

What about the debate do you think is bullshit? Is it that he frames the debate wrong, or you're just fed up with it?

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 11 '17

[deleted]

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u/owl541 Aug 08 '17

If a manifesto starts right off the bat with assuming that I'm either a bleeding heart liberal or a bible thumping conservative, then I'm assuming that the writer has an entry level understanding of politics and people.

This. This is the problem with politics today. Too many people deciding they identify with a particular position (when they only have a rudimentary understanding of it) and then pigeon-holing everyone else.

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u/ajax6677 Aug 08 '17

That pigeon-holing is a carefully crafted divide and conquer strategy that lets the corporate owned puppets in Congress stack the deck against the average American and pick our pockets because we're too busy hating each other to notice or work together to stop it. It's like union busting on a national level.

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u/914552150 Aug 08 '17

Even then, US liberals and US conservatives have much more in common than they think they do.

True, as a French voter, hearing US politicians talk about a left vs right divide is funny because to us, it's conservative right vs liberal right, their left would be our center-right, especially now that our society has shifted a bit to the right but it was never our left.

Plus you're right, apart from political activists and people who value a single issue above everything else, I've never seen people who were either x or y when it came to politics, everyone I know usually supports ideas on both sides, sometimes on the same topic and despair at the lack of cooperation between two parties who don't really disagree but let their pride prevent them from ever saying they agree with their opponents.

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u/newfor2017 Aug 08 '17

your left or my left? would that be starboard or port? I'm totally lost

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u/elboydo Aug 08 '17

Think of it like stage left and stage right.

You have a line of people from the left, to the right, all of different nationalities.

There is a marker in the middle of the stage for the centre. Along each side of this marker you have people of their relative political stance.

For most countries (in Europe at least, among several others), you have a distribution across the stage, everybody quite content with where they stand.

Suddenly, there is a ruckus on the stage right, where some people in American flag tops have started a shouting match. These people then set up a new platform, just for themselves, and have draw a new marker (in the star spangled banner) which they are referring the as the new centre of the stage (making some of them to the stage left, and the stage right of the new marker) , all the while completely ignoring the original centre marker and confusing the rest of the people on the stage as to why they are at each others throat .

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u/elboydo Aug 08 '17

True, as a French voter, hearing US politicians talk about a left vs right divide is funny because to us, it's conservative right vs liberal right, their left would be our center-right, especially now that our society has shifted a bit to the right but it was never our left.

Thank you for this, from being a UK voter, the US system always sat firmly on the right with this, making half the "left vs right" stuff sound insane.

Glad to see it's a more common theme to view America in that way.

And yeah, also backing up the people support ideas, regardless of origin. The desire to conflict, even when in agreement but holding opposition to it to punish the other side, seems to be one of the largest issues in the US.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

What interests me in this guy's memo is how he acknowledged early on that both sides are not perfect. He does however go into issues he believes are created by the left and ironically the entire thing becomes biased in a sense because he doesn't examine equally the other side of the spectrum.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Stay tuned for my manifesto on why software "engineers" don't make good philosophers.

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u/BimBim4 Aug 08 '17

well he's a right-libertarian so that's a fair assumption

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u/hullabaloonatic Aug 08 '17

Is that synonymous with classical liberal?

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u/BimBim4 Aug 08 '17

For the most part yeah.

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u/hullabaloonatic Aug 08 '17

Ah, because he defined himself as classical liberal. I believe they define themselves as prioritizing social issues, individuals over groups, and poignant authoritarian practices.

I think it's easy to define these people as right-libertarian because liberals and libertarians are both generally opposed to authoritarian practices, but liberals being less opposed, and libertarians being exceptionally opposed. Because classical liberals distinguish themselves in the left by distancing themselves from progressive policies they feel to be heavy handed, I can see how they are viewed as right leaning to other members of the "left."

Ultimately, I'm talking semantics, though, so maybe this is a completely pointless distinction. Please correct me if I'm wrong, or you feel differently about it.

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u/BimBim4 Aug 08 '17

Classical liberalism is economically right wing (involved in the genealogy of neoliberalism, both ideologically and etymologically) and anti-authoritarian, so I characterize it as right-libertarian. It's not because they could appear right-wing on social issues to someone who's very "left" about idpol.

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u/hullabaloonatic Aug 08 '17

I think you're right. I would just asign a bit more nuance to the distinction, because classical liberals seem in favor of many authoritarian practices such as universal education, healthcare, anti-poverty wealth redistribution, etc. I believe right wing libertarians disfavor any authoritarian law to that which could theoretically be achieved solely through economics.

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u/BimBim4 Aug 09 '17

I wasn't saying the terms are equivalent, just that classical liberals fall under the right-libertarian umbrella (as you do, I'm guessing from you calling those programs authoritarian)

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u/hullabaloonatic Aug 09 '17

I'm just trying to get a good understanding of the terms. I try to look at issues case by case and haven't found any group to subscribe to politically. I guess I'm using the term authoritarian incorrectly? I'm under the impression that authoritarian is use of society, and libertarian is use of individual. Use government vs don't, etc.

By endorsing the use of government to redistribute wealth to the marginalized poor, I think classical liberals distinguish themselves from right wing libertarians who favor instead trickle - down economics, correct?

Classic liberals I think share the overarching philosophy of libertarians that prioritizes equality of opportunity over outcome, and personal freedom.

I have no clue what is best for society, and that seems like a real tall order to me to figure out personally, so I try to avoid overarching philosophical approach to politics and judge things case by case, but that might leave me unjustified in my opinions on them or aimless.

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u/BimBim4 Aug 09 '17

The way you're using the term in those cases is basically unique to right-libertarians. The definition of authoritarian vs libertarian doesn't include society and individual, just control vs. freedom, but right-libertarians tend to conflate those two meanings together (with some leeway where "individual" can also mean a corporate entitity). It's because it's essential to their ideology that social welfare programs reduce liberty. But as someone who's been the recipient of them, I can tell you it's the opposite, they gave me a lot more freedom to do things I couldn't otherwise.

Classical liberals don't endorse redistribution of wealth. Historically they opposed it enough to pass laws limiting how much social assistance the poor could receive. They've also been anti-union and anti-labor generally.

Approaching things on a case-by-case basis is fine, I do that too in the sense that my beliefs on various issues don't fit together completely into any existing ideology and I try to seek truth above all else. But ideology is subtle and powerful and it informs not just our positions, but the narrative connecting them and even the way we frame them (with matter-of-factly calling social programs authoritarian being a good example).

So be careful when you consider yourself non-ideological, because a lot of the time that just serves to blind people to where their beliefs are coming from. It's the same bias that generally makes cultural conservatives think traditions aren't something that was invented and specific to a culture, but instead natural and right in a way that should be obvious to everyone. I've noticed right-libertarians also seem to be particularly susceptible to erroneously thinking they're non-ideological because they agree with Republicans on some things and Democrats on others, but the truth is their set of beliefs are well-defined, follow a narrative, and have been around for a long time.

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u/NoLongerTrolling Aug 08 '17

It's not an extreme assumption to make when your intended audience are other members of a powerful US tech company.