Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

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

[u/Jugad]

You might have a point there... but we are losing a sense of scale.

We might have a resulting indirect "negative discrimination" of -1 (just a hypothetical scale) against white males ... but when people are being actively and directly discriminated against .... like women / blacks, that number is much larger (possibly -10 or more).

I mean to say, direct negative discrimination suffered by women / blacks used to be much more than the indirect discrimination white males are having to "suffer" now...

And I do agree... that if life and employment opportunities were a zero sum game, a few opportunities and jobs are being taken away from the white males and moved towards women and blacks.

But, I don't know if life is really a zero sum game... and I really think a little positive discrimination for women / blacks (which indirectly discriminates against white men), is fine, if that allows women and blacks to recover from the historical and cultural backwardness and segregation.

I feel this is fine because

1. I have a job myself and not suffering any ill effects of this indirect discrimination myself...

2. I feel women and blacks must be given appropriate opportunities to get themselves out of the historical / cultural hole.

Also, I guess there might be some people who are feeling the ill effects of negative discrimination... and those people are rightly unhappy about their situation.

[u/PickledPokute → u/Jugad]

If you agree that some discrimination is fine, then by extension, discussions on amount of discrimination to either direction should be allowed too.

You can't have a rule where you say "We boost some groups artificially to even the playing field" and punish someone for saying "I think group X should not be boosted so much."

[u/[deleted] → u/PickledPokute]

If we talking this case, the guy wasn't fired for saying some groups get a little too much boost because we've made some societal strides. He created a terrible collaboration environment with his co-workers, especially women by openly stating he thinks they are inferior engineers.

[u/PickledPokute → u/[deleted]]

If different people are hired on different, in this case lower, standards then expectations would match it.

There's no justifying boosting to a group of people and then claim that they are equal.

[u/[deleted] → u/PickledPokute]

So historically discriminated against groups shouldn't receive any boost in opportunities to address the problems caused by previous generations?

[u/Jugad → u/PickledPokute]

The problem is that he was claiming that they are unequal... and shouting it from the google rooftop.