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I think the inconsistency I see, is that those who wrote letters of complaint about him did so out of a political agenda. I see this argument being used unilaterally. You could just as easily say to those offended "Don't read things you are offended by. Shame on you for reading political stuff at work, keep it out of here."

[Seeing the tone of this thread I expect to lose a lot of karma for this, but it's just imaginary internet points]

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>I think the inconsistency I see, is that those who wrote letters of complaint about him did so out of a political agenda.

You mean those outside of the company like on twitter and stuff? Sure I agree, but they're not bringing it up at their workplace. The people working at google who have complained I think is actually reasonable. Damore brought this issue into the workplace. When somebody brings an issue like that in, your solution is that everybody should ignore it? It has to be addressed at that point. Really I'd say if you go to your job and you bring outside political issues into your workplace you're creating a messy problem because you're piercing the work-veil so to speak.

Does it have to be addressed?

It went largely ignored for months. I suspect the reason this went viral was the offended parties recirculated it amongst themselves.

If the explosion is the problem, consider the gunpowder, as well as the spark.

>Does it have to be addressed?

Yes.

>It went largely ignored for months. I suspect the reason this went viral was the offended parties recirculated it amongst themselves.

But we don't know how widely circulated it was during those months, in fact we don't really know anything about it's release. It seems to me that it was circulated among what was probably a small group who agreed with damore (a boys club if you will :P) and then broke out of that group, other people started reading it and all hell broke loose. The fact that no one discovered it for months doesn't really change anything about the memo or its contents.

>If the explosion is the problem, consider the gunpowder, as well as the spark.

I do consider both. Damore wrote the memo (gunpowder) then released it at his workplace (the spark.)

Or maybe there is a large community of very angry people who identify as victims (gunpowder) and this particular piece was the spark.

Maybe it's just a matter of time until this same group gets offended by another controversial political opinion held/shared by a coworker.

Or maybe there is a large community of very angry people who identify as victims (gunpowder) and this particular firing was the spark.

It's not a useful distinction. By the same argument all the people upset about his firing should stop reading the news about it and get on with their day. All these valley programmers who lean right politically do seem quite eager to play the victim after all, really they're out looking for something to set them off like Damore's firing aren't they? They obviously have a political agenda don't they? They're recirculating news about damore's firing amongst themselves aren't they?

It's inane, the problem has a defined source: Damore bringing his political opinion into the workplace.

If your facts aligned with my experience, that'd be fine.

But let me tell you a story. Once at an SF unicorn a girl said in a public slack channel "I'd feel unsafe as a woman if my manager ever said Trump isn't a sexist." She was most certainly not fired.

So it's not been my experience that politics in the workplace is the root of the issue, because I seem to see it being really enforced unidirectionally (mind you I'm on the left myself). Hell, I've worked at two places where the CEO very clearly had a strong, personal negative reaction to Trump.

The issue I think I see is the weaponizing of PC to penalize non-left opinions as "offensive/inappropriate" which I think undermines the pursuit of truth (a value I hold higher than any political affiliation)

As a thought-experiment, suppose somebody had posted a writing exactly like what Dalmore posted in tone, but had the exact opposite view. Do you think they would have been fired for bringing up politics at work? Let's be honest with ourselves here.

[Note these two issues keep getting conflated. It may be that sexism exists, as well as asymmetrical regulations on how political speech is punished at work. ]

You could just as easily say to those offended "Don't read things you are offended by

This is victim-blaming and poor reasoning that has been used for decades by spammers and their ilk. The problem is that the offense is only discovered by the thing you're suggesting they don't do. This is a Catch 22.

By the same logic, you'd advise a person in the Emergency Room, "don't stand in front a gun next time."

Who gets to decide who's the victim? How come I'm not allowed to have my own, equally-valid opinion about who's the victim?

Doesn't seem fair to me. I think the victim is the person who I believe tried to express his views and was fired.

Who said you're not allowed to have your own opinion? I was merely reacting to it...unless that's the part you have a problem with. Google reacted to his expression, which he offered without duress.