If this post were a video game, it would be called “Super Strawman Fighter 2: Championship Edition.”
A friend sent me this because I asked him if he’d seen anyone on the other side take the time to engage with the substance of the arguments in the ”Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” memo. The commentary here is, sadly, only one step above the wailing and gnashing of teeth I’ve seen elsewhere. But since it’s the best I’ve seen from my friendly SJW rivals, I guess I might as well refute it.
“I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.”
Mr. Damore is also not a biologist, psychologist or sociologist, but he was willing to put the time and effort into quoting experts on the subject to support his argument.
In the conversations that I’ve seen on this topic online, I’ve seen critics of the Manifesto post quotes from political theorists and commentators. I have not seen a sourced refutation including data from real scientists. If the content of this paper is so outrageously pseudo-scientific, it should be trivial to provide a science-based rebuttal.
Like many other critics of Mr. Damore, Mr. Zunger has chosen instead to express the moral outrage he feels about a series of strawman arguments. This is troubling given that Mr. Zunger and others are calling for Mr. Damore to lose his job and suffer extreme social ostracization.
As is typical with SJWs, critics of the memo are so eager to virtue signal and punish their opponents that they have abandoned reason.
“Engineering is not the art of building devices; it’s the art of fixing problems… Fixing problems means first of all understanding them — and since the whole purpose of the things we do is to fix problems in the outside world, problems involving people, that means that understanding people, and the ways in which they will interact with your system, is fundamental to every step of building a system.”
Mr. Zunger is misrepresenting the memo. The memo does not state that engineering only requires abstract thinking and technical knowledge. The memo does not state that skills associated with women are unnecessary or unwelcome in the technology industry.
The memo says: “On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways.” This claim is not in dispute. It also says “the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and… these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.“
The second claim is debatable, but SJWs are not interested in having a debate. What they want is to shame anyone who questions their worldview so they can feel morally superior.
“What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs”
Mr. Zunger is once again misrepresenting the memo. The memo does not say anyone employed at Google is not “good enough to do their jobs.”
The memo says “the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and… these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.” It also supports that premise with data.
“not only was nearly everything you said in that document wrong”
Putting the word “wrong” in italics does not make your opponent wrong.
Mr. Zunger has already stated that he is not knowledgeable about the relevant fields of study. Why should we take his word for it that everything in the memo is wrong? Does he have any quotes from experts? Does he have any links to credible studies with repeatable results?
“the fact that you did that has caused significant harm to people across this company”
Mr. Damore challenged cultural beliefs with scientific data. It’s very unfortunate that there has been an emotional backlash, but the negative emotions themselves are not an argument against his position.
“a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face”
Here Mr. Zunger unwittingly makes my point for me. SJWs are not interested in having a substantive discussion. They are so caught up in the moral superiority they feel about their positions that they want to shame and fire their opponents. When they can’t get their way the next step is physical violence.
The Left tried to sell the world on the motto “If it feels good, do it.” They have degenerated to “Say things that make me feel good… or else.”
