We all saw it coming. James Damore, the brave memo writer and Google coder was fired from his position at Google for speaking the truth. What is this truth?
Skill should trump diversity in a technical setting.
That’s it! That’s all he said.
In the controversial memo that James wrote on his way to Hong Kong (on business for Google), he detailed what he thought were communication problems between political factions at Google. The company, it seemed, had divided itself along partisan lines. Some of this division was affecting productivity on projects that James was working on. He noted that he was not able to perform his job as well because of the issues. Basically, for trying to help his company, he was fired from it.
And this is generally the thanks conservatives get for attempting to bring reason into the workplace. Damore’s memo didn’t promote sexism as the mainstream media reports. In order to make fields in tech and upper management more appealing to women, Google should take biology and sociology into account. This was the underlying message behind the whole “manifesto” that cost Damore his job.
The question now becomes this: why is conservatism so reviled in the industries that require attention to detail the most?
But let’s talk about the diversity issue first.
Liberal media outlets somehow categorized James’ memo as an anti-diversity document – simply because he mentioned diversity. In actuality, the entirety of the memo was based around the idea of protecting the psychological safety of everyone at the company, liberals and conservatives alike. James described Google as an echo chamber and a “cult,” which definitely bears out. After all, they fired him for discussing ideas that were contrary to the company narrative – essentially proving his point correct.
What liberals did not discuss was the painstaking research James brought to the table. This research was made all the more impressive considering it was done on a 12-hour flight between the United States and Hong Kong. Nevertheless, throughout the memo, James backs up his more controversial statements with scientific rigor from viable sources. The issues he brought up backed by the research – gender differences, herd mentality, productivity bias – were not discussed at all in mainstream media.
Because of this media bias, the only real way to get a breakdown of the memo’s contents is to go online. YouTube commentators like Stefan Molyneux have actually interviewed James live to discuss some of the actual issues. Of course, they briefly delve off into the drama of the situation, but if you are looking to understand what James was really saying, his conversations with Molyneux and Dr. Jordon Petersen are the closest you’ll ever get to intellectual honesty. You might be surprised by the emotional intelligence of this coding conservative – often maligned as a basement-dwelling virgin who wouldn’t know how to correspond with another human being to save his own life.
Now let’s talk about Google.
Shouldn’t this company be too busy with coding to even consider housing any sort of office politics? Yes, Google is in the center of Liberal Heaven Silicon Valley, and a comment here or there may sneak through. But how did the situation get so bad that a computer engineer felt compelled to write about it limiting productivity in the workplace? What does this say about the way that elite companies do business?
If James’ form of conservatism is about leaving the politics at the door, it would seem that Google and companies like it would benefit greatly from the practice. It is difficult to envision a situation in which diversity outweighs talent and results in the precision practice of software and hardware coding. Computers do not care about your color, race or creed. If your code does not work, it does not work. If you type something into a computer and get back bugs, there is no amount of diversity that can make it go away. Only talent can do that.
Perhaps the strongest message that James leaves us is this: Let talent speak for itself. The United States is all about providing all of its citizens an equal opportunity to succeed. If one person runs with this opportunity and another does not, there is no reckoning for the less talented or hardworking person. We can only hope that in the future, talent will speak louder than politics.
~ Conservative Zone
