> Today he got fired from everything that he's involved with. The apology was career suicide.
I'm obviously not familiar with the exact situation, but I'd be willing to bet money that he had received word that it was going to become public and the apology was an attempt to appear proactively remorseful and to circumvent the consequences resulting from the forthcoming publication. (In other words, the "apology" was not the precipitating action.)
>He could have taken either route and been safe at least from being canned.
I don't know? Unless I'm misunderstanding the story, I'm not sure the guy they fired could have escalated issues he was not informed of? I suppose we could assume that he was informed of the issues, just not via any documented method?
But based only on the information given in the article, I'm just not sure how someone not even in the loop on an issue, can reasonably be expected to escalate that issue?
Do you? Because that part is way more irritating, and, honestly, starting to read your original comment I thought that was where you were going with this: Why was he fired, exactly?
The way the statement was framed basically painted him a liar, in a way, so vague, that people put forth the most insane theories about why. I can sense some animosity, but do you really think it's okay to fire anyone in a way, where to the outside the possible explanation ranges from a big data slip to molesting their sister?
Nothing has changed. That is the part that needs transparency and its lack is bewildering.
He resigned and for good reason and he proved to be correct in all his assessments. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, at least get your facts straight.
> I absolutely think that anyone with half an ounce of emotional intelligence should have anticipated that reaction, and should have known that writing that as he did would have been completely counter-productive and cause a huge shit show for the company.
He wrote it in an internal group dedicated to the very subject he wrote about. It got leaked and distorted, and I can't even count how often the whole context got twisted in the exact same way as you just twisted it.
Who leaked it? Dunno. What's so bad about it? Can't say. But one thing is sure, the person who ended up losing their job is to blame. And of course the people who just can't even be bothered to get fact one of it straight while signing it off aren't spineless in the least. How would that even work, all people have spines.
> If he wasn't lying when he said he'd filed a claim with the National Labor Relations Board, his firing was illegal under current US law.
Only, as I understand, if it was in retaliation for the claim; firing for the memo, and any perceived hostile workplace effects it had, would not be illegal (and may actually contribute to avoiding liability for that conduct.)
Of course, if he made a claim it will be a disputed question of fact as to whether or not it was retaliation.
As for whether or not he knew what he was doing...he may have written this thing, but he did so in an area that was designated for that sort of thing. He wasn’t the one that started emailing it to the entire company. So it’s fair to say he thought he was just having a discussion in the topic with whatever this skeptic group at Google was, and other people decided to turn it into a national political issue to get him fired for it.
> I completely agree, but in a corporate setting one can be truthful, accurate, have good intent, and yet still be tone deaf and insensitive. The bar for insensitive is very low in this context.
If a fair and honest reading of his memo reveals that he had good intent, and the memo was scientifically accurate - and yet he was fired and publicly vilified for it, then isn't describing it as "tone deaf and insensitive" a form of victim-blaming?
It seems similar to pointing out that the victim of a sexual assault was dressed provocatively.
>So we get a sort of intellectual dishonesty we see regularly from politicians: deep philosophical musings to surround a quick sweep-under-the-rug of the actual issue.
You are speculating here that he is pushing the issue under the rug. You also speculated that the reason he was fired was somehow related to the humorous reasons he gave. I think its a bit much....
> Indeed, why would they have anticipated that it would lead to Damore's firing? If that was obvious, then that would have been obvious to Damore when he wrote it.
Not sure I agree. There is no big tech corporation in current America where having your name tied to a memo like that won't destroy your career within the company l.
Damore certainly should have expected that if leadership disagreed with him, he was in for a bad time. However, he still is within reasonable bounds to go after whoever leaked the internal memo externally regardless of whether or not you agree with the content.
>Really? Leave it up to the media to decide what he was fired for afterwards?
I honestly don't care. Anyone who sends a company wide memo is asking for trouble. The news throws so much stuff that you are expected to get "outraged" over. It's not healthy to absorb it all.
Looks like we might go nuclear with North Korea real soon, if that happens, none of this will matter.
That’s not certain. I don’t think anyone would have predicted the events that followed.
> This was most likely a PR stunt
The context and behavior of people close to the matter suggest that this wasn’t a PR stunt. There were leavings, layoffs and statements from multiple sides. As far as I’m aware even the government didn’t imply that this was a PR stunt.
> The question is whether they should have fired him, which in my view is entirely determined by the badness of his actions.
Are you arguing that he did nothing wrong? In that case why did he hide his actions from MIT, after it had explicitly blacklisted Epstein as a donor?
> someone at MIT speculated ... There is no evidence at all that their presence was anything other than consensual.
Maybe so, but they had good reason to. Epstein by that point had already been convicted on the sex offender charge. And then he was going around accompanied by young European women, and there's nothing suspicious about that? Come on.
> He has done lots wrong over many years to many people.
[citation needed] and distraction. So what if he didn't do anything of what he is currently accused of, I am sure he has done lots of wrong before (of which I am going to list exactly nothing)?
> he has been treated the same way any other employee at MIT would be treated.
He has resigned to shield MIT from public pressure after lots of lies have appeared about things he hasn't said.
I have no idea why would you accuse GP of lying. You don't know him. Do you routinely judge if a person tells the truth based on some words he used?
Also, you confuse the GP's feelings about the situation right now with his attitude back then. Back when it happened, he didn't know of a 3 months long plot against him. Now he does know. He was shown the (obscenity censored because it would apparently alter the meaning of my post) documents, he read it black on white. Just before getting fired, too. It's nothing strange that his wording now is emotional and blunt, it says nothing about how he was back then.
Lastly, of course, there are polite ways of telling people to censored, you know why off politely. It's what assertiveness is all about. There are people, however, who don't really care about the form: they just can't stand others disagreeing with them. I don't think it's that rare a trait. How about that line of thinking:
"He's too polite, he's trying to hide something. And he dared to disagree with me, his superior. More than once! I don't have the time to deal with a time-bomb like him, which can blow up behind my back at any time. I need an army of easily controlled people to help me further my career. Yeah, it would be safer to spend a few minutes more and slip a couple of lies when working on his evaluations."
Preparing reports which are not true, yet are not outright lies, and which make some person look really bad doesn't really take much time. Especially if one does it for a living.
Really, you don't think there were any factors beyond his control, like other people spreading it around and media misreporting it?
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