I'd personally be really cautious about making the mistake of conflating Damore with other topics. Damore, in particular, was fired legally because there are, in fact, some topics not up for discussion (https://www.wired.com/story/labor-board-rules-google-firing-...). Companies aren't legally free to entertain the question "Maybe women can't be as good at computer engineering as men" without running very quickly into established law that prevents acting as if that hypothesis were true.

(Damore's also a bad example for supporting the hypothesis that holding wrong opinions bans you from discourse, because it appears he's been pretty vocal about his opinions since Google let him go).

If a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's viewpoint is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

I don't know why this thought is so scary to some people. I hypothesize that they're too accustom to operating in a pseudonymous consequence-free world where you can say whatever you want without social censure or personal ramifications, but that's not how most of the world works, and the advent of the Internet didn't change that fact.

I would agree that Damore is not a Shining White Knight of Truth. His actions since being fired are questionable. That said, in most of the Damore discussion I got a sense that there was a "right answer" to most of the questions he posed.

>If a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's viewpoint is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

While this is a valid stance to have, I don't think the left as a whole follows this standard consistently. When there is talk of diversity and inclusion, its normally shown as a higher ideal that the left is ascribing to. So, if it really is I higher ideal, we can change the subject of your idea and see if it still works.

Would you support me giving the below advice to a gay coworker?

f a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a LGBT viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's ability to be out of the closet is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

To be honest, I am sad to say I have yet to meet a gay person for whom that advice would be necessary or helpful, as they already know; the tradeoff between fitting in and expressing one's inner life openly is something those I've met are depressingly familiar with. :( It's other people (who I hypothesize without evidence perhaps thought the 4chan "rules of the road" applied to the rest of the world) who are finding things work counter to their expectations.

That's not what Damore actually said but he was fired under "creating a hostile workplace" which is up to interpretation of a private company.

What people have a problem with is that you can have people fired for holding political viewpoints in the first place. You seem to be saying that's ok to do.

In most of the US, political affiliation isn't a protected class. There are good reasons this is true; as a country, we generally (a) recognize a difference between private social or economic pressure and censure and legal sanctions or punishment and (b) reserve the right to apply private pressure to, say, hamstring the KKK. The notion that you could find out an employee was a Klansman and be barred from firing them is somewhat abhorrent. Going too far down the road that it's unacceptable to apply private pressure for political beliefs would lead to some fascinating pathologies, such as making strikes or boycotts illegal.

(The civil service is generally a noteworthy and fascinating exception to this rule, as it was learned early in America's history that there was little value gained in gutting the bureaucracy every time executive leadership changed hands. So, for example, the President's cabinet and some top positions are appointed and tend to rotate out upon change of Presidency, but most hired positions in the federal bureaucracy are protected from politically-motivated hiring or firing. But that protection is not extended to the private sector, with some state-specific exceptions. California is a notable exception to the rule, and whether Damore was fired for being conservative has come up. The possibility didn't sway the NLRB's ruling, apparently.

Whether one political point of view or another could make someone likelier to take actions that are in violation of federal employment law is left as an exercise for the reader ;) ).

Those "good reasons" all breaks down when we consider that religion is a protected class.

For example, a person is perfectly free to believe that all unbelievers are less worth as people, but they have no right to believe that people of a specific race are less worth.

There is really no distinction between a religious opinion or a political opinion, but under US law one is protected and the other is not. In Swedish law they are often regarded as identical, which mean that political views do hold some protection against discrimination.

When an opinion---any opinion, including religious---crosses the line into political action, it becomes an action that can have impact on other people. At that point, the people very much have a say regarding the consequences.

The intersection between freedom of religion and the laws of society is one of the hardest interfaces for American law to adjudicate, and yet it does.

It is not that people are concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, but rather expressing the wrong side of a politically-charged viewpoint.

That's the thing though---given the interface of the law to the question, there are right and wrong things to say and do if one wishes to keep one's job. Paul Graham wrote an essay about "What you can't say" related to this topic (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html); he doesn't say anywhere in the essay that people who say the things you can't say don't suffer consequences. And the NLRB has made pretty clear that in Damore's case, he crossed a line.

We have an entire world of academia to debate issues that the private sector can't touch.

>Companies aren't legally free to entertain the question "Maybe women can't be as good at computer engineering as men" without running very quickly into established law that prevents acting as if that hypothesis were true.

It's a good thing that that's not what he said though. Good job on misrepresenting his view point. I find this misrepresentation particularly funny, because he was trying to help, because clearly the way things have been done so far haven't worked. He tried to explain why and that we need a different approach.

>(Damore's also a bad example for supporting the hypothesis that holding wrong opinions bans you from discourse, because it appears he's been pretty vocal about his opinions since Google let him go).

Because most people can simply lose their jobs as though it's nothing? This would effectively create censorship for the vast majority of the population, because they are unable to risk losing their job.

>If a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free.

You are literally advocating for censorship here. Imagine if people had held this opinion about homosexuality or transgender in the past? They were not accepted. Imagine if simply advocating or agreeing that people should be allowed to be homosexual would get you fired. I don't think that would've been good for society.

>I don't know why this thought is so scary to some people.

It's scary to people because we understand that we don't have all the answers. There are things we are wrong about and to challenge those ideas we need people to be open to speak their mind. The second reason is that a world built on censorship is a world of fear and fear breeds mistrust.

A world built on completely unrestrained speech, surprisingly, is also a world built on fear. Counter-intuitive, but hypothetically: if a workplace has the freedom to openly declare that while they must act to comply with the law, they never voluntarily hire women because they believe women can't do the job as well as men? We have enough research to know the kind of hostile work environment that creates.

Absolutism in either direction is unacceptable; the particulars are debatable.

(... also: are you really equating the notion "homosexuals or transgendered people don't have fundamental differences that make them worse employees" with "women do have fundamental differences that make them worse employees?" I'm calling foul on your false equivalence.)