A Google software engineer this week circulated a memo criticizing company policy with regard to tolerance and diversity, for which Google tolerantly fired him. We'll analyze, plus, we'll analyze the Church of Political Correctness and its heretics. Plus, Amanda Prestigiacomo, Paul Bois, and Jacob Airy join the panel of deplorables to discuss bureaucrats' climate change coup, the MSM's declaration of Trump's demise, and coddled guide dogs.
00:01:18.200We need to talk about this engineer. His name is James D'Amore, or D'Amore.
00:01:24.140I'll pronounce it the Italian way, because I want to believe that it was an Italian-American who published this beautiful memo that is upsetting everybody at Google.
00:01:32.420The memo is titled, Google's Ideological Echo Chamber, and it went viral.
00:01:37.400It was criticizing the culture that they have instilled at Google of political correctness and diversity and tolerance and this, that, and the other thing.
00:01:45.420He's, of course, been fired for bringing up a diverse idea.
00:01:49.520So he's, he's lost his job after this memo went viral, both in the company and on the internet outside of the company.
00:01:55.700Now, before we unfairly lambast Google, I think it would only be fair to go to Google CEO Sundar Pichai for comment.
00:03:08.120He went on to say, quote, The memo has clearly impacted our coworkers, some of whom are feeling, are hurting and feel judged based on their gender.
00:03:17.800NPR is reporting this morning that there are a number of women who work at Google who, to contradict this patriarchal and sexist memo that was going around,
00:03:28.460have stayed home from work because they're so upset about what was in the memo.
00:03:32.620So, way to fight the patriarchy, ladies.
00:03:35.020The memo said that you were overly emotional and you really showed them, didn't you?
00:03:39.360Now, speaking of women at Google, the VP of Diversity and Inclusion weighed in on that as well.
00:03:44.480Google's vice president for diversity and inclusion sent a letter to employees on Saturday saying,
00:03:49.720the employee's memo, quote, advanced incorrect assumptions about gender and is not a viewpoint the company endorses, promotes, or encourages.
00:04:42.560He, in many places, criticizes conservatives for various points of view that the right tends to hold in the country.
00:04:49.020But what he's really criticizing is an oppressive environment that stifles free speech, stifles free expression of ideas, and also literally discriminates against certain employees and hiring practices and benefits that are available to employees.
00:05:05.580So here are just a few quotes from the memo.
00:05:07.860You should go over and read the whole thing.
00:05:09.320It's eye-opening that this would get a guy fired.
00:05:12.260Quote, I value diversity and inclusion.
00:05:14.780I am not denying that sexism exists, and I don't endorse using stereotypes.
00:05:22.040Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance.
00:05:25.660But unfortunately, our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber.
00:05:33.040The title of the piece is about the echo chamber, and of course, even a memo that was circulated at first anonymously was enough to get a guy discovered, rooted out, and fired from Google.
00:05:46.080Quote, the lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.
00:05:51.960And that's what he's talking about, this utter emphasis on diversity of skin color, on diversity of gender, on diversity of all sorts except for diversity of thought.
00:06:02.040The one diversity that a company probably could benefit from, and the authoritarian elements of this as well.
00:06:08.880You see here this vice president of diversity inclusion, all of these managers whose entire job it is to program their employees, to host seminars, to host training practices, to host all of these events to change the way in which these employees think.
00:06:53.180A lot of people from across the spectrum went out.
00:06:56.040Google said, listen, we're going to try harder.
00:06:58.160They've already cut off a lot of the revenue to conservative channels.
00:07:01.560A lot of conservatives have been banned from YouTube altogether.
00:07:05.140So hopefully there will be some remedy in the future.
00:07:07.540But Google has made its ideological positions quite clear.
00:07:11.360Now, the big claim beyond criticizing what Google is doing, the big claim that probably got this guy fired is he committed the thought crime.
00:07:20.900He committed the one unthinkable thought crime.
00:07:22.720He said, men and women categorically are not exactly the same.
00:08:32.320It's been backed up by myriad psychological studies.
00:08:35.140It's been backed up by pharmaceutical sales, but that in particular riled the feathers of many in the upper echelons of Google.
00:08:44.060And that research suggests that greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men's and women's personality traits.
00:08:53.860So as there is a national ideological push for equality and indiscernible of the sexes, that those inherent biological and categorical differences between men and women become a little clearer.
00:09:06.080They express themselves a little bit more.
00:09:09.180Crucially, he says, many of these differences are small.
00:09:12.740There is significant overlap between men and women.
00:09:15.240So you can't say anything about an individual given these population-level distributions.
00:09:19.840This is the key because when Google or rather when people on the left who present this ideological point of view present it, it seems that there are these binary categories that we're talking about.
00:09:32.200We're saying that there are bell curves.
00:09:34.460There's significant, if not major, overlap between those two categories.
00:09:40.280And most importantly, while the left wants to put us all into little boxes and engage in the intersectionality pyramid of an hierarchy of oppression, the right, generally speaking, wants to judge people individually.
00:09:54.560Stereotypes come from somewhere, perhaps, but you can't judge an individual based on categorical assumptions and definitions.
00:10:02.460A firm belief of the conservative movement among individualists, libertarians, people on the right.
00:10:09.640This isn't the first time it's rearing its ugly head.
00:10:12.820Larry Summers was president of Harvard.
00:10:14.820He presented a study that suggested that there were several reasons why women do not appear at the high-end faculty of STEM, of science, technology, math, engineering.
00:10:26.720And one of the possible reasons is that, categorically speaking, the bell curve might be different.
00:10:31.460So the bell curve for women might be a little smaller than the bell curve for men, meaning the 10 dumbest people on earth and the 10 smartest people on earth would be men.
00:10:40.220And then otherwise, there would be perfect overlap between men and women.
00:10:44.400This was enough to get him canned from that position.
00:10:47.080Larry Summers, no conservative Republican, lifelong Democrat.
00:10:49.920There was also a woman who hadn't won the Fields Medal, the mathematical prize, until 2014.
00:11:00.100There is obviously a lack of women in these particular areas.
00:11:05.900And there's also a lack of women at Google itself.
00:11:08.500Something like 75% of the leadership of Google is male.
00:11:16.000So certainly this is a male-dominated field.
00:11:18.800And for this guy, James DeMory, to ask why, to say it's perhaps not just oppression and keeping women down because of a glass ceiling in the patriarchy.
00:11:29.160Perhaps there are some other reasons, is enough to lose him his job.
00:11:33.080Now, he goes on to talk about discriminatory practices.
00:11:35.440Apparently, at Google, there are programs, mentorings, classes only for people of a certain gender or race, special treatment for diversity candidates, which might effectively lower the bar for certain people who are being hired.
00:11:47.660There appear to be some illegal quotas from what he wrote in his memo.
00:11:52.100And this shows, I think, a discrepancy between the left's understanding of conservatives and conservatives' understanding of the left.
00:12:00.620The guy who put it better, I think, is Jonathan Haidt, who's a social scientist.
00:12:06.380He put it in a TED Talk, probably the only TED Talk I've ever sat through.
00:12:10.440The difference between how we view each other on both sides of the aisle.
00:12:14.360So, if you think that half of America votes Republican because they are blinded in this way, then my message to you is that you're trapped in a moral matrix, in a particular moral matrix.
00:12:26.360And by the matrix, I mean literally the matrix like the movie The Matrix.
00:12:30.000But I'm here today to give you a choice.
00:12:32.500You can either take the blue pill and stick to your comforting delusions, or you can take the red pill, learn some moral psychology, and step outside the moral matrix.
00:12:40.820We could say that liberals have a kind of a two-channel or two-foundation morality.
00:12:45.060Conservatives have more of a five-foundation or five-channel morality.
00:12:48.440We find this in every country we look at.
00:12:51.320I'll just flip through a few other slides.
00:12:52.700The UK, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the East Asia, and South Asia.
00:13:00.380Now, what he's saying is that there are more moral categories by which conservatives view the world, in which they see the world, different ways to value our place in the world and others around us and the things around us.
00:13:18.260And so when someone on the right or a conservative sees someone on the left doing something stupid, they might say, well, that's pretty stupid.
00:13:25.860You clearly don't see the world in its full picture or in a full enough picture.
00:13:33.560Whereas when someone on the left sees a conservative doing something, because they don't understand these other moral categories, they don't have as broad a moral vision of the world, they assume malice.
00:13:46.460They assume ill intent or some nefarious plotting on the part of the conservatives.
00:13:53.340Now, this kind of language is really disconcerting.
00:13:58.120Listen to the doublespeak that we hear from other Googlers, other managers at Google.
00:14:03.560I think a culture of silence can be insidious.
00:14:07.060And I think a culture of vulnerability can be beautiful.
00:14:13.520A mantra that we've really tried to embrace here at Google is bring your full self to work.
00:14:19.620Yeah, a culture of silence can be insidious.
00:14:22.740And let's talk about the culture of vulnerability, the people who are most likely to lose their jobs if they open their mouths.
00:14:28.520He is stating precisely the opposite of what he means to state, which is that if you hold certain views, you will be rooted out in the name of tolerance and diversity and fairness.
00:14:42.640Despite the very act of doing that, undermining all of those things entirely.
00:14:47.900We have various groups that are called ERGs, employee resource groups, that focus on a variety of things from serving the black Googler community to the Hispanic Googler community to we have another group called Gaglers.
00:15:03.120And we're not often aware of how our biases are actually already living inside of us.
00:15:08.680Inclusion continues to be something that we really need to innovate around and work on.
00:15:14.740I'm going to start calling Marshall a Gagler.
00:15:22.200Of course, ever since Google realized they had this problem where men are dominating the company, they addressed it by creating safe spaces.
00:15:31.160That's language that they'll use to describe it.
00:15:33.460And those spaces are called employee resource groups.
00:15:37.280It's part of the program diversity core.
00:15:40.020And you can go and you can share your feelings.
00:15:41.920Certain employees are allowed to spend one-fifth of their time coming up with initiatives to attract women and racial minorities to the company.
00:23:31.740This is boldness we have not seen before.
00:23:34.860With many of the other men on that stage who are running for president in 2016,
00:23:38.680I don't think that we would see turning away from the language of climate change or climate crisis or whatever Al Gore thinks up this morning.
00:23:45.880Is this some evidence that President Trump is a conservative in maybe a different way and maybe a more meaningful way than some of the other people that were running for that seat?
00:23:56.140Well, I actually kind of think it shows the opposite.
00:26:34.680Again, just coming from this election, I'm not one to just, you know, take these polls and believe them wholesale.
00:26:40.100You know, again, this was the same media, the same analysts who were telling us that we were going to see a referendum on Trump with the special elections.
00:28:03.100Well, I absolutely think he can bounce back, Michael.
00:28:06.640I think Trump's rhetoric, Trump's agenda, Trump's spirit, I still think readily appeals to his base.
00:28:13.420I think most of them are just experiencing fatigue over the past couple months.
00:28:16.440There's an attacking of Jess Sessions, the Scaramucci ordeal.
00:28:20.160So, I think if he just gets over those and he gets a well-oiled machine going and he brings them the MAGA that he promised them, he'll bounce back.
00:29:29.300It's so funny to see all these leftist headlines, like, so shocked that this would, like, have an effect.
00:29:33.260But, yeah, I mean, you coddle children or puppies.
00:29:38.440They're not going to be the most capable or self-sufficient or, you know, the best guide dogs or the best people to hold a job and not be in their mom's basement playing video games.
00:29:48.460I mean, it's all kind of connected here.
00:29:50.400So, you know, hopefully this will click on the leftist dog.
00:29:52.920Those puppies, they get BAs in gender studies.
00:30:11.180But they're also stuck with a ton of student debt, unprecedented student debt.
00:30:15.560They are stuck with a lot of federal debt, the national debt, because of unfunded liabilities that their parents have left them and not paid for.
00:30:23.880Are we being too harsh on the millennials?
00:30:27.920Well, you brought me on here, so I'm going to say this.
00:30:29.980I think it's fair to call millennials spiritually malnourished.
00:30:34.280And I think that largely stems from the breakdown of family, the breakdown of important social structures, the breakdown of religion and morality.
00:30:43.400And so, I mean, the way I put it is the baby boomers had the party, the Gen Xers got the leftovers, and the millennials got stuck cleaning it up.
00:30:52.800You know, we're the generation, you know, brainwashed into massive college debt.
00:31:06.300Is there a way to satiate their spiritual malnourishment?
00:31:10.420Or is there any hope of a great awakening on the horizon?
00:31:13.140Or are we all just headed for a nihilist despair?
00:31:15.240Nothing short of a spiritual revolution is going to do it.
00:31:18.260But, I mean, if there's one thing that does, we should all definitely take hope in is the fact that where millennials are conservative and where they are religious, they are very conservative and they are very religious.
00:31:30.160There is very much a hunger among millennial conservatives to seek the orthodox, to seek sort of what was deprived of them by the baby boomer generation.
00:31:40.240And I think that's something that may translate into a powerful social revolution.
00:31:45.420There's also clearly an exuberance among young people.
00:31:50.680You know, of these kind of mischievous, fun people, both at the millennial generation and a little bit younger, they don't seem to be totally brainwashed, politically correct people.
00:32:01.900They seem to be rebelling against that a little bit.
00:32:31.920How they allocate these studies, I have no idea.
00:32:36.740I remember Glenn Beck did this performance where he was saying unelectable, and he said that anyone who suggested that we would study what happens when fire hits ice, they should just be taken out and executed.
00:32:48.100Now, I'm not advocating violence against these people, but, you know, sometimes I definitely get the sentiment.
00:33:41.440I'm going to put my smart glasses on for this final thought.
00:33:43.880Google keeps using those words, diversity, inclusion, and tolerance.
00:33:48.040I do not think they mean what Google thinks they mean.
00:33:50.980The company has sent a crystal clear message today that they will not tolerate any hint of the only diversity that matters, diversity of thought.
00:33:59.040In the name of free thought, they suppress speech.
00:34:01.740In the name of diversity, they exclude those with diverse points of view.
00:34:05.160In the name of tolerance, the high clerics of Google will not tolerate heretics.
00:34:10.880G.K. Chesterton and Orthodoxy identified Google's illiberal central premise, the thought that stops thought.
00:34:17.360There is a thought that stops thought, he wrote.
00:34:20.260That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.