cooooooffffeeee

Sorry, can you just delete my account or ban it or whatever? I'm too tired.

No, it's not. Damore is (objectively) an asshole and doesn't earn any discussion.

Choose any one of the (fairly unoriginal) points he was trying to make and talk about that.

Right but it's a such a lightning rod that it instantly derails any reasonable discussion. It's basically the Godwin's law of conversations about sex, gender, and political bias.

Sure, you can also find people who believe the Earth is flat... but the point is that they're not the majority.

Not many people would argue that testosterone causes men to have increased muscle mass, for example. But they might take issue if you make the claim that men are physically superior (because that concept is much more complex and it's weird to declare superiority without more specific constraints — It's akin to saying America is the best country).

Protest isn't censorship

This is pseudo-academic posturing nonsense. The issue people take is attributing value to the differences between sexes, not the biological differences in themselves.

You're doing yourself a disservice by mentioning Damore at all.

His manifesto may have had some points, but was also rife with utter bullshit, false equivalence, value judgements, and personal biases.

Damore has also since proven himself to be an utter chode in his unwavering insistence that he is 100% right.

If you have an argument to make, you'll reach more people without mentioning that nonsense.

Yes and no, visitor badges often don't use RFID. You can get most places if you have a visitor badge and know someone's name (which are all available on LinkedIn). If you get stopped with a badge you can just say "Oh I'm here with so-and-so in X Department" and usually no one follows through beyond that. Saying you're there for an interview will often drop someone's guard too.

Employee badges often do have RFID, but some places just have you use a sign-in sheet if you're an employee and "forgot" yours (i.e., you don't have one), and sometimes security guards will just let you through if your badge is being "temperamental" (i.e., not working because it's fake).

Most corporate security is security theater (or only marginally useful after a crime) and rules are easily skirt-able because companies don't want to restrict employee access under zero-tolerance policies (which are difficult and time-consuming to enforce).

The company I mentioned previously that will just hand-waive you through a gate with no barriers actually goes as far to fingerprint all their employees and contractors. They also won't hire anyone with even a misdemeanor in their criminal record.

Also note that all of this stuff is markedly easier if you're a woman (less likely to be stereotyped as a criminal) and/or if you wear a suit (depending on the office, a suit can often mean "don't confront me because I'm above your pay grade").

Not much of a story, I was being a fool and trying to go places I wasn't allowed and someone happened to be paying attention. Fortunately my friend working in security told them it was a planned test (it wasn't planned, but he knows I do this to him from time to time).

Fair take. The US could penalize/limit/tariff those outside megacorps like China does though, right? I'm not sure trade should be completely free when an outside competitor can skirt your local laws.

>it gives at the very least a security clearance level.

At the very least. I could reproduce a close-enough badge that would likely fool everyone except the person who designed the original. I've done this twice successfully (failed once and almost got arrested) to fuck with my friend who runs opsec at mid-sized financial services companies.

One company he worked for had these stupid gates that you needed to scan your badge for (it gives you a green light), but there's no physical barrier. All you needed to do was pretend to scan a badge a couple times and say something like 'ugh stupid things' and the security guard just lets you on through.

Which makes at least a little sense. Instagram makes it fairly difficult to share/reshare garbage (though it's gotten a bit worse lately) and encourages people to create their own garbage.