This was such an incredibly self serving post that it's almost funny. Thanks for the bravery Scott, you chose not to argue for what you believe in from your position of immense privilege. A martyr indeed.
In any case, people like Scott and others in this thread sound so incredibly childish when talking about "rational" argument being the antidote to the venom of "political correctness" ruining western society. You know what's ruining western society? Income inequality, racial discrimination, mass consumerism, disregard for environmental destruction, etc. That this is the hill where software engineers choose to fight their battle for western civilization is just depressing
PC is particularly harmful, since it restricts talking about controversial topics. Most of the other topics you picked has PC problems. For instance, income equality between the genders could be fixed if we recognize that there are innate differences between the genders, and actively work to make the workplace more inclusive to styles of working which would favor the other gender. Scott Alexander also argued that the constant proclamation that "tech has a sex problem" sends a message that tech is not for women. Such unhealthy fixation with "women in X" is arguable harming X's diversity plans more than helping. But this is not an opinion I'm allowed to have or discuss with you.
tl;dr: we need to fix communication which would allow us to fix other problems of today.
It isn't the hill that engineers choose to fight their battle though, is it. The fact that this is the first time such a memo has been written vs the numbers of the internal Google poll demonstrate pretty well that there is a lot of silent dissent.
I agree completely that there are bigger issues but we're human, being told that you will be discriminated against in hiring for whatever reason really bites. In our society your job is everything, your entire security and most people's egos.
Africa etc is more important but I understand the magnitude of the personal stakes and sheer sense of injustice moving this up people's agenda.
In any case, people like Scott and others in this thread sound so incredibly childish when talking about "rational" argument being the antidote to the venom of "political correctness" ruining western society. You know what's ruining western society? Income inequality, racial discrimination, mass consumerism, disregard for environmental destruction, etc. That this is the hill where software engineers choose to fight their battle for western civilization is just depressing