DISCUSSION OF THE
GOOGLE GOOLAG
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endorphone 3 hours ago
The
firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and
exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention
that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's
institutional ageism). And while I don't want to
diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking
someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the
spectrum.
By
firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and
doubled down on this discussion. By doing it in an
anti-science, anti-evidence way they legitimized almost
everything he said, and it makes them look reactionary.
They
could have simply said that they were taking punitive
actions and kept him in the fold.
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agentultra 3 hours ago
>
By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups,
To
a small, vocal group.
>
By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way
There
were good reasons for doing it that had nothing to do
with science or evidence.
There
are women working at Google
who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and
biologic differences they have from their cishet male
counterparts.
If
Damon had issues with the policies at Google there were
many other channels open to him that didn't involve
circulating a manifesto. He brought it upon himself.
Once word of that memo leaked there was nothing for
Google to do but fire him.
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endorphone 2 hours ago
There
are women working at Google who do not need to be
reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they
have from their cishet male counterparts.
I'm
a white male. I know that the average Asian
has a higher IQ than the average white man. This means
positively nothing when comparing me with a given Asian,
however.
That
is the root of this discussion that so many so
profoundly miss. The average Google male is not the
average male. The average Google female is not the
average female. He was not saying that women who
work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any
way, and that is a perverse misreading. He was saying
that on the whole there's a biological reason when you
roll the dice enough that more males are suitable for
that work. In the scientific community this is utterly
indisputable, in the same way that there are far more
exceptional males (and autistic males), just as there
are far more mentally handicapped males. That doesn't
preclude handicapped or exceptional females, it's just
less common.
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KirinDave 2 hours ago
>
He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a
biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a
perverse misreading.
Quite
frankly: many people do. Some of them are at Google.
James chose to run headlong into this discussion without
any practical knowledge of the discourse. His point was
poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such
radical room for misrepresenting it.
Discussions
of social issues MUST be informed by the social
discourse they enter, even if armed with science and
evidence. To suggest otherwise is obviously wrong.
No
one owes James a charitable reading. And if you think
the "mobs" of liberals are misrepresenting his point,
you should see where MRA/goreans are going with it.
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imh 2 hours ago
>No
one owes James a charitable reading.
A
charitable reading isn't something that's owed. It's something that
almost universally helps discourse. Communication is
hard.
We're
always willing to give Us a charitable reading, and it's
a damned shame people are so unwilling to afford that to
Them, regardless which side of anything you're on.
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KirinDave 1 hour ago
Right,
but anyone familiar with this larger discussion read
James's memo and knew, immediately, that he simply
failed to do any research or contribute anything
meaningful.
I
certainly did my best to ignore it. It was poorly
informed, poorly considered. His firing was inevitable
and possibly even what he wanted. Certainly I can't
imagine a more effective way to get fired at Google.
Since
James didn't do the courtesy of being informed, it seems
odd to demand that everyone offer him the courtesy of
finishing his argument for him
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stagbeetle 1 hour ago
To
be frank, it's called being the better man.
Progress
isn't made when both parties refuse to cooperate. And
one side isn't absolved of responsibility just because
they believe the other side to be not worth their
effort. This is petty.
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KirinDave 24 minutes ago
What
do you think I am doing engaging this topic even though
it's obviously time consuming and costly to me?
I'm
not here dropping links about stereotypes and pointing
out trivial logical errors in the discourse because it's
good for my heart or my psyche.
I'm
on Twitter hiatus, but I still end up wrapped in these
fruitless conflicts. But please, continue arguing that
what I'm doing is deleterious. I'm not friendly on this
subject, but you can hardly accuse me of not engaging
openly and being responsive to the dialogue.
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pharrington 2 hours ago
Yes,
James isn't owed a charitable reading. He is owed a rational reading.
addendum:
Irrational people misinterpreting a text is precisely
that. Surely you can't be saying that a text having a
fairly high bar for intelligent interpretation and
discussion is reason for that text to not exist?
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KirinDave 1 hour ago
It
is not irrational to misinterpret poorly written, poorly
worded, and inconclusive text.
Reading
a text is a dialogue. If the writer did not
appropriately express the intent, then they invite the
reader to finish the thought. And this even rational
people can arrive at different conclusions.
To
suggest every reading you don't approve of as
"irrational" is a predictable, even classical tactic.
Many words exist for it, but in the end the notion of
blaming the reader for finishing an incomplete thought
is an exercise in futility. The reader has no choice.
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pharrington 1 hour ago
You
said "his point was poorly delivered precisely because
it leaves open such radical room for
misrepresenting
it," and then contrasted how "mobs of liberals" are
reading it with "MRA/goreans." Maybe I'm misinterpreting
you, but your original post was explicitly about
irrational misinterpretations.
If
you want to talk about how the memo was poorly written,
talk about
how the memo was poorly written.
The readings of others certainly can supplement your
analysis, but you haven't provided that analysis.
The
memo begins with it's intent, and even has a TLDR after
the opening three paragraphs.
Also,
while the memo was mostly trying to assess the current
state and factors of the gender imbalance in tech and
Google particularly, it does provide several, literal,
conclusions. Here are just a few:
>We
can make software engineering more people-oriented with
pair programming and more collaboration.
>Women
on average are more cooperative [...] Allow those
exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent
updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but
maybe there's more we can do.
>Make
tech and leadership less stressful. Google already
partly does this with its many stress reduction courses
and benefits.
If
you actually read the memo, and have actual problems
with what was actually written, then talk about that.
There's certainly plenty to discuss and to rationally
disagree about, but you have yet to say anything
substantial about the thing you're criticizing.
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KirinDave 19 minutes ago
>
The memo begins with it's intent, and even has a TLDR
after the opening three paragraphs.
Which
does little to excuse the subsequent content. Why would
it? Impact matters far more than intent. Asking for
someone to read a paragraph in a light quite opposed to
it's content in this era of Poe Principle Supremacy is
essentially asking for an act of faith.
I
possess no such faith. And why should I? The implicit
suggestion here is that James's memo had value or novel
input. Even if I fastidiously follow his intent
statement, it appears misinformed and to misinterpret
some findings, offering a solution I have discussed as
inadequate and insulting many times on this website.
>
If you actually read the memo, and have actual problems
with what was actually written, then talk about that.
I
have at length. I am now talking about the discourse at
hand. Please find someone else to make demands of. I'm
not your conversational sparring partner and even this
reply is only a courtesy. Please do not exhaust my good
will.
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dahart 2 hours ago
>
He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a
biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a
perverse misreading. He was saying that on the whole
there's a biological reason when you roll the dice
enough that more males are suitable for that work.
I
don't understand what you said there, can you elaborate?
What is the difference between males being more
biologically suitable and females being at a
disadvantage? From my perspective, you just contradicted
yourself, can you help me understand why it's not a
contradiction?
What
the memo proposed is that it's "possible" there are
fewer women in tech right now because of the biological
differences. He may not have claimed it as fact, but he
implied it. The problem I have with the implication is
that it's obvious that evolutionary forces
are not the primary causes of the current distribution,
because the distribution of women in tech has changed
drastically in the last 50 years faster than evolution's
say in the matter. It's not possible that the current
distribution is primarily caused by biological
differences, and it's exceedingly likely that it is
caused by social issues. But he suggested it is
possible, and followed that by suggesting we should stop
treating it like a social issue because it's possible.
And
all of this so far is ignoring that the memo
unironically takes the opposite stance on the minority
group of conservatives.
So
what is the root part that I'm missing?
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endorphone 1 hour ago
From
my perspective, you just contradicted yourself, can
you help me understand why it's not a contradiction?
The
IQ distribution of men and women is slightly different,
and this is essentially settled science (it really is,
however much we might pontificate -- our genetic past
rolls the dice more with males). The male curve is
slightly fatter, yielding larger numbers of
exceptionally high and exceptionally low
members. This means absolutely nothing if you have a
male with an IQ of 140 and a female with an IQ of 140,
however. Nor does it mean a 100 IQ male should be
working at Google because there are slightly more high
IQ males born.
We
are smart enough to understand the difference between
set probabilities and individual traits. Right?
because
the distribution of women in tech has changed
drastically in the last 50 years faster than
evolution's say in the matter
Obviously
there are social factors. That is indisputable. But at a
point the gains in leveling the sexes for some domains
become harder to get because there are confounding
factors. Women in engineering has stayed virtually
constant for several decades now.
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dahart 52 minutes ago
>
The IQ distribution of men and women is slightly
different, and this is essentially settled science
How
different? Can you source this claim? Are the means
& medians at different places? How far apart are
they? Are they far enough part to justify a male/female
ratio in the tech workforce of 4x? I'm not arguing with
you, but you are contradicting the article at hand.
"the
mainstream view is that male and female abilities are
the same across the vast majority of domains — I.Q., the
ability to do math, etc."
>
Women in engineering has stayed virtually constant for
several decades now.
Which
decades are you talking about? Which countries are you
talking about? Please source this wildly inaccurate
claim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_engineerin...
"According
to studies by the National Science Foundation, the
percentage of BA/BS degrees in engineering awarded to
women in the U.S. increased steadily from 0.4 percent in
1966 to a peak of 20.9 percent in 2002"
That's
a factor of 40x in 40 years. That doesn't sound super
constant to me. How fast does evolution work again?
"Only
9.6% of engineers in Australia are women"
Interesting.
Does that mean it's likely that Australian women are
biologically only half as engineering capable as
American women?
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endorphone 44 minutes ago
The
difference between male and female IQ curves is easily
found, and is scientifically settled. I don't
particularly care if I'm contradicting the article at
hand -- I'm not trying to vouch for it, but am saying
that it's a rational discussion.
>Please
source this wildly inaccurate claim.
I
said for several decades. You cite the change for over
five decades.
From
1990 to today -- closing on three decades -- women in
engineering has stayed virtually unchanged in the US.
You
seem to be taking the shotgun approach, and seem wholly
ingenuine in discussing this rationally, so I would say
this discussion is done.
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dahart 26 minutes ago
>
The difference between male and female IQ curves is
easily found, and is scientifically settled.
Can
you either source this or summarize, assuming that I
genuinely want to know? How big is the difference in
mean & median? Do you believe the difference is
primarily responsible for the difference in
distribution?
>
I said for several decades. You cite the change for over
five decades.
You're
going to nitpick over 3 vs 5? Are you saying that the
distribution of women wasn't in a steady state in the
1970's but it reached steady state in the 1990's, and
that now the distributions are primarily reflective of
innate biology and not social causes?
The
distribution of women in computer science is quite
different than the distribution of women in engineering
- very roughly 2x as I understand. Do you think that
computer science is significantly and measurably more
prone to being affected by our biological differences
than engineering?
I'm
think I'm bringing up reasonable points, is it really a
stretch to ask about different countries and different
disciplines? The memo's reasoning should reasonably
apply to all women in all businesses in all countries,
not just engineering or tech. He even cited gender
discrepancies that are cross-cultural, this is
absolutely fair game.
>
You seem to be taking the shotgun approach, and seem
wholly ingenuine in discussing this rationally
I'm
sorry that it's getting tough for you. I'm very genuine
and very serious. I disagree that I'm being irrational,
but you are entitled to your opinion.
I'm
just hearing defensiveness about the claims stated as
fact being true. I willingly accept that there are
biological differences between men and women. What I
don't see clearly is a rational justification for
ignoring cultural sexism.
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endorphone 11 minutes ago
"I'm
just hearing defensiveness"
Claiming
defensiveness when you are being intentionally dense in
the discussion is a transparent, tired tactic.
"What
I don't see clearly is a rational justification for
ignoring cultural sexism."
Absolutely
no one is promoting "cultural sexism", so you're now
contriving canards.
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manigandham 1 hour ago
Also
Americans on
average
are more overweight than Japanese. Does not mean there
are not overweight Japanese or thin Americans or that
either are less capable of a specific sport.
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dahart 1 hour ago
Clearly
not.
Does
60% of Americans being overweight today mean that it's
likely that 60% of people are naturally and biologically
incapable of maintaining a healthy weight?
There
are genetic differences among underweight and overweight
populations, so it is "possible" that the distribution
of healthy weights to overweight people is natural a
result of those genetic traits, and not the result of
advertising and availability of high calorie foods.
We
should stop treating obesity as though it's a problem,
right?
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dropstickle 33 minutes ago
I
think you misunderstood me. I was not making a
biological correlation, but a statistical one; namely
that group averages doesn't say anything about an
individual. The nature/nurture debate of overweight
people is besides the point.
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dahart 18 minutes ago
Then
I think you misunderstood the memo. The memo is
making a biological correlation. It suggests that the
current distributions might accurately reflect
differences in biology.
Nature
vs nurture is completely the point here, Damore
argued that nature is the primary force, not nurture,
and therefore we should stop nurturing women in tech.
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dropstickle 2 minutes ago
Maybe
I should have been clearer, you stated to the parent
reply that:
>>
I don't understand what you said there, can you
elaborate? What is the difference between males being
more biologically suitable and females being at a
disadvantage? From my perspective, you just contradicted
yourself, can you help me understand why it's not a
contradiction?
This
was in response to the parent that said Damore had not
singled out any female google employes. The overweight
example was an attempt to clarify that even though
statistical averages say something about a group, it
does not say something about the individual, i.e the
google females should not feel singled out by
statistical averages.
As
for the nature/nuture point in the memo: yes the memo is
making a biological claim backed by sources. It does not
suggest that current distributions are correct. No, the
memo is not saying that nature is the primary force,
only that it might play a part [1]:
"Differences
in distributions of traits between men and women may in
part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of
women in tech and leadership."
[1]
https://diversitymemo.com/
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tomp 2 hours ago
>
I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the
average white man.
How
can you be sure that it's the average Asia, as opposed to the
average Asian in
the US?
IMO a better example would be to use Ashkenazi Jews...
or are they too white to count?
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unityByFreedom 2 hours ago
Yeah,
he slipped in a huge assumption there as if it's
established fact.
Of
course Asians in the US are smart. There is a high bar
for foreigners entering the US.
This
is the genius behind "Give me your tired, your poor". We
actually end up taking the hard working, wealthy ones
who've gotten into college by passing tests in their
second language at the same age as we go to school.
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thegayngler 1 hour ago
There
was an article awhile back in the NYT stating that in
many cases asians people can be found cheating on those
tests or lying about their educational background.
Lets
face it. They have resources to both cheat and get
tutoring on the ways to pass an exam. Lets see how
everyone does cold turkey when all of the outside
factors like money and resources other than race and
gender are held constant.
What
are the results of a study like that? That would be a
more interesting test than saying X or Y is genetically
more suited to this field.
Most
if not all of that line of reasoning is based on 1000
year old social constructs...and the mountains of
"research" that was later made up to give it credibility
when people started to question these social constructs.
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unityByFreedom 32 minutes ago
>
Lets see how everyone does cold turkey when all of the
outside factors like money and resources other than race
and gender are held constant.
It's
impossible to completely separate biological from
environmental factors. They're interdependent.
I
agree that better research would be the proper way to
attack this problem. It seems we will be stuck
perpetually debating nature vs. nurture [1] for as long
as we exist.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
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harichinnan 2 hours ago
Please
visit "Asia". Don't go to Japan or South Korea or one of
the city states. Go to India or China or somewhere in
middle east. I don't think there are biological
differences that would make people of the largest
continent more smarter than another group.
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SamReidHughes 1 hour ago
You
just need different relative reproduction rates or
different levels of assortative mating. For example, the
Khmer Rouge may have affected Cambodia's IQ distribution
(negatively) but Cambodians don't now have "biological
differences" per se.
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stagbeetle 57 minutes ago
The
colloquial "Asian" means East Asian/Far Eastern.
This
includes Japanese, Chinese, both Koreans, Taiwanese, and
Mongolians. Commonly, anyone with epicanthic folds.
In
this case, I don't think the OP was talking about
biological differences. It's widely known that the
aforementioned cultures (especially Japan and China) are
very big on having their careers and studies at the
center of their lives.
In
this case, it would be nurture giving these groups an
advantage over their Western counterparts. Who, ignoring
the top-tiers, on average are not known for their
industry.
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WalterSear 3 hours ago
He
didn't circulate one. He sent it to a mailing list which
purported to be a safe place for open, honest sharing of
opinions regarding diversity and hiring.
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ghaff 2 hours ago
Anyone
who is willing to bet their job on a controversial
posting about company policy to a broad company mailing
list staying internal either doesn't mind being fired or
is an idiot.
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serf 2 hours ago
>Anyone
who is willing to bet their job on a controversial
posting
That's
part of the problem.
Lots
of people associate Google with research and discourse
akin to a college campus without realizing that, unlike
a college campus, they and their free discourse are not
protected in any meaningful way.
"Let's
be open and transparent and have an open and transparent
culture... but don't say things that might hurt our
shareholders."
Google
is beginning to remind me a bit too much of the 'Bright
& Shinys" from the movie 'Bubble Boy'[0]. Happy go
lucky do-gooder cult that holds that image until you
cross them. Things get darker after that point. That
initial positive image is all that matters.
[0]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIYRfNjHSzA
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ghaff 1 hour ago
Unfortunately
college campuses don't protect free discourse for
certain stripes of political opinion very well these
days either.
I
agree with your broader point though. Different
companies are more or less tolerant of free-wheeling
discussion that may not reflect an official company
position. But, at the end of the day, if you cause
embarrassment (especially as a non-exec, non-critical
employee) at most companies, you're expendable.
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peoplewindow 26 minutes ago
Google
always used to make a big song and dance about how
scientific and data driven it is. They even wrote about
how data driven their hiring processes and HR operations
are.
This
article from 2013 is an example
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/...
“What
we try to do is bring the same level of rigor to
people decisions that we do to engineering decisions.
Our mission is to have all people decisions be
informed by data.”
Damore's
memo may look idiotic to people who work in "normal"
workplaces, but it is consistent with Google's previous
rhetoric on what sort of company it wants to be: namely,
one that isn't normal.
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WalterSear 2 hours ago
If
you are informed that you are safe to openly express
your opinion, you should have a reasonable expectation
that you do.
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mathattack 2 hours ago
Unfortunately
I don't think it's that small. It's similar to saying
"The Trump base is a small vocal group" - perhaps it's
really larger than we care to admit?
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mc32 2 hours ago
One
could say the people wanting the ex a employee fired
were also a small vocal group. I really doubt more than
10% of Googlers felt personally threatened affronted by
someone having a different view on advancing women in
tech.
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mc32 2 hours ago
Kind
of like if we extrapolate the 10% of the population who
are vocally upset at google because of the dismissal we
only have 30+ million upset with google the co.
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ocdtrekkie 3 hours ago
I
would argue that if a 'small, vocal group' likely had a
significant hand in electing Donald Trump, we should
stop trying to minimize it by suggesting it is 'small'.
Either because it's larger than you think, or because it
has influence that outscales it's membership
severalfold.
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taysic 2 hours ago
By
not firing him, the same thing would have happened.
Except now that vocal group would be Google employees
too who feel uncomfortable at their workplace.
Anti-science
way? Do you realize how subjective this is and how
impossible it is to prove that today there are no other
influences at play than biology? And that we've maxed on
the number of woman in this field and we're now at an
equilibrium determined by biology?
I
would have been far more convinced if he noted a
dwindling amount of harassment and reported bias using
studies.
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where_do_i_live 2 hours ago
You
overgeneralize and mischaracterize the memo with your
claims, which leads me to suspect you never read it.
>Do
you realize how subjective this is and how impossible it
is to prove that today there are no other influences at
play than biology
He
never claims there are no other influences at play -
From
the memo; note the works "in part" and "may explain" -
Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women
in the following ways or that these differences are
“just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of
preferences and abilities of men and women differ in
part due to biological causes and that these differences
may explain why we don’t see equal representation of
women in tech and leadership.
>
And that we've maxed on the number of woman in this
field and we're now at an equilibrium determined by
biology?
There
is no such claim of this whatsoever. Your comment is a
great example of the problems with this debate.
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taysic 2 hours ago
One
of his main points in the memo is at the
top:"Differences in distributions of traits between men
and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50%
representation of women in tech and leadership. "
What
am I missing? This is the topic he explores the most in
his memo and I don't see anything analyzing social
effects.
While
his paper is nuanced, he basically only focuses on the
biological argument and seeks to change company policy
as a result of this.
One
of these being... to end the diversity goals. Yes I did
read the memo.
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where_do_i_live 2 hours ago
I'm
not sure what your counter argument is exactly.
He
argued to change their diversity goals and
implementation, with an intention to do a better job of
getting a _more_ not less diverse company, including
more woman and minorities. He did not argue to end all
diversity goals outright, again that appears to be a
mischaracterization.
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taysic 2 hours ago
I
suppose you can say his argument was implied then in my
eyes since he spent the first large part of the memo
reviewing the biology of women and then stopped short
there.
No
time was spent exploring inherent biases in history or
how they may affecting things today. This is why those
policies were put into place so why not make it the meat
of the discussion.
Though
the implication may be that his approach will create a
setup in which there will be more diversity that is
highly debatable... again the reason why these policies
are there in the first place. I don't feel the argument
was so strong.
Does
he have other examples in history when a minority group
allowed the free market to dictate things after a long
period of bias and things quickly adjusted overnight?
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where_do_i_live 1 hour ago
He
concedes the very point you mention here. That there are
_real_ historical biases that should be corrected and
removed.
From
the memo: I hope it’s clear that I'm not saying that
diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair,
that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or
that minorities have the same experience of those in the
majority.
He's
saying that the inability to get to a 50/50% split on
gender lines may be unrealistic. He makes no comment on
if the 20/80 split that currently exists is fair or not.
Just because he doesn't go into the history of all bias
that did exist in the past, doesn't mean he discounts it
and unworthy to be addressed. Further, at what point
does a society atone for past biases? If you are even
trying to correct the injustice in the past, should you
not have an idea on what normalization might be like?
Perhaps and this is his question, an exact 50/50 is not
what a idealistic lack of bias would create in the first
place. And the thesis is that it would not be created in
that fashion because women self-select to enter
different professions for biologically based reasons.
Now all those items might be false - its a hypothesis,
not a universal truth - but it appears the research from
social psychologists backs up his claims as valid. Now
perhaps they still want to argue between themselves, and
fine I'm ok with that go for it - but it appears he's
done with with good faith.
And
even if you think his arguments are poor, or he's naive,
or anything else, that's fine too. The problem is - and
this is where my main issue and the root of all of this
- is that he should not have been fired for this. This
appears to be a betrayal of liberal free speech values
that many people claim to support.
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taysic 1 hour ago [dupe]
"He's
saying that the inability to get to a 50/50% split on
gender lines may be unrealistic"
Sure
that's fair. I say that as a woman - I have no
expectation to reach 50/50. However it's debatable if
these policies are not useful yet. My mothers generation
had some crazy stories to tell and that wasn't that long
ago.
"And
the thesis is that it would not be created in that
fashion because women self-select to enter different
professions for biologically based reasons."
This
may be partly true but I disagree that it forms a
substantial influence given my personal experience. I
would give it a 1% weight anecdotally but much more if
you count that many women want to be full time mothers.
The
much bigger picture in my personal experience is a slew
of other things including poor information, societal and
parental expectations and visions for their daughters,
engrained belief systems, intimidation due to biases,
sticking to comfort zones or what is more familiar and
so on.
I
totally agree this is a discussion worth having and at
some point this policies will need to be phased out. I
think here the channel in which it was broadcast to the
entire company was pretty uncomfortable given its such a
touchy and controversial topic.
Thanks
for the discussion
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Hikikomori 2 hours ago
My
main take-away reading it was that he argued for
diversity in thought instead of mandated diversity that
looks good in a picture or in statistics.
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taysic 1 hour ago
The
point of these policies isn't to make things look good
in a picture but to reduce the effect of existing biases
in hiring woman. And to give people a chance after some
questionable history. Diversity of thought is an
admirable thing and can often be amplified when people
from different backgrounds and perspectives gather.
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Ajedi32 2 hours ago
>
Anti-science way? Do you realize how subjective this is
and how impossible it is to prove that today there are
no other influences at play than biology?
First
of all, the original memo said nothing of the sort.
Secondly,
I'm pretty sure GP is not saying the reaction to this
memo is anti-science merely because it opposes the
position taken in the memo. Rather, it's anti-science
because they threw all rational debate out the window
and fired the guy without even trying to address the
points he made.
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taysic 2 hours ago
Why
even bother mentioning biology then if there are other
influences more important and relevant? It seemed very
emphasized.
They
did not fire him because they didn't believe in the
studies he linked. Obviously that's very much
mischaracterizing things. This is a complicated issue
with ample studies to link to from both sides. And
anyway, I truly question studies on such broad topics.
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Ajedi32 2 hours ago
>
Why even bother mentioning biology then if there are
other influences more important and relevant? It seemed
very emphasized.
Because
that portion of the essay was meant to counter what the
author perceived to be Google's current position on the
matter: that societal factors are the _only_ factor
resulting in a lower percentage of women in tech.
From
the memo:
>
For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the
extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due
to differential treatment and the authoritarian element
that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal
representation.
Followed
by a section titled:
>
Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech
The
author isn't saying that biological differences are the
_only_ factor; only that that they are _a_ factor, and
that Google has been completely neglecting that factor
with the current implementation of their efforts to
improve diversity within the company.
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nobodyman 54 minutes ago
>
The author isn't saying that biological differences are
the _only_ factor; only that that they are _a_ factor...
This
is true, but as /u/taysic pointed out elsewhere, Damore
dedicates the majority of his memo on this this one
factor and wishes to change corporate policy because of
it.
>
... and that Google has been completely neglecting that
factor with the current implementation of their efforts
to improve diversity within the company
Perhaps
Google is evaluating more factors than Damore? Perhaps
Google concluded that social issues and gender bias play
a larger role in workforce disparity than biological
issues, and therefore decided to prioritize attacking
the larger problem over the smaller problem?
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Ajedi32 43 minutes ago
>
Damore dedicates the majority of his memo on this this
one factor and wishes to change corporate policy because
of it.
Right.
I explained why that was in the previous part of my
comment.
>
Perhaps Google is evaluating more factors than Damore?
[...]
Perhaps
so. They made no such claim in their response to
Damore's essay though. In fact, they didn't address any
of his points at all; they just fired him, thus proving
the main point of his essay:
>
People generally have good intentions, but we all have
biases which are invisible to us. Thankfully, open and
honest discussion with those who disagree can highlight
our blind spots and help us grow, which is why I wrote
this document. Google has several biases and honest
discussion about these biases is being silenced by the
dominant ideology. [...]
>
Only facts and reason can shed light on these biases,
but when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s
left bias has created a politically correct monoculture
that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into
silence.
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yorwba 22 minutes ago
>
Perhaps Google is evaluating more factors than Damore?
Perhaps Google concluded that social issues and gender
bias play a larger role in workforce disparity than
biological issues, and therefore decided to prioritize
attacking the larger problem over the smaller problem?
If
Google has done the research on it, I'd really like to
see because it is likely to be much more extensive than
what this one guy has collected in his free time. That
said, I suspect bias was simply assumed as the major
factor by default, since that has historically been true
in lots of professions (some of which are now dominated
by women).
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ebola1717 3 hours ago
Only
on the internet. I really don't think anyone in the real
world is paying that much attention, and besides Brooks,
I haven't seen many mainstream writers come out against
the firing.
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Bahamut 2 hours ago
I
can't say I agree about that not paying much attention -
I pretty much see/hear discussion about this incident
daily since Saturday. It probably doesn't help that I am
in the Valley, but I have a lot of friends not in tech
across the world also discussing this as well.
Almost
everyone I know/interacted with believes that Damore is
wrong though, if not for the viewpoint, then for his
approach to trying to create a dialogue in a suboptimal
fashion & its negative effects on his former
colleagues.
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nunobrito 2 hours ago
Seems
to be same group of mainstream writers who also dished
out Trump as a joke candidate and hailed Clinton as
winner.
Very
few had the courage to talk against that trend, one of
them was Michael Moore and check how accurate he was
when compared to "mainstream": https://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/
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Yetanfou 3 hours ago
Even
'punitive actions' would have been wrong as their is no
punishable offence. Google supposedly wants to have an
open culture so they should just have accepted the
'manifesto' as part of this open culture, something to
use in discussions on the subject matter. Any other
reaction - and certainly the current reaction - only
goes to show the truth of the accusations about Google
not having an open culture.
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urahara 2 hours ago
Open
culture does not mean that actions that make environment
more hostile to some group inside the company should not
be punished. The 'memo' definitely did that to his
female coworkers. That's why the story is not about open
culture or freedom of speech, but in the first place
about creating unhealthy environment for a particular
group inside the company and setting a really bad
precedent. Maybe the guy meant well, but the fact is his
actions ended up harming both a particular group and the
company.
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whorleater 3 hours ago
>
The firing has been a PR disaster
In
the sense that it's an argument both sides want to have.
The left want to argue for better workplace treatment of
women, while the right want to argue for speech without
social repercussions.
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ghaff 2 hours ago
It
ends the news cycle. Most people outside the bubble
haven't even heard of this and those who have will
forget about it by next week. Right or wrong, it was the
path of least resistance for Google going forward.
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emerged 2 hours ago
I
disagree -- IMO, the only hope in this case to "end the
news cycle" would've been to walk a very delicate line
where Google's position in the debate was made known,
but nobody was dramatically fired in the process.
Instead,
Google's leadership decided to take an ideological
stance with relatively little regard to immediate PR.
The result is further churning and an intensified
reaction of the public and media.
This
is either a good or a bad thing, depending on a person's
perspective. But surely it's a reaction which will
perpetuate the intensity of drama.
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tdb7893 2 hours ago
The
firing has only been a pr disaster in small groups. Even
for me personally even though I think that he probably
shouldn't have been fired I'm not super mad at Google
because having him there was a liability to the company.
I think it's mainly more libertarian circles that are
mad but those people already generally don't like Google
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demonshalo 3 hours ago
Extreme
beliefs manifest themselves in extreme behavior.
If
you so blindly believe in the diversity of skin color or
gender while neglecting the diversity of ideas, I am
rather sure that says a whole lot about you as a person
and as a company. That, in my opinion, is the only PR
they deserve.
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vkou 3 hours ago
The
firing was necessary, because not firing someone who
creates a hostile working environment opens you to
lawsuits from every single other person employed in your
company. [1] Anyone who's taken training on sexual
harassment would understand this.
His
essay is not scientific, or evidence-based. It's ten
pages of micro-facts, followed by his biases or
misunderstands, followed by enormous leaps of logic to
macro-conclusions. It wouldn't pass as a bloody
undergrad essay. [2]
(It
is a poster child of a techie looking at a complicated
problem that they don't understand, and saying 'I'm
smart! This is easy! You guys are all wrong!')
[1]
https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/895071933666017280
[2]
https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
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Ajedi32 2 hours ago
>
It wouldn't pass as a bloody undergrad essay.
At
least a few psychology professors [seem to disagree with
that assessment][1]:
>
Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any
masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with
the scientific state of the art on sex differences.
I'm
sure you can probably find lot of opinions on both sides
of the debate though, and that's fine. As the memo
stated:
>
Of course, I may be biased and only see evidence that
supports my viewpoint. In terms of political biases, I
consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value
individualism and reason. I'd be very happy to discuss
any of the document further and provide more citations
Instead
of "discussing the document further" though, they fired
him.
[1]:
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
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GreaterFool 2 hours ago
From
the Quora post you've linked:
>
argues that cognitive sex differences influence
performance in software engineering, but presents no
supporting evidence
This
is completely made up
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renaudg 2 hours ago
And
in more than one way too : 1) he didn't discuss
"performance" but "affinity" 2) there was supporting
evidence linked, before Gizmodo conveniently stripped it
away.
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aaron-lebo 3 hours ago
By
and large the people outraged about this are the crazy
men's rights, reactionary, Trumpist, Alex Jones mob that
have been looking for things like this to be outraged
for the past 30 years.
Everyone
wants to be a victim. Damore isn't a victim of anything
but bad judgment. If he's hero of the mob, so what.
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ubertaco 3 hours ago
Paraphrased:
By
and large the people outraged about this are...people we
don't like, whose opinions don't matter, and who I think
should be marginalized anyways.
If
he's the hero of people we don't like, so what.
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aaron-lebo 3 hours ago
As
a Southern white male from a conservative background, I
don't want to be marginalized.
But
when I see the rabid way people are defending the guy
like he wrote the Federalist Papers, who at best is
guilty of being unaware that what he was saying is
controversial, I don't feel outraged if he got fired in
a massive company known for its liberal views. What did
he expect?
He's
not helping it by making himself a darling of the right
wing media. That and lowball jabs at political
correctness and Marxism make it a little too obvious
where his sympathies lie and if he really wanted an
objective debate picking sides doesn't help.
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richardknop 2 hours ago
Some
people who are outraged by this are people who are
afraid to live in a society where you can be fired and
your career ruined for having a political opinion (not
even controversial one).
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taysic 2 hours ago
I
really don't care what political opinion my coworkers
have. But if they feel called to publish a memo about
company policy that affects me due to this political
opinion - it better be a very open discussion in such a
way that they can't get the last word. I also question
if a drawn out debate (which it should be) would be a
waste of company time. Also this one was very
controversial.
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peoplewindow 20 minutes ago
Anything
you don't like will seem to be controversial. To other
people - like me - the idea that males and females like
different things is so obvious it is insane this debate
is even being had at all. Even 10 year olds will tell
you that girls like dollhouses and boys like trucks and
toy guns and things. It's only after people fall into the
grip of bizarre extreme feminist ideology that they
start to believe that pointing out differences between
men and women is offensive and controversial.
The
memo in question would not have affected you, would it?
Unless you're saying you were hired to fit a diversity
quota and shouldn't be there at all. Even if management
had agreed 100% it could only have led to changes in
hiring processes, and maybe men turning up to classes
and events where they were previously banned. I assume
you're OK with that.
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s73ver 3 hours ago
"By
doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way"
But
they didn't. That man's argument was not science. It
wasn't. There was absolutely no scientific evidence
behind his argument. He misrepresented studied, and he
cherry picked what he wanted. For more on that, check
here: http://blog.goldieblox.com/2017/08/open-letter-james-damore-... It's an article from a
female engineer who read the manifesto, and takes issue
with the conclusions drawn from the studies.
The
ones claiming that his manifesto was "scientifically
sound" are those who are anti-science and anti-evidence.
"They
could have simply said that they were taking punitive
actions and kept him in the fold."
No,
they couldn't. By keeping him, they would be
legitimizing his views. And by doing that, they would be
further alienating all of their female employees, and a
lot of others, both current and future. Just about no
woman would want to work there, knowing that they
endorse those viewpoints.
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daenz 2 hours ago
>That
man's argument was not science. It wasn't. There was
absolutely no scientific evidence behind his argument.
He misrepresented studied, and he cherry picked what he
wanted.
I
want to follow up on this, can you give an example? From
what little I know, it's essentially settled science
that men and women have statistically different
interests, and those interests exist across all
cultures (implying a biological cause).
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lucozade 1 hour ago
The
problem isn't with the science, it's with the misuse of
the science to add apparent credence to flawed logic.
So
yes, across humanity there are statistical gender
differences to the choices people make. The flaw in the
logic is that that doesn't means Google shouldn't act on
bias in its selection and retention policies. What it
may well mean is that Google may need to mitigate the
cultural biases both internally and externally if they
are going to make more than a small dent in the
imbalance.
Similarly,
it doesn't follow from the argument that humanity is
what it is to a position that Google shouldn't attempt
gender equality. It does mean that it'll be tricky for a
company their size. But whether they should or not
should be a question about what's in the best interest
of the company as a whole.
BTW
there is often the assumption that something like gender
equality is purely a political goal. And quite often it
is. However, there is a very good argument that the tech
pool for high potential people is quite shallow given
the current and expected demand.
In
my org we are taking steps to try to widen the pool of
intellectually able people we can select from. One area
that we are targeting is women. Another is geographical
areas where we don't have traction (mainly eastern
Europe and Africa). This isn't political per se. This is
so we have a wider talent pool to choose from. I would
be genuinely stunned if this type of thinking wasn't in
part what Google senior management are also looking at.
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yorwba 15 minutes ago
>
But whether they should or not should be a question
about what's in the best interest of the company as a
whole.
That
reminds me of something I read recently:
For
each of these changes, we need principled reasons for
why it helps Google; that is, we should be optimizing
for Google—with Google's diversity being a component
of that.
Can
you guess where I read that? (Hint: It was written by
James Damore).
Now
it just so happens that I disagree with that opinion,
because it appears to remove the corporation's decision
making from any moral considerations, leaving only
profit. But it appears to be a point where you agree
with the memo author.
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charrondev 2 hours ago
You
won’t get one. I’ve yet to see anyone serious even
attempting to debunk that claim, and I doubt it will
happen here.
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devnonymous 2 hours ago
I'm
not sure why more people aren't pointing this out but I
couldn't take his arguments seriously when he weaseled
in racial diversity after the
evidenc about gender differences were presented. It is
pretty clear from that alone that the intent was not to
have a scientific discourse, it was to dress up bias as
science.
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the_common_man 3 hours ago
>
Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR
perspective
The
person who posted their thoughts did so in a _closed_
mailing list that was intentionally setup to discuss all
this. The document was leaked. At best, he deserved a
reprimand. Firing him makes it clear that there is no
room for alternate thoughts in Google other than the
ultra-progressive view point.
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skybrian 2 hours ago
It
was in Google Docs. When the internal storm started, he
could have easily shut down permissions, buying time to
figure out what to do. (It's happened before when a doc
becomes controversial.)
Whether
you think it should have been controversial doesn't
change what you do when something goes viral; the first
thing is to stop the damage.
But
since then, there's some evidence that he wanted the
controversy - look where he's giving interviews now.
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yoz-y 3 hours ago
One
thing I do not get is why was the (original) memo
written in "Google's voice" rather than stated as a
personal point of view. Who, except maybe Sundar Pichai
and the head of HR, has a right to talk for the company
as a whole?
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vanattab 2 hours ago
I
don't think it was written in Google's voice. It was
written in the voice of a young likely somewhat autistic
engineer talking to his colleagues on an message board
designed for discussing the topic of his memo. Then the
media/Pichai sacrificed him on the alter of political
correctness/profit.
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AnimalMuppet 2 hours ago
For
an internal discussion? Someone who
sees a pattern and can put a summary on it. It's just
saying "This is how things seem to me to go here".
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humanrebar 3 hours ago
>
His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting
to protect the company.
No.
His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that
Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of
bubble.
>
This is the reality of business.
Is
it? If that's true, we need to be much more aggressive about
corporate consolidation because the only way to make
room for diversity of opinion is to make sure that
there's diversity of opinion at the corporate level.
If
you quit Google because it's too (insert culture war
concern here), which big tech employer is substantially
different?
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taysic 2 hours ago
There's
plenty of diversity of opinion within a workplace. No
one is obligated to listen to it. If it's made this
public so as to embarrass their own company, well what
can you do. People get fired for dumber reasons.
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humanrebar 1 hour ago
>
There's plenty of diversity of opinion within a
workplace.
Then
why didn't Pichai predict the blowback from firing
Damore?
>
People get fired for dumber reasons.
Is
that a defense of Pichai and tech monoculture? People
get fired for dumber reasons?
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
>
...is illustrating that corporations have too much
power?
Compared
to employees and consumers? Yes. There aren't enough
options out there to let competition correct for these
kinds of cultural problems.
Of
course, this might be a problem that solves itself. As
expectations for fair compensation trickles through the
rest of the job market, maybe transferring to an
equivalent job in a medium sized company in Denver would
generally be a lateral move.
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cookiecaper 2 hours ago
>No.
His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that
Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of
bubble.
We're
missing a large component of the discussion when we
pretend that the content of the letter is the principal
issue here. The thing the C-levels are thinking about is
liability, because that represents the most direct
threat to the company.
Allowing
Damore to remain on payroll could be interpreted as a
tacit endorsement of his letter, which means in a
lawsuit, a complainant can claim that Google has already
proven itself to accept illegal anti-woman hiring
practices by allowing an employee who espouses these
things on company time and with company resources to
stick around.
It
can further be argued that their failure to address this
bias constitutes a hostile workplace, and will greatly
strengthen any potential argument that a female Googler
was intentionally and/or actively discriminated against
either now or in the past.
On
the other hand, the consequences of terminating Damore
are, essentially, limited to bad press, which is not
really a large cost in itself. Google can counteract
Damore's complaints with the relevant labor boards by
pointing out that they are merely attempting to comply
with the law that compels them to create a non-hostile
work environment for women.
So
why are so many CEOs so quick to jump on these
diversity/inclusion bandwagons? Because a lawsuit will
cost the company millions of dollars in lawyer time
alone, and if they lose, potentially many millions of
dollars in damages, especially if it's class action.
The
factual validity of Damore's memo is immaterial. All
that matters is that Google risks much more money, more
aggressive regulatory oversight, and puts itself in
peril of other onerous legal sanctions by keeping Damore
on board, and by terminating him, they don't.
Anyone
who is upset about this should look at the root cause,
which is not only the set of laws that may compel such
specific behaviors, but also the arcane configuration of
the legal system as a whole. It is frequently wielded as
a weapon, and that should not be a thing.
IANAL
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ebola1717 2 hours ago
So...
you don't like equal protection laws? I'm like really
struggling to figure out the alternative interpretation
here.
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gusmd 2 hours ago
Nope.
He doesn't like how the US legal system creates
incentives to avoid litigation at all costs because it
would be ridiculously onerous to prove you were right,
even if you were. Which is of course wrong, since you
should have the right to prove yourself innocent without
going bankrupt. That's why Google took the "easy way
out" of firing him.
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s73ver 3 hours ago
"No.
His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that
Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of
bubble."
Google
had to decide which they value more: Demore's manifesto,
or the contributions of a third of their workforce.
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Caveman_Coder 2 hours ago
>
"Google had to decide which they value more: Demore's
manifesto, or the contributions of a third of their
workforce."
False
dichotomy...
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cookiecaper 2 hours ago
Let
me fix that for you:
Google
had to decide which they value more: Damore's memo, or
their legal defense against inevitable discrimination
suits.
---
nb.
Large companies are a constant target for litigants of
all stripes. There are suits of all types filed against
them regularly. They must be careful or, under current
law, a bitter employee who was not in actuality
discriminated against can successfully claim
discrimination and pilfer millions of dollars from the
company, inviting follow-on after follow-on. Because the
current law is based upon reading in/assuming specific
motives to otherwise-valid actions, companies are forced
to assume a defensive legal position, such that the
other side's lawyer will have a large amount of
difficulty convincing a judge and/or jury that such
motives were allowed or tolerated.
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gonzofish 3 hours ago
So
why wasn't the person who released the internal memo
fired? I don't agree with the memo's author, but it was
an internal memo, not something released to the wild
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luckydude 2 hours ago
No,
the right move would have been to take Damore aside, say
"dude, you stirred up a mess. You aren't wrong but the
mess is a PR disaster. How about we hand you a big pile
of money, you go find your next job elsewhere, and we
agree not to throw mud at each other?"
I
can see not doing that when you are cash poor but Google
is paying engineers as much as $600K/year in total comp,
they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed
it.
My
personal opinion is much like Brook's - Pichai was
pandering to the mob. That's not true leadership in my
opinion.
Edit:
don't understand the downvote, this is HR 101. Companies
don't want this sort of attention and they'll pay to
avoid it. I'm very surprised that a cash rich company
like google didn't take that route. Are you suggesting
with your down vote that it is better for google to be
in the news cycle for months/years while this works its
way through the courts?
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wonderwonder 49 minutes ago
I'm
pretty amazed how badly google dropped the ball on this.
They could have easily made the problem go away, likely
with a few conversations where they agree to sit down
and listen to his concerns upon his first submission of
them to the diversity team or as you suggested a check
and NDA.
Whoever
runs the diversity team should absolutely lose their job
for letting this get to this point. Following that
whoever decided that flying the CEO back to publicly
fire someone and denigrate them was a good idea and the
best way to proceed. A CEO of one of the worlds most
powerful companies publicly firing and shaming an
employee who simply presented an opinion through proper
channels is just not a well thought out move.
Staggering
amount of poor judgement all around.
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pgeorgi 2 hours ago
>
they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed
it.
Word
would get around. Followed by many manifestos worth
$10M.
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luckydude 2 hours ago
Companies
have been doing this for decades. They usually include
an NDA in attempt to not let the word get around.
So
far as I know, the NDA's mostly work.
If
what I'm suggesting seems weird I'd encourage
conversations with HR people at large companies. This is
part of what a good HR person does, sadly.
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wonderwonder 2 hours ago
I
would argue that the author did not cause the PR
disaster, Google did. They author submitted the memo
directly to the diversity team months ago and they
ignored it. It was posted and updated on Google provided
employment forums for months and Google ignored it.
They
are now publicly vilifying him for expressing opinions
that are now being publicly supported by scientists.
They have essentially publicly attempted to silence him
because they don't like his opinion, validating his
initial complaints.
I
don't know if Pichai should be fired but a lot of people
dropped the ball on this and they have escalated a story
that could have been quietly handled in house via a few
conversations months ago.
I
have no idea if Damore's arguments for biological
differences are valid or not, some scientists have
stated they are (mileage may vary) but I don't feel that
anything he said was stated with malice of with the
intent to denigrate anyone. He may not have had the best
communication skills but he was trying to start a
conversation not a war. Google for some reason responded
to his inquiry with the equivalent of scorched earth and
are now realizing that perhaps they overreacted.
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gamblor956 1 hour ago
I
know that this is an unpopular opinion on this thread,
but Pinchar also made the right move from a legal
perspective.
James'
memo created a hostile work environment. And legally,
that's all it takes to support terminating his
employment for
cause.
1)
He claimed that biological differences were responsible
for the behavior of his female co-workers. Yes, he
actually says that in the section "non-bias causes of
gender gap in tech." If you can't see why that's
offensive, try replacing that sentence with "Biological
differences are responsible for the behavior of blacks.
Or latinos." Legally, this single section, by itself,
disseminated on an internal company board, was enough to
create a hostile work environment for his female
co-workers.
2)
Then he goes on to say that "diversity" candidates get
special treatment. They get a lowered bar. His words,
not mine. So now he's implying that many of the
"diversity" candidates only work at Google because they
weren't held to the same standards. And unlike his
earlier statements about biological differences not
applying to any specific individual women, he doesn't
qualify this statement--so he's lumping all of his
female and non-white co-workers together. This section,
on its own, would also be enough to create a hostile
work environment for all of his female and
non-white
co-workers.
3)
Then he goes and says the Left denies science on IQ and
sex. And that their behavior has created a
"psychologically unsafe environment." This, by itself,
would also be enough to create a hostile work
environment for all of his co-workers that would define
themselves as liberals. (Note: there's a reason that
most companies don't allow overtly political activities
or expression like this in the workolace--it's to
prevent political hostilities from dividing the
workplace.)
That's
3 things he said that legally would have justified
firing him. It doesn't matter whether science supports
the broad statements or not. It doesn't matter whether
his suggestions at the end or good or not. It doesn't
matter whether Google leans left or oppresses
conservative expression. What matters is that he created
a hostile work environment for large swaths of his
co-workers with these 3 statements.
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thomasahle 3 hours ago
It
was all over the media before the leak. Before it was
just based on rumors of "some internal viral memo".
Leaking it might even have helped calm the waters.
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malandrew 3 hours ago
No,
those that were most outraged about the leak internally
and turned to public shaming outside Google's walls are
the actual problem. Why has the CEO not publicly
reprimanded these individuals as well? I'm sure many in
the company see the leakers as heroes. This attitude
sets your company up for a culture of leaking. You have
to reprimand both leftist and rightist leaker and try to
get the conversation back to being civil.
Furthermore,
his memo canceling the town hall made things worse when
he declared the majority agreed and that some wish he
had done more. He didn't acknowledge any of the people
internally that disagreed with the firing. He's probably
not even aware that he's set himself up to only hear
opinions that agree with the firing because others will
be too afraid to question it.
Honestly,
I want Google to have a third-party set up a truly
anonymous poll of all employees and measure how people
really feel instead of speculate on how many agree or
disagree with the firing. This is a company with
expertise in analytics after all.
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yters 3 hours ago
Blaming
someone for reactions to their carefully written opinion
piece seems the wrong way to go. The people causing the
PR meltdown are to blame.
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naturalgradient 3 hours ago
>
The shareholders are probably really happy that their
CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much
bad press in so little time.
Debatable,
the shareholders might not be happy that Google might
now become a political target for oppressing views.
However,
I agree that given potential liability issues from
hostile workplace lawsuits almost forced his hand, which
is very unfortunate.
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lotsoflumens 1 hour ago
In
most large companies today, the shareholders outside of
the top 3 management levels are irrelevant and usually
just a tedious burden.
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Alex3917 3 hours ago
>
I think he made the right move just from a PR
perspective.
By
firing an employee just for reiterating the stuff that
every undergrad is taught in CogDev 101 and wildly
misrepresenting his position?
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daxorid 47 minutes ago
>
One does not simply create a PR disaster for the company
The
memo wasn't a PR disaster; the firing was.
Data
point of one: Google has lost, just from my personal
accounts alone, $40/mo in G Suite/YouTube Red revenue,
and $620/mo in GCE Compute instance revenue.
Not
because of the memo; because of the firing. Absolutely
disgusting and unconscionable.
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boobsbr 3 hours ago
Agreeing
with the memo or not, the author posted it in an
internal forum.
The
person who leaked the internal memo to the public caused
the PR disaster.
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badloginagain 1 hour ago
Travis
Kalanick should have resigned as a CEO, and there is a
collection of reasons why. The bar is quite high in
terms of how bad things have to be for how long before
pressuring a CEO out makes sense.
Google
does not come close to that level. If someone needs to
be sacked for the diversity memo, it needs to be the
author in question. At maximum, you could argue that a
VP of HR could be sacked, as to 'shake up' the hiring
processes and address any issues in it.
This
does not go to the CEO. More damage would be done by his
leaving than him staying. He reports to the
shareholders, not to the moralists.
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j45 1 hour ago
I
can't locate any opinion articles in the NY Times
calling for the resignation of Uber's CEO. I agree the
bar was much higher in his case too.
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mc32 2 hours ago
It's
been in the news not because someone had a different,
opposing view (many people have views others not us, see
as deplorable)
The
backlash is mostly about the firing decision itself
rather than the person having been fired.
They
washed their hands of the uncouth worker. They should be
in the clear if that was the source of the outrage.
The
disbelief is not that people have strange anti social
views (we all have them to one degree or other) it's
that a company feels so threatened by dissent that they
swiftly want to leave themselves and absolve themselves
to present themselves as pristine, unspoiled humanity.
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danarmak 2 hours ago
Sundar
could have fired Damore without making an official
statement. Or he could have made a statement that
doesn't elaborate on the reasons for the firing, or that
says what you did - that he's being fired for causing
bad PR.
Instead,
Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official
statement about what Damore had said. He defamed him by
saying that his memo contained things that are contrary
to what the memo actually says and that Damore himself
would certainly denounce if asked. Because, presumably,
Sundar felt it was preferable to appease a mob by
acquiescing in their villification of a Google employee.
That
is what is this particular post claims makes Sundar a
bad CEO. I don't know if that's true - that is, whether
it makes him an ineffective CEO, whether his actions
were good for Google in the long run; that remains to be
seen. But the author of this piece feels that it was a
morally wrong action (and I agree).
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
>
Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official
statement about what Damore had said
It
could be a lie? It seems more logical that it's a
misunderstanding. Neither make Pichai look good,
especially since he had no discussions with Damore
(according to Damore) to clear up any misunderstandings.
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danarmak 2 hours ago
It's
like the article says: either Sundar didn't take the
time to read the memo himself (which would be stupid and
dangerous), or he didn't understand it (which is another
way of calling him stupid), or - as seems most likely -
he knowingly misrepresented it.
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humanrebar 1 hour ago
It
may be a knowing representation, though Hanlon's Razor
would indicate some lack of rigor instead.
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danarmak 1 hour ago
I
find it unlikely that Hanlon's Razor should apply to a
case of reading comprehension by a CEO of Google. But if
it does, that's a different reason to want him to
resign.
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nemonemo 3 hours ago
Agreed.
Science matters little for a business if it offends
people who pay for the business or the people within the
business. Even scientists themselves have issues with
such results -- a part of the file drawer problem.
I
guess a NYT columnist can say this because click-bait-y
titles always help for revenue and Google does not stop
giving the ad revenue when news articles are critical of
its CEO. This looks like both parties doing their roles
well enough.
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wmil 2 hours ago
At
the same time, Google should also pull in and disciple
their employees that were rabble-rousing about the memo
on social media.
They
aren't doing that and it's creating a perception of
unfairness.
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Caveman_Coder 2 hours ago
>
"They aren't doing that and it's creating a perception
of unfairness."
They
have already been doing this...after the election a lot
of my conservative co-workers at Google admitted to
feeling "harassed" and "targeted." The memes posted on
Memegen, the discussions on eng-misc, as well as the
terrible TGIF (where the message VPs sent was basically
that "Google" supported Hillary and "We" lost and it was
going to be "Okay"). The unfairness is already there,
this just highlights it even more.
TLDR:
1.
Guy has conservative opinion against the current norms =
Fired.
2.
Numerous posts on Memegen/eng-misc/internal message
boards hostile towards conservatives (including posts
made by managers) = no action
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Amezarak 3 hours ago
Incidentally,
what Damore did is probably a 'concerted protected
activity' (his stated goal is to take actions that
improve working conditions by making the job less
stressful, increase diversity, etc) covered by the NLRB,
and thus Google quite possibly broke the law in firing
him for the memo.
That's
not protecting the company.
EDIT:
I forgot to add that from the coverage I've seen, there
are also claims that Google management is illegally
sharing hiring blacklists (based on a person's perceived
political views) with other companies. That would also
be very serious.
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ballenf 3 hours ago
Unless
the fine/settlement is cheaper than keeping him, which
it likely will be unless it results in some larger
investigation or monitoring program.
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Tasboo 3 hours ago
Damore
can claim he was protecting the company, but if the
effect of what he said in his memo is causing the
opposite of that, then it can be a fire-able offense,
regardless of what he said he was trying to do.
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Amezarak 2 hours ago
It's
not about whether Damore was trying to protect
the company, it's about whether Damore was communicating
with his coworkers about ways to improve working
conditions. It is illegal to fire someone for doing so.
Damore presents several ideas about improving working
conditions, claiming this would also increase diversity.
If I was paranoid I'd say he wrote the memo with the
possibility of being illegally fired in mind, because it
appears to have been written carefully with that angle
in mind.
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vkou 3 hours ago
If
you are trying to improve working conditions, and in
doing so creating a hostile working environment, your
employer is obligated to fire you. If they don't, they
can be sued by other employees.
And
let me tell you, while you may not feel that this memo
has created a hostile working environment, a lot of
other people do. Google would drown in lawsuits if they
let him stay on.
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peoplewindow 3 hours ago
But
would such lawsuits succeed?
I
don't see how you can argue that a single guy who isn't
in management writing a memo creates a "hostile work
environment". Most of the people complaining wouldn't
even be working with him at all. They can file lawsuits
but would they hold water? After all, management could
just tell the lawsuit filers to be more tolerant of
others: it's not like Damore was attacking individuals.
So
I don't see where Google's obligation to fire him comes
from. Unpopularity with other employees does not make a
legal obligation.
On
the other hand, firing someone who is trying to raise
possibly illegal conduct with management does have legal
implications.
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vkou 2 hours ago
>
I don't see how you can argue that a single guy who
isn't in management writing a memo creates a "hostile
work environment".
Employment
law makes it very clear that person creating a hostile
work environment doesn't have to be a manager. They can
be a co-worker, a client, or a contractor.
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peoplewindow 2 hours ago
If
you are correct, and I am not saying you're wrong, the
term is so vague that more or less any disagreement that
gets a bit personal could be considered creating a
hostile work environment. No company would be able to
operate in a situation where any disagreement could be
leveraged to get the other person instantly fired,
regardless of level or what the comments were about.
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Amezarak 3 hours ago
The
legal definitions of a hostile work environment is not
simply based on how something makes you feel. It is very
unlikely a hostile work environment suit for not firing
Damore based on this memo would win, though of course
Google might choose to settle.
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vkou 3 hours ago
>
The legal definitions of a hostile work environment is
not simply based on how something makes you feel.
No,
but the the entire point of that essay was to advance
the idea that women are less successful because of their
biology. [1]
>
It is very unlikely a hostile work environment for not
firing him based on this memo would win, though of
course Google might choose to settle.
Any
employment lawyers want to chime in on this?
[1]
"For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the
extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due
to differential treatment and the authoritarian element
that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal
representation."
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godd2 2 hours ago
>
No, but the the entire point of that essay was to
advance the idea that women are less successful because
of their biology
He
never claimed that the women in tech are worse at tech
than the men in tech. He just claimed that there would
be fewer of them.
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malandrew 2 hours ago
>
No, but the the entire point of that essay was to
advance the idea that women are less common in tech
because of their biology
FTFY
to better reflect the fact that the memo was about
distribution, not success.
Are
men less successful in nursing or just less common?
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Amezarak 2 hours ago
I
am not a lawyer. I'm just a guy who takes my employment
rights seriously and has always tried to be up-to-date
and understand them.
From
my understanding, a hostile work environment is created
when a reasonable person would interpret actions or
speech as hostile, offensive, or intimidating, and such
actions are not a one-time event, but frequent, severe,
and pervasive, and they must be so serious as to change
the conditions of your employment. Keeping in mind that
terms like "reasonable person" are legal terms and we're
not dealing in colloquialisms, it's hard to see how this
memo could be interpreted by a judge as creating a
hostile work environment.
Again,
that's not to say people can't try to sue anyway, but in
that case, there are plenty of people on the other side
of the story Google should be worried about suing as
well, since there appears to be some minority of (white,
male) Google employees who believe (rightly or wrongly)
that they are persecuted due to their gender and race,
and they also claim there are written communications at
Google they interpret as denigrating them. I don't think
they have much of a chance either.
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lisper 3 hours ago
The
primary thesis of Damore's memo [1] was not that women are
biologically unsuited to STEM careers. The primary
thesis was that, at Google, you
cannot even advance the hypothesis
that biology might be a factor without
putting your career at risk. Ironically, by firing
Damore, Pichai proved him correct.
EDIT:
if you doubt this, just look at the document's title and
TL;DR section.
[1]
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
Thesis
or not, this is right at the beginning:
"Google’s
political bias has equated the freedom from offense with
psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the
antithesis of psychological safety. This silencing has
created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are
too sacred to be honestly discussed."
...firing
him, at least the way they did it, confirmed that
position.
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bduerst 2 hours ago
There's
nothing revelationary about that statement.
Anyone
could read Google's code of conduct and know that Google
would fire/reprimand someone for being toxic to their
coworkers. Employees are free to debate and cherry pick
evidence about their opinions on the world being flat,
9/11 being an inside job, even a fake moon landing.
James
decided he wanted to debate about his opinion on his
workers being biologically inferior (among other
opinions). He had a chance to receive feedback on this
from coworkers and change his position, the problem was
he didn't and continued to broadcast his opinion which
was toxic to his coworkers.
It's
a strange hill to pick to die on because nothing is
surprising about how this played out, other than how the
media is still talking about it.
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
If
he has the opinion that his coworkers are biologically
inferior, I didn't see that in the memo.
Can
you explain how you came to that conclusion?
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bduerst 1 hour ago
That's
a loaded question. I didn't come to the conclusion, many
others have based on his premise of using personality
constructs as being caused by evolutionary psychology.
You
can see it in the paper how he starts with the obvious,
"Men and Women are biologically different" and then
jumps into observable personality differences, which are
not proven to be biologically driven. It wouldn't be so
bad if he didn't attribute these "biologically-caused"
personality differences (neuroticism, agreeableness,
less ambition, etc.) to women being the ones to blame
for their problems in tech.
This
opinion is toxic to his coworkers, which is a violation
of the Google Code of Conduct.
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humanrebar 1 hour ago
Saying
someone has racist ideas is a loaded accusation. I think
it's fair to ask for elaboration.
>
...jumps into observable personality differences, which
are not proven to be biologically driven.
Some personality differences
in
populations
are supported by some studies. He cites studies about
personal interests, for example. It's possible that he
goes too far (scientifically speaking) with some
conjecture, but he was careful to say that properties of
large populations don't apply on the level of an
individual or selected group.
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thegayngler 50 minutes ago
>
...but he was careful to say that properties of large
populations don't apply on the level of an individual or
selected group.
Then
why bring it up if what he says doesn't matter within
the context in which they are hiring people. Google
isn't hiring people on a population basis. They are
hiring people on an individual basis.
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humanrebar 21 minutes ago
They
are drawing candidates from populations. He's arguing
the problem could be upstream from Google HR practices.
As in, there aren't enough women applying (I don't think
that's controversial). He elaborating on his answer to
"Why not?"
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thegayngler 5 minutes ago
I'm
sure that is part of the hiring disparity among females
and underrepresented minorities. As a black guy myself,
I know the same is true among black people who simply
aren't interested in engineering but Damon makes weird
ability judgements based on the population.
This
makes no sense as people with different interests would
never bother in the first place no matter how much time
and money you threw at them. So again I say why bring up
the upstream problem to begin with as it being related
to their abilities for engineering?
IMO,
the only way his text makes sense is if you are someone
looking to back up potentially racist and sexist biases
by misusing science. It makes me question their ability
to work with people different than themselves.
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bduerst 1 hour ago
>Saying
someone has racist ideas is a loaded accusation. I think
it's fair to ask for elaboration.
Except
I didn't accuse James of having racist
ideas,
I pointed out that his opinions are toxic to his
coworkers. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
It's
true that he attempts to check himself throughout the
paper, but it's contradictory because he then proceeds
to take it too far. It's the equivalent of saying, "I'm
for diversity, but...." and then
demonstrating he's not for diversity by arguing against
it.
Which
is why this paper is a rambling rant from someone who
chose to commit career suicide for his opinion, and it's
surprising that the media is still focused on it.
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humanrebar 23 minutes ago
"Racist
ideas" was the wrong term to use. That was a typo.
Apologies.
Is
"sexist ideas" fair? "Bigoted ideas"? That seems to be
the implication when labeling ideas about gender
"toxic". The colloquial language around this sort of
thing is imprecise. That brings me to my next point:
>
...and then demonstrating he's not for diversity by
arguing against it.
The
paper seems contradictory because
people have definitions in mind for words like
"diversity". But not everyone has the same definitions
in mind. He can be for diversity of thought and want to
encourage that with discussion of structural changes
while still preferring a world with more women in tech.
This position is not the Google HR definition of
"diversity", but it's clearly part of his idea of
diversity.
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lisper 2 hours ago
Then
you should read it again. Focus on the title and the
bullet points in the TL;DR section.
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s73ver 2 hours ago
This
idea that one can only disagree with it because they
haven't read it is extremely uncivil, and does nothing
but attempt to shut down the discussion here.
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greendesk 2 hours ago
I
was left with the impression he wants the introduction
of a quota for sympathizers for a political
organization. My takeaway was that he wants to work with
people who are officially representing political
parties.
Maybe
it is that I have lived in a country where carrying
party cards to work was a step in professional life. But
the point that stuck to me was painting the situation
along political spectrum.
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bhouston 3 hours ago
Documents
filled with political hot buttons screw up people's
emotions and they can not process such documents
rationally or in a balanced fashion, many people see
only what offends them or what they want to defend. It
is just screwed up...
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bduerst 2 hours ago
Yep,
it even rambles about the failure of Marxist communism
at one point. It's a rant with cherry picked evidence,
but people find something it in to confirm their beliefs
and try to defend/attack it.
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greendesk 2 hours ago
A
country I used to live in had political steps as a
prerequisite for professional life. To me, it does seem
like an important point...
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Tasboo 2 hours ago
By
advancing the hypothesis that it might be a factor,
without a need to do so, it's always going to be seen as
advocating for it, even if he says he's not.
For
example, a host on certain news channel might say, "Is
Obama secretly a Muslim? I'm not saying that he is, but
why can't we ask the question?"
It's
easy to see why people would get upset by that comment
(for multiple reasons). The fact that he says he isn't
saying that doesn't matter, because he effectively just
did.
If
he had just limited the paper to inclusiveness as a
conservative in a left leaning culture, without dragging
the whole women inequality thing into the matter, it
probably wouldn't have been meet with such a backlash.
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jressey 2 hours ago
No
matter what he intended the thesis to be, that thing was
just a bunch of dog whistles that sounded an awful lot
like ignorant alt-right bullshit to me.
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where_do_i_live 2 hours ago
The
memo appears to be based on actual real science that
seems to be the consensus.
However,
the author appears to be completely tone deaf and
extremely socially awkward - he has very poor
communication skills. And lacking the understanding that
there is a current culture war going on - to allow
himself to be taken as a champion of some of those
groups seems to show he is oblivious to the greater
social/political discussion out there.
It
does not help his argument to be the white knight for
the _actual_ misogynists and racists.
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frgtpsswrdlame 2 hours ago
>The
memo appears to be based on actual real science that
seems to be the consensus.
No.
See this wired article, his view is not consensus. I do
agree that it was pretty poorly made though!
Professor
Gina Rippon, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive
Neuroimaging at Aston University in Birmingham, said
it was surprising how much of the research Damore
misinterpreted or got wrong. She added that sex
differences backed-up by proper research scrutiny were
so tiny they couldn't explain the kind of gender
imbalance at Google.
"They're
assuming a divide that doesn't really exist," Rippon
said. "Either its biological or its social and if its
biological you can't change it so Google shouldn't be
wasting its time with all these high minded equal
opportunity initiatives.
"But
the key thing is it can be changed – we know that if
women have poor spatial skills, which has been
demonstrated in the past, then its easy enough to
change that by appropriate training – very often its
associated with video game experience for example. He
seems to be saying there are fixed differences and
we're wasting our time trying to gain equality,"
Rippon said.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-an...
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where_do_i_live 1 hour ago
I've
read that critique, but I've found numerous more
critiques that have supported his position. Do I have a
monopoly on saying what percentage support him - No, but
it appears so far, and this may turn out to be wrong,
that more academics appear to support his claims than
those that deny them.
They
can be left to argue among themselves however just like
any other scientific debate. Social sciences are further
complicated due to the nature of how difficult their
studies are to perform and analyze.
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where_do_i_live 49 minutes ago
I
don't find her critiques convincing in all respects. A
couple of her answers seem to be strawmen. For example:
The
passing mention of IQ is interesting, since it has
nothing to do with gender, which is the focus everywhere
else. He’s presumably talking about race, but he doesn’t
want to be branded a racist, so he keeps the reference
subtle. So why risk doing it at all? It’s a dog-whistle
to the alt-right.
She
admits she is _assuming_ his intentions - sets up the
strawman, and counters it. BOOM - the guy is now racist.
As
for Milo and his ilk - yeah they can go to hell - but
what? This guy gets fired for speaking publicly? That
seems a double standard.
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bassman9000 1 hour ago
And
HR, instead of addressing those points, refuting what
would be wrong, and leading him to apologize if so, thus
sending a powerful message about the existence of debate
and rationale, recommended his firing, making him a
martyr, and validating the part about the lack of
dissent.
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s73ver 2 hours ago
Both
of those theses are quite sexist, and no, neither one is
appropriate for discussion in the workplace. Especially
a workplace that wishes to appear as welcoming for all,
not just conservative white men.
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vkou 3 hours ago
No,
his thesis was that the gender gap can be explained by
biology.
Verbatim,
from the manifesto:
"For
the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the
extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due
to differential treatment and the authoritarian element
that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal
representation."
The
way he explains it with biology is that he rattles off a
bunch of micro-facts, and then uses 'logic' with a big
sprinkling of bias, to reach amazing macro-conclusions.
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lisper 3 hours ago
>
Verbatim, from the manifesto:
That's
not his thesis; that's an example he's chosen to support
his thesis.
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AnimalMuppet 2 hours ago
The
line you quote is not saying that all
of the gender gap can be explained by biology. It's
saying that it is an extreme position to say that all
of it can be explained by "differential treatment"
(sexism in one form or another).
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GreaterFool 3 hours ago
This
is the
first
fair and balanced article on this topic I've seen.
>
In his memo, Damore cites a series of studies, making
the case, for example, that men tend to be more
interested in things and women more interested in
people. (Interest is not the same as ability.)
I've
been trying to hammer this point to all my colleagues
(in private of course, I wouldn't dare to post it on
public channel due to high probability of getting
decapitated!): interests/preferences not abilities.
Every
time someone says the memo is denigrating women by
telling them they are unfit or incapable of working in
tech it makes me want to scream! It is not about any
individual's ability but about preferences of a group.
It might as well be that the arguments don't support the
conclusion. But I haven't seen anyone offering a
reasonable rebuttal that doesn't involve name-calling
and blanket statements like "the author clearly doesn't understand
gender".
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
>
Interest is not the same as ability.
I'll
make a subtle point in a discussion that clearly can't
handle the subtleties it already has.
Interest
is not the same thing as ability, but interest is a
great indicator of ability in technology, especially
fast moving technology. In fact, I know plenty of people who are
underemployed or underpaid that I say, "You, know, with
your skills, you'd be great at writing software. Maybe
you should develop an interest in coding." Similarly,
people ask me, "How do I get a job in software?" and I
suggest something very basic (tryruby.org, say) as a way
for them to quickly figure out if they are interested.
If they don't like problem solving and
coding, they might be able to force themselves into
qualifying for a job, but I'm not sure that's a good
career strategy.
Point
being, to some degree, interest is one key component of
ability in software and some other kinds of technology
work.
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evolve2017 2 hours ago
I'm
finding this to be a fascinating look at how people, as
a group, do literary criticism.
I
think, if we step back from the actual words on the
paper and examine the author's intent, his choice of
evidence, and the mere fact that he chose to write this,
we can learn just as much as from trying to decide
whether or not he was talking about a population effect
when talked about women before mentioning Google
employees.
This
is totally different from wondering about the biology.
As a biologist, I think it's preposterous to start to
infer biological bases to the types of psychology
experiments cited. I do, however, think this could be
open to debate. I feel that the undertone to the
author's message is likely less unclear.
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clavalle 2 hours ago
First,
the author of this article is David Brooks -- a well
known, very conservative, commentator. So, it might be
fair and balanced in a Fox News sense of the phrase but
not fair and balanced as most people would understand
the phrase.
And
for the general population skew in interests/preferences
to make any difference whatsoever to the makeup of
Google's technical and leadership staff the argument
would have to be that the population that makes up the
part of the interest curve on the 'high interest' part
of the graph for the underrepresented groups is
completely exhausted or would be completely exhausted
before parity is reached.
I'd
bet big that Google could completely fill their entire
company with underrepresented people that rank very high
on the interest/preference curve and never make a dent
in that population. There are over 7 billion people in
the world. That's a big pool. Even the thinner parts of
the graph represent huge numbers of people. And Google
completely controls their hiring so they can pick and
choose -- they are not pulling people at random from
that general population. They can easily pick people
that compare very favorably with any other colleague on
the interest/preference scale.
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ameister14 2 hours ago
I
take issue with your first point but not your second.
I
don't believe that the fact that a commentator is
conservative means they are spewing propaganda as Fox
News is. Fox News is conservative, and Fox News is
unfair and unbalanced. The conservative nature of Fox
News is not why it is unfair and unbalanced.
Totally
agree on the second part, though. Huge pool of
candidates, honestly ridiculous to think that this would
explain the imbalance at Google.
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GreaterFool 2 hours ago
The
author of the memo didn't argue that the male-female
ratio is where it should be. It is almost certainly
skewed due to gender biases. However, eliminating gender
biases from recruitment is not necessarily the same as
forced diversity (forced due to ideology that dictates
that anything different than 50-50 is immoral).
If
Google were to announce that they will hire 50% women
wouldn't that be illegal under Title VII? That would
amount to affirmative action which is only allowed in
certain limited situations (race can be taken into
consideration for university admissions).
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clavalle 30 minutes ago
I
don't think anyone is saying anything different from
50-50 is immoral but that anything different (in this
case vastly different) than 50-50 deserves some
attention.
I
don't think announcing a policy of hiring 50% women is
necessary. Like you said, it is 'almost certainly skewed
due to gender biases' so the obvious way forward is to
try to track down those biases and remove them from the
process.
There
is also some questions about how to make the workplace
more attractive to certain employees and applicants.
Putting policies and services in place to cater to those
employees goes a bit beyond mere removal of bias but
could help as well.
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
So
"conservative" is the same as "unfair and/or
unbalanced"? The New York Times (not exactly
conservative) has considered him worth printing for
quite some time now.
Isn't
this attitude more or less what Damore was concerned
about in his memo?
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clavalle 41 minutes ago
No,
but he has an agenda that he's promoting with this
opinion piece, which, as someone who disagrees with him,
has some pretty obvious holes which I point out.
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GreaterFool 2 hours ago
Meanwhile
there's been an ongoing campaign to discredit Stephen
Miller based
on his looks.
I
found this portrayal shocking: https://youtu.be/ej_5vyDkZgU?t=280
He's
been labeled "a creep" for no reason by those who claim
to be righteous and politically correct and fighting for
the marginalized.
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where_do_i_live 2 hours ago
There
are plenty of reasons to discredit Stephen Miller on the
things he says.
That
other people make fun of him for his looks is pretty
boring and I'll leave them to their antics - hardly like
this type of behavior doesn't happen with _any_ large
group.
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akhilcacharya 2 hours ago
He's
already a creep for his views (Muslim ban, opposition to
Hart-Cellar).
His
looks (and prior statements) just don't help.
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peoplewindow 3 hours ago
I
am minded to agree. And that's a shame, because Pichai
has done good things for Chrome and Android when he was
leading those.
The
article doesn't really touch on Pichai's biggest
mistakes here.
Mistake
one: Damore's memo alleged discrimination, both against
men and conservatives. Gender and political affiliation
are both protected classes in California and they just
fired him for whistleblowing. He has now filed a
complaint with the NLRB. This seems like a legal
headache that a better CEO could have avoided by not
firing the guy. Put him on the roof or something, wait
for things to blow over, find some other solution but
the moment they fired him, they set themselves up for
this.
Mistake
two: Google shareholders asked at the last shareholder
meeting if it was true that Google was a hostile work
environment for conservatives (or words to that effect).
They assured shareholders that this wasn't true. Clearly
that answer has problems. Employees are leaking like
crazy to Breitbart of all places that Google is
extremely hostile to conservatives. I don't know what
happens if leadership misleads shareholders in these
sorts of questions, maybe nothing. But it can't be good.
Mistake
three: Google managers have been publicly announcing
within the firm that they are blacklisting employees for
not being sufficiently pro-feminist or even for just
questioning the policies or the mob reaction to it.
There are screenshots of this along with interviews,
again, on Breitbart. This seems like a fantastically
unhealthy culture that Pichai has allowed to grow on his
watch. I have heard from other Googlers that in one
incident, a manager claimed he'd blacklist anyone who
was subscribed to an internal mailing list for
discussion of conservative viewpoints, and then when
people objected, that he'd blacklist them too (so they
couldn't transfer to his team). Again this seems like a
cut/dried case of discrimination against people of
certain political affiliations.
Mistake
four: this debate is happening because Googlers are
furiously attacking each other through leaks to the
press. This is happening in both directions: the
original leak was clearly intended to get Damore fired
and publicly shamed, now others are leaking screenshots
of internal communications and Pichai's emails. Pichai
has quite clearly lost control of his own workforce to a
staggering degree.
How
much more of Google's guts spilling out onto the street
will shareholders tolerate?
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Overtonwindow 2 hours ago
This.
An excellent deconstruction of the issue. A culture of
silencing views a minority does not agree with for the
sake of avoiding a mob has created a mob of its own
against all reason.
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trhway 1 hour ago
>discrimination,
both against men and conservatives.
while
men is [at least nominally] protected class, being a
conservative isn't.
>Google
is extremely hostile to conservatives.
can't
applaud enough to Google here. According to the well
known court decisions, a corporation is, like a person,
entitled to have its own political opinion and actions,
and it is the time somebody would answer to
conservatives in kind. Conservatives whine so much every
time they get a taste of their own medicine.
Shareholders
who don't like Google's opinion can just sell their
stock, as nobody forces them to own it.
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peoplewindow 1 hour ago
Can
you point to examples of large conservative corporations
firing people for expressing liberal viewpoints? I feel
we do not read about cases like Google's very often, so
I'm not sure what you mean by "taste of their own
medicine".
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malandrew 2 hours ago
Do
you have a reference for the shareholder's question? I
had not heard that before and would like to read more.
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peoplewindow 2 hours ago
I
was repeating a claim I saw on HN earlier and went
looking for references. It turns out the person who
asked the question wrote a whole article about it:
http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/i-confronted-go...
At
the meeting, I asked Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt
about the company's actual commitment to diversity and
inclusion in light of the company's public policy
positions, not to mention the views of top management,
that all skew to the extreme political left. I noted
conservatives may not feel welcome in such an
environment, let alone feel free to express their
beliefs. Schmidt and other company executives
dismissed my entire question by claiming everyone at
the company — and in the tech industry as a whole —
was in agreement with them.
After
that confrontation, a strange thing happened. I
started receiving messages from Google employees
thanking me for challenging Alphabet's leadership.
Without realizing it, I was apparently speaking for a
closeted segment of Google employees with conservative
beliefs.
One
email read, "I'm working with a few other Googlers to
fix the company's political discrimination problem.
Really appreciate you shining a light on the matter."
Another
said she was working closely with a group of
conservatives at Google, and noted, "(t)hey're all
very appreciative that you were standing up for their
interests at the shareholder's (sic) meeting. The
shareholder resolution your organization filed also
made a lot of people happy."
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KirinDave 2 hours ago
And
once again, the characterization of "allowing the
debate" means one thing for James (why, he "cited
studies") and another for everyone else (they are an
angry mob). The most telling bias in this piece is that
characterization.
Perhaps
is James had not hamfistedly "cited" population research
(as Brooks suggests) but then given very specific
personal-level fixes (e.g., pair programming ,
suggestions of "pipeline" fixes, etc) he would not have
cast quite so much doubt over his intent.
What's
also lost in this summary is one of the most important
points: long term exposure to stereotypes has a powerful
influence on people (many references of varying quality
here: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/resources/women-m...). By embracing them, we
actually create self-fulfilling prophecies.
These
prophecies may be based on a statistical mean, but
what's lost in that simple numerical distillation is
what harm befalls even modest outliers to the
distribution. Stereotypes which may seem obvious and
unimportant to 3/4 of a population may be a crushing
burden and source of relentless stress to the remaining
quarter.
It's
interesting how many of my peers fought to liberate
themselves from stereotypes of "weakness" and
"inferiority" that were tied around them as smart
teenagers. But when it comes time to recognize the harm
in these stereotypes to outliers in a other group, they
appeal to the same logic that oppressed them. One might
argue that these traits are adopted defense mechanisms
well-impressed by abuse. I'm not sure that justifies
them, though.
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avs733 2 hours ago
While
I agree, I think brook's argument is even more easily
dismissable as the BS it is. One of several reasons for
citing material on which an argument is based is to
trace the flow of knowledge and tie statements to the
prior research they interpret.
James
fundamentally misinterpreted much of the research he
cited in ways that are overly summative to make a point
he wanted to make. He sought research to give his biases
the veneer of science without understanding what the
authors of the underlying research meant.
This
whole incident, from the very beginning, represents one
of the major problems with public understanding of
science. There are basic ontological misconceptions
about the relationship of researchers and research,
about the generalizability of most scientific research,
AND about how scientists within a field interpret and
infer from results...and how future scientists build on
that work. Because so much of that thinking work is
invisible to the naked eye or is lost in media
depictions, people think they have a greater
understanding of how science constructs knowledge and
they feel excessively qualified to infer and extrapolate
research beyond what original authors had intended.
As
you note, when science is discussed through means, when
people attempt to decontextualize science, and try and
simply apply science as a post-hoc rationalization for
their fears and biases they are the problem not the
science and not those who call BS on bad uses of
science.
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Danihan 2 hours ago
>Stereotypes
which may seem obvious and unimportant to 3/4 of a
population may be a crushing burden and source of
relentless stress to the remaining quarter.
What
an excellent quote. As a politically right-leaning gay
person, I feel this way basically all the time, except
I'm more like the 5% or 10%. Being a minority of a
minority sucks, you don't fit in anywhere.
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KirinDave 28 minutes ago
Try
being non-binary. The men who've tried to wake my gay
post my public coming out are still talking shit about
me.
Which
is to say: I appreciate your status and it's difficulty
even if I don't agree with your politics.
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humanrebar 2 hours ago
>
Perhaps is James had not hamfistedly "cited" population
research (as Brooks suggests) but then given very
specific personal-level fixes (e.g., pair programming ,
suggestions of "pipeline" fixes, etc) he would not have
cast quite so much doubt over his intent.
I
haven't heard this point before and I'd like to
understand it. What's the problem here?
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KirinDave 29 minutes ago
James
essentially keeps tackling what he views as the central
issue, a "pipeline" problem.
The
larger body of feminist and even more centrist discourse
has concluded that problem is not, in principle, what
Google needs to address (other than at the very
outermost edge of it's recruiting funnel, ensuring that
recruiting engaged with organizations that support
specific demographics). The internal problems with
unfair treatment, unfair pay, and unequal opportunity
need to be addressed first. James conveniently pretends
these don't exist and suggests women aren't entering the
field.
We
can tackle the problems there in other ways, but young
women are not uninformed by their predecessors or the
news. They see a constant drumbeat of credible stories
about how the boys world of tech both abuses women and
does not reward them equally.
James's
suggestion that it's merely a lack of social elements to
keep women out of tech is somewhat offensive in this
light, pushing the decision way from "self-defense and
self-interest" to "biological predilection.'
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EduardoBautista 3 hours ago
Convincing
women to focus on a career in STEM is telling them that
their choices for careers in nursing, teaching, and any
other career dominated by women are wrong choices. I
don't believe that, they are essential to our society
and are arguably more important than helping create
better ads at Google and Facebook.
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eganist 3 hours ago
That's
not the argument being made by advocates for women in
STEM. The mission (I among one of many adherents to it)
is to open pathways in STEM up to women who are choosing
not to pursue it because of socioeconomic
blockers.
Blockers
such as this guy.
Anyway,
the real position being pushed by Women in Tech/STEM
movements is that anyone can/should be free to work in
any career and not expect e.g. pay differences and
biases against them solely because of gender. Male
nurses are an example in the reverse direction.
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UK-AL 3 hours ago
The
more free the genders are, the more they tend to
polarise on certain careers.
Since
they tend to pursue what they prefer.
I'm
all for having no blockers for people choosing what
careers they want. However people will move towards
there preferences, and there preferences will be set
either by nature or culture.
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anonymouskimmer 2 hours ago
"The
more free the genders are, the more they tend to
polarise on certain careers."
Yeah,
just calling a Scandinavian nation "free" says
absolutely nothing about its particular societal
pressures. Societal pressures which effect everyone
whether they are egosyntonic or distonic to the
individuals caught up in the society.
More
evidence is needed to support this hypothesis.
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UK-AL 2 hours ago
I'm
not sure biasing interviews towards certain genders is
the way to fix that though.
Get
more people apply, educate women about those options etc
etc
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leroy_masochist 3 hours ago
If
you think that any given woman would be dissuaded from
pursuing a career in STEM by an essay that, using peer-reviewed
scientific studies as supporting evidence, suggests that
differences in interest levels across populations may partially but not
totally
explain why women as
a population, not as individuals
tend to choose STEM at a rate lower than men, aren't you
helping advance the stereotype that women are delicate
shrinking violets whose easily-hurt feelings keep
getting in the way of their life goals?
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hrktb 3 hours ago
Objectively
these careers are less well paid.
We
all have our opinions, but money is society’s way of
prioritizing activities. And these jobs as essential as
they should be, also get shittier shittier in average ,
as time goes on, which doesn’t help.
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godd2 2 hours ago
The
median income for a pediatrician is ~170k vs the median
income of software engineer at ~80k, but 75% of
pediatricians are women.
So
no, it's not only the "less well-paid" jobs. And even if
it were, a lot of the lowest paid jobs are almost
entirely men, like garbage collectors and construction
workers.
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hrktb 2 hours ago
I’m
not familiar enough with the field, but from what I get
scanning payscale.com:
-
general physician: 60% women, 137k in average
-
pediatricians: 80% women, 144k in average
-
obstetricians/gynecologists: 70% women, 205k in average
-
radiologist: 20% women, 300k in average
Basically,
in the doctors field pediatrician or gynecologist are
middle range salary. Nothing to sneeze at, but the more
lucrative areas pay way more and are dominated by men.
And honestly I don’t think the requirements for
radiologist is so much harder than gynecologists, or is
it ? (I am no radiologist, that’s just my impression)
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ebola1717 3 hours ago
The
fact that those fields are undervalued (and often
underpaid) is a huge part of this discussion that anyone
who fights for diversity in tech is well aware of and
has been saying long before this memo was released.
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FLUX-YOU 3 hours ago
In
fact, healthcare technology, specifically user
interfaces, needs all of the brilliant people it can
get.
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olewhalehunter 3 hours ago
As
a former medical tech developer, the problems in
healthcare are almost entirely social/political and the
healthcare tech business is making things worse in most
respects.
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olewhalehunter 3 hours ago
Fetanyl
was a new drug at some point. Pharmaceuticals are over
prescribed, healthcare businesses are a leech on the
infrastructure, American lifestyles are inherently
unhealthy, and no amount of new drug patents are going
to fix those problems. Your oncologist friends might
have new drugs to prescribe but that doesn't change the
core problem of soaring cancer rates due to lifestyle
and environmental issues.
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whowouldathunk 3 hours ago
If
a nursing school made a push for recruiting more male
nurses I wouldn't feel like my software engineering
career was a wrong choice.
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wan23 3 hours ago
Meanwhile,
nursing as a profession is seeking more men to increase
diversity as well.
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dogecoinbase 3 hours ago
they
are essential to our society and are arguably more
important than helping create better ads
Then
they should be more respected and be paid more. Until
they are, asking people to go into them when better,
easier jobs exist is patronizing.
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avs733 2 hours ago
read
it again...the argument is the opposite.
And
speaking for the OP, I would imagine 'easy' in this
context likely includes many elements but is strongly
influenced by physical demand of these activities.
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samstave 3 hours ago
+1
Look
at the output of ones work. If the output of ones work
is positive, then it doesn't really matter how they got
there or what they do.
The
elephant wrt to "women are under-represented in stem
careers" is that education is not universally
applied/available.
Gender
should not matter.
Provide
universal education from birth to all minds and let
those minds "mind their own business" as it were...
If
people land in places due to their own thought, that is
a true democracy of thought and freedom - but poor
choices only ever occur based on poor information.
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Overtonwindow 3 hours ago
There's
a lot of effort going into this, actually. My father was
a nurse for 30 years and in his nursing school
graduation photo, and his retirement photo with his
colleagues, he was still the only male. It's possible
men view these fields as female dominated and resist
applying. It also raises the awkward question of how men
are treated in female dominated fields. Would a man be
treated better in a female dominated field, than a
female in a male dominated field, or the same? I've not
seen research on this, unless someone knows of any?
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EduardoBautista 3 hours ago
I
would go ahead and say because men are just not
interested in those careers as much as women. That's the
whole point. And that is fine.
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lobotryas 2 hours ago
Exactly.
No one's worried that we have too few female coal miners
or garbage collectors. These are physically demanding,
not prestigious and often low-paying jobs.
Hell,
no one's worried that we have too few female oil rig
workers and these ARE (in my understanding) high paying
jobs.
But
STEM? That's somehow different.
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busterarm 2 hours ago
If
you talk to men who worked as primary school teachers
(within the last 20 years) and then changed careers,
you'll hear a lot of interesting stories of
discrimination.
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whowouldathunk 3 hours ago
The
point is disputed: to what extent are the differences
biological vs. environmental? Hiring practices could
influence preferences.
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thegayngler 15 minutes ago
Note
to engineers. If you put your employer in a damned if
you do damned if you don't legal situation, you will be
fired and should be fired. Why is that so hard for
everyone to understand? David Brooks should know this as
he has worked at a big company for awhile now. No matter
what Google did there would be people who were angry.
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dahart 2 hours ago
>
When it comes to the genetic differences between male
and female brains, I’d say the mainstream view is that
male and female abilities are the same across the vast
majority of domains — I.Q., the ability to do math, etc.
It's
weird that Brooks paints the memo as largely factually
correct, but clearly doesn't believe what is the main
thrust of the memo.
The
problem with the memo is not with any claims that are
stated as fact, the problem is the FUD he's spreading by
suggesting that the small and likely irrelevant
biological differences we do know about might be responsible for the
large differences in today's gender distribution in
tech.
There
is plenty of evidence that there are much, much larger
factors in the distribution discrepancy today than any
possible difference of ability, but Damore is casting
doubt on that and suggesting that the current
distribution might be the natural fixed point, that it could be at steady state
already due to the biological differences.
Okay
sure, he doesn't propose that as fact, he uses weasel
words and doubt-casting to say it might be true, and
that's the most damaging part. Getting people to believe
it's possible is worse than any easily provable lie.
People
like Brooks defending the memo's factual accuracy are
hiding behind this idea that only things claimed as fact
might be damaging. Not true, the things claimed as
possibility are more damaging.
The
obvious problem with suggesting that the current
distribution might have settled to it's natural steady
state is that it encourages turning a blind eye to the
cultural sexism that we already know exists. It
perpetuates sexism if we don't fix it first.
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humanrebar 1 hour ago
>
...the problem is the FUD he's spreading...
He
seems earnest to me. If he's earnestly voicing ideas
that result in fear, uncertainty, or doubt, is it his
fault? What is the appropriate way to broach the subject
publicly? Or are certain thoughts inherently
unspeakable?
If
Damore bears significant blame, what is an appropriate
response for a boss to have to that situation? Why is
Damore the only person in trouble if controversial
discussions themselves are against the rules?
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dahart 41 minutes ago
I
believe he's earnest, that makes his being wrong all the
worse, he doesn't know he's wrong and he's not trying to
be wrong. It's more convincing, and thus more damaging,
that he sounds earnest.
I
don't think it makes sense to assign blame, I don't care
who's fault it is, and I believe he's free to share his
thoughts. I hope you're not suggesting that being fired
from a company is somehow censorship.
What
I care about is that his ideas are regressive and
unintentionally sexist. He is using specious scientific
sounding arguments to say we should turn a blind eye to
cultural sexism. By ignoring it, we perpetuate cultural
sexism.
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humanrebar 36 minutes ago
>
I hope you're not suggesting that being fired from a
company is somehow censorship.
It
is censorship. Read the first sentence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
The
defense of the firing is that the censorship is
justified, not that it isn't censorship.
>
What I care about is that his ideas are regressive and
unintentionally sexist.
It's
not his fault, but he's fired anyway? That doesn't seem
fair.
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