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People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it.
It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case.
If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool.
I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far lower female graduation and entry level application rates to CS jobs. If less than 25% of CS graduates are female, which is currently the case, it strongly suggests that attempting to make the engineering team 50% female will result in a lower hiring bar for women. That means that the overall point of the authors manifesto, that programs designed to specifically increase the ratio of female engineers are unfair, is true.
We need to do something about the low number of women going into tech fields in school. Punishing companies for not hiring women when the vast majority of candidates are men is a perverse incentive that is biased against men and doesn't fix the real problem.
It's like punishing someone for taking more yellow onions at the market when there's 3 times as many nice looking ones as white onions. The right way to fix the imbalance is to increase the supply of white onions. In the real world, farmers would begin switching to white onions and the supply would increase. Unfortunately, our supply of women is governed by a mostly government run school system that doesn't exist in a world of supply and demand and likes to shift the blame for their ineptitude.
Fixing this at the education level would mean owning up to a mistake. It's much easier to just fine everyone to make it look like you're fixing a "problem" caused by inadequate regulations.
>You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case.
>it strongly suggests that attempting to make the engineering team 50% female will result in a lower hiring bar for women.
I cannot speak for Google and I haven't been following their recruitment efforts.
However, I will say I'm a little tired of this notion that such companies are aiming for 50%.
I know one company that has really ramped up hiring of minorities (mostly women, though). And everyone is criticizing them for targeting 50% when there is a problem in the supply.
Except they never said they were targeting 50%. Not once. What they did was look at their different grade levels' skills, and compared that to the number of women in the market who should qualify, and compared that to the proportion in the company.
Example: They found that 20% of PhDs in a relevant field that they hired from were women, whereas in the company only 10% of PhDs hired were women. So their recruitment efforts are to hit 20%.
Not 50%.
Any time someone says 50%, they are likely invoking a strawman.
Then perhaps this is a teaching moment for Google's PR team. As an outsider, and based on what I've heard and read on blog posts and hiring pages about affirmative action, a common method of meeting their goals is diversity quotas. Given the fact that men and women have a 50/50 balance, and given that many programs reach as close to perfect equality as they can, it seems obvious to me at least that they would be trying for a 50/50 distrobution between the sexes.
If this isn't actually the case, then their PR should make it known, because the implications of the current system do make it seem like minorities may be given precedence at the expense of white or asian men.
>Given the fact that men and women have a 50/50 balance, and given that many programs reach as close to perfect equality as they can, it seems obvious to me at least that they would be trying for a 50/50 distrobution between the sexes.
>If this isn't actually the case, then their PR should make it known, because the implications of the current system do make it seem like minorities may be given precedence at the expense of white or asian men.
You want them to go out of their way to clarify assumptions you are making about things they never claimed?
Yes. Based on the comments in this thread, it seems to be a commonly held (mis)interpretation, and it's a perception that mars the company. It's in everyone's best interest if it is clarified so that both the asian and white male employees and the minority employees don't feel they're being discriminated against based on their race or gender.
that does not make sense every time.
lets assume that 20% of CS graduates are women but you are searching to hire only top 30% overall. there is no garantee that the top 30% will have 20% woman it could be more or less.
And even if it is and everybody is looking to hire the top 30% then the poll of the best women candidates quickly dries, and you have a harder time every time to find them. So if your agenda is to have 20% of women, you will probably ultimatly have to adjust your criteria.
gender should not mather, if you hire only the best you should hire them it does not mather if they are women or man.
Gender shouldn't matter, but unfortunately it does.
There are many components to the problem, but one component is institutional bias in the hiring process itself. You assume that all candidates are given a fair shake by an impartial, unbiased set of criteria that should be ferreting out the best talent and making offers to only those people. But those supposedly impartial criteria are executed upon in interviews by fallible human beings with their own personal or institutional biases, not by impartial pattern-matching robots. Consequently, many talented female engineers are passed over for inferior male ones, not the other way around.
I have interviewed literally thousands of candidates in my tech management career, and not once have I seen an inferior female candidate picked over a superior male one because of a diversity initiative. I have, however, had to work with young male interviewers to train them to properly identify their own unconscious biases and to ensure that they are truly being as impartial as possible when interviewing candidates of any gender. And to the degree that that is impossible - well, that is why we still have diversity targets.
Isn't that the majority of the evidence tho? What I keep hearing is that women are underrepresented because women are slightly more than 50% of the population but 10-20% of engineering jobs.
That implies that diversity initiatives are going to continue until we have slightly more than 50% representation. Which is not bad in and of itself, but it seems like the initiatives are not allowed to used research or data beyond less than 50% representation. It gets sinister and loaded with unintended consequences when the expected shortcut is just to implement quotas to teach that one metric.
> If less than 25% of CS graduates are female, which is currently the case, it strongly suggests that attempting to make the engineering team 50% female will result in a lower hiring bar for women.
If Google is anything like Redacted, that's the case. Redacted pays monthly bonuses to their international offices for each woman on the office's payroll. I have two friends working at Redacted in a relatively cheap region and they say the bonuses are as high as their junior-level salaries - they can afford to hire a second junior developer for each junior woman they have. Your guess what happens. An upside is that this poses no threat to male developers so they don't complain and just have a chuckle when their mandatory diversity training explains how the company's policy improves performance by "tapping into the pool of female talent formerly overlooked due to systemic discrimination".
> You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case.
You are assuming that women are choosing their college degrees in a vacuum. They don't. They ask: can I see myself doing this job? Is this a worthwhile investment? And when they cannot see themselves working in tech, because they see no-one like themselves in IT, they choose other fields.
> Unfortunately, our supply of women is governed by a mostly government run school system that doesn't exist in a world of supply and demand and likes to shift the blame for their ineptitude.
What specific mistakes can you point to? What particular solutions are within reach of the government? Because right now this just looks like shifting responsibility onto the state.
Absolutely right on this first point. I've always suspected my wife would have been a good programmer (she destroyed me on the logic games section of the LSAT, which imo correlates with engineering reasoning ability: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1198455392.shtml). But she never even considered it, partly because she didn't want to choose a field in which she'd be facing all the hurdles of being a minority.
I feel like "choosing to go into it" is maybe the wrong model. Like, as far as I can recall I didn't choose to go into programming, computers were just there and I could write programs for them.
Like, I didn't choose to go into software development and so learnt to code, I chose to go into software development because I could code.
Maybe it's different for "career programmers," if such a thing even exists.
I think a lot of it is what society expects of people. I don't think most people ever have a moment when they say "Let me sit down and think about all the things I can do with my life." A lot of people develop their loves and what they think is "cool" at a very young age, and a lot of that is influenced by what they absorb from their parents, teachers, TV, etc.
If you're like me, you probably thought of yourself as smart, and had a short list of "smart things that would be cool when I grow up." Astronaut, doctor, computers, stuff like that.
The movie War Games was honestly important to me and my career. I was small and kind of dorky but pretty smart (at least, that was what all the adults told me, I suspect even that is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy) but Matthew Broderick showed me how cool that could be. I could see myself in him. And, you know, there were TV shows and movies that made me want to be an astronaut too. I'm not saying War Games was some seminal moment in my life. But it was an influence, for sure.
And when I told people I wanted to do that, they never made a face. Or they suggested it on their own "What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you going to be a scientist?" You know what people say to my girl? "Are you going to be a nurse/ballerina/etc when you grow up?" We all pick up on this kind of thing at a young age, and it shapes our perceptions of where we fit.
Women choosing what fields they go into is shaped by their role-models. Do they see female programmers on TV? Do they know any family members that are programmers? That kind of thing. Fixing this has to start somewhere.
Is this inherently bad? That would imply that, for systemic reasons, girls are not "brought up" to enjoy computing. Is there harm in girls having different preferences, even if they are driven by the culture? Aren't most preferences driven by culture? You raise interesting points. I believe we should be motivating girls who show interest, but is there harm if no interest is shown?
> I believe we should be motivating girls who show interest, but is there harm if no interest is shown?
The question then becomes why interest isn't shown in the first place.
You could argue, as the "manifesto" writer did, that there's some kind of innate biological explanation. To me, that's a pretty extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary proof. It's true that there are some differences between the sexes. Women do a bit better on some mental tests than men and vice versa. But how much of that is biology and how much is upbringing? For instance, from an early age, studies show parents make girls say "please" more than they do for boys, and emphasize sharing. So do women fair better on some emotional tests because of some innate biology or because we've emphasized that kind of thing literally since they could talk? It's really really hard to tease these things apart. And it's so hard because those differences are tiny. If we assumed those differences really are 100% biological (again, a big assumption), it might explain why Computer Science would be 55% men, and 45% women. It wouldn't explain the huge disparity we see today.
So if the reason women don't show interest isn't biological, what is it? A further complicating factor to the whole discussion is we're talking about why women aren't in computer science now. It hasn't always been this way. Historically, the field of computing had lots of women. A lot of women went from "human computers" who did math by hand to programming the early mainframes (the movie Hidden Figures shows a time at NASA when this was happening). While a gender gap has always existed, it used to be a lot smaller. Women made up about 1/3 of people with CS degrees in the late 70s and early 80s. But as the STEM gender gap has been closing everywhere else, it's actually gotten wider in CS, and only CS. Why? The "it's biology and girl brains are different" argument can't account for that. Biology didn't change.
What did change was society. Movies like Weird Science and War Games (my favorite) came out. The "cool hacker" entered Pop culture, and the stereotype they settled on was a boy. Girls were a lot less likely to have computers in the home as well. This is an interesting article (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...) that talks about how early home computers were marketed as a toy to buy for boys.
It's like we as a society decided that computers fell into the "boy stuff" category with GI Joe and baseball, not the "girl stuff" category like Barbie and softball.
I think it all adds up to a pretty convincing argument that biology has nothing (or very, very little) to do with it.
>You could argue, as the "manifesto" writer did, that there's some kind of innate biological explanation. To me, that's a pretty extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary proof.
I don't understand why people think this is such an extraordinary claim. It would be extraordinary if the sexes were exactly equal. There are very obvious and enormous differences between men and women in numerous areas. Why would we expect them to come out exactly equal?
>Results show that gender differences in Big Five personality traits are ‘small’ to ‘moderate,’ with the largest differences occurring for agreeableness and neuroticism (respective ds = 0.40 and 0.34; women higher than men). In contrast, gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d= 1.18), with women more people-oriented and less thing-oriented than men. Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender-egalitarian societies than in gender-inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory but is consistent with evolutionary, attributional, and social comparison theories. In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences.
The point about differences in personality was brought up in the Google memo and perhaps explains your "please" thing. But look at the "interest in people vs interest in things" statistic. A d value of 1.18 is enormous. That means 93% of men are more "thing oriented" than the average women. And that's assuming there is no noise in the measurement, likely the true value is even higher!
There's also this later on in the document:
>When Del Giudice computed the Mahalanobis D for gender differences in Big Five traits, based on a published data set, he found that although the mean d for gender differences in individual Big Five traits was 0.27 (conventionally considered to be ‘small’), the Mahalanobis D was in contrast 0.84, suggesting a relatively large mean separation of men and women in the multivariate ‘space’ of personality
The problem is two-fold. First, how do you distinguish how much of those results are innate from how much are the result of how we socialize girls? Second, how do you get from "men are more thing oriented" to "men prefer programming."
To give an example: In the U.S., teaching is consider a woman's profession, because it involves "nurturing." But in India, teaching is a man's profession, because it involves training the next generation workforce to participate in the economy. Even if you suppose women are more "nurturing" innately, that doesn't explain any particular demographic distribution among, say, teachers.
Another example is the fact that 60% of accountants are women. Accounting is not only about "things" rather than people, but it's often about completely abstract "things" (e.g. accrued tax credits). Women also are more "agreeable." But within, for example, the legal profession, the cooperative practice of transactional law has a lower representation of women than the conflict-oriented area of litigation.
Within STEM: over 40% of math majors are women, but only about 20% of CS majors. In other words, "social" and "people-oriented" women evidently prefer a field where people work almost completely alone on completely abstract concepts. Meanwhile, Pinterest's engineering team is almost all men.
The point isn't whether biological differences exist. The point is whether the evidence for biological differences explains what we observe in reality. And it really doesn't (not without egregious handwaving, anyway).
>First, how do you distinguish how much of those results are innate from how much are the result of how we socialize girls?
There have been a number of experiments trying to remove all cultural influences from kids and see what toys they prefer. Despite their best efforts, boys still prefer trucks and girls prefer dolls. Why should we expect the differences in interests to disappear with age?
>In mathematics, just 15 percent of tenure-track positions are held by women, one of the lowest percentages among the sciences, along with computer science (18 percent), and engineering (14 percent)
They are even worse than computer science. This is about exactly what I would expect. (The article of course blames sexism. Since they can't consider any other explanation. But they don't present any evidence to support that.)
Even if the differences aren't perfectly predictive of real world outcomes, so what? I'm not claiming they are. All I'm saying is we shouldn't expect the distribution of interest to be a perfect 50:50 split between men and women. If the personality differences between men and women are as significant as these studies show, it would be very surprising if every profession had a perfect gender ratio.
Computer programming in particular is extremely interest driven. Programmers like programming and do it in their free time. Most of them taught themselves to do it before they studied it formally. As opposed to your other examples like accounting. How many people do accounting in their free time just for fun?
This is one of those situations where you have to exercise your logical reasoning skills. Why the hell would there be an innate gendered preference for a toy that represents something that's existed for only about a hundred years? Indeed, a 2013 study shows that both girls and boys prefer dolls at 5 months: http://www.sciencealert.com/boys-prefer-dolls-to-trucks.
And even if there was a gender difference in terms of preferring trucks to dolls, what would that really be measuring? Again, a five month old couldn't possibly have an association between trucks and building things. You could just as easily be measuring the degree to which infants have an affinity for faces. You can't get from that to a preference for/against CS without a whole lot of handwaving. Which is ultimately the big problem. You're pointing to biological differences and saying that must explain observed occupational differences, without providing any theory of causation. It's an argument that doesn't just have little explanatory power, what explanatory power it does have is based on gendered characterizations. (E.g. hypothesizing women prefer teaching because it's a "nurturing" profession, while ignoring societies that don't view it as a nurturing profession at all, where teaching is male dominated).
As to math preferences, you're comparing tenure track professors, while I was referring to undergraduate degree holders (hence "math majors"). Women earn over 40% of math/stat undergraduate degrees: https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/womenmajor....
I agree with all your points here and I'd like to especially expand on this:
> (E.g. hypothesizing women prefer teaching because it's a "nurturing" profession, while ignoring societies that don't view it as a nurturing profession at all, where teaching is male dominated).
If women don't go into CS because society as a whole views it as a thing-oriented discipline and women are more people-oriented than thing-oriented, this opens up the possibility of reframing CS to be more people-oriented, changing its perception in society, thus causing more women to become interested in CS.
The memo had this to say on that topic:
We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming
and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how
people-oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive
ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get
female students into coding might be doing this).
While that 2013 study [1] did show that both boys and girls prefer faces to objects at that age, the results seem to support boys having lesser face/object preference than girls. Unfortunately raw data wasn't provided so we can only rely on researcher's conclusions that the difference was not statistically significant for female faces/cars, but was for male faces/stoves, although eyeballing the graphs, the only one where error bars don't overlap is the Real face (female) / Real car. Anyway, every face/object pair has boys showing lesser face preference than girls.
I really can't see how this can be cited as disproving innate gender preference differences - at best, it fails to _prove_ them, but still hints at their existence.
>a 2013 study shows that both girls and boys prefer dolls at 5 months
Might as well just measure what toys they prefer when they come out of the womb. No shit a five month old has no idea what a truck or a doll is. But by the age of four they will definitely prefer trucks as expected.
>You're pointing to biological differences and saying that must explain observed occupational differences, without providing any theory of causation.
I did provide a theory (things vs people), but it's not really necessary. The original comment suggested that there were no personality or behavioral differences between men and women. This is a ridiculous claim. I have showed there are huge differences between the preferences of men and women.
Why would we expect two different groups with (statistically) different personalities and interests to make exactly the same career choices? I can't necessarily predict which factors are the most relevant, or which traits correlate with which careers and how strongly. Those are specifics. But I would be completely shocked if the correlation between mental and personality traits and career choice is absolutely zero. And if they aren't zero, that will necessarily imply a difference between the genders.
The alternative theory is that "it's all cultural". This theory also makes no specific predictions. No matter what outcome is observed, you can blame it on culture. You can invent a just-so story about how mathematicians are less sexist than programmers or something. It doesn't require or present any evidence. It isn't falsifiable. If one cultural factor is ruled out (e.g. discrimination), you can always make another and shove it in (e.g. "role models".)
If you show evidence that one cultural explanation can't possibly be correct, they just move onto another. E.g. showing that there are the same percentage of female tech workers as female computer science graduates. So they move onto blaming sexism in universities. So you show there are the same percentage of girls interested in computer science in high school. And then the theory moves onto blaming parents for discouraging girls from computers... or something. And I can't think of any possible experiment that could test that and prove it false. So they say "aha, gotcha! It was culture all along!" as if they've proved something.
>E.g. hypothesizing women prefer teaching because it's a "nurturing" profession, while ignoring societies that don't view it as a nurturing profession at all, where teaching is male dominated
The link I posted sort of addressed this. In less egalitarian cultures it's possible differences are more cultural. E.g. Indians straight up discriminate against female teachers and don't even make it an option. Or Indian parents forcing their girls to learn computer science because they see it as a way out of poverty. But as cultures become more egalitarian, gender differences will become more determined by biology. The west generally gives children a lot more freedom to choose their career and doesn't discriminate by sex. So gender preference will become a lot more important in such a society.
> To me, that's a pretty extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary proof.
The extraordinary claim here is that there are less women in tech due to sexism from men and we have yet to see the extraordinary evidence.
> So do women fair better on some emotional tests because of some innate biology or because we've emphasized that kind of thing literally since they could talk?
Evolution probably favoured caring mothers, you can observe this in animals as well.
> And it's so hard because those differences are tiny. If we assumed those differences really are 100% biological (again, a big assumption), it might explain why Computer Science would be 55% men, and 45% women. It wouldn't explain the huge disparity we see today.
"Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds"
4% doesn't really explain why we are totally different form chimps. Not everything scales linear manner.
> Historically, the field of computing had lots of women.
That's both true and not, computing used to be radically different historically then it is right now.
> Why? The "it's biology and girl brains are different" argument can't account for that. Biology didn't change.
What if CS changed or what you do with your CS degree changed?
> that talks about how early home computers were marketed as a toy to buy for boys.
I can debunk that for you: look at countries where computers weren't marketed and have the still ratios.
> It's like we as a society decided that computers fell into the "boy stuff" category with GI Joe and baseball, not the "girl stuff" category like Barbie and softball.
So all companies ignored half of their potential market? It's possible, however, it's hard to explain though why would every single company would throw away half of their market.
> I think it all adds up to a pretty convincing argument that biology has nothing (or very, very little) to do with it.
Jurassic Park is one of THE seminal movies of the 90s and the female kid in the show saves the day because she "knows Unix". That was pretty cool. Though it was only a small role, not the lead like in War Games.
> If you're like me, you probably thought of yourself as smart, and had a short list of "smart things that would be cool when I grow up." Astronaut, doctor, computers, stuff like that.
I think it was magazines. Which weren't gendered. I don't think I've seen any male programmers on TV, and I don't have family members who were programmers, and I was interested in computers before I knew that programming was a job.
As far as I can tell, computers were just innately interesting.
Some things are explicitly gendered, like GI Joe or Barbie.
Some things are implicitly gendered, like Legos. There's nothing about then that makes them "for boys." But most stores put them in the boys aisle. Lego started making "girl sets" that are all pinky not too long ago just so they could go in the girl section.
As a kid, where were the magazines with computer stuff in the store? Were they next to Tigerbeat? Probably not. It's little stuff like that. That's not the whole story, of course. But what we find interesting is at least partly due to society.
All sorts of social biases play into that too. Growing up, I "wanted" to be an engineer. After a mid-20s career change, I ended up as a lawyer. I love it, but not only did I never consider it as a kid, nothing ever prompted me to think about the possibility. Engineering is the societal default for a smart brown immigrant kid.
I'm already seeing this play out with my daughter. At four, she's highly gender normative, which means she wants to have pink everything and play with girls, not boys.[1] But she also loves puzzles, numbers, legos, and building things. That came to a head recently, because she ended up being the only girl in one of her science camps. At age four, she's already grappling with the tension between her gender identity and what kinds of activities society tells her are associated with her gender.
[1] One of my grievances about the Google Anti-Diversity Memo is it makes an erroneous assumption that just because children show some gendered preferences at a young age (e.g. trucks versus dolls), that somehow explains a gendered preference for/against programming as a career choice.
How can you tell the difference between your daughter being pushed by social convention towards gender normative activities, and your daughter's possible innate preferences leading her towards those activities? Likewise, how do you know the tension is not between her peers and society trying to make her girl-like versus her innate preferences towards science, building, etc, and instead between your expectations for your daughter and her innate preferences. In other words, isn't it as likely that your opinions are pushing her towards science as it is that society is pushing her towards girl-toys?
Diversity programs from big businesses have always seemed sick to me. Why does Google want more diversity? Ultimately, because they want to double the supply of engineers and reduce their hiring costs. The idea that I should subvert my daughter's innate interests, and encourage her to follow pursuits that are foreign to her, just so that Google can save money on employee salaries is perverse.
In my view, true diversity is valuing what makes people different. School teachers tend to be female and software developers tend to be male. "Diversity" shouldn't be taken to mean that 50% of developers should be female and 50% of school teachers male. That's not diverse, it's uniform. Instead, diversity should be recognizing that a school teacher isn't inferior to a software developer.
> How can you tell the difference between your daughter being pushed by social convention towards gender normative activities, and your daughter's possible innate preferences leading her towards those activities? Likewise, how do you know the tension is not between her peers and society trying to make her girl-like versus her innate preferences towards science, building, etc, and instead between your expectations for your daughter and her innate preferences. In other words, isn't it as likely that your opinions are pushing her towards science as it is that society is pushing her towards girl-toys?
The categorical error you make, like the author of the anti-diversity memo, is conflating gender identity with a specific set of "boy" versus "girl" activities. Just because children have strong gender identity does not mean that you can categorize any given activity as "girl-like" versus "boy-like." I.e. there is nothing to show that liking pink unicorns causes someone to have a preference against computer science.
As to our own daughter, I don't want her to be an engineer or a scientist. I want her to be a lawyer, like her mom and myself. I also hated school and don't place much emphasis on education. She's the one who wants to do puzzles and math worksheets and build legos.
Of course, that's anecdotal and doesn't prove anything. The real evidence, to me, is that this association between math/science and men differs dramatically between countries. In Bangladesh, more than 80% of teachers are men (overrepresented compared to the total labor force). And in India, half of science undergraduates are women: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-sciences. It's really a different societal mindset about what professions are appropriate for women versus men. For example, I grew up hearing my Bangladeshi mother complain about how the teachers in U.S. schools are women, when men make better teachers.
Nobody grows up learning how to resect tumors or construct an appellate brief in their own home. It's only in computer science that we have the expectation that the "true" pipeline for talent in our field will start at age 11. It's great that some people can get comfortable programming early, but it's not reasonable to suggest that most of the people in our field will do so.
I chose to learn to code because I was 12 and wanted to make games. I suppose a lot of other developers today were introduced to coding via the prospect of game development, and video games were/are heavily marketed toward male customers. In fact, you start seeing women engineers dropping from software fields at an accelerated pace as consoles and arcades were becoming a cultural norm in the 80s.
Hell, I'd go a step farther: I don't even particularly like software development as a career, but I picked up programming early because I liked it as a hobby and needed to program & assemble computers & configure servers to do stuff I wanted to do and... it just became the path of least resistance to a decent-paying career. It's hard to turn away from it when you're just walking into places cold in high school and college and landing relatively high-paying jobs on the first try, but I definitely didn't choose it like sitting down and saying "I want to be a software developer, so I better learn programming now". FFS I did most of a Poli-Sci/IS degree my first attempt at college because actual classes about programming/computers seemed like an intolerably dull thing to do (I was proven right when I later picked up my CS degree—god was it boring).
So,
> Like, I didn't choose to go into software development and so learnt to code, I chose to go into software development because I could code.
> You are assuming that women are choosing their college degrees in a vacuum. They don't. They ask: can I see myself doing this job? Is this a worthwhile investment? And when they cannot see themselves working in tech, because they see no-one like themselves in IT, they choose other fields
I have a hunch you graduated a relatively long time ago and do not socialize with people who are currently in school. People do not have to declare major for two first years in school. Outside those doing pre-med or pharmacy students do not need to take any hard science/math/cs classes ( the later in a lot of schools taught in math departments ) for years. Early juniors are the first ones who need to decide on a major and boy is CS low on that list ( why would one want to spend next two years cramming math, CS, and physics into the schedule class after class when one can take a few creative courses and graduate with liberal arts degree? ).
> What specific mistakes can you point to? What particular solutions are within reach of the government? Because right now it just looks like you're shifting responsibility onto the state.
Allowing Jack and Suzy to take $100k loans to for a degree in operating a coffee machine.
Echoing another user: I graduated within the past ten years.
Within a group of fields, you are correct. In the business school, the first two years were all the same. In engineering, though, CS classes started first semester freshman year. In the first two years of undergrad, the typical CS degree program had at least 6 courses: 2x intro, Discrete Math, Algo, Automata, and something else.
So perhaps if one had gone EE and decided they wanted CS, they would 'only' be a year back. Going from one college to another within Uni more than a year in, is almost starting over.
> eople do not have to declare major for two first years in school. Outside those doing pre-med or pharmacy students do not need to take any hard science/math/cs classes ( the later in a lot of schools taught in math departments ) for years. Early juniors are the first ones who need to decide on a major and boy is CS low on that list ( why would one want to spend next two years cramming math, CS, and physics into the schedule class after class when one can take a few creative courses and graduate with liberal arts degree? ).
This is very dependent on your school and program. At my school, the engineers selected their specialty at the end of, I believe, freshman year. My program was so rigorous with specific requirements that if I didn't start them during freshman year, I could not have graduated in 4 years. As it stood, I missed a semester due to illness and was set back an entire year because of it.
>Allowing Jack and Suzy to take $100k loans to for a degree in operating a coffee machine.
This right here is the problem fundamentally. The good thing is google seems to at least pretend to have an interest in changing things. They've tried running their own coding bootcamps for minorities and women.
If we really want to fix the problem of diversity in tech then what we really need is a systemic change in how learning as an adult is handled and viewed. I feel like most of my peers did not learn to program while they where at university but learned it while they where younger through google. Perhaps if we could find a way to provide the same socialization and critical thinking exercises that universities provide without the incredible administrative overhead we could make it easy for people to transition into difficult STEM fields. This would be a win for pretty much everyone except the bankers and school administrators.
This is very dependent on the program. At my university calc, discrete math, java, and data structures were all expected to be completed freshman year.
> Outside those doing pre-med or pharmacy students do not need to take any hard science/math/cs classes ( the later in a lot of schools taught in math departments ) for years.
> You are assuming that women are choosing their college degrees in a vacuum. They don't. They ask: can I see myself doing this job? Is this a worthwhile investment? And when they cannot see themselves working in tech, because they see no-one like themselves in IT, they choose other fields.
If anyone, man or woman, decides to pursuit a given career because they can see others like them in the field, then really, I am grateful they don't. I want to work with people who deeply care about their choices. Who are dreamers. Who are willing to give a lot to fulfill their drive for knowledge. Who learns out of sheer curiosity of the world around them. Who can ask a meaningful questions. Who believe in what they do. Not with a sheep who chooses to follow other sheep.
If people want diversity at work, they should start with elementary school first. Do not assume any biological equality or lack of it up front but also do not ENFORCE any. Just give people equal rights to study and to make their own choices.
The questions that you're responding to aren't often conscious questions. People are incredibly malleable, and generally do what they can to "fit in." If computing had the same male-stigma as, say, nursing, I'm not sure I would have majored in CS. Subconscious effects are difficult to deal with, but real nevertheless.
I think that is the core of the problem. People who need to see other people do something first don't have the burning desire.
I've countless interviews with vets. When a person becomes a vet they do it because they want to help animals or want money and to help but rarely because someone else did it before them who looks like them.
@wolco: "... don't have a burning desire"
@feeping: "... computers were just there ... because I could code"
@wst_: "... who deeply care about their choices"
I disagree with the above sentiments, despite those being excellent reasons or attitudes to choose a field/calling/career. It is not necessary for others to arrive at a path in the same way that other people do. It is entirely possible that the burning desire, inclination, and careful choice occur after being accepted into a program or after more exposure into a coding environment. It is also very likely that such desire, inclination, and choice are discouraged by not having relatable peers or role models. I would find it much harder to fit and grow into a role if from the very beginning I was expected to already have inclinations and reasons that are similar to my coworkers.
Yes, actually. A lot of professions that are dominated by women (currently at least) require some sort of bachelors degree e.g. nursing, lawyers. Or conversely: the jobs where you can have a good life without a college degree tend to be more male dominated (e.g. blue collar manufacturing).
Oh, those bastard mysoginistic blue collar male manufacturers, keeping the good manufacturing jobs away from females who are forced to settle with being lawyers.
Ah, I see, so when males are underrepresented in a field it's because they have more viable options elsewhere, but when females are underrepresented, it's because they are being discriminated against.
It's also possible for there to be multiple bottlenecks in the pipeline where women and girls are dropping out - including elementary school, college, entry level, and experienced engineers. There seems to be evidence that there's an effect at each of these levels that causes women to switch to other fields.
If so, the existence of a problem at one stage in the pipeline is a poor excuse for failing to address a bottleneck at a later stage. Particularly when the actor in question is mostly involved in the later stages.
> The right way to fix the imbalance is to increase the supply of white onions. In the real world, farmers would begin switching to white onions and the supply would increase.
I think you've got it backwards. In the real world, supply is increased to meet demand. Farmers aren't going to grow more white onions just to see what happens. They've got to believe it's going to be a more profitable crop because it is in demand.
To extend your food analogy, it's like when Paul Prudhomme introduced blackened redfish at fine dining establishment Commander's Palace in the 1980's. Redfish went from being a "trash" fish to a species overfished to the point of near extinction. Importantly, nothing changed about the redfish itself. What changed was a new emphasis on using it in a dish.
Similarly, lobster went from being a peasant or prisoner food to a delicacy when railways and canning helped extend the demand beyond the northeast US.
What if a big part of solving the pipeline problem is simply for companies to demand more diverse candidates because leadership finally start to recognize the research that suggests that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams on many metrics? I think this has to be the case because no one is getting into an employment pipeline that ends with what is perceived to be a hostile working environment.
> What if a big part of solving the pipeline problem is simply for companies to demand more diverse candidates because leadership finally start to recognize the research that suggests that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams on many metrics?
Last I read, the Economist said there is an advantage to diversity when attempting to be creative, but in other scenarios the advantage goes to the homogeneous team.
Does "early bias" theory include the leaky pipe line model? Ie: University students that fail a exam will switch program at a higher rate if their gender is a minority. In polls, they are also more likely to question their decision in career choice and have more self doubt about their ability to finish the program. The data that I have seen on this is that it is gender neutral, ie that the doubt caused by being a local minority is similar for both men and women.
To make up numbers, if a student has 3 times a high risk of switching a program after a failed exam, the chance that they will graduates will be significant lower. Having a gender segregated education fixes this, but as soon the graduate enters the work market the same phenomenon happen after a failed interview unless they only seek work which is also gender segregated.
Might be worth remembering that companies like Google have significant links with education systems, so they can address their hiring not just at the "who is applying" stage.
Also, regarding "lowering the bar" - remember there is a lot more to building a SWE team than finding people who can do the best whiteboard coding challenges. Coding skills can be improved, diversity of backgrounds is also a team strength and one that can't be taught.
So, one would hope that by forcing hiring diversity now, companies 1) force the white dude monoculture to break down, encouraging 2) more women to see SWE as an appealing opportunity, making 3) their future hiring pipeline and hiring committees sufficiently diverse that they don't need to force numbers.
Also worth remembering that women CS grads entering the field used to be climbing at the same rate as lawyers and other similar fields, then something changed in the mid-1980s and while the other fields progressed ever-nearer 50%, CS numbers took a nosedive. I don't have good research into exactly why that happened, but I'm guessing women didn't say "oh we're doing 32bit computers now? Nah you keep this one bros" ;)
My guess is that software became known as a "wild" career around the same time. I think the boom-bust cycles and gold Rush mentality are the main contributors to women leaving the profession.
How do we fix this? I don't think the silicon valley startup will ever appeal to women. Live in a closet for three years for a 10% chance to make a million dollars. Those odds only attract people with an appetite for risk. Mostly, unsurprisingly, young men. The problem with that is that silicon valley represents the field.
To get more women we need to change the image of the profession. I'm of the opinion that females just don't want to do software development and that decision is made really young.
Anecdotal, but I know plenty of guys that tinkered with PC's as young as 10 years old, and zero women that did so. It's seen as a boy thing, like cars.
The thing that always got me as a kid was that as a boy, if you showed any signs of a technical aptitude in STEM and your parents found out, they'd practically have your life planned out right then and there, you'd get lots of "Oh, you can be an engineer then", or "you could become a scientist", but girls showing aptitude in STEM would basically get "Oh that's nice, tell me if you need anything". Girls seemed to have the same if not better grades on average, but girls in the advanced classes never seemed to have been pushed in the same way.
That's my memory of it anyway, boys got pushed to go into STEM the second they showed any aptitude, girls were just sort of expected to keep it up.
In other words, pigeonholing them into careers? Girls get to "be whatever you want to, darling". Boys have to make sure they bring home a paycheck and support their family. Why?
Because someone has to raise the kids, and mothers _usually_ but not always take on that role voluntarily. Especially since infants are biologically tied to their mother for food.
My wife is more educated than I, with a masters degree. But she wanted to stay home, work part time, and not have our kids raised by a third party.
The traditional family structure for Homo sapiens has strong biological and environmental roots, which in turn caused "societal traditions". Changing that in a few generations seems quite unlikely.
>To get more women we need to change the image of the profession. I'm of the opinion that females just don't want to do software development and that decision is made really young.
I think the change we need to make is less about the profession and more about the people in the profession. We need to make it a field that seems open to women. Currently it isn't. I don't have a daughter, but I'd be very hesitant to suggest to her to go into the SW field.
BTW, my sister tinkered with PCs as a kid. It is interesting that she went on to get a degree in statistics and me in computer science. She works in policy now, and me in CS -- despite the fact that both of us had very similar achievement paths through HS. To this day she is better at most maths than I am, but most people seem to assume I'm better (at least when it comes up).
One of the great lessons I've learned in life is that you can't change other people. Indeed in this case it seems like the "old boys club" in software development is the result of the gender balance not the cause. I can't think of a single male dominated profession that isn't seen in that light.
If we're serious about fixing the ratio it needs to be done with policy and young, well before students graduate highschool.
One of the examples in the podcast expands on the viewpoint that computers are for men and that idea is ingrained even to the level of the family, so computers are kept in the sons bedroom so incidentally the daughter had less access to it.
Its not suggested by guidance counselors to females when looking to select electives in junior high school.
So if they are seen as a male hobby or interest, at a time when what your peers think is so important, girls are less likely to want to venture into that area and be outside the norm.
I don't think people necessarily understand which career they choose. When girl wants to become ballerinas it is presumably because they have some idea that it is glamorous, not that it entails working hard under strict discipline for many years. They figure that out later.
What happened in the 80s was likely because computers went from being for business to being a hobby with the home computer [0]. I would imagine that because men dominated technical professions at the time most computers were bought by men, which then shared their interests with their sons [1]. Programmers like John Carmack and Linus Torvalds is born around 1970 and would be teenagers when home computers became available [2]. Games went from adventure quests and puzzles to shooters like quake and duke nukem. Social settings like mailing lists became more important to learn programming through open source. So the cycle continues.
Of course just like girl, boys probably didn't know what the profession actually meant. They wanted to be programmers because of things like video games, but ended up making business systems.
How do you fix it? Many CS programs are antiquated and changing the curriculum to software engineering doesn't seem to help much to attract a broader group of people. If the large companies are serious about this, they should do what the banks did and train smart people with more generic backgrounds.
"It was his maternal grandfather, Leo Toerngvist, a professor of statistics at the University of Helsinki, who had the greatest influence on the young Linus. In the mid-1970s, Toerngvist bought one of the first personal computers, a Commodore Vic 20."
As a boy, and a "nerd", I grew up on the VIC20 and C64 from grades 4 to 9 in the 80s, later to become one of the "Amiga generation" I guess. My friends were other boys who liked to tinker / obsess with computers. We weren't amongst the cool crowd then, but it didn't matter (too much). Number of girls I met who ever tinkered with one? None. It just didn't happen. (Asterisk: This was true for a sample size of one Norwegian school; YMMV.)
We would have loved it if anyone did, alas that wasn't the case. I'm glad things have changed and you're no longer an outcast if you're a geeky kid; I feel that I paid a big personal price for being that way inclined, but later on there was a payoff in that it was easy to get into programming as a career, when the Internet started happening in the mid late 90s.
If my next kid is a girl, she'll have no shortage of computer science ahead of her. My son's already way deep. :)
> I know plenty of guys that tinkered with PC's as young as 10 years old, and zero women that did so. It's seen as a boy thing, like cars.
The interesting thing, to me, is that you can't look at those 10-year-olds in isolation. My experience mirrors yours and, yet, if you look back further, I'll bet you find that those 10-year-old tinkerers almost all have some history with Legos or other such construction toy that, very early, started building the guess-fail-iterate problem solving model that I believe is so important to computer aptitude.
One of the side effects to being "good with computers" is that you end up getting asked to do a lot of tech support. Over the years, I've seen so many people who are so afraid of doing something wrong that they can't figure out how to do what they want despite being otherwise intelligent enough. They don't realize what's perfectly summed up here: https://xkcd.com/627/
Some of the most important and least controversial efforts to address gender diversity in tech are the people trying to make better toys for young girls. As I've heard it stated, we have a shortage of engineers, not a shortage of princesses and our toy aisles should reflect that.
> Some of the most important and least controversial efforts to address gender diversity in tech are the people trying to make better toys for young girls. As I've heard it stated, we have a shortage of engineers, not a shortage of princesses and our toy aisles should reflect that.
On a side note, I've also noticed that the bulk of my female classmates in college and the bulk of my female coworkers since then have been either Indian or Chinese. It might be worth exploring why Indian and Chinese women are more willing to work in tech than western women.
I have noticed the same. In these cultures it's more acceptable to be interested in such things. Probably because financial success is more important in such countries, gender stereotypes be damned.
Still, it proves that a better gender ratio is definitely possible in the US as well
> Probably because financial success is more important in such countries, gender stereotypes be damned
I don't know that you can say that financial success is more important in those countries, but I think you can say that tech is a more viable path to that financial success in those countries since careers like finance, law and medicine (the stereotypical high-paid professions in the US) mean working in their own country rather than coming to the US. If you're primarily motivated by money, as an American, there are surer paths to getting it than writing code. But as a foreigner that wants to work in the US (and therefore make more money), writing code is one of the best ways to do that.
There's a pretty convincing argument that the drop in apparent interest in computing from girls was caused by computers and computer games being marketed squarely at boys:
The arguments that there are fundamental differences between men and women doesn't seem to prevent much higher proportions of female programmers in India, or Romania, or China.
As Adam Grant says, while there are some (small) differences between men and women, they're "not biologically determined"
> The arguments that there are fundamental differences between men and women doesn't seem to prevent much higher proportions of female programmers in India, or Romania, or China.
Suppose that the much higher proportions of female programmers in poorer countries might be because their choice is more limited; there is way more incentive in a poor country to want to land a fairly secure and well paid job, because you risk starving if you don't.
Going for a liberal arts degree (or similar) in India, Romania or China would then be discouraged.
Conversely, in the West, people are more free to pursue whatever profession they may like, because they most likely won't starve if they do.
I'm not saying that this would be the only explanation for the gender gap, but I do think the explanation involves many more factors than 'computer games in the 80s'.
I personally think it's naïve to dismiss inherent biological preferences entirely, especially since there are many studies that corroborate that they _do exist_.
Uh huh, there are potential other explanations, yes. Are they evidenced? Not to my knowledge.
> I personally think it's naïve to dismiss inherent biological preferences entirely...
"naïve", huh...
So, Adam Grant is one of the world's foremost experts in this area. Did you read his fully-sourced article, linked from my parent post, that refutes this exact "biological" point?
From the studies I've read it seems clear that there are biological differences between males and females. This was not fashionable to claim 20 or so years ago, but I suspect the dismissal was mostly based in politics, and the current trend in psychology is starting to acknowledge this.
The problem is that many people seem to forget that the difference applies to averages, and therefore mean very little on an individual level.
In other words, it's not far fetched to assume that a part of the gender gap in STEM/CS is because of biology, since an average trend would influence said gap. Conversely, it's incorrect to claim that a specific woman is more ill-suited doing STEM/CS than a man, just because she's a woman.
Also, I didn't go through all the references, but Adam Grant (at least indirectly) cites the 1995 study by Steele & Aronson which has been proved to be of shoddy quality. Like everyone else who denies any possibility of biology influencing how people think, he seems to have a political axe to grind. I therefore consider his opinions somewhat unreliable.
Yep, I think they fairly strongly agree that biological differences are not huge and that interest (which can be strongly swayed by culture) is that main contributing factor in the studies the memo cited.
I think Scott Alexander makes one rather poor argument towards the end of his debate with Grant.
> I agree this is surprising. But let’s also not claim it supports the sexism theory, unless you think people in computer science became more sexist between 1980 and today for some reason.
Attitudes change precisely that quickly. Look at the massive change in attitudes towards homosexuality.
> I think Scott Alexander makes one rather poor argument towards the end of his debate with Grant.
The way I read it, Grant claims that the decline can't have a biological explanation, Scott agrees but counter-claims that it does not necessarily follow the reason must be sexism then, and then goes on to provide a plausible non-sexism explanation. Are you reading it differently?
Regarding the article you referenced, I'm not sure I understand how it supports the sexism theory either. Up to about '83 women CS share rapidly and steadily increased (indicating decreasing sexism, I presume?), then Apple started marketing to boys, video games producers started marketing to boys, and because of that sexism within the industry immediately and dramatically increased? Or is it "sexism increased, and that caused Apple and video game producers to market to boys"? What's the narrative here?
More object-level, or nitpicking, if you will - the Apple ad they referenced didn't actually market "to boys" - nobody would buy an Apple II for a boy in 1985, it was too expensive, around $5K in today's money. The ad merely used a boy as the lead character, and no, mischievously pressing a button on the girl's keyboard does not constitute "teasing girls' computer skills".
Back in the 80s, the computers (Vic20s/C64s) sold themselves to my group of friends in grades 4-8; we were not subject to any marketing in Norway. Games were not the primary motivator, BASIC programming was.
Alas, I knew no girls who were into this even the slightest.
Sure. I can't speak to what influenced you or friends, or the girls you knew... just that it's not a worldwide phenomenon, and is restricted to CS rather than other STEM fields... so seems to fit. There may be no way to ever know for sure.
> You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case.
Or it implies that the bias has a more profound origin than simply hiring practices
I agree mostly. But there may also be a cyclical effect where women don't go into CS because they don't see women working in tech. In which case Google shouldn't necessarily have a legal obligation to hire more women, but there may be a moral argument or even a long-term self-interest argument (i.e. increase supply of good engineers) for it.
If women get paid more for the same qualifications because the supply of women is lower and the demand is higher, then market forces will eventually make sure education at all levels gets fixed. There are many ways to solve the same problem. Fixing a government run school directly sounds like one of the harder ways to go about it.
Women are getting paid measurably less, even by Google at the moment. There are a few decades of underpaid women's salaries to make up for before we can call it even.
People are not onions. People learn. Even if companies will lower the bar on entry for women they will be just forced to educate their employees more on the job. For people just out of school it might seem strange but jobs are where you get most of you useful education.
Is it additional burden on the companies? Sure. But we are fine with taxing companies and placing on them the burden of workers protections and environmental protection. This is just another protection. Protection against reinforcing inequality. I'm not saying it's good but additional education for less educated and more equality in society doesn't seem bad if the only cost is money from the richest corporations especially the ones that get most of their money from advertising which nowaydays is less about informing customer about your product existance and all about everything else.
I agree with most of what you say. Except blaming "a mostly government run school system". I came out OK from a poorly rated public system in California.
Please stop blaming the school system and our government. Our society puts so much emphasis on women looking a certain way; the way they should socialize; they need to be pretty, cheerleaders and subordinate ... Little girls aren't supposed to be nerdy and engineers. That's what society tells them in the movies they watch, the songs they hear and reinforced at home ... Let's get Jane some dolls. We'll give John a lego set. That's the "problem"
Yup. 50% is possible if you reject 3-4 men for every woman you hire for a programmer position.
I don't think the percentages in management really matter because you tend to get promoted from lower rungs. Management % probably reflects the programmer hires 5-10 years ago.
We really need to look at the percentage of female applicants. In the ~1000 applications I've seen directly from indeed etc, less than 20% we're female. I didn't count, but it seemed closer to 10%. It's so bad that for some job listings I remember not receiving a single female application for 20+ males.
Is it possible that women switch jobs less frequently than men? Or that they're drawn to different types of companies (e.g. established companies that they expect to have real HR departments and harassment policies, rather than startups that may be exciting but they perceive as presenting a higher risk of being a hostile environment)?
They are drawn to different types of industries less volatile and demanding. They also start fewer companies.
So choices in life means much more than we want to admit.
Of course women are being affected early on just as men but then the discussion should be about that rather than putting the guilt on companies who are just trying to make a business.
"The right way to fix the imbalance is to increase the supply of white onions. "
I agree with your point but economist will say that increasing the demand will be a better technique. Supply side will take care of itself. Affirmative actions are usually intended to create an artificial spike in demand for the purpose of greater good. How effective they are is a different matter altogether.
> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified men. Because you have to hire women as the diversity program says.
If I were I woman (or belong to minority) I would prefer to be being hired without any diversity program. Imagine being a woman and being hired with this program, does it mean they hired me because I am a woman or because I am the best candidate for the position? (I said woman but applies to any minority group)
As a woman with a disability who got hired by a diversity program, I don't give a fuck. I just need a job. Working at McDonald's sucks balls. If I really couldn't do the job, they could have fired me at the end of my probation period. I'm quite happy to earn my position after I've got it.
At the risk of somewhat generalizing, a disability puts a person at disadvantage. Just being a women isn't a disadvantage.
Regarding your employer being able to potentially firing you, the point isn't that they can fire you but that hiring you based on a diversity program for women could have excluded a more qualified man (not saying that you could not be the most qualified candidate). Firing you later doesn't fix the missed opportunity for that man or the employer.
From what you've said it is obvious that there is some disadvantage to being a women. There is no such thing as the mythical better qualified man. ALL the people interviewed are qualified, they can ALL do the job. Progressive companies do not want the same old same old weird white male dominated culture. They want to attract people with different life experiences, different perspectives, they need diversity. Not a nice to have, need. If they want to attract the best engineer in the world ever and she looks into their office and sees a whole load of middle aged white men she will think 'Nope I don't fit in here'. She was more important for innovative, disruptive company than all those dudes she spied and we lost her because we couldn't manage our hiring process properly. Ugh, what is so hard to understand here??? Diverse is better. There is no lowering of the bar, get over yourselves!
ALL the people interviewed are qualified, they can ALL do the job
I've interviewed ~100 people at a top tech company, and I really don't think this is the case: the best candidates are much better than the worst ones, even in on-site interviews. The signal isn't perfect, but it's pretty strong.
I don't think the grandparent quite expressed themselves clearly. If there is a group of applicants who happen to be equally qualified, but one type of person in that group is more likely to actually get hired - it's not reasonable to say that hiring a different type of person is taking an opportunity away from a member of the more popular type of person. A black woman getting hired isn't "taking a job away" from a white man. She's qualified, she gets the job.
> based on a diversity program for women could have excluded a more qualified man
In the case of my employer, all the qualified men who might want the job have already applied for it. The diversity program came about because they are actually struggling to find enough qualified candidates, even with generous pay and benefits. The company. No one has missed an opportunity because of me. The company was majority white and male, and they didn't have enough people, so they decided to tap into the vast universe of people who aren't white or male. In my opinion, that's the best possible reason for having a diversity program.
My point is simple. A person should be hired based on their skills/qualifications and potential ability to do the role (based on the experience/interview) and that should be the main and overriding criteria.
Of course, you can have hypothetical scenarios e.g. you have two candidates who are equally qualified and practically match neck to neck and you can only hire one and you have a lack of diversity in your company, sure, you can hire the person who brings more diversity.
However, if you have, say, white male person who is more qualified than, say a non-white female person, and those are your top two picks, then you should choose the former because it is about being most qualified for the role. If the non-white female is most qualified, than she should be chosen. I'm simply advocating meritocracy.
You mentioned that "The diversity program came about because they are actually struggling to find enough qualified candidates" and "he company was majority white and male, and they didn't have enough people, so they decided to tap into the vast universe of people who aren't white or male". I don't understand the first part - were they excluding non-white/non-male people from applying initially? Isn't that unlawful? Why didn't the "vast universe of people who aren't white or male" didn't apply initially and had to be brought in via diversity program?
What makes a person qualified? Experience, usually. If you find that all the qualified - and therefore experienced - people available are white and male, it shows that only white and male people have been able to get experience. That's not necessarily evidence of discrimination, but it still becomes a problem when you run out of experienced/qualified white men who want jobs, as in the case of my company.
They weren't excluding women or minorities, they just weren't finding any qualified ones. Now they are running short of people who are qualified of any color and gender. White men have already had lots of opportunities to get experience, so now they are giving those opportunities to women and minorities explicitly. At some point in the future they'll be able to reap the results of having more experienced people available of whatever gender or color.
Many companies think that it's not their responsibility to train, that the world is full of qualified people who are ready to step in and do whatever job whenever they're needed. It's not working out in the technology sector though. Some companies are getting the message that they have to take people who don't have experience, and give it to them until they are as qualified as they need to be.
In the past it was simply easier for white, male people to get experience, and that's why many companies now find that it's easier to find qualified, experienced white men to fill jobs. Except when it's not. Then they start diversity programs.
It is not just experience that makes a person qualified. A brilliant greenhorn who has the knowledge but not necessarily years of experience is also qualified. Of course an employer may demand not only knowledge but also experience in which case yes, both are required. But in general, qualified does not universally mean experienced.
Based on you wrote now, I found the piece I was unable to understand. What you are saying is that: they were not able to get anybody (white males or otherwise) so they invested in a diversity programme which results in more non-white/non-male candidates getting experience and skills and increased the overall job pool of available candidates. If that understanding is correct and the goal is to increase the overall pool of qualified candidates, then why a diversity programme? Why not a general internship programme where the most bright of _inexperienced_ candidates are chosen irrespective of their color/gender? Note the stress on inexperience since your argument is based on lack of experience for non-white/non-male population. That takes care of:
1. Companies' responsibility to train
2. Increases the overall pool of candidates
3. Ensures that the brightest are getting into the pool i.e. merit rules instead of skin color/gender (which means that if a non-white/non-male person is the brightest, they get the experience and join the pool)
> If that understanding is correct and the goal is to increase the overall pool of qualified candidates, then why a diversity programme? Why not a general internship programme where the most bright of _inexperienced_ candidates are chosen irrespective of their color/gender?
They have such a program as well, which has been in place much longer than the diversity program. With no specific requirements to pick people who aren't white and male, they ended up getting mostly white males.
> At the risk of somewhat generalizing, a disability puts a person at disadvantage.
It depends on the disability, but still disable people can do things that normal people cannot do. Everybody has skills companies can use, regardless their disability or race or gender.
A blind person wont seem like a good fit for a programming position, but if they prove they can program (as experience in their CV or having passed a test like the rest of candidates) they should be consider as the rest of candidates without any prejudice. And I am sure that blind person has put more effort to achieve the same goals as a non disable candidate and it might be a positive point to hire him as that blind person is showing one more skill than others.
But we shouldn't hire him because he/she is blind but because of his/her skills.
Agreed and I understand that disability is not universally disadvantageous - thats why I said I was generalizing. E.g. a blind person proficient in Braille would actually be great candidate for reviewing production quality of Braille books.
Would it be fine if the diversity program was made into national policy, so that every profession with less than 40% women and 40% men are encouraged to have a affirmative action plan to address it. In particular, government hiring policy should lead by example.
I find that if a decision on morality is made into a general rule, they are much easier to assert if they are good or bad. A gender neutral diversity program on a national level would radically change the discussion, and it would be interesting to see if the proponents of diversity programs would still support it.
1) what happen if less than 40% want to be in the profession? Are you going to force them to join non-desire careers?
2) does it apply also to bad things? like for example the ratio of men in jail is higher, does it mean we are putting in jail wrong people and leaving women out that should be in jail?
3) will it apply to different minorities? like for example would short people be more selected to play basketball?
1) affirmative action don't force anyone. It could mean that health care and education with several professions with over 90% gender segregation would have to stop all hire of that gender, or hire anyone of the minority gender that show up at the door. The list of gender ration in different professions are publish here in Sweden, so it would be very easy to see where the biggest effect would be (IT, with a about 70-30 ratio is very average profession in regard to gender segregation).
2) & 3), when making law, rules tries to become more general but only to a point. Where that point is is naturally up to debate, but should match the intention of the rule maker. If we want to eliminate gender segregation in the work place, then it naturally ends with gender. If the idea is to eliminate segregation in general then more classification of groups would have to be included.
But the big question I wanted to ask is if we take gender based affirmative action, would that explicit form of action be consider moral when made into a general rule rather than applied locally by specific companies. If it is not, then why is it moral when done in smaller scale.
> I wanted to ask is if we take gender based affirmative action, would that explicit form of action be consider moral when made into a general rule rather than applied locally by specific companies. If it is not, then why is it moral when done in smaller scale.
I see your point now. That is such a good question. But I think in US as in other countries there are laws for gender diversity, like you have to pay more taxes if you don't have gender diversity. And some countries have positive discrimination policies that give money to company who hire minorities.
> what happen if less than 40% want to be in the profession? Are you going to force them to join non-desire careers?
"Nah, we all know CS is the best, and the only logical possibility is that women are being discouraged to do it, because if I chose an IT career, it's obviously the correct choice of profession."
-- Lots of people here.
Would you think it unreasonable then for an able-bodied male who might be hired at the dismantling of such a program because the spot opens up to say he "doesn't give a " if that change of circumstance gave him a similar career advantage, and he intended to work hard once accepted to fill the shoes of the role?
Can you describe the diversity program? I mean was it a program to source candidates from different places and make them enter the normal hiring pipeline, or was something like there are 1% positions reserved for minorities and you fill one?
The normal hiring process goes like this - apply -> short interview -> short (a few weeks) trial period, paid -> a second interview -> hired. It's a good process that leads to quality hires, but it's also a very slow one because not everyone can take a few weeks out of their life for a job trial, if they're currently employed.
The diversity program is an invitation for women, minorities, and disabled people to do an internship. The goal of the internship is to learn, not necessarily to demonstrate ability to do the job. It is paid. It lasts 4-6 months. Interns are invited to go through the normal hiring process afterwards, with the benefit of some experience on the job. There are no full time jobs reserved for any particular type of person. If they choose not to stay with the company, they still get a genuinely useful resume item out of it, moreso than they'd get from a 2 week trial. It can also be used for school credit. Some people might come back and apply again after they finish school.
Around a hundred people go through the normal trial process each year, and it's currently not enough. That's why the diversity program was launched, just to get more people into the pipeline. Only about 8 interns go through the program each year, because so far it's a small experiment, but it's working out so far. A few interns have been hired full time, and a couple of people who couldn't hack it got to at least have a taste of what it's like.
I second your sentiment. Even assuming we live in a perfect world were no-one is biased and hiring is perfectly fair based on skills etc, things like commuting time and accessibility of living spaces restricts what job people with impaired mobility can actually accept and as result they compete in a smaller job market.
This applies to the majority of protected categories one way or another, but people forget it's not "just because people are biased" - while many sadly are, at an explicit or implicit level, even if they weren't there are good reason to keep certain quotas around.
Edit: enlighten me naysayers, why protecting special categories with objective limitations a priory even in absence of cultural bias would be so bad?
"Still getting asked if I can handle being in a mostly male work environment in interviews in 2009 - I’ve been an engineer for 9 years, obviously I can. I know when I’m asked that question, I HAVE NO CHANCE AT THE JOB. It is nice they brought me in for equal opportunity survey points but don’t waste my time if you don’t take females seriously.”
The point is when you have a male dominated "bro"/"frat" culture, diversity programs are indeed just to meet labor standards - but they don't actually hold water. Which is why women end up leaving these places because people can't treat women like human beings. A diversity program becomes virtually useless if you can't keep people from leaving short of incentivizing them to deal with a company's toxic culture.
Hmm, when we made our first female hire (we are a computer games company), she was a graduate and I did point out that everyone else was male. We offered her the job. She accepted it. She mentioned whilst working she wished more girls worked here so she had someone to talk about girl related things with and go out shopping at lunchtime (it turned out one of the males here knew about shellac nails after this comment and they had a chat about it). Ultimately she moved onto a bigger company a year or so later (the male/female balance wasn't given as a reason, the new job was something excited her a lot more).
I think saying 'can you HANDLE being in a mostly male work environment' is not the right wording. But the decision I took to let a potential candidate know they would be working in an otherwise male only office, I would take again in the same circumstance - it WAS something she was interested to know and WAS something that also came up when she started the job.
I can't speak on behalf of any other women, or scenario in the world, the above is the account of what happened to us. We typically get at least 10X more male candidates to female, and we employ and the same ratio. For about half of the jobs we recruit for, the personal doing the interviewing is female.
Thank you for this honest real-world example. For the sake of context, I am also showing a bit of my bias concerning the issue of masculine frat culture that I myself have had the displeasure of being exposed to at previous start-ups. It was really uncomfortable, I could barely get work done and much of the sales hiring was pushing the culture of the company in that direction.
I perfectly understand the innocence of the question and can empathize with both scenarios: one where the candidate is frustrated by seemingly not being taken seriously, and one where the candidate is genuinely interested in knowing and hoping she can find someone to relate to.
Finding out if you fit into the social norms and groups is really really hard when you're an adult.
Stupid people are everywhere. I want to think that there is a big amount of people that is not like that.
As a male I was told something similar in an interview at Google: if I would mind to work in a company where most people are men? And as the girl you cite I found the question stupid. I have worked in tech I already know how is this.
Instead of diversity program to hire women we should create tolerance programs for everybody.
That, or employers should up their professionalism. Bring back the 9-5 job, the clean desk policy, the grumpy boss that will chew you out if you come to work wearing shorts.
How does that signal for professionalism? How does that make a healthier workplace culture? It just becomes a management minefield. People can commit crimes in suits too.
Developer cultures in the 60s and 70s were more corporate, but some of them managed to be more diverse, because the default expectation was "professional adult", not "funky post-student", and "professional adult" is a bigger space that supports access by a broader range of people.
Women started finding it harder to get into CS in the 80s. Until then, the historical record is that diversity was better than it is now.
But generally hiring-process solutions to this problem are hopeless. You either have a diverse culture, in which case markers for age, gender, attractiveness, charm, ethnicity, extraversion, and so on, are irrelevant... or you don't.
Tech generally doesn't - and that starts at school, not during hiring.
Adding a few extra women won't change that. It's a small improvement at best, not a revolution in accessibility.
Because the reality is that even with a 50:50 gender split startup culture would still be primarily white-or-asian, young, attractive, middle class, and motivated by a very small selection of possible ethical positions - and a lot of possible talent would still be excluded.
Age, race, and class discrimination is far more obvious to outsiders than gender discrimination.
You could make the "Well it's still an improvement" argument, and that's true - up to a point. There's still a bigger conversation to be had about inequality in general, and I'm not sure how many people in tech of any gender are interested in having it.
Ageism happens for more or less same reasons. Perceived bias that older people can't work hard enough, or change fast enough with the fast changing time.
Tech is a very fast moving space with a lot of premium attached to entrepreneurship, moving fast enough, failing often etc.
This sort of an environment is very hard for almost everybody to survive through.
The funny part to me was that when I graduated, in the early 2000 after the crash, the meme about getting a job in tech was "You need 10 years of experience to get an entry level job".
There was a strong bias for older workers. Eventually people said "fuck it", made their own startups, hired their newly graduate colleagues, and started making a big push about why younger tech workers were better.
Since the pipeline is growing (more and more people are going in tech), new grads around that time easily outnumbered the older ones, and thus the situation we're in now. It's almost a backlash to what happened back then.
My grandfather always shares his stories about leading the development team at Lewis (an old English insurance corporation) and British Gas.
In his view, they were slothenly, unkempt, often unwashed and unsuited nerds. They were allowed to be because they did a job nobody else at the time could do- and while the rest of the office was suite/tie/polished shoes- they showed a flagrant and blatant disregard for that. Because they knew that they could get away with it because they were "needed".
This is why he has a respect for me being clean/polite/respectful while "having the same skills" in his mind.
So I don't fully buy that tech was previously more professional; it might be a different culture in SV, but generally tech is as professional as anything outside of finance in the cities I've worked (in europe)
Why does it matter what the employee dresses or looks like, if they produce the same results?
I have never understood the reason for people forcing their views of how people should dress onto others. It is absurd.
Granted, there are levels of what is 'appropriate' for the workplace, but I think generally having a flexible dress code is important for employee morale.
> Developer cultures in the 60s and 70s were more corporate ..
Because only biiig and serious corps had the dough to play with mainframes. IBM, AT&T, Nokia, Alcatel, Ericsson are still very corporate. The world has changed a bit since then. (The Cold War changed how people view openness and sharing, the Vietnam Wwar (and recently Iraq) changed how people related to the Establishment (and the "military-industrial complex"), and big corporations. Openness became important and "cool" again.)
And CS is small even today, but it was much smaller. Only the very determined, rather serious people were doing software development. And the projects were much more "serious" back then. Waterfall development model, etc.
Diversity was better, about 36% of CS grads were women. Still long before the big Information Age explosion (.com boom, and so on).
And nowadays when you need a gadget or a website you don't need a professional big corporate project, you need just a few guys-gals.
> But generally hiring-process solutions to this problem are hopeless. You either have a diverse culture, in which case markers for age, gender, attractiveness, charm, ethnicity, extraversion, and so on, are irrelevant... or you don't.
Agreed. But if you want to ensure a transition from bad culture to good culture, you might need to start brute force hiring for it. But usually companies that lack good culture are allowed to rot because someone at the top doesn't care.
> There's still a bigger conversation to be had about inequality in general, and I'm not sure how many people in tech of any gender are interested in having it.
People much better off than the average "for some reason" find it "not their problem". Of course, some do, and try to maximize their impact (see effective altruism).
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about diversity programs, and their purpose. Let's use tech leadership as an example:
The problem they're solving shouldn't be "we need more women in tech, so let's lower the bar for them".
The problem they should be solving is "There are two candidates for this leadership position. One tends to use assertiveness and authority to get the job done. The other uses encouragement and persuasion. Who do you hire?". The default response is often to choose the person with the leadership style you've seen many times before, and thus the person who uses unfamiliar, equally effective techniques doesn't get a shot.
You sure as hell shouldn't hire me because I'm female. You should hire me because the set of techniques I employ to do my job are effective, even though they might be less familiar to you. Every tech lead has a different style, and that style has been tailored to that individual. Measure the outcome, not arbitrary characteristics that contribute to the outcome.
> You sure as hell shouldn't hire me because I'm female. You should hire me because the set of techniques I employ to do my job are effective, even though they might be less familiar to you
I couldn't agree more with it. And I think it is one of the points of the infamous memorandum. We should change how the companies works internally so we can use other skills in our benefit. I am not sure the diversity programs work like this, because if they worked like this the focus should be more inside the internal culture than in the hiring process. They would say something like we need to teach people in the company to increase the tolerance and assess diversity skill instead of increasing the diversity. Increasing diversity should be an emerge feature not a goal.
So in my country, we have our own version of affirmative action called caste-based reservations. Basically, if you belong to a certain caste, there are seats reserved for you in every government institution (schools, universities) and public sector jobs.
One of the smartest people I know belongs to one of these castes. She is brilliant at her job but constantly worries whether she got in because of her brains or because of the reservations.
There is STILL a serious need for reservations and affirmative action in my country, but man does it screw with people.
>>There is STILL a serious need for reservations and affirmative action in my country, but man does it screw with people.
I come from the same country.
Reservation policy has denied hordes and hordes of exceptionally smart, hardworking and merit people their rightful chance of doing good in life. It continues to. This has been one of the key reasons for mass exodus of these people to foreign lands. The damage is irreversible. Those people are lost for ever. And worst, they do so well outside India that more and more smart people are incentivized to leave the country for the better.
The damage to the Indian economy and the STEM ecosystem in India in general is incalculable.
Also by and large, at least from the past few decades(of economic boom and social progress) these reservation policies have no meaning at all.
And how would you right the wrongs that the caste system has done to countless people? Even today people get ostracized because of their supposed caste, even though the system has been illegal for many years. There was even an interview on NPR about this last week: http://www.npr.org/2017/08/05/541844695/ants-among-elephants... - even today people in the US get asked what caste they are.
Your "hordes and hordes" who have been denied their "rightful chance of doing good in life" seems more than a little overblown when you compare that to millions of people who were denied the same chance for centuries due to where their families fell in the social chain at one point.
Affirmative action policies often seem unfair to the majority, but it's often extremely difficult for that majority to consider just what the minority went through, and how much longer it will take - if it can ever happen - for them to reach parity without policies that recognize that they've been forcefully held back for their entire life, their parents' lives, and so on.
>>And how would you right the wrongs that the caste system has done to countless people?
The modern day hard working people affiliated to a particular caste be punished generation after generation for a mistake some ancestor of theirs made some 5000 years back?
>>Even today people get ostracized because of their supposed caste, even though the system has been illegal for many years.
Strictly speaking caste affiliations today are entirely voluntary. You can by all means absolve yourself of any caste/religion. People stick to a particular caste/religion for various reasons many of which are cultural and not because they forced to. Also note caste isn't a binary classification. There are castes that go as deep as farmer, shepherd, cow herder, black smith, cotton weaver, weapon maker etc etc.
Some of them do it because of the explicit benefits like reservations that come along with it.
>>Your "hordes and hordes" who have been denied their "rightful chance of doing good in life" seems more than a little overblown when you compare that to millions of people who were denied the same chance for centuries due to where their families fell in the social chain at one point.
This my experience being born and living in this country for 3 decades of my biological life. The default condition for any body smart and hard working here is 'immigration abroad'.
Take any steps from your childhood. Attend any exams(which by the way decide your entire life direction), appear for any government job interview, parliaments seats etc etc. Reservations exist which will ensure many hard working people ever succeed.
The system actively brutally punishes smart, hard working merit people to a point most people are driven to migrate foreign lands to get due returns for their work.
And the previous interview that I had linked to noted how often even in the US, people get asked what caste they're in.
Deeply rooted discrimination doesn't go away just because it is officially outlawed, and the effects of that discrimination don't go away just through hard work. There are plenty of smart African Americans and women in the US who can attest to still getting paid less than white males even if they did get good jobs.
This is a bit like atheism. If you denounce your religion, they can't exactly drag you back into it. But that cuts both ways, if you are an atheist, you can't expect somebody religious to throw away their religion and marry you. The world doesn't owe you a marriage on your terms.
Caste is similar, if you throw away your caste and then go for marriage, a strong caste affiliate who doesn't subscribe to your world view may reject your proposal. This isn't discrimination, everybody has a right to marry somebody whom they feel they can be comfortable with.
You will be surprised how much 'pride' people take in their caste here in India. There are many caste specific festivals and traditions people observe. Almost all caste affiliates in India are willing participants.
I just wanted to record my position on this because I in no way support what you're saying. I fully support reservation for people who belong to traditionally marginalized communities when it comes to education. The only way you can make me reconsider is to make education free of cost and open to all candidates regardless of merit.
However, you do raise a good point. Reservation policy should not extend into the work force. I am more in favor of literal handouts of cash rather than forced diversity in the workplace. Come to think of it, basic income can't come soon enough. I don't mean we need to end diversity programs in the workplace but the way it was explained to me was these were recruitment programs and not hiring programs. Considering gender or caste or color of skin as one of the conditions for employment should be illegal in all nations.
>>I fully support reservation for people who belong to traditionally marginalized communities when it comes to education.
This was the original vision of the people who designed the reservation system in India. Their idea was some people where so behind in the social strata that merely expecting them to make up on hard work would take it forever to work. But this policy should have some expiry conditions. Else it leads to absurd conditions like it does in India.
There are cases where the father is a well earning rich doctor, and the kids still get reservations. There is a guy who has just done his MBBS, and yet he qualifies for reservation for a MD seat. Entry and qualifying marks/percentages are lower for reservation seats, so you have a condition where exceptionally good performers and bad performers are both in the same peer group in a class, and then the bad performing group routinely does bad and loses out.
>>Reservation policy should not extend into the work force.
Once you create a entitled group of people, you can't succeed them in stopping them from asking special privileges in other places.
> Considering gender or caste or color of skin as one of the conditions for employment should be illegal in all nations.
Given research showing that the most diverse teams are, on average, more successful than less diverse teams [1], should gender or caste or color still never be considered?
People bring more to their workplaces than algorithms and programming languages, their life experiences and worldview can positively influence the whole company.
The employer should encourage new ideas, create an environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute, and facilitate education and improvement for all employees.
Algorithms, programming languages, technology stacks, etc. can all be taught. The perspective an employee brings to the company can not be taught.
I think we would agree that gender, race, and ethnicity are crude proxies for a "unique worldview". There are so many metrics that could be considered: education, location history, age, previous work, hobbies, etc. Even more can be gleaned from a conversation.
A good hiring manager should know that too, and should select candidates who truly complement the team, not just check the boxes for race and gender.
According to Census 2011, 4% of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) - minorities who benefit this reservation - have a government job [0]. They form 25% of the population [1].
Firstly reservations exist beyond SCs and STs. There are a whole variety of people who get reservations. So that number is way higher.
We are talking of problems General Merit people face here.
Secondly, you are making the same mistake, we generally do in India while comparing these things. Comparing human ingenuity one-one. A good merit performer can contribute way more disproportionately compared to a bad performer.
Lastly you don't mention the problem of filling up mandatory quotas. Where you can't allocate seats to general merit folks until all reservation quotas are exhausted. In Karnataka this problem was so serious back in the day, the general merit seat counseling used to happen at very last after each reserved category exhausted their picks.
The resultant situation was so bizarre. It was literally the best students in the entire state had to pick up leftovers, while people who had performed way worse took plum picks.
I remember during our first Math lecture in the first semester, some of us used to solve problems way ahead of the remaining class. Our professor used to remark the general merit candidates in the class were basically the top ranking students who had missed out on top colleges and the performance difference in the peer group was already showing, and will continue to show in the future.
> Reservation policy has denied hordes and hordes of exceptionally smart, hardworking and merit people their rightful chance of doing good in life. It continues to. This has been one of the key reasons for mass exodus of these people to foreign lands.
Proof is living here in India. Watching year after year, your seniors, neighbors, cousins, class mates, tuition mates, office colleagues burn through insane hours entirety of the whole academic life from childhood till late teenage, working for doing good in exams, scoring the top ranks that there are, and yet being denied seats in professional colleges.
The very fact that you ask for proof means you are completely disconnected from the everyday reality of life middle class hard working students face in India every single academic year.
Even today I meet freshers at IT companies who have stories of having scored in upwards of 95% aggregate marks, and best rank in competitive exams(JEE, NEET, NATA, CET etc) and lose out an engineering seat to some one who had 35-45% marks.
He asked for proof. The person responded with anecdotes. That kind of reasoning will just result in another person giving his/her anecdotes stating the opposite. Neither is proof.
In India the reservation debate has reached a point where things like 'citation needed' and 'provide proof' are now largely excuses to cover for pointless spending towards socialist 'rob peter to pay paul' schemes. Some people find reservation apologists so absurd that a debate isn't relevant any more. The problem and pains faced by hardworking kids from middle class families are now beyond complaints. Most people know by now, nobody cares for them and they have to work far more harder than kids who get reservations.
The net result is general merit kids are far more competitive and do well on the longer run.
Either way I know nothing will change on the ground, because this is large a political issue. And politicians let the system continue because they get votes in return.
For merit people the path is very simple, move out as the system doesn't reward you. There are better places on earth to contribute and build your career.
>In India the reservation debate has reached a point where things like 'citation needed' and 'provide proof' are now largely excuses to cover for pointless spending towards socialist 'rob peter to pay paul' schemes.
We're not in India and this is an international forum.
>I won't debate this further with you
Your opinion is formed so strongly that you never even debated in this thread. You're repeating the same sentiments and ignoring what the other person is saying.
The person is not even claiming what you are saying is false. He is only asking you to support what you're saying. And you've already attributed qualities to his personality.
The caste system discussion is about India. And we can only debate conditions in the context they are present.
No studies are conducted in India on this because this is a political issue. People vote in blocks(vote banks). Any hint of a detailed study will expose these people and they threaten to vote against the politicians as a block.
This is the equivalent of stealing bulk of the cheddar, when accused prevent CCTV monitoring from being installed, continue stealing and claim no proof exist for the crime.
>No studies are conducted in India on this because this is a political issue. People vote in blocks(vote banks). Any hint of a detailed study will expose these people and they threaten to vote against the politicians as a block.
The common theme in this thread is:
You make claims.
You refuse to back them up.
Take this example. I could easily make the argument:
"No studies are conducted in India on this because this is not a political issue."
It would help if you provide evidence that something bad happens to those who attempt such research.
Don't get me wrong - what you say is very believable to me. However, your comments are at the same level of conspiracy theorists in the US. When asked for proof, they respond with similar statements "What I'm speaking is the truth. The government/media/whoever represses this knowledge". Whether it's from climate denialists or young Earth believers.
I find it sad that you are responding at the same level as those people.
While I understand, and agree with, the sentiment of your skepticism, you come across as quite arrogant in your dismissal.
If a problem is political providing proof might be very difficult, since those in power will claim that there is no proof of a problem existing, and hence there is no need to investigate the problem further. This circular logic prevents any kind of proof from ever being produced.
Saimiam is an Indian, and is likely living in India. I neither understand nor agree with his skepticism. I may have been more generous if he were from some other country.
Kamaal made a claim that "stories of having scored in upwards of 95% aggregate marks, and best rank in competitive exams(JEE, NEET, NATA, CET etc) and lose out an engineering seat to some one who had 35-45% marks."
This is what I have seen too. And yet, I cannot provide any citations because the agencies and the institutions do not publish figures. Saimiam knows this, and himself cannot produce figures of any sort in this field. Our governmental agencies make policies not based on research and citations, but based on what gets them most votes. The govermnent has no incentive to fund research in the field.
This gives a nice cover for people to hide behind, and say, "No proof. Ha ha."
>If a problem is political providing proof might be very difficult, since those in power will claim that there is no proof of a problem existing, and hence there is no need to investigate the problem further. This circular logic prevents any kind of proof from ever being produced.
This topic is very measurable, regardless of the government's stance. The government cannot prevent proof of this. At most they can just not fund it.
No, unfortunately it isn't always 'very measureable'. Read your sibling comment; sometimes the government has the necessary data but refuses to release it to anyone.
Providing proof may then become prohibitively expensive, and sometimes impossible.
a persons humanity should not be in question. you can discuss the merits of a specific persons qualifications but to argue "women, as an aggregate, are poor coders because they care about people and not things like dudes do" isn't a discussion. it's just grade-school level sexism.
for someone with a PhD in biological systems, you'd expect a person to be a little more developed in their thinking...
Woman and men are, on average, different. Is this wrong?
These differences can be in factors that impact ones desire or ability to perform certain roles. Is this wrong?
This individual person, because they are a man/woman, is unfit for the role. This IS wrong.
Is it wrong to say there are differences that make women, on average, worse football players? Is that inherently bad, perhaps even blasphemous, thing to say? I don't think so.
So why can't one discuss this about other jobs? Perhaps they are wrong, Perhaps which ever group isn't worse on average. But even if they are wrong, then the way to respond is to say that their information is wrong, not that they are wrong for saying it.
We are treating the conversation itself like it is a blasphemy that shall not be uttered aloud. Instead, we should be asking 'is this information factual or not'. And we should be taking safe guards that averages aren't assigned to individuals.
> the way to respond is to say that their information is wrong, not that they are wrong for saying it.
This is what bothered me the most about Google's response. They have the data to prove that the stereotypes about women were wrong. Instead of doing that, they focused on the idea that articulating the stereotypes was wrong. Some stereotypes actually have a basis in facts. The best way to deal with ones that aren't is to use the facts. Google failed at doing this.
> to argue "women, as an aggregate, are poor coders because they care about people and not things like dudes do" isn't a discussion.
Did you actually read the paper or just one of the many summaries? Because he didn't say that, and your use of quotes is inappropriate here. Also, he didn't question anyone's humanity.
While I don't agree with some of the points he made and I'm for Diversity programs in general, I find these misrepresentations and personal attacks on him quite disturbing. What we need is more civilized discussion, not name-calling.
yes, I did read it. and yes, that's precisely the argument that was presented. with a nice "we should talk about it!" cherry on top.
there's nothing to discuss. women have just as much right as men to be programmers or any other "computer science" or "tech" job and they reason there AREN'T that many of them is preicsely because of the pseudo-science bona fide bullshit written in his "Manifesto".
it only takes one asshole to drive away everyone else.
Well. You invented everything you're claiming it said.
At no point did it even insinuate that women were less capable than men, what it seemed to be trying to do is note marginal statistical differences in choices by men and women and what we could do as an industry to be more accommodating to women without resorting to hiring quotas- which, he claims, may actually cause greater levels of imposter syndrome and tension amongst genders.
There was no part of the document that came close to refuting that women have a right to be in the industry. In fact. The document was the opposite, "how do we get women in tech in a non-discriminatory way?"
I should add, the fact there's "Nothing to discuss" is quite radicalising. Others can tell people how to think and they can't even discuss it civilly? That seems so against the engineering and scientific ideology we all claim to believe in.
Strongly different of what you think there are a lot of PhD in the area that agree with him. That people have different biological systems and so the expressed skills are different. The same way genes express the gender they also express different skills. What I don't understand is why this is so bad? we have different skills, let's try not to think everybody is exactly the same and focus in the skills every individual have.
It's the idea that it would be unfair that on average women cannot do as well in things men do, ignoring basic biology that genders are different and that there are things that absolutely no man can do, that women can. Even sometimes those areas which privilege females are seen as they were basically cornered into doing, and have no bearing into the fact that while there is some chauvinism, that possibly on average the desires, needs and skills may be not better or worse but different. And the women that embrace those things are positive are seen as being dominated against their will, or brainwashed into hating themselves.
In short, if a women does something that historically men used to do, then it's good. Else, and even more if it is something that historically women used to do, they are being subject to sexism.
The PhD guy should know better, perhaps too much specialization in his field made his brain go fritz.
So this is a common talking point, and I'd like to flip your case around, because the belief that people from a caste are inferior human beings isn't as widespread in the US.
So what you are really saying is there's a problem with affirmative action for lower castes, because large numbers of people assume that they are inferior. That's the problem your friend has. That's she's brilliant, and lots of people assume she isn't because of some arbitrary prejudice. This is the same arbitrary prejudice that the affirmative action seeks to remedy, and so these attitudes to affirmative action, in themselves, prove the need for affirmative action.
> because large numbers of people assume that they are inferior.
You're taking this the wrong way. It's not that they think that people who came in through reservations are inferior. It's that they don't have to work nearly as hard.
In an exam where an upper caste person might have to score 100 to get in, the reserved caste person would have to score 70.
It's about the unfairness of this system.
Which is strange because the caste system before this was wildly unfair itself.
To mitigate the damage of one unfair system, we've set up another one.
If they are, then is it a) a tragedy that should be remedied by providing better nutrition, education, opportunities, or b) are they a lower level of sub-human who we just have to put up with in menial roles?
I'll note that if you do a) then the problem of them getting in on lower grades solves itself, as they compete for the limited slots available to them. And at that point you can remove the system entirely.
Actually caste isn't a binary classification. And reservations don't apply only to one caste. Many castes get reservations.
The remainder bulk of the people who don't get reservations fall into this category called 'General Merit'.
Now the system fills up the reservation quotas first, leaving leftovers to general merit. General merit has way more candidates and a larger section of people who score above reservation people. The net result is you end up denying top performers seats, so that you can fill reservation quotas.
Probably yes, at least the people interested in the position. Considering that distributions on both sets are the same, lowering the bar in the minor set is an unfair advantage of positive discrimination
> That's she's brilliant, and lots of people assume she isn't because of some arbitrary prejudice
So let's create tolerance programs for the people who has this prejudices. This will solve the problem, lower the bar for minorities it is only a treatment of the problem which won't do anything in the long term. Because if they hire you and then the cultural corporation is broken you are going to be very unhappy and probably leave the career (his actually happens)
Anyway see countries like Norway consider one of the most equality countries, and also one with the more gender inbalance in careers like tech. We should consider that some people don't like a professional and also work in way to make this profession more appealing if it is possible. But if it not possible just understand that the imbalance is natural. we
I love how you throw around the term "qualified" as though it were set in stone. Like one person is obviously more qualified than the other, as though these people are 100m sprinters whose performance is measured within a fraction of a hundredth of a second.
We're treating highly educated specialists tasked with delivering highly complex, variable and nuanced output like 19th century factory workers. How many hundreds of books have been published on just the question of measuring employee productivity, yet for the sake of this conversation we toss terms like "more qualified" around like they are law.
It is a subjetive measure but still a measure. For example, the position requires knowing Python, a person with 5 years of experience in Python will probably know more than a person with 1. Yes, you can be wrong but hiring the 5 year person is the common sense, you will do less mistakes this way. Hiring the women because it is a women it is a positive discrimination. Not hiring the women with experience is discrimination, but does this really happen? Can you prove it?
(Ok yes, people see a woman to hire and say +1 point because you a woman and will us pay less taxes because of the diversity balance. This shit happens too)
You talk like you have written those books, enlighten me.
"Qualified" was the wrong word because it can imply that the qualifications are measurable à priori, which is what I'm assuming is your interpretation.
That's not what the OP is saying though, he's saying "qualified" as seen in demonstrated performance after the hiring. It would've been clearer had he said "better at the job" (as in, leading to a greater total company value) than "qualified".
Assuming you're not a woman or minority, don't be so sure that's what you would prefer (unless you're saying you would prefer there were no bias at all, in which case, duh). There are women and minorities that have benefited from such programs, and absolutely do not feel guilty by it, because they believe that in the absence of those programs, the unfair disadvantage would have exceeded any "unfair advantage" the program gave them.
When I said "if I were a woman" I was talking about me. My personal opinion. I know that there are people that think differently.
I prefer to work for a company that was able to see my skills than other that hire me because other reasons. I think I would be happier and achieve more things this way. (Again, this is a personal opinion)
I think they're saying that unless you are a woman at job-hunting age (having been influenced by your environment for 2-3 decades by that point), making a claim about how you might feel if you were, is of little value in the discussion.
We can also just project into a field where were are a minority. So maybe a man can't consider what it is to be a diversity hire in tech, but he could consider being a diversity hire for a number of other industries which where the majority of employees are women.
Yes, I think that's more likely to be useful to think about, but I do think reality and hypothetical considerations are just so different when it comes to forming a valuable argument.
I have faced discrimination in another areas of my life. So I think I can have an opinion about it. I have also talked with woman that think the same as me.
Are you discriminating me to give an opinion because I am a male? I don't think it is fair. I could also say that you shouldn't talk about gender equality if you don't live in a country with high gender equality and so you argument doesn't add any value with the discussion.
I'm trying to clarify the point made by another user.
And I suspect that yes, they were suggesting that giving an opinion as a hypothetical female, given that you are male, is of limited value. I think people of both genders make real-world decisions very differently to hypothetical decisions. When there are bills to be paid, and potential bias is mixed in amongst countless other factors, I can say I wouldn't ditch a career as a chemistry teacher to start producing drugs, but who knows what pressures there are influencing that decision slowly at the time, and in the years leading up.
This is a non-sense to me. My opinion about what a woman would do does not have a value because I am not a woman, but you are talking about men and woman and I should take into account you opinion? I don't think you are both a man and a woman.
> I think people of both genders make real-world decisions very differently to hypothetical decisions
based on your reasoning you cannot say that because you cannot have an opinion about what the other gender would do.
The fact is that a lot of women reply to my comment saying that they would do the same I said I would do.
Respectfully, I'm still not sure my point is coming across.
I agree with you; and I think everyone else does, that they'd rather work for a company that was able to see their skills.
But, what if you knew there was bias that would keep them from seeing your skills, and would keep you from being hired because of it? What if your only choices were to be hired through a diversity program, or not be hired at all?
If it is either die or survive without choose survive, obviously.
Why are you so sure the bias is there? Countries like Norway are one of the most equality countries but they have the higher ratios, which doesn't make sense because they have the less bias.
> Why are you so sure the bias is there? Countries like Norway are one of the most equality countries but they have the higher ratios, which doesn't make sense because they have the less bias.
This sentence is a little garbled so not quite sure what you're going for, but I like to point people to the example of the Danish parliament. A gender quota was established some decades ago to ensure that female members could get the job, because obviously half the population is female and so they need to be represented. Now that they have an equal number of men and women, they're getting ready to remove the quota because it served its purpose, and it's not needed anymore. There are enough qualified and experienced women with strong reputations available that they don't need the help anymore.
Norway has had "gender points" in relation to acceptance at university for several studies, especially in the STEM related ones. The gender gap has closed a great deal in most of the STEM studies, but not that much in CS related ones.
Some of the studies have become nearly 50/50, and an interesting event is when they tried to remove the "gender points" from one of the studies, and the female acceptance rates fell to almost zero. Females in Norway generally have better grades, so one could make the argument that the difference is because of interest.
There is a documentary called Hjernevask from Norway that had a lot of controversy because of the topic. It is good to see different opinions of experts and what happened there:
That is a fantastic outcome, and the sort of end goal that affirmative action should seek. But it doesn't always end that well.
In India, affirmative action has basically served to deepen the lines between castes/religions etc. More and more sections of society demand that they be included in quotas. The people who do get in using such programs rarely succeed in suppressing the nagging question of whether they earned it (and that questioning stays with you all your life). Meanwhile, people forge identity documents to make it through such programmes, and the abuse of the system means that no one trusts that it is doing any good overall. In fact, by now, it has become a tool for politicians to appease fractious sections of society.
That's really too bad. Maybe something like the blind auditions they now use for orchestra positions could help. All applications done blindly or over text, using knowledge tests, something like that.
Exactly! If you want to remove gender, race or some other aspect from the decision making process you have to actually remove it. You can't just try to fix discrimination one direction by creating discrimination in a different direction.
In fact, I agree with your original post wholeheartedly.
You start with an "end date" (say two decades). And you make that date difficult to change, so that the "let's kick the can down the road" option is not easy.
The "end date" will never arrive. If you told a set of people they can get seats at plum places doing 1/4th work the remainder of the population, and you did this with 4-5 generations of their populace, its impossible to do away with this sort of entitlement after a while.
And not to forget there will be enough politicians to fight for them as long as they vote for them.
These sort of things are pretty much one direction. Once done are irreversible. Its impossible to roll back what people think is a right they were born with.
That is an excellent idea. The only trouble is, the people who make this policies do not see the problem that you and I do. Their problem is to get more votes, and ocassionally to appease violent hooligans. What they have been doing fixes their problems perfectly well. SNAFU.
> This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified women. Because you have to hire women as the diversity program says.
Are you saying there are no situations in which applying a systematic adjustment as a function of gender to interview scores could result in a predictable net-fitness-increase in the resulting skill distribution of hired people?
> If I were I woman (or belong to minority) I would prefer to be being hired without any diversity program. Imagine being a woman and being hired with this program, does it mean they hired me because I am a woman or because I am the best candidate for the position? (I said woman but applies to any minority group)
That's not really the important question though. Would you prefer being not being hired due to bias even though you are qualified, or being hired despite bias, even though you know it will make some people think you weren't really qualified?
Your have around 20% females. If any company has 30%, this means a lot of other companies will have to fight to get women there.
So they have to pay a lot more for the qualified ones or accept to get token women for the sake of PR.
The problem starts before the workplace: in homes and at school. Start educating minorities and women on the job opportunities in tech. Make them discover the joy of tinkering. It's not for everyone but as someone from a lower socio-economic world I experienced how you can not know what is available to you. That's a huge failing of the school system and especially guidance counselor who usually don't know shit about nothing.
>That's not really the important question though. Would you prefer being not being hired due to bias even though you are qualified, or being hired despite bias, even though you know it will make some people think you weren't really qualified?
It depends on if that bias existed or not. If the bias exists then of course, I would want to have that bias compensated for. The question is still: is there a bias? Many people say the disparity alone is evidence of a bias because a completely unbiased system would result in a 50/50 split which we obviously don't have. The author of the manifesto is saying that a bias doesn't exist because the disparity has another explanation with some scientific support.
You might disagree or think that the science which supports this idea is faulty in some way. But come on, the reaction has been outrageous and scary.
The author clearly stated that he wasn't denying that sexism exists. Another example of how the manifesto is inconsistent, unless he's saying that sexism exists but somehow has no effect on hiring.
I think he said the ratio of women / men in the company was matching or close to the reality. That there are more men interested in tech than women and that trying to achieve a 50/50 was a mistake. Then the based the disparity of women interested in tech because of biological reasons.
Sexims might exist and have and effect in hiring but for him the effect of the diversity program was bigger, and a result it could lead to hire less qualified individuals. He said that the company should hire based on skills and not in gender or other bias. And also it should change how it works internally to create a better environment for women where they can explode their skills, those one the men doesn't have.
This is where I don't know about Google's diversity aims in detail. The manifesto author regularly talked about 50/50, but I don't know if that is actually Google's stated goal. Regardless, even if an organization aims for 50/50, that is not the underlying objective - it's more a diagnosis to meet the real underlying objective, which is to have a hiring practice that is not subject to hidden gender biases (or seeks to make up for them in some way).
As I said in another comment, we might need tolerance programs instead of diversity programs. We shouldn't assess anyone by their gender or other bias but for their skills for the job (where I say skills I mean also biological facts, like you have to be tall to be a basketball player o be a women to be a bikinis model, etc)
Your two examples list physical differences, not mental ones. Forgetting the fact that your examples are both wrong (you don't have to be tall to [play basketball][1], nor do you have to be biologically female to model bikinis), mental differences are markedly different from physical ones, because unlike a requirement such as "you must be capable of lifting 200lbs" which _may_ skew male, almost all humans are innately & biologically capable of the critical thought required to program. The differences we see today comes from nurture, not nature.
There are no biological "skills" that men might possess innately that should make them a first-choice by default, nor is there any reason to ever pick a candidate over another because of some biological "fact". At the end of the day, you judge a candidate by their output (performance, displayed intellect), not their input (nature OR nurture).
This is the whole point of Google's unconscious bias training: humans create incorrect correlations between input (nature|nutrue) and output (perf, intellect) in the form of biases-- i.e., "if you're too emotional you can't think as rationally as someone who is less emotional, therefore you cannot perform at the same level as a less emotional thinker". The problem here is that the correlation doesn't hold; it's a bias, not a fact.
Here's the point: your "biological facts" are biases, evidenced by the fact that you think you need to be tall to play basketball or biologically female to be a bikini model, and neither of these things are actually true.
You're making unsupported claims about the differences coming from nurture, not nature. It's very likely a combination of both. There appears to be differences in mental rotation skills between males and females (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation) and males appear to have a higher variance in IQ scores (which can result in large differences in top percentiles). Men also score higher on the Cognitive Reflection Test https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089055/
Weird that a group of people who spend their youth being told that they're naturally bad at math and critical reasoning have hangups when given these tests. Only explanation is that their doubters were right.
"The experiment was done on 3- to 4-month-old infants using a 2D mental rotation task. They used a preference apparatus that consists of observing during how much time the infant is looking at the stimulus. They started by familiarizing the participants with the number "1" and its rotations. Then they showed them a picture of a "1" rotated and its mirror image. The study showed that males are more interested by the mirror image. Females are equally interested by the "1" rotated and its mirror image. That means that males and females process mental rotation differently."
> Two experiments showed that, as predicted, the performance of 4- to 7-year-olds (N = 192) was impaired by exposure to information that associated success in the task at hand with membership in a certain social group (e.g., "boys are good at this game"), regardless of whether the children themselves belonged to that group.
3- to 4-months old is quite a bit younger than 4 to 7 years. I doubt that any kind of group membership awareness can affect the things a baby looks at, especially when the task is so abstract. (Do you think anyone is ever indoctrinated to think that "boys do not look at rotated objects" or some such?)
The study you cite has no bearing on the effect you seem to dispute.
Edit: If it makes you feel better, the Wikipedia page on mental rotation also mentions a different experiment, where they measured reaction times of adults: "Also it was found that the male athletes in the experiment were faster than females, but male and female musicians showed no significant difference in reaction time." So apparently the right kind of training can eliminate the difference.
I was not disputing the effect you brought up - only questioning its relevance.
The study I linked is one that seems more relevant to the topic at hand - certainly more relevant to the point I was trying to make originally.
About your edit: there is no need to try to make me feel better. Assuming you understand what makes me tick well enough to be able to do so is a common mistake (not with me specifically, but in general) that leads to the kind of cross-talk we're seeing here.
I didn't bring up the effect, there are multiple people replying to you here. Not paying attention who you are talking to is a common mistake that leads to the kind of cross-talk we are seeing here ;)
As for disputing the relevance of the effect, that wasn't really clear from your brief comment. I'd say that a test of a mental capacity that shows natural gender differences before nurture had a chance to kick in does invalidate HelloWorldInWS's argument that there can't possibly be a biological effect that makes men (or women) better at any particular mental task.
Your comment "Weird that a group of people who spend their youth being told that they're naturally bad at math and critical reasoning have hangups when given these tests. Only explanation is that their doubters were right." is also not terribly relevant, because
- mental rotation ability differs even for babies
- IQ tests are calibrated so that the average is 100, regardless of gender. So women can't actually perform worse than men. It's just that the variance is higher, which means that men are more likely to be very smart or very dumb, while women are more likely to be of average intelligence. (The explanation I've heard is that having only one X chromosome gives genes there outsized influence in men.)
- the abstract of the linked study on the Cognitive Reflection Test mentions that both genders expected their performance to be better than it actually was, so lack of self-confidence was probably not an issue.
I'm sorry how my edit came across to you, I actually just wanted to mention it because it seems important to know that even if there is some mental difference contributing to the current gender distribution in tech, it might still be possible to even it out by practicing the relevant skill.
> Not paying attention who you are talking to is a common mistake that leads to the kind of cross-talk we are seeing here ;)
I apologize! :)
And yes, I have a tendancy to be brief and sarcastic rather than clear, to the detriment of my discussions.
I will not argue that there are no measurable cognitive differences between any given classifiable group of people. I will argue that there is nothing shown that can account for the 80/20 gender split we see today in tech.
However, I do believe that societal and cultural pressures, in the form of stereotyping and prejudice, can cause that split. This argument is what I was alluding to, and what I was attempting to support with my link.
Yeah, I posted the quote and I should've posted the reasoning behind it as well, I just meant to say I don't believe all of the difference is explained by societal pressure, but I agree that some and maybe most of it is.
It seems like a really hard thing to determine because we don't have a "control society" with no sexism we could use to compare.
If you see the whole video you hear different opinions
> you don't have to be tall to [play basketball]
Look at the height distributions of the global population and the basketball players and think twice of what you said.
> There are no biological "skills" that men might possess innately that should make them a first-choice by default
Exactly because those skill can also be in women, but some are more likely to be in men as some are more likely to be in women. I don't see anything wrong with it.
I think he's saying he accepts that sexism is present in the hiring process, as are all biases, but the answer to that is not diversity programs. My guess is that he believes market forces will sort it out (i.e if someone is qualified regardless of sex or race, they will be hired because it makes sense economically). I'm not saying I agree or think that diversity hires will happen naturally, just extrapolating from what I got from the original post.
> Are you saying there are no situations in which applying a systematic adjustment as a function of gender to interview scores could result in a predictable net-fitness-increase in the resulting skill distribution of hired people?
Yes if you don't try to match the distribution of the pool of candidates. if the pool of candidates ratio is 10/90 and your goal in the company is 10/90, I am ok with anything that helps you to get close to the 10/90. (When both distributions are normal gaussian with similar mean and average. I don't see basketball teams hiring short people to fit the ratio or the pool of candidates)
> That's not really the important question though. Would you prefer being not being hired due to bias even though you are qualified, or being hired despite bias, even though you know it will make some people think you weren't really qualified?
I prefer being hired because they saw my skills. I think is better in the long term. If I am qualified for a job I will find it, it could take me more time but at some point I will find it and I will be happier than in a job where they saw me hired by a diversity program. Of course if I need the job to survive wouldn't care, but I think this is not the common case (or I might be wrong but as I said in another comment this is my personal opinion, other will think differently)
If the pool of candidates is 10/90, I would agree a hiring goal of 10/90 is fine assuming that the pool of candidates is not also negatively impacted by bias. The pool of candidates, however, is widely accepted to be negatively impacted by bias (which is why you see things like female-friendly coding camps, etc).
I don't know the reason why women are not interested in tech. I think there is an important biological component and also a cultural issue. But I am not sure of the cultural issue because in countries like Norway, one of the most equality countries, the ratios are higher than other countries, which doesn't make sense unless the biological factor is what affects the most.
> I don't know the reason why women are not interested in tech.
Dumb frat bros writing 10 page screeds about how they're not fit for the job because they're biologically conditioned to work with people and not machines -might- have something to do with it.
And, as a historical point, until the late 60s, software development was seen as "women's work". Which somewhat destroys any "biological component" nonsense.
Until the late 60s, "programming" had very little to do with the "software development" that bloomed in the 70s.
Interestingly, "dumb frat bros" are somehow not affected by people calling them that and manage to fight through the emotional pain and still achieve their dreams of being in tech. I've noted a very large group of people react negatively to the person who wrote the memo, writing insults(like "dumb frat bro"), demanding he be fired, threatening him with violence, the whole shebang. Unless I'm missing something, you seem to be implying that women are inferior to "dumb frat bros" because the "dumb frat bros" seem to be better at handling other people trying to bring them down.
> Interestingly, "dumb frat bros" are somehow not affected by people calling them that and manage to fight through the emotional pain and still achieve their dreams of being in tech
Yes, almost as if the entire system was heavily weighted in their favour!
> Unless I'm missing something, you seem to be implying [something I wasn't even vaguely implying but makes a good false point to try and hang a specious argument on]
Does that tactic ever work for you in arguments?
> demanding he be fired
He demonstrated -in spades- that he wasn't capable of being a professional team player within that environment.
> He demonstrated -in spades- that he wasn't capable of being a professional team player within that environment.
That's a very subjective judgement on your part.
If you scan this discussion here on HN, I think you will find that almost half the posts are in stark disagreement with your position.
Honestly, if you find an email like this triggering to the point that you're calling for others to be fired and keep on insisting that something is "toxic", I'd rather single out you as the problem, not the original person sending the email.
You live in a democracy. People are entitled to different opinions. For your own sake, I say you better get used to it.
> That's a very subjective judgement on your part.
Of course but that's the nature of judgements.
> I think you will find that almost half the posts are in stark disagreement with your position
Indeed, I have read most of them and I would put money on them being from libertarian / alt-right dudes who would take up any cause, no matter how reprehensible, if it gave rise to "liberal tears". Given I've seen people defending Charles Murray in these threads, I'm 100% A-OK being on the other side.
> You live in a democracy. People are entitled to different opinions.
You're missing the important bit - "People are entitled to different opinions but they are not entitled to a consequence free expression of those opinions [1]."
[1] Except in very limited circumstances in the US.
> Yes, almost as if the entire system was heavily weighted in their favour!
"The entire system"? Is this system like the Matrix, or is it governed by people? How did a "dumb frat bro" ever manage to get into Google in the first place when Google's system seems so actively hostile to them?
> Does that tactic ever work for you in arguments?
I didn't anticipate that you would argue "the system" was supporting "dumb frat bros", when quite clearly he was not receiving any support from Google, yet somehow managed to join them and work there.
Google is trying to differentiate itself from the rest of the system.
The system, on context, clearly refers to the world of education and technology as a whole.
In fact, there doesn't need to be an explicit bad actor to have detrimental systemic effects. Just a long slow build up of bias. Like the idea, worked into our heads from a young age, that boys are better at science.
> when Google's system seems so actively hostile to them?
The key word here is "seems" and it only "seems so actively hostile" -to them- themselves. I don't think any impartial outside observer would say your average privileged white dude had an "actively hostile" environment at Google (or, indeed, almost anywhere else.)
You misunderstand the biological component argument, I think. It's not that men are massively more suited to some jobs and women are massively more suited to some jobs. It's that for some abilities the the center of the wide bell curve for men is not at the same place as the center of the wide bell curve for women.
For example, for verbal abilities the female bell curve is a little to the right of the male bell curve. For spatial abilities, it is the other way around. Does this mean men cannot be excellent writers, and women cannot be excellent mechanical engineers?
No.
It just means that if all else were equal, we would expect writing and mechanical engineering to have gender distributions that don't match the general population.
I think you are also misjudging the effects, and to talk about ability is harmful to the very debate. There are some differences in ability, but they seem to even themselves out (men are better at mental rotation, women have better visual memory, etc.), the total effect on general intelligence appears to be none.
However, there are measurable psychological differences when it comes to preference of the role you want to take, how much risk you are willing to take, and what your priorities regarding status and family are, and we do have evidence that some of it is, at least partially, biological.
In Europe we don't (seem to) have the fratboy culture, but there are still very few women in tech. (Regarding race, certain groups seem to be overrepresented and others underrepresented) its mainly white guys, but Europe is mainly white.
I'm going to disagree here on one thing: The pool being biased isn't a problem that the hirer can or should deal with; it's out of their hands because their position in the chain is far further along of where the problem lies. So I would submit that no, an employer shouldn't have to compensate for a pool bias because they have no impact on it but in turn it can only lead to lower long term outcomes for them.
Personally I suspect that there's a mix of both cultural (girls play with dolls traditionally) and biological (boys tend to be more attracted to tinkering and building from even before they learn to speak) reasons for the ratio in people studying IT-related fields but I just don't see how making hiring practices biased in any direction will help with that.
>If I were I woman (or belong to minority) I would prefer to be being hired without any diversity program.
Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this. People tend to dismiss other peoples problem or minimize them, even when those people are telling they are hurting.
> Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this.
This is a little presumptuous. I am a woman and I too would prefer to be hired without any diversity program. I am not inherently against them and think that striving for diversity is overall a positive thing, but when I compare the thought of being hired as part of some target female quota or active diversity push vs being hired as a "regular" candidate I prefer the latter.
Diversity programs I appreciate more are those less involved in the actual hiring phase and more in the teaching girls to code and getting them interested in the subject phase. Of course I'm privileged and lucky in other ways and understand that plenty of other women feel differently.
Do you mean that women are treated as less capable so companies put in place lower barriers to entry for them? Assuming I didn't misunderstand your comment, that's not really how it works. Companies have these sorts of diversity initiatives not because they think women are less capable, but because it has been shown that women in tech often experience toxic or otherwise negative conditions in the workplace in relation to their gender. These programs are a way for companies to try to course-correct. I don't always agree with the methods, but I believe the overall initiative is a positive one.
I somewhat agree with the other comment here that "you wouldn't need a diversity program, sensitivity training, or unconscious bias training if you stopped hiring frat boys with no life experience straight out of college." I would just add to that that the issue isn't just the frat boys hired straight out of college, but also some experienced devs who were allowed to simply remain in the frat boy mindset as they aged in the industry.
Bingo. In my opinion, you wouldn't need a diversity program, sensitivity training, or unconscious bias training if you stopped hiring frat boys with no life experience straight out of college.
They have done this to themselves and now have to force policies to make it seem like good PR. It wasn't even until a few months ago they even changed their pay structure because of "extreme" gender gaps.
Am a black programmer.
Would hate to be a diversity hire.
Don't feel like I'm hurting.
Do I qualify as belonging to a minority according to your definition of "the oppressed", or will you "dismiss or minimize" my opinion because it doesn't align with yours?
Would much like to know your opinion on why people in your position don't confront the architects of these "diversity hire" programs with reasoned argument to dismantle them as doing more harm than good.
I'm trying to approach this respectfully by acknowledging that I know it's only your opinion, but I rarely get the opportunity to ask something like this, so please forgive me if my curiosity seems out of line - I genuinely want to understand better and no offensive is intended.
No worries, I'm of the opinion that offense can only be taken, never given.
As for your question, I live neither in the US nor in Canada, and where I live "diversity hire" programs don't even exist. I'm also a contractor, so it doesn't apply to me anyways.
Finally, I don't really have well-reasoned arguments against affirmative action. All I have is literally the thought that "F* anyone who tries to take my agency away by calling me a victim."
"When you do a fault analysis, there's no point in assigning fault to a part of the system you can't change afterward, it's like stepping off a cliff and blaming gravity. Gravity isn't going to change next time. There's no point in trying to allocate responsibility to people who aren't going to alter their actions. Once you look at it from that perspective, you realize that allocating blame never helps anything unless you blame yourself, because you're the only one whose actions you can change by putting blame there." -- HP:MOR
If I fail, I fail because I wasn't good enough. I am in control of my life. Perhaps the bar for me is higher than for a random white person, but so what? If I work hard and reach the bar set for me, I will have surpassed the vast majority of white people in the process, and even if I fail at reaching the bar, I will still be in an excellent position to monetize the acquired lead. So win or fail, I always come out ahead.
I'm a minority where I live and work. I apologize for my language but fuck whoever would hire me based on that over my technical qualifications. A place that would do that is a place where I have no interested in working for.
Please don't presume to speak for all minorities and even worse, dismiss other people's opinions just because they belong to certain groups like you just did.
While I agree with the sentiment, we seem to often jump to extremes in these discussions. I highly doubt Google would hire you based on your minority status over your technical qualifications alone. There are many factors in any hire whether you are a minority or not - candidates are evaluated on their technical qualifications, manner of speaking, "culture fit", who they know, where they're from, etc. Just because all of these come into play does not mean any one of these is going to outweigh the ones most directly related to the ability to do one's job.
There is a tendency to think that each new hire is always the far-and-away best match of all candidates and so any influence that diversity policies might have is at the detriment of a superior candidate. In my experience with hiring, the final round of interviews usually comes down to a handful of equally qualified applicants. Barring any sudden red flags at this point, whoever gets the job is just luckier than the others.
>Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this.
This statement is just way out there. I almost want to say the opposite to you.
I've known an African American PhD who says this. After his defense he had trouble finding a job. My company was ramping up hiring of minorities. He sent me his resume, and I asked him if I should enter his minority status in the system as it would prioritize his application. He said "No way."
He didn't get a decent job for a whole year after that. He doesn't regret it at all.
Not insulting to me. I'd love to be a diversity hire. Instead I just don't get hired, and the Government tell me I'm a lying cunt and threaten to take away my benefits for not being able to find a job.
You have prejudices about me. I have faced discrimination in another areas of my life. So I think I can have an opinion about it. I have also talked with woman that think the same as me.
Are you discriminating me to give an opinion because I am a male? I don't think it is fair. I could also say that you shouldn't talk about gender equality if you don't live in a country with high gender equality and so you argument doesn't add any value with the discussion.
> Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this. People tend to dismiss other peoples problem or minimize them, even when those people are telling they are hurting.
Only someone who is a woman or from a minority with liberal views could say this. How can you speak for 70% of people? How are you hurting from being treated equally to the 30%?
If you were a woman, you might think that being hired under a diversity initiative is okay, given that the alternative is not to get the opportunity at all due to systemic discrimination in hiring.
The discrimination problem is very real, and our current solution is just a hack which works as long as you agree that perfect is the enemy of good. The weird thing about this particular situation is most pro and anti positive-discrimination comments are made by idealists who should be more or less perfectionists in their subject by definition. One side complains about society not being perfect and the other complains that the solution to fixing it is not perfect.
Meanwhile normal people deal with more practical problems like yours.
The proof is probably too obvious so nobody bothers to explain it to you. I will make an attempt.
At the current rate of $X / hour, there are a number of economically viable jobs (jobs where the employer considers it valuable to hire someone instead of doing the job themselves or doing without, because they are worth at least $Y / hour to the employer, with Y > X).
At an increased rate of $Z / hour, Z > X, some of those jobs are no longer economically viable - they only generate $Y / hour, with Z > Y > X; while they were viable at $X / hour, they are no longer viable at $Z / hour so they disappear. For an obvious example, making the minimum wage $1000 / hour would destroy the viability of most jobs.
This proof assumes, of course, that nothing else changes - the government simply mandates "the minimum wage will change from $X / hour to $Z / hour" and doesn't add other changes like "all taxes are halved" or "all employers get free Bahamas holidays". With that caveat, also known as "ceteris paribus", the proof is (as I said) obvious.
How does a minimum wage argument relate to systemic discrimination? Inject more persons into a workforce increases supply and depresses wages, it doesn't inflate hourly costs.
Without digging too deep into the rest of this issue, do you consider Asian men white? Or is the situation a little more complicated than white men only choosing their own?
Just to clarify, my comment is not meant to defend poor hiring practices in any way, I'm very much in favor of agressive efforts to improve diversity numbers (including heavy affirmative action). I just get bothered by the use of the term "white" to refer to groups with heavy Asian representation; these groups have vastly different experiences than whites do, and lumping them all together just because they're present in tech and tend to be financially successful is a dangerous oversimplification. The systematic problems go much deeper than people just hiring people that look like they do, if that was the whole problem we'd have achieved parity a long time ago.
As a non-white man, please show me where I can find these normal entry level jobs that pay six-figures out of college. Please, I have student loans and my mother is sick.
I think that if you have skills you will find something. if you don't have them then it might be more difficult than for men. Why do you think women cannot find ANY job in tech because of the systematic discrimination? I don't think everybody in the world is like that (maybe few as for everything in life)
Would you rather get a job on the merits at an insurance agency's IT department, or be a diversity hire at Google?
It's nice to say "I'd prefer to be hired at Google on my merits", but few individuals from disadvantaged groups go into job seeking expecting that ideal situation to occur, and they're forced to make suboptimal tradeoffs just because they're disadvantaged.
I don't like big companies, I prefer startups. I am happier.
I once left a company because of the internal culture, they were not listening to the people from other countries. I didn't agree with the culture and left telling them the reason. After me more people followed. I have also left other things for similar reasons, even when everybody were telling i was doing a mistake. I just prefer to be somewhere I am happy even if it involves less money or status.
Your denial of reality is noted. Systemic discrimination against women in hiring has been exhaustively documented and studied, including in the tech industry.
I don't have a pile of references at hand since this isn't my area of study, but here's what I was able to google up:
1. http://www.uh.edu/~adkugler/Bertrand&Mullainathan.pdf This study was primarily aimed at identifying the impact of race, but incidentally showed that resumes with females names received a lower number of callbacks, in addition to the race based effect.
3. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract "Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant."
5. http://www.nber.org/papers/w5903 Anonymization in orchestra additions (blind screening) led to women advancing out of preliminary rounds 50% more often.
#1: I don't see any support for your summary. It says instead "Interestingly, females in sales jobs appear to receive more callbacks than males; however, this (reverse) gender gap is statistically insignificant and economically much smaller than any of the racial gaps discussed above."
I can easily dig up studies showing opposite results:
"Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. " http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract
"We found that the public servants engaged in positive (not negative) discrimination towards female and minority
candidates:
• Participants were 2.9% more likely to shortlist female candidates and 3.2% less likely to shortlist male applicants
when they were identifiable, compared with when they were de-identified."
https://pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/beta-unc...
I would like to see a similar study done in IT, though I suspect the outcome will be similar.
I personally would like to have more women in tech, but it seems implausible that the current dearth is because of any systemic discrimination against women.
I wonder why people are claiming that this is a reason for the problem?
So you lack basic reading skills. I quote "not to get the opportunity at all due to systemic discrimination in hiring", you read "systemic discrimination in hiring". Apparently, you lost "not to get the opportunity at all" and "due to". Don't you see that?
My sister was extremely put off going into CS after the career adviser at her school literally told her "you should go into CS since companies will have to hire you because you are a woman and they have quotas to fill". She was so upset by this she didn't even want to consider trying a CS degree.
I think any company should hire diversely in terms of qualifications too, regardless of gender; there's far too many job postings out there where they ask for 5+ years of experience. Even entry-level with X years of experience.
I'm glad at least that some IT employers care less about education and look more at potential and whatnot.
Why do you assume the men being hired are more qualified than the women who were passed over?
The hiring process is subjective, not fair. There is extensive evidence that just having a name that is assumed to be female makes a candidate less likely to get hired. Without diversity programs, less qualified men are hired over more qualified women, producing the skewed results we observe.
Women are on average more qualified than the men in the same jobs they hold because of these social forces, so your assumptions make you particularly systematically wrong.
"If I were I woman (or belong to minority) I would prefer to be being hired without any diversity program."
This is like saying "I'd enjoy my success more without the Mortgage Interest Deduction unfairly advantaging me financially". Theoretically feasible, but in practical reality, uh no. If you're hacking it in a competitive environment and you have a life, you most assuredly have 1,000 more important/interesting things on your mind.
You have to strive for the things you want in live, nothing is easy for anyone.
Do I want a better salary? a better job? yes. But I want a quality of life, I don't want to work long hours. So I wont have something better because I have other preferences in life. And I am ok with it.
Completely inaccurate analogy. The MID is in the tax code available and given blindly to everybody who wants to apply for a house, not part of any human judgment on merit or ability.
A more relevant one would be whether brokers are now showing houses or discussing financing options differently to people based a perception of the person's identity group.
Apparently it's your hobby horse, but there's no reason an analogy has to adhere to the topic of identity politics. Few people give active thought to the advantages they're born into or receive throughout life - that the GP thinks people advantaged by hiring preferences would prefer to have been hired some other way is just a failure to comprehend human psychology. Unless they're writing a blog on the topic, most people are more busy with their jobs and lives to care about their hiring process.
I am a woman and do NOT want to be (or viewed as) a token diversity hire. It affects my job because it means I get less interesting work, in practical reality. Diversity programs mean that equally & highly qualified women operate under the cloud of an assumed diversity hire, and are thus, viewed as less-competent.
Are you working in a competitive field? I know and have worked with many women and minorities in highly competitive fields (medicine, engineering) where diversity programs were in effect and the idea that there's any kind of stigma or that they could be remotely correlated with a less competent team is simply a joke.
White male, so checking my privilege, however I know my "widening participation" status influenced certain opportunities I had access to in the run up to university, and quite likely as part of a numbers game for the university place itself.
I've often thought about how I feel knowing something as simple as the postcode I grew up in affected how I got somewhere, but always arrive at it being a net positive.
There are pros and cons to it all of course, and it doesn't take away from the fear that you don't deserve it. But, society needs to kickstart the fortuitous cycle of opportunity, direction and inspiration somehow. When a group of people have no role models, nobody empathetic of their route or life chances or aware of any other skills they can bring, we can't progress.
When we're talking about whether someone is more or less qualified, it's not like it's a AAA+ grade male vs a CCD- female. It's (in almost all cases), very small variations of tangential achievements, most of which can be outweighed with a minority group bringing a different group of life experiences to the table.
> It's (in almost all cases), very small variations of tangential achievements, most of which can be outweighed with a minority group bringing a different group of life experiences to the table.
Actually, diversity initiatives can decrease cultural diversity in tech. Many diversity initiatives leave immigrants behind and mainly benefit Americans.
It can be said that foreigners are considered more "culturally diverse" than Americans in USA based workplaces. Diversity programs might increase gender and racial diversity, but also decrease foreign representation as a result and make a company less culturally diverse.
I would disagree. While he obviously sees the diversity programs as misguided, he stops short of calling for an end to them. To quote:
> Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.
I understand that discussions within a business are different than talking with friends around the kitchen table, but I still think that you should go as far as you possibly can to have open discussions about sensitive topics like this. Of course you aren't going to open a dialogue about the benefits of white power, but there is still a lot of ground to cover between that and what people are doing this weekend. I think that the original article fits into that realm of what is acceptable to at least talk about, regardless of whether you disagree or not.
> > Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.
To which the diversity proponents are quick to rally a mob and get the guy fired. Open and honest discussion indeed.
If you are so insecure in your ideological position that you can't even have a discussion about it without calling foul, I'd consider that the best possible sign that you actually need to have that discussion.
It's the only way to make sure that it's properly rooted and based on fact, and to legitimize it, and by proxy, the means you use to further it.
Sticking your head in the sand to avoid criticism will probably do the exact opposite, and sure as hell wont further your cause.
Except it wasn't a call to open discussion, it was an anonymously published manifesto that directly affected other members of the company. You can't just publish a manifesto about the benefits of slavery without some backlash, you can't publish your opinion that we should repeal the laws against religious discrimination without backlash either, nor can you publish your opinions about race or gender without expecting backlash because publishing those opinions inside a company where those groups are present is inherently threatening.
It's been accepted for a long time that the place for arguments against racial, religious, or gender programs is not the workplace. I'm a man and I find his manifesto an issue, he said things about men that are blatantly untrue, and frankly unhealthy as well, and I wouldn't want to work with him.
People's opinion on their coworkers is for private discussions with their manager and HR, and don't get precedence over their colleagues comfort and security at work. It's been that way since black people got rights and women got the vote.
2. What he's saying is not even close to promoting slavery or legally allowing religious discrimination
3. The entire point of the screed was that the diversity issue isn't talked about openly but should be. The response by Google's diversity chief literally says:
> Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions.
So your assumption that these things should not be discussed at Google is wrong, at least in the eyes of their Diversity chief, who's opinion I would think is highly relevant in this case
Finally, like many others in this thread deride what's said in this article as untrue and unhealthy without ever backing it up. Obviously I'm not saying the article is 100% right, but most the claims he makes about men and women have scientific backing, they are just not regularly discussed. As others have noted his premises about men and women being biologically different are basically a summary of this study:
> You can't just publish a manifesto about the benefits of slavery without some backlash
And that's the problem. In a truly open forum for ideas and discussion I would expect ideas about, like your example cites, the benefits of slavery to be actually freely discussed without negative consequence to the people involved. We don't get better as a society by not examining ideas in detail frequently.
>People's opinion on their coworkers is for private discussions with their manager and HR, and don't get precedence over their colleagues comfort and security at work.
"Have an honest discussion", "review", etc, are all weasel words for "cut down on". This is the same across industries, it's bog-standard doublespeak. To "have an honest discussion" about a diversity program that we're not already having means that at least one party has a strong belief that they should be ended or seriously cut down.
> To "have an honest discussion" about a diversity program that we're not already having means that at least one party has a strong belief that they should be ended or seriously cut down.
Stated differently: Someone has an opinion that the system currently in place doesn't fully work and wants to discuss change.
If we're not allowed to invite to a discussion, how else do you suggest we facilitate change, or investigate the need for such change?
You don't seriously imply that there's never a need to review the basis for existing programs? Or are you just ignoring the general principle of things "because diversity"?
No, my point is solely in response to that post - to say "we need to have an honest discussion" is quite specifically to say "we need to end/severely cut down on it". If you wanted to suggest another path to hiring women - say, apprenticeships - you could do that without needing to prefix that with "we need an honest discussion". Whether we actually do or not is irrelevant, but suggesting that it's somehow not saying that is at the very least confused and misguided.
> No, my point is solely in response to that post - to say "we need to have an honest discussion" is quite specifically to say "we need to end/severely cut down on it"
That's not how I read it.
I read it as trying as carefully as possible to start a discussion about having a discussion about a topic by many deemed to be sensitive. And change doesn't have to merely be cutting something, as you suggest. It can be replacing something ineffective/unfair with something more effective or less unfair.
There's literally nothing in that sentence which says "we need to remove/cut down on all programs related to subject $x". I'm not sure where you're getting that from. To me, your response to this fairly harmless email seems overly defensive. Are you acting rationally based on what has been said, or are overreacting based on things you assume to be said?
Maybe this would be a good time to (re?)-read the original email[1]?
I'm getting that from the fact that I'm reasonably heavily involved in politics in my country and I'm well aware of the wording used to wrap up ideas in such a way that they're going to be accepted by as many people as possible without ever actually explaining what you're about to do.
"We need to have an honest discussion" or the dreaded word "review" always prefaces dicing up some policy, usually without an adequate replacement.
Even if that's true, and the writer was advancing a hidden, more devious agenda, I still think its likely that the best course of action is to engage it as if it were advanced in good faith, in a fair, reasonable way.
Encouraging immediate, unthinking, righteous and moralistic condemnation over rational discourse on issues close to the friction points of various cultural/ideological conflicts, is quite a dangerous thing to do, even if its satisfying and cathartic (that's precisely why its so damn dangerous).
And? Blaming everyone for "double speak" is rather counter-productive and a great way to destroy the discussion, as it ignores some people are actually interested in a honest discussion. What a wonderful way to create toxic environment ...
Having an open discussion means you accept that other participants may have very different opinions, and agree that honest fact-based discussion is the correct solution.
No. If you want to suggest cutting down on something, suggest cutting down on it. Don't wrap it up on weasel words that never actually say "cut down on it". Governments, management, etc, are well-known for this tactic - they'll say "we're going to review this policy", and the next thing you know it's been diced to shreds, but the politicians/management involved never actually outright said "we're ending this policy" so they get off without apparently having ever said anything to alienate anyone.
The fact that group X is known to use certain tactic does not mean Y is using it too.
In any case, screaming "WE'RE NOT EVEN DISCUSSING THAT!" and calling for getting the person fired is hardly a proper response. What I'd like to see is a fact-based response to the memo, showing numbers/reasoning for the individual policies, etc.
My main take away is you really can't openly discuss this topic (not just in Google), which was one of the points. Ironic.
The primary place where the policies should be discussed is the company. He got fired for sharing his opinions. I don't see how is that supporting open discussion of the topic?
> The fact that group X is known to use certain tactic does not mean Y is using it too.
No, the use of English in politics (which this is) is pretty consistent, actually, in my experience. If he wanted to have a discussion, point at a policy and suggest an alternative rather than falling back on "merit is good, women are terrible engineers".
Replacing discriminatory hiring with paid apprenticeships and other education for groups the organisation is lacking in, would be a great example. Men can still get into Google because there's more of them in the pool. They're never discriminated against for a job, since the apprenticeship pool is separate from the job pool. Google gets a more-qualified, more-diverse workplace with more control over its training program. A win for everybody.
Firstly, I'm not a native speaker and I don't dare to judge how consistently is English used in politics. But once again, I claim that making conclusions merely based on "language similarity" or something like that is a poor way to discuss stuff.
Secondly, I find it perfectly valid to discuss the very foundation of the policies (instead of discussing individual policies).
FWIW this does not mean I agree with the memo. But I think the immediate calls for getting the guy fired (and firing him) are damaging for the discussion.
So you're saying that discussing something, a discussion which can lead to cutting it down if deemed appropriate, is never a good thing? The way I see it, you're effectively rallying against a closer examination of a system regardless of whether it's a system that benefits or hinders the environment it exists in.
I hope you'll forgive me for saying it but that is my definition of the "burying your head in the sand" expression.
edit: furthermore, what if he's in fact saying that he wants them to be cut down? Why isn't that a reasonable motive to want something to be more closely examined?
If you're coming to the table with the pre-conceived notion that the program is bad and needs to be shut down without adequate replacement, then that's not in good faith. I'm responding to the idea that this person is, somehow, wanting a good-faith discussion - he's not, he has a specific goal of shutting down the program.
If people would like to discuss this, they can at least discuss it for what it is - an attack on the program. Treat it as such. Don't hide behind "he just wants to talk".
There are, no doubt, many people who discuss Google's diversity programs every day on a good-faith basis. They don't need a manifesto in order to do so.
It seems that it is you who is coming to the table with the pre-conceived notion that the program is an absolute good and that the letter is an absolute bad.
I read the letter. It has some very good points - many of which feminists have been pointing out for ages, to the surprise of nobody who's actually been listening to feminists. It also has some terrible points, and uses a severe misunderstanding of gender to attack women who work for or intend to work for Google. The decent points it does make are mostly an aside to the main point, which is that the author has a very strong belief that diversity programs are inherently bad and that women are biologically weak engineers.
I added an edit later, I assume it was after you replied so I'll ask again:
What's the problem of wanting some light shed on a program because someone openly believes it should be shut down? They're not doing an executive decision to shut it down without allowing for discussion, which is exactly what Google management is doing. He posted an opinion, partially based on facts and partially based on conjecture to bring attention to it.
In short: there's nothing wrong with wanting a program to be shut down and using that as motivation to put it in the spotlight. I don't see how motivations should get in the way of discussion and examination of existing systems; a system that is beneficial to it's environment should be able to stand on its own merits.
ugh, my "in short" is as long as its preceding paragraph :(
Generally speaking, actually, the vast majority of systems are fragile enough to fail to stand up to consistent attack. I don't subscribe at all to your belief that a good system can never be successfully attacked.
I think we're in agreement on what the original author personally believes about diversity programs. But there is a difference between outright calling for the end of diversity programs at Google and wanting to discuss it further. It seems that the commenter I originally replied to in this chain doesn't differentiate between these two goals, which is why I said something in the first place.
There is no reason to discuss it in a way which you think requires a manifesto as a preface unless you think they should be ended or severely cut down in some way. And the author quite obviously does think that. So yes, taking it as the first step in an attack on diversity programs is perfectly reasonable. Most people are perfectly happy to talk about them with someone who didn't come up to them with the pre-formed argument that they should be scrapped or that they're harmful.
Maybe I'm reading too much into your post but I sense some anger or indignance. If that's true it is misplaced. Understand that if he phrased it any other way, he would have been further crucified.
Phrasing it more honestly and straightforward would be heresy in a corporate environment.
No, I'm mostly upset that people are taking the document as something much lighter than what it is due to its use of weasel words. Take a critical read of it with some understanding of political speech and what comes out is "the author believes that all gender-based diversity programs should be scrapped with minimal replacement" - I'd like people to read it as that and discuss it based on what it actually means, rather than trying to suggest that it's anything less than that.
> because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications.
Is this really an honest assessment? I haven't yet seen a single reply to the manifesto that addresses its points and counters the supposedly "lousy arguments" in a neutral tone and objective manner. Please point me to one if you have...
This post has been shared widely but I found it offering zero substance but lots of moral preaching. The only thing what this piece had going for it was that it was published early and spoke to the ideological crowd that was unwilling to even factually and constructively engage with the content from the memo.
if anyone wishes to provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.
This article specifically avoids countering the original article point-by-point. I would love to see an article or comment that does that.
Considering it starts with a straw man, continues in a highly emotional tone, doesn't address a single point of the original "manifesto", and is little more than a piece written to prop the author up ("I don't even work at Google anymore but I had to clean up after you, son.."), I fail to see that article as more than an embarrassment for the (very senior) guy who wrote it.
> It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible...
> If...
Nothing empirical in that sentence just assumption. And even if we assume that statement is true, on the other side of same coin are qualified men that didn't get job solely because of their genitalia.
Gender based diversity programs are hurting more than they are helping because they are confusing the role of gender diversity with the role of talent diversity.
These programs are most likely not responsible for qualified women getting jobs and even if they are they are also responsible for qualified men not getting the jobs so nothing is really gained.
The idea of qualification is something that is misunderstood far into academia as it assumes some sort of quantitative measurement is possible.
The reality is that short of what you have paper on (she's a bachelor he's a bachelor) qualifications really isn't about skills but about personality and I would challenge anyone to find even close to a way of measuring how a person fits into a company short of asking the people who work there whether they think person X fits or not.
Furthermore the idea that diversity is better for companies really need to die. Diversity is good in many cases but you can easily have one company filled with women and one company filled with men and having the group of women being of very diverse backgrounds and the group of men being of very diverse backgrounds. You still have diversity. Hell you can even have a group of women being of exactly the same background and a group of men being of exactly the same background and do really really well.
The idea the women brings something to the table simply by being women or that men does simply by being men is what is so wrong with this whole conversation. The individual brings something to the table but the individual needs to fit into a culture not being force fed into it.
Having hired and interviewed a great deal of people in my life in the tech industry I think it's fair to say that most companies will look for ANY talent they can get to. Talent is extremely hard to find and being a woman or being a man is not enough.
More women will hopefully start companies and I hope some of them will hire only women if they feel it's better for their culture. But until they start doing that to the same extent that men does and until they start to the same extent having interest in technology early on, gender based anything will always be hurting more than it will help because just having gender diversity isn't going to make your company better off there simply aren't anything proving that.
And just to be clear. I have worked with women and men far better than me. When it comes to the best there really isn't any difference. I have worked for plenty of female bosses and they are as good as the men I have worked with.
The cold, hard facts prove that unless we force a change, it will not change.
The simple counter argument to this, and what changed my mind utterly, was that the number of woman on boards never changed. "Women will setup companies" was what they said in the 70s, 50 years ago.
It never worked until we started forcing it. There's still a ridiculously small percentage of female chairs. There's still a ridiculously small percentage of female board members.
If they're just as good, as you say, and I also believe, why didn't it change? Because gender discrimination is rife.
Without positive discrimination, the status quo did not change, will not change.
Doesn't matter anything you said above, it's all noise. It doesn't correct itself like you say it will.
That's not a counter argument because women DIDN'T actually start companies and still doesn't. So what do you want to do? Force them to? According to you, that's what we need.
The reason why people get board seats is again one of those misunderstood discussions. It has absolutely nothing to do with qualification as in non-at-all. What it has to do with is the board members access to network, political power, special experience etc.
So as long as you and other keep insisting qualification is somehow important in this discussion, you are actually the ones making the noise.
In your numerous replies, two things are clear. You're annoyed that older coders can struggle to get jobs and you think women can start their own companies and programming clubs and seem to be insinuating that they should leave ours alone.
If you're having a problem getting a job 'cause you're old in SV, I'm sorry. I have no such age discrimination problem in the UK, loads of jobs here but not any where as well paid as the US. I might point out that you had 20 years to make a ton of bank. If you want to fix age discrimination, campaign for it, but leave it out of this thread.
As for companies being boys clubs, to me that's clearly unacceptable, it's simply wrong to say that a "company culture" can be male only as that's clear discrimination.
If you think that discrimination's ok, it feels as if you want to take it out on women because you want to go back to living in a man-cave, replete with pizzas and then a late night coding sessions followed by a game of Quake, where women don't fit because they spurned us at high school. And if they want to join in, they better start their own company.
Do that with your mates, that view doesn't belong in a company, shouldn't belong in a company. It's not a male-only social club.
But if you agree that's wrong, you and I caused this problem, and we're the ones who have to fix it, have the opportunity to fix it. Perhaps our Dads and Grandads told us computers are for men only, but they aren't and we don't have to wait until your kids are growing up to fix this. We can fix this now, and positive discrimination is a way that works.
Tech is growing up and we need to fix the gender imbalance we helped cause.
I am not a coder, I have no issues getting work as I run my own company.
But it's now clear that without strawmen you have no arguments just insults and claims about my person you can't back up. But I guess that's kind of symptomatic for this discussion isn't it?
These are your arguments, it's not a strawman when you're saying these things. These are direct quotes, of you, in this thread:
Old white male coders in SV, which it now turns out you have no personal experience of and just making stuff up about:
Try being +40 in Silicon Valley
Try and get a job in SV after you turn 45.
Examples of you saying women can't be part of our club, because they didn't play with the right toys when they were 12:
Women aren't tech nerds as much as men are we know that for a fact
men also takes the most high paying jobs because more of them were interested in technology early on and are better at selling themselves
is that less women start companies or get into tech early on
Examples of you saying women can't be a part of existing tech companies, they should form their own:
get more women to start a tech company
More women will hopefully start companies and I hope some of them will hire only women
Push your girls to start their own companies to build their own networks
In Norway where they have quotas all that happened is that now there is just also an old ladies network with the same women sitting on many of the boards
A friend works at the European Commission, where there is a strict 50/50 male/female requirement for all hires and all positions. Apparently it is causing problems because too many women refuse to be promoted in management. So they don't have enough managers to start new projects.
You've just cited an anecdote to try and counter mountains of scientific research.
There could be all sorts of nefarious stuff going on.
Could he have been refused a promotion and now blames women? What's the back story? Has he gone on record? Is there a real problem or is a misogynistic manager using it as an excuse to him to cover his own incompetence?
Apparently the matter came when some women started to complain that they had been pressured into accepting management positions, didn't like the added stress, but had no possibility to move to other positions due to manager shortages.
And yes it is an anecdote, so no there's no citations, but most posts in this discussion don't cite citations either.
What if they're not just as good? What if they could be as good, but aren't interested? That part isn't fact, it's an assumption - one that it's time to reexamine given that things have turned out differently from how we expected.
Why do you have to make up something which wasn't said to have an argument?
Women do make different choices we know that for a fact. Women aren't tech nerds as much as men are we know that for a fact. Women start far fewer companies than men we know that for a fact.
We also know that women score way higher grades in school which we also know for a fact doesn't matter in real life.
So maybe women (in general) are just prioritizing life differently. That doesn't mean they aren't as intelligent, smart etc.
If you can't make your argument without pushing for strawmen then you don't have one yourself.
What's irrational is blindly assuming performance and interests must be equal across the sexes, in defiance of all evidence or reason. Every factor we're able to objectively measure - height, weight, life expectancy, test scores - shows significant differences (in terms of distribution and averages) between men and women. It's absurd to assume that somehow we're magically equally suitable (again, on a large, statistical scale) for all jobs.
Then consider a different intellectual profession dominated by women. 78% of publishers in the U.S. are women.[1] If I say that this is due to an innate differences rather than sexism against men in the publishing industry, am I saying that men are bad readers and stupid?
Also, can you clarify what you mean when you state that pediatrics is "an example that's a biological function primarily to do with women." Are you stating that women are innately (in other words, due to their gender) better suited to administering healthcare to minors as compared to men?
Just because women are the ones who birth children doesn't mean that I brought up "an example that's a biological function primarily to do with women".
64% of practicing gynecologists are men, but only women have vaginas.
You don't have to give birth to children to be a pediatrician or a gynecologist.
That is preposterous. What if they're just more interested in other things? Why do you assume a priori that men and women share the same interests internally? What evidence do you have which suggests this? OR are you just making an assumption because it seems "unsexist"?
No it's the same and if you believe that you are wrong.
There is a world of difference between someone having spent their entire life coding and someone only starting at university. Or someone having learned to draw from the age of 5 and someone who starts way later in life. That applies to men as to women.
Being not as good is about experience and knowledge having put in the hours. It is not about intelligence.
Well, what if that's so? Are we really so fragile that we dare not even ask that question? Could it be that we're scared of the answer? There are plenty of posts in this thread expressing stronger and more negative generalisations about men, how is it that we're not so scared of those?
The only way to reach truth is to be willing to look for it.
This is hardly the only study. There are many more.
My favorite was the law students from second tier schools where males who signaled coming from middle class backgrounds had a huge statistically disadvantage from males signalling wealth.
The kicker? Wealth killed opportunities for women.
Bias and prejudice are real and evaluating people is hard. To make things worse, your brain likes to save energy by substitution rigorous evaluation with heuristic evaluation and then convince itself it did the rigorous work.
The problem isn't gender discrimination is rife, it's that thousands of forms of discrimination is rife because heuristic-based discrimination is what we excel at, not rigorous evaluation.
> The kicker? Wealth killed opportunities for women.
Yeah because lower class women do much better compared to lower class men. The study is flawed. It used male hobbies for both males and females. Rich females don't generally sail. I think their stereotypical activity would be humanitarian efforts.
And if it wasn't flawed, what conclusions do you draw from the study? Lower class women did 5 times better than lower class men. The lower class is many times larger than the upper class, so only a tiny percent of men enjoy the the upper class privilege while most men are doing terribly.
Looking at the big picture by aggregating the lower and upper class, women do better than men.
I'll give this some legitimacy but it's one study and not completely convincing. It can't be generalized outside of science research positions.
One bias that I'm concerned about is that most gendered social experiments are hoping to find bias against females. It's a big echo chamber as the manifesto guy would say.
I think that there is a decent case that upper class men do enjoy gender based privileges. But then people use that as evidence that all males are privileged and it's just not true. I mean it would be great if there was a chance that I could become a CEO or an exec, but 99.99% of people won't so it doesn't matter to most males if all execs and CEOs are male.
On the disparate power dynamic, I doubt the males with power care about the wellbeing of the other 99.99% of males. They will look out for the interests of super high class males which may not overlap with the interests of lower class males.
I think that non high class females benefit much more than non high class males from the power of super high class males. The super high class males will spend time around females and make transfer payments in the services industry. Sugar babes, prostitutes, strippers, webcaming, regular waitresses, etc. They are more likely to enjoy the wealth of high power males and have a much easier time forming a relationship (romantic or platonic) with a super high class male.
Of course they do mostly for historical reasons which are changing and partly because of industry choices.
Most structural issues are gone today and those that are left benefit women as much as men. In Norway where they have quotas all that happened is that now there is just also an old ladies network with the same women sitting on many of the boards.
> Yeah because lower class women do much better compared to lower class men. The study is flawed.
Are you saying the study is flawed because women got more hires in this context and that doesn't reflect the larger aggregate trends? You realize this study doesn't reflect society as a whole, right? It reflects the resume screening habits of a sample of people from a cross section of law firms.
Rather than dismissing a study because it doesn't yield results that fit your worldview, how about you try understanding the context is was done in and reflecting on the culture where it happened? Don't give it a fleeting thought. Really consider the many possible stories it could be telling you, but don't settle on a favorite. Hold the many possible stories in your head instead, ask questions and try different stories.
People have all sorts of biases. I've known my share of bros who only hire pretty girls and other bros with common interests, taste and upbringing. If they were being studied, their numbers would probably yield similar results. Some of the bros I know would call in like-minded bros and then they'll call in the women for an interview to see if they're hot. If they were part of a similar study, their screening habits would definitely skew the numbers toward this trend. If it was up to me, I'd be counting how many of the pretty ones made into round two. (Let's just say they excel at recruiting and only hiring pretty girls.)
This is one small study that reflects an aggregate of biases of a sample of participants in one industry. It does not reflect the world. It doesn't reflect their industry. It doesn't reflect one bias. It is literally a snapshot in time of a sample of a cross section of society. We don't know how if those biases (there are many) were well-distributed or concentrated. Repeating the experiment may even yield very different results.
All that doesn't matter in the bigger picture, because for that slice of time & sample, we have enough evidence to suggest gross discrimination for that sample and time.
It's a reminder that the world is a complicated place and that there are all sorts of ways people discriminate against each other. What it reinforces is that superficial discrimination happens for all sorts of complex reasons, rather than simply saying everyone is guilty of one form of discrimination.
> One bias that I'm concerned about is that most gendered social experiments are hoping to find bias against females. It's a big echo chamber as the manifesto guy would say.
Let's not be obtuse about accepting or dismissing these studies. People have a tendency to either overstate or discount their results when it serves their purpose. I gave you a very small sample and merely suggested that discrimination happens in the world and that discrimination can be complex and nonlinear. Take it with a grain of salt.
If you add middle eastern sounding names the same result happens.
Yes we have biases all of us but they are certainly not by any metrics confined to only women. Try being +40 in Silicon Valley, try being black or latino male on WallStreet, try making it as a hip-hop artist as a black guy. Try being fat in the fashion industry, try being a nerd in high-school.
The world is rife with bias and prejudice against all sorts of "these are not like me" but the solution is not and have never been to force quotas through whether in board rooms or on the job market.
If you want to change things changes them at their root cause. Push your girls to start their own companies to build their own networks so that they are less depending on existing ones. Teach them not to excel at school as that doesn't really matter but to learn how to sell themselves. Teach them that if a job posting names 10 skills and they have all but two it's still a job for them.
These are the real barriers to entry not modern day companies light biases.
I realize you're very busy and can't be bothered to support your claims, but you should actually try to demonstrate some knowledge rather than countering with the equivalent of, "but I'm really really certain."
So according to you it's ok that men takes the most dangerous jobs, the most demanding jobs because of their physicality and risk tolerance, but it's not ok that men also takes the most high paying jobs because more of them were interested in technology early on and are better at selling themselves?
Because some men do more dangerous jobs, totally different men should get all the high paying ones? Perhaps for each man in coal mining, oil rigs, the army or deep sea fishing, we get a plushy finance or tech job exclusively for men?
Or tech workers should be paid less than coal miners?
Sure, if you define diversity as having nothing to do with gender, then of course you don't need women to have diversity.
And if you define corporate responsibility as doing only what is needed to put effective people in chairs, then there is no need for diversity programs to meet corporate responsibility (at least, assuming sufficient talent).
But your entire comment misses the phenomenon of biases having affected women their entire lives, from what hobbies they were steered towards, to their experiences during education, to their interviewing process, to their working environments after having jobs. These are all part of what gender diversity programs are trying to combat.
And honestly, I'd say that this statement right here:
> These programs are most likely not responsible for qualified women getting jobs and even if they are they are also responsible for qualified men not getting the jobs so nothing is really gained.
is more of a really effective example of the actual problem, and an illustration of why gender diversity programs are needed, than an effective counterpoint against them.
Honestly, I have a hard time understanding much of these "biases having affected women their entire lives", maybe you could expand on what you mean by the points you bring up. I attempt to clarify why I have a hard time understanding it:
"from what hobbies they were steered towards"
Ok, but the thing I don't quite understand here is that it's not like men are "steered" towards tech that strongly either. At least when I was young it was not "cool" to be some geek who sat infront of the computer all day, in fact quite the opposite.
"to their experiences during education"
I'm in Europe and I have no clue how a woman can have a worse experience in the educational system over here. Women tend to perform better in school and I'd to so far as to say that things are probably the other way around. Based on anecdata more "traditional" boys/men are probably very poorly served by the current educational system and there could be much done here.
"to their interviewing process, to their working environments after having jobs"
Again, I'm rather confused here. Is this some reference to startups? This whole debacle seems to show that women, at least at the larger corporations, has some clear benefits. As anecdata I can add that I've had women tell me "getting an internship at Corp XYZ was very easy, they kept telling me they were looking to hire more women". I've heard a professor comment on hiring new faculty by saying "If we don't hire a woman we have failed", etc.
Go to a toy shop. Are there lots of things which are pink with pictures of girls on the boxes, and the boxes contain dolls, horses, cooking things, knitting, sewing and other crafts?
Are there boxes with pictures of boys on containing toy guns, cars, trucks, diggers, cranes, computers, science kits?
Is there a section for girls' toys and boys' toys?
That's your cultural steering of gender roles, right there.
Ever seen someone think a particular book isn't "appropriate" for a girl to read? Or another book isn't "something boys will be interested in"?
Did the girls grow up seeing women on TV programmes who were scientists, executives, lawyers? Or were those people almost all men? What does that tell them about the world as they watch?
Okay so you can argue television should reflect the real world, but in doing so and simultaneously acting as part of a child's education in how the world should be (which you are, whether intentionally or not), your TV programme also acts to perpetuate the status quo.
I really don't feel there are any mysteries why we see so much gender segregation in career paths.
Similarly: how many people do you know who seriously consider nursing as a viable profession for a man to pursue? What about preschool childcare? Kindergarten teacher? Who cleans your offices? Are they female? All the cleaners in my current office are female.
It is not hard to see the cultural pressure on both boys and girls to go in certain directions.
Firstly, you somehow did not even consider my whole point, which was that being a "geek"/"dork"/"nerd"/whatever is not exactly something men are encouraged to be. And based on this I questioned to which extent men are actually (in the words of the original poster) "steered" towards tech.
Sure there may be some bias in early childhood between the sexes, but honestly, I have a somewhat hard time seeing this having a serious effect on someone's career decision much later.
Firstly, this whole argument just seems like it could just as well be some urban legend. What possible proof is there that this actually has any effect? I'm not even sure how one would go about investigating this. I feel throwing around some argument which seem plausable (to some people) but in fact have basically no solid support and then treating it as if it were an established fact is, well, maybe not so good. It seems more like something the president would do. [1]
Secondly, and more importantly, there is a very significant number of both men and women who during high school will receive a fairly through introduction to the natural sciences and to me this would seem a much more significant than some trucks and dolls one played with when one were 5 years old. To provide a more precise counterargument, many boys wants to become firefighters or police officers, yet when they grow up, many abandons these career plans.
I admit I may be extremely naive, but the argument about people on TV has always struck me as somewhat odd. It seems to rest on the assumption that most people (well, at least women/girls) in fact think men and women are different, otherwise, why would it matter what gender the people involved have?
Finally regarding the last point about career paths, well, the problem with all the examples is that there are jobs with similar pay where almost all employees are men, compare say kindergarten teacher with being a construction worker. Sure, I can admit that there is some pressure here and it being (significantly) easier for a man to become a construction worker and a woman becoming a kindergarten teacher. But if there was a wage gap between these two professions it is not as clear to me.
I would also like to point out that one can discuss things in different context, if these arguments were just made in general about how (some) women feel and how things have affected them and whatnot, that is one thing. But we are not just discussing things in general, instead there are some (at least to me) very serious accusations of of discrimination, and then we have as a society enacted and allowed a large scale discrimination of men in order to offset this. And now we have a man being fired for daring to even question these accusations that have been made against him.
[1]: If there is some solid support for this view I will happily admit I am wrong.
Thats not what I said. Of course there is gender diversity in genetics alone, but it's not as important or meaningful as claimed and it's ironically the opposite of what you want it to mean i.e. it's not simply a question of bias against women.
Biases are affecting men, women, red haired, young people, old people, gays, lesbians, fat people, short people, people with too much education, people with almost none etc their whole life.
Singling out gender is exactly what's so wrong with this whole discussion.
Try and get a job in SV after you turn 45.
The actual problem if you really want to focus on something that would naturally bring more women into the industry, is that less women start companies or get into tech early on.
If you for some reason want to solve the problem of gender diversity, get more women to start a tech company.
Diversity programs have been shown to be ineffective at reaching their stated aims. A longitudinal study of over 700 U.S. companies found that implementing diversity training programs has little positive effect and may even decrease representation of black women. [0]
They seem to be used by companies as a "shield" when sued for discrimination. [1] The so-called “diversity defense”. It worked for WalMart.
I expected any discussion of the memo to be quickly shut down, its supporters classed as filthy misogynists. It was surprising to see over 1,000 comments and upvotes. I'm glad that it's becoming OK to discuss these topics again.
A few hours later, it's been completely removed from the main HN page (even a few pages in), despite 1600+ votes.
It's a shame that the administrators of this site feel the need to shut down discussion on important issues like this.
The story is clearly important and less than 24 hours old, and already it's been forcibly removed from the front page in favor of a bunch of 15-vote ephemeral Javascript trivia posts.
I'm a veteran whose hiring through 2/4 jobs in the last 10 years has been through a distinct veteran recruiting pipeline. In the other two, my veteran status was likely a factor as well.
As such, I've personally benefited numerous times from diversity hiring programs.
If someone at any of my previous employers had written an internal memo criticizing the respective company's diversity program (ie the funnel through which I was hired), I can't imagine calling for their job, even if the way in which they stated that opinion was offensive to me.
I say this with the understanding that there's an obvious difference between choosing to join the military and being born as a woman or person of color.
"A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it."
Well put. Regardless of what side you take, I'm sure everybody understands that this is a controversial, emotionally-charged topic that must be approached with extreme care. This fellow did not do so, and created a firestorm in his wake. That alone seems like sufficient reason to fire him.
It's sort of the verbal equivalent to lighting a match to illuminate a darkened oil rig. Maybe you just wanted to illuminate things, but there are better ways to do it.
> It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
Wouldn't the same be true about any non-optimal hiring practices and procedures though?
Google is pretty famous for constantly evaluating and tuning their hiring processes, because presumably - they sometimes fail to hire qualified people, and sometimes hire unqualified people. They want to tune their process so they are as close to 0 as humanly possible for each of those cases.
Maybe the guy is a sexist and racist asshole, I don't know him - but if I give him the benefit of the doubt and read him charitably, I take it to mean he's saying gender-based diversity programs might produce worse ratios of qualified/unqualified hires, and unqualified/qualified passes than some of his other proposals. In other words, tune the hiring process, as it relates specifically to diversity hires, to improve the ratio of qualified/unqualified workers.
I have no idea if that idea is crazy or sensible, but it doesn't strike me as being obviously one way or the other. I'm sure with all the attention this is getting somebody, somewhere, who may be experts in these things could offer their take on it.
The elephant in the room is that it's mathematically impossible to optimize for quality of hires and diversity simultaneously. You have to pick one or the other or some compromise between the two. Start with some selection of people chosen optimally for job performance; any deviation from that for any reason will necessary give sub-opitimal performance.
Of course you can optimize for quality and diversity simultaneously. Let's take an extreme example and say that your hiring process only accepts purple people, and then judges them on merit. If you remove the requirement for purple people and keep the rest, your diversity and quality will both improve.
Here's the problem: "Start with some selection of people chosen optimally for job performance...." That's the hiring equivalent of "assume a spherical cow." Sure, if your existing process optimally chooses people for job performance, then any move toward diversity will reduce quality. Likewise, if you have a spherical, frictionless cow, then its speed after descending a slope with a height of 100 meters will be 44.3m/s. Both statements are correct and equally applicable to the real world.
Yea, I thought about that when I was writing my comment, but I wanted a pithy statement, so I omitted the trivial case. How about this: if prioritizing diversity actually changes any hiring decisions made, then it's suboptimal on quality. And if prioritizing diversity doesn't change any hiring decisions, then there's no point to it.
With regards to your second point, this kind of analysis does not require that the employees selected are in fact optimal. It only requires that they're the company's best guess given the inferences from the limited evidence available. Any move away from picking the best guesses will yield choices that are not the best guesses.
Being the best guess given the evidence available implies that the process has no racial or gender bias whatsoever. Which is unlikely. If it does have such bias, then countering that bias will improve the outcome.
To get back to the example of purple people, you wouldn't see a company today which only accepts purple people. However, it's highly likely that people involved in hiring decisions have opinions of purple people, possibly subconsciously, which influences their evaluation of purple and non-purple candidates. If this skews their evaluation toward purple candidates, then pushing things back toward non-purple candidates will give you better results.
This sounds suspiciously like a motte and bailey argument. The motte is that hiring processes have biases so we need to introduce artificial biases to make the process fair. That's quite reasonable (if it's actually true). But what's actually going on in practice is people are unhappy with the gender distribution of the outcome of the hiring process, so they're trying to tweak the process to get equality of outcome. To do so, they're necessarily sacrificing equality of opportunity and simultaneously making bad business decisions by not hiring their estimation of the best according to their interview process.
You're right, hiring in tech has gender bias, but right now that bias leans in women's favor at every step. Other commenters have posted research on this point, but I'll add my anonymous, unverifiable anecdotes to the pile. When I was on hiring committees at my old company, I watched us hire women who performed less well on our technical interviews than men we rejected, for the explicit reason of hiring more women. But I'm savvier than Damore, so I knew when to keep my opinions to myself about it.
And still there's fewer women in tech. There has to be other explanations.
As I mentioned earlier, for the company I was part of, that was an explicit goal, and then I watched them hire a less talented woman over a more talented man a couple times. My impression is that this is exactly what diversity initiatives are designed to do.
There are lots of other places in the process which might have bias the other way that you don't see. (And to be fair, they might not, or they might add yet more bias towards women. The point is just that it's really, really hard to evaluate bias from within, or even from without.)
The big problem I had with his "memo" is that, for a text that is about a hot and controversial topic, it lacks (more like doesn't contain any) references to backup his points. A lot of factoids and nothing to back them up.
> And like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender. I'm not going to link to it here as it's not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages.
> Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions. But that discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws.
Yay we believe in "a culture in which those with alternative views [...] feel safe sharing their opinions" (except when they diverge from our view). We want them to feel safe sharing them and we show this through firing people who ask for an open discussion. Bravo google. And linking to the manifesto or at least quoting an example of what is wrong is bad, because ....?
(Yes a shitstorm is brewing and there now is a hot headed "discussion", but the main problem is that nobody actually references or talks about the actual manifesto. People talk _about it_, but quotes are sparse and the critics never point out any (logical) fallacies. It's a much to emotional "debate".)
Anyway thanks to the full text I now actually could revise my opinion on the whole matter (I actually have yet to follow all the references/sources), but am disgusted at googles reaction to fire someone because their opinion created a toxic reaction. If such a reaction spawns, maybe there is room for an open discussion and maybe we can find a solution everybody is happy with. Killing off unwelcome voices doesn't sound like a welcoming environment to me and unethically at best.
Edit:
Let me close with a quote from the manifesto in relation to the response from the VP of Diversity
> My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology.
He now seems kind of right at least in that regard.
Thank you. Its comments like yours that make me wish we had a FAQ/info box per 1000+ comments threads so that we can read first hand and get a personal interpretation first before digging through the comments, including the commentary in the article.
It's hard to assume good faith in your opinion when the article that published his memo explicitly stated that they had removed the references from it.
He's a Harvard trained Systems Biologist (3 years into a PHD based on LinkedIn). If his educational qualifications aren't enough for an unofficial rant, all of the graphs and hyperlinks he used as external references were edited out by journalists before it was mass distributed.
> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias
But is the bias substantiated so that diversity hiring tracks it? Do the men who lose out to diversity candidates, the same that are benefiting from bias (as individuals, not "men, as a group")?
Isn't this like saying "Jailing innocent men is a fair price to ensure the guilty don't get away"
This is why there is such intense reactions against correcting for bias: men with imposter syndrome or who are actually incompetent are afraid that they wouldn't be able to compete if the system wasn't so heavily skewed in their favor.
Which statement are you answering "yes" to? I asked if the quotas "track" bias - in the sense that bias is actively measured, and quotas adjusted accordingly.
I haven't read the study in your link, and might not even be qualified to interpret it, but two things stand out to me:
1) The study appears to focus on a single "event" or "snapshot" - not an ongoing, corrected process:
> Our research asks what happened when the central party organisation of the Social Democratic party imposed the quota on 285 local (municipal) political parties from the 1994 election and forward.
As such, it might be that the "mediocre reducing" nature of the results only apply to one-off applications of gender quotas where there previously were none. In fact, if one of the concerns is "cronyism" (or "insider bias"), then any quota requiring employment of outsiders might just be as effective at ousting the mediocre.
This has nothing really to do with my question, of whether such policies actually "track" bias, because it doesn't seem this example does.
2) They use a problematic/controversial definition of "merit":
> A competent politician, we argue, is a person who makes more than the median amongst politicians with similar characteristics.
They directly equate personal income with competence/mediocrity, which invites all kinds of questions...
Also, politics is a little different - there is a sense that politicians "represent" their populace, so the race/sex of politicians should also be more representative. Plus, politics is more "restricted" in the sense that only a certain population (size) of politicians need serve a certain national population (size) - but the restrictions (market size) in the corporate world might not be so distinct; There is plenty room for more qualified software developers.
Once you say it out loud, it's not being punished for thoughts anymore. Speaking is an action.
As this thread shows, if he'd just kept his whiny assumptions about women's innate incompetence as engineers to himself he would have been able to remain happily employed in a cushy job.
FWIW... as someone who (I think, still mulling) is supportive of him being fired due to the code-of-conduct and contributing-to-an-unsafe-work-environment arguments, I'm pretty sure I'd be against firing him if he had posted these thoughts outside of his employment situation. It's even more interesting to think about if he had posted this outside of google and anonymously, and then someone had doxxed him. Then I'd probably be pissed and would be arguing on behalf of him - not his views, but that he shouldn't have been treated that way.
Can't speak for him, but I imagine his thought process was:
This is an internal matter, and the intended audience is Google employees, so to prevent attracting attention from the wrong audience and maximize attention from Googlers, I'll post it in the internal board...
It doesn't help that Google apparently encouraged employees expressing their thoughts.
Yeah honestly that part strikes me as being a bit weird. I've also never worked for a very huge company, but when you've got companies that are so large that they want to basically start embedding your entire lifestyle into it (free food, culture, etc) then it seems like a recipe for this kind of conflict of interest. There it starts to blur the line between "You shouldn't express these thoughts at work" with "You shouldn't have these thoughts in the first place."
This feels like the blue and black (white and gold) dress. It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece.
The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people. Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. Given the massive disparity we see in tech it's ridiculous that this individual felt the need to lambast the relatively minimal amount of work being done to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture across the industry.
If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today.
When somebody's views are being attacked for being misogynistic and alienating to their female colleagues, it is not suppression of free speech and diverse political opinion it is common decency. Nobody is infringing on your free speech but they will respond. All of these cries of 'authoritarian left-wing thought-police' makes me think We need a manifesto on White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech.
[disclaimer: I work at Google, my words are my own and not my employers]
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar
As an Asian male who once upon a time had to apply to colleges, I'd like to see some evidence for that assertion.
To be clear, I (and hopefully many other people commenting here) have no problem with outreach, anti-harrassment, and other such workplace training initiatives. It's unfortunate that we can't all achieve a baseline level of civility that abstracts away a person's biological character.
But I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place. This tends disturbingly towards institutionalized stereotyping (e.g. "all Asians are nerdy and softspoken, so we're going to lump them into the same cohort and exert an implicit negative bias against them"). It's also particularly vacuous in that our notion of 'diversity' is thereby premised chiefly on superficial appearances - 'you look different, therefore you must be the kind of different we need'.
One would think the more equitable philosophy would be to strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create.
I find it highly reductionist to conflate people challenging biased hiring practices with people challenging diversity more generally. There are likely some in the tech world who are genuinely bigoted and misogynist. I would hope, however, that a larger share are simply perplexed that hiring practices in engineering would be predicated on anything other than an assessment of raw merit.
My final point is this: as long as we continue to perpetuate diversity practices that emphasize sex and race in any way, some classes of people are going to be harmed. Sometimes that's more obvious to the Asian male who grew up in a tough part of NYC under difficult circumstances than it is to the affluent Black female who grew up in a world willing to bias opportunities unfairly in her favor (when some other less fortunate Black female really needed the leg up).
I appreciate where you are coming from. And I agree we should, "strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create." And I honestly believe that diversity and outreach programs are part of that process.
The economic and social structure of the United States is the result of historical processes that were driven by racism and sexism; disparities in wealth and power between these groups continue to exist today due to that legacy.
To take one example, "If average black family wealth continues to grow at the same pace it has over the past three decades, it would take black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth white families have today." [0]
While it is a great sentiment that everyone should be treated purely as individuals and it is something to strive for, it completely ignores the economic reality of our country and is an ahistorical approach to public policy or the construction of a hiring pipeline.
We can argue about to what role public companies can or should play to reduce these historical inequities. I think that outreach and education at all levels to increase the number of candidates from underrepresented groups in the tech hiring pipeline is a great step and that reducing these inequities, beyond being ethical, will create a stronger workforce. Others might disagree and have good reasons to disagree. That is a conversation worth having, but it needs to happen in the historical context in which we find ourselves.
Writing a manifesto that claims that the disparity in tech is the result of biological differences that lead women to be inferior at performing in tech and leadership capacities is not the way to start this conversation. In fact this is the exact kind of sentiment that you call out by saying, "I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place."
There are a lot of holes in the arguments you're laying out, but I'll comment on just a few:
* Google is a profit-motivated entity. They have to act in the interest of their shareholders. Correcting for historical imbalances - to the extent that it negatively perverts hiring standards - doesn't factor into the calculus of a responsible corporation.
* Jews were systematically exterminated in a historical event that was even more recent than slavery. Countless more were left destitute. Why are they any less deserving of positive bias?
* There are millions of White people across the Midwest who are dirt poor because manufacturing is no longer a meaningful economic sector in this country. What about them?
And more generally, believing that there's a contemporary responsibility to correct for historical imbalances leads you down a fantastically absurd rabbit hole. We should instead be addressing the present socioeconomic condition (which will indirectly benefit many of the historically disenfranchised). And that is the job of government. Not corporations.
* Google clearly doesn't believe or intend for its diversity programs to negatively pervert its hiring standards. And while correcting historical imbalance isn't inherently profitable, building a more diverse workforce is potentially profitable in the long term as it provides broader perspective and empathy, a valuable thing for a company with a diverse user-base. The positive PR doesn't hurt either.
* This isn't a competition. It seems that the Jewish people have collectively been more resilient to persecution and therefore need no assistance, but so what? Good for them, but it doesn't diminish the fact that other minority groups still wear old wounds that hurt them today. Are you seriously suggesting that we shouldn't help disadvantaged black Americans simply because disadvantaged Jewish Americans didn't need it?
* Millions of white people across the Midwest are in bad shape, you're right about that. I support programs and practices that will help them out. I also support programs and practices that support other disadvantaged race and gender groups. So I don't know what to make of the question "what about them?". I'd have to hand the question back to you: what about them?
* The government is definitely necessary to address much of this, but it's ridiculous to ignore the role of corporations as the backbone of our capitalist society. The private sector is responsible for the majority of economic activity and employment in many countries; they exist at the heart of the problem. Not to mention that some corporate diversity initiatives are actually attempts to comply with government policy. The wider context to this memo is Google's gender pay gap lawsuit filed by the US Department of Labor.
> Are you seriously suggesting that we shouldn't help disadvantaged black Americans simply because disadvantaged Jewish Americans didn't need it?
Perhaps he's suggesting that black, white, Jewish, etc aren't the characteristics that we should be using to classify people as needing help. You'd probably have a lot less pushback if you created a biased hiring process that gave favoritism to people who had attended lower-income high schools or people who are the first generation in their families to earn a college degree. That hiring process would, overwhelmingly, benefit minorities since, as many are pointing out, they've been historically disadvantaged and systemic roadblocks like poor schools contribute to the difficulties we have with social mobility. It's when you start using skin color or ethnic background as a discriminant that it starts to get uncomfortable for many people. I honestly find it kind of bizarre to say that I have more in common with my Russian coworkers, who grew up under communism and are also classified as white, than I do with the minorities who came to my birthday parties growing up.
Having grown up poor and now being fairly comfortable, it's easy for me to see many of the disadvantages poor people face. I attended a public middle school that was less than 10% white. Despite being part of a single-parent family just barely above the poverty line, I had a mother with a PhD who took an interest in my education. Many of my classmates had parents that simply didn't care. And I was lucky enough to test into a prep school and avoid the public high school. At that school, I saw the other side. Most of my classmates, both white and the few non-white, were rich and most had after-school tutors from the local university that would help them complete their homework. My mother worked long hours and I was largely on my own to tackle the very difficult workload (4-5 hours of homework each night). Of the few that I've stayed in touch with, I've seen former white classmates from middle school struggle. And I've seen the few minority classmates from my high school breeze through their schooling and find whatever jobs they've wanted. Their skin color didn't seem to be much of an impediment when they had successful parents standing behind them.
So my opinion is going to be biased by my experience, but I don't see skin color being the biggest factor when compared to socio-economic situation and parental education level. It's not really controversial to say there's a huge correlation between race/ethnicity and being disadvantaged in those two areas, but for some reason it's controversial to say that we should use areas like those instead of race/ethnicity for these kinds of diversity programs.
You make a good point that socioeconomic factors are a big factor in all this, but I disagree that race is merely a symptom and not its own problem. There are hiring biases that are almost completely based on race, as demonstrated by one study on employee response to resume names:
> In response to help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers, they sent resumes with either African-American- or white-sounding names and then measured the number of callbacks each resume received for interviews. Thus, they experimentally manipulated perception of race via the name on the resume. Half of the applicants were assigned African-American names that are "remarkably common" in the black population, the other half white sounding names, such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker.
> The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates to a phone line with a voice mailbox attached and a message recorded by someone of the appropriate race and gender. Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.
This isn't just a poverty or education problem. This study suggests that even a well-educated, affluent black American would face discrimination simply because of his/her ethnic name.
> And more generally, believing that there's a contemporary responsibility to correct for historical imbalances leads you down a fantastically absurd rabbit hole.
It amounts to collective guilt, which is generally considered to be a violation of human rights.
Several states in the Midwest (Indiana, for example) are actually undergoing a manufacturing boom. Google may have just shot itself in the foot here by making it clear that Midwestern political views are not welcome. I would wager that a sizable chunk of Google's technical workforce hail from the Midwest.
Nice lumping everyone from a huge swath of a region into one group. I'm from the Midwest, currently living in the Midwest, do not hold anything close to these stupid views.
After reading this and some other comment sections and blogs I still haven seen single of his "stupid views" refuted in concise and logical manner, without relying on assumptions that only sexism and biases in hiring are cause of gab in distribution of sexes in tech.
Based on my personal experience during my education I think his assumptions are quite accurate. Men are more inclined towards tech and science while women are more inclined towards education and social studies. But this is generalization. You also have women who excel in math and men who excel in education. Its just that there are less of them.
Fact of the matter is: there's a small portion of women represented in computer science than the average. Anyone whom tries to "guess" why, either based upon fact or unproven postulate, is blackballed and/or fired.
As per "diversity hire" or many other mealy-mouth ways of saying it, comes back to political correctness and affirmative action.
Affirmative action means, for a decision right now, to use attributes you cannot change (sex, skin color, race, age, height) as an equal or primary stat in deciding policy - whether to give you money, whether to hire you, whether to rent to you. It also is an (sex/rac/age)-ism. That's because of X events in the past, and collective guilt or something tries to overcompensate.
The insulting part of this, is that if you, well, aren't a white male, then you might have been hired because of unchangeable attributes, and not because of your skill. Doubly so if you work in a position that entails "diversity" in its title. In those cases, the job was created for your attributes, and not intelligence.
The other half, is that you're not allowed to talk about it. Full stop. End of story. Do not mention the elephant. There is no elephant. Anyone who mentions the unmentionable is summarily disposed.
Tl;Dr. We need a hiring test equivalent to a Turing test. No race, no sex, no body-type, no nothing other than "Can you type the language we're using, and can you answer questions pertaining to the job at hand?"
> "Can you type the language we're using, and can you answer questions pertaining to the job at hand?"
Genuine question: are all of your co-workers who are best to work with, those that provide most value to yourself and the company, those with the greatest technical proficiency for the job in hand?
I'd suggest that for most jobs the ability to work well with other people in a team to approach the problem is as, if not more important, than the technical proficiencies of the individuals involved. The inter-personal stuff is really, really important.
You're right, in that does seem to "make sense" on a first pass. Who doesn't want to work with others that you get along with?
The darker picture behind that. So we should choose for interpersonal communication and "getting along", no? Then I should hire fellow white males, since they share my culture. And I'll also choose from a similar age group, since I know we'll connect quick due to shared culture. And we can make wiseass cracks about women, share "conquests", make nasty jokes. (Hmm, just described Uber.)
Or I can hire from people whom are good at what they do, get down to work and finish a job, and go home where you make the culture you want there, and not a forced "culture" at work. I don't go to work for culture, or friends, or any social reason. I go to work because I get paid to do a job and I do it.
If working with/for someone is uncomfortable, I bite my tongue, grin and bear it. If it's past social norms and ventures into illegality, either talk with HR about harassing workplace (provide proof), or find somewhere else to work.
You are up against irrational emotion driven reactions and that in turn means anything that does not agree with a person in that state is automatically hateful, stupid, or worse.
My view is that is many parts of the fields I am in is that we are only beginning to see the benefits of women entering engineering and similar fields in significant numbers over a decade or more ago. There simply are not enough woman who came up through that process twenty plus years ago to have the experience many companies assign to a role; this artificial inflation of requirements also pushes out a lot of men as well.
So diversity for the sake of diversity is wrong. not acknowledging we have a shortage of qualified candidates is wrong as well but try to remember this is because it took so long for society to accept women in these roles that it may not have been a dream of many until the last decade or two.
anecdotal, I remember my own sister expressing an interest in science only after Sally Ride (hence the 80s). Seeing a woman in space was a big deal. Before the age of the internet young women only had TV for examples to aspire to and TV still had/has an influence of young people.
Yet, making it clear that this form of behaviour is acceptable would not be shooting itself in the foot, when it comes to hiring and retaining women?
"Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" does not sound like a great recruiting pitch. Never mind that it is also an incredibly shitty thing to do.
You speak of "the calculus of a responsible corporation" and "the job of government" as if unrelated phenomena. The latter authors the corporate law that sets the former. And it would take an extreme case indeed for a company's directors or employees to violate a fiduciary duty by implementing a diversity hiring initiative. Even if there were a plausible argument that a given initiative "cost" the company relative to other hiring practices, there will almost always be plausible arguments why incurring the "cost" is in the company's best long-term interests, all things considered, in which case courts will defer to business judgment.
You comment makes me wonder: At what point has the pursuit of diversity been "enough?" What's the actual end game, so that we know we've achieved it? Is it to have an perfectly statistically balanced ethnic representation in a company's workforce based on global population densities?
Will Google know that they've "succeeded" at diversity when 50-odd percent of programmers are women, and the bulk of their workforce are Asian and Indian, since they make up the majority of people on the earth? Is Google's goal to have the best programmers they can find, but which fit within the global demographics, because they conclude that there is absolutely no correlation between gender, race, culture, or creed in the aptitude for, or desire to pursue, any given human endeavor?
Or, perhaps, to use your example, is the goal to actually increase the preference for non-white, non-males in order to "catch up" other genders and ethnicities until their population groups exhibit the same level of wealth?
There are a lot of tangents to all of this, but I'm trying to stick to the main point here: at what point will we know that American corporations have achieved "enough" diversity, and that outreach programs and hiring preferences are no longer necessary? What's the idealized situation look like? (Honest question.) What's the measure of success?
Also, are companies in other parts of the world trying to achieve the same thing? Are companies, say, in India and China, hiring white and black people like crazy because they also recognize the extreme and urgent need to diversify their workforces? The answer to that question might help clarify the first.
I'm not sure how generational wealth inequality is relevant to gender diversity? Surely rich and poor families in the US are having boys and girls at roughly the same rates? Or have I missed something here?
> as long as we continue to perpetuate diversity practices that emphasize sex and race in any way, some classes of people are going to be harmed
The whole reason diversity practices exist is because "some classes of people" are already being harmed. Without "diversity practices", we already have practices that emphasize and discriminate sex and race, except they happen to be the status quo.
Attacking diversity for harming "some classes of people" misses the point, because any change to the status quo is necessarily going to harm certain classes and benefit other classes.
I think class divisions are intertwined with race and gender divisions. You can't ignore the effect of being hired at, say, Google will have on your class.
But 'intertwined' means correlation, not causation. Being a woman is correlated with not doing software dev. in a tech company. It does not mean that tech discriminate against women, because correlation ≠ causation.
Sure, I'll accept the basic logic that the lack of women in tech does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that tech discriminates against women.
But you're also ignoring evidence that suggests tech actually does discriminate against women. Just to scratch the surface, we've just seen some high profile cases like the scandal at Uber and Google's court case on its wage gap.
As someone working in tech, I find it somewhat offensive that Uber had some real twats working for it, and now I am categorized together with Travis as "tech discriminating against women".
The problem is that reverse discrimination does justify the discrimination they [cl]aim to fight. If HR considers the results of my technical interviews to be biased for the benefit of people who look like me and compensate accordingly, I then have to discriminate as I'm supposed to in order to achieve overall fairness of the recruitment process. How is that supposed to reduce biases ?
Reverse discrimination is the easy way, but it is actually counterproductive in term of reducing biases. As case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law imo, of optimizing the easy metric of enrollment ratio instead of the hard goal of fairness.
> The whole reason diversity practices exist is because "some classes of people" are already being harmed. Without "diversity practices", we already have practices that emphasize and discriminate sex and race, except they happen to be the status quo.
Citation needed and it needs to be relevant in a liberal tech company environment.
> The whole reason diversity practices exist is because "some classes of people" are already being harmed. Without "diversity practices", we already have practices that emphasize and discriminate sex and race, except they happen to be the status quo.
Wrong. Everybody has an equal opportunity. Equal results are not guaranteed, nor should be guaranteed.
This is specifically about why women leave engineering, with a number of incidental measures about the egalitarian qualifications across gender (for the studied population).
Of course, next up is arguing about the epistemology of what "everyone" means, which is how you would have started if you weren't trolling. -1
That doesn't seem to support "everybody has equal opportunity" at all.
It's pretty well established [0] that the circumstances of ones birth - race, wealth and, yes, gender are a key determining factor in your expected life outcomes. Equal opportunities are emphatically not available to all.
First, I'm aware that there is a concerted effort in industry & politics to promote "Gender Equality" measures; with the end-game quotas, legal statutes, government power over individuals, intervention, etc.
Second, any policy intervention to correct "discrimination" is itself discrimination. The alternative is freedom & liberty (which benefits everybody). There are countermeasures to correct the "bad actors" & reward the "good actors". Many people who will choose to not give a certain company business if the company is perceived to be against one's values.
> This is specifically about why women leave engineering, with a number of incidental measures about the egalitarian qualifications across gender (for the studied population).
My responses to the "Key Findings" on the report:
> Nearly half said they left because of working conditions, too much travel, lack of advancement or low salary.
I don't have a study handy, but this is not a situation unique to women. Too much travel, lack of advancement and low salaries are a symptom of corporate culture & the inverted leadership pyramid. Being on the bottom is not as good as being on the top & there's less room at the top. Having quotas does not help the people at the bottom nor does it necessarily create better cultural dynamics.
> One-in-three women left because they did not like the workplace climate, their boss or the culture.
I didn't like the workplace climates of several of my jobs. Didn't like all of my bosses or all of the cultures as well. If there is harassment toward women in a workplace, it's probably indicative of deeper issues where others are not being respected as well (in ways related to the characteristics of that person). The solution is not to put certain politically ordained "victim" characteristics on a pedestal; in fact it's an anti-solution because it discourages organizations/people to explore root causes.
> One-in-four left to spend time with family.
Understandable as this has been a more traditional pattern for women. Having a child means focusing more on family & less on the profession.
> Those who left were not different from current engineers in their interests, confidence in their abilities, or the positive outcomes they expected from performing engineering related tasks.
The map is not the territory. Models are an imperfect distillation of reality; especially models aggregating the complexity of many different lives.
While I agree that there are different outcomes in gender, culture, race, etc. The point is everybody (as in all people) has the legal ability to succeed in a profession. If you want certain people to succeed more, address the tools that they have & work to give them better tools so they can succeed. The wrong thing to do is to encourage a victim mentality & a autocratic culture that enforces a certain predetermined outcome; that is the opposite of freedom & liberty.
> It's pretty well established [0] that the circumstances of ones birth - race, wealth and, yes, gender are a key determining factor in your expected life outcomes. Equal opportunities are emphatically not available to all.
The source you provided assumes unwarranted prejudice as a reason. There are other determining factors related to the circumstances such as ability, temperament, education, culture, intelligence.
Let me clarify. Everybody has equal opportunity but not everybody is equally fit to take advantage of the opportunity. The best way to improve everybody's situation is to make the participants more fit for the job.
You got a good point. These days social class is more a determining factor for chances to move up than it has ever been. The risk with race, gender or other policies based on past evils is fighting the last war.
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today.
I guess the one challenge I would put to this is that I find it difficult to believe that East Asians or Indians have been on the receiving end of any less discrimination than, say, Hispanics in the US, but yet they are now vastly over-represented in tech compared to their population statistics at large. They are so over-represented that they are now clearly discriminated against in areas such as college admissions at top tier universities, where being Asian essentially raises the requisite SAT bar by about 50 points.
You may think there needs to be a manifesto on a "White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech", but I'd be interested in why you didn't also write an "Asian Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech."
Finally, I'll add that there is plenty of evidence it's not a "persecution complex". How do you square Github's reaction to their proposed Electron conference, where all the proposals were accepted in a completely blind process, but they decided they'd rather cancel the conference when it turned out all the proposals accepted were from men? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868
Asians are overrepresented because of the way immigration laws shifted in 1965, combined with rapidly changing economic conditions in India and China. 50% of Asians in the US hold a college degree, compared to 1% in Asia, so this is not representative of Asians as a whole, but the well-off, high caste, etc. Not to mention if you look at subgroups (refugee populations like the Vietnamese or Cambodians) the numbers reflect those situations.
Asians are also over-represented because Asians are over-represented in the global population. Indians and Chinese along are nearly 40% of the world's population.
Given the much, much larger pool to pick from, it's natural that they would be over-represented in tech too.
And the pool of Asians that American companies can choose from isn't anywhere near the entirety of that 40% due to visa and language restrictions. A very large number of them are within the population already living in America. Despite universities putting higher standards on entry for Asians, they still enter tech and high-skill fields at disproportionate rates.
And explain to me why some bureaucratic organization is responsible for correcting for this disproportion.
On average in the United States (I say average because someone here is bound to call me an Asian supremacist when I am just taking statistics), Asians make up the highest percentage of college applicants [1], Asians have the highest average SAT scores [2], Asians are the most likely to enter and graduate college [3], and Asians make up the highest income bracket in the US [4].
Given these trends, we should, in fact, see a larger number of Asians in tech and it should not be surprising. Google's bureaucracy should not hire less Asians because "there are more."
I would not mind if Google were 100% Black females. Just as long as it's a merit based system.
There's been a lot of shade thrown on "leftists" and "marxists" in relation to this manifesto. Yet it was a senior member of Trump's team that said 2/3rds of Silicon Valley CEOs being Asian was a problem.
Note, 2/3rds of CEOs in Silicon Valley are not Asian, he was probably overreacting based on looking just at Google, Microsoft and Facebook, and they're probably under-represented at the management levels overall.
16 in 10 silicon valley executives are white, while 7 in 10 are Asian (for every 10 engineers). So Asians are actually underrepresented at the highest level.
I have no comments on the current Washington administration's personal views - if their goal is to get rid of AA and remove diversity regulations from industry then it's a goal that's fine with me.
But that's a meritocracy right? Those white execs got there fair and square. Probably Asian people just prefer not to be paid lots of money and run companies, it's a genetic thing that can't be helped.
I'll note that one of the rules for proposal submission that GitHub specified before proposals were accepted was that any ties in ratings would be broken in favor of a more diverse speaker panel, so it at least appears that they were conscious of attracting women and minorities to the conference.
> If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today.
Could you provide citations in the manifesto that were oppressive to women?
Manifesto was pretty neutral and pretty clear that this was not at all a text about the abilities of women and how they are inferior. It was about motivations women have given their biological traits.
Google, Facebook run unconscious bias training which has no support in scientific research. At best it does not work at all.
It really was not misogyny.
The manifesto is inspired by Jordan B Peterson, and that guy is not a misogynist or a racist or whatever. He's a psychologist that complains about HR departments of the world that are filled with other psychologists and sociologists. He thinks they have to start looking at science and get to the root of the issue. Unfortunately, they use methods that have no support in science and misuse their position to push their ideology.
One good example is Iran. Where women are oppressed. Yet they choose STEM more often than not. How come our free/tolerant culture allows women to move away from STEM fields, and their oppressive culture pushes women towards STEM fields? Maybe motivations of free and oppressed women are different and free women just don't want to work in STEM? Abilities of men and women are identical (or at least the bell curves overlap significantly). Motivations depend on biology and culture. Motivations are what is differing and no unconscious bias training will fix that.
For example, I know plenty IT women that don't want to work in offices that don't have dress code. They all went working in banks. How is anyone going to fix that bias if women just like dressing well (on average) and being in a dressed up fancy environment.
Yeah I also didnt get feeling from reading the memo that is was misogynistic.
James just tried to point out that reasons for gender gab in tech might not be only sexism as current left leaning agenda dictates.
I understood memo more like complaining that employees with opinions that differ from "current left leaning agenda" are afraid to express them. And google proved him right by firing him.
This political correctness has brought us very close to Orwellian double think. Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote:
> “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it.”
And used this as basis to fire guy who expressed his concerns.
His appeal to replace diversity of gender and race with diversity of thought is completely valid and reasonable.
The response to the memo is very frustrating to me; I suspect the original author wanted to start a conversation that involved Simpson's Paradox and got a response where people typed him as a misogynist.
This incident seems like evidence that attempting a statistics based discussion about gender programs is dangerous - if you are wrong in your interpretation & work at Google you will be fired rather than have your mistakes explained.
EDIT for clarity: not that the memo mentioned Simpson's Paradox at all, but that paradox illuminates serious risk around interpreting clear-seeming evidence. I think that those style of risks where were the original author wanted to push discussion.
I think he knew what he was doing and correctly predicted reaction. If you have been following anti-SJW (for lack of better term) authors lately you can see exactly same pattern repeating over and over. After all he signed memo with his name. He could probably distribute it anonymously if he would want to keep his job. And if you ever tried to argue those points in any "left echo chamber" you probably know that before you convince anybody your account is banned.
SJWs (feminists, PC culture, LGBT, pro-Muslim, BLM, antifa...) when faced with more or less factual data that questions one of their sacred cows (women are equal to men, there are more than two genders, minorities need to be privileged, white privilege, institutional racism and patriarchy still exists...), they overreact with outrage with character assassination and shaming of meagerness. Some call this virtue signalling.
Example of this is how trump supporters are often labeled as nazis, racists, sexists...
While this works well in "echo chambers", it doesnt work as well in court. And I suspect that this guy had law suit for being fired and defamation.
This blog mentions that he already complained to NLRB:
> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
If we're so concerned with the advantages of wealth and education inequality, why are we still using race (a bad proxy, given the spread and distribution around the averages - the whole point of the original document) as the determining factor instead of just asking for tax returns/education records for special programs?
And regarding gender - let's consider the example of salary negotiation. Now, if you research, you'll see that statistically women are less likely to negotiate as high a salary as men. It would make sense, given that research, to create a women-only program for teaching salary negotiation skills, right?
Except what if the bell curve around those averages was wide? Well then there's a number of men that suck at negotiation, and a number of women for whom those classes would be a waste of time. So the likely better program would be one where negotiation ability was evaluated at the start, and only candidates that needed training received it. Statistically, this program would have more women than men in it, but an exclusive program would not have been ideal.
Maybe I missed the part where he called women inferior?? The gist of his document as I saw it was that only looking at deltas between averages is a myopic approach (makes sense), and that programs need to consider that there's often a wide spread between those averages (also makes sense).
There's a huge difference between creating a safe work environment so you don't alienate otherwise interested talent, versus artificially stacking the deck to create diversity for diversity's sake. The latter approach, particularly when poorly evaluating the data (as the author points out) can cause significant damage to an organization.
Case and point - how is it that a Googler discussing "White Male Persecution Complex" and "majority privilege" is contributing to the discussion of workplace diversity dynamics, but a (now ex-) Googler internally writing about dogmatic diversity and the need for nuance should be fired?
Are any of your co-workers white? Male? How is it that your assumption that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life not insensitive and inflamitory? Are your comments here not alienating?
Either no one should be able to write on the subject and any discussion a fireable offence, or perhaps rational, respectful, and data-driven discussion should be encouraged (and so far today I've only seen one Googler having written such on workplace diversity).
> And regarding gender - let's consider the example of salary negotiation. Now, if you research, you'll see that statistically women are less likely to negotiate as high a salary as men. It would make sense, given that research, to create a women-only program for teaching salary negotiation skills, right?
No. It would make sense to implement other means of deciding fair compensation rather than through employer-employee negotiation. Because it is not fair that compensation should be based on negotiation skills.
The thing I think we have to accept is that the world is unfair. Evidence seem to be that the world is, on average, more unfair to women and minorities.
My comment about 'White Male Persecution Complex (PC)" was tongue and cheek. I should have known that would be a mistake in this conversation.
I have many white male coworkers (as you'd expect given the demographic statistics for tech) and I have nothing but the utmost respect for their ability. I don't harbor any assumption that, "that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life."
I don't think that believing that there are groups that have been more economically and socially marginalized than white males is alienating. I also don't think that it implies that I believe my white male coworkers have been given a free pass to the positions they are in today. Everyone I work with has had to pass the same bar.
As I've stated, all of the statements I've made here are my own, made on my own time, on a public site and do not represent the views of my employer. I leave my politics at home.
There are groups that have been more marginalized than "white males" on average. But that was the whole point of the original document in question.
White/black/male/female/etc is a really bad proxy for a person's history and character. Something along the lines of "don't judge me by the color of my skin but by the content of my character" rings a bell.
If you are concerned about socio-economic advantages, look at tax returns, not skin color. I know a number of white males that had extremely rough histories and disadvantages, living homeless for a few years or growing up in a cult in Utah and being abused by the leaders of the cult. I have black friends from school who were growing up in one of the richest neighborhoods in the US and attending one of the best schools in the area, going on to Stanford.
Don't dance around the disadvantages you want to correct by using race/gender as a proxy. Measure the disadvantages directly. Broken home? Poverty? Juvinile criminal record? Non-contiguous educational history? All of these are directly measurable/verifiable.
If you want to give the less advantaged individuals more of a chance to fulfill their potential I'm all for it. But measure more accurately than skin color or gender, where the spread and distribution around the averages is far too wide to be valuable, and will exclude a large group of people that have suffered disadvantages and let in a significant number of people who haven't really suffered the disadvantages their group has suffered on average.
I just want to point out: it's very interesting to read your caveat because the language is remarkably similar to the preface the author felt obligated to include (which in turn echos disclaimers often attached to modern critiques of affirmative action programs by white males). Perhaps you've even played slightly into the parent's hand helping make their point?
Regardless, I find such disclaimers cumbersome and unnecessary. I'd rather interact as adults who understand how to critically dissect each other's essays than instantly assume bigotry or privilege and infer the most insidious implications: "he is basically saying all women suck at their jobs amirite". It just feels so.. unsophisticated. (To be clear I'm not directing that at you I'm just lamenting the situation in general--oops there _I_ go.)
Do you really think the author would say anything different than you've said if you engaged directly?
So you weren't able to backup your assertion about his misogyny, but you leave your politics at home - even though you mentioned you just worked for Google? The thing is, there are a lot of people who react the way you do these days - so do you think this guy's views on gender politics are so bad that he should be prevented from engineering software? That's pretty far out, isn't it?
Clearly you strongly reject the writings overall. Curious if you see any merit or truth to any of the sub sections or smaller kernels of ideas found within? Is there any version of this kind of thing you would encourage and engage with or is it just too sensitive/triggering of a subject to really be tackled in this style?
Several commenters have chalked the author up to basically being a privileged incumbent waking up to the existential crisis of watching one's privilege being slowly taken from them and trying to figure out a way to stem the tide. Do you see it as something similar and therefore it doesn't really make sense to engage or lend it any legitimacy?
It seems a lot behind the opposition to this guy is based on people's assumptions about his motivations. OP or anyone else willing to weigh in would be appreciated.
Yeah, I havent seen any concise and rational debunking of any of his points.
I did see a lot of partisanship and accusation of misogyny that I cant find in memo at all.
To me this looks like some smart guy saying that google doesnt tolerate views that are not perfectly aligned with left leaning echo chambers, and getting fired for exactly that. Looks like SJWs at google, like thy often do, forced HR to fire him.
I have read that he was chess champion, so I would call this forcing your opponent to check mate himself.
I think he planned this since I am seeing this:
> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal.
Holding a view that inherently biases them against a whole gender does make them a work liability. How can you trust this person to be fair when - god forbid - they manage people and have to decide who performed better in their mixed-gender group?
If anything, by firing him Google might be saving money in future gender-based discrimination lawsuits. On that alone, the "laissez faire capitalists" should stop moaning about this.
>Holding a view that inherently biases them against a whole gender does make them a work liability.
That is your own fabrication. Please stick to what was actually said. They simply showed a lack of faith in their companies hiring practices (making sure diversity candidates were not accidentally turned away) being in line with their stated goals (hiring on merit). On principle, its no worse than employees complaining a bunch of new employees "got in easy" through an aqui-hire. If additional evidence was to be unearthed that this person is actually a raging bigot, then sure, bring out the pitchforks.
>If anything, by firing him Google might be saving money in future gender-based discrimination lawsuits. On that alone, the "laissez faire capitalists" should stop moaning about this.
Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone, then firing this individual probably makes a lot of sense from a PR standpoint.
I think he was smart and planned all of this. I am reading that he has previously complained to NLRB and plans to sue Google for firing him arguing that his dismissal was a revenge.
And by reading memo instead of its misinterpretations on feminist blogs it seems like he just pointed out that Google created environment where people who dont agree with current left leaning political correct agenda cant express their opinions safely anymore. And he got fired for exactly this: expressing opinions that are not aligned with SJW dogma.
His language was very careful, his claims were sourced. He mentioned multiple times that this controversial points are not his personal opinions but rational explanations, and he was very careful to point out that he doesnt generalize based on this data. I havent find single sentence that could be used on court as proof of misogyny. He is guilty only of opening talking points SJWs and feminists dont want to talk about and use tactic of character assassination to dismiss messenger instead of debating his message.
HR was forced to fire him by outrage that many of their vocal left leaning echo chamber activist caused. I am not convinced this was beneficial for google. He will probably won the case for compensation.
And from PR perspective? Sure, regressive left, SJWs, hardcore hillary supporters... they will like this move. But conservative publications use this as perfect point to smear Google, accuse them of spreading left propaganda, accuse them of firing conservatives...
I am not sure which camp is bigger and which brings more money.
> And he got fired for exactly this: expressing opinions that are not aligned with SJW dogma.
No, he got fired for making himself impossible to work with. If he disagreed with Google's and his fellow Googler's values, he could've left and go somewhere where he felt welcome. Trying to go out with a bang is just a douchebag move.
> His language was very careful, his claims were sourced
Where are the sources to his claims, pray tell? People keep repeating this as fact, but this is not a paper, and there's no list of references at the end of it.
> He is guilty only of opening talking points SJWs and feminists dont want to talk about and use tactic of character assassination to dismiss messenger instead of debating his message.
Calling people "SJWs" and "feminists" and ascribing some conspiracy to them proves the point that this was a dogwhistling exercise. You, my friend, are barking madly right now.
> I am not convinced this was beneficial for google.
I can guarantee he'll get his ass handed to him in court if he tries to sue Google for discrimination. Any corporation that size has ways to resolve these matters slowly and completely under the radar. To me his sudden dismissal is a strong signal that their legal department gave them the go ahead. They wouldn't do that if they didn't feel they have a solid case.
>No, he got fired for making himself impossible to work with.
The fact that a lot of people became hysterical instead of providing a simple calm response kind of proves his point - That a debate is not possible without people either slandering the author, or purposely assuming malicious intent when there was none. Are google employees so thin-skinned that someone simply questioning a company policy is cause for getting fired?
> If he disagreed with Google's and his fellow Googler's values, he could've left and go somewhere where he felt welcome.
What are you talking about? To the latter part, why should that be the only option? Who are we to tell someone what to do? What if he likes working at Google, and is merely annoyed at one small aspect and wanted to discuss it internally, or improve the situation?
> The fact that a lot of people became hysterical instead of providing a simple calm response kind of proves his point
Right. Seems like he valued his point more than his job. Well done, him!
> What if he likes working at Google, and is merely annoyed at one small aspect
Really? Calling the whole organization driven by "leftist ideals" is "a small aspect"? Give me a break. I can guarantee you wouldn't be able to tell me that with a straight face in person, but somehow expect me to take it at face value because you put it in writing.
Could you please reign in the hyperbole? The author has presented their opinion on what constitutes left or right biases, and it is patently obvious that (even in the authors opinion) the whole organization is not driven by 'leftist ideals' - a term which doesn't come up in the memo at any point BTW. The context of the memo is quite narrow - Diversity hiring, and unconscious bias as it pertains the the former. It doesn't discuss every single aspect of Google as an organization. I don't know why you think an employee couldn't be happy with Google as a company, and only disagree on specific policies.
You could be right here. I read the memo and it read like something written to gain enough outrage for him to be fired, but tight enough that he could win any lawsuit that follows.
I will be interested to see if anyone follows his example.
Given that Republicans control the Presidency, The majority in the Congress and Senate the majority of Governorships and state houses its a safe bet not only are they larger but Conservative media is going to get the biggest wins from this. Its going to motivate and reconfirm to all the deplorable that yes, the Leftist Liberal San Francisco millionaires hate them and will fire and destroy the career of conservatives who dare to challenge the Left narrative. Brendan Eich 2.0.
Maybe. I have been reading that Bannon wants to start regulating big social media platforms as utilities, to limit their censoring and promoting narrative capabilities.
And I have to say that I agree with him. This platforms became global communication channel. This is not just private company website anymore. So decision to delete peoples accounts and posts cant be given in hands of some biased moderators with personal agenda.
What is going on now on twitter and facebook, is comparable to phone company disabling your line because you have been talking naughty things over the phone.
> Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone... If additional evidence was to be unearthed that this person is actually a raging bigot
I'm sorry, but trying to bring up physical make up as an explanation of why women may or may not be interested in a subject that was denied to them until very recently is ill-informed at best. It'd be like concluding that "gay people aren't interested in getting married, based on the last 200 years of history until 2015."
> Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone, then firing this individual probably makes a lot of sense from a PR standpoint.
It's not PR, it's HR and legal. Nobody is trying to hang him in a public plaza, but there's a pretty solid argument about him being a future liability.
Are you kidding me? I'll give you a hint: go back fifteen years, and watch the ads on a single day of TV programming. Then classify who the cleaning and cooking ads are targeted to, and who the ads for high tech widgets are targeted to. Then come back and tell me there's no expected gender behavior.
"may not be interested in a subject that was denied to them until very recently"
No TV ad is from 15 years ago was denying anyone anything. They were playing to certain stereotypes, yes, but thats completely different from denying someone a job in tech.
And you believe the stereotypes were completely unrelated to the roles society assigned to the genders? And that those roles might affect the choices people might make during their lives?
It's kind of unbelievable that people who are willing to take a single study that says pre-natal testosterone determines all future behavior at the same time are happy to dismiss hundreds of other studies showing the impact of gender stereotypes.
I kind of assumed they had to fire him based on the fact that there is a current federal gender discrimination lawsuit against Google in which Google claims to not discriminate on gender and Google claims to not be able to produce the data to back up this assertion because it would cost too much to produce.
The problem is that all these programs address large grossly defined groups, leaving many individuals lost in the cracks. There are countless repressed and underrepresented groups that are barely acknowledged let alone accounted for by these programs. Even some large groups miss out.
For example you regularly see black comedians thanking Arabs for being the new class of people everyone hates, yet they are considered white in the census and garner no benefit from any programs. White privilege without any of the privilege. Why are a Yemeni and an Englishman bucketed in the same category?
> 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles
Is there any way to discuss generalized differences that won't be perceived as absolute and insulting?
The memo clearly did not make any claims about all women, and the topic at hand (gender representation in roles) is a general one. If there are general differences between men and women, we could expect general differences in their representation in various roles. That doesn't mean any individual woman is inferior, or even different relative to men.
It's really confusing why so many media stories and comments race to phrase this as claiming women are worse at their job, or can't code as well. Did they read it?
Hence the white and gold, (er, blue and black dress). I'd reiterate and ask you to have a conversation with a female colleague or friend who works in tech and ask for their perspective.
Apparently, half the world read "all women are bad at writing software, and we should never hire them", when the other half saw "lots of women don't want to work for google, and we should hire only the ones who do". When the lines are so far apart, reading between them is basically a Rorschach test.
In this sense, it would have been a much better outcome for him to have ended up debating his views in front of a studio audience rather than packing his belongings into a box, because then we'd know exactly what he thinks, and google would have either a solid reason to fire him or a way of mitigating the PR damage.
You're eloquent, but I'm sorry - you lose me at "institutionalized racism". That's a very testable thing: find the policy, directive, or law that is racist and cite it. Don't throw out the term as a kind of pervasive but subtly intangible miasm that we have to expunge from our midst like Satan's influence on 16th century New England.
It's also your responsibility to educate yourself. It's not like institutionalized racism is some "subtly intangible miasm". For an example, read up on African Americans and the G.I. Bill after WW2. Heck, the Civil Rights Bill was passed only a little over 50 years ago, after centuries of marginalization. If you want a more modern example, read up on studies of racism in the justice and education systems.
Being "educated" about what happened historically is also acknowledging what's changed for the better. Pre 1964 I'd certainly agree institutional racism existed, because you could point to policy, directives, and laws that were used to actively discriminate. I challenge you to find that now in Google or any other U.S. company, educational institution, or government agency. The G.I. Bill issue is largely rooted in Disparate Impact, which continues to be a gray area.
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach
What if all you are achieving is rearranging the dirt (ignore the negative connotations to dirt)?
Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts. The URM outreach efforts will just shift the talented URMs from other companies to its company.
> Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts.
I'm not so convinced that'd be true! If there are no concerted outreach efforts what's stopping the majority of companies from hiring their mediocre non-URM friends of friends instead?
We can simply inverse the logic to get the statements about men, so why aren't they fundamental and toxic misandry?
To inverse the quotes:
Men, on average, are more closed towards feelings and aesthetics. Men are not social or artistic.
Men are more disagreeable, leading to men being more combative, getting into fights, and being argumentative.
Men are emotional cold and don't have positive emotions.
You can't have a "women are in comparison to men ..." without getting "men are thus in comparison to women". How is those statements promoting men over women?
You're the one making assumptions.
1) That one can't find plenty of professional females that oppose mainstream gender politics is an unfounded assumption
2) That the author is a misogynist or his view are based in his hatred of women. Many people who oppose mainstream gender politics due so because they believe it is hurting women. How is it you're able to tell they're all lying about not having bad intentions?
Do you think women are so weak and inferior that any male who writes words you perceive to be against them should be fired, silenced, or not debated? I think grown-up men and women can handle the truth and don't need some "safe space" to insulate them from information.
"The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people."
Just the opposite as far as I can tell. Every great evil in history came from grouping people and punishing based on collective guilt (whether the guilt was real or imagined). This includes the crimes of the left and the right.
How is it even logically possible to disenfranchise a group of people by ignoring their group characteristics?
We had racial policy in the form of slavery, then segregation and Jim Crow, to discriminatory housing policies, to inequitable application of drug laws but now, let's just ignore race and all of its historical context when it comes to outreach and public policy.
That is how it is possible to logically disenfranchise a group of individuals by ignoring their group characteristics. The disenfranchisement already happened.
Diversity programs are not about punishment it is about recognizing the historical context in which we are acting.
Diversity programs are doing a lot more than "recognizing". Recognition is just perception and perhaps symbolic communication. Diversity programs are action.
In this case, the action is to shift economic opportunity from one group to another based on visually-identifiable group characteristics. This is justified by the the idea you stated, which is that the group being disfavored is collectively guilty.
Of course, we ignore how many people in that targeted group have no present or past connection to the sins that are being "recognized" by denying them a way forward in life. I'm sure a white male Ukrainian refugee passed over at Google for "diversity" would not be impressed.
If you're in favor of a policy, you should be able to clearly state what that policy actually is, not hide it behind a linguistic smokescreen which minimizes and obscures what's really happening. Own it - the goals, the methods, the unintended consequences, and the victims. Every social policy has them, so own them.
>We had racial policy in the form of slavery, then segregation and Jim Crow, to discriminatory housing policies, to inequitable application of drug laws
All of those examples are the opposite of
>"treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group"
The majority(>60%) of engineering in big tech companies who are most affected by these diversity initiatives are either foreign born or have parents who are foreign born.
Just because they are considered a group. Our group is "the people", their group is something less. It happens with completely random groups, and when there are racist, sexist etc. excuses they are only a way to make oppressors feel right.
>Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece.
Do you have any women in tech in your life? Did any of them actually read it?
Disclaimer: I did not read the entire piece. From what I've seen over the past 24 hours, the vast majority of people with an opinion on it did not read all (or any) of it either.
Until very recently, almost no one has read the entire piece, because Gizmodo intentionally stripped out all the citations and charts the original author had in the document. Hmm. I can't imagine why....
I believe that equal opportunity among all persons is manifest. But I think the manner in which we encourage/enforce/promote it, especially in the workplace, demands debate. We must be able to disagree with the methods without any question of our belief of its purpose.
The most disgusted I've ever felt at a workplace was when my boss, prior to me interviewing someone, said, "and she gets an extra point because she's a woman." The government punishes us on research tax breaks if we don't have enough diversity.
So what am I supposed to say to this person when she asks what set her apart from the other candidates to be hired? "No you weren't the best candidate, but you are a woman." That disgusts me and I refuse to do it.
My job is not to balance an arbitrary math equation that x% of engineers are supposed to be women. That's an issue far larger and more systemic. It can't be fixed this way.
What I can do is remind myself that my job is to pick the best candidate, and my definition of "best" may be fraught with bias, so I need to be exceptionally perceptive to question what capabilities each candidate might bring to the job that I don't naturally consider to be ideal.
Apologies for the ranting nature of this comment. I feel frustrated when faced with the reality that what the establishment wants are at such odds with my morals and convictions.
> My job is not to balance an arbitrary math equation that x% of engineers are supposed to be women
It really sound like Goodhart's law. It no longer matters that corporations wanted to remove bias from hiring process and access mostly untapped pool of talents. Now it is important how well they are doing it, measured by single % value.
My job is not to balance an arbitrary math equation that x% of engineers are supposed to be women.
It's also true that your job is not to balance an arbitrary math equation that x% of engineers are supposed to be men either. Consequently, unless you can demonstrate that you're unbiased with regard to gender, it's entirely reasonable to introduce an external pressure to make sure any bias (conscious or otherwise) is mitigated. Ideally that would be blind interviews but that's very difficult to achieve, so diversity programmes are used instead.
You make a good point that I've fought with for a while too. My thinking on this is that unless I can be shown the work for what that % is supposed to be, we're just being wrong by policy, rather than wrong by systemic cultural biases.
I don't believe that a perfect world has every job populated by a even number of persons of all genders. To me, that would suggest that we believe all genders to be the same.
For example, Almost 100% of midwives in Ontario are female. Is this fundamentally wrong and needs to be addressed? What is the correct percentage of male, female, and other midwives? What is the measure of our policy's effectiveness?
Is this fundamentally wrong and needs to be addressed?
It's certainly wrong if there are men who want to be midwives but are blocked from entering that career due to hiring biases. It's also wrong if the few male midwives that do exist are unable to progress in their careers due to sexism in their industry. It's yet more wrong if boys are put off that career at an early age by being told by their teachers (and parents) that being a midwife isn't an acceptable career for a man.
So, yes, it probably is fundamentally wrong and does need to be addressed.
>Almost 100% of midwives in Ontario are female
No, it is only a problem for the "good jobs" that are dominated by men. No one will fight for gender ratios in the coal mining business, despite how useful "a diversity of life experience and opinion" might be within this industry.
This entire thing is a political tool being disguised as a moral crusade and it is playing off our collective desire to do the right thing. Absolutely disgusting.
Furthermore, what happens when your boss doesn't say that; you make some objective remarks that she wasn't the best candidate, but she is hired anyways. I suppose this is why you have randomized groups interviewing without knowledge of who is doing the interviewing. By abstracting this away, your bias against the candidate will only be your bias alone in review. Collectively, the majority of interviewers would have to conclude she is unqualified, and given the systemic bias men have in being more critical of women, you would have to make sure you had women mentors also interviewing.
In this scenario, if she ends up being hired, your feedback that she wasn't the best could lead you to the conclusion that maybe others saw something you didn't. Or perhaps, like anyone in an interview, they were off their game for a bit. It's not totally unsound of a conclusion to make.
Until we take away our own biases, the "extra points" for under-represented minorities have to stay.
The example is: Your internal bias is already in effect before you even meet the people you are interviewing. You're only disgusted and aware of the explicit handicap example from your boss.
And the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Do you know if there's any evidence that affirmative action would increase, or decrease our biases? I would expect them to increase them:
1. Our brains constantly build models of the world without us asking them to. They will pattern-match regardless of the PC-status of the patterns.
2. Affirmative action reduces the average quality of marginalized groups within an institution by design.
3. from (1) and (2) we should expect implicit bias to increase, barring opposing pressure from implicit bias education - which evidence shows doesn't work (google it).
It's possible though it might backfire, just as conflict of interest disclosure may backfire: disclosure can increase the bias in advice because it leads advisors to feel morally licensed and strategically encouraged to exaggerate their advice even further.
Reading the letter, what surprised me was how political it was, framing everything as a "left vs right" cultural fight. I think if it was up to me I'd probably fire anybody on either side of that debate who started circulating shit like this. As soon as you're on that level, nothing good is going to come of it and you're just going to make a lot of people angry, which is very bad for the business in a lot of different ways.
The workplace is no place for politics like this. If you are going to strictly stick to narrow issues that are relevant to the job, then maybe, but as soon as you're writing a 10 page manifesto with phrases like "the Left's affinity for those it sees as weak" or "some on the Right deny science" or "the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics" you are way out of line. It doesn't matter if you are correct or not, politicising your workplace in that way shows a stunning lack of judgement.
I agree, but I'm pretty sure political posts were already tolerated at Google. If employees are allowed to post to internal message boards that women are underrepresented because interviewers are sexist or suffer from unconcious bias and should adopt policy Y, then employees should also be allowed to post an argument that women are under-represented for some other reason X and argue against policy Y.
And even if the workplace does have a no politics rule, the proper response should be a reprimand and asking him to delete his post, not a firing.
I'm not saying people shouldn't discuss company policies. I'm saying they shouldn't turn those policy discussions into a national/cultural political argument.
If you say "interviewers are being sexist and so we should adopt policy Y", I think that would be acceptable. If you said "there is systemic bias against women so you should vote for Hillary Clinton", to me that would not be acceptable. Once you turn something into left/right liberal/conservative etc you are harming rational discussion and making a lot of trouble in a lot of different ways.
And I think this is the solution that the person who wrote the letter is ironically ruining. You can't have sane level headed discussions about these issues when its framed as left/right. You can if you take every issue on its merits individually. If you want people to be free to voice conservative opinions, then don't turn every issue into a 10 page manifesto dissecting the failures of marxism. Just discuss the policy.
No idea if this reasoning is shared by Google though. It's just my view.
I'm not saying people shouldn't discuss company policies. I'm saying they shouldn't turn those policy discussions into a national/cultural political argument.
I suspect that this memo wasn't any more political than much that gets shared in the message boards at Google. This issue was already politicized and the main gist of the politics stuff was, "Both sides bring insights and biases to the table, so we should do a better job making it comfortable for conservatives to speak up." By the standards of what I see going on the political discourse this was pretty tame stuff. The responses to the piece were 100X worse -- https://files.gab.ai/image/5986e3f03d1f1.jpeg
As I explained to another poster just now: this guy painted a target on himself by becoming a huge liability for Alphabet. By stating that he's OK with discriminating by gender, he put them in a position where they'd have to flag him as someone who couldn't manage a mixed-gender team. Not only that, he should never be allowed to give peer reviews to people in mixed-gender teams. Not only that, he's obviously created animosity with other people inside the company who said they wouldn't want to work with him.
Just deleting the post won't magically fix those issues.
As I explained to another poster just now: this guy painted a target on himself by becoming a huge liability for Alphabet.
Sure, but if Google has already decided it is ok to discuss this issue on company message boards and that it wants to encourage debate and discussion (which it has), then it shouldn't then fire a guy just because he makes an argument other people don't like. The principled thing would be to stand for freedom of debate. Otherwise you are just ceding the company to cry-bullies, ceding the message boards to the faction that is more willing to self-modify to be offended at opposing viewpoints. If anything, Google should fire the employees who responded with personal invective against a fellow Googler.
By stating that he's OK with discriminating by gender, he put them in a position where they'd have to flag him as someone who couldn't manage a mixed-gender team.
He did not say this. He is against discriminating against gender and wants the same hiring and recruiting process regardless of gender.
> then it shouldn't then fire a guy just because he makes an argument other people don't like
He didn't "make an argument other people didn't like". An argument other people might not like could be "guys, I think everything in Google3 sucks and we should rewrite everything in Elixir." This was way beyond that.
> Otherwise you are just ceding the company to cry-bullies
While I was at Alphabet we dealt with plenty of cry-bullies, mostly in the form of conservative-leaning folk who thought they should be allowed to say whatever they pleased because "freedom of speech." Most of these self-styled Constitutional Scholars didn't realize that freedom of speech only applies to the government, not your employer. None got fired, as far as I can tell.
> Google should fire the employees who responded with personal invective against a fellow Googler.
And yet, this guy who is openly telling the world he doesn't trust females to be as interested as he is in the job should be applauded? Not sure I follow.
> He is against discriminating against gender and wants the same hiring and recruiting process regardless of gender.
Which is a completely specious claim to make, considering he most likely doesn't know the distribution of gender and ethnicity in the resumes the company receives and he's most likely not familiar with HR practices outside of interviewing. How can he claim there's an active conspiracy to discriminate candidates, when he doesn't know either of those things?
I don't ever recall seeing a diversity advocate say that the employee distribution should match the world 1 to 1. Diversity efforts have always focused on outreach, not on discarding resumes because the candidate is a white male. So he made up a straw-man, then he proceeded to attack it using cherry-picked science while making generalizations about political affiliations.
I read Zunger's article. Getting offended is in large part a choice. I apply the golden rule. If an Asian guy wrote a similar article for arguing why Asian people are over-represented at Google compared to white people, I would not take offense. Maybe he would be wrong, but if he wrote in the tone of the original article I would not call for his firing or say that I couldn't work with him.
mostly in the form of conservative-leaning folk who thought they should be allowed to say whatever they pleased because "freedom of speech."
A cry bully is someone who tries to get other people fired or de-platformed because they claim personal offense. Did these conservatives call for people to get fired? Did they succeed? If not, then good, I'm gladd their cry-bullying attempts were ignored.
And yet, this guy who is openly telling the world he doesn't trust females to be as interested as he is in the job should be applauded?
There is a enormous difference between noticing on average differences and direct personally targeted invective against a specific employee.
not on discarding resumes because the candidate is a white male
You are making up the straw man because that is not what he claims they are doing.
> If an Asian guy wrote a similar article for arguing why Asian people are over-represented at Google compared to white people
If a woman at Google had written this, the conversation would be similar to what you describe. This is a man making a
generalization about women. Key difference.
> A cry bully is someone who tries to get other people fired or de-platformed because they claim personal offense.
That's exactly what they would do, taking offense on all kinds of "liberal messaging." And yes, I'm glad they were ignored.
> You are making up the straw man because that is not what he claims they are doing
Then what is he claiming they are doing? (It's a trick question)
I'm talking about a particular context. I'm sure you can cite "reverse-racism" in post-Apartheid South Africa too, but that isn't germane to the conversation.
That's why you said "Diversity efforts have always focused on outreach" (my emphasis) and not "Diversity efforts have sometimes focused on outreach" or even "In this particular context, diversity efforts focused on outreach"
I don't think he claimed he was ok with discriminations by gender. Quite the contrary. He claimed there may be other reasons than discrimination for gender imbalances by profession and that these diversity programs actually introduce a discrimination.
This is the same argument currently used against affirmative action programs across the US: "doesn't this discriminate against white people who could be qualified to get accepted into the same position /scholarship?"
It's a disingenuous argument which doesn't take into consideration the whole history of why the program exists in the first place. Not only that, by trying to justify it on biological terms, the author introduces the supposed existence of an inherent bias that Google is supposedly trying to ignore.
How about we try to achieve 1-1 parity with society's distribution and if after 30 years of encouraging people of all genders to participate in all professions there's solid evidence that some people don't care for X or Y reason, then we let the problem take care of itself? I mean if we truly are aiming for non-discrimination, that should be the metric, right?
It is only a disingenuous argument if you are convinced that the gender imbalance is the result of a discrimination in the first place, which you seem to be quite certain it is.
Unlike the guy from Google, I won't speculate on the reasons but there are many gender imbalances that are clearly not the result of a discrimination. For instance a large majority of med and law students (80% in the case of law) in France are women. These are not low skill/low pay/low prestige professions, and I am not aware that there is any discrimination against men in these schools (nor that anyone complained there would). In the school of engineering I went to, the proportion was the reverse (20% women). Selection is purely based on a math and physics exam, very little room for discrimination either. Naturally this male/female imbalance makes its way from university to the profession.
I can't say exactly why we have these imbalances, there might be many reasons, some may be cultural, some may be biological, I don't know, and I very much doubt anyone on HN can pretend to have an authoritative answer, but I also very much doubt it has to do with discrimination.
> It is only a disingenuous argument if you are convinced that the gender imbalance is the result of a discrimination in the first place, which you seem to be quite certain it is.
Then you proceed to write two paragraphs essentially supporting my position that we really don't understand why the imbalances exist. But somehow, this guy stating as a matter of fact that it's a biological thing is not disingenuous. I'm not sure how you can hold both beliefs.
> But somehow, this guy stating as a matter of fact that it's a biological thing is not disingenuous.
Can you point me to where he states this? The closest I found was
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.
which is still very much in the "we don't understand, but maybe this is an explanation" camp.
Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the
workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story.
Because he thinks the focus on cultural context ignores some aspects of the problem and leads to bad decisions? I mean, I disagree with his conclusions, but I don't think he is trying to be deliberately misleading.
Of course he did. It's like Ukip claiming not to be racist. The most generous view is that they don't realise that what they advocate is discriminatory or disproportionately affecting particular demographics.
Re: Ukip and racism, there is a lot of political acts to provide context that can invalidate (or not [0])
their statements. As for this guy, his memo should be considered on it's own (in good faith) for lack of outside context about the author.
I do not understand how what he actually advocates could be considered discriminatory. It seems to me that it would indeed "disproportionately affect particular demographics", but in a good way by making sure that no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox could induce any skill/gender bias in the workforce.
Sure, if the world was different. There is a price to pay for companies that want to keep their employees living in the office.
When you want them to go to company parties, the company gym, eat at the company cafeteria, and in the case of Facebook provide company housing, and generally spend a lot of time in the office, then at some point the company is going to discover that their employees have a diverse set of political beliefs as well as beliefs about gender/race/etc, and they will want to express these beliefs over lunch, and at the gym, and at parties, and in social media. They will also want to express those opinions to their friends, which happen to be colleagues. Now you have the big political debates that used to take place in bars and other recreational areas happening in the workplace. That's the cost of the all encompassing office.
Another ingredient in this toxic mix is that a lot of younger people blur the lines between social and professional, and this has been happening for a long time now. As soon as a critical mass lets their work life bleed into their personal life, this is going to end badly and lead to more oppressive workplace structures, as the company isn't going to suddenly democratize decision making. That's why management needs to be very circumspect about the scope of policies they mandate for their workers.
This tearing down of barriers is happening everywhere -- people do personal activities on their corporate laptops, they use their corporate phones for personal calls, they do personal projects on company time and company projects on personal time. They use their social media accounts to talk about company projects, etc.
The only viable option is for the company to retreat from these spheres and to focus on doing your job. They should not ask for social media accounts in the hiring process, nor should they focus so much on "culture". But that's inconsistent with also making the job a lifestyle and keeping the employees working long hours. If you are going to have people spend 50 and 60 hours working closely with each other, then things like political disagreements turn into HR concerns, and are addressed with the same intelligence and care for worker rights as you would expect from a typical HR department.
The thing is that this guy clearly thinks some things that affect his ability to do his job. Would you trust him to write a peer review for a female colleague or mentor a black intern?
I think what you say is true about people searching for ways to express themselves when the lines between work and personal are blurred but fundamentally people have to attempt to be unbiased. It's pretty clear that this guy wasn't willing (or able) to do this and keeping him on would open up Google to a lot of bad PR and potentially lawsuits from people who's reviews/interviews etc that he was involved in.
The thing is that this guy clearly thinks some things that affect his ability to do his job. Would you trust him to write a peer review for a female colleague or mentor a black intern?
Sure, why not?
I believe that the author is generally right, and that there are psychological differences between the sexes. And I have noticed that male bosses who believe that women are the same as men sometimes end up making their female subordinates cry a lot, because they don't realize the same harsh criticisms they would use on a guy are way too harsh for many women. They would be better bosses if they were aware of sex differences. For that reason, I believe knowing the truth is better even if that is "validating stereotypes."
They would be better bosses if they weren't harsh jerks that would alienate a good % of humans on this planet. Lionization of a-holes like steve jobs is terrible, regardless of their accomplishments.
Or the company could get better at HR, or hire people who are politically aligned with each other. Maybe not an option for Google-scale, but it seems possible for smaller companies.
I agree hugely with your first paragraph. Debates like this are fraught with toxicity anyway, but once factionalism ("the left claims that.." and so on) gets mixed in any hope of constructive debate goes out the window. The argument ceases to be about ideas, and becomes a my-team-vs-your-team conflict.
(Worse, this then attracts the worst kind of attention from the internet as culture warriors join the fray, regardless of whether they're interested in what the debate was ostensibly about.)
Whether this takes the screed into firing territory I have no opinion on, but I definitely think that the guy's left/right posturing served to preclude any productive debate that he might have inspired.
I sort of agree. I am personally in favour of a sterile workplace. No political talk, no baby talk, leave all that stuff at home or for your friends and focus on the task at hand. But that's not what he got sacked for. From what I understand the guy claims he was sacked for "perpetuating gender stereotype". If that's the case, he wasn't sacked for discussing politics, he was sacked for expressing the wrong political opinion.
> The workplace is no place for politics like this.
You could argue that affirmative action, because that's what it is about, is essentially a political stance ,and business are totally free to engage into these recruitment practices, but it absolutely follows a specific ideological thus political framework.
IMHO When you introduces political activism in your work place you will transform your work environment into a political battleground. period.
I think the hundreds of blog and social media posts by hardcore leftists co-workers calling for him to be fired and worse because they do not believe has the right to speak his opinions because the disagree with his opinions is ample proof that google is political turf. And purging political enemies and claiming turf is part of the culture at this point.
Sure, it could be. I think firing him was the right move. But if the parent commenter makes the argument he did in court, he's going to be violating labor law in a big way.
There's no way they could plausibly determine this in the time they have had. And, there's no way there aren't people at google who don't agree with him. Which is why they had to act.
The key to large organization management is control: they are doing this quickly before anything else happens. His presence both legitimises his point of view, and acts as a rallying point. If others are sufficiently emboldened, they may also act out. If they start organizing together, this has the potential of rapidly turn into a long standing issue for google.
> There's no way they could plausibly determine this in the time they have had.
Is that so? Do the complaints of numerous other employees not demonstrate some level of toxicity?
Edit -- thanks for helping me earn my karma today. It's delicious the way y'all are so eager to downvote me instead of engaging. It's almost like you think I have an ulterior motive being masked by a veneer of good-faith engagement or something. I wonder where I might have gotten that idea from...
They don't demonstrate that no one is willing to work with him. Moreover, there are a number of people claiming to be hearing cries of dismay from within google that he was fired. He's not quite the pariah you've painted him to be.
When you get laid off, they give you 30 days to find another department to work in. There's no reason why he wasn't afford the same, if his departure was due to co-workers not wanting to work with him any more.
I hate that the diversity issue has been tightly coupled with left-wing politics. Now you can't take a stance on the diversity issue without aligning yourself with left/right wingers by proxy.
Saying "the workplace is no place for politics" is basically saying the workplace is no place to be human.
All workplaces are political. The politics of founder/owners/executives are in every fiber of he workplace. Denying it is highly disingenuous.
Moreover, said denial is one of the root causes why we are having these issues. The tech industry likes to project an image of being "liberal", when in fact the culture is highly conservative. Until recently, people like the author felt perfectly at home in most tech companies, including Google, because its politics quietly aligned with their politics.
And now that he's making it explicit he is suddenly the one politicising the workplace?
To be clear, I vehemently disagree with the author. But until about ten years ago, most of the industry quietly agreed with these views, which is why we have these problems in the first place.
It was political then and it is political now. It took political resistance to put diversity on the corporate agenda in the first place.
The workplace culture is and will always be a primary political arena. Especially with a company like Google, that is actively involved in politics and shaping our society in general.
What people who claim that the workplace is no place for politics are basically saying is that the workplace is no place for politics they disagree with. (Ironically, the position that the workplace is no place for politics is a traditionally conservative position. Worker bees should keep their ideology at home, whereas corporations are free to politically indoctrinate workers through euphemisms like "culture" and "values".)
I applaud the author for standing up for his political believes as much as I applaud Google for firing him.
What people mean by "the workplace is no place for politics" is that the workplace is no place for employees to express their political views. E.g see this Quora question: https://www.quora.com/How-not-to-get-fired-while-organizing-... The first answer is depressingly: "First, learn all you can about union organizing and learn to keep your mouth shut. Accept the fact that eventually they will know who you are." You can also use Google and find about a million examples of people who have been fired for trying to unionize workplaces.
We have already accepted that de facto some speech is suppressed in the work place. That's why I think this story is a little hypocritical. Lots of people are arguing for this persons right to express his opinion that men are more suited than women to work in tech, but no one is defending workers rights to advocate for improved labor conditions.
Fwiw, I definitely don't think Google should be allowed to fire him. But I feel a little ambivalent about defending him, since "his side" wouldn't defend my rights to voice my opinion.
I agree that work and politics should be separate, but Google has already built itself a reputation for its strong political leanings. Every few weeks they have some sponsored video on YouTube promoting their political leanings and their involvement in the US gov isn't exactly a secret. Google is pretty much a Political Think Tank++ at this point.
"The workplace is no place for politics like this."
That's ironic. Because the politics that he criticizes are without a doubt left wing policies that ARE applied in Google, from top-down. I'm not saying they are bad policies, but they are political in nature.
The sort of strategy that enforces existing, useful social norms in my country. Nobody in any company I have ever worked at has done anything like this. If anybody ever said "the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics" as part of a justification for changing a company policy I would immediately a) tell them they are out of line and b) report them if they continued. It's rude and counter productive in so many ways.
Social norms are more local than national. There are many parts of the US where people would nod their head when they read that, and puzzle at why you got upset. Not everyone who works in Mountain View is actually from Mountain View.
Much of this seems to be about people in positions of power being personally offended at the views of someone with whom they disagree. The proof is in your saying this was "rude" -
who was that statement being rude to, Marxist intellectuals? Are there a lot of Communists at Google?
I don't think this reaction has anything to do with keeping some kind of social decorum, or keeping a company running smoothly. In this case the effect is a real-life ideological echo chamber, where the people in power fire anyone whose views they don't like, and fear of reprisal from voicing alternate views creates a groupthink mentality.
Several people have brought up the idea that because the manifesto author has shown his bias, that means there is no way he could work with someone of a different gender. But this is illogical; tons of people have the same bias! Just because they didn't write a manifesto doesn't mean they don't think some of the arguments might be valid. So really, what difference is there in keeping this guy around, whose bias they know and can clearly identify if it ever affects his work relations? Is it worse than the secret biases held by everyone else?
--
Obviously, as a man, I am not going to be subject to the kind of discrimination a woman would be, so if someone's views annoy me and I dismiss them, that's much different than when discrimination against a woman affects her livelihood and state of mind. In this regard we have to consider women as a particularly vulnerable population (in this industry, anyway) and act to protect them from the disproportionate negative effects of bias in the industry.
On top of that, the lack of women in the industry makes it very difficult to have a fair discussion of the issues. We should be trying to help men understand why women need special treatment, in order to help the industry grow out of its biases. But you can't help the industry get better if you fire anyone who questions the process. It's the white-collar equivalent of shooting anyone who doesn't tow the party line. This prevents establishing a dialogue, enforcing culture through fear. And a culture built on fear is never a good thing. It'll end up setting back the whole endeavor.
The author's arguments have been completely misrepresented. He pointed out widely-believed and sometimes scientifically-established differences in the DISTRIBUTION OF traits in men and women. He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful. What is his conclusion about how we should behave? "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group." Wow, what a monster.
The reaction to the memo is really the most damning thing about the whole affair. Everyone is just rushing to virtue signal, to demonstrate their own purity of thought. They've just proved the author's point. Honestly, Google might have even been rational to fire him, due to the toxic situation created by the mass outrage. How incredibly damning of our society.
A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
It's not about virtue signaling, he was almost certain to be terminated just because it was a ridiculously stupid thing to say - you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar and expect people not to be upset about it (and that's 100% what he did, he also made up pseudo-scientific bullshit to try to justify it, but he flat out insulted countless people within his company).
Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization, it becomes impossible for this person to be an effective member of the team:
- The next time a woman interviews for his team, and he votes against hiring, how does the hiring committee interpret that vote?
- The next time he's peer reviewed by a woman, how does that review get interpreted?
- The next time he peer reviews a woman, how does that review get interpreted?
- The next time a female candidate interviews with the author and is denied, how likely is it that the candidate will believe they had a fair interview, or is the organization perpetually exposed to increased legal risk forever?
Such a manifesto is not just fundamentally wrong, it's toxic and shows a profound lack of awareness for any professional.
I'm sorry, he did not tell his teammates they were hired because Google lowered the bar. Again, he's talking about on average differences and noting that the goal (50/50 representation) might not only be misguided but actively harmful. Why is this so controversial? He's talking about a process not individuals on his team or anywhere else at Google.
At the risk of repeating myself, the memo's author did in fact say that "Google has created several discriminatory practices", which include "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates". What else are we supposed to infer from the author's assertions if not that at least some of Google's diversity candidates have been let in because of weakened standards? Is he talking about a hypothetical, alternate-universe Google? It doesn't seem so, despite the passive tone of the memo.
> At the risk of repeating myself, the memo's author did in fact say that "Google has created several discriminatory practices", which include "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates".
Please take care not to deceptively quote the author in question. This is the full sentence:
> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate.
The author deliberately crafted this statement to make it clear that he is referring to qualified, non-diverse, candidates being rejected at greater rates than qualified and diverse candidates - not that unqualified diverse candidates are accepted at a higher rate.
Your interpretation of that statement makes no sense. With that interpretation: a) the bar isn't lowered in any sense of the word, as that would imply less qualified people getting in, b) you'd claim that for unexplained reasons, Google can give more accurate evaluations for diversity candidates, c) and/or that they are rejecting candidates they know unequivocally to be qualified and d) even if all of this was the case, there wouldn't be anything discriminatory about it. At least where I'm from, it is literally a legal requirement, that if multiple candidates compete for the same position, diversity candidates are given preference.
Even in its most generous reading (yours), this sentence makes zero sense.
The author is either a total idiot or he just retired with a cool 10-30MM he would be paid by Google to be fired.
I'm going to guess it is the later: Lawsuit from him would cause discovery. Unlike other government lawsuit, he would actually be able to say who at Google has access to the needed paperwork/email/etc to demonstrate that he is correct in his assertion. The government would love to piggy back on him. So I'm guessing Google is cutting a very large check now.
So can another 100 employees publish the same letter and get fired and line up for their million dollar payouts too?
I don't know about the discovery argument. If he was an HR insider and acting as a whistleblower to disclose an illegal practice, sure. But a regular employee can't voice opinions about something that's common knowledge and force the company to disclose a bunch of confidential information.
The mistake Google made was thinking that they don't have 100 conservative-leaning employees also willing to martyr themselves in the shadow of the original author's exit.
What are they going to do when someone else steps up and makes the same assertions with more tact? Fire him too? What about the person after them? They gave extraordinary leverage not to the person that they fired, but to the people that have not been fired yet.
It's uncharacteristically nontechnical of Google to think that of the anywhere between 30-50% of the US population that leans conservatively, there is only one of them working for Google in Mountain View and that any dissenting thoughts within the company will end with him, and that the liberal employees threatening to quit will be happy and sated just to see these few drops of blood.
It doesn't matter the size of the check Google cuts this guy, nor the next 100 individuals if they choose to also speak out. Google made a mountain out if a molehill, and they just left a very a long way for the snowball they just threw to gather some mass while rolling down.
Realistically, even 100 conservative leaning employees aren't going to make a dent in the 60,000 person company that is google. I'd probably be blip on their normal attrition rate.
While I think that many outlets are misrepresenting and selectively quoting the piece to make it seem more offensive than it is, the reality is that the author used a lot of loaded language and created many opportunities for misinterpretation.
If this were at my company and the article didn't blow up online I'd probably have a talk with the author to point out all the ways that this piece could easily be misinterpreted and construed as offensive and that the same ideas can be conveyed in ways that are a lot less likely to blow up in your face. If this were at my company the article did go viral like it did in real life, I'd probably let this employee go. While I would say this is placing the interests of the company over the psychological safety of my employees, the pragmatic reality is that PR and potentially internal dissent caused by retaining the employee does not outweigh the moral win of retaining an employee who wrote a tone-deaf article that went viral and was widely perceived as offensive - even if the underlying ideas aren't ourageous.
His presence inside google both legitimises his behaviour and acts a rallying point. They might not be able to prevent like minded people from seeking each other out, but they can prevent them from doing it openly. They might not be able to prevent others from acting in a similar manner, but they will do all they can to avoid emboldening them.
They are willing to deal with the external flack and legal ramifications of a contentious firing, if it helps them avoid an insurrection.
Those checks Apple had to pay for Jobs mouthing off "you're fired" at semi-random employees did not come with only a six month severance despite "at will" work contract.
I imagine this ex-employee will get a generous severance or expect good lawyers knocking soon.
This doesn't look like a tantrum firing. He created too much drama for his own good. As an owner, anyone would find that distracting and unnecessary. This certainly doesn't advance the company's interest in any way.
Now whether he is able to successfully sue google and make big bucks is difficult to predict at this point. But it's certain that his career is finished for the foreseeable future.
It is a profoundly stupid thing to do for anyone who likes their job as an engineer. Maybe this guy doesn't and wants to start a new career in blogging or some similar shit. In that case, this may be a great new start for him.
It's not a tantrum firing but it's also not a firing with cause and it steers close to free speech.
If Pao could sue KPC&B, I think he stands a chance, unrelated as they are, it suggests suits can go forward on slim allegations and here he has evidence clear as day they fired him for having a difference in opinion on their hiring practices. He personally didn't discriminate nor personally conduct himself untowards anyone. He offered some (unconvincing evidence about how women don't have the same aptitude as men --but you are likely to find evidence Google does have internal hiring goals and allows a culture which virtue signals against the majority culture) and they didn't like it.
Thing is, if this had been a woman or minority citing some dubious data about how more women and minorities should be hired (which I agree with but on other principles), we would not even blink at it, if it even would have surfaced)
The problem with this line of reasoning is that Google can make a legitimate claim that the firing was for cause. Creating a hostile work environment is sufficient cause for termination, and I am quite sure that something like this is buried in some clause of the standard Google employment contract.
You don't have free speech rights at work, or more to the point you can say whatever you want and the company can do just about whatever it wants in response to this speech. To go full Godwin here, if this employee had, instead of talking about how women and minorities "lowered the bar", wrote and distributed interally a manifesto about how Google had too many Jewish employees and how these employees were mostly hired because of post-Holocaust western guilt and maybe we need to reexamine whether this whole Holocaust thing really happened I can assure you that he would have been shown the door within the hour. No one is locking him up for his speech act, but Google would have had no problem in firing him for that same speech act.
Others have pointed out in great detail all of the unpleasant future consequences for any potential interaction that leads to conflict between this employee and his peers. This situation was created entirely by the employee who posted the manifesto. He can sue Google, but he will lose.
People in general can sue anyone if there's any possibility they might win. The only way her lawsuit would be thrown out if she had never worked for them, or something like that. Otherwise, the way to find out if her claims have merit is the lawsuit.
Which she lost, and was forced to pay $276k to KPC&B. So not exactly a good omen.
Right but IIRC, they fired her for perf issues, she retaliated with harassment or discrimination.
Here they fired him not for perf (defensible) but for difference in opinion (maybe defensible but icky) not anything bad he did. I think he stands a better chance than Pao's retaliatory suit.
You don't have freedom of speech at work. Apparently in the US that's not a freedom of speech issue until the Government says you can't say certain things at work.
And to bring this back around to the utter insanity and disingenuousness that has erupted from this episode, this is a line from the linked article, Ellen Pao’s gender-discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2015 also brought the issue to light,
Pao's issue was shown to be a non-issue, yet "it brought the issue to light" ok...
I wonder why the author didn't mention the resolution of the lawsuit? I wonder why she mentioned it all? Oh right, peddling falsehoods, both explicitly and implicitly.
That's not how it works. Google can fire him for no reason, and arguing with a company's policies on a mailing list is a pretty good reason to fire. Like, it's perfectly legit for a company to say shut up and get with the pogrom. Even if he's fired for saying stuff that is true. Edit: However, there might be specific technical reasons it's an illegal firing outlined in other posts in this thread. IANAL
But they didn't fire him for no reason. They fired him for a reason, but not a reason you typically fire someone for. Ergo either big severance + NDA or forthcoming lawsuit.
What I'm disagreeing with your post is the general "free speech" issue. That's not going to be it. It might be some specific "raising concerns about discrimination" reason, sure. I'm not sure we're really disagreeing -- I'm only disagreeing with the general nature of your previous post. I agree that hypothetically they fired him for some illegal reason -- or that at least such could be argued in court (for all I know).
Government lawsuit against Google right now means that he has the leverage. The odds are the same people who are tasked with the programs to promote whatever the author carefully worded in his post are the people who received/sent emails/edited internal presentations that mentioned something that a good lawyer would be able to twist into a Google's managers admitting that Google does in fact systematically pays women less than men to do the same job. Google has a lot more to lose from that lawsuit than from the author of the memo.
Do you mean the US government would sue google on this guy's behalf?
I would think, with all they have on their plate right now, they can't be bothered about some idiot who couldn't keep his mouth shut in public and just do the job he was hired for.
Government's problem in this case is the same kind of problem that government had in the US v. IBM: IBM buried government in the paperwork and government did not know where to look at to dig itself out.
Here comes the author who seems to have a very good idea of the remediation programs that Google has. The odds are extremely high the people in charge of the remediation programs/diversity programs/etc are the ones who are familiar with the issues that Google has: it is fairly logical. The author probably knows who these people are. He probably talked to them. Probably those people told him whatever he used as the basis for his manifesto. If he drags those people out into the spotlight, the government would suddenly have a beacon for their case.
That's why I, personally, think Google made a gigantic mistake firing the guy.
This is pretty interesting. Though I think Google is right to fire this guy, the collateral damage to themselves is an interesting thing to follow.
Whether he was right or wrong, he has hurt the company. I think he is wrong to be sure. But it doesn't matter.
It is also interesting because, a loss in a major legal case may throw up interesting possibilities in the stock market. Of course, one needs to be much more legally aware, than I am, to take full advantage of these possibilities.
OK, but the Department of Labor suit claims that Google "discriminated against its female employees". And Damore almost claims reverse discrimination. So I don't get how they'd work together.
However, Damore did file a NLRB claim before he was fired. So he seems prepped to sue, or perhaps to negotiate a private settlement.
They do not need to work together. DOL would just rely on the information that sees a light of day because of the author's lawsuit.
Without a lawsuit: DOL gets two million "records" (emails/docs/memos) related to hiring/performance evaluation/etc. It needs to sift through those two million records trying to find the ones that support its case.
With this lawsuit: author knows who in the organization deals with this exact issue. Those people probably had emails from their managers/sent emails to others that can be made to support governments position in DOL lawsuit. Now instead of sifting through the two million records that they got, DOL focuses on 20,000 records authored by those likely to have the kind of information.
That's why such dismissals are dangerous to the company engaged in a costly/high-stakes litigation with the government.
Retaliation for <pick whatever argument his lawyers can make>. Remember, unless it this is dismissed with a summary judgement Google is going to have to deal with a discovery. Discovery with the other side knowing about internals of the company is a risk no company wants to take.
No, Google was clear that he violated the code of conduct. Since it's plainly clear that he did, and since we can safely assume he's not a member of a protected class, any random assertion of retaliation will be thrown out. Any discovery requests will have to be tied to the code of conduct, which isn't particularly interesting even if it did get out.
The document itself makes the claim that conservatives and classical liberals are discriminated against and actively silenced at Google. While I don't necessarily agree with this claim as per the the article he's set himself up into a position for being fired for commenting on his political beliefs. It's quite possible all he really needs to make a case is examples of political belief being shared and accepted without consequence in the same venue since it's pretty easy to find mainstream republicans who share these positions. Not saying the case is a winner, but it's pretty hard to not survive summary judgement when you can allege a reasonable basis for political discrimination. At that point I'd bet settling would be favourable to going through discovery.
Can you point me to some resources that describe political discrimination? I've never heard of it as a protected class especially when opinions are expressed at work.
Whether any of that applies in this situation is entirely unclear to me, because it hinges on the definitions of "engaging or participating in politics" and so forth. You'd probably need to talk to a competent labor lawyer in California for anything resembling clarity here.
I think this comes down to is affirmative action policy a workplace condition. Discussion about workplace conditions is separate from discrimination law entirely so 'protected class' becomes a red herring here. I'm not sure this is the best article but I tried to find something from a left leaning source I find reasonably fair given that this seems to be an anti-right topic.
He got let go for saying certain coworkers were less qualified based on their gender. You can't wrap whatever you want in "politics!" and then scream when you get into trouble for it. Sorry.
California law has very strong protections for employees. And it seems that firing him for the memo may actually be illegal.
The crux of the argument is that Google may have "punished an employee for communicating with fellow employees about improving working conditions", which is illegal.
Also, "California law prohibits employers from threatening to fire employees to get them to adopt or refrain from adopting a particular political course of action."
Furthermore, "It is unlawful for an employer to discipline an employee for challenging conduct that the employee reasonably believed to be discriminatory, even when a court later determines the conduct was not actually prohibited by the discrimination laws".
It could easily be defeated as it presumes the author would not be able to demonstrate that he could be a member ( does not have to be ) of a protected class. Remember, should that be the case authors goal is not to score a touch down, it is to get a new set of downs i.e. move forward with a lawsuit.
Judges are very reluctant to toss something out that early if there's even an ounce of a possibility there could be a merit in a case.
Summary judgement is for dismissing merit-less cases. If he sues for "Retaliation for X," where that is not an actual cause for a suit it will get dismissed.
Unfortunately if a settlement is made it will be confidential. Even if it was illegal, maybe it was the best course for google? Imagine if, say, 10 female engineers publicly quit google because they wouldn't fire James. That is going to be some really bad press, along with losing presumably valuable employees. They can short circuit that process by perhaps firing him illegally, and then settling at a later date out of court. The SJWs get their Hitler fired and Google doesn't take another reputational hit
If they (google) settle with him, what stops hundred(s) of other people to follow suit; I'd suppose there are at least 15-20% of employees who would agree with his views.
In a world where qualified diverse candidates still regularly get rejected at greater rates than qualified non-diverse candidates, is this bad? I mean, as soon as the needle even flirts with going past perfectly fair in the other direction, that's when some of these people get up in arms?
This is besides the point. The point is, the author did not say that unqualified diverse candidates are accepted at a higher rate than unqualified non-diverse candidates. Many people are using this statement (often excluding the last couple words specifically referring to the false-negative rate) to claim that the author calling his women and racially underrepresented co-workers under qualified.
For what it's worth, I do think that taking steps to decrease the false negative rate for diverse candidates is an okay system and I explain my company's process of doing this in another comment in this page. That said, pointing out that this system is increasing the false-negative rate for non-diverse candidates is 1) factually correct, and 2) not at all the same thing as calling my underrepresented co-workers unqualified. If somebody claimed that our interview process increased the false positive rate for underrepresented groups I would object to such a statement - but that is not what is said in this document.
I replied elsewhere but in case you didn't see it:
It looks like the author is talking about setting a threshold, as in the context of creating a test. Please have a look at [1].
In this setting, it is not possible to decrease the false-negative rate without increasing the false-positive rate.
I think the author is phrasing things this way simply as a matter of rhetoric, but his argument clearly suggests that less qualified 'diversity' candidates are being hired.
There are several studies on this domain that show things like reminding people of their biases remove about 90% of the effect of a bias. I don't think the studies showed that they create a bias in the opposite direction. Removing bias would substantially lower false negatives. While this would slightly increase false positives I see no reason that it would make false positives higher than the non-minority false positive rates so inferring that increasing false positives implies coworkers of that demographic are unqualified is just outright false.
I see what you're saying about the bias-awareness intervention.
For your last sentence, I did not write, and did not mean to imply anything about the number of false-positive (FP) 'diversity' candidates vs FP non-'diversity' candidates. It's true that the author hints at this comparison.
I meant to convey that, per the author's statement about 'lowering the bar', Google's practices increase the FP rate in 'diversity' candidates as compared to what would have happened without the practices.
From this perspective, the author is stating that the 'diversity' hires have a higher FP rate than might have occurred otherwise. I think this conclusion - I think it's a fair one, though we may disagree - is what people find somewhat problematic.
I think the majority of what people find problematic is Gizmodo removing all the references, removing the chart that explained the core concept in the idea and aggressively misrepresenting the author's positions. I think the author could do more to acknowledge the 'default' state of no programs is unfair and people would have to find something else to find problematic if he did so but I think most of the problematic comes from virtue signalling attached to misrepsentation and oversimplification of complicated issues.
First off, this isn't a pharmaceutical trial this is a hiring process. Second, even if there is a fundamental principle of probability that assures this is the case it's still possible to have a change that vastly reduces to false-negative rate as compared to the increase false positive rate - so much to the extent that the latter is negligible.
On a broader note, the way you're injecting a completely different message into the author's text is exactly the kind of behavior that makes these discussions toxic. I realize that might sound accusatory, but if people can't make a statement without people stuffing contradictory or unrelated words into their mouths there's no possibility of civil discussion.
This isn't a pharmaceutical trial but there's no reason why we can't follow along with the author's analogy of 'false negatives'.
Here are his words from 'The Harm of Google's Biases':
I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and
I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve
a more equal gender and race representation, Google has
created several discriminatory practices:
He goes on to list his examples, which include the following:
Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar
for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false
negative rate
I think you may have misread his position earlier; I noted that you misspoke when talking about this particular statement (i.e., whether the false-negative rate applied to 'diversity' vs 'non-diversity' candidates)
EDIT:
Didn't see your statistical comment. Unfortunately, I can't think of a case where 'adjusting a bar' to decrease the false-negative rate does not neceessarily increase the false-positive rate.
The fact that the author uses the phrase 'lowering the bar' suggests that he is also thinking of this statistical requirement.
> Unfortunately, I can't think of a case where 'adjusting a bar' to decrease the false-negative rate does not neceessarily increase the false-positive rate.
Here's one:
* Phone screens have a 50% false negative rate, and a 0% false positive rate.
* On-site interviews have a 0% false negative rate, and a 0% false positive rate.
Non-diverse candidates do one phone screen, and if passed, do an onsite. Diverse candidates do two phone screens, and if either passes, they go on to the onsite. For all candidates, if the onsite is passed, the candidate gets an offer.
* Unqualified candidates, regardless of diversity, never get an offer.
* Qualified, non-diverse candidates get an offer 50% of the time (the other 50% are erroneously eliminated at the phone interview stage).
* Qualified, diverse candidates get an offer 75% of the time (25% eliminated at the phone interview stage due to false negatives).
It seems to me that the author is advocating either doing two phone interviews for all candidates, or one phone interview for all candidates. Neither change would alter false positive rates, since false positive rates are 0% at all times.
If you're inclined to point out that all tests have a false positive rate >0%, substitute 0% for 0.00000001% and note that I stated the change in false positive rates could be trivially small to the point of omission in the comment above.
I think the quinessential example of this is reminding people about their bias against minorities. Several studies have shown this drastically reduces false negatives and raises false positives to a level that is no higher than the false positive rate in the non-minority population. This isn't enough to say the false positive rate doesn't raise, but it's more than enough to say increasing false positives doesn't imply unqualified.
I think we're drifting away from the author's article.
His statement about 'lowering the bar' with respect to decreasing false negatives directly implies a relationship between candidate quality and the false negative rate.
I can't comment on your hiring analogy, as you have more experience in this area than I do. My responses were only to highlight the subtle negative character of the author's statement.
> increased the false positive rate for underrepresented groups I would object to such a statement
Does your recruitment process have a 0% false positive rate? If not, giving more opportunities will yield more false positives unless it's proven that the extra opportunities have a 0% false positive rate.
I'd like to see your data supporting the assertion that qualified diverse candidates are rejected at greater rates. The thing is he wouldn't of been fired for arguing the opposite claim, this is clearly discrimination.
The data is incredibly easy to find and has been demonstrated for decades. It's an easy experiment: two identical candidates, one of them with an ethnic name (or actor) and one of them is white. It also consistently shows that white candidates do better than black candidates, despite having identical resumes.
This has been shown across society, including applications for housing, police stops, punishments in school, etc. I don't know why employment would be the one exception.
The burden of proof is on the side arguing there's something "special" about Google. The effect is present everywhere we've looked. Lacking any specific evidence to the contrary, it's present in Google hiring too.
I don't usually like to ask for citations, but he said the data was easily found which is clearly false in this case. And there are good reasons to believe google, a company which hires a "VP of Diversity" might be different from the companies previously studied in entirely different industries with entirely different hiring practices and requirements. I know in academia, female applicants are favored in the hard sciences: http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/10/new-study-explores-g...
We found that the public servants engaged in positive (not negative) discrimination towards female and minority candidates
...
Overall, the results indicate the need for caution when moving towards ’blind’ recruitment processes in the Australian Public Service, as de-identification may frustrate efforts aimed at promoting diversity.
You're somewhat correct with your analysis. The bar stays the same, but on average those who get a more detailed analysis done will be closer to the bar than those who are subjected to coarser grained measures. So, it's wrong to say it lowers the bar, but it's right to say that it ends up giving you more people who are very close to the bar. Perhaps a better way to word it would be that Google's diversity hiring method(of looping back around for a closer look on "diverse" candidates) shrinks the error bars on the bar
Imagine it this way: You're a fisher. The Law says that you can only catch fish which are >= 12" long. If you're caught with < 12" fish, bad things happen, but otherwise you want to maximize the amount of fish you catch.
You have two ways of measuring length: a crude wooden stick with some fat lines on it which mark approximately 12" - this is quick but only approximate. You also have a high precision caliper which can tell you the length down to .001", but it takes 2x as long to make the measurement.
You're interested in catching lots of fish, so if any fish you catch are a little close to that line, you just throw them back with one measurement.
90% of the fish you catch are red, but about 10% of the times you catch a green fish, which are really sparkly and fun, so you change your standard: if the green fish on first measurement is really close to 12"(not close enough to keep), instead of throwing it back like a red fish, you bust out the caliper and measure it more precisely, and throw out anything < 12".
So, at the end of the day, assuming red and green fish are distributed equally across lengths in the ocean, what would the distribution of kept fish look like? Would the mean and median length of your green fish be higher or lower than the mean and median of your red fish?
It should be fair to say the author phrased things to pinpoint the aspect he is concerned about, even if other aspects are statistically inevitable.
Hiring the best and diverse workplaces are both virtues, but sometimes competing virtues. The problem with this entire discussion is that too many people are overly certain that one virtue is more important than the other.
The effects of positive discrimination already do disempower women. His argument is that you should improve the environment for groups of people as an incentive rather than doing anything which can be seen as 'lowering the bar'. The point is to treat people with respect by building an environment where they can be their best (whatever individual skillset they have), instead of insulting them with offers of extra help or illegally discriminating against other groups.
Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach. Nobody is being insulted by this. Nobody is being illegally discriminated against.
His argument is that the under-representation of women in tech can be explained by biological differences that make them inferior candidates for technical and leadership positions rather than hundreds of years of disenfranchisement and misogyny that still echoes in work culture today.
But you are right, "The point is to treat people with respect by building an environment where they can be their best (whatever individual skillset they have), instead of insulting them", which is antithetical to what the author did by writing the pseudo scientific trash and then widely distributing it to his colleagues.
[disclaimer: I work at Google, my views are my own and not those of my employer]
> biological differences that make them inferior candidates for technical and leadership positions
I didn't see that in the "manifesto" at all. The assertions that "biological differences exist" and that they contribute to the under-representation of women in tech don't at all imply the conclusion that the under-representation is due to biologically-caused inferiority.
There's good evidence, summarized in this blog post, that on the average across society, equally gifted and capable girls tend to choose non-STEM careers more than their male counterparts simply because of differences in preference, combined with the fact that a wider array of career options is open to them due to their higher verbal skills (this was featured on HN a couple of weeks ago): https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/wh...
Furthermore, it seems that unlike men, women who are capable in math also tend to be capable in both math and verbal skills (whereas on the average, men have less capability in verbal skills), thus giving women more career options. Unlike men (on the average, again), women that do choose STEM careers tend to excel at all levels, including management.
> pseudo scientific trash
See the above article. It references highly cited studies that seem
to clearly indicate innate differences in preference (in even 2-day-old infants and primates).
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach.
> Nobody is being insulted by this.
Some people are insulted by this [0]. When I said these programs already do disempower women, I wasn't speaking for all women: I was referring to what I had read. We can't just ignore people's lived experiences when they don't suit our positions.
I think you should reread that article. It is stating that this woman, someone who is already successfully integrated into the "Tech Scene" is not the problem to be solved by outreach. Which is true. That doesn't mean that she would be insulted by outreach to women. It means you shouldn't ask her how to do it.
> I don’t want your ‘exclusively for women’ support groups
> I want inclusivity, not exclusivity.
> You’re victimising me when you do that. You’re indicating that it’s most
> likely I need special, extra support. Just because I’m female.
And then later on:
> By creating special awards for women I think you’re belittling the impact
> and effort a group of humans are having in their field – just because of
> their gender.
She is certainly insulted by these so called 'outreach' programs. She is using the word 'victimising' and 'belittling' to describe them. It can't get any clearer than this.
We can't just ignore people's lived experiences when they don't suit our positions.
The ensuing comments thread on HN also had many similar stories.
Did you see the quillette [1] article that was briefly on the front page earlier? Four different experts write briefly their thoughts on the memo. While they don't necessarily agree with the author's judgment of the value of diversity programs, they unanimously agree with his points that the sexes are different and have different personalitie.
So saying that, what part of the memo was pseudo scientific drivel?
He doesn't assert the differences are due to inferiority. The vast majority of differences he mentions are differences of taste not differences of ability. There are many studies that show that women are more prevalent in engineering in poor countries than in rich ones. One fairly prevalent hypothesis to explain this data is that economic freedom allows people to pursue what makes them happier, rather than what makes them the most money. I have no idea if this hypothesis is right, but I think it's pretty sad that one can't make a case for it without getting fired.
The part where he implies the massive disparity of representation between men and women in tech (17% percent of technical roles at Google, 15% at Facebook) is due to small and inherent physiological differences, which make women inferior at performing in those roles, rather than hundreds of years of structuring our society and culture to favor men. It is an invalid argument.
At various times (in the United States) men have been able to opt out of war by: hiring a replacement to take their place; being a conscientious objector and taking a non-combat role; being born at the right time to not be drafted, and choosing not to volunteer; enlisting in a branch of the service unlikely to see combat; pleading a hardship; finding a doctor to claim you are medically unfit; just walking away (desertion, as long as it was not during combat, has historically be inconsistently punished).
One of the major criticisms of conscription in the US is that, in practice, whether those methods of avoiding conscription were actually available depended on race, class and how wealthy you were. So only some men could actually take advantage of them; the rest were screwed. (This conflation of the experience of a few better-off men with the experiences of men as a whole seems to be quite common in many social justice circles for some reason.)
Of the four older men whose draft stories I know personally, two had exemptions (hardship/agricultural labor), but one went to war anyway, one enlisted as a pilot in the National Guard, and one lucked out by having the draft end before his number came up. None of them were particularly wealthy or influential, although all of them were white.
I get the feeling that this document is what Scott Adams talks about when he writes that two people can sit in the same movie theater, look at the same screen, and watch two different movies play out.
"that make them inferior candidates for technical and leadership positions rather than hundreds of years of disenfranchisement and misogyny"
This is completely false! He absolutely does not say that, he says women to not prefer to compete for those jobs. He might still be wrong but you are grossly misrepresenting his statement in an attempt to demonize his lack of PC orthodoxy.
Lowering the bar is also the easiest way for a mid-level manager to achieve a target percentage. It's probably also the first method that may come to mind for many people.
Also, if you spend 3x the resources to find 3x the number of candidates (is it linear? I dunno), conduct normal interview processes, and then randomly throw out 2/3 of the male candidates that passed, while keeping all the women that passed, that is one way to triple the number of women you hire while having the same bar for men and women. However, the step where you throw out a random 2/3 of the male candidates might strike someone as highly irrational. Why not throw out the bottom 2/3 of male candidates? But then you end up with male candidates that passed a higher bar. You're not lowering your standards for women, but you're raising your standards for men, and then employees might notice and form the impression that the average male employee is better than the average female employee, which would be unfortunate. But it would probably be difficult to convince the people involved that avoiding the "unfortunate" outcome is worth throwing away 2/3 of the very best male candidates.
It might be possible to spend 3x the resources in such a way that all the new candidates you find are women. That would be a way to avoid the above problems. How would this be accomplished? Perhaps you send a recruiter to a university, and have them only talk to the female students. Hmm, that might be a little weird. How about a female-only university? That would be great. Likewise any female-only programming meetup groups. And of course any qualified female engineers that anyone knows—they'll never be wanting for a job.
How well will a company perform that spends significant resources recruiting from female-only groups, compared to one that recruits from groups that simply take the best candidates? How significant a fraction of company resources are normally spent on recruiting? And I did see a study indicating that demographic diversity (measured as age and sex) improved morale. I guess we'll see.
What would really help is if universities published the CS accomplishments of all their female students, but not of their male students. I wonder if they'd be willing to do it.
In any case, my original point was, even if a company does in fact implement its diversity program with one of the methods that does not systematically lead to higher-quality male hires than female hires, I think it is natural for someone to assume until proven otherwise that it is implemented by shifting the bar.
>> You're not lowering your standards for women, but you're raising your standards for men, and then employees might notice and form the impression that the average male employee is better than the average female employee, which would be unfortunate.
No process is ever random. All processes have side effects, that make some kind of memory/feed back loop.
If there are two groups of uniform set of people A and B. And you if make it harder for A to succeed. Set of people in A will have to work way harder, than set B over very long periods of time to win consistently. You will end up making A far more stronger than B. While your intention was to make B at least as good as A over time, you have now achieved the very exact opposite of what you set out of achieve.
This is common in sports, and even competitive exams. Candidates are trained to take on difficult problems than the baseline so that they can get better than the baseline.
At this point the bar for winning is largely to subject to interpretation. Did you raise the bar for A, or did you decrease the bar for B? It depends on what you consider the baseline.
Companies have forgotten how to incentivise employees. If you want people to work for you and not the competition it's not a matter of advertising and getting more eyeballs (especially if you're Google) you have to actually do some stuff that makes the job more compelling. Like paying people more money.
If women are really worth more to the company, for diversity purposes - if not literal diversity of people, at least diversity of opinion and experiences - it would make perfect sense to just actively headhunt women from other companies and simply pay them more than the other people.
Companies never want to actually pay employees more money though.
What business does this guy have deciding what does or doesn't empower women in tech? Where is his evidence or personal experience here? I'm certainly no expert in this area, but couldn't it be better listen to the opinions of women in tech, disturbingly many of whom who have publicly shared stories of sexism or harassment directly limiting their career potential in tech, about whether they feel underrepresented because of interpersonal culture or because of their biology?
You don't need personal experience to have an opinion, if you are capable of reading what other people have written and bringing to bear your own experiences.
It does not mean you get to decide anything for others, but it is a basic sign of respect to listen to what people say, and it is an even more basic sign of respect to not attempt to defame them.
This guy clearly isn't perfect. He was naive about what the effect of releasing his memo would be. However he was respectful and seemed to be trying to temper his perspective. He doesn't deserve the raw hatred and condemnation he is receiving. I think we should be compassionate and try our best to tolerate our differences.
I applaud the guy for doing research and putting together an argument. He knew the backlash that would come from it. I think he thought that the people at Google would respond fairly reasonably. Now that he has been fired, people will use that to point out the intolerance of the people in the Echo chamber..thus proving his point.
They should have included him on the diversity and inclusion leadership team. Sad that Google went the route they did.
This is an extremely different takeaway from mine. From what I read, the author repeatedly made it clear that he is not stating that women or racially underrepresented workers at Google are individually worse at their job. In fact, most of his discussion on different tendencies in gender are focused on selection of job field type of job within the field rather than ability. Furthermore, the author repeatedly reiterates that these tendencies are just that: tendencies, not rules. Some women pull 70+ hour work weeks. Some men work part time. To say that a larger portion of one group, even in the absence of cultural and societal pressure, is going to choose either the former or the latter is not disparagement.
To put this in a different context, take the gender discrepancy in murderers. Across nearly all countries, men commit roughly 75-85% of murders. This nearly uniform across agrarian, industrial, and post-industrial countries, rich and poor countries, liberal and conservative countries. I would consider it totally fine to say that men innately have a greater tendency to commit murder than women (and for what it's worth I'm a man myself). Is it okay to say that because I have a Y chromosome I should be treated as a murderer? Or that I should face a different standard of evidence if I'm on trial for murder? Of course not. But stating that I, as a man, am statistically more likely to commit murder than the average woman is not the same as saying I should be presumed to be a murderer and it is not the same as saying that I should face a different standard of evidence. But the point remains, it is okay to conclude that the discrepancy in murder rates is because of innate tendencies rather than discrimination by police, juries, etc.
I wish the guy had written what other people had written. This stuff has been hashed, rehashed, refried, deep fried... and he got all the biology research wrong. It just seems that he did no research, instead thinking about his feelings a lot and claiming he got somewhere original without engaging the existing scholarship at all.
Agree that it's a basic sign of respect to listen to what people say. I am tired of guys not listening to me saying I'm a boring, normal woman who likes math/tech/computers, not a freak or a biological anomaly, some evolutionary mistake.
> And he is not saying that you are a "freak" or "biological anomaly", he is talking about aggregated, statistical differences.
He provides no evidence to back the conclusions he draws from that data though. It reminds me of some articles or posts you might see briefly gain traction on the internet where the author starts from a point backed by one or two reputable sources and proceeds to use those references to back an argument that lies well outside the bounds of the original data.
As one of the authors of a paper cited in the memo puts it:
> In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong. [...] But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large [1]
The post I responded specifically said the memo author got all biological research wrong. Now, his conclusions from that are certainly more debatable.
I guess the larger point I was trying to make is that when people feel singled out because of statistical differences b it leads them to take things personally, which leads to perpetuating disproportionate reactions and a non-existing platform for actual discussion.
Vets are 80% female. Is the industry closed to men that might want to be a vet? Do we need more outreach programs for men to be vets?
Or maybe is it that men are less likely to want to medically treat animals than women, and the gender discrepancy is one of preference? And yes, men who do become vets are statistical outliers, but certainly not "freaks". It's likely the same for tech and women - you are a statistical outlier, and from your perspective things are the norm, but the majority of women are not interested in the same things that you are interested in professionally. (The majority of men aren't either, but there's a larger minority of men sharing your professional interests than a minority of women).
And as for "not getting somewhere original" - the author's point about the difference between comparing averages vs the overlap of bell curves around the averages is a great point and not one I'd seen highlighted that way before. Perhaps you have, but it was novel to me.
80 years ago all vets were men. How can men's biology change so fast? 150 years ago elementary school teachers were men. In 1984 more than 35% of CS majors were female. Not long enough for genetic change.
> Agree that it's a basic sign of respect to listen to what people say.
> This stuff has been hashed, rehashed, refried, deep fried... and he got all the biology research wrong. It just seems that he did no research, instead thinking about his feelings a lot and claiming he got somewhere original without engaging the existing scholarship at all.
Please provide examples. Your statement is incorrect. Looks like you didn't bother to listen correctly to what he said.
Some forms of affirmative action are legal in the US. Others have been struck down by the courts or have been made illegal by referendum.
I work at a large SV tech company and was recently privy to an affirmative action policy that was almost certainly illegal. The wording of the policy was quickly changed after a couple folks spoke up so as to make it conform with the law. If the policy had made it to a news outlet, I guarantee you it would have been on the front page of the NYT the next day.
In short, quotas are illegal. With some exceptions, hiring based on race is illegal. However, taking race into account among many factors is legal. The on-the-ground reality of these policies is exceedingly grey.
Again, affirmative action towards historically marginalized group is legal and is not a violation of protected status laws. It strains credibility to imagine the author is talking about discrimination against historically marginalized groups given the rest of their manifesto.
If I say something like "our interview process has put too much weight on brainteaser-type problems and I think we should scale that back".
The implication is that people who have been hired because they scored high on brainteaser problems are not, on average, going to be as qualified to do the actual job because the metric that we used to measure them (brainteaser problems) is not relevant to the job.
I'm inherently saying some of my teammates shouldn't have been hired.
Edit: just to be clear, my point is that Google has, to my knowledge, expressed this sentiment and made changes to their interview process to rely less on brainteasers. They did so without controversy. No one said "hey Google is saying some of its employees shouldn't have been hired by changing their hiring process".
Imagine Google required candidates to bench press 200 lbs as well as solve brain teasers. That means they turned away a lot of qualified devs for no good reason, but it does not mean they hired anyone unqualified, because lifting does not make you stupid.
It might. If weightlifting counts for 50% of your total "score" and some hypothetical "worthy" metric (such as coding) counts for 50%, someone scoring a 5/5 on weightlifting but only a 3/5 on coding would have a higher total score than a person who scored 1/5 on weightlifting and 5/5 on coding.
The first guy is not necessarily "unqualified", but he would relative to the other guy. People who were hired for their weightlifting abilities wouldn't have had to reach a higher score on coding in order to get hired. So on average, you would expect them to be less qualified.
I'm not sure if you're being facetious? If you are, I apologize as it's gone over my head. I don't have a dog in the Google controversy. But I will put my hand up briefly and say that you've you just said, doesn't follow for me.
From your quote:
> Our interview process has put too much weight on brainteaser-type problems and I think we should scale that back.
I would not infer that you meant:
The implication is that people who have been hired because they scored high on brainteaser problems are not, on average, going to be as qualified to do the actual job because the metric that we used to measure them (brainteaser problems) is not relevant to the job.
The most likely case is that someone saying the above quote would be a co-worker of mine. Someone I'm cooperating with in a common endeavor. I would assume they are trying to help us achieve our goals more readily. I would have heard something like:
We're turning down highly qualified candidates for software engineering roles because of their failure to answer non-software-engineering questions. Is there any evidence that these non-software-engineering questions contribute meaningfully to our assessment of candidates? If not, we should drop the questions. Turning down qualified candidates makes it harder for to hire the great people that coming through our pipeline.
To conclude that suggesting any changes to an interview process is an implicit indication that the people currently employed by a company were unqualified means that no improvements could ever be made.
>To conclude that suggesting any changes to an interview process is an implicit indication that the people currently employed by a company were unqualified means that no improvements could ever be made.
That's exactly my point.
Replace "brainteaser" with "being an underrepresented minority" and you'll see why it's absurd to suggest his manifesto is tantamount to saying "some of my teammates shouldn't have been hired".
If there's a big discussion about underqualified lovers of brainteasers being hired, and my coworkers start to look at me suspiciously, I can simply stop wearing my "I love brainteasers" tee shirt. Underrepresented minorities don't have that option.
I've spoken to and overheard recruiters for Google who have quotas for women as well as minorities. In other words, the corp pressures them to hire non male, non-Asian, non-white, and to seek across the country for alternative hires.
I'm actually okay with Google seeking women across the country (when they could find a local candidate), but we should not pretend that they don't have internal targets their recruiters need to meet.
A startup I once worked for sent out a memo asking that HR be involved before rejecting a "borderline" female candidate. As a generally apolitical junior employee this seemed really concerning -- we had pretty strict hiring standards and from that point on I wondered if each new female employee would have made it if they were born male.
I can't say if Google's practices are discriminatory (I don't really know what they are) but it's a very important thing to have open, honest discussion about. At the time, I kept my mouth shut because I was pretty low on the totem pole. If I were an employee at Google I would now know to do the same.
Did you consider the opposite questions with your male colleagues?
Bias is real. The exact same resume is, on average, considered more qualified if there's a typically male name at the top versus a female name. Did you ever wonder how many of your male colleagues unfairly benefitted from that sort of thing?
After running the experiment, we ended up with some rather surprising results. Contrary to what we expected (and probably contrary to what you expected as well!), masking gender had no effect on interview performance with respect to any of the scoring criteria (would advance to next round, technical ability, problem solving ability). If anything, we started to notice some trends in the opposite direction of what we expected: for technical ability, it appeared that men who were modulated to sound like women did a bit better than unmodulated men and that women who were modulated to sound like men did a bit worse than unmodulated women. Though these trends weren’t statistically significant, I am mentioning them because they were unexpected and definitely something to watch for as we collect more data.
> Did you consider the opposite questions with your male colleagues?
No, I didn't consider it about anyone until they gave me a reason to. Prior to that email I had no reason to think that anyone working there was anything other than the best of the best. Well-intentioned policies can have resounding negative effects.
To your second point -- I'm not saying bias isn't real. I'm saying certain methods of counteracting bias have a strong potential for collateral damage.
> Bias is real. The exact same resume is, on average, considered more qualified if there's a typically male name at the top versus a female name. Did you ever wonder how many of your male colleagues unfairly benefitted from that sort of thing?
> The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview. Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door.
This seriously sucks not only for the company (bringing on someone who is borderline), but it hurts the candidate. Now this female candidate, if she gets the position, is going to be thrust into a hostile and difficult environment where it's difficult to succeed or elevate above a certain level.
I've experienced this as an engineer, where I've been in environments where I was totally over my head. In retrospect I'm grateful for the rejections as much as the postitions I've landed, because they've pushed me to learn and advance my skill set.
But at the same time, aren't you therefore implying that such diversity programs are inherently above reproach?
To be fair to you, I don't think you actually think that. But it's almost like the author of the diversity memo touched a third rail by suggesting that perhaps "lowered standards" could be an outcome from such diversity efforts. Is that a fair consideration to raise or is that beyond the pale now?
I don't think it has to be an either-or. In fact, because of this imperfect world, these programs are likely to be imperfect. But if I wanted to discuss that, I wouldn't do so using the argument that women/minorities are biologically-less suited for Google's leadership/engineering roles.
You don't think there's another way for the memo author to criticize diversity programs other than a 10-page memo of broad, sprawling arguments? Why should the author get to privilege of asserting his worldview on top of his critique of diversity programs without his worldview getting challenged?
By that logic how is anyone supposed to criticize any hiring process? Of course hinting that the process is flawed will imply that some of his colleagues shouldn't have made it through.
A hiring process can be flawed by excluding a pool of qualified candidates from consideration, even if the ones you hire are capable of performing their jobs.
Yes, and in fact this is what the original author was claiming (that non-diverse candidates had a higher false-negative rate)
However, if the number of hires is kept constant, and a given process is claimed to be flawed, then you are implicitly stating that one or more offers should have gone to what was a non-hire instead of what was a hire.
"If the number of hires is kept constant" is a huge IF that just doesn't hold up. If Google (or FB, or Apple) could find more candidates that met their hiring bar, they'd hire them as well. It's not a zero-sum game - these companies are constantly short on qualified engineers.
By that logic anyone criticizing a company's hiring practices must be fired.
If someone claims their employer discriminates against black candidates, you must equally infer they think some of their white coworkers have been let in because of weakened standards, and out they go...
I mean, I'll admit there is a small core of logic there, but I think it's pushed absurdly far. Wouldn't it make more sense if hiring standards could be discussed without firing anyone who wants to change them?
I have in fact occasionally seen similar arguments used by right-wingers when someone complains there aren't enough black people, women, etc somewhere. It struck me as a nasty and cynical rhetorical trick when they did it too - and they didn't even go as far as demanding anyone be fired.
Doesn't he mention it in the context of an explicit 50/50 men/women goal? Maybe it's achieving that scenario which could lower the bar, without saying anything about the current women working at Google?
This is an amazing discussion and it really needs to occur. What scares me is how much this conversation is being ruled by an angry emotive mob, at the expense of democracy and free speech. There is almost no fact in any of these comments.
Why MUST we have 50% of male and female in any industry? Have you noticed how almost every media outlet ignores female dominated industries (such as veterinary science) [0], where over 85% of vets in the western world are female? The strongest argument in this thread appears to be that there must be equal numbers for equality, but it's only EVER applied to male dominated industries (Google it if you doubt me). However, not only is this argument unjustified, it's continually selectively applied by most mainstream media outlets, again and again. There is no challenge or balance to any of these arguments from the mainstream media.
I am disappointed that Google sacked this engineer. To understand this mindset, you really need to watch this video on Yale. People being shut down from talking because they're male or white [1] or because angry mobs don't like what they have to say. People in this thread talk about sexism and yet they struggle to provide any evidence (while I can point at truck loads of evidence of misandry, eg. domestic violence, veterinary science, etc). This Yale video talks about this exact problem i'm describing. We have a society where you are no longer allowed to express selective views (even with evidence). Google have confirmed this with their dismissal of this engineer. What we've become concerns me deeply.
To all of the people who have stood up for free speech (and you're in the clear minority in this thread), I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you want to be able to sort out the media that's worth listening to, watch reporting on this topic closely over the next few days. Look for extreme prejudice and emotive language from the media. To quote an excellent quote from the Yale video, "these are moves of power, not reason" (3 minutes in, [1]).
So where are the rational arguments? What about the percentage of female university graduates with relevant skills? What about Dr Simon Baran Cohen's findings on very young children and trends to their thinking patterns? Where are the facts? Why are most people side-stepping facts?
Now please re-read this entire thread and ask yourself about freedom of speech. Ask yourself about democracy. Ask yourself about how many people have presented facts. There is something seriously wrong. You should be deeply concerned about the lack of debate, the lack of evidence, the number of emotive arguments and the message Google has sent to anyone who doesn't toe the politically correct line.
You're spot on about how scary the need for an echo chamber is. I was recently in Russia and the young, educated, and violently ideological foundations for the revolution are scarily parallel to some of the militant social "warriors" popping up in intelligencia today.
But a counter-point to the focus on male-dominated industries: I suspect it has a heck of a lot to do with the average salary of male-dominated industries compared to the salaries of female dominated industries. If vets were paid like anesthesiologists and vice versa (and across all industries), I think you'd see a lot more articles about equality in female-saturated careers.
Of course, personally I'd rather see a reduced pay gap between gender dominated industries instead of women being forced into jobs they aren't as interested in simply to earn as much as men who gravitate towards those fields. But I've no idea how you actually follow through on that, and "girl-code camps" are a heck of a lot easier to run and self-serving for the runners than "restructure the supply/demand labor market for 20-40% of all industries)".
I'm in agreement that the Yale incident is egregious.
I think that your argument needs further refinement.
1. The fact you have to dig to find a rare prestigious, yet women-dominated field (veterinary science) demonstrates the lack of equivalence between software engineering or any other men-dominated field. Most high-paying fields are dominated by men in most states. The essence of this controversy is not that there are men being kept out of veterinary science and nursing. It's that women are actively and passively discouraged from entering, staying, and succeeding in the field.
2. I don't think any of the credible stakeholders expects a 50%/50% women to men ratio in software engineering. I think this is a misrepresentation of your opponents.
3. Linking this to freedom of speech and democracy is going to generate "but freedom of speech is just from the government, not from consequences" responses.
4. Claiming this is a trend in Fortune 500 companies is likely to yield from your opponents a considerable amount of examples of liberal workers being terminated from Conservative-style companies for political actions taken on-the-job. Even excluding union agitation, there are many examples from the past ten years.
To further your point #1 - vet is the lowest paid medical profession, and the highest (anesthesiologists) is male-skewed.
But in general, he's right that we're in a scary age with the aggressive and dogmatic ideology that favors political correctness over intelligent debate and will defend that ideology with mob rule (even leading to professors being told by police that it's not safe for them to be present on campus).
I'm not looking forward to seeing the political result of this movement becoming a tea party to the left, which I fear is inevitable in the next few years.
2. Then what is the goal? the way many diversity policies are worded, it is not clear if there is any situation where success would be declared. This leads to many people feeling that they have in fact been bending over backwards to achieve diversity, but get called sexist pigs over and over again because gender balance didn't automatically happen.
4. So what? discrimination at conservative companies doesn't justify discrimination at liberal ones.
I pointed out #4 to illustrate that his claim of a pervasive trend of Conservative persecution wasn't consistent with the state of affairs in the United States.
I disagree with your premise; termination for political activity on-the-job is easily justifiable. I doubt you want to hear non-stop tirades from a PETA activist coworker.
I think your criticism of #2 is facile; which policies in particular are vague? Every corporate anti-discrimination policy I've ever encountered was essentially "don't discriminate against people in a way that will get us in trouble with the Feds."
Bingo. Feelings have replaced facts as a measure of righteousness. And, sadly, there are entire industries plugging feelings of injustice by "white cis-males" or some other group of people who are oppressors by dint of simply being a majority.
It's such a mess. And if you give a sht about the Western tradition of reasoning*, it's a cultural shame. Entire national narratives are being powered by lies and mistruths.
The least we could do is talk about it.
But look at what happens when you question this insanity? You're fired and ostracized.
Has anyone actually read the damn manifesto? It reads like it was written by the sort of person stupid enough to openly disparage his fellow employees using cited Wikipedia articles. This entire controversy is so unbearably stupid - political polarization blew this out of proportion.
You can't take a critique on hiring personally. For example, Google skips for phone screen interview for new grads of elite schools like Stanford and MIT. If somebody claims that this is a discriminatory practice that lowers the bar for MIT candidates, no MIT grad is going to get offended.
He may have not told his direct teammates they lowered the bar but he certainly implied that women and underrepresented groups have at a whole at Google:
> The Harm of Google’s biases:
...
> - A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
...
> - Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate.
Do you really not see the concerns this engineer has introduced for Google over his ability to objectively judge his peers who are women or members of an underrepresented group or at least how such coworkers might now have these concerns if they find themselves working with him? Do you not see how the long-term detriment and risk to Google could be (substantially) greater than the value the engineer brings to the company? Even if you remove the high-mindedness and virtues that tech companies like to project in their PR, do you not see how this is the only rational business choice for a Fortune 50 company?
There is something I don't understand. The third quoted line should raise an entirely different question.
You are in the position where you want to constantly hire a lot of qualified candidates. If you have discovered a way to decrease false negative rate, why would you not apply that across the board? It's like you have learned how to fix hiring but then carry it out only with some arbitrary cohorts.
My guess is maybe because it cost too much to implement it across the board, and the side effect that focused application results in more minority/women hires.
I am pretty sure the author didn't call it a manifesto. The label was retroactively applied by those covering the story. It's a great, real-time example of language being subtly manipulated to shape public opinion.
He didn't just argue that there was a difference in the distribution but that the underlying cause was biological. Companies like google hire people who excell at certain skills and are therefore at the tail end of the corresponding distribution where the differences in likelihood occurence are largest. If he believes that for engineering there are 10 men for every woman at both tail ends of the distribution then the "natural" gender ratio in engineering teams must be 10:1 or standards are lowered in the name of diversity.
The implications of that worldview are totally toxic.
It is false because the science is bunk. Social conditioning likely explains all (and definitely explains most) of the measured differences, not biology.
The author has a popular science level understanding of gender differences. Based on that he concludes women are unsuited to be engineers compared to men.
Why did you present it as if this is just something that the guy "believes?" I thought that was the strongest argument of his memo and the perhaps the point with the biggest scientific backing.
If you wanted to pick out any argument out of those 10 pages to disassemble, you could have chosen any one of his arguments that haven't been corroborated by hundreds of years of scientific consensus.
There is no "hundreds of years of scientific consensus" that suggests women are worse than men at math and science. What consensus are you talking about?
The paper confused sex and gender badly. E.g. Man and male are not nearly equivalent groups. How could someone who thought so deeply about the subject miss that?
I don't think it wise to mix two controversial topics, especially since on their face they seem kind of contradictory. Gender identity discussions and biological dimorphism are both hugely emotional topics, and mixing them here would lead us down a discussion path we don't want to go.
> The paper confused sex and gender badly. E.g. Man and male are not nearly equivalent groups. How could someone who thought so deeply about the subject miss that?
Ok, but how do you propose the paper to be rewritten taking those into consideration.
Or do you suggest that Google force every employee go through a medical exam to determine their sex and make sure no one chooses to identify as a different gender to pass through the hiring process easier...
Sorry, I don't quite see what you're getting at there basically, it can interpreted in a few ways.
how is the distinction relevant for an engineering candidate? unless you're implying that google has a pilot child labor project in the works it strikes me as highly superfluous
Out of curiosity, if his "manifesto" had talked about white privilege and how many of his white, male co-workers had, for their entire lives, been the beneficiaries of massive disparities in American society that led them to have an increased chance of becoming Googlers, and argued that we should work to ameliorate those disparities at all levels of society, including during the hiring process at Google, would you still call for his termination?
Such a claim would, after all, be an insult to many of his coworkers, who might feel as if he believes they're only at Google because society lowered the bar for them.
Personally I'd like it if people could make both arguments in a reasonable fashion and not jump immediately to outrage and calls for termination.
Except his whole point was that only looking at averages and not considering the spread and distribution is insane.
Should a son of a several-year unemployed coal miner be discriminated against because of his gender and race, just because other people with that same gender and race have done better than average?
The entire summary was "consider the individual not the statistic."
If you are concerned about socio-economic advantages, look at tax returns not skin color - the whole point of some prior civil rights movements was that skin color is a terrible proxy for evaluating the person underneath.
Honestly the graph examples of the overlapping bell curves vs the plotted averages in his document was such an excellent point, and yet the extremely salient points that should be discussed are being railroaded over by misrepresented hyperbole - your straw man theoretical imcluded. There's a great deal of nuance he paid attention to, and I really wish his detractors had the same consideration for nuance in their counter-points.
Edit: I didn't realize on first read that you were creating a hyperbole to highlight the bias in the calls for his firing. Leaving the comment as is though, as in general there needs to be a lot more nuance considered, particularly by his detractors. Apologies for misreading your comment's intention.
You're thinking of a men vs. women power dynamic. But that's not a realistic power dynamic, because neither men nor women act as a block. (For example, 44% of female voters in the 2016 election voted for Trump!) The actual power dynamic here is feminists vs. non-feminists, and at Google right now the feminists have a lot of power--as evidenced by the fact this guy got fired.
He asked about your opinion on a principle, because many people prefer reasoned, principled policy over internet-fueled, hysterical mob rule.
Dodging the question by saying you don't find the principle "interesting" when applied on the other end of the argument is effectively admitting that you know the principle is flawed.
What? I said interesting question. Not a not interesting question. And which principle? The scenario? Yes, I believe the scenario is flawed. Not sure why you are saying admitted.
To be clearer, white privilege exists. Male privilege exists. That is a power dynamic over women and minorities, enjoyed by men and non-minorities.
To deny those privileges exist increases the privilege. To deny that existing bias exists helps to increase the bias.
To admit those privileges exist decreases the privilege. To admit that existing biases exist helps to decrease the bias.
So, writing a manifesto (that admits white privilege) does not put white people into greater danger beneath those who enjoy the power dynamic over them (no one).
But, writing a manifesto (that denies sexism) does put women into greater danger beneath those who enjoy the power dynamic over them (men).
> Male privilege exists. That is a power dynamic over women
This doesn't necessarily follow, because insofar as male privilege exists, so does female privilege (such as no draft, "women and children first", the "women are wonderful " effect and the fact that women represent the majority of the voting base), so it's really hard to say one sex is more privileged than the other, rather than just privileged differently.
Not to be dismissive of your comment, but I think the topic of privilege deserves more nuance than you are giving it. Privilege doesn't exist as a binary state, where some people enjoy privilege and others do not, we all enjoy some privilege, although obviously of varying degrees. Privilege doesn't stop just at men or women, white or non-white, there are numerous combinations of privilege that need to be taken into account.
> where male privilege exceeds female privilege.
I'm not sure I can categorically agree with this. While male privilege exists over women, I find it ludicrous to suggest that white women are less privileged overall than black men, despite black men benefiting from male privilege. I think many of the misunderstandings that occur when discussing privilege come about due to using only a few easily categorized traits in defining privileges, rather than a broader set that also include things like socio-economic conditions, health, upbringing, and a variety of personality or physical traits.
This kind of claim (regardless of which direction you're making the claim in) ony makes sense if you reduce "privilege" into a single dimension. Which I don't think you can.
It is a little bit symmetrical though because white males are occasionally told they have had everything handed to them and they do find that infuriating to hear.
> It's not about virtue signaling, he was almost certain to be terminated just because it was a ridiculously stupid thing to say - you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar and expect people not to be upset about it
It should absolutely be ok, if it's true. Which it unequivocally is.
> (and that's 100% what he did, he also made up pseudo-scientific bullshit to try to justify it, but he flat out insulted countless people within his company).
What about his post was pseudo-scientific? He cited studies, and to my knowledge, the actual facts of what he said are fairly uncontroversial.
> - The next time a woman interviews for his team, and he votes against hiring, how does the hiring committee interpret that vote?
Did you read the document? He explicitly embraces diversity. He even says he's in favor of programs to help promote diversity.
He cited studies, but not until very recently did anyone have the version which actually contained the references. Gizmodo deliberately removed all charts and links, and for a while they had the only copy. It was a profoundly dishonest thing to do on their part. I'd be surprised if 5% of people commenting online even realize he cited sources.
"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing)"
That is accompanied with citations. OK, sure, let's take that at face value. No dispute here.
Next, he says:
"These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics"
No studies, no evidence, no nothing for this claim. X may lead to Y, because... the author feels in his gut that it may be true? This is not science. This is an unsupported assertion. The rest of the doc is littered with these claims, which I could happily go point by point through.
He may have gotten the science about biological differences between men and women correctly, but the conclusions that he drew using that science is totally unsubstantiated. And frankly, it is extremely deceptive to defend him by saying that "he cited studies" without examining how he linked those studies to his own pure speculation.
He made an argument for his conclusion based on his evidence. You can't prove with science that those things are why women prefer those jobs. But if the facts he cites in his evidence are true, it would not be unreasonable to hypothesize that women may prefer those jobs. If you want to argue that point, I think it's totally debatable. But that's just it - it's debatable.
EDIT: And as has come out, the author of this memo has a PhD in Biology. Here are comments from four PhD scientists in Sociology on the issue, if you'd like some credentials to go with it:
Did you read what those scientists say? While there is consensus on the memo's statements about biological differences (which again - I agree with), there is hardly consensus on the conclusions drawn:
"But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm."
He doesn't use it to essentialize each individual. He's pretty explicit about that, if you read his memo. He's clear about the fact many women are exceptions to these patterns, just as are many men. The point he's making is that, perhaps, in aggregate, these differences explain the relative proportion of women in technical jobs. He isn't saying women shouldn't do technical work. He's not saying Google shouldn't hire women. He's not even saying that the women working at Google don't deserve their jobs, or aren't good at them. Far from it. What he's saying is that efforts to actively recruit women in tech, in an attempt to achieve gender parity may be misguided, because part of the reason for the proportionality difference may be biological. That's the essential point he makes, and whether or not you agree, I think its fairly clear that his point is at least not crazy and worthy of firing.
Actually, you can absolutely use social science methods to attempt to demonstrate (or in this case, disprove) these kinds of links. But let's put that aside for a moment, and discuss what is objectionable about the memo.
What are the costs/benefits of having this "debate" at work over a hypothesis that cannot be proven, as you state?
Look again at what the author was doing. He was using scientifically demonstrated biological and psychological differences between men and women (women have "higher agreeableness") to hypothesize about how that affects their work choices and, notably, their performance ("This leads to women generally having a harder time ... speaking up, and leading.").
What this is doing is connecting a gender stereotype (which, sure, is scientifically supported in aggregate - that's true for a lot of stereotypes!) to work practices and outcomes. The authors claimed benefits of presuming that this connection is true are basically a) this will make conservatives feel more accepted at work, and b) diversity is "bad for business" (which is just provably wrong by an enormous amount of evidence that the author ignores). I think a) is absolutely a worthy benefit, but there are lots of other ways to do this without linking gender stereotypes to work performance!
Now let's look at the harms of having this "debate", particularly at work, which are numerous and measurable. While there are no studies demonstrating the link between biology and STEM job performance, there are many studies demonstrating the impact of widespread gender bias in STEM fields (classic recent reference: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract) and how it affects hiring and advancement. The memo's author correctly acknowledges these types of biases. So the harm is perpetuating gender biases in the workplace that affects people's careers. Not to mention the harms of opening up Google to gender discrimination lawsuits (ala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Waterhouse_v._Hopkins), the productivity cost of employees who don't want to work with people with publicly broadcasted unproven gender biases that could affect their decision making ("hostile work environment"), etc. And not to mention losing the many economic benefits that a company reaps with a diverse, inclusive workplace.
So no, I don't think it's worth having this "debate", especially at work, where the benefits are negligible at best, and the harms are clear. If you want to have this debate, go write a medium article or something. Don't send this around your workplace. It's not that hard, really. People call this thought policing, or groupthink or whatever, but it's just harmful and a waste of time at work.
Even if there is bias, in what position is Google to fix it? Unconscious bias retraining does not work.
If bias exists it is culturally and biologically motivated and that can only be fixed by changing the culture significantly.
Women in free cultures do not like STEM. That is a fact. In countries where gender roles are being silenced (that's a good thing) women dislike STEM even more!
I went to a STEM focused high-school that had equal numbers of women and men (3000 students). Not the same percentage went for STEM fields after graduation. Women were also more successful during high-school. Every year the questionnaire confirms that women just aren't interested in STEM and go to fields that deal with people much more (medicine and similar social fields - rehabilitation, working with children with disabilities, social work etc.))
Show me a study that measures gender bias, does an educational intervention and succeeds in improving that measure significantly. None exist. At best they do not work.
> I'll let you do the homework finding citations about how you're wrong here.
Cool, good thing I did my homework. I'm quite aware that percentage of women in STEM is increasing every year. Check out research for countries that have successfully removed gender roles.
> Nice anecdote! Is there anything else about high school that you'd like to generalize to the entire population of the world?
Good thing that there's research confirming the same thing. Although I was not generalizing. The 3000 students and the results of questionnaire every year are pretty consistent. I'm sure someone will do a study on the data, will link to it surely when it happens. Although, I'm sure it will not matter given that you value meta-analysis but only those that confirm your bias.
The "actual facts" of what he said are not uncontroversial. They aren't even facts. Cordelia Fine's "Delusions of Gender" has an extensive bibliography of studies disputing the statements he claims are facts.
Did you read what he wrote, though? He enumerates the ways in which he favors diversity and diversity programs. He's specific about which forms he likes and which he doesn't. I think his preferences are reasonable, but others may disagree. What is not reasonable, in my view, is shaming him into silence.
Sure, both things are totally fine and valid to say.
Attitudes like yours have polarized me to the extent that now I just say, "I'm super racist, here's what I think:" just to see people's confused reactions.
Would you want employees sending out chain letters implying other employees should not be there? I would fire them on the spot. No "SJW" conspiracy need be applied. That's just unprofessional and out of line.
Employees are free to say whatever they want on a personal blog on their own time.
You don't fix a problem by firing the guy who reports it. It's hardly an SJW conspiracy, pretty much every company in the industry has some variation of the practices he outlines...
"Before being fired, Mr. Damore said, he had submitted a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board claiming that Google’s upper management was 'misrepresenting and shaming me in order to silence my complaints.' He added that it was 'illegal to retaliate' against an N.L.R.B. charge."
Maybe this is why he was fired? It sounds like he was becoming pro-actively hostile toward Google. And there may be more than we outsiders know going on.
The problem with a), is that often women aren't allowed to compete on merit, or they have to perform twice as hard, twice as often as a male colleague in order to prove it "wasn't some fluke."
Also, who decides on "merit" and "ability?" Most real-world problems are not math equations with clear answers. In that case, a homogeneous group is going to decide that merit is based on their group's definition. A diverse group will create a broader definition that accounts for a wider array of ideas and approaches.
> The problem with a), is that often women aren't allowed to compete on merit, or they have to perform twice as hard, twice as often as a male colleague in order to prove it "wasn't some fluke."
I've seen these arguments rehashed over and over by the very same people who overly critcized the manifesto.
Yet I have never seen any argument or document written as well as the manifesto supporting these arguments.
B isn't the argument being made by diversity advocates, that's just the strawman created by people like yourself.
You can fix it by changing it to
b) Men and women aren't allowed to compete based on merit and women need special consideration in order that equivalent number of men and women are hired.
Which is demonstrably untrue; women elect into different fields. The "yeah but sexism..." argument doesn't hold water because women achieved parity in the medical and legal professions in a time of actual, blatant sexism and well before every company had million dollar diversity budgets.
The strawman is much better than the actual argument.
Women elect into different fields in large part because of social factors. If a company like Google decides that it doesn't like those social factors, what's wrong with that? Why should social convention rule?
A lot of clumping happens in fields. Tell me why women are better at symplectic geometry than symplectic topology (or not). Tell me why women are better combinatorists than number theorists -- I want to hear something about counting the tubers they gathered. Tell me why women are so much more suited to advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology than interventional cardiology (https://www.aamc.org/data/448482/b3table.html). I kinda love all the post hoc analysis that goes into explaining these differences, especially when you have to explain then why Portuguese and Italian women are great in algebraic geometry but French women aren't (except for the notable exceptions like Claire Voisin).
Most people aren't pioneers; most people follow the pioneers into situations in which they feel mildly more comfortable than the alternative. Sexism plays a huge role, while not being the only factor. Is it really surprising that if you put up a "girls r dum" sign on a clubhouse many will find somewhere else to go?
Women electing into different fields is pretty much tautological here. The question is why, and whether it's for reasons we want to support and/or perpetuate. The whole point of the memo at issue is that he figures it's built into women biologically because computers aren't cuddly and that it is thus justifiable and right to perpetuate or support the current set of social roles. I don't know that the guy should have been fired, but it's clear he's not going to be a great team player or supervisor for women.
Waiting for more non-white non-male applicants, and actively hunting for non-white non-male applicants, does not imply or necessitate a lowered standard.
It means that applying is no longer first-come, first-serve.
> B isn't the argument being made by diversity advocates
Of course it isn't because then it would expose the hypocrisy of what they advocate. It's white-knighting at its finest.
> Men and women aren't allowed to compete based on merit and women need special consideration in order that equivalent number of men and women are hired.
I agree there is sexism in tech, both overt and casual that discourages women from entering tech and/or causes them to leave. The question is, does increasing diversity actually fix this problem?
The author of the memo specifically addresses this, and states that the focus should be on providing psychological safety for people of all groups, rather than forced diversity that may not end up addressing the problem.
What if the tasks he wants done by meritorious candidates were selected by a very heteronormative, white dominated bloc of powerful people? In your view, would that call into question the propriety of asking a minority candidate to compete against a majority candidate?
Even the SATs struggles/d with making sure their tears didn't implicit strengthen the scores of any one group of students.
For programming and technical tasks, there are objective ways to measure accuracy, correctness and performance of code that don't require any consideration of someone's race, gender or sexuality.
Interviews (by design!) simulate intense interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee, similar to a workplace situation when trying to solve a problem. That setup is not objective.
The result, even just the code itself, is also not judged on a binary yes/no scale, which again leaves a lot of room for opinions and bias to muddy the water.
I've done hundreds of engineering interviews. Conducting objective interviews is very hard. Anybody thinking they are objective either has never done interviews or is fooling themselves.
If a programming exercise is subjective, from what perspective is it subjective in bias of? Likely the author's, who's bias will be derived somewhat from their race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic class, background, peer group, etc.
Code is correct if it works. But plenty of "working" solutions will be rejected as being "incorrect" based on current trends, internalized philosophy, preferred approach, etc. etc.
As someone who hires engineers, it is difficult if not impossible to separate personal bias and preference from an evaluation.
You absolutely have, because in the real world "correct" isn't a cleanly defined objective target. Humans decide if your code was well-written enough or you used an appropriate data structure, and humans can be pretty solidly relied upon to blunder into all manners of cognitive shortcuts and biases.
You are judged and reviewed on a myriad different factors other than this. Are you a "team player?" Do you mentor others well? Do people like you? Were you picked to do complex projects this review cycle? Are you too loud? Too timid? Do you ask insightful questions? Is your coding style "normal"? Do you dress professionally? Can you be asked to interface with clients?
Every little thing that can be used will be used to form a composite picture of you as a person. It's wrong to expect a foreigner like me to be judged on whether I know baseball stats but I'm sure someone somewhere has made an inside reference about baseball around me and written me off when didn't even acknowledge it.
That's what diversity programs and affirmative action programs try to short circuit.
c) Human beings are poor judges of merit due to cognitive bias, poor intuition for statistics, prejudices based on emotional reactions to irrelevant past experiences, and perverse incentives. It is therefore justifiable to apply a post correction.
I'm a bit surprised that techies don't see this as obvious. How often do inferior products win due to superior marketing that plays on these biases?
I am also surprised programmers have such confidence in absolute meritocracy in code shops given that every coder knows how hard it can be to evaluate the performance of coders on a team. Let's say one coder closes tons of tickets but does shoddy work while another works more slowly and creates things of beauty. The former often looks better but the latter might be the real MVP. I've seen coders who add little code but are indispensable on a team due to things like deep domain knowledge, great judgement, spooky horse whisperer debugging skills, etc.
Yet suddenly some are convinced of the infallibility of our ideas of merit as soon as someone tosses a culture war grenade in the room.
I don't even want to bring up the softness of some of the areas of science cited by that manifesto or the reproducibility crisis they've had but... Oops I just did.
Personally I am on the fence about diversity measures such as the ones I've heard exist at Google for practical reasons. I am not convinced they work very well and as an engineer I prefer things that work. My sentiment is on their side though, and I have become deeply repelled by the opposing movement (now generally called the alt-right) ever since it unmasked itself. Head over to alt-right subs on Reddit or worse Voat if you want to see what they really stand for. So if I were forced to pick a side I would begrudgingly pick the diversity nazis over the actual Nazis.
> It is therefore justifiable to apply a post correction.
But if your premise is that (essentially) people are wrong, how do you know that the post-correction will be appied "correctly" (i.e. not make things even more wrong)?
> you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar
It only hurts because it is plausible and causes self-doubt.
But Google can prove this conclusively just by plotting the distribution of performance reviews between "diversity hires" and the regular pool of employees. You either show that there are negligible differences (the diversity program works) or the guy is right (the average bar did get lowered).
Google will never publish this data because they are cowards.
> One of the biggest problems that Google has with it's employee retention is imposter syndrome.
Can you elaborate on that one? I'm really curious, as my naive assumption would be that impostor syndrome should improve retention (something like "I'm not as good as my current employer and coworkers think I am, so I better not change jobs because this is the best I could get").
If you have some insider information I'd love to hear it, because this sounds totally implausible:
"I work at the world's most powerful tech company, get paid embarrassing sums of money to do it, and get good reviews from my manager. But I don't feel super smart, so I quit."
So, two things: Google is weirdly self organizing, which can take some serious getting used to. Your manager isn't there to tell you what to do, YOU are supposed to figure out what you should be doing for the most part, aside from some broad strokes from your tech lead (who isn't your manager). This really messes with a lot of peoples internal hierarchy compass, which leads to feelings of being lost and directionless.
When you come in as a newbie, and you see all these people seemingly directing themselves effortlessly, and creating cool shit day in and day out, it can be seriously soul crushing. You're still on your tricycle trying to figure out how to do anything at Google, and aside from your laptop, virtually everything is a technology that is Google specific and shares almost nothing with anything you've touched before.
Between those two things, a lot of people feel like they'll never make it. They hold on for their 1 year anniversary if they can and then shop their new Google experience around to find a good exit.
This is the strangest rationalization for the firing of a whistleblower I think I've ever heard... Given that Google's hiring practices caused the offense, why should we shoot the messenger?
> Such a manifesto is not just fundamentally wrong, it's toxic
A private company firing someone over their views is a long, long way from an Inquisition. Your right to say and believe things is not a right for continued employment. The same libertarian argument that you seem to be making has been made the other way many times -- that companies should never be compelled to retain an employee for any reason.
You misread my post. I was criticizing the ridiculous rationalization: "his views aren't just wing, they're toxic". The punch line is that this line of reasoning is indistinguishable from a witch-hunt. "I don't like views that I don't like and those who expose them shouldn't be tolerated!"
You may want to research the early days of McCarthyism and the blacklist.
Is this the first firing that was perhaps an overly sensitive reaction concerned with appeasing a very touchy ideological base? Because I can think of a number of other people railroaded out of a job because of online "outrage."
We aren't all that far from an Inquisition (not prongs and tongs type Inquisition, but a "your job depends on agreement" type Inquisition). The most significant thing missing from the equation is that the most vocal social justice voices lack political influence and power. If you see this movement organize politically and get candidates in office, any student of history should recognize that things will get worse for open expression of ideas before things get better.
One thing I like about Russians and the Germans in professional circles is they indulge in unadulterated expression of opinions. Not to say they speak whatever thing comes to their mind, simply that they don't sugarcoat stuff. If you don't like it, it's upto you.
The employee in this case deserved a reprimand, not termination.
> One thing I like about Russians and the Germans in professional circles is they indulge in unadulterated expression of opinions.
It's ironic that the two countries who not so long ago were horrific totalitarian regimes now are more free (at least in this aspect) than USA - "the land of the free".
You really ought to read his document before commenting. And when you do, keep an eye outfor any quote whatsoever that says justifies your claims. You won't find one.
> Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization
This argument only work is every woman can only see themselves as part of the group and are incapable of seeing themselves as individuals.
I would be willing to bet that there are women (and other diversity hires) at Google that know they are capable of doing their jobs and deserving of being hired. Some of those people might object to being lumped in with the whole and not being seen as individuals.
It is no measure of health to be adjusted to a profoundly sick society... but of course, you'll read that quote then give yourself a pat on the back, sadly.
it is a known fact that close to year end Google would go on a "diversity hire" binge to make their diversity numbers look good. literally recruiters are telling female candidates simply to apply and guarantees hire.
If an organization does, at any time, use hiring priorities besides work ability, and thus hires people whose work ability was not as good as it could be - from henceforth on, nobody can ever criticize those hiring policies, because that would imply criticizing the people hired under those policies.
>Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization, it becomes impossible for this person to be an effective member of the team
Funny, lots of people I've worked with have alienated me, and others, and various groups of people (different teams, specialties, ages, men, conservatives, etc). We somehow still manage to keep functioning in the same building. You, with bigotry of low expectations, seem to think women don't have the maturity for that.
It's quite ironic: in their push for equality and inclusion, these liberals have created an environment where one faces exclusion and persecution for simply having political beliefs that align with a large portion of their fellow U.S. citizens. This is a very real thing. I never felt uncomfortable with my own political alignment before 2015 but I wouldn't dare put a GOP candidate sticker on my laptop now. It's not that I have an aversion to my own party; I simply feel targeted and fear being (incorrectly) labeled a bigot or mysognist simply because of the candidates I've voted for.
That's how far this has gone. I am saddened that more moderate voices have not spoken up like this brave ex-Googler but given the climate and the consequences, I understand it.
Tolerance is not a moral precept. As a liberal, I tolerate differences in opinion, but I do not falsely equate attempts to deny people fair civil rights (as the modern GOP does routinely, in terms of race, gender, gender identity, and so many other ways) as “opinion” so much as institutionalized violence.
Whether the transgender/nonbinary people I know have the right to exist or not is not subject to debate. If you say no, you are sanctioning violence against them. Whether women have the right to participate fully in the economy without facing harassment or discrimination just because they are women is not subject to debate. If you say no, you are sanctioning violence against them.
These are basic human rights and the party you have chosen to support thinks that they are subject to debate. You have chosen to support virulent bigots and misogynists…but don’t want to be called one yourself? Methinks you protest a little too much.
> I do not falsely equate attempts to deny people fair civil rights (as the modern GOP does routinely, in terms of race, gender, gender identity, and so many other ways) as “opinion” so much as institutionalized violence
The issue is that the left equates denying preferential treatment
as 'denying people civil rights'. That makes it close to impossible for liberal-minded and conservative-minded folks to debate many topics.
> Whether the transgender/nonbinary people I know have the right to exist or not is not subject to debate.
Right to exist? Is someone saying they should all be rounded up and persecuted?
> Whether women have the right to participate fully in the economy without facing harassment or discrimination just because they are women is not subject to debate.
Another instance of the first point. Who's saying they shouldn't? Again, the other side wants the same thing--they simply disagree with means to achieve it. But you happen think those means are 'sanctioning violence' against them.
And...'sanctioning violence' against women? What does that even mean? Who is doing this?
The left always tends to fall back on this argument of 'basic human rights' as if the sky is falling because the right wants to take them all away & punish anyone who isn't a straight white male.
It's just a ludicrous mindset that, again, makes it almost impossible to have a rational debate. The nonsensical language in your comment makes that clear.
Historically in America, the right was the home of authoritarianism - I fear greatly I'm whitnessing the birth of an authoritarian left. The thing that concerns me is the authoritarian left groups have been historically better able to organize than right wing ones.
An authoritarian-leaning right currently runs most branches of government in the USA. Is the fear that the majority changes their mind, or that someone else gets to set policy?
Keep in mind that authoritarianism isn't "people I disagree with that have power", it's when democratic elections stop mattering.
Yes, the masses revolted against the liberal elites which run virtually every prominent institution (media, arts, education, tech, and most non-elected government positions), but that hardly means the right has any sort of power (especially given that Trump won by appealing to liberals).
But to your point, authoritarianism is thrown around too often. Better terms for the identity-politicking left include "repressive" or "censorious".
Someone who I cannot remember the name of once said conservative/right-side politics trends towards Authoritarianism while liberal/left-side politics trends towards Totalitarianism. Pick your poison.
What a great quote. I find myself fearing the left more than the right because the left can actually execute. They have Hollywood, the newsmedia, the arts, academia, the entire public education system, etc, and they're routinely infringing on people's rights. The right? They can't even enforce bathroom rules in their own backyard.
This is exactly my point. Currently the right can't even agree what it is to be a member of the right - while the left pulls of a full on shunning for not carrying the party line - as a minority of sorts (and someone who has lots of opinions, and who is generally liberal minded) - this scares the snot out of me. Reaching the point where even questioning dogma is considered a form of attack is scary. Don't get me wrong, the right has it too - every time the christians scream persecution this comes into focus - but as you adroitly pointed out - the right can't find its ass with two hands and a flashlight.
> Right to exist? Is someone saying they should all be rounded up and persecuted?
A lot of opinions around trans people are centered around it being a mental delusion that shouldn't be accommodated. That leaves them unable to transition and live in society without mental harm. If that isn't persecution, not sure what is!
That's not persecution and it's certainly not "opposition to their right to exist", which was the original bullshit claim. Anyway, the APA (a very left leaning organization) diagnosis for transsexuality is Gender Identity Disorder (GID).
Your information is out of date. Being transgender itself is no longer considered a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria, discomfort and dysfunction caused by society and by being in the wrong body is the diagnosable condition. Once transgender people have been treated, there isn't any more dysphoria and there is no disorder.
Right, they rebranded last year or whenever. I'm sure for completely apolitical reasons. If you're familiar at all with the APA, you know what a joke that is.
I don't really care about their politics, this particular case seems accurate. It's pretty clear that gender incongruence is a medical issue, but trans people are perfectly capable of leading happy and productive lives as long as they receive the proper treatment and aren't subject to abuse for being who they are. I've literally seen that with my own two eyes.
But those people aren't Fortune 500 material so not pertinent to the discussion. Those people are on the extreme side of the right. It wouldn't be fair if I started to draw conclusions about the left from what you hear people say on /r/latestagecapitalism either.
Calling your opposition Hitler makes you a pretty strong candidate for sympathy votes. You may not get Hitler assassinated, but you might just get a few programs through that much easier. Think about it.
Yes, while the grandparent accuses others of "institutionalized violence", who advocates the use of government force to ensure that the bureaucrat's definition of an ideal sexual and racial distribution is achieved? Who says that people should be jailed for advocating policies with which they disagree? Who leads campaigns to see corporate force exerted against their political opponents, and to hyperbolize benign, even obvious and commonly-believed, statements into threats of genocide?
Suggesting that hires be made based on merit and function rather than the "diversity quota" published by some federal bureaucrat trying to justify their department's existence is so far away from threatening anyone's "right to exist" that they're not even in the same universe.
People holding such distant frames of reference cannot have a reasonable conversation. And that's exactly the point.
> The issue is that the left equates denying preferential treatment as 'denying people civil rights'. That makes it close to impossible for liberal-minded and conservative-minded folks to debate many topics.
Please, remind me how "being able to have visitation rights to the person you love" or "being able to vote while black" are "special privileges"?
> Right to exist? Is someone saying they should all be rounded up and persecuted?
Yes, let me introduce you to the Republican Party:
> And...'sanctioning violence' against women? What does that even mean? Who is doing this?
Let me guess: you'd feel pretty upset if all the people in HN today that you are persona non-grata and that they'll make sure not a single person they know hires you. Would you say that removing your ability to make a living doing what you love is violence? Violence doesn't need to mean "punching in the face."
> punish anyone who isn't a straight white male.
And yet, straight white males are the only ones whose rights are never in question. When was the last time you heard of an anti-white male legislation passing in the Deep South? And yet here they are, full internet forums complaining about their waning rights in the hands of females/blacks/LGBT/immigrants. Makes you wonder, huh?
> You have chosen to support virulent bigots and misogynists…but don’t want to be called one yourself? Methinks you protest a little too much.
I support bigots and misogynists speaking their opinions because its a right enumerated by the US constitution. I don't mind being called a bigot or misogynists myself if that's what is required to defend inalienable rights.
You have no right not to be outraged or offended by someone's opinion. And it is disgusting to see someone's livelihood jeopardized because of political correctness. The backlash started in November, and this is only going to dump gasoline on the raging dumpster fire.
> I support bigots and misogynists speaking their opinions because its a right enumerated by the US constitution.
I support bigots and misogynists speaking their opinions too.
I do not support tech companies that hire smart people continuing to employ people that argue for substantial changes in policy based on nonexistent science and personal feelings. It is not "political correctness" that gets someone fired for failing to test a change before deploying it in production and breaking the site; it is a lack of critical thinking skills. The memo displayed a lack of critical thinking skills.
If you try to claim that individuals in a free society should be averse to taking someone's opinions and words into account when deciding whether to associate with that person, you are essentially saying that opinions and words don't matter. That's a far greater threat to free speech than government censorship is. An oppressive government can be overthrown, subversive publications can be made, end-to-end encryption can get ideas across, etc. But a society that believes that opinions are of no consequence has lost all hope. It is not the government-enforced dystopia of 1984 but the self-imposed dystopia of Fahrenheit 451.
> based on nonexistent science and personal feelings
But his memo had extensive sourcing, including many scientific studies. Are you saying that those studies are nonsense?
> It is not "political correctness" that gets someone fired for failing to test a change before deploying it in production and breaking the site; it is a lack of critical thinking skills.
This is opposite the blameless culture laid out as best practices by the leaders in tech, so I don't know why you would assert it as a good reason to fire someone.
I too, like you, think words matter and think we should be able to take people's beliefs into account when choosing to associate with them. I'd like to note that our opinion is pretty controversial - it's actually illegal to do this for several wide ranges of people's beliefs, when it comes to employment! So perhaps there is a middle ground between "words don't matter" and "we must support all opinions", and in watering down the argument to these two simplistic extremes we're ignoring the complex reality evident before us.
> But his memo had extensive sourcing, including many scientific studies. Are you saying that those studies are nonsense?
"Extensive" seems like a stretch. Here are the scientific (i.e., non-Wikipedia, non-media) citations:
- women are more interested in people than things (DOI 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x)
- women score on average .4 sigma higher on "neuroticism" than men (DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.168)
- the average woman is more interested in work-life balance than the average man (DOI 0.1080/03069880600769118)
- moralizing issues is sometimes bad (DOI 10.1111/1467-9280.00139)
- the concept of "microaggressions" lacks scientific backing (DOI 10.1177/1745691616659391)
Of those, only the last one is directly relevant to his policy proposals. (And it seems to be one researcher's position paper, anyway, but I'm happy to grant for the moment that it holds the weight of scientific consensus.)
The rest are all interesting scientific facts but the connection to his policy proposals is incredibly unclear. I said it's based on personal feelings because the idea that software engineering involves caring about things more than people, that neuroticism (in the psychological sense) makes one less suited for software engineering, and that advancement in tech requires giving up work-life balance. As many others have argued (e.g., https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... ), these are opinions of an extremely junior engineer who has confused "software engineering" with "writing lines of code".
If we're going to take the logic in this article seriously, we should much more readily take seriously 'aphyr's (absurdist) suggestion that men perform better on technical tasks in societies where they're not allowed to own property: https://twitter.com/aphyr/status/894211417561341952 That one has a solid scientific citation and direct relevance to the policy proposal it's making!
> This is opposite the blameless culture laid out as best practices by the leaders in tech
The blameless postmortem relies on the fact that you trust everyone to be making the best decisions they can under the circumstances and you trust them all to be well-informed and qualified, and that sometimes mistakes happen anyway and the identity of the person who makes it is basically chance. Take GitLab's recent incident: if a company's practices don't involve testing backups, and someone is responding to an urgent production problem and deletes the wrong directory, it's not a sign that the person who got paged is particularly incompetent. There is incompetence, but it's a property of the entire team: backups should exist and be tested, runbooks should be clearer, production hosts should be more visible, etc.
But as a consequence, in order for the blameless postmortem to work, you have to actually trust your engineers to be competent. A person who writes a manifesto like this is also the sort of person who's going to read a half-complete answer on StackOverflow that offers a simplistic but enticing explanation, and conclude that it is 100% relevant to their problem despite evidence to the contrary, questioning relevant internal docs along the way. Someone who does that isn't someone you want responding to production incidents. You don't want to blame them - because you don't want to risk them causing problems in the first place.
Such a person is a mishire. The fact that certain people are rejected in the interview process (including false negatives!) does not violate the blameless culture. Once you conclude that someone was a false positive hire, you should promptly let them go with a generous severance.
> Such a person is a mishire. The fact that certain people are rejected in the interview process (including false negatives!) does not violate the blameless culture. Once you conclude that someone was a false positive hire, you should promptly let them go with a generous severance.
You might just have a terrible organization or managers with no or poor experience. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Let's be clear, I'm not advocating for the rejection of promising junior candidates with the intellectual curiosity to learn how to do things. I think more companies need to hire such people, and I've strongly advocated for hiring them at my jobs (with mixed results).
But that doesn't imply that an organization or manager's job is to teach everyone everything. There exist non-junior roles, and very often there are people who are mishires for a senior role but great hires for a junior one, or mishires for a certain company but great hires for another one, etc. Sometimes what you're looking for is a senior engineer, and saying "This person isn't senior, they're not right for this role" isn't a failing of management or of the organization.
Damore was a senior engineer (L5) at Google, which is definitely not a junior role (it's the first level where they don't expect you to be getting promoted within 1-2 years, IIRC).
(Let's also be clear, everything I've said about dealing with mishires promptly also applies to mishires in management or mis-promotions into management. There are a lot of people in management who have no business there, and should get either a promotion to a highly-ranked IC role or a generous severance so they can find one elsewhere, before they do more harm to their team.)
We're not talking social stigma; we're talking about someone being fired, having their financial situation put in jeopardy because of inadequate worker protections.
If you think that's okay because of the views this engineer holds, you're a terrible human being.
I have to err on the side of caution and say no, just as an employer can't fire someone for their religious beliefs (which are arguably just as inflaming as the viewpoints people take issue with in this thread).
No right is unlimited, even if it's in the constitution.
For example, libel, slander, and harassment may all take the form of "speech" but are unquestionably firing offenses. Those are also criminal offenses because the balance of harms swings away from the person who's free speech rights might be violated, toward the person who's own rights are being violated due to the exercise of free speech itself.
As that old adage goes: My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.
Unlike in many countries, in US in most states employment is "at-will" this sounds nice and friendly but it means officially they can let the employee go for any reason at any time unless that reason is one of discrimination due to a limited set of categories. Of course people are discriminated all the time based on religion, race, sexual preferences, age, gender etc, it is just that is not the official reason. It can always be molded into some "performance review", "downsizing", "business goals" etc. kind of thing. Proving otherwise requires an expensive lawsuit looking for patterns over a longer period of time and candidates or requires someone to blow the whistle and say "oh when the CEO say 'culture fit' we really mean they are of a wrong race or gender, everyone knows that around here..."
You can't be let go for being a whistleblower or someone who wants to improve hiring practices. The author has grounds for a lawsuit and was likely fired illegally.
But they can always find another reason to let him go. "Restructuring" or some similar thing would work. They just fired him, I presume the lawyers looked at it and probably didn't see much of a risk.
Doesn't pass the sniff test. His memo was open, notorious, and even received a response from senior management.
More likely than the lawyers saying the firing was legal, is that Google decided the cost of an illegal firing was less than the cost of keeping him onboard.
Nice catch ;) The "implied contract" at-will exception in CA in recent years can be avoided by specific language and precautions in your contract. So yes, theoretically a former employee can sue and win for unjust termination, but practically speaking this never happens, particularly for large, careful employers.
Nah, the employee blackened the eye of the company he works for, potentially causing monetary loss. As a result of the employees controversial memo, the company deemed it necessary to terminate the employee to prevent any additional costs incurred with keeping him on. He's free to spew whatever nonsense he wanto, just like his employer is free to prevent themselves from losing money. :)
(1) It's not illegal to fire someone for their politics (it's not one of the enumerated protected classes under federal employment laws anti-discrimination law at least), and (2) it's not "clearly" what happened here -- arguably sure, but there are other ways to see it.
Ah yes, I totally forgot that "males are less neurotic and have more drive than females". Silly me. Good luck finding any women to work with you when you spew such nonsense. Aka creating a toxic work place
It seems like half of this debate is utterly preoccupied with misrepresenting the other half. I guess the social justice position is too weak and it's adherents lacking in integrity.
No, this is one of the problems we have in society today is this misunderstanding of Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction
Not just from government censorship, but from SOCIETY censorship as well
Governments, at least Western Government, are a reflection of society in general often delayed by a generation or so. As such if society deems fit to Censor something often that translates into the government censoring the same thing just a few year later.
We must be always mindful of threats to free speech not just from government but from society at large.
It is incumbent upon everyone to respect everyone else's freedom of expression, individually
I fail to understand what the US Constitution has to do with this conversation.
The US Constitution is a document that outlines what powers the people of the US have granted to the Federal government, it has no bearing on what I am talking about
Uh... Amendment #1 deals with FoS. Sentences 2 and 3 of your post talk about Government AND Society. The first amendment doesn't give a rat's ass about what society thinks. Its a restriction only on the government.
You are the one that brought up the US constitution, the OP was talking about freedom of speech as a principle. It is hardly surprising that the US constitution would only apply FoS to the government, since that is what it is trying to define, but the principle of FoS can apply to society as much as anything else.
Who's tradition are you using for that society argument?
It sounds like a facile reading of Mills, without ever going to the back half where he talks about valid reasons for a society to put pressure on an individual, but I've been more on the Federalist papers this year for obvious reasons.
To add to this, the ex-Googler is still able to express his speech, just not under the private platform of Google. This would be a far different and more contentious case if Google fired an employee for their free speech under a personal website and not a company website.
The freedom of speech in the constitution protects you from government persecution.
But the idea is bigger than the constitution. I think it is best expressed in The Friends of Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
the 1st amendment of the constitution is a prohibition of the federal government enacting a law that limits freedom of religion, expression, or association.
freedom of speech is a far more general moral principle and social norm. we ought not conflate the two and there is much more utility in discussing the more general case of freedom of speech and not the narrower more legalistic case of the 1st amendment.
What. Of course there is a right to be offended and outraged by someone's opinion. It's the same right that allows someone to share a dumb opinion in the first place.
You absolutely have a right not to be outraged or offended by someone's opinion at your place of employment if you work for a company with any sense. Companies that play fast and loose with HR risk becoming the next Uber - a company whose toxic environment has caused more than a few talented engineers to say they wouldn't work there for literally a million dollars.
You really don't though. You have a right not to be harassed but you don't have an inherent right not to be outraged based on whatever cockamamie standards you choose that morning.
I'm personally outraged by people who think it's okay to write emails and chat messages with improper punctuation and spelling mistakes. Mixed case sentences, emojis, and made up capitalized abbreviations make my blood boil. But none of that is grounds for me getting those people terminated.
If I don't want to deal them I can go work somewhere else. That's the right I have. Not the right to silence them.
It's the same if they decide to express their political opinions or sports affiliations.
> You do see that you are comparing 1. woman being biologically inferior to 2. sports affiliations.
No I'm not. I'm saying that there is a distinction between being offended/outraged and being harassed. Just because someone is offended by something doesn't mean it's harassment. My examples were explicitly meant to be silly to demonstrate the point.
> You absolutely have a right not to be outraged or offended by someone's opinion at your place of employment if you work for a company with any sense.
What?
Harassment is different and can be objectively defined in the scope of the business and/or role.
But outrage/offense is subjective. You can change your views from one day to the next, or flip perspectives over lunch. You don't get to come back from lunch with a new view, and have a 'right not to be offended'.
There is a strong difference between supporting their right to speak their opinions and supporting their opinions. By voting for those candidates and if you have supported the party, you have supported their opinions, not just their right to share them.
This comes down to your views on a single question: do you have to be tolerant of opinions or actions that harm others? Right now, I think most progressives say no, conservatives obviously say yes. That is the actual gray area this comes down to.
It should also be noted that the US constitution is being used very out of context here. The US constitution guarantees you the right to say what you want. It does not protect you from the repercussions of your speech, which is what is harming the livelihoods you cite. Whether that is moral is a valid debate, but misusing the constitution here is a broken crutch for the argument. The right has made common use of misusing the constitution, most recently in their abandonment of "states rights" during the current administration.
There cannot be a division between the exercise of a right and the protection of repercussion of exercising said right. To not afford protection to those who exercise a constitutional right is to strip all practical effect of those rights
It is illogical to conclude that we give people certain rights if we were simply to abandon them to their persecutors when they choose to exercise their rights. What was theoretically protected becomes merely a facade and an illusion that people have rights when in fact they are at the mercy of those who would attempt to subvert their rights
The practical effect of legislation is at the core of even the most introductory and basic courses of any law degree whether it is from an Ivy League University or the most rundown backwater campus
The general statement that you don't benefit from a certain degree of protection when exercising a constitutional right without any sort of mention of what a reasonable limit on those rights would be completely ignores the fact that constitutions were drafted PRECISELY to protect individuals who wished to exercise those rights
This makes it a complex problem and a balancing act, but it doesn't mean we just throw our hands up in the air and give up. For example, California's Labor Code contains this piece of legislation protecting freedom of speech against retaliation in very specific circumstances: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...
The "chilling speech" effect is one of many reasons why anti-SLAPP statutes exist, a way to explicitly protect freedom of speech from specious attacks.
We certainly couldn't expect people to have no reaction to speech, in fact, no reaction to speech would mean the speech is worthless! But there are cases where we can decide that a certain retaliation to speech is explicitly prohibited, and this is uncontroversial enough to find many examples of laws and statutes doing just that.
California's statues are about protecting an individual from retaliation against workplace complaints. While you can argue it is related to FoS, I think it's a bit of a stretch. The statues would not, for instance, protect you if you told your co-workers your boss was murdering children in his office every day, no matter how much you believe it to be true.
Anti-SLAPP is about protecting people from the financial drain of a lawsuit by a third-party looking to intimidate. It does nothing to force anyone involved to continue to employ, or do business with, any individual.
The problem in this case, from an employer's perspective, is that they have one employee who is creating a toxic atmosphere not from a protected position, but from a hostile one.
And while you might believe that people who read his memo as "toxic" are over-reacting to it (and there is an argument there, though one I wouldn't agree with), they must be free to "overreact" and speak their mind.
It does get very, very tricky, since while unpopular racist/sexist opinions may necessarily create problematic dynamics in the work place, that could easily also be true of opinions those who decry this memo would think should be protected. If I work at a company with a steeped culture of faith, and I walk around talking about how Christian's are stupid, to what extent should the employer be forced to continue to employ me?
I tend to believe that, to the extent we have freedom of speech, we chose when and how to exercise that in public. Our choices have consequences, and it is on us to accept those.
I'm a small business owner. If tomorrow, I write a "memo" which says something as moronic as "Women don't make good clients", and I HAVE women as clients, I can't expect them to continue to want to do business with me. I can't demand any type of legal protection which would force them to continue to do business with me.
It is just as true that, at least with my company, I can see many types of clients who would not appreciate the libertine culture of my agency. I've had more than one potential client, who found out we used to take our employees to a regional Burning Man event, show extreme discomfort at it, and it likely cost me the account.
I've had job applicants turn down working here because they were more conservative (and one I remember who thought we were too conservative for them).
That's just the nature of the thing. People are free to say what they want, to associate with who they want, and must accept the social consequences for doing so.
Freedom of speech is only relevant to government and public spaces, shareholders of google may impose restrictions they deem appropriate.
EDIT: Wtf is wrong with people on HN today? I merely stated the law, it isn't even my opinion. It demonstrably passed Google's legal team, so it's unlikely that I'm wrong.
> shareholders of google may impose restrictions they deem appropriate.
As may the government through statute. This is simply a matter of the constitution not going far enough, and additional law needed to prevent employment termination from expression not deemed "in fashion".
> This is simply a matter of the constitution not going far enough
I don't have to hear obscenities on my private property.
There's also freedom of association. It seems weird to me that one would be against authoritarianism when it comes to freedom of speech but be blindly for authoritarianism when it comes to association. I won't and can't judge whether the firing of that googler was justified but shareholders of google should have the right to fire whoever they bloody want.
> I won't and can't judge whether the firing of that googler was justified but shareholders of google should have the right to fire whoever they bloody want.
Would you hold the same argument if I decided to acquire 51% of Google stock and fire all female employees? Or just the ones that decided to exercise their free speech? What shareholders wants comes second to government regulations to protect workers, for good reason.
>This comes down to your views on a single question: do you have to be tolerant of opinions or actions that harm others? Right now, I think most progressives say no, conservatives obviously say yes. That is the actual gray area this comes down to.
Firing someone is a harmful action. Progressives obviously support this.
As for your cartoon - Categorizing anyone who disagrees with your values as a cartoon villain of pure evil, deserving of no rights and no response but violence, is the foundation of evil. The cartoon glorifies harmful action - and it's a great representation of the far left now.
Progressives absolutely tolerate opinions and actions that harm others - they hold the opinions and commit the actions with great energy.
So your opinion can cause physical harm against others. Someone's livelihood should be jeapardized in this event. People are suffering right this second around the world by those that advocate the same thoughts as you are. Thoughts leads to words, words leads to actions, actions lead to atrocities.
Physical harm requires an action, whether legislative or physical. Words don't ipso-facto lead to actions and not all actions lead to atrocities.
An opinion does not cause physical harm.
This is the error with political correctness- as precisely defined-- it is the idea that you must be politically correct, otherwise you're causing a moral wrong.
I don't think this can be justified rigorously. But it is taken as an article of faith, almost, among its adherents.
From my perspective, it is used as a tool to control, by moving the overton window to exclude areas of thought that are different, and to rationalize actual actions that cause damage. (Firing someone isn't an atrocity, but it is harm.)
So, ironically you're advocating doing the harm you're using as justification to defend your ideology.
Opinions and culture can cause real harm. This was the basis for the scientific argument used in Brown v Board. That even if you could make everything literally equal, these sorts of spoken biases really do lead to measurable negative effects on people's lives.
Ideas must be able to be freely discussed, argued, and debated in a free and democratic society.
Are you prepared to suppress and jail based on speech and words? Because that's what you're advocating for, and that's what authoritarian/totalitarian governments do.
> Ideas must be able to be freely discussed, argued, and debated in a free and democratic society.
Not everywhere. You don't have to allow the free discussion of ideas by anyone in your home.
Freedom of speech is not a right to voice such speech wherever and whenever you want, or to be free of the consequences of such. Nobody has to give you the space or time to voice your speech.
In authoritarian governments, you're also free to speak and usually, the consequence is your death, captivity, or torture. I don't buy that argument that you are free to speak but not free of the consequences.
No. That is a strawman of their argument. They are saying that freedom of speech means freedom from consequences for your speech. I don't really agree with their argument, but what they are saying is more nuanced than the way you've interpreted it. They are arguing for societal freedom of speech (morality instead of laws, I hope), meaning that you are free to speak but nobody has to listen. Consequences like firing someone from their job is different from not listening.
I had said: "Nobody has to give you the space or time to voice your speech", by which I was talking that private people and organizations do not have to give you the space and time for you to voice your speech.
His/her reply was that governments kill people so you should be free of the consequences of your speech.
The implication of this argument (being free of the consequences) means, for example, that your family can't not invite you over for Christmas because you're racist. Or that your friends can't stop hanging out with you, or that someone can't stop employing you.
Those are all consequences of your speech, and you're not protected from them (with a few exceptions).
I agree with you on "nobody has to give you space or time to voice your speech".
If you want to be free to speak your opinion but there are harsh consequences, that speech wasn't really "free". A lot of people will agree with you, a lot will not.
My point is, there is no such thing as freedom of speech in our society, it's not an absolute freedom, and I'm OK with that.
Our society will take a long time before we can truly accept freedom of speech and all its consequences.
The other side is: What we have always seen in our society is if you think differently than the main stream thought you should be aware that will be consequences.
> My point is, there is no such thing as freedom of speech in our society, it's not an absolute freedom, and I'm OK with that.
I'm ok with that, but I'd rephrase as "there is no absolute freedom of speech", or even better, "there is no absolute freedom" in our society, and I'm ok with that.
> Our society will take a long time before we can truly accept freedom of speech and all its consequences.
Do you mean
(1) (freedom of speech) and (freedom of the consequences of speech)
or
(2) accept (freedom of speech) and (consequences of speech)?
> What we have always seen in our society is if you think differently than the main stream thought you should be aware that will be consequences.
IMHO, there is no mainstream, only the immediate surroundings. Saying "women are less capable of doing CS jobs" next to that engineer who got fired will probably help you make a friend. Saying that in front of a woman will probably help you make an enemy.
Both are consequences of speech. You make, and lose, friends based on your speech. Why would someone find the positive consequences of your speech acceptable, but not the negative ones?
In life, there are always consequences. IMHO, the key part of being an adult is recognizing that your acts will have consequences, and being willing to face those consequences, positive or negative.
> I'm ok with that, but I'd rephrase as "there is no absolute freedom of speech", or even better, "there is no absolute freedom" in our society, and I'm ok with that.
I think our opinions are much alike at this point.
> Do you mean
I mean 1. I think one day we should accept freedom of speech and freedom of the consequences. That will prevent bad/good ideas to gain further power and bad/good ideas to appear as an option. Offcourse which one is bad/good will depend on the judgment of the person who listens.
> IMHO, there is no mainstream, only the immediate surroundings. Saying "women are less capable of doing CS jobs" next to that engineer who got fired will probably help you make a friend. Saying that in front of a woman will probably help you make an enemy.
Mainstream = conventional, normal. So we could say we have both, the mainstream and your surrounds (probably your surrounding has more power than the mainstream, don't know)
> Both are consequences of speech. You make, and lose, friends based on your speech. Why would someone find the positive consequences of your speech acceptable, but not the negative ones?
Agree, both are. Usually, I often disagree with my best friends, sometimes our opinions are very, very different, and as far he doesn't act against my rights (settled by laws and our society), I'll accept and tolerate our divergence.If the opinion is too different, probably there will be no willingness to talk with each other.
Saying "women are less capable of doing CS jobs" will make problems, I personally strongly disagree with that phrase, however, I wouldn't fire him because of that, is his opinion, and I respect that as far he doesn't break the law. (He would have a hard time trying to convince me of that, I would say that a warm discussion would happen)
> In life, there are always consequences. IMHO, the key part of being an adult is recognizing that your acts will have consequences, and be willing to face those consequences, positive or negative.
I also agree with that. I hope one day our society would be mature enough to separate opinions from consequences.
This is false. Under the United Declaration of Human Rights:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." an extension of John Mill's:
"Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction.
Societal sanction and interference include the loss of one's job, threats against the speaker, etc.
See: "The first step in assessing whether a particular measure or situation breaches the right to freedom of expression is to assess the threshold question of whether or not someone’s right to freedom of expression has been interfered with or restricted. ... The scope of what constitutes an interference with freedom of expression is very wide. The European Convention on Human Rights, for example, refers to any “formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties” imposed on the exercise of the right. In many cases, it is fairly obvious that there has been an interference, for example where someone has been sanctioned for making a statement or prevented from establishing a media outlet. International courts take a wide view of this. For example, the UN Human Rights Committee held that removing a teacher from the classroom for racist statements made outside of the classroom, while keeping him employed on the same conditions, was an interference with his right to freedom of expression..."[0]
Oh, you have the right to hold opinions. You just don't have the right to hold opinions WHERE you want.
And no, being fired is not a societal sanction, just as someone asking you to leave their house isn't. A private company, just like a private house, is not "society".
Google is under government regulation. They cannot discriminate against others for their opinions of what they say.
>"The source you provide, which is just an opinion, talks only about governments."
This is incorrect. Article 19 is a prominent humans right organization, specifically focusing on Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is also the second source agreeing that you cannot fire someone for what they say.
Fairly, under the United Declaration of Human Rights, or if it were a just world, no.
"You could even argue that nothing in the essay was political activity, then, again, your point is moot."
I don't think so. Any topic that has a clear dichotomy between two political parties is in-itself a political issue. Again, the umbrella for political activity is a wide one.
Now you have resigned yourself to using your personal interpretations of "fair" and "political activity" as your arguments. Not much left to discuss then...
The first party was the Centre for Law and Democracy (based in Canada). The second party was Article 19 (registered in UK) -- however I was informed I misread the print on this one. The third party was the Office of the United Nations (based in USA/NY and SWI). The fourth party was the California Labor Code.
You have offered, in this entire comment chain:
1). Your opinion on how freedom of expression should be restricted (unsourced)
2). Your opinion on what constitutes a societal sanction (unsourced)
3). Your opinion on what constitutes fair grounds for dismissal (unsourced)
So I will rebut, once again, with sources countering your claims.
You: "They [Google] can [discriminate on what you say], except in some cases (protected speech). And being regulated by the government doesn't make you the government."
Employees are protected under "anti-discrimination laws such as Title VII, RCW 40.60 (the Washington Laws Against Discrimination or “WLAD”) and various local laws. "[0]
Local laws include California's Labor Code - LAB § 1101: "No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy:
(a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office.
(b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees."[1]
Google would also be in violation of "Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964"[2] for retaliation against objections of its discriminatory practices against men (section n, paragraph 1). Which Google, under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, did: "Sex discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of that person's sex...
The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment."[3]
I ask of you to show me the courtesy of not wasting my time if you don't wish to take this seriously.
I am taking you seriously, and my point is that arguing about how Google could possibly be breaking a law if the judge decides to interpret anything as a political activity doesn't make much sense.
The argument came down to you saying that almost anything is a political activity, and that Google being regulated by the government makes it equivalent to a government entity. No matter how many sources are provided, only one can actually matter: the judge who will decide that.
That's the problem with legal interpretation, until a judge clears it, all discussion is just speculation.
Look at your own points:
> Google is under government regulation. They cannot discriminate against others for their opinions of what they say.
Yes they can.
> Being fired is a societal sanction, a.k.a a limitation on freedom of expression
No, it isn't, your source only talks about a public entity.
> Societal sanction and interference include the loss of one's job
Again, no, it isn't.
And you keep mixing the law of different countries with opinions from the UN. Pick one. You wanna talk about ethics, let's talk about ethics. You wanna talk about laws, let's talk about laws. But stop switching from one to the other whenever your argument has no ground.
It doesn't matter if there was a legal case in Canada, it is completely irrelevant to the case being discussed here. Or even the UN. None of that matters to this context.
So if you really want to cite sources, a decision by a federal judge, the SCOTUS or the NLBR showing that an action by a company that is exactly like Google's falls into illegality will do. Anything else makes no difference here, either requiring your own interpretation, or being foreign to the laws of this country.
This is the most Orwellian thing that has emerged out of all of this, that opinions are "physical" actions. Do you not realize the endstate that line of thinking? Physical reaction in response to opinions.
>People are suffering right this second around the world by those that advocate the same thoughts as you are
People suffer for other reasons too though, like societal inaction and economics. Do you hold yourself to the same standard, with your lifestyle choices affecting others as they do, in the same regard that you're holding others for their political ideas? Have you adopted dozens of children from third world countries instead of creating more mouths to feed? Do you ride a horse to work to reduce your climate impact? Have you optimized your entire life for the supremely calculated reduction of suffering? How would such a calculation even be verified correct? Where does that line get drawn in your world? Is it simply on people with philosophies that are convenient for you to criticize to make yourself the superior humanitarian?
Tolerance is not a moral precept. As a liberal, I tolerate differences in opinion, but I do not falsely equate attempts to deny people fair civil rights (as the modern GOP does routinely, in terms of race, gender, gender identity, and so many other ways) as “opinion” so much as institutionalized violence.
Your view that an opinion can be equated with violence is unethical, but I'm convinced a stronger historical reading would make you blush. It's a terrible and thin rationization. It's so easy to do, here are examples from right and left, with varying degrees of extremeness, quite like yours.
Not your or my opinions, but historical (if abstracted) examples:
- Your opinion that the military in this country should be replaced with an elected government is counter-revolutionary, and your poisonous ideas should be ceased before the imperialist hordes ruin our independence.
- Your opinion that our military intervention was wrong in such and such country is unpatriotic, and therefore illegal.
- Your opinion that God doesn't exist deeply offends religious people and therefore you should not say it, and people like you should be prevented from these deeply offensive opinions.
- Your opinion that drugs should be legalized is illegal because children can view it as a condoning and get hurt.
- Your opinion that this first world war is wrong is sedition, and will lead to prison time. It's harmful to this country and the war.
I hope I illustrated my point. The last was the Sedition Act, the others are more than just one incident.
I've been Left all my life and I'm deeply, deeply ashamed and nervous about the new generation's disregard of free speech and opinions that contrast their own. It's due to a lack of historical knowledge. I am convinced.
It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one with a growing sense of unease at the current trend for every disagreement turning into an 'us' versus 'them' dichotomy.
This is happening so often these days and I've struggled to confront it. I'm taken aback when people equate conservatism with violence or hate; it's an instant conversation-ender for me and it's irrational enough that I'm almost never interested in picking the argument apart.
It's not just a feature of social media comments. This line of thinking is heavily promoted by once-respectable newspapers like the Washington Post in their opinion sections. I raised my eyebrows the first time I ever heard Trump refer to WaPo as "fake news" but two years of daily reading later, I tend to agree with him.
He was in no way advocating for that though. Not supporting some diversity programs isn't the same thing as thinking women ought to be harassed or discriminated against. We should be studying programs like this and explaining why they work, not just silencing all criticism with blanket accusations of bigotry. The current culture around this sort of thing is counter productive in actually achieving a more diverse and equitable workforce, in my opinion.
Well said. I do think the tech world needs more diversity, absolutely. It's just that I fundamentally disagree with the way it's being managed. I believe that tech companies need to be working with minorities and women at an earlier age (high schoolers, college freshmen) to groom them and steer them towards STEM careers. What I don't agree with is quota systems and affirmative action programs. I also strongly object to those who criticize these practices being labeled as bigots and mysogynists.
That is generally where I am on these issues as well. It's very frustrating that even if you were much more reasonable in trying to discuss these issues than this Googler was, you'd likely be fired for it anyways. As someone from a poor background who also suffers from mental illness, it's frustrating that all of that is totally ignored, and that I'm expected to be enthusiastic about a policy that advocates for giving preferential treatment to a wealthy white woman over me in hiring or promotion. And I don't think my circumstances should just be taken into account under this system, I just don't think positive discrimination belongs in the work place.
> working with minorities and women at an earlier age (high schoolers, college freshmen) to groom them and steer them towards STEM careers
Working with a specific class of students (based on gender/race) is highly discriminatory, IMO. I think it is unfair to the people not included in the group you want to encourage, specially when it is children we're talking about. Why not have STEM grooming programs for any student who wants to join? Why exclude some?
I live in India. We have a history of casteism. Measures like this were instituted 70 years ago to help the downtrodden. Now it prevents people like me from getting a place in the country's most prestigious colleges while other less-deserving people are admitted because of their lower caste. I was born in the 90s. I did not even once witness an incident of casteism in my life. Except the one perpetrated against me. Your suggestion seems to me like a similar measure. It isn't much different from a quota system.
Targeted outreach is not remotely close to supporting a caste-based system of employment. I'd even argue that it's aiding people break out of the social and gender expectations, which can be viewed as an informal caste. I realize I might be making a massive generalization of South Asian history by comparing gender & racial roles with the caste system, but the point I'm trying to make is that it's enabling people to overcome social expectation.
I do agree that there are ways to implement this incorrectly, and my support is contingent on the following:
* Working with minorities in a field does not mean refusing to work with the majority. To ground this in the world of tech, reaching out to girls and underrepresented minorities does not mean turning away Asian & white boys.
* Steering them towards STEM should leave the agency in their hands. Even in the absence of all social and cultural pressure, it's a stretch to assume that we'll have gender parity in all fields. I'm confident in saying that software development(I specifically point out software development since some STEM fields have parity or even a slight majority representation of women) would have a greater representation than it does now, but I don't think it's 50%. If diversity initiatives end up pressuring people into fields they don't want to be in, then that's a failure in and of itself.
My pet theory is that it's not that we don't want to hire women, it's that they don't want to work here. I've seen one woman's resume and dozens of men's. We hired her. And she is miserable. But so is everyone. But she seems to think that things could be better while lots of men seem to just accept it sucks and don't mind making things worse. Is there a biological reason for the difference? Who cares?
That's definitely something we need to do a better job at, and that's not just the companies responsibility. We all have a role to play in that. But I actually think affirmative action policies could work against this goal.
It creates some amount of tension that wouldn't otherwise exist.
If you really think those programs are ineffective, you need to roll out a superior solution before you suggest throwing them all away. Otherwise you're just pulling the rope up behind you because you're already in the treehouse, and you can sit there and continue to wring your hands over the poor state of things.
I respectfully disagree with you here. Why do I have to "own" inclusion and equality just because I disagree with the specific implementation? Why can't it be the responsibility of the VP of Inclusion to figure this out in a way that doesn't blatantly favor one class of people over another?
...because the 'VP of Inclusion' came up with the current plan, that you don't like.
So how do you propose to move forward?
If you leave to them, they're going to do nothing, and leave it as is, because objectively, by the metric, it's working, and increasing the relevant ratios.
So you're basically advocating to someone that a) does not agree with you, and b) can demonstrate that their KPIs are excellent, to change their behaviour.
Why would they?
The only meaningful way to move forward to come up with a different solution, if you feel this one isn't working, because if since it seems to be working, just complaining won't change anything.
You don't get change by just complaining and making sad faces; change happens by meaningful engagement with the problem; if you're not prepared to do that, face the facts; there won't be any change.
(...and meaningful engagement obviously does not include distributing internal manifestos)
> You don't get change by just complaining and making sad faces; change happens by meaningful engagement with the problem; if you're not prepared to do that, face the facts; there won't be any change.
> (...and meaningful engagement obviously does not include distributing internal manifestos)
I agree that change happens with meaningful engagement. The first step to meaningful engagement on complex issues is usually a discussion. Setting aside that it's incorrect to refer to the memo as a "manifesto", it is very much not obvious to me that this doesn't count as meaningful engagement.
While I disagree personally with much of what was written in the memo, I find the response equally disheartening if not more-so. The backlash clearly displays that so many of those claiming to want meaningful engagement are interested in no such thing.
> it is very much not obvious to me that this doesn't count as meaningful engagement.
Unfortunately you can't call posting a document full of your opinions and conclusions meaningful engagement.
That's just meaningful self indulgence.
To be fair, perhaps he thought it was, and was trying to do the right thing, and did it wrong? I'm prepared to go as far as giving him the benefit of the doubt on that front.
...but it was wrong. For all the reasons that have been posted extensively on this topic; but, specifically: engaging meaningfully with a topic means discussion; and although we're having a discussion now, that's because this forum allows it, which is not something that that internal memo allowed.
Basically, tldr: Posting documents != meaningful engagement. Meaningful engagement means actually talking to people, organizing people into groups and delivering your message to the right people. All of that project managery stuff that people don't want to do.
I get it. ...but you gotta do it. That's life. You don't just get to sit in a cave and pontificate and call it engagement.
You're talking about taking programs that work - at least to some degree - and removing them without advocating a replacement. Apply this same logic to any other workplace context and it should be obvious how unproductive it is. How far would you get in your day-to-day work if the only thing all your coworkers did is say "no"?
Should the ACA - or health insurance in general - simply be abolished due to defects that you dislike, without a replacement? If the VP of inclusion isn't doing a good job up to your standards, should they just be fired? When Mr. Damore advocated for the removal of all these programs without providing concrete suggestions on how to replace them with better programs, he committed a similar error. (This is aside from the reasoning he used to try to justify it, which is another set of issues)
Google's data suggests a modest increase this year over last year (a 1% shift in overall tech gender roles) with better improvements in leadership. They publish the data, so you can see.
So evidently Google can demonstrate modest improvement. And it sure seems like the Guy Who Got Fired felt like he was seeing the undeserving and huddled masses approaching his ivory tower.
But I'm not sure exactly what you'd like. On the one hand, "Someone needs to do something" and on the other "this blatantly favors one class of people." But I'm not entirely sure that last part is true. Google has quietly improved a lot of feminist hot-button issues that benefit men disproportionately in the last 3 years as well.
For example, Google increased its paternity leave policy. I know because one of the folks I met while interviewing there was ecstatic about it. They've also taken a lot of steps to improve life for families. I know because while interviewing I toured the day care facilities. Hell, Google quietly helps employee kids get into nearby schools and funds (and even runs) after school activities. You don't even need a woman involved to trigger them, Google offers its -ternity leave to adopters as well.
These things disproportionately benefit men by the simple fact that there are many more men in the workforce at Google, so any family related benefits or policies (and these are important, real issues that deserve to be solved) are really a massive win for men who want offspring.
So this whole angle about biases towards "specific groups" is really just a terrible prism. While I'm not saying this is your angle, it's all too often used as a way to shut down any sort of concessions for minorities with unique challenges.
And the business value is really, really clear: a larger workforce means more supply and less demand. From a large business's perspective, the 5 year operating costs of these programs is tiny compared to the savings a 5% reduction in minimum hiring costs would be.
It's a startling deviation from the general population statistics. That fact is why I grant a lot of plausibility to unconscious bias arguments. When you render the numbers, they are very striking.
And once you normalize that kind of environment as "balanced", an attempts to correct it are going to appear to be a new bias. With few exceptions, this is something like a Mystery Spot illusion where you're normalized to such a skewed perception that even balanced and fair ideas can appear to be unfair.
Do you really need internal statistics to prove that diversity programs increase the number of employees from the relevant demographics?
Come on. It's self evident that it's working.
Whether that results in effective outcomes for the business is a different matter; but if your KPI is just 'ratio of XXX in employees' there's no question its doing what it's literally designed to do.
While you're not doing this at all, I think there's sort of a conflation between diversity policies at specific companies and diversity in the industry when in reality they're totally unrelated. So I'm my opinion there's a lot of misplaced support for corporate diversity policies which are designed to benefit he corporation, not women or minorities. And the people being discriminated against under thes policies can't openly oppose them or they'll be accused of bigotry and probably fired.
I won't dispute the possibility of the scenario you describe, but the memo being discussed doesn't really fit this at all. The policies and programs he objected to are largely (if not entirely) things like mentoring programs and techniques for making the hiring pool more diverse.
There can certainly be a blurry line in some places that makes it difficult to identify whether a given program has an (unintentional or otherwise) discriminatory effect but a lot of the stuff he objected to is very clearly positive assistance for people who need it, and not anything that harms men in his position.
The policies he mentioned only even apply to people that are already in the treehouse, using that metaphor. He's saying we should stop pushing each other around up there and help other people climb up.
Edit: Positive discrimination in hiring policies doesn't do much to make tech more diverse, it can only shift the diversity within individual companies. Once someone is already a software engineer, they're almost certainly going to be hired somewhere if they're any good. Giving them preferential treatment does next to nothing for all of the members of their demographic group who aren't software engineers.
Please be more civil and careful with your language. You just called another member of your community a bigot for being a member of a particular political party, not even for their particular beliefs.
A bigot is precisely, "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially one who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance."
I agree you shouldn't call people bigots for association to a given political party, but lets not white wash the GOP's platform:
- Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law
The implication here being that letting gay people get married is going to erode our foundation as a free society and obliterate all of our values as a culture. There are plenty of other callouts in that document to homophobic non-sense.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion here, as their official platform and statements also contain many things that a typical american might describe as bigoted or harmful. This single article (near the top of the search results for 'gop platform transgender' just to pick one) contains quite a few real examples:
Furthermore, the bigotry and discrimination in the GOP platform is well supported by the actual conduct of republican lawmakers in the house and senate.
An individual's right to hold their own opinions on these matters - regardless of how much I might agree with them - is one matter, but it's intellectually dishonest to pretend nothing objectionable is a part of the modern GOP platform. I say this as someone who voted GOP in the past.
> You have chosen to support virulent bigots and misogynists…but don’t want to be called one yourself? Methinks you protest a little too much.
Supporting a GOP candidate isn't necessarily making you a bigot. Not all candidates are bigots. I personally am a libertarian, and I get made fun of so often it's pretty insane.
Repeatedly, I've been yelled at (yes yelled at) by liberals claiming I "helped elect the next Hitler". This has happened more than once. At work, at social events, etc. and it's insane that just not supporting what I feel is also bigotry (liberal ideals) that I'm treated that way[1].
I agree as someone liberal/progressive, thinks the manifesto is generally idiotic, etc. Progressives are doing themselves a huge disservice to cede the moral authority on free speech to the alt-right.
The other one they ceded, and the one that lost the election probably, was the traditionally leftist ideas such as anti-globalization and concerns for the workers. Chomsky and even Sanders not that long ago were railing against NAFTA and Open Borders. But then the current president picked and ran with those ideas and the Left was well left (pun intended) with a few issues such as identity politics, Wall Street donors, but also strangely enough Occupy Wall Street supporters... so they they lost. It should have been a slam dunk against a TV personality.
There was perhaps a glimmer of hope, thinking "Ok, now the left will rethink its position, will turn the DNC upside down and a new and vibrant left will appear in the American politics, possibly running with many of the idea that Sanders ran" and then nothing much happened.
The main political message so far is being "anti - whatever the president is or does". They botched a nice PR initiative about Russia, it was going so well, until they went to far and now they have nothing left. At last someone there raised the alarm and so they limply came up with the new slogan "Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future" "https://www.vox.com/2017/7/23/16016676/chuck-schumer-democra... but I think it is too little, too late. It's doing to be an uphill battle. I just expected more, not sure why.. Instead I got a stream of nonsense about Russia, a bunch of anti Trump rallies, how many scoops of ice creams he had and so on.
There was a time during the campaign that there was a real and honest debate about how the D campaign should have messaged against him. On the one hand, focus on his policies, but the problem there is that it would have "normalized" his behavior. So they made the choice to focus on how he's not normal. I guess it's easy to believe it's the wrong choice now but I'm not sure it was such a clear choice then.
United States law classifies specific forms of speech as illegal, in some cases because they incite violence. There's obviously an objective difference between saying 'you should go murder that guy' and twisting the knife yourself but it's pointlessly reductive to act as if all speech is harmless or fully equivalent.
Yes it is. You mean it's not a moral precept that you value.
> I do not falsely equate attempts to deny people fair civil rights (as the modern GOP does routinely, in terms of race, gender, gender identity, and so many other ways) as “opinion” so much as institutionalized violence.
Welcome to the logic of the left wing extremist: speech that he or she disagrees with isn't actually speech, it's violence. After all his politics are self-evidently synonymous with justice, therefore any criticism is synonymous with hatred and bigotry. There will never be any criticism of his politics, no matter how measured, no matter how tame, that he will not consider hate speech.
> Whether the transgender/nonbinary people I know have the right to exist or not is not subject to debate. If you say no, you are sanctioning violence against them. Whether women have the right to participate fully in the economy without facing harassment or discrimination just because they are women is not subject to debate. If you say no, you are sanctioning violence against them.
And this position is exactly what causes sane people to say "Left is embracing insanity. I do not like those I affiliate with embracing insanity. I guess I'm just going to avoid participating"
There exist people who think abortion is a murderous violation of certain people's human rights.
There also exist people who think forbidding abortion is a violation of the human rights of the mothers.
There exist people who think that taxing them and using the money to pay for things they find abhorrent (e.g. war) is a violation of their fundamental rights.
There exist people who think that compulsory education is a violation of children's rights.
Should all these people say the following: "These are basic human rights and the party you have chosen to support thinks that they are subject to debate", "If you say no, you are sanctioning violence against them", "attempts to deny people fair civil rights ... [are] institutionalized violence"? And then feel justified in, say, campaigning to get anyone who disagrees with them fired?
I do agree, by the way, that advocating laws that violate people's rights is not much morally different from doing the violation oneself. As an anarcho-capitalist, I conclude that probably >99% of political discourse consists of people advocating laws that violate people's rights. I sigh, shrug, and try to make a difference in the places where I can.
To be clear, bigotry is the intolerance of dissenting opinions, and your post models that perfectly. This is the most fallacious post I've read in a while, notably the absurd notion that the GOP is existentially opposed to trans, etc people (mind you I'm not a Republican or a conservative). It's these sorts of posts which lead people to believe that lliberals are dishonest, hypocritical bigots.
There are bigots and misogynists in the Republican Party, and there are bigots and misogynists in the Democratic Party. Politics is much more than that, as are one's political views. No one deserves to be treated vitriolically for supporting a political party.
Accepting arguendo that "tolerance is not a moral precept", and assuming you're referring to Yonatan Zunger's essay, you might consider that he likened it to a peace treaty. Which is now broken. Breaking a peace treaty means active hostilities. Seems like a really bad time to do that, given the current US administration.
How is it possible to claim that tolerance is not a notion that morality addresses? Is morality not a standard of conduct that all should abide by? Or once again is it simply a notion that is brandished like a beacon simply when it is convenient and then snuffed out like a mere candle when it no longer suits the individual and has long outlived its usefulness?
You perfectly exemplify the problem with that remark.
Imagine if pro-life people said that "No your pro-choice belief isn't an opinion, it's institutionalized murder and it triggers me as a parent, and makes me feel unsafe, and so if you express that opinion you are violating my safe space and may need to be fired for your deliberately offensive remarks."
Medium term what will happen is regular people will get sick of virtue signaling and fake concern and feelings of entitlement because people will realize the whole thing is being gamed (and "weaponized" to some degree). And there will be an overcorrection --kind of like what happened in the past election.
They should have taken the mature approach and dealt with it more precisely --even if that would have upset a number of people who simply want to see revenge or feel wronged by an opinion.
I've been obsessively watching the rise of the social justice movement over the past 4 years, ever since Donglegate, and I keep wondering when that correction will come. But it only seems to rise. You would have good reason to believe that we're witnessing a torrentous societal change taking place, rather than a passing fad.
After the last election, though, I'm done with making predictions :)
He goes on about how things turned out in Malaysia (from more or less unified country to one divided along racial lines due to overblown identity politics). He concludes that one way to combat that is to remove the first-past-the-goalpost-wins political system in the US. Although in his example LKY combats it via authoritarianism. I don't think we want to go down that route.
The "social justice" movement dates back, uh, centuries. Maybe you have heard of Jesus?
Even if you want to separate out a modern social justice movement, it certainly dates back decades.
It's fun to consider it in terms of the foundation of the United States and documents like the Declaration of Independence. The wealthy landholders that declared themselves to be free articulated things so clearly that a bunch of other people decided that they wanted in on that shit.
When we talk about free market economics, we're not talking about the bartering system of ancient societies, even though technically the term applies. Don't do the same thing with social justice. The term has come to be known colloquially as the very recent movement that is rooted in the works of critical theory. While critical theory has been around for a while, this is new because it's become inculcated into a popular culture.
So you are insisting that when the links you link speak of social justice they speak of the very recent movement that is rooted in the works of critical theory?
I doubt it.
(one of them compares a modern movement to the civil rights movement...)
I'm talking about the online sub-culture that has sprung up in the last 5 years. The ideas they promote are a distillation of various crit theory stuff, like safe spaces, trigger warnings, micro-aggressions, etc. They are the reason why the term "white privilege" is now virtually a household term even though it's been around since the 1980's. Not sure what your purpose is in arguing this very simple definition, but if you don't agree then have a good day I guess, not worth any more of my time.
>The "social justice" movement dates back, uh, centuries
IMO the meaning of the term has changed. The "social" in the contemporary definition of "social justice" stands for social media. When I see "social justice", I think of people having their careers and personal lives put on trial, and the court is the internet itself.
Center-right / right individuals need to start organizing their own groups, companies, meet ups, jobs etc.
Vote with our feet, and our skills, and go elsewhere. They want to enforce their religion then they can do it without us.
There have to be plenty of people sick of watching what they say, walking on eggshells, and pretending to hold political views opposite of their true beliefs just to avoid the wrath of the regressive left.
This is only going to get worse, and I don't see why we all have to sit back and take it any more.
Honestly I think this more Authoritarian / Libertarian than Right / Left.
I personally am Left, Libertarian Left.
I disagree with many of the assertions in the memo, however I do not believe he should have been fired.
Most of the drum beating from SJW's and Diversity Police are from an Authoritarian World view, where tolerance of views they disagree with is not allowed, can not be openly discussed, and should be suppressed by any means necessary
We need to expand the conversation beyond Left / Right, to include what is means to be Authoritarian, or Libertarian
But, and this is important: you don't have any power.
People that are tolerant and acceptable are not the vocal minority. And those in power either agree with the SJW vocal minority, or they are afraid to oppose them.
So what I said above still stands unless their is some concerted effort to change these types of policies and expectations that result in what happened in this scenario.
Now, most people wont write a company wide memo outlining their "controversial" views because they have too strong of a self-preservation instinct.
What I'm pointing out is... are people going to get sick of holding back, keeping their thoughts to themselves, lying so as to avoid judgement. I bet there's a massive amount of readers just on this site that completely disagree with the outcome in this instance.
But they are irrelevant. Because nobody will do anything about it, and the next person to speak up will get fired also. So... nice tolerant open-minded liberals have no power in the face of motivated passionate regressive SJW liberals.
I understand all of that, but you put it in the context of Center/Right persons forming groups and finding employment with Center/Right Organizations
I do not see where that solves the discourse problem, all you end up with is a bunch of Authoritiarna Right companies in a Right Echo Chamber and a bunch of Authoritarian Left companies in a left Echo Chamber
The solution is to get back to promoting true free expression and the idea that "I disagree with what you have to say, but respect you for saying it"
Free Speech is under massive assault, but not from government but from societal sanction which is just as bad and just as dangerous
Societal sanction has a habit of becoming Government Censorship in short order
That won't happen. Because if company leadership, or basically just a group of employees within some company argued for "tolerance" of thought... for example with this Google employee, those individuals would be tarred and feathered just the same.
Does it look like SJW tech industry employees want to discuss and debate ideas?.....
No they dont, which is one of the reason I work in Tech well outside of Silicon Valley... and have no intention of ever working in Silicon Valley. I would rather live under a bridge than work in that region...
It would be simply out of survival instinct. Sufficiently strong leftist political views seem to correlate very strongly with the desire for people to mandate others fall in line with their views. Or else.... how many examples do moderate/conservative people need to see before they should worry? Or simply.. go elsewhere.
Openness, or simply indifference to personal or political beliefs I thought was the DEFAULT position of most people.
It is sadly not that way anymore... this and many many other examples have shown us all.
Just search twitter for hundreds of tech-industry employees railing against this guy for trying to present a statistical argument against conventional wisdom. They are no doubt celebrating at this moment that he was fired.
Anyone on the fence just needs to ask themselves... what would happen if these same people knew what was in your head? If they heard you speak about your own views? Would they have mercy? Of course not. Who's next?
Just like on the right there are authoritarian (fascist) and libertarian (Libertarian) beliefs, the left also has authoritarian (Leninist) and libertarian (Anarchist) beliefs. And of course anywhere inbetween. Have you taken the political compass yet?
This makes me a little sad. I love my job and wouldn't leave. In general, I've been very happy working for SFBA companies for the last five years. What I don't like is the greater political culture of our industry and a feeling that I will be targeted if I somehow--even casually or unintentionally--identify/signal as conservative around my peers. We now live in a world where conservative views are equated with violence--see responses to my top-level post. This is one small moral and logical step away from advocating violence against conservatives. It's quite scary and makes for an uninclusive environment for many of us.
How'd that work out for the guy who just got fired? Think he has grounds to be wailing? I guess he just needs to go live elsewhere... kinda like I'm saying.
He'll be alright I would assume. I have worked for many places in 'the Rest of America' where my leftist views were looked at askance or even caused me problems in employment because they made right-wing or libertarian-leaning individuals personally uncomfortable.
Really it's just intellectualism versus a discomfort examining and considering ideas. Even though I have my personal politics, I don't expect many or most to share them and I don't seek to install them over others.
But I do agitate my viewpoint in ways I attempt to be persuasive with. Often I fail, but it's not about 'winning' as some would have it but integrating and synthesizing.
These people are not liberals; they are leftists. I consider myself a liberal and find myself having more in common with centrist Republicans than I do with some members of my own party.
Just abandon the labels. You'll get nowhere trying to say, "those people are X not Y, Y is much better." No since in being tribal with a group of people who are so diverse they will always fail to meet you expectations.
It's not "just a label," it's a political viewpoint. Liberal/conservative aren't just funny sounding words we made up to describe different "teams." They actually have meaning behind them and describe a general set of held principles. It's perfectly normal to want a different word for a different set of beliefs.
I also didn't make any value judgments. I didn't say that my views were "much better," I just said that I don't identify with leftist political views.
> an environment where one faces exclusion and persecution for simply having political beliefs that align with a large portion of their fellow U.S. citizens.
Can you elaborate on the persecution and exclusion you personally experienced from being an American conservative?
Can I re-characterise your discomfort as being because the GOP has been subverted by people with fairly extreme racist/sexist views? I really doubt it has anything to do with liberals creating environments.
From my admittedly distant viewpoint (I'm not from your country), the GOP has changed substantially in recent years. It used to be a responsible political party that respected democracy. Then it seemed to start believing the ends justify the means - redrawing voting districts, filibustering, etc. And at the same time accepting support from seriously racist and misogynist groups.
For example, the Obama birth certificate thing was simply a racist joke when it started. The GOP rank and file should have refused any association with those who suggested it, but because it served their purposes they embraced both the meme and the people promulgating it. The result of that (and more - Clinton trafficking children in a pizza parlour? I'm surprised they didn't add aliens just for good measure...) is that the GOP is now seen as a party that entertains such nutters.
I sympathise that your political system provides just two big boats, so you are forced to row with people you aren't comfortable with. In New Zealand we have proportional representation which lets the more... colourful... people have their own boats, which is very healthy because they quickly realise how few people want to join them, and that their views are unpopular.
>>the GOP has changed substantially in recent years.
Both parties have.
Both have gotten more extreme and more polarized.
From Antifa to the "Alt-Right"
Saying that only the GOP has changed is only looking at one side.
>is that the GOP is now seen as a party that entertains such nutters.
That is largely due to media coverage which only highlights the nutters from the GOP, never the Left, and never any Sensible Members. For example you spoke of Obama and how the GOp embraced the "racial joke" birther non-sense, did you ever see this video on your news of John McCain?
Granted this is from the 2008 election and maybe that is outside your scope of "recent years"
There are just as many crazy people in the Democratic Party as the Republican Party. and I say that as a supporter of the King of Crazy parties, Libertarian party, where we had a guy strip on the stage of the National Convention last year....
American Politics... when it stops being crazy I will be worried
> From my admittedly distant viewpoint (I'm not from your country), the GOP has changed substantially in recent years. It used to be a responsible political party that respected democracy. Then it seemed to start believing the ends justify the means - redrawing voting districts, filibustering, etc.
There's something missing in your perspective which is that redrawing voting districts, filibustering, etc are political strategies that have been used by every party in the USA since the late 1700s. Gerrymandering was named after one of the signers of the constitution. The Democratic Party had a solid control of congress for several decades in the 1900s due to gerrymandering (voting districts redrawing). The filibuster was used by democrats as well and as the senate passed back and forth between GOP and Democratic control, each side used it more than the last time.
Now, a lot of noise has been made in recent years in the media about these tactics because the GOP happened to be in a position in 2000 and 2010 to gerrymander the districts themselves, but it's nothing new.
I guess regarding the birth certificate thing, credulity for conspiracies is nothing new among the GOP party base. In the 1990s they were convinced that Bill Clinton had dozens of people murdered to cover up his crimes ("Clinton body count").
The modern GOP has embraced some very misogynistic politicans and policies. And they pushed Trump into the White House. If you don't want to be labeled a misogynist, don't support a misogynistic party.
It's really that easy. Or have the courage of your convictions and try not to freak out when you live in a place where the majority do not share your views. I say this as a very lefty person in a very red state. I don't hide my views even though I know my neighbors and coworkers may be disapproving.
For what it's worth, there's probably a lower personal cost for a leftist to be sincere in a conservative environment than it is for a conservative to be sincere in a liberal environment.
Conservatives are just as likely to de-friend, who doesn't want to live in their own bubble? More to the point, the conservative subreddit on reddit is indistinguishable from the Pyongyang subreddit in its quick-to ban if not ideologically on-point policy.
If you want to argue about tax policy, military policy, or any number of other things where conservatives and liberals have legitimate policy disagreements then by all means do so. I'm sure Google is a perfectly safe space for such arguments.
You seem to be arguing that we need to create a safe space for conservatives to espouse debunked bio-truth garbage that women or blacks are less suited to being engineers or are somehow inferior. Or that conservatives should have "safe fact-free zone" where they can spout nonsense without having anyone call them on it.
I'm not sure why so many people are willing to take this Google engineer's statements at face value. Actually I think I know why: because it confirms pre-existing beliefs. But even an hour on Google will provide ample evidence that his premises are simply not true. I'm not taking about J. Random Engineer's ramblings on some blog but actual research undertaken by actual sociologists performing experiments and crunching reams and reams of data.
Let me repeat that for everyone: His entire argument is based in a long-debunked flawed premise. It isn't true and no amount of philosophizing about it will make it true. Your feelings don't make it true. The facts are clear. Counter-examples about: look at CS enrollment rates in India for example. The modern western world, especially the United States, socializes women out of computer science and software engineering. It has nothing to do with biological aptitude.
Everyone I know of is desperately trying to find qualified candidates to hire. The idea that more-qualified white men are being excluded to fill a "diversity" quota is laughable. Diversity is about expanding the candidate pipeline and providing some support to those people once hired. Maybe if the industry goes through a huge crunch and programmers are being laid-off left and right then there would be an argument there?
The other thing I'll say is you have to be extremely dense not to either a) understand that you're making extraordinary claims or b) touching a potentially controversial topic that could result in massive bad PR if nothing else. Under those circumstances a competent engineer should take some time to gather evidence and make proper citations to peer-reviewed research. It would also be greatly beneficial to present multiple sides to the argument and make fewer sweeping claims. If you're going to say something that could easily be interpreted as "my coworkers are less-qualified diversity hires" then approach the topic with some humility, especially if you don't have a PhD in sociology.
This would be the equivalent of penning a memo claiming people who believe in God are suffering delusions and they are lowering the bar because they go to church on Sunday or for special events when they could be working. Mention that they're obviously gullible and represent a security risk to other employees. Go ahead - write that memo and route it around a large employer. See if you're still employed a week later (hint: you won't be).
>His entire argument is based in a long-debunked flawed premise.
What flawed premise? That men and women are different? For all your insistence that "bio-truths" are wrong, I've never met anyone who actually bothered to cite any studies that contradict them.
>Counter-examples about: look at CS enrollment rates in India for example
That actually supports the author's argument. Given India's notorious treatment of women, it would seem counter-intuitive that they're less sexist. An alternative explanation is that people in poorer countries are more desperate, so they'll take a lucrative job at the expense of their preferences. In wealthier countries, women can afford to pursue their passions.
> Under those circumstances a competent engineer should take some time to gather evidence and make proper citations to peer-reviewed research
The author did make citations (hyperlinks) to most, though not all, of his controversial statements. However, Gizmodo removed them for formatting purposes and possibly to discredit the memo.
The best way to get revenge on someone is by putting a Trump bumper sticker on her car. Watch how easily anti-Trump people think it's moral to scratch or attack someone's car because of her personal beliefs.
No, they really wouldn't, not nearly with the same frequency.
Trump inspires a special "rules no longer apply" insanity in far-leftists. They enjoy feeling like the normal rules of conduct don't apply, so they lean into it.
I call BS on that. There are nasty people with no respect for personal property on every political spectrum. It's honestly to the point where wouldn't put any political bumper sticker on my car at all, ever.
My personal experience with "far-leftists" as you would call them have been large peaceful protests.
Agreed, would be pretty interesting. But good to keep in mind that the existence of vandal jerks neither validates nor invalidates any of the ideas they espouse.
Since you more or less pasted your comment from the other thread, I'll TLDR my same reply:
The claims in this document are FAR from "widely-believed" or "scientifically established". By count, most of his claims are just asserted. But even most of the claims with a link are highly debatable.
This is NOT a particularly good advocacy document on the core scientific questions surrounding inequality. It may have some points in the cultural commentary bits, but stop presenting this as good work (on diversity). It's shoddy and amateur.
Motherboard has a link to a version with all sources, that's the one I evaluated.
I can't comment on how Google arrived at the decision or what their line is. Personally, I think these things should be debatable.
But the author didn't do a lot to help himself dull the predictable outcry. He hedged with some comments about his intentions, but a lot of the claims are pretty anachronistic. Given how controversial some of the claims (especially the biologically essentialist ones) were bound to be, I think he could've used a different tone and some better faith representation of the other side.
"I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it."
He didn't yell fire in a crowded movie theater. As the Supreme Court decided applies to the government, so should private industry use as their guideposts.
Google just took a public step forward in becoming an arbiter of morals. Which is frightening given how much of the de facto internet they control.
This is a ridiculous standard for an employer. He has at will employment, they can fire him and he can also leave if he dislikes their diversity programs. Regardless of his thesis, a private employer has no duty to support any/all speech from their employees to other employees during business hours and using their business resources (which all of this was). It is perfectly legitimate, 100% protected first amendment speech to tell your boss to go f-ck themselves at work, or to call a customer a piece of sh-t to their face, but don't expect your employer to support you for it.
Google encourages "free" speech between employees on the same topics as long as it tracks with their moral narrative.
This is the largest point for me and what distinguishes them from "Know and repeat the company value statement." If they take an organizational position in promoting certain values past a certain degree, then they absolutely have a social responsibility to make space for those who would discuss counter-values.
At will employment has historically been a smokescreen for companies to fire people for all sorts of abusive / illegal / poorly intentioned reasons. The fact that they can fire people for saying anything doesn't mean they should.
I love when people reference the fire in a theatre argument, because I learned from Christopher Hitchens that the reference is actually about prosecution of a group of Yiddish people protesting Wilson dragging us into WW1 (after getting elected on the promise not to), and Oliver Wendell Holmes used the bullshit example of yelling fire in a crowded theatre to support the conviction!
Also, Google has already shown it wants to be an arbiter of morals. For example, perhaps its lost in this topic, but on my conspiracy forums what people are upset about is Google apparently has been expanding censorship efforts and have hired certain groups to assist in deeming content innapropriate... Such "neutral" groups as the fucking ADL! So if you have a YouTube video calling Israels occupation of Palestine "apartheid" that's worthy of censorship. Don't even get me started about the Google execs shady relationship with the deep state and certain powerful politicians. Google turned evil a long time ago, and they are only getting worse.
Motherboard has a link to a version with all sources, that's the one I evaluated.
So it does, thank you. Yes, I agree that several of his claims could have used links to supporting evidence, in particular the bullet points under "These differences aren't just socially constructed". Not that the outcome would be any different.
Yes, that would have been a good source, in particular for Dr. Halpern's comment that she believed all psychological differences were due to societal influence but changed her mind based on the strength of the evidence.
But it's too late now. I don't know if there's any way he could have expressed his views without being crucified. But he definitely should have done a better job of reviewing it with the mindset of an ideological opponent determined to interpret everything in the worst possible light. (As another example, phrases like "PC authoritarians" and the bit about coal miner deaths are applause lights to the right, but aren't relevant to the core arguments and just serve to alienate the actual audience).
All four state that there is strong evidence for of biological differences based on sex, though they all seem to come at it from different disciplines and support different claims. That's not, however, the same as saying that all four of them side with the author on his specific scientific claims.
In fact, all four of them conclude explicitly in favor of diversity initiatives.
My point is that not one of them described it in terms such as "shoddy" or "amateur", such as you did. None of them refutes any of the empirical claims he made. This stands in stark contrast to your interpretation of the memo.
Well, I think that's what the author concluded too is it not? He has a problem with the underlying principles, the process, and the endstate...not the goal.
What else is the American mind unfairly closed to? Why is "women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers" the threshold issue? What else should we be more open-minded about? We're also very closed-minded about:
* Child labor
* The facially legitimate grievances of Al Qaeda
* Universal suffrage
* The illegality of marital rape
Does it just happen that this particular issue, the one pertaining to nerds working for six-figure salaries at software firms, is the last straw?
> What else is the American mind unfairly closed to?
Unfairly is precisely the point on which your question turns. If you have interesting points to raise in favor of Al Qaeda, you should absolutely be allowed to raise them, and you should not be fired for so doing. I don't think your arguments will have much merit, but if they're cogent, i'm happy to hear them.
The whole point of his manifesto, and the reason why your post misses it, is that he wasn't fired because of the truth or falsehood of what he said. His arguments weren't evaluated on their merits, and presumed to be the wanderings of a mind ill-suited to the tasks at Google's hands. Nobody even bothered to directly address the question of whether he was right, because they were too invested in how it made them feel. That is the problem.
We should be open-minded about everything. Including child labor, ending universal suffrage, and the virtues of Al Qaeda. We should be able to reject bad ideas on their merits, each and every time, because we understand what and why we believe. We should embrace disagreement, because it makes concrete our own worldview. The fact that the VP of Diversity of at Google simply dismissed the arguments of a widely circulated (and therefore, likely, widely agreed with) memo speaks volumes. And it may be that he's wrong. It may be that his arguments are completely empty of substance, maybe the studies he cites are pseudoscience. But if a decent number of Googler's agree with him, as appears to be the case, then his arguments should be addressed directly, on even ground, on their merits - not shamed into silence. If he's wrong, it should be easy to demonstrate it.
I think you should get used to the idea that reasonable people disagree strongly with the notion that they should be open-minded about any idea. There are plenty of things I am not open-minded about:
* The suitability of African people for chattel slavery
* The historical reality of the Holocaust
* The criminality of child sexual exploitation
Obviously, having spent more than 15 minutes on the Internet, I'm aware that there is some doofus connected to a keyboard somewhere who is prepared to open a lively and spirited dialog about all three of those issues. But, like a lot of other reasonable people, I'm not open to that dialog, and attempting to engage me in it will have consequences: I will never work with or in any way associate with a Holocaust denier or a child pornography advocate.
This can bother you as much as you choose to let it bother you, but the degree to which it bothers you won't have much impact on my thinking.
People love linking to Paul Graham's "What You Can't Say" essay in this context. I've never had a conversation of any sort with Paul Graham that led me to believe that he was a crazy Cheetoh-stained Holocaust denier, or an advocate for the rights of the Cheetoh-stained or Holocaust-history-averse. I think "What You Can't Say" is by far his worst essay. And I'm hopeful that tire-fire threads like these do a better job of illustrating why than anything I could write to explain my point further.
I hold the principle of open-mindedness higher because I personally don't see a downside to it. Closed-mindedness always struck me as a symptom of insecurity. Being insecure about something like the criminality of child sexual exploitation doesn't sound like something I ever want to espouse, so if you want to tell me why you think it's a good idea, I'll listen (the likely outcome being the conclusion that you're a whacko, and moving on).
Being open-minded doesn't mean I'll sit still while someone endlessly or facetiously justifies an objectionable notion. If I've heard it before, or it's insincere, I'll dismiss it outright, as I imagine you would.
But on principle, I'll listen to an earnest attempt to demonstrate the merit of anything, even something I'd otherwise categorically reject. You might not influence my position in the slightest, but being open-minded doesn't mean easily persuaded, either. It just means being willing to incorporate new information or ideas in your decision-making process.
People love linking to Paul Graham's "What You Can't Say" essay in this context. [...] I think "What You Can't Say" is by far his worst essay. And I'm hopeful that tire-fire threads like these do a better job of illustrating why than anything I could write to explain my point further.
Why do you feel it's his worst essay? People generally regard it as one of his best. Jessica said it's her favorite, for example.
It's difficult to infer from this thread why it's his worst. Rather than guess, I thought I'd ask.
Well, I have basically nothing but respect for Jessica Livingston, but if that's what she believes, she's wrong about that. She had to be wrong about something eventually!
I'm pretty sure this isn't what Graham meant to write, but the only thing I ever see people take away from that essay is "the worst ideas are unfairly maligned". Judge the essay for its actual impact on the marketplace ideas. What's the good that's come of it?
> Darwin himself was careful to tiptoe around the implications of
his theory. He wanted to spend his time thinking about biology,
not arguing with people who accused him of being an atheist.
That's quite a bit different from calling it her favorite. Anyway, I was only curious.
> But, like a lot of other reasonable people, I'm not open to that dialog
One of the reasons why even gruesome speech is considered protected is so that people with such opinion can speak out and let everyone know who they are. If someone speaks in favorable terms about sexually abusing children, you will think twice about sending your children to that person's home. However, if such speech is prohibited, you will never know this person's intention and that would put the children living near that person at risk
You personally do not have to debate them, but their speech should still be protected
Speech is "protected" from intervention by the state. It's not protected from commercial and social consequences, nor could it reasonably be, because we also have the freedom to choose who we associate with.
If "consequences" implies loud and effective speech that demolishes the speech it is responding to, or even an individual choice not to associate with the utterer, I agree. If it implies crap like doxing, boycotts, and professional sabotage, then I think something essential gets lost in our defense of free speech. Free speech isn't just an amendment, it's a basic principle that makes everyone safer.
Boycotts are speech. Refusing to associate with people is speech. Holding people accountable for what they say is speech
Are you in favor of censoring such speech?
I ask because the only way to get rid of the "consequences" you deride is to introduce large-scale censorship designed to privilege the person who speaks first. Which then turns any debate into nothing more than a race to be first to say something, after which one can censor one's critics under the guise of preventing boycotts, etc.
There's a difference between censorship, and arguing that something is ethically wrong and that we shouldn't do it. Censorship is being in favor of some sort of governmental, lawful, or otherwise forceful action preventing these practices, and I am not in favor of that.
I am generally in favor of "refusing to associate" since that implies personal choice.
"Holding people accountable" is semantically meaningless since it can be applied to both appropriate and wildly inappropriate actions.
There are also different kinds of boycotts - like, there's a difference between boycotting a book, and boycotting the publishing company of a book. These are more on a spectrum and should be debated on a case-by-case basis. But these days, many social-media-driven boycotts are on the chilling-free-speech side, which is why I spoke generally about them above, even though there are exceptions.
There's still no way out here for you. The only way to shut down your social "chilling effect" is to impose an equally-powerful social "chilling effect" on everyone except the first person to speak.
That's untrue because there is always a remedy for speech, and that's more speech. Actual speech, in contrast to a boycott, or doxxing, or professional sabotage. "Make your argument", don't seek to prevent them from making theirs.
There's a difference between speech, and seeking to punish someone for their speech. Failure to recognize that spirals us to an ever-more authoritarian atmosphere until you find yourself the one being punished.
Boycotts are "more speech". Campaigns to refuse to associate with a person or company are "more speech".
The comment I initially replied to categorized "speech that demolishes the speech it is responding to". That's still speech. Trying to declare it off-limits, legally or socially, is still an attack on speech.
Similarly, your "punish someone for their speech" is... well, you're condemning people who responded to speech with more speech. Because you didn't like the speech they responded with. There is no way to be a free-speech absolutist and be against boycotts, blacklists, and all the other "authoritarian" stuff you're complaining about, because those things are just as much speech as what they're responding to.
The difference I'm trying to point out to you is that a free-speech absolutist gets trapped in self-contradiction. If they really are an absolutist about speech, then it doesn't matter if they choose to categorize some speech as designed to discourage or suppress other speech. They're still committed to defend it, and any action to stop or even just advocate against it would fall afoul of their own absolutist principle.
I do not start from a position of absolutism on speech, or tolerance, or a good many other things, and so I happily get to think through the nuances and have a much better chance of avoiding self-contradiction.
This is where Google dude's free-speech defenders get in trouble; many of them want to be, or want to be seen as, free-speech absolutists (if for no other reason than to say they don't agree with Google dude but feel obligated to defend his right to say what he wants). But they also want to condemn people who spoke out against him, called for him to face consequences, called for boycotts and refusals to associate, etc., and cannot do so without being self-contradictory since they themselves need to engage in "speech to discourage free speech" in order to do that.
> I think you should get used to the idea that reasonable people disagree strongly with the notion that they should be open-minded about any idea. There are plenty of things I am not open-minded about:
The examples you cite are obviously extreme, and so you obviously put me in a bit of an unfair position in having to defend them, so I will start out by unequivocally stating that I do not hold this belief, nor do I advocate it or believe it in any way.
With that out of the way, saying you would never countenance holocaust denial is in many ways equivalent to the Catholic church saying it would never countenance a heliocentric universe. The science up to that point was on their side. The 'known' facts and their religious scholarship were on their side. But they were wrong. Similarly, you know the holocaust happened because you've read it happened. You weren't there. You likely don't know anyone who was there, or if you do, their memories are quite old, and modern science knows quite a bit about how fickle memory can be. It is possible the the holocaust did not happen. Unlikely in the extreme, but possible.
Now, am I going to waste my time listening to a holocaust deniers argument? No, probably not. I put an extremely low prior on the holocaust being ahistorical. So low that it's unworthy of even the most passing consideration. However, that prior is not zero, and it should never be zero. If I started hearing enough people that I respect saying, "hey, you should really listen to this holocaust denier's argument, it's kind of interesting", I might start to pay attention.
My point in defending a non-zero prior for all beliefs is simply to illustrate that you have some prior belief about what this Google engineer has said. You either have or have not read what he actually wrote. I think it likely you haven't. Because what he actually says is fairly reasonable. Certainly not in the 'holocaust denial' realm of truth-probability.
If you have the time and inclination to post here about it, then you have the time and inclination to reject his arguments directly, rather than simply dismissing them out of hand. What is the point of that sort of dismissal? It convinces no one. It changes no opinions. It adds nothing to the universe. This guy made a rational, intelligent argument in support of his case. He cited studies, he explicitly embraced the ideals of diversity, but simply disagreed with a few of the methods. If you disagree, that's fine. But have the courage to do so substantively. Maybe you'll change some people's minds, and actually further the cause you seem to be arguing for.
So what are the criteria for ideas which cannot even be discussed? Equating "gender differences are real and should inform our approach to diversity" to holocaust denial seems absurd.
His claim: across various traits, men and women have distributions that differ in mean but still largely overlap. This is a possible non-bias cause of the gender gap in tech. Specifically to ward off the concern you're about to raise, he adds a tedious note and graphic: http://diversitymemo.com/#possible-causes-gender-gap
You read all of this, and promptly summarize: "women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers."
He argues that Google should end diversity programs. The document doesn't just poorly summarize social psych and sociology research, but uses it to justify a proposed change in company practice and culture that would perpetuate the status quo.
In addition, he showed an incredible lack of judgement in publishing the document. Anybody could tell you that a lot of people would be hurt by this document, regardless of its scientific merit. As such, it makes sense to approach this sort of thing very carefully, as it is possible to be a total asshole and ruin team cohesion while still being "right". Regardless of the validity of these arguments, it should be immediately clear that the document would produce no substantive change from a policy perspective and cause other employees, rightly or wrongly, to feel attacked.
He argues that Google should end diversity programs.
Not really, he suggests replacing them with other diversity programs that he claims (whether correctly or incorrectly) would work better.
In addition, he showed an incredible lack of judgement in publishing the document.
Yes. He forgot his place and and committed heresy against the party line. That's always a dumb thing to attach your real name to.
Regardless of the validity of these arguments, it should be immediately clear that the document would produce no substantive change from a policy perspective and cause other employees, rightly or wrongly, to feel attacked.
That's an interesting argument, that people's feelings should have precedence over seeking truth.
it makes sense to approach this sort of thing very carefully, as it is possible to be a total asshole and ruin team cohesion while still being "right"
It reads like he did try to be careful to the best of his ability; it's just that in such a hostile environment, not even professionals have sufficient ability.
> Anybody could tell you that a lot of people would be hurt by this document, regardless of its scientific merit.
This is a ridiculous statement. Scientific merit should be the only consideration when you are saying something you believe is important. If you're engaged in small-talk, go ahead and throw scientific accuracy out the window, but not in anything substantial.
This right here is actually the source of the problem. The current societal environment tells you "here are topics that you have to discuss with utmost sensitivity, even if you are completely confident you are right, and have all the evidence."
Your (and presumably, the google employee that got fired) response?
If you are a scientist, and publishing in a peer review journal, I think you are close to correct. If you are a dilettante coming to de novo conclusions about controversial topics, you probably aren't qualified to declare something as science.
There is a very long list of odious things you can claim "science" justifies; in fact, it's kind of hard to think of something you can't six-degrees-of-science your way to defending. This isn't the rhetorical kill-shot you think it is.
> There is a very long list of odious things you can claim "science" justifies;
Does the length of such a list invalidate the items in the list? I don't see your point.
> in fact, it's kind of hard to think of something you can't six-degrees-of-science your way to defending.
Just because something is not directly implied by something else, doesn't mean there is no correlation. If you are working on a mathematical proof, would you give up if you cannot reach the end in 6 (or any arbitrary small number) of steps? Would you declare the assertion wrong? If yes, you're just a bad scientist.
Again, my argument here is simple: it is hard to think of a horrible thing you could say that you couldn't justify using the logic you presented upthread, which makes your argument seem pretty unpersuasive.
> Regardless of the validity of these arguments, it should be immediately clear that the document would produce no substantive change from a policy perspective
What? Sure it is. You say he said "Women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers" when he didn't.
My point has in fact very little to do with how you choose to frame the point at issue; rather, it takes issue with the supposed principal underlying it, which is that there should be no "things you cannot say".
Clearly there are plenty of things we all (to a first approximation) agree that you cannot in earnest say at your workplace.
It depends. On the one hand you don't want to sow discord at the workplace, on the other hand you don't want to dismiss critical ideas because the majority don't agree with something.
There are other ways to combat illogical ideas.
As an atheist I would not fire people for being believers (even if it were lawful to fire on that basis) --just because "I know better". If one of them tried proselytizing, by law I can't do anything about it, but even if I could, there would be better ways to combat irrational appeals and sowing of fear.
That said, what if the engineer has "only" presented the ideas as a private person at a "men's club"? If that's not okay, then this infringes upon people's speech outside of work as a citizen --that's chilling. There are Walmarts out there.
I believe in making tech an attractive career path for women --as a society we underutilize them and don't extract the value we could --as the soviets did from their women. But at the same time, I am sensitive to kerbing speech.
This doofus didn't write a memo about keeping people of faith out of Google, and he didn't write it at some secret "men's club".
Instead, he had the poor judgement to publish in a workplace forum an argument that the women at Google tended to be there due to reduced standards for hiring women, because biologically women tended to be less suitable for the kind of work they were being hired to do.
Timothy Lister had a term for this kind of thing in _Peopleware_: he called it "teamicidal". If you do something teamicidal at your dev job, you should expect repercussions. You are paid to contribute to a team, not to fuck it up in an effort to remake it in your image.
(I think Google took the easy way out here, by the way, and that there were more productive ways they could have responded to this, rather than let it fester for days until they were cornered into a dramatic response. But: I don't work at Google, and my epistemological certainty about this is somewhat low.)
Frankly ascribing differences in career path and aptitude to biologics is unfounded. I'm unaware of any rigorous study which would indicate such (and we have the Soviets and Chinese who can speak to the contrary of his assertion).
That said, I don't agree with sacking someone because they said something unproven and because it can make people feel bad. I know some Googlers, men and women, and they tell me stories about people getting fired over small indiscretions (a bar, for example) and about people getting called in an office for saying off-handedly "lady" or girl. While not getting the same reprimand for saying guy or boy.
On the other hand belittling "middle America" is kind of a pastime with many a Googler. (When you point out that South Florida is heavily Hispanic and that those Hispanics vote republican, they find it hard to believe, for example.)
Aren't those effectively the same claim? If we take his non-bias cause to be true, that directly means that women have biological disadvantages to becoming programmers. He is in fact saying that's why the gap exists.
No. He says that genetically-influenced behavioral traits which are observable in aggregate across genders may lead women/men to respond differently to different work environments. Then he suggests a few ways Google can promote diversity without discriminating against anyone.
His facts aren't even controversial to anyone who knows the science at this point. Google has basically shown themselves as anti-science and evil.
I don't understand why people think that reframing things as disputes about "genetically-influenced behavioral traits which are observable in aggregate across genders" is such a powerful argument. We all know what that means. We get it: he's not biased against any one individual woman, just against the statistical distribution women come from. Replacing the word "misogyny" with 10 Latinate jargon words isn't an argument; it's just bad writing.
Most people don't consider the mere statistical description of aggregate group behavior "misogynous". Nor should they. You use powerful emotional rhetoric when you embrace this rhetoric, but the one condemning the women/men involved for their different aggregate preferences seems to be you.
More philosophically, there are compelling reasons to favor "equality of opportunity" and "freedom of choice" over any "equality of outcome" that can only be achieved through coercion and discrimination. At the very least, if someone doesn't want to do something of their own accord, it is hardly doing them a favor to coerce them into changing. And from where comes our moral standing to judge the preferences of other people anyway?
Do you mean black people or women? Or is this an attack on educated people regardless of their gender or racial orientation or identification?
The Mismeasure of Man is a 1981 book by Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The Big-Five model which underpins most of the relevant research in psychology) dates to the mid-1990s. If you want to attack it for being unscientific, you will have to learn about it. Good luck.
It's more that it's very valuable to know the history of how people have tried to claim "science" justified their prejudices. And by "you people" I mean Googlebro and his adoring fans. None of whom apparently thought very hard about the math of the stuff they were claiming, and so missed that the sciencefacts they keep appealing to would predict a far smaller effect size than what we actually observe. But they're going to keep appealing to the sciencefacts anyway and feel that this provides a complete and unchallengable explanation for gender ratio in tech, because confirmation bias is strong.
No? He's addressing, in part, preferences, that are distributed differently.
If some women, on average, want to do things differently than men, on average, that will result in some apparent gap in the averages -- not because of advantage, disadvantage or bias, but because you're looking at a difference in average preference.
He's saying that's why the gap exists, but he's saying it on an aggregate level, not an individual one. He's not saying all women are disadvantaged, he's saying the proportion of women who are unqualified is greater than the proportion of men who are.
Except, to establish that it is somehow a biological difference, he would have to rule out cultural bias. Otherwise he's falling back on pseudoscience to justify his position. And, the facts have repeatedly shown that cultural bias is keeping women and minorities out of tech.
As an example, I could present a graph showing that most Italians are Catholic and argue that it shows a genetic predisposition. But, such an argument would clearly be absurd.
Generally we talk about issues that are relevant. None of those issues are relevant to anything that's going on in the tech industry, the question of what to do about diversity is.
2. The belief that women should be allowed the vote
3. The belief that homosexuality isn't a mental illness
4. Any expression of support for democratic socialism
And we could go on and on. Does anyone doubt, for example, that people weren't once fired for supporting socialist ideologies? Or for being gay?
Your response could have been posted without modification of intent in response to the firing of a gay person in 1952.
The existence of other off-limits topics tells us precisely nothing about this particular topic. Neither does the mere fact that a topic is currently off limits tell us anything about its Goodness or Rightness.
> "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group." Wow, what a monster.
The problem is that Google already does do this, for the most part. So what does it mean to say that Google ought to treat people as individuals, if that is already the current state of affairs? The argument, as coded in the document, was that Google ought to cease making any efforts to correct disparities in representation.
As a moral or rational argument, this falls flat on its face. Suppose that there was science to show that cognitive differences between men and women or different races is 100% inborn (there isn't, not even close). Even then, there's still the problem of whether the magnitude of those differences justifies the magnitude of differences in representation. There is not nearly enough data to make a case here, and by presenting the case as made, the author of the doc was doing more than just observing the state of the science. He was making an unsubstantiated claim that his coworkers, or at a minimum the sex and/or races they belong to, are inherently deficient at performing the work.
He did not make that claim that
> "He was making an unsubstantiated claim that his coworkers, or at a minimum the sex and/or races they belong to, are inherently deficient at performing the work"
He only claimed that the difference between groups could come from something else than society. To deny that is a much harder argument which could only be proved to exceptional evidence. Basically he's saying 'some' and you say 'never'.
AFAIK the IQ difference between genders is negligible, but the spread of the IQ is much greater in the male group. This also means that there are more men who are above 130 IQ then women which is kind of necessary to be a programmer. This does not mean that a female can't be a genius! If you want to disprove this you can do two things:
1., Prove that the average female IQ is way higher than mens.
2., Prove that there are as much women who are intellectually retarded ( sorry, English is not my first language, I don't know a better word ) than woman.
Some quick research on this suggests that the average college graduate in engineering (which is programmer material, at least programmer material for companies like Google) is around 130. Sources like [0].
Therefore it is not unreasonable to deduce that people who work as programmers in prestige companies are, on the average, from the very right-hand tail ends of the normal distribution curve, and the differences of men and women (on the average, again) are significant enough to cause an over-representation of men among this group.
The same thing that causes an over-representation of men among homeless alcoholics at the left-hand-side end of the normal distribution.
I'm gonna call bullshit on this, a 130 IQ average for engineering majors is silly, and seems more like what engineering majors think of themselves than reality.
I don't know what is the IQ of an average programmer, for my claim it's enough to state that it is over the average of the population. 130 was just a number, it doesn't really matter anyway ( for my claim ).
It absolutely does. If the claim is that men are more striated, it makes a big difference whether the bar is 105 or 145. In fact, it is core to the argument. If it's 105, then the difference won't be statistically significant. If it's 145, you'd practically expect only men.
I was only talking about a possible statistical difference, which might be that significant. A quick search lead to a paper[1] which says the average is ~110, which is not insignificant.
In my perception the 'left' side states that there is no other factor than bias against women ( or I haven't seen any other argument ). The original document here stated that sexism exist but there might be other factors too, and apparently that was a problem.
[1] http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf
These traits are measured with self-report surveys. I.e. personality quizzes. Not to malign the field of psychology, but this isn't the gold standard of science, IMHO.
Having read Mr. Damore's document, I can find very little in it of substance. It deals with politics and gender in only the very broadest of terms. It does not delve deeply into the scientific issues at hand, instead sprinkling his platitudes with wikipedia links to give them weight.
That being said, I completely agree that the US's nasty brand of liberalism is in a sad state. Our response to this manifesto should have been a cold critique of its many flaws, not the blind hysteria we've apparently opted for instead.
Big Five is standard in psychology. It should not be confused with personality quizzes on the internet. Big Five scores are reproducible (two tests at different time give similar score) and predictive (correlate with outcomes of interest). Its place in psychological metrics is second only to IQ.
I don't dispute that it is measurable or reproducible, just that it is meaningful. The problem with self-report is that you can only ever measure perception.
Let's say I want to measure ability in chess. I give everyone a self report survey: how good are you at chess, 1 to 10? Group A averages a 6, Group B averages a 5. Reproduced across time and regions. Is group a better at chess? We have no idea. All we know is that they report a high average than group b.
Switch to big five: "I feel comfortable around people." Rate the accuracy. Even if group a rates more accurate than group b, what do we really known from this? Comfortable is a relative term. Do group a and b have different perceptions or different experiences?
If your self-report chess score correlates with chess winrate, you'd admit it's meaningful.
It's same for Big Five. Self-reported neuroticism correlates with, say, diagnosis of depression. It's not just perception because it correlates with outcomes of interest.
Well yea, if perception of chess skill corresponds with actual chess skill then it means people are capable of self evaluating chess skill.
But that's not your example. If your example was self reported depression correlates with clinically diagnosed depression, we now know that people can self-perceive depression the same as clinicians diagnose it.
Your example is self-reported neuroticism corresponds with depression. So what? How are we any closer to knowing if we measured neuroticism? Is there a pre-existing link between neuroticism and depression? How did they measure neuroticism to establish that link?
It's funny how one day Hacker News has a scathing discussion on The Crisis of Reproducibility in Psychology, and the next, it's commenters will fight to the death to defend it.
Contrary to what you believe, there is no contradiction here. Implicit association test and stereotype threat (to name two large offenders) had reproducibility crisis. IQ and Big Five findings replicated a lot and basically have no reproducibility problem.
The author accused Google of discriminatory hiring practices and "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates" (under the subhead, "The harm of Google biases"). Just because he couched his claims in a boring, vague manifesto doesn't mean he didn't imply something that impugns the qualifications of his coworkers.
Does Google's hiring practices "effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates"? That's a key issue. If so, the details of Google's hiring practices themselves impugn the qualifications of preferred candidate groups.
There is no evidence that Google "lowers the bar," and this is a common misconception about diversity-focused hiring practices. The idea isn't to lower the bar to hire more candidates for the mere sake of their ethic or gender diversity. The idea is to ensure that the hiring manager at least looks at some qualified, diverse candidates in his or her process.
The "lowering the bar" argument assumes there are not enough women or people of color in the population at large who are qualified for any given job. Google's approach probably assumes there are, and puts a burden on the hiring manager and recruiter to find and consider those candidates.
I don't work at Google and am wholly unfamiliar with their internal hiring practices. But in order to prove the author's specific "lowering the bar" claim, we'd need to see data not just on hiring numbers, but on success of the hired cohorts over time. (I'm willing to guess that Google does not try to hire unqualified candidates, period.)
"Lowering the bar" is a dangerous claim that offends the dignity and qualifications of every diverse employee at the company or ever hired by the company. A claim that bold would demand extraordinary evidence, which the author does not convincingly supply, and which I am taking a wild guess does not exist.
> The "lowering the bar" argument assumes there are not enough women or people of color in the population at large who are qualified for any given job.
No, the argument is that there are not enough women or people of color in the population at large who are qualified for any given job _in the quantities desired by Google and every other tech company_.
They are trying to create a workforce with roughly proportional amounts of women, men, blacks, etc. when men are awarded ~80% of CS degrees and blacks are awarded, what, 2% or so? You can't move the needle in employee demographics when that's the pool you're working with unless you fudge your system a bit. Hell, given how universities already do this[1], why wouldn't Google?
> Lee's next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant's race is worth. She points to the first column.
African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.
She points to the second column.
“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”
The last column draws gasps.
Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.
If universities can't increase minority enrollment without lowering the bar, what makes you think Google can? I would argue that university affirmative action is the inspiration for how Google and other tech companies are juicing their numbers.
Your argument is legitimate. We don't know the exact mechanisms by which Google enacts their affirmative action hiring policy. We don't know if it's through quotas or scores or anything else. An affirmative action hiring policy, though, is built to hire more of a minority in some way or another. When the pool of workers of that minority is quite low(like in tech), I don't see how an organization can have such a diverse workforce without at some point choosing a weaker candidate that happens to be diverse.
If this isn't the case and Google does actually hire people based on their skill and not skin color or gender, then Google needs to emphasize that, or else the majority of people will look upon women and such as "diversity hires" and build a disdain for them, thus hurting the cause.
This assumes that talent and hiring is considered as a thresholded binary model, where you are either "good enough" or "not good enough" to work for the company, and the difference between two people who are "good enough" isn't important.
Of course, because of cultural and historical prejudices and biases, the pool of candidates that even apply to google is biased towards white males. Everything possible should be done to attract applications or seek out potential candidates from minority populations. But without suggesting any biological differences, it is still likely that because of cultural and historical prejudice, the distribution of talent among candidates will be skewed toward white males. Again, not because of any biological difference, but because they are more likely to have been encouraged or gone to rich universities or had parents who were engineers.
If we have a pool of 100 people and we want to hire the best five, then the bar is set by ranking the people by talent and qualification. If we want to hire everyone who is qualified, then wherever we set the bar, it is still likely that the population above the bar is skewed. So if we want to achieve a rebalancing or quota of employees from a certain sub-population, then it certainly does involve lowering the bar. We can argue over whether that is a good thing to want, or a fair thing, but I don't think you can logically argue that the bar isn't being lowered if you want to achieve a quota for a certain subpopulation. If you are suggesting that the population above the bar is not skewed, then you are suggesting that the terrible cultural stereotypes, biases and prejudices against women and minorities in technical fields has had no effect on their ability to achieve talent and qualification above the level of the bar, which I find implausible.
Yeah that's generally how it works at most of the majors. People at Google are evaluated by an independent panel and the decision to hire or not is independent of other candidates. So you really do get this kind of "good enough" or "not good enough" binary.
I believe the idea behind diversity initiatives is to ensure that the starting pool of 100 people is representative of larger demographics. Women make up ~50% of Carnegie Mellon's undergraduate computer science department (for instance). It's not like there's a dearth of qualified women.
That maybe the theory, but it often isn't how it works in practice. Unfortunately people who claims this publicly get fired. I don't know the numbers, but it would be interesting to see if the acceptance rate of a google job interview depends on gender or race.
I have a feeling that if race truly played a preferential role in hiring engineers, we would see more than 1% of tech roles being filled by Black engineers at Google. ;)
Without knowing the distribution of the applicants, we can't say. Maybe 0.1% of all applicants are black, we don't know. In the same way, just saying 1% of tech roles are filled by black engineers doesn't imply that google's hiring practices are discriminatory.
I don't think Google ever lowers the bar for general hires, but they do have internships that are specifically targeted toward "underrepresented" people that are significantly easier to get into than regular internships. It's much easier to receive a return offer than a regular offer, so Google is effectively lowering the bar with that internship program
Apparently Google doesn't think that it has lowered the bar for women and minority candidates. So the memo's author has effectively raised a "Have you stopped beating your mother?" begging-type question. Should people get fired for poor rhetorical reasoning? Probably not, but this one happened to imply the inferiority of certain groups of employees.
That's not how probably works. GP is only implying it's potentially true, presumably because they aren't sure they've fully considered every angle of the question and there may be weird edge cases.
Let's not Purity Test people for showing some humbleness in their beliefs. We could probably use more of that these days.
Or it's an implicit admission that the qualifications they look at are bused and they don't know how to fix that.
There's an underlying assumption in these discussions that implementing a meritocracy is easy and examining every candidate without regard to their race and sex is the default state of affairs. In this view, any changes you make to the process is necessarily de-optimizing for merit.
But what is "merit"? This isn't a field where you can quantify it. If you were hiring people to lift heavy objects or something, you could test them all and hire the ones with the best numbers and be confident you got the best people for the job. There's no way to implement something like that for the jobs Google has.
So we approximate. We look at degrees and open source projects and do in-person interviews. We pretend that this results in a purely objective evaluation of the candidate's ability to do the job, free of any bias... not because there's any reason to think that's true, but because we really want it to be.
Techies often bemoan whiteboard interviews for being unfair: the skill being tested isn't really the skill you'd use on the job, and it discriminates against people who get nervous when put on the spot, or whatever. It's not outrageous to think that maybe some parts of the interview process, without ever intending to, discriminate against women and minorities in a similar way.
That's an argument for digging into the inner workings of the hiring process more than an argument for looking at aggregate effect. If you're just looking at aggregate group statistics about candidate pools and hiring decisions, how would you ever know the difference between your hiring screen preferring a group and the candidate pool genuinely having more strong candidates in that group?
It seems more than a little quixotic if fixing every known flaw in the hiring process isn't enough - that the process must get a certain hiring outcome in order to be "fair".
And if they do dig into the inner workings of the hiring process and the results are still not representative of the general population? Do you just assume you've somehow managed to eliminate all bias and the results must reflect the population? Or do you assume that you haven't managed to 100% debug this highly difficult process?
It is very difficult to tell the difference between biased hiring and actual skew in the population. But when it's a trait that has no obvious connection to the job, it seems best to assume the process is biased, unless really good evidence exists to demonstrate a connection.
For example, let's say your interview process produces hires whose heights are substantially above average. If you're hiring for a basketball team then this would make perfect sense. If you're hiring Java programmers, it's highly likely that your interview process is screwed up. It's possible that the population of good Java programmers is unusually tall because of some biological factor, but this idea needs some major justification before you use it to make decisions.
Obviously, the first thing to do is to examine your interview process and eliminate any source of height bias you can find. But what if you do that and you're still hiring an abnormally large number of tall people? You could take this as sufficient evidence that tall people are better at this, but that's putting an awful lot of confidence in your interview program. It's more likely that you just haven't found all the sources of tall bias. If that's the case, then pushing for more short hires will improve the overall quality of your hires because you won't be artificially excluding good short ones.
>It's possible that the population of good Java programmers is unusually tall because of some biological factor, but this idea needs some major justification before you use it to make decisions.
But "we're somehow secretly and unknowingly discriminating in our hiring process" doesn't need such justification before using it to make decisions?
Correct, because bias is prevalent and almost impossible to avoid.
For example: does any part of your interview involve a subjective evaluation? If so, do any of the evaluators know the candidates' names? If so, congratulations, your process is probably biased! http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/...
That's literally all it takes: some human judgment and some way to guess at the applicant's race. The discrimination can happen subconsciously. You and I would probably fall victim to it despite our best intentions.
Nobody knows how to screen job applicants for pure merit without bias. If it's a choice between "our process is imperfect just like everybody else's" and "we stumbled upon the perfect unbiased screening process and all bias in the output is due to inherent variation in the population," bet on the first one every time. It's about a million times more likely.
> Does Google's hiring practices "effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates"?
He uses the phrase "effectively lower the bar" to mean something very different from what almost all of us think of as lowering the bar. The full quote is that one of Google's "discriminatory practices" is "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate."
That is, the bar isn't lowered, they're just trying to fail to hire qualified candidates (from certain groups) less than they currently do.
Unless we have a reason to believe that false negatives are strongly correlated with the axis on which "the bar" is placed (and I don't think we do; false negatives are generally going to come from asking an out-of-left-field question, or the interviewee having a bad day, or something, which are pretty random), this doesn't lower the bar, "effectively" or otherwise.
Google has a conceptual "bar", and sure, in theory there's a way to map every candidate onto that bar. Passing the bar isn't a lottery (it's just a deterministic mapping), but actually getting an offer is. Having gone through the interview process and received an offer recently, I'd certainly say it is.
I don't know that I'd agree with the second part; one thing you can reasonably conclude is correlated with false negatives is diversity (there are studies that people form hire/no-hire opinions within seconds of meeting a candidate, and studies that people have immediate biases when meeting people based on race/gender; there's also the simple fact that's put to good use in small companies that hiring people like yourselves, although mostly in ideological bias etc., is a good means for team cohesion). I assume Google has done more research on this than I have. Handing out "more tickets" may just be a way to cancel out the fact that so-called diversity candidates are getting worse tickets.
However, even if they were simply giving out more tickets to diversity candidates, the average level of qualification of these candidates doesn't change. You just have more of them. Maybe that's a problem because you're discriminating in their favor, but it certainly does not "effectively lower the bar" or impugn the qualifications of this over-represented group. They're all qualified. They're all on the right side of the "bar". There's no alleged increase in the false positive rate.
The fact that he chose to interpret this as "effectively lower[ing] the bar" is not just insulting to his colleagues and unprofessional, but also a sign that he doesn't understand math enough to pass a well-tuned Google interview and got one of the rare false-positive lottery tickets.
>Unless we have a reason to believe that false negatives are strongly correlated with the axis on which "the bar" is placed (and I don't think we do; false negatives are generally going to come from asking an out-of-left-field question, or the interviewee having a bad day, or something, which are pretty random), this doesn't lower the bar, "effectively" or otherwise.
I don't think that works. If the process is optimised for accuracy, then decreasing the false negative rate should increase the the false positive rate, right? Intuitively that's how it would work for most classification tasks. If you can decrease the false negative rate without increasing the false positive rate then you're improving accuracy. The bar must be correlated with the false negative rate.
Also, I'd mention that, even if, say, you have a noisy (presumably cheap) test that you give to everyone, and then you give an absolutely perfect (presumably expensive) test to minorities that fail the first test... It's probably the case that, of the people who failed the first test due to noise but would pass the second test, most of them are just barely above the "passing" bar. Because it seems reasonable to guess that people way above the bar have a smaller chance of failing the noisy test than people just barely above the bar. The policy would then lower the average ability level for hired minorities (though it wouldn't bring it below the "bar").
How large this effect is depends on just how noisy the first test is and on how widely above the bar people's abilities range.
I don't know where everyone is reading their versions of the letter, but I don't think you could read the Gizmodo reprint and misrepresent the argument:
This is where I read up on it, and the letter was written very reasonably, IMO. That article also includes a response from google's brand new VP of Diversity, Integrity & Governance.
I know this is a sensitive topic, but Google's reaction is really just business. Women represent a huge and quickly growing sector of the economy. Public corporations would never take a big risk of their bottom line to support an individual's rights (ignoring whether those claims of rights are even valid or not). And, it's kind of silly to blame 'liberals' - because it transcends politics. Businesses are about making money.
(By the way, I think it is reasonable for some individual rights to be protected within the walls of a corporation, but as far as I understand it, many US citizen's rights, like free speech, do not cross over into private domains. I wish it was different.)
Absolutely. Google's reaction may have been rational. The situation in the US is that a few groups have been empowered to use their outrage to get whatever they want. Google is a business about making money, which may be hindered by not bending to the demands of those outraged group.
There's some assymetry at work here: everybody will remember that Google fired "that engineer" who wrote the memo, but a month or two from now, nobody will remember his name. He still has a possible future career.
> but a month or two from now, nobody will remember his name. He still has a possible future career.
Oh you must be joking. He'll never, ever work in the valley again.
If he spends the next couple months on a non-stop apology tour and participate in however many struggle sessions the various women's groups deem necessary, perhaps one day he'll be left alone and Twitter campaigns won't be started up every time he finds stable employment.
Doubt it. Google is big enough to be picky and make a cut like this. There are plenty of places that would pick up a Google tier engineer regardless of backlash. The company doesn't even need to be desperate.
Michael Vick got picked up by an NFL team after dog fighting. It will be similar to that only this guy won't be a celeb.
I guess I'm thinking "regular people won't remember his name," but "regular people" and "hiring managers at large tech companies" are different groups.
I don't remember why, but I recently read some old blog posts about Joe the plumber (2008 election), so I've been thinking about how the public has a very short memory.
Believe or not, he is going to be a figure, the anti-PC figure that certain group always wish to see, and shall be welcomed by them as a hero. Maybe not big companies, but his future might not be that difficult after all.
Wow you mean you just have to be a billionaire and start your own company to find work after committing the sin of being a conservative? Not really a great counter-example.
The market for developers is very very good, right now. Especially ex-googlers.
Maybe the big 5 tech companies won't hire him, because of the PR disaster that it would be, but any number of startups and small companies would be willing to do so.
Many companies wouldn't even bother to Google his name (personally, I've never seen anyone do that. I just get handed a resume). And even if they did, others would just keep it on the hush hush. Many small startups would be ecstatic to get a Google engineer for cheap.
Other engineers that have been on the receiving end of major scandals, have had no real long term consequences. EX: the donglegate guy was quickly employed elsewhere after he got fired.
Judging by many of the comments in this thread, there seems to be a lot of tech people HERE who are defending him, and would be willing to hire him if they were a hiring manager.
What will happen is he'll find acceptance in a different crowd and the authoritarian left has created a visceral enemy instead of trying to change his mind through gentle means.
Previously, "the truth" was right leaning; it is now left leaning. Unfortunately, many people find (and have always found) that all it takes to dismiss an opposing moral position is to point out that their opponent's position is untruthful, and the discussion (or lack thereof) ends there.
A sibling poster has linked us to PG's essay on "What you can't say", which states my concerns more eloquently and thoroughly.
His argument seems to boil down to "men and women are different, maybe that's why there are fewer women in tech".
That's not an argument, it's speculation that there's an argument. The bulk of the manifesto is a repetition of tropes about men vs women.
Exactly. It's indisputable that there are biological differences between men and women. How those differences are relevant to the disparities in the gender ratio in tech is pure speculation on the author's part. To quote the doc:
"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing)"
That is accompanied with citations. OK, sure, let's take that at face value.
Next, he says:
"These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics"
No citations, no nothing, just: X may lead to Y because it feels like it's true to me! And there are people actually taking the arguments presenting in this document seriously? Can we please take a step back and try to read critically what is presented in this doc? Because these arguments are just embarrassingly weak.
A meta-analysis of scientific studies concluded that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people. When interests were classified by RIASEC type Holland Codes (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional), Men showed stronger Realistic and Investigative interests, and women showed stronger Artistic, Social, and Conventional interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering, science, and mathematics interests.[77]
Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things-People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = -0.35), Social (d = -0.68), and Conventional (d = -0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests.
Not exactly the same point he made above but you can at least see how he is coming up with "women prefer jobs in social or artistic areas", "men prefer [coding]". I wish for his sake that he hadn't gotten into the differences between front end / back end code because it does sound particularly speculative and presumptuous - but if you can take a step back and take a broader look at his arguments there does seem to be some scientific evidence in support of his main thesis that "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".
Note: I just wanted to point out that I am appreciative that you are attacking his memo on the merits of his arguments. I apologize if that comes across as a patronizing thing to say, but for me the big scandal here has really been the way that dissenters have warped, twisted, and outright dismissed his memo as wrong without even attempting to counter any of his points. To me it feels like the liberal left (of which I self identify, btw) are dismissing his argument not because it is wrong, but because it contradicts their beliefs or because they are afraid of where a serious exploration of the subject might lead us. I don't personally have any issues with affirmative action (although I can understand how it might upset some people) - but I do care greatly about protecting the free and open exchange of ideas. And the calls for the this guy to be fired feel like a disturbing form of censorship to me.
Does there even need to be a reason why there is a gender/race disparity in tech? This is not a blip in the radar. It is commonplace for careers to have gender/race disparities. There are more careers with significant gender/race disparitities than careers without them.
> Honestly, Google might have even been rational to fire him, due to the toxic situation created by the mass outrage. How incredibly damning of our society.
This is always the case. Even companies who are sane need to respond to the foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy of Twitter and related cesspools. As disgusting as the Brendan Eich thing was, I never really blamed Mozilla. I'm just not sure how tech in particular ended up so strongly under the influence of a relatively small amount of loud, shitty people.
Honestly I knew where this was going when I saw him mention biological differences. Which is a shame because many of his arguments are actually interesting. The tl;dr is actually chilling in the light of this firing.
His points were that some diversity policies were misguided and may even cause harm but are impossible to correct because they are taboo.
His memo was well-argumented and he was open to contradiction, which on several points could have been brought.
It was not aggressive, not dismissive, not sexist. I personally view his firing as totally excessive and downright anti-intellectual.
Critics, we are not yet in a post-sexist society. We have to improve many things for women and minorities, we have many efforts to make to reach true equality. Shutting down debate on your tactics will not help.
> A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
From the article:
> Google’s new vice president for diversity, integrity and governance
A brand of religion with its own sheriff no less.
Who seriously believe you have freedom of speech and thought in such a monocultural place?
Can we please stop using 'freedom of speech' in this context. Freedom of Speech in itself is from persecution from the Government. It does not apply here.
Freedom of speech, as in the legal right protected by the First Amendment in the United States, is indeed only against the government.
But free discourse, as an ideal and virtue for the citizens of a republic, is a much broader concept. The citizens of a democratic republic should be open to hearing new ideas and engaging in reasoned debate with each other.
Yes, but the beginning of those conversations can't be, "you're biologically inferior at doing the same job as me." That's not "engaging in reasoned debate", it's being an asshole.
We can have a discussion about the merits of public companies engaging in diversity programs without starting from that premise though.
Please take a look at your biases here; condensing the authors words to that of saying 'women are biologically inferior at doing the same job as men in tech' is not what the author has written. It may however be what you imagine him to be implying.
This is a strawman retort. The principle is far broader than that, it is about respect for the exchange of ideas. When a private company serves a public function, you can absolutely make an argument that an opinionated enforcement of speech restrictions infringes on the right to speak. The line is drawn between the right to speak vs the freedom not to listen. When you make that decision for others, freedom of speech is threatened.
While I have a lot of problems with the memo, I was pissed to see CNN's subtitle on this topic: "Boss condemns manifesto sent by a male engineer that claims women aren't suited for work in tech." To say that the manifesto claimed "women aren't suited for work in tech" is more than a gross mischaracterization, it's outright false.
That's one way to read it. Another way would be, "Stop trying to promote diversity, it alienates the racists and sexists who work here."
I don't think this is an unfair reading. One of the bullet points in the conclusion is literally that the company's diversity programs are problematic because they alienate non-progressives.
I cannot believe what I'm reading in this thread, especially from usernames I recognize and respect.
If this is really what is ascertained from this, our two sides' differences are too large to be reconciled.
Consider maybe some people truly want to work with the best of the best, ignoring race or gender. Let the cards fall where they may based on merit.
I'm all for hiring based on merit and nothing else. 100%, that's what I'd want to see.
But actually doing so is a fantasy. Building bias-free selection processes is really, really hard. I don't think anyone actually knows how. (At least not useful ones. You can trivially eliminate bias by never hiring anyone, for example.)
It looks to me like this is the fundamental agreement between the two sides here. Both sides want to hire the people who will be best at the job, full stop. People who think James Damore is correct believe that the typical hiring process, or at least some achievable tech hiring process, already achieves this, and any modification is necessarily selecting worse candidates. People on the other side, such as myself, believe that the hiring process selects for far more than just merit, and diversity programs are an attempt to fix that.
You at least agree that there are different types of diversity programs. (From his claims) Google's approach to diversity are hamfisted and end up achieving a level of diversity that looks good on internal reports but ends up alienating people because it's more important what you are than who you are.
Diversity through quotas or hiring preferences to X, Y, Z classes of people are bound to make people angry.
Diversity though increased access to education, recruitment efforts, and accommodation of different strengths and weaknesses, personalities, work styles, management styles, etc. would make people much happier.
No. Maybe we just believe in equality for all regardless of race or sex. If a cool course opens but only for women, or people of color, of course that makes us feel alienated.
He's not saying that the diversity programs are alienating conservatives. He's saying that if Google really wants to care about diversity, they should be more open to political diversity.
Thanks for finding the quote. Regardless, the author says that the politicization is alienating conservatives, not the program itself. If Google allowed for an open discussion about its diversity program, the author would not have this criticism.
He's saying the program itself is, and this is the reason why.
"Politicization" is quite vague and the author doesn't explain exactly how these programs are "politicized" or what that means. I suspect it comes down to their mere existence.
> "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group."
"But beware of this particular subgroup, because they are biologically inclined to not be as interested or good in the subject."
> Everyone is just rushing to virtue signal, to demonstrate their own purity of thought
No, people are pissed that it's 2017 and people are still trying to make an argument for the superiority of testosterone as a predictor for success in a particular field. Can't we just give everyone a chance, instead of trying to pigeonhole them right away?
> A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
Please don't pay attention to the actual religious agenda being pushed by the party currently in power. You know, the one that is actually running an inquisition against LGBTQ people? The one that wants to tell women what to do with their bodies? No dogma there, surely.
> This is the closing of the American mind.
The closing of the American mind started happening when a political party decided to take over religion and anti-intellectualism as their platform. That's why we've gotten to the point where being called an "expert" is paramount to an insult in certain contexts.
> Can't we just give everyone a chance, instead of trying to pigeonhole them right away?
The enginner did not say women can't be engineers, merely implied that the gender imbalance in the field may not be entirely the result of society. There are very real, very definite emotional and psychological differences between men and women overall[1]. Why is it so weird to think that those differences might lead to different career paths?
>Please don't pay attention to the actual religious agenda being pushed by the party currently in power. You know, the one that is actually running an inquisition against LGBTQ people? The one that wants to tell women what to do with their bodies? No dogma there, surely.
Just that the other side is crazy too doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the possible weaknesses of the left. Extreme political polarization on both sides combined with a decline in peoples' willingness to consider the opinions of those who oppose them is part of what is causing all this.
> The enginner did not say women can't be engineers, merely implied that the gender imbalance in the field may not be entirely the result of society
And this is where he should've exercised better judgement. You can hold that view personally, you can discuss it with your friends, maybe you can go and try to run a study on it with some actual sociologists. Don't go around pushing pseudoscience in the work place to justify your views, then expect everyone to applaud you.
> Just because the other side is crazy
The other side is deeply integrated with their crazier part and now they hold Congress and the presidency. But somehow, we need to focus on how Google firing someone for saying shit he knew was going to be controversial and would generate a reaction is "the leftist religion."
> Don't go around pushing pseudoscience in the work place to justify your views
is it really pseudoscience though? it seems reasonable to acknowledge psychological differences between men and women (from your gender identity - not biologically), and he cited sources (I didn't read them, I would hope for his sake that they're credible)
there's no precedent for acknowledging and addressing psychological differences in the workplace though (at least for professional office work). I think basic professionalism is based on ignoring our differences for the sake of having a sterile "just the facts" meritocratic environment conducive to business.
giving the guy every possible benefit of the doubt, I think he's just guilty of being unprofessional, not misogynist. he's also guilty of being stupid for not realizing this was a minefield in the first place and walking right into it without being extremely careful with his phrasing and more sensitive to mainstream points of view. I can get behind firing him for being unprofessional/stupid, but I feel bad for him for the amount of negative press he's getting.
It's insane how fast it has happened. Just 4 years ago I would have thought it impossible that I would ever align myself with anything right-of-center. I honestly have no idea what to expect in the coming years, and I wouldn't trust anyone who thinks they know.
Look at the right wing movements in history. Fascism, Nazism or any other right wing movements. These largely arise because there is too much politically correct talk going on, and at some point a guy comes along and musters the courage to say all the things openly what others had been wanting to say for years. What he says could be totally wrong and may be even absurd. But the fact that people just need a vent to release years worth of accumulated pressure will buy a lot of public validity.
Once this happens the public support, mood and direction swings too much to the other end. At this point PC won't even matter.
Kindly note, none of what I'm saying justifies Nazism.
There was quite a bit of PC. Germany was paying huge war reparations to France and UK. It was sort of portrayed as 'atonement of sins'. Economy was in tatters. There was insane levels of humiliation dumped on German populace for losing WW1. People were expected to simply eat it up as moral punishment.
I'm worried that is has something to do with gut bacteria and our food sources. My girlfriend and I have been experiencing more and more issues managing our emotions and having rational conversations and our current research is leading us towards how the meat industry is operating. It's our hypothesis that we need to get the antibiotics and hormones out of our food supply or this issue of polarization is only going to get worse.
Its one thing to mute some one, its a totally another thing to get that person to have a change of heart.
Events like firing people for holding a belief, only reinforces their belief further that they are being marginalized for merely holding an idea in their head. Of course they will now keep quiet until somebody comes along and generates way more groundswell support for their belief.
For a significant portion of American history there was an established difference in the distribution of the ability of people to own property. More recently there's an established difference in the distribution of the ability of minorities, students, and liberals to vote in certain states (NC, WI, TX, among others). There was an established difference in the incidence of AIDS during the 80's. There are established differences in the distribution of outcomes related to conviction of minor drug possession, soliciting prostitution, and a host of other non-violent crimes. Heck, there's an established difference in the distribution of police pulling people over or otherwise detaining people without cause in many municipalities.
Trying to justify discrimination by referring to the direct result of discriminatory behavior is obscene.
I agree that the author's arguments have been misrepresented, but as much by the author as anyone else. What we have is someone who is trying to couch borderline crazy views as reasonable and thoughtful and is smart enough to keep the lid on his underlying opinions with some success. But, read the author's footnotes for a real tl;dr -- he baldly states without evidence (indeed contrary to all the literature) that women are paid equally for equal work, that political correctness is a tool of leftists and authoritarians, and on and on.
His constant protestations that he's really interested in promoting diversity BUT is just the new "some of my best friends are X, but".
According to professor of economics at Harvard, Claudia Goldin, the gender pay-gap is mostly explained by women self-selecting into lower-paying professions and by choosing to work jobs with more flexibility in hours and time off. If I am understanding her correctly, equal pay for equal work is reality or close to reality.
That didn't even seem like the main point. The main point was that people are psychologically oppressed: you can't even talk about the possibility of different gender behavior being rooted in biology without fear of retribution.
It seems he made that point and then continued to make a bunch of other points, and its those other points that many have a problem with.
I read a good chunk in agreement, but then it just took a left turn. Between its thinly-vieled promotion for 'conservative values' and some very thin 'therefore' conclusions midway through, it would never be able to stand up to the heights of intellect that its author probably intended it for.
If you know that some idiot wrote this manifesto as a manager, could you assign a woman to work with him? Not in good conscience. An open culture is desirable because it lets the company get going with what its shareholders want it doing.
"A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma."
Indeed. I also felt reminded of dynamics in the realm of religion.
You have unwittingly provided an example of the "unconscious bias" against women that Google's programs seek to unpack and correct.
The term "virtue signal" implies that one's reaction is motivated by a desire to make an impression on others, a superficial and calculated response. But to a woman, reading an essay full of gender stereotypes can create a real sense of pain and outrage. So when you're saying "virtue signal", you're really mostly talking about men.
This response has the tone of justification by exactly the very minds condemned as being closed.
I read the article which attempts to establish as fact very clearly unsubstantiated subjective claims. Never mind the toxicity -- the dude is just flat wrong.
"Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group."
This blew up because
1) English is an imprecise language subject to multiple interpretations;
2) Viral effects develop when there are feedback loops/network effects (virtue signaling is one; conservative vs liberal politics is another)
I would hope that a more narrowly focused document written in more formal language (math) with clearly-stated assumptions and a faq that addresses common misinterpretations will have fared better but these days even expecting this might be too much (which is sad!).
The one thing I feel that lost out on all this brouhaha was the author's point that companies should value "diversity of thoughts" rather than diversity of <the current hot topic class>!
Can you really say 'the establishment' is somehow masterminding anything, when the President of the USA will likely go on twitter to shame Google for what they've done?
If you think 'establishment' means having vanilla PR, sure. But he is as establishment-minded as the rest of them. Appointing big oil CEO to sec of state, ultra neocon pro-corporation judge to the supreme court, extremely pro charter-school administrator to sec of education. All are very wealthy people who belong to a higher income bracket than the vast majority of America. Establishment has a price tag and he has been able to afford it most of his life. That isn't changing anytime soon.
"Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business." -- is asserted as an absolute but never substantiated and was his downfall I believe.
If he had instead said that Google should focus on addressing these biases that hurt minorities and women and as they take affect and demonstrate their effectiveness allow the affirmative action style discrimination to be reduced. He would have gotten a much better reception.
If he intended to treat people as individuals, then he wouldn't have resorted to gender stereotypes in the first place. The essay was clearly designed to tell women they don't belong at Google. Would you feel comfortable working with someone who wrote an essay at your workplace which detailed incorrect gender stereotypes about men ("Violent", "Incommunicative", "Ego/Status driven") as a way of gently saying maybe we shouldn't hire so many men anymore?
I can already visualize the intense white hot responses over at /r/mensrights and other such places. Where they already freak out, and "virtue signal" as you put it, over much much much milder stuff from feminists. Many people would call for the author's head, and I suspect we wouldn't hear so much about "free speech" from the MRA and other conservative outlets.
Edit: If any of the downvoters doubt my hypothetical, just think about what happened to Anita Sarkeesian. There were no statements about her bravery or defenses of her free speech rights from the conservatives. Just a wall of criticism and boycotts (and worse) in an attempt to get her to shut up. Whole lot of virtue signalling from men on the right, many of whom self-admitted to never watching her videos.
Putting a disclaimer at the beginning of a long misogynistic rant that we should "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group," doesn't nullify the rest of the document.
If you say "People aren't going to like what I say" and then say something offensive about 50% of the population, well then sure, consider the author's point proven...
This person created a toxic work environment in which women and people of color will not feel comfortable working with him, being interviewed by him, have him as their tech lead or have him on their promotion committee.
Why the hysterical cries of virtue signaling and suppression? What is authoritarian dogma that this author dared to question?
> He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful.
No, he said quite clearly that Google was hiring too many women and minorities (and also that said women and minorities suck at tech jobs, though not in so many words). It's the specifics of the argument that got him in trouble. Bland abstract stuff like you paraphrase above wouldn't get anyone fired.
I don't see any text in there that warrants that claim. Is there a specific sentence or two that you could highlight that leads you to your conclusion?
> I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
> - Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]
> - A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
> - Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
> - Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
> - Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]
He is saying quite a bit more than that Google is hiring too many women and minorities: he's claiming, in straightforward terms, that Google is illegally discriminating when doing so.
Yes, in theory there's a world in which he's right (I'm pretty sure that's not this world) but he is definitely making the claim either way.
I do not read his words as "google is illegally discriminating". He has listed several discriminatory practices. And I see and use the word "discriminatory" in a non-pejorative/non-judgemental sense.
The programs are "set asides" for specific groups of people unrelated to "merit". Is that not a fair way to describe that?
That's _not_ to say that those who go are meritless, but that the programs differentiate on factors unrelated to merit for the purposes of admission to said program. Is that a factually incorrect description of those programs? Do they not differentiate "applicants" on characteristics unrelated to merit?
"They were telling us about a lot of these potentially illegal practices that they've been doing to try to increase diversity."
"What kind of practices?"
"Well, basically, treating people differently based on what their race is, or gender --"
"Oh, you mean racism."
"Yeah, basically."
"Mmhmm, I see. And it was ultra-secret and unrecorded in what manner?"
"So-- most meetings at Google are recorded, anyone at Google can watch it, we're trying to be really open about everything, except for this. They don't want any paper trail for any of these things."
"Whoa, okay, why?"
"Because, I think, it's illegal. I mean, as some of the internal polls showed, there were a large percent of people that agreed with me on the document. And so if everyone got to see this stuff, then they would really bring up some criticism."
How exactly is it possible to have discriminatory practices without practicing discrimination? It honestly seems like you're saying the guy isn't a bigot because grammar.
He said Google has '[h]iring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate', created in part because "humans are generally biased towards protecting females".
The most direct reading of his claim is that they're hiring unqualified women. He would presumably be happy with a larger mix of female colleagues if he felt standards weren't being lowered.
The claim made is that they "decreased the false negative rate".
Google has long prided itself on rejecting large numbers of qualified candidates. Since decreasing the false-negative rate inherently means "hire a greater quantity of qualified candidates", I fail to see how the bar was lowered.
"the lack of women in tech is fine becuase that's just what happens when women, who are biologically worse at programming, don't go into tech"
"biologically worse at programming" is a total fabrication. The accurate claim is "less interested", although I suppose that's not as effective for your Two Minutes Hate.
You can take any statement and rephrase so that it sounds horrible. This is just sophistry.
That whole paragraph is saying that men and women, __as populations__ , have biological differences in psychology, temperament and interests. In prosperous societies, men and women naturally assume complementary, rather than overlapping, roles.
> We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism.
Regardless of whether you agreed with the letter or not, it's 100% correct in asserting that it's super difficult to have productive, rational conversations about the issue of diversity. Google just reinforced that fact.
Perhaps more important (for Google, at least) is to be compliant with employment law, than to allow "rational conversations about the issue of diversity."
California is an at-will state. They won't be able to fire you for participating on a Trump rally or donating to Hillary Clinton, but sure as hell they can fire you for creating a hostile workplace, which is what this guy did.
Unless he can convince a judge that "creating a hostile workplace" is a euphemism for "having a political view management disagrees with".
Which might be easy. After all, he just alleged the Google workplace is clearly hostile to conservatives ... and they fired him for it. The argument that he was creating a hostile workplace is very weak. The argument that Pichai is, is very strong.
Right. The reason why this created a massive controversy was because he didn't do anything to stir up controversy. I get it, you really want to give this guy a pass because you agree with him, but reality doesn't agree with you.
"Controversy" is the easiest thing in the world to abuse. Anyone who doesn't like an opinion on anything can say it's "controversial" and therefore shouldn't be spoken about it in case it upsets people.
Mature organisations and cultures can tackle controversial topics. Google used to be able to do that too. It obviously cannot anymore.
> Mature organisations and cultures can tackle controversial topics. Google used to be able to do that too. It obviously cannot anymore.
You do realize that it wasn't the controversy that landed this guy in hot water, but rather the veiled attempt at using pseudo-science to create a conspiracy theory about Google discriminating against males, right?
The scientists who wrote the papers he cited said he got it right, and it wasn't pseudo-science at all. And there's no conspiracy theory: the things he talked about have happened.
The way in which you describe actual science as pseudo-science because you don't like the conclusions is very scary, by the way.
The scientists that wrote the papers were concerned with a single field of science. There's a whole societal context that's not considered, and that is what makes his position pseudo-science: just like phrenology, finding correlation and assuming causation is just bad science.
> The way in which you describe actual science as pseudo-science because you don't like the conclusions is very scary, by the way.
The way you describe cherry-picked papers on a single field of science as definite proof of your world view is really scary too. How low will you lower your bar to explain the world in terms you like?
Look, I'm not a huge fan of social science or psychology myself, but that's because they have trouble reproducing things. The scientists he cited and who wrote in support of him are social scientists and psychologists. They are discussing reproducible results. Are you saying that no psychological finding, no matter how reproducible, can ever be used if it's related to gender?
If you have hard scientific evidence with scientists willing to go on the record and say, no, in fact, there are no innate differences between the preferences of men and women, it's all just lies and in fact girls love computers when they are children just as much as boys and here's why the other studies are all flawed ... sure. Show them to us.
As it is, you look like someone who is scrabbling around for an excuse to ignore perfectly valid scientific debating by disclaiming entire fields as "pseudo science" and "cherry picked". Please debate properly - make real rebuttals with evidence.
He isn't citing anyone, he just stated "facts." Please show me the citations? Where are all these papers? Where are the peer reviews on the "facts" he mentions?
> Are you saying that no psychological finding, no matter how reproducible, can ever be used if it's related to gender?
Going back to the absolute lack of references, I am not dismissing any particular study, but rather the right-wing knee-jerk reaction that "the world is fine the way it is, and people trying to change it are just destroying the perfect equilibrium we live in." It's almost like the last century of social changes hasn't happened. Talk about disregard for evidence.
> If you have hard scientific evidence with scientists willing to go on the record and say, no, in fact, there are no innate differences between the preferences of men and women
Cute, asking to prove a negative. Let's use the same idea: do you have hard scientific proof and scientists willing to back it in public that a push for increasing diversity in engineering will go nowhere because the field is already in perfect balance? No? Didn't think so.
Also, I'm not saying there are no innate differences, but that ignoring the current societal context by pushing a theory that explains all behavior using genetic traits is ridiculous. By using the same standard, going back to pre-WW2 (which forced women into the workforce) we could assume that "women are only interested in domestic tasks".
> Show them to us.
Nice. I like that you identify with this group. I'm tired of people pussyfooting around trying to push the rhetoric, while at the same time trying to divorce themselves from the author. Good on you.
> As it is, you look like someone who is scrabbling around for an excuse to ignore perfectly valid scientific debating by disclaiming entire fields as "pseudo science" and "cherry picked". Please debate properly - make real rebuttals with evidence.
Again, show me the paper, show me how they play in the whole context of current society, and maybe I'll take you seriously. Until then, you look like someone cherry-picking data to paint the world to their liking.
Now, here's the trick. You got what you asked for. Will you change your perspective? I find myself somehow dubious because the root cause of the disagreement is you believe the world both is and should be entirely malleable, and that forced social engineering (e.g. by firing people with particular worldviews from influential organisations like Google) is a legitimate way to achieve particular ends.
You don't need to go very far and blame Google for the level of difficulty. Making generalizations based on sex and without references is hostile from the get go.
If you want to have a rational conversation, have it rationally.
One thing that bothers me as someone who works at Google (but is speaking purely his own opinion) is that this manifesto implies some pretty wrong things about our hiring process. In particular, it conflates diversity sourcing programs with a lower hiring bar.
As an engineer who's done a fair bit of volunteer recruiting work as well as conducted interviews, my experience has been that race- and gender-specific programs are used exclusively as outreach, sourcing, and mentorship tools. James claims there are "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate," which strikes me as untrue. Regardless of how they are sourced, once candidates are in the interview pipeline their are all treated exactly as rigorously as one another.
In other words, recruiters are responsible for finding, reaching out to, and advocating for candidates. Once they source the candidate they "throw them over the fence" to the cold, hard interview process, which involves experienced interviewers and a hiring committee of senior-tenure engineers. The aim is to ensure you can trust that those who make it out how the hiring committee to be top-notch.
After years and years of working at the company I haven't heard even a whisper of complaint among anyone about the quality of people we're hiring. After working with people of all stripes I can say I haven't met a single person where I thought to myself "how did this loser get through the filter."
As someone who's participated in outreach efforts for undergrad internships, I too find his conflation of outreach and hiring worrisome. Very few of these programs, from what I've seen, do more than get minorities into the interview or selection process, which I'm ok with. My problem has always been how few big tech firms seemed to recruit outside of their usual circles (Ivies, private schools, flagship universities).
I went to an HBCU in undergrad and one of the most frustrating experiences I had was when Microsoft sent an employee to talk to our group about what they were doing with regards to increasing diversity instead of what we could do to become better candidates.
This is a reasonable rebuttal to the memo; I wish the other responses would address these issues instead of misrepresenting the memo and calling the author a Nazi. The way this should have unfolded was that Google launched an investigation into its hiring practices, which would probably turn out as you describe. Instead, they fired the author, giving the appearance that their hiring practices are shady and demonstrating the suite of other points made in the memo.
I don't think he said that Google's sourcing programs themselves lower the bar. He seems to make two separate arguments:
1. Sourcing programs with race/gender restrictions are unfair to those excluded, and bad for business because they restrict the funnel of participants. (The same criticism would apply if Google had a while-males-only program -- it would be bad business since it would restrict the funnel without a good business reason.)
2. Google's hiring process gives special treatment to certain "diversity" candidates. He doesn't give any details, and I don't know the context, but he linked to an internal discussion which seems to imply that a "more accurate" process might be applied with the intention of reducing false negatives. (Of course anyone reading a public copy won't see this.)
As far as I understood he says google has a positive discrimination policy to hire minorities and want to achieve a 50/50 gender diversity (or at least something that doesn't match the diversity in the pool of candidates). That was my conclusion from sentences like this from the document:
- "Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races."
- "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."
- "I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism)."
If this is not the case he should apologize for it.
Well the manifesto is a clear claim of the positive discrimination in Google during the hiring process but if this is not true (which I am not sure), he should apologize.
The top comment says the diversity programs only focus in increasing the amount of people in the hiring process but the selection is the same for all. The author of the manifesto says there is positive discrimination (artificial bias) to hire minorities, the lower the bar for them. So if Google doesn't lower the bar for anyone there is no way to say anything against them, everybody is treated equal.
Can I quote a specific sentence for this? No, I would have to quote the whole manifesto.
"This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading."
Sure, there are statistical differences between genders. This is a total non-sequitur from that, with no citation in sight to try allay blame. This is just the 1950s calling with its stereotypes.
Women may be more agreeable, and more less assertive. However you had better provide fairly convincing proof that we are speaking up too little, rather than merely less than men do.
I think there are studies that probe that claim. In my experience when I told some female friends to ask for a raise because they deserved it, some of them decided not to do it because a list of non-sense excuses (afraid to talk with their supervisors, that they will look for another job in the future, that their bosses don't like them, etc)
Bear in mind the published doc don't have the references the original work had. They removed them when they made it public (not the author)
He got fired for the other bits, the casually implying 40% of the workforce were, onr average, somehow inferior and less suited to their work than men, and for not taking it down but stirring the pot, when he realised that he'd wildly misjudged the reaction people would have to it.
I'm surprised that so many people, especially intelligent people from Google like you, completely ignore the "false negative" part and respond to his claim as if he'd said "false positive" instead. You're putting words in his mouth and misunderstanding the point he's making.
Just to clear things up. A false negative is someone qualified who gets rejected. A false positive is someone unqualified who gets hired. He claimed that diversity candidates have a lower false negative, not a higher false positive. The "cold, hard interview process" you refer to is both technically challenging but also has a degree of arbitrariness to it. Google gets so many applicants that it makes sense to design a process that has as few false positives as possible without regard to the false negatives.
I knew someone that applied to Google because our former manager had gone to Google and wanted to hire him again. He did really well in the interviews (he was recommended by all of them) but was rejected because the hiring committee felt his GPA, for an art degree unrelated to the work he'd be doing at Google, was too low. Our former manager brought him on as a contractor instead and he eventually transitioned to full-time and he has been very successful there for almost a decade since. Most people never find out the reason they weren't hired. The only reason he ever did is because he knew the hiring manager personally and, even then, he didn't learn the reasoning until after he'd transitioned to FTE. Aside from the fact that his manager was able to circumvent the hiring process to, over the course of a year, bring someone he wanted in, this is a rare example of a known false negative.
As an outsider with no access to Google's hiring records, I can't say for sure how many false negatives there are, but I have to assume there are a lot more people like him that don't get hired. I've met good engineers during my career that were rejected by Google. And I've worked with enough former-Google engineers that weren't that impressive. The only thing I can say is that I've never met an engineer who worked or works for Google that I felt was terrible, which is more than I can say for most companies.
It sounds like the complaint being made is that Google used a situation almost no other company has, a constant surplus of people passing their interview process and took the expedient route to increasing their minority hiring...they're just ensuring that minorities aren't cut from that last, somewhat arbitrary stage of the hiring process. They know that committee is mostly deciding between candidates who would all be good hires because the process up to that point will have already eliminated the unqualified candidates. It's both a reasonable strategy to quickly increase the number of minority hires without sacrificing on quality and it's a lower bar.
You are forgetting the diversity itself is valuable. For lots and lots of reasons. One is that that the metrics that people who ignore diversity tend to use are easily gamed: GPA, fancy degree, etc., and may correlate more to privilege than capability. So by casting a wider net you put all the candidates in a more competitive setting, and hopefully force interviewers to figure out what they are actually looking for, not just things their gut correlates with good hire.
That's a major crux, though. You're implying that what this fellow did was provide a reasoned complaint, but if I were to distribute manifestos at my workplace, unsolicited and unofficially, I'd be disciplined or terminated regardless of what was written in it.
To add to that, it wasn't a constructive argument with a new solution -- the only proposition was regressive action. I'd posit that it's akin to someone arguing that since civil rights were not smoothly implemented, we may as well roll back the clock because some members of society had it easier that way. It's pretty weak, and certainly not what I'd call a well-reasoned manner.
My understanding is that it was shared on a message board of some kind intended for employees to share and discuss their thoughts. If that isn't true, and he sent this document out to some mailing list or what have you - then I take back what I said and agree with you (though firing seems a tiny bit extreme).
To your second point, the document proposed multiple steps at investigating or remediating the problem, such as the author saw it. Regardless, I hope you would agree that applying the standard of "You cannot discuss a social problem unless you have a solution to it, or else you will be fired" seems suboptimal.
> "You cannot discuss a social problem unless you have a solution to it, or else you will be fired"
This isn't what happened though; this guy circulated an authoritative sounding memo accusing the women in Google's workforce as being held to a lower bar as the men, and outright stating that their "biological differences" was holding back engineering productivity.
I must have missed the parts where he explained that women were held to a lower bar or that biological differences were holding back productivity. Perhaps you could quote them, or refer to the specific sections of the document, I'll reread and then be able to have an informed response.
Don't hold your breath. It's easier to regurgitate what you read somewhere else. Which seems like more than half the commenters are doing here.
At just about every opportunity he used words and phrases like "average" and "in general" to make it clear that these metrics are just that, average.
He clearly points out that any individual woman may be more suitable to leadership and tech than any individual man, but when forced to generalize, then we must be honest about the averages.
> - "Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs"
> - "Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness"
> - "Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men..." (Ironically, this is a good thing for an engineer to have)
He provides no source for this.
> "Google has created several discriminatory practices: Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race, a high priority queue and special treatment for 'diversity' candidates, hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate."
And blatant disregard for the social context that these groups exist in.
He does a provide a source in the form of a wikipedia article that uses actual citations [1]. The version with sources (gizmodo removed them in their first publication of the memo), is located at [2].
As for your comment on his "blatant disregard for social context", he explicitly mentions that he believes that biases should be corrected and that society probably also is to blame [3], he just doesn't believe that biological factors does not play any role at all.
Guess people didn't get it. It's not believable to claim to want to correct biases when you want to remove measures that correct biases. Even more ironic is using much of the paper to argue differences between men and women just to say that men are being discriminated against because they aren't treated exactly the same as women. Therefor the program should be replaced by his own version with 4 out of 5 measure focused on women, but despite the differences between men and women doesn't discriminate against men, because he said so. The guy isn't rational, he has just come up with a lot of synonyms for "I disagree".
Regarding the first point, about women being higher in neuroticism, the author does provide a source - wikipedia. I understand there are different versions of the document, some of which omit sources or links. The version I'm using as a reference [1] maintains a hyperlink to Wikipedia's page on sex differences in psychology. Wikipedia may not be the most reputable source, although I've always thought quite highly of it, but in this instance, Wikipedia, which does seem to support the author's contention, has it's source, an academic psychology paper. The paper's abstract [2] does also repeat the Google author's claim, that women are higher in neuroticism.
As far as the Google author's sourcing goes, I believe linking to a well sourced article on Wikipedia should be a sufficient citation for the document (which wasn't intended as an academic paper but something more like an argument on a forum - per my understanding).
I don't see how this claim, that women are higher in neuroticism, leads to what you alleged the author was claiming - that the biology of women hurts productivity at Google. This seems to me like a possible explanation of why there are not as many women in leadership positions, and not an argument that the women who are in leadership positions have any defect.
By analogy, suppose I was asked why there were few Chinese basketball players, and I answered that height is useful in basketball, and Chinese people are shorter on average than white and black players. This may be a suitable explanation for the observed phenomenon, or it may not be, but either way you should not interpret me as claiming that Yao Ming is a short person.
For your second point, this seems obviously true. The "false negative rate" presumably refers to when candidates who would be good hires are rejected for some undesirable reason. In other words, the test is generating an incorrect negative (your interview comes back "Do not hire" on a person who would make a good candidate).
This false negative rate effectively "raises the bar" to get hired at Google, albeit in an undesirable way. The initiatives that the author links to in this section are presumably aimed at reducing the false negative rate for women, and thereby lowering the bar that women need to clear to get hired.
Obviously it's a good thing to reduce your false negative rate. You get more qualified employees and people who are qualified get a good job. The discriminatory part of this, which the Google author is highlighting, is that Google wants to reduce the false negative rate FOR WOMEN and isn't applying these same initiatives to hiring in general.
I agree that the author did not have enough regard for the social context of his post. He seems to have believed Google's lies that they cared about letting employees express themselves and share ideas to improve the company - when, of course, Google is a soulless corporation that will fire anyone with the temerity to criticize their sacred cows. I think that says roughly that the employee was a bit naive.
> The initiatives that the author links to in this section are presumably aimed at reducing the false negative rate for women, and thereby lowering the bar that women need to clear to get hired.
You (he) can't say that you are lowering the bar since a false negative is positive like any other positive. Widening the bar is a more apt analogy.
Reducing the false negative makes getting a job "easier" (a higher percentage of applicants succeed) and therefore is lowering the bar. I understand your point about how this metaphor may not be exactly the right language to use, but that seems like a trivial difference in semantics and not content.
I don't think it's a trivial difference. Lowering the bar suggest that people are now being accepted on lesser merits. But a false negative is a binary condition. Both positive and false negative results are over the bar. False negatives are positive results we misjudge. If he is suggesting something else he should say that and support it. I would define "a higher percentage of applicants succeed" as "more likely".
Imagine that applicants were scored between 1 and 100 and anyone with a score over 90 is offered a job. Suppose that being nervous in an interview gives you a -5. A nervous applicant has a higher bar - a 95.
Someone says maybe we aren't hiring enough women because women have been socialized not to be engineers and are therefore nervous when applying. Let's work on a program to help women be less nervous, then we'll hire more.
Now the DM author says "let's apply that program to everyone, not just women, otherwise we'll be lowering the bar for women." And Google immediately fires him. Your observation is that he shouldn't have said "lowering the bar" but it's objectively true.
In this example, the bar for women is 90 + the likelihood of being nervous * 5. If you remove the second term for women and not men, you are lowering the bar for women.
But I guess the brigading has commenced- I would invite you to read the thing without bias and read it's citations and sources. Even if you disagree that we could do more to remove things like, stress and status to make tech less appealing to men.. you might find out why people are agreeing with him and why this piece circulated internally.
Mostly, it seems, scientists agree[0] with the "facts" he states that arent' google specific. So dismissing it outright without having the discussion is only doing the women in tech a disservice.
> nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.
Except it turned out James Damore of the DM has a Masters in Biological Systems from Harvard. And is experienced engineer working in Search (he disputed the author's chops there too).
Calling it a "manifesto" is only being done by the media though, it's a memo, or at best the first post on a forum topic.
A "memo" thats primary focus was to have an open discussion based on statistical evidence and ideally foster a more welcoming environment to people who are not currently represented as well as Google would like.
It's not a manifesto. It is an opinion on how to make Google better and confront its biases. They are always looking for ways to improve but PC is beyond what is acceptable to look at.
I meant "reasoned manner" in the sense that it was a document with footnotes citing scientific research, and that he wasn't out on the plaza screaming about how he hated women, or something like that. The former, even if you object to the conclusions or the spirit they are offered in, you can just ignore by not reading it, or rebut by pointing out flaws with your own document. The latter is obviously a real problem in every way.
Suppose someone asked why it is that Jews are overrepresented in things like winning nobel prizes, being millionaires, working as a college professor, or working in politics. My answer would be that Jews tend to have higher than average intelligence, so it is only natural that they are overrepresented in fields that require higher intelligence. But wait - some of my colleagues are not Jewish! Am I suggesting that my colleagues are less biologically suited to their work? Oh dear, that can't be right. Maybe the politically correct answer is that there is a secret cabal of Jews who run society and try to elevate their own into positions of power... but, come to think of it, that doesn't sound like such a good answer either. Maybe the real PC answer would be to accuse whoever asked of being a racist.
To your point about some of the arguments in the document being gross and terrible, I'd like to discuss those points in particular. I read the document and didn't see anything obviously wrong or objectionable. If there is something wrong, it seems to me the thing to do is correct with a better argument or better evidence, not fire the author for having the wrong opinion.
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. Many of these differences
are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions.
_______________________________________________________
He makes it clear at the beginning that individuals must be judged as individuals separate from their race or gender.
But, when talking about groups of people, the only way to do it is to use averages.
Girls like to play with dolls more than boys on average. Agree or disagree?
If you agree you're a sexist these days.
Which is a shame because real sexism is walking up to a girl playing with Legos and saying "here sweetie, play with this doll, it's more lady like."
We're now to the point where main stream thought has conflated real sexism perpetrated on an individual with the very mention of statistics of a group.
Wouldn't that explain, then, why women are underrepresented at Google? If 500 males get "thrown over the fence" and, say, 5 make it through... that means if 50 females get "thrown over the fence" it is reasonable to expect 0 will make it through.
Here's the writing on the wall that I think is being ignored: google has thousands of employees, with all types of opinions. I guarantee you some of those people have controversial opinions, and some of those people share those controversial opinions.
Everybody blames the author for creating a disturbance, but you can't create a disturbance without people being interested in what you say. The fact that it was so widely circulated (instead of ignored like 99% of blog posts) suggests to me that a number of people at the company feel like he had some really good points.
It's scary to me that the "safe space" crowd gets to define what views are offensive, and inherently make it an unsafe (even firable) place for those who disagree to express who they are and what they believe.
I read the memo and didn't find it particularly persuasive; but this dismissal does further its core point. It's a bit tone deaf of Google to fire an employee concerned about groupthink.
This is not a workable argument against firing someone. If it were, all you'd have to do is say, "We have too much group-think here," followed by any egregiously awful statement, and you'd be insulated from consequences. That's just not how these things work.
I think any good argument against firing him has to hinge on the truth of what he said besides the group-think claims. Regrettably for him, I don't think there's much to most of it.
The truth of what he said has nothing to do with why he was fired. He was fired for not being politically correct and offending people, not because his arguments were right or wrong. People are usually most outraged by statements which are true or close to true but which they do not want to believe.
No, we're mostly offended by ideas that are false and actively harm people - like the entirely unproven notion that women suffer from biological weaknesses that make them less likely to be qualified as engineers.
> No, we're mostly offended by ideas that are false and actively harm people - like the entirely unproven notion that women suffer from biological weaknesses that make them less likely to be qualified as engineers.
All good, except he did not make that argument or anything similar to it. He did not state that women inherently suffer from biological weaknesses of any sort. And no, his ideas did not harm anyone (except perhaps indirectly himself). Literally nobody got hurt except him, he is the sole victim of the ordeal.
I hope that you have read the document in its original form, which is a PDF with some (admittedly weak) references.
But that is only because you did not study psychology in which case you would know that most things in that manifesto are scientifically proven and what he said does makes sense for women AS A GROUP not individually... :/
Posted on Google's private Google+ instance (which is very active). Pretty much like sharing it on an internal mailing list, or on Slack.
Seems like it must have gotten a few reshares to go viral enough for somebody to feel the need to leak it. I don't think we really know how widely it was read before it leaked though -- it might have been a big raging controversy inside Google, or it might not.
> Stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology. Richard et al (2003) found that fewer than 5% of all effects in social psychology exceeded r’s of .50. In contrast, nearly all consensual stereotype accuracy correlations and about half of all personal stereotype accuracy correlations exceed .50.
This is disappointing. I didn't really agree with his premise, and I think he was generally wrong honestly, but I don't think his views were so unrealistic or offensive that this was warranted. I think this was probably done mainly because there was negative media about it. Which sort of demonstrates that Google is just another corporation that doesn't really value its employees that much. Maybe as a collective, but not on an individual basis. I think it's important not to let their moral posturing about social issues cloud our judgement about that.
I hear you, but I disagree. If you haven't had a chance yet, then I'd suggest you read this pots by Yonatan Zunger. He puts it a 100 times better than I ever could.
That post is only a personal opinion based on his own bias and prejudices without any scientific reference. Moreover it make claims about the article that the author hasn't made.
No, he's sort of right. He extrapolates a bit and makes it sound much worse than it was. For someone who is claiming to understand engineering so well it seems odd that he'd conflate arguments (that were poorly made imo) about preferences within a demographic group with accusing that group of being inferior at engineering. He never suggested women were bad at their jobs, just that maybe there was a biological component to why they were less interested in it to begin with.
Edit: just to reiterate, I don't agree with that view, I'm convinced it's mostly cultural issues that are to blame.
The best explanation of why he was going to be fired and why that was the right thing to do (that I read) came from Yonatan Zunger, who had recently left a Human Resources position at Google; especially his third point, in the following post on Medium:
In many way, it was not an unfamiliar sort of rant for the internet, and I was struck by the author's earnestness and apparent sincerity. It's possible that I make too many allowances for behaviour, and it's possible that I'm easily mislead.
I thought his ideas were not in any way useful, or actionable, even had he been correct;
That the ideas were poorly expressed, and full of such fringe 'truths' as are derived, insincerely, from cherry-picked science in order to be sold as snake-oil cures for the cognitive dissonance of the conservative and vulnerable;
That the expression of these ideas was immensely foolish, especially appearing in the context of what I took to have been his initial intent, an appeal of tolerance of diverse viewpoints at Google.
However, I'm always most disturbed by vitriol online when it's in service of beliefs that I share. It makes me deeply uneasy.
>You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior) published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just not worth it.
I stopped reading after the first paragraph. Totally not what the memo was saying.
You did yourself a disservice by stopping after the first paragraph.
If you would have recognized his opening paragraph as hyperbole, you would have gone on to read a comprehensive opinion from a former Google HR employee on the ramifications of publishing such a memo. He makes very good points that are worth consideration, or at least reading for the detailed insight into why Google's hand was played and forced to fire him.
That post is a remarkable example of victim blaming. "Do you know how hard it is for ME now that you've gone and gotten people violently angry at you? People want to punch you in the face for something they think you said, and that's your fault!"
That medium post is exactly why dudebro Silicon Valley culture persists. It's all about "cooperation", "collaboration", "empathy" for your "peers" for these people. Which means if you're different from your "peers" (i.e. rich white liberal cis males) you're not a "cultural fit". If you don't drink beer all Friday with your "team" and then go to a strip club for some "teambuilding", you're not a team player. Which means you're a "bad engineer". Is it any wonder there's no diversity?
I'm sure somebody has harmed you rather badly for this to be your opinion of all tech.
You should visit Europe- we're taking on SV hiring biases due to being so in love with the US, but "Bro" culture is not a thing I've ever seen. Ever.
The most sexist thing I've ever seen in tech is a sales guy being a bit over confident with his flirting. But then, he did it with guys to (not that I'm justifying it).
The inability to even discuss what is happening with hiring biases leads centrists to wish to discuss things; and the only people who are even open to discussion are the right wing. Who most centrists generally disagree with too.
I'm a classic liberal, left by many definitions. But the extreme left will very happily crucify me as right wing if I open my mouth with an opinion. Double so if I'm a white hetero man.
That attitude is much worse than any "bro" culture that may exist, not that I believe it does, and if that did exist then we can all rally against it and let those companies fail.
Zunger believes that asking publicly "are people get hired because of their gender" is toxic and harmful, while asking "are people get paid more because of their gender" is not. This kind of thinking is skewed and biased.
This would be a good point, has he stopped there. I would argue that there are some differences, but it would be a good point for you to bring up.
However, he went much further. He stated that the fundamental problem was due to biological determinism in a way that did not mitigate a non-statistician reading of his words. Casting implicit doubt on the competence of every female gendered person in his workplace.
> especially his third point, in the following post on Medium:
Relevant parts:
> (3) And most seriously, the author does not appear to understand the consequences of what he wrote, either for others or himself.
...
> These views are fundamentally corrosive to any organization they show up in, drive people out, and I can’t think of any organization not specifically dedicated to those views that they would be welcome in. I’m afraid that’s likely to remain a serious problem for you for a long time to come. But our company is committed to maintaining a good environment for all of its people, and if one person is determined to thwart that, the solution is pretty clear.[2]
What I don't get in many of the left-leaning comments is that they're basically saying that 'patriarchy'/society is the only reason why women are underrepresented in tech.
In India/Russia, there are way more women represented in tech then in US. Do you think that these cultures are more welcoming/less sexist to women than US? It should be so in your world view.
I suspect that the companies in these countries doesn't have a diversity program, and they hire everyone for purely business reasons. Why do you think that diversity problems solve anything on the long term?
I live in Eastern EU and many people are actually sexist here ( men and women are favor of enforced gender roles ), unlike in Top 20 countries. But I suspect the gender disparity in tech is better than in the us, or largely the same. Isn't this kind of disproves the notion that gender differences are caused by sexism?
Biological differences maximize in societies that have achieved both affluence and legal equality between genders. In such societies, women have more options and they tend to choose not to go into tech.
Your suspicion is basically correct, with regards to relative representation of women in tech in inda/eastern europe vs. the US. (and actually you might add some East Asian cultures e.g. China and Japan to the list of more patriarchal systems with better representation (and anecdotally, middle eastern countries)).
Perhaps there is even a biological reason behind the political posturing: older males tend to have daughters. Engineers marry older.
I was referring to gender norms for women + systemic bias against women as patriarchy. You are right, nobody wrote that explicitly, I just don't want to write a wall of text :) Hence the /society part.
As a minority woman in tech I'm not bothered much by his document, but that's only because I don't work with this guy or folks like him. His manifesto doesn't pain me, but that's only because I have a secure job coding all my favorite things with people who don't spew this kind of unsubstantiated crap to my colleagues, giving them spurious reasons to doubt my abilities and inherent qualities.
My sympathies are with those who work in more precarious situations. I'm no authoritarian, but I'm ok with this guy getting fired - he used his platform unwisely and at this point the damage control gained by firing him probably outweighs whatever benefit the company might get by keeping him.
However, I'm plenty perturbed by the willful lack of understanding all around these parts about (at the very least)
- how diversity programs work / what they do
- how hiring works
- how oppression works
- how public words can affect others
The people around me might be pondering all sorts of strange things - if they're not disrupting my life as they work through those thoughts then that is OK with me.
I can mind my own business. I'm not really into the 'dig through someone's life history to find the one objectionable thing and then destroy their lives for it' trope.
Damore wasn't disrupting other people's lives either. Or at least nobody has alleged he was, except via the oil-covered argument that "by expressing his concerns he has disrupted my mental wellbeing".
You very clearly cannot tolerate people who disagree with you: you just expressed support for firing him. That means people around you absolutely WILL hide their true feelings from you because they will perceive you as a witch-hunter who is out to get them.
You are making a hostile workplace environment and you can't even see it.
I actually think his writing the document itself was not as disruptive as the resulting outrage and debate.
I'm not a witch hunter but I'm flattered you want to assume I'm one simply because I'd rather hunker down and do my job than be forced into a debate about the perception of hiring policies.
Although it is tough to tell, it definitely seems like Gizmodo may have stripped out some of his sources. From Gizmodo's preamble:
> Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted.
I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt that there were probably sources. As has been noted in the original YC post about this, it seems like he gets a lot of his info from this study:
It's incredibly ironic that a company that apparently cares about diversity enough to have a "Vice President for Diversity" fired an employee for presenting an opposing viewpoint - to their diversity policy of all things.
Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concerned with normalizing racial/gender composition to present the illusion that discrimination and biological variation are non-existent (except for discrimination against males, whites, and Asians, because for some reason it's not considered discrimination if it affects them). It's not about doing the right thing, it's about PR - hence the decision to cave in to whatever the pitchforks are demanding.
It's a shame that honest criticism of diversity policies and gender issues is considered taboo enough to get someone fired. If we really cared about diversity, then we'd welcome opposing viewpoints and counter them with facts, not silencing. We have a culture of anti-intellectualism and dogmatism around certain topics that for whatever reason are considered sacred and not allowed to be challenged (ie. political correctness), and its disgraceful.
>Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity".
There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop).
In this context Google’s behavior is rational, and this guy tried to fight it with reason and argument (I was laughing hard when I was reading the manifesto) and got steamrolled in the process, proving the argument made in his memo by personal example.
> There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop).
That's bullshit. Write a "manifesto" about how senior executive compensations are to high, the company should be taken over by the employees and that private ownership of properties is a crime. That's the REAL leftist position. Then send that manifesto out to thousands of employees on the company's internal mailing list and see how long you last.
People fail to see the point... Yes, there are many "leftist" positions. The above is one of them. The point is that expressing that position on an internal mailing list most certainly puts your employment in jeopardy. It doesn't matter what the position is (abortion, drug legalization, gay weddings, military attacks on civilians, foreign relations, ...), what matter is where you express it.
These gender ideologies and the application of positive discrimination are an affront to left position. Since more than a hundred years, the left strongest identification trait was the fight to end discrimination. When now discrimination is applied in the name of diversity, that can't be a left value. This is something else, and it comes from somewhere else.
I'm not saying the position does not exist, and I'm not saying the groups purporting them don't look like left groups. But talk with some communists or socialists. They can't get behind this. My point is that this gender movement is its own political/ideological thing, that has just a very small overlap with left identification markers. It uses their style, not more.
This is probably part of the usual problem, that the left-right distinction doesn't really capture the political landscape.
I haven't seen anyone on the left (in fact, anyone aside from Ron Paul [1]) being critical and calling for the end of Affirmative Action and similar practices, which does not surprise me due to to the "no enemies to the left" formula [2]. I invite you to show me a few examples.
Thanks for the links. I can't offer examples, you seem to be right in that there are mostly no public statements from the left against it.
In Germany, with which politics I'm more familiar, it is similar: The political organized left (which is marginal) is for affirmative actions (in the form of quotas for women). The only organization speaking out against them which has some left traits is the (sadly mostly neo-)liberal party.
Interestingly, and that is maybe a good description of my point, the parties implementing quotas for women over here are not left nor progressive. It's the SPD, which is a conservative central party, and the greens, which is a conservative party which fought for environmental protection in the eighties. However, the one remaining left party is also for them. My point may be weak when applied to organized political parties, but I stand behind the ideological argumentation that it is an affront to left values.
>Are you saying that Bernie endorsing Hillary is proof that there aren't conflicting views within the Democratic party?
It is a proof that that the Democrats knows where their real opponents are, and that is in the Republican party.
>Are you saying that Ron endorsing Trump would've been equal to Bernie supporting Hillary?
Pretty much, yes. Both have a non-mainstream and dedicated following. Both were screwed by their respective parties when they tried to get the nomination.
>Qualifications and platform doesn't factor in?
I'm not sure what do you mean by that, unless you are trying to imply that Ron Paul has a serious ideological foundation deriving from the Mises Institute and based largely on Murray Rothbard's 20th century interpretation of classical liberalism upon which the United States were founded in the 18th century, while Bernie Sanders is pushing USA towards the fate of USSR and other similar implementations of socialist ideas that always end in a disaster.
>Here's an example of GOP acting as a herd and DNC acting on policy:
I knew it's war-related even before I clicked the link. Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply in other areas.
No, the leftist position would be writing a well thought out and mild toned argument that the company has pro white male bias in interviewing (which implies that the hiring bar is lowered for white males and that some white males don't belong in the company) and that the company should create initiatives to end this bias.
"I think half of this group should not be allowed in here because of their biology" is not a diverse thought, it's a dangerous one that doesn't need to be entertained yet again (Eugenics, etc etc)
Really? Why is it, then, that the identity politics was dominating the discourse in the USA during the last election, and likely still is? Why do those who question the ethnic discrimination disguised as "Affirmative Action" get slammed by the leftist media, such as Rand Paul by The Guardian (and others) a few years ago?
To be honest I don't think I'd describe any of our prominent media as leftist. Maybe liberal? Maybe just neurotic. Whatever it is, what you're describing isn't really a left thing.
Liberal? Founding Fathers were liberals, I wouldn't call these modern oppression-privilege radicals 'liberals'.
Just to clarify: I do have some respect for some ideas of the class-based left, unlike for the identity-based one. Roughly speaking, I do agree (though for a different reason) with the idea that the intellectual property should not exist.
This market force might actually change in future.
In this case it seems that James planned all this to happen and is gonna sue Google:
> "$1 million in bonuses" was changed to "$100 million as a compensation" after Damore was "fired" by a Mr Kunda Píča whom I have never heard of; Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
And about PR, while vocal left leaning activists might cheer decision to fire him, conservative and centrists media used this as great point to smear Google as leftist propaganda. This is great talking point for proving accusations that google manipulates search results to prefer certain political agenda. Recently Jordan Peterson caused quite a stir when his youtube and gmail accounts were revoked, YouTube decided it will start isolating videos with controversial views even if they dont brake ToS...
This moves will be used by anti PC camp a lot to steer users to alternatives to googles products.
Facebook and Twitter already pushed a lot of potential users away by similar behavior, alternative platforms are getting more and more relevant.
Its hard to say if this vocal PC SJW activists are just vocal minority or actually majority talking with their wallets. Based on results of recent US elections and financial problems of some feminists and left leaning publications, and on majority of comments on uncensored pages; I would say that PC ship is probably sinking fast.
No reason was given. Peterson tweeted about it. And said that even access to his gmail account was revoked for braking policy. He said no details were given.
Then he tweeted that they reviewed revocation it and still didnt restore account.
He then tweeted few influencers like Rubin, Rogan and Harris.
And then he tweeted that his accounts were restored, again with no explanation.
Right media and Youtube anti-SJWs blame this on one Youtube policy to isolate contradicting videos and authors, but I think this was probably mistake by some bot. Maybe Peterson account was mass flagged by some fringe group.
You tube isnt doing themselves a favor with keeping all the details, since this allow those who accuse them of being biased, to use this as an example of censoring anti-SJW personalities.
It's not market forces. It's the fact that they hire so many new grads. Lack of mental/political/ideological diversity in universities leads to lack of diversity inside Google too (and Facebook and ...)
> But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm.
> Again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace (accounting for, perhaps, a few percentage points of the variability between men’s and women’s performances). Sex differences in occupational interests, personal values, and certain cognitive abilities are a bit larger in size (see here), but most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway.
> Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at.
> Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex.
The problem in the employee's memo seems to be correlating scientific data (which is accurate) to groups of people (women) at Google and their qualifications (inaccurate).
> We have a culture of anti-intellectualism and dogmatism around certain topics that for whatever reason are considered sacred and not allowed to be challenged (ie. political correctness), and its disgraceful.
From a personal perspective I get where you are coming from, but from a professional perspective it makes no sense. There are ways to present opposing viewpoints in a workplace without offending half of the people who work there.
>There are ways to present opposing viewpoints in a workplace without offending half of the people who work there.
Ways like not sharing your opposing viewing at all? From a professional perspective Google's management should have ignored the note. It's unprofessional to become wrapped up in minor drama (posting a note to a message board threatens nobody) and to act in carelessly hurried manner.
Ways like described in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14954802. No one should be surprised about the outcome of handling a nuanced, difficult, and highly culturally relevant topic so callously.
Many people take offense so easily these days that I doubt it is possible to have a decent discussion about these issues without offending quite a few people.
Our mistake is prioritizing offense mitigation. So long as a person's primary intent isn't to offend then they should be able to say anything without being fired.
> Our mistake is prioritizing offense mitigation. So long as a person's primary intent isn't to offend then they should be able to say anything without being fired.
I strongly disagree. If I want to cement my advantages of being a white male I'll propose anything that furthers that goal. My aim wouldn't be to offend someone, but it is still very real side effect of my goal.
Discussing gender differences should obviously not be taboo, nor should other topics, but the motives behind the discussions should likewise be freely scrutinized.
If I wanted to cement my advantages of being a white male then I'd adopt mainstream views on every topic since I myself don't gain anything from helping a fellow man.
What I mean isn't that I should be able to in practice be offended with what I disagree with, but that blatant agenda pushing behind science that doesn't quite fit your agenda should be questioned.
I'm not offended by facts, I'm offended by dishonesty. We probably don't disagree in concept, but perhaps on this specific case.
Yes, it's disappointing when science is warped by political agenda. But I suppose it's not surprising, since science's success has made it authoritative.
That comes across as unfair by definition, but practically there are no such ways to do what you've claimed.
It's unfair in the sense that this progressive or far left ideal is allowed to be pushed onto entire organizations and by the media as de facto "right" or "correct", which is inherently a political position and would likely offend anyone who disagrees with it. If these processes and programs should be publicly enacted on people who disagree with them, it's unfair then to disallow any discussion about them under an implicit threat of termination. Google just confirmed that threat is very real. I know many conservatives here (a classical liberal / libertarian mostly myself, which is far too "right leaning" for this area) who are actually scared of any political discussion due to this exact threat, even though those with the "correct" opinions can openly discuss them without any fear of repercussions. I don't think they should because inherently politics brings out discussion and debate, often vigorous forms of it, and that's not generally the best thing for the office, but because that discussion/debate is effectively banned here, it's completely fine to express leftist and socialist ideals publicly, even if in extremely poor taste.
Secondly, if you were to decide to bring up issues with these programs with a person responsible (for instance in Google's case, this VP of diversity) you'd get a predictable dismissal, or they'd silently drop whatever issue you raise, which means you have no actual means with which to present these viewpoints. She publicly dismissed the entire thing without actually refuting any argument that was made, with language that effectively sounded something like "this is wrong think, and Google doesn't agree with this wrong think." You could do it outside of work, but you lose the context and the specifics of the program, and more importantly the impact any such discussion could have on your immediate environment.
These discussions do need to be had, and where they're being had, the majority of even liberal minded people tend to agree with the author of this piece, but it's hard to know if that's a consensus (even at 500,000+ views for instance on each video on YouTube) or if it's just an echo chamber because even demanding rigor and evidence of the ideas behind diversity is taboo in far too many places. For instance tptacek can be found in these very comments essentially arguing that this topic of discussion isn't open because it's been decided. By whom? How can any discussion of highly debatable topics like this be had if people like him and Google are just going to say "it's not up for debate because I'm right" in order to shut down any discussion before it can even begin, hilariously in this case by likening this to discussing child labor or marital rape? It's nice to see logical fallacies are alive and very well with people who otherwise seem fairly intelligent.
> As Damore reminded us, most of the people who agree with him only dare to agree privately.
> What do they answer when their opinions are measured through a poll run on Google-plus – which the SJW officials in charge could still hypothetically access? Some other Google employees gave us the following pie chart:
> 14% strongly agree, 22% almost agree with Damore's letter. That's some 36% if you combine it – over 20,000 employees of Google. If you add the 13% of neutral folks, you will get almost 49%, a slightly greater percentage than 48.5% of those who almost disagree or strongly disagree. Clearly, even if the participants of the poll face some risks that their vote could be used against them, the supporters of Damore's view are at least comparable in size to the opponents.
> If you add the 13% of neutral folks, you will get almost 49%, a slightly greater percentage than 48.5% of those who almost disagree or strongly disagree.
This is just not how you analyze a poll and maintain the impression of honesty. Although I agree with the conclusion that "the supporters of Damore's view are at least comparable in size to the opponents" (based on the 36%/48.5% split), the obvious willingness of the author to exaggerate support for his side is just despicable.
Yes term is mostly used as an insult. But there just isnt any other term that would replace it and include all those counterproductive radical left groups that relay on character assassination when faced with logical points they cant refute.
PC culture? regressive left? feminsts? LGBTQIAPK? lefties?
Definitely, because it is code for signifying a particular worldview which is dismissive of minorities, and as such is a polemic, not a reasoned argument.
Thank you for writing this comment. I'm a conservative/classicial liberal and I also find HN to be rather hostile place. I'll put you on my "liked comments" list.
I agree, but (and call me old fashioned) I don't think these kind of discussions should happen at work and I definitely don't think an employee should be publishing opinionated documents naming the company they work for.
If you read it, it was about his opinions about damage that Ideological Echo Chamber causes to company.
This discussion needs to happen at google. And he made it clear that this arent his opinions but he sourced most of controversial claims in memo.
His paper was completely aligned with section 1.5 of Google's code of conduct that says “Any time you feel our users aren’t being well-served, don’t be bashful - let someone in the company know about it. Continually improving our products and services takes all of us, and we’re proud that Googlers champion our users and take the initiative to step forward when the interests of our users are at stake.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in memo “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it.”
...and fired him anyways. It seems to me that he will easily win on court saying he was fired for political reasons and accuse them of defamation.
I disagree. It's impossible to critique certain issues such as those pertaining to gender without offending people. But if someone is going to get offended because someone presented an alternative viewpoint to what they believe, than that's their problem.
Imagine if we weren't allowed to debate, say, programming languages or SQL vs. NoSQL because one side needs to be coddled and can't take the heat. That's essentially what we're doing with "diversity" policies and gender dynamics.
Absolutely. Pichai had an opportunity to make Google stand out of the current insane PC mindset, as perhaps the Google of 15 years ago would, and instead chose to collaborate with the orthodoxy. So much for using data to evaluate ideas. What a disgraceful age we live in.
Who's to say Pichai hasn't used data? I think you may be presuming too much.
If one thing is true, there's plenty of data to demonstrate non-merit based discrimination. For example, studies that send out the same resume with different names is a common source of data: http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-...
If you think discrimination only affects women and POCs, you'll be delighted to learn that from second tier law schools that signaled middle class were overwhelmingly the least likely to get called. Being a middle class women yielded 7x better chances and being a wealthy male yielded 13x better chances.
Ironically, being wealthy as a woman put you as a disadvantage.
This type of discrimination is real because our brains don't like doing rigorous evaluation. To save energy, we'll substitute in some heuristic and tell ourselves we rigorously evaluated a person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_substitution
Here's the point. Discrimination is real and it costs businesses money. It's like Moneyball. You can be like the Yankees and overpay for players that fit superficial molds, or you could actually be methodical like the 2002 Athletics and hire undervalued players their competitors discounted.
There are real economic incentives to focusing on diversity, especially if you can demonstrate your employees are passing on qualified people for superficial reasons (right school, hobbies, similar to me, culture fit, etc.)
The company that can successfully exploit an industry's hiring bias by targeting discounted groups and evaluating candidates rigorously will have the pick of the litter.
Phrases like "alt-right bigotry" and "misogynistic" are becoming the red flags of an intolerant leftist ideology.
By using them here it seems like you are attempting to marginalize and stigmatize those who consider the manifesto to make some decent points.
Do you have any actual arguments against the manifesto, or do you think that formulating a reasoned response would help legitimize a point of view that you find abhorrent?
That's just incredible. Is this what you believe? That there exists discrimination against white males? What world do you actually live in? It just so happens white males have more opportunities and if a company actively tries to give opportunities to those who do not have it then you cry foul. You are not pushed down while they are raised up.
Diversity by its essence is about diversity, and hence accepting people who are opposed to diversity is antithetical to the idea of diversity. So this argument of accepting diverse viewpoints including those against diversity is non-sensical.
The idea behind diversity is not to ignore gender differences, or racial differences, but to have the belief that skill and talent exists can come from anywhere. So these viewpoints that make generalizations about people because of their gender, race etc. serve to exclude the talent that can come from the non-white/male quarter.
Now this person is probably a good engineer, but its fair to say his impact to computing will never be as great as Ada Lovelace, Anita Borg, Fei Fei Li etc. So if a viewpoint like his hinders the next Grace Hopper then firing him is a worthy price.
The thing that the anti diversity warriors fail to understand is that their viewpoints are exclusionary to a whole swath of people, so please dont expect sympathy for your opinion when your viewpoint tells some people to go away just because of their gender/race.
It is absolutely possible to acknowledge biological differences having a potential impact at a macro scale yet still believe skill and talent can come from anywhere. This is entirely consistent with the author's position.
It's really tough to have these discussions when any contrary opinion is equated with "[telling] some people to go away just because of their gender/race."
Exactly. You either think women can be in tech or you don't. If you don't, there isn't really room for compromise, so the notion of an "open" discussion is a red herring in addition to being incredibly insulting.
This memo doesnt claim at any point that women should not be in tech. It just presents some reasons why there are less women in tech than men. Reasons that are not only sexism and patriarchy.
But it does claim that Google created environment, where people who dont perfectly align with left leaning echo chamber talking points, cant safely express their opinions anymore.
And Googles decision to pander to left leaning echo chamber and fire the guy proved his point.
If you actually read the memo, and not only misinterpretation of it on pro feminist blogs, you would see that he was very careful with words and there isnt single sentence showing his misogyny. All his controversial claims are sourced and he pointed out that this are not his personal opinions.
What you are looking at is a clever guy (former chess champion), who pushed left PC SJW Google to shoot themselves in the foot. He knew what result will be. Google echo chamber activists bullied HR so they needed to fire him. Accusing him of things like misogyny, that cant be proved on court, is enough for character assassination in SJW echo chambers. But in court room where biased interpretation of his memo and words like "anti-women manifesto" or "anti-diversity screed" wont be allowed, he has the upper hand. He has all he needs to prove he was fired unfairly.
> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
I have read it. And you can't slap some paragraphs about not being sexist in there, then say a bunch of sexist things, and have it be OK. Just to take one example:
"Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average"
A non-sexist comparison between men on women would be "women on average are not as tall as men". Do you see the difference? There are so many baked-in sexist assumptions to this statement I barely know where to begin, but to name one, I'll point out that women weren't allowed (by law and by culture) to even hold high-status jobs until very recently.
Women traditionally raise children and take care of nest, while men provide resources for family. On average. It can be different, but this is how most families function.
This is the same as women on average are not as tall as man. Its true in most cases, but not always.
Feminist alike always assume that statements like this somehow assume that women are inferior, and to counter this many feminists try to convince women to start acting more masculine. Which is quite ironic actually.
This statement doesnt mean women are inferior. Men actually like women for this traits like patience, compassion, attention to details; because they lack this traits.
There is no need to be upset. Men like femininity at women. On average.
It's so easy for these conversations to go horribly wrong in this format, so please keep that in mind and try to hear what I'm saying. Just because something is done "traditionally" doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Your statement begs the question: WHY do women traditionally work in the home?
In my entire life I have only met 3 people who didn't believe women should be in tech. Two (one man, one woman) due to religion and one due to misogyny who was fired.
It is better to see what the opposing argument really is which is a liberalist position but in a future ideal United States free of discrimination that most everyone wants to live in. That is evaluating individuals individually based on their merit.
The question is really whether or not affirmative action is morally good, socially necessary, or practically effective.
Two thirds of that argument is possible to evaluate empirically. The other third is not which is why the topic generates so many arguments that are more heat than light like so many political views in the United States.
If you accept that is what is happening and you want to make society better and more positive, having some charity for the opposition I think would help a long way to having productive conversations.
You've only met 3 people who didn't believe women should be in tech? Do you mean that you've only met 3 people who openly admit it? Because I've met COUNTLESS people who make comments like "We shouldn't hire her because she'll get pregnant" or "it would be too distracting to have her work here" or some crude variation of "I'll put in some extra hours on her".
> ....Because I've met COUNTLESS people who make comments like "We shouldn't hire her because she'll get pregnant" or "it would be too distracting to have her work here" or some crude variation of "I'll put in some extra hours on her".
Well, the pregnancy avenue is a significant area of unfairness between the sexes. Women of childbearing age DO have that hanging over their head precisely due to federal law.
There's 2 ways to fix it. Get rid of the federal law (and deny that pregnancy carries complications!) or offer the same benefit to the male.
I'm for offering the same benefit to the male. And now, that both have that law, the differentiation becomes moot.
I have become more open to the idea that the US is a wildly different place.
However it doesn't matter. For the individual person arguing a different point of view you can only succeed in persuading them if you respond to what they are saying fairly and charitably rather than argue with straw men and shadows from your own mind and fears.
That is what I am saying. Your ontology of the argument is too austere. People have other beliefs than women should be able to work or not.
It was a bit of a Jerry Maguire moment even if you agree with some of it.
At work you should be professional and not only work to make yourself and the company/product better, but the people around you better.
It is mostly not healthy to get political or ideological at work unless you want to divide people. A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base. You should treat everyone at work like a client and not go all tribal or into cliques that end up in groups that are constantly complaining.
If you don't like something you can work to change it but in a company the size of Google that is not always possible. If you don't like the ideology of a company then leave. Do a good job yourself, setup your own thing if you want to control everything, but don't bring down other individuals, encourage them and make them better, create respect internally. Don't rock the boat, try to guide it, if you can't, hop on a new ship. In the end we live in a free country but work for companies that are more dictatorial/authoritarian where we are just sharecroppers on their feudal land. Companies are not democracies unless they are really small and even then they are not.
Sometimes manifestos are needed [1] but for the most part it is like calling out an employer. Not only will it probably not change the company, it will follow you around for better or worse.
Oh, there’s one final lesson: you never know when something you write is going to unexpectedly be published in the Wall Street Journal. So watch those split infinitives.
> A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base.
The company and its employees have very publicly political. This is the trend for most of the big tech companies. I wish they were much less political and the companies chose more moderate viewpoints.
The companies, should stay as much as to the political center, and it is wise to do so. Google, unfortunately, built its early image as a company with moral, where it nows turns into a burden rather than a legacy.
I guess the opposing argument would be that the existing policy got there politically, and the only way to oppose it (even with data and sources) will make people uncomfortable. Writing the same manifesto in support of the existing policy would not have rocked the boat.
I agree a manifesto likely isn't the best idea, but you also can't just say informally, "maybe there are biological differences that affect representation at a high level." When you just say that, people assume it's a dog whistle. You have to support it, and you have to make a case for what you're proposing. You also have to state in black and white that sexism still exists, and that you're suggesting there could be other causes, too. By that point, it becomes a manifesto.
To me it ultimately comes down to the context of where it was shared internally and how, but it's tough to find details there.
A company that claims to embrace diversity does not tolerate a diverse opinion - right or wrong. I can understand why San Fran is so anti-conservative, but I cannot accept this blatant hypocrisy of being so intolerant and even aggressive towards those who dare to divert! Companies like Google do something worse than censorship - they induce self-censorship, which is something that even the Commies failed to accomplish! Let people think and say whatever they want and only judge them by their actions. The fragile society of today that can't accept anything, but an applause, is doomed! Okay, women, you disagree with his statement - prove him wrong, don't silence him up! If I ever wasted any effort on paying attention to what people think or say about me, my life would've been mostly wasted! Let people say or think whatever they want - I am personally okay with hate speech, too! I'd prefer somebody exhausting their hatred with words toward me than finding a more destructive outlet! I guess, our society today is less mature than ever! We have a bunch of crybabies that need "participation awards" and "goodie bags" and can't accept the realities of life!
>I cannot accept this blatant hypocrisy of being so intolerant and even aggressive towards those who dare to divert!
This is not about purging the company of people with different ideologies. This is about a person who thought it was appropriate to publicly question not just the ability of their co-workers, but whether they are fundamentally capable of performing.
Regardless of the accuracy of his statements, this was not the way to push for any change he might have been hoping to achieve
I was raised during Communism in Bulgaria, and at that time, women had equal rights in my country unlike here in America or in some Western European countries! And this was the case well before I was born! Since 1945, women were stimulated to take traditionally male jobs - from operating heavy machinery to military training. My country was proud of women succeeding and even exceeding men in the full spectrum of life. But even during that well-established equality, women were nowhere to be found in Computer Science! It wasn't about abilities; it wasn't about opportunities - it was about desires and interest! Although many of the teachers were female, very few of the students were, too. And nobody - men or women, - thought something was wrong about that situation, and that something had to change! I believe there are a lot of parasitic organizations in the States that find existence in blowing non-issues out of proportions! Although we're equal in intellect, we're emotionally different, and we have different interests! So, to try to compensate for that artificially is harmful, not helping genders, races, or ethnicities in any way! If there are documented cases of bias, they need to be severely persecuted, but to "prove" bias by assuming that if mental abilities are the same, then women, blacks, and Bulgarians should be proportionally employed at Google as well, is a fallacy!
I read somewhere that apparently the document wasn't meant to be public, it was sent to a select group by the author and got leaked. So I wouldn't say it's a "public" document.
> Employment here is based solely upon individual merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence.
How are you going to achieve 50/50 diversity in the company if the pool of candidates is far from that distribution? (unless you go and don't hire the best ones to balance the distribution)
EDIT: As kevingadd said, I might be wrong assuming the goal for diversity target for Google. It can be something more realistic and be close to the ratio of the pool of candidates. In that case I am wrong in my assumption. This is also a good link he provided: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-v...
You're automatically assuming the pool's distribution matches Google's, which it does not. There are other companies with more representative gender and race distributions.
Even if their hiring pool of candidates didn't have a fully diverse distribution, that doesn't automatically make it okay to have a company that ranks poorly on diversity. It suggests that you should examine how your pool is filled with candidates and whether you're committing serious errors that cause you to miss out on top-class talent - like only recruiting from ivy league schools, or excluding people without 4-year degrees. Both of those things could unfairly exclude people of all races and genders and it would further reduce the diversity of your candidate pool.
The pool of candidates are men and women who want to work in tech. I have no metrics of this pool but I think that most probably is something like 75/25 (if someone can provide better metrics I appreciate it). So the bigger the company the most probably it get closer to this ratio. What companies want to achieve with gender diversity is 50/50 because in the world the proportion is 50/50. But this is not the case for the pool of candidates. So moving far from 75/25 it only make you not hiring the best candidates (because the best candidates pool should be something similar to 75/25 if we assume a normal distribution for both genders).
I don't think it is bad you have a company with a ratio 75/25 but I would think why are less women than men interested in tech. Is it based on biology? is it a cultural issue? We can discuss that, but for me it is clear that a positive discrimination to have a 50/50 ratio it only harms the company in the long term and it an impossible goal to achieve now a days.
> Even if their hiring pool of candidates didn't have a fully diverse distribution, that doesn't automatically make it okay to have a company that ranks poorly on diversity
First of all, nobody said the target was 50/50 or even 75/25. If you want to know the actual percentage makeup of the population (or even of computer science grads, or college grads) it's very trivial to find those numbers using Google. Google's race and gender makeup (in general, but especially in engineering) is far off the mark.
I already mentioned some of the ways you can expand your candidate pool. There are tech firms in other states/cities with more reasonable race balances than Google, see here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-v...
With the vast financial resources at its disposal and the (generally) positive brand recognition it has, Google absolutely is in a position where they could recruit more people of color and more women. They have to identify the right steps to take, and then take them - both significant challenges, especially if your employees actively resist every step involved.
Honestly though at this point, this is a well understood issue. It's not a completely solved problem but many companies have no difficulty recruiting a diverse workforce.
Thanks for the reference. You are right, if the ratio they want to achieve is close to the pool of candidates them I should apologize for my comment. But after reading the manifesto I think the ex-googler had the feeling the company was going out of limits and try to achieve an impossible.
Do you have any reference for the goal Google had for any of his programs?
Sorry, I had nothing to do with hiring while I worked there, so I can't comment on details of their hiring policies. I definitely didn't observe anything out of the ordinary or discriminatory against white men - I worked with plenty of them.
I'm sad to see this guy fired. He tried very hard to make it clear that he believes diversity is valuable, that discrimination is real and needs to be addressed, and that he was discussing distribution at the population level rather than individuals. And he cited several references in support of his ideas - giving dissenters ample opportunity to attack his arguments on the basis of their merits. The memo had some rough edges and questionable assertions to be sure - but to me at least he came across as a reasonable person that you could have an intelligent discussion with.
But rather than discussing the ideas in the memo, people who have never met him and who presumably don't know the context with which the memo was released have twisted his arguments, made assumptions that he racist and sexist beyond hope of recovery, and needed to be fired.
I understand that his memo was extremely inflammatory and therefore probably not appropriate for the workplace (although, again, I don't know the exact context in which it was distributed initially). But now that it's gone viral - wouldn't it be better to have the discussion rather than trying to silence him and pretend it never happened? Because I am sure there are more people out there with the same views. People who are in charge of hiring decisions, are terrified to discuss their views in public, and are now that much less likely to ever change.
Personally, it's not immediately obvious to me when reading the memo or the cited references that he was wrong. There are a lot of crackpots out there who cling to indefensible ideas and refuse to change their minds in the face of overwhelming evidence - but this guy didn't feel like one of them to me. To me this felt purely like identity politics winning out over intelligent debate and the pursuit of truth.
This is starting to be scary. Instead of government companies are acting as thought police. I think a lot of people will watch what they are saying publicly from now on.
When you do/say/write something that has the potential to cause problems for your employer, you should be aware of and prepared for the possible consequences.
I certainly would not write a multi-page screed criticizing the policies and practices of my employer, distribute it at work, and then expect to keep my job or have no repercussions.
When it's a widely circulated internal document criticising the hiring practices behind 40% of the company's workforce, it's hardly surprising.
He put them in a difficult position. The brand and employee-esteem damage caused by tacitly condoning his manifesto by not firing him, vs just getting rid of one engineer. Easy maths. He's gone.
True, but what's troubling isn't that he was fired, it's that the memo got leaked, caused a bunch of controversy and basically forced Google to take a position on whether they want to discuss this stuff. Yes, one guy getting fired for sending out something inflammatory and critical isn't a huge deal (although I would have expected Google to be more tolerant), it's the fact that it went public and then when
Google had to make a public statement deciding whether to fire him or not they chose "we don't think these ideas should be discussed".
I would be curious to know at which point in history one could circulate a memo around the office which embarrassed the company and insulted half the workforce without repercussion.
I find it so bizarre people get this interpretation - it's completely nonsensical. Point: "Chinese tend to be short so not many of them go into basketball". Counterpoint: "I'm Chinese and 6'5" are you saying I'm short and bad at basketball?"
Freedom of Speech is not the same thing as Freedom from Consequences. Unless we decide that being "aggressively antisocial" should be a protected class, private companies should have every right to fire employees who they deem toxic for their culture.
This comment, forgive the pun, makes me very sad. I’m all for doing something to fight the ideas in this guy’s paper, but to advocate for personal censorship as apparently some sort of ideal is beyond my support.
Anyway, I think self censorship is an expected behavior in a peaceful society. For example: you don't bring up recently deceased significant others, comment on awkward physical characteristics of strangers, or mock the suffering of others, without expecting repercussions. People learn at a very young age that certain topics should be avoided for the sake of "keeping the peace".
50 years ago you could use the n-word in business meetings. Now, not so much, but for a long time many people were "self-censoring" themselves to keep the peace in their workplaces. Some still are, but I imagine that most people these days are happy to be in a workplace where n-words are not tolerated. Not just for their own "sensibilities", but also the knowledge that their black coworkers/friends can be in an environment that is actively less hostile.
What we're seeing is the continuing shift in standards for peaceful society. So far I think the track record on these shifts is pretty good, so I'm inclined to let this ride for a while, even if some people have to keep "self-censoring" some of the time.
This is the real world, people. Of course a company that needs its employees to be effective has to censor employees whose outspoken views make their teams less effective. The army kicks people out for all sorts of reasons. Coaches cut players who poison the locker room. I personally would hope people could talk and deal with it, but if it's a bunch of other people quit or this guy quit, an effective company has to act.
This clearly fails to grasp the concept of operability.
If we were to adopt this line of reasoning, constitutional rights go from being something that is clearly established and to be universally respected by all to a concept that is at the mercy of whichever angry mob would master the numbers big enough to topple all who oppose them.
By this line of reasoning, ethics and morality are just something based on strength in numbers rather than any other principle.
If they put 'make america great again' or 'death to white men' posters up on the bulletin boards at work in the break room, yeah, they'll fire them too. It's against the agreements they signed when they got hired.
If you don't like it don't sign and go work somewhere else.
> "If they put 'make america great again' or 'death to white men' posters up on the bulletin boards at work in the break room, yeah, they'll fire them too."
Are you saying that supporting a presidential candidate is tantamount to "death to white men"?
Yes, the candidate in question is abhorrent, but come on. Those statements absolutely don't carry equal weight.
My point was, it's not a good set of examples, since they are so unlike each other. Unless you mean certain organizations actually consider them equivalent.
I think you would agree that your example is different in both scope and visibility than my (extreme) hypothetical examples, and the real example of this manifesto. Plenty of Google employees have expressed opinions similar to Mr. Damore's on memegen or G+ without being terminated.
I agree that people with the wrong political opinions should not be allowed to work, and that it's up to corporations to be the ultimate arbitrator of what is acceptable political discourse.
They can hire Christians as long as the hires are intelligent enough to realize that (for example) leaving Chick Tracts on their coworkers' desks is probably not acceptable workplace behavior.
Plenty of Google employees are christians and none of them have been fired for it (it's legally protected, for one thing)
"Get over yourself. You are not as special as you believe yourself to be.
At that point, I gave up on your pathetic and emotional diatribe. Your piece is devoid of any logic, reason, or sense and serves as a way for you to virtue-signal to the rest of the world how much of a “stand-up guy” you are."
Is spot on how I read that Medium post.
I found nothing of value in the Ex Googler's commentary.
Not sure what you are saying. It is the first amendment that grants the right to fire people you don't agree with. So presumably not everyone agrees on what free speech is.
I'm saying, free speech (an open exchange of ideas, tolerating views that are sincerely and respectfully made, or at least trying to charitably interpret those views, especially if you think they're wrong) should be something groups of people and organizations aspire to.
The fact many supporters of this guy's firing are treating these principles as technicalities is troubling. The first amendment is a starting point, not a loophole.
The issue with "free speech" is that it is often used as a crutch for people to cling to their bad ideas. "How dare those people take issue with that ridiculous thing I just said! I am just exercising my right to free speech!"
So the "free speech only applies to the government" or the "free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want without consequences" argument is really just a reflex to "free speech" being often misused.
But in this case - I agree with you. The knee jerk calls for the guy to be fired without really hearing him out or engaging substantively on the issues like censorship and an affront the free exchange of ideas upon which democracy depends.
If you are talented enough Google will scout and hire you regardless of race or gender. Anything less is someone complaining about life not being fair.
They are adding a bias in their selection process with gender diversity programs, so if two candidates are very similar they will probably select the one who belongs to the minority. As it is a minority, you are more likely to choose less qualified people from the minority.
For example, your pool of candidates is 75 (mayority) / 25 (minority). If you want in your company 50/50 ratio, you must leave out better candidates from the mayority in order to increase your number of people of the minority.
EDIT: as other person replied to me in a comment, my argument fails if the target ratio is close to the pool of candidates. But we don't have any reference what was the goal of the diversity program to make any assumption. I assume the goal was not feasible and that lead to the famous memorandum.
>But we don't have any reference what was the goal of the diversity program to make any assumption.
In California, when companies are audited by the government to check for discriminatory employment practices, they're checking that the employment ratios are relatively close to the ratio of the pool of applicants, not some prescribed ratio like 50/50.
They sample resumes from various source (online hiring boards, recruiting companies, etc.). They also do compare companies to their industry average for their region to see if a company is hiring abnormally compared to similar companies. Companies with 50 employees have a lot more variation than companies with 1000 employees, they're very aware of the related sampling biases and do the best they can, they employ a good amount of statisticians and sociologists. The margin for error is also quite high, the kind of auditing I'm talking about is meant to catch very serious, long term, company wide systemic discrimination.
After companies grow to a certain size (I think >50 employees), they are also obligated to record demographics information about applicants in the form of voluntary surveys in their application process.
What? As far as I know you shouldn't put your gender, age or photo in the CV because the company who review it can be sued for discrimination. (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies).
Isn't Google ratios similar to Facebook and other companies in San Francisco? (But not to other states).
I am more confuse now after the information you gave me.
> (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies)
funny, when I started applying outside of the US, I added that information into my resume.
in the US, there's often an attached (optional) form that allows the applicant to add this information. I'd never really put it together before tonight, but I've always shunned filling out that form. I also shunned saying the pledge of allegiance in grade school.
wondering, for myself, if those behaviors are related.
>What? As far as I know you shouldn't put your gender, age or photo in the CV because the company who review it can be sued for discrimination. (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies).
You're not being misinformed, this is probably good advice.
Your demographic information doesn't have to be on your CV for your name to be cross referenced with a government database (audits I mentioned are done by government offices or government contractors), which you would probably be listed in if you are working in the US.
>Isn't Google ratios similar to Facebook and other companies in San Francisco? (But not to other states).
I haven't read anything about any audits that have said they have a significant bias one way or another, I don't think I've said anything to suggest otherwise.
Google and other large corporations are known to do self audits of their hiring practices (demographic and otherwise) both to improve their hiring processes as well as to identify and correct discriminatory practices (mitigate legal risk), they are allowed to collect demographic information for the latter purpose.[0]
My personal opinion is that Google's demographics changes are a simple result of changes in the actual applicant pool, and that Google 'promoting diversity' doesn't change their internal hiring process in any meaningful way. But the press about it probably does encourage lesser represented people to join CS majors in university. So google does promote diversity in engineering, just not in the way the author of that article suggests, and instead with marketing and a 4 year time lag.
If things keep going this way (esp. in California) someday saying that only women can get pregnant is gonna count as "perpetuating gender stereotypes".
Good. I get that HN is not into this, but this employee stated, bluntly, that they don't believe many of their colleagues should be there because of their sex. Every peer review, every no-hire, every interaction, is and should be suspect.
Happy where I am now, but future interviews will include me asking what management would do about this, and termination is the only correct answer. This is textbook hostile environment. Anyone saying otherwise should look hard at why they value this person's desire to speak without consequence over their colleague's right to a workplace where they're not judged by their sex, race, sexual orientation, or any other innate attribute irrelevant to their job performance.
I did not get that meaning from reading the memo. And I really don't understand how anyone could. Could you point out the part in the memo where he stated bluntly that many of his colleagues shouldn't be there because of their sex?
Below is the relevant section (although I don't see how anyone's saying they aren't good enough to work with):
I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
- Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]
- A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
- Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
- Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
- Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]
These practices are based on false assumptions generated by our biases and can actually increase race and gender tensions. We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology[7] that can irreparably harm Google.
So he's fired for asking the question? It's a very reasonable thing to ask. I've worked for companies that have instituted such policies -- minority candidates were given an HR-sanctioned "saving throw" before being rejected. It's not a good feeling to wonder if your new colleague would have been rejected if she were male, or if your referral would have still gotten rejected had they been a person of color.
He was fired for effectively casting doubt on whether his colleagues were qualified for their work or whether they were just hired to meet diversity quotas.
And why is that wrong? Worrying about your company's hiring bar is a very normal thing. HR should have contacted him to explain how they balance the desire for diversity and the desire for hiring the best candidates. There's no need for a public execution.
Policies that are effectively affirmative action are by definition lowering the bar for diversity candidates. His statement that it can lower the bar is correct but still not something people like to be reminded of. Google (and others) not recognizing this distinction and treating his lack of discretion as hate speech is irrational mob PC rule or just plain cowardice (if he was fired for PR reasons).
"His statement that it can lower the bar is correct"
In an n-dimensional space where we take into account all the factors that go into whether or not a candidate is given an offer, you're actually complaining about "lowering the bar" when the bar is already lower for people (for people that's not being targeted for affirmative action) due to systemic effects? You're actually complaining that we're lowering the bar by tweaking other variable so that the bar will be effectively the same obstacle for everyone?
Or sued, seems like this would be an easy basis for a hostile work suit. Couple promotion denials, a documented complaint and this manifesto would probably be an easy lawsuit, though INAL.
I don't think that's what he means. I think he is saying they are qualified, but many qualified people have also been excluded based on gender or race (i.e. the "false negatives" that gets repeatedly left out). For all he knows, those same people might have been the most qualified, but much of the competition didn't (allegedly) get a shot to compete against them.
> It's not a good feeling to wonder if your new colleague would have been rejected if she were male
Then maybe you should just not make that assumption and work with them as a peer?
> or if your referral would have still gotten rejected had they been a person of color
This is utter bullshit. As someone who used to work for Alphabet, gender and ethnic background never came up during interviews, simply because the interview process does not account for that. You are either able to solve the technical problems you are presented with during the interview or not. "Culture fit" - which is the one item that might be influenced by things related to gender or ethnic background - is actually a liability for minority groups.
That's a good thing! Then Alphabet is doing a good job, and someone should have sat down with this particular employee to explain what controls are in place to ensure consistent hiring standards are enforced while being sensitive to the requirements of people from different backgrounds. This was not the case at the company I worked for and it was a very negative thing.
> Then maybe you should just not make that assumption and work with them as a peer?
Sorry, forgot to mention that I'm a human in my post.
> someone should have sat down with this particular employee to explain what controls are in place to ensure consistent hiring standards are enforced while being sensitive to the requirements of people from different backgrounds
He knows them. Everyone knows them. The average Alphabet employee does multiple interviews a month, sometimes multiple interviews a week (complaining about how many interviews you have to do is of the favorite pastimes in the company.) We are trained for this, and - surprise - none of the training says (or even suggest) 'you should lower your standards for minority candidates.' In fact, none of the interviewing training even mentions gender or ethnicity.
I feel that this guy is coming from a disgruntled conservative-leaning position where he feels the company values don't represent his. That's a valid concern, but there's plenty of companies out there. He should just leave and find one that has values matching his.
> This was not the case at the company I worked for and it was a very negative thing
That's sad. Hope you had better luck with the next one!
> Sorry, forgot to mention that I'm a human in my post.
Sorry, didn't meant to be offensive. I just know intrigue (which this memo tries to stir up) is the shortest path to a dysfunctional workplace.
Q: How many employees felt free to discuss their support for Hillary openly (I'm sure Bernie was in a minority)? How many people felt free to discuss their support for Trump (or even any other republican? I'm sure there were a few supporters here and there but I bet the great majority assumed everyone _should_ support Hillary.
People should feel free to exercise their voting privilege.
> How many people felt free to discuss their support for Trump
This has nothing to do with the company, but rather with the individuals working for it. How many people, do you think, felt free to discuss their support for a Democratic candidate in the Alabama?
> People should feel free to exercise their voting privilege.
And they did! Heck, Google encouraged everyone to vote, not just Democrats. Maybe your anger should be directed to the companies and governments that did their utmost to stop their own citizens from voting. North Carolina is a good place to start, move South from there.
Just for kicks, I'd like to see if you _jokingly_ for the LULz walked into MTV or SVL with a Trump hat.
I'm sure you could imagine walking in with a Hillary/Pussy Hat no problem whatsoever. But you would not walk with a Trump hat even as a joke. Ok, maybe in Moncks Corner or some boonie office.
Holy shit, really, Google is as bad a a biker bar for republicans? That's pretty damning. I mean, I wasn't asking to walk into a la Raza meeting. I meant a vanilla google office at MTV.
And obviously you are being hyperbolic for effect. Nobody would beat the shit out of you at a Google office, at worst you might get some stares and people might comment about you with their friends over lunch. Also, assuming that you'd get beaten up at a La Raza meeting betrays your racism.
Please stop trying to bring the "librul intolerance" right-wing talking point. It's pretty pathetic to paint yourself as a victim, even when you have everything in your favor.
San Diego and LA appears to be the place to vote... (where voters exceed eligible pop) but Alabama has historically been democratic and I am pretty sure people in AL felt more at ease to openly have Hillary campaign signs than a Trump sympathizer would feel at company like Google which likes to keep things googley.
But those numbers likely don't indicate
anything nefarious like widespread voter
fraud. It's actually pretty common for
voter rolls to be a mess. In fact,
Judicial Watch threatened to sue 11 other
states in April for the same reason.
A 2012 Pew Research study found around
2.75 million people were registered to
vote in multiple states and more than
1.8 million deceased people were still
registered to vote.
Oftentimes, people don't realize they
need to notify local voting officials
when they move or when a loved one dies.
But outside of a few isolated incidences,
those extra numbers don't generally lead
to voter fraud.
The Bay Area voted overwhelmingly Democrat in the last election. Your doubts about having 30%+ Googlers declaring affiliation with Trump is right: there's no way it could've happened. Just not for the nefarious reasons you want to suggest though.
Gender does not come up during interviews but they will search across the 50 states for a diversity candidate equal to a local standard candidate. Their HR has diversity goals and will want diversity referrals from current emps to fulfil their goals.
"Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate"
Lowering the rate of false negatives does not lower the bar. If anything, it just improves the process and yields more qualified candidates. If you increase the rate of false positives, then you would in fact lower the bar.
It's muddled thinking like this that makes me doubt his ability as an engineer, not to mention his ability as a social scientist.
Here's my understanding of Google's hiring practice. In essence, Google optimizes to minimize false positive (i.e. hiring unqualified engineers). Hence, even if an applicant meets the bar (i.e. qualified), it is still a crapshoot whether the person is hired or not. By lowering the false negative rate (i.e. rejecting qualified applicant), the effective hiring rate for the target demographic group is higher if all other factors are assumed to be constant (and that's a big if and debatable).
Edit:
Another way to say this is, if an applicant simply meets the bar, the person is most likely not hired. Conversely, an applicant needs to far exceed the bar in order for interviewers to vouch for the person and improve odd of hiring.
On the other hand, applicant that fits into the targeted demographics are probably afforded additional consideration, even if the person's interview did not wow the interviewers as much, hence the "lowering the bar" argument. It is not lowering the standard bar, but rather the "score", if you will, the applicant needs to clear the bar.
The best analogy I've read so far is that the candidate's score and its error bar must clear the bar. But affirmative action applicants are extended the courtesy of second look, which reduces the error bar, hence lower score is needed for the score and error bar to clear the Google bar.
I'm not in this guy's head but, it's not difficult to come up with a charitable interpretation from his perspective. Let me be clear, I'm not saying that this is what I believe. I'm saying that based on the rest of his writing, this _one potential_ lense through which he may have constructed this sentence.
> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
> decreasing the false negative rate
(Again! This is from his POV): The false positive rate has not gone up. The diverse candidates are, in fact, qualified and should have their jobs. They are excellent. I am going out of my way to make sure no one interprets this deluge of text as me questioning my peers ability; something that I will fail at in spectacular fashion.
> lower the bar
(His POV don't pin this on me): However, diverse candidates may now have a lower bar than non-diverse candidates.
How is it possible that some candidates have both a "lower bar" and yet are still qualified?
> Hiring practices
(still his POV folks): Because for diverse candidates we have different hiring practices. Practices which are tailored to diverse candidates. It's not a lower bar, it's a different bar. A bar specifically designed to help us discover the best side of these diverse candidates.
(Speaking for myself now):
I think the author is saying that going out of your way to create specific affordances for _some_ and not for _all_ is discriminatory. I _don't_ think he's a horrible monster for thinking this. I _do_ think that this way of thinking fails to acknowledge the fact that an organization that is already steeped to the brim with a specific group of people is likely to _already_ have built in affordance for that group.
He fucked up. Hard. Like so hard that I find it kind of funny (wtf was he thinking?). I, personally, don't think that the ideas that he espoused merit firing, I think they merit careful correction wherein the person doing the correcting attempts to read his meaning charitably, carefully, truthfully and fully. I feel that most of the public responses have failed in this regard. Most of what I've seen start with "he's basically wrote: {$straw_man}". Some are pandering to an audience, some are more interested in winning than in being right, but some people who retort in this way just have limited time and patience. I can understand why the straw man is appealing. I've just written three paragraphs about a single sentence, who has time for this shit?
Here's the thing though, careful correction, truth, charity—that's my "ideal world" case for him. The simple matter of fact is that Google is not the ideal world, they have no incentive to apply my ideal to him. He's a professional and the fuck up alone (separated form the ideas) represents enough potential harm to Google that he had no hope of keeping his job. Maybe one of his friends can give him the careful walk through of how his ideas are flawed. Hell, maybe a good friend will do that and he'll decide that he was right all along.
Edit: After further reading I realized I had made a mistake when I (speaking from his POV) said: "it's not a lower bar, it's a different bar". He did actually use the words "lower the bar", something I failed to fully account for. One could, with liberal amounts of charity, imagine that he meant that the bar was lower but still sufficient? We're getting into logical acrobatics. That said, logical acrobatics are part of the point. The goal in reading someone whose world view is different to your own is to better understand their logic. To imagine how, within their world view, their ideas are consistent. We could be reading the words of a monster who doesn't care about logic. Or we could, and I think this is much more common, be reading the words of someone with flaws and ignorances and prejudices. Someone not so unlike ourselves.
He fell into the conservative trap of "If there is no active rules or laws discriminating, then discrimination doesn't exist! And trying to offset this discrimination IS the discrimination!"
Slavery and Jim Crows laws no longer on the books? Therefore there is no systemic racism!
Are there laws discriminating against women? No? Therefore they have all the same opportunities as men!
Why are Black Entertainment Television and Gay Pride okay, but White Entertainment Television and White Pride not!
Black Lives Matter is Racist!
Not all Men are Rapists!
This essay started from precisely this set of emotions and found data to justify it after the fact.
Um, so? I censor myself at work every single day. If I routinely said some of the not so polite things that I sometimes think about my colleagues and (especially) customers I'd be fired. This is called "playing nice with others" and I learned it as a child.
I also sometimes think about topics that would be inappropriate in an office environment (such as sex) and I censor myself by not saying what I am thinking. We even have an Internetism for that concept - NSFW.
None of this is new - we are expected to conduct ourselves appropriately for the current situation. It's just how society works.
I didn't even read the document in question, I just have a very hard time with people getting riled up about being "censored" at work. It's work, what exactly do you expect?
I agree. It's a job, you're there to work. A workplace isn't a venue to stand on your personal soapbox and air your opinions, be disruptive and waste company time.
Diversity is good for companies. Diverse companies are more profitable.
Regardless, your clever analogy doesn't apply. Companies are welcome to be political in their own environment. They own it. Employees are not. They're employed at-will.
Maybe, but that doesn't immunize them from criticism, especially when they purport to value diversity and free speech but silence critics.
Anyway, the financial benefits of diversity are almost certainly overstated. I don't know why we can't just say, "we're hiring diverse people because we think it's the right thing to do".
In a thousand years archaeologists will write papers on our civilisation and the god we worshipped called Market. About how we obeyed the laws of Market, appeased the Market when it was unhappy, and how we had faith that Market could solve all problems.
As a society we've been trained or perhaps tricked to suppress our sense of justice and fairness In Gabor of money.
People are hesitant to publicly say that the right thing to do is the thing that should be done so they bring financial arguments into it.
Hence the studies promoting the idea that diverse companies are more profitable, as if that should make any difference. It's a sick obsession with viewing just about everything through a financial lens even when money shouldn't come into it.
However, I sympathize with younger people because it's a double-edged sword at places like Google, where your work and your life are very intentionally blurred. You eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at work. You go out and socialize with your friends from work. You do laundry at work (I'm not sure if Google still does this or not). It's not like the 1980s where people check in at 9am and leave at 5pm.
I am not. I am replying strictly to "this is pure censorship." So fucking what? At work we are absolutely expected and required to censor ourselves, that's practically the definition of "work."
---
I did skim it and it seemed like the pseudo intellectual mumbo jumbo people who think they are being really smart but really are just being obnoxious write; since I read way to much of that sort of thing already I didn't care to read further.
So you still haven't read it, then? And you still think it prudent to label it dismissively?
This is the kind of behavior that woke me up (in my early teens) to the dangers of adopting my values from my religious background/peers. I never thought I'd have to deal with witch hunts for wrongthink in tech.
I am not dismissing it because it is "wrongthink" I am dismissing it because it's incredibly boring, uninteresting, and extremely tiring. I went into it expecting to read something worth reading but stopped when I realized it simply wasn't worth my time.
> I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
> * A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
> * Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
Discriminatory hiring does not imply that under-qualified workers are hired. In fact, the author takes case to specifically mention that these discriminatory practices resulted in a higher false-negative rate for non-diverse employees - not a higher false-positive rate for diverse employees.
There is no question that Google has discriminatory hiring practices. The only question is whether you think discrimination is a good thing. Apparently you do.
There's a lot to be said about the current trend of privileged (read Western, perhaps wealthy, perhaps white, perhaps male) people to bemoan whatever concessions are made to the minority group but I'll leave that aside.
I believe that everyone should have a fair shot at a good career. I can't even begin to talk about how that is not the case in America - if we disagree here, I'm not sure we'll ever come to agreement.
It's not clear that the workers favored in this alternate pipeline are incompetent (which is really the implication that everyone is making). What is clear is that people with their perspectives are not as prevalent in the technology field.
Perhaps companies are recognizing a) the value of multiple perspectives or b) the structural difficulties that deny some people the same 'fair shot' we all have.
I'll leave you with this. The SAT should be a test of one's aptitude, perhaps readiness for college. If some individuals receive years of tutoring, but others have to go to the library to get test preparation, is our metric for college readiness fair? Maybe you'll say yes, but if we were talking about any other thing (cars, experimental models, you name it) we would clearly recognize these two groups had different pre-test levels of preparedness.
If you look through my post history, you'll see that I made this account to talk about another article about a week ago.
EDIT:
I can't respond to you, unfortunately.
I'm sorry we've resorted to name-calling - however, I stand by my earlier statement. Irrespective of your identity, there has been a noticeable trend of discussions about 'reverse racism'.
I have not referred to you with a pronoun nor made any mention of your race/sex/anything else. I apologize if you feel that I did this.
I'm glad you feel uncomfortable being called racist and sexist given that you are saying things that are racist and sexist. Maybe one day the cognitive dissonance will prompt some introspection.
On a totally separate note, thanks for assuming my gender, race and minority status. Also that of whomever wrote the Google piece. You are doing a really great job making yourself seem like less of a bigot.
I'm downvoting this because I'm tired of the implication that anyone who disagrees with some liberal policy or value must be doing so for sinister motives (and for the highly offensive implication that sinister motives are the purview of whites/males/Westerners).
If you must spew hate, could you at least choose a more interesting criteria than skin tone or genitals? These have been done to death.
No, it is not censorship. He can say those things. He just can't pretend to be an effective team member if this is what he believes about his coworkers and he is unwilling to learn from others.
I'll half agree in that you are right, it is not censorship. But I think the caustic judgement of him and his words don't seem to match up with the text that I've read.
A lot of people seem to think the reaction to his words was too strong.
But that's the point of being more cautious at work than you are in your personal life. You don't know how people will react. Most people are uncomfortable even identifying their choice of political party at work.
This exchange is unreal. You made a false claim about what Damore wrote. Another poster refuted you, explaining that Damore never wrote those things. And then you defend yourself by explaining that the person who refuted you is wrong because he's looking only at what Damore wrote?
What kind of post-truth, post-logic universe is this? I want off this fucking planet.
I understand you would like to live somewhere that context does not matter and documents are self-contained.
Until you live in that world, please consider that there is an external world relevant to what an author's intentions are, whether they are lying or exaggerating, whether they are deliberately misleading or naively misinformed.
Does he have good intentions or bad intentions? Well, you would want to look at the other opportunities available to him to reason about that.
"This is what he believes about his co-workers"
You: He did not write this
If he did not think that the performance of the women around him was holding back Google, then he wouldn't write the memo.
Can you give an explanation of how this was the best choice available to him if he did not think this was the case?
"He is unwilling to learn from others"
You: He did not write this
Is it your position that he did not have any options for taking his opinions to others inside the company and getting feedback before circulating broadly?
He knows that this is sensitive - that definitely gets mentioned in the document - but there is no indication that he has gone to the people responsible for diversity policy to discuss the intentions, metrics or organisational concerns that shaped the policy.
If you don't know the functional and non-functional requirements for a system, you should find them out and if you disagree go to the stakeholders. Choosing not to do so is not high-performing employee behaviour in any organisation.
He's implicitly claiming some of them shouldn't be there, or he believes that miraculously every single women at Google clears the bar for desirable traits in a programming without affirmative action.
Come on now, which one do you think he believes? He made it pretty clear, clear enough that pretty much no one would want to work with the dude.
I'm sorry, you can't just say the man is "implicitly claiming" anything. Espectially when his career was so negatively effected. Support your claims with direct quotes or keep your slander to yourself.
The man in question claimed that some large portion of folks are hired under diversity programs which supposedly “lower the bar”. That is, those people don’t deserve to be at Google, and he doesn’t believe that they are qualified.
That’s in his own words, and I would have fired him a hell of a lot faster than Google did, because I will not have my team disrupted by a prima donna.
This is not what the document stated. Here is the quote about "lowering the bar" in its original form:
> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
The author deliberately narrows the scope of this sentence stating that the hiring practices decrease the false negative rate, not increasing the false positive rate. Stating that the false negative rate is lowered for diverse candidates is to say that qualified, non-diverse, candidates are rejected at a greater rate than qualified and diverse candidates. It is not stating that unqualified, diverse, candidates are accepted at a greater rate.
I have little context here, but from a statistics point of view, this statement is... odd:
"...decrease the false negative rate, not increase the false positive rate."
The interaction between type I and type II errors virtually always have an inverse relationship. You cannot decrease one without increasing the other. It is, for example, one of the difficulties in making good medical diagnostic tests.
Dumping a lot more money is what my company does. Normally, we do one phone interview and one onsite session which consists of multiple interviews. We perform multiple phone interviews if a diverse candidate fails the first (or, occasionally, the second).
The final hiring decision is almost entirely entirely on the on-site interview, the phone interviews essentially act as a first-pass filter. And we don't do any sort of weighting of diversity in the final hire decision. From my experience, the phone screen has the highest false-positive rate. In this system the false negative is reduced considerably for diverse candidates, while the false positive remains mostly the same (since the on-site is pretty rigorous).
For what it's worth, while I can understand the author's opposition to this system I think it's an okay way of increasing diversity. I don't think this system has ever caused us to take on a diverse candidate of insufficient skill or experience. Does it mean that non-diverse candidates get filtered out on the phone interview step at a higher rate? Yes. But not so much that I'd consider it an issue - and this is coming from a (mostly) non-diverse guy. And while it does cost the company more money, in the sense that we spend more time interviewing some candidates than we normally would, it's money well spent.
He literally says that those hiring practices can effectively lower the bar.
Sure, maybe he's saying that the bar for white/Asian men is higher than intended rather than that the bar for women and minorities is lower than intended, but you can't honestly argue that he isn't saying that women and minorities could be clearing a lower bar than white/Asian men.
> Sure, maybe he's saying that the bar for white/Asian men is higher than intended rather than that the bar for women and minorities is lower than intended, but you can't honestly argue that he isn't saying that women and minorities could be clearing a lower bar than white/Asian men.
This is not necessarily the case. This is a vast oversimplification of a tech company's hiring process, but for the sake of simplicity let's say that phone interviews have a 50% rate of generating a false negative and on-sites have a 0% error rate.
Say a company does one phone-interview, and if passed, moves on to on-sites. But for diverse candidates they do two phone interviews and if either passes they move on to on-sites.
* Unqualified candidates always fail, since neither phone interviews or on-sites have a false-positive rate.
* Qualified non-diverse candidates have a 50% chance of getting the job.
* Qualified diverse candidates have a 75% of getting the job.
At no point do any unqualified candidates receive offers. But at the same time, qualified non-diverse candidates are still rejected at twice the rate as diverse candidates.
The "bar" so to speak isn't always something that people have a higher chance of passing the better their skills are. A working knowledge of data structures and concurrency is all that's necessary to pass all of my company's coding interviews. Practice and luck is probably a greater asset than skill in many interviews. But getting into the efficacy of technical interviews is opening a whole 'nother bag of worms.
I had to read this a few times, but I think I get it now.
The original manifesto author means that the "bar is lowered" for diverse candidates because they're scrutinized more carefully and fewer qualified candidates are eliminated? If you're good enough and diverse, you're more likely to be hired than if you're good enough and ... whatever the word for not-diverse is? The original author is not claiming that more unqualified diverse candidates are hired, just that it's easier to get hired if you're qualified and diverse?
If I've understood that correctly I really appreciate your effort in explaining it. Your comment should be higher so more people could see it :)
Also, if I understand you correctly, the phrase "lower the bar" might have gotten him fired for something he wasn't intending to say.
That's exactly right. Thanks for taking the time to read my comment thoroughly.
I also agree with your point around phrasing. I agree that lot of people took away the wrong meaning due to the phrase "lower the bar" (which is a very loaded phrase). This piece probably could have been better received if the author sought out proof-reading with trusted co-workers and friends beforehand. In particular the author should have:
* Dropped the awkward and monolithic generalizations of "Left" and "Right" at the beginning.
* Stayed way the hell away from talking about biological differences, just say that men and women have different preferences for working hours, fields, etc. and don't touch on possible causes.
* Don't emphasize on the benefices diversity initiatives have on diverse candidates, but rather the possible negative effects for the group as a whole. The point about OKRs contingent on hitting a certain percentage of diverse team members turning hiring and transfers into a zero sum game was actually a really good point that potentially hurts diverse groups themselves by limiting cross-team mobility.
* At the end, don't try to turn this into a Conservative vs. Liberal issue. Just point out that affirmative action is not nearly as uniformly supported as people make it out to be. For reference 42% of the population opposes affirmative action for race in the workplace, and 33% for gender [1].
He might have planned all this. He was apparently chess champion as a child.
* Mentioning of left echo chamber was pandering to the right. And he got huge support form right leaning and centrist media and personalities.
* Biological differences he mentioned were sourced, so not his personal opinions. He knew this will trigger outrage from pro feminist camp that will start witch hunt against him, based on unproven accusations that he holds misogynistic beliefs.
* Emphasize on the benefices diversity initiatives have on diverse candidates, was another passive aggressive attack on one of SJW/PC/regressive-left sacred cows.
I dont really know if he planned this, but if you spend any time following anti-SJW sphere, then you should agree that reaction was totally predictable.
Basically he just said that google created environment where people who dont perfectly align with left leaning echo chamber agenda (here he was pandering to anti-SJW anti-PC / centrists, conservatives...) cant safely express their opinions anymore. And he was fired for doing exactly this. Proving his point on himself. Google HR had two bad choices, not fire him and cause outrage among many of their left leaning (snowflakes); or fire him and prove his point that they re indeed left leaning echo chamber.
I base my speculation on fact that he put his full name on memo, instead of pseudonym and this quote:
> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
If he wants to argue that Google should lower the false negative rate for men too, I am totally on board with that! They should lower the false negative rate for everyone. They are bad at high-signal interviewing.
But the meaning of the phrase "lower the bar" is that less-qualified people are being let in, that people are being held to lower standards, etc. The entire point of the phrase "lower the bar" is to convey that the bar should have been be left where it was.
Honestly even if he wrote something like "Hiring practices which are more likely to improve outcomes for individual 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate" I'd have much less of a problem with it. (I called out this specific sentence on Twitter yesterday; it was one of the things that particularly bothered me about the document.) But he used words with a specific meaning.
If he used words by mistake that his colleagues reasonably interpreted to mean that he thinks they're unqualified, that's all the more reason he shouldn't have his job. At a company at the scale of Google, a huge portion of effective engineering is effective communication.
Answering myself in part: I'd read the copy of the essay on Vox Day's blog (since I like to see opposing ideological opinions just to make sure I still disagree with them), which, like most other copies, did not have links.
The copy on the documentcloud link floating around this thread shows that "effectively lower the bar" is a link to an archived thread from the internal Google Group "coffee-beans-discuss".
I am curious if that post, or a summary thereof, has been leaked: I find the use of this phrase just baffling and technically incorrect (in addition to being insulting) and it seems like the author did have some specific intention here. Is he quoting someone else who's arguing that false negatives "effectively lower the bar"?
> That is, those people don’t deserve to be at Google, and he doesn’t believe that they are qualified.
You should read what he wrote more closely. He said that Google was creating hiring practices that "lowered the bar by decreasing false negative rate." That last bit is important because it fundamentally changes what he's asserting and means you've entirely misrepresented what he was saying.
Anyone familiar with the Google hiring practices knows that, unless you're famous to some extent, there's an element of luck to getting hired. A lot of qualified candidates get rejected because Google just gets a lot of applicants and they can't hire everyone that's qualified. Those candidates are the false negatives...people they could have hired without making a mistake but didn't.
What he's saying is that while a white male needs to be qualified, pass his interview and not be one of these false negatives, the minority candidate just needs to be qualified and pass his/her interview. That is a lower bar for entry, but it isn't what everyone is accusing him of having said...that his minority colleagues aren't qualified or are less qualified. They still passed all the merit parts of the process, they just never had to undergo the arbitrary part of the process that non-minorities are subjected to.
> This is by far my highest upvoted post in this thread, even higher than ones that exhibit much stronger "virtue-signaling"
argumentum ad populum [1]
> In it effort to save myself some time (seriously, you're asking me for about 20 minutes worth of work)
Making a worthwhile, intellectual contribution to a public forum should take more than 20min of work/preparation. Being familiar enough with the contents of the paper to make an informed arguement should mean that you could easily pull quotes (maybe with ctrl+f to save time) in less than a minute. Especially when your comments have the potential to destroy someone's reputation/career.
> Also, do the other replies to you make things a little clearer? Please keep in mind I'm not trying to be passive-aggressive
Congratulations, you can make fallacy ridden, condecending, and harmful comments without even trying!
> I come from similiar intellectual stock to you.
Irrelavant and you most likely do not.
> That's why I'm in disbelief that you need pullquotes and an explanation to tie them together, I'm sure it'll click for you without that.
argumentum ad hominem [2]
I know it's easy to write off when someone pulls up latin fallacy names, but please do read those wiki articles. Formal arguementation is important. Your reply to me was disrespectful and added absolutely no value to this thread.
> He's implicitly claiming some of them shouldn't be there, or he believes that miraculously every single women at Google clears the bar for desirable traits in a programming without affirmative action. Come on now, which one do you think he believes?
He believes neither. We don't need to speculate, because the author writes quite deliberately to communicate his point. Here's the quote you're likely referring to, the one that mentions "lowering the bar":
> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate. (emphasis mine)
The author is not stating that Google's hiring practices result in unqualified diverse candidates receiving offers at a higher rate than non-diverse candidates. The author is stating that a greater portion of qualified, non-diverse, are being rejected. In other words, the author is not stating that diverse employees at Google shouldn't be there. Rather he's claiming that there are a substantial number of non-diverse candidates who should have received offers, but didn't.
It looks like the author is talking about setting a threshold, as in the context of creating a test. Please have a look at [1].
In this setting, it is not possible to decrease the false-negative rate without increasing the false-positive rate.
I think the author is phrasing things this way simply as a matter of rhetoric, not to express the point you are suggesting.
Affirmative action policies by definition change hiring in order to increase the number of minority candidates. That's why we progressives support them!
Are you saying he's wrong for pointing out that Google has affirmative action policies? Or that the policies themselves are bad? I don't understand.
I'm not sure I understand you. He's trying to make a statement about Google's hiring practices. The obvious discussion would be about whether he's right or wrong, and I don't know if that's the case. You seem to care that he's making the claim at all. It really feels like you're ashamed that he's telling the emperor that he has no clothes.
You're not giving that a remotely fair reading. He literally calls for people to be treated as individuals while acknowledging and calling attention to traits that populations (read: large numbers of people) exhibit.
I'm really having trouble finding anything to be upset about in his "manifesto". He's literally being fired for trying to start a serious conversation about a delicate issue.
The problem with the argument that "people should be treated equally regardless of other factors" is that we have a long. deep history of that not being the case.
We have numerous studies which how simple biasing factors, such as a person's name, can dramatically decrease interview rates.
Arguing against diversity policies can be coached in the language of equality, but the objective results show that the outcomes would not be.
The outrage, fairly or unfairly (it is impossible to know what's in a person's heart) comes from many readers believing that the person is not arguing for equality, but coaching an argument against it's outcome in language that assumes that goal.
For many people, they see a cheap rhetorical trick made in bad faith.
And for this he should be fired? Also I think you are being too generous in attributing people's outrage to them reading malice into his motives. People overwhelmingly are reacting to his words because he has violated sacred PC orthodoxy in one of the great temples of PC orthodoxy (Google and Bay Area in general). This has been a vicious mob attack on the guy who mostly appears to just have tried to civilly and rationally express his views without realizing how he suffers from unconscious biases.
At worst, if you can read his mind, it was cover for his conscious motive to discriminate against women but I really don't believe he knows it.
It would be great if you could point to documents proving all your assumptions on bias. People have been so vehement about their beliefs. But there has never been a succint summarization of the proof. If it's so self evident, someone with decent writing skills would have whipped up a document like the manifesto for the general arguments with proof of bias right?
The thing is, if you don't believe those assumptions, you will view the the unconscious bias and diversity programs as discriminatory. And many people don't believe those assumptions. They see companies discriminating against them and they don't like it.
There are a simply insane number of succinct summaries, opinions, studies, court cases, historical texts etc. which show that bias, especially ones based on race and gender, are prevalent at multiple tiers of society.
There are not "assumptions" at this point. They are a factual reality.
The trick is using the language of equality to argue in favor of an approach which will decrease it.
It's a fairly common tactic inside of the RedPill community, and within White Power/Pride groups. Arguing that by fighting sexism/racism you are being sexist/racist.
Arguing that unproven methods of fighting sexism/racism aren't as effective as everyone claims they are and that said methods are potentially harmful isn't the same as being sexist/racist. I feel like the author is attempting to make the point that such practices aren't really in anyone's interest except the outward appearance of the company.
I think he's being fired more for the severe PR fallout that resulted in the way he tried to start the conversation, than for the content of the manifesto.
I'd go one step further and say that he's being fired for completely misunderstanding the nature of Google's diversity efforts. He's responding to an attempt to create an equitable work environment. Google is more interested in creating a PR narrative.
These are complex issues that will take decades to fix starting with programs at the elementary school level and fundamental shifts in the messaging and feedback our society gives to children, young adults and all the way up to college students. And yet people are expecting Google to make significant progress on the issue within a couple of years. It's not really a realistic expectation to have of Google, but there are real market consequences for Google if they're seen not to care enough.
Google can make it look like they truly care about it and are solving it, but only if people don't look too closely or start pointing out flaws. This manifesto is an exercise in looking too closely and pointing out flaws. Whether his points, themselves, are flawed or whether they have merit is entirely beside the point.
> "we should expect to see people with certain characteristics in tech, in the same way we see people with certain characteristics in race-car driving. that's no reason to discriminate positively or negatively against race car driver candidates."
I think he did make a point similar to that. Unfortunately he stirred the hornets nest (most, I think) by pointing to the gender-wage relationship.
And you just (mostly) summarized it with a single sentence. The fact that such a screed was written at all is a problem. These kinds of arguments require very precise language in order to minimize misunderstandings and deflections.
I think everyone is looking for the offense in the wrong places. The reason he got so many angry responses is because he didn't explicitly celebrate the left wing tenants of equity. He questioned the tenants in very reasonable places and that was all that it took. Scary times, these.
That leads to my point, questioning one is tantamount to questioning it all, which is unforgivable and intolerable. You can see this by how many have hallucinated stances that the writer didn't even make.
That guy seems smart. I bet he did know. He probably decided that he could either quit quietly or get himself fired. The latter opens up the possibility of lawsuits (and unemployment benefits, which he is unlikely to need, but if he finds it hard to get hired again quickly it may be helpful).
He certainly did not say that in his essay. I agreed with a few points of his (ex: acknowledging that even men who choose to should be included in stress/anxiety management programs instead of having them be gender specific. Make things a two way street.). Although, he did go full /r/theRedPill in certain parts which he probably shouldn't have.
and this is why they had to fire him. he can make 9 good points but 1 bad one and the only outcome is termination. i think google did the right thing. if this memo was 1/3 as long and only talked about censorship and diversity strategy, and left out the gender pseudoscience, he would probably still have his job. it was totally unnecessary to try and rationalize with uncited generalizations
So should we also ask how they confront the people who feel free to pin all bad things on white males and white privilege whether relevant, provable or not?
I've come across a few people from these companies and it's not that hard to come across people who have strong biases against whites and white men in particular. Sadly it's become a way to signal you're in the in-group.
Diffusing hostilities isn't achieved by becoming the thing you're trying to overcome.
The standard rule of thumb seems to be that it's okay to punch up, but not down.
A minority can complain about a majority, but the reverse is frowned upon. The amount of "frowned upon" is amplified by the degree to which the minority the majority impugns has been historically hurt by similar opinions.
Just like the apocryphal rule of thumb, there is no rule of punching up (or down) It's either you allow punching or you don't. LKY knew this. Else you wind up with an opposition bigger than the affected who get fed up with things after the affected begin punching more then they should.
People seem to have an intuitive sense of punching up/down. There's an intuitive sense of abuse of power, and an allowance for people without power to use tactics which we'd abhor if those in power used.
The idea "well, no one can punch!" is rhetorically clean, but pragmatically problematic. There is a long history of people who had to punch up to break a ceiling that should never have existed.
The problem with punching up (a revolution, an insurrection, whathaveyou) is that it's indiscriminate. At its worst it's a collective group against an individual rather than indiv-vs-indiv or group-vs-group.
So, while it looks like punching up, having a group "punch up" at someone is actually punching down at an indiv.
Yep. That definitely happens. Individuals become totems of their group, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly.
But it's near impossible for a collective group of people to perfectly balance their outrage in just the right way, at precisely the right people, for exactly the right amount of time.
We just accept the tradeoff that progress is messy.
The problem it that they're "punching up" against people that could very well have had their own challenges in life, some of which may be even grater than group doing the punching. Don't expect a white guy that grew up in a trailer park with alcoholic parents to feel like an upper class black woman is punching up to his privileged position in society.
Yeah, that happens. It's near impossible for two strangers to know and take into account every perspective and challenge someone else has faced. And everyone's individual struggles feel enormous to them.
But still, people "punch up", and progress gets made.
A minority may think they're punching up at someone they consider to be in the majority based on obvious characteristics, and yet if they don't know the individual they may actually be punching down.
Assuming a person's privilege based on race, gender or other immutable characteristics is imprecise and counterproductive.
Doesn't a policy of preferentially hiring certain groups necessarily imply that employees who are part of those groups are less capable? Like, helping folks pass the bar implies that they aren't above it - otherwise, why would they need help?
No. It’s actually a policy of no longer favouring certain groups (e.g., white men). There is systemic discrimination in favour of white men in software engineering, and only policies and procedures that change hiring away from those things which encourage such discrimination will fix the balance.
You don’t have to “lower the bar” at all, because it turns out that the average “bar” is the wrong standard for anything but the most independent of programming (which is not modern software engineering, thanks). My own hiring standard looks for people who love learning, don’t mind shifting contexts and languages, and can work well in a group. Some of the “smart guys” who have interviewed with us have been poor choices because they are bad culture fits—cowboys and jerks.
I'm all for reducing systemic discrimination but is the way to do it discrimination in the other direction (which you construe diversity hiring as being)? If that answer to that question is no, then the only way to deal with the system discrimination is to work hard to undo biases in people who do hiring. That's a hard/unsolvable problem, due to the difficulty/impossibility of actually changing people's minds.
Could you be more specific with what you mean by "bar"? Because if it's purely meritocratic/skills-based then your second point is very off-putting to me, it seems you're implying that minorities love learning, shifting contexts and languages, and work well in groups, but some of the actual skilled people you interviewed were all white, and cowboys/jerks. That implication is in and of itself pretty inflammatory, minorities are just as capable of being "smart guy" cowboys/jerks.
If there is systemic discrimination in favour of group A, then the only way to fix that discrimination is to eliminate it. To the members of group A (in this case, mainly white men), that feels like discrimination. It isn’t discrimination, but that’s what the loss of power and representation feels like. Even if you step it down through affirmative action programs, group A feels like it’s being discriminated against…
…which is only true if removing of unearned privileges is discrimination. (It isn’t.)
By “bar”, I mean that most hiring practices are crap. There’s a bunch of nonsense talked through on a whiteboard that has nothing to do with day-to-day programming or anything you’ll find on a job…and white men tend to do exceedingly well at that sort of crap. There’s an overrepresentation of specific skills required to pass the “technical” interview that are equally underrepresented in the technical execution of day-to-day work.
People pretend that it’s skills-based, but it’s skills-based with a bias toward people like yourself. What I’m saying is that in my own hiring practice, I do have a technical exercise. But it’s not one that requires that a developer “complete” it successfully, because the folks who measure the success are not looking for amazing technical solutions… they are members of the team who you’d be working with. They are assessing whether you listen to technical instruction; if you know more, how you express yourself to someone junior to you; if you know as much, how well you work with them. It’s a soft-skills developer test, because if you can demonstrate the ability to work through this problem with the other people in there with you—even if you don’t complete the test, you will probably fit on the team.
And the reality is that in ~40 interviews over the last two years, the real jerks have been white men (maybe two interviews total), including one who questioned the value of the technical exercise that I developed. (It’s valuable in part because I’ve had to implement the exact exercise for a job once because a language runtime did not have the data structure I needed.)
If you’re only measuring on what you think is a meritocratic skills-based solution, you are supporting the systematic discrimination against women and minorities, because they are always judged as less capable than white men.
> By “bar”, I mean that most hiring practices are crap.
Agreed.
> People pretend that it’s skills-based, but it’s skills-based with a bias toward people like yourself.
Presumably, you mean the bias is toward white males. But then you go on to say your preferred method is a soft-skills developer test that the team who'd be working with the hire evaluates.
Great--that's how hiring should be done anyway.
> And the reality is that in ~40 interviews over the last two years, the real jerks have been white men (maybe two interviews total), including one who questioned the value of the technical exercise that I developed.
Okay, if that's how it worked out for you, great. The whole point of any hiring process is to determine which people will be the best fit for your needs. If your method does this, then it's a good method.
> If you’re only measuring on what you think is a meritocratic skills-based solution, you are supporting the systematic discrimination against women and minorities, because they are always judged as less capable than white men.
This is where your argument breaks down. You started out talking about unearned privileges, but your whole argument is about how you test for desired skills, and then somehow in the end, you make it about race again (but this time as it relates to meritocratic hiring, not unearned privilege).
So...where does race fit in to your hiring process? To me, that part of it just sounds like pandering, since your actual process sounds like it's all skill-based anyway.
Basically just said the same things -- see my response.
I think what they were trying to get across was that BECAUSE of the broken testing, tests that were supposed to be meritocratic are just checking for certain groupthink.
My response there was if that's the case, the problem is just making better (actually strictly meritocratic) tests.
I agree with your point that systemic discrimination is a problem, but I'm not sure that affirmative action programs are as simple as "stepping it down". I get that as things normalize group A will feel like they're being discriminated against, but I think that's precisely the reason affirmative action programs are controversial -- they're hard to distinguish from just discrimination in the other direction. Maybe that's the only option available, that discussion is long and nuanced.
I also agree that most hiring practices are crap, and that interviews don't properly reflect day-to-day work. I also agree with a point (I think) you made that a bunch of the "meritocratic" tests that are developed today are a lot of the time just checking if one was groomed in the same way (learned about algorithms the same way, learned the same practices, etc) and not necessarily pure can-you-get-shit-done tests.
Your point gets a little hazy towards the bottom, for me, I can't tell if you're against supposedly meritocratic tests altogether and suggesting that people test for team-fit more. Your last sentence seems to have that same off-putting insinuation, just crystalized, but I think I understand your point, maybe I can rephrase it:
"If you're measuring a candidate with what you think is a meritocratic skills based tests, it's easy to be blinded by inherent bias and support systematic discrimination against women and minorities, because many seemingly meritocratic skills based tests have more to do with confirming shared experiences/biases than checking actual skill."
If I did indeed read your point well, my response would be to conduct better interviews, and create an actually meritocratic interview process, the onus is on the company.
Affirmative action programs are controversial because people who have privilege generally don’t like other people getting that privilege (because then they are no longer special).
As an analogous situation, men often claim that women talk too much. There’s fairly strong evidence that the claim is merely sexist nonsense[1].
So forgive me if I’m unwilling to give a crap about whether people who look like me (white men) feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick because there are people like me working to end the special privileges that they have gotten literally for decades. Especially since so many of them really aren’t all that. The London School of Economics makes it clear that gender quotas actually improve meritocracy by squeezing out mediocre men[2].
Your rephrasing is mostly correct, but I would go so far as to say that if you don’t know how to see your own biases, you cannot design a meritocratic interview process that doesn’t inherently have bias against women and/or minorities. As this entire discussion on the firing of the author of the screed shows…there’s a lot of people who can’t see that they have biases.
(And yes, I have biases. I have to work very hard to prevent those biases from causing me to discriminate. This is largely why I involve my team in hiring and constantly discuss the problems with bias blindness with them, too.)
The article in your second reference uses income as proxy for competence. Are you sure you want to support a study that's based on that assumption? That measurement would probably rank Trump to be highly competent among politicians.
> Asians people are over-represented in Silicon Valley
Some Asians are foreigners, hired by SV firms at lower-than-market salaries. They may be hired because they're less expensive (because they need sponsorship so badly). These types of people make this a much more complicated analogy.
> yet I don't hear anyone demanding we hire less Asian people
Affirmative action policies sometimes do impact Asian applicants, making it less likely for them to be hired.
Well he lists several things. Why do you think that a special hiring queue for diversity hires and special classes for diversity hires is setting an equal bar?
Yes, software companies hire more white men than they should, given how many people are white men. The key question is whether companies are hiring more white men than they should, given the candidates available for hire. I don't think it's appropriate to use evidence about the first to make decisions about the second - a company's moral responsibility for playing fair largely stops at the boundaries of their org chart.
I have zero opposition for efforts to educate and train women and minorities. I want the actual problem to be fixed, not just used as an excuse to advance one group's interests at the expense of another in zero-sum games.
Yes, except for the case where they are already past the bar but not being considered because of biases of people doing the hiring. I think that's the case that the prevailing amount of diversity-related efforts try to solve.
You're right though, and it's actually really insulting to insinuate that certain groups need help passing the bar. You can easily identify people who think like this if you ask a question (politely) like "would you hire a candidate that was more 'diverse' but less technically skilled than another candidate?". People who would choose the more "diverse" candidate but without a principled reason are probably just virtue signalling.
Note that 'diverse' can mean anything -- like comparing a developer who used to work in construction before being turned on to programming to a developer who came out of an ivy school (assuming they have comparable skill levels).
People also wrote fiction about traveling to the moon for a very long time before it actually happened. And Star Trek is credited with inspiring a lot of modern developments that are now ubiquitous, like cell phones and automatic doors.
(The automatic doors on Star Trek were being pulled open using ropes by hidden prop guys. The actors had to walk confidently forward as if they expected them to open when this was not guaranteed. They sometimes smacked right into them)
The problem with meritocracy isn't something that technology or science can solve, though. It's that there's no reasonable, objective definition of "merit".
Is it how smart you are? That sounds a lot like eugenics, and we know where that slippery slope leads. Besides, most humans have a loved one who isn't very smart, so we're not going to be happy in a world that defines merit as intelligence.
Is it how hard-working you are? Many of the same issues apply. Why does someone have less merit if they're born with mutations that make them able to produce 80% of the value of someone else?
Is it how humanitarian you are? Again, that's a totally subjective standard.
Even if you could decide what dimensions to measure merit on, these are all impossible things to quantify.
My assumption is that meritocracy would apply at work, not to society as a whole. If you assume we are talking about a country, sure, it is all kinds of fucked up and broken and will never fly.
But, currently, women, people of color, etc, seem to be "last hired, first fired" plus generally paid less for reasons that appear to be something other than their objective ability to do the job. I would like to see people hired because they can do the job and paid what they are worth and not some discounted value based on skin color or gender. To me, that would be a meritocracy.
What is merit at work, though? How do you measure it? There aren't many employees (outside salespeople) who have revenue explicitly tied to their performance.
What if you have an employee who works in your data center and averts 3 days of downtime? Maybe that person provided $100,000 of value and no one will ever know except for her.
My partner was a female chip designer who after 25 years got out of the business (in start up, saved up for early retirement..) Being an early employee well compensated. She loved her work, but not the environment, which while not outright hostile, wasn't good. She's got thick skin. Its the environment thats keeping women out, not the work. If you don't think your getting a fair shake, you aren't going to stick around.
you didnt read his memo. please cite the passage where he says that he doesnt believe females should be there. point to where he says this, whether he did so directly or as an insinuation, and explain exactly how it means that he wants females out of google, please.
Yeah, Hacker News is a nightmare any time an issue like this happens, but I'm glad at least that some people out in the real world see this for what it is. This engineer deserved to be fired. I mean there's hundreds of of bro-y all-male "meritocratic" tech startups he can go join, so this still just a slap on the wrist.
> this employee stated, bluntly, that they don't believe many of their colleagues should be there because of their sex.
No, he started that Google's hiring practices are biased towards certain candidates. If that causes offense, it should be directed at those in charge of hiring practices, not the guy who reported them.
When you engage in discriminatory hiring as a matter of policy, so called "affirmative action", you will invite people to judge those that are advantaged by that policy.
The people who decided to implement this braindead idea are at fault for this. Not the guy who decided to voice what everyone else was thinking.
> Happy where I am now, but future interviews will include me asking what management would do about this, and termination is the only correct answer.
Why is it always scorched-earth and never something like retraining? You bemoan hostile environments, but then demand termination if a foot is ever put wrong.
I did wonder about that. Applicants to YC submit their profile name. Many people list their identity and public projects in their profile. Responses here would make interesting fodder for a works-well-with-others algorithm.
> "Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex. It is only because a group of individuals have chosen to interpret them that way, and to subsequently deny the science around them, that we have to have this conversation at a public level." -- Dr. Debra W Soh
The problem is the author is repeating a pattern common in these discussions, where some kernels of empirically supported science are used to justify opinions unsupported by them. That we can measure some differences in MRI in no way establishes that under-representation of women in tech is a result of biological inevitability. We know for certain this isn't the case due to history itself, as well as variation in representation by location and culture.
I think you've interpreted that quote exactly the opposite of the way it was intended. Here is slightly more context, which makes it clear that Soh is arguing it is the opponents of this memo who misinterpret any reference to sex differences and "subsequently deny the science around them."
> As a woman who’s worked in academia and within STEM, I didn’t find the memo offensive or sexist in the least. I found it to be a well thought out document, asking for greater tolerance for differences in opinion, and treating people as individuals instead of based on group membership.
> Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at.
> Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex. It is only because a group of individuals have chosen to interpret them that way, and to subsequently deny the science around them, that we have to have this conversation at a public level.
The author asserted that gender imbalance at google is the result of evolutionary/biological factors, and that diversity programs attempting to establish parity in representation are damaging to google and should be abandoned.
Look at this and explain to me how evolutionary psychology or biology explain what happened to women in CS in the US:
If the author's positions sound mild or plausible to you, I don't believe you've actually read the science on this issue. What the original author said simply isn't supported in the way they claim. That we can measure slight differences in aggregate between women and men in no way explains what's going on as a sole factor.
This measures percentage, not absolute numbers. The percentage dropped because loads of men joined tech when tech became lucrative. Before that it was a niche field.
Last I checked women like making money too. Likewise, while software becoming lucrative is a global trend, the intense drop in womens involvement is not at all the same globally.
And again, I'm pointing out that the author advanced biological and evolutionary psychology as mechanisms for explaining away this, despite them operating on time scales that make this impossible.
Not as much as men. See a study [1] and Steven Pinker's slide [2], and many more studies. It's a well established scientific consensus.
> despite them operating on time scales that make this impossible.
The author isn't claiming that men evolved within 100 years, but simply that men have in thousands of years evolved to have skills more suitable for programming by a small margin. When considering the 99%tile, this small difference becomes quite big. According to [3], you find 4-10 times more men in the top 1% bracket than women in certain skills.
Do some research on the nordic gender paradox. It seems that (simplified) if you forcefully "level the playing field" that intrinsic biological differences are stronger, not weaker.
It’s pretty easy to find at least one scientist who will deny global warming, or that smoking doesn’t cause cancer. That doesn’t make that scientist right any more than these (all male, all white) scientists.
The assertions of the author of the screed are not well-accepted, and they are not facts. They are conjecture, and the author attempted to make universals out of primarily American ways of thinking and ingrained ways of discrimination.
I agree, it's certainly possible to find scientists who will support one stance or another, but please do read the linked article in its entirety before spreading misinformation. One of the scientists is actually a woman (and non-white btw), Debra Soh, who holds a PhD in sexual neuroscience.
Yes. I’ve also read other articles. The stance presented by the memo author does not represent “broad” scientific consensus, it represents a pseudo-scientific basis for continued discrimination. The same thing was tried back in the 1800s to explain why certain humans should be enslaved to others.
How interesting, I have read other articles too. I am unqualified to make any authoritative claims on this subject (and many others), but people who seem to be just that appear to disagree with you.
Most arguments against the manifesto (sic) I have seen, seem to be either ad hominem or claiming some form of "discrimination" .. as in prejudice. In the light of the current discussion around gender, mostly in the US, I am just not convinced. And it seems that many people who actually are qualified agree (no, a group of self referencing "gender studies" professors does not convince).
Anyway, it's coming up 5AM here and I will not bother you further with my slave-owner-descendant misconceptions.
But they are well-accepted, and they have been for decades. If scientific consensus is any measure of truth, you should be defending his propositions with the same fervor you would global warming. Anything else is just science denialism.
Several of the studies he cites on biological differences in genders are well accepted, so far as I know the field. But the key conclusions that he draws from those studies (and really, the entire point of the memo) don't have any direct scientific support that I know of. Perhaps I am missing some key references. Care to provide citations for some of these?
"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things ... These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics."
There's a citation for the first part. What's the evidence for the conclusion drawn?
"Neuroticism ... This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."
Citation for why neuroticism leads to fewer women in high stress jobs?
How about the entire "Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap" section? That contains stuff like this:
"Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things"
"Women on average are more cooperative"
"Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average"
Each of these statements (which at least hit my radar of being scientifically supported from the literature I know) is followed by some suggestions on how to improve the workplace for women. Implicit, of course, is that these aggregate scientific differences are somehow responsible for the gender gaps in tech. Any citations for why the quoted statements explain anything at all about gender differences in tech, rather than say, other STEM fields (biology? medicine? they have very different gender gaps).
It would be great to have the references I'm missing, because without them it sure appears the author is citing well accepted studies in order to make it look like his unsupported conclusions have "evidence".
Fair point. I'm here to defend the factual basis for his conclusions, not the logic that got him there.
At the end of the day, he told a just-so story; in this, he's no different than the "blame discrimination" camp. At least this story is an empirical one backed by self-reported work place surveys, cross-cultural analyses, etc. The fundamentalists opposing him just have some anecdotes, some unreproducible stereotype threat studies, and a healthy dose of religious conviction.
There's no room for personal attacks like this on Hacker News. If you're interested in having a thoughtful and more inclusive discussion on the topic, this isn't how you do it.
Maybe Google fired him for being an idiot as they value smarts? Unless you're trying to get into politics, you have to be pretty dumb to publish something like this under your own name, let alone distribute it at your job. Not a big surprise.
Maybe he felt very strongly. Nobody thanked Rosa Parks when she made a big hubbub on the bus, but she believed in something, and history eventually proved her right.
Regardless of whether you agree with the author, he risked his career standing up for what he believes in.
this was my take on the whole issue. damore was basically poking Google with a stick and daring them to fire him by publishing an inflammatory political memo via an internal channel - pretty idiotic any way you look at it irregardless of whether his memo was right/wrong/somewhere in between.
Google has a long tradition of this sort of thing. It has always demanded that employees challenge it.
Other internal memos that caused internal upset - real names on Google+. Why Google Video failed. A post mortem on Google Wave (that directly criticised ex-Googlers who had been in senior management). Probably a lot more I'm forgetting.
I'm not entirely sure why the points raised in the memo are rebutted without providing evidence to other papers proving the contrary point.
If the papers proving that biologically there's an interest difference between the genders are not enough then we could apply some data science.
Let's assume that nothing can force the gaming interests of women and men such as higher pay or availability (this
could be debatable in the past). There are studies like these made on over 250000 gamers which show clear interest differences between the two genres:
http://quanticfoundry.com/2016/12/15/primary-motivations/http://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/
The gaming field (and marketing in general) is full of models used very successfully when deciding on a company/business strategy.
Google with their huge data analysis powerhouse could end this debate swiftly in their favor but I fear that either their data proves the writer's points and they're acting hypocritically now or they are avoiding adding fuel to the emotional fire (from a scientific point, Google data would be pure gold for years to come) by not releasing anything (pro or con).
Where is Google's rebuttal of this memo? All anyone is saying is "it's wrong" etc, but where is an ACTUAL breakdown of what was incorrect about what he wrote?
I feel like most "rebuttal's" are like listening to Donald Trump. "He's wrong and we're right. We're definitely right.".
I agree - the discussion around this topic is very frustrating (more frustrating to me than the actual content of the manifesto by far), and everyone's trying to make it so black and white.
I think the current top comment has it right; it makes good points (there are statistical differences in traits across genders), it makes bad points (the wage gap...just doesn't work like that), and it contains some really bad non-sequitur conclusions (measure how a person leads on the outputs of their team, not how "assertive" or "technical" they are).
I found that rebuttal less that satisfying, to say the least, given his #1 bullet point:
"1.I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else."
But... that's exactly what I keep hoping to find, and have yet to really see - and its the thing people, in all their breathless responses, seem to excuse themselves first from undertaking.
The rest of his reply are really expositions about his own value judgements on empathy and politics.
I would find it highly educational and valuable, if someone who is more learned on these matters than I, would offer a good blow-by-blow factual rebuttal to the "manifesto".
More empiricism and less moralizing would be a breath of fresh air.
I saw this medium post before writing my comment above. As the other reply alludes to, I believe that article is actually an incredibly poor rebuttal (I wouldn't even call it that) e.g. "not only was nearly everything you said in that document wrong" - this is not an argument, but merely an opinion.
Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide.
Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay Area 2017 and you just can't say shit like that" then just waited out the controversy, this would have all been dead and gone by next week. Now it has turned into all out rage fest on both sides.
Franky I see this as one Google's biggest screw ups. The worst anyone can say about his "scree" (give me a break) is that the guy was wrong and suffers from unconscious biases. Otherwise he was fairly civil and for this he is publicly and viciously crucified and demonized then thrown under a bus by Google. The butt-hurt right is going to have a never ending field day with this. It will be Benghazi of white male boo-hooing for the next 10 years.
> The worst anyone can say about his "screed" (give me a break) is that the guy was wrong and suffers from unconscious biases. Otherwise he was fairly civil and for this he is publicly and viciously crucified and demonized then thrown under a bus by Google.
100% agree. So much of the commentary on it reads like the writer either didn't read the memo or willfully misunderstood it. I don't agree with the memo either, but holy shit, people's reactions are so over the top.
I don't think the worst is his being wrong and biased but that rather than discuss his concerns in a sensible way (i.e. quietly and with someone in a position to set him right on the diversity issue) he has caused a shitstorm by making this document so widely available.
Perhaps it's a failing of culture at Google that he didn't have a better way to express his concerns and have them addressed.
Sharing posts company-wide is an extremely common mechanism employed at Google to influence company direction over all sorts of technical and organizational matters. It seems wrong to single out the author of this memo for employing a tool widely accepted by the company culture as one appropriate for participating in a dialogue.
I think I did the opposite? Pretty sure I blamed the corporate culture for him not having a better way to express himself without causing this problem.
I'm willing to bet there was a better way to do it. He probably just got impatient that he wasn't getting quick enough response, or the response he wanted, through those channels. Anyway, doing something that makes the company look so bad on such a scale as this would be grounds for firing no matter what it was about.
You might not realize but you might already have several similar people on your team, but you'll never know as it's now officially forbidden to even express one's opinion on these matters.
I have been on teams with people having opinions like "that guy" plus some people being vegan communist yoga teachers. And we have been able to get along just fine.
That is how it is and how it has to be in a big company.
He challenges unsupportable mental hangups with data and reason. Fuck yes I'd hire him (and if he lived in a different part of the world I could, because I am a hiring manager for a software engineering team at the moment).
> Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay Area 2017 and you just can't say shit like that" then just waited out the controversy, this would have all been dead and gone by next week. Now it has turned into all out rage fest on both sides.
Completely agree.
I mean, alright, so the guy had a politically incorrect opinion. He isn't a raging fanatic, just allow it.
Posting a manifesto on medicalization / biological essentialism isn't fanatical?
I am absolutely stunned at how few sociologists are at Google that permit these sorts of toxic conceptual models to not simply exist, but come to fruition in such a crazy way.
It speaks volumes that someone would be so comfortable as to post such a destructive piece of poorly educated tripe.
It's mind blowing that this interpretation has gotten of the memo has been repeated over and over throughout this comment section with no effort to provide any proof or explanation as to why you would get this out of it. I don't agree with the guy either but how do you get "biological essentialism" out of it?
It's funny, i had a discussion about this unrelated to the Google stuff tonight.
It's definitely a cultural bubble (as is california in general, to generalize for a second).
Whether you believe the bubble is closed and repressive or open and progressive depends on your point of view.
IE California considers itself open and progressive, and cultural bubbles in the US as closed and repressive. Those cultural bubbles consider California closed and repressive, and themselves open and progressive.
If you want to see true evil in the world, look at people trying to do good in SF. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" has never been so apt.
They did screw up. But this guy had to be fired. Not because they had to make an example out of him, but because by publicly sharing his biases, he's ensured that a large part of Google wouldn't want to work with him.
I know the people I wouldn't want to work with, and they plaster their names and beliefs all over social media for the world to see.
I'm mature enough to get past my views and work with people of different viewpoints as I've had to do all the way through college and my professional life. I was told this was the whole purpose of group exercises in high school and college but I suppose like many things, that applies to only privileged people such as I.
The difference is I actually have to practice what I learned from carrying other people's grades in college for every single day in my professional life for as long as somebody catches wind of my political alignment and threatens to quit if my company doesn't remove me. It's a team sport after all.
I'm Indian and a lot of Indian Hindus I know hold some messed up beliefs. Some of them work at top tech companies as well.
Yet, people don't seem to have a problem working with them. But they do with a guy who rails against diversity.
Why does a brown Hindu man who dislikes muslims, believes in matching horoscopes before getting married, and whose grandparents practiced and benefited from the caste system and who, if you get him drunk enough, might espouse for honor killings and homophobia get a pass?
Why are these "diverse opinions" valued and others are not?
Because it's not politically correct to hate, denigrate, insult, or deride Non-white people.
Infanticide? Sure, cool. Homophobia because of religion (not Christianity)? We're fine with that. Honor killings? Its a pass. Killing goyim/kaffirs? We're down with that. Have a weird hangup or otherwise cultural thing that's completely disgusting, abhorrent, and/or unethical? It's obviously cultural, and it's OK!
------------------------------------
Wait, you want to talk about something white people do? We can't allow that! That's against our diversity training.
You're fired.
------------------------------------
It's because multiculturalism isn't about learning other cultures, their languages, their histories. Nope. It's about how evil Western culture is. I've sat in those classes, bemoaning how horrible and evil our ancestors were. And the only way to "win" the grade is to regurgitate what's said.
And in avenues like this, "Winning" is silence, and losing is saying anything against the current groupthink with your real name.
>>Why are these "diverse opinions" valued and others are not?
Social acceptance is largely a function of majority vote. Though some social values might be absurd, if the majority feels comfortable doing it, it does get a huge degree of acceptance.
Plus some absurd social values have acceptance for largely cultural reasons. Marriage among castes in India is one such thing. There are so many caste related things you do in everyday life, belonging to different castes can constantly lead to "My X values are better than your Y values" kind of friction. So people keep to their castes.
Horoscopes are one of those "Why take a risk?" kind of basic hygiene related rituals you do before Indian marriages.
None of this makes sense, but the majority of the people are perfectly happy doing it.
There is no way that that a survey indicating that 40% of employees agree with the document is representative of Google as a whole. Google has 75k employees, nearly all of whom are aware of this incident, and a comment below suggests that the survey had <300 responses.
Indeed, a chief complaint in the manifesto is that Google is overwhelmingly liberal. Even the author of the manifesto recognized that his was a fringe position at Google.
can you cite the source? Because this sounds very unbelievable to me.
I work in a mid-size company structured in many ways similarly to Google and I cannot imagine a representative survey with results already coming up.
Google has close to 70k employees. What was the sample? How selected? How representative?
It's definitely not representative. For reasons that would be obvious if you knew the history of the document, but that i can't share, it consists almost entirely of a sample of people from certain mailing lists.
It's definitely not valid to draw any conclusions about google as a whole from it.
I believe you. I also believe the 2nd chart would basically look the same if you polled 10,000 representative people from inside Google. The 1st one, not so much.
a) I'm not sure what you base your believe in. My gut feelings tells me the opposite. If you polled a representative sample of employees you'd get very different results in the 2nd chart
but that's not important because:
b) The idea that average people are good at understanding the consequences of such document is inherently flawed. It's my problem with a lot of aspects of American culture (I'm an European living in SV) - regular people are not in position to evaluate complex systems.
Every time I see an article about, say, a shooting, that ends with "Joe Black, who lives nearby, believes that police should do X and Y to stop the increase in crime", my blood boils.
Joe Black is in a terrible position to understand the crime dynamic in his city, to understand how the police operates and what does and doesn't work in the pursuit of lowering crime rate.
Now, coming back to the topic, I'd argue that 95% of Googlers are completely not qualified to respond to the second question. At all.
There's a bunch of people in the HR department, with degree in sociology, group psychology, organization behavior and design, maybe people who studied micro-discrimination, gender imbalances etc. that are qualified to answer it.
But the idea that you can poll employees to learn about whether this document is harmful is completely nuts.
Sorry for venting :)
p.s. But yeah... while writing this comment I saw an article about the poll asking Americans if the US should attack North Korea [0].
I honestly believe that the culture of doing that, while pretends to stay close to the roots of the country of freedom, where citizens decide about their country, is in fact terribly harmful because it builds conviction in people that they're in the right position to make such judgements on topics they have insanely little knowledge about.
Just under 280 people (out of 72,000 google employees) responded to the poll at the time of the screenshot. No indication yet as to possible bias in how this poll was conducted. Not to mention, somebody could have whipped it up in MSPaint.
This viewpoint completely ignores the internal consequences of doing what you suggest. It's in fact, very strange to me to simply assert "they got it wrong" without even knowing the internal state of affairs well enough, which, from what i can tell, you wouldn't (I googled and linkedin searched pretty hard, so if you do work there, my apologies!).
There was also clearly no winning externally no matter what they did. It would not have been dead and gone as long as their was a narrative to be used by someone!
People who are admitted to jobs or universities via affirmative action but don't think this raises questions in the minds of people they work with are living in a fantasy land.
Having said that yeah people mostly live in fantasy lands and this guy disrupted that suspension of disbelief at least in his one case which makes him a tough commodity to deal with internally. But firing him wasn't required and was grossly unethical. They should have just let him sleep in the bed he shit in and he probably would have been gone within a few weeks anyway.
Now the guy is a goddamn martyr to the butthurt-white-male party.
"But firing him wasn't required and was grossly unethical. "
Gonna leave this one alone, but ...
"hey should have just let him sleep in the bed he shit in and he probably would have been gone within a few weeks anyway."
Again, this assumes a lot about what would have happened internally in that time period.
If, for example, 1000 good engineers quit out of frustration with lack of response, ...
Somehow, I have a distinct feeling, based on what you've written in this thread, that your response would be "fuck'em, let them go whine elsewhere"
I used to work at Google. I still know many people who work there and am still a shareholder.
If 1000 good engineers quit the users wouldn't even notice. Google is grossly overstaffed and pointless rewrites that achieve nothing at all are rampant. Promotion-oriented development is the order of the day.
Google reached a fork in the road with this event. The Google I remember being a part of many years ago had strong, firm commitments to freedom of speech. It left China rather than continue to accept the PRCs bullshit, despite the business consensus being that leaving the world's largest market was commercial suicide. That sort of action defined who the company was. It led to a globally trusted brand.
Pichai is clearly nothing like the men Brin and Page were. He just set fire to the trust of the Google brand to avoid pissing off a bunch of staff who are very likely mostly recent grads churning crap from C++ to Go somewhere deep inside the bowels of an undifferentiated product, and thus the least experienced and most trivially expendable. Losing a bunch of engineers who throw a hissy fit because someone wrote a blog post with lots of references to scientific research would, if anything, do Google a world of good.
The consequences of this will be felt for a long time. Who can really trust Google's results for political queries now? There will always be a nagging suspicion that certain results ("lies") liberals would rather people not see might have quietly gone missing.
This is what happens when you allow bad culture to fester for too long. There is no easy way out and debts will have to be paid on one side or the other. This will hurt google's hiring and they will lose people over this either way. The real question is what is the culture they want to have after the dust settles? Currently they have chosen one of PC orthodoxy and suppression of alternative views.
I share the same feeling.
What really upsets me is that the attackers really don't see how bad culture this is, and how instead of promoting progress it actually alienates people and increases the divisions in society. Google's decision is just the epitome of it all.
Appeasement also doesn't work on the type of people that were calling for his head. Soon they'll be demanding that anyone that shared the document internally be fired, then they be calling for everyone that agrees with it to be fired.
This is just the start of the witch hunt that will follow.
Honestly, I think they made the correct business decision. Even in this thread, those who think the author should be rightfully fired are the ones who use more hostile language, and his firing is meant to placate them.
I agree. These topics turn all of us (it’s one thing we all have un common) into savages. Obviosuly no one shoukd feel discriminated against at work or feel harassed, and yes everyone shoukd have the right to speak about their opinions in a non-violent or threatening way, but the only way this is getting any better people is if we relax and speak not to a whole community but to one person like you are suggesting. You know just say, “come on dude cool it please”
> yes everyone shoukd have the right to speak about their opinions in a non-violent or threatening way
Why? And where do you draw the line of what's non-violent or non-threatening? Because to you that line is, say, X=96 whilst the person sat next to you has it at X=45. Other desk over, Bill, with PTSD, has it at X=12. Where do -you- put the line?
Well that’s not really my point. I’m simple saying no one should feel threatened and if someone does then that is their line. Whether that is an appropriate line isn’t for me to say, I cannot speak for other people. And it’s up to the company or whomever to decide when a comment becomes unproductive. I’m not saying there’s some simple answer, I wish people would stop looking for one. Life is kinda dynamic and blurry; there are 7 billion different people on this earth!
No matter how you feel about what the engineer said, today is a dark day for freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
And before you reply saying that people don't have a constitutional right to freedom of speech at work, consider that the engineer wouldn't have been fired if he had written a memo extolling Google's diversity practices.
He wasn't fired because because he was speaking his mind, he was fired because he said something that some people didn't agree with.
That precisely is the chilling effect. The discussions are so treacherous and devoid of social etiquette that arguments cannot be made without risking career suicide, literally.
And if for no other reason, irrespective of the topic, that chilling effect is really disconcerting.
This only darkens the landscape surrounding gender issues. Considering Google's flip-flopping from the initial response and their actions after the public backlash- it only seems to confirm that internally there is much division over how this is to be handled on an organizational level. A step backwards for the culture as a whole, if we cannot get the best minds together to tactfully resolve such a sensitive topic.
I feel that one critical thing that have been missed by many is that on the meta-level this manifesto largely acts as a defence.
Feminists/whatever have come with far-reaching accusations of discrimination. Often backed by very flimsy arguments that often has a frightening lack of details and specifics. What I find the most absurd is that I can't recall ever having heard of an actual woman who was discriminated, instead one is very happy to talk about various summary statistics.
The point is that these accusations have been raised, and in fact come to be accepted as the established truth. Almost everyone, at least in public, agrees with the feminist viewpoint. Somehow, despite these opinions being universally agreed upon, many are not interpreting the manifesto in the context of a defence against these accusations.
Finally, I can to some extent understand the need for affirmative action However, one question I find interesting to think about is, when are we going to stop it? When has society gotten "good enough" that we no longer need these policies?
It seems society have made very good progress towards grater equality in the last few decades. Yet when reading the news, discrimination facing women and minorities seem worse than ever. Instead of relaxing affirmative action as society is becoming increasingly equal, the situation is the other way around with a never ending stream of demands for new exceptions, extra initiatives and so on.
This is ridiculous. He was doing little more than opening a conversation. But since this was against the agenda, he was fired. People still wonder why Trump won, and I can't think of a better example.
While I don't agree with a lot of premises of the manifesto, I can't shake off a feeling that I just witnessed something very close to a real witch hunt.
While his premises regarding women in technology are certainly debatable, he was spot on talking about the organizational culture at a Google. He couldn't have proved that point any better than he did.
I thought at the very least it was an attempt at a well thought out unpopular opinion that should have at least been met with a productive rebuttal. To fire this guy though, sort of proves his point. You can't speak out against the safe space google is trying to create, without fear. If he's wrong then argue his reasoning. Don't attack his character and silence him.
Google is a for-profit, publicly traded company with millions of investors and thousands of employees. They are not obligated to engage in a public battle of ideas with an employee. They have made their values incredibly clear - if he disagrees with them strongly enough to publish a manifesto, he probably should have already left to find a place where he fit in better. Perhaps Palmer Lucky will hire him.
He didn't make it public, he was advocating for something he thought was for the better. Of course work places can be ruled in any number of ways. I think a lot of peoples perception of Google is that they are pro-intellectualism and encouraged diverse opinions. This shows otherwise. I'm sure he'll be fine, I'm actually not to worried about him. I'm more worried that something like this, something so rooted in good faith and scientific basis, could get someone fired.
As a white man, I have concerns that my ethnic / gender group is being persecuted. How should I raise these issues for discussion, in a professional environment?
Well, I can tell you were NOT to have that discussion: publicly at work.
That said, as a white man myself, I would argue very strongly that I am not being "persecuted".
Synonyms for this word include: oppress, abuse, victimize, ill-treat, mistreat, maltreat, tyrannize, torment, torture; martyr.
I've never felt any of the above.
As a white english-speaking immigrant I've never been accosted about my status. I've never been given shit for being an illegal immigrant. I've never been given crap for "stealing American jobs" (and for the record, I am now a US citizen, no arrests, tax-paying, picket fence).
But I see it very often to legal non-white immigrants.
So you think YOU or your race/gender has been persecuted? You (like me) have no idea what that truly means.
Fair question. That is something you'd take to HR.
If you think you can't have that conversation with HR (fear of retaliation or mis-understanding etc), then I perhaps a consultation with a attorney that specializes in labor law and the workplace.
That is what I'd do if I felt it was a real problem.
Don't talk to HR. It will escalate the entire situation and you gain nothing. It's like going to the teacher when you don't get along with kids at school - everyone's gonna hate you even more. You need to deescalate the situation and talk to people personally. If that doesn't help, it is time to move on...
> Well, I can tell you were NOT to have that discussion: publicly at work.
It's clearly acceptable for other ethnicities and genders, many companies will even setup official programs for those groups, so clearly it's ok to discuss publicly at work. That leaves white and male as the only determining factors that make it unacceptable, which is obviously racist and/or sexist.
The employees at Google are overwhelmingly white and male. According to this article Google employee makeup is as follows;
-70% male/30% female
-61% white / 30% Asian, 4% identifying as two or more races, 3% Hispanic, 2% black, and 1% other
The tech industry is heavily male and majority Anglo (aka white), with a large Asian representation. I presume that if you are on on hacker news you work in the tech industry or work at a startup of some sort.
I would prefer to not sweep your comment under the table. Its conceivable that there might be something that as a white male you are could be 'persecuted' by someone at your place of employment. However you are going to have to provide some real evidence how you are being victimized when the numbers are so tilted in your favor. And if this is true it is most likely one person, perhaps a superior? Gather some evidence in form of emails, documentation, etc. I'm not sure what kind of persecution you are the victim of but your first steps might be to discuss things with your immediate supervisor, or if that person is the source of your persecution then talk to HR or your bosses boss.
If you feel like moving to another team or a project might help look for internal postings at the company, talk to other people in other teams to see if you would be a good fit. A lateral move within the company might make a big difference.
One thing I would NOT do is write a letter about how women are prone acting neurotic, and complain about general efforts to get more women and minority members involved at your company. I would also advocate against complaining about being a minority based on your political beliefs, that the entire company you work for makes you feel ostracized because your political beliefs don't align with what your employers. That's probably a bad idea.
> The employees at Google are overwhelmingly white and male. According to this article Google employee makeup is as follows; -70% male/30% female -61% white / 30% Asian, 4% identifying as two or more races, 3% Hispanic, 2% black, and 1% other.
61% white is quite a bit lower than the white percentage in the general US population, so it's hard to see how Google is "overwhelmingly" white.
My coworker is a 24-year old white male who was very concerned he wasn't going to get a promotion simply because he was a white male. To be honest, I thought there was a good chance that he wasn't going to either. I'm so glad I'm not a young kid growing up in this age, and that I'm financially secure, and looking to retire in the next 10 years. (He did get the promotion btw, which he definitely deserved.)
So... he did get a promotion, there's no evidence of discrimination, but he was very concerned about it until he got the promotion? The horrors we young white men in tech have to face!
I'm going to invoke Occam's razor here. Let's simplify diversity and just look at height. Let's assume men that are short and men that are tall are biologically equivalent, meaning biological trait that might surface are evenly distributed. Now let's inject 100 men with varying height into the general population, and... Uh oh there's a skew in leadership position and income. Taller men have better positions and have higher income.
People who are taller all have tall coworkers. They work for a boss that's a little bit taller than them. Some of them start thinking that you know this is probably just natural, men who are shorter are just biologically unsuited to be a leader. They aren't aggresive enough and they just don't have as much drive, it's probably just written in their DNA.
The short men no matter how much they perform or how brilliant they are always seem to be sidelined for promotion. Some of them make it pretty far but they're performing 50x compared to their peers, and theyre always sidelined when it comes to executive promotions. Other executives think: "this guy is brilliant but what would people think about us... We better promote the other less brilliant tall guy. We could retain investor confidence."
Some of them break out and try to start a company. They can't get any funding, and no one wants to join their company. People think its a company run by a short guy, this guy is brilliant but he's not going to do well in the long term, so they end up joining start ups that have tall guys.
This network effects over a million times.
Now let's take people's perception, and assume people perceive men and women exactly the same. The catch here is that women are one standard deviation shorter than men. Just from height you'll see a discrepancy between men and women representation in leadership positions.
Let's end height discrimination first.
I believe this is a simpler explanation of the discrepancies in representation.
If this was in Norway the company would go out and say that this is not their stand, and people would try to explain the person why his views is so wrong and hurting in many ways. Fire the person because of something like this would be illegal, and I think it only grows more people with the same thoughts/ideology.
I have no sympathy to James, but what Google does here I belive is more wrong in the long run.
- Each Googler is expected to do his or her utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination.
+ Googlers are expected to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination.
- Make sure that information that is classified as “Need to Know” or “Confidential” in Google’s Data Security Guidelines is handled in accordance with those Guidelines and Google’s Data Security Policy.
+ Make sure that information that is classified as “Need to Know” or “Confidential” in Google’s Data Classification Guidelines is handled in accordance with those Guidelines and Google’s Data Security Policy.
Can you imagine the outrage there'd be if a company with a more conservative-learning workforce fired someone for circulating a liberal-leaning memo?
Two caveats: I'm not saying this is a perfect analogy, though I think it's good enough to make the point. And keep in mind you'd have lots of people in that situation making the same sorts of claims that the reasoning in the memo was flawed etc etc.
BTW, before anyone jumps to conclusions, I am not a conservative.
I think the author made the mistake of using psychosocial nomenclature, like the big 5 personality traits[1]. Without spending more time explaining the language he was using.
I think people will respond negativity to being told that their group is more likely to be high in Neuroticism. Among other things.
It seems clear to me that his memo was heavily inspired by Jordan Peterson, and to a reader without some basic introduction to psychology the assertions he make can seem inflammatory.
> fired from a tech company for "perpetuating gender stereotypes"...
Fired from a tech company for publishing a company-wide memo insinuating that some of his coworkers are, on average, at a biological disadvantage for the type of work they do and suggesting that some subset of them haven't achieved their position based on merit.
And listed data and studies to back up his claim. That it is controversial, does not mean it isn't true, and you haven't refuted it, simply stated it as if on it's face should have been grounds for dismissal.
All we really know is that the Silicon Valley thought bubble, and political intolerance is extreme to such a degree that people have to watch what they say and think at all times so as not to anger the thought police. The moral superiors.
No room for discussion. No room for debate. Just fall in line and be sure to advertise your virtue and 100% agree with views that the political left mandates you to hold.
> And listed data and studies to back up his claim. That it is controversial, does not mean it isn't true, and you haven't refuted it, simply stated it as if on it's face should have been grounds for dismissal.
He listed references that indicate, when viewed broadly, that men and women can exhibit different observable personality characteristics. That was not the argument of his memo. His argument was that, because of this broadly measurable difference, this leads to women being less interested in computer science (although not to the degree of similar STEM fields, oddly enough!) and therefore he shouldn't have to be subjected to bias training or be burdened with any other sort of program that suggests maybe, perhaps, potentially the social culture in tech/SV could be exacerbating this.
> All we really know is that the Silicon Valley thought bubble, and political intolerance is extreme to such a degree that people have to watch what they say and think at all times so as not to anger the thought police. The moral superiors.
Did the thought police make this guy write and publish a work memo suggesting some women are too neurotic to be software engineers?
> No room for discussion. No room for debate. Just fall in line and be sure to advertise your virtue and 100% agree with views that the political left mandates you to hold.
How about don't write a company-wide memo that insinuates some of your coworkers aren't there by merit because they don't have the biological composition to stomach the job? It's not like somebody was having a conversation with this guy in the break room, asked his opinion on diversity and ran to the press to start a witch hunt against some random Google engineer.
> That was not the argument of his memo. His argument was that, because of this broadly measurable difference, this leads to women being less interested in computer science (although not to the degree of similar STEM fields, oddly enough!)
I mean, he titled the section of the document that talks about those effects "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech." But hey, those are sinful ideas, so he must have been a sinful man to have even entertained them in the first place.
Listed "data" and "studies" doesn't suddenly make you right. Studies are far from perfect, especially in this field, and even more so when tons of other studies contradict these conclusions. You don't get to wave a magic want and say "I'm using FACTS so you're wrong!!"
> insinuating that some of his coworkers are, on average, at a biological disadvantage for the type of work they do
That's not what he actually said. In fact the memo had a chart and a paragraph or two specifically stating that taking average traits of a group of people and applying them to individuals was wrong and misleading due to large overlaps of traits between groups.
He was not implying anything about his colleagues that are already working for Google, rather he was pointing out potential biological differences in averages at the population level that possibly cause fewer women to enter tech (and hence making it difficult to get an even ratio of male/female employees).
Not a lawyer, but will he have a case to sue for wrongful termination? I guess without seeing the employee contract and Code of Conduct, it is hard to say.
Unless the Google contract departs from boilerplate California employment contracts in ways highly disadvantageous to one of the largest, most legally savvy firms in the state, it is unlikely that Google needs a documented reason to fire anybody, so long as they aren't retaliating against them for concrete protected concerted actions in labor organization or retaliating against them for defending their rights as a protected class under federal law.
Doubtless a real lawyer will come along here and clarify, but a good shorthand is: you can be fired in virtually any state in the union for expressing political opinions.
> First, federal labor law bars even non-union employers like Google from punishing an employee for communicating with fellow employees about improving working conditions.
> Second... California law prohibits employers from threatening to fire employees to get them to adopt or refrain from adopting a particular political course of action.
> Third, the engineer complained in parts of his memo about company policies that he believes violate employment discrimination laws... It is unlawful for an employer to discipline an employee for challenging conduct that the employee reasonably believed to be discriminatory, even when a court later determines the conduct was not actually prohibited by the discrimination laws.
I doubt it, but let me say that I really hope it's true that what this guy wrote qualifies as a Protected Concerted Action under the NLRA, because Silicon Valley could badly use an education in the protections of the NLRA. From what I can see from this vantage, the largest companies in the valley are utterly dependent on the compliance of their employees to function, and those employees are being bought off for table scraps.
In California political activities or affiliations are a protected class. Whether his document qualifies for that would be debatable I would imagine.
I don't see it getting to litigation though. I'd be shocked if Google didn't offer him a fairly hefty severance payment in return for a release of all legal claims.
EDIT: Maybe don't listen to any of my predictions m'kay.
The dude had to go - I mean, the heat he got was unworkable, to the point I wonder who'd ever want to work with him. It feels like even saying hello to him might have been social, political and career suicide.
What I'm interested in is Google's best response, i.e. he has to go, how is that deal structured? Do you offer him a crazy good settlement and an NDA? What is the risk/reward here of a lowball offer vs legal action? Is the NDA negotiable, e.g. you can do X interviews, but not on say Fox news? What is the internal risk of people finding out he was given 6 figures to walk? I'm really fascinated with the practicalities of the action after the decision was taken.
Does anyone with any sort of HR experience know what is the best practice here?
Not sure what's the case at Google, but when I was managing people at a Fortune 500 company, I was guided by HR to be especially careful if I need to fire a women or a minority employee - put them on PIP, document everything very carefully, etc. - because of much higher perceived risk of a wrongful termination suit.
That's theoretically the benefit of at will. But that benefit is asymmetric - a company won't hardly notice one persons leaving, but a person's life will be unduly burdened by being fired with no warning or cause.
A hiring process is by nature a discriminatory event. Right?
You have a pile of resumes and you discriminate between the candidates during the selection process. This happens on a number of different criteria.
The criteria that we should not discriminate on are sex and race.
Anyone that doesn't agree with this is out of the mainstream.
The issue is that if you cannot discriminate on sex and race, and 90% (made up number) of your qualified candidates are men that are asian or white, then 90% of your workforce will be men that are asian or white.
So, then you have to make hard choices, guided by the current laws, and a desire to create a corporate culture.
If more than 50% of your users are women but only 10% (again, made up number) of your employees are women. AND you can legally choose a qualified woman over a qualified man. Then you have a good reason to hire the qualified woman over the qualified man.
TLDR; discrimination is part-and-parcel of the hiring process. discrimination on the basis of sex or race could be a legal and accepted thing for a company to do. discriminating on the basis of sex or race for bad reasons is bad.
Expand the pool of applicants until selecting the top 5% produces a male/female balance closer to that of the general population. Smaller companies don't necessarily have the ability to do this, but Google has the resources to do it.
Expanding the applicant pool will never reduce fairness, and it gives you more opportunities to hire the best of the best, assuming your hiring pipeline can actually select them.
Yes, Google has the resources to do that, and so can other big companies. But you'd have to pay top 5% female engineer more than top 5% male engineer because there's a lot fewer of them to go around. Simple supply and demand.
Do you then raise the male salary? That will only contribute to larger male candidate pool.
Paying them equal to what the men get might be enough, since the last time people did a comparison, women at Google earned less. (It's possible this is fixed now, but since they aren't open with salary numbers, people assume it's not.)
You can address an unbalanced hiring pool of qualified candidates (i.e. your 90%) by expanding the hiring pool (through various methods) until its balance comes closer to the balance of the overall population. Doing this doesn't require discriminating against anyone. See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-v... for example, there are other tech companies with race balance much closer to national averages. It's certainly possible to pull more women and people of color into your hiring pool, and you don't ever need to turn down a single person based on their white skin color to do it. The universities you hire from and your degree requirements for applicants can both have a significant impact on things and it's easy to adjust those.
The downside is that some qualified candidates (white man and woman of color alike) will potentially miss out on jobs once the candidate pool is grown, because you've pulled a bunch of extremely talented people into the pool who set the bar higher. That could certainly make people feel discriminated against if they don't have enough insight into the process.
Or Google can reduce the overrepresented candidate pool to match that of underrepresented by randomly select the appropriate number of candidates from the overrepresented (i.e. Randomly reject, lol). This should have no effect on te bar each candidate is expected to pass, underrepresented or not.
Interestingly this hypothetical scenario would probably increase the false negative rate for overrepresented applicants due to random rejection, which effective lowers false negative rate for underrepresented applicants relative to the overrepresented.
I think we are circling the drain of the right approach to this problem.
If Google's pool of qualified candidates were a "proper" mix of diversity, then I don't think they would need to have the practices outlined in the manifesto.
So encouraging women to get into STEM and to facilitate pulling talent from around the globe to get them into the pool of candidates is 100% the right move to address the diversity issue.
BUT, if women don't come in the numbers you need them to and your international outreach yields mostly asians... what do you do?
I don't agree with the firing. This directly fuels the view point that free speech for liberals is valid as long as the views are palatable to liberals. Such things achieve nothing but pushes both sides further into their own echo chambers and the world into a deeper abyss. It sort of sends out a message that only certain viewpoints are allowed to be expressed freely. What we need rather is a fierce and open debate with views from all sides expressed freely.
It's strange how people who say that certain groups are inherently better at something are invariably a member of that group.
To put it more bluntly: it's strange that the people saying white men are just inherently better at stuff are always white men. Oh well, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
When there are real, strong differences, usually a diverse group of people are willing to accept it. Plenty of women will tell you that men are better on average at lifting heavy objects or reaching the top shelf.
But ask about computer programming, and it's invariably the supposed "in" group saying they're better. What a strange coincidence.
Where what was said? If you're referring to white men being better at stuff, the manifesto that got this guy fired says straight out that men are better than women, on average, at computer programming.
Here's the unedited document with all the references. I'd like to see that.
All of the data he shows are what scientific research in psychology concluded. He then does some leaps to deduce why some of these differences, that are scientific facts, could create inequalities. This part asks for discussion which he didn't get at all. Of course his theorizing is not a fact, therefore he wants discussion, additional data, and openess of some of these diversity processes.
"As society becomes more prosperous and more egalitarian, innate dispositional differences between men and women have more space to develop and the gap that exists between men and women in their personality traits becomes wider."
The above happens in Norway and Sweden where women hate STEM even more. Yet, I believe, both have schools not using any gender role bias for decades.
Unconscious bias training that Google uses is in worst case brain washing, best case does not work at all. So that critique was in place.
From the introduction: "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."
The weasel-word "may" rescues this from being an outright statement of fact. However, he then spends much of the rest of the document explaining how it is this way. For example:
"Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things. We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this)."
In other words, software engineering as it currently stands is much more suitable for men than women. We may be able to modify it to some extent to help that, but we probably can't modify it so much that women become equally good at it.
"equally good at it". I do not think this is where we can jump from that statement.
There was no where a statement saying women are of inferior abilities because scientifically, they are not. There were statements that showed women value some things differently than men. For example, lack of dress code is a big turn off for women, yet men do not care.
If you need to navigate in that kind of culture you should make work positions appealing to women. Is it possible to make CS engineering appealing? Of course it is. Stanford did it. Make it more aesthetically pleasing, less sweat-stinking geeky and women will come.
Can an engineering job be more social? Yes, in some engineering roles. In some it cannot. These roles will on average be less appealing to women. Maybe there's a lack of work processes making use of these social working activities. Maybe there aren't many that could incorporate a social component. This would mean women might not like these kinds of work environments. That is the only thing implied by the text you quoted.
No where in the document was there an implication that women are of inferior abilities. It's just an interpretation that everyone decided to use.
Is there really a difference? If you're fundamentally skilled at something but not interested in it, are you equally good at the job as someone both fundamentally skilled and interested?
For another example, he says that women are more driven to have a work-life balance. He cautions about making any changes to accommodate this, because "currently those willing to work extra hours or take extra stress will inevitably get ahead and if we try to change that too much, it may have disastrous consequences." His suggestion here is to let women have part-time jobs.
The way I read this is: doing really good work requires extra hours and stress, which women won't do. If we try to accommodate women by no longer rewarding people who reject a work-life balance, we'll hurt the company. Women are, on average, less valuable to the company because they're less likely to work extra hours or take on extra stress.
So much of the discussion is about what he said has any truth. I think this is beside the question. He Wrote and distributed materials criticizing his employer's core HR mission while alienating coworkers.
If you're a person targeted in his manifesto, I'd suspect you'd no longer want to work alongside him. That's reason enough to fire him on the spot. He's creating a hostile work environment via coworkers and media.
For those that doubt it, I say try it at your job and see what comes of it.
Dare I say, but people should be employed for their abilities not their gender, race or value to some checklist.
Those who develop greater abilities through study should find greater opportunities in work, regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation or negative score on some diversity checklist.
What we all in tech are forgetting is that this gender gap exists in all fields, including medicine. The more interesting problem with medicine is that the pipeline is basically at equity (close to 50/50 male/female graduates).
Only 7% of all orthopedic surgeons; 15% of orthopedic surgeons beginning their practice in 2015
9% of urologists; 21% of urologists beginning their practice in 2015
13% of cardiologists; 25% of cardiologists beginning their practice in 2015
Why are there so few women working in these specialties? According to Mayo Clinic's Ian Mwangi, “There’s a stereotype that orthopedic surgeons are jocks, that the field requires brute strength.” There’s a lengthy feature article on Orthopedics Today that explores other reasons women aren’t entering orthopedics, including less exposure to the field in medical school, discouragement among advising faculty and deans, and the perception of poor work-life balance.
NPR explains that there may be gender disparity among urologists because of a "misconception of the field ... that urologists treat male problems like prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction."
Women seeking a career in cardiology face similar deterrents, including the “impairments to family planning, poor work-life balance, and perceived radiation risks,” according to this fellows' perspective published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology.
In most of my research, I found that a lack of female role models was also a key reason why more women didn’t enter these specialties, echoing a trend across industries. Doximity reports that women represent only 22% of physician leaders.
Dude gets fired for violating company policy, people have been fired for much less. Why is everyone getting their panties in a knot? Why isn't this post being flagged like all the other ones about the manifesto itself?
Probably rhetorical, but I can take a stab at an answer! This story is interesting to me, personally, because I'm now just a little bit less naive about how things work around here. The Brendan Eich fiasco startled me a bit, but didn't really register long-term. However, I'm now starting to realize that my worldview, my political beliefs, and my faith will likely be important factors (read: challenges!) in the evolution of my career over the course of the next 20 or 30 years -- something that I had never seriously considered previously, since I'm just a software developer. Interesting times!
Reposting a comment I posted in another thread with more details.
Fun anecdote: My girlfriend's mom has a double PhD in both computer science and accounting. Her dad is also an electric engineer. She is also really good in math.
She passed advanced math classes in a few months of studying. Did her algebra and got into a top school for engineering. After months of me persuading switches to SWE.
Few semester after despite having top grades she drops out of CS and now does design
I've asked her many times what happened and the only reply I got was: it's not for me. Given her incredible talent I find this hard to believe.
I still catch her checking out CS course material and even her mom argues with her over this. She can get her a top position in SWE team at top company as she is a senior analyst there.
Yet she still insists she likes graphic design more.
Either we are pushing women too much to get into CS or there is something inherently wrong in this field that disallows them to get in, it might be the culture, it might be the hours, i don't know..
For her, I know for a fact the issue wasn’t that she found it too difficult, she had top grades during her last semester in CS
I should also mention both the university and the company have diversity programs in place to embrace minorities.
Anyways, just my own personal experience with this issue
To be honest I've been both terrified and incredibly curious myself to seek her thoughts on this subject.
In part because the reply might not match what I have in mind.
I know we all want women to thrive in software and there is absolutely no reason for a skilled person like her to simply drop out, especially not after the serious effort that was put in.
Part of me is sadden by the thought that we may not have the next female equivalent of Linus Torvalds, because we somehow failed to make CS a welcoming field for minorities.
It doesn't matter how good or bad the reasoning in the memo was, nor whether you think the conclusions it draws were good or bad, writing and circulating a memo like that should not be grounds for firing someone. I think this is Google being evil, and makes me seriously question whether I'd ever want to work there.
Somewhat related to the issue at hand and representative of the current, very charged landscape on social issues, is this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8
The speaker makes the case that current social conflicts at many American universities – though probably representative of the general population as well – arise because people are pursuing two, potentially incompatible goals: truth and social justice. I think it's a highly informative video.
Of course, I'd love to watch other videos contradicting or challenging this one, if anyone can provide some links.
Rule #2: if you are inclined to write dumb things, bounce it off a buddy before you press Enter/send
Rule #3; pretend you want to be on the Supreme Court. When you write an opinion, even at a young age, do not write controversial things. Keep low to the ground
This seems like a really bad move to me, unless of course, there were other issues with the said employee's work. Instead of removing all proponents of a different (and most probably incorrect but let's leave that aside) ideology, they could have started workshops, lecture series, heck even one on one conversations to make him and others see why their views are damaging to the Google culture and society in general, and maybe they would see why they're wrong. That is what the Google I know would do. Alas, it seems the Google I know is no more.
What I get from all this debacle is that Google is still failing to be the genious hivemind it wants to be.
It has its fair share of employees with huge blind spots about their own, well, privilege, while its HR people are just as prone to spasmodic, unreasonable reactions as those of any other company.
That old, discarded motto should rather have been "don't be stupid".
Intentionally violating your employment agreement and expecting not to be disciplined for it is definitely a strange way to demonstrate your innate superiority over the other gender. Either this guy genuinely believed he was so right that he wouldn't get punished for this, or he wanted to quit and decided to try to martyr himself.
I'm personally not a fan of the memo's content but even if I were, it demonstrates incredibly poor judgement. Posting this sort of thing on internal work message boards and signing it with your name is just plain silly. If you want to have your 'rational discussion' about gender and race in tech and not get penalized for violating an agreement you signed governing your conduct, then do it on your own time and using your own equipment instead of your employer's equipment. This isn't hard. How does someone manage to get a PhD without acquiring a basic understanding of cause and effect?
I am white cis male. I am damned in this topic by definition. But still.
I am pretty sure it is all about money, not engineering. Women are not inferior on average, but they are different. This is fact. There are jobs which are much harder for male to handle compared to female, and I am not talking about child care or something, but mostly stressful jobs requiting multitasking. Males are bad at multitasking on average (not to be confused with time management and doing many things, but sequentially).
I know a guy, a chess trainer who trains girls. He always tries to schedule matches based on trainee period cycle to let his girls do their best. That is intellectual sport, chess, fair play. This is damn biology, one cannot deny it by corporate policy.
So the fact is, like it on not, there are jobs which male handle better on average, there are jobs which women handle better on average, just because brain of both sexes is equally effective, but not equal. And this is great. I am more than happy to ask my female colleague for something she is better at (and I am not talking about delegating boring staff, I have male juniors for this), because diversity is good.
Root of the problem, as I see it, is that jobs male are better on average are also much better paid on average. It is not fair, but is another fact one cannot deny. Nobody ever discussed males being underpaid. Nobody ever discussed why we have too many women at some jobs (like cashier or janitor in my country) and how we should help men get equal and have a chance to get that jobs too. Because honestly, that jobs are too hard for male to handle and not paid well enough to fight for them. I saw a few man cashier working side-by-side with women colleagues. It was pure struggle, they were so over-stressed trying to serve 3-4 customers in parallel, I really pity them. But being software engineer with 6-digit salary is quite different story. Everybody wants it because everybody wants to be cool and rich.
> I know a guy, a chess trainer who trains girls. He always tries to schedule matches based on trainee period cycle to let his girls do their best.
this seems really crazy to me. the person playing chess is an individual. whether it's the best time for them to play or not should be up to them. Whether it's before their period or before lunch: a million things affect us, and we all have agency in deciding what we want to do, and when.
for the trainer to do this on another person's "behalf" is really distasteful and fails to be empathetic.
You can be "right" all you want, but then there is politics. It's been going on since at least the days of Socrates.
Every big org does plenty of silly stuff from perspective of rank and file. Sometimes it truly is silly, sometimes there are reasons that aren't obvious at that level.
I suppose Google made the rational decision. We'll have to see if it produces a martyr which is often the longer term outcome of these kind of situations. Doesn't seem like being a rallying point in the cultural war is a situation Google would want to be in at the moment, but who knows.
Thinking it may have been wiser to state publicly that every one is entitled to their opinion, but the official policy of the company was XYZ not open for debate. And then quietly send legal with a bag of cash and a stack of "zip your lip" forms and after the hoopla dies down a bit, an uneventful departure to "pursue other opportunities".
I made the mistake of reading the "Manifesto" before being told what to think. Unfortunately I've made a decision that goes against the hivemind.
Seems I'm not alone at least, 4 scientists have written what I would call "agnostic" pieces on the subject which I mostly agree with[0].
The response (on twitter especially) has been nothing short of disgraceful, if ever we needed proof of an echo chamber and "sacred thoughts" it would only be a cross section of tweets on the subject.
It leaves one to wonder if these echo chambers are the cause of many of the worlds greater polarisations. (Trump vs Clinton was highly polarised -- Brexit -- Current situation in Sweden (rise of the right), Poland)
The author is right in that there is some evidence there are, on average, trait differences between biological sexes but it's dangerous to make the claim that some traits are better for certain types of work or that these differences can satisfactory explain a gender gap. Those conclusions aren't justified by his evidence.
Engineering can absolutely benefit from 'people' minded individuals as much as 'thing' minded. It's just it usually takes a few tours of 'thing' focused jr. engineering before you can get into the 'people' related challenges seen when doing large scale software engineering.
If you follow contemporary conservatives like Jordan Peterson you can find a lot of the same themes of social construction vs biology or 'institutional liberalism' he finds in academia.
One thing I'd like to ask the women in this forum:
If you'd grown up back in the day before tech was cool and techies were (generally) just nerds with no money, would you have still been interested in tech?
My recollection from my teenage years in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s, emptying my Post Office savings account to buy one of the first batch of 10^5 BBC micros, trekking all over London searching for a Rubik's cube when they first arrived, and then later reading maths at Cambridge was that about 10% of the nerds were female.
The female nerds were just as good as the male nerds.
It's hard to say how much of that discrepancy was nature and how much was nurture.
If we want diversity of hiring across sexes for hard-core nerd jobs (as opposed to overall hiring at Google etc.) then we need to at least start early with the education of young girls.
Yes. My obsession with computers, which did not start until after I met some super geeks after college, has COST me tens of thousands of dollars, more if you count rent for my lab and patents.
It has cost me thousands of hours of time when I could've been reading literature, networking, cooking, going to med school, or a hundred other things.
It has been worth every fucking penny and minute and the best joy and highlights of my life have been when I learned about a new idea or created a new algorithm.
We exist. There just aren't that many of us and we don't glamour blog.
It's hard to say. I'd say any natural interest I had in science was ignored or actively suppressed by my family. I think it's no accident that I did not embrace computers until after I was a financially independent adult.
If my family had encouraged me and others like me earlier, the numbers of us surely would've been larger.
Given the number of applications Google receives, I assume they receive far more candidates that "meet the bar" technically than they can ever possibly accept, as do top tier Universities with students who have stellar grades/test scores.
So like these Universities, Google must consider other factors they believe add uncommon value to the "campus" when choosing candidates, among which are ethnic and gender diversity. I believe the author is underestimating the value of this to Google's corporate culture and public image, and is probably overestimating the technical skill required to be a competent Googler.
That being said, I believe his firing will only raise the dissatisfaction of the (I'm sure many) employees that share his viewpoint or at least his right to express it.
May be because I grew up in a third world country where we have to deal with real problems, like getting molested in public transport or gang raped while traveling back from work, I don't see the big deal here. Some guy who was full of himself and wrote a memo. Then he got canned from a business organization. End of story. Google is not here to settle political debates. Google is here to make money for it's share holders.
And ironically, he proved exactly what was in the memo. Its is forbidden to even discuss diversity strategies at Google and it brands you bigot and racist.
They were stuck between a rock and a hard place and chose what was less likely to effect ongoing litigation and what most people in Silicon Valley will accept. Other people were threatening to quit, they had no real choice here. This was the better of two bad decisions.
Well, I'm not the least bit surprised - you don't just get to spam your colleague network with your non-work-related hot-button-topic nondeliverable and get anything productive out of it.
If he's actually interested in the topic of working towards better workplace diversity, he could read a book, write some papers, put together a panel discussion, organize a conference, make an educational video...
By doing this, Google is sending a strong signal that they will not tolerate a diversity of opinions.
That does not bode well for them, for a restrictive intellectual environment is anathema to the kind of intelligent people they want to hire to keep the company competitive.
Google (or any other company I can think of) is not trying to have 50/50 gender balance. They are trying to have the same percentage split as the pool of applicants, which I think is fine. Looks like lot of people do not understand how gender diversity programs work or their purpose and hence all this misunderstanding.
Here's the minority's perspective:
1) Why is it required that there can be no more than 20% women in a tech company?
2) Why is it required to have a minimally diverse company?
If you look at these two questions and just say "hah! that's not the same thing at all!", then that's why.
Well, they're not the same thing, because nobody is claiming 20% women and minimal diversity is a moral imperative. There aren't executive-level staff in major corporations who are paid handsomely to ensure a 20% female staff. If you're arguing there is some kind of secret covenant amongst the shadowy bro-network for a fixed 20% women quota and minimal diversity, you'd need to provide some proof of that. Aside from that you haven't really addressed the questions I asked.
I've noticed a real inability (or perhaps disinclination) to speak about these issues in a straightforward way.
We have tens of thousands of highly specialised jobs in our modern societies. Maybe men perform better at some, women at others, and gender makes no difference in still others? If you reject even this question as offensive, how would you know if it's true?
It's like dismissing people saying the earth is round as being sacrilegious. If you don't even entertain the question, how would you know whether the earth is flat or round?
(I'm not talking about whether he should expressed this opinion at the office or outside, and whether Google should've fired him, but about political correctness in US society. Which seems out of control to me as an Indian.)
Why do people/companies go to two extremes over this?
I can see what the Google engineer wanted to point out. He's simply saying that companies get aggressive in trying to improve diversity at the expense of merit.
Does that mean there are no competent employees of non-white-male backgrounds?
If Google really thought that they disagree with this employee, just prove it. Why such a furor?
I grew up relatively poor; single disabled, unemployed parent. We couldn't afford a computer, because computers are (or were until very recently) expensive things. Programming too was, until very recently, not taught outside of university.
I had no help, I entered university a bit later than most as a mature student, so wasn't pushed towards it at a young age by any means, which is fairly typical for my social class, and yet affirmative action/positive discrimination affects me negatively, simply for being male.
"Mr. Damore, who worked on infrastructure for Google’s search product, said he believed that the company’s actions were illegal and that he would “likely be pursuing legal action.”
“I have a legal right to express my concerns about the terms and conditions of my working environment and to bring up potentially illegal behavior, which is what my document does,” Mr. Damore said."
The guy apparently has decided to cleverly game the system and get $$$ settlement from Google.
Has anyone encountered an unsolicited internal memo or manifesto at a company from an employee that didn't end this way? It's really not how you handle situations like this in a company setting regardless of intention.
Two populations can have the same median and average score on fit for a criterion. However, if they have a different distribution, let's say population A has a 'normal' distribution while population B has a U-Shaped distribution, then after the application of a high pass filter with a cutout above the shared median, you will be left with proportionally higher residue of population B than of population A and unbiased sampling of the result will reflect this. Applying a high-pass filter below the median will show an inverse result. A high-pass filter with cut-off at the median will result in a 50/50 result between A and B remainders. As always, statistics do not say anything about any individual in any of the populations. Statistics does also not address the potential underlying causes of the distribution differences. Using statistical arguments to judge individuals is usually referred to as prejudice or discrimination. Many countries have adopted laws and regulations to curb some select forms of discrimination, while permitting others.
Closing the thread to new accounts seems kind of sad, controversial topics like this lend themselves to throwaway accounts from active members of the community. Maybe the solution is some feature for anonymization from active accounts only, but it feels like we ought to find something better than forcing people to comment under an account that's generally linkable to a name.
Given the facts of this incident, the only reasonable explanation of banning throwaways on this discussion is to suppress those who are sympathetic to the fired point of view. Using your real name in this discussion, even with substantive comment (like the offending 3,300 word post), is a career limiting move.
I'm not one to root for people to be fired for holding what I'd consider dumb or ill-informed opinions, but at the same time, as a woman, do I actually want to work on a team with someone who thinks I'm biologically unsuited to the job I'm doing and who is presumably judging my work more harshly and waiting for me to fail at things, who may have the power to review me poorly and affect my long-term career prospects? Gee, that's a tough one. If you've never had to work all day, every day at an office with people who treat you like that, or had to worry about being judged not on how hard you work but on who you are, be thankful. And that's obviously not a great look for a company that's already being investigated for discrimination, so I'm not sure they really had much of a choice here. Bringing bad PR to your company and potentially exposing them to legal liability usually doesn't end well.
Firing him just proved his point. He said that google created environment, where people whos opinions are not completely aligned with left echo chamber dogma, cant express their views safely. ... And he was fired for exactly this.
Right leaning and centrist media is not on googles side here. And seems that he plans on suing:
> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
Mind you if you read actual manifesto with pictures and sources, you will see he was very careful with words. He carefully sourced all controversial points and mentioned multiple times that this are not his personal views. But pro feminist blogs and media misrepresented this memo, like PS SJW culture usually does. This was enough for vocal minority to pressure google HR to fire him, wihtout actually reading real memo and relying solely on biased interpretations.
> do I actually want to work on a team with someone who thinks I'm biologically unsuited to the job
Is that what the memo says? It seems to me to talk about statistical differences - a woman in tech is not representative of women in general, which seems to be the point of the memo.
> who is presumably judging my work more harshly
Should we assume historic discrimination means women will judge men more harshly? Black people will judge white people more harshly etc. I find the managerial bias argument to be a slippery slope.
> people who treat you like that
Aren't you making unwarranted assumptions about the memo author?
I feel Google cornered itself into this pickle. On the one hand they need to grow their pool of talent and make the non majority to feel comfortable --which makes those not in the majority feel they have more than average support from Management, who in turn turn a blind eye to anti-majority bashing.
On the other going above and beyond for underrepresented groups will eventually grate against the majority when they ham-fistedly overcorrect.
This engineer likely got a nice severance or will get his due in court. Seriously, you don't fire someone for having a non milquetoast opinion.
I mean, I expect this heavy handedness from a Walmart but not from a Google. There are other more finessed ways to get your corp culture disseminated.
Off topic, but not having a union allows Google to fire these offensive employees, unlike School districts who must retain people who grind their own little axes.
> On the one hand they need to grow their pool of talent and make the non majority to feel comfortable
It isn't useful to make people comfortable in a way that is easily destabilized by other information (be it opinion or scientific research). It's actually terribly fragile and it does a real disservice to people.
It seems he's been fired for being wrong even as Google employees push all sorts of other harmful inaccurate stereotypes publically on social media. The hubris and oppression we feel underneath the unaccountable and inescapable reign of Google and Facebook grows more terrifying with every new revelation.
Suppose that you work for the company that consists of 80% vimers and 20% emacsers.
All documentation is geared towards vimers. There are interests groups geared towards vimers. No one questions you if you are a vimer. If you are a stuck with some error as an emacser there are fewer people to turn to or discuss your favorite text editor, so some people start to suggest that emacsers are worse programmers.
The company analyzes the research and decides that vim and emacs programmers are equal. If the company decides to invest into supporting emacsers, by requiring more documentation to be written in emacs and funding emacs meetups, it is not a discrimination against vimers. The company recognized that if it won't offset some benefits vimers have they would continue to lose out on a group of talented programmers.
I get what you're going for here but this isn't really a case where it makes sense to draw equivalence to text editors, tabs vs spaces, etc. This isn't a matter of taste or habit - it's a matter of discriminating against people based on the gender marker on their birth certificate or the color of their skin.
I agree and that's why I didn't respond to this with a downvote - I just think you need to try to pick an analogy that isn't one of taste/choice and is instead one of some less controversial assigned trait. Not really sure what you'd pick, though.
If anything this #googlememo has proven, then that even if someone asks for an open debate and dares to ask the wrong questions, then he or she gets shut down to silence, shamed, defaced and hated. This is a dangerous development of our world right now. People who want to ask questions, think for themselves and challenge ideas, willing to admit mistakes and be open to thaught better in an open conversation will not stop to think this way when they get shut down and receive the aggression they currently get. This is causing a huge division in society and will lead to future violence if we do not stop this BS. The current extreme left is not only alienating the far right but everyone from centre left to right.
Couple this with Google's policy to censor (demonetize & shadow ban) Conservatives on Youtube & in the search results, & we have some disturbing patterns.
Oh please. Are far right and right organizations bastions of free speech ? How many churches and religious organizations are writing memos on gay rights or abortion rights ? Zero.
Free Speech is not identity politics. Free speech covers a gay person's right to speech & the right for abortion supporters to speak their mind.
Free speech also covers the speech of people on the political right (& left). Free speech is a fundamental American value.
Identity Politics are not about rights but about granting privilege to the "victim" groups & in it's extreme form, to justify oppressing the rights of people who don't buy into the dogma. Not the same thing. Free speech is about freedom. The Identity Politics that we see today is about Autocracy.
He wrote an inflammatory memo asserting that biological differences between men and women is a major factor in their performance at tech jobs. I don't believe the crux of his argument is scientific. He didn't provide much evidence but he did raise some valid points throughout his memo.
He just made a bunch of wrong assertions. The appropriate response should've been a statement saying the company does not agree with this one guy. Google should've ended it there but perhaps it became a PR headache.
This outrage on the net and people posting on Twitter that they declined job offers from Google is overmuch.
"As a company we do not agree with X's opinion on the assessment of the work environment or our diversity practices. Any further queries on the matter should be directed at X."
As other has mentioned, it's very likely X will take legal action against Google because what they've done is very reasonably arguably illegal.
Every time I read about women in tech discrimination problem I keep wondering: is it supposed to be specific to US or global?
Are there any countries that could serve as an counter-example? That is, has numerical parity between men and women in tech ever been achieved without implementing targeted diversity policies?
It would be great to have an example. "Look at country X! Their society doesn't discriminate based on gender, they are not promoting gender-specific roles, and as a result representation of women in tech / stem is equal to men".
>Are there any countries that could serve as an counter-example? That is, has numerical parity between men and women in tech ever been achieved without implementing targeted diversity policies?
As far as I know in poor unequal societies women go more to STEM careers[1]. I'd think that's because you don't have the luxury to choose to study something that won't pay well after your parents made the effort to put you through university.
I don't know of any countries which serve as a counter-example today, but apparently in the very early days of computers, programming was mostly done by women. At the time, programming was seen as a clerical job like typing or filing. As it moved from that to a prestigious, well-paid job, it also became male dominated.
Not quite the counter-example you're looking for, though.
I'm honestly curious...if diversity is such an important issue to so many people, why do large sports organizations such as the NFL, NBA, etc, still separate women into their own leagues and not allow them into the "men's league"? And probably in the range of billions of people support such organizations.
I personally feel are humans are equal regardless of race sex origin or any other factor. If you are a human, you have every right that any other human has and there is no place for discrimination of any kind.
There are a lot of reasons why Google isn't 50/50 Men and Women. And people try to justify it by saying "The company can't do anything about it." Many of the reasons sound well thought out. But these reasons also could have been used in the 70s when women weren't doctors, lawyers or accountants either. And (with the possible exception of at the partner level at the latter two) this has largely proven to be untrue. Nobody worries that their doctor, lawyer or accountant is female.
If we're not considering qualifications of applicants vs ignorance of those qualifications by employers, then we're only fighting discrimination with discrimination. In none of the articles I've read have the reporters shown stats on applications weighing qualifications against hiring favoring race, sex, or religion. They simply state hired demographics and ignore factors that may have contributed to those demographics including education, opportunity, and typical interest by demographic.
Humans give too much importance to 'fairness'. It seems to be a bias in our biology.[1]
Nearly, this entire thread can be summed up as: "It isn't fair that ..." Does anybody else find these discussions centred fairness and social rules to be tedious?
We should strive to get beyond fair, and beyond the conventional level of moral reasoning.
A diversity programme is not fair in the moment, but is designed to right historical wrongs. By definition it is probably sub optimal in serving this purpose. But hey, most human decisions are made based on subconscious impressions anyway, regardless of which corporate programme might be in place.
For those who don't like diversity programmes, let this fact comfort you. For those that do like them, see them as a statement of intent to be inclusive of others[2] but take them with a grain of salt.
2. In addition to being obsessed with petty social rules and who broke them, humans are also inherently tribal, and almost unconsciously split into in-groups and out-groups. I find it impossible to believe that this kind of outgurouping might not be happening during hiring decisions.
The idea that someone who brought so much bad publicity to their employer and to themselves, regardless of how, could ever stay employed by that company is completely ridiculous.
just reading quickly through the document (memo? manifesto? commentary?), it's obviously highly political, both in positional language and ideological couching. the author may believe he is being completely logical in his thinking, but it's full of post-hoc rationalization. * disappointed *
should the guy have been fired? probably. it's political and divisive and disrupts the workplace. but he'll bounce back. it's not like he was black and selling crack on the corner.
are the ideas worth debating? yes, at least some of them. just not in a public document directed at your employer ...in a righteous, sometimes condescending tone. that's just dumb, or more charitably, a rookie mistake. you just gotta know that kind of stuff can get you fired, even if you see yourself as the hero (spoiler: ned stark, season 1).
i'm a little disappointed at the amount of panning required to find the interesting nuggets of discussion buried in this otherwise huge dung heap of political posturing (on both sides) in these comments. is it nature or nuture? my gosh, it just might be both!
what's fascinating to me is the document's lens onto a parallel rationalization and political decision calculus that leads us to a president trump. it's not the totality of it by any stretch of the imagination, but it smells of that sense of loss and frustration by the perennial political winners who (real or imagined) see their grip on the political narrative weakening. how will it turn out? stay tuned for next week's episode, when we find out who jon's parents are!
* eyebrow arched over beer mug held with an erect pinky finger
>As a child, Damore was a chess champion, earning the FIDE Master title, putting him in the >99th percentile, according to his CV.
and
> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.
Should explain it well. He knew very well what result will be, thats why he put his name on memo. He knew that SJWs at google will pressure HR to fire him. Apparently he prepared the ground with NLRB complains. And if you have read full non redacted memo with sources and pictures you can see he was very careful with wording and he pointed out that controversial things are not his opinions but he provided other sources for them. There is nothing Google can use on real court (they have enough to convict him according to SJW norms in echo chamber court though) to prove that he was misogynistic.
Also he is getting a lot of support from right leaning and centrist media. I would say that way more people support him than support Google firing him.
Timing is also in his advantage. Recently google disabled youtube and gmail account of Jordan Peterson, youtube announced thy plan to isolate videos with controversial views despite not braking ToS, and accusation that google manipulates search results to favor left talking points are around for long time. There are a lot of articles, blogs and videos about those topics currently and this is quite effective smearing campaign against google that pushes users to think about alternatives to google products.
He didn't write a public document. He wrote an internal document that was then leaked - without a doubt by his ideological enemies.
Hiring policy is something Google has always encouraged its employees to debate. Not any more, of course.
This guy didn't do things wrong, not by the standards of the old Google at least. He raised deep questions about Google's internal culture which absolutely affects their business, in a private document intended for his colleagues (who are ultimately the creators of any companies culture).
Mental associations do have weight and it does take significant effort to dispel negative associations.just like you could've just gone with selling crack on the corner but you had to throw in black for what i assume is a pretty obvious(to you) association of being black and selling crack and being rightfully fired.
this isn't an interesting point but i thought the idea that we needed more diversity in an industry that thrives on a diversity of ideas was also not an interesting point. yet here it is being debated hotly.
I'm interested in reading objective, reasonable, preferably peer reviewed papers supporting either side of this argument. If you have any links, please post them.
I actually think that there is a real problem forming in society where certain views and ideas are sacred cows and any mention of an idea that runs counter to those ideas in any way results in the person being personally attacked and shamed. This doesn't raise the level of discourse or make people more sensitive or agreeing with the sacred cows, it just makes them hold their views in private and then express them when they vote and don't have to explain themselves.
I also believe that Google has every right to fire this employee based on the memo. A company is a place you work. They pay you a salary in exchange for your time. It is not a democracy. You don't pay taxes to them for fair representation. You have no expectation of free speech when it comes to work. Clearly Google is trying to build an environment with certain values. If somebody is working there who is promoting an opposing set of values, it makes complete sense that they would remove that person. The person then has the freedom to go work for a company that they feel is promoting their values if they feel that that is something that is important for the company they work for to do.
I honestly can't understand most of the discussion. For me, the crucial point is only one:
What is the objective?
What are you aiming for? Google, governments, NGOs, eccetera have their own objectives.
What's Google purpose? Make money, lots of it, as simple as that.
Well, what do you have to do then? Really simple: optimise for profit! In regard to hiring, A/B test the mix of people that work best. Is a group of only minorities the best one? Hooray, hire only minorities and, when you can legally fire the "white males" just trash them as soon as possible. Have you found that there's a secret mixture of "white males", "black males", "white females", "esquimeses" that perform superbly? Well, keep on hiring them!
Are you the US government and need to optimise for general wealth? Perfect, then you should hire that woman, who needs to support her 4 children, and forget about that 19 year old Stanford PhD, he will make tons of money somewhere else.
Are you Google and need the general consensus of a particular group of people? Well, then just behave accordingly.
I laugh when I see "biological differences", not because it is untrue, but because it misses the real point.
Note that the first function of a political system, democratic or not, is what Jurgen Habermas calls "The Suppression of Generalizable Interests". An alternative take on it is at
What it comes down to is putting certain things on the agenda and removing other things.
Despite overflowing coffers, for instance, Google has been effectively silent about the problem of underinvestment in internet access. Every so often we get some "Willy Wonka" idea like Google Fiber or Loon, but it never amounts to anything -- in the case of Loon, Google destroyed a business that was already using the technology to deploy internet to people... for nothing.
When we look at what really matters to Google, note how quickly they mobilized when Trump tried his stupid "muslim ban". It is an ugly truth, but the overwhelming majority of immigrants who are coming to Google and similar companies are male. If anything were to move the needle on gender balance it would be gender balance for immigrant engineers, but you know that is off the table.
Or look at the housing and homelessness mess in the Bay Area. Google and Silicon Valley runs roughshod over 99% of the Earth, but in their local area they can't solve problems at all.
If we did not have a "winner take all society", it would not be such a big deal about who gets the opportunities at Google. Somebody else would be hiring all of the great engineers that Google overlooks. As it is, Google is hiring engineers just to keep them away from competitors such as Facebook.
I thought many here were contrarians - and the positive side of a contrarian is that they can see both sides of the issue and the negative side is that they tend to be prone to trolling.
It appears there is a lack of seeing both sides on this issue - which, to me, means there is something else going on.
It's a kind of philosophy. It's more than politics. I think it may be about what Truth actually is.
For example (and I'm feeling my way here, forgive me my more philosophically minded friends) that what we are people are clashing about is what is true, useful and socially agreed upon to believe in. It's like the social contract - if we somehow all accepted that behaving in society was untrue and so stopped operating in society, it would collapse. So there is an accepted truth that living in a society is a useful and helpful thing.
The same with sexual stereotypes. There may be some data here on both sides (The Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing and Surgery ones come to mind), but it's neither useful nor helpful to society, and so if someone says X is untrue then society will emphatically say it is true. You, a human living in society, will defend where and who you live with.
Politics is somewhat about the organisation of society. What most people on both sides of this debate cannot see is that they are arguing about something more fundamental.
Now - with a cheery hello to my future employers who will hopefully (I'm a data scientist) be using some advanced data software to tie up my contrarian HN posts with my actual identity, I'm not at all surprised the employee was fired. It goes against the culture that he is in. I do believe the discussion should be had, and repeated, debunked and defended like you imagine a real debate to work like.
This essay, from a former Google employee, touches on the themes that go to the heart of why supporters of this guy are flat-out wrong in their take on the situation. Tolerance is not a moral precept: https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1...
This is one of the big reasons why I don't work for a large corporation, your value to them is really limited, so they can fire you for any reason they want.
The guys memo may have been wrong on some things, but I don't know why you should fire a guy for bringing up something.
This is mainly about virtue signaling. Google wants to let the world know that it isn't sexist, so it gets this guy to be the scapegoat.
We haven't seen anything yet. What we're witnessing is the transition from capitalism to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and things like this termination are an obvious milestone. That may sound like a bold claim but let me explain.
Allow me to back up a little bit. First off some context: a lot of people don't realize it but we are a lot closer to a post-scarcity world than the world would have you think. Check out this chart which shows GDP per capita since the 1950's. The productivity gains since the 1950's have been absolutely incredible, and the quality of life back then was pretty good. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA
Have you ever noticed there's never any dialogue about encouraging men to be stay at home dads, or reducing the overall household number of hours worked per week? Never. The dialogue is always about the "wage gap" and "women have value too" and "rape culture" and "microaggressions". Men who are stay at home dads still get shamed just as much as they did during the 1950's. This is how you know there's something wrong - there is never any serious dialogue about actual equality. Income has in no way, shape, or form, kept up the with the GDP per capita shown in the chart above. There's never any explorations of policies that would actually increase equality, like restricting the number of "investment properties" a man or woman can own, behavior which is clearly parasitic. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_productivity_and_...
It's not in corporate interests to have people have actual equality. Increasing the labor pool without discussions of actual equality makes it so that people can be kept in debt, wages go down and the nexus of power moves away from the family and towards the corporation, which is what is happening.
"Women have value and should be working full time too". The implication here is that if you are not working for money you have no value. Despite common belief, in fact it IS possible to generate value outside of a money context. Many of the world's greatest achievements have occurred outside a money context, eg. the discovery of calculus, wikipedia, linux, countless famous works of art, literature, and philosophy. By saying that you only have value if you earn money is throwing many of the world's most accomplished people under a bus. The reason why "money is the only form of value" is such a horrible mentality is that it leads to people like Mozart dying in poverty and being thrown into a ditch, which actually happened.
Check out charts of combined household numbers of hours worked, you'll see it's going way UP not down, despite the GDP per capita chart shown above. There is clearly something dark in that picture. http://www.bls.gov/opub/working/chart17.pdf
I don't think these are idle complaints - feminism in its current form is an ideology that's on a direct collision course with the whole 'robots are about to take all the jobs' reality, which I think is going to come a lot sooner than we realize, and when these two phenoma collide, what's going to happen is that it's not going to be equality (sorry folks) it's going to be Brave New World, an immensely stratified society.
I work in one of Alphabet's departments where everything you do is constantly monitored. Your teammates conduct detailed psychometric analyses of you, beyond the simple perf of yesteryear. It's beyond cult-like. It's Brave New World.
My most troubling experience regarding Brave New World concerns a short community review of Brave New World on GoodReads I read not long time ago. (The only review in Finnish.) It consistently kept calling it "utopia" and discussed only things like how the savages lived in terrible conditions and the characters and "Shakespeare quotes" were "annoying". Not a word about how book is meant to be a dystopia, or if skipping the fancy words, about a society that is a pretty bad place to live. And I was left wondering if the writer of that review just did not know about the word "dystopia", or simply could not spot anything troubling with the picture Huxley painted.
I think this person might have grounds to sue Google for financial compensation. I don't think what Google did was legal. A good lawyer could probably sue millions from them.
But I understand why they had to fire him for PR reasons. It would be untenable to keep him. They will probably just write off any compensation they will have to pay him as the result of upcoming lawsuit.
I strongly feel this was a PR move by Google. I read the article and although I disagree with many of the points stated, firing the person was an extreme step. It would set a wrong precedent for anyone trying to speak up against the majority. A behind the door warning and a rap on wrist would have been enough.
People keep saying "the workplace isn't a place for politics" as if the reason minorities have been kept out of tech in the first place hasn't been because of politics. Not being allowed to vote is politics. Not being allowed education is politics. You cannot separate the two.
I read the whole thing out of curiosity since I'm often a target for witch-hunts myself after expressing unrelated unpopular views. I can't really see any reasons for being fired in the memo, except for the shame-and-punish-culture around these issues that he mentions. Not that I agree with everything, empathy is essential and a big part of adjusting towards a more humane and feminine world. But then he gets that part spot on, that becoming more feminine as a whole is a superior strategy to fitting more women inside a masculine framework by discrimination. The society we build has to provide space for all of us as individuals, not by making us all the same. You can't fix inequality by discrimination, why is this so difficult to understand?
Could someone please explain to me why this man didn't publish the article anonymously? Critics point to undeniable workplace disruption that it's caused. This isn't a free-speech issue. It's a public challenge to management. And that's generally a bad move.
So, stating true, scientifically verified facts that challenge Google's official political ideology is now a fireable offence.
This is insane. The speed at which this ideology has taken over SV is breathtaking, and a massive disincentive for anyone not already so inclined to work there.
> So, stating true, scientifically verified facts that challenge Google's official political ideology is now a fireable offence.
Did you read the memo? I don't think you did. Let me help you distinguish fact from speculation. Quote from the memo:
"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing)"
This is science supported by citations. Cool.
"These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics"
This is pure speculation without any supporting evidence. The document is littered with these unsupported conclusions that he arrives at which are several steps away from the actual science. I'd be happy to point them out at length.
It's extremely deceptive of you to say that he was fired for stating facts, while the minority of the points in his doc had any supporting facts whatsoever.
In fact, reports indicate that was fired for violating the Google code of conduct: http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/08/google-fires-james-damore.... If you'd like to present the argument for a) why he didn't violate the code of conduct or b) that's not why he was fired, by all means proceed. I'd be interested to see your evidence for that.
The link doesn't explain a thing about the science; in fact, the author states in the very first paragraph that he won't even bother. What exactly do you think you posted?
The manifesto's claims are very much in the scientific mainstream. Evidence has only piled on since the Pinker-Spelke debate. You have very little to hang your hat on in this argument.
I never understood why diversity should play a role in the hiring process. If I have a company and I want to hire somebody, the only thing I care about is whether this person offers a valuable contribution to my business or not. It's plain simple to me and I fail to see how superficial attributes such as gender or race are a part of this "equation".
With that being said, it is totally understandable why Google fired the employee, regardless of whether his voiced opinions were out of line or not. The manifesto was not well perceived by the media and not firing the employee would have resulted in bad PR. By firing the employee Google made a very rational decision.
James Damore, has Bachelor of Science in Biology, Physics and Chemistry + PHD in Systems Biology from Harvard; even though his total experience in writing code is approximately 4 years.
I think google will reconsider their hiring preferences after this.
Off topic, but it seems like the ranking algorithm needs some tweaking. Should this article posted 12 hours ago really be on the 15th page of HN (rank 381) when most of the front page articles submission timestamps are older?
the author of the memo is completely correct and, as others have said, his memo is drastically misrepresented in the coverage it has received. he simply points out that women could have less desire to go into fields such as cs because of their biological makeup. he never says that women should leave google -- he only says that trying to reach a perfectly equal distribution is misguided. perhaps those who are red in the face while reading the memo failed to read between the lines and realize that under this logic, the women who do find themselves wanting to go into cs for passion and not just money should be welcomed. he never once called for anything other than the policy of acceptance and wide open doors that is currently in place. he is merely suggesting that maybe a perfect 50/50 distribution is not needed and, more importantly, liberal people in general need to snap out of the double think where we believe men and women are the same. men and women are not the same.
as a liberal i find that it is important to not shy away from controversy: women and men are biologically different. i am sorry, but they are. you dont need to reject this fact in order to treat women with respect and equality.
as a liberal i find that it is important to not shy away
from controversy: women and men are biologically different.
i am sorry, but they are.
That you felt the need to apologize for a statement that is so blatantly obvious even a small child could see it is telling. I understand why you did and find myself doing similar things. It's pitiful.
Unfortunately, your pre-emptive apology for recognizing the obvious won't save you from the mob - those whose minds are so rotted and aloof they insist everyone indulge their fantasy because they can't cope with reality. Feelings, safe spaces, groupthink, and all that.
This is another maddening component - who actually argues that men and women are the same? Everyone courageously disagrees with this, but I seriously cannot find anyone actually advancing that viewpoint. It's this weird blind spot. I tried asking a few times in another thread, and the only replies I got were from people trying to debunk it.
Of course men and women are different, duh. The problem isn't that premise. The problem is the arguments people make from it.
You get the feeling that there are these legions of people that assume that liberals are in favor of diversity programs because liberals believe men and women are the same. And then these legions of people point to a study that shows men and women aren't the same, and then they feel, "A-ha! Take that, liberals!" It's completely mystifying to me.
We're not in favor of diversity programs because of a belief that men and women are the same. We're in favor of diversity programs because we know that people will use these differences as excuses to discriminate against women. This is not hard to understand!
There absolutely are people who are against any claims that men and women are biologically different, the president of Harvard got fired for even hinting that this was a possibility. Another way to look at it, if there are differences between men and women than you would expect men to be better at some things and women to be better at some things. Try claiming one of the sexes is better at anything and see how that goes over.
Larry Summers didn't merely say they were different, he used that to argue that it helped explain what others attribute to discrimination - that's different. (And from doing some googling, it's also apparently not why he was fired, even though it did cause controversy.) My point is that merely pointing out that men and women are different doesn't weaken any of the arguments that people tend to use to justify diversity programs.
It's not that people belive there is literally no difference. It's that people say the differences that do exist are irrelevant and/or aren't useful for making choices such as who might be better at what. If that's true, that these differences arent't predictive or actionable, then for practical purposes, there is "no difference". That's the crux of the argument -- are differences actionable? My hypothesis is that there are actionable differences in BOTH DIRECTIONS. Unfortunately a lot of assholes blew our ability to get to the bottom of which is which because they instead pretended to get to the bottom of things but really just rigged outcomes in favor of men. Now it's super hard to shed that baggage and actually try to make positive use of any actionable differences that may exist.
no, all of these diversity programs make the assumption that women want to do and can do everything a man wants to do and can do, and they strive to make workplaces half female and half male based on that assumption alone. if want to find people who align with the "men are the same as women" thing, just go to a public area and suggest that women dont like tech as much as men -- they will show themselves rapidly. just say that women arent as X as men and they will show themselves, as i have experienced many, many times, both directly and as a witness. i have tons of liberal friends who full on reject the notion that men are usually stronger than women, just based on muscle and bone mass and density. bill nye recently made rounds on the internet with his video trying to explain that chromosomes dont determine gender, and it went beyond what you identify as -- he claimed that sometimes both chromosomes types are found in the same person. he was suggesting that gender is a construct because thats the popular mantra. if you think that gender and gender differences are handled well in mainstream culture today then you havent looked hard enough.
I'm not sure if you read his document, where he talks about Google having lowered the standards for its employees.
But I'll leave that to the side - there's no reason to think that many of the differences he describes aren't socially constructed. Maybe the way we raise women in America/the West turns them off to pursuing tech careers.
Until we can resolve this, it's ridiculous to use psychology studies to ascertain biology - and even afterwards, our goal should be ensuring access to well-paying careers, not remaining shackled to our biology.
As an example, we have trained runners to break previously 'impossible' race times through training, technology and science - we realize that what we thought was impossible was simply not compatible with the system we previously had in place.
> the author of the memo is completely correct and, as others have said, his memo is drastically misrepresented in the coverage it has received. he simply points out that women could have less desire to go into fields such as cs because of their biological makeup.
I'm not sure you read the memo? The author never provided evidence for this claim - it's pure speculation. The only points he's able to support with science are the statements that there are biological differences between men and women. Quote:
"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing)"
That is accompanied with citations. OK, sure, let's take that at face value.
Next, he says:
"These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics"
No citation, no nothing here - just pure guessing on his part. If you're going to make an assertion like this, you need evidence - just, "it makes sense to me!" isn't proving anything. I find it surprising and disappointing that so many fail to read this memo critically.
> men and women are not the same. The author is completely correct?
No one is saying men and women are the same. Similarly, no one is providing evidence to back up your and the author's assertions.
So much of what passes for liberal thought these days is so divorced from common sense.
My personal view about diversity and gender identity is simple: you do what you are good at and what you enjoy. The moment doing X or Y becomes a compulsion for a gender rather than a choice, you have a problem.
If you're a man and you enjoy crocheting and want to be a nurse, you go do that. If you're a woman and you like coding, you do that.
If you're a man and you're stronger than your spouse, you move the couch. If not, the woman moves the couch. My wife is taller than I am. I ask her to get things that I can't reach. I don't puff up and get all masculinist about it - it's just damn common sense.
"Do what you're good at. Do what you enjoy". Simple as that.
The biology is so radically different. You can't and shouldn't replace "men and women" with "different skin color" as the argument would be changed.
Men and women DO have different biological make ups, and there are detectable and measurable changes in statistical behavioral at large sample sizes. That's ok.
I don't condone hiring, firing, etc based on this information. And I do think diversity hiring is a good thing, as it pays dividends that go further than pure ability. Ideation is more powerful when diverse viewpoints and backgrounds are present, for example.
I think the author of the memo was wrong, but you can't de-construct his argument like this to subsequently claim an obvious moral authority.
Arguing the biological factors make a meaningful difference in engineering feels like arguing for vim or emacs makes for a better engineer, or Windows vs. Mac users, or Chrome vs Firefox. Even if you use a computer differently just considering how broad the field of engineering is, I cannot imagine a case where biological factors are a more likely predictor of success than plain old institutional bias.
Abstract :
"There is considerable interest in understanding women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. Career choices have been shown to be driven in part by interests, and gender differences in those interests have generally been considered to result from socialization. We explored the contribution of sex hormones to career-related interests, in particular studying whether prenatal androgens affect interests through psychological orientation to Things versus People. We examined this question in individuals with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), who have atypical exposure to androgens early in development, and their unaffected siblings (total N = 125 aged 9 to 26 years). Females with CAH had more interest in Things versus People than did unaffected females, and variations among females with CAH reflected variations in their degree of androgen exposure.
Results provide strong support for hormonal influences on interest in occupations characterized by working with Things versus People."
(emphasis mine)
This is completely in line with the memo. I am so disappointed by Google.
So let me get this straight: supposedly women are less predisposed to be interested in X profession, thusly we should discriminate against those that are just so that we can match some magical speculated UNIVERSE_OF_WOMEN * WOMEN_INTEREST_FACTOR number?
Who is going to determine what WOMEN_INTEREST_FACTOR should be? You? Me? A panel of old white men in the Senate? (just like we do with women's reproductive rights?)
Wow, this has got to be the mother of all strawman arguments in this thread (and there have been many) !
Nobody said anything about discouraging or discriminating the many women who are interested in STEM fields. In fact, if anybody seems slightly obsessed with using discrimination to twist reality's arm into matching some "magical speculated" EQUALITY_RATIO (0.5), it's your side of the debate. And that's the whole premise the memo wanted to question.
I strongly believe and care greatly that any individual interested in a field of work should feel welcome to enter it regardless of gender, race, age or other personal factors unrelated to their ability. I have personally always tried my best to remove any specific hurdles my minority colleagues might encounter, and I will support anything that helps in this respect. But no more than that : make people welcome, but stop short of forcing them in or blaming the system if they don't come. This is where some diversity programs go IMHO too far by trying to fix what ain't broken, if their aim is social justice (the best defence for them is actually a business argument : greater diversity does make for better functioning teams, so it might be worth artificially forcing it)
The dogma that needs to be questioned (not least because the scientific evidence against it is overwhelming) is the idea that the gender imbalance in STEM fields (and in nursing/care/humanities) is more likely the undesirable outcome of sexism, discrimination and hostile environments, rather than the desirable result of free choices made by liberated western women following their hearts.
Obviously, if it turns out to be the latter, it follows that the whole fight for parity at all costs (the "magical speculated number" of 0.5) looks like a rather moot and quixotic endeavour. How about just letting people be whatever they want to be ?
Occam's razor is again helpful here : on one side we have a very straightforward biology/hormonal influence-based theory supported by evidence. On the other hand we have something much more complex, bordering on conspiracy theory : "the patriarchy". While I agree that further replicated studies are probably required on both sides, as things stands I'm pretty confident which one is the more likely explanation that scientifically-minded people should reasonably lean towards.
> The dogma that needs to be questioned (not least because the scientific evidence against it is overwhelming) is the idea that the gender imbalance in STEM fields (and in nursing/care/humanities) is more likely the undesirable outcome of sexism, discrimination and hostile environments, rather than the desirable result of free choices made by liberated western women following their hearts
The dogma that needs to be questioned is the idea that, in a society where women were only given the vote in the last 100 years, were still relegated to the kitchen until after WWII and - to this day - are considered second-class citizens who can't determine what to do with their own bodies, we should be talking about them being in a "position of equality."
> How about just letting people be whatever they want to be ?
Is anyone forcing women to become engineers? I wasn't aware of that. Maybe you just have a pre-conception of what women "should do" and seeing them in your field strikes you as "someone must have forced them"?
> on one side we have a very straightforward biology/hormonal influence-based theory supported by evidence. On the other hand we have something much more complex, bordering on conspiracy theory : "the patriarchy"
No. Stop trying to make this some conspiracy theory. The "evidence" you are presenting as to why women behave one way is just a step above phrenology, which was wildly popular in the early 1900s and proven to be completely bogus since. You can't discount societal context when talking about behavior. Why do Norwegian and Swedish women behave differently than American women, if biology should explain everything?
I don't think that's what he was saying. His point was if we have equality of opportunity, meaning that interviews/applications are completely blind (this is impossible to do 100% in practice) and "fair", what would we expect the application and hire rate of men vs women to be? Is it 50/50? Or might it be different distributions for different jobs depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests? If there are less women and more men interested in that type of role, then that could be partially due to biological predisposition to wanting that type of job.
This is not at all to say that, as the person in charge of hiring, you should be concerned about these things. You should set objective standards for what you need in a particular role and hire the individuals that best meet those standards.
That being said, there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time. I think a lot of the diversity-increasing efforts in place at companies such as Google are commendable and should be continued.
> depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests?
This is a very, very, very slippery slope you are treading there. Again, going back to my point: who defines where that partiality starts and ends?
> there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time.
And this is why bringing back the argument of testosterone is ridiculous. How can we know how many women are going to be interested in the field, when only recently we've realized that "jeez, they might be interested in something else than an oven and what cleaning liquid to use"?
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it.
Here's my understanding. If a company posts a job and receives 30 applications from women and 70 applications from men, you need to explain the reason for the disparity. Why is there such a difference? I think it's generally accepted that in this case in the software field, the majority of the disparity is due to cultural/social factors. And there are a lot of programs dedicated to outreach, education, raising interest, etc to counteract these societal factors. And I think these are good!
The point I was replying to was whether or not some of the difference in application rates could be explained because women, as a distribution of individuals, have a lower percentage that are interested in a particular type of job than men, perhaps due to biological factors. I don't think there are any conclusive studies that have shown this to be a significant effect, but for the sake of argument, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider. Of course, if it's not backed up by the evidence, then I won't continue looking at it.
I think one of the many issues with the memo was that it significantly overplayed speculative (and incorrect) biological factors, while ignoring the many social and cultural factors that we know to be the cause of most of the lack of diversity.
> I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it.
I know, no rational person would. But on the other hand, assuming there is one such ratio and that "we shouldn't do anything to fix the current imbalance because the magic ratio explains it" is a terrible idea. That's what the whole manifesto was about really: let's not fix a problem that doesn't exist, because testosterone.
This is a straw-man argument, the point is that if women are predisposed to be less interested in a profession than maybe that explains why there are less woman in that profession. Also the memo is about evaluating everyone based on their merits, not sure how you got the idea that it was for discriminating against women.
> not sure how you got the idea that it was for discriminating against women.
Not sure where the author got the idea that Google is discriminating against men, either. As I said elsewhere: unless he has solid proof that the distribution of resumes Google gets and the number of people hired diverge significantly, and that the divergence is only explained through some form of discrimination, he's talking out of his ass.
people of different races, different skin colors, different anything, are in fact different from each other in a genetic way. every person is different from every other person on a genetic basis. i am sorry to be direct, but it is with no hatred or racism that i say the following: if a group of people all share the genetic trait that their skin is a certain color, it is possible they share other common genetic traits. this is simple logic, and it is correct. how deep these differences are, whether or not they are cognitive or psychological, has yet to be scientifically determined or even investigated. personally, i dont think its important for these things to be investigated. as long as all doors of opportunity are open to all people regardless of any genetic quality, i think we will be ok.
it is important that we all broach the ugly subject of racial genetics with rational and compassionate minds. firing or punishing (socially and otherwise) people who try to discuss things such as this will lead to much worse outcomes in my opinion.
It seems like you're open to learning more about genetics (I think...) so I'll share some interesting findings that don't really fit with the popular conception of race.
It turns out that the most genetic variability lies between... black people who live in West Africa.
While we can use 'junk DNA' to classify people somewhat well, that doesn't tell us much about what makes a person a person.
genetics is complicated. not only is there so called junk dna, there is also epi-genetics. and even the genes that we correlate with certain diseases are not understood well. we dont understand how our dna translates into our physiology. and at no point have i pretended to understand this.
I am somewhat surprised that others are upset he was fired. Free speech doesn't always apply within a company context and speaking politically on either side is a bad idea. Not to mention, while he may have some points, he's approaching a people problem as a statistics problems. With deep rooted issues like this (that have lasted for 100s of years) you can't just pull out data that won't apply going forward if we actually try to make things better...
> speaking politically on either side is a bad idea.
Part of the current concern is that it has become common to speak on just one side in tech culture. It is seen in some circles as morally superior to be on the side of social justice no matter what the context is (or what other justices are at play).
This individual apparently has a biology PhD from Harvard, but only two published papers. How common is this in biology? Seems very low compared to computer science.
I've seen a lot of this argument going back and forth on the concept of "how it would feel to be a diversity hire" or "if more qualified candidates aren't getting the job". This ENTIRE line of thinking misses the point of diversity programs. The purpose is long-term--to make it so that at some point in the future you don't NEED a diversity program anymore. And that's why they are critical.
What is the "target" amount of diversity? What is it for coal mines? Given all the diversity & inclusion roles, are you really suggesting these initiatives are intended to go away at some point in the future?
In highschool, I always got to hear that I'm a "loser computer nerd" while the cool girls wanted to do media, social and similar stuff. I studied CS (95% male students). How can anyone be surprised by men being the majority. In schools there are like 75% female teachers (I'm in Germany). Should male rebel?
You have to do diversity actions before age 10 if you want to do it right.
(Yes, this is anecdotal, yet fairly typical, I guess)
Haha wow. Of course the fundraiser for this piece of work is hosted on the alt-right's de-facto crowdfunding site. In case you had any doubt, please note that one of the most successful campaigns on WeSearchr is raising money to help a Neo-Nazi blog in a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I don't get this bit from the linked article:<blockquote>"Google has denied the charges, arguing that it doesn’t have a gender gap in pay, but has declined to share full salary information with the government."</blockquote>Doesn't the government have that data already? The IRS is part of "the government", isn't it?
For all the people who think the memo actually had a point, this is a huge opportunity. You can now get a court case going and get a judge to rule on it.
It would, of course, be a good idea to do some background research into biology, sociology, cross-industry comparators and the history of software development. And drum up some expert witnesses. I'm sure you'll be fine.
Affirmative action in south Africa was a laughing stock. The country is in terminal decline riddled with corrupt people who have no business being in their positions. No appreciation of their positions and what ordinarily would be required to achieve the position. I will bet against any institution which implements affirmative action as a solution.
I'm not clear on the context it was delivered in, but that memo was pretty focused on measurable phenomena and fairness to individuals even when making generalizations. If that's what it takes to get fired from Google, there's clearly no room for discussion on this matter.
honestly I haven't read the original post/email/letter. I'm sure most of the keyboard warriors you see on here as well as Blind or any other forums haven't read the whole thing either.
I have a feeling that people jumped into conclusions before reading it or understanding author's POV. I'm frankly surprised by Google's reaction. They should have debated this internally instead of firing an employee because h/she expressed their opinion. Even if the author was wrong, they could've countered his/her points by bringing proofs/scientific studies.
There is no reason for an employee to be concerned about who their employer hires as long as said companies are operating within the framework of law. This is none of your business literally.
Google is currently under investigation for pay disparity and are obliged to review everything and ensure there is no sexism at play. If you don't like this surely you should challenge the laws that demand this of Google.
Sending a memo on diversity or any political issue is an aggressive political action in the workplace that can only have one outcome. The context for debates and action about merit and diversity is in the legal democratic space not the office.
This individual is not a victim of free speech but of indiscretion.
We don't need diversity program, we need tolerance programs so everybody can see the value of an individual regardless their gender,race or whatever thing irrelevant for the job
"diversity" and "inclusion" often go hand in hand. Throw in some "unconscious bias" training, and you begin marching down a path. I think it's something only time and a diverse gene pool will heal. Relevance to the job is a key thing, as simple as it sounds. You always want "the best", and in tech, that often means "people like me", which necessarily means "not people like them", and we find ourselves where we are today.
I think this is like medicine, you can cure the illness or treat the symptoms. Diversity programs treat the symptoms, tolerance programs might solve the problem. I don't see how hiring women and putting in a toxic corporate culture will help. It will mostly scare the women and potentially new hires. We need different things, and firing a person who raises this topic is not helping.
I don't think the big companies got big hiring similar people as the founders. But getting diverse roles. Although once they got big,the middle management night so what you say.
The combination is like something else: preventative medicine. You know the problem exists, so you're pro-active in doing something about the condition before it gets out of hand.
Does anyone know why isn't this story higher in the news feed? For the past two hours it has had over 500 upvotes and over 600 comments and it's still at position nine.
I for one take their words over Yonatan Zunger in this - as this is after all, their field of expertise. Zunger may be great in many things, but behavioural science, evolutionary psychology and psychology in general are i'm fairly certain not fields where he holds any achievements.
We should be able to apply security technologies to online discourse. Theoretically it should be possible to separate real identity from virtual identity: maybe I publish a bunch of stuff in such a way that no one can ever figure out who I am but anyone can verify that a series of different comments/articles/etc. were all made by the same person. Then you could decide to follow people who publish things that interest you without having any feasible way to identify them (you can’t fire them, you can’t meet them, etc.).
This is easy to do: add a cryptographic signature to your blog posts (you can use a self-signed cert; the signature just proves that the person who signed various documents had control of the private key in a particular key pair). I think the only obstacle is convincing readers that there's some value in having that digital signature.
Holding an opinion isn't a firing offense. The firing offense is violating the agreements he signed as an employee (the most obvious poor decision here being the choice to post his manifesto on corporate services using corporate equipment).
>the most obvious poor decision here being the choice to post his manifesto on corporate services using corporate equipment
Why is this a violation? Not trying to be argumentative, actually just curious. Seems like putting personal thoughts on company Google Docs would be a questionable decision for privacy concerns, but not a violation.
In this context, the fact that the manifesto also violates the code of conduct makes it more likely that they feel obligated to act. If it were in a private chat or on his personal blog it would be much less of a big deal. Similarly, people posted stuff like that in g+ and memegen comments frequently without getting fired. I think the scale and visibility is part of why he got a bigger response in general. Sending around a less controversial manifesto inside the company probably would've been fine - I think he could have easily just focused on the diversity programs and elaborated why he thinks they aren't working well, and that wouldn't have gotten him fired or caused such a controversy.
For whatever reason, he decided to go in deep and lay out his entire worldview on biology and gender traits, ensuring as much disagreement and conflict as possible. Whether this means he intended to cause problems or he just didn't understand how to complain constructively is a big question...
I meant on the internal thread this memo was released to and discussed on.
I heard from a indirect source that it blew up partially because others agreed with the sentiment. Just wondering if there could be confirmation on that.
People definitely agreed on Blind (you can find screenshots of those posts in news articles), and Google employees made comments of this sort on memegen and g+ all the time. He was foolish enough to post a manifesto using company equipment, violating all sorts of different parts of the agreement he signed when he joined the company.
There are lots of conservatives at Google (and other SV tech companies) who agree with the author, and most of them aren't going to lose their jobs because they have the common sense not to get themselves fired for no reason.
I am starting to think that this type of debate will only work constructively once we have Elon Musk's brain computer and are able to express our complete world of thoughts to each other. Using words is so unbelievably flawed, as it is impossible for anyone to communicate in full what they actually want to say, without being perceived as saying something else as well.
Is it possible that humans have reached their limits of current collective intellectual capacity?
I'm not sure how I feel about this since I have my own beliefs which make me a big outsider in terms of politics (being a Mutualist anarchist isn't fun when you try to explain it to coworkers). But my view is that it's best to never discuss politics or religion (and sometimes sports this one depends) at the job since it can rub people the wrong way. It's not fun working where you've either ticked someone off or you've been ticked off by someone else. Some polite distancing of one's beliefs from their work life I feel is more important than trying to offer any advice to HR, even if it has some merit. It's just asking for a pink slip and a black mark on your resume.
But the biggest confusion I think is how conservatives react to this situation for me. I use to be an avid fan of Buckley and use to read the National Review regularly as a teenager (yes I'm weird). So when I see conservatives lash out at Google over their right to fire anyone at will or on the basis that the employee is disrupting the environment at work (be it rightful or not from the point of view of fairness) I see hypocrisy of the most base kind. Conservatism in the United States values the freedom of companies, employees, and private citizens to associate and disassociate on their own. If Google wants to hire Mutualists like myself and not hire a GOP or Democrat then they should be on the principles of American Conservatism have their choice respected and not challenged in court or in some dishonest manner which violates the property rights of others. To attempt to walk back or moderate the position of free association on the basis that might hurt some people who share conservative values is to undermine the very basis of conservatism in my opinion. Basically, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either all businesses and private citizens have the freedom of association (and disassociation) or they do not have that right. It stinks but consistency in political ideologies is an important metric to understanding whether or not an ideology can sustain itself. If American Conservatism cannot sustain itself under such consistency then the ideology is flawed and should be reformed such that it can give a conditional freedom of association on a consistent basis both in political theory and in terms of law (i.e. accepting that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent additions to the law are warranted and consistent with said ideological grounds). Mind you, I'm not a conservative at all but I'm speaking from my beliefs that I held many years ago and how I interpreted American Conservatism. But I recall Buckley holding a similar view as the one I described. And it would take a mighty strong argument for me to be convinced that the contrary is consistent with American Conservatism and conservatism as a whole.
So, Google's snowflakes are trying to place some naive pseudo-scientific and pseudo-philosophical but popular among other snowflakes compilation of current memes and fancy terminology upon objective reality by silencing a naive but not clueless attempt to remind others about some old truths..
Let's put it straight. There are obvious, hardwired evolutionary specialization among sexes of all species. Sexes are evolutionary innovation to achieve better survival rates (achieved by the process of evolurionary trial and error and natural selection) not some stupid religious nonsense. So, there is no equality in principle, by definition, by design. The notion of equal rights is completely different story, it is social realm - few levels up from underlying biology.
There is not a single doubt that biology dominates and partially determines psychology (the nature part of the Nature and Nurture whole). Biology also dominates sociology - most of human traditions and social norms are deeply grounded in biological differences and specialization - there is nothing to talk about. Animal behavioral patterns, which could be called "traditions of species" are, obviously, determined by biology and environmental factors.
At least few stereotypes produced by various human cultures (products of social formations, partially determined by biology) are reflections to various extend of these real, existing, "material" fundamental differences captured in traditions. Dismissal of all the stereotypes as a category is plain stupidity.
Hipsters and snowflakes who are trying to gain attention by "challenging" objective reality with their naive memes (the ridiculous attempts to redefine what sexes are and what it is for with "third sex" nonsense is an obvious example) at very least raise some brows.
Notice that I am not in the least "conservative", I am principal and scientific. There are evolutional and biological reasons why this or that aspect of sex differences emerged and what is for. Whatever is valid for all species applies to humans too, no matter what liberal arts graduates would say about man's superiority.
Nature forms and dominates, Nurture varies and adapts. There is not a single doubt that equal rights must be given to both sexes (there are only two of them) and equal rights must be protected.
This is where the notion of equality ends. Equality of sexes is a hipster's utter nonsense, not because conservatives think so, or some popular religious text says so, but for straightforward scientific reasons, anatomical and neurobiological. This is so-called objective reality, and opinions and memes of current snowflakes are simply non-applicable.
> There is not a single doubt that biology dominates and partially determines psychology
If it "dominates" it's inherent it (at least) "partially determines", reducing your assertion to "There is not a single doubt biology dominates psychology," which is basically untenable, scientifically.
> I am principal and scientific.
No. No you're not, unless you actually are a principal, but then it has no bearing the matter at hand. You approach is also not very scientific.
> There are evolutional and biological reasons why this or that aspect of sex differences emerged and what is for. Whatever is valid for all species applies to humans too, no matter what liberal arts graduates would say about man's superiority.
Let's cut your unsound and poorly constructed argument short here: I cede this proposition. That means, for the sake of argument, I will assume it as completely sound and correct.
Now,
explain to me, in detail, how this (now assumed true) inequality of the sexes leads to one of them being unable to code (or assume various complex technical tasks) as well as the other, purely from biological differences.
I'll save you the trouble. You can't, because if you could, you wouldn't be wildly speculating about it online. You'd be writing scientific papers about it.
Your larger argument boils down to:
-men and women are biologically different,
-there are difference between men and women
-therefore these difference must be biological
It's a fallacy. Scientifically rigorous arguments are not build around fallacies.
P.S. principled and scientific minds usually shy away from using laden and denigrating terms in their arguments.
Makes the very clever comparison to medicine and other fields that used to be 100% male.
"Nobody has any real policy disagreements. Everyone can just agree that men and women are equal, that they both have the same rights, that nobody should face harassment or discrimination. We can relax the Permanent State Of Emergency around too few women in tech, and admit that women have the right to go into whatever field they want, and that if they want to go off and be 80% of veterinarians and 74% of forensic scientists, those careers seem good too. We can appreciate the contributions of existing women in tech, make sure the door is open for any new ones who want to join, and start treating each other as human beings again."
And yet every single woman I've ever asked has had some pretty horrible stories regarding sexism, if not outright harassment. There's also still a horrible bro culture problem in a lot of places. In no way have we crossed a line where everything sexist has been fixed and now it's just all about witch hunts.
The existence of one problem does not justify purposefully ignoring the other; both sexism and witch hunts are bad, and both should be corrected, neither should be ignored.
Of course. But you do have do look at any particular situation in its broader context. If there wasn't a huge and ongoing sexism problem, it might be easier to ignore the warts and give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes. But given how things are, those kinds of warts contribute to a hostile workplace and can't be overlooked because they contribute to toxicity. They aren't simply outlier views that can be harmlessly ignored.
Anything can "make others feel unwelcome" given enough determination to find so. Did you vote for Trump? You get the boot. Voted for Hillary? You get the boot too, there are Sanders supporters around! Ah, you like Sanders? You communist! Communists certainly can make people feel unwelcome, they did tons of scary stuff over 20th century. What, you don't like communism? Maybe you like capitalism then? You pig! You're making Marxists feel unwelcome! Off with your hea^H^H^Hjob!
Maybe you believe in God? Like, a Christian? That certainly will make a lot of folks feel unwelcome. But maybe you're an atheist instead? Ha, did you think you'd get out that easy? Of course you'll make somebody feel unwelcome. [1]
OK, this is all political stuff. Let's get so something nobody objects to. How about cheese? Do you like cheese? Do you, you filthy sexist[2]?!
If you try hard enough, you can see "feel unwelcome" in literally anything, and simple google search proves it's not even a bit of exaggeration.
I'm sorry, but citation needed. His activities were brought to light by others, and he was hounded for that. There was no report of his outside interests impacting anyone.
Argh! Yes, the communication was incredibly bad because Dries was afraid if he spills the entire thing as is then the woman in question would be blamed for him forcing Garfield to step down. In https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/drupal-association-a... finally you can find
> The actions that led me to ask Larry to resign involve a woman who attended Drupal community events with Larry, and was "allowed" to contribute by him.
Also: check who is posting here. If you think I have any axe to grind relating to Drupal then you missed a few things last year. Like http://drupal.sh/karoly-negyesi-chx-ousted-from-drupal-commu... this. If there is anybody left who can take a neutral stand now, it's me. I have neither to gain nor to lose from siding with either party. And, I sided with Larry up until the latest statements clarified things.
This doesn't mean others were not doxxing Larry -- but that was not the reason behind asking him to step down.
So, a consentual relationship gone wrong. I stand by my earlier statement.
And forgive me, I don't care who you are; I care that someone was railroaded for a consensual relationship held primarily outside the community. Gor is unpopular; it hasn't gained the acceptance homosexual relationships have, and this outrage tainted everything.
You know, I actually thought Sundar's response to this whole thing was actually quite on point. He addresses the issue of needing to be able to discuss points in the memo that are open to discussion (such as the effectiveness of a policy and how to make things more inclusive for all); and at the same time addresses the hostile work environment that was produced as a result of the surrounding context. It sounds like moving forward there is a lot of work to be done to improve the culture and implement policies that can foster diversity of thought as well.
"
This has been a very difficult time. I wanted to provide an update on the memo that was circulated over this past week.
First, let me say that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”
The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender. Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”
At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.
The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree—while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct. I’d encourage each of you to make an effort over the coming days to reach out to those who might have different perspectives from your own. I will be doing the same.
I have been on work related travel in Africa and Europe the past couple of weeks and had just started my family vacation here this week. I have decided to return tomorrow as clearly there’s a lot more to discuss as a group—including how we create a more inclusive environment for all.
"
> They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent
Yet he fired the guy.
Ultimately he had to pick a side: freedom of speech or women who got upset by a bunch of links to scientific studies with a pile of social and cultural commentary on top. He picked the latter.
It isn't 100% fair, but the guy also stated that a systemic bias will likely create a negative (and one can conclude hostile) reaction rather than constructive discourse. It is safe to assume that if you can predict that there is likely to be a hostile reaction to your opinions due to context and systemic bias, there are other ways in which you might want to promote your ideas.
Advancing stereotypes aside, given that he knew that this was the case, he went ahead and published the article anyway rather than conduct private conversations on the topic or explore the discussion in other constructive ways.
Interestingly, he may have gotten a lot further in advancing constructive discourse by leaving it an open survey and reporting his findings on systemic bias. Rather than base his conclusions on his own naive assumptions, he could have conducted research and collect data from the internal Google employees and then reported his findings as objectively as possible.
i absolutely hate the situation that we have found ourselves in. gender and race politics have become totally divorced from the issues of gender and race. firing people who speak their mind is not going to help women in tech and it wont help black kids from being shot in the street in chicago or oakland. not a single person i have ever known who played the politically correct game has ever lifted a single finger to help black people or a little girls interested in tech. the sad truth is that gender politics is now a game of virtue signalling -- a status game among liberal people to see who is the most virtuous, the kindest and most thoughtful. meanwhile, any person who does not fit into a beneficiary position in this game (for example the entire middle section of the united states) is treated with savage cruelty. it is astonishing to see my ultra liberal friends whine endlessly about how unfair life is, how painful life is for certain people, and then turn around and in the same breath condemn and disparage millions of people for absolutely no reason. the truth is that a truly kind person reserves kindness for everyone, and even someone who might be mean or unpleasant at first -- i have found that kindness is much more effective at changing peoples perspective than anything else, so if you want mid-westerners to stop being racist, remember that being horrible and mean to them probably wont make them see things from your perspective.
i think there is some kind of effect where people who are really good at solving complicated puzzles that are right in front of their faces are not so good at solving logical issues that are less tangible or more long term. thats one of my theories, because a lot of people i know that arent dumb at all seem to totally buy into the gender politics thing, even though their beliefs totally fly in the face of logic. maybe its me who is wrong, and there is some subtle aspect of this whole thing that i am not grasping. either way, we are all in this together. its important to be patient with each other and to never allow ourselves to descend into savagery and hatred. and if you do find yourself behaving like that, its ok. we all make mistakes, dust yourself off and try again. i know i have.
An excellent opportunity to re-read PG's essay, "What You Can't Say". [1]
"What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed."
Applying the notion of "moral fashion" to this doesn't seem appropriate. It also shows a certain blindness to the problems of sexism and racism especially in the context of this former employee's comments.
None of what he said were men's rights dog whistles. If you think this you clearly don't have an ear for them. The closest you could say is he was maybe inspired by Peterson and Slatestarcodex.
Please. I know the standard set of MRA talking points well, having spent way too much time as a teenager in the meta/drama internet cultures. This manifesto [0] hits most of the main ones.
> Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths.
> Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role.
> Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race
> Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of humanities and social scientists learn left (about 95%), which creates enormous confirmation bias, changes what’s being studied, and maintains myths like social constructionism and the gender wage gap.
> males are biologically disposable
> We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and whiner. Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression.
> political correctness, which constrains discourse and is complacent to the extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians that use violence and shaming to advance their cause
Copy/paste any of those into an r/MensRights thread and you'll fit right in.
I'm just trying to be neutral in all of this. If you look through that thread, the internet at large seems to be taking this as an opportunity to flex men's rights issues pretty heavily. The reason they're doing this seems to be because of the content of his writings rather than the fact that he got fired.
EDIT: Actually, it's unfair to say "the internet at large." HN, reddit, and twitter all seem to be taking the news in unique ways.
I appreciate that, but I don't think raising up some random guy on reddit is a valid way of drawing a conclusion.
Person A thinks X.
Person B who belongs a group the blue tribe hates also thinks X.
Therefore person A is a bad person because they agree with person B about X.
We have failed to prove that the group person B belongs to is actually bad and not just an exercise in signaling and we are also trying to smear person A by saying they agree with some other completely unrelated person who may belong to a distasteful group. Additionally X can still be correct and both people can be distasteful, but it wont change the fact that X is correct.
Sorry if I am not being clear, it's been a long day.
You might want to read Slavoj Zizek on ideology, since that's a deeper philosophical look at the same phenomena. Here's the quick video of him explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk8ibrfXvpQ
Basically, you might think about one thing as 'moral fashion' and another as 'social good', but you are really comparing two fashions and pretending to be objective.
To make a concrete example out of the situation in front of us: if there is proof that diverse companies perform better (https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter) then his reasoning about how diversity initiatives are wasteful must be incorrect.
So to say that he is 'correct' means to turn your back on empirical argument, and to base things in identity politics.
If diverse companies perform better, this would surely mean that there is some sort of difference between the sexes? How else could diversity have an impact on the bottom line of a company?
Well, if women really make 87% of what men make for the same work (or whatever the latest number is), it could save the company 13% or more on car insur- I mean, labor costs.
If it is really true that women make 87% of men for the same work, any company that is driven by profit would exclusively hire women. The alternative would be that sexism is so rampant that it trumps profit driven motivation, am I missing something, or is that what you are suggesting?
I'm not really suggesting anything other than that, it's a hypothetical explanation that disproves the notion, "if diverse companies do better, it MUST be because of differences in the sexes". Admittedly not a high-effort comment.
In answer to the rest of your comment, it's anybody's guess and nobody agrees why. Maybe the stat is wrong, maybe the sexism is just that rampant, maybe the women-only candidate pool is inadequate (small), maybe there is a performance difference, etc.
>if there is proof that diverse companies perform better then his reasoning about how diversity initiatives are wasteful must be incorrect.
Absolutely not true. There are many other possible reasons for such a correlation. A few examples:
It's possible better-performing companies could attract more non-white applicants.
Or, that better-performing companies could be have extra resources, which they then spend on diversity initiatives, where poor-performing companies are desperate to survive.
Or the independent variable: Being in the Valley makes companies perform better, and also makes them want to hire more non-whites, but these are both independent outcomes simply caused by being in the Valley. In this scenario, it's even possible that diversity harms performance, but the effect is more than compensated for by being in the Valley.
Or, it could be random chance; outcomes are dominated by a few high-performing companies, which just happen to be genetically diverse.
Or any of many other possible connections and confounders. This is really basic stuff.
Thanks for expanding on that aspect! This is exactly the sort of things people should have brought up.
I feel like the suspicious thing is that people didn't react in this way.
Why was this not a glaring problem that his supporters rushed in to answer?
If I told you I had an elegant model for some chemical reactions and could predict, say, the thermal energy released in an experiment, you might look at the model and think it's great.
If it doesn't match what is measured in the real world, then it's possible the model is correct: could be an environmental factor or a problem with the apparatus etc. But I need to answer questions around the gap between prediction and reality, rather than to rely on my perceptions of the elegance of the model.
That's where I think this veers off into identity politics.
This isn't an issue of "fashion" or "opinion". It's an issue of whether the guy is right or wrong, and if he's wrong[1] whether or not he's caused damage to his employer[2], and if that is true whether it is a firing offense[3].
You don't get to avoid discussion[4] about those subtitled points by retreating to some kind of invented safe space here. Out with it. Is he right?
[1] He is.
[2] He has.
[3] It is.
[4] Yeah, I'm just asserting without evidence too. But only
to avoid the pointless flames that result.
Start with Halpern's "Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities" and follow the bibliography where it takes you (I really would like to provide the references, but just I don't have the patience to copy them now). For something rigorous that's digitally available, start with sapinker's slides from his 2005 debate [1]. Modern understanding is quite similar, only with new evidence and insights from evolutionary psychology and neurobiology.
Fun fact: the author of the memo earned a PhD in Biology from Harvard. Google can fire him and get away with it, but it's going to be tough, very tough, for him to be falsely characterized as someone who is misinformed or unscientific. And the court of public opinion may well be more important in this controversy than any court of law.
Highly educated people in the sciences can in fact be quite vulnerable to just this type of hubris, ie thinking that having expertise in one area means expertise in the whole field.
Nobel prize winning scientists have damaged their reputations by opining on matters they know little about (James Watson on genetics, and many others )
> Nobel prize winning scientists have damaged their reputations by opining on matters they know little about (James Watson on genetics, and many others )
You mean to say that James Watson, the Nobel prize winning geneticist knows little about genetics?
Watson is a Chemist who used his expertise in physical chemistry to discern the structure of DNA....that is not the same as knowing genetics (which is a huge field).
*The point is not to belittle his accomplishment (which would be silly) but to point out that he veered into a field that he was mostly unqualified to offer an informed opinion on, never mind a very controversial one.
Also, it's a HUGE controversy in the scientific community that he and Crick got the Nobel prize and most of the credit for discovering the structure of DNA, and Rosalind Franklin gets none. I thought that was well known.
It was more rigorously argued than simply stating that 'was neither rigorously argued'. I've seen this sentence now a 100th time in this topic, and I haven't seen any of kind of proof for opposing any of his statements.
They don't say that the school matters, they say you have to actually refute him instead of saying 'he's just stupid'.
Don't bother. These are the same people that are mad at alleged quotas being the only reason why they can't go to elite schools (and then saying school doesn't matter afterward).
I see your point, but the fact that he has the degree means he studied biology for many years of his life and contributed his own interesting ideas to the field. I think Harvard is the less important part here, although it is "well-respected" for a reason.
I didn't say he was infallible by merit of a specialized academic degree. He could very well be wrong, but the fact that he has a PhD in Biology from a top Ivy League school should at least give his thesis academic plausibility (even among those who strongly disagree) and allow for the possibility of reasoned debate over the issue instead of a politically-correct witch hunt.
What if the cause is in biology? You will miss it that way. Bear in mind that we are like we are because of our genes. You are not blonde or brunette because something your mother ate or you did in another past life. Genes also impact in intelligence and skills. The environment is another factor but the base is set by genes.
I have a PhD in astrophysics from a peer institution of Harvard. I know dozens of people with PhDs who are "misinformed and unscientific" on many topics, including their nominal specialization.
And by the way, another fun fact:
As far as I can can tell, he doesn't have a PhD. He didn't publish any papers while he was at Harvard. You don't get through a modern elite PhD program without making any contribution to the literature. And his thesis is not showing up in any library search I do. He seems to have dropped out very early.
No shame in that, of course. But since you and many others are saying he has credibility on a matter unrelated to the topic of his PhD precisely because he has a PhD: he, er, may not have a PhD.
By the way, the more cited of his two papers reads like it was written by someone very new to research, who had his editor open in one window and the Wikipedia page for "List of Logical Fallacies" open in another.
This explains some things. I was sort of surprised he had managed to defend a thesis after trying to follow his argument in the piece in question. I don't expect thesis level work from a forum post, but for something with so much work put into citations and footnoting, it's so bad at linking its evidence to its arguments and its arguments to its conclusions (or even deciding, what, in fact, it's central thesis is). For what he deems to be such a hostile audience, it's very poor piece of persuasive writing.
It is not a thesis. If anything, it's more like a precursor to a thesis. This is akin to sitting down with the professor, and suggesting that some of these factors may explain certain phenomenon, and should be researched.
I know a lot of people with PhDs from Harvard. That would and should play no role in my evaluation of whatever argument they're putting forward, if that argument has little to do with their area of expertise. Getting a biology PhD has no relevance to whether someone truly understands the literature in evolutionary psych.
It absolutely does not follow that everyone who had a PhD at Harvard in Biology gets to say whatever they want about humans, especially in a way that's derogatory of his coworkers.
But my point is that even if this person were qualified to make such assertions, his qualifications can be easily made invisible through editorialization.
If I've learned anything since November 2016, it's that messaging will frequently overpower facts.
When I was in academia there was no shortage of my peers with PhDs in physics who were very religious. Having a PhD in a science is not proof against having misinformed or unscientific views.
Being religious and scientific are not mutually exclusive. I am not a religious person, but my professor, who is very religious, is one of the most rigorous scientists I had the chance to work with in person.
Factual facty fact: he didn't "suggest he had one". You make it sound as if he was inflating his credentials. He was listed as in the PhD Biology programme on Harvard's alumni site, and the press incorrectly reported that he earned a PhD.
Now, it's important to correct the record if he didn't complete the PhD. But he did publish papers (at Princeton and MIT).
You stated multiple times that he has a PhD from Harvard. That is a falsehood. It's not an "if", it is a fact. Harvard confirmed he didn't earn a PhD to a Wired reporter[1].
You are correct that he wrote two papers.
You now state that he "didn't suggest he had one", when in fact he did: he said "PhD, Systems Biology" on his linkedin[2] profile.
This is shameful behavior on your part, but understandable because your defense of his joke of a memo depends on his authority to speak about the subject as a PhD in Biology, which he doesn't have.
Maybe it's time for you to go back to all the places where you stated he has a PhD and post retractions.
Yes, I stated that only while it was being reported by the press and I didn't have better information. I mean, come on. As soon as I found out he didn't, I retracted right here in this thread. If that's not enough for you, then that's too freakin' bad. If you think I'm going to apologise for commenting based on the information currently available, you're going to wait forever.
What does that have to do with anything? Do you think having an advanced degree makes you invulnerable to common biases or errors in reasoning? Do you think that having a STEM degree makes someone knowledgeable in issues of sociology? Ben Carson is a very accomplished neurosurgeon, and yet he has enormous gaping voids in his knowledge of other subjects.
I didn't say he was infallible. He could be wrong. I'm talking about academic credibility—and he has it.
a STEM degree
A STEM PhD from Harvard. FTFY. And comparing James Damore to Ben Carson is, frankly, absurd. James Damore is not a politician, he's a scientist. He's not some yahoo in a comment thread, arguing with academics and professionals in their field from his parent's basement.
You're highlighting another big problem these days, slavish reverence for the 'best schools'.
I will also get a PhD from Harvard, and from a more selective program than this person. Yet I recognize the limits of my knowledge.
Studying microbes [1] does not give you the standing to discuss sociology. If your very well-qualified dentist wanted to do a code review of your last commit, you might think twice before accepting his advice - namely, you would ask what special knowledge he has, besides being a generally smart individual.
It was Harvard alumni with PhDs who wrote the piece of crap that is The Bell Curve in the 90s. A Harvard PhD guarantees neither accuracy nor correctness.
Google has made a giant political mistake. Everybody saw this coming. Straight into the fire, Google must have known that even as they did it.
If Google's real aim was non-talent-bias, we already know the solution: blind hiring.
Let's use a little metacognition here. People on HN are highly likely to be in the Bubble (same way as average academic must be left of center). They belong to the Valley and will rationalize these kinds of events all day long, it's worthy of "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom!". Rightists are penalized in SV. That's been true for a while, that is the bottom line. This forum itself used to contain more rightists.
I don't know the future for Google or SV but the upshot is that if I found a company it will explicitly not hire leftists. I will have internal cohesion in my mini one party state. Do I want "diversity of ideas/perspectives". Yes, but the atmosphere is already poisoned by events like this and the firing of Brendan Eich. Plainly nobody has the right answers so I'd opt for political uniformity to keep infighting at bay.
More broadly I suspect Affirmative Action is on the ropes which means that SV is way behind the curve.
tldr;tldr; Somebody as brilliant as Peter Thiel would be fired today, or more likely: never hired. That is where we are at.
> Somebody as brilliant as Peter Thiel would be fired today, or more likely: never hired
Or never apply to work for Google in the first place. There are fashions in morality just as there are in clothing ( http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ) , and who can predict now what ideas may become crimethink to Google's HR department in future?
If you're a talented, in-demand programmer, why work for a company that might arbirarily sack you based on your opinions? This doesn't mean Google will fail -- they have sewn up the web advertising market tight enough that they could weather a decade of bad decision-making.
I'll leave the last words to PG:
> Almost certainly, there is something wrong with you if you don't think things you don't dare say out loud.
and:
> I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.
Fortunately I think there's a connection between heretical thinking and originality, so hopefully that tilts towards variety. I think that was the whole point of Thiel's 'interview question'.
To be fair, I saw the other day, a job posting doing this exact thing for liberal people. It literally said we are looking for liberal like minded folks to help build X.
So this is happening and I find that very fighting.
How does you not wanting to hire leftists jive with your solution of "blind hiring"? If you did blind hiring, wouldn't you end up with a quite a substantion group of leftists? Your position doesn't seem to be consistent with itself.
No contradiction, I'm saying there's a scientific way to be non-biased and in the current political environment I wouldn't choose that option. It's a selfish tactic, not an altruistic one to better society.
I would have political uniformity which would prevent Red vs Blue infighting.
#Warning# This isn't an attempt at flamebait, it's something like a hypothesis.
I would also likely be able to hire from a undervalued portion of Silicon Valley, I suspect I'd be able to get talented Eastern European, Asian and white men at discount rates. They wouldn't have to deal with PC from HR and other firms may be less willing to hire them.
It is not unusual for a sector of the economy to have a political slant. Everybody knows health/care is mostly leftist, military/intelligence is mostly rightist. These are slight tilts but the net affect has an enormous sway over sector thinking/dogma. I suspect SV will split along such lines (right companies, left companies).
The echo chamber is most of the Tech world, you should read the comments at arstechnica. Cringe doesn't cover it.
There is a healthy chance this goes very wrong for Google, I see that Breitbart has collected some engineers and is releasing interviews with them. Some of the allegations made by the interviewees are very serious if they are true, potentially laying the groundwork for Google to get attacked by the White House. e.g. search engine result manipulation against right wingers, which would have include/included Trump so...
If I were Page or Schmidt right now I'd have a pit in my stomach.
I'll just copy paste the relevant portion here, to save most people a click:
Say a company does one phone-interview, and if passed, moves on to on-sites. But for diverse candidates they do two phone interviews and if either passes they move on to on-sites.
* Unqualified candidates always fail, since neither phone interviews or on-sites have a false-positive rate.
* Qualified non-diverse candidates have a 50% chance of getting the job.
* Qualified diverse candidates have a 75% of getting the job.
At no point do any unqualified candidates receive offers. But at the same time, qualified non-diverse candidates are still rejected at twice the rate as diverse candidates.
It says a great deal that some people won't concede that a company like Google doesn't have "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates" even if the author was much more politically correct in their verbiage.
Forgive me if I'm conflating two groups, but isn't it the same people saying Google is incapable of doing such a thing whom are also defending the practice of affirmative action at universities?
I don't understand how affirmative action is deemed acceptable and even encouraged and at universities to improve diversity numbers, but somehow it's inconceivable that a company like Google could lower the bar to hire employees whom have already had the bar lowered for them since the day they were accepted into college?
> It says a great deal that some people won't concede that a company like Google doesn't have "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates" even if the author was much more politically correct in their verbiage.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the author wrote, "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate." In other words, not that under qualified candidates are given an offer if they're diverse but rather than qualified non-diverse candidates are passed on. This is not a pedantic clarification. I think that for many people the phrase "lowering the bar" overrode the second part about decreasing false negatives. To be fair "lowering the bar" is a very politically loaded term that typically implies that under qualified applicants are (in some people's views) unfairly accepted. The author was sloppy for this poor choice of words, and it likely cost him his job.
Many people would agree that some hiring practices make non-diverse candidates more likely to be rejected when they're qualified, but not that they make diverse candidates more likely to be accepted when unqualified (at least not to a significant degree). In fact, I am one of them. The way my company handles phone screens[1] largely fits this categorization. I think it's an acceptable way of bringing in people of backgrounds we don't often, and that it does not have a particularly large chance of causing under qualified applicants to be accepted. I do think it's fair to criticize the system as discriminating against the non-diverse candidates who don't get extra chances at the phone screen, and that stating as such is not saying that diverse candidate's had the bar lowered for them. But on the whole I think it's justified.
We value diversity of thought. As long as it's been pre-approved by the Thought Police in HR. sorry Google, you can't have it both ways. To those thinking about leaving, trust me, you'll never look back.
Given all the commotion about this memo I expected it to be some kind of a rant (similar to something I would write in 10 minutes), but it's actually a very well thought out and well articulated piece.
Being fired for writing such a memo is very disappointing. If I were an engineer at Google I would probably be looking for somewhere else to go.
The problem with diversity programs is that you only need them if you don't treat people equal to begin with. And then, thanks to the diversity program, you still don't treat them as equals, but give an advantage to the group you consider to be weaker.
In the end, it's not about treating people as equals, as it should be, but about political correctness and conformity.
Google's actions in this matter (recrimination against an employee over an internal discussion that leaked), which may be a violation of labor relations,
and
AirBNB's recent actions in doxxing and banning users, and canceling their reservations over their political affiliation, which may be a violation of housing discrimination laws,
as linked.
Companies are trying various ways to enforce their chosen behavioral norms upon users/employees.
Is this par for the course over the last 70 years and we are just noticing it now? Or is it something new?
It's not women vs men. It's the feminine and the masculine working together in harmony. We all have a bit of both, unless we're all 100% masculine or 100% feminine, which is not true of my generation or anyone I would actually be able to work with.
It should start with the rise of the feminine in our societal structures to balance the masculine, so that as a society we would balance and harmonize those two archetypes, not cast them as the extremes that they're today. In other words, little girls should not be marketed pink princess dresses while boys get marketed Bob The Builder outfits and tool belts. Gender identity and association starts at an early age and the society we live in promotes the masculine archetype to boys and the feminine archetype to girls. It's wrong. We should be promoting the same balanced masculine/feminine type to both girls and boys. Only then will we see an elimination of gender bias.
This makes me wonder if Google will at some point start introducing algorithms that will block search results that dare perpetuate that men and women are not totally equal biologically.
The same justification they used to fire their employee for having a different opinion can be also used to censor search results.
Google's code of conduct might be illegal. Regardless of how inaccurate the employee's claims, firing him for it is possibly grounds for improper termination.
"worse before better"... It's all a matter of perspective. For anyone who's been the "minority", things have always been 'worse'. Things can only get better.
If you can truly embrace that perspective, you'll discover a profound truth.
The transition might cause some discomfort for those who've been on the privileged side of things for a while.
The legal right to free speech is indeed only about the government. Free and open discourse as a virtue for citizens of a republic is a much broader concept.
And even the founding philosophers of the freedom of speech concept said there were limits to the concept - i.e. JSM said that there is a harm principle, where if the expression causes harm then the liberty to express it should rightfully and forcefully be admonished.
Its simple. Google did not violate free speech in terms of law. But freedom of speech is much more than just a law, its also a social responsibility that we can choose to care about or not.
Personally I think americans should choose to defend freedom of speech, even if they aren't legally required to.
This is one that really misses the mark. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that the government can't persecute you for your speech, but Free Speech is a separate principle that says that we should allow a free forum for people to put out their thoughts.
It is in california, among other places.
Federally, there are about 5 or 6 regulations covering workplace speech, the most sweeping of which is usually considered to be the NLRA.
If you google for nlra and lexology, you can see a number of articles about the scope.
There are actually several US states that have political activities as a protected class. But you are correct for most US states, that is, employers in those states are free to say "All Democrats - you're fired!" and it would be legal.
Yeah there is a lot you really can't say publicly around here but is that so different than anywhere else? Overall the Bay is awesome and in general I am a flaming liberal but there are times when the right wing bogeyman of authoritarian PC orthodoxy is real and this is one of those times IMO. But it isn't like anywhere else is any better. Look at what the NFL is doing to Colin Kaepernick for desecrating the great temples of right wing "Murca" culture - any football stadium. The Bay does not have a monopoly on this so I wouldn't judge the area too harshly for this one disgusting moment of mob stupidity (IMO).
I don't think this is specific to the Silicon Valley. In banking you have a similar pressure applied on the employees, with mandatory trainings that feel more like some form of political re-education, and I am sure that guy would have been fired in a London or New York bank too.
I can't comment on the manifesto itself (perhaps his reasoning is correct, but he is misrepresenting the hiring practices at Google - how would I now?), but I would have fired him too, for practical reasons only:
- stirring up the discussion harms the company whatever the outcome
- not firing him would harm the company more due to public opinion on the subject
Also, if I were the author, I'd probably have shorted GOOG before publishing the document. For entirely practical and obvious reasons...
Ironic really...
Suggestions
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. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that
don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender
roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another
member of their group (tribalism).
Google responds to the article by being knee jerk intolerant to the ideology...
It takes a lot to get fired from Hooli, especially on such a short time line. Applying Occam's Razor here. A) he was an innocent victim who naively expressed his political views via a manifesto and was capriciously fired. B) he was already on the shitlist for being a pain in the ass and conveniently provided HR with the ammo they needed to shitcan him. With A and B being opposite ends of the continuum, I would guess he fell closer to B than A, given that Hooli is kind of hard to get straight out fired from.
When I read this manifesto, I thought "well, this is going to generate a lot of news".
What I did when I read it was substitute "woman" for "black", rolled back the clock to Jim Crow south, and read it again.
That might be an instructive exercise for anyone who hasn't actually experienced discrimination, or rather, primarily lives in the dominant side of any culture.
I would rather see this stuff out in the open, rather than hidden behind the glares and glances of colleagues. His firing is unfortunate, but totally understandable. This dialog could have ocured in a much better format.
In the famous words of Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to each other..."
Once upon a time, there was a racist tree. Seriously, you are going to hate this tree. High on a hill overlooking the town, the racist tree grew where the grass was half clover. Children would visit during the sunlit hours and ask for apples, and the racist tree would shake its branches and drop the delicious red fruit that gleamed without being polished. The children ate many of the racist tree's apples and played games beneath the shade of its racist branches. One day the children brought Sam, a boy who had just moved to town, to play around the racist tree.
"Let Sam have an apple," asked a little girl.
"I don't think so. He's black," said the tree. This shocked the children and they spoke to the tree angrily, but it would not shake its branches to give Sam an apple, and it called him a nigger.
"I can't believe the racist tree is such a racist," said one child. The children momentarily reflected that perhaps this kind of behavior was how the racist tree got its name.
It was decided that if the tree was going to deny apples to Sam then nobody would take its apples. The children stopped visiting the racist tree.
The racist tree grew quite lonely. After many solitary weeks it saw a child flying a kite across the clover field.
"Can I offer you some apples?" asked the tree eagerly.
"Fuck off, you goddamn Nazi," said the child.
The racist tree was upset, because while it was very racist, it did not personally subscribe to Hitler's fascist ideology. The racist tree decided that it would have to give apples to black children, not because it was tolerant, but because otherwise it would face ostracism from white children.
The sad part is that underworld nazi trees would make a subculture which will be much worse than it would be if you actually talk with them.
Another part: this is a fairly left leaning site ( which I love! It is hard to find well argued leftist talking points as a libertarian ), and I'm not leftist. I get positive points in sum, which means that the majority of people are agreeing with me ( or maybe just see that I'm not trolling...). And this is not 4chan or not even reddit.
Sadly Donald Trump won the election. This strategy doesn't work if a very big chunk of the society are 'nazis'. You have to talk to them.
I haven't read the memo but I have read some summaries of it. Even before the memo was released I had a negative opinion of it. Not because someone spoke out their mind but because someone decided to just go and shout out their obviously controversial beliefs to the world expecting for his ideas to be taken seriously and for there to be no negative consequences.
If you want people to care about what you think and have to say, you need to spend time and effort cultivating a positive reputation. Otherwise you just seem like an unhinged idiot.
edit: because people seem to be misunderstanding my point or simply downvoting me because I am describing a reality which makes them uncomfortable I will simply reference Douglas Crockford and the Nodevember debacle.
If what occurred to Crockford occurred to some no name software engineer do you believe there would have been the outpouring of support and articles defending his character? No the person would have likely been fired for no good reason and had their name splashed across a bunch of tech blogs as a sexist.
I think you are making a number of poor logical leaps. I have read the memo in its entirety. I have begun the process of reading the citations in their entirety. I am, so far, entirely unconvinced of that he has proven his point about gender bias. I am entirely convinced that he did prove his entire point about the political and moral echo chamber that is Googles Mountain View office. Though he did not do it within the letter. Google helped him by firing him.
Where you've made some poor logical leaps are: there is zero evidence that he shouted out his obviously controversial beliefs to the world. As far as I can tell this memo did not go to the whole world by his doing. It did not go to the entire Google staff by his doing. In fact, for all we know he was asked for his well thought out opinion on Googles diversity training and gave it to the appropriate people who did not respect the fact that he was giving his opinion to a small group and began forwarding it on. You might say I have no proof of this, and you'd be right. But you have no proof that he blasted this to the whole world.
Additionally, he was a number of things in the memo but he was not an unhinged idiot. It reads like someone who was asked for his opinion on the training that was going on and whether there was value in making it mandatory.
I have been asked in professional settings for my opinion on controversial matters. One time I was put into a very troubling position because of my opinion and many people were quite upset. It was uncomfortable for us all. I no longer give my opinion on controversial topics. I keep quiet and do my work and if I disagree with a policy or procedure I find new employment.
I am sure the author of this memo has learned his lesson now. He will shut up. I hope that the world is a better place without his opinion.
Maybe you misinterpreted my statement as defending this person being silenced and fired but I was not. Frankly I have no strong opinions with regards to PC culture. It does not affect me and I see the injustice that comes from both sides. My statement was more intended to be advice, if you haven't cultivated a reputation/influence and you step out of line you will be mocked, ostracized, and perceived as an unhinged idiot. I believe the result of this debacle backs my point.
I might very well have. So in the case that an employee is asked to give their opinion on a controversial topic, what would you suggest is the best course of action so that they will not be mocked, ostracized, and perceived as an unhinged idiot? My solution is always to just shut up. But then again, it doesn't really create a discussion around controversial topics, does it? Because the majority will mock, ostracize, and condemn you as an unhinged idiot. Is that a good thing for society? Or should we open our ears and listen? Maybe read before we speak? Maybe even debate with facts and counter facts? Before we go straight to the mocking, ostracizing, and condemning.
These are all hypothetical questions of course. But something to think about.
Edit: because my phone likes four letter words that sound like shut.
It's obviously not good for society but it's also wrong to believe you will make any positive impact by throwing away all influence you have and effectively ruining your own life.
Do you think this person that has been fired has gained anything? Do you think anything will change because of this memo?
I come from a legal background so pardon my argument. I don't mean to offend.
I do agree with you, if in fact that was the authors intent. The issue you bring up is a good one though. Did he believe that he would throw away his influence and ruin his life by sharing this opinion? That's very tough to prove one way or the other. It entirely depends on the circumstances surrounding why he wrote the memo. If he did so entirely on his own without being asked or provoked, then you are right. If he was asked to write the memo by a superior or someone in perceived authority, you may be partially correct. If he was led to believe his opinion would be valued and his reputation kept and protected, then you are quite wrong. Unfortunately, I don't believe we will ever know the truth. So this interesting academic exercise will never really come to a conclusion.
Now, on the other hand. A thorough reading of the source would indicate that he should know that essentially saying that Google is biased against privileged individuals (say, white, male software engineers) is a pretty hard position to defend and he was foolish for attempting the argument. But hindsight is 20/20.
No it's not a problem. I didn't have a negative opinion of it because of the content (which contained no new or interesting ideas by the way). I had a negative opinion of it because someone out there believed that you could just shout out your controversial beliefs in a group email and expect something positive to come from it.
>I had a negative opinion of it because someone out there believed that you could just shout out your controversial beliefs in a group email and expect something positive to come from it.
I'm honestly struggling to understand your perspective. Would you prefer a world where nobody says anything "controversial", everyone just rolls with the status quo, and nothing ever changes? Why is espousing "controversial ideals" offensive to you? I treat ideas that clash with my own internal logical understanding of the world as challenges that can only improve my understanding of the world. If I run these "controversial ideas" through my logic and reasoning faculties, there's really only two possible outcomes:
- I reject the idea and now have arguments against them that I can share with others
- I end up embracing the idea because I realize that my implicit rejection of it lacked a sturdy logical foundation
Either way, I win—I get a better understanding of the world I live in.
Why would you choose to shield yourself from improving yourself mentally?
Cited primary sources, linked his biological argument to his workplace argument with something other than handwaving, avoiding tying his scientific argument to a related but not equivalent political argument, taken into account evidence collected from women who've left the industry and ensured that his model accounted for that, and, uh, basically written an actual thesis? If I'd submitted work like this as an undergraduate I'd have got it back with a lot of red ink and a pretty terrible grade.
(I work for Google and have a PhD in Biology from Cambridge University)
> The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right.
An evolutionary psychology professor said:
> For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history. I know a little about sex differences research. On the topic of evolution and human sexuality, I’ve taught for 28 years, written 4 books and over 100 academic publications, given 190 talks, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and mentored 11 Ph.D. students. Whoever the memo’s author is, he has obviously read a fair amount about these topics. 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. (Blank slate gender feminism is advocacy rather than science: no gender feminist I’ve met has ever been able to give a coherent answer to the question ‘What empirical findings would convince you that psychological sex differences evolved?’)
A professor of social psychology whose position in the field is, let us say, not mainstream, and look evolutionary psychology is just bullshit. Further, https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2011/SPP457/um/23632422/Hakim... is a review and is therefore (by definition) not a primary source.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that he did cite sources, but that Gizmodo decided to remove them. In addition they also re-badged this internal email as a "manifesto" and presented it as a war-cry rather than a basis for discussion. Pretty dishonest changes really.
These dishonest changes certainly helped further this shitstorm. Knowing Gizmodo (and their sister-website Jezebel which has no issues with domestic violence against men), I'm just going to assume this was the intended consequence.
It's a memo, for crying out loud, not a scientific paper. That's why he cites the scientific papers! A full review would require a book-length response.
I just read it for the first time, it's actually much better written than I thought. I was prepared for it to be horrible, but he brings up some valid points. Some I don't agree with, but he is right that we have made it unacceptable to discuss this subject.
I do encourage people to read it and make their own opinion, there are so many other opinions on this now, the only way to get back to reality is to read it for yourself.
He wrote a manifesto giving some actual biology facts and he wasn't talking about CS but something more close to biology (or at least from the point of view of biology)
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