Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral' • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#101

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 7:49 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #78

fennecfoxen wrote: post #14

Google is substantially located in the Bay Area. Of course they hate ideological diversity, in practice if not in principle. It is an attitude common in their workforce. This is a tendentious statement, so I will relate my own experience. Once upon a time I was working in California, at a tiny startup, and was reading some election results from "back home" in North Carolina, which had just passed Amendment One by abo…

Of course Bay Area people hate ideological diversity? As opposed to religious North Caroliners? Are you telling me that Bay Area culture should look to North Carolina to learn a little more about what diversity and tolerance look like? What's your sense of scale here? What does ideological plurality mean to you? What does North Carolina secularism look like? Does North Carolina have a cultural embrace of secularism?…

[deleted]

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#102

Post by laughinghan » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

majkinetor wrote: post #52

xendo wrote: post #15

I like how some of the commenters try to force HR to take an action by threatening to leave. That's hell of a way to promote diversity, and freedom to express yourself. Diversity is a double edge sword: you need to be able to accept other people opinions if you expect them to accept you. P.S. I obviously haven't read the document, and all the comments really reference only short statement without any context, so it's…

Indeed. Honestly, I would let them leave. That atitude makes them IMO unfit for teamwork, if one such incident makes them abandon their jobs and blackmail entire department.

You and GP don't cite any commenter in particular, but none of the tweets mentioned in the article strike me as trying to force HR or blackmail anyone to do anything.

They seem to me like they're saying they don't want to work somewhere their teammates think they're biologically inferior, but they're hoping that HR will ensure that people who think so don't stay on the team.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#103

Post by throwaway123442 » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

throwaway123441 wrote: post #48

Everything anyone will say publicly with their name about this, is lies. He did not shit on leftist values. That can't even be a misunderstanding, that was just a lie (plain and simple). He simply pointed out that society uses a mix of leftist and rightist values, and neither side is 100% right. Google has people openly say that "if you are republican then you should be fired" (and much much worse). Nobody will criti…

> He then sprinkled it with some cherry-picked and possibly incorrect research, but is the basic premise wrong? No.

If I say "There are clear differences between the performance of black and white people on various cognitive tasks." That's a true statement. If I follow it up with "and that's due to the biological inferiority of the black race", I'm probably a racist, even though my basic premise is not wrong.

The arguments one uses to support a conclusion are as important as the premises one started with.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#104

Post by factsaresacred » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 7:58 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #99

throwaway2812 wrote: post #65

I've read the doc. At first skim, I thought it was going to be a reasonable "stop the echochamber" style doc, that points out issues with over-loving diversity without thinking about the impact of it, and that decries the strong-left culture at Google that can be alienating to right-leaning employees. But in reality, dude went full /r/TheRedPill and The_Donald on this. I think the best description I heard of the doc…

Having observed the fall of the USSR it's nothing unusual to me. When people are not comfortable with an oppressive regime they keep their moderate opinions to themselves. Voicing any opinion contrary to the Party line is dangerous no matter how extreme or moderate it is. So all dissenting opinions you are going to hear in public will be coming from extremists (e.g. "Have a Nuremberg-type tribunal for the Party's chi…

Great comment. What you are describing is called a 'preference cascade'.

> In short, average people behave the way they think they ought to, even though that behavior might not reflect their own personal feelings. Given a sufficient "A-HA!" moment when they discover that their personal feelings are shared by a large portion of the population their behavior may change dramatically. An example of this is the British colonists before and after publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. A year before the Declaration of Independence, America was full of patriotic British convinced that things could be worked out with King George, but on July 4, 1776 the colonies were full of Americans determined that they needed independence. Another is the relatively recent "Arab Spring."

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-preference-cascade

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#105

Post by ehsankia » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 8:37 PM UTC

alanfranzoni wrote: post #4

I'd really like to see this document as a whole before judging. By the way, I think that being really open means listening to opinions without "rage quitting" for holding an unpopular opinion, or calling him a "racist" or "white male supremacy supporter", which is a way to turn down an argument whatever its merit is. Is the document's author a jerk? Let's explain that to him, and maybe shame him on a data-driven basi…

Dragging this to public and trying to shame the person is absolutely the wrong move. They're just proving his point that these people are not open to rigorous discussions.

The perfect example is Milo. Every time he gets kicked out of a campus, his point gets proven. But almost every time I've seen someone sit down with him and debate his flawed arguments, he got pretty much proven wrong on most of them.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#106

Post by stagbeetle » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #102

majkinetor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Honestly, I would let them leave. That atitude makes them IMO unfit for teamwork, if one such incident makes them abandon their jobs and blackmail entire department.

You and GP don't cite any commenter in particular, but none of the tweets mentioned in the article strike me as trying to force HR or blackmail anyone to do anything. They seem to me like they're saying they don't want to work somewhere their teammates think they're biologically inferior, but they're hoping that HR will ensure that people who think so don't stay on the team.

Here you go: https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893287112732291072

It was quoted in the main story.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#107

Post by davidreiss » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #14

Google is substantially located in the Bay Area. Of course they hate ideological diversity, in practice if not in principle. It is an attitude common in their workforce. This is a tendentious statement, so I will relate my own experience. Once upon a time I was working in California, at a tiny startup, and was reading some election results from "back home" in North Carolina, which had just passed Amendment One by abo…

Well said. It seems like it's human nature when your side gets the upper hand, you demonize and attack the other.

One of my friends is fairly liberal-oriented and she openly says that the "hateful" right doesn't deserve rights or free speech. Her and her friends motto is "tolerance of the intolerant is an oxymoron". For all her talk of love of humans, animals ( she's a vegan ), etc, she has a terrible anger inside her.

I don't know how we fight against our ugly impulses other than adhering to our principles of equality, free speech and individual rights.

It is a difficult and worrying time we live in because neither side is interested in dialogue and each side accuses the other of be hateful and sequesters themselves in their respective echo chambers which radicalizes them even further.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#108

Post by factsaresacred » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

Here it is for those who wish to read it (which should be everyone who voiced an opinion on it): http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-div...

Edit: two paragraphs in and it's making lots of well reasoned points. Why the outrage? And why the outrage before the majority of people actually read the thing?

Serves to prove the authors point.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#109

Post by edanm » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #19

Why does US have these diversity problems? Is it such a huge deal that most women are not interested in technology? Is it such a huge deal that you have to work with a few women? Is it such a huge deal that as a technical woman, you have to work mostly with men? I can tell you, in Belgium, in my experience and what I hear, this is not an issue whatsoever. Most women I worked with actually preferred working in teams o…

"Is it such a huge deal that most women are not interested in technology? Is it such a huge deal that you have to work with a few women? Is it such a huge deal that as a technical woman, you have to work mostly with men?"

Yes, for various reasons.

1. There is less diversity of experience/thought.

2. Programming/engineering fields are generally good for society (and hence highly rewarded). There is a lot of unfulfilled demand for more engineers. If we can increase the number of people available for these jobs, that's good for society, and if we are for some reason "excluding" or "depressing" some people from entering, that's bad.

3. Not sure about this, but I think the incidence of sexual harassment or similarly bad things goes way up when there are fewer women.

None of this is to say we should be forcing anyone to work in something they don't want to. But as I heard it, it seems like there are societal reasons why women tend to be less interested in technology than men, and these are not biological. Again, not clear on the science here, but I'm just answering your main objection, which is "should we even care" assuming it is a cultural problem and not something biological. (For what it's worth, it seems clear to me that it's at least partly societal).

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

#110

Post by glorkk » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

> Motherboard has not viewed the full document, but a screenshot we reviewed shows it's titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber."

How can you write an article about a document you have never read? It is a disgrace this Vice/Motherboard article is the first result on Google. This is not a news article, but a biased blog with a blatant political agenda.