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The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

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Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#11

Post by anon0394678 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #2

Ah, yes, the true believer in meritocracy, who assumes that the present-day distribution of careers and job titles is a perfect reflection of inherent skills, talents and interests hard-wired in by biology. Because there is no evidence whatsoever that anyone's ever tried to rig large-scale societal systems to discriminate on the basis of factors like race or sex, and even if there ever had been such a thing, it is co…

The existence of sexism and the existence of sex-specific biases in interests are not mutually exclusive. Also note that biological biases does not mean behavior is hard-wired, nurture (societal influence) and nature can both play a role at different weights.

If such a natural bias exists and all and sexism is eliminated then there will still be a gender gap among the employees. And forms of affirmative action that aim for 50:50 balance will either have to attract an unusually large number of above-average talent for that specific gender (this strategy can only work locally but not globally) or will result in equally-talented people being disfavored based on their gender.

And if there is an assumption that the gender gap is caused by sexism but it is also arises due to natural biases then some people may feel slandered as sexists when they're already acting as gender-neutral as possible. This can breed resentment when you (or your group as a whole) get blamed for something that you're not causing.

Disclaimler, this post contains little original thought, most arguments are stolen from https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-...

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#12

Post by ubernostrum »

anon0394678 wrote: post #11
ubernostrum wrote: post #2

Ah, yes, the true believer in meritocracy, who assumes that the present-day distribution of careers and job titles is a perfect reflection of inherent skills, talents and interests hard-wired in by biology. Because there is no evidence whatsoever that anyone's ever tried to rig large-scale societal systems to discriminate on the basis of factors like race or sex, and even if there ever had been such a thing, it is co…

The existence of sexism and the existence of sex-specific biases in interests are not mutually exclusive. Also note that biological biases does not mean behavior is hard-wired , nurture (societal influence) and nature can both play a role at different weights. If such a natural bias exists and all and sexism is eliminated then there will still be a gender gap among the employees. And forms of affirmative action that…

Well you see, brand-new account created to hide from those scary terrible lefties who'd obviously ruin you otherwise, the probability that the distribution we observe today matches the "natural" distribution is, how shall I put this, very low.

Now you might ask how I know this, and the answer is simple: open society-wide legally-endorsed discrimination is a thing within living memory here in the US, and a thing that is the present-day situation in quite a few parts of the world. It is simply unreasonable to expect that all consequences of it have been perfectly eliminated by now in order to justify "but women didn't hunt wooly mammoths back in the day, so their brains evolved different from men" as an explanation for why women are underrepresented in tech compared to the general population.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#13

Post by ehsankia »

factsaresacred wrote: post #10
greenyoda wrote: post #3

There's already extensive discussion of this here, with the full text linked as the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934581

That post is 12 hours old, the comment with the link was posted 30min ago.

And most people in that post had not seen the document. They were commenting on the biased reporting from an article, who themselves got a biased interpretation from an employee. That's 2-3 levels of indirection there.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#14

Post by ubernostrum »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #8
factsaresacred wrote: post #5

I fail to understand the outrage but attribute that to the fact that few bothered to read the document before allowing themselves to be outraged by it - such is the shallow, feeling-fueled, hysteria-laden media cycle of today. The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination - specifically 'positive 'discrimination which it discredits while p…

There is bad with the good. The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. The premise that the differences between them are social as opposed to literal is a much easier way to force the same point (and IMO more correct but I respect I lack the science to be certain). This person lacks tact and the way they view the entire political sphere as just left/right is ultimately of concern. Way too simplistic ou…

It's perfectly all right to say that there are statistical differences between the average biological man and the average biological woman.

The problem is to then assume a gigantic pile of facts not in evidence (that the differences observed are 100% biological with no cultural influence whatsoever, that they conclusively explain gender disparities in many fields, etc. etc.) and accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being one of those terrible mean lefties who will unperson you for speaking the truth.

Generally, this type of person lasts up until the moment blind interviews become widespread.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#16

Post by Hnrobert42 »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #8
factsaresacred wrote: post #5

I fail to understand the outrage but attribute that to the fact that few bothered to read the document before allowing themselves to be outraged by it - such is the shallow, feeling-fueled, hysteria-laden media cycle of today. The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination - specifically 'positive 'discrimination which it discredits while p…

There is bad with the good. The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. The premise that the differences between them are social as opposed to literal is a much easier way to force the same point (and IMO more correct but I respect I lack the science to be certain). This person lacks tact and the way they view the entire political sphere as just left/right is ultimately of concern. Way too simplistic ou…

Yeah. I was willing to give him a fair hearing until he listed a handful of differences between men and women that he ascribes to biology without any factual support.

And therein lies the unconscious bias against which he is railing. To him, there is no question that men and women, on average, are fundamentally different in ways that affects their ability to and interest in work in tech.

I agree with him that folks shame those his viewpoint into silence. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#19

Post by rayiner »

The intellectual contortion required to get from the premise to the conclusion is actually quite impressive.

> On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:

> They’re universal across human cultures

Except the gender ratio in science/engineering is anything but universal across cultures. 70% of science/engineering students in Iran are women: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/12/09/set-to-ta.... Indeed, in many parts of the world that are not known for being "liberal" with regard to gender equality, women make up a significantly higher percentage of the scientific workforce than in the U.S.: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-science-technology-e... (44% in Latin America, 40% in Eastern Europe, 37% in the Arab states).

In the Soviet Union, a majority of engineers were women; after the fall that proportion went way down (from 60% to 40%): http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6985/downlo....

> Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).

If this were true, shouldn't women's interest in CS be going up now that the web is all about feelings/aesthetics/social? Programming, in my view, is actually in the middle in the "people versus things" spectrum. It's much more about people than, say, math. And of course, 45% of math majors are women, so I'm not sure how that fits into the author's theory.

> Women on average are more cooperative

Maybe, but does the degree of that effect explain the observed differences in representation? Tech is actually very cooperative. Compare, for example, litigation, which is all about confrontation and acrimony. But a third (and growing) of all litigators are women!

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#20

Post by ebfd »

ubernostrum wrote: post #14
Quarrelsome wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is bad with the good. The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. The premise that the differences between them are social as opposed to literal is a much easier way to force the same point (and IMO more correct but I respect I lack the science to be certain). This person lacks tact and the way they view the entire political sphere as just left/right is ultimately of concern. Way too simplistic ou…

It's perfectly all right to say that there are statistical differences between the average biological man and the average biological woman. The problem is to then assume a gigantic pile of facts not in evidence (that the differences observed are 100% biological with no cultural influence whatsoever, that they conclusively explain gender disparities in many fields, etc. etc.) and accuse anyone who disagrees with you o…

The two positions in the debate are that sex differences are 100% environmental and 0% biological vs. 0% biological. Nobody believes that they are 100% biological.
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