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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

#161

Post by Pilfer »

scribu wrote: post #48
davesque wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a straw man reply. You cherry picked one of the most easily defensible claims and then implied that the OP would disagree. What gives you the right to implicate them in this way? Or did I miss another post in this thread where the OP did, in fact, express skepticism of climate change?

What stops me from implicating them in this way? The OP made an unqualified assertion - "for every point" - which means it would apply even to the most extreme example. Edit: And I didn't ask the OP if they are skeptical of climate change. I merely asked if they would be in favour of letting those that are skeptical express their opinion.

>The OP made an unqualified assertion - "for every point"

No, it is possible to defend every point imaginable. Look up "Hempel's ravens". It is trivial to generate evidence supporting or opposing any claim you like.

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

#162

Post by tptacek »

smsm42 wrote: post #145
rayiner wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument basically proceeds as follows: 1) Gender differences exist 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women,…

> The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. Probably because nobody actually knows right now what actually causes the differences and how. The case that is caused exclusively by entrenched sexism - somehow driven by people graduating from the same institutions who have been fighting sexism for decades now, and by the same people who repudiate and denounce sexism on every corner - also does n…

Read what Rayiner wrote more carefully. Computer science is unique among STEM fields --- even mathematics --- in its gender imbalance. The "???" here has a name: it's called "special pleading".

It's not hard to see why people would get angry at a special pleading intended to excuse gender disparities.

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

#163

Post by princekolt »

smsm42 wrote: post #145
rayiner wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument basically proceeds as follows: 1) Gender differences exist 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women,…

> The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. Probably because nobody actually knows right now what actually causes the differences and how. The case that is caused exclusively by entrenched sexism - somehow driven by people graduating from the same institutions who have been fighting sexism for decades now, and by the same people who repudiate and denounce sexism on every corner - also does n…

Well, overall, the share of women in computer sciences has been decreasing for the past years, but it didn't use to be like that. Up until the mid-80s the share was in line with (or higher) than other study areas.

NPR talks a bit about the subject, including how personal computers were initially marketed at young men. It's a good read.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

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

#164

Post by [deleted] »

chrismcb wrote: post #139
bmn__ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You've been punked, Gizmodo journalism at its finest! Kate Conger withheld the factual support so that to a not-careful reader it looks like the original poster just makes stuff up. ctrl + f: "Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted." Note the pa…

I'm missing something, but how are those two statements different. I read the first sentence "gizmodo omitted two charts and hyperlinks" my assumption was the charts and hyperlinks held company data or pointed to company websites. But how does changing the sentence to "I omitted..." Change anything? It did you assume the omission was done by someone outside of gizmodo?

[deleted]

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

#165

Post by humanrebar »

mcguire wrote: post #47

" Status is the primary metric that men are judged on[4], pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail. " Wow. I see it now. Thanks for opening my eyes! I really feel for the hard pressed CEOs of the world, forced to take those high status jobs with nothing but high pay to compensate them for the lack of satisfaction.

The fact that you thought "CEO" when you read "men" is the point. By definition, most men aren't leaders of companies, but they get lumped in with them as equally tainted, overpaid power-misers.

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

#166

Post by bhouston »

throwanem wrote: post #155
bhouston wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue is that acknowledging potential differences between the sexes can setup prejudice that acts to fulfill those prejudices. This can lead to widening gender gaps possibly more that any real gap in performance. So many do not blindly advocate equality because they believe it completely but do so to avoid the overly negative and reinforcing effects of prejudice. Think of this as a form of "Noble lie"

You mean it's a falsehood cynically advanced by a power elite to maintain a social order which would otherwise be uprooted, and those responsible torn toe from nail, by the vast majority upon whom it inflicts grave injustice toward some greater goal whose tangible benefits somehow never make it as far as them?

You'll have to explain the missing logical steps as I do not see how you got to this conclusion.

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

#167

Post by freshhawk »

twh270 wrote: post #78
santoshalper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed that as well. I find it interesting that the alt-right has started to embrace so much of modern feminist/liberal terminology and tacitly accepted so many of the premises. The modern alt-right conservative: "I don't believe in safe spaces, but please stop bullying me!"

This is incredibly disingenuous. Much of the left considers simple disagreement to be micro-aggression, while at the same time finding it perfectly acceptable to launch hate-filled screeds of animosity and hatred at anyone who doesn't toe the line, e.g. "You're a fucking animal that deserves to be put down!!" Your comment implicitly supports this sort of misbehavior, implying that any complaint by an "alt-righter" is…

As an actual leftist, and the type of person who is on HN, I'd like to say that what you are describing is not "the left" or "far left" by any reasonable definition. You are describing neoliberal centrists, which can still contain extremists (are we calling this the "alt-center" now? I'm not sure, it's kinda dumb). Political spectrum and how extreme the tactics one uses are orthogonal.

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

#168

Post by door »

Invictus0 wrote: post #22

It is one thing to debated the veracity of a view, it is another to declare that that view should not be debated. For every point there is a counterpoint; every argument a counterargument. Arguing that the reasoning is flawed is not sufficient to ban it from discussion.

personally a bunch of middle class white male tech bros who have never taken a soft science course in their lives discussing racism and sexism in tech doesn't sound very productive to me.

it's shocking how little humility that group of people has, how unwilling they are to say "hey I don't really understand this, I should defer to someone who does", how eager they are to use their hamfisted biological essentialism to explain every social theory

center the voices and research of the people affected by these issues: ie, women and people of color

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

#169

Post by DalaiObama »

defen wrote: post #69
skywhopper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has lost their job for wrongthink?

Nobel Prize winner James Watson Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt Harvard President Lawrence Summers are the three that immediately come to mind.

When extremely powerful people like that lose their jobs, everyone else gets the message.
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