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

None of the exact numbers were relevant to my argument. I was only interested in the total amount of people voting for him. Which is millions. That's all that matters. Millions of people who felt uncomfortable and excluded and looked for the loudest and most visible outlet for their discomfort.

You only latched onto the very last sentence of my whole post upstream. Let me quote myself: Anyway, I do agree with the googler that the current overton window is heavily slanted to the point where quite a big fraction of the population feels uncomfortable and excluded, otherwise trump would never have gotten that much support. Do note that I never said he got a majority. "Much support" simply means a large absolute amount of people voting for him. Enough to not be easily dismissed.

> Now if you think you somehow won a great victory, you didn't.

I neither claimed nor implied that in any of my posts.

> And since from your writing it appears that you voted for Trump

Appearances can be deceiving.

> yes, I and people like me think much less of you and people like you.

That's the crux of "the culture wars".

>However, if 100% of these pressures were removed, would we have exactly 50% representation of men and women in tech? Many people appear to believe very strongly that this is true. What is the basis for this belief?

We could have an even higher percentage of women, like we do in many top-notch classical outfits today. There is some history here I'm qualified to speak about as a woman who took many orchestral auditions in classical music. Most of decision makers in classical back in the day asked exactly what you are asking about tech right now. The results were stark. (see study below) My example is not intended to imply that tech is "the same" as classical music or anything--just pointing out a strong similarity in today's tech interviews to the gender/race-biased audition practices of orchestras in the pre-1970s, when it was believed that women/brown candidates were not as strong/accomplished/technically skilled/artistic/confident as their white European male colleagues. Here is a 1974 NYT article about "the change to screened auditions"; the reporter still felt comfortable calling Asian players "Oriental" at that time.

http://www.nytimes.com/1974/10/15/archives/orchestra-auditio...

The Met Orchestra is considered the overall "best orchestra" in the United States. It is a dream job in terms of pay and quality of music making. By best, I mean that winning a job at the met is like being a star player in the majors, more so than in any other orchestra. The Met's auditions are considered by classical players to be the most impartial, although they are still partial. They are the blindest, anyway, in terms of using a screen, if players can make it past the tape round. (that is another issue altogether for another time) Today, more than half of the NY Phil and 50% of the Met orchestra players are women, due to blinder audition practices. Still, most orchestras remove the screen after the first or second round today. (?) I believe the MET waits until the finals to remove the screen. (I didn't make it to the finals, but it is what I hear from players who have)

I believe that tech could learn a great deal from classical music's hiring practice innovations of the 1970s and 80s. Today, most US Orchestras are comprised of at least 50% women, up from none or just a couple in the 1970s. Today, St. Louis is majority female. If anyone in tech is interested, they could dig into this study published in The American Economic Review

http://www.academicroom.com/article/orchestrating-impartiali...

I understand that part, but I don't understand how that sentence relates to the second:

"That's why professional environments are effective and make a pleasant place to work for all."

If there's a missing "if" before the "it's" in his first sentence, I can only assume he means it takes effort to restrain oneself from being unfiltered, but there's an uncanny taste of an insult I can't pinpoint.

Wow, refreshing. The truth will set you free.

I had come across that study/story before, and consider it one of the great successes in combating discrimination that I have ever heard!

Blinding the auditions is brilliant, because it isn't a "bias for bias" approach. It doesn't attempt to combat one bias by intentionally introducing another bias. It just removes the jury's ability to be biased, by concealing the musician's sex.

Because of this, the results of that study are nearly unimpeachable. It's basically a perfect approach. If tech could do anything comparable to that, I would be 100% in favor.