Live data from Hacker News

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

gizmodo.com

501–510 of 660 posts

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

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" ...The mental test applied was the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB),... " Well, ok, then. " Males have only a marginal advantage in mean levels of g (less than 7% of a standard deviation) from the ASVAB and AFQT, but substantially greater variance. Among the top 2% AFQT scores, there were almost twice as many males as females. These differences could provide a partial basis for sex differences in…

Genuine question: is is possible some selection bias is at play if only people interested in that given career will undergo this testing?

There are all kinds of biases involved, but the ASVAB has been normalized against a (the?) general population of high school students.

I think that the ASVAB was designed as a job-choice tool is more of a problem than that it was designed as a military job-choice tool.

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

#502

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…

> and no doubt a cartharsis for many Right-leaning Googlers And this is where I kind of break down on the whole argument. I've already made similar comments below, but I sort of what to expand on this sentiment. I do not think that the views of the author of this piece were political in any way shape or form. They are purely idealogical, and the ideology that he professes has no basis in reality. This is what we may…

"Women are not as discouraged from entering fields like biology, or medicine. These are just as technical and difficult as other STEM fields"

It is not about being difficult. Biology and medicine require a vastly different kind of intelligence than Physics and Math (and computer science). Also, doctors work with people, while engineers work with machines. And the author argues that women, on average, prefer working with people. This can pretty simply be explained by the difference in estrogen and testosterone.

So no, it's not fair to say that there is no evidence that the whizzer spins right. And the author never denied that there are cultural factors. He is saying that there are biological factors too, which should not be ignored.

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

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you are saying is that there should be safe spaces for conservatives to express themselves? That conservatives should be welcomed for their diversity? That conservstives should be given a participation trophy and honored for their special snowflake ideas?

> So what you are saying is that there should be safe spaces for conservatives to express themselves? That conservatives should be welcomed for their diversity? That conservstives should be given a participation trophy and honored for their special snowflake ideas? Good grief. Diversity of every imaginable kind is good except for diversity of thought apparently. Whatever happened to " I disapprove of what you say, bu…

A simple "yes" would suffice. All you have to do is admit that diversity is good and you'll get your diversity of ideology there for free. All you have to do is admit that creating safe spaces can be good or necessary, and you can argue for safe spaces for conservatives to speak their minds.

The point isn't that you shouldn't be allowed to express yourself (you should! There should be a safe space for conservatives on campus! There are many in fact, they're called the local frat house, young republicans club, economics study group, bible study) the point is that when you argue that you should be able to do so you use the same arguments conservatives so nastily deride like diversity, participation trophies, snowflakes, safe spaces, etc.

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

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you are saying is that there should be safe spaces for conservatives to express themselves? That conservatives should be welcomed for their diversity? That conservstives should be given a participation trophy and honored for their special snowflake ideas?

I am going to pretend my previous post was poorly written so as not to offend your sensibilities. When political activists, regardless of who they are and what they're against , want to ban a meeting because someone they disagree with is going to make a speech there, when they invade a venue with bullhorns so loud people have to leave, when they're sending death threats, or starting physical altercations, or setting…

>We're still sorry for having given you a case of Acute Thatcherism, America

I've never heard a European apologize for this and didn't realize how much I wanted to until I did; thank you, we hope to one day recover.

And I agree with you to some extent. But many 'conservatives' today are not approaching these issues with any kind of intellectual honesty or a willingness to respect their opponents. When I think campus protests I think Milo, who spews hate with every turn and is in no way intellectual or thoughtful. I think of Richard Spencer, who should be shouted down. Our society hates neo-nazis and while we shouldn't be violent towards them, the clearer it can get that they are universally loathed the better. I should not have to sit and listen to someone advocate gassing minorities, for example, and sit there and politely debate. Their positions aren't reasonable and acknowledging them as a serious intellectual position and putting them on a stage is doing them a favor they should not get.

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

#506
post #121

As a former Googler: dude is _so_ getting fired and blacklisted. I've seen people driven out just for saying someone else looks good in a bathing suit. Not a direct or indirect report, mind you, a person completely outside the chain of command, at a team event in (IIRC) Hawaii. A small minority of people takes victim mentality and makes it near religious internal dogma. The rest just go along with it due to fat paych…

At this point, firing him would be a huge PR mistake for Google.

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

#507
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the biological differences between men and women not rather straightforward?

Not really. There are claims that for example men are better at spacial reasoning (imagining/navigating a 2d/3d space, constructing physical things in their head before acting on it). Women are supposedly better at putting themselves into the perspective of other people, both emotionally as well as logically. Or so I've heard. I'm sure there have been studies on these topics though, and I think that's what your paren…

The keyword here is biological.

In biology we do not study spatial reasoning or empathy.

In biology we study physical processes.

Fact: men and women have different body parts.

Fact: men and women have different hormones and hormones affect behavior.

The trouble arises when we cannot even discuss "what is a man" and "what is a woman" for fear of offending somebody.

Anyone can believe they are a man or a woman or anything else, that's fine. But we can't change biology. At this point it's just wordplay.

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

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but there's a whole host of psychological research that has long established behavioral differences between male and female. I find this new rejection on the Left of what are simply basic observations of biologically formed behaviors to be extremely bizarre. I'm really struggling to understand it because to me it seems like the same kind of science rejection we'd see on the Right if we were talking about clima…

Sure, there are differences. For men, no one ever expects those differences to limit what they can do. Men can be firefighters, loggers, hairdressers, florists, politicians, engineers, interior designers, party planners, chefs, teachers. There aren't many professions where people would question why a man was doing the job instead of a woman. What the left and feminism wants is for the same consideration to be given t…

"For men, no one ever expects those differences to limit what they can do"

Actually there are plenty of fields and jobs that are considered feminine. And where men are underrepresented and underpaid.

A study has shown that with the same qualifications, a woman is twice as likely to be picked for the same job than a man. And the longer we keep it politically incorrect to criticize feminism and the left, the larger that gap will become. Am not saying those aren't needed. But I also think it is time we have an opposing voice (like this article) to keep both in balance.

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

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except he didn't say that the differences we observe are 100% due to biology. I'm actually pretty shocked at how much of this thread seems to deliberately mischaracterize what he wrote.

> Except he didn't say that the differences we observe are 100% due to biology. He did, if he didn't intend to he used the wrong language. He had a section called: > Personality Differences Where to his credit he did say: "on average" but then he failed to distinguish these differences as cultural or social. Rather he prefixed that part of the article with a section that stated: > On average, men and women biological…

He did mention that he is not denying diversity is important or that sexism exists. And the biological differences he mentioned are "POSSIBLE non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech".

His entire argument seems to be that we should stop denying biological differences exist too. And a non 50% representation is not conclusive proof of sexism in society.

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

#510

Yonatan Zunger, a (recently departed) distinguished engineer at Google, wrote a very good response: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...

chroma's summary above does a much better job understanding the manifesto than that medium post imo (cf https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14938457 ). Yonatan just hones in on that one botched idea and then berates the author for the rest of the post.
Post reply on HN