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About This Googler's Manifesto

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Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#301

Post by smb06 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #89
interpol_p wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the fact that it implies that men are in higher, more well paid positions because of inherent biological traits. If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must see a society where white men are the most powerful, most privileged class, as a failure of society. The author cannot claim to believe in equality and then go on to justify inequality with biological traits.

There's zero evidence that people are equal. Physically, everyone knows and admits this. Women are given separate physical contests as they are smaller, slower, and weaker than men. Certain races do better in some sports - no one can make a fuss, as it's obvious, plus whites aren't the ones usually dominating. Yet all of a sudden when it comes to mental pursuits (which are physically based in the brain and supporting…

Diversity is about giving people equal opportunity. The core sentiment is that in the work place, in social environments, people should have equal access to show that they can excel to the best of their ability.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#302

Post by SamReidHughes »

smb06 wrote: post #297
edison85 wrote: post #278

Having read the full manifesto, I find myself agreeing with the author's thought process for a bunch of his points and clearly disagreeing with others. He presented them well, not offensive at all, and if I had a discussion with him I'm sure he seems open to change certain beliefs if presented with ample evidence. I would generally love talking to this guy. Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid…

You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is finding it offensive. That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

Maybe everyone is stupid. Not really -- some are malicious, for example, this medium post starts with a bald-faced lie.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#303

Post by jogjayr »

runamok wrote: post #233
codeisawesome wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't completely disagree with you. But, Gmail: From my hazy memory of the time it was released: 1. Best usage of AJAX and providing complex interaction without refreshing the page. 2. More storage space than any other provider. Both, technical feats of excellence? Youtube: It was an acquired product, and there were quite a few points at which the YouTube community reacted angrily to Google driven changes, prominentl…

Gmail in my opinion was powerful because it was used search vs. painstakingly moving messages into folders. It also had auto-threading so you would not have the clutter of re:re:re:re: ad nauseum... And most of all it was very fast.

Yes! Email conversation threads! I'd forgotten that one. Also a +1 for UX.

You might quibble about this but recognizing that fast search is better than foldering is also UX. It seems obvious to us now but maybe it wasn't that obvious in 2006 (or maybe it was, I didn't know anything about UX or design back then). Yes making the search go fast is a technical feat and without good tech you can't have a good user experience even if the design is good (see WebOS).

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#304

Post by stephenboyd »

pacala wrote: post #199

> And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just…

That's not punishment, it's problem-solving. It's about protecting the company, not what the manifesto author deserves. Yonatan Zunger didn't promote any kind of retribution or vengeance for writing the manifesto, just that they would have to stop the employee from further degrading the workplace environment with the most reliably effective response, termination.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#305

Post by jogjayr »

smsm42 wrote: post #261
jogjayr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting important Google products where design or user experience played a crucial role in winning. Gmail - the dominant webmail platform that made pioneering use of AJAX; before it you had to refresh the page to check if you had new email. And whose inbuilt chat client crushed Yahoo Messenger/MSN/AOL. People came for the 1GB of free storage, stayed for the friends they made on chat. YouTube - Video juggern…

Let's see: > Gmail This one gained popularity when promising a whopping for free 1Gb was crazy good offer. People seriously thought it's a gimmick that won't last. Now that you can pretty much buy 1TB drives with pocket change it sounds funny, but back then it was spectacular. UX had very little to do with it, and frankly I still kinda avoid using gmail website, much preferring to use mail client. > Youtube Excellent…

> That works reasonably well, but does it have any UX to speak of?

Err...there's some reasonably complex setup there that they've smoothed out. The onboarding for a new Chromecast is flawless; you plug it in, type in your Wi-fi password and off it goes. Good design doesn't get in your way; it lets you do what you need to do, fast. The affordances for casting anything from your phone or tablet are obvious, and everything "just works". That's pretty darn good design, backed up by monstrously talented engineering to execute it well.

> This one gained popularity when promising a whopping for free 1Gb was crazy good offer.

I did point this out in my post. Other email providers quickly caught up though; Yahoo mail started offering 100MB that same year (2004) then soon increased it to 1GB[1]. So it wasn't the storage that made people stay. It was (as other people have pointed out) a more responsive interface, fast searching, conversation threads, and (IMO) integrated Google Chat.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Mail#2004_Updates

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#306

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

untog wrote: post #299
blub wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inhuman to attempt to destroy someone's life for having politically incorrect opinions, no matter what those opinions are. The employee should instead give them a warning and educate them. Writing a manifesto is not a capital crime.

More or less inhumane than forcing a gay employee to work alongside someone that has publicly stated he thinks gay people should be killed? The problem is that someone has to bear a cost when opinions like this are made public.

> More or less inhumane than forcing a gay employee to work alongside someone that has publicly stated he thinks gay people should be killed?

Since the original manifesto author has advocated nothing remotely analogous to that, I would say that your attempted comparison is intellectually dishonest and places you on far more morally shaky ground than him.

Moreover, if "...someone has to bear a cost when opinions like this are made public...", as you say, are you in turn willing to pay the the same cost if public opinion turns against your political views? Any behavior you legitimize to attack your political enemies becomes equally legitimate to use against you when the public mood shifts! You'd have to be bonkers to think this sort of thing is a good idea to normalize.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#307

Post by MichaelGG »

smb06 wrote: post #301
MichaelGG wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's zero evidence that people are equal. Physically, everyone knows and admits this. Women are given separate physical contests as they are smaller, slower, and weaker than men. Certain races do better in some sports - no one can make a fuss, as it's obvious, plus whites aren't the ones usually dominating. Yet all of a sudden when it comes to mental pursuits (which are physically based in the brain and supporting…

Diversity is about giving people equal opportunity. The core sentiment is that in the work place, in social environments, people should have equal access to show that they can excel to the best of their ability.

Having diversity goals/quotas isn't equal opportunity (see medical admissions being way more strict on Asians than blacks). Plus, as the original doc points out, it's one sided. Underrepresentation of whites/males is fine. No one says hey, there's too many minorities. Just like no one cares that police almost exclusively kill men, with only a handful of women.

Why do they aim for a 50/50 gender balance? What if women are actually better in some roles, and it should be 40/60? Why can't this even be questioned?

The funny thing is, I dunno if I believe the original doc author, but I find the response so abhorrent I end up against it.

Google's response should have been "good but flawed questions. Here are studies, here's how we're going about determining diversity's impact etc".

Instead we get people who are gonna quit if he isn't fired, think he should be escorted off premise immediately, write pages misconstruing what was written, and are physically "shaking" at the thought someone might question their beliefs.

It sucks because there are systemic issues, and the current diversity nonsense does nothing about it and won't even try to make it's main case.

I'm hoping some groups will publish serious research on the issue. (Rust has a huge diversity push, iirc. They should also run some non diverse programs then compare results.)

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#308

Post by untog »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #306
untog wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More or less inhumane than forcing a gay employee to work alongside someone that has publicly stated he thinks gay people should be killed? The problem is that someone has to bear a cost when opinions like this are made public.

> More or less inhumane than forcing a gay employee to work alongside someone that has publicly stated he thinks gay people should be killed? Since the original manifesto author has advocated nothing remotely analogous to that, I would say that your attempted comparison is intellectually dishonest and places you on far more morally shaky ground than him. Moreover, if " ...someone has to bear a cost when opinions like…

> I would say that your attempted comparison is intellectually dishonest and places you on far more morally shaky ground than him.

Maybe you should refer upthread where someone else threw out that comparison, not me? I was replying to them with the theoretical they outlined.

I don't really know how to respond to the rest of your post. Public moods have always shifted, and people's public responses have changed. It's already normalised. People used to be openly racist, now they aren't. Their racism then wasn't correct at the time and incorrect now, it was always wrong. Will my views become equally offensive some day? I don't see why I would assume they will. And if they do, and I don't adjust, maybe I will deserve to be called out for it.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#309

Post by ahmedahamid »

Quite honestly, the most concerning thing to me about this whole manifesto is the outright dismissive reaction it is getting from everyone.

I know that some people agree with the author and I want to see his point of view studied, analyzed and critiqued in the most objective and thorough manner possible. For instance, do we have evidence on gender biases among different engineering roles? If the answer is yes, is this bias due to organic inclinations attributable to inherent gender differences? Is any part of such inclinations - if any - historically/socially constructed? If it is something that has historical roots, is imposing diversity rules and regulations a temporary/transient measure necessary to counter an existing imbalance until unfair advantage is extenuated? Or is it something we need to maintain indefinitely?

Without rigorous examination of the claims in this manifesto, we are running the risk of having a growing base of believers of an under-scrutinized opinion, individuals who do not speak their minds solely due to social pressure.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#310

Post by _qbjt »

pacala wrote: post #199

> And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just…

Wow, I thought what the author said was hyperbolic until I read this response. Come on now. How many SF Bay Area tech workers would actually assault another employee over comments posted on the Internet? How many software engineers at Google have ever even been in a fight?

This "punch you in the face" thing seems to be a sticking point for most of the comments here and I think people are misrepresenting what the author is trying to say. He's not advocating for violence, he's considering a possibility in which he would have to make managerial decisions based on animosity between employees over this "manifesto". That's reasonable. I'm not sure what kind of culture they have at Google, but from my time working as a software developer I've rarely discussed politics at the office. I avoid it. It has the potential to bring down the morale of the team. Just don't see the point in throwing a wrench into the gears of the company you work for to make a political point.

Don't you dare interact with him, or else you'll be ostracized as well.

Oh please. There's a reason why the writer of this "manifesto" felt the need to grovel and apologize in every opening paragraph. He knew how his peers would take it. You can't just raise into question the fundamental capability of every woman you work with and then expect them to want to work with you. People lose friends over Facebook posts. He deserves to be ostracized for bringing this crap into the office. There are no "thoughtcrimes" here, just someone with a persecution complex fomenting strife amongst his own colleagues. Would you want to work with someone like that?

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