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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

#581

Post by rmc »

rayiner wrote: post #125
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…

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,…

> "Women prefer working with people."

IMO the biggest counter-example of the "women are better at working with people / soft skill" theory is politics.

Politics is all about who you know, who has your back, how you can get people to do what you want (the voters, other party members), how you can get people to like you, can you predict when someone's going to stab you in the back? can you predict when to stab someone else in the back? Should you support person X? What will person/group X think if you support person Y/policy Y? It's all about soft skills, it's all about reading people, it's all about working people.

You don't need maths or logic, or numbers,or rationality, or science for politics. I'm sure we all know how bad many polticians are at science/STEM.

If these theory were true, you'd expect women dominate politics in the same way men dominate tech. But that's not what you see at all. Advocates for the "women are better at soft skills, and worse at numbers" need to explain this glaring counter-example. The other theory, of institutionalised sexism against women, fits observable reality better.

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

#582

Post by flukus »

rmc wrote: post #581
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,…

> "Women prefer working with people." IMO the biggest counter-example of the "women are better at working with people / soft skill" theory is politics. Politics is all about who you know, who has your back, how you can get people to do what you want (the voters, other party members), how you can get people to like you, can you predict when someone's going to stab you in the back? can you predict when to stab someone…

Politics at the national level is made up of outliers, like sports people and actors. It's entirely possible that women are better at politics but not better than this 0.01% of people at politics, especially considering that men deviate from the norm more often.

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

#583

Post by renaudg »

adrienne wrote: post #543
tptacek wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a whole lot of words all of which are derived from monkey studies. I think it sounds like I'm being snarky when I say that, but, no, I'm not: literally, this is an attempt to reason the 82/18% CS split from the behaviors of monkeys. You understand, right, that my side of this argument doesn't have to predict any part of human society from the behavior of monkeys? That all my argument requires me to be able to…

These people never want to acknowledge the fact that programming used to be near-universally "women's work", right up until dudes decided it was cool and stole it from us. CS admissions used to be more than 40% women!

[flagged]

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

#584

Post by zimpenfish »

ggreer wrote: post #361
tptacek wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist†, so this isn't a good example. What you instead want to say is that there's limited tolerance for the "diversity viewpoint" that "whites" and Asians are intellectually superior to "blacks". There's an intellectually coherent argument to be made that our society is intolerant towards inquiries supporting racism. (It's not a good argument…

I realize this is getting off topic, but can you explain why you think that, "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"? I've read The Bell Curve and listened to a debate where Murray argued in favor of universal basic income. I came away from both thinking that he's been totally misrepresented. I just reviewed my notes for The Bell Curve to make sure I hadn't mis-remembered th…

> "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"?

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray...

> A far more illuminating piece of evidence about the Murray racial worldview is found in his little-read 2003 book Human Accomplishment, the text that substantiates point 2 on the above List Of Racist Charles Murray Beliefs: Black cultural achievements are almost negligible.

> Human Accomplishment shows that Murray has a long obsession with racial difference, and with using statistics to prove the lesser intellectual gifts of black people.

> How, in a book that is literally about people’s greater and lesser reasoning capacities, and that literally claims black people are less endowed with such capacities, can you harken back to Jefferson, leaving his racial views unmentioned, and then act shocked when people think you’re a racist? How can you not be a racist? How is there any way?

etc. etc.

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

#585

Post by fjfish »

rayiner wrote: post #125
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…

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,…

When I graduated in 1986 a third of my class were women. Something has driven them away from programming.

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

#586

Post by ggreer »

zimpenfish wrote: post #584
ggreer wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this is getting off topic, but can you explain why you think that, "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"? I've read The Bell Curve and listened to a debate where Murray argued in favor of universal basic income. I came away from both thinking that he's been totally misrepresented. I just reviewed my notes for The Bell Curve to make sure I hadn't mis-remembered th…

> "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray... > A far more illuminating piece of evidence about the Murray racial worldview is found in his little-read 2003 book Human Accomplishment, the text that substantiates point 2 on the above List Of Racist Charles Murray Beliefs: Black cultural achievements are almost negli…

First of all, are Murray's claims true? That's the important question. That article gets some things right, but it seems to imply that Murray is racist even if his beliefs are true.

Second, if you're going to use that article's definition of racism (the belief that there are statistical differences in IQ between races) then most researchers on cognition are racist. If you survey experts anonymously, the majority will say that there is an IQ gap and that genes are a significant contributor.[1]

Critics keep smuggling in the assumption that intelligence is proportional to moral worth. Murray explicitly denies this, and claims that all humans should be given equal moral worth (and equal moral agency).

1. http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/2013-survey-o...

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

#587

Post by zimpenfish »

aagha wrote: post #536
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…

Would you feel the same way if the author--instead of focusing on sex differences instead chose to focus on eugenics? What if s/he argued that the reason blacks/African-Americans were under-represented in tech/at Google was because of eugenics?

It would honestly not surprise me that it would be A-OK here. We've already had someone defending Charles Murray.

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

#588

Post by zimpenfish »

rifung wrote: post #575
0xbear wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tell if you're one of those people who get people fired for differences of opinion or you just honestly don't see it. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter. I find it amusing that I only have to concern myself with "respect for my coworkers" if my opinion is different from the liberal side on some cause célèbre. I.e. if I comply with liberal dogma and say that having lower hiring bar (…

> I find it amusing that I only have to concern myself with "respect for my coworkers" if my opinion is different from the liberal side on some cause célèbre I can see why you would think this because as far as I can tell a large majority of Googlers are liberal, but I don't believe this is the case? I'm pretty sure if you went around saying Trump supporters are racists or something you would also quickly get reprima…

> Indeed I had to call some people out for being really insulting to conservatives because that is really not okay either

Slightly off-topic but I don't understand this viewpoint.

The conservative stance, as best I can tell from following politics, generally involves enriching the 1% whilst actively wanting to hurt the less well off and minorities. To me, that does not warrant politeness and pleasantries.

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

#589

Post by rmc »

flukus wrote: post #582
rmc wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Women prefer working with people." IMO the biggest counter-example of the "women are better at working with people / soft skill" theory is politics. Politics is all about who you know, who has your back, how you can get people to do what you want (the voters, other party members), how you can get people to like you, can you predict when someone's going to stab you in the back? can you predict when to stab someone…

Politics at the national level is made up of outliers, like sports people and actors. It's entirely possible that women are better at politics but not better than this 0.01% of people at politics, especially considering that men deviate from the norm more often.

What about local politics? Surely that's dominated by women? What about the politics of a social club, a trade union, or similar groups? Are they all dominated by women? (Answer: No).

I'm not sure how you can merge the two theories that "Women are just better at people skills" and "Women aren't better than the best". The whole thesis is claiming that women are as naturally superior at people skills as men are naturally good at tech/STEM. Google is supposed to hire the best, and it's >50% men, so why isn't something that "hires the best" (in politics) still <20% women (e.g. US Congress).

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

#590

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

waterhouse wrote: post #555
brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they could! With all that technology? Shoot. All we had was a stage and a screen to work with. I will say that in another study it was found that the sound of women's dress shoes unconsciously biased juries. So we all (even men) walk to the stage on a carpet strip to mute that sound, or we play in stocking feet or soft shoes. Taking the screen away at the end is its only flaw. I will say something that a lo…

You might find this interesting, then. A company that does remote technical interviews as a service tried altering the pitches of interview candidates' voices through software, so they could change whether they sounded male or female, and looked at the effect it had on how the interviewers judged their performance. http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mas... "After running the experiment, we ended…

Yes, thank you for brining this up, sincerely. I'd read about this too. Even though it isn't statistically significant, it is a fascinating result. This study should be performed again while collecting more precise data on a bigger swath of engineers.
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