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On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

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Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#141

Post by splintercell »

EddieRingle wrote: post #43

One of my first exposures to this "manifesto" was on Twitter with someone starting a thread with "Google has a Nazi problem." The majority of the other responses I read either attacked the author, dismissed the entire text in whole, and/or refused to actually argue the paper's points because they saw them as so ridiculous or "obviously" wrong. I read the paper. I don't see at all how it relates to fascism, Trumpism,…

> I am against discrimination, and that includes positive discrimination.

Because all positive discrimination is negative discrimination to someone else, so obviously when you are against discrimination you should be against positive discrimination too.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#142

Post by rcoveson »

abhi3 wrote: post #95
EddieRingle wrote: post #43

One of my first exposures to this "manifesto" was on Twitter with someone starting a thread with "Google has a Nazi problem." The majority of the other responses I read either attacked the author, dismissed the entire text in whole, and/or refused to actually argue the paper's points because they saw them as so ridiculous or "obviously" wrong. I read the paper. I don't see at all how it relates to fascism, Trumpism,…

Whether there exist biological/psychological differences between sexes that affect career choices is a discussion that needs to be had in an academic setting rather than a political setting as the author sought to do (read the first section). Secondly, it does not belong in the work place where it is rightly perceived as an aggression by the female coworkers (Telling them the bar was lowered to recruit them, they are…

Was the bar lowered to recruit female or minority candidates? That's not a rhetorical question and I don't presume to have an answer to it. It was, however, the subject of the original memo, which suggests that some policies or proposed policies exist that lower standards for diversity candidates in the author's opinion. One example is, in the author's words: "Setting org level OKRs for increased representation." If such policies do exist, is it not okay to acknowledge their existence and argue for or against their merit?

As to "aggressions", I would challenge anybody to find a quote from the memo that could be considered aggressive. There are likely scientific inaccuracies, as with any hastily written and/or poorly cited piece. But I think the author did, on the whole, as good a job as can be expected at staying academic in tone and content. Lampooning him as aggressive seems disingenuous.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#143

Post by sctb »

copx wrote: post #104

Try to find even just one female neuroscientist or evolutionary biologist who argues that men and women are not fundamentally different at a biological level and that the different behaviors, the different interests and preferences we are seeing are not largely rooted in biology. The author of this piece pretends that the opinion of ignorant far-left loonies is somehow the reasonable and intelligent one while the eng…

Please don't violate the guidelines by calling names like this. It's pure inflammation and doesn't the serve the kinds of discussions we're trying to have here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#144

Post by jblow »

mnm1 wrote: post #138

This idea that all opinions are equal and need to be respected is ridiculous and needs to stop. Politics is real and political opinions and actions have real consequences. Not all political opinions should be respected. In fact, it's our duty as citizens to evaluate and mock / scorn the opinions of others that we see as toxic. No one is protected from this and people that think they are, are feeling entitled to somet…

I find pretty unconscionable this line of rhetoric, which I see a lot lately from people on the left: "this isn't a free speech issue, because it's not the government doing the censoring".

I want to live in a society that embraces liberal values like freedom of expression. Preventing the government from encroaching on those values is a good idea. But if we then go and clamp down on those freedoms everywhere else, then it won't matter that the government doesn't do it -- nobody will be able to express themselves freely anyway.

This seems to be the society that the 'progressives' want and it disturbs me enough to have completely alienated me from that movement, and I am far from the only one, so I don't know why they aren't stopping and questioning the efficacy of this philosophy right about now.

If we are really a society that embraces liberal values, then we want those values to be upheld throughout the society, not just in the part explicitly controlled by laws.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#145

Post by blablabla123 »

EddieRingle wrote: post #43

One of my first exposures to this "manifesto" was on Twitter with someone starting a thread with "Google has a Nazi problem." The majority of the other responses I read either attacked the author, dismissed the entire text in whole, and/or refused to actually argue the paper's points because they saw them as so ridiculous or "obviously" wrong. I read the paper. I don't see at all how it relates to fascism, Trumpism,…

It's great that the person stated his opinion. I regard him much higher than hypocrites who think and act the same, but pretend to be 1000% pc.

It's not necessary to tediously counter-argue every single argument the author made. I'm sure you don't expect people to counter-argue overly long badly written texts by various political ideologists from today or the past. I'm convinced it suffices to just argue why summary is wrong or rather the opposite is true.

As a matter of fact, other people have done this work for us, so instead of arguing it suffices to do a literature research. (I'm sure you know how to google feminism and that you might have an hour or two time to watch Youtube) But I'm happy to bring my own crude arguments:

- people, both male and female, oftentimes don't do things because they think they are not able to do them

- teachers have a bias towards encouraging certain stereotypes

- the whole environment pushes certain behaviours and interests on people

Speaking for myself (being male) my Physics teacher said nothing when I told him in class that I'm going to study Physics. He was encouraging the other people who planned to study that or an Engineering subject, not me. Even my father discouraged me from studying it because he thought my grades where not good enough and that I wouldn't be that kind of person. Still I managed to study very quickly and successfully. During my studies I also learned, that my thinking is different than other peoples'. I think more in pictures, whereas my peers in Theoretical Particle Physics rather thought in texts.

At work I often get overtalked and still deliver over-average results because I emphasise being polite, use proper argument and I look 10 years younger than I am. This really sucks and this proves to me that if you are female, you are basically screwed if you want to do something engineering like because even Engineers don't act analytically but emotionally based on prejudices.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#146

Post by thanatropism »

kristianc wrote: post #134
thanatropism wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how culture fit can be taken out of the equation. Work in modern workplaces (and in particular the office, knowledge-worker type we're talking about) is far from the conveyor-belt screw-tightening fully explicit work of our industrial past. Our whole output depends on shared mental context. You may say -- "aha, but culture fit is a proxy for racism". Fine, then people are racists -- in that very implicit…

> You may say -- "aha, but culture fit is a proxy for racism". Fine, then people are racists -- in that very implicit, system-wide way that's immune to sensitivity training and generic pressure in the wider culture. What to do then, shoot the racists? You can say that while "shared mental context" is important, the research says that diverse teams are higher functioning teams [1] (one of the things myself and the aut…

That could very well be because racists are underperformers -- they are racists, which is some kind of overgeneralization bias.

Then there's fit to organizational purposes. It's doubtful that Google or SpaceX could function as an organization of racists, but maybe that level of homogeneity is best for a tire repair shop in rural areas.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#147

Post by thanatropism »

kristianc wrote: post #125
thanatropism wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point calculators were rows of women performing rote calculations. Early programming was similarly dull/full of detailed work that went through successive waves of abstraction. This is (also) a sexist stereotype, but maybe just maybe women are drawn to detailed work (say, needlepoint knitting, picking berries) while men are drawn to broad, imprecise work (such as selling insurance policies or chasing antelope)…

My issue with this is that the classifiers always seem to change, and that no-one can ever seem to agree on what the relevant biological classifiers are and how they apply. If men are drawn to broad, imprecise work, why are more men not marketers (tech or otherwise)? Or, if women are more "creative" as the memo implies, then why wouldn't women be more suited to coming up with a whole new language that compiles to PHP…

No one knows what is "right in terms of gender".

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#148

Post by mnglkhn2 »

kristianc wrote: post #75
mnglkhn2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the sixties you would type punch cards and make sure you typed correctly so that you don't mess the batch run. EDIT: it was more of a secretarial type of job. And women would socialize with other women on the job. The point is that aside from the title, the IT industry then is in no way what we understand by IT industry now.

Women clearly aren't cut out for the brave new world of statically typed languages.

Women get bored to sit down and just make sure the form to collect your user's data is correct.

And, honestly, it is more fulfilling to work/interact with others in a school/hospital/social setting than toil away in a cubicle.

Raising a child or teaching might actually be more exciting than starring at a screen.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#149

Post by rcoveson »

blablabla123 wrote: post #131
cm2187 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied engineering and there was very few women (<20%) in my class. You can't blame companies for having a similar hiring ratio. And the recruitment of the college I went through ("grandes ecoles" in France) is purely based on a math+physics competitive exam, so there is very little selection bias in the first place. So I am not convinced discrimination is the key to explain gender imbalance in engineering jobs.

What if the exams and job interviews are designed by people who are bad at team work? During my studies and also in my various jobs I observed that there is little team work, that many people even openly don't want to do it. (Managed to do it for some things, e.g. Functional Analysis) Maybe there are more ways to approach problems and at least for "real work" it seems that working in a team leads to better results. (…

I don't see how the exam's and job interview's focus (or lack thereof) on teamwork is relevant. How to make a better exam isn't really on trial here, because no matter how much data suggests that teamwork is as important as technical ability in an engineering role, no company or school will have a moral responsibility to ensure their exams reward good teamwork. The exam is still equally fair to any gender so long as it is totally anonymous.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#150

Post by fnovd »

I read the memo, and compared to the stuff I read from the real "deplorables" (on 4chan, The_Donald, etc.), it was pretty tame.

Yes, many of his ideas are backwards and unjustified. At the same time, many of his arguments were perfectly sane (e.g. silencing all dissenting opinions leads to an increasingly toxic and divided culture). If you want people like him to actually change their minds, you have to be willing to hear them out first. You can't show someone where they went wrong if they're too scared to tell you what they think in the first place.

Sexism in the workplace clearly exists. We've seen it manifest too many times for any rational person to deny it. At the same time, many of the initiatives that SV companies pursue to combat sexism are treating the symptoms rather than the cause. Googlers should try to make sure that they are consciously fighting their unconscious biases when hiring, but changing your hiring practices isn't going to eradicate sexism. Many of these diversity "action-plans" are more effective at improving a company's PR than they are at actually combating sex-related discrepancies. They become self-serving, even though their goal is noble. The author of the memo was trying to get at that, but that message was lost due to his problematic views on biological determinism, among other things.

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