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On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

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Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#431

Post by schimmy_changa »

thecupisblue wrote: post #423
schimmy_changa wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that he is trying to solve an social problem via engineering, and in trying to simplify the problem, not spending enough time researching, and by "de emphasizing empathy" he takes a step backwards. Basically, he sets forward incorrect assertions about biological differences without the self-awareness about why he takes those differences as truth. For instance "Women on average show a higher interest in p…

>but it's overshadowed by his lack of understanding of the more serious problem of bias and discrimination of women in tech. Huh I didn't get that, I actually thought he understands there is a problem with bias and discrimination, but he also points out there are other reasons why there is not a balance and why there won't be a 50/50 balance and forcing it might be bad. Now, I don't agree with his writing completely…

I feel ya, this stuff wears me down too. It's exhausting thinking about this stuff and wondering what the right thing to say or do is.

However, that's exactly what the women and other under-represented minorities have to handle every day in tech! (and they don't even get the option to skip discussing the issue)

There's a reason women leave tech, and it's the reason you're feeling right now! And there's a problem if we don't address those feelings.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#433

Post by s73ver »

Udik wrote: post #342
s73ver wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are they less interested just because? Or less interested because of things like Uber?

Because, do you think sitting eight hours a day behind a desk trying to find a way to instruct a machine to do something you already know how to do, is a particularly appealing job? Can you imagine the amount of fulfilling human interactions a nurse has every day in the hours you spend looking at that damn screen? I mean, maybe they don't do it just because they can actually do something better.

I mean, I clearly do as that is my profession. And I really don't think the decision is between "nurse" and "software engineer".

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#434

Post by chrisco255 »

sidlls wrote: post #239
bkeroack wrote: post #38

Hacker culture used to trend towards libertarian ideals: free speech absolutism, cyberpunk freedom, etc. Now we have a huge mass of people at Google forming a rage mob to punish someone for expressing an unpopular idea. Should people lose their livelihoods and be blacklisted from the industry because you disagree with them? (see also Brendan Eich)

The software industry still trends toward libertarianism. A tiny slice of it in a specific area does not in some marginal ways on a small subset of social issues. As a leftist, I find the notion that SV, northern California, or the likes of Google, Facebook, etc. have a left bias to be hilarious.

Anyone from outside of California would see SV as heavily left leaning. You have people protesting Google buses, Berkeley riots over conservative speakers, anti growth liberals preventing new construction, while simultaneously decrying the lack of affordable housing and gentrification, and plastic bags are the devil.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#435

Post by jblow »

geofft wrote: post #421
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, that's kind of the problem right there. You define the ideas to be "unreasoned", and therefore any presentation of those ideas is unacceptable, no matter how stated. Can you state why you find the ideas unreasonable, without some variant of "all right-thinking people know", and without misrepresenting the ideas?

Sure. See this comment I just made in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14956998 The trouble with avoiding "all right-thinking people know" is that I have no idea how to find a solid citation for the claim that, say, software engineering is at least as much about people as things. It's a thing you will find anyone senior who's good at their job to agree with. Would you accept books by experienced s…

I am senior at my job and I disagree with that assertion. People skills are indeed helpful and a good benefit, but they are nowhere near primary. Consider the following two people:

(A) Understands people hardly at all, is constantly confused by hem, but understands computers very well

(B) Understands computers hardly at all, is constantly confused by them, but understands people very well

Which of these two candidates is going to be able to design and build a complex software product?

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#436

Post by int_19h »

elihu wrote: post #410
int_19h wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think "right to free speech" is a weak and kind of scary argument to be making here. Inside a corporation, you don't have the same right to free speech you would have on the outside. HR can fire employees for things that wouldn't get you arrested for saying in public. It's an argument that certainly makes a lot of sense from a libertarian perspective. But those of us on the left have already dismissed similar arg…

The United States has historically given very broad protections to free speech in public, which is something I support and am very glad of. There is some kind of speech that isn't appropriate in a corporate setting. There are some kinds of speech that I think should be legally protected both inside and outside a corporation. I think the manifesto should fall inside the category of protected speech, as he was only say…

Thank you for a well-reasoned reply.

I broadly agree with what you say. There are some forms of speech that shouldn't be easy to suppress by economic pressure from actors in a dominant position (like corporation vs a single employee), but where that line is in the workplace, is certainly different compared to where it is in off-work public speech. And it's not just about offensiveness of opinion - the corporation is also an actor with certain legal rights, and to unduly constrain them would also be inappropriate.

I would draw the line a bit differently, though. IMO, the distinguishing point here is that this guy wrote his manifesto on an internal corporate network. So he used the company-provided communication channel, and targeted other employees of the company, specifically to discuss how said company should be run. Is this still public speech? I'm not sure. It feels like the company should at least be able to control the communication channel. While yes, ideally, it should be possible to raise criticism internally as well, I think that is also best left as an internal company policy. If its owners think that their business run better if it's managed by yes-men, in general or on certain topics, they're probably wrong, but it's their right to be wrong in this manner.

Speaking out in public - on your own time, using public channels, and not as a company employee - is another matter, that I think deserves more protections.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#437

Post by smsm42 »

currymj wrote: post #429
smsm42 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sounds almost exactly like the Frankfurt School/“cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory Nope, it does not. The only common things are that both talk about Marxists (as do many other conversations, including ours) and about gender politics (as do many other conversations, including guess what). Not everybody who opposes Marxists is a Nazi who thinks Jews from Frankfurt School want to take over the world. And not everyb…

In my experience, especially the US south, that specific narrative ("did you know that Marxist intellectuals started promoting gender and racial theory after their attempts at class warfare failed to overthrow the US?") has usually indicated that somebody's about to start going on at the very least about Alex Jones nonsense, perhaps about how George Soros controls the world. Online people tend to take off the mask an…

> especially the US south, that specific narrative /.../ has usually indicated that somebody's about to

Stereotyping is ok, as long as we are doing it for the right reasons. For us, there's no need to consider the personality and the content of the message, as long as we can label him a Nazi because couple of words matched.

> Online people tend to take off the mask and you get actual Holocaust denial.

Wow, it's Holocaust denial now. Gowdin, save me!

> It's this specific story or narrative that Marxist intellectuals were trying to use class warfare to gain power, and when it failed they shifted to promoting race and gender based politics to gain power, that is very troubling for me due to repeated experience

Let's see. Do Marxist intellectuals participate in race and gender based politics? Yes they do. Do they want to have power? Of course they do, what's the point of getting into politics if not getting power and getting policies you like enacted? So what exactly makes you a conspirologist Nazi when you mention these obvious - and entirely unsurprising for anybody who knows what "Marxist" and "politics" means - facts?

> Citing it offhand as a commonplace makes me wonder whether he shares the same intellectual influences

Nope, nope. You didn't just "wonder whether he shared influences" (if you go far enough, everybody shared influences, otherwise we couldn't even communicate), you said his claims were literally Nazi talking points and connected to antisemitic conspiracy. Which is not true at the least, the only common thing is the basic facts which no sane person would deny. After recognizing those facts, the actual Nazis go way off course of the facts into the looney bin territory, and invent crazy conspiracies like Jews being behind all this to take over the world. The author does nothing of the sort. Yes, they both start with the same facts. That's because facts are facts, they are independent of who recognizes them. It's where you take it from there is important. The Nazis take it into craziness, as is their way, the manifesto author does not.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#438

Post by wutbrodo »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #318
wutbrodo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I could tell he doesn't present any new evidence to back up his argument, either. So, to those who say "it is important that he spoke out, and that we have this debate": when does this debate end? The problem is that (inside Google and elsewhere) the debate ended by fiat, not because one side made their case better; and it didn't end in favor of a side with tons of science to back it (not even close). My…

Does it matter, for Google, whether the gap in interest-in-engineering is biological or social? Either way, there's more men doing the sorts of things that get them the skills they need to succeed as an engineer at Google, and it's in Google's best interest to hire every engineer with the necessary skills.

No, it doesn't matter, but it is sufficient if not necessary. Google's answer to socialization problems was going upstream: getting "work in tech/Google" into girls' minds earlier and earlier to combat ostensible messages pushing them away from tech. But it's all founded on the assumption that any population difference in ability must be fixable, if not at the hiring level, then earlier.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#439

Post by peacetreefrog »

schimmy_changa wrote: post #377
schimmy_changa wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that he is trying to solve an social problem via engineering, and in trying to simplify the problem, not spending enough time researching, and by "de emphasizing empathy" he takes a step backwards. Basically, he sets forward incorrect assertions about biological differences without the self-awareness about why he takes those differences as truth. For instance "Women on average show a higher interest in p…

... and now I'm getting downvotes after answering the OP's question earnestly trying to provide the opposing viewpoint ...

With respect, I feel like part of you having been down voted is because your second paragraph is doing exactly what you accuse this memo writer of, namely "sets forward incorrect assertions about biological differences without the self-awareness about why he takes those differences as truth".

A cursory reading of the literate suggests at least some evidence that the differences can't be explained by socialization, for example. See:

"In her preface to the first edition, Halpern wrote: “At the time, it seemed clear to me that any between-sex differences in thinking abilities were due to socialization practices, artifacts and mistakes in the research, and bias and prejudice. ... After reviewing a pile of journal articles that stood several feet high and numerous books and book chapters that dwarfed the stack of journal articles … I changed my mind.”

"Why? There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive differences to ignore, Halpern says. For one thing, the animal-research findings resonated with sex-based differences ascribed to people. These findings continue to accrue. In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks. A much more recent study established that boys and girls 9 to 17 months old — an age when children show few if any signs of recognizing either their own or other children’s sex — nonetheless show marked differences in their preference for stereotypically male versus stereotypically female toys."

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-...

Is this the end all be all? No. Does it mean women can't be good engineers? No. Does this episode lead to more self awareness all around? Hopefully.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#440

Post by dragonwriter »

generic_user wrote: post #405
dragonwriter wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They may not be opposed goals but if a method includes the exclusion of certain racial and sex groups then you can not call the method an equality of opportunity. Actual affirmative action programs do not include the exclusion of racial or gender groups, so your comment is a non-sequitur regardless of its validity in isolation. > Equality of opportunity will never, and can never guarantee an equality of outcome. Wh…

> Which is why its likely affirmative action will always be necessary. Affirmative action programs like most progressive ideology and policy has simply not produced any tangible lasting results. In most respects the focus groups of these programs are in worse shape now then they were 30 years ago. The presumption that 'racism', 'sexism' or 'oppression' is responsible for the failure of certain groups is simply unfoun…

> The Baby Boomers cling to these ideas out of stubborn habit but people under 60 when asked if they think certain racial groups should get preferential access to job opportunities strongly disagree.

Preferential access to employment opportunities isn't the point of AA; modern employment AA programs are mostly outreach and other funnel programs to neutralize existing structural preferences (hiring preferences have, in fact, been bright-line illegal for decades.)

Which is why there is simultaneously majority support that is higher among younger Americans for affirmative action in employment, despite majority opposition to hiring preferences.

> It's a shame that people cling to these misguided failed ideas.

It is a shame that people cling to false ideas about what the debate is even about.

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