The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google • Hacker News Board

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

#651

Post by devrandomguy » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 2:42 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #572

devrandomguy wrote: post #170

How is it sexual?

At some point this becomes indistinguishable from trolling and in my opinion you hit that point. Please don't post like this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14938471 and marked it off-topic.

With all due respect, I am concerned that people are over-sexualizing things, as a form of moral panic. My solution is to dispassionately discuss the problem, so that it can be de-escalated.

Kudos to the mod team for their handling of the larger affair over the past week, it is truly unfortunate what we are all dealing with right now.

(10 minutes later) Ok, I can see that the original comment should have included my follow up point, in order to avoid creating the "tripping hazard" that set the stage for Door's response.

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

#652

Post by coryfklein » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #626

taysic wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says we need 50% women in tech? Has Google released a statement on this? While I have seen some inflammatory articles on the subject I don't know that many woman care if there are 50% woman in tech. I can tell you as a female engineer, I just hope that women know it's open to them and feel comfortable joining the field. I don't care about convincing uninterested people. Instead here are some of the issues Google…

> Who says we need 50% women in tech? Almost every diversity activist: https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/894409695057764352

Or, you are able to find at least one on the internet that does.

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

#653

Post by kamaal » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #593

kamaal wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>We could have an even higher percentage of women, like we do in many top-notch classical outfits today. There is a difference between succeeding in difficult tasks and succeeding at tasks that are seeing very high growth in overall accumulation of knowledge. In high growth areas its not easy to make it big without working insane hours. Or return to regular practice after long breaks. To me tech will will see near e…

Can you clarify what you mean here? (not trying to be cheeky, but I'm just not grasping) What is the difference between a difficult task and a task that sees high growth in accumulation of knowledge? In terms of the classical orchestral musician/swe analogy I don't see what you are driving at. >In high growth areas its not easy to make it big without working insane hours. In classical music (and jazz etc.), you can't…

The difference is between usable and reusable knowledge.

If every few years you have to throw away a good part of what your learned and redo it, taking big breaks becomes very hard.

You can do this in music because you start exactly where you stopped. In programming we haven't yet reached a state where knowledge of tools, frameworks and ecosystem can remain the same for years. Things change pretty rapidly here.

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

#654

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

nzp wrote: post #649

Dylan16807 wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you want ? How is '''the differences are probably explained by a complicated mix of factors, but that genetics likely play some role''' '''a genetic explanation, should one exist, says absolutely nada about policy, "supremacy," how we should treat each other, or really anything else. I also strongly believe that a good faith inquiry into this question (and acceptance of whatever the science reveals) is a purs…

How can there be a genetic difference between genetically invalid (badly defined as you say) concepts? I.e. the concept of race is completely social, there is nothing genetic about it (a person commenting on HN is well withing education threshold to be expected to know this). Yet you allow that someone who believes there might still be genetic factors "somewhere" in these differences is not a (closet) racist ... beca…

> How can there be a genetic difference between genetically invalid (badly defined as you say) concepts? I.e. the concept of race is completely social, there is nothing genetic about it

Are you denying that there are differences in the genes controlling hair color between different racial groups? Or the frequency of something like lactose intolerance?

"Races" are badly defined, with shifting definitions and fuzzy borders and many different ways of grouping the same people. The idea of categorizing people into a handful of "races" rather than looking at hundreds of intersecting ancestries mixing together is dumb. But there is still a correlation between the two concepts. If you can find a gene that correlates with an ancestry (which you can do), then you've also found a gene that has a weaker correlation with "race".

And because there are thousands of genes that will correlate slightly with race, it's possible that one affects intelligence in some manner. It's not my problem if that's true. I'm confident there are no practically significant differences there. But that doesn't mean there isn't some .002% difference in median intelligence between groups that's caused by genes. It's bullheaded to ignore the possibility just because some awful racist will use it as "evidence" of their superiority. If they can't find out-of-context factoids to abuse they'll make things up anyway.

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

#655

Post by rocky1138 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

sobani wrote: post #604

rocky1138 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also that scientist involved in the Mars landings that wore an anime shirt.

I only know of the case of a Matt Taylor, who was part of the Rosetta project (land a probe on a comet) that was branded a sexist for wearing a shirt given to him by a woman.

Yes! You're right. We are speaking about the same person. My mistake.

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

#656

Post by brooklyn_ashey » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:05 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #653

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify what you mean here? (not trying to be cheeky, but I'm just not grasping) What is the difference between a difficult task and a task that sees high growth in accumulation of knowledge? In terms of the classical orchestral musician/swe analogy I don't see what you are driving at. >In high growth areas its not easy to make it big without working insane hours. In classical music (and jazz etc.), you can't…

The difference is between usable and reusable knowledge. If every few years you have to throw away a good part of what your learned and redo it, taking big breaks becomes very hard. You can do this in music because you start exactly where you stopped. In programming we haven't yet reached a state where knowledge of tools, frameworks and ecosystem can remain the same for years. Things change pretty rapidly here.

It may surprise you to know that musicians can't take even a few months' long break without suffering professionally. Remaining in shape for an audition only lasts until the last few days before that particular audition. If you stop practicing for a few months, it takes at least that long to get back into shape. It is a lot like a professional sport that way. Illnesses are career killers, for example. Also, we have new repertoire coming in all the time by new composers-- whole new concertos to learn, new techniques to be hip to, new gear to learn... I can understand that it might look somehow different from the outside, but this is why a musician can't keep doing auditons forever. First, it is expensive and we don't get corporate sponsors like athletes do. It depends on perfect health, and many can't afford to maintain that without a benefactor. It also takes up every minute of your life to stay audition ready for job auditions and jobs themselves--no one can sustain that kind of mental,physical, and psychological stress for too long. But, while we can, men and women seem to handle these pressures equally well.

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

#657

Post by sbierwagen » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 2:43 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #518

ebfd wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The first thing to remember is that the differences among individuals are far greater than the differences between groups." All this means is that there is some degree of overlap between the two curves; that not every member of group A is more intelligent than every member of group B. Which is trivially true; even the most virulent racists would agree without hesitation that Clarence Thomas is more intelligent than…

If you want to reduce white supremacy to basic statistics, you can do that, but as intellectual three-card Monte games go, this isn't a very good one: it's pretty easy to see the trick. If you believe that, in the aggregate, "white" people are intellectually superior to any other race of people, you're a white supremacist. That's not a value judgement; it's literally what it means to be a white supremacist. I guess y…

  If you believe that, in the aggregate, "white" people are 
  intellectually superior to any other race of people, 
  you're a white supremacist.

Were the 52 professors who signed Mainstream Science on Intelligence in 1994 white supremacists?① Is the APA a white supremacist organization?② If so, with 117,000 members, it would be by far the biggest white supremacist organization in the US.

Thomas, I understand that this is an emotionally charged topic, and you want to attack Damore's argument from all possible angles, but group differences in intelligence has been settled science for many decades, and misrepresenting the facts is not exactly making us look good. It's a long-running conservative meme that people who are interested in promoting equality ignore science for ideological reasons, and this is, you know... exactly that.

Group differences in intelligence are obviously bad, and they seem to be narrowing over time by Flynn effect actions, but they do actually exist. Saying that anyone who measures a difference between groups is literally promoting the supremacy of the white race is pretty wild. What measured difference makes you a white supremacist? 10 IQ points? 0.1? If you measure a difference of 0.000001 IQ points, should you instantly lose your job for being A Racist, as you've argued elsewhere?③

===

①: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intellig...

②: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence:_Knowns_and_Unkno...

③: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14953843

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

#658

Post by davesque » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #42

davesque wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing cringe worthy IMO was that he didn't appear to cite any studies or data to back up his claims. Or did that publication of the document omit things like that? If he had done so, would it still be cringe worthy?

From Gizmodo's summary: > Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted. I'm guessing the author did link to studies (or at least summaries of studies), but these were removed by Gizmodo or the leaker.

Yes. I'm seeing now many reports that the Gizmodo publication, which was billed as the "full 10-page" memo, was, in fact, abridged and omitted links to data that the author had cited to support his arguments.

Very disingenuous.

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

#659

Post by wfo » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 11:22 PM UTC

will4274 wrote: post #513

wfo wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

It's not a yes. A safe space is a safe free from criticism. Conservatives don't want or need safe spaces. They need spaces free from literal violence and from social violence (calls to firing, disruption of free assemblies, ostrichsization, etc.). Trying to equate these things does not make you clever. > All you have to do is admit that diversity is good and you'll get your diversity of ideology there for free. You s…

>A safe space is a safe free from criticism. Conservatives don't want or need safe spaces. They need spaces free from literal violence and from social violence (calls to firing, disruption of free assemblies, ostrichsization, etc.).

No, they don't want a safe space. They want something much more than that, they want a platform to be given to them. Conservatives are free to sit in private in a frat house or country club and talk about how women are dumb all they want (they do, in fact, all around the country!). But of course they want more. They want to be able to say whatever they damn please, no matter how nasty or non-intellectual, and have people listen to them. They want universities to pay for their security and host them in huge lecture halls, giving a tacit endorsement of them as intellectual figures. They want to be able to publish a manifesto at their work describing how they think their coworkers of a certain gender are too stupid to be here and before you call me sexist look at these statistics I am citing while having no qualifications to talk with any expertise about any of these issues.

I actually don't particularly agree with his firing, because I fundamentally disagree with allowing for the tyranny that is the non-unionized American workplace. Imagine if he were poor and couldn't immediately sprint into the alt-right women-hating neo nazi youtube circuit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN1vEfqHGro) and immediately apply for another tech job. In that case, speaking his mind politically would be suicide (perhaps literally, as he'd lose his health insurance).

So yes, I too disagree with allowing business to fire their employees without cause -- google shouldn't be able to fire its workers for their political positions, and this should be solidified explicitly in a union agreement or government regulation. Google also shouldn't be allowed to force their employees to submit to drug tests, for example. Or to fire their employees for not working weekends. Or for "not stepping up enough" or for a lack of "culture fit".

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

#660

Post by wfo » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 11:30 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #541

wfo wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> A simple "yes" would suffice. Kind of you to put words in my mouth but I'm quite able speak for myself. My answer is a resounding "NO". As a liberal, I say we should all find the notion of "safe spaces" odious and contemptible; while we are not required to accept all ideas, there is no idea that may not be discussed and analyzed out in the open, no matter how wrong or unpalatable it may be. What will it take for yo…

If you think Trump winning had anything to do with safe spaces or whatever gamergate alt-right concerns the 18-34 tech male demographic cares about instead of blatant abject failures of the Democratic party (nominating a horrible candidate and running a horrible campaign), well I've got a bridge to sell you.

Nobody should let Trump winning convince them "well, maybe we should have been more racist".

Safe spaces are not contemptible at all; people who deny them are. Who are you to say I cannot organize with my friends in a place where I let people talk about their problems free of criticism and hate for a moment? Maybe a rape survivor wants to spend a while talking about her experiences with people who are willing to be supportive without having alt-right protesters screaming at her calling her a slut and telling her she deserved it? You can pretend this is about intellectualism, but we all know it isn't; they are about hate and harassment and vile people spewing vile vitriol at others.

And I don't advocate excluding ideas, rather refusing to give ideas that don't deserve respect or attention respect or attention.