Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 352 posts

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#101

Post by vkou »

coldtea wrote: post #47
sidlls wrote: post #8

What's more likely: the author was fired for suggesting alternate methods of improving diversity at Google or the author was fired for repeating unsupported gender stereotypes, offering alternate methods that themselves played on gender stereotypes, and creating an environment in which he would not be able to effectively carry out his responsibilities as a result of promoting gender stereotypes?

The author was fired because some issues are considered thought crimes and you have to go with the mainstream opinion.

For a clear-cut example:

Is calling my co-workers who are people of colour racial slurs a thought crime? Should I be fired for that, or should my employer tolerate it? Should I be allowed to make remarks about how evolutionary psychology tells me that women should be in the kitchen? Or that African Americans are predisposed to crime?

At what point does saying things stops becoming thought crime, and starts becoming 'creating a hostile work environment'? There has to be a point of crossover, somewhere, right?

If you said yes, you're an authoritarian stifling discourse. If you said no, then... Well, that's certainly a principled stance you can take.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#102

Post by nxsynonym »

kafkaesq wrote: post #73
naturalgradient wrote: post #10

What this whole episode really seems to show is how authoritarianism has crept into our lives and how incredibly difficult it is to resist it even amongst highly educated people. I would wager that none of the people calling for this person to be personally ruined, expelled from society, terminated from their job and forever vilified as an outcast would view themselves as authoritarian. Not the Tweeters shaking with…

I would wager that none of the people calling for this person to be personally ruined, expelled from society, terminated from their job and forever vilified as an outcast ... Maybe some people are calling for stuff like that. But that's not what Google's doing to him. Google's just saying: "You can't do that here ."

That's kind of the point though.

Google is one of, if not the, biggest player in terms of information served over the internet. If they are willing to censor at this level, how far will they go to protect their public image and suppress discussion they don't agree with?

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#103

Post by gjulianm »

canoebuilder wrote: post #15
dangerlibrary wrote: post #2

Is any organization of meaningful size (# of employees, revenue, market cap - pick your metric) handling diversity issues in a way that completely satisfies the "proportional representation of the population" metric? Are there any success stories that one could use as case studies?

"proportional representation of the population" metric? Is there some reason the social disrupters only get all frothy mouthed about this in certain areas? Like shouldn't we spend much more time going after the NBA, Fishing, Logging, Elementary teachers, Nurses, etc. because these industries are far more out of "diversity balance." Are people clamoring for a "proportional representation of the population" metric prep…

I think diversity is not exactly an end in and on itself, but a way to reduce general inequality. Increasing the number of woman in fishing, or logging, or coal mining is not going to have as much effect on the general economic/social power of women as doing the same on bigger, richer industries such as programming. As resources are limited, you want to be as efficient as possible and that will probably shift the focus away from industries that are not that influential. Of course the fact that they're not as attractive is also relevant, but it seems that being non-attractive and being less important are correlated features in an industry sector.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#104

Post by MBCook »

WalterSear wrote: post #78
dopamean wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another possibility. This guy could have been rather obnoxious about his views in the past and had been repeatedly warned. Then he wrote a memo that appeared to be professional but espoused the same views and was finally fired for it.

From what I have been told, he posted this to an internal list specifically created to provide a place for frank, open discussion of contentious, diversity related topics.

That matches what I've heard, but we don't know what his behavior was like in the office. I think GP's point is that this may have just been (one hell of a) final straw.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#105

Post by rwcarlsen »

Here is a link to the guy's original memo (with all his references that have been removed from much popular media coverage of its content): https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

You should read it before you draw any conclusions. Although I don't necessarily agree with everything he says (and how he says it), he does make some interesting points in a way that I would hope can promote constructive discussion. I definitely don't think he should have been fired just for the memo - maybe there is more to the story? - or maybe he shouldn't have been fired?

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#106

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

kevinburke wrote: post #59
naturalgradient wrote: post #10

What this whole episode really seems to show is how authoritarianism has crept into our lives and how incredibly difficult it is to resist it even amongst highly educated people. I would wager that none of the people calling for this person to be personally ruined, expelled from society, terminated from their job and forever vilified as an outcast would view themselves as authoritarian. Not the Tweeters shaking with…

A right to free speech doesn't mean you are also free from any consequences for that speech.. ? The Constitution allows you to say whatever you want but your employer's also free to fire you for saying it. As an example, if you say racist things to a customer, your employer should be able to fire you. I have heard people say he should get fired, but I haven't heard anyone saying he should be "expelled from society" o…

There were several people gloating over the idea that he had ruined his career, several people insinuating that violence against him would be acceptable, several people claiming that he would never work in the valley again, and several people (some self-identified managers) proudly stating that they had personal blacklists for whoever agreed with him.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#107

Post by jdavis703 »

influx wrote: post #67
kevinburke wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A right to free speech doesn't mean you are also free from any consequences for that speech.. ? The Constitution allows you to say whatever you want but your employer's also free to fire you for saying it. As an example, if you say racist things to a customer, your employer should be able to fire you. I have heard people say he should get fired, but I haven't heard anyone saying he should be "expelled from society" o…

Curious if you feel Colin Kaepernick should have been fired and blacklisted for supporting Black Lives Matter? After all, it was only a consequence of free speech from his employers.

I don't think he should've been fired, no. But I also feel the NFL or team owners are within their rights as private citizens to not hire him. Does that make them racist? Sure. But being bigoted and supporting racist social policies in and of itself isn't inherently illegal.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#108

Post by [deleted] »

influx wrote: post #67
kevinburke wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A right to free speech doesn't mean you are also free from any consequences for that speech.. ? The Constitution allows you to say whatever you want but your employer's also free to fire you for saying it. As an example, if you say racist things to a customer, your employer should be able to fire you. I have heard people say he should get fired, but I haven't heard anyone saying he should be "expelled from society" o…

Curious if you feel Colin Kaepernick should have been fired and blacklisted for supporting Black Lives Matter? After all, it was only a consequence of free speech from his employers.

[deleted]

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#109

Post by onli »

macspoofing wrote: post #97
canoebuilder wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised how big this 'manifesto' got. Imagine how surreal this must be for Damore. In regards to the explosive nature of this episode, I think it is indicative of the people who seem to be going progressively more insane's realization that their little social engineering experiments curry no favor in the halls of reality and their misguided efforts are rapidly being washed out to the sea of history while the s…

>Imagine how surreal this must be for Damore. I'm not 100% convinced that he didn't expect this. Some of the points he raised are valid and people should be able to agree to disagree. But the points about biological differences being responsible for women not being interested in STEM are controversial. I don't think Science is there on that - so raising them in this kind of a manifesto is inflammatory.

If you want to see to which points science does have something to say, you might be interested in watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw. This presentation by Steven Pinker got posted yesterday in one of the other comment threads, and I found it to be an excellent pre-existing discussion of the merits of the memo.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#110

Post by anonacct37 »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #2

Is any organization of meaningful size (# of employees, revenue, market cap - pick your metric) handling diversity issues in a way that completely satisfies the "proportional representation of the population" metric? Are there any success stories that one could use as case studies?

It's a valid question, but I'd like to remind you it's not all or nothing.

Is the ideal representation of women in tech (assuming sexism doesn't exist) 50/50? I have no idea, probably not.

Let me offer a counterpoint: I work on a team of 12 people with 0 women programmers. I'm personally convinced that's not ideal. So wherever the finish line is, I don't think we're there.

This NPR infographic seems to support that assertion, at least that seems to make more sense to me than an interpretation where programming became dramatically less attractive to women due to reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with sexism.

https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/10/21/womencoding_wide...

Post reply on HN