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The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

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Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#121

Post by wcummings »

4bpp wrote: post #109
wcummings wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you believe those differences to be meaningful? To programming? And appropriate to discuss with coworkers?

Apart from the clear goalpost-shifting occurring here ("this is unimaginative bullshit" [as in fictitious/incorrect?] -> "this is not meaningful to programming"), I can't help but be astonished at the last sentence. I know comparisons between Victorians and certain modern political movements are a slightly tired cliché by now, but it's difficult to not read it as something along the lines of "And appropriate to discu…

Grow up, it's a workplace. People go there to make a living, not to be subjected to your half-baked political opinions. It's unprofessional.

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#122

Post by canoebuilder »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #89
Chardok wrote: post #6

Regardless on your opinions of the memo, this article nails it right on the head; Gizmodo and other major news outlets handled this very irresponsibly, posting their version that had no citations, and leading the reader, even at the very beginning, into forming the opinion that this was simply a guy being "anti-diversity". Whatever your thoughts on the subject are, it needs to be pointed out that this type of journal…

The problem with this, is that the alt-right have made a habit of this "look how rational I am as i call you subhuman, why are you so upset by rational truth" thing. Milo Yianoppolos, who most of the time markets himself as an anarchistic troll, will put on his serious face and claim that he is worried about trans people because it's a mental illness and he just wants them to be treated, rather than play along with t…

Here's the book, it's an interesting premise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Accomplishment

Murray ranks the leading 4,000 innovators in several fields of human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. In each field Murray identifies a number of sources (leading encyclopedias, histories and surveys) providing information about the leading figures in the field. The rankings are made from information in these sources. A raw score is determined based on how many sources mention and on how much space in each source is devoted to a person. Then these raw scores are normalized so that the lowest score is 1 and the highest score is 100. The resulting scores are called "Index Scores".

The book obviously wasn't written with the express purpose of saying "black people have never contributed anything of any worth to music." That's such a ridiculous mischaracterization, as if that was purpose of writing the book, geez...

It's interesting that you and many others trotting out obvious falsehoods these past few days think this is a wise strategy...

It's far more interesting to write about people that have done interesting, impactful, world-changing things. And that's what he wrote about, he didn't set out to write nor did he write the most boring book he could write, he wrote an interesting book about interesting people, actions, and ideas.

If the book doesn't have enough "diversity" for your taste,

No written language was ever devised in sub-Saharan Africa prior to outside influences.

There is no indigenous tonal music tradition in sub-Saharan Africa, apart from maybe singing. The only instruments native to the continent are unpitched percussion.

The wheel was never invented in Africa.

Sometimes reality is just reality.

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#124

Post by [deleted] »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #91
spookyuser wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true, I thought the last paragraph of the article was particularly apt. >When journalistic institutions widely publicize material of this sort, only to abdicate the vital work of rigorously addressing its substance, they make its least plausible claims more likely to be normalized. They leave the project of assessing its merits and flaws to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and other venues where the loudest voices tend…

Yes, and exacerbating the problem is that the original memo, even with its citations included, was sloppy and not rigorous, and should have been like shooting fish in a barrel for all the media covering it. But instead most of the media coverage seemed to be coming from a frame of, "don't validate fringe viewpoints by actually addressing their arguments", rather just ignore their arguments and use other tactics to un…

[deleted]

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#125

Post by MBCook »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #98
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this, is that the alt-right have made a habit of this "look how rational I am as i call you subhuman, why are you so upset by rational truth" thing. Milo Yianoppolos, who most of the time markets himself as an anarchistic troll, will put on his serious face and claim that he is worried about trans people because it's a mental illness and he just wants them to be treated, rather than play along with t…

> Fool me once.. Except this only works with subsequent encounters with the same trickster. Those across your side of the political aisle are not a monolith, yet you assume they are all just a few shades off from Milo. If that's your impression, you should diversify your reading selections. Try John McWhorter, for example.

> Except this only works with subsequent encounters with the same trickste

At some point you have to risk and generalizing when you see similar arguments brought up over and over otherwise "the other side" could continue to use the same tactic as long as they cycle through different people that haven't done it before.

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#126

Post by ChemicalWarfare »

matchu wrote: post #115
malandrew wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://status451.com/2017/08/06/judging-things-by-their-sid...

Yeah, that's a good point! It's important to consider the truth of the underlying idea, as well as the consequences of how it was expressed—though I don't like that the blog post seems to give up on the latter problem just because it's less objective. Discussions about social values and social consequences are worth having, despite not being subject to pure rationalism. Still, while both lenses are valid, I'm focusin…

>>It's not misleading to call the memo "anti-diversity"

if I had to summarize the memo with an "anti-..." prefix then I would say it's against artificially skewing the gender makeup of the workforce via preferential treatment of female applicants/employees over the discriminated male applicants/employees.

if that's what "diversity" means then I don't know on what logical basis you would be defending the "let's make sure we have a 50/50 gender makeup of the workforce even though the proportion in the applicant's pool is nowhere near that" position.

I myself (and from what I've read in that "manifesto" I believe this is author's position as well) welcome diversity - the 'IT sausage fest' is totally a downside - but not at the expense of ppl getting gender-discriminated.

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#127

Post by echaozh »

zbyte64 wrote: post #117
Danihan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define sexism... Is believing men and women on average have different hormone levels and generally speaking, this leads to different behaviors and proclivities, sexist? Is admitting there is any difference between the two sexes, sexist? Is using different pronouns for men and women sexist? I honestly don't know where someone draws the line who finds this memo "sexist."

s/sexist/racist/g Weird how race realists use the same template.

People of the different races are definitely different. Otherwise, why do people evolve to so different races? The white people may be better fit for higher latitudes, while the black people may tolerate more heat and sunshine.

In mentality, there may also be differences due to tens of thousands of years of different ways of gather food, even though those differences may be converged by education.

Denying existing differences is not leading to equality. Admit the reality and see if there's anything we can do to improve the situation.

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#128

Post by bandrami »

zbyte64 wrote: post #118
bandrami wrote: post #54

I'm not sure why anybody thinks his "intention" or "motivation" are important. Can somebody who thinks that say more?

Because one of his recommendations was to put a greater emphasis on intent?

OK, but that's begging the question (to use this phrase correctly, for once).

I intend to write the next generation search engine. Should Google reward me for that?

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#129

Post by TheLilHipster »

wcummings wrote: post #121
4bpp wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the clear goalpost-shifting occurring here ("this is unimaginative bullshit" [as in fictitious/incorrect?] -> "this is not meaningful to programming"), I can't help but be astonished at the last sentence. I know comparisons between Victorians and certain modern political movements are a slightly tired cliché by now, but it's difficult to not read it as something along the lines of "And appropriate to discu…

Grow up, it's a workplace . People go there to make a living, not to be subjected to your half-baked political opinions. It's unprofessional.

I'm currently reading your comment here, at work.

I find your defensiveness and inflammatory remarks more unprofessional and unproductive then anything else in this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lus5J4vYMNg

If you disagree with someone, be civil - debate with logic and rationality.

Re: The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo

#130

Post by TheLilHipster »

davehtaylor wrote: post #76
jabv wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's no need to evaluate the argument, only to parse for key signals in the rhetoric? Thanks for saving me time in my future critical reading!

I evaluated it. I read the manifesto in its entirety. He starts off by saying he's not against diversity, but then spends the rest of the paper demonstrating the exact opposite, and then justifies it by claiming that men and women are biologically different, and that a lack of diversity is ok because of that, or that any perceived discrimination is ok, because it's not really discrimination. And he uses the issue of…

> I evaluated it. I read the manifesto in its entirety.

Looking forward to your solid rebuttals then! Woo!

> He starts off by saying he's not against diversity

Mmm

> but then spends the rest of the paper demonstrating the exact opposite

Ummm, okay... You've got a positive assertion here, so you must have something solid here to back up your opinion, right?

> ..and then justifies it by claiming that men and women are biologically different... ...It's simply him trying to justify his prejudice, and railing at "PC culture" for not letting him do so.

Isn't that exactly what you're doing in your comment? Got your own narrative going on, assuming the intent of the author...

> This isn't dialog, nor does he want dialog.

> It's simply him trying to justify his prejudice,

> They don't really want to honestly debate the merits of each position.

Like holy shit you spent the entire comment doing the exact thing you complain about the author doing.

This is the sort of mindset that kills progress, the inability to flirt with the concept of being disillusioned and truly question your own stance and bias. Its like you "mean well" and that's all that matter to you.

Idk man, you can't judge others on their ACTIONS and then only judge yourself on your INTENT.

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