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The Kolmogorov option

scottaaronson.com

231–240 of 476 posts

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#231
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no one stopped and offered a third option: actually discussing his argument, acknowledging where he was right, and discussing what he got wrong. You're assuming Damore's argument exists in a vacuum. But it doesn't. It had a stated purpose of changing HR and hiring policies at Google, and with that, the unavoidable implication that some of Damore's colleagues actually shouldn't be with the company. When you th…

> Damore's firing was unavoidable under current US law Could you elaborate on this?

This comment by macrael includes a link that explains the legal issue:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14966388

Regardless of what you think of the merits, a public corporation can't afford a persistent shadow of workplace discrimination. Firing the responsible employee was the only possible option.

It's not a free speech issue, as there is no such thing in a work environment. Here's an exaggerated example: if you call the CEO a "limp-dicked faggot" on the corporate intranet, you can expect to be fired, and it probably won't help much if you explain that you simply wanted to have a frank discussion on whether the CEO should use Viagra and be more open about his possible homosexuality, and that you hope this argument would be examined based on facts rather than emotions.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm saying that a particular text presenting the theory of evolution may not be worthy defending. There's a distinction between the idea and a particular representation of it.

It's still making up your mind by proxy, and the "best" part about that is, you don't know how many people whose proxy impression you take into account depend in turn also haven't made up their own mind, and whether they are reaction to the piece or reacting to what they think is expected of them. I don't distinct between one person and one billion people claiming or thinking something, what matters is why they do, w…

> And I have to kinda walk to eggshells to bring that up, to criticize "my own", and make sure to signal "I'm not a racist, I just think this is a bit too much".

Does this ever work? Recently all I seem to see is "but you are, though, and twice as much if you try to deny it." The only acceptable position is in the direction of the groupthink position, with equal or greater magnitude.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: even if you want to defend a "middle" position, that doesn't mean every argument roughly in that area is worthy defending. I didn't read the memo, so I have no opinion its merits on their own, but considering the immediate response it had, I'd argue it's not worth defending, because it clearly wasn't written in a way that could ever have a hope of convincing anyone not already on the fence.

Then please go read it. I personally was surprised at how careful and level-headed it was. But due to space constraints his message is often dumbed down by the media to "google employee has said that due to biological differences women can't become decent engineers" which then gets the response it gets.

I read it on the advice of your comment. It is neither careful nor level headed.

The whole thing is a motte-bailey between differences in statistical group averages and individual hiring decisions.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

If there's such a large overlap between populations, as he claims in the first couple pages, why bother enumerating those differences in such extreme detail?

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did he? I've seen it represented this way but it was my understanding that averages of society were being talked about in the manifesto. Of course he didn't. It's easy to debunk by actually reading the original memo - I'm pretty sure people summarizing it that way are betting that their readers won't bother to check the source. Also, it's ironic that the ostensibly pro-diversity critics are literally equating "diff…

Two real numbers are different: is one necessarily less than the other? Yes. This is a consequence of the law of trichotomy.

That's only if you reduce the problem to one parameter.

Two points on a plane are different: is one necessarily less than the other?

No. The question itself is ill-formed. You need a metric to transform the points to a form that can fit into the "less than" comparison. A common transformation would be e.g. euclidean distance - under which two different points (e.g. (2, 4) and (4, 2)) can end up being equal.

Real-life problems are multi-dimensional issues with very complex metrics.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: even if you want to defend a "middle" position, that doesn't mean every argument roughly in that area is worthy defending. I didn't read the memo, so I have no opinion its merits on their own, but considering the immediate response it had, I'd argue it's not worth defending, because it clearly wasn't written in a way that could ever have a hope of convincing anyone not already on the fence.

You've clearly missed the point. The people doing brain dead shouting on each side will never be convinced anyway, so it is ridiculous to criticize the memo for not being able to convince them.

The goal isn't to convince the shouters, it's to convince those who might follow the shouters. Moderate positions must have their own advocates, because people aren't sufficiently informed on all issues to tell the difference between extremists and moderates.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#236

I want to say this as respectfully as I can, but it isn't easy: the quality of discourse on these topics is really low on HN. At the same time I do think it's really important for them to be discussed. Time and again, though, I'm disappointed by how reductive and unmeditative these discussions are. I'm also surprised by how angry people seem. This is a site used by a lot of very smart people, but I think there is an…

HN has the most civil, quality and supported (from both sides) discussion I've seen out there. Sure, there are some emotional, unsubstantial posts, but they get downvoted to the bottom fast. Just because you don't agree with the points made, doesn't make discussion of lower quality. If you want to live in a bubble, get on Facebook etc. and join your echo chamber social circles, there are plenty of those on both (and any in-between) sides.

"At the same time I do think it's really important for them to be discussed."

This directly affects my chances of getting employed in top tech companies, how on earth it's not important for me (and most people here)??

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#237
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is he referencing Marxism in a discussion on gender? He's not actually referencing Marx, he's just .. labelling a bunch of people as Marxist? And therefore he is "accusing them of being secret ideologues on the other side", is he not?

because of the idea of "cultural Marxism", the lineage between Marxism and modern progressivism via critical theory. The story goes that the Marxist struggle was pivoted from economic to social when the working class in MEDCs didn't revolt in the 1900s. [edit] also the fact that oftentimes the proposed solution to systemic oppression of women/minorities is ever-increasing power to the state to "even things out", whic…

For those unfamiliar with "Cultural Marxism":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Ma...

"This conspiracy theory version of the term is associated with American religious paleoconservatives such as William S. Lind, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Weyrich, but also holds currency among alt-right/white nationalist groups and the neo-reactionary movement.[65][56][66]

At Weyrich's request William S. Lind wrote a short history of his conception of Cultural Marxism for The Free Congress Foundation; in it Lind identifies the presence of homosexuals on television as proof of Cultural Marxist control over the mass media and claims that Herbert Marcuse considered a coalition of "blacks, students, feminist women and homosexuals" as a vanguard of cultural revolution.[55][64][69] Lind has since published his own depiction of a fictional Cultural Marxist apocalypse.

...

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that William S. Lind in 2002 gave a speech to a Holocaust denial conference on the topic of Cultural Marxism. In this speech Lind noted that all the members of The Frankfurt School were "to a man, Jewish", but it is reported that Lind claims not to question whether the Holocaust occurred and suggests he was present in an official capacity for the Free Congress Foundation "to work with a wide variety of groups on an issue-by-issue basis".

...

Adherents of the theory often seem to mean that the existence of things like modern feminism, anti-white racism, and sexualization are dependent on the Frankfurt School, even though these processes and movements predate the 1920s. Although the theory became more widespread in the late 1990s and through the 2000s, the modern iteration of the theory originated in Michael Minnicino's 1992 essay "New Dark Age: Frankfurt School and 'Political Correctness'", published in Fidelio Magazine by the Schiller Institute.[53][87][88] The Schiller Institute, a branch of the LaRouche movement, further promoted the idea in 1994.[89] The Minnicino article charges that the Frankfurt School promoted Modernism in the arts as a form of Cultural pessimism, and shaped the Counterculture of the 1960s (such as the British pop band The Beatles) after the Wandervogel of the Ascona commune.[87] The Larouche movement is otherwise mostly known for believing that the British Empire still exists, is trying to take control of the world (mostly, but not exclusively by economical means), and, among other things, also controls the global drug trade. [90] [91]

...

More recently, the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik included the term in his document "2083: A European Declaration of Independence", which along with The Free Congress Foundation's "Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology" was e-mailed to 1,003 addresses approximately 90 minutes before the 2011 bomb blast in Oslo for which Breivik was responsible

...

Philosopher and political science lecturer Jérôme Jamin has stated, "Next to the global dimension of the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, there is its innovative and original dimension, which lets its authors avoid racist discourses and pretend to be defenders of democracy".[54] Professor and Oxford Fellow Matthew Feldman has traced the terminology back to the pre-war German concept of Cultural Bolshevism locating it as part of the degeneration theory that aided in Hitler's rise to power.[96] William S. Lind confirms this as his period of interest, claiming that "It [Cultural Marxism] is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I."

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two real numbers are different: is one necessarily less than the other? Yes. This is a consequence of the law of trichotomy.

That's only if you reduce the problem to one parameter. Two points on a plane are different: is one necessarily less than the other? No. The question itself is ill-formed. You need a metric to transform the points to a form that can fit into the "less than" comparison. A common transformation would be e.g. euclidean distance - under which two different points (e.g. (2, 4) and (4, 2)) can end up being equal. Real-life…

See the figure on page four and the subsequent laundry list of individual traits.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#239
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no one stopped and offered a third option: actually discussing his argument, acknowledging where he was right, and discussing what he got wrong. You're assuming Damore's argument exists in a vacuum. But it doesn't. It had a stated purpose of changing HR and hiring policies at Google, and with that, the unavoidable implication that some of Damore's colleagues actually shouldn't be with the company. When you th…

> the unavoidable implication that some of Damore's colleagues actually shouldn't be with the company. Any criticism of existing hiring policy would logically result in the same implication. If it's fair at all to question a hiring policy, this needs to be not taken personally. Besides, presumably at one point, all the "pro-diversity" initiatives mentioned in the memo didn't exist, yet someone was able to make the ca…

... at one point, all the "pro-diversity" initiatives mentioned in the memo didn't exist, yet someone was able to make the case that they should.

Yes -- the management of the company decided this.

I don't really understand why Google engineers would assume that they should have free rein to debate company policies, on company networks and on company time...? A public corporation is not a democracy.

Publicly second-guessing HR practices is completely outside of a software engineer's job at a place like Google. If you want to make your own rules, go start your own company.

It's strange that the right is always in favor of giving corporations more power over employees -- except this time, when someone gets fired for doing their style of politics on company time.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because of the idea of "cultural Marxism", the lineage between Marxism and modern progressivism via critical theory. The story goes that the Marxist struggle was pivoted from economic to social when the working class in MEDCs didn't revolt in the 1900s. [edit] also the fact that oftentimes the proposed solution to systemic oppression of women/minorities is ever-increasing power to the state to "even things out", whic…

For those unfamiliar with "Cultural Marxism": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Ma... "This conspiracy theory version of the term is associated with American religious paleoconservatives such as William S. Lind, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Weyrich, but also holds currency among alt-right/white nationalist groups and the neo-reactionary movement.[65][56][66] At Weyrich's request William S. Lind wrot…

if you are trying to imply that I'm a follower of any of these people, I can assure you that I'm not. For what it's worth, my opinion is that there is some lineage between Marxism and progressivism, but that's about it. Nothing to do with holocaust deniers or murderers or white nationalism or any of that nonsense. Not sure what the fact that there are horrendous people who hold this sentiment has to do with the idea itself.
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