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The Kolmogorov option

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Re: The Kolmogorov option

#341

Post by jacalata »

cderwin wrote: post #326
geofft wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, and I agree that (if so; those of us who don't work at Google don't really know what's going on) the argument that he should have expected not to talk about this at all is invalid. That's useful context, thanks. However, I don't think this necessarily excuses him entirely. If there's a company-wide discussion group for future directions on tech stacks inviting input, and I write a long post argui…

I don't really think it is debatable. Just the fact the the memo and the firing were so controversial, in both directions, implies that a number of strong critical thinkers are on both sides of this issue. Assuming that is the case, it's not reasonable to use the memo as evidence of a lack of critical thinking. And I think we all know Google didn't fire him because they believed him to be incompetent. In fact, Google…

Climate change is controversial. That doesn't indicate that there are strong critical thinkers on either side.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#342

Post by hellopier »

brighteyes wrote: post #336
hellopier wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is referring to the google memo though, a company IS a dictatorship.

Fair point, yeah. I took the article here to be talking about society more broadly, but I could be wrong.

I think you are right, as Scott is an academic.

But it is clearly inspired by the google memo, and a larger portion of society sustain themselves by selling labour to micro dictatorships.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#343

Post by jquery »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #162
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all subjects are amenable to "rational discussion", since it's inherently a restricted format which has implicit rules about what does and does not count as "rational". It also tends to presume its own weightlessness. Men seem very unwilling to recognise that the memo and the discussion itself is harmful.

> Men seem very unwilling to recognise that the memo and the discussion itself is harmful. ...you realize where this goes, right? Like -- suppose you're right; and suppose you're given the power to suppress all such harmful discussions. You apply it. No more such discussion. Great. Now suppose this occurs but in fact you're wrong. We must then ask: How would you find out that you're wrong? Well, in such a case, you p…

Even by the standards here, this is an excellent post.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#345

Post by geofft »

cderwin wrote: post #326
geofft wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, and I agree that (if so; those of us who don't work at Google don't really know what's going on) the argument that he should have expected not to talk about this at all is invalid. That's useful context, thanks. However, I don't think this necessarily excuses him entirely. If there's a company-wide discussion group for future directions on tech stacks inviting input, and I write a long post argui…

I don't really think it is debatable. Just the fact the the memo and the firing were so controversial, in both directions, implies that a number of strong critical thinkers are on both sides of this issue. Assuming that is the case, it's not reasonable to use the memo as evidence of a lack of critical thinking. And I think we all know Google didn't fire him because they believed him to be incompetent. In fact, Google…

> How can we ever have a genuine conversation about the under-representation of women in tech if people with a certain "undesirable" opinion get fired for expressing it?

The same way we can have a genuine conversation about the best web stack to use if people with a certain "undesirable" opinion get fired for expressing it.

(I don't think the fact that other Google employees supported the document is strong evidence that you can think critically and reach the same conclusions. If Google reached one mishire in James Damore, they almost certainly reached many others. If you listen to the YouTube interview with him that was flagkilled off the front page earlier today, he says he was recruited for his puzzle-solving skills and ability to code; presumably Google recruits lots of people that way, and none of them have ever been examined for critical thinking in the interview process. I can certainly attest that at no point in my Google interview earlier this year was I asked to do anything that evaluated whether I could combine a couple of sources and reach a defensible conclusion and defend it, which is a pretty common engineering skill.)

The very meaning of "advancing harmful gender stereotypes" is that he said things about gender that were so wrong that they have only the most tangential connection to reality and would seriously harm the business if time were spent to even demonstrate that they're wrong. That's exactly the same reason that if I advocate for Classic ASP on NT Server, you don't spend the time and effort to set up a test network and benchmark if IIS is getting you better performance.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#346

Post by jacalata »

the8472 wrote: post #319
nl wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reluctant to get drawn into a discussion of who decides what ideas are abhorrent because it's a pretty big topic on its own. BUT, I do think (hope?) we can agree that there are some ideas that are abhorrent. I use the example of race-based slavery above. Why should I have a rational discussions about the economic benefits of race-based slavery? The cost/benefit analysis just doesn't seem to make sense - the cost…

> BUT, I do think (hope?) we can agree that there are some ideas that are abhorrent. I use the example of race-based slavery above. Well, if you feel confident that race-based slavery is in no way justifiable then it should be relatively easy to find arguments why it is not justifiable, no? An obvious one would be pointing out largely overlapping intra- and inter-race variances in genetics. If your race-based-slavery…

And you believe that a paper arguing that "black people are genetically suited to being slaves and therefore we should not expect them to become managers at google in a demographically representative proportion" is a reasonable statement to make about Google promotion practices and should not lead to the speaker being fired, so long as he adds references to the Bell Curve and the lack of black executives America?

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#347

Post by geofft »

danarmak wrote: post #329
geofft wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, and I agree that (if so; those of us who don't work at Google don't really know what's going on) the argument that he should have expected not to talk about this at all is invalid. That's useful context, thanks. However, I don't think this necessarily excuses him entirely. If there's a company-wide discussion group for future directions on tech stacks inviting input, and I write a long post argui…

If an employee argues for ASP, you might fire him because this implies he's a really bad technical worker. But you wouldn't (have to) fire him because, in arguing for ASP, he hurt the feelings of the PHP proponents in the company and made them feel they have to justify themselves, provoking some to say they would not be willing to work with him in the future even on PHP projects, and that if he wasn't fired they woul…

Nope, a "civil debate" about PHP vs. ASP is a waste of time. No reasonable employer will give you space for debate between the two. If there were a company-wide week-long debate about PHP vs. ASP at my employer, I would seriously question whether I should be at a company where these sorts of questions are considered debate-worthy, whether I have to justify every decision I make about common-sense things (why am I writing shell scripts in sh instead of tcl? why am I using UTF-8 instead of EBCDIC?), and definitely whether I want to work with all the people on the wrong side of the debate - and maybe some of those on the right side, who are considering the matter debate-worthy - in the future, lest they pick apart every PR I make because of their lack of critical reasoning skills. I would certainly threaten to resign if forced to work with these people.

The fact is, the primary reason someone is a bad technical worker in this era is that they're a poor coworker. Almost no projects of any significant merit are developed by a lone hero in a corner.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#348

Post by [deleted] »

geofft wrote: post #333
brighteyes wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not possible to "refute" or "prove" his claims. There were many specific claims, and scientists still debate many of them. The bigger point is anyone that thinks his claims are 100% true or 100% false is definitely wrong.

I have not attempted to refute his claims; they're too messy to make it a coherent task. I have refuted the idea put forth by other people that his claims are supported by the scientific research he links to. (My position, upthread of that comment, is that the document itself doesn't so much make claims that are wrong as display the deficiency of the author's critical-thinking skills to such an extent that Google sho…

[deleted]

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#349

Post by geofft »

brighteyes wrote: post #337
geofft wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not attempted to refute his claims; they're too messy to make it a coherent task. I have refuted the idea put forth by other people that his claims are supported by the scientific research he links to. (My position, upthread of that comment, is that the document itself doesn't so much make claims that are wrong as display the deficiency of the author's critical-thinking skills to such an extent that Google sho…

Some of his claims are supported by the linked documents, some are not. Again, there are so many, any conclusion of "100% are supported" or "100% are not" is going to be false.

Can you name one claim that is relevant to diversity at Google that is supported by any of the linked documents?

I do agree (and admit as much in that comment!) that there are claims that he correctly cites, e.g. "Women score higher for 'neuroticism' as defined by psychology." My contention is that none of those claims are relevant to any plausible thesis of the document.

(I think that saying "there exist irrelevant claims that are supported by science" is completely pedantic. If I write an nonsense essay about garbage collection vs. refcounting and correctly cite a scientific paper on the acidity of apple juice, I think it's perfectly justifiable to say that none of my claims are supported, since it's not an essay about apple juice.)

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#350

Post by pron »

imron wrote: post #151
pron wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, sorry; I've read his manifesto and didn't realize it was about systems biology. My impression was that it was about women in tech. Did he research social structures or even the psychological differences between the sexes?

He did link to and summarise research on the psychological differences between the sexes - but it seems that this was the cause of quite a bit of the blowback because people didn't understand that this is what he was doing e.g. when he was talking about Neuroticism in the technical sense as one of the big 5 personality traits, and many people incorrectly interpreted that as him calling women neurotic. Also the links…

I saw the links. No expert on the actual matter at hand (women participation in tech) would consider them relevant at all to the issue.
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