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Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

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Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#321

Post by jshevek »

kafkaesq wrote: post #254
jshevek wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terrible behaviors described by the parent post, are a part of the culture which drive so many individuals to demand that he be fired. Consider the people within Google who declare their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science and in treating people like individuals.

their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science Actually I found his piece to be distinctly unscientific. It parades as scientific, for sure. But when you break it down, and consider the whole of the message it imparts... at it's core, it was very unscientific. And I bet that those at Google who decided to terminate his employment felt pretty much the same way.

"consider the whole of the message it imparts"

This is a dangerous level of indirection. "The whole of the message". Sounds like you are reading into what it says, finding things that it doesn't actually say - without acknowledging that you are doing so.

The paper demonstrates that the author values diversity, open dialog, and science.

And many people at Google declared they were unwilling to work with such a person.

Those are the people who should have been fired, for creating a hostile, intolerant work environment.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#322

Post by kafkaesq »

anon12345690 wrote: post #313
zimpenfish wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they thought his suggestions were offensive Not only were they offensive, they had no grounding in reality and made it impossible for many people there to work with or trust him.

and here we go -- it wasnt an academic paper but it was completely based on facts. biologically, men and women are different, and they think differently and so no matter how much society and culture impacts you, that biology will ever so slightly bias every decision in your life and may be part of the mismatch in representation between genders. the idea that females and males LIKE different things and its IN PART bas…

So you know that it's entirely possible to write something that's "based on facts" -- with nice diagrams and all! -- yet when we consider the whole cloth of what's being said, it turns out to be fatally flawed -- and basically a load of tripe?

That's what this "manifesto" was.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#323

Post by kafkaesq »

jshevek wrote: post #321
kafkaesq wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science Actually I found his piece to be distinctly unscientific. It parades as scientific, for sure. But when you break it down, and consider the whole of the message it imparts... at it's core, it was very unscientific. And I bet that those at Google who decided to terminate his employment felt pretty much the same way.

"consider the whole of the message it imparts" This is a dangerous level of indirection. "The whole of the message". Sounds like you are reading into what it says, finding things that it doesn't actually say - without acknowledging that you are doing so. The paper demonstrates that the author values diversity, open dialog, and science. And many people at Google declared they were unwilling to work with such a person.…

This is a dangerous level of indirection. "The whole of the message". Sounds like you are reading into what it says, ...

No, it's called "assessing it qualitatively as well as quantitatively".

Which is a very useful skill, actually.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#324

Post by kafkaesq »

josteink wrote: post #271
kafkaesq wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science Actually I found his piece to be distinctly unscientific. It parades as scientific, for sure. But when you break it down, and consider the whole of the message it imparts... at it's core, it was very unscientific. And I bet that those at Google who decided to terminate his employment felt pretty much the same way.

> it's core, it was very unscientific He was very good at sourcing almost every single one of his claims with references to published scientific studies. Your statement on the other hand has zero quotes to support your claim. I know which one I will consider "unscientific".

Your statement on the other hand has zero quotes to support your claim.

Whether a claim (or other statement) someone makes is "scientific" or not is, fundamentally, a matter of the soundness and logical coherence of the overall argument they're making. And about the aspects of the issue they sidestep and ignore (and this guys ignores a whole lot in his manifesto, actually) as much as the aspects they cite.

Not the number of footnotes, quote or diagrams it has.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#325

Post by kafkaesq »

josteink wrote: post #272
kafkaesq wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neah, kinda just skimmed it. That is, "really read" a select paragraph or two. Enough to make a basic determination as to what he's driving at -- and to note that we've seen variants of this message from other sources, before -- and make a decision about how much of one's attention resources it merits, moving forward -- accordingly. As one does with any rant, or other poorly thought-out screed.

So you didn't actually read it, but here you are still spending time defending how its author really should be fired over it. Crazy.

So you didn't actually read it,

Did you ever actually read L. Ron Hubbard's seminal work, Dianetics? I mean, really read it? Cover-to-cover?

No, you say? And yet you dismiss it?

That's crazy.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#326

Post by adrienne »

macspoofing wrote: post #306
rbanffy wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will the Evangelical write a 10 page memo "explaining" why there are naturally fewer Atheists in his profession because their biology makes the inherently less interested in it?

I'm actually not surprised that he got fired, and I do think the firing is justifiable. Writing open manifestos against company policies on controversial and sensitive issues is going to get you in trouble. It just will, whether you're at Google or 'Dave's Grill-house'. But that's not what I was responding to. OP implied this guy is a racist or a misogynist and stated she couldn't work with someone who held his kinds…

"If"?

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#327

Post by adrienne »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #42
azinman2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s not civil when you suggest there’s inherently biological reasons for your coworkers to be inferior to you.

Those who keep misusing the word "inferior" instead of "different" expose themselves for either having not read, or not understood, what was written.

How dare you name yourself after an actual honest-to-god hero?

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#328

Post by jshevek »

rifung wrote: post #267
jshevek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all responsible for evaluating the reasonableness of claims of being hurt by someone. Otherwise dishonest or mentally unwell people hold us all hostage to their arbitrary claims.

> We are all responsible for evaluating the reasonableness of claims of being hurt by someone. Otherwise dishonest or mentally unwell people hold us all hostage to their arbitrary claims. If they are mentally unwell, it doesn't make their suffering any less real does it? I admit I am biased as someone with a mental illness, I wouldn't want someone to disregard my opinion based on knowledge of my illness. As for disho…

Thank you for pointing out flaws of ambiguity in my comment.

> If they are mentally unwell, it doesn't make their suffering any less real does it? I admit I am biased as someone with a mental illness, I wouldn't want someone to disregard my opinion based on knowledge of my illness.

I meant only to reference the variations in tendency towards certain mental behaviors (such as accurately assessing reality, or taking responsibility for emotional responses) that exist among people. I gave an example of the "mentally unwell" to illustrate that this spectrum exist, but all parts of the spectrum are worth considering.

As an aside, and to hopefully show I'm not brushing with too wide a brush here: people with mental disorders are, sometimes, actually far better (at, say, having an accurate view of events) than people who don't have disorders, because they have [in the course of learning to cope with their issues, have also] learned to understand and correct for flaws that we all have.

I did not mean to suggest that people with mental disorders should automatically have their opinion/experience/claims discounted!

We should evaluate each situation individually. But there are clearly cases where a person's claim of "being hurt" should not be allowed to influence certain decisions, or policy, regardless of their overall mental/emotional functioning.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#329

Post by jshevek »

rifung wrote: post #267
jshevek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all responsible for evaluating the reasonableness of claims of being hurt by someone. Otherwise dishonest or mentally unwell people hold us all hostage to their arbitrary claims.

> We are all responsible for evaluating the reasonableness of claims of being hurt by someone. Otherwise dishonest or mentally unwell people hold us all hostage to their arbitrary claims. If they are mentally unwell, it doesn't make their suffering any less real does it? I admit I am biased as someone with a mental illness, I wouldn't want someone to disregard my opinion based on knowledge of my illness. As for disho…

> As for dishonest people, I suppose I like to believe I can believe other Googlers, especially when there are so many of them in this case who were upset by this.

This touches on another problem area of ambiguity/clarity in my statement. We should question the reasonableness of the claim of being hurt - by which I not only mean "Were they really hurt?", but also "Is it reasonable for them to have been hurt?"

I can choose to be deeply hurt and offended by almost anything. We must strike a balance between respecting peoples feelings, and not allowing manipulators to exploit that respect to unreasonably coerce our behavior.

If you take 'respect for people's feelings' to an absurd extreme, we could create a world in which I could have you jailed for posing the questions you pose above. 'They hurt me.'

The fact that some demonstrably ideologically intolerant people successfully pressured Google to fire someone for expressing reasonable opinions based on evidence - this suggests to me that our society has already crossed certain thresholds in the balance between "respect for claims of being hurt" and other societal values - such as the allowance of independent thought.

Re: Google Can't Seem to Tolerate Diversity

#330

Post by josteink »

kafkaesq wrote: post #325
josteink wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you didn't actually read it, but here you are still spending time defending how its author really should be fired over it. Crazy.

So you didn't actually read it, Did you ever actually read L. Ron Hubbard's seminal work, Dianetics ? I mean, really read it? Cover-to-cover? No, you say? And yet you dismiss it? That's crazy.

> And yet you dismiss it?

I don't dismiss it because I have no idea what it's about. I don't approve of it either, for the exact same reasons.

Anyhow: You're comparing reading less than 10 pages of large text with generous spacing and numerous illustrations to end-to-end reading a full book almost 500 pages long.

You can't be serious.

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