Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

I know people always want to discuss the merits of the memo -- whether he was right, wrong, or somewhere in between -- but I'd like to have a meta-discussion.

I believe the memo is irrelevant not because of its content, but rather because it's embarrassingly reductive. In my opinion, anyone that takes it seriously validates Damore's ultra-reductive approach to social policy -- and this is, I think, unequivocally wrong.

I recently wrote a blog post, Confusing Math with Morality[1], in which I touch on a similar subject matter. The problem with smart non-liberal-science people is that they think they are just that -- smart -- when, in fact, the emotional intelligence of STEM majors is barely average[2][3]. Now this doesn't mean that this disqualifies math-y people from having opinions on social policy, but it certainly means I value their opinions much less. In the market of ideas, theirs are simply not worth a whole lot.

For example, you may think you have an educated opinion on abortion, or euthanasia, or nuclear proliferation. But the reality is that you don't. And I've been called an elitist before, but until you take a few semesters on abortion[4] and read some court opinions, your views are simply not worth much of a damn.

And, as far as Damore is concerned, it's a very similar scenario. He's trying to argue for or against some kind of social policy, but he simply has no idea what he's talking about. I doubt he's even heard of Bakke v. UC Regents, never-mind read Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique. Knowing about these is very important in the context of gender/race/etc. policies. My point is only that strong, sweeping opinions and viewpoints need to be properly contextualized. There are, of course, good arguments on both sides. But Damore makes none of them -- or even if he does, it's merely accidental to his "spray and pray" strategy.

And to be frank, I see this at work (and saw this at school) all the time. I've always tried to be broad in my education (both formal and otherwise) -- my grandmother was in charge of a library and I couldn't live without books. If you talk to a programmer and ask them what's the last book that they read, they'll probably mention something programming-related. If you ask them what news they read, they'll probably say slashdot. I had a co-worker recently question why I read fiction -- after all, we can expense any programming book we set our sights on. And don't think I'm ragging on programming books, I even wrote one! My point is only about the type of person attracted to this type of work -- and perhaps how STEM degrees have failed us. It doesn't seem like we are educating a generation of Isaac Newtons, but rather an army of regurgitating robots.

Damore is intellectually lazy in a sea of intellectual laziness. His views might be wrong or might be right, but his intellectual sloth is unforgivable.

[1] https://dvt.name/2017/07/10/confusing-math-with-morality/

[2] http://www.recsam.edu.my/R&D_Journals/YEAR2008/dec2008vol2/e...

[3] http://publisher-connector.core.ac.uk/resourcesync/data/else...

[4] You could also be self-taught, but that's a slippery slope. Ethics is much harder than Calculus.

Women have a much higher level of attempted suicide, possibly 3x as often as men. [1] I once heard a theory that women don't die from suicide as often because they tend to use less violent means of suicide. For example, if you swallow a bottle of pills you could survive or change your mind a few minutes later and get your stomach pumped, but this rarely applies to shooting yourself in the head.

1. https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

This sort of baseless speculation is not fruitful IMO. But I'll participate with my own hunch.

I don't think this is the case. The letter comes off as very genuine. It very much feels like what a immature "tech bro" would write. So much so when I first read it, I only skimmed it because it was so drab. You could have been at a bar surrounded by a bunch of drunk tech employees and heard very much the same thing. I only read it in entirety after the buzz got to loud to ignore.

Also I don't think there's a good chance he'll win a discrimination case against Google.

Really great post, and I had what I thought were some great observations about the article I wanted to share. But then in the article's comments I read this by Outer M.:

"By the way, in science and technology, conservatism is a minority ideology (he says so himself in his letter). How would he feel if we start saying that conservative people aren't apt for science and technology? That if he doesn't feel welcome he should find a different profession? It's ironic he complains about it even though, in a way, he understands the struggle."

After I read that, I went back and re-read the memo, but I swapped all gender references for politics, and vice-versa, and it was awesome.

At Google, we talk so much about unconscious bias as it applies to race and political orientation, but we rarely discuss our moral biases. Gender is actually a result of deep moral preferences and thus biases. Considering that the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean male, we should critically examine these prejudices.

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Possible non-bias causes of the political gap in tech

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In highly progressive environments, women are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility. We should empower those with different genders to be able to express themselves.

Alienating women is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because women tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is required for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.

I don't prevent any debating flagging another post saying exactly the same than the last 3 posts (actually I agree with most of the post). You can still comment in the post (I did indeed).

I do think people flagged post because they didn't aline with their opinions, but they are in their right. If this is a community site and people decide to flag something, you should accept it (or leave the community if you don't like it). I also consider those flags under the community guidelines because we already have a couple of post about the topic.

The debate is happening anyway. Don't get frustrated. I am learning a lot.