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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#111

Post by Johnny555 »

imminentviolet wrote: post #107
Johnny555 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it might mean that certain genders tend to be dissuaded from pursuing certain career paths.

So what? There are some barriers, implicit and explicit, that are perfectly appropriate. Some of them serve a higher purpose, like reinforcing gender archetypes and standards of behavior that are productive in the long run in their own ways. Why should we be so quick to demolish those because a few loud mouths want to destroy them? If exceptional people really have something to offer in areas where they are shunned f…

What would be appropriate about a barrier that discourages men from becoming teachers, or discourages women from STEM fields?

Where is the productivity gain in pushing a young girl away from STEM?

If exceptional people really have something to offer in areas where they are shunned for other reasons...

Many exceptional people won't even discover their talent if they are actively dissuaded from pursuing the education and career they have the aptitude for, all in the name of "reinforcing gender archetypes".

Tearing down the entire social structure

Tearing down a social structure that's weighted against certain genders in certain career paths sounds exactly like the right solution. Let people choose their path on their own desires and aptitude, don't choose it for them based on some historical standards of behavior.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#112

Post by flukus »

fweespeech wrote: post #89
reitanqild wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even when the employer has asked? I understand this was written in response to a request from someone else, probably HR.

The only time I was ever asked about politics by a potential employer I noped out of that situation. Workplace = Professional, Personal Shit Stays Home. Rest of Life = Do whatever the fuck you want as long as its legal and you don't mention your day job. I'm not sure why this separation isn't standard practice for everyone.

It was, then the social justice movement decided that companies should be political and that they should take an active role in promoting their political positions. Some on the other side did as well (what sort of cakes they had to make). This is the obvious and predictable blowback that has come from companies becoming political.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#113

Post by Const-me »

IMO the best comment from there:

Giulio Prisco said... The results of this incident are easy to predict.

Now everyone at Google (and everyone in large tech companies, and everyone in academy) knows that they can be fired for expressing opinions that dissent from the party line.

Of course they'll shut up for fear of losing their job and the means to support their family.

But they won't change their position. If anything, their position will be radicalized. For example, from classical liberal to alt-right.

Yes, they'll stop expressing their opinion in public. But they'll express their opinion, with a vengeance, in the only place where one can do so in secrecy without fear of witch-hunting mobs: the voting booth.

Yes, that explains Trump.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#114

Post by panda88888 »

dvt wrote: post #72

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 wron…

> 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.

Do you realize you just used a population statistics to argue that the population as a whole is worse at certain task than another population, and discount the opinion of individuals in that population?

Also, based on the studies you cited, STEM majors have barely average emotional intelligence, of which one component is empathy (your [2][3]). Is there a reason why STEM major tend to attract people of average empathy? Could the same reason be driving away people with higher than average empathy? Does women have higher empathy on average as a population compare to men?

edit: added line break between quote and comment

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#115

Post by mattrick »

mirimir wrote: post #4

This is an excellent discussion. I especially love this comment: > I believe for example if it wasn’t for biases and unequal opportunities, then the higher ranks in science and politics would be dominated by women. Hence, aiming at a 50-50 representation gives men an unfair advantage. I challenge you to provide any evidence to the contrary. Because arguably that's where gender differences highlighted in Damore's memo…

> I believe for example if it wasn’t for biases and unequal opportunities, then the higher ranks in science and politics would be dominated by women. Hence, aiming at a 50-50 representation gives men an unfair advantage. I challenge you to provide any evidence to the contrary.

The burden of proof is on him. You can't make a claim and then ask the other party to provide evidence against it.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#116

Post by rev_bird »

imminentviolet wrote: post #107
Johnny555 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it might mean that certain genders tend to be dissuaded from pursuing certain career paths.

So what? There are some barriers, implicit and explicit, that are perfectly appropriate. Some of them serve a higher purpose, like reinforcing gender archetypes and standards of behavior that are productive in the long run in their own ways. Why should we be so quick to demolish those because a few loud mouths want to destroy them? If exceptional people really have something to offer in areas where they are shunned f…

>There are some barriers, implicit and explicit, that are perfectly appropriate. Some of them serve a higher purpose, like reinforcing gender archetypes and standards of behavior that are productive in the long run in their own ways.

This argument is interesting -- you're not saying discrimination doesn't exist, just that it's... good?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#117

Post by manicdee »

btilly wrote: post #16
mirimir wrote: post #4

This is an excellent discussion. I especially love this comment: > I believe for example if it wasn’t for biases and unequal opportunities, then the higher ranks in science and politics would be dominated by women. Hence, aiming at a 50-50 representation gives men an unfair advantage. I challenge you to provide any evidence to the contrary. Because arguably that's where gender differences highlighted in Damore's memo…

I'll take up that challenge with https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10670 which provides quantitative data indicating that male abilities vary more than female ones, and this fact is sufficient to explain why men should be overrepresented in CEO boardrooms and prisons.

That might explain the situation if board/C-suite presence was due to performance, merit, or other individual characteristic rather than a couple of centuries worth of old boys' clubs.

How do you get on a board? By being known to people on the board. They know who you are, what your history is, how you think.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#118

Post by michaelchisari »

mberning wrote: post #13

I like the discussion. I think the point about software being significantly "people centric" is a bit off base and betrays the authors lack of experience in the field. Working with people is certainly part of the job and in some roles maybe a large portion of the work. Being a good communicator is an important part of being a good developer, but it doesn't make you a good developer. Being a talented and experienced p…

Being a talented and experienced programmer may be the foundation, but the ability to communicate complex ideas in accessible ways, to read the room and respond to non-verbal cues, to put aside ego, to collaborate and coordinate, to sense frustration or unhappiness in your team, without those, you don't get past the first few stories of a skyscraper.

The longer I'm in the field, the more I work with different teams, the more I realize that writing code is a much easier skill for people who don't know to learn than reading people is for those who can't seem to.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#119

Post by marchenko »

anabis wrote: post #21

Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers being fired in 2006 showed that there could be no rational discussion of this topic. Sad to see it unchanged in 2017. Doubly sad because if the anonymous survey linked in the post is true, 1/3 of Googlers agree with the memo. Only 1/3 "strongly disagree", and the people who wanted him fired should be a further fraction of that 1/3. https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/pr…

I wish this Larry Summers martyr mythology would be revisited with scrutiny. Summers was already unpopular with the faculty for his changes to the core curriculum (it was argued that they reduced rigor in some tracks), endowment strategy, and a very strange scandal involving financial wrongdoing in Russia and a massive Harvard payout. He made his comments to a group including top female faculty during a time when they had made specific complaints concerning - among other things - severely family-unfriendly campus policies that disparately impact women. The faculty, many of whom were completely on board with the concept of sex differences in personality, saw his inartful "mama truck, daddy truck" comments as an attempted rebuttal. His comments - in this context - were pure toxoplasma, so of course they are what the media seized upon.
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