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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#221

Post by cf »

Const-me wrote: post #113

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 anythi…

People can express any opinion they want in public. Inside a company isn't public. Also while you do have a right to an opinion you don't have a right to it going unchallenged and questioned.

Also how can you be so sure he wasn't alt-right already. "Classic liberal" is essentially the closest you are allowed to get in public.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#222

Post by timgrahamtech »

Const-me wrote: post #113

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 anythi…

Then the goal is making him understand that he got fired for how he expressed those opinions. He didn't just talk to HR or his manager, he published a rant for all the world to see making it the CEO's problem.

Anyone who publishes an incoherent 10 page manifesto insulting their coworkers and trashing their company's policies can reasonably expect to get fired. It doesn't matter if any of the bosses agree or disagree with the opinions expressed; it's just an unprofessional thing to do.

To be honest, he was the bully in this situation. I have more concern for the women at Google who could fear losing their jobs and the means to support their families. If a coworker of mine started publicly saying that I'm not genetically qualified for the work I do, I would be worried for my job. However, I don't think those women would become radicalized over this. Why? Because intelligent professional people don't become radicalized when other people disagree with their opinions.

A note about Trump: I grew up in a red state and lived and worked in two others. I never spent more than a few months in a blue state so I don't know how it is there, but in Trump country people openly and aggressively express all sorts of opinions without fear of recrimination. There may be a few voices of dissent, but there are no "witch-hunting mobs" forcing them to keep their views a secret.

I think this scenario Giulio describes fits better to Brendan Eich who was essentially forced out of Mozilla over his views. But Brendan didn't become radicalized. He picked himself up and founded a new company, because that's what professionals do.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#223

Post by GVIrish »

steveeq1 wrote: post #26

> That leaked internal memo from James Damore at Google? The one that says one shouldn’t expect employees in all professions to reflect the demographics of the whole population? I don't see how this is an unreasonable argument to make. There is a dearth of male kindergarten teachers, for instance. This doesn't mean the school is being "sexist". It might just mean that certain genders tend to be attracted to certain t…

> I don't see how this is an unreasonable argument to make. There is a dearth of male kindergarten teachers, for instance. This doesn't mean the school is being "sexist". It might just mean that certain genders tend to be attracted to certain types of professions.

If that's all the manifesto said, this wouldn't be a story. I am a minority in tech and I certainly didn't see a lot of people like me in my Computer Science program so naturally there is under-representation in the work force, it happens.

But when you start wading into the, 'Women are biologically less well-suited for this work...' is where you get into problems. No different than arguments that used to be made against black people before de-segregation.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#224

Post by generic_user »

michaelchisari wrote: post #168
rufus_2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trust in Trump has plummeted, even amongst his core. The vote is very quickly slipping out of the grasp of the Right This is certainly the message being broadcast into every home on the planet for the last 6 moths. In reality it seems a bit optimistic when we consider the Democrats are coming from a decade-long losing streak ( http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/... ), a monumentally embarra…

Right now, we have two indicators: The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans, even if Republicans end up winning, it's barely by single digits in double digit districts. And the polling, which in aggregate, across all demographics, has been continually moving more and more negative each passing month. Even polls like Rasmussen, which have a tradi…

I think this this is the talking points for the Democrats but its not very convincing.

> The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans.

The Republicans won all 6 special elections.

> Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points > the Republicans were required to spend $25 million

He lost. And it was the Democrats who spent $23 Million (the most ever spent) on the election not the Republicans. The republicans spent like $3 Million dollars.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#225

Post by flukus »

michaelchisari wrote: post #205
flukus wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points in a district that went for Trump by 19 points. Moreover, the Republicans were required to spend $25 million in order to defend a seat that they had most likely budgeted around $0 for. That's what's called a weathervane. Or a canary in a coal mine. Isn't that normal? In Australia these sorts of elections usually swing heavily against the government of the day…

For mid-term elections, yes, they usually swing against the party in power. The extent to which they swing varies wildly, though, so all we know is that there likes will be a traditional anti-establishment swing, but the magnitude of it is unknown. However, a special election within the months after a Presidential election should follow the same results, since there hasn't been the time to build the resentment necess…

That mirrors our experience after the 2013 federal election, the fell hard and fast but changed the leader and still snuck through at the last general election.

We've also seen the trend at state level for the last few years, it seems swings are coming harder and faster.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#226

Post by maehwasu »

GVIrish wrote: post #212
Const-me wrote: post #113

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 anythi…

> 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. This is an example of people taking exactly the wrong lesson from this situation. The guy wasn't fired for having a 'dissenting opinion'. He was fired because he basically said women are underrepresented in IT because they are biologically unsu…

"You can say anything you want, unless you're saying something that I choose to define as unacceptable."

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#227

Post by cm2187 »

KirinDave wrote: post #150
kentrado wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mad at someone for saying you're genetically predisposed to be less capable of individual action? He never said that. Could you cite the portion where he literally says women are less capable?

He says women will benefit from making coding more social. Pair programming. Remember?

Whether we agree with the memo or not, there was a very good point that guy made and that we should keep in mind, it's the paragraph with the two overlapping distributions.

Even if you admit that all genders, races, any way you want to segment the population, do not have the same distribution, that doesn't mean anything to a person as an individual.

For instance I think it's fair to say that black people are better at athleticism/running than white people (a disproportionate number olympic champions are black), i.e. the tail of the distribution is fatter for black people than white people. It doesn't mean anything to a random individual in that group. I am white, I shouldn't feel offended that another category of the population has a different distribution than my category. And it doesn't mean that no white people can become an olympic athlete either. Just that there will be a natural race imbalance among athletes. And it doesn't mean that a random black man will be better than a random white man at athletism.

So I don't agree with the way you read this memo: In this memo's case, perhaps you're mad at someone for saying you're genetically predisposed to be less capable of individual action. The memo doesn't say that an individual woman will be less capable. What it claims instead is that women have a different distribution for certain skills than men, which you might agree with or not. But it's a very different point.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#228

Post by danieltillett »

jorgemf wrote: post #41
riffraff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

funny, I have no idea if this is true, but this was the "common knowledge" among hunting/truffle dogs breeders when I was a kid. Something like "if you want a good nosed dog get a female pup, if you get a male it might be a champion, or terrible". It would be fun if this was true, and also applied to people.

If it based on the genes because of the chromosome X and Y then I think there is no reason why it wouldn't apply to any specie with chromosomes X Y.

Birds have the opposite arrangement of sex chromosomes - in birds the sex chromosome is carried by the female. I guess if we were all ostriches it would be the females that would be the CEO's.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#229

Post by mirimir »

PeanutCurry wrote: post #165
mirimir wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking "institutionalized discrimination" in the sense of the past few millennia.

This seems overly broad. many societies aren't even a millennia old and derive from events that would indicate some quantity of disdain for their previous governors. Unless the argument is that people, regardless of culture, are behaviorally the same then there isn't much to gain by simply going by such a large time frame.

OK, what societies have been fundamentally gender neutral?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#230

Post by zimpenfish »

dx034 wrote: post #215
GVIrish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is an example of people taking exactly the wrong lesson from this situation. The guy wasn't fired for having a 'dissenting opinion'. He was fired because he basically said women are underrepresented in IT because they are biologically unsu…

> He was fired because he basically said women are underrepresented in IT because they are biologically unsuited for it. I don't understand why people keep repeating that statement. He said that biological differences explain the different ratios of men and women, NOT that women are not suited for tech jobs. He explicitely did not say (nor mean) that a woman can't be a good software engineer. Just that on average, mo…

> He explicitely did not say (nor mean) that a woman can't be a good software engineer.

> Just that on average, more men than women will show the features needed for software engineers.

Read those two sentences you wrote again. You'll be shocked when you see it.

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