Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

backreaction.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 872 posts

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#521

Post by KirinDave »

mpweiher wrote: post #199
KirinDave wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No. First, the section is "Non-discrimnatory ways to reduce the gender gap". You cannot reduce the "gap" by aiming at the women who are already at Google. This should be obvious. They are already there. To make a dent in the gap, you need to attract more women who currently do not choose to work in tech or not at Google. So nothing he writes is about his colleagues at Google, or by extension women who are already in…

> You cannot reduce the "gap" by aiming at the women who are already at Google. This should be obvious. They are already there. To make a dent in the gap, you need to attract more women who currently do not choose to work in tech or not at Google. So nothing he writes is about his colleagues at Google, or by extension women who are already in or interested in tech. It is about potentially attracting those who are not currently interested in that career.

If that were the case then he would not lead his essay implying that the current hiring policies were hurting Google. He seems to imply standards have somehow been damaged, but right now that's not what Google does.

> Third, it's not about ability, but about preference.

There are so many potential sources of preference, from negative experience to personal ability. It seems very suspect to point to gender stereotypes that a large number of women have been arguing against for decades are in fact the root cause here.

> you've probably heard that tend to score higher on the math SATs and women higher on the verbals. This is apparently not the whole story: men with high math scores do tend to not also have high verbal scores (and therefore prefer STEM). However, for women the two are correlated, not anti-correlated: those with high math scores tend to also have high verbal scores, so they have more options

Sources, please.

> Fifth, I thought pair programming was a Good Thing™?

That depends. If I told you the only way you're going to be competitive and not drag down the standard of my organization is by pairing up with another person, should you take that as a compliment?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#522

Post by Karunamon »

zimpenfish wrote: post #320
averagewall wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a coworker of mine started publicly saying that I'm not genetically qualified for the work I do Why are you changing the meaning of what he wrote? He didn't say that at all. He was very clear that he was talking about the group not any individuals. If you choose to misunderstand what someone said, when they did a good job of explaining it clearly, then I think you shouldn't spread that misunderstanding around in…

> He was very clear But, see, it's equally clear to other people that he was dogwhistling like crazy. This is the problem with this "discussion" - one side is doing the "only exact literal words count for meaning" dance (which, for me, is complete bullshit) whilst the other is saying "that's not how the real world works, context and implication is important". The two sides are never going to agree - which is ok - but…

It seems that “dog whistling” is a non contextual argument. If you don’t like someone, you can imply that what they’re writing has all manner of hidden meanings.

Kinda like an awful high school literature teacher.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#524

Post by rayiner »

candiodari wrote: post #403
_dps wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the freedom to negotiate, and the freedom to leave. Comparing it to Stalinism is silly, and surely disrespects the millions of people who genuinely suffered and died under Stalin.

And, of course, there is the freedom to reduce the chances of getting confronted with this issue. Let's see ... How would one do that ... Make sure no women passes any interview. Obstruct women and generally get them out of the team, or at least don't work with them when avoidable. Why ? Because otherwise there WILL be instances, on occasion, where gender either is, or is simply perceived to be the basis for decision…

> So we'll see what we see in every other company now also at Google. No mixed teams.

Do folks really believe that's what gender-balanced work places are like? I used to work at a large New York law firm where 40% of the lawyers were women. All of my teams were mixed, and out of happenstance I spent the bulk of my time working for women partners. Nobody was "terrified" because everyone knew how to act like a professional adult.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#525

Post by jcadam »

rurban wrote: post #231

Outraged about the leaked manager reactions. Will be hard to attract any talent with such middle management.

Nah, it's Google. They could require all employees to receive a swift kick to the gonads when they walk into the building every morning, and they would still have absolutely no problem attracting top talent.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#526

Post by grey-area »

candiodari wrote: post #403
_dps wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the freedom to negotiate, and the freedom to leave. Comparing it to Stalinism is silly, and surely disrespects the millions of people who genuinely suffered and died under Stalin.

And, of course, there is the freedom to reduce the chances of getting confronted with this issue. Let's see ... How would one do that ... Make sure no women passes any interview. Obstruct women and generally get them out of the team, or at least don't work with them when avoidable. Why ? Because otherwise there WILL be instances, on occasion, where gender either is, or is simply perceived to be the basis for decision…

Make sure no women passes any interview. Obstruct women and generally get them out of the team, or at least don't work with them when avoidable.

Why are you so scared of women?

We all know this is how Directors and VPs and the like think, we just don't say it.

It's really not.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#527

Post by zimpenfish »

Karunamon wrote: post #522
zimpenfish wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was very clear But, see, it's equally clear to other people that he was dogwhistling like crazy. This is the problem with this "discussion" - one side is doing the "only exact literal words count for meaning" dance (which, for me, is complete bullshit) whilst the other is saying "that's not how the real world works, context and implication is important". The two sides are never going to agree - which is ok - but…

It seems that “dog whistling” is a non contextual argument. If you don’t like someone, you can imply that what they’re writing has all manner of hidden meanings. Kinda like an awful high school literature teacher.

> If you don’t like someone, you can imply that what they’re writing has all manner of hidden meanings.

Of course but when many people agree on the same hidden meanings, you surely have to consider that they might be there.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#528

Post by hackermailman »

cm2187 wrote: post #227
KirinDave wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

This ignores the fact that countries like Jamaica recruit their best athletes into track and field, whereas Australia or China would push those kids into something else. A more accurate statement would be black countries have better track and field coaching infrastructure considering Usain Bolt routinely washed out of race finals until he was picked up by pro coaching staff. It's the same reason Canada usually wins the winter Olympics in Hockey, it's not because Canadians are genetically better at skating and handling sticks, it's because of the coaching, infrastructure to get kids into the national program, funding priorities, ect. Same reason why Germany wins the world cup, it's a financial priority for that country to ensure they do so they can build a national infrastructure of success, they don't have genetically superior athletics for Soccer.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#529

Post by Karunamon »

tchaffee wrote: post #464
sersi wrote: post #349

I do not agree with a lot of points of that diversity memo but that means that it's a topic that needs to be discussed instead of being censored and the author fired. Discussion is how people change their opinion. It's by being free to discuss and say what you think that you can exchange ideas with other people you disagree with and maybe change your mind once you understand their view point. If you close discussion,…

> that means that it's a topic that needs to be discussed instead of being censored and the author fired. Here is what CEO said on the about it in his response [1]: "many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The a…

Then perhaps google should not solicit opinions on the matter, as they did in this case?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#530

Post by kaden »

I find it hilarious that this guy was somehow okay with using disparate, unrelated facts to create detached conclusions to make a contrived political point, and when the obvious solution is to fire him because of his toxic, baseless beliefs that disrupt a working environment it's suddenly about free speech? That's delusional.

You out right take an unreasonable course of action, "predict" that there will be negative out comes from it, and cry foul when those negative outcomes come to fruition. What's sickening is how dishonest that is, what's disheartening is that the memo's creator is being defended by a sizable audience in the tech community.

There's a good deal of irony where the memo wanted to remove emotion from the conversation and face the "true" facts, yet the defenders of this guy want to cry about free speech (that isn't being violated) and defend terribly contrived pseudo-scientific points just to be outraged to defend some principle that was never being threatened in the first place.

It seems to be a continuing trend that people aligning to one side of the political spectrum are surprised when the rest of society rebukes them, and they get unimaginably offended at the reality that people actually react to things you do and say, especially when the latter statements are completely baseless.

Post reply on HN