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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#591

Post by kaitai »

collyw wrote: post #540
emmelaich wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fair to say that black people are better at athleticism/running Is it fair though? Is it supported by metrics of muscle strength and length etc? And does it take into account the differences between blacks (Africans?), west vs south vs central (pygmies!). Also, there's the possibility that whites of equivalent athleticism find better options for their life than being a professional sportsmen, the bottom 80% [1] of…

It seems to be supported by the results at the Olympics and many other sporting events that can be viewed publicly. And I think that's probably what the OP meant by "better at running". The vast majority of people can run to some extent, so the assumption is that someone is "better" at it usually means "faster". And the obvious place to look for evidence of that would be in sporting competitions, rather than trying t…

Right, it "seems to be supported." There's a lot of just-so storytelling going on here. Take a look at American football in 1940. No black players! Hm. Black people must be bad at football, perhaps more suited to being airmen (pilots). Seems to have held up perfectly over the last 77 years, eh?

Do people have no sense of history here? The internet lets you look up all sorts of things, like how the racial composition of US track and field has changed over the 20th century, or how Paavo Nurmi (a poor guy from an underdeveloped country) dominated distance running in the 1920s, challenged only by another couple poor guys from underdeveloped Scandinavian countries. It was clear from publicly viewable sporting events in the 1920s that Scandinavians are really the best at running; east Africans really didn't figure into the competition.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#592

Post by trb8 »

_b8r0 wrote: post #183
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…

I made the grave mistake of trying to express that point on Twitter. Twitter seems to be a poor vehicle for nuanced debate at the best of time, but it's a dumpster fire right now full of raging people who don't understand what you've just said. I was in SV last year for a couple of months during the election, and everyone I met were all paid up members of the church of political correctness up front, but when you spo…

> I was in SV last year for a couple of months during the election, and everyone I met were all paid up members of the church of political correctness up front, but when you spoke to these people in private there were a lot of people who were secretly conservative, but "It's Silicon Valley and you can't be a Republican out here".

I guess they did not consider the voting booth to be private, as SV is one of the areas that swung towards Clinton?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#593

Post by losteverything »

fulfillaneed wrote: post #573
losteverything wrote: post #545

Let me present a walmart associate opinion on the person that was fired. Tldr - sometimes really smart people do the dumbest things. Where was his common sense? For the average associate i know the overarching Question would be did he not know he could be fired? "I would have loved to go to college. I couldn't afford it. Id love to have a job at Google. He probably makes over one hundred thousand dollars. All those y…

There is a big difference between going on Facebook to talk shit about your employer and what happened here. The memo writer asked for feedback on his memo and was ignored. He tried again and again to get feedback on his opinion internally until turning to the Google internal 'skeptic' community. The skeptics doesn't quite like what he wrote so they strung him up and made an example of him. He was encouraged to give…

I never got that. Ty. But isnt one of the mechanisms to get feedback making input anonymous? Did they ask for authored input? Really? About diversity?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#594

Post by merpnderp »

Joeri wrote: post #538
merpnderp wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The diversity memo's failing is not the statistics it cites, it is that it furthers the notion that diversity is a set of statistics to control for. True diversity is about ignoring statistics and instead giving every single person the same chances, regardless of where they came from." Your point is the memo failed because it makes exactly your point - that people should be treated like individuals rather than their…

I didn't read it that way. To me it was strongly making the case for statistical differences between women and men that matter, which is what I disagree with. I guess everyone reads into that memo what they want.

I don't understand how you could read it that way. In the memo's suggestions sections he clearly states that people should be treated as individuals. Is there some other way to read that section? Bold is my own.

> I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#595

Post by throwanem »

archagon wrote: post #490
throwanem wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Alt-right" means "Nazi" now. It didn't always. Somebody dragged Richard Spencer out from whatever rock he lives under and into the public eye, specifically for the purpose of changing that meaning - or, as you have it, moving that line.

Really? From Wikipedia: "Spencer and others have said that he created the term 'alt-right', which he considers a movement about white identity. Breitbart News described Spencer's website AlternativeRight.com as 'a center of alt-right thought.'" This matches with what I know. White supremacy was also featured prominently in the sidebar of /r/altright before it was banned.

Really.

I mean, Spencer says a lot of things. Do you believe all of them, or only the ones you find convenient? And the same Breitbart article [1] quoted there also devotes an entire section to disposing of the three dozen or so legit would-be Nazis on the fringe.

Of course, that Breitbart article also dates from March 2016. Spencer didn't hit the big time for quite a few months after that - not, in fact, until just after the election [2], whereas "alt-right" in general had never really left the zeitgeist after its first big splash in August. But that changed when the media made Spencer its darling, because of course it did - the man is eminently hateable, which is precisely why he was made so notorious so fast.

[1] http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-co...

[2] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2015-01-01%202...

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#596

Post by merpnderp »

kaden wrote: post #587
merpnderp wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The diversity memo's failing is not the statistics it cites, it is that it furthers the notion that diversity is a set of statistics to control for. True diversity is about ignoring statistics and instead giving every single person the same chances, regardless of where they came from." Your point is the memo failed because it makes exactly your point - that people should be treated like individuals rather than their…

No he CLAIMED he wanted to treat people like individuals, but that's literally, completely negated by the rest of his memo. He cites statistics with some sources that aren't even reputable and others than haven't been touched in a quarter of a century, and when there is credible science he attempts to create detached conclusions that implied that these certain psychological traits across various populations were some…

Yeah, there's no evidence for gender preferences at all, except for the tons of evidence for gender preferences. This evidence is certainly up for debate, but don't go preaching on your high horse about how it is settled and no one has ever studied this, and how dare he even make an argument.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/wh...

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#597

Post by sersi »

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…

The main problem I see with that is that poll that says that a third of the employees didn't disagree with the memo. If there's such a large percentage that agree with it then it's time for discussion. It's not a minority opinion and that memo shows what a lot of people think but will not be afraid to express.

So, instead of having open discussion on the topic which would help changing ideas, those opinions are being suppressed and the people holding them will be further radicalized.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#598

Post by [deleted] »

rpiguy wrote: post #550
coldtea wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made the grave mistake of trying to express that point on Twitter. Twitter seems to be a poor vehicle for nuanced debate at the best of time, but it's a dumpster fire right now full of raging people who don't understand what you've just said. It's worse. They don't care for what you've said, and they don't particularly care about the issues they talk about either. Some (media people, etc.) use the issues to have…

Extreme leftism is literally a religion, so much so that you can't even present scientific evidence that is contrary to their decided narrative. Born Again/Woke Transgression/Microagression Heresy/Dissent Sinner/(Racist, Misogynist, Bigot, Sexist) EDIT: Original Sin/(Privilege, Unconscious Bias) They even follow the same behavior pattern. First they declare you a Sinner. If you've done research they question the moti…

[deleted]

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#599

Post by bengillies »

kentrado wrote: post #144
KirinDave wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mysterious to me how literally every action a feminist takes is somehow directly responsibile for all problems that befall them, with every action that might possibly hurt a man being somehow a catastrophe in the making. Not 3 weeks ago we had a thread here where a woman spoke up about harassment and people said it was exactly the wrong thing. Mad someone for touching your bum? Speak up. You spoke up? Now you're…

>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?

> This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

That is, he's saying explicitly that women find leadership roles more difficult. Generally if somebody finds something more difficult they're not as good at it as people who find it easier. As a result I'm not sure how this could be taken any other way than stating that men are better managers simply because they're men.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#600

Post by notyourday »

koolio wrote: post #523

Before talking about gender imbalances in computer science related jobs we should fix the imbalance in the most male centric jobs. We need more women miners, bricklayers and mechanics along with trashwomen and oil rig workers.

We also should limit the number of women models, especially the ones on runway and in catalog and start paying all models the same $150/h rate non-supermodels make.
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