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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#671

Post by kfriede »

humanrebar wrote: post #497
kfriede wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here as a conservative, I do think Google had the right to fire him. I don't agree with the decision, but I don't need to. It's not my company. On that note, I don't think the memo was intended to speak for Google, but rather _to_ Google. Was it even intentionally public? Or was it leaked?

I think Google legally had a mechanism to do this, but ethically is messed up big time. The saying was "don't be evil", not "don't be criminal". I don't know if Google leadership was evil but the underlying principle is that "don't be illegal" is a low bar. I expect everyone to strive to do much better than that. I don't see a lot of calls in these comment threads for an employee bill of rights or something, so I don…

Ultimately employment comes down to a voluntary contract between the employer and the employee. Personally I don't feel that it is the responsibility of the government to dictate what those contracts look like.

Generally the thought is that laws correspond to morality. Anyone who has taken one look at some knows this is not the case, but that may be where the link between "don't be evil" and "don't be criminal" come in to play.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#672

Post by depressedpanda »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #298
zimpenfish wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely agree that A was to the left of B. I would also concede that B is to the right of A. But since the only label on the graph is an unidentified "Trait", I couldn't really comment any further. What point are you trying to make?

That the value on the y axis, for those two points taken from presented distributions, is the fucking same ... It's hard to make that point even more obvious.

What? It's a normal distribution graph. The height of the curve denotes how many of a particular group (group is denoted by the blue and green curves) score with regard to some trait x. The y-values for A and B on the graph are irrelevant.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#673

Post by Apocryphon »

peoplewindow wrote: post #321
danans wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last I checked a lot of Google's code output and value-generation is backend-y, with very little interaction with humans. Honest question: When was the last time you checked Google's code output and how it was accomplished? Have you worked at Google for an extended period? I've worked at Google for many years, on more projects than one can count on 2 hands, and in my experience this commonly held stereotype about w…

Lots of Google's software is open source. It is easily checked. Regardless, I worked at Google for many years and agree with him. Implementing MapReduce, BigTable, MegaStore, even things like G+ or Teams is not a people oriented task. It involves long hours of working with machines, alone, punctuated with code reviews in which your code is systematically criticised by your co-workers but in a predictable and non pers…

This perspective seems like to highly downplay the issues of working on a team at a software company. Independent of the ideological and political battles that this manifesto controversy is but one example of, there have been more and more reports of issues at tech companies about "brilliant assholes" who are able to do the technical work yet create toxic environments for others to work with.

Are you saying all of those projects at Google are owned by individuals who don't spend time interacting with others on the codebase? That doesn't sound like a very sustainable organizational model.

The social aspect of coding may be currently trumped up, but if so, it's only in compensation to how its social aspect has been traditionally underrated. Any type of work at a company involves social interaction, communication, teamwork, etc. Coders aren't solitary medieval monks illuminating manuscripts by their lonesome

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#674

Post by protomyth »

eregorn wrote: post #494
protomyth wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that someone would switch to the alt-right, it’s that the definition of belief is moving the line so others are defining you as alt-right. As an example, Ben Shapiro is by statements and beliefs not alt-right. He was attacked by them quite a bit. Yet, people have started calling him alt-right in media and forums. I too would never cross that line, but I believe others will be happy to redraw that line regard…

I feel like this happened because it seems he accidentally presented himself to the outside world as alt-right. You'd only know he was a right libertarian (my impression at least) if you regularly listened to him. For example, Look at his Wikipedia article vs his /r/politics AMA. His Wikipedia article paints him as alt-right, because all of his major accomplishments that reach outside the audience are hyper-focused o…

> I feel like this happened because it seems he accidentally presented himself to the outside world as alt-right.

I would love for you to find one place Ben Shapiro presents as alt-right.

> His Wikipedia article paints him as alt-right

of course it does, Conservatives of all stripes have been complaining about the bias of Wikipedia for some time. It paints anyone who is sorta conservative as alt-right.

If you believe he acts "alt-right" then pretty much every libertarian is alt-right, and that's just wrong.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#675

Post by depressedpanda »

zimpenfish wrote: post #287
throwaway257157 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing it. Help me out? It's not a contradiction, if that's what you're implying. Have you ever taken a statistics class?

Oh, throwaway257157, if I thought you were posting in good faith, I'd certainly engage with you but using a newly created account means you aren't.

The point the throwaway raises is valid, though.

Where is the contradiction?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#676

Post by TeMPOraL »

depressedpanda wrote: post #672
TeMPOraL wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the value on the y axis, for those two points taken from presented distributions, is the fucking same ... It's hard to make that point even more obvious.

What? It's a normal distribution graph. The height of the curve denotes how many of a particular group (group is denoted by the blue and green curves) score with regard to some trait x. The y-values for A and B on the graph are irrelevant.

You are right, of course. A dumb mistake of mine.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#677

Post by ZeroGravitas »

adrusi wrote: post #667
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why hiring women who are just as good as, if not better than, men at the job, but who would prefer (on average) to work elsewhere, perhaps somewhere with more women employees, would make the business do worse? And can we note that I replied to someone saying "he didn't say that", suggested a place where he did and got replies from different people saying "yes he did say that, and he's correct" and rep…

Can you explain why hiring women who are just as good as, if not better than, men at the job, but who would prefer (on average) to work elsewhere, perhaps somewhere with more women employees, would make the business do worse? In the section you quoted, he doesn't say that hiring more women is bad for business, he said that doing so via discriminatory hiring practices, and if you hadn't ellipsized that line, there wou…

He didn't say "unfair and divisive, and therefore bad for business", he said "unfair, divisive and bad for business". My ellipsis doesn't change the meaning, unless we are, once again, falling back on him presenting his ideas in an ambiguous manner. Which, even if true, makes misinterpretations his responsibility.

In the memo he literally asks for changes to make Google more welcoming for conservatives. He even claims this will be good for business. How do you square this with your contention that any kind of discrimination, even for positive purposes, will lead to negative outcomes due to it being unfair and divisive.

Does it make sense for him to be claiming both these things? I'm not sure that he is even saying that (though it seems tone deaf at the least to present both ideas in the same document).

Also, I'm really not sure that saying women score higher on neuroticism and therefore can't handle stressful jobs as well, or are introverts and so have trouble leading is purely about interest. I'm not sure where this defence about "only talking about interests" comes from, I don't get that from the document. It's certainly not explicitly spelled out.

I'm coming to the conclusion that people aren't just misinterpreting but have actually invented a totally fictitious memo that they find easier to defend than the real one.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#679

Post by rpiguy »

sctb wrote: post #658
rpiguy wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When we ask users to take care to post civilly and substantively , this is what we want to avoid. The ratio of insight to inflammation doesn't meet the bar for the kind of thoughtful discussion we're after here.

I will concede the post could have been more civil and I apologize.

However, it is extremely substantive, an entire doctoral thesis could be written on secular religions/orthodoxies and their illiberal and authoritarian nature and is directly relevant to the discussion of the reaction to the Google memo.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#680

Post by jl6 »

hashberry wrote: post #668
jl6 wrote: post #647

In the last month I have hired 4 people in specialist technical roles. I reviewed 15 CVs. All were from men. No women applied. There is clearly something filtering women out. There is something deep in the supply chain of labor (by which I mean education) which results in women being siphoned off long before they hit my company's diversity and inclusion policies. I believe these policies are reasonably effective at t…

I'm skeptical of blaming education. For example, 69% of developers say they are partially self-taught[0]. I've worked with many talented developers with liberal art degrees. The main takeaway of the memo is that women are filtering themselves out. [0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016

But how many of those self-taught developers managed to do so with the aid of a love of mathematics/detail/technicality that survived an encounter with high school peer pressures?
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