Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

> "I suspect the reason so many people have trouble with the firing, and the responsibility stated in employee CoC is that it puts a lot of power in other people's hands."

I disagree. I think people are upset, at least conservatives within Google, because they see this "against the CoC" idea selectively applied. I can tell you first hand that there were a lot of things said by those on the left, especially after the election, about conservatives that many felt violated the CoC, the issue is just that its a minority at Google that are conservative. I mean, after the election at the TGIF, a member of management basically told everyone to stand up and hug the person next to you and "it's going to be alright." If this isn't alienating, lacking in empathy, and downright rude toward the conservative Googlers, I don't know what is...

I didn't say your characterization of Damore's arguments was wrong, I said it was unfair. What I meant by that was that you stripped statements of context and nuance and represented them with negative connotations that are not warranted based on the original context. My understanding of your statement was that you were suggesting that Damore made definitive statements that are muddled and contradictory. If that was an unfair interpretation of your comment, then I apologize.

I consider your statement "he suggested that women as a group are innately less capable technologists" to be unfair because it could be interpreted in multiple ways. The danger of misinterpreting this statement is so great, that the underlying idea can't be expressed in this manner. Damore uses the phrase "these differences MAY explain.."(emphasis mine) to indicate that evidence suggest, but does not prove, his hypothesis. You make Damore sound more definitive than he actually is (or at least how I understand him to be).

The most dangerous word in your statement is "innately". If I remove it from your statement, than it becomes incontrovertibly true. Women as a group are less capable technologist, by simple nature of the fact that there are fewer of them. Why is the big question, and the word "innately" is the attempted explanation.

If "innately" means that "women are generally to stupid to grasp computes, than that's codswhallop. There's no evidence to suggest that the mean IQ of women is any different than the mean IQ of men.

If by "innately" you mean "men are biologically compelled to be assholes to women, and women are biologically compelled to flee this treatment", then that's a scary fucking problem that I hope we can solve in some manner other than the obliteration of the male sex.

If "innately" means that "women generally don't give a shit about computers", then there is evidence to suggest that it might be true, though of course the evidence is far from conclusive .

If "innately" means that "Men are more represented at the extremes at of most distributions, and since being a google engineer is an extreme position, men should be more represented there", then that is another possibility that is suggested, though obviously not proven, from current evidence.

For me, the word "innately" is too fuzzy in its meaning and it makes me uncomfortable to use it in this context.

As for your concerns about his expertise, his interpretations of current research concerning the cognitive differences between men and women are not out of line with current research and the interpretation of that research by well regarded members of the psychology community. Steven Pinker is a name that has come up frequently in the past few days, whose own views overlap Damore's to some degree.

I find your interpretation of my motives to be uncharitable. My intention is not to argue that we should keep the status quo of sexism. I think we all agree that judging the capabilities of an individual based on their biological sex is bullshit. My concern (And it seems Damore shares this concern) is that we're replacing one kind of sexism with a different kind of sexism. That's not progress.

I think you should ask yourself how comfortable you are with the following statement: "There are differences in the distribution of cognitive traits in the populations of males and females based on biological sex." (I use the word cognitive here to mainly refer to emotional differences though of course it can have other meanings. I apologize for using such broad language here but I felt that it was suited to this context)

Note that this statement is one of pure fact. Either there are differences in the populations at large, or there aren't. Of course, it's a fact that will be incredibly difficult to discern, but at some point in the future, we could conceivably answer this question. Are you comfortable with this statement being disproven? Are you comfortable with it being proven? If you answered no to either of those questions, than you have an ideology that will be difficult to update with facts.

Please note that these questions are all rhetorical. I'm not trying to attack you personally and I appreciate the time you've taken to respond to my post. I'm not an asshole, I just write like one.

Yes substantiveness and civility are related. However, making a point in 500 characters vs. 20,000+ characters lends itself to some brusqueness.

I agree however, that lack of civility can undermine your argument. See the very uncivil comments below from Damore's fellow Google employees, including managers. They undermine their argument and literally create a toxic and scary work environment.

I abbreviated the names, but these were all public statements. I just don't want to run afoul of any HN rules regarding naming names.

CB: "You know there are certain "alternative views, including different political views" which I do not want people to feel safe to share here... You can believe women or minorities are unqualified all you like — I can't stop you — but if you say it out loud, then you deserve what's coming to you. Yes, this is "silencing". I intend to silence these views... Take your false equivalence and your fake symmetry, and shove them hard up where the sun doesn't shine."

KB: "I am considering creating a public-inside-google document of "people who make diversity difficult"...which calls out those googlers who repeatedly made public statements that are unsupportive of diversity... Things I'm still pondering: should inclusion on the list require something resembling a trial? should people be removed after some period of time if they start behaving better?

CW: "One of the great things about Google's internal communication mechanism... is that, as a manager, I can easily go find out if I really want to work with you."

KE: "Your reply...ignores the many women Googlers who have expressed the frustration they feel as a result of this. F* off. Thanks for using your real name here, though. Makes it easier to update my spreadsheet."

> People who believe they are "right" but are unable or unwilling to defend that position with words ("the debate is over") should not be trusted, ever.

So what you're saying is the debate is over about the intentions of people saying the debate is over?

Isn't it up to proponents to prove that it does work? Rather than opponents needing to demonstrate that it produces negative results?