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Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

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Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#131

Post by yahna »

gfodor wrote: post #82
matt4077 wrote: post #28

Yes, there may or may not be biological differences. Or cultural differences. In fact, it's almost certainly both, and it really doesn't matter. The single most important argument people like this ex-Googler never seem to understand is that they're confusing what is with what ought to be. If there's one defining characteristic of humanity, it's our ability to overcome biology (the 'hardware',so to speak), using our u…

> Even if there were jobs that women were less qualified for, or had less interest in, we would want lower the difference, with equal representation if possible. I agree that a 50/50 split in men and female software engineers seems like a desirable thing. If it existed today I would not consider it surprising, and I would consider it to be a great thing. That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction w…

> What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female?

maybe Nursing is female dominated because historically women essentially weren't allowed to be doctors?

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#132

Post by vanderreeah »

Aloha wrote: post #116
vanderreeah wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, it's a sign of our "evolution" that sexist ideas like the one in your second paragraph are now increasingly subject to fierce rebuttal.

There is a different between refuting (proving it wrong) and rebutting (stating it is wrong) an idea - I've seen many rebuttals, but few refutals. People being different should never be used as an brickbat to claim inferiority - all people are different, and equality is one of the most important values to be found.

Totally agree - but in my opinion, and in the knowledge that this will receive a lot of downvotes, such statements don't require refuting, only rebutting. In my opinion, again, only statements which bear at least a nugget of rationality require the expenditure of one's own rationality in the effort to refute them.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#133

Post by mercer »

ryan-allen wrote: post #105
mercer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the ex-Googler would disagree with you on this, though. There's even a section titled 'Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap' that clearly indicates he at least is not opposed to reducing the gender gap.

I've been wondering about this. Say that we can prove the distribution of Male/Female interest in technology/no interest in technology, and for arguments sake say we can reliably measure that to be 75:25 male to female. Then we look at the industry as a whole and we discover placement is 90:10, that'd be indicative of a gap, and it'd be equitable to ensure that people who's interests lie in tech are not prevented fro…

I suppose it would be? But I'm not entirely sure I understand how your comment relates to mine though. Could you elaborate?

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#134

Post by freetime2 »

pg314 wrote: post #106
freetime2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree that communication and people skills are necessary to be a great programmer. But consider that in order to get a job as a programmer, I first had to spend 4 years taking relatively intensive courses in math and computer science (even longer if you go back to elective courses in high school), and empathy was not an important factor in getting through my coursework or examinations. Sure there are oth…

> But consider that in order to get a job as a programmer, I first had to spend 4 years taking relatively intensive courses in math and computer science (even longer if you go back to elective courses in high school), and empathy was not an important factor in getting through my coursework or examinations. Sure there are other paths into the industry, but no matter how you get here, the fact is that learning to code…

Couple of thoughts on the percentage of female math majors...

First - a significant percentage of math majors eventually go into teaching. I wasn't able to find the exact percentage, but 3 of the 5 most common jobs for math majors are in teaching. Second - the types of math courses that undergraduate CS majors take is different from the types of courses that math majors take - especially math majors who are planning to go into teaching. CS degrees tend to focus more on discrete math and algorithms, whereas as math degrees focus on... well... I don't actually know what math degrees require. This is pure anecdote (and probably bound to piss off a few math majors), but I remember taking a group theory course in my 4th year and all of the math majors in the course seemed to struggle far more than the CS majors in the course.

So if you consider that math major often means teacher, then no I don't think that data point about 40% of math majors being female does much to dispel traditional gender stereotypes.

https://datausa.io/story/06-16-2016_math-teachers/

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#135

Post by yorwba »

pg314 wrote: post #106
freetime2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree that communication and people skills are necessary to be a great programmer. But consider that in order to get a job as a programmer, I first had to spend 4 years taking relatively intensive courses in math and computer science (even longer if you go back to elective courses in high school), and empathy was not an important factor in getting through my coursework or examinations. Sure there are oth…

> But consider that in order to get a job as a programmer, I first had to spend 4 years taking relatively intensive courses in math and computer science (even longer if you go back to elective courses in high school), and empathy was not an important factor in getting through my coursework or examinations. Sure there are other paths into the industry, but no matter how you get here, the fact is that learning to code…

Scott Alexander has written an article on the whole issue http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger..., where he addresses the difference between math majors and computer science majors:

Here’s another fun thing you can do with this theory: understand why women are so well represented in college math classes. Women are around 20% of CS majors, physics majors, engineering majors, etc – but almost half of math majors! This should be shocking. Aren’t we constantly told that women are bombarded with stereotypes about math being for men? Isn’t the archetypal example of children learning gender roles that Barbie doll that said “Math is hard, let’s go shopping?” And yet women’s representation in undergraduate math classes is really quite good.

I was totally confused by this for a while until a commenter directed me to the data on what people actually do with math degrees. The answer is mostly: they become math teachers. They work in elementary schools and high schools, with people.

Then all those future math teachers leave for the schools after undergrad, and so math grad school ends up with pretty much the same male-tilted gender balance as CS, physics, and engineering grad school.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#136

Post by honestoHeminway »

tajen wrote: post #102
someguydave wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's intellectually stifling, and I'm no longer interested in enabling people who use that kind of rhetoric. Not only is it stifling, it is tearing our society apart. If a person believes one of these "forbidden hypotheses" they sudden find themselves to be the target of irrational hatred and hostile actions. Everyone must understand that demonizing people creates demons who may one day seek violent revenge.

> violent revenge If not violent, we're creating the next generation of bigots. The current people identifying with James Damore (=men who were promised they would be selected on skills) are as young as 15 years old. Do we expect them to be inclusive during the remaining 45 years before their retirement? I don't even understand how I should adapt my expectations for career. If competence isn't the criteria anymore, w…

Accomplished Diplomacy is the skill of choice. If you can manipulate all those political warriors and fanatics to support propelling you on - against there own interests, you may have a career still.

Think of it, less like a race of skilled people- and more, like rising through the ranks of a political party.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#137

Post by js8 »

matt4077 wrote: post #113
js8 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wrote just the first three paragraphs, I would upvote you. I agree completely. But then: > Even if there were jobs that women were less qualified for, or had less interest in, we would want lower the difference, with equal representation if possible. Who are we to tell people what they should do? If people want or don't want to work in some field, they should have the freedom to do so. They shouldn't be forced…

This isn't about telling anyone what they should do–at least not in any new way. Everyone is in some way being told what to do by society, in that the needs of the economy are reflected in any number of mechanisms that influence peoples' decisions. I'd even say almost nobody actually gets to "work in the field they want to work in", simply because the demand for "highly paid beer tester" is lower than peoples' intere…

> Everyone is in some way being told what to do by society

I do consider that a problem as it is, no need to add new "societal" goals to that.

The reason why I don't like "societal" goals (like many libertarians, although I am definitely not one) is that it's not clear who is asking. I am big proponent of direct democracy (even in the workplace), where the societal goal(s) are the sum of each individual's preferences, weighted equally. This is a clear mechanism.

However, who actually wants the 50:50 gender parity (or whatever ratio) in particular jobs? Especially understanding that it would lead to lower chance to land a job that you actually enjoy doing?

Of course, I understand that we need coal miners, even though it isn't people's preference, someone has to do it. But there are physics reasons for that, we need it to survive (well, not exactly in the case of mining, it's actually more nasty). Ideally, they should be paid well enough (and in better societies they somewhat are) for the trade off.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#138

Post by bumblebritches5 »

gbog wrote: post #121
someguydave wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's intellectually stifling, and I'm no longer interested in enabling people who use that kind of rhetoric. Not only is it stifling, it is tearing our society apart. If a person believes one of these "forbidden hypotheses" they sudden find themselves to be the target of irrational hatred and hostile actions. Everyone must understand that demonizing people creates demons who may one day seek violent revenge.

> "demonizing people creates demons" I had exactly the same impression with racism a couple decades ago in France: I met a few young guys saying on purpose a lot of racist clichés. I do not think they were really racists, just fed up with the hardcore demonization we had then. By for some topics such as racism, I'm under the impression that the demonizing pressure is a bit lower than before, at least in France. So th…

It'd be great if you yuropoors would just stop jumping to the conclusion that you're better than us as your default reaction.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#139

Post by vlehto »

matt4077 wrote: post #28

Yes, there may or may not be biological differences. Or cultural differences. In fact, it's almost certainly both, and it really doesn't matter. The single most important argument people like this ex-Googler never seem to understand is that they're confusing what is with what ought to be. If there's one defining characteristic of humanity, it's our ability to overcome biology (the 'hardware',so to speak), using our u…

One of the best ways to beat the averages is to use volunteers.

If you need 100 new firefighters and pick people by random, you get absolutely average firefighters. If you just pick people who apply, without any kind of testing, you beat the average with fat margin in the quality of firefighters.

Now if you would have a problem that not enough big people are applying to be firefighters, then you might increase the success rate greatly with publicity campaign with a message: "did you know that bigger people make great firefighters!"

What you probably don't want to do is to send a message that "we now have special training exclusively to people over 185cm tall!"

That sends two messages:

1. If you are short you might read it like this: You are doomed to be kind of "workhorse fireman". You get to do the dirty work, but the exclusive tall people club is permanently closed for you.

2. If you are tall you might read it like this: You are somehow naturally inferior to shorter people and that has to be compensated. But you get to join out of pity.

Now google has been sending the latter message. Now they also send a message, that they don't give too many shits about their employees. If they genuinely care about female employees and think that memo is serious crime against them, google should have fired Damore immediately after the memo started to circulate. If Google doesn't think like that, they should have stood up for their employee Damore.

This whole thing is failure from Google on quite many levels.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#140

Post by vlehto »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #55
gfodor wrote: post #14

The core of what he is asking, and failed to drilled into sufficiently in my view, is exactly what the OP says: what % of the gender gap in various fields can be explained (within that field specifically) due to demographically correlated population preferences vs other factors. I think there are two unforced errors: - Trying to tie things back to causation due to biological factors gave cherry pickers sufficient amm…

I'd wager a lack of empathy is the source of most of humanity's problems at this moment.

I think there is lack of trust forbidding that empathy. If you don't trust that this guy has good intentions, it's very very hard to have any empathy towards him.
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