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Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

nytimes.com

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Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#181

Post by anonymouskimmer »

UK-AL wrote: post #64
eganist wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the argument being made by advocates for women in STEM. The mission (I among one of many adherents to it) is to open pathways in STEM up to women who are choosing not to pursue it because of socioeconomic blockers. Blockers such as this guy. Anyway, the real position being pushed by Women in Tech/STEM movements is that anyone can/should be free to work in any career and not expect e.g. pay differences and…

The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers. Since they tend to pursue what they prefer. I'm all for having no blockers for people choosing what careers they want. However people will move towards there preferences, and there preferences will be set either by nature or culture.

"The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers."

Yeah, just calling a Scandinavian nation "free" says absolutely nothing about its particular societal pressures. Societal pressures which effect everyone whether they are egosyntonic or distonic to the individuals caught up in the society.

More evidence is needed to support this hypothesis.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#182

Post by daenz »

An excellent and relevant video to this discussion is an episode of Brainwash called "The Gender Equality Paradox." It covers the paradox of why, in more gender-equal societies, we see more separation between what men and women choose to do, and in less gender-equal societies, we see less separation between the interests. The host talks to scientists on both sides and goes back and forth relaying information and starting debate. It is fantastic.

https://vimeo.com/19707588

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#183

Post by [deleted] »

peeters wrote: post #82
UK-AL wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers. Since they tend to pursue what they prefer. I'm all for having no blockers for people choosing what careers they want. However people will move towards there preferences, and there preferences will be set either by nature or culture.

What evidence do we have of that?

[deleted]

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#184

Post by KirinDave »

endorphone wrote: post #142
agentultra wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, To a small, vocal group. > By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way There were good reasons for doing it that had nothing to do with science or evidence. There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. If Damon had issues with the policies at Google…

There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. I'm a white male. I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the average white man. This means positively nothing when comparing me with a given Asian, however. That is the root of this discussion that so many so profoundly miss. The average Google male is not…

> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading.

Quite frankly: many people do. Some of them are at Google. James chose to run headlong into this discussion without any practical knowledge of the discourse. His point was poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such radical room for misrepresenting it.

Discussions of social issues MUST be informed by the social discourse they enter, even if armed with science and evidence. To suggest otherwise is obviously wrong.

No one owes James a charitable reading. And if you think the "mobs" of liberals are misrepresenting his point, you should see where MRA/goreans are going with it.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#185

Post by peoplewindow »

vkou wrote: post #154
peoplewindow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But would such lawsuits succeed? I don't see how you can argue that a single guy who isn't in management writing a memo creates a "hostile work environment". Most of the people complaining wouldn't even be working with him at all. They can file lawsuits but would they hold water? After all, management could just tell the lawsuit filers to be more tolerant of others: it's not like Damore was attacking individuals. So…

> I don't see how you can argue that a single guy who isn't in management writing a memo creates a "hostile work environment". Employment law makes it very clear that person creating a hostile work environment doesn't have to be a manager. They can be a co-worker, a client, or a contractor.

If you are correct, and I am not saying you're wrong, the term is so vague that more or less any disagreement that gets a bit personal could be considered creating a hostile work environment. No company would be able to operate in a situation where any disagreement could be leveraged to get the other person instantly fired, regardless of level or what the comments were about.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#187

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

jressey wrote: post #153
lisper wrote: post #33

The primary thesis of Damore's memo [1] was not that women are biologically unsuited to STEM careers. The primary thesis was that, at Google, you cannot even advance the hypothesis that biology might be a factor without putting your career at risk. Ironically, by firing Damore, Pichai proved him correct. EDIT: if you doubt this, just look at the document's title and TL;DR section. [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org…

No matter what he intended the thesis to be, that thing was just a bunch of dog whistles that sounded an awful lot like ignorant alt-right bullshit to me.

And he basically confirmed it by doing his first interview with Stefan Molyneux.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#188

Post by Danihan »

KirinDave wrote: post #164

And once again, the characterization of "allowing the debate" means one thing for James (why, he "cited studies") and another for everyone else (they are an angry mob). The most telling bias in this piece is that characterization. Perhaps is James had not hamfistedly "cited" population research (as Brooks suggests) but then given very specific personal-level fixes (e.g., pair programming , suggestions of "pipeline" f…

>Stereotypes which may seem obvious and unimportant to 3/4 of a population may be a crushing burden and source of relentless stress to the remaining quarter.

What an excellent quote. As a politically right-leaning gay person, I feel this way basically all the time, except I'm more like the 5% or 10%. Being a minority of a minority sucks, you don't fit in anywhere.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#189

Post by mathattack »

agentultra wrote: post #89
endorphone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…

> By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, To a small, vocal group. > By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way There were good reasons for doing it that had nothing to do with science or evidence. There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. If Damon had issues with the policies at Google…

Unfortunately I don't think it's that small. It's similar to saying "The Trump base is a small vocal group" - perhaps it's really larger than we care to admit?

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#190

Post by taysic »

richardknop wrote: post #139
aaron-lebo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By and large the people outraged about this are the crazy men's rights, reactionary, Trumpist, Alex Jones mob that have been looking for things like this to be outraged for the past 30 years. Everyone wants to be a victim. Damore isn't a victim of anything but bad judgment. If he's hero of the mob, so what.

Some people who are outraged by this are people who are afraid to live in a society where you can be fired and your career ruined for having a political opinion (not even controversial one).

I really don't care what political opinion my coworkers have. But if they feel called to publish a memo about company policy that affects me due to this political opinion - it better be a very open discussion in such a way that they can't get the last word. I also question if a drawn out debate (which it should be) would be a waste of company time. Also this one was very controversial.
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