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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

#361

Post by bassman9000 »

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 HR, instead of addressing those points, refuting what would be wrong, and leading him to apologize if so, thus sending a powerful message about the existence of debate and rationale, recommended his firing, making him a martyr, and validating the part about the lack of dissent.

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

#362

Post by srslack »

yorwba wrote: post #329
LunaSea wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing that is clearly wrong about the memo in itself and lots of Googlers actually voiced support for it and agreed. So your comment would be equally offensive to them because you call them uneducated and their opinion invalid. Creating a strawman argument around racial stereotypes is just an added layer of misdirection and tastelessness.

There is something clearly wrong about the memo: it uses the direction of various effects to make a qualitative argument to explain a quantitative difference in gender distribution. If he had instead used the effect sizes in his reasoning, and predicted the resulting distribution (allowing direct comparison with reality), it would be much easier to objectively determine where he is right and where wrong. I'm fairly c…

No, there's something wrong with your reading comprehension.

>things he mentions have a large enough effect to measurably affect the gender distribution among Google's employees,

That's not one of the points of the memo. One of (the primary) point is to potentially explain a gap instead of relying solely on the assumption that the sole cause is discrimination, or "bro culture" or whatever trash rags like Model View Culture are calling it.

The memo is not about the ability, nor the preferences, of Google employees, specifically. It's about the ability, and/or preferences, of a potential hiring pool. And, if you actually read it, you'd know that the author used a qualifier: "may." As in: "Women are more likely to have these personality types and these interests, and this may explain the gap." As opposed to "all women have these personality types, abilities, and interests."

If women are coming out of university with a related degree or solid references for a software engineering career, at rates approximate to their original distribution (half of the population), we could say that there's obviously some sort of discrimination going on. But they are not. If they were, I would be prominent among the many who are outraged about the distribution of women in these particular careers. I believe the author of the memo would, as well.

But, again, they are not. And it is unhealthy to blame it solely on sexism, if at all.

I'm not surprised at the outrage, really. You get that when telling faux-progressives, who worship at the alter of tabula rasa social science models, that the mind is not a blank slate.

You see it in the Scandinavian countries, where certain "gendered" career choices are more clear than ever. But if we listened to the outraged mob, you'd think that these countries were some patriarchal backwater. But that's obviously not the case.

Another thing you'd have to ask yourself, if you were being honest, is: why "engineering"? The gap is bordering on nonexistent, if at all, in fields like law or medicine. So why is that this deficit exists in these vaguely related (if only by name) "engineering" careers. That's another thing the author decided to ask, and was shit on for it.

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

#363

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

guelo wrote: post #93
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #25

Wow, I'd never imagine to read this piece in NY Times.

Maybe you have unfounded biases against the NYT based on the propaganda outlets you get your information from.

In general, the covering of the diversity memo issue by NYT is way better than by other popular media outlets. Nevertheless, they didn't use neutral language. One of the first articles started with:

When James Damore, a Google engineer, was fired this week for writing a 10-page manifesto spelling out his grievances with the company’s progressive values and positing that biological differences explained the tech industry’s gender gap, it might have seemed like the end of a bizarre, short-lived morality tale.

The current article uses a completely different language, it really surprised me.

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

#364

Post by stagbeetle »

KirinDave wrote: post #315
imh wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one owes James a charitable reading. A charitable reading isn't something that's owed. It's something that almost universally helps discourse. Communication is hard. We're always willing to give Us a charitable reading, and it's a damned shame people are so unwilling to afford that to Them, regardless which side of anything you're on.

Right, but anyone familiar with this larger discussion read James's memo and knew, immediately, that he simply failed to do any research or contribute anything meaningful. I certainly did my best to ignore it. It was poorly informed, poorly considered. His firing was inevitable and possibly even what he wanted. Certainly I can't imagine a more effective way to get fired at Google. Since James didn't do the courtesy o…

To be frank, it's called being the better man.

Progress isn't made when both parties refuse to cooperate. And one side isn't absolved of responsibility just because they believe the other side to be not worth their effort. This is petty.

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

#365

Post by dahart »

dropstickle wrote: post #318
dahart wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. He was saying that on the whole there's a biological reason when you roll the dice enough that more males are suitable for that work. I don't understand what you said there, can you elaborate? What is the difference between males being more biologically suitable and females being at a dis…

Let's say you are an american. 60% of americans are overweight. Does that mean you are overweight?

Clearly not.

Does 60% of Americans being overweight today mean that it's likely that 60% of people are naturally and biologically incapable of maintaining a healthy weight?

There are genetic differences among underweight and overweight populations, so it is "possible" that the distribution of healthy weights to overweight people is natural a result of those genetic traits, and not the result of advertising and availability of high calorie foods.

We should stop treating obesity as though it's a problem, right?

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

#366

Post by peoplewindow »

trhway wrote: post #340
peoplewindow wrote: post #77

I am minded to agree. And that's a shame, because Pichai has done good things for Chrome and Android when he was leading those. The article doesn't really touch on Pichai's biggest mistakes here. Mistake one: Damore's memo alleged discrimination, both against men and conservatives. Gender and political affiliation are both protected classes in California and they just fired him for whistleblowing. He has now filed a…

>discrimination, both against men and conservatives. while men is [at least nominally] protected class, being a conservative isn't. >Google is extremely hostile to conservatives. can't applaud enough to Google here. According to the well known court decisions, a corporation is, like a person, entitled to have its own political opinion and actions, and it is the time somebody would answer to conservatives in kind. Con…

Can you point to examples of large conservative corporations firing people for expressing liberal viewpoints? I feel we do not read about cases like Google's very often, so I'm not sure what you mean by "taste of their own medicine".

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

#367

Post by vibrato »

ynniv wrote: post #176
vibrato wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is arguing against treating people respectfully? For the sake of argument, if a group is less inclined towards a given profession, isn't it disrespectful to push them into it?

The goal of affirmative action in general is to make a more welcoming environment. When the status quo is disrespectful, making the argument to perpetuate the status quo is making the argument to disrespect.

sure, of course I agree that if cultural impacts or discrimination are the cause of these discrepancies, then perpetuating that is disrespectful. However, if biological differences cause them then affirmative action is disrespectful of those differences.

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

#368

Post by stagbeetle »

harichinnan wrote: post #199
endorphone wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please visit "Asia". Don't go to Japan or South Korea or one of the city states. Go to India or China or somewhere in middle east. I don't think there are biological differences that would make people of the largest continent more smarter than another group.

The colloquial "Asian" means East Asian/Far Eastern.

This includes Japanese, Chinese, both Koreans, Taiwanese, and Mongolians. Commonly, anyone with epicanthic folds.

In this case, I don't think the OP was talking about biological differences. It's widely known that the aforementioned cultures (especially Japan and China) are very big on having their careers and studies at the center of their lives.

In this case, it would be nurture giving these groups an advantage over their Western counterparts. Who, ignoring the top-tiers, on average are not known for their industry.

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

#369

Post by peoplewindow »

mwytock wrote: post #350
LunaSea wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you link to these research papers you are mentioning?

See citation above. I'm saying its much too strong a claim to go from this paper to the conclusion that women are biologically less inclined to engineering. EDIT: To be consistent with my original statement (see child)

You are losing this argument because you aren't being consistent with yourself.

Originally you said, "using these differences to conclude that women are biologically less inclined to engineering is a gross leap in reasoning"

So you were talking about inclination and interest. You then claimed the facts were on your side, that it was offensive to claim otherwise, and the existence of anyone who doesn't already agree is "unfortunate".

After chongli pointed out that you're wrong about the facts, you have moved the goalposts. Now you're pretending you said "biologically ill-suited". This is not true. You said "less inclined".

As the memo in question didn't claim women are biologically ill-suited to be software engineers, only less inclined, your original statement was contradicted by science and your second try is not what anyone tried to argue.

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

#370

Post by nobodyman »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #275
taysic wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even bother mentioning biology then if there are other influences more important and relevant? It seemed very emphasized. They did not fire him because they didn't believe in the studies he linked. Obviously that's very much mischaracterizing things. This is a complicated issue with ample studies to link to from both sides. And anyway, I truly question studies on such broad topics.

> Why even bother mentioning biology then if there are other influences more important and relevant? It seemed very emphasized. Because that portion of the essay was meant to counter what the author perceived to be Google's current position on the matter: that societal factors are the _only_ factor resulting in a lower percentage of women in tech. From the memo: > For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on th…

> The author isn't saying that biological differences are the _only_ factor; only that that they are _a_ factor...

This is true, but as /u/taysic pointed out elsewhere, Damore dedicates the majority of his memo on this this one factor and wishes to change corporate policy because of it.

> ... and that Google has been completely neglecting that factor with the current implementation of their efforts to improve diversity within the company

Perhaps Google is evaluating more factors than Damore? Perhaps Google concluded that social issues and gender bias play a larger role in workforce disparity than biological issues, and therefore decided to prioritize attacking the larger problem over the smaller problem?

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