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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

#431

Post by KirinDave »

pharrington wrote: post #429
KirinDave wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think I am doing engaging this topic even though it's obviously time consuming and costly to me? I'm not here dropping links about stereotypes and pointing out trivial logical errors in the discourse because it's good for my heart or my psyche. I'm on Twitter hiatus, but I still end up wrapped in these fruitless conflicts. But please, continue arguing that what I'm doing is deleterious. I'm not friendly o…

The pain you're experiencing is cognitive dissonance. I am also very personally familiar with it, and I know how hard it is to recognize the cognitive dissonance in oneself. I also know that the pain -starts- going away when you're able to honestly confront yourself and the irrational and contradictory thoughts that are the root of the pain.

My irrationality is keeping to a promise to positively oppose the often-unconscious but perniciously misogynistic viewpoint that permeates the discourse of this site.

I recognize that giving a promise this vast in scope was a bad idea. However, I feel obligated to keep it.

I'm bored to death of men with almost no conception of the topic at hand demanding deference and respect just because they think they know how to program a computer. And yet, here I am keeping my promise.

You seem to think my intent is malicious. It's really too bad.

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

#432

Post by KirinDave »

pharrington wrote: post #420
KirinDave wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The memo begins with it's intent, and even has a TLDR after the opening three paragraphs. Which does little to excuse the subsequent content. Why would it? Impact matters far more than intent. Asking for someone to read a paragraph in a light quite opposed to it's content in this era of Poe Principle Supremacy is essentially asking for an act of faith. I possess no such faith. And why should I? The implicit suggest…

Since you haven't done it in this thread, I checked your comment history to see what you have said about the memo itself. The only thing I could find that begins to be a direct reference is "In this memo's case, perhaps you're mad at someone for saying you're genetically predisposed to be less capable of individual action (e.g., don't worry I am sure if we set up pair programming that will make it fair for you social…

> or misunderstand a given piece of material. It is not OK to dismiss out of hand perceived others or to take an emotionally vested interest in your misunderstanding when it's been pointed out.

I'm uninterested in James, his feelings, his emotions, his needs, his wants, his _intents_, and his plans. I've met him in passing, and he did not hold my attention anymore in person.

I've been much more focused on the flaws in the discourse here than his memo precisely because of this.

Your ultimate strategy across multiple threads appears to be: "paint this person as an irrational creature, fraught with emotion, that cannot respond rationally and therefore should be dismissed."

If you think this'll work, good luck. If the karma numbers I can see are any indication, my opinion is not being received in the light you're painting it it. If your opinion of the overall HN community is that folks here are an irrational bunch with cognitive abilities to base to catch the pitch of reason, then what sort of motivation (rational or otherwise) are you finding to stay?

And I'm also enjoying watching the numbers pop back up after a sudden depression. Why is that, I wonder? It continues to happen on some threads long after they're open.

> Another point of confusion I can understand is while it mentions the fact that men and women have biological differences, it never says anything at all about what those differences are.

This is simply untrue.

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

#433

Post by dropstickle »

dahart wrote: post #417
dropstickle wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I should have been clearer, you stated to the parent reply that: >> 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 disadvantage? From my perspective, you just contradicted yourself, can you help me understand why it's not a contradiction? This was in response to the parent that said Damore had not singled ou…

> The overweight example was an attempt to clarify that even though statistical averages say something about a group, it does not say something about the individual, i.e the google females should not feel singled out by statistical averages. Right. And what I've been trying to say is that the statistical averages aren't the offensive part. That's a straw man. Google women don't feel offended when they're told they're…

> Right. And what I've been trying to say is that the statistical averages aren't the offensive part. That's a straw man.

Well you did pose the question, I just answered it, so it was not to erect a straw man, and I was not really trying to contradict the rest of your claim by that example, maybe I should have been clearer on that.

> Sure, the memo didn't say it explicitly, but it did imply that. Everyone keeps defending the exact wording as if implication and misleading statements don't exist. Suggesting it's a "part" suggests it's a measurable and large part, comparable to social causes.

Yes, he certainly does imply that biological causes has a measurable effect, and a large enough effect that it should be taken into consideration for measures (that he also suggests) in order to change work practices so as they might better fit females and thus increase diversity.

> Pointing out that women are more neurotic (which is a clinical term with very negative popular connotation, so extremely easily misunderstood) might be a part of why Google has so few women is leading the reader to conclude it's a major factor.

I agree that it is unfortunate that neurotic is easily misunderstood, but if he didn't use the correct clinical term he would be critized for not being scientific enough, which you are already critizing him for.

> This argument is cherry-picking the science in favor, and completely ignoring the contrary evidence that suggests that social issues are much larger than anything we could possibly measure about innate biological ability. For example, that different countries have very different distributions of women in engineering, or that the distributions have changed wildly in the last 50 years.

I don't agree with you that science has concluded that biological factors don't play a role in what professions people go into. I saw an interesting Harvard debate between Steven Pinker and Elisabeth Spelke on this [1]. The two examples you present does not explicitly contradict that it might be part biological reasons [2], the provided link has a fascinating discussion in the comment section that gives you both sides of the discussion.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hb3oe7-PJ8 [2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

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

#434

Post by humanrebar »

thegayngler wrote: post #408
humanrebar wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are drawing candidates from populations. He's arguing the problem could be upstream from Google HR practices. As in, there aren't enough women applying (I don't think that's controversial). He elaborating on his answer to "Why not?"

I'm sure that is part of the hiring disparity among females and underrepresented minorities. As a black guy myself, I know the same is true among black people who simply aren't interested in engineering but Damon makes weird ability judgements based on the population. This makes no sense as people with different interests would never bother in the first place no matter how much time and money you threw at them. So ag…

> So again I say why bring up the upstream problem to begin with as it being related to their abilities for engineering?

Well, for one, if only 45% of interested applicants are women, maybe 45% female employees and managers is a reasonable goal.

> Damon makes weird ability judgements based on the population.

I remember a lot of talk about interest levels and personality types. Not much about abilities. I also think the point about multimodal distributions fairly address my concerns about possible bigotry and stereotyping. Which ability judgments concern you? And why didn't the part about multimodal distributions vs mean values assuage your concerns?

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

#435

Post by dahart »

yorwba wrote: post #409
humanrebar wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

Specifically, for basically the only significant difference in distribution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

Thank you. So, tell me if I'm summarizing correctly. The currently accepted state of things is there's no difference in average IQ between men and women, but there is a known difference in variance which is symmetric. The variance discrepancy may be associated with specific subjects.

So if we assume that the US tech sector hires only above-average people, the difference in variance could lead to some difference in mean IQ, for certain subjects, in theory.

The question of what social factors bias IQ measurements is ongoing, but the top-line summary is that general intelligence is believed by many to have no sex difference.

Is that accurate?

I am cherry picking this one, but it's one of the most directly relevant studies cited here, and I find it interesting:

"Stoet and Geary concluded that sex differences in educational achievement are not reliably linked to gender equality."

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

#437

Post by xrd »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #66
xrd wrote: post #35

This is comment in the memo that changed the consequences: "Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races." He's advocating restricting programs that reduce the massive gap in distributions. If he had left his arguments and asked people to make their own conclusions, he might still have a job. Brooks is wrong here.

Are we reading the same text? He says: Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races. These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive. Instead focus on some of the non-discriminatory practices I outlined. How is this "advocating restricting programs that reduce the massive gap in distributions"?

I guess we will have to agree to disagree that these programs he allocated cutting mitigate this gap.

Isn't down voting my opinions evidence that Hacker News doesn't tolerate diverse opinions? Where is the outrage at that?

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

#438

Post by Spivak »

clavalle wrote: post #381
humanrebar wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So "conservative" is the same as "unfair and/or unbalanced"? The New York Times (not exactly conservative) has considered him worth printing for quite some time now. Isn't this attitude more or less what Damore was concerned about in his memo?

No, but he has an agenda that he's promoting with this opinion piece, which, as someone who disagrees with him, has some pretty obvious holes which I point out.

Right, but the issue right now is that everyone is pushing an agenda. The only constant is the literal text and the current research which, by accounts from qualified people, don't seem to be in conflict.

In the conversation of this issue the facts, what tribe you belong to, and what ought to be done in response to them have been tied together. Unless we can disconnect those everyone's reality is going to be shaped by the latters rather than the former.

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

#439

Post by pharrington »

KirinDave wrote: post #431
pharrington wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pain you're experiencing is cognitive dissonance. I am also very personally familiar with it, and I know how hard it is to recognize the cognitive dissonance in oneself. I also know that the pain -starts- going away when you're able to honestly confront yourself and the irrational and contradictory thoughts that are the root of the pain.

My irrationality is keeping to a promise to positively oppose the often-unconscious but perniciously misogynistic viewpoint that permeates the discourse of this site. I recognize that giving a promise this vast in scope was a bad idea. However, I feel obligated to keep it. I'm bored to death of men with almost no conception of the topic at hand demanding deference and respect just because they think they know how to…

"You seem to think my intent is malicious."

Nope. I think you're acting out of pain. I think you're in pain because you yourself said that your current behavior on the forum is "costly" and bad "for my heart or my psyche." Again, you're reading something that was literally never written. Hence, cognitive dissonance.

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

#440

Post by dahart »

dropstickle wrote: post #433
dahart wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overweight example was an attempt to clarify that even though statistical averages say something about a group, it does not say something about the individual, i.e the google females should not feel singled out by statistical averages. Right. And what I've been trying to say is that the statistical averages aren't the offensive part. That's a straw man. Google women don't feel offended when they're told they're…

> Right. And what I've been trying to say is that the statistical averages aren't the offensive part. That's a straw man. Well you did pose the question, I just answered it, so it was not to erect a straw man, and I was not really trying to contradict the rest of your claim by that example, maybe I should have been clearer on that. > Sure, the memo didn't say it explicitly, but it did imply that. Everyone keeps defen…

I quite appreciate your measured response, thank you for that.

> I don't agree with you that science has concluded that biological factors don't play a role in what professions people go into.

I don't recall saying nature isn't a factor at all, and if I did I take it back. But I do personally believe that right now nurture, which includes social and historical gender issues plus all forms of implicit and explicit social biases and discrimination, is the biggest factor. And enough bigger that it doesn't make any sense to talk about nature yet.

I didn't really intend to contradict the possibility of any biological factor, what I'm saying is that social issues appear to me to be a far larger influence than, say, any discernible difference in IQ. The memo either disagrees or ignores that.

Given that social factors were >99% of the distribution discrepancy less than a century ago, and that we're still working through huge social issues, and that workforce distributions of women both locally and globally are far from settled, I find it pretty hard to accept the idea that we should look at anything other than social factors.

It is possible that biological differences explain some of the workforce distributions. It's also possible that nature's effect on the current sex distribution of women in US tech is not even large enough to be measurable. It's possible that should we eradicate social gender inequality globally, biology's role will even out to a 0.0001% distribution discrepancy. It's also possible that Sabine Hossenfelder is right, and that once we have equal opportunity, "the higher ranks in science and politics would be dominated by women". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14976028

I will check out the videos, thank you for the links.

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