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Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#231

Post by mempko »

rpiguy wrote: post #189
dguaraglia wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The memo makes a whole case against "the Left" (capitalization from the memo) and how "leftists" are violent. That doesn't sound like "conciliatory manner" to me, especially considering he makes a blanket statement about Google "leaning left."

The blanket statement that Google leans left is empirically true. You also seem to have misread his comments about violence, as he claims the left tends to be more compassionate. Did you read the memo?

An advertising company cannot lean left by construction.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#232

Post by rpiguy »

Blackthorn wrote: post #177
rpiguy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thoughts of one twenty-something engineer posted to an internal message board (for these kinds of discussions I might add) does not create a hostile workplace or harm Google in any way. Basically, in any other context we expect people who have vastly differing views to be able to put them aside and work together. The only exception to this rule seems to be around leftist issues, where if you disagree you are out…

> The thoughts of one twenty-something engineer posted to an internal message board (for these kinds of discussions I might add) does not create a hostile workplace or harm Google in any way. Considering how all sixteen of my female teammates were pissed off about it, I'm going to go ahead and say you are demonstrably wrong.

I am saying that they shouldn't have been so pissed off. The bar shouldn't be so low for defining a hostile workplace. Anyone could then get an intolerant mob together and get someone fired for expressing themselves.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#233

Post by jdoliner »

mastazi wrote: post #185

So the takeaway is: you should become extremely proficient at writing memos and back them up with vast amounts of research, or be fired. But all of the above applies only if your memo expresses conservative ideas. I don't consider myself a conservative but I find all of this disturbing.

Damore isn't a conservative either by any stretch of the imagination. He's a liberal that wandered into some conservative ideas. FWIW I don't think any amount of proficient writing or research is going to yield a different response.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#234

Post by Danihan »

dreta wrote: post #151

All i got from the memo, besides the echo chamber part, which google, and others managed to prove almost immediately, was that the author thinks there are biological differences between men and women, which lead to women being less interested in the field, thus being under-represented, and that google's sexist practices won't change that, only make people resent the diversity hires. Was i reading the wrong memo? Beca…

Yep, the vast majority of things in this article that the interviewees said they "disagree with" are things the author never said.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#235

Post by humanrebar »

dreta wrote: post #151

All i got from the memo, besides the echo chamber part, which google, and others managed to prove almost immediately, was that the author thinks there are biological differences between men and women, which lead to women being less interested in the field, thus being under-represented, and that google's sexist practices won't change that, only make people resent the diversity hires. Was i reading the wrong memo? Beca…

One of the women said:

> I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.”

She goes on to say that people will likely misapply the ideas and judge her. It seems a lot of detractors think Damore should have known better and he takes responsibility for how his ideas affect people.

Another says:

> I don’t really see how it’s useful to have a discussion of general group traits in a work setting. Assuming that it’s true that women on average are more likely to have trait X, why should any woman have to overcome the additional barrier of proving that she’s not like other women, or that if she IS like other women, that the trait has no bearing on her job performance?

Again, she's not really disagreeing with Damore in this snippet. She's saying the ideas themselves are counterproductive and shouldn't be discussed.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#237

Post by sheepmullet »

More likely your female teammates are creating a hostile work environment by being unable to handle minor ideological disagreement.

Or even more likely, you have misinterpreted them and are unaware that they were not shaken or seriously disturbed in any way.

Edit: edited to remove the personal attack while still keeping the meaning.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#238

Post by Delmania »

bufbupa wrote: post #154
Delmania wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you go ahead and read this: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/08/sloppy-scien... Simply put, unless you are mindful of someone's "subjective feelings" you will never be able to have a "factual discourse" with them. People are individuals and not statistics. You can quote statistics and average all day long, but if you offend, anger, or harm someone with your words, that person will not listen to…

Thanks for the link, but I disagree with your interpretation and the analogy here. I interpreted this link as saying "don't speak in absolutes", not "don't hurt someones feeling". More often than not, there's information you find out later, and its very likely that you could be wrong. EG: nobody can run a 4 minute mile. This memo did not say women were bad engineers.

Why don't you reread that article?

>The sloppy scientist says, "on average, across populations, left to its own devices, this group is [not as skilled] [neurotic] [hard to work with] [not as smart] [not as strong] [slower]" etc. They make assumptions without sufficient data, and the rigor is missing.

Here's the line: >The first problem is that human beings aren't averages, they're individuals.

His core argument was that there are biological reasons why women are under-represented in technology and that the initiatives taken by Google to reach out to females were illegal and discriminatory. He attempted to use science to justify his beliefs. That would lead many women, who already are self-conscience about their position, into wondering if they are present to their own merit, or because Google is trying to fill a quota.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#239

Post by jack9 »

SolarNet wrote: post #197
jack9 wrote: post #104

> that these arguments about innate biological traits are complicated by trans, non-binary, and intersex folks. 2% (outliers) of the population does not invalidate the trends of the other 98% This is just wrong. > I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.” Gorillas typically have black fur. So no goril…

> Gorillas typically have black fur. So no gorilla can have white fur? Wat? More like "white people are generally bigoted, but of course this doesn't apply at an individual level".

Tell me you have a paper on that. At least there would be a scientific basis for mandating Unconscious Bias retraining.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#240

Post by evolve2017 »

rpiguy wrote: post #179
joe_the_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually say just the opposite - the memo seemed to be written as well and in as conciliatory manner as it could be written and the memo made good (or at least plausible) point and bad points. But the bad points were so bad that it was appropriate and necessary to fire Damore. Essentially, as analogy, there's no way for a person to say "Black people are inferior and shouldn't be hired", as a message broadcast thr…

Damore never said that women were worse engineers or that biology makes them worse engineers. There was no implied inferiority. It is largely the PC crowd who read implied-inferiority into any study of biological differences between male and female. If you look carefully at some of the comments from female Googlers after the memo was leaked, they talk about fears of being perceived as less capable based on their biol…

I think this has been talked about multiple times over - Damore did not have a line that states that women and/or minorities are bad engineers.

He does, however, clearly state that Google's hiring standards had 'lowered the bar' for women and minorities.

I think it's awfully charitable not to infer that he considers the women/minorities at Google (on average) to be inferior engineers.

Still, it's true that he never said that...

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