Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by sol_remmy » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #262

jack9 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She said "complicate" not "invalidate". That's true. However, the trends are not complicated by the outliers. Her statement was meant to throw trending into question and I overstated by taking a bad position (phrase-wise). > What actions do you wish to take based on the fur color of gorillas? Provide more shaded areas (canopy or artificial), of course. I'm not sure who this elaborate "analogy" (populations vs indiv…

> However, the trends are not complicated by the outliers. Well, but, they are. A gender binary is a simplification. A full analysis would really need to take a look at things like trans and nonbinary people and how they interact with the trends. But such an analysis would be more complicated than the binary trends in the original document. That is, such trends are an imperfect model of reality, and to better match r…

> Well, but, they are. A gender binary is a simplification. A full analysis would really need to take a look at things like trans and nonbinary people and how they interact with the trends.

How about this: the memo was about men and women. The 98%.

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

#282

Post by pvg » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

hedgew wrote: post #21

Many of the more reasonable criticisms of the memo say that it wasn't written well enough; it could've been more considerate, it should have used better language, or better presentation. In this particular link, Scott Alexander is used as an example of better writing, and he certainly is one of the best and most persuasive modern writers I've found. However, I can not imagine ever matching his talent and output, even…

Scott Alexander is used as an example of 'better venue' and 'less objectionable phrasing', which is different from 'good writing'.

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

#283

Post by alexandercrohde » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #112

Here's a (perhaps controversial) view: people have no rational basis to equate the freedom to speak with freedom from marginalization. If a person presents beliefs that are incongruent with facts, or that attempt to use facts in a way that isn't compatible with advancing an opinion, I think that person's views should be marginalized. I put climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists, and people who use questionable ap…

Well, by the same token, being fired is a completely different beast than having to suffer the tragedy of being afraid a coworker might think a negative stereotype about you.

I know who I think the victim is.

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

#284

Post by Blackthorn » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #266

Blackthorn wrote: post #177

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. 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.

Nope. Someone taking offense is not demonstration of anything, other than someone taking offense.

The post I was responding to said that it did not create a hostile working environment. I explained how it did do that. Are you trying to claim that causing offense to a large group is not creating a hostile working environment?

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

#285

Post by BearGoesChirp » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #170

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…

>2% (outliers) of the population does not invalidate the trends of the other 98% This is just wrong. This is a strawman. She said "complicate" not "invalidate". >Gorillas typically have black fur. So no gorilla can have white fur? Wat? What actions do you wish to take based on the fur color of gorillas? Damore didn't just reach scientific conclusions about differences in genders. He went further and suggested actions…

>This is a strawman. She said "complicate" not "invalidate".

To what extent do specialized species (like ring species) complicate the concept of species in general? It lets us know that there are outliers that are complicated, but it doesn't complicate dog vs cat at all.

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

#286

Post by sidlls » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

alexandercrohde wrote: post #173

sidlls wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Applied science incorrectly to confirm a bias or advance an opinion incorrectly" and "applied science to form an opinion" are different things. Damore did the former.

Except "what is correct" is the whole point of the debate, so nobody knows which side is doing the former until everybody agrees, which they most certainly do not agree yet. Mind you that to the other side, it looks to us like what you're doing is the former and not the latter (until some common ground is found).

No, there is not an equivalent act that "both sides" are engaged in, here.

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

#287

Post by notreallythough » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

mizzack wrote: post #73

tedivm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume that we're in an alternative universe where the document was never leaked. The document still did harm. Just read this quote from the posted article- > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? How do I prove myself to people one way or another? Th…

From your quote: > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? Your perspective is that this is harmful because the memo caused self doubt, so the memo was the problem. From Damore's perspective, if there were no quota/diversity hiring programs at that place of…

The memo didn't cause self doubt, the memo was intended to inspire others to look for doubt (hence the "lowering the bar").

The memo specifically targeted diversity hires as a lower bar. Imagine if a memo started circulating that asked everyone to question whether or not you were hired for your skill. That's a terrible environment to create.

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

#288

Post by jquery » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

evolve2017 wrote: post #240

rpiguy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

By that logic, any criticism of hiring methods means you view the current crop of employees as inferior.

Is saying "we need more diversity" code for "white men are inferior"? You might be on to something.

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

#289

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:57 PM UTC

dguaraglia wrote: post #94

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…

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."

Right. Anytime I read or hear someone stress the left or right (lib/con, etc) in an argument, it is often a warning sign that the person watches too much corporate television and that a low-quality argument is on its way.

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

#290

Post by ocdtrekkie » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 8:57 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #166

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and I suspect the attitude of cooler heads may act in Damore's favor when all is said and done. The number of leakers has to be quite the headache for Google's StopLeaks folks. Between people leaking Damore's memo because they were upset by it, and people talking to Breitbart because they were angry he was fired, there's been a LOT of leaks. How Google approaches handling this issue is going to be interestin…

It was fascinating to see how many Google managers operate their own "blacklists". That's got to be legally very dodgy.

That's a huge one. I can easily see anyone who operates an internal "blacklist" of other employees as creating a hostile work environment. And from my understanding, those who did posted as such under their real names, so there's no investigation needed to track down who is doing it.

If there's an employee conduct we should all be able to agree is hostile, blacklisting coworkers would be it.