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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#401

Post by Consultant32452 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #394
Consultant32452 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we differentiate between firing Damore and participating in a nation-wide metaphorical public hanging?

> Can we differentiate between firing Damore and participating in a nation-wide metaphorical public hanging? Yes. Starting with the first is a thing that actually happened, and the second is not, so it's not worth talking about.

I'm sorry, but some random nobody at Google having some wrong ideas about diversity policy does not deserve to be national front page news. James Damore is about as meek and mild as it gets. He's not some David Duke monster. None of us should have ever heard his name. This was a public assassination of a powerless nobody for cheap political points. That's the part that I have a problem with. I have no problem at all with Google firing him. I have a problem with the way the national media and general public behaved.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#402

Post by [deleted] »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #381
refulgentis wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He literally says that those hiring practices can lower the bar. Sure, maybe he's saying that the bar for white/Asian men is higher than intended rather than that the bar for women and minorities is lower than intended, but you can't honestly argue that he isn't saying that women and minorities could be clearing a lower bar than white/Asian men.

I'm sorry, but you sound like you're using double-speak. If Google has indeed lowered the bar for some minorities then it's Google who is exhibiting the soft bigotry of lowered expectations, not Damore for simply pointing it out. If Damore has simply incorrectly interpreted Google's hiring policy, then Damore is still not a bigot based on this statement. Damore went out of his way to specify that all of his coworkers…

[deleted]

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#403

Post by aianus »

bduerst wrote: post #269
defertoreptar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His cardinal sin was saying that men and women are biologically different. He could've said a lot, but as soon as he tried to give a biological explanation for why girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer toy cars, he entered taboo territory. It's a thought crime because it implies that cultural influences aren't 100% responsible for why more men are interested in STEM than women.

Except he said women also lacked the abilities to be in tech and higher level management positions. This isn't just about children picking toys. >I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.

It is entirely uncontroversial and well-supported to say that there are many more extremely stupid, or criminal, or violent, or genetically ill men than women at the bottom of the bell curve.

Why is it so unbelievable that there are more men at the other end with extremely high ability? Just the fact that we have two different chromosomes X and Y is enough to increase our genetic variance (because if a gene on the X is faulty or extreme, we have no backup).

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#404

Post by leereeves »

bduerst wrote: post #376
Aunche wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the citations weren't particularly thorough, and he took some liberties with interpretation.

Not to mention cherry picking what to cite in order to support his arguments.

I agree Damore's sources were unconvincing, but I've searched for sources disputing one of his most controversial claims (that women are more "neurotic" - an unfortunately named Big Five personality trait - than men) and haven't found any.

Do you know of any?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#405

Post by alexandercrohde »

tptacek wrote: post #390
ThomPete wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to anywhere in his memo where he claims that men and women's cognitive level is different? Again I have read this quite a few times and I don't see it. So can you point me to exactly where he claims that?

These kinds of objections will draw approving nods from people who already agree with you, but to everyone else, the implication that differences in IQ variance between men and women lead the "top of the curve" to be naturally overpopulated with men is exactly what it sounds like: a claim for the intellectual superiority of men. Sure, there are dumb men; maybe they're even dumber than the dumbest women! But if you're…

Wait, what?

Damore's memo doesn't mention intelligence or IQ at all [1], not even in the abstract or as distributions or as averages.

--

Using the version of the memo cited on the wikipedia page https://web.archive.org/web/20170809220001/https://diversity...

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#406

Post by refulgentis »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #381
refulgentis wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He literally says that those hiring practices can lower the bar. Sure, maybe he's saying that the bar for white/Asian men is higher than intended rather than that the bar for women and minorities is lower than intended, but you can't honestly argue that he isn't saying that women and minorities could be clearing a lower bar than white/Asian men.

I'm sorry, but you sound like you're using double-speak. If Google has indeed lowered the bar for some minorities then it's Google who is exhibiting the soft bigotry of lowered expectations, not Damore for simply pointing it out. If Damore has simply incorrectly interpreted Google's hiring policy, then Damore is still not a bigot based on this statement. Damore went out of his way to specify that all of his coworkers…

Damore did not specify that all his coworkers were qualified.

Damore believed Google lowered the bar, hence the statements I've made explaining how he offended his coworkers.

It is reasonable to believe Google _hasn't_ lowered the bar, and if you did, you would be offended by a long document warning about gender-biased consequences of lowering the bar.

I'm not sure how productive this thread is. I'm very surprised by your repeated assertions that there's direct textual evidence I'm mistaken, yet you're willing to accuse me of bad faith repeatedly, instead of just correcting me.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#407

Post by bduerst »

whataretensors wrote: post #345
tclancy wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has no agency? He chose to speak up and then he chose to go down the path he did. It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port in a storm of his own making. Allow me to pour out a beaker of Soylent for the poor, downtrodden white man.

It's a despicable thing to destroy someone over an idea, despite the contents of that idea. I think tech workers are easy targets. For instance, we've all heard about the need for diversity in tech, but never hear about accredited investors being < 6 % female and < 1 % black.

I think what this Advice memo is about isn't the idea itself, but how he poorly he handled the idea. The disruptive way he handled the idea is not protected from being fired in an at-will employment company. Google even worded that in the termination:

>Your post advanced and relied on offensive gender stereotypes to suggest that women cannot be successful in the same kinds of jobs at Google as men. I want to make clear that our decision is based solely on the part of your post that generalizes and advances stereotypes about women versus men. It is not based in any way on the portions of your post that discuss Google's programs or trainings, or how Google can improve its inclusion of differing political views. Those are important points. I also want to be clear that this is not about you expressing yourself on political issues or having political views that are different than others at the company. Having a different political view is absolutely fine. Advancing gender stereotypes is not.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#408

Post by dragonwriter »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #401
dragonwriter wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we differentiate between firing Damore and participating in a nation-wide metaphorical public hanging? Yes. Starting with the first is a thing that actually happened, and the second is not, so it's not worth talking about.

I'm sorry, but some random nobody at Google having some wrong ideas about diversity policy does not deserve to be national front page news. James Damore is about as meek and mild as it gets. He's not some David Duke monster. None of us should have ever heard his name. This was a public assassination of a powerless nobody for cheap political points. That's the part that I have a problem with. I have no problem at all…

> I'm sorry, but some random nobody at Google having some wrong ideas about diversity policy does not deserve to be national front page news.

Claims of anti-white-male discrimination in tech are man-bites-dog stories, and naturally get more attention for that reason, plus, Damore immediately sought out media with political biases to maximally promote that kind of story. It becoming national front page news and getting the degree of attention it did in part just novelty, and in very large part the foreseeable result of how Damore soguht to promote his story.

> This was a public assassination

No, it wasn't. It was public, but there was no assassination.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#409

Post by aianus »

bduerst wrote: post #399
5F36B5F62640 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I bully a co-worker or start stating at work that I think someone is less capable for any reason linked to their biology, religion, sexuality or age I will be putting my job at risk. He didn't really say women were less capable, though (biologically or otherwise). He said that there are differences not related to capability, and that the current environment in tech is such that the work environment is more accep…

>He didn't really say women were less capable, though (biologically or otherwise). Did you read the memo? >>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.

That says nothing about the abilities of his female coworkers who are already working at Google and who are already in the minority there.

He's saying that going full steam ahead trying anything and everything to get to 50/50 may be impossible without lowering the bar for women which is bad for everyone.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#410

Post by baumy »

Analemma_ wrote: post #92
naveen99 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> absolute innate equivalence Is hacker aptitude some kind of conserved quantity that is conserved over sexes based on some natural symmetry ? Why not just say, absolutely pretended equivalence.

The null hypothesis is to assume there is innate equivalence; the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate otherwise and the attempts I've seen so far are lacking.

I'm sorry, this statement is extraordinarily confusing to me. Why on earth is the null hypothesis that there is innate equivalence? This seems so precisely backward that I'm going to need you to justify it before I can agree. A lifetime full of thousands of interactions with both men and women on a daily basis have consistently shown me that there are huge differences between the sexes.

The fact that we are all equal does not mean we are all equivalent. I suspect you may not be making this distinction.

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