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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#541

Post by chiaro »

ThomPete wrote: post #518
chiaro wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leaked emails documenting his correspondence with various alt-right figureheads paints a different picture. https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart...

One suggestion. Listen to an interview with him and here he present his opinions. He is provocative but mostly just an annoying showman. His harshest stance is on islam which given he is gay seems fairly understandable. Joe Rogan has a good interview with him (which is the one that got him fired from Breibart.)

I've already seen that interview. How people behave behind closed doors is a more trustworthy guide to their sympathies.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#542

Post by alexandercrohde »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #472
ThomPete wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am naive it should be perfectly easy to point to where I am wrong. I am not sure what agenda exactly you think I am pushing.

Is this not you? https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/956166173019836416 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/928650370104152065 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/867119704569237505 If someone is parroting a Peter Thiel quote in November of 2017 it's pretty obvious what agenda they are pushing. You, and Damore and so many others, are trying to dress up the regressive status quo as if it's something new, some…

Woah, this is kinda ad-hominem and off-color dude

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#543

Post by happyguy43 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #281
happyguy43 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did give me pause, then it gave me concern, then it fizzled into lack of surprise. Damore lost the PR battle long ago. PR justice, while disheartening, isn’t anything new. Challengers to popular ideology are never right at first, but he’ll be right eventually. One day it’ll be more faux pas to assume there are zero average personality differences between the sexes.

This is venturing off topic, but you're actually incorrect that he lost the PR battle [0]. The majority of people support Damore, or at least disagree with Google. The majority of subject matter experts, however, do not. [0]: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/348246-poll-google-was-...

Interesting that the public thinks he’s justified given how strong the media fought and continues to fight to condemn him. That should give one pause.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#544

Post by rayiner »

UncleMeat wrote: post #539
reader5000 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed on a biological level between 1984 and today. Alternatively, that the nature of software work changed.

In a way that aligns well with some nebulous personality difference between men and women? That's quite a claim. It seems to me like the nature of the work hasn't even dramatically changed in the first place.

As long as we're just literally making stuff up, isn't there a strong argument that software has become more "feminine" since the 1950s? Back then it was all about business calculations and the like. Now it's all "social" and "design" and "user-centric."

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#545

Post by ThomPete »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #534
ThomPete wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you think I should have replied. He claims I have a love for the alt-right and his attempt is to shame me. I wrote that message and then muted him.

You shouldn't have replied. You and the other guy are both out of your gourds, and you don't understand how crazy you look.

I look crazy for saying he didn't learn to read when he claimed I love the alt-right based on that post I wrote?

Maybe I shouldn't have replied but he was basically trying to start a mob against me. Not that I care but just wanted for the record that his claim was wrong and didn't want to engage in any civil manor when not spoken to that way either.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#546

Post by xenadu02 »

leereeves wrote: post #322
spinlock wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His assertions were bullshit. I thought Google should have fired him for bad science. He wasn't posting the analysis of a study he had done. He wasn't sharing data that he collected and wanted to analyze. He posted his opinions without any evidence backing them up.

His original memo did include references to scientific studies backing up his assertions, but several outside parties distributed the memo without these references.

This has been debunked a million times. He did no such thing. The one legit study he cited came to the opposite conclusion he claimed.

Putting footnotes in a document doesn’t magically make them scientific research.

Please stop repeating this trope.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#547

Post by stcredzero »

ubernostrum wrote: post #481
stcredzero wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the same thing as "objectively not bad". Anything that requires an imputational and emotional interpretation (which can't be supported by particular facts) to be "bad" is "objectively not bad." if we assume he had some purpose in mind that he thought was important Here, you're basically admitting that the reading required to support your position is an imputational and emotional interpretation which can't…

So let's play with this a bit. We're at a point where we've got actual empirical data showing that in a bunch of other fields of human endeavor which have: 1. Seen a huge observed gender gap, and 2. Comforted themselves with "rational" and "objective" and "scientific" explanations to prove it wasn't their fault, and 3. Eventually been persuaded to try even simple measures to test whether bias on the part of people in…

1. Seen a huge observed gender gap

Like the ones favoring women in medicine in some countries? Like nursing?

4. Outcomes drastically changed once those simple measures were adopted, in a way which clearly and beyond reasonable doubt put the lie to the explanations claimed in (2).

But only up to a point. Google and YouTube execs are on the record saying that they basically got to parity with the available candidate pool.

To buy Damore's arguments we must either ignore this evidence, or somehow buy into a completely unsupported assumption that computer programming -- for reasons nobody knows -- is completely and utterly unique

Not at all. We could just suppose there's something skewing the preferences of people in school.

Even worse: we have to believe that about a field which previously did not have such a huge gap, and acquired it only relatively recently.

Actually, for a time "programmer" was skewed towards women. That could also lend credence to the idea that something is skewing preferences.

To anyone who does a bit of actual research on this stuff, Damore is practically a cliché. He's the person who ends up in the history book under "wow, people actually used to believe that stuff".

No, the Big 5 results he cites are actually quite important in psychology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Ge...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmyO3hbOz8

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#548

Post by leereeves »

ncallaway wrote: post #470
leereeves wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It matters little what you see in the memo. You don't care what the memo actually says? Then what's the basis of your opinions on this matter?

He didn't say it doesn't matter what's in the memo. He said it doesn't matter how you interpret the memo.

If you want to convince me, show me the evidence from the memo.

Throughout this discussion I mostly see people stating their own opinions with nary a quote from the actual memo.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#549

Post by xenadu02 »

knorker wrote: post #218
fra wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... absolute innate equivalence ..." As was already stated in this thread, this is the null hypothesis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397321

It's one thing to assume the null hypothesis. Quite another to discard ANY experience or data because it violates the null hypothesis. Damore certainly cited many studies, and while there's valid criticism of their validity, "they disagree with the null hypothesis, ergo they are false" is not right. Nor is "I have not read them, therefore the null hypothesis is right".

> Damore certainly cited many studies,

He did no such thing. Please stop spreading misinformation.

He linked to blogs and magazine articles then people started calling his footnotes “research”.

The one legit study he linked came to the opposite conclusion of what he claimed.

I suggest you go read his links for yourself and consider the sources. It might be illuminating, unless you are already biased in favor of the argument he made.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#550

Post by ggm »

leereeves wrote: post #348
ggm wrote: post #100

What I think of his views (I disagree) is not germaine to the question: was it sensible to write and publish? It was not. That I disagree with his premise and polemic makes it easier for me to align desire and reality, but the reality of the situation doesn't change because of my desires: he was stupid to publish and Google were within their rights to fire him. All the other observed comments about liberal/conservati…

There was no court involved in this yet. This was the opinion of a lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board that they should not take up Damore's case.

Good point. He probably still has some civil court actions to take but I suspect the NLRB position is wounding to his case.
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