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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#581

Post by koomi »

sangnoir wrote: post #564
curyous wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"women, on average, have more neuroticism" is provably true. It's been measured. It's a shame that we can't start a discussion with the truth

> "women, on average, have more neuroticism" is provably true. What does that have to do with anything? It does not support (let alone prove ) the idea that they are less capable engineers because of this. Where is the science linking this to ability? I might as well state "men, on average, are more violent", or have narrower hips - this is provably true, but it would equally uncorrelated to suitability to the life o…

What makes you think the memo claimed "they are less capable engineers"?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#582

Post by 0x445442 »

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.

Right, nor have I heard anyone mention the monumental irony of a company who makes billions monetizing differences between the sexes and then fires one of its employees for stating there are differences between the sexes.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#583

Post by Consultant32452 »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #520
Consultant32452 wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm not afraid to eat crow when it's due. I've re-read the memo and you're right, in the memo he did not specifically state that everyone was qualified. I must have been thinking about an interview I saw of him. I agree with you that it's reasonable to believe that Google _hasn't_ lowered the bar, but I don't see what difference that makes. There is a very applicable quote here by Albert Maysles, "Tyranny is the d…

The letter does bother me and I would have fired him, but I share some sympathy for having this blow up on a world stage. Is there any good timeline on how that happened? I'm pretty sure the leak (not the firing) is what made it national news... Do we know yet how that happened or how it circulated internally before that?

I think the thing that makes me more sympathetic is that the memo was written in response to him being asked his opinion on the diversity hire training he'd just received. Rightly or wrongly he clearly felt the diversity training was bigoted against him. I feel it's unfair to go out of your way to ask someone's opinion and then fire them for having the "wrong" one. I'm willing to grant someone a lot of leeway if they're genuinely trying to respond to a direct query. Conversely, it's also possible he went on a mini-crusade, in which case I'd definitely have fired him.

With regard to national news, I believe you are correct that the leak is what got it into the national news, not the firing. But that doesn't change the equation. The 4th estate is powerful and I believe it grossly misused its power here.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#584

Post by solidsnack9000 »

rsp1984 wrote: post #119
tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

(for instance, any kind of official recognition that men are better suited to software development at Google than women) This was where Damore's got his words twisted in his mouth: He never claimed that! The problematic claims he did make are that women - on average - "have a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading" and are more prone to "neuroticism". Nowhere in the memo does he t…

High "neuroticism" is tendency to ruminate on one's life experiences in a negative way -- to reflect especially on difficult situations and experience anxiety or distress. It is one of the "Big 5" personality traits.

It's not the same thing as being crazy or a neurotic in the Freudian sense (which is not a personality trait but a condition or syndrome, more or less vaguely defined).

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#585

Post by jjeaff »

gdix wrote: post #552
fzeroracer wrote: post #468

The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech) ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed…

I'm skeptical of the "early days of CS" narrative. Could it be that there were lots of women working with computers because it was seen as "secretarial" work. In other words, was it just bosses placing their female employees in computer-related roles as companies added those positions? If so, could it be that that "dropoff" in the 80s could be just reflective of the demographics of people who were choosing that profe…

I know that initially, part of the reason was that only women knew how to type.

In fact, it was almost embarrassing for a man if he knew how to type since that was women's work.

So I'm sure that played a role once keyboard came into the picture.

Before that, when it was mostly punchcards, women were manual "computers" that did the calculations. So it seems reasonable that computers were considered women's work and thus that drive the trend.

Whether women were more or less suited to the job wouldn't seem to be relevant at the time.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#586

Post by waterhouse »

stryk wrote: post #562
curyous wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"women, on average, have more neuroticism" is provably true. It's been measured. It's a shame that we can't start a discussion with the truth

source? (not trying to be snide or anything, I'm actually curious if there's a source for that)

For context, one should note that the word "neuroticism" is not used as a regular English word, but is one of the "Big Five" traits in psychology, which comes from factor analysis of personality surveys. Its "definition" would be something like "An underlying quality that correlates with answering 'Agree/Strongly Agree' on these questions and 'Disagree/Strongly Disagree' on those questions". Damore did not note this in his memo, which made the statement more offensive than it should have been.

With that established, if we go to Wikipedia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Age,_sex_and_geogr...

"A 2013 review found that groups associated with higher levels of neuroticism are young adults who are at high risk for mood disorders and women.[22]

For sex, the same review found that "research in large samples has shown that levels of N (neuroticism) are higher in women than men. This is a robust finding that is consistent across cultures. This is especially the case during the reproductive years, but is also visible in children and elderly." It furthermore said that EEG responses showed clear differences between the sexes in individuals with high N levels, but no functional MRI studies have yet been performed to investigate the differences in sex regarding N. However, there is a reason to suspect physiological differences to play a role because of previous studies that showed for example, a correlation between the size of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and N in female teenagers, so "the issue of sex differences in N and the implications for understanding N’s neurobiological basis deserve more detailed and systematic investigation."[22] A 2010 review found personality differences between genders to be between "small and moderate," the largest of those differences being in the traits of agreeableness and neuroticism.[37] Many personality traits were found to have had larger personality differences between men and women in developed countries compared to less developed countries, and differences in three traits—extraversion, neuroticism, and people-versus-thing orientation—showed differences that remained consistent across different levels of economic development, which is also consistent with the "possible influence of biologic factors."[37] Three cross-cultural studies have revealed higher levels of female neuroticism across almost all nations.[37]"

The abstracts of both of the cited studies are visible, though the full articles seem to be behind paywalls.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#587

Post by jjeaff »

reader5000 wrote: post #527
fzeroracer wrote: post #468

The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech) ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed…

>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.

Just because initially, women worked on computers doesn't indicate to me whether they were more or less suited to the job. People just thought of it as women's work. They were the typists and human "computers"

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#588

Post by rishav_sharan »

fzeroracer wrote: post #468

The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech) ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed…

Are we sure that stenographers and typists were not counted as programmers in the 80?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#589

Post by PricelessValue »

ralusek wrote: post #528
throwestawayer wrote: post #513

Real question: having seen that many good engineers are hesitant to work at a company with very limited diversity, we have endeavored to increase diversity by hiring qualified junior engineers from less represented groups. Is this acceptable? These are completely qualified folks, for the job of junior engineer. We purposely, from the category of all qualified junior applicants, hired those that also were from less re…

If they are completely qualified, they should and would be hired by a system that completely ignores gender and race. While the morality of your system is up for debate, what is not up for debate is that your system is mathematically disadvantaged in terms of hiring the best engineers...because your system ignores the vast majority of the hiring pool (presumably white/Indian/east asian [straight?] men). A blind syste…

> If they are completely qualified, they should and would be hired by a system that completely ignores gender and race.

I can't believe you were downvoted for expressing that merit rather than race and gender should be use for hiring decisions.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#590

Post by gdix »

jjeaff wrote: post #585
gdix wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical of the "early days of CS" narrative. Could it be that there were lots of women working with computers because it was seen as "secretarial" work. In other words, was it just bosses placing their female employees in computer-related roles as companies added those positions? If so, could it be that that "dropoff" in the 80s could be just reflective of the demographics of people who were choosing that profe…

I know that initially, part of the reason was that only women knew how to type. In fact, it was almost embarrassing for a man if he knew how to type since that was women's work. So I'm sure that played a role once keyboard came into the picture. Before that, when it was mostly punchcards, women were manual "computers" that did the calculations. So it seems reasonable that computers were considered women's work and th…

> more or less suited

I would say "more or less preferred" is a more relevant and less acerbic metric to consider.

I think James Damore's main thesis (or one of his main theses) was that men had more of a natural and biologically driven preference to work with things/machines. So if women were placed in these positions, it detracts from the narrative that "something mysterious happened in the 80s that caused women to flee the computer industry".

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