Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge • Hacker News Board

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#751

Post by tptacek » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #738

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it flags Damore's interpretation of science as squishy and ideological. Which, let's be fair, it totally is, because he's no scientist and he has a very limited understanding of the sources he quotes in support of his views. Scientific debate doesn't take place in Google forums through Google memos, any more than it happens in HN comments, so what was Damore's point of providing references to back his posit…

Actually, it flags Damore's interpretation of science as squishy and ideological. The 55-country study he cited has effectively one of the highest P-values in social science of recent years. It's widely considered in psychology to be an important result. Denying this is basically parroting intellectual dishonesty on the level of Global Warming denialism. The Big-5 personality traits he cited are the strongest results…

It's open season on everyone in virtually every American workplace. Why won't you acknowledge this? You're a reasonable guy. We've had dinner together!

What's happening here isn't a shift. What you're demanding is a new special protection for "people who can defend their position scientifically".

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#752

Post by DoreenMichele » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

verylittlemeat wrote: post #709

DoreenMichele wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it is bikeshedding. But I think it is bikeshedding with a constructive purpose of serving as a safe sandbox in which people can practice talking about difficult subjects without it blowing up in their face. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399006

The "constructive purpose" of the discussion for a man is to practice talking about difficult subjects. The real world implication of discussing it is suggesting that the potential of women in tech is up for debate. Just talking about some things is enough to imply unintended conclusions. That's how it works in the real world no matter how hard you want to play Mr. Logic. To believe otherwise is extremely naive and p…

I was married for a lot of years. My marriage was a case of opposites attract. We argued incessantly about everything but personal belief.

It took us a lot of years to get to the point where we could go furniture shopping and communicate constructively in order to agree on a purchase instead of fighting about who would win this one. We often were focused on entirely different attributes in our decision making process. For example, attractiveness of a bookshelf might be my focus. Sturdiness might be his.

Once we got past knee jerk rejection of each other's first pick, it was entirely possible to find a bookshelf that satisfied both his criteria and mine. But that required us to be able to communicate effectively, something we didn't have mastered when we got married at age 19.

When you do surveys, you find that the majority of people are both antiabortion and pro choice at the same time. Most people feel that abortion should be a last resort, not standard birth control. But they also feel a woman should have control over her body and her life and should not need to prove she was raped to choose to terminate a pregnancy.

Pollsters with a political agenda know this. They can survey the same people about the same issue and come up with data to support either antiabortion laws or pro choice laws depending on how they ask the questions.

Most people are not monoliths and not rabidly polarized along X social fault lines. The inability to safely talk to "the other side" means people can't learn to speak in a more nuanced way and can't build bridges.

I'm not 19 anymore. I see no reason to pick bookshelf A while hubby picks bookshelf B and we fight about who gets what they want. I am much more interested these days in finding out why he likes B, talking about why I like A and then looking for a third option that is satisfactory to both of us.

Society benefits when people can find a safe sandbox to begin that communication process. It does not have to be a case of which side wins and which side loses.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#753

Post by bencalam » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #693

bencalam wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shared hallucination is the one experienced by the people agreeing with the memo, and the ones who feel needlessly 'victimized' and 'persecuted' now that times are changing. Of course, this is expected since the first ones to complain about growing equality are the ones who prospered disproportionately under inequality.

It has very little to do with feelings though. In my specific case I am not affected by these politics and policies whatsoever as I am thousands of miles away from the United States, and I am self employed. To constantly read about cases where biology determines whether or not people are eligible for a particular opportunity, i.e. imposing inequality of opportunity in order to arrive at equality of outcome, is violat…

In isolation, yes, you are very right. But history is anything but that, and there is always a context and reason for why things are the way they are.

I am from India, and I know bias when I see it. Classism and racism is systemic in India and whether you want to believe me or not, a person from a religion or upper caste will prefer a person from the same group. I am not going to claim that this exact same thing happens in the US, but I will not believe that it doesn't happen at all.

The thing is that the memo even mentions the problems with inherent bias, and then mentions that we need to have "open" dialogue.

The open dialogue is hard to happen when one group has been suppressed for generations.

What are you going to tell them? - Ok, we are sorry for what we have done, now we are going to be equal and you can compete for the same things? One group is dirt poor and disadvantaged, and the other has always enjoyed enough wealth to get proper education. How is that level playing field?

Minorities need to be given a hand up, at least for a generation to really make a level playing field.

As for your examples, yes, it's unfair, but that's what the under privileged group got told for generations. I guess life really is unfair.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#754

Post by bencalam » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

pokemongoaway wrote: post #721

bencalam wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shared hallucination is the one experienced by the people agreeing with the memo, and the ones who feel needlessly 'victimized' and 'persecuted' now that times are changing. Of course, this is expected since the first ones to complain about growing equality are the ones who prospered disproportionately under inequality.

How is it that you feel so correct that you don't need to cite anything in reply to such a thorough analysis of events? "Prospered under inequality"? What was the name of this inequality law? Or was it "systemic" so I can't possibly understand it with my biased white male brain? The inequality we're under is the huge push to hire minorities and women. For example, as an Asian to get into Harvard, you need to have hig…

Yes, it's unfortunate that you can articulate the problem so well and still not see it for what it really is. But in the interest of carrying on, I am copy pasting one of my replies -

In isolation, yes, you are very right. But history is anything but that, and there is always a context and reason for why things are the way they are.

I am from India, and I know bias when I see it. Classism and racism is systemic in India and whether you want to believe me or not, a person from a religion or upper caste will prefer a person from the same group. I am not going to claim that this exact same thing happens in the US, but I will not believe that it doesn't happen at all.

The thing is that the memo even mentions the problems with inherent bias, and then mentions that we need to have "open" dialogue.

The open dialogue is hard to happen when one group has been supressed for generations.

What are you going to tell them? - Ok, we are sorry for what we have done, now we are going to be equal and you can compete for the same things? One group is dirt poor and disatvantaged, and the other has always enjoyed enough wealth to get proper education. How is that level playing field?

Minorities need to be given a hand up, at least for a generation to really make a level playing field.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#755

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #459

stcredzero wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your questions and concerns would be alarming and frightening to me if Damore had received a criminal indictment. He didn't, so I'm much less concerned about the case. That's the old canard about how, "it isn't the government." Google isn't the government, but they have incredibly broad power over modern media. Speech isn't free if it becomes open season on you by powerful entities for exercising it. The fact that Go…

Google (at least in this case) wasn't acting in their capacity as a power-broker over wider internet speech and discourse. They were acting in their capacity as an employer. Their power over society as an employer is much more limited and doesn't concern me. If you want to have a conversation over whether twitter and Google as companies have enough power that their actions should be judged in a 1A context that's fine…

The fact that so many of Google's employees could demonstrate the degree of ideological hysteria which they demonstrated greatly concerns me, and has a direct bearing on the 1A context.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#756

Post by iovrthoughtthis » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #752

verylittlemeat wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "constructive purpose" of the discussion for a man is to practice talking about difficult subjects. The real world implication of discussing it is suggesting that the potential of women in tech is up for debate. Just talking about some things is enough to imply unintended conclusions. That's how it works in the real world no matter how hard you want to play Mr. Logic. To believe otherwise is extremely naive and p…

I was married for a lot of years. My marriage was a case of opposites attract. We argued incessantly about everything but personal belief. It took us a lot of years to get to the point where we could go furniture shopping and communicate constructively in order to agree on a purchase instead of fighting about who would win this one. We often were focused on entirely different attributes in our decision making process…

I just published a post about effective communication actually.

https://medium.com/@ioverthoughtthis/how-to-have-an-effectiv...

> Society benefits when people can find a safe sandbox to begin that communication process.

Totally agree. I would love some feedback from you given your stance on discussion!

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#757

Post by Chris2048 » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #422

alexandercrohde wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'm not interested in rereading the version of the memo that was published publicly. I'm working from the direct quotes in the NLRB Advice Memo. I believe that what you read was not what was circulated inside Google, but Damore is not at pains to tell you that.

My understanding is that the version distributed was a draft purposefully leaked, rather than distributed by Damore.

Why should this be representative here? Shouldn't the leaker be punished for the fallout of distributing the draft, if the final version was more nuanced?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#758

Post by Chris2048 » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #277

Consultant32452 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the progressive left THRUST Damore and anyone who might have similar thoughts/questions into the welcoming arms of the alt-right. I'm disappointed with the "Goolag" t-shirts, but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. So this socially awkward nerd did what any sensible person would do, rode the wave that was sent his way the best he coul…

> but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. Why are you writing this in the passive, as if this is an unfortunate thing that happened to him? He did all of that to himself. That memo created a hostile workplace and Google had no choice but to fire him. The outcome here isn't terrible, it's exactly what should have happened.

The memo was leaked, and its (willful?) misrepresentation created a "hostile" environment. Google did have a choice.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#759

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #676

dragonwriter wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him. Motivation isn't what defines harassment; effect on others is what is relevant to harassment; not only is imputing a motive not necessary to finding harassment in the act of presenting the memo as he…

Is there legal backing to your assertion, or is that just your opinion? Clearly that can’t be true either. Otherwise, I can claim that socks and sandals are offending me, and it becomes your problem to modify your attire, not my problem to tolerate it.

I'll correct what I said above; either purpose or effect can be a decisive component of harassment; effect is more commonly used because it is easier to demonstrate, and the chararcterization of Damore’s memo as harassment has consistently been based on the claimed effect of contributing to an “intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment”, not a characterization of purpose.

The regulatory definition is at 29 CFR § 1604.11(a), reading, in relevant part: “(a) Harassment on the basis of sex is a violation of section 703 of title VII. Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when [...] such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” (Note that while the first sentence refers to harassment on the basis of sex, the second only directly refers to sexual harassment; the same principles, though, are consistently applied to sex/gender-based harassment—and to harassment based on any other characteristic protected against discrimination by Title VII.)

> Otherwise, I can claim that socks and sandals are offending me, and it becomes your problem to modify your attire, not my problem to tolerate it.

That's not the case because the standard applied for job as tile environment harassment is a hybrid objective/subjective standard in which it must be shown both that the victim was actually offended and that a reasonable person in their position would be offended.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#760

Post by eridius » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #758

eridius wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but he did lose his livelihood, had his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. Why are you writing this in the passive, as if this is an unfortunate thing that happened to him? He did all of that to himself. That memo created a hostile workplace and Google had no choice but to fire him. The outcome here isn't terrible, it's exactly what should have happened.

The memo was leaked, and its (willful?) misrepresentation created a "hostile" environment. Google did have a choice.

What do you mean, leaked? He sent it to the company. Whether or not it was released outside of the company has no bearing on whether it created a hostile environment. In fact, it was "leaked" precisely because it was so offensive.

And what misrepresentation? You're deluding yourself. The memo as written is what created the hostile work environment, not any "misrepresentation".