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James Damore and three others end Google suit

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Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#171

Post by mabbo »

JSavageOne wrote: post #151
ergothus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all, As someone that also read it, those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying. A facade of misrepresented psuedoscience doesnt change the intent, motivation, or reality.

> but that is very much what he was saying No it's not. Nowhere in the paper did he say that women can't become good engineers. You're literally defaming his work. Either support your accusation with evidence, or don't comment.

> those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying

> Nowhere in the paper did he say that

You both are saying the same thing- he did not use those exact words.

The parent comment is saying that despite not saying "Women can't be engineers", the entire purpose of the paper, in the view of that reader, was to insinuate that women can't be engineers. It's not terribly hard to promote an idea without ever saying it explicitly. Perhaps you didn't read the deeper meaning out of the memo.

And demanding those who interpret things differently than you "don't comment" doesn't promote discussion, it ends it. When someone says something you disagree with, don't tell them to shut up, ask them why they see things differently. Debate. Discuss. Grow.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#172

Post by jhedwards »

manigandham wrote: post #108
ergothus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confi…

Men and women (biologically and socially) have different interests. This is different than capabilities. Countries with the most free choices see the most division between sexes in different professions. Nobody seems to have a problem when it comes to auto mechanics, medical sciences, teachers, social services, lawyers, etc. Why are different interests such a controversial thing to accept?

> Countries with the most free choices see the most division between sexes in different professions

I've seen this idea around and I think it's quite problematic. Some countries may have relatively "free choices", but that is just one cultural dimension. A culture is an inconceivably complex phenomenon. A culture also has education strategies, gender roles, specific kinds of toys and games, specific languages and sub-languages, a myriad of sub-cultures that youth will cluster around, cultural specific concepts and ideas and so on.

I'm not ruling out that biological factors play a role, but I see biological factors as just one part of a complex, and, additionally, if you look at history, it's very clear that cultural factors can and will override just about any biological imperative, from the will to live to the will to procreate. This should make it clear that cultural factors need to be systematically ruled out before we can begin to consider that biology is to blame.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#173

Post by searchableguy »

dijit wrote: post #167
ergothus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confi…

> Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" This is the absolute crux of the entire paper, and it's very easy to view it with whatever politicising lens you want. So lets try to flippantly and dispassionately break down how he constructed the statement 1) Women in absolute aggregate seem to not like CompSci. 2) We want more women in CompSci. 3) We should make CompSci more attractive to women.…

> We want more [singleton] in [x].

> We should make [x] more attractive to [singleton].

Why?

Unless the field is more toxic to [singleton] or there is more productivity due to "diversity" at which point you are admitting that people are different on biological (or social) level and have different interests, views etc.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#175

Post by reroute1 »

ergothus wrote: post #56
daenz wrote: post #16

I remember at a previous job, a female engineer talking to other engineers when the Damore story broke. She said "I can't believe he said that women can't be good engineers" and indicated he deserved to be fired. As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all , but even making the distinction makes you one of "them" and politicizes the workplace. It's just dis…

> As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all, As someone that also read it, those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying. A facade of misrepresented psuedoscience doesnt change the intent, motivation, or reality.

That's not what he said it's what you project and transform his arguments into. What he said was factual and his concerns were legit and the over reaction was hilarious

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#176

Post by spangry »

alexpetralia wrote: post #145
magic5227 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's not wrong. He shared a manifesto about gender differences in the workplace. In it, he calls women neurotic. Whether people's read on the manifesto is reductive of his overall argument isn't the point. He showed a serious lack of judgement writing and posting that in his workplace. He should not have played the part of expert gender/psychology expert. A researcher he cites specifically disagrees with his takeawa…

> He calls women neurotic. Neurotic, as he uses it, is not the same way it is used in everyday parlance. Neurotic is part of the Big 5 personality traits, for which there is substantial academic evidence. The traits are: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. He is using "neurotic" in the psychological and clinical sense. I believe he specifies as much in his actual paper.

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

"A study of gender differences in 55 nations using the Big Five Inventory found that women tended to be somewhat higher than men in neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The difference in neuroticism was the most prominent and consistent, with significant differences found in 49 of the 55 nations surveyed."

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#177

Post by Aunche »

exogeny wrote: post #60
daenz wrote: post #16

I remember at a previous job, a female engineer talking to other engineers when the Damore story broke. She said "I can't believe he said that women can't be good engineers" and indicated he deserved to be fired. As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all , but even making the distinction makes you one of "them" and politicizes the workplace. It's just dis…

This view to me is just as tone deaf at Damore's piece itself. Whether or not you agree or disagree, it clearly had an impact of making a very large and significant segment of female employees at Google feel as if they were biologically inferior or otherwise not suited to do their jobs. You can sit here and say "Oh, that's nuts, that's not what he said" - but you're also not hearing the same internalized misogyny and…

> it clearly had an impact of making a very large and significant segment of female employees at Google feel as if they were biologically inferior or otherwise not suited to do their jobs

Blame that on the attention seekers and clickbait journalists. A lot of things quoted out of context cause people to be offended. If you misrepresent citing a study that says that women score higher than men in neuroticism in personality surveys, as “Damore thinks women are neurotic,” of course women will be offended.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#178

Post by jpdb »

xiphias2 wrote: post #125
jashmatthews wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate Damore deliberately chose to cast doubt on whether the women Google hired were as good as the men. Otherwise, it's easier and less controversial to just argue that any form of discrimination is wrong.

At Google casting doubt was a good in the early days. Even in search relevance of the results were the most important factor, even if it meant much less clicks, and the culture that Eric Schmidt created with the founders reflected that. Nowadays I think it's a better strategy at Google to not discuss if you don't agree with its policies. It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics.

> It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics.

There are large swathes of people who can't just "discard politics" because they are directly affected by the current political status quo.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#179

Post by tyingq »

duxup wrote: post #25
kyrieeschaton wrote: post #2

It was a joint request to dismiss with no further comment, ie, almost certainly a settlement & a nondisclosure agreement.

I'd be curious what the agreement is if only because it didn't seem like he had much in the way of a strong with case.

Don't know if it was strong, but a judge did dismiss Google's motions to toss it out of arbitration last year. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/07/google-discrimination...

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#180

Post by coldtea »

gameswithgo wrote: post #174

Google has fired a few people, liberal and conservative, for being politically insufferable. Multiple people in the news about this on various places in political spectrum. It doesn’t mean they were wrong.

>for being politically insufferable

In other words for hurting their bottom line by demanding Google be better (each in their preferred way) for society and its employees?

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