James Damore and three others end Google suit • Hacker News Board

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#281

Post by dijit » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

pinkfoot wrote: post #266

dijit wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Source. Well, what I mean is that we're not even close to a gender parity, it would be fine at 35-40% female in my opinion but the industry is closer to 14-25% (depending on country) and to me that indicates a problem. I think quota's and the extreme bias towards education programs that favour women is problematic though, in my opinion it infantilises Women which I dislike because I really believe women are just as…

> things that are designed for everyone should have a diverse set of eyes on them. Teaching, especially pre-school teaching, is going to be tough to make attractive for men. And for a lot of parents too.

I agree, this needs to be fixed also. But teaching isn't my industry.

One of the teachers I most learned from was male, he actually sparked my interest in computers because he ran an after school computer club for 20 pence.. which for a poor household such as mine was affordable..

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#282

Post by DonHopkins » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

>"Meanwhile, a judge opined it wouldn’t be easy for two fellow plaintiffs to prevail on their “novel” theory that Google is biased against “political conservatives” -- a term the company argued was too vague to support a class-action suit."

Especially since anyone who rightfully calls themselves a "political conservative" has long since left the Republican party after it left them, and doesn't consider themselves an "alt right" Trump supporter.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#283

Post by dx87 » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

jashmatthews wrote: post #234

waheoo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesnt cast doubt though.. You cant have so much more women than the rest of the industry without that being true. There literally is not enough women coming through engineering schools to allow for that without you a) discriminating against men based on sex, and b) lowering the bar for women. There is no doubt. It is a mathematical given.

At the time, a Googler explained here how they did it without doing either a or b https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14957764

Their description of what recruiters do seems like discrimination. They said that recruiters would deliberately go out of their way to find diversity candidates, instead of treating everyone equal. That matches up with a leaked email where the recruiters were told to stop processing candidates who weren't diversity hires.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#284

Post by jacobmoe » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

LurkersWillLurk wrote: post #274

jacobmoe wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been endless discussion about Damore. In particular podcasts you'd think that the firing of a random engineer at Google ranked alongside 9/11 as a defining event in modern history. If I circulated a memo to my co-workers that not only opposed a new policy from management, but did obvious harm to the expressed intent of that policy, I might be fired. It doesn't matter if the memo I circulated would have gotten…

I can't tell if you're trying to say that a policy from management is beyond all reproach or if "these things just happen in the real world". Either way, the former shouldn't be true and the latter should be wrong. Of course, correctness doesn't stop anyone from being terminated, but that's not the point.

Policy from management is not beyond all reproach, but what venue you have for expressing disagreement varies by company. Do you think the firing of James Damore warranted the attention it got?

Edit: removed a too snarky question.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#285

Post by dijit » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:13 PM UTC

searchableguy wrote: post #268

dijit wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Source. Well, what I mean is that we're not even close to a gender parity, it would be fine at 35-40% female in my opinion but the industry is closer to 14-25% (depending on country) and to me that indicates a problem. I think quota's and the extreme bias towards education programs that favour women is problematic though, in my opinion it infantilises Women which I dislike because I really believe women are just as…

I am not sure if you intentionally ignored it because I said the same - that women in tech is a minority - outlier. The problem with accessing whether the field is unattractive to women is asking women not in the field why they don't like the field which I haven't seen done much. This is the reason why I compared construction. Secondly, I don't understand why it has to be CS. A product requires more roles than a CS g…

> I am not sure if you intentionally ignored it because I said the same - that women in tech is a minority - outlier. The problem with accessing whether the field is unattractive to women is asking women not in the field why they don't like the field which I haven't seen done much. This is the reason why I compared construction.

Sorry, I thought we were still discussing the James Damore memo, because he said and backed up the assertion that women seemed to not _want_ to join compsci programs or join the associated industries in aggregate when compared to men.

I think you're assuming that I am the poster child for diversity and inclusion; I am really not. I just make my own decisions I'm definitely on nobodies side and I'm not going to go down the path of defending other industries.

I can just see a value in diversity in teams that work on products we all use, and I think I communicated that effectively enough in previous comments.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#286

Post by sacks2k » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #17

look_lookatme wrote: post #12

Damore does not fit into the neat ideological right or left classification but it would be impossible for an institution like Bloomberg to have nuance on this issue. Just because some deplorable lifted him up doesn't mean he should be defined specifically on an ideological axis. But, of course, who gives a fuck. The rage machine rages on.

But he did become an alt-right / Fox News / conservative machine darling.

It's pretty well known that if you go on Fox news, the other news organizations like CNN, MSNBC, etc will ban you from their station. Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew have talked about this on their podcast and so have many other people interviewed by Fox news.

This creates the false impression of "Fox News darlings" and ends up furthering the "us vs them" narrative.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#287

Post by tzs » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #247

coldtea wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> In other words for hurting their bottom line by demanding Google be better (each in their preferred way) for society and its employees? Yes? If I hired someone to clean my apartment and instead of cleaning my apartment he or she spent the whole time writing up long diatribes demanding that I be better, per his or her understanding, for society and my employees you can bet I would not be hiring that cleaner again!

I may be misremembering, but wasn’t Damore’s post to an internal list Google specifically set up to solicit feedback on diversity?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#288

Post by free_rms » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

jpdb wrote: post #178

xiphias2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, but if you're talking about Googlers, that's bullshit, they're fine. 200k/yr, 300k/yr+ worth of fine.

It's great to have empathy for people in a less fortunate position, and yes we have a lot of problems in our society, but FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#289

Post by dirtydroog » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

uxcolumbo wrote: post #248

manigandham wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He interviewed with Dave Rubin and Joe Rogan. Also who on the left would interview him? That's the issue with claiming that he only talked to one side.

What makes you think Joe Rogan is alt right? Watching his interviews with various people who are more left leaning doesn't give me the impression that he is alt-right.

Rogan was labelled alt-right after he interviewed Gavin McInness and Alex Jones again (a comical interview btw). That may have been cancelled out by him interviewing Bernie Sanders though.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#290

Post by hpcjoe » Sat, May 09, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #261

somewhereoutth wrote: post #226

I am shocked that there is even a discussion to be had on this. In architecture (a somewhat older profession, but also concerning things constructed by people), women previously did have a hard time, and often had to practice under their husbands/partners name. Mercifully this ended some while ago, and now architecture schools and onwards are more evenly gender balanced. Nobody suggests that women are somehow natural…

> Nobody suggests that women are somehow naturally 'less inclined', and the profession is richer for it. It was not about "inclination", but rather that the current engineering culture tended to be lean a certain way when it comes to focus: > Damore said that those differences include women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroti…

There are economic factors associated with being a primary educator. The pay, for lack of a better way to put it, sucks. This impacts men and women.

My wife and I went through Physics grad school together. To say that the experience was hostile for her, and many other women, would be an understatement.

My daughter is contemplating grad school for next year (senior in college, its been an interesting year). We've been open/honest about the challenges she'll face in Physics, but the state of things is much better now than it was when we went through 30 years ago (ouch). Given that she runs circles around most of her fellow students, I'm not the least bit worried on the academic side.

My concern, as all fathers of exceptional daughters should be (I guess that's all of us?) is the cultural aspects of programs, and potential jobs. I use the word "place" below to discuss grad school and/or jobs.

If the place is overtly hostile, its a hard pass. No need to waste time with that. Think Uber, and other tech-bro places.

If the place is passive aggressive hostile, there are strategies to cope, but again, biased towards pass. Passive aggressive hostility wears on you.

If the place is open, and sane. Worth a look.

Think about the economic aspect of this. You the enlightened consumer/producer of product (grad school, job) have more information than ever about the quality of life at these places. If a place is just bad, they will lose at attracting sufficient consumers/producers of producers. Which means they will have lower ability to operate in market.

Bigger picture. Women are not intrinsically less able to do quantitative or analytical work. Environments that are not conducive to them doing this work will tend to depress the population of them doing this work. Environments which are freer from these stresses will tend to accumulate population doing this work.

I think it might be simple as that. Its not about ability. Its about environment.