Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

James Damore and three others end Google suit

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 1001 posts

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#361

Post by milankovic »

foldr wrote: post #353
spangry wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they're particularly off putting to women. This is the crux of the issue. For this to be true, it must also be true that men and women are, at least in some ways, intrinsically different (otherwise why would these things pose a greater challenge for women relative to men)?

Contrary to a popular straw man, few people deny that men and women are different in some respects. The point is that there is no reason to think that these differences should, in a healthy culture, put women off becoming programmers, or make them less capable of doing a good job.

But maybe they are? I mean, if you agree on differences ("in some respects"), how can you then seriously expect to not see any differences in outcome at the end?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#362

Post by banads »

pgcj_poster wrote: post #336
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.

“Fascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center” —Benito Mussolini

Can you explain what this means?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#363

Post by kyboren »

icebraining wrote: post #213
erik_seaberg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when it was "systems analysts" who gathered requirements and made decisions and wrote flowcharts, and "programmer" was a glorified data entry position translating a flowchart into assembly/FORTRAN/COBOL on punch cards that the system could run. As computers became more powerful, "programmer/analysts" began writing their own source code in "higher-level" compiled languages (this meant reentrant functi…

So women have a biological interest in the technical part of transforming flowcharts into code, but not in the social parts of software development, like gathering requirements?

I think it's more that they were hired on as typists and secretaries, basically the only office professions that women could have at that time.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#364

Post by acdha »

spangry wrote: post #317
pydry wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Intellectual posturing and oneupsmanship in software teams. Participating in intellectual dick waving. * A strong focus on being "right" over working collaboratively (especially in domains with no right answers). * Hyper competitiveness - to the detriment of effectiveness. * A lack of empathy (e.g. PRs with "your code sucks, suck it up and stop being such a baby"). These things are hardly good from the perspective…

> but they're particularly off putting to women. This is the crux of the issue. For this to be true, it must also be true that men and women are, at least in some ways, intrinsically different (otherwise why would these things pose a greater challenge for women relative to men)?

Humans are social creatures and very little of what we do is innate, and we have extremely flexible brains which change based on use. Social cues and training are enormously influential, and arguments based on biological determinism have a steep bar to reach controlling for those factors. For example, there are significant variations around the world on math and science academic performance so it’s unlikely to be innate. Even when you do find differences in a study (e.g. spatial reasoning) it takes years to test whether those are due to practice (i.e. are children equally encouraged to develop those skills?) and also establish whether those low-level differences are key to a high-level task.

There are some low-level differences (e.g. ratios of different cell types in the brain) but there’s no conclusive evidence linking that to academic skills or job performance (just how does 3-d reasoning affect your ability to write Python, anyway?), but there has been a history of earlier results attributed to gender not holding up under scrutiny.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#365

Post by lamyp »

DonHopkins wrote: post #330
thu2111 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Techbros" isn't "a real thing", it's not even a term that means anything. It's just an insult and not even an effective one; what exactly is it meant to imply? A "bro" (young man?) works in tech? So what? This is why so many men are coming to realise that feminism is propaganda. Someone asks a reasonable question - how exactly is this industry unfriendly to women? It's a simple question, it should be easy to answer.…

Since you don't seem to be aware of it, one thing "bro" strongly and literally implies is Frat Culture. They literally call each other "brothers". In case English isn't your native language, or you're lucky enough to not be familiar with this dark side of American culture, the commonly used terms are "Fraternity Brothers", "Frat Brothers", and "Frat Bros", who become "Tech Bros" when they graduate. And YES, it is a c…

The real frat people are in management (men and women). They are socially adept enough to hide their actual opinions and oppress "lower class" women and men equally.

The struggle between men and women benefits their divide et impera strategy, because playing people off against each other while maintaining an irrational authority is their main talent.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#366

Post by DonHopkins »

lamyp wrote: post #365
DonHopkins wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you don't seem to be aware of it, one thing "bro" strongly and literally implies is Frat Culture. They literally call each other "brothers". In case English isn't your native language, or you're lucky enough to not be familiar with this dark side of American culture, the commonly used terms are "Fraternity Brothers", "Frat Brothers", and "Frat Bros", who become "Tech Bros" when they graduate. And YES, it is a c…

The real frat people are in management (men and women). They are socially adept enough to hide their actual opinions and oppress "lower class" women and men equally. The struggle between men and women benefits their divide et impera strategy, because playing people off against each other while maintaining an irrational authority is their main talent.

A lot of them get into management by starting out as Tech Bros, then rising to their level of incompetence.

But in the case of SnapChat and Uber (and many other tech companies), the founders were literally (and archetypically) both Frat Bros and Tech Bros, who set the tone and culture for the entire company, and rampantly hired other Frat Bros from their own Frats, at all levels of incompetency.

Incompetent nepotistic job placement is basically what frats are all about. (Once you get past all that other stuff that Andrew Moisey documented.)

“This is what our leaders looked like when they were young.” -Andrew Moisey

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#367

Post by sneak »

mabbo wrote: post #184

Damore committed the ultimate sin in the corporate world- he caused a huge PR mess. Let's set aside the content of his memo (I personally don't agree with what he said) and just appreciate that he made a mess. As has been said before, if your CEO learns your name for the same reason he has to end his vacation early, you probably should start polishing up your resume.

What about Chris Smalls? Is what he did also an “ultimate sin”?

Should your logic be applied there?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#368

Post by akiselev »

NullPrefix wrote: post #279
muglug wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He chose to appear on at least one show that routinely promotes white-nationalist talking points – I don't think his politics is really much of a question.

White nationalist as in kkk or white nationalist as in conservative?

White nationalist as in nationalist conservative [1].

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/nationa...

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#369

Post by [deleted] »

dirtydroog wrote: post #245
mabbo wrote: post #184

Damore committed the ultimate sin in the corporate world- he caused a huge PR mess. Let's set aside the content of his memo (I personally don't agree with what he said) and just appreciate that he made a mess. As has been said before, if your CEO learns your name for the same reason he has to end his vacation early, you probably should start polishing up your resume.

He didn't cause a PR mess, whomever leaked his post to the wider world did. And I could be wrong, but I seem to recall he posted what he did weeks, if not months, before it was leaked (in a heavily modified form too)

[deleted]

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#370

Post by ralfd »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #265
ralfd wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence. I'm sceptic to this claim because discriminatory and derogatory behavior in medicine or law are much more widespread. And female students flock to these professions.

If true, this is extraordinarily significant. It could mean that woman who are driven away from software engineering by discriminatory and derogatory behaviour are somehow exhibiting differences to their law / medicine counterparts. Is there any research in to this question?

I don't know about any comparative studies, but sexism in medicine (even patients are calling female doctors honey or sweetie) is an ancient problem.

https://www.girlsglobe.org/2019/03/12/time-confront-sexism-m...

I can't imagine sexism or work environment (looong hours and exhausting shifts) are substantially worse in engineering.

What is different is, in my opinion, that medicine/law is perceived as higher status than nerd stuff. There are popular tv series idolizing the glamorous life of New York lawyers and the heroism of doctors/nurses. When are techies depicted favorably and not as social autists? The goth chic in Navy:CIS maybe, but not much else.

Post reply on HN