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

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#781

Post by camelite » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #749

pdubs1 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The 'things vs people' dichotomy is extremely vague and obviously bullshit." Is it? Or have you simply not taken a moment to do a little bit of research? Here is a study with 500,000 participants, for example: "Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things-People dimension. "Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and…

You've missed what his comment was about, it's not that the things vs people dichotomy doesn't exist. It's that it has no relation to engineering. Architecture is just as much things over people as engineering, Architecture is balaanced, engineering isn't. The problem is that in reality, you can do engineering from a people first approach or from a things first approach, and in reality, only one of those approaches w…

I take the engineering-from-a-things-first-approach bridge. You feel free to enjoy the other one. I'm sure you'll feel very validated as you spiral into the abyss

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#782

Post by magic5227 » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

reroute1 wrote: post #210

magic5227 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research the post cites strongly implies women would be better qualified for other roles. That suggestion was (and is) both inaccurate and inappropriate to send in a workplace.

Less interested/"qualified" compared on average to males by virtue of their interests and biology not their intelligence. Ignoring this is like sticking your fingers in your ears to the argument How is the statement in a general population inaccurate? I agree it can make people uncomfortable but it looks pretty accurate to me

"How is the statement in a general population inaccurate?"

um, because there is no credible science behind his assumptions. Many of the researchers he cites dispute his conclusions.

I'm not ignoring his argument, I'm saying it's a really bad argument with almost no evidence to support it.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#783

Post by magic5227 » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

alexpetralia wrote: post #142

magic5227 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a society tells a woman she's not likely as interested in something, guess what profession she is more likely to choose? Not the one she's being told she won't be happy with.

Is there any evidence that would convince you that interests can diverge, independent of society (nurture)? Your argument relies on the assumption (yes, an assumption, not evidence) that society exclusively determines our interests. You do not admit a role for biology. There is little scientific evidence that supports this view.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-11115-001

Current research generally does not find evidence that variations in preferences, psychology, or personality stem from genetic or biological factors. Rather, they’re primarily attributed to culture and socialization.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#784

Post by fzeroracer » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

convery wrote: post #399

crowbahr wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most news agencies besides Fox struggle to get Republicans to agree to appear on the show. CNN famously lambasted Republican lawmakers for refusing to appear after the shootings in Dayton and El Paso last year. What you have described is that liberal lawmakers are willing to face adversarial news coverage while conservatives are unwilling to do so.

The comment was not about lawmakers though, plenty of conservative pundits / people like Damore that want to share their stuff but are treated like they're radioactive.

Damore was invited to share his thoughts by the media. By his own admission, he turned them down.

So what exactly is your point in this scenario?

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#785

Post by eloff » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #727

eloff wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're talking about the same memo, just a different take on it. To be clear, it was a response to a solicitation of feedback on a diversity program. If a company can't handle honest, carefully researched and presented feedback - they shouldn't ask for it.

Your notion is that whatever an employee does should be fine as long as it technically complies with a the wording of vague, general request made by a coworker? That would be one way to run a company, I guess. But I've never heard of one that actually works like that.

If you want to have an insightful discussion, one should refrain from making strawman arguments.

I think Demore's memo has little place in a company, but neither does the diversity program that spawned it. Better to keep politics out of the work place. But given the context, it was fully justified, regardless of its merits or lack thereof and I think the person who leaked it committed a real sin here, as did the company for firing him.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#786

Post by fzeroracer » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

kyboren wrote: post #363

icebraining wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is rather demeaning considering it's objectively false and downplaying the huge influence women had on early software development.

If you're going to claim that women were only hired as secretaries for software dev work I hope you have actual data behind your assertion.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#787

Post by lliamander » Sat, May 09, 2020, 8:58 PM UTC

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.

The willingness of some of his peers, the media, and even the CEO to deliberately misrepresent what he wrote cannot be laid at his feet.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#788

Post by manigandham » Sat, May 09, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #778

manigandham wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The media is not "everywhere", it's the media, which currently has a massive problem with subjective narratives rather than facts.

Are you actually suggesting that it follows from the media being not being "everywhere" that Frat Bros culture is a myth? Exactly what about the Snapchat or Jared Kushner stories I cited do you believe is a hoax?

> "culture is a myth" "believe is a hoax"

Please stop claiming things that were never said. You do this constantly in your comments and it's not fair or productive.

My point is only that the media is not the objective truth or overruling expert in any single subject, and often filled with highly-opinionated, ideological, and sometimes misleading takes.

As far as this specific issue, I disagree that it is so widespread across the industry outside of a few companies with clear problems. Also the Kushner story seems to be mocking their appearance than behaviors.

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#789

Post by lliamander » Sat, May 09, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #673

piflon wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said "please share your opinion on this specific topic [the low proportion of women in engineering]." Regardless of how you color his response, they asked for exactly what he gave.

A reply from a throwaway account to this is for some reason dead, but it seems good to me, so I'm pulling it out of the garbage. --- This is false. Why are people claiming Google solicited his feedback? Is that how the news was reported? If it was a feedback, it wouldn't have been written in a Google Doc, and shared in an internal mailing list. It was written during a time when diversity in tech was the topic du jour…

Damore laid out the timeline pretty clearly:

* He attended a voluntary HR run seminar on diversity, and feedback was solicited.

* He wrote the memo and submitted it to HR

* HR sat on the memo without response for a month, after which he started sharing it on some internal mailing lists

Re: James Damore and three others end Google suit

#790

Post by UncleMeat » Sat, May 09, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #598

UncleMeat wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citing research is fine. If his memo had been a list of papers with no commentary it would have just been weird and blown over. The problem is when you synthesize ideas from research without expertise. The problem wasn’t his citations. It was the conclusions he drew from the citations and the policy proposals that he made in his document. “It has citations” is not a valid reason to consider something well argued and…

Damore was explicitly asked for his feedback on a subject. He provided it supported by academic research and was fired for it. If Damore had provided an unconnected list of papers that would have been ignored, yes, because nobody would have known what he meant. Instead, he put together a document that connected different research findings with his own suggestions. A recurring pattern in this debate is that people cri…

> A recurring pattern in this debate is that people criticize Damore for a lack of expertise. Which is odd given that Damore, a Harvard Masters Degree holder in Systems Biology, is clearly conversant with the research and the context he is giving advice in.

Oh boy. I've got a PhD in CS from one of the best programs in the world. I'm wildly unqualified to synthesize research in another field and would surely make terrible errors if I tried to connect the dots between citations, especially if I started with my connections and went looking for associated citations. Having a familiarity with research is absolutely not evidence that his conclusions will be strongly considered.

This discussion has been had a thousand times. People he cited have responded to his writing. There can be no productive discussion about "were his conclusions correct or not" at this point.