Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces • Hacker News Board

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#381

Post by balls187 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #354

balls187 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point being made was Damore's email was sent using company resources, while employed by the company, presumably on company time. Bobb's blog post was from 2007.

That seems like a pretty shallow distinction considering Google's "bring your whole self to work" policy and cultural norms. People at Google regularly expressed far more controversial opinions than Damore's using company resources on company time. Further, the explicit rationale for canning Damore was not that he was expressing himself on company time or with company resources, but rather the patently false notion t…

> People at Google regularly expressed far more controversial opinions than Damore's using company resources on company time.

Do you have proof of this?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#382

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #255

agentofoblivion wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are entirely consistent. They succumb to pressure from their far left employees, which don’t like insensitivity to the Jews, but abhor any take that conflicts with their “diversity = equal outcomes” nonsense. There is no room for thought even remotely consistent with conservatism, whether or not it’s consistent with scientific consensus.

> far left employees, which don’t like insensitivity to the Jews, The far left doesn't like insensivity to Jews? Which far left are you thinking of? In the US, the far left is the most reliable source of public anti-Semitism. (Note specifically that I said public. I'm not going to try and divine whether rightwing anti-Semitism is worse in private, which it very well may be.)

Not everyone agrees.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/far-right-extremists-blam...

https://www.bendthearc.us/announcing_howtofightantisemitism_...

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#383

Post by joelbluminator » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #273

joelbluminator wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> colonial A colony of what empire exactly? Jews were a group of massacred refugees. > massive support from the United States There is no massive support from the United States actually, at least not monetary. There is military help that is needed because Israel's enemies want to destroy it, still to this day. And it's not that big compared to Israel's gdp (4 billion to 400 gdp = 1%) and is completely meaningless to…

The US doesn't have a law that says "you can immigrate and be a citizen but only if you are white" Also, the US wasn't born out of a revolution against equal voting rights for people regardless of national origin, Israel, like Rhodesia at the time, was. In both cases, minority groups rebelled against British attempts to impose majority-rule democracy, Israel has just succeeded more than Rhodesia did at the time.

> The US doesn't have a law that says "you can immigrate and be a citizen but only if you are white"

Israel doesn't have that law either, there are black Jews and Indian Jews and white Jews as you probably know. Israel is an anomaly because of 2000 years of persecution that culminated in the holocaust. Maybe when there is no more any antisemitism (yeah, right) Israel will happily dismantle itself. Until that day it seems to me quite clear why Jews need a nation state.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#384

Post by austhrow743 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

kbelder wrote: post #374

austhrow743 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Women, on average, have more: Neuroticism" was a big one I remember people having issue with back when this story was news.

Is it false? Doesn't seem like something he would assert without a cite.

Entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand, but afaik no.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#385

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #353

His bigotry goes beyond anti-semitism. Kamau Bobb's blog posts were almost exclusively about White and Jewish people, as a whole, and their mistreatment of Black Americans both historically and today. He even targets progressive white people for their more unspoken racism. There is a very obvious tone of distaste for white and Jewish people in his posts. Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to s…

1) Where's the lie?

2) It's funny how the Damore defenders shed their free speech hucksterism like yesterday's underwear.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#386

Post by germinalphrase » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #353

His bigotry goes beyond anti-semitism. Kamau Bobb's blog posts were almost exclusively about White and Jewish people, as a whole, and their mistreatment of Black Americans both historically and today. He even targets progressive white people for their more unspoken racism. There is a very obvious tone of distaste for white and Jewish people in his posts. Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to s…

Do you believe the acknowledgement of race or racial difference to be intrinsically bigoted?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#387

Post by BTCOG » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #370

BTCOG wrote: post #344

What I find most absurd in all of this is the utter stupidity of beliefs in entirely man made fairytales that have been causing nonstop wars for the past few thousand years. Maybe eventually, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and any other gullible belief systems in fake sky people, written by total nutcases 1k+ years ago and miraculously still followed today, will end. Believing that you're somehow superior t…

> Abolish religion, and you free the people to the reality of the universe. You'd be better off abolishing politics/politicians[1]: religion is but one way of "othering". Religion/sectarianism is only a hot-button issue because it serves hard-liner politicians well on both sides of any conflict/blood-feud 1. Good luck with that! Especially when politicians make the laws.

Abolish those as well, as the nationalism is also a crock of zealot-religious bs. In America, we have lost religion and instead many now feel the need to jump into identity politics. This mentality is disgusting and very small minded tribalism. It's inherent in human nature and we still share so much of that earlier hominid brain.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#388

Post by rsj_hn » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #326

rsj_hn wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Damore sent supposedly confidential feedback when solicited to do so by diversity trainers. That content so enraged the diversity staff they leaked it to the rest of the company. Perhaps Damore was naive in thinking the feedback about diversity training was welcome or confidential, but he definately did not send a company-wide email to anyone.

"Damore emailed his memo to the organisers of Google’s diversity meetings in early July. When there was no response, he started sending the document to Google’s internal mailing lists and forums, eager for a reaction." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam...

This is the Guardian telescoping and generalizing with it's usual rigor.

There were two diversity trainings, both requesting feedback. There was no email there was a google doc, a link to which was sent as part of a feedback form in the trainings and then shared with a larger group called "skeptics" created for these types of discussions at the request of Damore's manager.

You can read the timeline here: https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/201804...

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#389

Post by duxup » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

megamindbrian2 wrote: post #352

duxup wrote: post #293

>will be reassigned to a STEM research role Not fired, just reassigned. I'm ok with that as a policy. Presumably he isn't ok with those old statements and can move on. At the same time the folks who need to post some general statements about a whole group of people, religion, or whatever ... As far as I can remember I've never felt a reason to talk about a whole category of people and "insatiable appetite for war and…

Have you people ever met a Jew? They literally idolized "never again" which is what this guy's is talking about. They literally live by the principal that this guy was removed from his position over. And questioning any Jewish philosophy is labeled anti-Semitic and condemned. Write a story about being "God's chosen people" doesn't make you righteous, it just makes you last to do it.

I've met Jews.

I didn't get the impression that they have an "insatiable appetite for war and killing".

Would you say the Jews I met have an "insatiable appetite for war and killing"?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#390

Post by jms55 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

sanity31415 wrote: post #300

tolbish wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People take issue with the following, but I don't recall Google confirming/denying if it is true: I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices: ● Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race ● A high priority queue and speci…

To my knowledge Google has never challenge the accuracy of those claims, and such practices are commonplace in many tech companies in the name of "diversity".

Do you think purposely hiring X group is a bad practice? From what I understand, it's not enough to say "we'll hire X if they're better than Y". When you don't actually have any X at the moment, your company might not be very welcoming to X, and so they won't join. So you purposely go out of your way to hire extra X, to account for the lower acceptance rate.

The common response is "that's not fair to Y, you should be hiring only based on quality, not on X or Y". But the issue is if you only hire on quality, but the quality X candidates don't join, then you're actually losing out on quality. So instead, you lower quality requirements, with the goal that overall you're actually promoting quality in the end, by working towards an environment where quality _is_ the only determining factor, and removing the current factors that work against X candidates.

What about this do you disagree with?

Note: This kind of handwaves over what "X won't join is". There's a lot of nuance to this. It may be that X grows up thinking the job isn't for them, because they always see Y in those types of jobs, and never bothers to try that job. It may be that X tries to join, but the people hiring them all Y, and favor Y instead because it's familiar to them, and the rest of the company is Y. It may be that X joins, but they feel uncomfortable that everyone is Y, and quits. There's a lot of different factors that goes into what discrimination looks like, which is why affirmative action is a lot more than just company policies.