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

#821

Post by masterphilo » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #358

masterphilo wrote: post #332

I read the blog post and while the author's tone was a little bit harsh, I really doubt it can be called anti-semitic. I guess that's why they re-assigned him and he wasn't fired. You probably don't want a "head of diversity" to be controversial in that way.

That was one of the most heinous, blatantly bigoted screeds I'd read in quite a long time. There isn't anything defensible about it.

All I'm saying is that the charge of "antisemitism" is too heavy and the author's post didn't sound that way to me, but since I'm not Jewish, I'm not going to press this point this further at the risk of sounding too insensitive or privileged.

If you'd like a Jewish perspective on this, here's a comment made by someone who claims to be Jewish that basically echoes my sentiments -- that the author of that blog post was naive and got carried away in his rhetoric, instead of being an actual antisemite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27385448

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

#822

Post by thu2111 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #680

dalbasal wrote: post #17

Somewhat tangential, but who is the right kind of person for a diversity job? What does a job well done look like? Changes in hiring? Changes in company culture? I'm skeptical of roles with a "my job is to care about X" kind of definition. That includes, for example, "customer advocate" and similar, especially someplace as complicated as google. I don't think they can have much success beyond the surface level. EDIT:…

It starts with an acknowledgement that the company has a problem with X. That's actually incredibly hard, because there's nobody in the company willing to say "I'm anti-X". If they did, you'd just fire them and call it a job well done. Instead, you need to realize that the problem with X is that it's no individual's fault, but the cumulative effect of a lot of little things. Each of those little things is easily dism…

Their best victories look like things other people consider discriminatory against them ... The hope is that collectively they'll put enough people in enough positions of authority to be able to gradually diminish the constant throb of small injustices that collectively have brought about an overwhelming white maleness to all authority positions.

Well, thanks for admitting that diversity officers are just a massive power play by the hard left to take control of every institution by creating hatred of men and white people.

BTW, given almost the entire software industry now does use coding tests during interviews, you are seriously claiming everyone who does this is either sexist or lazy, with no other possibilities. Do you realize that this is how pro-diversity people end up getting such a bad name? You are willing to make sweeping accusations of sexism against entire industries.

There's no way to ever satisfy people like you except by literally giving women jobs to do nothing all day, just so you can say you have lots of women. These attitudes are so grotesque, so deeply morally wrong, that it will one day be you being cancelled for them.

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

#823

Post by stale2002 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

door101 wrote: post #349

Veen wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe "Israel should not exist", you have to account for what would happen if it didn't. What would happen to the Jews who live in the Hamas-controlled "multicultural, multi-ethnic state" that would inevitably replace it? We all know the answer: they'd be killed. That's why people who call for the non-existence of Israel (anti-Zionists) are considered anti-semitic. If you support a position that leads inevit…

I never said I support a genocidal Arab ethnostate, that's extremely offensive. I support no ethnostates, no colonialism, and no occupation in the region.

Ok, but what you fail to recognize, is that the best way to do what you want, is for there to be 2 separate, independent states, controlled by each of their respective population.

A single state solution is not going to have good consequences.

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

#824

Post by 8note » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

world_peace42 wrote: post #400

myfavoritedog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction. Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in t…

You are terribly correct. It reminds me of the left claiming Islam is a peaceful religion because only a ~third (whatever the numbers they allege) support violence and a much smaller fraction perpetrate it. Unfortunately, your claim is unquantifiable, so, as evidenced by your replies, the people who hate Israel vehemently deny any anti-semitism.

If you're taking the position that the actions of some people who follow some version of a religion to be defining for it, every religion is the religion of war, including atheism.

At that point, it's not a very interesting statement

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

#825

Post by teachingassist » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

cloverich wrote: post #708

teachingassist wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today? Not that much . For sure I made some mistakes, as I continue to do, but I'd stand by what I did at 17. I didn't (for example) write down plainly racist statements and then publish them on the internet. I didn't do anything comparable to that. What were y'all doing at 17?

Do you believe racism is an incurable ill, or in any way related to ones lived experiences and education? I have met (and still know) plenty of people that are varying degrees of racist, and the majority of it involves some pretty fundamental ignorance. In some cases people are outright indoctrinated into racism. I have no idea if this particular person was desrving of cancellation or forgiveness, but I can personall…

I agree with this but don't believe it relates to the grandparent's comment, which implied that we should accept shameful behaviour from 17 year olds because it is an innate part of being 17 years old. I object to that idea.

(Is suffering indoctrination shameful? And, as you say, that is not unique to 17 year olds.)

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

#826

Post by yownie » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

From the blog post:

>"Suffering and oppression typically give rise to sympathy and compassion among the oppressed"

Is there any evidence this is true however?

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

#827

Post by acituan » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #547

lgleason wrote: post #247

Live by the sword, die by the sword. That said, firing him, like they did with Damore would have been more consistent. Because everyone is under arbitration agreements that always benefit the company, vs the courts where you might have a shot at justice, they have no incentive to do that. As repugnant as his past anti-semitic rant was, people change and sometimes say and do stupid things. In a sane world this guy wou…

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” And hey, great news, now we have every line written by every man, woman and child automatically captured and archived forever in an easy to search dossier. Someone who wrote a racist or anti-Semitic comment in 2007 could have evolved to deeper understanding and to a more compassionate worldview…

> Someone who wrote a racist or anti-Semitic comment in 2007 could have evolved to deeper understanding and to a more compassionate worldview. But the writing remains forever, conveniently accessible.

Not all writing is equal. There is a difference between let's say a tweet that was sent in during a flamewar versus a personal blog post that has been penned in the past and stayed published until today. The function of the latter is closer to a book, in that it explicitly aims to persist and communicate thoughts through time. If one changes, they could have taken the post down. If there was regret about the contents, one could have published an update/apology etc with the post.

And the post wasn't picked from a web archive; it had stayed up until it the pushback reached career threatening levels. Yet there is still no evidence or apology in any medium that the person has actually changed their viewpoint. All we have is other people apologizing on their behalf with speculative redemption.

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

#828

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #693

lainga wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of time... the totalitarian principle of QM notwithstanding, not everything not forbidden is compulsory at a macro level; academia is not a deterministic machine for yielding studies given the appearance of a phenomenon. Otherwise I'd ask you to provide some studies quantifying "plenty of time".

I feel 13 years should at least be producing nonfiction essays or something that passes for journalism. It took 4 years for 5000 trump books to come out. 13 years for the upending of racism towards being against the whites should be plenty, too.

[deleted]

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

#829

Post by mcguire » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

noofen wrote: post #623

dragonwriter wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a culture where all white people are guilty for slavery, this mindset makes sense to me Not all white people are guilty of slavery, and virtually no one thinks that they are. Essentially all American white people continue to materially benefit from a long history of systematic racism in America [0], including slavery, state-mandated and state-tolerated post-slavery subjugation and segregation. Heck, many living…

> Essentially all American white people continue to materially benefit from a long history of systematic racism in America [0], including slavery, state-mandated and state-tolerated post-slavery subjugation and segregation. Heck, many living white Americans are direct beneficiaries of overt discrimination in public programs, not to mention systematic, coordinated private discrimination. I come from a family of poor f…

Flippantly, it's entirely possible for someone to be both paranoid and to have enemies.

People who are poor, and especially those that live in rural areas, face serious difficulties. But minority Americans face those same problems, plus racism.

"Everyone was on board with MLK's dream of equal opportunity for all. Racial discrimination was clearly a bad idea."

Everyone? Clearly a bad idea? I could rustle you up a big stack of people who disagree. Weirdly, many of them are poor and rural---you'd think they would see the common cause and join together, but no. On the other hand, there's the old joke about everyone having to have someone to look down on; they may be white trash, but at least they're not black.

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

#830

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #822

jfengel wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It starts with an acknowledgement that the company has a problem with X. That's actually incredibly hard, because there's nobody in the company willing to say "I'm anti-X". If they did, you'd just fire them and call it a job well done. Instead, you need to realize that the problem with X is that it's no individual's fault, but the cumulative effect of a lot of little things. Each of those little things is easily dism…

Their best victories look like things other people consider discriminatory against them ... The hope is that collectively they'll put enough people in enough positions of authority to be able to gradually diminish the constant throb of small injustices that collectively have brought about an overwhelming white maleness to all authority positions. Well, thanks for admitting that diversity officers are just a massive p…

If you find yourself typing the words "people like you," I suggest taking a moment to cool off.