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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you do that and the number of women in the orchestra shrinks?

Or even if the number of women just stays the same. Is the effort to level the playing field then deemed a 'failure' if the results don't change in the way they're expected to? That's the important question here, especially since there have now been preliminary experiments in tech interviews suggesting such an outcome is not implausible: http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mas...

If you've removed possible bias from your hiring process, then you have to accept an imbalance is either a result of uneven retention inclusive-or something operating earlier in the process of training your candidates.

The point is to remove as many obstacles as possible. We want the best to get the jobs, but if the are barriers based on gender or race or religion that's potentially denying us a brilliant woman, or black man, or Muslim.

It doesn't necessarily mean you end up at 50/50, I'm quite willing to accept that the sexes might be biologically different in brain structure and that this might mean one sex might have different average aptitudes, but I won't accept a societal construct on top of that.

You should never hear that someone shouldn't try to do something because of their sex. Never.

Well unless it involves the more obvious anatomical differences. The average man is going to have some difficulty becoming an effective wet nurse.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see how the trend moves going forward, but even after capturing (by rhetoric if not act) the white house, the alt-right continues to be a radical fringe, and suffers from serious internal contradictions that make any serious movement building doomed. The movement has attracted the attention of a lot of white nationalists, anti-semites and hardline fascists (amren, natall, kss), while also attracting a new wave…

Very likely you’re right about the current state of alt right movement (I live in Europe and haven’t been monitoring the subject). But GP only mentioned alt-rights as an example of where might the voters turn their preferences. Even at Google where James worked, many employees agree with his memo (36%), and the majority, 54% of them think the memo is harmless and was OK to share: https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/20…

For the life of me, I cannot find a legitimate source for that poll. I see the image popping up on a lot of less-than-reputable websites (wordpress blogs, tweets, businessinsider, etc) but no actual source for it, let alone any idea of its methodology.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#173

IMO the best comment from there: Giulio Prisco said... The results of this incident are easy to predict. Now everyone at Google (and everyone in large tech companies, and everyone in academy) knows that they can be fired for expressing opinions that dissent from the party line. Of course they'll shut up for fear of losing their job and the means to support their family. But they won't change their position. If anythi…

It's mysterious to me how literally every action a feminist takes is somehow directly responsibile for all problems that befall them, with every action that might possibly hurt a man being somehow a catastrophe in the making. Not 3 weeks ago we had a thread here where a woman spoke up about harassment and people said it was exactly the wrong thing. Mad someone for touching your bum? Speak up. You spoke up? Now you're…

He didn't say it the fault of feminists, only that this was probably going to be the result.

And It's exactly why public debate should be had. To come to a better solution in the middle, rather than create fringes on the sides.

Your reaction here is just more of the 'Shock and Awe' and hurt feelings that doesn't really help push the agenda.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#175

> And let us be clear that, yes, such policies mean every once in a while you will not hire the most skilled person for a job. Therefore, a value judgement must be made here, not a logical deduction from data. Is diversity important enough for you to temporarily tolerate an increased risk of not hiring the most qualified person? That’s the trade-off nobody seems willing to spell out. Perhaps because it's not a necess…

But that is the exact opposite of what is happening with positive discrimination and probably something the initial author would prefer.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Removed comment. See better response below.

That's a really weird conclusion to draw based on that statistic. Another way to say the same thing would be "Donald Trump performed more poorly in California than any other Republican candidate since 1936." (I see he removed his comment. For posterity, he argued that Donald Trump got "almost a third" of the votes in California and, therefore, liberals were on the decline).

The difference spin makes.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#178

> And let us be clear that, yes, such policies mean every once in a while you will not hire the most skilled person for a job. Therefore, a value judgement must be made here, not a logical deduction from data. Is diversity important enough for you to temporarily tolerate an increased risk of not hiring the most qualified person? That’s the trade-off nobody seems willing to spell out. Perhaps because it's not a necess…

The curtain has been tried. It didn't get the desired results so was retired.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-t...

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Removed comment. See better response below.

That's a really weird conclusion to draw based on that statistic. Another way to say the same thing would be "Donald Trump performed more poorly in California than any other Republican candidate since 1936." (I see he removed his comment. For posterity, he argued that Donald Trump got "almost a third" of the votes in California and, therefore, liberals were on the decline).

My point was more that it was surprising to me that someone as vilified as Trump still got almost a third of the votes in CA, but I agree that your point makes that look substantially weaker, so I retract it.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#180

> And let us be clear that, yes, such policies mean every once in a while you will not hire the most skilled person for a job. Therefore, a value judgement must be made here, not a logical deduction from data. Is diversity important enough for you to temporarily tolerate an increased risk of not hiring the most qualified person? That’s the trade-off nobody seems willing to spell out. Perhaps because it's not a necess…

When the Australian public service experimented with blinding demographic data on resumes, fewer women and minorities were hired:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

A blind recruiting process only increases diversity if there exists significant bias against diverse candidates. I wouldn't be surprised if Silicon Valley has a bias in favor of diverse candidates, like Australia's public service.

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