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Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

juliagalef.com

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Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#171

Post by scarlac »

avaer wrote: post #9

> This topic is harmful to people and we shouldn’t discuss it It would be so very refreshing to hear a company just say "let's not throw incendiary memos around at work; it upsets people", instead of feeding the fire with a rationalized social stance. Actually, I _have_ seen great CEO's defuse situations like this. I don't understand why it's not done more often.

> I don't understand why it's not done more often.

Regardless of what the issue was, the offended people may take further offence to being described as being upset.

> Actually, I _have_ seen great CEO's defuse situations like this

Which CEO? I'd love to see an example of this. Do you have a link or story to tell?

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#172

Post by throwawaymanbot »

kobeya wrote: post #74
shadowmint wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, ok... but I mean, really, do you care what he said? I mean, do you really care if people misinterpreted it? Is that what is important here? What someone did or didn't mean when they did or didn't say something? I honestly couldn't care less if they were 'wrong' interpretations. I mean, really, honestly, I don't give the slightest damn about this guy or what he says or thinks. Really. I don't know him, I don't c…

Yes it is critically important what he said. He got fired, very publicly, from Google for what he said, or at least an interpretation of what he said. This probably killed his career in tech, if not generally, assuming he doesn't win a wrongful termination settlement. I think it matters a LOT if the reason he got fired was for a hysterical mob justice over a misinterpretation of something he didn't actually say. That…

IF he was worried about his job, why did he circulate a memo with highly controversial views around the company?

Hes a little entitled to think that people cared to not only hear his controversial view, but also read his memo about his controversial thoughts on this controversial subject within a private company.

What outcome was he expecting from doing this? Blaming google? Seriously?

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#173

Post by gfodor »

matt4077 wrote: post #112
gfodor wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if there were jobs that women were less qualified for, or had less interest in, we would want lower the difference, with equal representation if possible. I agree that a 50/50 split in men and female software engineers seems like a desirable thing. If it existed today I would not consider it surprising, and I would consider it to be a great thing. That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction w…

> is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers...? No, it is not–and I tried to make that argument: you want female CEOs and politicians and software engineers not (just) for the sake of each of these CEOs and engineers. You want it because these roles come with power over other people, either directly, because they make the law or they design the software we all use. And also, quite generically, they a…

By your separation of "direct vs indirect" power it seems hard to know where the line is. Arguably, my barista has more power over me than any software engineer, because my barista can poison me if they so choose. It seems like any argument can be made that if someone is in a field that can influence other human beings they have power, so it seems hard to pin down. (though i agree some roles are clearly power oriented, like executives and political roles.)

> "And I'd even say us men have at some point collectively decided that housework is rather unattractive, and women do the vast majority of that."

This to me is a pretty huge reach (and seems vaguely sexist) but if you accept this then I don't see how you can not just apply what you said here to other fields. Do you think women seek out housework?

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#174

Post by gfodor »

DanBC wrote: post #115
gfodor wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if there were jobs that women were less qualified for, or had less interest in, we would want lower the difference, with equal representation if possible. I agree that a 50/50 split in men and female software engineers seems like a desirable thing. If it existed today I would not consider it surprising, and I would consider it to be a great thing. That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction w…

> That said: is this also true for bricklayers and construction workers, who are basically 100% male? What about nurses or child care givers, who are predominantly female? There are projects to fix the gender imbalances in each of those industries.

No doubt, but do they get comparable attention? Are they similarily controversial? I think compared to tech, hell no. Degrees matter and my point is understanding why those different levels of acceptability exist.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#175

Post by observation »

imartin2k wrote: post #76
hackpert wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question in this particular case is, what exactly the benefits? The costs are quite clear. An entire generation or more of about half the population feeling demolarized and incapable of doing certain tasks as well as their peers is a pretty huge cost.

There is no reason for feeling that way though, as Julia points out in her text. The memo wasn't about the individual abilities. We are looking here at very intelligent types of persons. Shouldn't they be able to actually grasp the difference (and realize that in fact the conclusions from the memo even do allow for a hypthetical outcome of women as the qualitatively better coders -> i tried to explain this here https…

I have a thing related to this.

i firmly believe that people are not reading books. At least not the old books on important subjects. I rarely meet 'educated' people who read books.

I believe that the liberals in particular have lost their way intellectually post-World War II. There used to be Great Intellectuals and widespread public debates e.g. Isaiah Berlin. Today there is nothing. Maybe in place of that there is a smug contentment that we've the right answers, that probably is real.

In my internet travels I've seen that people will vehemently defend the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Yet they have not read it. It is a single page of text. It is easy to mythologize a text that you haven't read. I feel like modern Liberals are becoming like the folk who didn't know Latin but received audience from the priest.

If you can't read a single page but stick up for Human Rights, then you are an idiot in the most literal sense (the original meaning of the word 'idiot' from the Greeks). These people certainly won't have read J.S Mill's On Liberty, or the counter arguments.

tldr; Read more old books.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#176

Post by Aloha »

vanderreeah wrote: post #132
Aloha wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a different between refuting (proving it wrong) and rebutting (stating it is wrong) an idea - I've seen many rebuttals, but few refutals. People being different should never be used as an brickbat to claim inferiority - all people are different, and equality is one of the most important values to be found.

Totally agree - but in my opinion, and in the knowledge that this will receive a lot of downvotes, such statements don't require refuting, only rebutting. In my opinion, again, only statements which bear at least a nugget of rationality require the expenditure of one's own rationality in the effort to refute them.

I can argue my statements (and the underlying memo) do have a nugget of rationality - we can debate on that.

Also, I'm pleased to see you didnt take downvotes either.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#177

Post by norea-armozel »

someguydave wrote: post #22
maehwasu wrote: post #12

> However, his overall claim that there exist personality differences between genders that differentially affect men’s and women’s interest in and aptitude for tech jobs, is what people are mostly getting mad at. And that’s a claim that seems plausibly true. Not obviously true, but also not a claim you would be justified in emphatically dismissing as false, as many people have, including Google, who called them “inco…

>It's intellectually stifling, and I'm no longer interested in enabling people who use that kind of rhetoric. Not only is it stifling, it is tearing our society apart. If a person believes one of these "forbidden hypotheses" they sudden find themselves to be the target of irrational hatred and hostile actions. Everyone must understand that demonizing people creates demons who may one day seek violent revenge.

Biology isn't a simple 1-to-1 match. Nor is it merely an n-to-m mach either. Biology is really, really messy. Whether it's secondary and primary sexual traits or the color of your eyes it's mostly a statistically driven result and not one driven by a deterministic engine. DNA for all of its structure doesn't seem to give way to an easily structured expression of genes. I think this is the critical thing lost on folks (it was lost on me for years) because we're always working with something that seems very regular and systematic but when you break it down into smaller components it becomes clear how little of that is regular and systematic. So, to say that biology magically creates our minds as a whole or even in part doesn't work out. I'm not arguing for dualism but I am arguing that biology isn't so easy to model. And that we should, James Damore included, accept that our conclusions are easily overturned when we dig a bit deeper.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#178

Post by notacoward »

observation wrote: post #167
notacoward wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find frustrating is that so few people on either side of that one point seem able to separate that from the rest of the memo. There only seem to be two camps here. (1) The biological-differences part is wrong, therefore everything else based on that is invalid. (2) The biological-differences part is right, therefore everything else in the memo is also right. Why do so many people who condemn (1) as unscientifi…

Sure that is true. But any public debate always reduces a topic to its least complex form. The core question really is: do meaningful biologist differences exist? I see this as a scientific question, it has metrics, and we already have the answer. It is yes. From there you can have a discussion about the nuances, but in regard to those people who do not believe the answer is Yes, there's no more point in validating t…

If somebody brings up six points, addressing points two through six doesn't validate anyone's point on one. Refusing to engage on those is just way of running away from parts of the debate where you're less sure. Damore said far more than that there are biological differences. He made unfounded assumptions about how those differences apply to software engineering, and further about how they apply to software engineering at Google which is pretty obviously a special case. He made false claims about the motivations behind existing policies, and proposed alternative policies for which there is either no evidence or strong contrary evidence. And more. But nobody wants to talk about those flaws, because they know they can't. It's better for the anti-diversity agenda to keep the focus on the one part that they can hope to defend. Unfortunately, too many pro-diversity advocates are playing right into that.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#179

Post by Aloha »

observation wrote: post #175
imartin2k wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason for feeling that way though, as Julia points out in her text. The memo wasn't about the individual abilities. We are looking here at very intelligent types of persons. Shouldn't they be able to actually grasp the difference (and realize that in fact the conclusions from the memo even do allow for a hypthetical outcome of women as the qualitatively better coders -> i tried to explain this here https…

I have a thing related to this. i firmly believe that people are not reading books. At least not the old books on important subjects. I rarely meet 'educated' people who read books. I believe that the liberals in particular have lost their way intellectually post-World War II. There used to be Great Intellectuals and widespread public debates e.g. Isaiah Berlin. Today there is nothing. Maybe in place of that there is…

I don't think its just liberals - I've met as many conservatives who repeat whatever nostrums and slogans the talking heads tell them to - but cant justify or explain why they are the correct answer - and just like liberals, they're certain of the righteousness and justness of their cause.

In my humble opinion, the problem is authoritarianism - left or right doesnt matter - its dangerous - the big concern I see, is historically liberals are rather effective at governing, so a left wing authoritarian movement has teeth, when a right wing one may not.

Re: Brief thoughts on the “Google memo”

#180

Post by shadowmint »

jamesrcole wrote: post #126
shadowmint wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He got fired, very publicly, from Google for what he said, or at least an interpretation of what he said. I don't care. I don't know the dude. Lifes tough, people get fired. /shrug. > That is in fact the core issue over outrage -- that someone can get fired over making what is an objectively true mathematical argument. Ah... so what you care about it freedom of speech and expression, nothing to do with diversity? W…

> I don't care. I don't know the dude You literally don't care about people unless you personally know them? Or if you do care about them, what's the reason you don't care about this person, nor any the effects of this situation on other people you don't know?

Things happen to people all the time, should I care about every single person who gets fired for doing something stupid at work?

Do you care that Bob down the road got fired for swearing at his boss? I bet you don't.

Why is this guy special?

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