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Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

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Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#181

Post by Berobero »

spodek wrote: post #47
tedivm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume that we're in an alternative universe where the document was never leaked. The document still did harm. Just read this quote from the posted article- > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? How do I prove myself to people one way or another? Th…

The quote you mentioned results from the process he criticized, not his criticizing it.

This is not the case, strictly speaking. It instead results from people perceiving there to be a lower bar for diversity hires; whether or not it is rational to describe things in that manner based on empirical data or what not is ultimately inconsequential. In that context, it is entirely possible for a poorly formulated memo to cause this type of damage, and likewise entirely possible for this perception to be perpetuated if institutions like Google do not properly back up its practices with compelling arguments to people who might otherwise have doubts.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#182

Post by alexandercrohde »

xigency wrote: post #137

I think it's a fatal mistake to underestimate the amount of discretion an employer has over its employees' behavior. In general, employment is at-will and relationships can end over personal differences. One reason it might be shocking to be let go over a 'free-speech' issue is this individual was working at Google. If someone worked for their city government and mailed around a ten-page manifesto of either their gen…

As I understand it he was raising on an internal issue that was generally accepted as open for discussion (hiring and quotas). I think likening it to "mailing a manifesto out" is a deliberate mischaracterization.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#183

Post by totalZero »

Blackthorn wrote: post #156
nicolashahn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). Plenty of far more aggressive articles and essays have been writ…

> Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). This was addressed in the article. This burden has fallen on w…

The burden of responding to something that is (at the very least presented as) evidence? I don't think it's possible to have a discussion if you don't expect and allow pro-affirmative-action stakeholders to respond with their own evidence and reasoning, in turn.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#184

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

One of the most interesting things I got from this was referencing usage of the term TL;DR. While it's unclear where the Term "TL;DR" originated it certainly gained popularity in SomethingAwful and 4chan, two places that have long been known by the general society as havens for degeneracy. It's an interesting parallel when the term (which has obviously come a long way from where it originated) appears in a professional discussion alongside viewpoints that the original group of people who popularized the term would have considered widely abhorrent.

Not that it really speaks to anything about this particular issue, more to the fact that many people who use meme references are fully unaware that the cesspool of places like SA and 4chan are the originators/popularizers of the jokes that are repeated by one who might turn around and fully condemn those communities in the next sentence without skipping a beat.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#185

Post by mastazi »

So the takeaway is: you should become extremely proficient at writing memos and back them up with vast amounts of research, or be fired. But all of the above applies only if your memo expresses conservative ideas. I don't consider myself a conservative but I find all of this disturbing.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#186

Post by dguaraglia »

mizzack wrote: post #73
tedivm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume that we're in an alternative universe where the document was never leaked. The document still did harm. Just read this quote from the posted article- > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? How do I prove myself to people one way or another? Th…

From your quote: > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? Your perspective is that this is harmful because the memo caused self doubt, so the memo was the problem. From Damore's perspective, if there were no quota/diversity hiring programs at that place of…

> Your perspective is that this is harmful because the memo caused self doubt, so the memo was the problem.

It's not about self-doubt, it's about creating a stereotype by which other people (managers, peers) will prejudge you even before you write the first line of code. This prejudice already exists as is, Damore's memo doesn't do anything to help it. If improving women's opportunities at Google was his objective, he failed miserably at it.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#187

Post by Sir_Substance »

nicolashahn wrote: post #124
ryanbrunner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one thing that struck me from the linked article was the point that the memo wasn't structured to invite discussion. It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". I think advancing points is fine, but if you're after productive discussion rather than an adversarial debate, you need to proactively invite discussion. And if an adversarial debate was what he was after,…

Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). Plenty of far more aggressive articles and essays have been writ…

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, what you're describing is Grahams Hierarchy of Disagreement.

The original writing is here: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

And here it is in handy-dandy picture form: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Gr...

Responding to tone is one level below an argument that actually addresses the point. Responses to tone can be safely dismissed as irrelevant to the debate at hand.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#188

Post by Uhhrrr »

dguaraglia wrote: post #150
Udik wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, like many others you are confusing "less people from this group are qualified" with "people from this group are less qualified". The first doesn't say anything about single individuals, and doesn't suggest any discriminatory practice against the group. The second does.

One of the women in the article addresses that very aptly: > Assuming that it’s true that women on average are more likely to have trait X, why should any woman have to overcome the additional barrier of proving that she’s not like other women, or that if she IS like other women, that the trait has no bearing on her job performance? Creating a stereotype generates distrust in the individuals that are part of the grou…

99% of humanity wouldn't get hired at Google, male or female. As long as the hiring bar is kept high enough, there's no reason for Google employees to especially distrust women over men.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#189

Post by rpiguy »

dguaraglia wrote: post #94
joe_the_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually say just the opposite - the memo seemed to be written as well and in as conciliatory manner as it could be written and the memo made good (or at least plausible) point and bad points. But the bad points were so bad that it was appropriate and necessary to fire Damore. Essentially, as analogy, there's no way for a person to say "Black people are inferior and shouldn't be hired", as a message broadcast thr…

The memo makes a whole case against "the Left" (capitalization from the memo) and how "leftists" are violent. That doesn't sound like "conciliatory manner" to me, especially considering he makes a blanket statement about Google "leaning left."

The blanket statement that Google leans left is empirically true. You also seem to have misread his comments about violence, as he claims the left tends to be more compassionate. Did you read the memo?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#190

Post by generic_user »

nicolashahn wrote: post #124
ryanbrunner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one thing that struck me from the linked article was the point that the memo wasn't structured to invite discussion. It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". I think advancing points is fine, but if you're after productive discussion rather than an adversarial debate, you need to proactively invite discussion. And if an adversarial debate was what he was after,…

Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). Plenty of far more aggressive articles and essays have been writ…

Precisely, there just grasping at straw men arguments to deflect from the fact that they refuse to consider Scientifically based criticism of there polices when Science disagrees with there ideology.
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