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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#251

Post by Aeolun »

timgrahamtech wrote: post #222
Const-me wrote: post #113

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…

Then the goal is making him understand that he got fired for how he expressed those opinions. He didn't just talk to HR or his manager, he published a rant for all the world to see making it the CEO's problem. Anyone who publishes an incoherent 10 page manifesto insulting their coworkers and trashing their company's policies can reasonably expect to get fired. It doesn't matter if any of the bosses agree or disagree…

Publishing something on an internal board that's aimed at discussing diversity is hardly 'publishing the rant for all the world to see'. I just don't get how people who're obviously upset about this memo and must therefore have spent some time reading up about it (right? Right?!) still get this basic fact wrong.

This guy expressed his opinions, and a witch hunting mob, because that's what it was, descended on him from all over the internet to rip his reputation to shreds for things he didn't do or write (most of the outrage was about 'perceived' slights).

It's just sad... The worst part was that it validated a lot of what he said, and people somehow just don't see the irony in that.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#252

Post by tednoob »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #188
mathw wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

If 50/50 isn't the target, how will we know when we get there?

Do you have to know the target? Correct for bias you have, then question what it is upstream that is creating that bias.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#253

Post by coldtea »

_b8r0 wrote: post #183
Const-me wrote: post #113

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…

I made the grave mistake of trying to express that point on Twitter. Twitter seems to be a poor vehicle for nuanced debate at the best of time, but it's a dumpster fire right now full of raging people who don't understand what you've just said. I was in SV last year for a couple of months during the election, and everyone I met were all paid up members of the church of political correctness up front, but when you spo…

>I made the grave mistake of trying to express that point on Twitter. Twitter seems to be a poor vehicle for nuanced debate at the best of time, but it's a dumpster fire right now full of raging people who don't understand what you've just said.

It's worse. They don't care for what you've said, and they don't particularly care about the issues they talk about either.

Some (media people, etc.) use the issues to have a career or an audience. At best, they convince themselves they care, but they don't in any real capacity.

Others use the issues to vent their frustrations from their lives (as a religion substitute and group signifier) and as an excuse to fight with people.

Others are just repeating what is in fashion in their circle (progressive or conservative) and use the issues as a tribal thing.

(And I'm talking about people on both sides of the spectrum here).

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#254

Post by Tarean »

jdoliner wrote: post #152
jancsika wrote: post #121

> 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…

In no company in the world is this a "diversity policy." Diversity policies are the exact opposite of this. If they were as you describe, I'm sure the the author of the memo, and everyone who agrees with it, would be completely in support of them.

There are companies that strip personally identifying information from the resume in the first few phases and iirc diversitiy did go up. Been a while since I read about it so I don't recall thr complete details but there is a radio lab episode about it.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#255

Post by jcims »

zimpenfish wrote: post #230
dx034 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was fired because he basically said women are underrepresented in IT because they are biologically unsuited for it. I don't understand why people keep repeating that statement. He said that biological differences explain the different ratios of men and women, NOT that women are not suited for tech jobs. He explicitely did not say (nor mean) that a woman can't be a good software engineer. Just that on average, mo…

> He explicitely did not say (nor mean) that a woman can't be a good software engineer. > Just that on average, more men than women will show the features needed for software engineers. Read those two sentences you wrote again. You'll be shocked when you see it.

I took the liberty of labeling one of the diagrams in the document with two points labeled A and B. How would you interpret the relationship of these points if A was a man and B was a woman?

http://imgur.com/a/kWyTi

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#256

Post by PeterisP »

Johnny555 wrote: post #29
steveeq1 wrote: post #26

> That leaked internal memo from James Damore at Google? The one that says one shouldn’t expect employees in all professions to reflect the demographics of the whole population? I don't see how this is an unreasonable argument to make. There is a dearth of male kindergarten teachers, for instance. This doesn't mean the school is being "sexist". It might just mean that certain genders tend to be attracted to certain t…

Or it might mean that certain genders tend to be dissuaded from pursuing certain career paths.

It might, but it does not - that's kind of the whole point, the gender differences appear even in societies/areas where there's opposite social pressure. Preferences matter, preferences differ between gender, and even in a hypothetical ideal world with perfectly equal opportunity and noone being dissuaded from pursuing certain career paths the gender distribution of quite a few professions would be far from 50/50 due to the preferences.

For an example more detailed/sourced argument, http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... might be a start.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#257

Post by coldtea »

GVIrish wrote: post #212
Const-me wrote: post #113

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…

> 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. This is an example of people taking exactly the wrong lesson from this situation. The guy wasn't fired for having a 'dissenting opinion'. He was fired because he basically said women are underrepresented in IT because they are biologically unsu…

>This is an example of people taking exactly the wrong lesson from this situation. The guy wasn't fired for having a 'dissenting opinion'. He was fired because he basically said women are underrepresented in IT because they are biologically unsuited for it.

He never said that women are "biologically unsuited" for IT. Here's what he sead in full: https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso...

In short, he said that biological differences (with citations) can explain in the aggregate (not in the total absolute of the population) different preferences, job options, etc., and even suggested ways to change the working environment to alleviate those issues and make it welcome to more personality traits associated statistically with women (as described in citations and statistics he gave).

What kind of person misattributes another with straw-man arguments they didn't say and gloats on their misfortune of being fired?

What he said might or might not be true, but in any case it's no basis for firing someone (as it's not related to their job performance), and it's something that absolutely should be allowed to be debated and studied.

The assumption "all sexes/cultures etc are equally predisposed to everything or even if they are not they should be considered as such and nobody should talk about it again" is not a way to have any kind of dialogue.

>There are a lot of situations these days where people are expressing opinions at work that are insensitive to or outright disparage another group of people, then getting shocked when they're fired.

If the tide turns, or you live in a country where the reverse tenets are held (e.g. Saudi Arabia), don't be surprised and don't complain if you are fired for saying what you believe then...

It's all par for the course and well as long as the majority or those in control of your job believe that you should have a specific sensitivity, right?

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#258

Post by michaelchisari »

pink_duck wrote: post #242
michaelchisari wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emphatically disagree. All of those skills are necessary to be a strong team member, and thinking that only management requires them is to move into territory where programming as a trade is in need of micro-management and social babysitting by a managerial class. I've been in plenty of teams that were extremely flat exactly because the programmers in those teams were all highly skilled in those areas.

I have just joined the workforce after uni, and it has never been more clear to me that what you're saying about communication and "people skills" is correct. Almost all of the issues that the company that I work for have are based on lack of communication skills, lack of empathy, too much ego etc. It reminds me of what a coed wrote to me once about the difference between a good developer, and two ok ones. "2 Basical…

Your observations are correct, and the more you can nurture those skills in yourself and others right alongside the ability to optimize algorithms and learn new frameworks, the faster you will leave the programmers who don't think these "soft" skills are useful very quickly behind.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#259

Post by [deleted] »

pink_duck wrote: post #242
michaelchisari wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emphatically disagree. All of those skills are necessary to be a strong team member, and thinking that only management requires them is to move into territory where programming as a trade is in need of micro-management and social babysitting by a managerial class. I've been in plenty of teams that were extremely flat exactly because the programmers in those teams were all highly skilled in those areas.

I have just joined the workforce after uni, and it has never been more clear to me that what you're saying about communication and "people skills" is correct. Almost all of the issues that the company that I work for have are based on lack of communication skills, lack of empathy, too much ego etc. It reminds me of what a coed wrote to me once about the difference between a good developer, and two ok ones. "2 Basical…

[deleted]

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#260

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

KirinDave wrote: post #150
kentrado wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mad at someone for saying you're genetically predisposed to be less capable of individual action? He never said that. Could you cite the portion where he literally says women are less capable?

He says women will benefit from making coding more social. Pair programming. Remember?

At this point I would like to see an itemised list of James Damore's points on gender and women's interpretations of them.

This is the pair programming text in full:

> Below I'll go over some of the differences in distribution of traits between men and women that I

> outlined in the previous section and suggest ways to address them to increase women's

> representation in tech without resorting to discrimination. Google is already making strides in

> many of these areas, but I think it's still instructive to list them

>> Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things

>>> We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming

>>> and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how

>>> people-oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive

>>> ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get

>>> female students into coding might be doing this)

My understanding is: if we increase pair programming to make it more of a team activity, more women will enjoy programming, and more women will become programmers.

We don't have to agree with the suggestion. But you've just shown us that our interpretations are wildly different. So, why?

Edit: formatting

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