31–40 of 46 posts
What a dumb pretense for an article. If you want to write something criticizing James' memo, just do that . Don't use Larry Page as a scenario for your message and headline.
I almost wonder if they're hoping people will misread the article, think it was an email, and share it on that mistake. It's strange to contrive hypothetical headers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I entirely disagree on the "Motivated reasoning," point. Making that suggestion serves to discredit an argument without providing evidence (and complicates the debate) and it's doubly un-useful because either side could use it here (or in almost any argument)
That would only be true if the criticism was "motivated reasoning" and nothing else. Going on to cite and discuss evidence for your claim is a good argument. You could say the same about "ad hominem" or "straw man". I could just argue against anything by saying those things, even if they aren't true. Let's look at motivated reasoning in this case. Google has diversity initiatives. What is their motive? Google exists…
These sorts of arguments are easy to refute. Motivated reasoning is impossible to prove in either direction.
Pretty good article. The economist can be counted on for insightful takes on current events. I recommend everyone add it to their daily reading list. There is one problem with the article, though. It's not going to bring along any of the right-leaning people who are upset about anti-male discrimination and other such things. The article opens (smartly) by calling out “motivated reasoning”. But by the end, it referenc…
Evidently so. Damore was fired for admitting exactly that.
What a dumb pretense for an article. If you want to write something criticizing James' memo, just do that . Don't use Larry Page as a scenario for your message and headline.
The article is peppered with condescension and dismissal like 'I shouldn’t have had to write this: I’m busy and a little effort on your part would have made it unnecessary.' Maybe the author is more comfortable role-playing Larry Page with stuff like that.
It's basically impossible to discuss this subject without it being motivated reasoning. It's a profession in which it is notoriously difficult to measure aptitude and productivity. And it's a field of study that's a landmine for researchers to study for exactly the same reason as the fact that every single Damore-related thread here blows up into an uncivilized moderation war filled with name calling and insults.
We're still at a point where the science isn't pointing one way or the other and we haven't even settled on any decent metric to give to the scientists to calibrate any testing they'd be brave enough to explore. Is it any wonder that discussions on this topic are rife with confirmation bias? We're not going to approach anything resembling a productive conversation on this topic until both sides concede that the other side might have some point and that the true answer, as almost all true answers do, lies somewhere in between the polar ends of the spectrum that people argue from.
Pretty good article. The economist can be counted on for insightful takes on current events. I recommend everyone add it to their daily reading list. There is one problem with the article, though. It's not going to bring along any of the right-leaning people who are upset about anti-male discrimination and other such things. The article opens (smartly) by calling out “motivated reasoning”. But by the end, it referenc…
The turn off for me was when the article starts talking about what engineering is (Yonatan Zunger's article does the same thing, "Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers."). I don't believe empathy, cooperation, collaboration or managing team is engineering. Engineering is human mind dealing with systems and things. Engineering is as mu…
I had many engineering jobs when I was a junior programmer where there was a well defined interface, a well defined job for me to do, and I did it alone and submitted the code without review and it worked.
But, when I started working on teams and on more ambitious projects (some of my own invention), everything changed. Suddenly, I realized that I could achieve more by engineering people through writing design docs, code review, and cat-herding.
Yeha, it's less fun to program humans, but you can get more done.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would only be true if the criticism was "motivated reasoning" and nothing else. Going on to cite and discuss evidence for your claim is a good argument. You could say the same about "ad hominem" or "straw man". I could just argue against anything by saying those things, even if they aren't true. Let's look at motivated reasoning in this case. Google has diversity initiatives. What is their motive? Google exists…
> You could say the same about "ad hominem" or "straw man". I could just argue against anything by saying those things, even if they aren't true. These sorts of arguments are easy to refute. Motivated reasoning is impossible to prove in either direction.