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About This Googler's Manifesto

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Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#321

Post by baccarat »

interpol_p wrote: post #88
nopatternhere wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must The two don't follow, at all. Lets replace this statement, and make it about the NBA. "If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must see a game where black men hold the vast majority of positions as a failure of the game". If the NBA example should be laughed at, why shouldn't the opposite? Ne…

Are you serious? Of course it doesn't make sense if you change my words to be about the NBA. Look at the government. The majority of the US government leadership is older white males. Either you think: wow, white males are really good at getting into top government positions. Old white males must be superior to other humans. Or you think: society really gives an advantage to older white males and it's much easier for…

Perhaps it's simply this country was founded and built by White Males.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#322

Post by jamesdmiller »

interpol_p wrote: post #94
ukj wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not than himself. Than men. You understand how Gaussian distributions work, yes?

You and I are not reading the same manifesto. This guy clearly thinks less of the women he works with. There is no way he sees his female co-workers as equal while publishing rubbish like this. And I doubt women engineers at Google would read that and feel very pleased about it. Yeah I understand Gaussian distributions. I also understand the emotional tone of the original manifesto and the discriminatory thinking beh…

People have suggested that the manifesto's author is autistic. If this is true, then it is very possible that if you are not familiar with how autistics' think you will not be able to judge his mental state based on the emotional tone of his writing.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#323

Post by jamesdmiller »

TheCoreh wrote: post #82

I'd seriously like to know if the author meant this literally: > a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face If that's indeed the case, isn't that on itself a huge problem we should deal with? If someone is risking being a victim of physical violence on the workplace over disagreements on political positions we should be seriously concerned.

If a Google employee ever does get punched in the face by a fellow employee, he could use this line in a lawsuit alleging that Google has created a hostile workplace. A jury might not see this line as hyperbole. It was inconsiderate for this former senior Google employee to put his company in legal jeopardy.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#324

Post by joveian »

_qbjt wrote: post #310
pacala wrote: post #199

> And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just…

Wow, I thought what the author said was hyperbolic until I read this response. Come on now. How many SF Bay Area tech workers would actually assault another employee over comments posted on the Internet? How many software engineers at Google have ever even been in a fight? This "punch you in the face" thing seems to be a sticking point for most of the comments here and I think people are misrepresenting what the auth…

I agree with everything you say but I would also say that this type of response from a manager (even with the reduced third section) is a major contribution to a hostile work environment. Public ego-tripping is the antithesis of a good manager and saying "you are wrong about everything and suck at life" when you are about to fire someone is always the wrong thing no matter how frustrated you are with that person or how true you think that statment is.

I also think that using violent imagery to make a point is a bad idea in almost any context, even if clearly not ment literally. He did at least explicitly say he would not include that part if writing when on the job.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#325

Post by baby »

edison85 wrote: post #278

Having read the full manifesto, I find myself agreeing with the author's thought process for a bunch of his points and clearly disagreeing with others. He presented them well, not offensive at all, and if I had a discussion with him I'm sure he seems open to change certain beliefs if presented with ample evidence. I would generally love talking to this guy. Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid…

"That's how you create monsters".

Reminds me of that guy in France, Dieudonné. He was a pretty famous comedian and he ended up making a joke about jewish people on TV. The jewish lobby got hard on him, got him banned from TV channels. Consequently he got banned from radios, cities started refusing him touring, etc...

Now he became a huge antisemitic and he's friend with all the extreme-right people.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#326

Post by fatso83 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #293
edison85 wrote: post #278

Having read the full manifesto, I find myself agreeing with the author's thought process for a bunch of his points and clearly disagreeing with others. He presented them well, not offensive at all, and if I had a discussion with him I'm sure he seems open to change certain beliefs if presented with ample evidence. I would generally love talking to this guy. Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid…

> Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid thought process is sexist and his career is done What? This guy has gotten an unbelievable amount of attention and debate on the topic he wanted to discuss, both in support and against it. Trump got the same attention, and constantly complained he didn't get enough. Enough with this lie that certain [far right] conservatives don't get enough press. They g…

You fail to see the difference between attention and actual debate. Very few of the opposing views actually try to dissect his statements, but choose to rant away. Yonatan's piece being a prime example of an ad hominem that attacks views he never once wrote in favour of.

It's also quite dishonest of you to liken a reasonably well written, source referenced piece with the rants from the clown in the oval office. The manifest was to start a debate, not chants of MAGA.

Instead of general statements about outlandish remarks, attack what he actually said.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#327

Post by fatso83 »

am1988 wrote: post #315
Overtonwindow wrote: post #262

I'm deeply troubled by the response to this "manifesto". Pitchforks are out for this guy, and when they find him, it won't be pretty. I think that's wrong. He has expressed his opinion, and people are free to confront, and denounce him all they want. But this guy might lose his job. His career. All for voicing his opinion. I don't think it matters that he did this internally. Had he stood up at a discussion in Palo A…

Maybe he should have thought about that before he posted it. The author of the medium article is right that the manifesto implies that a lot of coworkers are less capable. It's a grey area though.

Where does he say that?

There are lots to say/critique on that manifest, but Yonatan's commentary piece is pure dishonest bile. Ironically it also strengthens the claim of an authoritarian regime at Google and its "our way or the highway" policy when facing discussions.

The piece is simply garbage. It was an ad hominem that attacks viewpoints the original author never presented, such as "... how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers". Quite the opposite.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#328

Post by asciicircum »

smb06 wrote: post #297
edison85 wrote: post #278

Having read the full manifesto, I find myself agreeing with the author's thought process for a bunch of his points and clearly disagreeing with others. He presented them well, not offensive at all, and if I had a discussion with him I'm sure he seems open to change certain beliefs if presented with ample evidence. I would generally love talking to this guy. Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid…

You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is finding it offensive. That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

> You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is finding it offensive.

This is exactly what's been going through my mind following the threads on this issue today.

> That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

I think this is a false dichotomy. The offended comments seem to be offended by arguments similar to those in the manifesto rather than those in the manifesto. E.g. offense is rightly taken at the argument "biological differences explain job preferences" while the manifesto argues "biological differences explain job preferences [in part]".

So rather than [A] being being offended by something that is not offensive (i.e. stupid) or [B] the manifesto being offensive I think we're left with [C] people being rightly offended by something that's not in the manifesto.

With this the argument becomes: That makes no sense unless people have bad reading comprehension

Which I happily accept :)

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#329

Post by fatso83 »

interpol_p wrote: post #124
nopatternhere wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are here trying to persuade me, at least I assume that is the goal, you could just be here trolling I guess. To try to persuade by claiming you are as bad as everyone else seems, unpersuasive? You seem to think there are two sides: for or against. I have the ability to be against EVERYONE, don't I? Neither side can be convincing, or one side can. As it stands, you are just as unconvincing as the other side, which…

Fair enough. I'll do some homework. Here [1] is an article on how cultural gender inequality leads to poorer maths results for women, and fixing that cultural inequality fixes the maths results. This was commonly attributed to differences in biological traits in the past, that was wrong. Here [2] is another article where spatial abilities relate to societal roles. Another area commonly attributed to biological differ…

Finally some meat to the discussion. This thread is one of the few to actually dig into the matter. Kudos.

Re: About This Googler's Manifesto

#330

Post by fatso83 »

interpol_p wrote: post #124
nopatternhere wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are here trying to persuade me, at least I assume that is the goal, you could just be here trolling I guess. To try to persuade by claiming you are as bad as everyone else seems, unpersuasive? You seem to think there are two sides: for or against. I have the ability to be against EVERYONE, don't I? Neither side can be convincing, or one side can. As it stands, you are just as unconvincing as the other side, which…

Fair enough. I'll do some homework. Here [1] is an article on how cultural gender inequality leads to poorer maths results for women, and fixing that cultural inequality fixes the maths results. This was commonly attributed to differences in biological traits in the past, that was wrong. Here [2] is another article where spatial abilities relate to societal roles. Another area commonly attributed to biological differ…

Finally some meat to the discussion. This thread is one of the few to actually dig into the matter. Kudos.
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