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Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

nytimes.com

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Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#321

Post by KirinDave »

pharrington wrote: post #232
KirinDave wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. Quite frankly: many people do. Some of them are at Google. James chose to run headlong into this discussion without any practical knowledge of the discourse. His point was poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such radical room for misrepresenting it. Discussions of social iss…

Yes, James isn't owed a charitable reading. He is owed a rational reading. addendum: Irrational people misinterpreting a text is precisely that. Surely you can't be saying that a text having a fairly high bar for intelligent interpretation and discussion is reason for that text to not exist?

It is not irrational to misinterpret poorly written, poorly worded, and inconclusive text.

Reading a text is a dialogue. If the writer did not appropriately express the intent, then they invite the reader to finish the thought. And this even rational people can arrive at different conclusions.

To suggest every reading you don't approve of as "irrational" is a predictable, even classical tactic. Many words exist for it, but in the end the notion of blaming the reader for finishing an incomplete thought is an exercise in futility. The reader has no choice.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#322

Post by humanrebar »

dahart wrote: post #267

> When it comes to the genetic differences between male and female brains, I’d say the mainstream view is that male and female abilities are the same across the vast majority of domains — I.Q., the ability to do math, etc. It's weird that Brooks paints the memo as largely factually correct, but clearly doesn't believe what is the main thrust of the memo. The problem with the memo is not with any claims that are state…

> ...the problem is the FUD he's spreading...

He seems earnest to me. If he's earnestly voicing ideas that result in fear, uncertainty, or doubt, is it his fault? What is the appropriate way to broach the subject publicly? Or are certain thoughts inherently unspeakable?

If Damore bears significant blame, what is an appropriate response for a boss to have to that situation? Why is Damore the only person in trouble if controversial discussions themselves are against the rules?

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#323

Post by lotsoflumens »

naturalgradient wrote: post #31
Shank wrote: post #8

Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. The author of the manifesto caused Google a PR disaster and created a huge state of internal conflict, valid or not. The shareholders are probably really happy that their CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much bad press in so little time. This is the reali…

> The shareholders are probably really happy that their CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much bad press in so little time. Debatable, the shareholders might not be happy that Google might now become a political target for oppressing views. However, I agree that given potential liability issues from hostile workplace lawsuits almost forced his hand, which is very unfortunate.

In most large companies today, the shareholders outside of the top 3 management levels are irrelevant and usually just a tedious burden.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#324

Post by where_do_i_live »

taysic wrote: post #301
where_do_i_live wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your counter argument is exactly. He argued to change their diversity goals and implementation, with an intention to do a better job of getting a _more_ not less diverse company, including more woman and minorities. He did not argue to end all diversity goals outright, again that appears to be a mischaracterization.

I suppose you can say his argument was implied then in my eyes since he spent the first large part of the memo reviewing the biology of women and then stopped short there. No time was spent exploring inherent biases in history or how they may affecting things today. This is why those policies were put into place so why not make it the meat of the discussion. Though the implication may be that his approach will create…

He concedes the very point you mention here. That there are _real_ historical biases that should be corrected and removed.

From the memo: I hope it’s clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority.

He's saying that the inability to get to a 50/50% split on gender lines may be unrealistic. He makes no comment on if the 20/80 split that currently exists is fair or not. Just because he doesn't go into the history of all bias that did exist in the past, doesn't mean he discounts it and unworthy to be addressed. Further, at what point does a society atone for past biases? If you are even trying to correct the injustice in the past, should you not have an idea on what normalization might be like? Perhaps and this is his question, an exact 50/50 is not what a idealistic lack of bias would create in the first place. And the thesis is that it would not be created in that fashion because women self-select to enter different professions for biologically based reasons. Now all those items might be false - its a hypothesis, not a universal truth - but it appears the research from social psychologists backs up his claims as valid. Now perhaps they still want to argue between themselves, and fine I'm ok with that go for it - but it appears he's done with with good faith.

And even if you think his arguments are poor, or he's naive, or anything else, that's fine too. The problem is - and this is where my main issue and the root of all of this - is that he should not have been fired for this. This appears to be a betrayal of liberal free speech values that many people claim to support.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#325

Post by [deleted] »

endorphone wrote: post #142
agentultra wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, To a small, vocal group. > By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way There were good reasons for doing it that had nothing to do with science or evidence. There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. If Damon had issues with the policies at Google…

There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. I'm a white male. I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the average white man. This means positively nothing when comparing me with a given Asian, however. That is the root of this discussion that so many so profoundly miss. The average Google male is not…

[deleted]

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#328

Post by [deleted] »

humanrebar wrote: post #254
taysic wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't care what political opinion my coworkers have. But if they feel called to publish a memo about company policy that affects me due to this political opinion - it better be a very open discussion in such a way that they can't get the last word. I also question if a drawn out debate (which it should be) would be a waste of company time. Also this one was very controversial.

> I really don't care what political opinion my coworkers have. Except when you do care?

[deleted]

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#329

Post by yorwba »

LunaSea wrote: post #311
mwytock wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, saying things that are clearly wrong and offensive to large numbers of people is typically looked down upon amongst educated people and highly discouraged at the workplace. For example, think of other stereotypes about other groups (blacks, hispanics, jews) and think about what the response would be if an employee was publishing 10 page manifestos with loosely connected scientific arguments in support of these…

There is nothing that is clearly wrong about the memo in itself and lots of Googlers actually voiced support for it and agreed. So your comment would be equally offensive to them because you call them uneducated and their opinion invalid. Creating a strawman argument around racial stereotypes is just an added layer of misdirection and tastelessness.

There is something clearly wrong about the memo: it uses the direction of various effects to make a qualitative argument to explain a quantitative difference in gender distribution. If he had instead used the effect sizes in his reasoning, and predicted the resulting distribution (allowing direct comparison with reality), it would be much easier to objectively determine where he is right and where wrong. I'm fairly convinced that some of the things he mentions have a large enough effect to measurably affect the gender distribution among Google's employees, but some are guaranteed to be smaller than the noise floor. As it stands, his argument is easily dismissed as a collection of mostly irrelevant trivia.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#330

Post by where_do_i_live »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #283
where_do_i_live wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The memo appears to be based on actual real science that seems to be the consensus. However, the author appears to be completely tone deaf and extremely socially awkward - he has very poor communication skills. And lacking the understanding that there is a current culture war going on - to allow himself to be taken as a champion of some of those groups seems to show he is oblivious to the greater social/political dis…

>The memo appears to be based on actual real science that seems to be the consensus. No. See this wired article, his view is not consensus. I do agree that it was pretty poorly made though! Professor Gina Rippon, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at Aston University in Birmingham, said it was surprising how much of the research Damore misinterpreted or got wrong. She added that sex differences backed-up by…

I've read that critique, but I've found numerous more critiques that have supported his position. Do I have a monopoly on saying what percentage support him - No, but it appears so far, and this may turn out to be wrong, that more academics appear to support his claims than those that deny them.

They can be left to argue among themselves however just like any other scientific debate. Social sciences are further complicated due to the nature of how difficult their studies are to perform and analyze.

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