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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#341

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…

Does that explain how Trump won the Republican primary?

The alternative explanation of large parts of the population being heavily divorced from reality seems to fit better.

That is the respectable right-wing position on the memo, correct? That it's just science facts that the left can't handle?

Like Obama being a secret muslim that wasn't born in America. Like him trying to destroy American industry by going along with a Chinese Hoax about climate change. That trade wars with Canada and Mexico are good for American jobs? That you can't even wish people Merry Christmas anymore. That Hillary Clinton and Obama literally smell of sulphur. That one third of the population doesn't believe in evolution. That there was "no racism before Obama".

To me, that explains Trump far better. Whatever tiny sliver of people were going to vote Democrat but got upset about being called sexists and so actually became fascists is only marginal at best. But apparently everyone is too "Politically Correct" to talk about this large group of people who've abandoned reality and instead we need to listen to their concerns (which apparently translates into giving tax cuts to billionaires and dumping pollution into the air and water). The memo writer was calling for people with these kind of "conservative" viewpoints to be given affirmative action at Google after all.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after watching his hour long interview with jordan peterson, it's almost certain. he was painfully awkward. if not aspergers, he must have zero social iq.

That's where I got that impression too. I'm not sure how that changes things, but it does seem to make his firing especially harsh.

well he's suing so i guess we'll see if he decides to try to use that as a defense

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#343
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This year, GitHub did that for a conference, letting people submit talks and compete for selection completely stripped of identifying info. The only people selected were men. That conference was canceled because it didn’t stand with Github’s stance on diversity, etc. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 — Companies actively do the exact opposite because they need/want more diversity. It’s absolutely not…

That also depends on how many submitted talks.

It would be a farce and ridiculous if 100 talks were submitted, and 99 of them were males, and then they shut down and complain because no females were chosen.

It's called statistics.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#344
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

Let's not pretend he didn't know what he was doing. There are textbook examples about people who blast off a rant to the entire company and then are somehow surprised when it becomes public ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1... ).

Again he didn't share it with the entire company.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#345
An interesting anecdote regarding gender bias and tech.

In the very early stage of my company, we wanted to outsource some UX work. After an exhausting review of applicants on one of the freelance sites out there, we finally settled on a Pakistani woman who had the best balance of portfolio vs cost.

At the initial Skype call, there was no video. And it turned out to be a guy speaking in a very high voice. We didn't really care and just went along with it (after a call or two he dropped his octave significantly, but everything continued with the original female name). But it was curious that this enterprising individual decided that the best way to stand out from the countless other developers with similar demographics he was competing against was to pretend to be a woman.

I do suspect that the presumed bias that women aren't actually as skilled and got where they are because of gender preference, while an uncomfortable bias for women, does make it so that a woman with equal skill to a male candidate is perceived as a greater rarity/find because "oh wow, this one is legit." (Not saying women are actually less likely to be legit, just saying the perception that is true can work to board in the opposite direction). I'd be extremely curious to see the classic "attach picture to resume/work sample" experiment done for tech with actual hiring managers. I'd be very surprised if the work with the female photo has a lower net score than the male photo across the experimental groups.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#346
post #303

I'm trying to understand his motivations, maybe it is just naivety, but that he wanted to talk about something that was bothering him, and didn't understand why he couldn't (or shouldn't) talk about it publicly seems fairly typical of a condition like aspergers, is it possible he simply has something like that? Either way the witch hunt needs to cease immediately.

That was my first thought after reading a small portion of the memo.

any normally functioning person would realize the reaction that memo would cause. (not that the reaction is justified, just that hes in a super politicially correct area where making nuanced points isnt tolerated)

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#347
post #265
post #78

Really great post, and I had what I thought were some great observations about the article I wanted to share. But then in the article's comments I read this by Outer M.: "By the way, in science and technology, conservatism is a minority ideology (he says so himself in his letter). How would he feel if we start saying that conservative people aren't apt for science and technology? That if he doesn't feel welcome he sh…

Politics, favorite foods, religion, dress sense and other ideas aren't innate. Gender, age, ethnicity and sexuality are. Hence swapping gender for politics doesn't work. Additionally Damore argued for assessing individuals as individuals rather than as tribe members and assuming discrepancy is down to bias - even if you did sub someone's chosen politics for their gender, Damore's proposed fix would still require you…

"Politics [isn't] innate."

That isn't at all clear. Jonathan Haidt has some very interesting research on those lines, showing evidence human moral sense may be genetically based. Our moral sense informs our politics. Having said that, innate does not mean unmalleable.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your point. Mine is that being attacked should not change one's ideas. Getting fired is bad, but it isn't new information pertinent to the original debate. It may inform your ideas about the climate in which the debate is occurring, which may radicalize you personally. It shouldn't radicalize your position.

"Getting fired" is a bit of an euphemism though, there is a lot more going on here than just that. Just start with Gizmodo leaving out some stuff at first and so on. The claim is that he is being treated unfairly, at the least. > It shouldn't radicalize your position. In some fantasy world, where marijuana being illegal didn't make a single person try harder drugs because shady types were the only ones they could get…

Well I didn't mean to imply "you" - I meant "one's" position. Hopefully it didn't come across in any way personal.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#349
I do not agree with a lot of points of that diversity memo but that means that it's a topic that needs to be discussed instead of being censored and the author fired.

Discussion is how people change their opinion. It's by being free to discuss and say what you think that you can exchange ideas with other people you disagree with and maybe change your mind once you understand their view point.

If you close discussion, then those opinions will be more radicalized and will tend to be discussed in echo chambers where people are not afraid of being shamed by their writings.

As Voltaire once said[1] "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it " and I think, forgetting this, is what leads to Trump and to an increase of misogyny.

[1] It's actually apocryphal, he never actually wrote or said that but it does illustrate his philosophy so wouldn't have been out of character for him.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do we correct for the bias if we don't know what the unbiased state would look like?
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