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Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

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Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#351

Post by mpweiher »

kgwgk wrote: post #277
mpweiher wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. First, the section is "Non-discrimnatory ways to reduce the gender gap". You cannot reduce the "gap" by aiming at the women who are already at Google. This should be obvious. They are already there. To make a dent in the gap, you need to attract more women who currently do not choose to work in tech or not at Google. So nothing he writes is about his colleagues at Google, or by extension women who are already in…

> You cannot reduce the "gap" by aiming at the women who are already at Google. This should be obvious. That is far from obvious. Everything else being equal, you would increase the proportion of women if you reduced their turnover.

Can we agree that it is obvious as long as we're not talking about retention/turnover?

Well, maybe not "obvious", but "clear that it can't be any other way once you think about it".

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#352

Post by Lukasa »

bluecalm wrote: post #336
Lukasa wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was very clear that he was talking about the group not any individuals. Since when does that excuse anything? If he'd written "Jews are, in general, hateful monsters. Not the Jews who work here, they're great, but most of the rest" does that statement become acceptable? More importantly , Mr Damore does not know all the women at Google personally. He cannot. So when he says "In general, women are less suited to/…

I say: black people are more suited to be NBA players. This is obvious looking at black players % in the league in comparison to the total population as well as the fact that black people are poorer on average and get less opportunities (or even chances for proper nutrition, let alone training). Should white NBA players be offended by that statement? The answer is obvious: they shouldn't as that only means they were…

> Should white NBA players be offended by that statement? The answer is obvious: they shouldn't as that only means they were the ones on the tail of the genetic distribution and made it anyway or maybe even they overcome disadvantages to get there.

I don't know: I'm not an NBA player and have no idea what the experience of becoming one is like. But there is a difference in kind here. He didn't say "Men are better suited to be Google employees", he said "Men are better suited to be programmers". The closer analogy here is to say that "Black people are better basketball players than white people", and here it might well be fair for white NBA players to be offended. There is a distinction between saying "More of X are good enough to pass this bar", and "X is better than Y". People who can pass the bar are unlikely to be offended for themselves (though they may be offended for others who don't attempt to cross that bar), but they may be offended for themselves if the suggestion is that they are worse than their colleagues.

But if you said, in addition, "The NBA currently employs discriminatory hiring practices that favour white athletes at the expense of black ones", then they should be offended. At that point you are saying "I believe that group X is better than group Y, and many of group Y are here despite there being better members of group X". That is offensive.

> We can however do something with this information: we can try changing tech world to be more welcoming to women.

I have a suggestion as to how to do that: stop saying that women are worse at coding. Just don't even bring it up. This goes doubly because there is no evidence for that at all.

You can make the tech world more welcoming to women by welcoming more women, and then give them the opportunity to succeed. Writing think pieces about how women are so ill-suited to coding doesn't just display a stunning lack of understanding about how the industry got started, it also makes it clear that right now you think women don't belong.

But if the view is that "software work as it is today is just not women's work, so we should make it more like women's work", then I'm sorry but you've already lost.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#353

Post by virtualized »

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 see another problem: If you can't be openly sexist (or whatever you call it), you will still be in secret.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#354

Post by [deleted] »

flukus wrote: post #225
michaelchisari wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For mid-term elections, yes, they usually swing against the party in power. The extent to which they swing varies wildly, though, so all we know is that there likes will be a traditional anti-establishment swing, but the magnitude of it is unknown. However, a special election within the months after a Presidential election should follow the same results, since there hasn't been the time to build the resentment necess…

That mirrors our experience after the 2013 federal election, the fell hard and fast but changed the leader and still snuck through at the last general election. We've also seen the trend at state level for the last few years, it seems swings are coming harder and faster.

[deleted]

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#355

Post by rtx »

michaelchisari wrote: post #168
rufus_2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trust in Trump has plummeted, even amongst his core. The vote is very quickly slipping out of the grasp of the Right This is certainly the message being broadcast into every home on the planet for the last 6 moths. In reality it seems a bit optimistic when we consider the Democrats are coming from a decade-long losing streak ( http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/... ), a monumentally embarra…

Right now, we have two indicators: The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans, even if Republicans end up winning, it's barely by single digits in double digit districts. And the polling, which in aggregate, across all demographics, has been continually moving more and more negative each passing month. Even polls like Rasmussen, which have a tradi…

Here is something that will explain what happened. Though it may disappoint you.

Ossoff got 125,517 votes Handel got 134,799 votes.

Compare

Dem - 124,917 Rep - 201,088

As you see there was no swing in Dem's favour.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#356

Post by xapata »

sheepmullet wrote: post #317
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "different = inferior argument" is strongly implied . If you accept the premise that there's such a thing as a male-dominated work culture with stereotypically male values, then attitudes and actions that match those values are considered better ("normative") by default. Anyone who has different requirements or interests will always be considered an outsider who will to have allowances made for them while receivi…

> The "different = inferior argument" is strongly implied. Is it? For the average person working at a big company it is much more important to have a good fun team than a productive team. After all a fun happy team benefits me on a day to day level whereas if company profit jumps 20% I'm unlikely to see any benefit. The exceptions are a few tech giants who hand out lots of stock.

> Is it?

Yes. In the memo, at least.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#357

Post by saiya-jin »

kromem wrote: post #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 r…

This is my experience too. I've only experienced positive discrimination towards women in software dev field... It's what being a gentleman means and it feels natural to us. But proper equality? A guy can be much harsher towards another guy compared to a woman. My fiancee sometimes doesn't like it if I treat her as equal, as I would treat my best friend

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#358

Post by TeMPOraL »

virtualized wrote: post #353
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 see another problem: If you can't be openly sexist (or whatever you call it), you will still be in secret.

I see yet another problem: if you're a rational person who happens to hold wrong beliefs on the topic, you will have less chance to discover and correct your mistake, because the only way the others are willing to engage with you is with stupidity and violence.

This low standard of discourse hurts everyone.

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#359

Post by [deleted] »

Lukasa wrote: post #315
averagewall wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a coworker of mine started publicly saying that I'm not genetically qualified for the work I do Why are you changing the meaning of what he wrote? He didn't say that at all. He was very clear that he was talking about the group not any individuals. If you choose to misunderstand what someone said, when they did a good job of explaining it clearly, then I think you shouldn't spread that misunderstanding around in…

> He was very clear that he was talking about the group not any individuals. Since when does that excuse anything? If he'd written "Jews are, in general, hateful monsters. Not the Jews who work here, they're great, but most of the rest" does that statement become acceptable? More importantly , Mr Damore does not know all the women at Google personally. He cannot. So when he says "In general, women are less suited to/…

[deleted]

Re: Outraged about the Google diversity memo?

#360

Post by kgwgk »

mpweiher wrote: post #351
kgwgk wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot reduce the "gap" by aiming at the women who are already at Google. This should be obvious. That is far from obvious. Everything else being equal, you would increase the proportion of women if you reduced their turnover.

Can we agree that it is obvious as long as we're not talking about retention/turnover? Well, maybe not "obvious", but "clear that it can't be any other way once you think about it".

Sure, if you explicitly exclude any way that the "gap" could be reduced by aiming at the women who are already at Google it is clear that you can not reduce the "gap" by aiming at the women who are already at Google.
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