Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#371

Post by redthrowaway » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

>I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.”

I'd be curious to hear an actual defence of this line of thinking. I mean, it's simply a fact that group differences aren't particularly useful indicators of what an individual is like. Nevertheless, they're very good indicators of what populations are like. Is there any actual criticism of that argument, or is the objection more about how people feel about that argument?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#372

Post by Blackthorn » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #341

Blackthorn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). This was addressed in the article. This burden has fallen on w…

Why would this mean anyone already working in the field needs to bring any burden to the table in terms of defending themselves? The subject was centered around the probability that some recruiting assumptions may be wrong, and that there may be better approaches to recruiting or improving the situation in general. Women that work in the field should definitely be respected as much as anyone else. They should be free…

> Why would this mean anyone already working in the field needs to bring any burden to the table in terms of defending themselves? The subject was centered around the probability that some recruiting assumptions may be wrong, and that there may be better approaches to recruiting or improving the situation in general.

Assuming you're asking in good faith: because of the idea that diversity hiring effectively lowered the hiring bar.

Imagine for a second you have imposter syndrome. Now imagine that you've been told (not necessarily by Damore) that you're the (not quoting you here) "diversity hire". Imagine how much worse that imposter syndrome now is.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#373

Post by jrs95 » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

nicolashahn wrote: post #124

ryanbrunner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one thing that struck me from the linked article was the point that the memo wasn't structured to invite discussion. It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". I think advancing points is fine, but if you're after productive discussion rather than an adversarial debate, you need to proactively invite discussion. And if an adversarial debate was what he was after,…

Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). Plenty of far more aggressive articles and essays have been writ…

This would be good. I've seen 0 criticism of it that falls into this category so far. For the most part, it's essentially just been "I don't like the conclusion so I'm going to call you a sexist and make a straw man of your argument while ignoring the details."

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#374

Post by jansho » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

Fantastic interview, I relate to many of the things the engineers mentioned. I was also disappointed by the heat and rage from both sides, IMO this whole gender thing is not a debate, it's more like a cat fight that everyone gets hurt and become more hardened about their views. It's anti-productive and exhausting.

I hope that the silver lining here is that more people, particularly those who subconsciously share Damore's views on women, understand better about the real challenges of girls and women in the tech field. Cos it's not enough for a small segment to drive positive change, everyone needs to be onboard too. Let's shift the debate to that level now.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#375

Post by pishpash » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

sampo wrote: post #63

Why has this topic exploded like it did now especially in the software engineering context? Whatever talent or affinity to abstract and inanimate things we do or don't assume being correlated with gender, isn't software engineering just a lighter version, compared to mathematics and physics? Did math and physics communities already have their internal crisis/debate on these things, perhaps a decade or two ago? Or hav…

It's the "easy" money. No one is interested in spilling ink about fields with no money.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#376

Post by dguaraglia » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #309

dguaraglia wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the takeaway is: you shouldn't write "memos" that generate a lot of noise and lost productivity in your work environment and affect your company's external image. If you have political points you want to make, go find a group of like-minded individuals and discuss with them first.

What if you think the issues you are bringing up are already a problem for the company, and the company just isn't willing to admit it?

In that case you have an off-line discussion with a group of friends to validate your idea. If there seems to be a consensus, you raise the point at the next TGIF (the internal Alphabet-wide gathering every Thursday), tactfully and without making generalizations about gender and without inflammatory arguments against your perceived political leanings of the company.

I was there during the whole Nest reorg/culture drama for crying out loud. I've seen people lob really hairy questions at the TGIF panel and I don't recall a single one of them getting fired.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#377

Post by camgunz » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

nicolashahn wrote: post #253

Blackthorn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). This was addressed in the article. This burden has fallen on w…

I'm not talking about a woman having to prove her technical ability to her male coworkers at work because of their prejudices. I know that that's bullshit and I'm sorry they have to do so. I'm talking about handling what Damore claimed in an intellectually honest way. You can't dismiss his points just because you're tired of talking about them (or what you think are the same points you've always been talking about, b…

> We should be able to talk about his arguments honestly and rationally without falling back on gendered reasons at this point at least.

We are and lots of people are doing so, but another point made in this post is that the workplace isn't the venue for this.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#378

Post by hisham_hm » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:17 PM UTC

alexandercrohde wrote: post #283

sidlls wrote: post #112

Here's a (perhaps controversial) view: people have no rational basis to equate the freedom to speak with freedom from marginalization. If a person presents beliefs that are incongruent with facts, or that attempt to use facts in a way that isn't compatible with advancing an opinion, I think that person's views should be marginalized. I put climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists, and people who use questionable ap…

Well, by the same token, being fired is a completely different beast than having to suffer the tragedy of being afraid a coworker might think a negative stereotype about you. I know who I think the victim is.

Yes, the second one.

Being fired is a discrete event. It happens, you move on with life, next job.

Now try to live your whole professional life going through the second scenario, then come back in 20 years and tell me if that was a tragedy or not.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#379

Post by redthrowaway » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:17 PM UTC

evolve2017 wrote: post #240

rpiguy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore never said that women were worse engineers or that biology makes them worse engineers. There was no implied inferiority. It is largely the PC crowd who read implied-inferiority into any study of biological differences between male and female. If you look carefully at some of the comments from female Googlers after the memo was leaked, they talk about fears of being perceived as less capable based on their biol…

I think this has been talked about multiple times over - Damore did not have a line that states that women and/or minorities are bad engineers. He does, however, clearly state that Google's hiring standards had 'lowered the bar' for women and minorities. I think it's awfully charitable not to infer that he considers the women/minorities at Google (on average) to be inferior engineers. Still, it's true that he never s…

>He does, however, clearly state that Google's hiring standards had 'lowered the bar' for women and minorities. I think it's awfully charitable not to infer that he considers the women/minorities at Google (on average) to be inferior engineers.

Yes, but that's simply how statistics work. If you require one group of people to score 90 on some test in order to be hired, and another group to score 80, then among successful applicants the second group will have lower average scores than the first. There's no getting around that.

The argument should be over whether or not Google's hiring practices lower the bar for particular groups of people. If they do, then the above conclusion about the average talent of various groups is inescapable.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#380

Post by bloaf » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:17 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #115

johnp_ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I have been able to put things together as a non-Googler he went to an unrecorded "diversity summit" about a month and 1/2 ago, where, according to his statements in the Jordan Peterson interview, practices where put forward that he considered to be potentially illegal. He then wrote the document in his free time and posted it to a forum dedicated for feedback to the summit (? or more general diversity rela…

I have no factual information, but I know that when I write papers where I want to invite discussion, I don't make blatant statements based on a subset of the evidence I have and then expect people to dispassionately pick them apart for me. Rather, I present my honest assessment of the strengths of the various pieces of evidence, pro and con. If I "want to be proven wrong", I certainly wouldn't present a falsely cert…

I don't know, a lot of HNners seem to believe in Cunningham's Law, and it certainly seems to have held in this situation.