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The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

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Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#401

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

haberman wrote: post #389
brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, if 100% of these pressures were removed, would we have exactly 50% representation of men and women in tech? Many people appear to believe very strongly that this is true. What is the basis for this belief? We could have an even higher percentage of women, like we do in many top-notch classical outfits today. There is some history here I'm qualified to speak about as a woman who took many orchestral audition…

I had come across that study/story before, and consider it one of the great successes in combating discrimination that I have ever heard! Blinding the auditions is brilliant, because it isn't a "bias for bias" approach. It doesn't attempt to combat one bias by intentionally introducing another bias. It just removes the jury's ability to be biased, by concealing the musician's sex. Because of this, the results of that…

I believe they could! With all that technology? Shoot. All we had was a stage and a screen to work with. I will say that in another study it was found that the sound of women's dress shoes unconsciously biased juries. So we all (even men) walk to the stage on a carpet strip to mute that sound, or we play in stocking feet or soft shoes. Taking the screen away at the end is its only flaw. I will say something that a lot of non musicians may not realize, though. If you know a player (we all have known one another from childhood, in many cases) you can pick him/her out of 100 players just like you recognize someone's voice on the phone. So, there is always that bias. So, not 100% perfect, but better. If the conductor/principal player knows you and likes you...it helps...a lot.(and they are fairly likely to know you, at least) It doesn't matter what instrument they are playing either. I could recognize any player's playing I know by their kazoo playing, just like you can instantly hear the difference between Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Players whose playing is nondescript don't make it to the level of taking an orchestral audition, even poorly. I'm curious, is code at the highest levels the same? I'm not an accomplished enough programmer to know this. That would be an interesting difference between coding and playing music, but I suspect you could recognize a great programmer's coding style.

Why aren't there totally blind coding interviews? I just don't get it! The science (I've read but can't remember the source now- if you know it, please share) says that in-person interviews are not helpful in helping to identify successful candidates, and are often harmful.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#402

Post by orangecat »

door wrote: post #168
Invictus0 wrote: post #22

It is one thing to debated the veracity of a view, it is another to declare that that view should not be debated. For every point there is a counterpoint; every argument a counterargument. Arguing that the reasoning is flawed is not sufficient to ban it from discussion.

personally a bunch of middle class white male tech bros who have never taken a soft science course in their lives discussing racism and sexism in tech doesn't sound very productive to me. it's shocking how little humility that group of people has, how unwilling they are to say "hey I don't really understand this, I should defer to someone who does", how eager they are to use their hamfisted biological essentialism to…

it's shocking how little humility that group of people has, how unwilling they are to say "hey I don't really understand this, I should defer to someone who does"

This is an impressive bit of projection, considering the strong evidence in favor of biological differences between genders and your evidence-free dismissal of it.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#403

Post by rhizome »

mos_basik wrote: post #340
rifung wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see what's micro about losing your job for wrongthink. I admit this is my first time hearing the term "wrongthink" but I assume this means something along the lines of "thinking the wrong thing". If that's true, then nobody loses their job for wrongthink. What they lose it for is actually acting on it, which i guess you could call wrongdoing. Take for example, sexual harassment. It's okay to find your cowor…

It's from Orwell's 1984: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime >nobody loses their job for wrongthink By definition, to use the term to describe a behavior at all implies that someone (specifically who depends on the wording, of course) considers that behavior termination-worthy. [Edit: I'm having trouble putting this into words. Let me try again. The point of using this term is to remind your listener of the no…

actions that any reasonable person would consider innocuous.

What is said in the post is certainly the kind of thing it's reasonable to lose friends and possibly family members over, and certainly acquaintances. The kind of thing you hear at a party and decide not to make friends with someone. Despite it being -- or maybe because it's -- not even very well argued, if it's even possible to do so, which I don't think it is.

It's funny that work is pretty much the only place it's proposed that the words not entertain a reaction. This person affects hiring decisions and performance reviews!

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#404

Post by amiga-workbench »

rhizome wrote: post #399
amiga-workbench wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what's micro about losing your job for wrongthink.

Do you believe in the term, "culture fit?" How Google responds to this describes theirs. If you say that "it's different," or, "it depends on the department," then that's just a difference of degree, not of kind.

Not personally, no. But the majority of workplaces do, and one has to act in accordance with that and self censor.

I'm more interested in outcomes rather than the way somebody works and thinks.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#405

Post by rhizome »

door wrote: post #371
Veratyr wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the exact wording and context is important here. "Hey Googlette, you look really good in a bathing suit" is a comment about how the woman's body looks in a revealing outfit. I'd say this is generally unprofessional, though in some contexts (perhaps she'd just been expressing a lack of confidence in her body), it could still be appropriate. "Hey Googlette, that bathing suit looks really good on you" is a comme…

a good rule of thumb is just to never make any comments about a female coworker's body. it's very easy to cross over to unprofessional territory and make someone feel uncomfortable or degraded. that's the rule I've followed my entire life.

In what context is it not unprofessional to comment on a coworker's body?! I feel like I'm on crazy pills.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#406

Post by Pulcinella »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #300
door wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

both "myths of gender" and "delusions of gender" were written by scientists. the fact that you still think of sex as a binary difference between xx and xy shows how far outdated your ideas about the science of sex differences are. even "biological sex" (not even gender) is a spectrum influenced by a variety of different factors

Sex is in fact a binary difference, transgender folk are a tiny proportion of the population.

"Truth values are in fact a binary difference, fuzzy logic is a tiny portion of mathematics."

"Light switches are in fact a binary difference, dimmer switches are a small portion of all switches."

"Life is in fact a binary difference, brain death patients are a tiny portion of all patients."

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#407

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

j9461701 wrote: post #326
rayiner wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument basically proceeds as follows: 1) Gender differences exist 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women,…

>The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. The problem with the "???" is it's not in its proper place in the chain of logic. The syllogism instead goes: 1) Do we observe certain traits cause individuals to tend toward science, while others cause them to trend toward the humanities? Yes. Whether or not you will enter the humanities or the sciences is correlated with whether you display a high…

No one is talking about "stigma" as a deterrent to study. Still not many men in "spin class" or pilates in NYC, although that is changing for the better too. If you see the community as excluding people like you, you may be less inclined to enter it. For example, there are fewer women Italian chefs and waiters. But from whom did they lean to cook?

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#408

Post by mcguire »

cbeach wrote: post #75

"Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently." As an experiment, I'd like to see if HN upvotes or downvotes this statement from the memo. I'm willing to put my karma score on the line to find out what HNers believe (this will help me decide if HN is a community worth investing…

"this will help me decide if HN is a community worth investing further time in"

If that is the question, then the answer is "no".

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#409

Post by [deleted] »

humanrebar wrote: post #165
mcguire wrote: post #47

" Status is the primary metric that men are judged on[4], pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail. " Wow. I see it now. Thanks for opening my eyes! I really feel for the hard pressed CEOs of the world, forced to take those high status jobs with nothing but high pay to compensate them for the lack of satisfaction.

The fact that you thought "CEO" when you read "men" is the point. By definition, most men aren't leaders of companies, but they get lumped in with them as equally tainted, overpaid power-misers.

[deleted]

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#410

Post by Veratyr »

rhizome wrote: post #405
door wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a good rule of thumb is just to never make any comments about a female coworker's body. it's very easy to cross over to unprofessional territory and make someone feel uncomfortable or degraded. that's the rule I've followed my entire life.

In what context is it not unprofessional to comment on a coworker's body?! I feel like I'm on crazy pills.

First situation that comes to mind is in a conversation where the coworker has raised the subject in conversation:

"I've been working out a lot the last few months. I managed to lose a lot of weight and I think I look good."

"Yeah, you looks great, that work definitely paid off."

The coworker brought it up, which indicates that they're comfortable talking about it and the comment is a celebration of the coworker's achievement rather than any kind of expression of sexual desire.

And then of course there are professions where the body is directly relevant to the work, like acting, modelling and sports/atheleticism.

All this really depends on context though. In a corporate office where everyone's barely more than strangers, I don't think even the situation above would be appropriate. In a small business where a "coworker" is as much a close friend as a colleague, I think the threshold for what's acceptable is very different.

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