James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google • Hacker News Board

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#421

Post by zbentley » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 7:58 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #312

ihsw2 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies can simply have a straight-edged policy of no politics -- from religion to economics, it's all off-topic and out-of-bounds.

If you ran a traditional company, and were interviewing a candidate who wanted to bring about the destruction of capitalism, would you hire them if there were equally-good alternatives?

Unequivocal yes. If I wasn't paying them to do that on company time, it would negatively impact their performance towards goals that were requested.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#422

Post by ng12 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

praestigiare wrote: post #402

ng12 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you write him off as an idiot and forget him Not really. I have a lot of faith in our engineering staff so I wonder how he got hired and how he avoids getting fired. The uncomfortable truth is that if he was an employee that "looked good" I would know the answer to those questions.

As I said before, my response is not data, I know that. But what you just wrote is exactly how confirmation bias works: If he fit your narrative, he would confirm your narrative. That is why these discussions need to be about data, and not "what everyone sees and no one talks about."

My point is more that the anecdotal stuff matters -- by being ham-fisted in your attempts to address diversity you reduce inclusiveness.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#423

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #376

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

I hate the fact that you need to state "you're a mixed race woman in tech.". I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the outrage culture instilled in big part by a bigoted academic clique.

[deleted]

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#424

Post by dvanduzer » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #398

praestigiare wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim that there is a pattern of bad diversity hires, but your anecdotes are just as easily explained by confirmation bias: You see an incompetent male engineer, and you write him off as an idiot and forget him. You see an incompetent woman, and she becomes evidence that there is a problem with diversity programs. You remember evidence that supports your narrative. Obviously my statement is not evidence either. I…

It depends on whether the incompetent male engineers are just as incompetent as the incompetent female engineers. For instance, she mentioned a female developer who couldn't write SQL queries. Are the incompetent male developers at that same level of incompetence? Of course taking this into account cannot completely eliminate selection bias, and the sample size either way is probably too small to be all that meaningf…

Yes.

In deep corporate America, there are plenty of people who have virtually no responsibilities beyond a few basic configuration tasks. They are still unable to perform many of these tasks without significant help from coworkers. And we cover for them.

Every incompetent coworker I can think of was a man. I do not think this is confirmation bias, I think it's basic statistics, because most of the engineers those employers hired were men.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#425

Post by noetic_techy » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

jgh wrote: post #180

john_moscow wrote: post #87

He doesn't have a choice really. With the PR mess he got himself into, no big company will ever hire him. Imagine the possible headlines "Microsoft hires the James Damore, the male supremacy advocate fired from Google". Nope, regardless the technical skill or his actual personality, his public image is forever ruined. So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organization…

I notice none of those options include "admit he was wrong and apologize". I'm sure he doesn't have to work for a top-tier tech company either.

The problem is, in our society, there is NO option to say you were wrong and walk it all back. Once it's out there on the internet, you are crucified for life with it. Its sad because the "crime" doesn't fit the punishment.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#426

Post by sp332 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

ryanbrunner wrote: post #400

sp332 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making someone question whether they are qualified is better than not hiring them at all. Quotas are useful if you have reason to believe that your hiring process is biased and you are missing out on qualified candidates. That way you're not passing up too many candidates from specific groups that you're having a hard time characterizing.

I think they can be an over-simplistic solution when more effective solutions exist and can work with a little more effort, particularly for a company as large as Google where you have the volume to have meaningful data about hiring patterns. - Outreach to under-represented groups is a no-brainer (I assume Google is already doing this) - Look at ways to make your interview / recruiting process as blind as possible -…

> (I assume Google is already doing this)

Yeah, Google spent a quarter-billion dollars on racial diversity and got nowhere. https://www.fastcompany.com/3066914/google-and-tech-struggle... So there's a metric they haven't even figured out how to game yet, that's how bad the situation is. As I replied to your sibling comment, the industry wouldn't need to hire so many women (and other tech minorities) if they could keep women from quitting so fast.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#427

Post by nautilus12 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #376

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

I hate the fact that you need to state "you're a mixed race woman in tech.". I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the outrage culture instilled in big part by a bigoted academic clique.

Stating this fact is the only way this comment could possibly be noticed. I wouldnt be surprised if lieing to this extent is the only way that these anecdotes could ever see the light of day. Though it doesnt change the validity of the points made

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#428

Post by rainbowmverse » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

mightykan wrote: post #231

john_moscow wrote: post #87

He doesn't have a choice really. With the PR mess he got himself into, no big company will ever hire him. Imagine the possible headlines "Microsoft hires the James Damore, the male supremacy advocate fired from Google". Nope, regardless the technical skill or his actual personality, his public image is forever ruined. So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organization…

“... a stupid political game he didn’t even realize he was playing.” Bullshit! He’s smart enough to work at Google but didn’t realize he was playing a stupid game? I am glad that his life is ruined and that he is toxic and non-hirable. I hope this lawsuit doesn’t go anywhere (very likely since Google has all the money, resources and motivation to crush it).

I'm about as left wing as it gets, but I don't want to see the guy ruined. Retributive justice is how we get the drug war working with the broken prison system to create an underclass.

I want to see James Damore understand the impact of his words and learn from it. I don't want him thrown out of society for a single really big mistake and a poor handling of the consequences.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#429

Post by ar-jan » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #403

ryguytilidie wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, Joe Rogan is considered a right wing youtuber? I listen to his show all the time and I'm a pretty big liberal and while he sometimes does the whole "everyone is sooooo PC now" thing, he also talks negatively about Trump, the GOP and right wing politics constantly. I also listened to the James Damore episode, and while I thought James did a good job of making his point and Joe did an AWESOME job of interviewing…

As I mentioned, I don't disparage "right wing". I actually enjoy Joe Rogans podcast, and also Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson. All three of them are solidly classical liberal, which is probably right of center today (individualism vs. collectivism, equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome, etc). But AFAIK, damore never came to the young Turks, Chapo trap house, which are leftist podcasts. I could be wrong.

Do you think any of those would have had him on?

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#430

Post by hinkley » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #376

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

I hate the fact that you need to state "you're a mixed race woman in tech.". I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the outrage culture instilled in big part by a bigoted academic clique.

In any discussion of a social problem there are apologists. There are only so many ways to signal that you’re not a shill. It’s not a great solution, but we don’t have better.

I agree on the data thing. I think when you get down to the bottom of things, lumping people under a label and treating them as a cohesive unit is part of the problem. If that’s true, getting permission from a small cohort of that group is still bad, because you’re assuming if these three people are okay with it then it’s okay.

It’s that incident with Chevy Chase and the n-word that started this line of thought for me. I don’t care if Richard Pryor said it was okay. He is one voice. Don’t act surprised if other people don’t agree. Being surprised means you’ve already decided all black people are the same and a sample size of one means you’re okay to do something.