441–450 of 872 posts
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> 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.
> Women indeed are, on the average, more neurotic than men. It’s not an insult, it’s a common term in psychology. Women are also, on the average, more interested in people than in things. They do, on the average, value work-life balance more, react differently to stress, compete by other rules. And so on. Here's the problem. These studies model the status quo, not the way things would be if women weren't subjected to…
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…
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You realize his paper was posted to a list at google called "pc-considered-harmful"?
There's a lot of questions here - did he create the group? - how long had the group existed before he posted the memo? - was Google as an organisation ok with that group existing? - is there anything wrong with there being discussion surrounding the value of PC viewpoints? - What other sorts of lists exist at Google, and what sorts of viewpoints to they cover?
> And let us be clear that, yes, such policies mean every once in a while you will not hire the most skilled person for a job. Therefore, a value judgement must be made here, not a logical deduction from data. Is diversity important enough for you to temporarily tolerate an increased risk of not hiring the most qualified person? That’s the trade-off nobody seems willing to spell out. Perhaps because it's not a necess…
An active diversity goal in hiring must go one step further and mean you see diversity of the group as a goal in itself - which, as he says, often means you some times hire a less strong individual.
This is the controversial part. But let's remember that the goal of recruiting is not to hire the strongest candidate but to make the company successful. If you buy into the argument that diversity has a value, such as that a diverse company is better at making products for a diverse audience, or that diversity creates a better work environment and therefore higher productivity - then hiring a female candidate over a better make one can make sense.
Google simply didn't, and neither did Google employees. The letter from CEO Sundar Pichai makes this clear:
"many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics"
I don't understand why there is so much discussion around whether or not what the fired employee said was scientifically true or not.
"Blacks on average are more [insert negative here]"
"Jews on average are more [insert negative here]"
"Men on average are more [insert negative here]"
How would I get away with any of the above statements in widely published memo at any big company, regardless of basis in fact?
It's a PR disaster that costs the company money to manage, and it also violates Google's code of conduct by having made a significant portion of employees feel harassed or intimidated.
Here is an excerpt from the Google employee code of conduct which expects:
"each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."
The fired employee didn't do that, and that's why he was fired.
I suspect the reason so many people have trouble with the firing, and the responsibility stated in employee CoC is that it puts a lot of power in other people's hands. You can no longer sit behind your screen and insist that it's a scientific fact and therefor you are right. Respecting the CoC requires empathy, people skills, listening, perhaps sometimes even submissiveness - all things that "technical people on average are bad at."
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…
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…
It's interesting to see the right wing interest and faith in scientific papers here, I look forward to similar enthusiasm for climate science.
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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.
Even if there are factors that mean there will never be 50% female submitters, a proper diversity policy means the organizer sees this as a symptom of a problem they can help solve. Perhaps if a conference can keep at least 1/3 female speakers every year then 25% of submissions will be from women in 10 years? And perhaps if 1/3 speakers are women, more women will visit the conference, widening the audience?
The whole point of active diversity policy is that the status quo is to be changed by active means.