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

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

#471

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #248

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…

This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn…

[deleted]

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

#472

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #58

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between "fewer women wind up having the skills for X" and "women are worse at X".

It's a little grating, to be honest. The tech world loves statistics and empirical research until it clashes with their world view.

Except that the empirical research does not prove his assertion. Citing papers is not enough to rigorous science. Small differences between the personality distributions of men and women are not themselves sufficient to explain the gap between men and women in software.

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

#473

Post by john_moscow » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #332

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…

You must be from US. As a European, I find all these things very absurd. Like the guys with the "dongle" joke that both got fired [1], and if I remember correctly, so did the woman reporting them. Maybe you should all start by treating each other with more respect, whoever it is. And don't go witch-hunting. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes...

I actually lived in Germany for a few years before moving on to North America, so I can somewhat compare. IMO, people in US are generally more competitive than in Europe, but in the current political climate this unfortunately leads to more backstabbing and more dirty play.

Europe has its holy cows as well. Try publicly questioning the Syrian refugee program or come up with scientific evidence that nationals coming from war conflict zones have a higher chance of becoming criminals - you'll get crucified the same way.

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

#474

Post by dominotw » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:19 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.

GP is asking you how you concluded that Joe Rogan is right wing podcast.

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

#475

Post by mcknz » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:20 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…

Strikes me as a distinction without a difference -- incompetence means you are incapable of performing a task.

One could speak of someone having more skill than another, but if both skillsets have no value, it doesn't really matter.

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

#476

Post by daseiner1 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

bsaul wrote: post #105

And now the boomerang is coming back... But judging by the reactions here i see asking for the right to express complexity isn't always welcome when it comes against the moral values of the day. (and just to make sure : people should be treated just great even if they're different, meaning they have different abilities somehow, somewhere, and we don't know them all because science isn't advanced enough yet to make an…

> have been found watching (racial) porn at the office

pretty sure we don’t want anyone watching any sort of porn at the office

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

#477

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #195

ncallaway wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However there's not much of a different between: "fewer women wind up having the skills for X in part due to biological causes" and "women are worse at X".

women are better at empathy, due to biological reasons. women ,on average not all women of course, go into fields that need more empathy on average. they endup having less skills in this field on average because more of them went and studied another field due to biological reasons. source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19476221 from the abstract: "This study contributes information on women's greater empathic d…

Does this paper actually demonstrate the "due to biological reasons" part?

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

#478

Post by roenxi » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

jblow wrote: post #396

vowelless wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn…

If people "on the left" won't allow him to speak, where exactly do you expect him to go? It's like the people on the right saying Edward Snowden is obviously a traitor/spy because he went to Russia. Uhhh... something very obvious is being ignored there. Also, come on ... Joe Rogan is definitely not right-wing. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin do not self-identify as right-wing. And your [1] just seems a little extreme.…

> If people "on the left" won't allow him to speak, where exactly do you expect him to go?

Adding to this; we should bear in mind that while nobody specific speaks for "the left"'s moral judgments, at least some people literally won't allow him to speak.

Secondly, he was never trying to be a martyr and we shouldn't expect him to be one. He was posting a controversial opinion on a message board marked for controversial opinion. He was clearly putting in a solid attempt to be objective and to employ facts and evidence. He has some academic exposure to the fields he was talking about.

He didn't expect to be targeted the way he was; he likely wasn't trying to set himself up as a hero of free speech; and he doesn't have to do a walk of shame through hostile talk shows to justify his intentions if he doesn't feel like taking the (unjustified) heat.

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

#479

Post by moduspol » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

beebmam wrote: post #465

moduspol wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be fair then to describe Google's hiring policy as preferring the best candidate regardless of race / sex?

No, because "best" is highly unscientific and subjective, and can change in an uncountable number of ways depending on environment.

Ok, then what's your objective and scientific way of hiring?

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

#480

Post by ThrustVectoring » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 8:22 PM UTC

You need a very minimal amount of social skill to succeed in programming - just enough to not piss coworkers off too badly while working together on projects. Past that, you get mostly quiet and controlled environments, managers willing to let you work on your special interests, and generally get left alone to stare at your screen and type things out. This is one of the best working environments you can find for autistic people. And all these factors that make it so good for autistics makes it more hellish for neurotypicals: you have techies to socialize with who do not like to be interrupted, lots of time expected to be working instead of socializing, and your soft-skills aren't particularly well suited for making the computer do the things you want.

There are something like three to five times as many autistic males than females, depending on the cutoff point and study used. I'm honestly astounded that people are rejecting the biological claim, given how strongly it attracts autistics.

IMHO, a lot of inclusivity-in-tech movements are horrifically ableist for wanting to destroy this niche in the pursuit of making the programming niche more welcoming to other groups. It's about goddamn time there's some push-back against these sorts of gentrifying movements, they're incredibly bad for the work environment interests of autistics.