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Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

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Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#51

Post by pacala »

danso wrote: post #48
pacala wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employment here is based solely upon individual merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence. We strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, veteran status, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy status, sex, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, or any other c…

> "XX% of hiring must be of phenotype Y" is in direct violation of the code of conduct. Does Google have mandated quotas? For which demographic, because they seem to be either ignoring them (which would mean they aren't mandates ) or aiming pretty low when it comes to women and non-asians. Or they coincidentally ended up with roughly the same quotas as all the other large tech companies: http://fortune.com/2017/06/29…

I don't know what Google does, I'm merely giving examples of illegal discriminatory hiring practices, which I've heard of in conversations with friends working in academia / industry. Sorry for being unclear.

That being said, there is a lot of smoke at Google as well. Google recently hired Danielle Brown from Intel. Her track record:

http://fortune.com/2017/08/07/google-diversity-memo/

Danielle Brown> Google has taken a strong stand on this issue, by releasing its demographic data and creating a company wide OKR on diversity and inclusion.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/diversity/diversity-...

Intel> We exceeded our target, hitting 45.1% diverse hiring for women and underrepresented minorities in 2016.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/15/intel-may-have-figured-out-t...

> Since it began linking bonuses to diversity hiring, Intel has met or exceeded its goals.

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#52

Post by rdtsc »

danso wrote: post #40
rdtsc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might not be a crazy idea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign Invite everyone to freely share ideas. Make lists, then kick out those with the "wrong" ideas. The are often comparisons between large corporations' command economy and the now failed countries with centralized command economy. But perhaps there are interesting parallels about how large corporations discover and weed out those with…

Why should Google fire people for having the "wrong" ideas, when Google has made it clear that they'll fire people whose ideas conflict with its code of conduct? https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Damore asserted that his ideas should be heeded by Google (from the very first paragraph: "This needs to change"). And he makes assertions about how Google has been poorly conducting himself: https:/…

I put "wrong" in quotes. Just like totalitarian regimes "fire" (execute, imprison, expel) those with ideas which seem to go against "this will of the people" so is Google firing people whose ideas go against the Code of Conduct or for cultural incompatibility.

> No need for Google to use subterfuge to fire people with conflicting ideas. They say it loud and clear that they expect employees to agree ("follow both its spirit and letter") with the Code of Conduct.

Sure, just like the Constitution of say North Korea, Communist China, or Soviet Union might have or have had something about subversive ideas or behavior of the "enemies of the people" and the punishment expected to be administered to them. And interstingly just as it is open to interpretation what "bullying" means, it was/is open to interpretation what the "enemy of the people" means.

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#53

Post by flukus »

jacalata wrote: post #49
throwaway12124 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fear would be a little more credible if we hadn't already read that the original memo caused widespread "terror" in a number of employees.

Or if there was a history of alt right groups doxxing and harassing people they disagreed with, which there is - see Gamergate.

> Or if there was a history of alt right groups doxxing and harassing people they disagreed with, which there is - see Gamergate.

There was plenty of that from both camps.

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#55

Post by hungerstrike »

danso wrote: post #25
curyous wrote: post #17

This article is very skewed, it's annoying that she wrote things like "which he claimed was backed up by studies." rather than "which are backed up by studies."

Findings from scientific studies are not immutable truth. Nor does citing them automatically make your interpretation of the cited study to be truth. Perhaps the article should have stated, "In a 10-page memo Damore [made claims etc etc] and included citations and references to several scientific studies."

> Findings from scientific studies are not immutable truth. Nor does citing them automatically make your interpretation of the cited study to be truth.

But nobody said that scientific studies were immutable truths, did they? No, that's not the issue here. The person that you're responding to said that the issue is with the wording used by the reporter, not the findings of the studies.

If the reporter wanted to bring into question the findings of the linked studies then they should have addressed the studies directly like you are attempting to do here. Instead, they used weasel wording to make it seem like the studies might not even exist.

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#56

Post by krrrh »

foolrush wrote: post #38
jake-low wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's possible to cover such a polarizing breaking-news issue in a way that's not "skewed". Intelligent people will read the same memo and interpret it in different ways. It's too soon for anyone to be impartial. Here's [0] a lengthy analysis from an evolutionary biology Ph.D that concludes that Damore built a harmful narrative around weak and cherry-picked scientific studies. Of course it's as "skewed" a…

And the author of the paper (implicitly) cited disagrees with the claims. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-an...

On the other hand, the Wired article also cherry-picks quotes from Mr. Schmitt, whose comments are more fully elucidated in articles he wrote at Psychology Today[1] and Quillette[2]

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/20... [2] http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#58

Post by wonderwonder »

I think Google is starting to realize that they jumped the gun on their initial actions. Instead of taking a few moments to get a lay of the land they panicked, flew back their CEO and fired Damore and publicly humiliated him and his opinions. They then scheduled a town hall where I assume the plan was to further demonize him while telling everyone that they still value a free exchange of ideas as long as those ideas are the right ones.

Since that initial plan though things have spiraled for them. They have been sued. Damore has been given mainstream press coverage where he has equipped himself reasonably well. They have also likely realized that he followed company policy in regards to using the google approved forums and even formally submitted his memo to google's diversity team. His memo has also incorporated input from other Google employees.

Google very visibly stated that if you have certain opinions we find distasteful and express them you will be fired. Not great for moral for those who share those opinions.

They are realizing that they have done a terrible job on this from a PR, company moral and legal standpoint and are seeking to regroup.

I am not defending Damore's opinion one way or the other but in regards to handling this situation I don't see how Google's executives or many of their staff are feeling positive right now.

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#59

Post by IshKebab »

jake-low wrote: post #20
curyous wrote: post #17

This article is very skewed, it's annoying that she wrote things like "which he claimed was backed up by studies." rather than "which are backed up by studies."

I'm not sure it's possible to cover such a polarizing breaking-news issue in a way that's not "skewed". Intelligent people will read the same memo and interpret it in different ways. It's too soon for anyone to be impartial. Here's [0] a lengthy analysis from an evolutionary biology Ph.D that concludes that Damore built a harmful narrative around weak and cherry-picked scientific studies. Of course it's as "skewed" a…

This is a much better and less biased analysis:

https://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/08/10/the-google-memo-what...

(Skip to the conclusions if it's too long.)

Re: Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

#60

Post by Smutte »

foolrush wrote: post #38
jake-low wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's possible to cover such a polarizing breaking-news issue in a way that's not "skewed". Intelligent people will read the same memo and interpret it in different ways. It's too soon for anyone to be impartial. Here's [0] a lengthy analysis from an evolutionary biology Ph.D that concludes that Damore built a harmful narrative around weak and cherry-picked scientific studies. Of course it's as "skewed" a…

And the author of the paper (implicitly) cited disagrees with the claims. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-an...

From the Wired article (comment from the scientist):

"And I believe there is good evidence of both sexism (including sex stereotypes) and real psychological sex differences (some of which may be evolved) to be causes of the gender gaps across occupations,"

From the start of the memo: "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership"

They are saying the exact same thing? In what way does the scientist disagree in concrete words with things that is actually written in the memo?

Also, to avoid further misunderstandings...

Quote from link in the Wired article to Psychology Today: "Using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality is like surgically operating with an axe" This is not what the memo did, as far as I can tell. See the quote from the memo again. He is suggesting that "biological sex" (the scientist's words) MAY IN PART explain why the split men/women is not EXACTLY THE SAME (sorry for caps).

Do you see how the scientist never actually comments anything concrete in the memo, but only concepts that are related?

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