Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#501

Post by WatchDog » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:39 AM UTC

I think the author made the mistake of using psychosocial nomenclature, like the big 5 personality traits[1]. Without spending more time explaining the language he was using.

I think people will respond negativity to being told that their group is more likely to be high in Neuroticism. Among other things.

It seems clear to me that his memo was heavily inspired by Jordan Peterson, and to a reader without some basic introduction to psychology the assertions he make can seem inflammatory.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#502

Post by lazyjones » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:41 AM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

> because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications.

Is this really an honest assessment? I haven't yet seen a single reply to the manifesto that addresses its points and counters the supposedly "lousy arguments" in a neutral tone and objective manner. Please point me to one if you have...

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#503

Post by abtinf » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:42 AM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #3

Um, yeah... I'm just gonna go ahead and not have an opinion on this one.

"Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us."

I'm also not going to comment on this thread. But our silence will come back to damn us.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#504

Post by rpmcmurphy » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:42 AM UTC

It takes a lot to get fired from Hooli, especially on such a short time line. Applying Occam's Razor here. A) he was an innocent victim who naively expressed his political views via a manifesto and was capriciously fired. B) he was already on the shitlist for being a pain in the ass and conveniently provided HR with the ammo they needed to shitcan him. With A and B being opposite ends of the continuum, I would guess he fell closer to B than A, given that Hooli is kind of hard to get straight out fired from.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#505

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:43 AM UTC

spraak wrote: post #492

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. I guess the one challenge I would put to this is that I find it difficult to believe that East Asians or Indians have been on the receiving end of any less discrimination than, say, Hispanics…

The important context though is in how the conference was promoted in the first place, though.

I'll note that one of the rules for proposal submission that GitHub specified before proposals were accepted was that any ties in ratings would be broken in favor of a more diverse speaker panel, so it at least appears that they were conscious of attracting women and minorities to the conference.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#506

Post by santoshalper » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:43 AM UTC

coss wrote: post #277

I thought at the very least it was an attempt at a well thought out unpopular opinion that should have at least been met with a productive rebuttal. To fire this guy though, sort of proves his point. You can't speak out against the safe space google is trying to create, without fear. If he's wrong then argue his reasoning. Don't attack his character and silence him.

Google is a for-profit, publicly traded company with millions of investors and thousands of employees. They are not obligated to engage in a public battle of ideas with an employee. They have made their values incredibly clear - if he disagrees with them strongly enough to publish a manifesto, he probably should have already left to find a place where he fit in better. Perhaps Palmer Lucky will hire him.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#507

Post by frakkingcylons » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:45 AM UTC

mzh0 wrote: post #475

In case anyone cared, here's a fundraiser link for the fired employee: https://www.wesearchr.com/bounties/james-damore-official-fun... HN Submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14954463#

Haha wow. Of course the fundraiser for this piece of work is hosted on the alt-right's de-facto crowdfunding site. In case you had any doubt, please note that one of the most successful campaigns on WeSearchr is raising money to help a Neo-Nazi blog in a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

https://www.wesearchr.com/bounties/daily-stormer-vs-splc-leg...

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#508

Post by bookmarkacc » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:47 AM UTC

TimPC wrote: post #500

Closing the thread to new accounts seems kind of sad, controversial topics like this lend themselves to throwaway accounts from active members of the community. Maybe the solution is some feature for anonymization from active accounts only, but it feels like we ought to find something better than forcing people to comment under an account that's generally linkable to a name.

Its also necessary to stop people doing a drive by job with anon accounts.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#509

Post by smsm42 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:49 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #245

falcolas wrote: post #100

We fire people for snickering at the word "Dongle". We witch hunt people who play at Gor in their spare time. We hound CEOs who disagree with the popular stance on gay marriage. We fire people who clumsily try to open a dialogue internally to a company. The tech industry is indeed fucked, but perhaps not for the reasons that are currently popular.

> We witch hunt people who play at Gor in their spare time. Fuck that noise. Larry Garfield was asked to step down because his Gorean activities leaked into Drupal events and that made others feel unwelcome.

Anything can "make others feel unwelcome" given enough determination to find so. Did you vote for Trump? You get the boot. Voted for Hillary? You get the boot too, there are Sanders supporters around! Ah, you like Sanders? You communist! Communists certainly can make people feel unwelcome, they did tons of scary stuff over 20th century. What, you don't like communism? Maybe you like capitalism then? You pig! You're making Marxists feel unwelcome! Off with your hea^H^H^Hjob!

Maybe you believe in God? Like, a Christian? That certainly will make a lot of folks feel unwelcome. But maybe you're an atheist instead? Ha, did you think you'd get out that easy? Of course you'll make somebody feel unwelcome. [1]

OK, this is all political stuff. Let's get so something nobody objects to. How about cheese? Do you like cheese? Do you, you filthy sexist[2]?!

If you try hard enough, you can see "feel unwelcome" in literally anything, and simple google search proves it's not even a bit of exaggeration.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/us/richard-dawkins-speech...

[2] https://www.peta.org/living/food/why-cheese-is-the-most-sexi...

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#510

Post by ramach » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:51 AM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #35

The author's arguments have been completely misrepresented. He pointed out widely-believed and sometimes scientifically-established differences in the DISTRIBUTION OF traits in men and women. He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful. What is his conclusion about how we should behave? "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of thei…

This blew up because 1) English is an imprecise language subject to multiple interpretations; 2) Viral effects develop when there are feedback loops/network effects (virtue signaling is one; conservative vs liberal politics is another)

I would hope that a more narrowly focused document written in more formal language (math) with clearly-stated assumptions and a faq that addresses common misinterpretations will have fared better but these days even expecting this might be too much (which is sad!).

The one thing I feel that lost out on all this brouhaha was the author's point that companies should value "diversity of thoughts" rather than diversity of !