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The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

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Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#511

Post by program_whiz »

notacoward wrote: post #494
program_whiz wrote: post #107

I have a question to further this debate. Would people consider it sexist to administer a completely automated test of technical and personality questions which was used by an unbiased program to hire only the best qualified candidates? What would you say if the results were essentially the same as the status quo? By the Article's Author's account, she believes that we would probably maintain the status quo with such…

> What would you say if the results were essentially the same as the status quo? OK, I'll bite. I'd say that's both surprising and interesting. Then I'd ask why the status quo is even relevant. "Best qualified" at the time of taking the test might not mean "most productive a year hence" when a candidate's circumstances might have kept them from reaching their full potential. Indeed, circumstances might have kept them…

Not being sarcastic, is there evidence that more diverse teams are better? There seems to be some anecdotal evidence going both ways (i.e. more diverse viewpoints vs team cohesion). I can imagine that there's a balance point as well. You could have one extreme where people are so similar that its basically a one-person team with 8 arms. You could also have a team so diverse they can never agree, have no common language and no shared cultural aspects, or even shared goals. An interesting balancing act really.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#512

Post by blusterXY »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #248
blusterXY wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just how does that itself prescribe that we should stop pushing for an expansion there? You are the only one being "prescriptive". If a class of people doesn't prefer (in aggregate) to do the kinds of work you want them to do, what right do you have to insist that it is better for them if they are forced to do this work? When did it become feminist to lecture women about the sort of work environment they should wan…

The practices at places like Google have been designed to get women who want to be in the field into the field . They're far from perfect. Being a straight white male in a progressive country and working at a larger corporation that is currently undergoing many of the same situations and issues that this whole thing is about -- I will likely be passed over to share the opportunity with people who traditionally have n…

Why are you attacking James for "regressive thinking" if you respect women and their choices? No-one is denying women autonomy and choice. Quite the contrary: James seems to be the only voice at Google defending their freedom to have group preferences at all.

And if you want to empower women in your own corporate environment you should read his paper carefully, since part of his criticism is that Google's diversity programs are self-defeating: trying to induce women into engineering by lying about the nature of the work rather than changing the corporate culture so it attracts more women in the first place.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#513

Post by danso »

peoplewindow wrote: post #290
danso wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did the memo's author think that Google's current hiring practices were flawed? I mean, what empirical evidence? Were there teams full of "diversity" hires that were performing below par?

Well, did you read it? He lists the following: "* Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5] * A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates * Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate * Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scru…

Yes I did read it. You can check my comment history where I've even linked to that exact section you cite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14953398

I asked for empirical evidence that these initiatives had led to bad results at Google. If the biological research so directly contradicts Google's aims with these diversity initiatives, then we should be able to measure the negative impact, no? That Google has had these initiatives for years and still has ratios nowhere near the 50% that the author fears is a harmful goal, belies the notion that Google is conducting its recruitment in a reckless, diversity-at-all-costs way.

Of course having read the memo, I know that the author does not cite any such empirical evidence, besides begging-the-question anecdata such as "I've gotten many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues". While I believe the author to be smart and am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about being sincere, I question how he can fill 10 pages with observations and boilerplate (including a trite table of what he thinks "left" and "right" biases are) and not be able to mention actual observed consequences of Google's hiring practices having gone awry. It suggests to me that he hasn't really been openminded or willing to investigate both sides of the issue.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#514

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

atilaneves wrote: post #352
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also interesting is that it's one of the things social justice activists constantly criticize others for. I can't count how many times I've heard the following: "when we say men are privileged, we don't mean any and all men are privileged to the same extent." Or "when we say white people are racist, we're not talking about every single individual white person." And it makes sense. Yet when it comes time for someone t…

The difference is that the "on average" vs "the individual" in the memo is scientific. Which doesn't mean it's the gospel truth, by all means go and criticise the papers linked to. But at least it's science. In the case of privilege or the lack thereof, it's an opinion. As far as I know anyway, I'd be happy to be pointed in the direction of scientific studies on privilege.

Yeah I was more interested in just the interpretation of the statement. It goes to follow that if one of the claims isn't all-encompassing, the other isn't either.

But yeah I don't think it's a scientific claim, of course it depends on how you define "science". If you consider politically-motivated sociology to be science, then yeah I guess you could count privilege as a scientific concept...

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#515

Post by occultist_throw »

dpark wrote: post #239
occultist_throw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive had a handful of previous Democratic voters, whom are classify themselves a Liberal, observe the same actions. "We support free speech, as long as you agree with the core tenants of Political Correctness, Affirmative Action, Feminism, and Liberalism." Whereas, Republicans/Conservatives have a much greater variance of ideas. There's the RINOs, the Moderates, the Libertarians, Tea Partiers, and more. Yes, there is…

You talk about Republicans essentially being more inclusive and then trot out "RINOs" as an example. RINO is a disparaging term used specifically to exclude and shame certain Republicans. In what way do you imagine that this demonstrates that Republicans support diversity of thought?

It was the word I could think of that expressed the sentiment. Would you prefer "Moderate centrist Republicans"?

Or... you know, the term everyone knows. Republican in Name Only. There's also DINO as well.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#516

Post by Jabanga »

clavalle wrote: post #506
Jabanga wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, postmodernism and feminism are rooted in Marxist ideology. Marxist intellectuals shifted to postmodernism in the 1970s after it became impossible to deny that Marxist doctrine had led to authoritarian police states and democides all over the world. Postmodern ideology changes Marxism's fixation on capital with a fixation on power, and replaces income-class with race/gender/income-class identity groups. It's extre…

And here I thought I was just a capitalist who believes that people should all be given an equal shot to choose their own path in life and that how things have been does not necessarily dictate how things should be. Turns out I'm a hateful, dogmatic, sexist racist as well as a malevolent nihilist, postmodern feminist, and a Marxist to boot. Thanks for clearing that up. Those -isms really snuck up on me (they really a…

I did not say that you're a "hateful, dogmatic, sexist racist". I said that postmodernism and feminism are.

Very few people subscribe to all of the beliefs of a particular ideological and philosophical framework. But the tenets of an ideology are there, even if a particular adherent is unaware of them.

An ideology manifests itself in its effects on the world. In postmodernism and feminism, we see that in the completely dogmatic and anti-science reaction to the memo. Here was a memo that was produced in good faith, stayed fully within the realm of established science in its assertions, and within the realm of the reasonable in its opinion, and yet we have absolute lies being trotted out by its critics about its content, and an ideologically motivated firing of its author.

This is not an accident. It's a result of an anti-science dogma that frames the world as a power struggle between identity group, and where facts are only acceptable when they aid in the fulfilment of the postmodernist/feminist agenda: which is to flatten the social dominance hierarchy that, according to the postmodernist/feminist framework, is formed by various identity groups. This is inspired by Marxism (as the historical record shows), whether or not you personally identify as a Marxist yourself.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#517

Post by vowelless »

omikun wrote: post #478
vowelless wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to be antagonistic. Apologize if I came off that way. Part of the discussion around the memo indeed is having an open discussion about what things should be like. Of course I would like to see more women in tech and also make sure everyone is comfortable. My gf is also in tech. My only qualm is that many people seem to axiomatically take the position that a 50/50 split should be the case. I just don't s…

I should apologize too. I was just a bit flustered. 50/50 split might be naive. It assumes men and women should be equally represented and that makes liberally minded folks feel good. But what's the alternative? Status quo? A different and arbitrary split? I don't see any good arguments against equal representation. The current diversity initiative is biasing towards 50/50 and the memo guy didn't like it but didn't s…

(following are purely my own opinions, nothing more )

I think it's good to do humanities studies but naive to latch on to one or two. Humanities is a messy field from a scientific perspective. But nevertheless there is plenty of signal there.

The issue I have is starting with something like 50/50 and then trying to optimize for that. This is invariably what happens. This leads to all kinds of weird, bizzare practices like being discriminatory in hiring based on (largely) immutable attributes like race and gender. The concept of gender itself is so in flux these days that it seems premature to start with 50/50.

This above approach I think is known as equality of outcome. I am not a big fan of that.

I personally think a better system is based on equality of opportunity where the optimization function should be trying to improve people's starting points. This is much harder but much better for the long term health of the society (in my opinion ).

In equality of opportunity, the hiring will be blind to gender. But work will be done to encourage more girls to participate in the sciences from an early age. Liberals wont be able to pat themselves on their backs immediately as they won't be fulfilling quotas quickly to show faux diversity. Corporations won't be able to bandage bad PR events quickly (like Google's gender paygap thing ) but this is in my opinion alot healthier over time.

Now, over time, I would expect the ratio to improve, but then settle at whatever is natural without any top down pressure to fulfill prescribed quotas. It might be the case that the mean of the distribution of women is closer to things like raising families or educating kids as teachers (the most important job in the world in my opinion ) instead of toiling away in front of a screen for crap money to make more money for a big corporation (compared to men).

In the first case (equality of outcome) we take two different distributions, men and women, and push them into a 50 50 split. In the second case (equality of opportunity), we try to move the means closer bottom up. I prefer the second approach. Slower, harder but much better for the long term health of society.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#518

Post by haberman »

kenjackson wrote: post #208
Ajedi32 wrote: post #20

Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by links to scientific studies. Only difference being that the author of this article has a PhD in sexual neuroscience (so people might have a harder time accusing her of not knowing what she's talking about) and is female (so some people might have a harder time of accusi…

The issue with the original article was two-fold: 1. It used strawman arguments. Notably that the world is looking for a 50/50 split in gender ratios. Most reasonable people believe that even in ideal equilibrium state that this is not the expected outcome (although I'm sure there exist some people that push for 50/50 or greater). But that the current ratio is not the ideal equilibrium state. The author of the paper…

> It used strawman arguments. Notably that the world is looking for a 50/50 split in gender ratios. Most reasonable people believe that even in ideal equilibrium state that this is not the expected outcome (although I'm sure there exist some people that push for 50/50 or greater).

It's hardly a strawman; even people in this thread believe that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14970828

"mainstream gender equality says there should be a roughly equal split"

"50/50 split might be naive. It assumes men and women should be equally represented and that makes liberally minded folks feel good. But what's the alternative? Status quo? A different and arbitrary split? I don't see any good arguments against equal representation."

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#519

Post by Jabanga »

foolrush wrote: post #470
Jabanga wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confirming my statement: truth to post modernism doesn't exist as the term is conventionally defined. It is only one particular group's frame of reference and therefore only a device in pursuit of power struggles between groups. From this perspective, there can be no such thing as science, as the term is conventionally understood (the pursuit of an impartial and universal truth).

Who do you think defined notions of truth? Scientists? Or were scientists philosophers interested in epistemology? No, not being a smart ass. "Science" as we know it today is an invention. It hasn't been around forever. It is relatively new. Yes it is political. Yes it is epistemological. Yes it is ideological. In terms of social sciences, it is far harder than we like to think. What we choose to measure, how we choo…

Notice how you're not actually agreeing or disagreeing with my assertion. You're simple trying to justify the postmodernist take on truth.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#520

Post by humanrebar »

kuschku wrote: post #429
humanrebar wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but if you were a boss and a member of your team published it, would you fire him? Why or why not? I don't find rehashing the wisdom of his decision to speak his mind as important as how everyone else responds to it. That's where the real controversy is.

If I already had several cases due to hiring discrimination against women breathing down my neck, and this person would at the worst point in time publish an article that casts a shadow over every hiring process he has ever been involved in, yes, I'd definitely fire him.

This person didn't publish an article, though. It was shared internally with (presumably) a receptive group of coworkers.
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