The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google • Hacker News Board

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#541

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:50 PM UTC

wfo wrote: post #503

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what you are saying is that there should be safe spaces for conservatives to express themselves? That conservatives should be welcomed for their diversity? That conservstives should be given a participation trophy and honored for their special snowflake ideas? Good grief. Diversity of every imaginable kind is good except for diversity of thought apparently. Whatever happened to " I disapprove of what you say, bu…

A simple "yes" would suffice. All you have to do is admit that diversity is good and you'll get your diversity of ideology there for free. All you have to do is admit that creating safe spaces can be good or necessary, and you can argue for safe spaces for conservatives to speak their minds. The point isn't that you shouldn't be allowed to express yourself (you should! There should be a safe space for conservatives o…

> A simple "yes" would suffice.

Kind of you to put words in my mouth but I'm quite able speak for myself. My answer is a resounding "NO". As a liberal, I say we should all find the notion of "safe spaces" odious and contemptible; while we are not required to accept all ideas, there is no idea that may not be discussed and analyzed out in the open, no matter how wrong or unpalatable it may be.

What will it take for your particular faction to comprehend that you cannot _exclude_ your way to power? How many more elections must you lose before it sinks in?

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#542

Post by xyzzyz » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:00 PM UTC

rifung wrote: post #197

Animats wrote: post #143

I'm amazed that people are seriously upset by someone publishing that. Somehow, most of the women I know don't complain about harassment much. The one who does complain mostly gets it from her female boss. The one in SF tech says that Uber people tend to be jerks but the rest of the industry there isn't bad. The one from France has more problems with age than with sex. The lawyer has had some annoyances, but finds it…

> Somehow, most of the women I know don't complain about harassment much. It does not seem productive to trivialize and disregard people's issues only because we haven't witnessed them ourselves. Indeed this attitude is actually why an internal group where people can report sexist, racist, and other inappropriate behavior is called "Yes at Google", because so many people thought this kind of thing doesn't happen, or…

yes-at-google had some really ugly stuff when they started out, but then everyone run out of stashed stories, and it's been almost exclusively petty issues for the past few weeks, and most of which look like people acting in good faith, just genuinely unaware of the impact having on the reporting person. Looks like the really bad stuff doesn't actually happen all that often.

Thing is, life in general is filled with stuff that makes people uneasy, but you always have to judge the intent before you can condemn the behavior. The y-a-g format is completely opposite of this.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#543

Post by adrienne » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:22 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #522

renaudg wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations much needed for your first point, please. What I see is a list of male and female dominated fields which is a near perfect fit for what theory would predict. I'm sorry you feel the need to trivialize my point about monkeys. Unfortunately, evidence is going to keep rubbing you the wrong way, you're going to love this new thread : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942022 “At the time, it seemed clear to…

This is a whole lot of words all of which are derived from monkey studies. I think it sounds like I'm being snarky when I say that, but, no, I'm not: literally, this is an attempt to reason the 82/18% CS split from the behaviors of monkeys. You understand, right, that my side of this argument doesn't have to predict any part of human society from the behavior of monkeys? That all my argument requires me to be able to…

These people never want to acknowledge the fact that programming used to be near-universally "women's work", right up until dudes decided it was cool and stole it from us. CS admissions used to be more than 40% women!

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#544

Post by adrienne » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:27 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #63

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I was willing to give him a fair hearing until he listed a handful of differences between men and women that he ascribes to biology without any factual support. And therein lies the unconscious bias against which he is railing. To him, there is no question that men and women, on average, are fundamentally different in ways that affects their ability to and interest in work in tech. I agree with him that folks s…

There are actually a few studies showing gender differences in infants and monkeys. (males preferentially looking at/interacting with mechanical things, females faces/dolls) From that, you can assume that there are at least some biological differences in behavior between the sexes - and thus differing workplace representation is not necessarily 100% derived from social pressures. And if that's the case, achieving a 5…

People also start socializing girls & boys differently within 24 hours of birth, so you still haven't disproven the socialization hypothesis.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#545

Post by tptacek » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:55 PM UTC

haberman wrote: post #532

tptacek wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and you can see the "pleading" get more and more "special" as people, confronted with the numerical evidence, make more and more elaborate excuses for how software is different from other sciences. "It's like Lego", they'll say, "and boys play with Lego more than girls". Well, isn't that Just So?

75% of Bachelors degrees in Psychology are awarded to women, and almost 70% of active working Psychologists are female. Does it follow that Psychology is sexist against men? Is is possible that two things are true? That (1) there is sexism in tech that must be addressed, and (2) even if women felt welcome in tech, the composition of tech could be <50% women?

You're just waiting for someone to roll out this trope. The answer is: yes, it's problematic that there are so few male psychologists, just as it is extremely problematic that there are so few male nurses.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#546

Post by sgustard » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:57 PM UTC

My son was in the hospital recently and the head surgeon was a woman. Her primary assistant was a woman. The anesthesiologist and her assistant were women. There was a male nurse or two.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have encountered this situation 25 years ago. I'm sure "biological factors" mean "most women don't go into medicine" because of the years of hard work separated from their families, and they aren't excited by the technical bits. Even if you wanted to hire women doctors, they don't bother going to medical school.

I'm sure a thousand male doctors wrote a thousand letters just like this one as they saw their workplaces changing. And guess what, it happened anyway, and the state of medical care across the world is better than ever.

The field of software engineering is still crawling out of the stone age.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#547

Post by jorgemf » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 10:19 PM UTC

fatbird wrote: post #516

MichaelGG wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some US sports are very non diverse, but it's ok because it's majority non white, and everyone agrees is mostly meritorious - Athletic performance is hard to fake (outside drugs). Yet even suggesting that minds are subject to the same kinds of differences is considered heresy. It's almost dualistic - as if we're all born with a mind/soul of the same capability.

It's not heresy. Sports represent a closed ecosystem of relatively straightforward traits->skill benefits. Professions are not bounded the way athletic roles are. The fields of law and medicine removed various sexist barriers to women participating, and female participation increased; I've seen no one suggest that the professions have significantly shifted in nature due to an influx of female brains. Against that, we…

> I've seen no one suggest that the professions have significantly shifted in nature due to an influx of female brains

Here you have it: https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=1851

Most people in the video are scientists and work in the topic.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#548

Post by haberman » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 10:44 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #545

haberman wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% of Bachelors degrees in Psychology are awarded to women, and almost 70% of active working Psychologists are female. Does it follow that Psychology is sexist against men? Is is possible that two things are true? That (1) there is sexism in tech that must be addressed, and (2) even if women felt welcome in tech, the composition of tech could be <50% women?

You're just waiting for someone to roll out this trope. The answer is: yes, it's problematic that there are so few male psychologists, just as it is extremely problematic that there are so few male nurses.

Why is it problematic? Why does every field of endeavor have to be exactly 50/50? I'm honestly asking, because I don't believe that at all.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#549

Post by cpr » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 11:04 PM UTC

We had this discussion years ago on my Harvard class list, back during the Larry Summers flap.

Obviously, no one would be/could be against women choosing whatever field of study and work that fulfills them the most. (I say that with 6 daughters in mind!)

However, perhaps the lower representation of women in STEM is simply because they find other fields more interesting (law, medicine, what-have-you). STEM (at least the academic path) is a fairly single-minded grind, and that wouldn't appeal to many people. Apparently it appeals to fewer women than men, and I don't blame them! What's so great about STEM, honestly? It's just another field of human endeavor, with no particular reason to value it more highly than others. (Certainly, it's clearly valued by the HN community, but we're a tiny slice of the real world.)

(I did learn (sadly) from that discussion that women have been grossly discriminated against in certain scientific fields in academia--one of my classmates is the astronomy head at a midwestern university, and she had plenty of examples to share, getting there.)

Aside: Seems to me that the public outrage is at least partially just virtue-signaling.

Re: The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

#550

Post by fatbird » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 11:12 PM UTC

jorgemf wrote: post #547

fatbird wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not heresy. Sports represent a closed ecosystem of relatively straightforward traits->skill benefits. Professions are not bounded the way athletic roles are. The fields of law and medicine removed various sexist barriers to women participating, and female participation increased; I've seen no one suggest that the professions have significantly shifted in nature due to an influx of female brains. Against that, we…

> I've seen no one suggest that the professions have significantly shifted in nature due to an influx of female brains Here you have it: https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=1851 Most people in the video are scientists and work in the topic.

I see that it's an extended attack on the nurture side from the nature side based on the fact that, despite years of concerted government effort, significant gender divisions remain at the professional level in Norway. I'm not disputing these facts.

I'm not seeing that it asserts that the influx of women into the medical or legal professions has substantially changed how those professions are practiced. If women think differently than men, wouldn't a significant increase in the number of women in a profession show up as a change in the general model of the profession?

The author of the manifesto actually suggests changing the practice of software development at Google (e.g., more pair programming) to make it more friendly to women's natural inclinations, as a way of achieving better gender balance instead of affirmative action programs.