The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science • Hacker News Board

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

#571

Post by Zeklandia » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 12:42 AM UTC

megous wrote: post #36

What I find interesting about all this is how many people take personal offense from statistics. (and conclusions drawn from statistics) The author seems to put an effort into explaining statistical distribution and what it means and what not. He's explicit that statistical observations can't be used to judge particular individuals. Draws a graph of overlapping distributions to drive the point home even more. I'm not…

Where he goes wrong is that he conflates statistical significance with clinical significance. Yes, his sources show that there are differences between men and women. However, the measured difference is so minute, there is little to no practical distinction.

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

#572

Post by t0mbstone » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 12:46 AM UTC

Google says they want to hire a diverse collection of employees, so that the solutions they build in the future aren't one-dimensional, possessing only the stereotypical white male's mindset and approach.

The fact that they stated this very desire proves that they believe that women are different than men, and that women might theoretically approach a problem or solution differently than a man.

But if someone writes a manifesto which points out that, "Hey, maybe men and women are different, with different traits and mindsets (when considered across the whole average)", suddenly that person is sexist.

Google wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to pretend there are no tangible difference between the way males and females work and think, but they also want a diverse culture that can benefit from the different ways how males and females work and think.

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

#573

Post by habosa » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 12:58 AM UTC

Does it matter? Ask a woman you know, preferably one in tech, to read the memo and tell you how she feels.

The women in tech that I've asked felt somewhere between offended and furious and, more importantly, would not feel comfortable working with someone who wrote such a memo and distributed it to his colleagues.

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

#574

Post by HeavyStorm » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 1:00 AM UTC

It seems to me that we are moving from gender equality, i.e. equal rights, to "gender sameness".

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

#575

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 1:11 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #562

weddpros wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"we should be able to measure the negative impact, no?", or "how to get fired from Google in 20s" ... as the memo just proved ... Management could have put him in charge of gathering and analyzing data to prove or disprove his memo. They fired him instead => they don't care about data => the memo was right, management is biased

Or because they believed his manifesto to be both bullshit and a legal liability. Especially as the company -- which Damore accused of using its "money to water only one side of the lawn [i.e. women's]" -- fights off a possible class-action lawsuit [0] and an ongoing federal investigation [1] alleging discrimination against women. Again, why should Google put the guy who lacks basic research skills (again, being igno…

What basic research skills does he lack?

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

#576

Post by clavalle » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 1:33 AM UTC

Jabanga wrote: post #567

clavalle wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just repeating yourself. Let me ask this: what difference does the statistical differences found between genders in the general population matter for any small subset of that population? If I had test scores from 1-1000 with 1 being the worst and 1000 being the best for a million people that match a normal distribution and I told you that I have a set of 10 that I picked non-randomly but I don't tell you how,…

>what difference does the statistical differences found between genders in the general population matter for any small subset of that population? With all due respect, this is an absurd question. Statistical differences between the genders in the general population will very plausibly cause differences in the representation of each gender in a particular field, like computer science. Do I really need to elaborate mor…

It is in no way an absurd question.

Google is not selecting their employees at random. Google is not promoting people at random. Google is not placing employees in a neutral environment relative to the rest of the population. Google is not providing neutral support to employees relative to the general population.

There is no reason to expect that their subset of the population should conform to a general population skew.

In short, plausibility =/= probably.

You repeat yourself a lot for someone who keeps bringing up dogma in this conversation like it means something in context. Can you point to my dogmatic position?

The guy was fired because he let everyone know that he is more than happy to point to descriptions of the general population and sinister world spanning conspiracy theories in order to maintain a dismissive and belittling attitude within the work environment toward women that happens to support a status quo that directly benefits himself rather than support the stated goals of the company.

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

#577

Post by acchow » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 1:38 AM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #65

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…

I personally never called it out for sexism. I called it out for regressive-thinking as a solution based on plain fact. I can only be brief right now, but it's starting to get to me how so many people in an innovative sphere seem to have such a hard time with this. To me, it seems like it shouldn't be a second thought. If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific understanding] have minds tu…

> This guys post wasn't science. He used science to reason out a way to revert to a state of community where he stands to gain more

I don't think we should dismiss the ideas because of the person presenting them. In fact, the original Google Memo was written by a man in tech, but this open from Global and Mail was written by a woman in academia. What does she have to gain from the state of tech? Regardless, let's not focus on the people but instead on the ideas.

> how does that itself prescribe that we should stop pushing for an expansion there?

The call is not to stop pushing for an expansion there. It's that our approach is wrong. And we're not able to even see that our approach is wrong because in this liberal bubble we're not allowed to talk about the differences between men and women.

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

#578

Post by malandrew » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 1:38 AM UTC

omikun wrote: post #287

peoplewindow wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy's post was science, according to scientists - 5 of them have now spoken up saying that. Maybe there'll be more. With respect to "why not try to solve it", it's a reasonable question. The guy answers that too - he is all for trying to solve it. He even makes suggestions about new ways to do it, like encouraging pair programming. But he feels the current solutions aren't working and are, in fact, causing bigger…

> But he feels the current solutions aren't working and are, in fact, causing bigger problems. They might also be illegal. That seems like a good reason to pause for a moment and re-evaluate if the current strategy is a good one. In fact, he goes farther. He says this "Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business." Where is the science to back that up?

> Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business." Where is the science to back that up?

The same question could be asked for the converse statement that represents those pushing for these policies: "Discrimination to reach equal representation is fair, cooperative, and good for business."

The truth is that we don't know either way. My biggest frustration with those arguing in either direction is that no one has really put forth any specific and objectively measurable ways to evaluate these policies.

I personally believe that diversity is economically valuable, but that how valuable it is depends on the task/goals of a team. In some circumstances it will be very valuable and other it will be of negative value. And in many cases it may be of negligible value relative to other things you can optimize for.

What kind of diversity is another valid thing to question? Why are certain kinds of diversity like gender and race given priority over other kinds of diversity such as cognitive (aspie/autistic to neurotypical) diversity, socioeconomic diversity, national origin diversity, urban/rural diversity, etc.

If a team/company is composed entirely of the same race and or gender but every member is from a different country are they more or less diverse than a team/company composed of all Americans of various races and genders?

These are all important questions and it's good and healthy to express skepticism.

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

#579

Post by malandrew » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 1:48 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #513

peoplewindow wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> I asked for empirical evidence that these initiatives had led to bad results at Google.

Where is the empirical evidence that these initiatives had led to good results at Google?

And assuming we can measure both the good and bad side effects of such initiatives, does the good outweigh the bad?

The biggest piece of empirical evidence that these initiatives have led to bad results at Google is everything that has happened in the aftermath of the memo being published and found considerable support both in and outside the company.

Had the initiatives been universally good and whose goodness is easy to defend empirically, I would likely have no or at most very few bad results to present to you in response to your question.

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

#580

Post by 52-6F-62 » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 3:00 AM UTC

mmirate wrote: post #561

52-6F-62 wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend, engineering's primary purpose is empathic in nature. Have a quick look at new pursuits such as: http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/magazine/features/empathy... https://phys.org/news/2015-11-empathy-faculty.html I could discuss this at length because it's a subject that really interests me, and I'm severely biased because I started out in the humanities with my main pursuit being an understanding of the hum…

As I understand, you're saying that empathy is vital for assessing requirements. That's precisely why I mentioned management and team-leads as being likely exceptions. (But each manager or lead usually has more than one report, so there are likely very few managers/leads compared to everyone else. Hence the general sentiment.)

But not every engineer works in environments or on projects with those roles in place. Beyond that not everyone has the resources available to work with UX teams and proper designers. And if one is in the younger class of engineers, chances are more likely one will be exposed to a wider variety of situations where they'll face the need of or benefits of being expose to better understanding human beings (being one of them) -- especially having entered a market where long-term employment is on the downslide, and experience is more project-based or transient.