Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#581

Post by xor1 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:14 AM UTC

postnihilism wrote: post #275

This feels like the blue and black (white and gold) dress. It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece. The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of…

>Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece.

Do you have any women in tech in your life? Did any of them actually read it?

Disclaimer: I did not read the entire piece. From what I've seen over the past 24 hours, the vast majority of people with an opinion on it did not read all (or any) of it either.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#582

Post by puranjay » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:14 AM UTC

ebola1717 wrote: post #476

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…

Asians are overrepresented because of the way immigration laws shifted in 1965, combined with rapidly changing economic conditions in India and China. 50% of Asians in the US hold a college degree, compared to 1% in Asia, so this is not representative of Asians as a whole, but the well-off, high caste, etc. Not to mention if you look at subgroups (refugee populations like the Vietnamese or Cambodians) the numbers ref…

Asians are also over-represented because Asians are over-represented in the global population. Indians and Chinese along are nearly 40% of the world's population.

Given the much, much larger pool to pick from, it's natural that they would be over-represented in tech too.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#583

Post by NaliSauce » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:14 AM UTC

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

>hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay Area 2017 and you just can't say shit like that

You make the Bay Area sound like a somewhat dystopian, closed and repressive place. Is it really like that?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#584

Post by jquery » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:15 AM UTC

justforFranz wrote: post #56

hardwaresofton wrote: post #30

Yep, after reading the public response provided by Google's new Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance ( https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di... ) I was pretty sure this was all that was left. Regardless of whether you agreed with the letter or not, it's 100% correct in asserting that it's super difficult to have productive, rational conversations about the issue of diversity. Goo…

Perhaps more important (for Google, at least) is to be compliant with employment law, than to allow "rational conversations about the issue of diversity."

Firing a whistleblower is highly illegal (several allegations in the document of illegal discrimination).

Google is going to attempt to pay him a lot of hush money in hopes of avoiding a public lawsuit.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#585

Post by odiroot » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:16 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #571

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

Appeasement also doesn't work on the type of people that were calling for his head. Soon they'll be demanding that anyone that shared the document internally be fired, then they be calling for everyone that agrees with it to be fired. This is just the start of the witch hunt that will follow.

That's actually great for other companies. So many hiring opportunities.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#586

Post by boyce » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:17 AM UTC

camus2 wrote: post #548

mehwoot wrote: post #243

Reading the letter, what surprised me was how political it was, framing everything as a "left vs right" cultural fight. I think if it was up to me I'd probably fire anybody on either side of that debate who started circulating shit like this. As soon as you're on that level, nothing good is going to come of it and you're just going to make a lot of people angry, which is very bad for the business in a lot of differen…

> what surprised me was how political it was > The workplace is no place for politics like this. You could argue that affirmative action, because that's what it is about, is essentially a political stance ,and business are totally free to engage into these recruitment practices, but it absolutely follows a specific ideological thus political framework. IMHO When you introduces political activism in your work place yo…

You could argue that but that in itself doesn't give the argument credibility.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#587

Post by als1863 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:17 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #288

wyclif wrote: post #31

Fun fact: the author of the memo earned a PhD in Biology from Harvard. Google can fire him and get away with it, but it's going to be tough, very tough, for him to be falsely characterized as someone who is misinformed or unscientific. And the court of public opinion may well be more important in this controversy than any court of law.

Why would we expect a bio PhD to be an expert in social psych and sociology?

Exactly. Leave it to someone with a PhD in biology to decide that biology is the only possible true hypothesis on why a correlation exists

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#588

Post by nebabyte » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:18 AM UTC

> Ellen Pao’s gender-discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2015 also brought the issue to light

Oh yeah, when does that go to verdict? Guessing it's still pending as this is all the article had.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#589

Post by eagsalazar2 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:19 AM UTC

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Oh, were you serious?

Yeah there is a lot you really can't say publicly around here but is that so different than anywhere else? Overall the Bay is awesome and in general I am a flaming liberal but there are times when the right wing bogeyman of authoritarian PC orthodoxy is real and this is one of those times IMO. But it isn't like anywhere else is any better. Look at what the NFL is doing to Colin Kaepernick for desecrating the great temples of right wing "Murca" culture - any football stadium. The Bay does not have a monopoly on this so I wouldn't judge the area too harshly for this one disgusting moment of mob stupidity (IMO).

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#590

Post by puranjay » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 7:21 AM UTC

bronz wrote: post #119

the author of the memo is completely correct and, as others have said, his memo is drastically misrepresented in the coverage it has received. he simply points out that women could have less desire to go into fields such as cs because of their biological makeup. he never says that women should leave google -- he only says that trying to reach a perfectly equal distribution is misguided. perhaps those who are red in t…

So much of what passes for liberal thought these days is so divorced from common sense.

My personal view about diversity and gender identity is simple: you do what you are good at and what you enjoy. The moment doing X or Y becomes a compulsion for a gender rather than a choice, you have a problem.

If you're a man and you enjoy crocheting and want to be a nurse, you go do that. If you're a woman and you like coding, you do that.

If you're a man and you're stronger than your spouse, you move the couch. If not, the woman moves the couch. My wife is taller than I am. I ask her to get things that I can't reach. I don't puff up and get all masculinist about it - it's just damn common sense.

"Do what you're good at. Do what you enjoy". Simple as that.