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

#581

Post by Jabanga » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 3:03 AM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #576

Jabanga wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 s…

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

Absurd. Differences in the general population will translate into differences in the number of men that pursue CS and related fields, which will affect the gender composition of the applicant pool that Google recruits from.

>Can you point to my dogmatic position?

The dogma is in you ignoring and denying basic statistics and common sense in order to defend the ideological premise underlying Google's discriminative (affirmative action) policies.

>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.

This grossly mischaracterizes the content of the memo and the veracity of his arguments. Your comment displays utter and unscrupulous intolerance to opinions that disagree with your postmodernist viewpoint on gender.

It rejects the relevance of overwhelming empirical evidence on the causes of gender differences in the general population, that are manifestly relevant to gender representation in tech. Your comment embodies the prioritisation of dogma over science, and the willingness to use any means, including blatantly mischaracterizing the arguments made by ideological opponents in order to justify their being fired, to achieve one's ends.

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

#582

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 3:38 AM UTC

rbehrends wrote: post #546

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…

> 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. It's not the biological claims, it's the conclusions he draws from it. Here's the thing. Let's stipulate that all the biological (and esp. neuroscience-related) claims are 100% true. What follows? Let's look at nursing. Clearly, it should…

[deleted]

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

#583

Post by kamaal » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 3:52 AM UTC

rbehrends wrote: post #546

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…

> 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. It's not the biological claims, it's the conclusions he draws from it. Here's the thing. Let's stipulate that all the biological (and esp. neuroscience-related) claims are 100% true. What follows? Let's look at nursing. Clearly, it should…

>>The work-life balance (all the night shifts) is horrible and the stress is high (lives in the balance and all that).

I think nursing trades stress for job security.

There are many places like this in tech world as well. SDET positions in most big web companies. First 1 - 3 line support groups in big outsourcing firms etc etc.

The job is stress full, but the return for that is not money, its job security.

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

#584

Post by hasenj » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 4:14 AM UTC

omikun wrote: post #390

hasenj wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without further clarification or elaboration, your comment does not seem to make much sense. Consider the extreme case of children vs adults. Should we advocate for policies that force companies to employ children because we think it's more equal that way? I'm not trying to say women are children or anything like that, just taking your position to it's absurd conclusion to show that it's at least questionable.

That's hardly a fair comparison. It's not illegal for women to work (anymore).

That's not a fair interpretation of my comment.

You said:

> Evolutionary biology explains the way things are. Diversity measures combats that with the goal of getting us to the way things should be.

But you provide no reason why you want things to be a certain way.

For example, if it is true that less women are interested in STEM, then, why do you think that we should have 50/50 men and women in STEM?

That just seems like arbitrarily trying to enforce your vision on reality for no good reason.

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

#585

Post by kamaal » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 4:17 AM UTC

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #376

Beltiras wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women used to be more prevalent in STEM fields. In the 80's there were actually more female programmers than males. Something changed in the mid 80's and the culprit might have been gender stereotypes in advertising. If the reason for less women in STEM is biological, they would never have outpaced males at any timepoint.

It may also have been the type of computing that was going on. Pre-80s computing involved mainframes, data entry... secretarial tasks. Post-80s computing involved building businesses, getting heavily involved in the science, and generally hiding out in a dark room programming alone for weeks at a time. What evidence is there for advertisement stereotyping being the causal factor? Wasn't advertisement stereotyping jus…

This reminds me of government R&D institutes in India. Where every one gets the title of a 'Scientist'. So there are levels like 'Scientist-1', 'Scientist-2', ...

In reality most of these levels have only clerical work to do. Sometimes things like writing down on a register that you issued somebody a Screw gauge. So basically book keeping, secretarial work, data entry etc etc.

But yeah, on the ground every gets to be called a 'Scientist'.

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

#586

Post by danso » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 5:00 AM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #575

danso wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I pointed out an example earlier in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974543

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

#587

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 5:41 AM UTC

dsfjksdf wrote: post #508

snowwrestler wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was writing about the article linked here. But since you mention the memo, I'll say this. The current state of science suggests associations between gender, brain development, and career preferences. But women who are applying to Google for coding jobs are clearly stating their own individual career preferences. People apply for jobs they want. Using population studies to try to contradict clearly expressed individ…

Give me the real data about women claiming to leave because of harassment, please. Anecdotes are not data - harassment stories might just get disproportional attention. At the moment every Tech harassment story refers to Ellen Pao, even though her claims were dismissed in court. If there are so many stories to choose, why don't the media outlets pick some more convincing ones? And even assuming harassment is the reas…

What do you think is the right number of people to be forced to leave a job they like and are good at, because of harassment?

I tend to think "zero," but you do you, I guess.

Anyway...

https://www.elephantinthevalley.com

http://www.kaporcenter.org/tech-leavers/

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entre...

Etc.

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

#588

Post by panda88888 » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 6:24 AM UTC

jorgemf wrote: post #498

panda88888 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The on-site Google interview process has 2 steps. The first is the usual, get grilled by 4/5 engineers on technical issue, that is broken up by a lunch with hiring manager in the middle. The feedback from interviews are submitted with candidate application to a hiring committee, whom makes a hire/no-hire decision. Would the diversity program at Google encourage the committee members to looks for biases against female…

I know how is the process from the external point of view, but, what is the feedback they submit? Here is where the bias of the hiring process could be (like only considering skills more likely to be in men). > Would the diversity program at Google encourage the committee members to looks for biases against female/minority candidates and compensate accordingly? I don't know, and I would want to know how the really wo…

I would like to sit in one of those hiring committee meetings too, or read a transcription. Anyway, I believe Google gets so many qualified candidate that, just like Ivy League colleges, it has lots of leeway on who to hire/reject without affecting quality of their engineers in any measurable way.

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

#589

Post by foolrush » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

Jabanga wrote: post #519

foolrush wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You haven't read a single text that falls under the banner of Postmodern. Please stop using the term.

As the other commenter has noted, you need to historcise.

Continental philosophers didn't just plop onto the scene buoyed by multimillion dollar marketing budgets; the epistemology issues they raised are real. Your ridiculous claims of Marxist thought, Feminist thought, etc. betray your ignorance.

So yes, I disagree with every single one of your assertions, but RTFM isn't applicable here, so I avoided stating it outright. Your valuing and clinging of random opinion over informed knowledge is at least as telling as your initial professions. You may have been able to fake it around your equally uniformed peers.

Replace the term "Feminist" with "A person believing in equal rights for women" and your deeply seated, neurologically stuck repetition of misogynist statements rings clear across all communications.

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

#590

Post by pcnix » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 6:33 AM UTC

weddpros wrote: post #551

danso wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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

That's hardly a good option. Google hired him as an engineer, to work with his team and build things. With this manifesto, he's made it very hard for his team to work with him, and alienated at least a third of his colleagues. Why would Google want to keep around an engineer in that situation?

The firing is justified from the point of view of the company, they want someone that can contribute, and he's just effectively removed himself from that pool. In my opinion, this is a bigger part of why they fired him, and the fact that they disagreed with his policies was just a cherry on top.