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

theglobeandmail.com

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

#611

Post by peoplewindow »

zimpenfish wrote: post #609
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…

> 5 of them have now spoken up saying that. Who's the 5th? We've got the 4 from the Quillette article and ...?

Er, the one this entire thread is about. Click the link to the Globe and Mail. It's written by a neuro-scientist.

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

#612

Post by danpalmer »

UK-AL wrote: post #43
danpalmer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I could tell from the coverage (I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs of the memo), it asks for more diversity in terms of right-wing/conservative thinking, and for Google to stop encouraging women to apply. On the surface – that's asking for both more and less diversity, however Google rejects the idea that conservative views (that are compatible with Google's HR policies) are discouraged, which wou…

I would think the author would encourage women to apply, but discourage making interview pass rates biased towards one group or the other.

Unfortunately not, Google does not bias pass rates towards groups, its diversity programs are about ensuring that more minorities apply, which is what the author was suggesting should be ended.

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

#613

Post by danpalmer »

peoplewindow wrote: post #62
danpalmer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I could tell from the coverage (I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs of the memo), it asks for more diversity in terms of right-wing/conservative thinking, and for Google to stop encouraging women to apply. On the surface – that's asking for both more and less diversity, however Google rejects the idea that conservative views (that are compatible with Google's HR policies) are discouraged, which wou…

It's very odd that you admit you didn't actually read the document. Does it cause you physical pain or something? You then judged it based on a bunch of re-tellings, believe it says something it doesn't and that this is somehow virtuous and worthy of proclamation. Kind of discouraging. It didn't say Google should stop encouraging women to apply. That's simply not true. It did say it should stop giving women specific…

I got 4-5 paragraphs in and felt that it was just going to make me angry or upset if I carried on, so I didn't think it was worth it.

It's not that I didn't want to read another viewpoint - if well done I like my views being challenged, but this was not that.

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

#614

Post by Mindcraft »

vsl wrote: post #605
omikun wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 is by definition unfair; therefore divisive. I thought everyone agrees on that. It's very hypocritical to scream how discrimination against women or POC is bad and needs to be routed out, only to turn around and start discriminating yourself. Discriminating against anyone (yes, even people you disagree with or don't like) is unfair. Treating people differently based on their gender is sexist. Smearing,…

Discrimination is not by definition unfair, the context is important, or do you think aiding people in need but not those who aren't is unfair?.

If you want to reach a balanced state from a unbalanced one, you need to discriminate to provide more for the people that are behind.

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

#615

Post by likelynew »

notacoward wrote: post #303

As with many defenses of the Damore memo (and more than a few attacks against it as well), this completely misses the point. Let's say for the sake of argument that there are differences in ability and/or preference between men and women. Let's even say that the magnitude of those differences is sufficient to explain a 4:1 ratio between male and female engineers at Google (which is clearly not true). My response is s…

> magnitude of those differences is sufficient to explain a 4:1 ratio between male and female engineers at Google (which is clearly not true)

I had obtained numbers for number of pull requests in github and participation in competitive coding contests some time back. Gender ratios are close to 10:1 on both of the places. It's relevant because there is neither any barrier nor lowering the bar due to gender in these.

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

#616

Post by zimpenfish »

peoplewindow wrote: post #611
zimpenfish wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5 of them have now spoken up saying that. Who's the 5th? We've got the 4 from the Quillette article and ...?

Er, the one this entire thread is about. Click the link to the Globe and Mail. It's written by a neuro-scientist.

Who is one of the 4 people from Quillette article (Dr Soh) which still leaves us with 4!

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

#617

Post by dsfjksdf »

snowwrestler wrote: post #587
dsfjksdf wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you for the links. I don't think they are as convincing as you make them out to be (the second does not even talk about women specifically), but I don't have the time to discuss it further in all detail.

Harassment is bad, but I don't think "unwanted sexual advances" should categorically count as harassment. It all depends (of course some advances can be harassment, but just because some attraction is unrequited it is not harassment) - it is human to be attracted and fall in love.

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

#618

Post by gspetr »

Mindcraft wrote: post #614
vsl wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discrimination is by definition unfair; therefore divisive. I thought everyone agrees on that. It's very hypocritical to scream how discrimination against women or POC is bad and needs to be routed out, only to turn around and start discriminating yourself. Discriminating against anyone (yes, even people you disagree with or don't like) is unfair. Treating people differently based on their gender is sexist. Smearing,…

Discrimination is not by definition unfair, the context is important, or do you think aiding people in need but not those who aren't is unfair?. If you want to reach a balanced state from a unbalanced one, you need to discriminate to provide more for the people that are behind.

What we should provide is equality of opportunity (i.e. anyone should be given a fair and equal treatment in an interview) not equality of outcome (someone should be given a job, just because they represent a certain segment of population).

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

#620

Post by yeahforsureman »

renaudg wrote: post #231
tptacek wrote: post #101

This defense of the "manifesto" is flawed just like the others. It picks out a small subset of the claims made in the document, discards the context and all the other claims, and then harangues us for having a problem with "science". I could argue "water is composed of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule, so women are bad at software development", and my argument would just be a difference of degree worse…

>the argument against gender bias in computer science has to confront another damning fact, which is that gender disparity in the field isn't global. Unless women in Asia are somehow biologically different than those of the US, her argument needs some way to address the fact that women make up the majority of STEM majors in many of those cultures. There is research finding that the more advanced a country is in terms…

This explanation is put forward for example in the Norwegian science documentary series Hjernevask, see episode 1 (The Gender Equality Paradox), available on YouTube. I don't have the time to hunt down the references right now but you should be able to find them through that one.
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