Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge • Hacker News Board

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#641

Post by kingofhdds » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:21 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #468

The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech) ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed…

As we all know correlation-causation link us not that easy. In 80s programming was a very much different thing - I know it, because both of my parents were programmers (though not in US), and also it was a very small pool at that time, so direct comparison may not be so valid as you seem to believe.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#642

Post by pokemongoaway » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:22 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #616

reader5000 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more male programmers than female. Please explain how invoking genetic differences explanations is pseudo scientific, whereas invoking systematic discrimination explanations is not pseudo-scientific. Consider: There are more male rapists than female rapists. Is this because female rapists are systematically discriminated against? Does our society shamefully teach children that raping is only for boys? Or ar…

The difference is that we have a theory of causation and evidence that the causal factors exist. We can point to studies showing that identical resumes with female names are half as likely to get called back, and we have a workable theory of how things like that affect gender ratio. These theories are backed by a real-world social experiment: when we eliminated many explicit forms of discrimination that existed in pa…

The memo itself debunks most of what you're saying here - and the insane thing here is that people like you are opposing other's rights to even state an opposing theory. You're not arguing against the memo so much as you are arguing against this technical employee's right to make what he deemed a technical argument.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#643

Post by halflings » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:23 AM UTC

techservative wrote: post #637

fzeroracer wrote: post #468

The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech) ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it implies that somehow women changed…

This explanation in the NPR piece is so thin, so poorly researched and so speculative I simply am not able to accept it. The entire narrative stinks, we need a better one backed by actual data. Look at the graph, women in STEM falls closer to 1986, when Reagan passed the immigration reform act. Doesn’t it seem suspicious that Reagan immigration reform landed right on top of this decline? I do agree that the standard…

> If you open the flood gates to people with different cultural values (especially male dominance), women are going to get pushed out.

Talk about speculative and poorly researched theories :) You took an anecdote (immigration law happening that year) and spread it so thin.

What does "different cultural values" have to do with any of this? If your theory is correct, those immigrants would have just entered the United States... how can they "push women out" because of their culture? They're certainly not the ones (not) hiring them.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#644

Post by elefanten » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:24 AM UTC

reader5000 wrote: post #631

rayiner wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that we have a theory of causation and evidence that the causal factors exist. We can point to studies showing that identical resumes with female names are half as likely to get called back, and we have a workable theory of how things like that affect gender ratio. These theories are backed by a real-world social experiment: when we eliminated many explicit forms of discrimination that existed in pa…

Yes, when affirmative action becomes status quo, you get a stable population of whoever you are affirming into the profession. However, that is not removing an explicit form of discrimination but rather introducing one. Certainly, it is quite difficult to predict what psychological profile will succeed in a particular profession. But observing that males tend to succeed in programming is not begging the question whet…

>Yes, when affirmative action becomes status quo, you get a stable population of whoever you are affirming into the profession. However, that is not removing an explicit form of discrimination but rather introducing one.

This is super clearly not what GP was talking about. Removing implicit and explicit barriers to participation is not affirmative action. You are asserting the opposite of history here.

>Certainly, it is quite difficult to predict what psychological profile will succeed in a particular profession. But observing that males tend to succeed in programming is not begging the question whether males have relative genetic predisposition to programming (especially at the top 0.1% google level) but rather serves as evidence for the proposition.

It in no way serves as evidence for that proposition. By logic, quite the opposite is happening: you are proposing that as an explanation for the observation. There is no inherent connection between them.

>When we observe for instance that Asians are overrepresented as programmers, we don't use that to infer that non-Asians are discriminated against, but rather that for whatever reason Asians seem to possess some trait profile, possibly genetic, possibly not, advantageous for programming work.

Such a "trait profile" could include things like contemporary trends in national cultures, economic development policies, attitudes toward education, random vagaries of history and much much more. Anecdotally, I don't think I've ever heard someone, with a straight face, include genetics in such a discussion. But just as broad a spectrum of influences could be at play with the current gender balance of a given profession. And that's exactly the point: we don't have the clean data to make ANY strong claims about how much of the status quo was shaped by genetics.

>I'm not claiming that women were never discriminated against, just that it does not appear to be the best explanation for the observed large trends in gender ratios. For instance it doesn't explain male/female behavior differences in other arenas like criminality while genetic differences does.

It doesn't have to be the "best" or only explanation. But if there's good reason to believe that it's a factor, it should be taken into consideration and attempts should be made to solve it just like any other problem.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#645

Post by pokemongoaway » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:26 AM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #523

dejawu wrote: post #210

The way this whole thing played out makes me sad, because the guy did bring up a good point - current-day social justice leaves little avenue for well-meaning but unaware (perhaps through privilege) people to start conversations and learn about the reasons and motivations for certain efforts such as affirmative action and changes in vocabulary. Damore was indeed punished for speaking out, just as he feared. Then he s…

> punished for speaking out It wasn't merely that he spoke out. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Saying "women, on average, have more neuroticism" is not how you start a dialog. It's how you start an argument. Let's not debate whether it was a factual statement, but suffice it to say that "what I said was factual so there's nothing wrong with it!" isn't a defense. There are a million statements that a…

You are silly because huge groups of liberal psychologists use the same technical language "women, on average, have more neuroticism" - you want to fire them too?

Secondary goals aside, Google's main purpose is getting the data right - and if you can't even speak of the data, then how are you going to get it right?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#646

Post by sangnoir » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:27 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #633

sangnoir wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the context of the memo, he followed the neuroticism claim with a suggestion to "make tech and leadership less stressful", in order to help make the workplace more inclusive to women While appearing to be very scientific, the memo offers no science to backup the underlying assumption with that line of thought("The reason there is a gender gap is because women can't deal with the high-stress environments of tech/…

That's a leap that he explicitly encourages people not to make: populations have a lot of variation, and to look at a difference in means as a categorical difference, to convert "women have a higher population mean for trait X" into "women are more X", is wrong both mathematically and ethically. (... And, yeah, I feel kind of pedantic here, but on this particular topic the people who don't think about it in terms of…

I was talking in terms of population & probability - but that's neither here nor there because ultimately the distribution of the traits don't matter when the traits are not correlated with success/failure (or representation in C.Sci). That is the leap I am referring to: I'm not prepared to take the same leap (gender traits -> outcomes) others are taking without seeing the supporting literature.

edit: Rayiner's comment[1] explains the lack of scientific rigor way better than I did

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399052

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#647

Post by gaius » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:27 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #78

oceanghost wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a toxic work environment. He was fired for pointing that out.

This is not unique to Google. If you don't "vibe" with your company's culture, you are more likely to become a scapegoat. The outsiders leave or get fired, keeping the culture pure (people get fired for lack of culture fit). This mentality is indeed toxic, but the bottom line of any company benefits from harmony between all of the employees.

This mentality is indeed toxic, but the bottom line of any company benefits from harmony between all of the employees.

Not to excuse anything that's actually toxic, mind, but I think it's more subtle than that. Why is Google so inept at social media? Why are they so often blindsided by attention from regulators and tax authorities? Why Google Glass and the glassholes? Because in the pursuit of this harmony they have a limited kind of diversity based on race and gender, but they're all 20-something graduates of the same handful of universities - there's no diversity whatsoever on age or class axes. So things that are completely obvious to outsiders, they are organisationally incapable of understanding. Trapped in a local minima and unable to climb out.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#648

Post by dingobongo » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:32 AM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #303

ikeyany wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a company supposedly full of smart people, you'd think they'd be able to gracefully handle so called "problematic" views like Damore's.

His views _as stated_ necessarily meant _some_ women he worked with weren't qualified to be his coworkers because of their gender. You have a right to free speech, not to alienate your coworkers.

If I believe my employer is discriminating against women, or against black people, that requires that some of my male or non-black coworkers were hired over more capable women or black people.

Should anyone alleging that kind of discrimination be fired? Because they tend not to be.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#649

Post by pokemongoaway » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:33 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #323

dejawu wrote: post #210

The way this whole thing played out makes me sad, because the guy did bring up a good point - current-day social justice leaves little avenue for well-meaning but unaware (perhaps through privilege) people to start conversations and learn about the reasons and motivations for certain efforts such as affirmative action and changes in vocabulary. Damore was indeed punished for speaking out, just as he feared. Then he s…

That’s an untenable charitable reading of Damore’s memo. You don’t “start conversations” and “learn” by drawing conclusions, such as the lack of women in tech can be explained by genetic predispositions. And he wasn’t talking about “changes in vocabulary.” He was attacking core assumptions about what a fair society should look like. If you want to learn, you ask questions. You try to understand the other point of vie…

You are one of these people who can't handle losing an argument that your ideology is a part of. You don't substantiate these claims - have you actually read the memo? Your analogy kind of proves that you didn't read the memo. Furthermore, I bet anyone at Google could make your mistaken analogy and not get in trouble for it. Furthermore, do you even believe someone should be fired if they made your programming language analogy?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#650

Post by titanix2 » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

eridius wrote: post #443

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. 100% disagree with you. Nobody should be fired for speaking out and/or starting a meaningful conversation. The opposite is censorship.

Creating a hostile workplace is not “meaningful conversation”. The memo constituted pretty blatant harassment of all his female colleagues. You don’t have the right to say whatever you want. People absolutely should be fired for harassing and discriminating against their colleagues (which is effectively what the memo was). It’s toxic and incredibly hurtful and cannot be tolerated.

An hostile workplace is one firing an employee for the mere act of sharing an opinion. As the memo was not directly addressed to any female and did not insult them it is clearly not harassment. Questioning the hiring policy is not like attacking people directly. This is sad to see how much everything got conflated in an angry prêt-à-penser ideology that justify every of its excesses against the non believers.