Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge • Hacker News Board

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#691

Post by posterboy » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

> who believes strongly in the absolute innate equivalence in aptitude for our profession between men and women

This sounds almost sarcastic. I get that hyperbole is a rhetoric device. I agree to a certain extent, too, while I understand that positive discrimination is discriminating never the less. But: The absolute "innate" equivalence between any two persons is not comparable.

Prejudice is not allowed, sure, but it goes both ways. You can't just take any 50% of the population and claim they must be as good as the other half, just as you can't take any half and claim they must be inferior. Because that is subjective -- concerning subjects -- whereas you want to be objective -- judging actions by their objectives.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#692

Post by knorker » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 12:42 PM UTC

xenadu02 wrote: post #549

knorker wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to assume the null hypothesis. Quite another to discard ANY experience or data because it violates the null hypothesis. Damore certainly cited many studies, and while there's valid criticism of their validity, "they disagree with the null hypothesis, ergo they are false" is not right. Nor is "I have not read them, therefore the null hypothesis is right".

> Damore certainly cited many studies, He did no such thing. Please stop spreading misinformation. He linked to blogs and magazine articles then people started calling his footnotes “research”. The one legit study he linked came to the opposite conclusion of what he claimed. I suggest you go read his links for yourself and consider the sources. It might be illuminating, unless you are already biased in favor of the a…

Just because you don't like his citations doesn't make you right in saying he didn't have them.

But first a side-note: Stop changing the subject. I was saying the null hypothesis is irrelevant here. I'm saying don't discard new evidence because it goes against the null hypothesis. A few comments up (and the answer to "why") was said "[I] strongly believe [in the null hypothesis]", which to me is very strange. How can you "strongly believe" in a null hypothesis?

I didn't like his references (and stop attacking me, and implying my position), in that you can't just cherry-pick a study you like and call it fact (though doesn't make it wrong. Just unproven). Everyone does this. It doesn't make it right, but stones and glass houses.

To understand what you consider legit studies, I randomly clicked on three of his links. At least two of them must not qualify as legit study, so could you explain why you say two or three of these are "blogs and magazines"? I guess you qualify the journal "Science" as unscientific and merely a magazine? So that's one.

Mind you, it'd be a real coincidence if the one supposedly legit study he referenced just happened to be in this list of three:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004....

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/819

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#693

Post by fareesh » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 12:50 PM UTC

bencalam wrote: post #654

fareesh wrote: post #396

This is one of the few subjects where much of the HN crowd is either experiencing some shared hallucination, or is relying heavily on poor journalism. There are many comments that classify his memo as anti-diversity (it is pro diversity), and there are many that seem to suggest that the memo claimed women are less suited for these jobs, which again is patently false to anyone who gives it a reasonable and full read.…

The shared hallucination is the one experienced by the people agreeing with the memo, and the ones who feel needlessly 'victimized' and 'persecuted' now that times are changing. Of course, this is expected since the first ones to complain about growing equality are the ones who prospered disproportionately under inequality.

It has very little to do with feelings though. In my specific case I am not affected by these politics and policies whatsoever as I am thousands of miles away from the United States, and I am self employed.

To constantly read about cases where biology determines whether or not people are eligible for a particular opportunity, i.e. imposing inequality of opportunity in order to arrive at equality of outcome, is violating the very principles one claims to be opposed to. The excuse for this kind of implementation is that it is justified, in order to fix historical inequality. The people who are being discriminated against had no say in historical inequality. They were born into this kind of a society by accident of birth. If a young boy in Saudi Arabia goes to get a driving license and is told that he is no longer eligible because they have decided to randomly reject 4/5 male applicants to correct for historical injustice, he is being penalized for something he had nothing to do with. When a young boy is rejected for a job he is qualified for, citing the fact that he is the wrong sex, he is being penalized for something he had nothing to do with. Nobody should be at a disadvantage imposed on them by others using biology as a reason to do so. This is immoral, and no outcome is worth this kind of violation of principle.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#694

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

>> You can't use the NLRA to organize in opposition to federal employment law. Wa-waa.

I know I should really not be focusing on that one silly little detail out of your comment (which I agree with in general) but can you please explain that "Wa-Waa"? Do you mean it as in the "wa-waa-waa-waaaa" sound from old movies, like in the video below?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xt1kUK71lc

And sorry for derailing the conversation.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#695

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #173

tptacek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was terminated at Google's discretion under at-will employment, the same standard that might allow you to be fired for coming to work with blue hair. He sought relief under an exception to at-will, the NLRA, which protects concerted action to improve working conditions. The NLRB determined that because the substance of his action involved requests that Google might reasonably determine would be problematic under E…

IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I…

The text you quote has scare quotes around "scientific", so it probably means that Damore's opinion was not backed by the science. That doesn't say the NLRB think that science doesn't matter, quite the opposite.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#696

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #213

leereeves wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I…

> > were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. > I find this disturbing. I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, f…

>> You will fall in line, and you don't even dare sound like you're secretly against us. How is that not "thought-crime?"

Well, to begin with because nobody said it's a crime, rather a valid reason for his employment to fire him.

Second, "thought-crime" refers to the rules of a society with a certain type of government (an imaginary one, in Orwell's book). Google is not a society, it's a private company and you can't really think of its internal rules as defining crime, or being laws etc.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#697

Post by rayiner » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:32 PM 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

You ignored the “self perpetuating” part. The even gender ratio stayed stable long after those measures were removed.

> 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.

What? No. That’s textbook begging the question. You’re trying to explain the overrepresetnstion of men in programming, by pointing to that overrepresentation as evidence of predisposition. Textbook begging the question.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#698

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:34 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #333

tptacek wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What broad power are you referring to? Without the NLRB, Damore would have no recourse under "protected concerted action". He was an at-will employee. It's Google, it seems to me, that has the broad power --- and that's a situation conservatives brought about.

What broad power are you referring to? It seems like HR and "diversity officers" have effectively become the "political officers" of the 21st century left of collectivist grievance politics. Employers are required to have certain policies, and the NLRB can conveniently "defer" to them when they are effectively supporting the NLRB's power. The problem is that many of the nouns involved in this kind of regulation are f…

>> It seems like HR and "diversity officers" have effectively become the "political officers" of the 21st century left of collectivist grievance politics.

That's contradicted by the reported behaviour of HR in cases of sexual harassment of women engineers by their male colleagues, as for example in the case of Susan Fowler, the Uber engineer who left the company because of harassment and a discriminatory culture. I quote from the relevant post on her website:

When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to.

One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option".

The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that I was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem.

Less than a week after this absurd meeting, my manager scheduled a 1:1 with me, and told me we needed to have a difficult conversation. He told me I was on very thin ice for reporting his manager to HR. California is an at-will employment state, he said, which means we can fire you if you ever do this again.

etc etc.

https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#699

Post by eiao » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #220

stcredzero wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. > I find this disturbing. I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, f…

You can call it that if you want; then, in the US, you can be fired for "thought crime". The only thing at issue here is that you can't be fired in retaliation for workplace organizing --- but that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers. There's a case history in the Advice Memo. They didn't make this up just for Google.

> There's a case history in the Advice Memo. They didn't make this up just for Google.

There is indeed a case history, and it is very informative with regards to, as you put it, the Board's deference to employers. The Advice memo states "Where an employee's conduct significantly disrupts work processes, creates a hostile work environment, or constitutes racial or sexual discrimination or harassment, the Board has found it unprotected even if it involves concerted activities regarding working conditions. For example, in /Avondale Industries/, the Board held that the employer lawfully discharged a union activist for insubordination based on her unfounded assertion that her foreman was a Klansman; the employer was justifiably concerned about the disruption her remark would cause in the workplace among her fellow African-American employees."

Said case acknowledges that "Foreman Toledo has numerous tattoos on his body, including a swastika on his forearm"! Nonetheless, the Board found in that case that it was the employee's remark that would cause disruption in the workplace, apparently because she accused her foreman of being a Klansman (which she claims he told a group of employees) instead of a Nazi.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#700

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #335

ewjordan wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore has basically 3 points in his memo, in increasing order of disputability: 1) Conservatives are discriminated against at Google, which is a problem for working conditions 2) Google pushes an aggressive voluntary affirmative action policy which aims to hire women and underrepresented minorities at rates much higher than they appear in the relevant sector of the workforce, and the way this is pushed internally is…

But the ruling says that the specific arguments you bring into play may still be in violation of company policy, and such arguments are not automatically protected by virtue of being connected to a working conditions complaint. In effect, the ruling ratifies a particular squishy, ideological interpretation of science.

Actually, it flags Damore's interpretation of science as squishy and ideological. Which, let's be fair, it totally is, because he's no scientist and he has a very limited understanding of the sources he quotes in support of his views.

Scientific debate doesn't take place in Google forums through Google memos, any more than it happens in HN comments, so what was Damore's point of providing references to back his position, other than a misguided attempt to appear "scientifick"?