Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#711

Post by pgaddict » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:47 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #700

gopz wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree. While he obviously sees the diversity programs as misguided, he stops short of calling for an end to them. To quote: > Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs. I understand that discussions within a business are different than talking with friends around the kitchen table, but I still think that you should go as far as you possibly can to have open d…

"Have an honest discussion", "review", etc, are all weasel words for "cut down on". This is the same across industries, it's bog-standard doublespeak. To "have an honest discussion" about a diversity program that we're not already having means that at least one party has a strong belief that they should be ended or seriously cut down.

And? Blaming everyone for "double speak" is rather counter-productive and a great way to destroy the discussion, as it ignores some people are actually interested in a honest discussion. What a wonderful way to create toxic environment ...

Having an open discussion means you accept that other participants may have very different opinions, and agree that honest fact-based discussion is the correct solution.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#712

Post by chx » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:48 AM UTC

RealityNow wrote: post #290

It's incredibly ironic that a company that apparently cares about diversity enough to have a "Vice President for Diversity" fired an employee for presenting an opposing viewpoint - to their diversity policy of all things. Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concern…

That's just incredible. Is this what you believe? That there exists discrimination against white males? What world do you actually live in? It just so happens white males have more opportunities and if a company actively tries to give opportunities to those who do not have it then you cry foul. You are not pushed down while they are raised up.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#713

Post by drakonka » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:50 AM UTC

zouhair wrote: post #642

jorgemf wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs. This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified men. Because you have to hire wom…

>If I were I woman (or belong to minority) I would prefer to be being hired without any diversity program. Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this. People tend to dismiss other peoples problem or minimize them, even when those people are telling they are hurting.

> Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this.

This is a little presumptuous. I am a woman and I too would prefer to be hired without any diversity program. I am not inherently against them and think that striving for diversity is overall a positive thing, but when I compare the thought of being hired as part of some target female quota or active diversity push vs being hired as a "regular" candidate I prefer the latter.

Diversity programs I appreciate more are those less involved in the actual hiring phase and more in the teaching girls to code and getting them interested in the subject phase. Of course I'm privileged and lucky in other ways and understand that plenty of other women feel differently.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#714

Post by slackingoff2017 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:52 AM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case.

If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool.

I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far lower female graduation and entry level application rates to CS jobs. If less than 25% of CS graduates are female, which is currently the case, it strongly suggests that attempting to make the engineering team 50% female will result in a lower hiring bar for women. That means that the overall point of the authors manifesto, that programs designed to specifically increase the ratio of female engineers are unfair, is true.

We need to do something about the low number of women going into tech fields in school. Punishing companies for not hiring women when the vast majority of candidates are men is a perverse incentive that is biased against men and doesn't fix the real problem.

It's like punishing someone for taking more yellow onions at the market when there's 3 times as many nice looking ones as white onions. The right way to fix the imbalance is to increase the supply of white onions. In the real world, farmers would begin switching to white onions and the supply would increase. Unfortunately, our supply of women is governed by a mostly government run school system that doesn't exist in a world of supply and demand and likes to shift the blame for their ineptitude.

Fixing this at the education level would mean owning up to a mistake. It's much easier to just fine everyone to make it look like you're fixing a "problem" caused by inadequate regulations.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#715

Post by fvdessen » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:53 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #694

ThomPete wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender based diversity programs are hurting more than they are helping because they are confusing the role of gender diversity with the role of talent diversity. These programs are most likely not responsible for qualified women getting jobs and even if they are they are also responsible for qualified men not getting the jobs so nothing is really gained. The idea of qualification is something that is misunderstood fa…

The cold, hard facts prove that unless we force a change, it will not change. The simple counter argument to this, and what changed my mind utterly, was that the number of woman on boards never changed. "Women will setup companies" was what they said in the 70s, 50 years ago. It never worked until we started forcing it. There's still a ridiculously small percentage of female chairs. There's still a ridiculously small…

A friend works at the European Commission, where there is a strict 50/50 male/female requirement for all hires and all positions. Apparently it is causing problems because too many women refuse to be promoted in management. So they don't have enough managers to start new projects.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#716

Post by sobani » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:53 AM UTC

dbnoch wrote: post #459

Waterluvian wrote: post #101

I believe that equal opportunity among all persons is manifest. But I think the manner in which we encourage/enforce/promote it, especially in the workplace, demands debate. We must be able to disagree with the methods without any question of our belief of its purpose. The most disgusted I've ever felt at a workplace was when my boss, prior to me interviewing someone, said, "and she gets an extra point because she's…

Until we take away our own biases, the "extra points" for under-represented minorities have to stay. The example is: Your internal bias is already in effect before you even meet the people you are interviewing. You're only disgusted and aware of the explicit handicap example from your boss.

It's possible though it might backfire, just as conflict of interest disclosure may backfire: disclosure can increase the bias in advice because it leads advisors to feel morally licensed and strategically encouraged to exaggerate their advice even further.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426699

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#717

Post by ryan-allen » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #712

RealityNow wrote: post #290

It's incredibly ironic that a company that apparently cares about diversity enough to have a "Vice President for Diversity" fired an employee for presenting an opposing viewpoint - to their diversity policy of all things. Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concern…

That's just incredible. Is this what you believe? That there exists discrimination against white males? What world do you actually live in? It just so happens white males have more opportunities and if a company actively tries to give opportunities to those who do not have it then you cry foul. You are not pushed down while they are raised up.

The drinking game I'm playing right now requires me to take three chugs.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#718

Post by lurker69 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

bayonetz wrote: post #630

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…

Clearly you strongly reject the writings overall. Curious if you see any merit or truth to any of the sub sections or smaller kernels of ideas found within? Is there any version of this kind of thing you would encourage and engage with or is it just too sensitive/triggering of a subject to really be tackled in this style? Several commenters have chalked the author up to basically being a privileged incumbent waking u…

Yeah, I havent seen any concise and rational debunking of any of his points.

I did see a lot of partisanship and accusation of misogyny that I cant find in memo at all.

To me this looks like some smart guy saying that google doesnt tolerate views that are not perfectly aligned with left leaning echo chambers, and getting fired for exactly that. Looks like SJWs at google, like thy often do, forced HR to fire him.

I have read that he was chess champion, so I would call this forcing your opponent to check mate himself. I think he planned this since I am seeing this:

> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#719

Post by delhanty » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:56 AM UTC

One thing I'd like to ask the women in this forum:

If you'd grown up back in the day before tech was cool and techies were (generally) just nerds with no money, would you have still been interested in tech?

My recollection from my teenage years in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s, emptying my Post Office savings account to buy one of the first batch of 10^5 BBC micros, trekking all over London searching for a Rubik's cube when they first arrived, and then later reading maths at Cambridge was that about 10% of the nerds were female.

The female nerds were just as good as the male nerds.

It's hard to say how much of that discrepancy was nature and how much was nurture.

If we want diversity of hiring across sexes for hard-core nerd jobs (as opposed to overall hiring at Google etc.) then we need to at least start early with the education of young girls.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#720

Post by roenxi » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 9:59 AM UTC

lurker69 wrote: post #707

cropsieboss wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today. Could you provide citations in the ma…

Yeah I also didnt get feeling from reading the memo that is was misogynistic. James just tried to point out that reasons for gender gab in tech might not be only sexism as current left leaning agenda dictates. I understood memo more like complaining that employees with opinions that differ from "current left leaning agenda" are afraid to express them. And google proved him right by firing him. This political correctn…

The response to the memo is very frustrating to me; I suspect the original author wanted to start a conversation that involved Simpson's Paradox and got a response where people typed him as a misogynist.

This incident seems like evidence that attempting a statistics based discussion about gender programs is dangerous - if you are wrong in your interpretation & work at Google you will be fired rather than have your mistakes explained.

EDIT for clarity: not that the memo mentioned Simpson's Paradox at all, but that paradox illuminates serious risk around interpreting clear-seeming evidence. I think that those style of risks where were the original author wanted to push discussion.