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James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

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Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#741

Post by kpdxxx »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #480

You need a very minimal amount of social skill to succeed in programming - just enough to not piss coworkers off too badly while working together on projects. Past that, you get mostly quiet and controlled environments, managers willing to let you work on your special interests, and generally get left alone to stare at your screen and type things out. This is one of the best working environments you can find for auti…

Always love reading HN and wondering how utterly lost you need to be in life to come to the conclusion that programming is being 'gentrified' by some people trying to be inclusive.

Please read up on the definition of gentrification, you clearly don't understand the connotation of that word.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#742

Post by stcredzero »

s73ver_ wrote: post #729
dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

"It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth." That's just it; it really did not. It contained a lot of things that people who aren't members of those groups he targeted think are plausible. "I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. " And what, specifically, would those differences be?

And what, specifically, would those differences be?

The balance of the evidence, is that there are some biological differences in preferences. Both biological and cultural factors are at play. As groups, women and men are about the same in terms of average IQ, however, men tend to have a higher population of the extreme outliers. (Both extremely smart men and extremely stupid men.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWSoM1_6KM

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#743

Post by stcredzero »

koonsolo wrote: post #332
john_moscow wrote: post #87

He doesn't have a choice really. With the PR mess he got himself into, no big company will ever hire him. Imagine the possible headlines "Microsoft hires the James Damore, the male supremacy advocate fired from Google". Nope, regardless the technical skill or his actual personality, his public image is forever ruined. So he realistically has a choice between becoming a paid speaker for fringe ultra-right organization…

You must be from US. As a European, I find all these things very absurd. Like the guys with the "dongle" joke that both got fired [1], and if I remember correctly, so did the woman reporting them. Maybe you should all start by treating each other with more respect, whoever it is. And don't go witch-hunting. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes...

And don't go witch-hunting.

Sometimes old cultural artifacts go away in the "mother country" but persist in "the colonies." Seems like the witch-hunting mentality is something that's stuck around in the US, infecting both the political Right and Left.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#744

Post by andrewprock »

stcredzero wrote: post #742
s73ver_ wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth." That's just it; it really did not. It contained a lot of things that people who aren't members of those groups he targeted think are plausible. "I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. " And what, specifically, would those differences be?

And what, specifically, would those differences be? The balance of the evidence, is that there are some biological differences in preferences. Both biological and cultural factors are at play. As groups, women and men are about the same in terms of average IQ, however, men tend to have a higher population of the extreme outliers. (Both extremely smart men and extremely stupid men.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n69…

Is there any evidence that this is biological, as opposed to cultural?

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#745

Post by stcredzero »

wheelie_boy wrote: post #395
ihsw2 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no different than moderate Muslims having no social refuge other than where Salafist-Jihadists (eg: al-Qaeda, Isil) roam freely -- modereate conservatives have no social refuge other than blatant racists and sexists, neo-nazis, and other generally unpleasant undesirables. This is the danger of progressive supremacy and the only way out of this hell-hole is encouraging true diversity and inclusiveness -- diversit…

Yes, it is good and valuable for a society to be tolerant of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. The limit to tolerance is being tolerant of intolerance. The left has intolerant people as well. "No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other." However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right.

The left has intolerant people as well...However, somehow they aren't running the party like they are on the right.

The intolerant left seems to have Berkeley buttoned up.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#746

Post by jhanschoo »

stcredzero wrote: post #538
dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #296

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are…

I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Many of the media interpretations of what James Damore wrote were very biased, and effectively amounted to hit pieces. His use of terms like "Trait Neuroticism" were direct uses of psychological terms which just sound bad as everyday English. Evolutionary Biology also tends to have a "dismal" feeling to it, like Economics can. One can't take fie…

I agree. It seemed to me that Damore's memo was nevertheless fallacious, though nevertheless totally unworthy of the criticism that he received. Unlike in fields we are used to, psychological results have remarkably little prescriptive power given the inherently complex and malleable nature of social structures, and it's still pretty much up in the air how much or little effect nature has on preferences and to what extent a social arrangement is able to affect/has affected/reinterpreted/transformed those preferences without effecting a change in overall happiness/satisfaction.

It also saddens me that a number of Damore's suggestions to make the workplace more "nurture-trait-friendly" got overshadowed by those dubious extrapolations. It seems interesting and fruitful to me to explore the work dynamics and psychology present in more "nurture" fields and see how well they translate to software development and collaboration.

There is a silver lining to all this for me: it shows that whereas women used to have little voice in the public sphere, "American women" as a class now have a sufficiently loud voice that even its less-well-thought-out ideologies have traction and influence in civil society (along with all that entails, including having possibly self-proclaimed representatives and "thought leaders").

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#747

Post by OCASM »

lurr wrote: post #718
OCASM wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Damore responsible for the failure of some of people in managing their own emotions? "He's saying things we don't like! Fire him!" That doesn't seem valid to me.

"I won't work with someone who thinks I'm less capable because of my genitals" sounds a bit more valid to me.

So they have no problem working with Damore then since he never said such a thing.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#748

Post by OCASM »

chillacy wrote: post #739
OCASM wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Damore responsible for the failure of some of people in managing their own emotions? "He's saying things we don't like! Fire him!" That doesn't seem valid to me.

> Is Damore responsible for the failure of some of people in managing their own emotions? That line of stoic reasoning really justifies anything though. Like, my co-workers should manage their anxiety just because I like to work with a firearm strapped to my chest and 2 grenades on my desk.

Anxiety over close proximity to explosives seems justified. Anxiety over somebody stating ideas you simply disagree with doesn't.

Re: James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google

#749

Post by kpdxxx »

stcredzero wrote: post #499
vowelless wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. If the memo wasn't enough, him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, Mike cernovich, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, etc. is suspicious. [1] Generally I wouldn't have minded if he went to right wing outlets, as long as he had also gone to left wing outlets. I was willing to listen to his reasoning. But it became clear after the memo came out that he didn…

If the memo wasn't enough I read the memo. If one is familiar with the research and evolutionary biology, there is nothing in there to react that strongly against, unless one takes a biased, insincere reading of what he actually wrote. him immediately going to right wing YouTubers like Those were the only people who would talk to him without trying to make it a hit piece, same as Bret Weinstein. Stefan Molyneux, Not…

'expose Antifa' - right. Riiiiight.
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