Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#791

Post by moduspol » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:31 AM UTC

redditmigrant wrote: post #680

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…

Diversity by its essence is about diversity, and hence accepting people who are opposed to diversity is antithetical to the idea of diversity. So this argument of accepting diverse viewpoints including those against diversity is non-sensical. The idea behind diversity is not to ignore gender differences, or racial differences, but to have the belief that skill and talent exists can come from anywhere. So these viewpo…

It is absolutely possible to acknowledge biological differences having a potential impact at a macro scale yet still believe skill and talent can come from anywhere. This is entirely consistent with the author's position.

It's really tough to have these discussions when any contrary opinion is equated with "[telling] some people to go away just because of their gender/race."

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#792

Post by observation » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:36 AM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #753

observation wrote: post #738

My 2 cents. I did write an essay but this is the TLDR. Google has made a giant political mistake. Everybody saw this coming. Straight into the fire, Google must have known that even as they did it. If Google's real aim was non-talent-bias, we already know the solution: blind hiring. Let's use a little metacognition here. People on HN are highly likely to be in the Bubble (same way as average academic must be left of…

> Somebody as brilliant as Peter Thiel would be fired today, or more likely: never hired Or never apply to work for Google in the first place. There are fashions in morality just as there are in clothing ( http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ) , and who can predict now what ideas may become crimethink to Google's HR department in future? If you're a talented, in-demand programmer, why work for a company that might arb…

Fortunately I think there's a connection between heretical thinking and originality, so hopefully that tilts towards variety. I think that was the whole point of Thiel's 'interview question'.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#793

Post by faceplanted » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:37 AM UTC

shusson wrote: post #405

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…

> We have a culture of anti-intellectualism and dogmatism around certain topics that for whatever reason are considered sacred and not allowed to be challenged (ie. political correctness), and its disgraceful. From a personal perspective I get where you are coming from, but from a professional perspective it makes no sense. There are ways to present opposing viewpoints in a workplace without offending half of the peo…

I just don't want to hear some one's fucking opinions on an internal memo, that is so much not what internal communication tools are for.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#794

Post by jezclaremurugan » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:38 AM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #502

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…

> because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. Is this really an honest assessment? I haven't yet seen a single reply to the manifesto that addresses its points and counters the supposedly "lousy arguments" in a neutral tone and objective manner. Please point me to one if you have...

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... - this qualifies for me

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#795

Post by zarkov99 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:39 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…

Absolutely. Pichai had an opportunity to make Google stand out of the current insane PC mindset, as perhaps the Google of 15 years ago would, and instead chose to collaborate with the orthodoxy. So much for using data to evaluate ideas. What a disgraceful age we live in.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#796

Post by moduspol » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:42 AM UTC

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…

> 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles

Is there any way to discuss generalized differences that won't be perceived as absolute and insulting?

The memo clearly did not make any claims about all women, and the topic at hand (gender representation in roles) is a general one. If there are general differences between men and women, we could expect general differences in their representation in various roles. That doesn't mean any individual woman is inferior, or even different relative to men.

It's really confusing why so many media stories and comments race to phrase this as claiming women are worse at their job, or can't code as well. Did they read it?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#797

Post by chippy » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:43 AM UTC

I thought many here were contrarians - and the positive side of a contrarian is that they can see both sides of the issue and the negative side is that they tend to be prone to trolling.

It appears there is a lack of seeing both sides on this issue - which, to me, means there is something else going on.

It's a kind of philosophy. It's more than politics. I think it may be about what Truth actually is.

For example (and I'm feeling my way here, forgive me my more philosophically minded friends) that what we are people are clashing about is what is true, useful and socially agreed upon to believe in. It's like the social contract - if we somehow all accepted that behaving in society was untrue and so stopped operating in society, it would collapse. So there is an accepted truth that living in a society is a useful and helpful thing.

The same with sexual stereotypes. There may be some data here on both sides (The Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing and Surgery ones come to mind), but it's neither useful nor helpful to society, and so if someone says X is untrue then society will emphatically say it is true. You, a human living in society, will defend where and who you live with.

Politics is somewhat about the organisation of society. What most people on both sides of this debate cannot see is that they are arguing about something more fundamental.

Now - with a cheery hello to my future employers who will hopefully (I'm a data scientist) be using some advanced data software to tie up my contrarian HN posts with my actual identity, I'm not at all surprised the employee was fired. It goes against the culture that he is in. I do believe the discussion should be had, and repeated, debunked and defended like you imagine a real debate to work like.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#798

Post by thex10 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

peak_body_yo wrote: post #761

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…

> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach What if all you are achieving is rearranging the dirt (ignore the negative connotations to dirt)? Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts. The URM outreach efforts will just shift the talented URMs from other companies to its company.

> Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts.

I'm not so convinced that'd be true! If there are no concerted outreach efforts what's stopping the majority of companies from hiring their mediocre non-URM friends of friends instead?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#799

Post by livestyle » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

vl wrote: post #610

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…

>Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". There is a market force pushing software companies into leftist positions (since influential demographics in the industry are strongly pro-left; also this creates positive feedback loop). In this context Google’s behavior is rational, and this guy tried to fight it with reason and argument (I was laughing…

Highly recommended reading on this subject by four scientists https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette....

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#800

Post by dijit » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 11:47 AM UTC

I made the mistake of reading the "Manifesto" before being told what to think. Unfortunately I've made a decision that goes against the hivemind.

Seems I'm not alone at least, 4 scientists have written what I would call "agnostic" pieces on the subject which I mostly agree with[0].

The response (on twitter especially) has been nothing short of disgraceful, if ever we needed proof of an echo chamber and "sacred thoughts" it would only be a cross section of tweets on the subject.

It leaves one to wonder if these echo chambers are the cause of many of the worlds greater polarisations. (Trump vs Clinton was highly polarised -- Brexit -- Current situation in Sweden (rise of the right), Poland)

[0] http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...