10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google • Hacker News Board

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#81

Post by sattoshi » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:11 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #24

sattoshi wrote: post #16

Diversity always seems like a silly objective. Of all things, why focus on race and gender? How about hairstyle? Why not height? Maybe I feel like my weight is not represented fairly! I'm just poking fun. Those aren't real questions. The author promotes the only diversity that matters: diversity of thought. Anything else should at worst a proxy to get some.

"The only diversity that matters": says who? You brought up height and weight, but there actually are situations where they matter. For clothes, obviously, but this also comes up when flying, or anywhere that space is a premium. And yep, it matters even in the Air Force: "Out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions. One pilot might have a longer-than-average arm length,…

Most of your post is talking about clothing size. I don't know what to say about it.

Why does any diversity except thought matter?

After all, that is the argument I have for racist diversity: "different perspectives".

If I can get those perspectives without being a racist, why bother?

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#82

Post by biocomputation » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:20 AM UTC

jorgemf wrote: post #64

saimiam wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there are gender differences..but the only relevant question in this context you or anyone should ask is whether those gender differences justify lower participation of women in technology. If you're a capitalist, if you believe in exploiting the market to the benefit yourself, you would be stupid and shortsighted to not find a way to utilize women and minorities in any way possible to serve your business.…

> you would be stupid and shortsighted to not find a way to utilize women and minorities in any way possible to serve your business. > companies like Google are doing exactly that by promoting policies to bring in and retain women The problem is that they do it in the extreme. They want to achieve 50% of male and 50% and currently that distribution is not real, there are much more men that women in technology. So the…

>> The problem is that they do it in the extreme. They want to achieve 50% of male and 50% and currently that distribution is not real, there are much more men that women in technology. So they have a positive discrimination for women to get a position even when there is a man that fits better, so they can achieve the 50/50.

Yes, but women are 50% of our society. Why would it be wrong to try and make a company represent society? The world is absolutely full of utterly brilliant women.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#83

Post by biocomputation » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:22 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #51

jorgemf wrote: post #10

> I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.…

The right topic isn't biology, it's history. Historically, for millennia women were treated as property of men. This was justified with all sorts sexist jabber. The same is true of race; ou can read all sorts of racist nonsense from the era of slavery. E.g., the Cornerstone Speech, in which the vice-president of the Confederacy said straight out: "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its fou…

Amazing. Thank you for writing this.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#84

Post by Zarath » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:33 AM UTC

biocomputation wrote: post #78

npxcomplete wrote: post #56

My interpretation is that the author is cheifly concerned with two points: that biology impacts performance, and that dissenting views in Google are at time met with hostility that is more political reflex than it is critical countenance. The first point should be obviously true, however we live in a time were identity politics on the left tries to shout down any but the hard line reaction to biological determinism.…

First you say this: >> for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy Then you say this: >> Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in that I'm going to assume that it wasn't your intention to make a disturbingly sexist remark in a discussion about sexism. You can replace women with…

At the risk of sounding sexist, I will say that conflating race and sex as being roughly the same level of difference is a little bit intellectually dishonest. I'm not going to sit here and argue about what those differences are, but sex hormones most certainly affect behavior and emotions far more than skin pigments.

I also appreciate you sharing your story, but I personally find it a bit uncomfortable that these sorts of posts need to be qualified ("As a gay man..."). While I understand you were trying to support the point you were making, this sort of thing feeds into the notion that some opinions occupy a privileged position within our society, which feeds such "screeds" as this. It's almost hypocritical in a way, because I imagine that the anger and "otherness" that oppressed or minority groups feel is not unlike what the author of such a rant is feeling. Basically when it comes to cultural discourse, you're wrong, evil, the enemy, or ignored.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#85

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:37 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #72

hw wrote: post #67

Let's take gender, race, food preference out of the equation. Say a person with qualities A and another person with qualities B both interview at a company. Turns out that at the company (and in the industry in general, type Bs are a minority), and there's a movement to hire more of type Bs. If type A did better in an interview than type B, but the company ended up hiring a type B because of the whole diversity thing…

It doesn't make any sense in the context of an arbitrary type A and B free of historical baggage. The idea is that we type As have, on balance, experienced more "luck" and preferential treatment in our favor than type Bs because we are type As, so some artifically injected disfavor pushes the overall system closer to balance. It's fighting unfairness with unfairness in the opposite direction. I was born to well-emplo…

[deleted]

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#86

Post by Zarath » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:42 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #51

jorgemf wrote: post #10

> I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.…

The right topic isn't biology, it's history. Historically, for millennia women were treated as property of men. This was justified with all sorts sexist jabber. The same is true of race; ou can read all sorts of racist nonsense from the era of slavery. E.g., the Cornerstone Speech, in which the vice-president of the Confederacy said straight out: "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its fou…

How would we ever know if men actually were worse than women at math? There will always be a sufficient number of confounding variables as to have plausible deniability, not that it really matters. I think the line for when we're grasping at straws (or when we have enough evidence to draw a conclusion) is different for different people, which is why there is debate over such stupid things in the first place.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#87

Post by lookACamel » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:50 AM UTC

papaf wrote: post #26

mcphage wrote: post #18

Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.

This is so true. Twenty years ago the best programmer I ever worked with was a women, and I only thought of her as the best programmer that I'd ever worked with. Something has changed since then and I am unable to perceive or explain what it is.

I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about but my reaction to this whole "diversity debate" is that I think it's a simple result of tech (software) having become (MUCH) more people-centered. My impression is that 20, 30, 40 years ago software, like most engineering, was almost entirely associated with systematizing - but with the rise of the Internet, mobile, social networks and the increased emphasis on product development and presentation, tech has increasingly become not just people-centered but is itself now seen as an endeavor central to the interests of all modern citizens of society. This explains why there are more women now who are interested in tech, and also why there are so many non-technical women who want to break other women into tech.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#88

Post by biocomputation » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 8:59 AM UTC

Zarath wrote: post #84

biocomputation wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you say this: >> for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy Then you say this: >> Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in that I'm going to assume that it wasn't your intention to make a disturbingly sexist remark in a discussion about sexism. You can replace women with…

At the risk of sounding sexist, I will say that conflating race and sex as being roughly the same level of difference is a little bit intellectually dishonest. I'm not going to sit here and argue about what those differences are, but sex hormones most certainly affect behavior and emotions far more than skin pigments. I also appreciate you sharing your story, but I personally find it a bit uncomfortable that these so…

>> At the risk of sounding sexist, I will say that conflating race and sex as being roughly the same level of difference is a little bit intellectually dishonest. I'm not going to sit here and argue about what those differences are, but sex hormones most certainly affect behavior and emotions far more than skin pigments.

It is just a simple fact that the 'biological differences' argument has been used to justify great evils like slavery, eugenics, and sexism. Pointing out that 'biological differences' is a suspicious argument, and for good reasons, is not the same as conflating race and sex.

>> I also appreciate you sharing your story, but I personally find it a bit uncomfortable that these sorts of posts need to be qualified ("As a gay man..."). While I understand you were trying to support the point you were making, this sort of thing feeds into the notion that some opinions occupy a privileged position within our society, which feeds such "screeds" as this. It's almost hypocritical in a way, because I imagine that the anger and "otherness" that oppressed or minority groups feel is not unlike what the author of such a rant is feeling. Basically when it comes to cultural discourse, you're wrong, evil, the enemy, or ignored.

As a gay man, I have had real financial consequences (and other consequences) in my life as a result of millennia of other people's opinions about something I don't feel like I can change.

I feel like there is a reasonable and direct parallel between that and my expression of empathy toward women who experience real financial consequences (and other consequences) as the result of millennia of other people's opinions about something they also can't change.

>> because I imagine that the anger and "otherness" that oppressed or minority groups feel is not unlike what the author of such a rant is feeling.

The author could have chosen a better argument. As it is, the biological differences argument is fraught with peril. I'm sorry if the author of the rant is experiencing a feeling of alienation and otherness - it's terrible when anyone is oppressed, including men.

But it's important to remember, that, for most of recorded history, the oppressor of most men has been other men. Not women.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#89

Post by DanBC » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:02 AM UTC

Zarath wrote: post #84

biocomputation wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you say this: >> for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy Then you say this: >> Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in that I'm going to assume that it wasn't your intention to make a disturbingly sexist remark in a discussion about sexism. You can replace women with…

At the risk of sounding sexist, I will say that conflating race and sex as being roughly the same level of difference is a little bit intellectually dishonest. I'm not going to sit here and argue about what those differences are, but sex hormones most certainly affect behavior and emotions far more than skin pigments. I also appreciate you sharing your story, but I personally find it a bit uncomfortable that these so…

> because I imagine that the anger and "otherness" that oppressed or minority groups feel is not unlike what the author of such a rant is feeling.

No one is going to kill OP for his opinion, or try to rape his opinion out of him, which is something that still happens to gay people.

Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

#90

Post by josephg » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:05 AM UTC

biocomputation wrote: post #82

jorgemf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you would be stupid and shortsighted to not find a way to utilize women and minorities in any way possible to serve your business. > companies like Google are doing exactly that by promoting policies to bring in and retain women The problem is that they do it in the extreme. They want to achieve 50% of male and 50% and currently that distribution is not real, there are much more men that women in technology. So the…

>> The problem is that they do it in the extreme. They want to achieve 50% of male and 50% and currently that distribution is not real, there are much more men that women in technology. So they have a positive discrimination for women to get a position even when there is a man that fits better, so they can achieve the 50/50. Yes, but women are 50% of our society. Why would it be wrong to try and make a company repres…

> The world is absolutely full of utterly brilliant women.

... Brilliant women who aren't interested in programming. Why not?

If they're turning away from programming because of sexism, we can and should be fixing that.

If they're turning away from programming because women are less likely to be interested in systems thinking, and thus fewer women find programming as interesting as men do then its fine. Let the women who want to program be programmers. Let the women who want to be lawyers, or mums, or doctors do that instead.

The research suggests that both of these things are happening. If you talk to girls thinking about careers they say "programming is for boys". Also, men and women have very different interest distributions. And one of the clearest ways people express their personal interests is via their career.

You could also ask the same question about a career with an inverse gender distribution like nursing. Why are only ~10% of nurses male? Some of the effect size is probably sexism, but probably a lot of it is that (statistically) fewer men are as interested in caring for other humans as women are. Any sexism found should be fixed. But if the difference is due to expressed preference, its fine and we should all chill out.