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

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

#91

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:19 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…

The white kids with single mothers in the trailer park who have fought for a chance to apply for these jobs might like a word with you.

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

#92

Post by biocomputation » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:27 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #90

biocomputation wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

No one should be forced to become a computer programmer just to satisfy some notion that companies should be 50% men and 50% women. No one should be forced to become a nurse just to satisfy some other notion that there should be equal numbers of men and women in nursing.

It's also not wrong to say 'maybe we should try to make our company more representative of society'.

>> But if the difference is due to expressed preference, its fine and we should all chill out.

The problem is that systemic prejudice causes long-term harm to human society. Women whom make less simply because of their gender have access to fewer opportunities. So do their children. They retire with less. It goes on and on...

For many people this issue isn't something that can be summed up as simply as perhaps you would like. It has real, long term consequences.

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

#93

Post by josephg » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 9:47 AM UTC

biocomputation wrote: post #92

josephg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

No one should be forced to become a computer programmer just to satisfy some notion that companies should be 50% men and 50% women. No one should be forced to become a nurse just to satisfy some other notion that there should be equal numbers of men and women in nursing. It's also not wrong to say 'maybe we should try to make our company more representative of society'. >> But if the difference is due to expressed pr…

> Women whom make less simply because of their gender ...

My understanding is that most of this effect is caused by:

- Women taking breaks in their career to start families

- Women preferring jobs that give them more time to spend with their children. Jobs that have better benefits often have worse pay (Eg lawyer vs schoolteacher.)

- Society values traditionally feminine jobs less than traditionally masculine jobs

I'm not sure how pushing for more women to become programmers will help address any of these issues.

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

#94

Post by ElmntOfSurprise » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 10:34 AM UTC

habitue wrote: post #73

amateurpolymath wrote: post #47

My impression when reading this was that the author intended it to be taken seriously. It is written with a decidedly "academic" tone. However, it is very light on actual research and evidence. Author says "Humans are inherently cooperative" is a bias on the Left. Where does this come from? More unsourced claims that strike me as suspect: "Respect for the strong/authority" is a bias on the Right. Women have more "Ext…

So the gender differences he talks about are very obviously coming from this meta-study: http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x He uses a lot of the same terminology as the paper, references big-5 personality traits etc, as well as the same personality dimensions like people-object axis. The left vs. right stuff is clearly coming from Jonathan Haidt's Moral foundations theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Note however that Gizmodo say

> Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted

The links that were removed are probably relevant. Some passages in the text even have quotation marks around them where I assume that links to sources were removed.

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

#95

Post by ElmntOfSurprise » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 10:51 AM UTC

meowface wrote: post #40

This document conveys its message poorly and comes across as far less neutral than I think it's intending to be. It raises some valid points, but it kind of feels like an extremely hamfisted interpretation of a recent blog post by Scott Alexander: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-m... I don't think Google's official response to it is very good either, though.

"Not writing as well as Scott Alexander" is a pretty high bar you're setting there.

While the document may have been influenced by that post, and while both authors seem to have a similar "non-feminist left" political position, it has a different focus: Acknowledge people's natural strengths, weaknesses, preferences and accept diversity of political views vs. influence of sexist microagressions on gender representation.

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

#96

Post by manigandham » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 12:53 PM 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…

Except historical baggage is exactly that; historical. It doesn't mean everyone in that group has experienced it the same way or at all.

This is the fundamental problem with policies based on group identity rather than individuals.

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

#97

Post by manigandham » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 1:17 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #52

ehsankia wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I surely hope so. I think people should be allowed to discuss things like this in an open and civil manner, no matter how wrong or flawed their arguments are. As long as they are not openly hurting or disrespecting their coworkers, I don't see the issue with a document like this exploring ideas. When we promote "challenging ideas" and discussion, it applies to everyone, not only those we agree with.

That you don't see the harm doesn't mean there's harm. If you would care to do a little work, you can find plenty of people explaining what the particular harm here is. You might also try studying history; you can find many examples of people civilly discussing absolutely horrific ideas that resulted in enormous harm to people. That civil discussion enabled the harm.

Speech is not action and you can't decide if a particular idea is positive or negative without discussion in the first place.

Censoring free discussion is actually harmful.

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

#98

Post by manigandham » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 1:19 PM UTC

mempko wrote: post #37

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 response to his post that matters are from the women in tech. Do they appreciate it? What's your guess?

What does that even mean? You have to be a women in tech to have your opinion valued? Your statement is far worse than anything written in this manifesto.

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

#99

Post by BoiledCabbage » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #91

closeparen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The white kids with single mothers in the trailer park who have fought for a chance to apply for these jobs might like a word with you.

Yes and luckily for them, they don't have to additionally suffer from systemic racial discrimination, which the equivalent member of a minority group frequently would have.

Nowhere does it proclaim "If your X your life is hard, if you're Y your life is easy." What is said (roughly) is that for two people otherwise equivalent, if one is X and the other is Y, that in general, in current society life is additionally harder for Xs - and this is due to for historical reasons.

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

#100

Post by jorgemf » Sun, Aug 06, 2017, 2:20 PM 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 north countries of Europe are consider as the ones where there is more equality between men and women, and on those countries the ratio women/men in some careers are more far from the 50/50 than in others with less equality between women and men. Why is hat? Some researches think it is a cultural issue others think it is a free choice, people feel more free and chose careers that suits more for them.

50% of our society is below the average height, why would it be wrong to try and make the basketball represent our society?

Maybe short people don't want to play basketball or they are just not good for it because of biological reasons.