James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google • Hacker News Board

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

#921

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

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 do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women.

Then there must be a biological difference between women from different cultures that's also contributing, because I've only observed this "lack of interest" in Anglosphere women.

From my experience, for instance, Indian women have no such problem and are in fact strongly represented within the IT profession and I've worked alongside several of them. Women in my country of birth (Greece) have no such problem and about two fifths of the Greek programmers I know are women. In the British universities I studied and the British workplaces I worked in the last few years, on the other hand, women are about a tenth of all programmers I've met.

So because it's a bit absurd for Anglo women to be so specifically genetically programmed to stay out of the IT professions, I'm going to assume it's not a genetic, but a cultural thing going on.

Btw, I've discussed this with a female Indian software engineer I was working with and she explained that in India, working in IT is seen as an office job and so more suited to women. Traditional gender roles, innit.

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

#922

Post by ThrustVectoring » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #890

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…

The best thing about your post is that it argues for the interest group of people who don't play all the reindeer games, but can still be valuable members of a team. The worst thing about your post (that isn't at all your fault), is that there isn't a strong argument for them palatable to the hegemony short of "ableism." If the explanation in your first paragraph is true, then does it stand to reason that there are n…

Like all disability accomodations, it's useful for people without that disability. Curb cutouts are useful for hand trucks, for instance. But yeah, there's people who simply prefer that sort of environment, and it's also shitty behavior against them.

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

#923

Post by mrebus » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #839

The lawsuit says he was discriminated against not only for being a white male but also "discriminated against (i) due to their perceived conservative political views by Google". Discriminating against someone for their political beliefs is not illegal. Federally political affiliation is not a protected group and in California apparently 'political affiliation' is according to wikipedia[1] however I couldn't find the…

>Discriminating against someone for their political beliefs is not illegal

In Cali it is. These laws were enacted in the 30/40s when people were blacklisted for being Commies.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

It would be interesting if this goes to the supreme court and the conservative court rules these laws unconstitutional on freedom of association grounds.

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

#924

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #398

praestigiare wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim that there is a pattern of bad diversity hires, but your anecdotes are just as easily explained by confirmation bias: You see an incompetent male engineer, and you write him off as an idiot and forget him. You see an incompetent woman, and she becomes evidence that there is a problem with diversity programs. You remember evidence that supports your narrative. Obviously my statement is not evidence either. I…

It depends on whether the incompetent male engineers are just as incompetent as the incompetent female engineers. For instance, she mentioned a female developer who couldn't write SQL queries. Are the incompetent male developers at that same level of incompetence? Of course taking this into account cannot completely eliminate selection bias, and the sample size either way is probably too small to be all that meaningf…

>> It depends on whether the incompetent male engineers are just as incompetent as the incompetent female engineers. For instance, she mentioned a female developer who couldn't write SQL queries. Are the incompetent male developers at that same level of incompetence?

Oh yes. Especially if you work in, say, a big financial corporation- the kind of large, monolithic organisation that isn't a technology company, per se, but uses technology (as only a large monolith would). In that kind of place, you can expect the majority of "technical" employees to be largely uninterested in, and therefore fairly clueless about, technology (i.e. they're just in it to jump over to tech management roles down the line). So, software engineers who can't write SQL queries are a thing. A common, inescepable fact of life, indeed.

I would not like to say whether I'm speaking of personal experience with such organisations. It wouldn't be proper.

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

#925

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #665

seemuch wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. Why would it matter that you are "a mixed race woman in tech"? Your comment should be judged only by its content, not by its author's race or gender, right?

Of course, that's how it used to be, but posting this without my profile picture next to it would bring out accusations of being sexist/nazi etc if I didn't clarify.

I’ll violate my usual practice of not commenting explaining the reason for downvotes, to say this:

Preemptive comments of this type, which reflect the posters hostile prejudgement of the likely responses, are IMO, contrary to the letter and spirit of the HN guidelines including the rule of presumption of good faith, frequently (as in this case) involve preemptive violations of the guideline against commenting on downvotes, and contribute to a hostile atmosphere rather than productive debate.

If you are going to post something, with or without a disclaimer about your own background, do so without commenting about how you expect people to react in comments or votes. If there are responses you take issue with, take issue with them when they exist.

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

#926

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #433

dvanduzer wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. In deep corporate America, there are plenty of people who have virtually no responsibilities beyond a few basic configuration tasks. They are still unable to perform many of these tasks without significant help from coworkers. And we cover for them. Every incompetent coworker I can think of was a man. I do not think this is confirmation bias, I think it's basic statistics, because most of the engineers those emp…

I meant for my question to be directed specifically towards the person making the claim about her specific coworkers at a specific company. This company has hiring practices that are not necessarily reflected across all of corporate America, and the claims being made are about those specific hiring practices and the effects that they have.

From what little the OP has said about her company I am willing to take a wild guess that she does indeed work for a large coproration (lip service paid to diversity, incompetent people hired to demonstrate it)- where you can expect this sort of thing to be very common.

I don't know about corporate America in particular, but corporate anything is a big pile of useless dipped in incompetent, where all the work is done by contractors who are also useless and incompetent. Because there is noone in the damn org that knows how to hire a competent techie in the first place.

So for me the OP's experience is more simply explained by working for an organisation that doesn't know how to hire engineers, not anything to do with diversity drives.

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

#927

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #859

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is part of her job, but it wasn't covered in the interview process from what I've been told.

I've worked with plenty of tech and related people who didn't understand basic technologies we expect in a given field. I tend to reserve judgement until their effort can be judged. If he or she is slow but learning and improving, I'd accept (and probably raise with a manager) that the hiring process is flawed and try to help him/her. If its just utter idiocy, I'm less forgiving. I literally had a business analyst co…

Unfortunately, they tend to be promoted quickly. For being so brilliant, you understand.

And then they're your boss. Or your boss's mate.

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

#928

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

querulous wrote: post #786

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, she is learning it now and I wouldn't call her "useless". But her level of experience and knowledge is far below "software engineer" and if she were a guy she couldn't get away with it.

you'd be surprised. i worked with people who would write simple json structures by creating a class in java and then serializing it and printing it to the console to copy and paste. most of them were promoted out to management

Actually, there is a certain wisdom to promoting incompetent people in this manner. At least then you know that they're nowhere near anything they can use to do real lasting damage.

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

#929

Post by IanDrake » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

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…

>Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech.

That maybe one of the saddest statements in the history of modern discourse. It’s not your fault for saying it, it’s that you needed to say it.

We have reached the point where identity matters more than content. This is the exact opposite of the MLK dream as I understood it.

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

#930

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #903

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another study supports this claim: "The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview." "Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door." source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

“We built our castle 300 miles away from where they live, but if any of them make it here we are 3% more likely to let them in the door. The men live in a village 1000 yards away, but we’re 3% less likely to let one in, so it’s fair.”

Or, to look at it this way: We cut our cake up to 10 pieces. You keep eight of them and I keep two of them. You eat one piece and I eat two pieces. And then I'm the glutton because I ate more pieces than you did and you can't argue with the numbers.