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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

#951

Post by weberc2 »

swingedseraph wrote: post #830
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.

> and if she were a guy she couldn't get away with it I think this is untrue. I know a lot of male "sofware engineers" who are totally incompetent and remain well employed.

Presumably the OP meant "remain in that role in the company"; not necessarily intending to extrapolate to all positions at all companies.

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

#952

Post by gdix »

samfriedman wrote: post #558
ironjunkie wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he didn't say that. He speaks about the `distribution of preferences and abilities`. Going from a distribution to state that `women are worse then men at engineering` is a false narrative and COMPLETELY different. You probably didn't realize that because you already made your own politically-correct version of the truth on that subject, and refuse any discussion about those topics. For example, what he said doesn…

I'd say that the very fact that identical quotes from the memo can be used to argue opposite positions in earnest shows - with no judgment for which side is correct - that the memo itself is poorly written.

Every single memo/book/essay has quotes that can be taken out of context in order to criticize the whole. That's why the phrase "taken out of context" exists.

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

#953

Post by wpietri »

smsm42 wrote: post #937
wpietri wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the LinkedIn profile too; I looked him up when the story first broke. I saw it and said, "Damn, a PhD in systems biology, he should know better than this." People who don't finish their PhDs either a) don't list the PhD, just leaving it as a Master's, or b) are explicit that they don't have the PhD. (E.g., "ABD in Systems Biology.) So at the very best, his resume was misleading because he was incompetent at put…

So your argument goes like this: 1. Damore truthfully specified he's a PhD student 2. You (I assume innocently) and others (some innocently, some maliciously) misconstrued this as a claim that he has a PhD degree 3. Despite Linkedin information being completely true and whole error being contained in your bad reading alone, you and others called Damore a liar. 4. Damore removed that true information to avoid further…

That is not my argument.

My argument is that if in LinkedIn's education section you list a school and a degree -- which he did -- people take that to mean you have the degree. Ergo, he falsely claimed to have a degree he didn't.

Could that be an accident? Might it just be incompetence? Maybe. But given that he also falsely claimed on his resume to be a chess master, I think the simple explanation is that he lied about both.

That he then quickly removed things when called out with neither explanation nor apology fits in with the "lies to make himself look good" narrative. A person who had made an innocent error generally feels bad about the error and says so.

Your thing about LinkedIn form design seems to be pure fiction. I just checked: you can enter any text you like, including no text at all. People without a degree don't have to put a degree in. I spent an entire 3 minutes looking at examples, and people fill in all sorts of things, including "PhD Candidate" and "PhD Student (incomplete)" to make it clear they are not claiming the degree.

This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.

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

#954

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

novia wrote: post #946
Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #769

I feel like this study published in july 2017 is very relevant: "Sex differences in brain size and general intelligence (g)" link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616... Abstract Utilizing MRI and cognitive tests data from the Human Connectome project (N = 900), sex differences in general intelligence (g) and molar brain characteristics were examined. Total brain volume, cortical surface area…

Do we really need to rehash the whole phrenology period of our history?

wait so a correlation between brain size and "generral intelligence score (g)" is phrenology? don't you feel like your mispresenting the study?

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

#955

Post by tscs37 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #921
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 wi…

There is plenty of evidence that there are genetic differences in how the brain is build up between men and women [0]. Several studies have also found that as early as 3 year old children will develop differences in their cognition; boys will develop better spatial skills at that age compared to girls, on the other hand the girls will have a better memory recall than the boys. This development can then be traced all the way into adulthood with a variety of skillsets (not only spatial tasks but eye-hand coordination, motor skills, reaction times, recollection, processing speed and verbal skills) [1]

Now this doesn't mean women are incapable or bad at copmuter engineering or anything in IT. Quite the opposite, women are just as capable and can be just as good in IT as men, there is no reason they can't.

If what you say is true and indian culture views IT as an office job and therefore a woman's job, then I don't see how that contradicts the assertion that there are biological cognitive differences, women can do the same job, they are just less inclined to be interested in it. On average.

So while gender roles may play a role (pun intended) in the distribution of gender in the IT job, expecting a 50/50 representation is entirely fictional, there will be a bias towards one or the other based on simple cognitive development tendencies.

---

0: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-017-1600-2

1: doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.10.011.

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

#956

Post by novia »

Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #954
novia wrote: post #946

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we really need to rehash the whole phrenology period of our history?

wait so a correlation between brain size and "generral intelligence score (g)" is phrenology? don't you feel like your mispresenting the study?

Phrenology was used to justify pre-existing racism.

All these studies that show that men are naturally more intelligent because their brains are larger amount to the same thing, but racism is out of vogue, so let's use it to justify pre-existing sexism this time.

If 3 women published a scientific paper with the conclusion, "girls rule, boys drool," you wouldn't feel at least a little suspicious of the authors' intentions?

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

#957

Post by koonsolo »

splintercell wrote: post #892
koonsolo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

So you're telling me that in Europe, if a male coworker cracks a dongle joke in the presence of female coworker, and if she complains to the HR, then nothing would happen to the male coworker? Or maybe you mean to say that in Europe all men are so sensible that nobody cracks dongle jokes in presence of female coworkers? Or maybe that majority of the European women would not complain to the HR if someone did crack tha…

Here's the European interpretation: It's a fucking dongle joke! Why the hell would anyone feel offended by a fucking dongle joke? Seriously.

And yes, we have no trouble saying "fucking" without censoring it. And if there is a "nipple slip" on live TV, we don't make such a big deal out of it. It's a fucking nipple, get over it.

So to answer your question: 1. We see no problem in dongle jokes 2. If someone would see a problem with it and complain, those complains would be ignored (because we see no problem) 3. If those complains would go public, we would treat that person as "Ah, some idiot has a problem with such a simple joke, weird." 4. But if somehow, there would be a public shitstorm where everybody seems to be losing their mind, the company would not fire an employee over a fucking dongle joke, get serious.

So how such a thing can escalate like that, is beyond any of our (European) comprehension.

If you reread my explanation above, you will see I make no difference between different groups of people. That might already give you a clue of what is going wrong.

And if you would treat each other with more equal respect (men, woman, blacks, whites, ...), maybe you wouldn't be so uptight when someone makes a simple joke.

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

#958

Post by pas »

lurr wrote: post #518
vowelless wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned, I don't disparage "right wing". I actually enjoy Joe Rogans podcast, and also Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson. All three of them are solidly classical liberal, which is probably right of center today (individualism vs. collectivism, equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome, etc). But AFAIK, damore never came to the young Turks, Chapo trap house, which are leftist podcasts. I could be wrong.

> All three of them are solidly classical liberal, which is probably right of center today Classical liberal just seems like yet another rebranding by people who don't want to just call themselves conservatives. I've yet to hear a "classical liberal" who doesn't seem like yet another libertarian/conservative.

Most of those "classical liberals" are now branded "leftists".

Anyway, what's the definition of classical liberal, conservative? It's a mishmash of random "single issues" thrown together.

The definition changes as it's convenient for the optimization game of politics, as parties, groups, power structures try to maintain their relevance, try to get more voters, more support, more donations, more allies, and so on.

No internal consistency, no moral foundations, no logic, no principles.

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

#959

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

novia wrote: post #956
Idontknowmyuser wrote: post #954

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait so a correlation between brain size and "generral intelligence score (g)" is phrenology? don't you feel like your mispresenting the study?

Phrenology was used to justify pre-existing racism. All these studies that show that men are naturally more intelligent because their brains are larger amount to the same thing, but racism is out of vogue, so let's use it to justify pre-existing sexism this time. If 3 women published a scientific paper with the conclusion, "girls rule, boys drool," you wouldn't feel at least a little suspicious of the authors' intent…

do you believe that the authors falsified their findings?

and also the idea is not to justify sexism, but to provide another possible reason for why a trend seems to perssist after apparent bias is eliminated. This is in response to the idea that oppression is somehow responsible for 100% of the gender-ratio gap.

I don't claim that biological reasons are the only reasons but I stress that they do in fact exist and that a violent response to suggesting that they might exist is not normal.

To use this studies to be sexist, is the wrong idea ,as the memo's author explained, because there is overlap between the populations and while on average one is better (in that respective function) then the other, that does not preclude that someone from the second group is better then someone one the first.

In other words, the result on hiring based on merit alone is better then both: - hiring only males - hiring based on prescribed gender quotas.

and by the way, there is studies that indicate that woman are better at empathy ( a sign of emotional intelligence): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19476221

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

#960

Post by tboyd47 »

scruple wrote: post #714
tboyd47 wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I gave the memo a chance. But you're right, though, now that I'm reflecting, my portrayal of him was too harsh. After all, the man did get fired for writing a letter. THAT is ridiculous and I hope he wins the suit just for that. The whole thing is embarrassing, though. I mean, what was he complaining about? He worked at Google, which is like, the top of the heap for programming jobs. I didn't understand why he w…

But Google actively solicited this feedback from it's employees. He didn't publish a screed unwarranted. Maybe he was misguided in his attempt, but that is a character flaw and not a fireable offense, at least in my mind. Furthermore, IIRC, he had published it many months prior to it going viral in the media, and the ensuing moral outrage that followed, and when he had originally published it internally it was _almos…

> Google actively solicited this feedback from it's employees.

I don't understand Google's internal culture at all.

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