Google Grapples With Fallout After Employee Slams Diversity Efforts (npr.org) 546
An anonymous reader shares a report from NPR: In a 3,300-word document that has been shared across Google's internal networks, an engineer at the company wrote that "biological causes" are part of the reason women aren't represented equally in its tech departments and leadership. The document also cited "men's higher drive for status." The engineer's criticism of Google's attempts to improve gender and racial diversity has prompted two Google executives to rebut the lengthy post, which accused the company of creating an "ideological echo chamber" and practicing discrimination. Wide sharing of the document has highlighted struggles with gender equality and the wage gap in the tech industry and particularly at Google, which was sued by the federal government earlier this year for refusing to share compensation amounts and other data.
But in contrast, the document's author -- whose identity hasn't been publicly released but who claims to work at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters -- accused Google of having "a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence." Not enough has been done, the engineer said, to encourage a diversity of viewpoints and ideologies at Google. The author also faulted the company for offering mentoring and other opportunities to its employees based on gender or race. The engineer began the document by stating, "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes." The message ended with a similar sentiment -- but with the added notion, "Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the [company's] training suggests." In addition to the responses made from Google's VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance, Danielle Brown, former engineer Yonatan Zunger, and Google VP of Engineering Ari Balogh, senior developer Sarah Mei wrote: "This guy almost certainly thinks of himself as a 'computer scientist,' but he does exactly what you're not supposed to do as a scientist. He draws a conclusion favorable to his ego, and then works backwards from there, constructing an argument to justify it. [...] This google dude literally works at the company that made it _trivially easy_ to locate relevant social science research."
But in contrast, the document's author -- whose identity hasn't been publicly released but who claims to work at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters -- accused Google of having "a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence." Not enough has been done, the engineer said, to encourage a diversity of viewpoints and ideologies at Google. The author also faulted the company for offering mentoring and other opportunities to its employees based on gender or race. The engineer began the document by stating, "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes." The message ended with a similar sentiment -- but with the added notion, "Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the [company's] training suggests." In addition to the responses made from Google's VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance, Danielle Brown, former engineer Yonatan Zunger, and Google VP of Engineering Ari Balogh, senior developer Sarah Mei wrote: "This guy almost certainly thinks of himself as a 'computer scientist,' but he does exactly what you're not supposed to do as a scientist. He draws a conclusion favorable to his ego, and then works backwards from there, constructing an argument to justify it. [...] This google dude literally works at the company that made it _trivially easy_ to locate relevant social science research."
One guy (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They should, instead, deal with the fallout for having a moronic position like a VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance.
Re: One guy (Score:2, Insightful)
VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance AKA Social Justice Warrior
It's not a job, it's the Spanish Inquisition for anyone who disagrees with the dogma of the day.
Re: One guy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One guy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're recruiting people at disproportionate rates to the pool of available candidates either you need to pay better (and pay everyone else more as well or people will complain about receiving less if they believe that have equal skill or capability) or hire certain demographics at a lower ability threshhold (this assumes that none of the usual diversity demographics have any bearing on ability, which I'll assume you and most of the other people in favor of this crap would argue in favor of anyway) or disproportionately reject candidates who apply but don't fill any diversity quota. This is not an ideal strategy and opens the company up for competitors to offer a better product because they're either utilizing cheaper labor, not adding less skilled workers, or not passing over potentially higher skilled workers.
It might make good short term marketing, but in the end businesses compete on price. If this weren't true we'd still have all manner of goods being made in the United States because there are just as many people who like to virtue signal over their patriotism as there are those who like to about diversity initiatives. People's actions don't always align with their words, and companies run on dollars, not platitudes.
As an interesting aside, I had an interesting thought. Typically when these types of stories get posted someone invariably trots out an argument that diversity improves team performance. I don't think anyone has linked a study to ever support their claim, and for all I know such a study does exist, but assuming that claim were true, it would necessarily mean that those very same diversity characteristics (race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) mean that the people who possess them are somehow different. If that weren't the case, you shouldn't expect a different outcome. But if those characteristics make them different, then why would it be surprising if those characteristics didn't also result in fewer (or more as for that matter some minority groups are disproportionately more likely to be in computing) members of those demographics getting into software development or any other field for that matter. I suppose you could argue that those characteristics themselves aren't responsible, only that they are more strongly correlated with other factors such as growing up poor or something like that. However, that just strikes me as stereotyping people by assuming that just because they're a member of a certain demographic that they must possess some characteristic that will lead to this magical diversity performance improvement.
And don't just take this as some condemnation of hiring minority demographics or something equally asinine. In some cases you do quite clearly want to discriminate and have members of certain demographics. For example, if I were trying to make a phone I'd want to have some women on the team just because they're going to use the device in a different way than men in a very general sense. I don't necessarily mean in terms of apps or what they do with it, just that many will probably carry it in a purse or handbag and that they'll generally have smaller hands among several other things I probably haven't imagined might be important aspects of how the product should function. Yes, that itself is a contrived example, but it illustrates a point itself.
To get back on track, I think you and a lot of other posters make this mistake of assuming that you have some kind of morally superior position to base your argument on and that the rest
Re:One guy (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care how good one engineer is. If he is an asshat he will likely drive away more talent then he can ever dream of. I have been in companies one might consider a part of the "good ol' boy's network." When HR demanded that the pin-up posters come down the engineers screamed about how much more valuable they were to the company than any whiners. It was a pleasure to watch as over time each one of these "top-notch" engineers was walked out the door. And to add icing on the cake, once these asshats were gone people who were otherwise looked over stood up and did some incredible work.
The moral of the story is that you get what you reward. If you reward people complaining about their personal injustices then you will develop a company full of such people. (purposely ambiguous) If you reward people who work well in diverse groups then you will end up with a company that works well regardless of individual differences.
Breaking news: He has been fired (Score:3)
The author of the essay was James Damore, and a few hours ago Google fired him [arstechnica.com].
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Interesting that you are casting this as a conservative versus liberal. I do not believe, as you infer, that conservatives are asshats or that they abhor diversity. I know many conservatives and liberal who respect each other and work well together across gender and racial lines. The position you are taking appears to be borderline alt-right. Is that what you intended?
Re:One guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Except they opted not to actually argue against what he was saying... instead doubling down on the ideological echo chamber.
It's always been interesting to me the intellectual shallowness I see from many on the left (like this case) where they refuse to debate or discuss those things which they view as settled. Even if true, the exploration of the topic creates insights and a deeper understanding not of the end result, but how it is achieved.
But then... they still don't understand how/why Trump won.
Re:One guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One guy (Score:5, Informative)
It never said that "women can't do X because biology" but they have different interests and motivations and a gender gap may very well be explained without gender based discrimination. We should treat people as individuals not as groups. It also said that political biases will make it difficult to talk about the issues that diversity programs may cause such as treating individuals as a group.
No one is arguing that women can't do X but rather because of biological differences [upi.com] the average can create a gender gap even when the individual is an exception.
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Right. And if the manifesto had stopped there -- i.e. calling for more nuanced exploration into gender differences based on biology as opposed to social structures -- it may have garnered better reception. Instead, what happened was:
1. Starts out by rightly pointing out that gender gaps can often be a mix of systemic biases, discrimination as well as biological origins. And that just flat-out assuming that any part of the gap was due to one or the other was irresponsible. And flat-out trying to force the re
Re:One guy (Score:5, Informative)
"Proceeds to make tons and tons of assumptions and assertions"
The original apparently had links to supporting sources for these assertions. Gizmodo chose to remove those links. I wonder why?
I don't know how accurate in general his assertions of fact are, but when it comes to gender differences in interests -- with men tending to be more "thing"-oriented, and women more people-oriented -- he is on very solid ground. I recommend that you read Scott Alexander's article discussing this:
Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due to Offensive Attitudes [slatestarcodex.com].
Pay particular attention to section II where he discusses Richard Lippa's research.
Re:One guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Women sometimes can't do X. For example, it's pretty unlikely that a woman will ever beat the men's 100m sprint world record.
What is being argued is two things:
1) Just because women are different does not mean they are lesser, and in fact having diverse perspectives is beneficial.
2) The gender gap in tech is largely unrelated to biological differences, it's mostly social. There is a very large amount of evidence to support this.
The frustration here is, as ShanghaiBill points out, it's become a lot like climate change. Most people who looked at the evidence seriously came to the same conclusion, but some people keep insisting that we do it all again from scratch and occasionally one of them puts out a well written, reasonable sounding document that people who want to believe those things latch on to.
I suppose this can't really be helped, but it's still frustrating.
Re:One guy (Score:4, Funny)
2) The gender gap in tech is largely unrelated to biological differences, it's mostly social. There is a very large amount of evidence to support this.
Is it so large that nobody has cited any of it because (A) its actually crap, or (B) its too big to fit in the margins
???
Re:One guy (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone is an individual and their personal choices should be respected by everyone else. The fact that the fascist progressive left at Google wants to shoehorn more women into STEM jobs "just because" is bullshit and a blatant FU to all of the women who chose to put their children and family first and chose to stay at home while their husbands try to find a job being held hostage by gender politics.
Re:One guy (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is even if the average of women can't do X you don't make it impossible for them to try X. Further, if you have a gender gap of "100m sprints" then it may not be because of systemic sexism in an organization that has "100m sprints".
1) It was never argued that women are lesser for having different interests or motivations. Taking more risks isn't necessarily a good or bad in and of itself but it can lead to higher status or higher probability to land in jail or homeless. Likewise, taking fewer risks isn't good or bad but it can lead to less status and less chance to be homeless or in jail. Yes, you are right. Diverse perspectives are beneficial which is why the original memo pointed out that there is a distinct lack of diversity of thought in google. This lack of diversity causes issues such as shaming into silence and an inability to honestly discuss ideas because some are too sacred (as the responses have shown them to be too sacred).
2) Social behavior is influenced by biology such as the examples listed in the original memo. Again, the point is that systemic sexism may not be adequate in accurately explaining the gender gap and forcing 50/50 gender representation through discrimination is unfair and bad for business.
Most people who looked at the evidence seriously came to the same conclusion, but some people keep insisting that we do it all again from scratch and occasionally one of them puts out a well written, reasonable sounding document that people who want to believe those things latch on to.
I can sympathize with that but the problem is when you reject any criticism and any discussion. The lack of diversity of thought coupled with the moralization of politics makes it impossible to discuss and come to a better understanding. The point of any discussion should never be the end result but the arguments, logic, and facts to get there.
Re:One guy (Score:4, Interesting)
As to your second point, the evidence seems to point the other way. I believe it was you who made a post in the previous thread in this topic indicating that Iranian women were more likely to be involved in software jobs as some evidence that it must be socially based. Interestingly enough, you'll see higher rates in other countries too. India is one example where there are significantly more women in computing. What you fail to understand is that this has little to do with cultural differences (and you'd be hard pressed to argue that either India or Iran have better views towards women in general than western democracies) and is the result of economic ones. Computer science jobs are well paying and in high demand, and do potentially afford you the opportunity to immigrate to a western democracy that may be preferable to the type of people who are intelligent enough to excel in the software development field.
When you remove economic pressures (the Scandinavian countries which have among the best social safety nets have the same low numbers of women in CS as the U.S.) and have a society that leaves you essentially free to pursue whatever ambitions you might have, it is hardly unsurprising that any biological tendencies that may predispose people to one field or another are more prevalent. To use an analogy, you can only really see if one strain of plant yields more only after you ensure that they all have sufficient water to thrive. If you somehow created a society that was able to ensure that everyone in life had an equal start, the only possible variance left would come down to biological differences.
There's a substantial amount of evidence to suggest men and women are different. Even at a surface level, we see large differences in things like personality, which has been demonstrated to be highly heritable. I'm not quite sure how you could look at those differences and come to the conclusion that it isn't going to result in differences in vocation selection or other life choices that can impact a person's career. I suppose you could argue that somehow all of these differences are merely a result of society, but that ignores the heritability of personality as well as evidence from studies that examined sex-based behavior difference in infants. See a recent study that examined children roughly one to two and half years of age in nurseries [pitt.edu], a similar earlier study which examined infants 1 - 2 years of age [oxy.edu], and another study which examined infants as young as three months old. [tamu.edu] There was another study that examined toy preference in young monkeys that found similar sex-based differences which does suggest that this is something that goes back quite far in our evolutionary history.
It's funny that you bring up global warming, because a lot of the evidence suggests that you are incorrect, yet you continue to act in much the same way as people who contest the science behind global warming. I seriously question how you could reconcile the studies I've presented above with your beliefs that biology plays such a little role in the outcomes we're observing. I suppose you could claim the science is biased, but then how do you know that the scientists publishing articles about climate change aren't biased?
Re: One guy (Score:3, Insightful)
Women are physically weaker than men. This puts them at a disadvantage in jobs like police officer and soldier. I have a good friend who was hired as a resident assistant. She was blind. So they hired a blind person to be in charge of making sure that nobody was sneaking in booze, that there were no unsafe living conditions, etc... It doesn't make sense. As far as programming goes, men tend to prefer that type of solo work and more importantly, google already hire percentage of women than are actually
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> Women's greater average ability in the communication stakes means that their code is probably better documented, right? And the SCM commits better written up. And their release notes better.
So you're arguing that women are different from men in some ways, and using that as part of your argument that GP is some sort of bigot?
As for pair programming, just because it exists doesn't mean its followed in the majority of positions so how does that invalidate the idea of programming is solo work.
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That women differ from men is undeniable. That they happen to differ in ways that make them less good engineers is not a defensible position. What we see in the Googler's post, as in the bigotry here is that certain men assume that the attributes they display must surely be the ones that make for a better engineer. And that is just ignorance.
That pair programming isn't practised as much as solo programming doesn't make solo programming the right way. It may just be a symptom of the lack of communication ski
Re: One guy (Score:4, Informative)
Come on mate, are you really going to bring this dead horse up again?
Spot the person who's never heard of pair programming. Or who believes, due to his own inability to work with others, is the wrong way to go.
Why isn't pair programming the one and only way to do things then? Could it be because he's right? I think so.
But hey, what is programming at all but communication. Communication with the computer. Maybe women are fundamentally better at it. On average.
Wow, quite the assertion. Unfortunately it's completely contrary to reality. But hey, you get SJW virtue points for the signalling. Well done.
Ah, yes, I remember that being a concern once upon a time. However, it's no longer true. There are more girl gamers than boy gamers now.
https://www.theguardian.com/co [theguardian.com]... [theguardian.com]
Seriously, you think Candy Crush on the smartphone is 'playing games'? It's cute that SJWs try to justify enforcing the "diversity" stupidity in gaming by trotting out these numbers again and again, but when we look at real games that require even the smallest level of investment (PC/consoles) we find that the audiences are largely male. But hey, you are absolutely correct as long as you constrain your propaganda calls to The Sims. But I guess you don't need to as that game, which correctly identified its audience as mostly female years ago, already is catering to that audience. Just like all other games would *if their audiences were actually female to any relevant proportion*.
Your ideology is not supported by the facts.
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You are more than welcome to reformulate your point to "girls play more *smartphone* games than boys, hence we should put all kinds of SJW checkpoints into smartphone game development". If you do that, it will actually be correct and we can both be happy. Well, I'll be happy. I'm not sure if you are the kind of person that does happy.
Also, I didn't put any kind of objective superiority into it, merely pointing out that they are vastly different and for vastly different crowds. I think you are projecting tha
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Except they opted not to actually argue against what he was saying...
These issues have been argued to death. For centuries people have been saying "Women can't do X because biology says they should be home having babies", where X= policing, soldiering, leading, working as a professional, thinking about hard stuff, and now programming. So far the naysayers have always been wrong, but were never convinced by "arguments", only the performance of women in the jobs they supposedly couldn't do.
The article is saying nothing new at all, other than repeating the garbage you can find on any alt-right blog.
Soooo, how many female NFL players are there?
In a sport where you can literally get away with murder if you're good enough - hello, Ray Lewis - why has there never been a woman even come close to being able to compete? Because if a woman were a good enough player to play in the NFL, that woman would have every team in the league trying to sign her. And you know it.
Why doesn't the LPGA ever list the yardage on holes in women's golf?
How many women have played in England's Premier League or Germany's Bundesl
Re:One guy (Score:4, Insightful)
You should read the article more closely, as he is not saying "all women" this or "all men" that. He specifically says that there is significant overlap between the sexes, and is only speaking to the large-number trends of gender percentages.
So in no way is he saying that all women are less suitable/inclined for leadership or for tech.. that would be laughable. He is just saying that when you look at the large trends, that part of the numbers may be in fact due to the biological traits which put the bell curves in different places with respect to success attributes for those professions.
And yes I think he stretches in places, but he is making an argument at least worthy of debate. Unfortunately the whole subject just gets everyone's hackles up, and both sides tend to start labeling rather than discussing particular points..
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Given that the US certainly seems to sit on the right-side of the political spectrum (as compared to its economic peers), perhaps people misunderstood how far to the right that the "typical American" sat. In some ways, Obama's policy were more right-wing than Canada's Harper, and many people in Canada saw him as an ogre. I can't imagine how the center and left in (Western) Europe see the major US parties other than "right-center" and "America's AfD"...
The problem with this statement is that in reality the Republican party is a minority in the US. Because of how our government is structured, low populated rural counties can politically outnumber high density urban cities. NY City has a combined population greater than the 9 least populated states combined, yet politically is not commensurately represented. It's about the same in every "red" state, where you have 1 or 2 deeply urban, Democratic cities surrounded by Republican counties that have 2-10,000
One SMART guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Had they really been "dumb" opinions, they would've been easy to dismiss. The very problem for Google — and the "progressives" everywhere — is that the man's opinions are perfectly reasonable and well-argued.
The particular point I appreciated was that any "gap" between sexes, races, etc. is not automatically evidence of an evil bias, contrary to what Social Justice Warriors would like us to believe. Such a bias may be responsible for a gap — entirely or partially — but it also may not. And, obviously, any efforts to fight the suspected discrimination, the very existence of which is "proven" by nothing else, with actual and deliberate discrimination is patently unfair — and bad for business.
Re:One SMART guy (Score:4, Insightful)
Further what I appreciated in the original was that any political bias will make it difficult to discuss the subject honestly. Since google is very left leaning any left leaning topic is difficult to discuss because of their political bias. The responses so far is what you would expect if his opinion was based in reality. Looks like it was.
Re:One SMART guy (Score:4, Informative)
Citations?
Citations?
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It's all old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted before. For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.
Wrong! According to
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1 [psychologytoday.com]
women have higher rates of anxiety and depression than men. The article does not claim that claims that women are "less able to deal with stress", but it does claim that women are generally more "stressed" than men.
Your claim that these are "old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted" is a bald-faced lie.
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For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.
You make a claim without substantiating it. From the quick google I see [apa.org] something [cambridge.org] different [j-alz.com]. The number of stressors could be a factor or the way the brain operates but either way there is more to it than what you lead on. Also, the links to his original memo were initially stripped out, did you check his sources or are assuming he was making unsubstantiated claims like you?
Considering the guy was fired and the responses in TFS it does sound like people were screeching autistically because someone s
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I basically agree. His conclusions are bogus and a form of biological essentialism. He also fails to understand how focusing on such things has very negative consequences for some of his co-workers.
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So, they were useful in dealing with sexists? Seriously, that's your example?
Your admission of ignorance is touching, but where was that humility, when you sta
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"There is a difference between men an women . . ." (Score:3)
. . . Vive la différence . . . !
. . . this story sounds as simple as a couple going through a difficult divorce . . . you can't ever really know where the truth lies, but it is somewhere in between . . .
obligatory pay transparency (Score:2)
Re:obligatory pay transparency (Score:4, Insightful)
But two people can have the same job title but have very different performance, and performance is not something that's easily measured and recorded. Simple solutions are part of the problem.
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And I have the same job title as 2 of my cow-orkers but we do totally different things... some overlap, but not a lot. And since we all started at the same time, we've gotten the same raises (yay state employment with fixed percent raises... when we get them...), so we all make the same, at least in our base jobs (2 of us have second part time jobs as overload work with same employer - and we make the same in THAT spot too).
And pay transparency? Yup - got that too. Sunshine law and anyone can request a d
Shaming... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's interesting how this guy is being shamed for posting a controversial opinion. ;) Where did I read about that happening? Oh that's right..it reportedly happens at Google.
I read the manifesto...the whole thing. He makes two spurious and generalizing claims (women are more cooperative, men are driven by status) but everything else in the paper are legitimate concerns about "how" diversity is being enforced. He also gives a lot of suggestions as to how it could be better fostered and/or measured.
The part I dislike the most is how most of the published reactions are couched in damage control and distancing themselves from the author. In reality they needed to be inclusive saying how they want to hear everyone's opinions and how they take those concepts into account when making policy. Basically, the public responses have just reinforced the complaints that the author had with the programs in the first place. (Especially Sarah Mei, who basically just called him names and insulted his intelligence without any sort of direct rebuttal to his claims.)
Re:Shaming... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up. I don't think there can be a more damning reaction from the left than a collective freakout and immediate calls for censorship of wrongthink.
If the intent is to debunk the original author's points, screaming "bad, bad, bad thinker!", is literally the most unpersuasive move in the book.
It's almost as if nobody actually has any logical, reasoned response to his critique...
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People criticise his arguments and he is "shamed" because he now looks foolish or illiberal or whatever.
How would you propose preventing this "shaming" without limiting people's freedom of speech?
Re:Shaming... (Score:4, Informative)
Almost all of his post from within Google has been completely altered for posting in the Media. References removed, no support for arguments, etc. I'm not sure we can say what is showing up in the media is even his arguments, since all the support material has been amputated.
This is hardly an open discussion.
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Is there some dialect of English where one of the words I wrote means "you must think"? Because in the language I speak that sentence doesn't mean what you think it means.
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Please, criticize a single one of his arguments.
Note, screaming "everything they say is absolutely wrong and we shouldn't tolerate such violent, corrosive thoughts!", is *not* a critique.
Re:Shaming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, criticize a single one of his arguments.
Okay.
He says women are less inclined to negotiate for higher salaries. Studies show that when they do, they are often punished for being "bossy" or "shrill", rather than it being some biological imperative.
He says women prefer a better work/life balance, but attributes it to biology. There seem to be other reasons though, like the fact that they tend to do more of the unpaid labour (chores, child care etc.) and are judged more harshly for putting in long hours that neglect their families and friends. And he doesn't seem to think that men would benefit from not working longer hours either, it's implied to be a positive trait that justifiably results in rewards.
He claims that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. In fact we know that women are simply more likely to speak up when they are under heavy stress and seek support for it, rather than bottling it up, rather than being less able to cope.
Three for the price of one.
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He says women prefer a better work/life balance, but attributes it to biology. There seem to be other reasons though, like the fact that they tend to do more of the unpaid labour (chores, child care etc.) and are judged more harshly for putting in long hours that neglect their families and friends.
And how much of that boils down to biology, is it external pressure to do most the child care or a biological instinct? Many women can talk equality and feminism all day but the vast, vast majority of moms will grab the role as caretaker with both hands and make dad take care of other things. Even when the wage gap is small or even inverted, it's almost always mom working part time or the one who can't work overtime. It's exceptionally rare for women to lose the daily custody in a divorce. Is it all just so
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Cite, please.
Do you also find it sexist that men are judged more harshly for *not* putting in long hours, and are expected to neglect their family and friends?
Now, let's be specific here. He says "
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Because it's simply earlier to ignore everything that came before his critique in a "last words win" mode of analysis?
It's not as if nobody has addressed this before [google.com].
There. You have a logical, reasoned response to his critique. Game on.
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Your cite supports him. From the first hit:
"Results indicated that no gender differences in programming performance were found after controlling for the effect of student ability."
So...after you control for ability (which may be driven by gender), there's no difference in performance.
Would you like to perhaps be more specific in your critique?
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He's not accusing them of "wrongthink"; he's accusing them of, "no think", "blindly follow crowd", and refusal (not inability) to debate or listen.
There's a significant difference, but you just wanted to counterattack with a variant of the ever mature, "I'm rubber and you're glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you".
Re:Shaming... (Score:4, Interesting)
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When I was on the Google campus last year they had fliers posted on the wall above the urinal basically telling me how overpaid and privileged I am, as a man.
I've got no doubt that there's a lot of vocally pissed off self-righteous people in Mountain View right now. Wait, that's a tautology.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
They aren't "spurious and generalizing claims", they are statistical descriptions of behavior over a large population of individuals.
Yes, statistics shows that women tend to be more openly cooperative. Individuals vary significantly, but on average the conclusion holds.
Yes, statistics shows that men tend to be more concerned with status. Individuals vary significantly, but on average the conclusion holds.
This is exactly what he said - on average, these things are true.
Your sort of reaction to supposed ste
re: men more driven by status, etc. (Score:2)
I didn't get time to read his whole publication. But if you want to shut out all the subjective stuff about hurting someone's feelings or upsetting them over treatment they perceive as "unfair"? I think you *always* come back to one truth: The optimal way to hire people is based on who is most qualified for the job.
Workplace diversity is pretty much a code name for "guilt over the realization that our business wound up selecting an obvious majority of hires from the same ethnic background or sex".
I'm not s
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everything else in the paper are legitimate concerns about "how" diversity is being enforced.
One of his claims about how diversity is being "enforced" is factually erroneous. He says that Google offers programs which make it easier for "diversity" candidates to get hired, and claims that those programs are only open to women and minority races.
As it happens, I work for Google, and do university outreach to my alma mater, which is a small four-year commuter university quite different from the big-name schools that lots of Googlers attended. Because the school is one that Google typically does not
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WTF? How in the world do you come to that conclusion?
Thats HIS conclusion.
The facts on the table are that men are driven by status and women are more cooperative.
The left wing then says "if thats true then I should... [put evil shit here]"
THEY would do evil shit (see history, hundreds of millions dead.) THEY therefore project their evil thoughts onto others.
Re:Shaming... (Score:4, Insightful)
Stating that approximately half of the population is by default, choosing more often to do something besides tech work, doesn't create a hostile workplace at all.
The mischaracterization of his opinion (which was about distributions and choice, not inherent inability for all members of a given group), is a willful misreading, and shows the critique of the echo chamber was spot on.
If you want to say that some ideas are off limits, then you should be more cautious with which ideas you put into that category. Like, maybe demanding that gays be killed because Allah would be a good one to put off limits, but "women make different choices than men"...that's a stretch.
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There's a world of difference between "this isn't worth discussing or responding to" and "you're being fired[1] because you expressed a viewpoint that we believe is incorrect".
[1] replace fired with imprisoned, shot, blacklisted, or any other punishment, depending on the situation/country/time.
What is google going to do to fix this? (Score:2)
Google and the valley are increasingly hostile towards conservative values. I don't want to read rebuttals from google executives, I want to know what exactly they are going to do to make sure google is a safe workspace for conservatives and that conservative viewpoints can be openly expressed by those who work there.
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Re:What is google going to do to fix this? (Score:5, Informative)
Free and open debate.
Re:What is google going to do to fix this? (Score:4, Informative)
He wasn't doxxed
Yes he was. For obvious reasons, I am not going to link that.
he didn't lose his job
His critics are demanding that he be fired.
and there is a healthy debate over his document.
He is enduring brutal, public, ad-hominem attacks by Google management ridiculing his competence as a programmer.
In fact the only people not taking about the content of the document are the conservatives complaining that people aren't taking about the content of the document.
Horseshit.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Look ma!
Reductio ad absurdum!
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A world of difference.
In one case, a person is asking for the ability to express ideas and opinions contrary to the herd mind without being attacked verbally, physically or economically.
In the other, a person is asking for the ability to attack people verbally, physically and economically for expressing ideas and opinions contrary to the herd mind.
One of those is the very foundation of government as an entity exercising a monopoly of violence. The other is Orwellian. I'll leave it as an exercise for the r
Again? (Score:2)
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Yesterday's slashdot post on this got over 900 comments, and it was a weekend post. Do we really need another round on this topic?
Your logic is backwards. A lot of comments means people care about this issue and want to discuss it. A very low number of comments would be better evidence that another round is unwarranted.
Dupe? (Score:2)
This sounds like several books I've read... (Score:2)
This guy almost certainly thinks of himself as a 'computer scientist,' but he does exactly what you're not supposed to do as a scientist. He draws a conclusion favorable to his ego, and then works backwards from there, constructing an argument to justify it.
Maybe "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" [amzn.to] by Antonio Garcia Martinez? Or was it "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal" [amzn.to] by Nick Bilton? It can't be "The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network" [amzn.to] by Katherine Losse, as I just started reading that one last night. All three books have douche bags in common, especially from Google and Facebook.
Click bait half-life (Score:2)
I guess this one is good for a few more days.
Isn't "news" supposed to be timely? (Score:2)
news
noun
newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent events.
That's an article from September 2016.
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Oops. posted in the wrong article...
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I can't tell if this is satire, or a genuine error.
PC Thugs (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's the problem: Men and Women ARE factually different, both physiologically and physcologically.
Letting political correctness attempt to solve a problem that is not there is absurd, and frankly at this point stupid. I don't see the huge push to get men into nursing (>90% female), social services (>80% female) or elementary school teaching (>80% female).
Every rebuttal confirms him (Score:3, Insightful)
So far every single "rebuttal" from google and outside, every autistic screeching, every angry tweet and call for his firing and public outing simply confirms what he said.
Instead to tackling the deep issues of PC culture they are trying to kill the messenger.
The very existence of a VP for diversity at an engineering company should be a wake up call.
And lets not even get to her asinine "arguments" that are anything but. Sara Meis response is even worse actually (not that I thought it could be possible). Instead of citing data that disproves his arguments (protip: does not exist, neither does the wage gap) she puts words in his mouth ("conclusions that favor his ego") and implies that he did not arrive to those conclusions by observation but apparently HAD to work backwards.
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Working backwards from the conclusion is how the left operates.
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My thoughts exactly, although I had hoped that this time its was simply done randomly because the dice of ad-hominem had fallen on it.
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Yes that must be it, and not the observable fact that the more the labor market becomes free, the less girls go into technical fields. Data set: The development of pretty much every single countries in the former Iron curtain states before and after it fell. Before they were told where and what to work, afterwards they could chose freely. End result: less girls in engineering.
That sucks but... (Score:2)
the system always wins (Score:5, Insightful)
I glanced through Sarah Mei's Twitter page, and she's full of shit. She seems not to get why women in tech might not be evenly distributed.
* Suppose you have a culture that hires based on personal referral. (It's usually one of the best ways to go.)
* Suppose your culture starts out with a male nucleus.
* Suppose your male nucleus mostly has male contacts.
You're gonna get a mainly male culture.
Companies don't hire the best candidate available. Companies hire the candidate for whom they have the most confidence of strong performance, meaning that the route into the door matters a lot. Applicants at large will not be given equal shrift to applicants with a strong, internal referral.
From that starting point, the organization is subject to network effects, none of which need to be intrinsically biased in order to lead to a biased outcome (as determined by simple headcount).
One can argue that the sorry state of women in technology justifies taking active measures against the default behaviour of your (potentially) gender-neutral starting point. One can't argue that failing to take active measures automatically incriminates your starting point as gender discriminatory.
In Sarah's world where water isn't wet, and laudable corporations seek the best candidate while paying no attention to existing network effects, you can draw these conclusions, loudly and with no nuance, should it serve your purpose.
I'm not saying that innocent bias doesn't coexist with toxic bias. I am saying that presumptive guilt is an extremely dangerous tool as wielded by a small, angry imagination.
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Suppose you have a culture that hires based on personal referral. (It's usually one of the best ways to go.)
Only if you are trying to build a monoculture, the very thing that this guy is complaining about.
One can't argue that failing to take active measures automatically incriminates your starting point as gender discriminatory.
This is a very common misunderstanding. It's institutionally biased. It's not that the individuals involved are sexists or deliberately trying to build a monoculture, it's that the model they are using, the common model of hiring by personal recommendation for example, creates bias. Bias that creates a monoculture and hurts the business.
It's not about blaming people for this, it's about recognizing that there ar
He's not wrong (Score:2)
If the comment was written by a woman, would it have sparked this much fauxrage?
Maybe they should use the percentage of a gender able and willing to work in a position as a baseline instead of the percentage in the general population. That would screw up the narrative, though.
Shakespeare (Score:5, Insightful)
What an amazing exhibition of group-think. Google has accumulated thousands of Sarah Meis and by extension the Valley etc. has accrued a couple million rigorously orthodox malcontents. We're now into day three of that monoculture's collective apoplexy because one powerless nobody had the temerity to question the dogma.
Thou doth protest too much, methinks.
What's the big fuss? (Score:3)
The text is a very detailed well written and very nuanced opinion-piece and excellent food for an educated debate on the issue. He may make wrong assumptions and may be unable to cite resources, but the essay itself is well rounded and has some excellent talking points. If you don't agree or see flaws in his chain of thought, write and talk about it. If arguments or conclusions of his are wrong, debunk them. But please stop this public shaming and hysteria, this has nothing to do anymore with equal rights or neccesary gender issue discussions.
I really wish we could talk without this all-out hatered and PR assasination of people, mostly by feminists, some of whom seem to think of feminism of some sort of religious ideology.
Too bad google doesn't have "blind auditions" (Score:4, Insightful)
Prior to 1970 most symphony orchestra musicians were men. Then around 1970 blind auditions (when you don't know who is playing or their gender) started to become common, and are now nearly universal. As a result, symphony musicians today are nearly evenly split between genders. See: http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orc... [harvard.edu]
I have interviewed prospective software developers in my career, and know that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to counteract my own prejudices even when I wanted to be fair. To be a woman interviewed for a job by someone with the views of the Google employee who believed women are genetically inferior for engineering would be devastating. Even someone with more even handed views undoubtedly harbors some bias.
I don't know if "blind interviews" for engineers will ever be practical, so maybe we are stuck with perpetuating our prejudices on hiring decisions indefinitely.
Groups (Score:3)
The reality is men tend to process spatially where as women tend to process verbally. that is biology. These are not absolutes, as varying individuals on both sides of the spectrum cross. However, generally it's true... and yes, I'm grouping. Anyone who claims different is a liar or misinformed. There's no debate, men and women are wired differently.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
I'm sure most people on this forum have seen those ads or politicians stating "everyone needs to learn to program" and smirk to yourself or get upset knowing it's ludicrous as well
This is the same. People have predispositions to specific tendencies and processes that make some professional trades ideal, where as others, not so much. Given that mathematics, and computer programming via extension, tend to favor those who process information spatially, this biologically implies males would be more likely to perform these tasks and drawn to them.
Again, I'm not saying "all", just general tendencies.
But we as reasonable people need to stop going apesh*t when someone suggests that the everyone is not the same or some people can not perform tasks as well as others. .
We cannot accept thoughtcrime (Score:3)
"We can accept many transgressions, but we cannot accept thoughtcrime. It is the most dangerous to our authority."
And he's terminated as of now. [bloomberg.com]
It is a business though. However, if they want out of the box thinkers... I dunno.
Fired (Score:3)
Aaaaannd he's gone [theverge.com]. Utterly shocking, I know.
Remember kids, keep your harmful* opinions to yourself.
*The threshold for harmful opinion is subject to change. Google reserves the right to declare any idea, and the expression thereof, as harmful at any time, and will not tolerate employment or use of Google services by those expressing such ideas.
Re:Hey - here's an idea (Score:5, Informative)
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Purple people would tend to be a target for the Purple People Eater, making them quite the liability... just sayin'
Although the Purple People Eater does have the ability to fly, his monocular vision reduces his depth perception making him a somewhat less dangerous foe. Purple People should drop a point or two into agility to make evasion easier.
Re:Hey - here's an idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:First Be Evil (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't like Google is:
Conspiring with autocratic nation's Great Firewalls
Doxxing internal critics
Fighting against free speech
Hiding important content
Getting in bed with corrupt political candidates
Trying to subvert the political process
Enforcing ThoughtCrime
Demonetizing any Youtube performers on the Right
Rewriting queries to favor their own services
Manipulated searches to hide politicians' dark deeds
Coming up with exotic Tax avoidance schemes
Supporting Terrorists' information sharing
Do no evil, right?
Oh, please ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of you know, all the female, queer, non white, or disenfranchised employees / potential employees and other people who are actually speaking up about the discrimination they face. Not some whining man baby who feels threatened now that others are getting their chance.
Oh, Jebus H.B. Christ, give me an effing break already, will ya?
There is *NOTHING* preventing any women or team of women getting together and building the next Apple. There is *NOTHING* at all preventing any lady from getting a refurbished ThinkPad for 250 bucks, sitting down at her desk and coding the foundation of the next Oracle. There is no obstacle what-so-freakin-ever preventing any girl or woman of picking up a book on C and joining the kernel team. Or Gnome. Or getting into C++ and joining KDE. You can become a project lead and no one will even know that you're a woman. No one freakin' cares. It's the F*CKING internet! Know one knows who you are.
Why isn't it happening? For the very same reason that musical innovation of the last 200 years in the US didn't come from well educated, musically trained and compareativly priviliged and free white women of the middle and upper class but from BLACK MALE SLAVES. Why? Well, I'll take a wild guess here: There is a strong incentive for men to prove their worth to society. BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO! A young woman has already proven her worth: She has a womb and tits that give milk. Men are disposable women are not. Men have to fight to prove their worth. They have to pull way more than their own weight to prove worthy as a mate. The criminal justice system is biased against them and in favour of women ALL AROUND THE WORLD throughout history until today. Be young, beautiful, female and an asshole and get away with it. Be a male asshole and you better be a strong one capable of defending the tribe, otherwise you're kicked out or into jail faster that you can think.
I got some freakin news for you, you dunce: Tech innovation is driven by unattractive MALE SOCIETY DROPOUTS! They have nothing else to do but code.
And now cry me a river about gender inequality in tech. NOBODY is stopping any women of joining. ... Gawd how I'd love to have some neat sex and discuss the pros and cons of Rust vs. Go afterwards while lying in bed and chilling. ... Won't happen, no matter how much we wish for it BECAUSE *NEWFLASH* on average WOMEN AREN'T ALL THAT INTERESTED IN CODING!
Did you FINALLY get the message?