From Google To Yahoo, Tech Grapples With White Male Discontent (bloomberg.com) 577
Reader joshtops shares a Bloomberg report: Google isn't the only Silicon Valley employer being accused of hostility to white men. Yahoo and Tata Consultancy Services were already fighting discrimination lawsuits brought by white men before Google engineer James Damore ignited a firestorm -- and got himself fired -- with an internal memo criticizing the company's diversity efforts and claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers. The Yahoo case began last year when two men sued, claiming they'd been unfairly fired after managers allegedly manipulated performance evaluations to favor women. They claim Marissa Mayer approved the review process and was involved in their terminations, and last month a judge ordered the former chief executive be deposed. TCS, meanwhile, is fighting three men who claim the Mumbai-based firm discriminates against non-Indians at its U.S. offices.
Need vs Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
White males are not very PC today but it's hard to run a company without any of them. The trick is to find a balance where you treat them shitty enough to make the left happy but not so shitty they go somewhere more tolerant.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Look at what they did to destroy Milo's career, and no one even blinked.
Re: (Score:2)
No, thanks. No way. Can he find some conversion therapy place that still practices electroshock therapy? While Pence still believes gays can be electrocuted into becoming straight (unless he has announced otherwise and I missed it), the most likely place to find this still practiced would be to look up Michele Bachmann's gay conversion therapy.
Re: (Score:3)
Michele Bachmann's gay conversion therapy.
I'm pretty sure it's actually Michelle Bachman's gay husband's conversion therapy.
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Now try looking for Trans, PoC, etc Queer people - yeah. They barely exist.
That'd be because (aside from "PoC"), they do barely exist, at least in the US. It's well under a percent for trans people, and 1-2 percent queer/lesbian/gay. I haven't seen any studies on the topic, but I wouldn't be surprised to find they're actually overrepresented in the media (I can't find simple numbers with a quick Google search, but Wikipedia gives ~4% for regular broadcast TV characters, which is surprisingly close to the right fraction). And as for "PoC": they're again usually represented at around the expected demographic fraction (13% of movie characters vs. 13.6% of the population, for e.g.), except for IIRC Asians, who tend to be overrepresented, and Mexicans, who tend to be underrepresented.
Mind you, people will still complain because most people have no idea what the demographics in the US actually are (such as for e.g. this [gallup.com], admittedly quite dated, study), and for many special interests groups, that's a feature, not a bug. A news story of "only 3 of the 20 Oscar nominees are black!" gets clicks, "black actors slightly overrepresented at the Oscars" does not.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Need vs Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
No, SJWs won't rest until everyone is treated equitably regardless of age, race, color, gender, or sexual identity. The horror!
So tell me something, what's equal about hiring the trans black lesbian with no experience over the person with 8 years experience? Yeah, I thought so. Now you know why James Damore wrote that 'manifesto' as the media likes to call it.
Re: Need vs Politics (Score:3)
Amazingly few corny pickup lines, I assume.
Re: (Score:2)
The trick is to find a balance where you treat them shitty enough to make the left happy but not so shitty they go somewhere more tolerant.
Fortunately corporations are EXCELLENT at application of these principles to their workforce. The secret is doing everything possible to make sure there is nowhere else to go.
Re: (Score:2)
go somewhere more tolerant
Well, that part's easy - there is no such place.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this modded "insightful"? White males are not oppressed. I am a white male living and working in one of those supposedly terrible liberal places, run by leftists, and I have never faced meaningful discrimination. I have never been in, seen, or heard of a workplace that intentionally tried to treat white males badly. I know a lot of liberal democrats, and none of them want white males to be treated badly.
The people I see complaining about the treatment of white males are people trying to invent a
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Black males are not oppressed. I am a black male living and working in one of those supposedly terrible conservative places, run by righties, and I have never faced meaningful discrimination. I have never been in, seen, or heard of a workplace that intentionally tried to treat black males badly. I know a lot of conservative republicans, and none of them want black males to be treated badly.
The people I see complaining about the treatment of black males are people trying to invent a villain to blame their failures on.
While I'm not going to suggest that racism doesn't exist (there are plenty of scientific studies [nber.org] or statistical analysis of data [umich.edu] that have found racial bias exists or cannot explain race-based gaps for different outcomes) I would argue that the people on both sides who are creating or perpetuating a victim narrative should just fuck off because they're not doing anything to help.
Re: (Score:3)
So if a black person claimed that they had personally never experienced racism, it must also mean that it doesn't exist? Let's see how it scans for fun:
Black males are not oppressed. I am a black male living and working in one of those supposedly terrible conservative places, run by righties, and I have never faced meaningful discrimination. I have never been in, seen, or heard of a workplace that intentionally tried to treat black males badly. I know a lot of conservative republicans, and none of them want black males to be treated badly.
Not sure if you've noticed, but that exact argument is used by conservatives all the time, and the rare black conservative that airs that on Fox pretty easily. Many people point at Obama or black CEO as evidence that racism can't exist.
An anecdote doesn't prove that the state of the country is equitable. It can provide some evidence about the extent of problems, though. Ideally to support any claim about the state of society, you would have aggregated statistics, credible explanations of mechanisms that cou
Re: (Score:3)
I have never been in, seen, or heard of a workplace that intentionally tried to treat white males badly.
I have never been in or seen a workplace that intentionally tried to treat any population group badly.
I've heard of a few, e.g. people that have worked there have told me you'll always be treated as a second-class citizen at a certain Japanese IT company if you're not Japanese.
The people I see complaining about the treatment of white males are people trying to invent a villain to blame their failures on.
Most of the people that I see complaining about the treatment of white males are merely seeking the equality that the people acting in a sexist or racist way keep yelling that they're trying to achieve.
E.g. Google claim they're seekin
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Need vs Politics (Score:3)
Yup. That's why there are exactly zero white "Social Justice" Hypocrites who grew up poor. SJH is basically a club for rich douchebags who want a socially acceptable excuse to harass and discriminate against their poor and working class brethren.
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:4, Informative)
Now, obviously foreigners (non-citizens) face massive systematic discrimination (perhaps even to the point of oppression) by the US government - facing severe restrictions on living and working and traveling anywhere...
As they do everywhere in the world to a greater degree than in the US. Although only a few countries still have explicitly racial immigration policies (Japan), most countries are not as used to diversity as the US.
In the US, the only right a naturalized citizen does not have is to become President, because this is an exception specified in the Constitution. In a certain neighboring country, the list of restrictions is a little more extensive.
Re: (Score:3)
How about we just respect the personal liberties of individuals regardless of irrelevant attributes?
Re: Need vs Politics (Score:3)
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Discrimination against white males is no more "tolerant" than discrimination against any other race or gender.
Discrimination is discrimination, no matter what group it is against. Just because it's socially acceptable to discriminate against white men doesn't make it right.
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct. Unfortunately when companies make it white males vs everyone else, everyone loses.
Companies need to stop discrimination, not shift the target of it. Companies shouldn't even keep track of race or gender of their employees, there is no legitimate reason to keep that information, and it is only ever useful for discriminatory practices.
Re:Need vs Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies shouldn't even keep track of race or gender of their employees, there is no legitimate reason to keep that information, and it is only ever useful for discriminatory practices.
FWIW, in the USA, most large companies are *required* by the government to collect information about the race and gender of their employee by the EEOC [eeoc.gov].
Of course they aren't required to *keep* or *use* the information, but when would a post-modern company in the social media age not keep data that it is actually required to collect? If a company takes advantage of their customers that way, why would they treat their employees with more respect?
Re: (Score:3)
Companies shouldn't even keep track of race or gender of their employees, there is no legitimate reason to keep that information, and it is only ever useful for discriminatory practices.
It's important if you want to make sure there aren't any racial/gender hiring trends occurring below you. If a particular demographic suddenly started joining or departing your company it might indicate the hiring/management should be audited.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are whites being discriminated against, other than in conspiracy theories?
By "progressives" all over the fucking place.
For example:
Stacey Evans gets shouted down at Netroots conference [ajc.com]
Democrat Stacey Evans’ speech to a conference of progressive activists descended into chaos on Saturday, as protesters interrupted her repeatedly and she struggled to make herself heard over chants of “support black women.”
Evans, a Smyrna state legislator who is white, expected a tough audience at the Netroots Nation event, where her rival Stacey Abrams was treated like royalty. But she said she at least expected to be able to make it through her remarks.
That didn’t happen.
Almost as soon as she took the stage, a ring of demonstrators – some holding stark signs criticizing her – fanned out in front of Evans. The chanting soon followed. Pleading repeatedly for the room to speaks – “let’s talk through it,” she implored – the demonstrators at times drowned her out.
One of the demonstrators, Monica Simpson, said she made her stand because she wanted to show she was “true to progressive values.”
Asked why Evans hasn’t met that standard, Simpson couldn’t point to any votes or policy stances. But she said she wants “a candidate that truly speaks to my community.” [the blatant racist...]
“This is our opportunity, especially as black women, to make it known or clear that this is standing on true progressive values,” said Simpson, who lives in Atlanta. “And if you’re not, we’re going to make that clear.”
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Need vs Politics (Score:4, Funny)
Goddamn right, but I don't start collecting my pension for a while yet. And I might not even need the pension if my investment in TrumpCoin pays off.
Well, Jack is kind of an asshole, but I will concede your point.
As a white man... (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta say, I get treated pretty nicely. When I was a twenty-something I was really resentful because I couldn't figure out how to get dates. I want to believe that there is more to this kerfuffle than that, but I really just don't get it. Why are my youthful brethren so discontent?
Re:As a white man... (Score:5, Insightful)
You get treated nicely. Given your Slashdot user number, it's highly likely you've been here for almost 2 decades. That would mean you've figured out the corporate game and how to keep your mouth shut. You may have already been promoted and given generous raises.
Young men getting shoved to the back of the class or young men getting passed over for promotions or not getting accepted to college because they are white and male is a different thing than you've experienced. But - they are not a protected class. Are we creating a disenchanted class of young white men without prospects? Maybe not yet, but when you have a cadre of young men without jobs, passed over for promotions and educational opportunities, they will find other ways to spend their time. Witness Charlottesburg. Lot of people apparently with plenty of time on their hands to create havoc and now murder.
It may sound like grievance mongering, and you may not buy the thesis, but lots of young people with nothing to do equals time wasted spent on other things that are not productive to society. That goes for all races, genders, etc.
Re:As a white man... (Score:4, Insightful)
That advice applies to everyone, not just white males.
You get dates with good jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You get dates with good jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
The kind that have vanished.
Bah. My son-in-law, who is a high-school dropout, not even a GED, is working as an HVAC installer for $16 per hour. He's going to do a certification course (at employer expense, and paid), and then he'll jump up to $35 per hour. My son (HS diploma) passed up a full-time job at $18 per hour doing composites fabrication to take a $10 per hour part time job at Target because he decided he needs to get his degree (wise decision) and Target will work around his school schedule. He doesn't need the money that much, though because his wife (HS diploma) is making $40K per year doing office admin work for a company that owns billboards. My other son (HS diploma) similarly passed on a decent full-time job doing cabinetry work because he wants to get his degree, so he's flipping burgers instead for $9 per hour (he lives at home). My nephew, who has nothing but a high school diploma and is somewhat slow (IQ 80 or so), is making $15 per hour working for the city maintenance crew, driving trucks and whatnot.
And then there are all of the young people I know who do have degrees. None of them are making less than $60K, except one who chose to be a public schoolteacher, but teachers have always been poorly paid, and he went into it with his eyes open. His wife is an FBI agent, currently GS-10, so they're okay.
Maybe I just live in the right area and you live in the wrong one, but around here employers -- at every level -- are begging for employees, and they're paying accordingly. And we have a moderate to low cost of living.
The biggest problem I see right now is that too many young people around me are being enticed away from school by good-paying (from their perspective) jobs. Four years of school could nearly double their income in the short term, and in the long term it will do better than that. I've got my sons convinced to take the short-term hit for the long-term reward (financial and more). I've had less success with my daughter and her husband, but there are some complications in their case.
Re: (Score:3)
Some of these wages you describe may be livable when you're young, but the wage growth is very slow in some of the jobs that you mention.
All of them top out at around $70K, sure, but that's actually a very livable income in my area. It's even possible to raise a family on a single income at that level. If both parents work it's quite easy to achieve a joint income of >$100K, which is reasonably comfortable.
Education -- which can be obtained without debt, the way I did it, my wife did it and my sons are doing it -- increases the earning potential substantially, of course. But tradesmen do okay.
Re:You get dates with good jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
They sort of exist. The problem is if you let them learn to speak english they turn into Americans and are quickly ruined.
Re: (Score:3)
Aren't men supposed to be giving up on marriage?
Seems like what they want isn't just a wife, it's a particular kind of wife that was something of a myth even in the 50s.
Interesting. I thought it was the women who were giving up on marriage because they didn't want just a husband, but a particular kind of husband that probably never really existed...
In the past that whole marriage thing was a social construct that you got in place before you left your nest. Today, people are waiting until the have some sort of semblance of a career and/or stability before looking. That not only gives people time to get picky, but makes it a bit more difficult to meet a suitable variety of
Re: You get dates with good jobs (Score:3)
There are places in the world that still have a happy, healthy, non-dysfunctional culture. Particularly in Asia. The culture of the small Communist country where I currently live reminds me in many ways of 1950s America (as depicted by Hollywood).
If you're tired of "Progressive" police state America, consider moving abroad. It's not necessarily easy but it's totally worth it. YMMV, past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
PS: Be sure to avoid Thailand - especially Bangkok, that great whoring sewer
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the white 20 year old males are being blamed for everything.
Did you ever feel in YOUR twenties that you were being blamed for society? Were YOU ever being told to "check your privilege" simply because you were a white male? That, somehow, it was YOUR fault and YOU should feel ashamed due to an accident of your birth?
They're discontent because of the "SJW" -- VERY left wing, very liberal, people wanting to make a mark on the world and, instead of voting, are taking more direct action. Unfortunatel
Re:As a white man... (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to think that this is a new phenomenon... that the idea that we should treat women and minorities decently is somehow just coming up... or the idea that equal representation might be an important thing for minorities, or that you shouldn't sexually harass co-workers....
All this stuff was around in the 90s, most of it came into being in the 80s. You might believe you are the first generation to be held to a higher standard, but thats simply not true.
Re:As a white man... (Score:5, Insightful)
You ignored his questions and remade the argument to make him look anti-egalitarian. Here it is again:
Did you ever feel in YOUR twenties that you were being blamed for society? Were YOU ever being told to "check your privilege" simply because you were a white male? That, somehow, it was YOUR fault and YOU should feel ashamed due to an accident of your birth?
These things were not in the '90's. In '85 nobody said "check your privilege". Nobody called a computer club in '99 bigoted cisgender neo-nazis because the only people that showed up were socially ostracized teenage boys. Society has radically changed in the last ten years let alone twenty.
Re:As a white man... (Score:5, Insightful)
All this stuff was around in the 90s, most of it came into being in the 80s. You might believe you are the first generation to be held to a higher standard, but thats simply not true.
My generation was held to a higher standard. We were taught to treat everybody equally.
Sadly that's no longer the case. Mainstream media is rampant with anti-white and anti-male writing, and at its most hysterical when the two intersect.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, I felt that I was to blame for most things. Rape, my fault. Racism, my fault. It sucked. My response was to work for social justice, not to get angry. I could see sexism in action all around me. I could see racism in action all around me. I had no illusions that they were problems, so I had no problem with trying to do something about it, even though I wasn't the one who caused it. I was probably 25 before I referred to myself as a man, because being a man was supposed to be bad.
I get wh
Re:As a white man... (Score:5, Insightful)
To some degree the culture wars are a struggle between groups striving to reduce the other group to a bit player in their personal dramas. When you're young, you think the frustrations of your group are unique -- which in a way they are.
When you're a female engineer, you face patronization, and an entrenched belief that no women can't be good at what you do. And that sucks. Yet it makes my skin crawl to see a wealthy middle class woman lecture a poor working class man about his "privilege". It's not that she's wrong; being male, particularly white male, confers certain privileges. But not only does it completely ignore the privileges of class that he does not enjoy, it's reducing all that individual's unique life experiences to a scheme.
The bottom line is people don't have enough compassion for each other. And that's because they treat compassion as a resource; if I spare compassion for *that* group, I won't have enough left over for *my* group.
Compassion is not a resource, it is a habit of mind. What's more it's an essential tool in the the human cognitive framework; the way we enter another's skin and come to understand him or her as an individual. All these pointless arguments, you will note, take place in terms of archetypes (e.g. the average woman or man).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I gotta say, I get treated pretty nicely. When I was a twenty-something I was really resentful because I couldn't figure out how to get dates. I want to believe that there is more to this kerfuffle than that, but I really just don't get it. Why are my youthful brethren so discontent?
I am a white man, early forties. Every celebration of diversity I have seen during nearly 20 years as a professional has been to the detriment of whites in general (and white men specifically). Diversity means giving preferences to women, LGBT, or racial minorities. It means I have to be twice as qualified in order to compete against individuals in the desired minorities. I have been passed over for raises two years in a row while all minorities in my company got significant pay increases.
False representation/slander? (Score:5, Insightful)
The memo not only does NOT make the claim that women are less suited to tech roles and leadership roles, it makes the counter claim, that men have designed those roles to make them less friendly to women and that by altering those roles we can improve diversity and decrease the gender gap.
But I've yet to see a single neoliberal source treat the memo honestly, every neoliberal source I've seen treats Damore radically different than his behavior reflects. I don't agree with everything he says, but to claim he is against diversity is straight slander here.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The memo not only does NOT make the claim that women are less suited to tech roles and leadership roles, it makes the counter claim, that men have designed those roles to make them less friendly to women and that by altering those roles we can improve diversity and decrease the gender gap.
But I've yet to see a single neoliberal source treat the memo honestly, every neoliberal source I've seen treats Damore radically different than his behavior reflects. I don't agree with everything he says, but to claim he is against diversity is straight slander here.
He says hiring standards had been lowered for diversity.
Maybe he should have hiring standards had been changed, or hiring standards had been altered to accommodate but he said LOWERED.
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they have been lowered.. he didn't sugar coat the truth.
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:5, Insightful)
He says hiring standards had been lowered for diversity.
FWIW, I work for Google and interview software engineering candidates. I have never, ever been told to go easier on diversity candidates, or indeed anything other than to apply the same rigorous standard to all. My colleagues on the hiring committees (who make hire/no-hire decisions) say the same, and I see no evidence of bias in which people I've interviewed got offers... maybe half of the good ones got offers, none of the borderline or below got offers, and I see no gender or racial correlations at all.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's fairly well known that Google lowered their standards for women to meet quotas. That must really suck if you're a top-notch woman working there, since there will always be that suspicion. What he wants is to change the job description such that you don't have to lower the standard, and yet engineers will be just as productive for Google. Sounds worthwhile to me, if you can pull it off.
We all know engineering is a fairly collaborative process. When I interviewed at Google it was all "design this, co
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:5, Informative)
He says hiring standards had been lowered for diversity.
True. But he doesn't say that is because women are inherently less capable, but inherently less interested, so the standards have to be lowered because the female candidate pool is shallower.
Disclaimer: I am just trying to clarify what James wrote. I am not agreeing with it. I like working with chicks.
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:4, Insightful)
I just don't see any other way to accomplish this without lowering the bar. Say you ran a company and only wanted to hire people who are left handed (about 10% of the population, but as an interesting aside it is estimated that men are more likely to be left-handed than women [nih.gov] for whatever reason) and that for the job you are hiring people, dominant hand plays no role in actual performance (so we're not hiring for a baseball team). How could you not reduce hiring standards if you're actively ignoring some 90% (this assumes left and right-handed people are equally likely to apply for the job) of the labor pool for artificial reasons?
I think some people just want to jump on this argument or line of thinking because it goes against their ideas of increasing diversity, but if you stop and think about it, it also supports diversity outcomes. If you were only hiring right-handed people it also means that your company is ignoring qualified individuals in the labor pool for the same reason. Sure in this particular case, it's a smaller part of the pool so you might not have to lower standards as much, but anyone who is discriminating against any minority group is actively hurting themselves by ignoring skilled workers. Interestingly, the same is true for other aspects of the memo. If women are more likely to have some attribute (whether physical or personality) than men and having a diversity across that attribute is valuable or improves outcomes in some way, then not hiring women makes it more difficult to have employees with that attribute.
But back to the central point, please let me know if there's some obvious approach by which you can discriminate in favor of some category of employees in excess of their representation in the labor pool without lowering standards or paying a higher wage, because I can't think of one. If you really want to see more people of category X in some job you'll need to address the number of people in the labor pool (which is probably a tangled mess of all manner of underlying factors both biological and social and not always easily solved) otherwise attempting to hire people disproportionately is just a bad move, much like trying to put the roof up before erecting any of the walls or laying the foundation.
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:5, Informative)
Except it was supported by his sources.
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of the universities that have higher admission standards for Asians, and lower standards for blacks and hispanics. Do the presidents of those universities think blacks and hispanics are biologically less suited than Asians for university work?
Yes, they do.
Or, at least the affirmative-action policies behind it assume it as fact.
"Affirmative Action" is legally-codified blatant racism & bigotry put in place by corrupt politicians with no respect for civil rights or the Constitution in order to placate and garner support from a vocal voting bloc.
Strat
Re: (Score:2)
Far more natural diversity before "social justice" (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been in the computing industry for decades now. Despite the recent rise of so-called "social justice", things are worse now than they've ever been.
I've worked alongside many women since the 1970s. I've worked alongside open homosexuals, and even some transgendered people, since the 1980s. I've worked with people having every imaginable shade of skin color over the years. And you know what? We all got along fine. We accomplished some great technological achievements. We didn't spend all day fixated on t
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that the bigger issue is that, generally, women are not as interested in tech jobs as guys are.
Women are 100% as capable as men in tech fields -- when they choose those fields. I have known some great women engineers.
However, women only make up approximately 20% of I.T. related degrees earned.
Re: (Score:3)
I think that the bigger issue is that, generally, women are not as interested in tech jobs as guys are.
Is it not as interested or that our society (still) actively discourages women - and especially, school age girls - from tech jobs?
As I have mentioned before, my girlfriend was discouraged by her teachers (both female and male), and even a few of her college professors. Our daughter experienced similar discouragement in K-12 schools, though has not from any of her college professors.
Re:False representation/slander? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. I have kids, so I have seen the differences between males and females. There are structural differences, including differences in the corups collosum (part of the brain). Perhaps such changes just mean that boys and girls find different sorts of things interesting.
I have four daughters. If one of them wanted to enter the tech field, I would support them 100%. However, I am not going to try to force them to enter the field just just because somebody thinks that we need more women coders and sysadmins. I will let them decide what interests them.
The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness (Score:3)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14... [nber.org]
"By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women's declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have er
Re: (Score:3)
What his memo failed to account for is that many people react to these issues more emotionally than rationally. As such, presenting your arguments in what you believe to be a purely factual manner in this debate is a fool's errand. It's a bit ironic, because he failed to realize the implications of the very facts that he was presenting as a rationale for his conclusions: that this means you can't expect pure rationality to win the argument among those you're trying to sway. As such, pointing all this out
Re: (Score:3)
A search for "msnbc google manifesto" came up with this as the first search, [nbcnews.com], which says, "[Damore] claims to explain why more women aren't in engineering positions, chalking up the disparity to "biological" difference
I'm White/Irsh and I'm discontent (Score:2)
But I don't blame any other ethnic group, just politicians.
Irish slurs [rsdb.org]
PLoS weighs in (Score:3, Interesting)
The “Google Manifesto”: Bad Biology, Ignorance of Evolutionary Processes, and Privilege [plos.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It is just that [women] are less likely to make that choice [to become programmers].
And that's fine, if that's what they want. We should make sure that there isn't bias against women, and if there is, we should root it out. But on the other hand, we shouldn't force women to become programmers, either.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm interested in scientific studies that refute or at least clarify specific claims, in regards to neurobiology.
However that article is full of links to books (see below) and makes the claim that because only testosterone is mentioned, it's the only biological factor that has deterministic merit. The structural and functional differences found between male and female brains, seems to be something Dr. Fuentes is unaware of? This is a questionable source, when cherry picking for a (nearly) unsubstantiated na
Re: (Score:3)
If you down-mod someone just because it doesn't agree with your point of
Fix (Score:5, Funny)
Pretend you're gay. You'll gets lots of kudos and become part of a protected class.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Why pretend? Don't half-ass it. Go all in and really enjoy getting fucked at work.
Again??? (Score:5, Insightful)
>> claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers.
Come on, He didn't make such a claim. He said biology may play a part in women's preferences in choosing to go into the field.
Re: (Score:2)
But that would be contrary to the obvious truth that women are discriminated and only do not go into IT because of that. We cannot have that.
Also, facts? Haw dare you bring facts into the discussion?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I hear Slashdot is going to have Unicode support pretty soon.
I know a Mexican (Score:3, Insightful)
/. lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot, that's not what the memo said.
You can agree with the memo or you can't, but at least get the f$#@ing facts straight.
Re:/. lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like people who know they're wrong will never dare confirm the facts.
Re: (Score:2)
White discontent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. Now imagine we called black people being discriminated against "black discontent."
Slashdot, your bias is leaking.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow. Now imagine we called black people being discriminated against "black discontent."
Google search for "black discontent [google.com]", about 11,400 results.
Google search for "white discontent [google.com]", about 1,530 results.
So about 7.5x more "black discontent" than "white discontent".
Here [google.com] is a graph of the frequency of the two over a 208-year span, from 1800 to 2008.
Re: (Score:2)
There's so much that can be gleaned from:
1 - Your choice of words. Not the message, but your actual choice of words.
2 - Your projection.
3 - Your use of anonymity.
Fake Summary (Score:2, Informative)
The memo stated that women on average have more **INTEREST** towards people and a cooperative environment and that might detract possibly good candidates.
He also suggested to focus more on peer programming and focus on making the environment less cutthroat and more welcoming to everybody.
Fuck off with your lies msmash (Score:5, Insightful)
with an internal memo criticizing the company's diversity efforts and claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers.
At no point in the memo was this ever stated.
I'm fucking tired of disingenuous assholes trying to spin something that says one thing, into something else to further their agenda.
That's not what the memo said (Score:5, Insightful)
Disagree with the memo all you like, but at least have the integrity to argue against the points it raised instead of making up some bullshit that it didn't say.
Stop lying about what the memo said! (Score:5, Informative)
"an internal memo... claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers."
Goddamnit, have you people no shame whatsoever? THE MEMO DOES NOT SAY THIS. Why do you keep on repeating this lie?
WRONG! and WRONG! ... Stop lying already. (Score:5, Insightful)
1.) He did _NOT_ criticize Googles diversity efforts per se. In fact, he applauded them. He did however express concerns that the way they are executes isn't effective and/or counter-productive to the cause and provided educated conclusions for this presumption.
2.) He did _NOT_ claim that women are biologically less suited for tech jobs. He used solid state-of-the-art scientific research results to find explanations why women might not be interested in taking tech jobs other that the standard arguably totally insuifficient "OGM! WTF! WHITE MALE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN!" narrative/explanation.
Please quit the lying/irresponsible spreading of falsehoods and inform yourself.
Just be an educated slashdotter and question the official group-think narrative. Thank you.
Here's to help you out:
Jordan Peterson interview with James Demore [youtube.com] (citations linked in the description of the video)
The actual paper/memo that James Demore wrote [google.com]
You're welcome.
claiming women are biologically less suited (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Women in power are quite often downright evil.
Just be glad that never happens with men.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Is it really that difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
And better yet, treat them exactly the same as you would treat women or minorities. That means no discriminating against people based on gender or race (as is alleged by the "discontent white males")
Re: (Score:2)
Who would have thought...
Re:Is it really that difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well here's the thing, if you treat everyone equally then you end up with a majority of white males in various roles such as tech.
Different people are interested in different things, and different cultures have different biases. Girls in school for instance are usually not interested in technology, and their peers will shun the few that are.
People are different, they have different interests, different upbringing, different aspirations. Trying to artificially distort the proportion of different groups in the workplace is stupid. If people were interested in doing a particular job they would have studied for it, learned about it and applied for positions.
In all my years working in tech, the vast majority of job applicants who have applied for jobs i've been responsible for have been white or asian males.
If you want women and other minorities to do tech roles, then look at schools and culture. If people are interested in these fields at an early age, and not discouraged (or bullied) away from them by their peers in school, then they will pursue careers in the subjects that most interest them.
Trying to force "diversity quotas" and other stupid shit is simply a form of discrimination against the presently dominant groups, and will result in an overall lower standard of employee. As minorities account for far fewer applicants, you will need to apply far lower standards in order to ensure the same number of successful applicants vs the larger majority group.
There are also many professions which are typically not taken by white males, nursing for instance - are any steps being taken to increase the number of white males working as nurses?
If 99 women and 1 man apply for 5 nursing positions, how does the hospital satisfy a diversity quota saying that 50% of nurses should be male?
What if the diversity quota is 20%, but the one man applying has no qualifications or experience and yet 30 of the women are highly qualified and experienced?
Re:"Discontent" (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't worry, discrimination against white males is socially acceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
You did go through a phase a couple months back where you called people "fags" and "ladyboys."
My Python scraper script only found two references to "fags": one was a reference to cigarettes [slashdot.org] and the other was the exact comment [slashdot.org] quoted above. As for ladyboys, what does this have to do with your mother?
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't the first time you mention your particular fascination.
I work with ex-military from the Vietnam era. Bangcock comes up a lot in discussions.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think he can. Have you seen that bag of lard that starts from his chin, goes under his armpits and goes back up behind his neck?
I can reach every part of my body. Think football player, not your mama.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Minorities certainly face much more difficulty than I do in my industry, as do women. I have absolutely seen people of high skill underpaid because of gender or race, or discounted in hiring by managers. I can certainly understand why minorities and women struggle at times in the tech industry, it is in many ways, set against them.
But other white men? That I have a much harder time swallowing. I have worked at companies owned and run by women and I have never once seen a white man passed up for a positi
Re: (Score:3)
When I hear a white man complaining that he can't get ahead in his career due because of affirmative action then all the evidence I have in my life tells me that that man probably isn't as good at his job as he thinks.
In the UK it's legal to hire a woman instead of a man if they're both equally capable on the basis that she's female. The inverse is not true.
You really think that would be enshrined in law if it never happened? Really?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a white male... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, in the UK it's legal to hire a woman ahead of a man. To hire someone that's BME ("black or minority ethnic", a phrase in use in the UK) instead of someone that's white.
Then there's the funding available for things like university grants.
Plus there's the fact that women can retire with a state pension at a younger age than men.
Perhaps you weren't aware that poor white boys have the lowest educational outcomes in the country right now?
I'll close on the constant attacks in the media. Some are subtle, some are downright nasty, and many tacitly support anti-white and/or anti-male writings on less formal channels.
Being blamed for all the woes in the world, getting no credit for individual achievement because of "privilege", seeing laws passed that discriminate against your gender and/or race? Yeah, I wonder how white men think they are being oppressed in this society.
Re: (Score:3)
What you've said is that if a more qualified woman or black person applies for the job, an employer is in no way obligated to accept a while, male candidate.
No, that's not what I said. Oh, and here's a reference for hiring women purely on the grounds of their gender:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
Here's one where the BBC are defending and claiming legality for offering paid work to people that must be non-white:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ente... [bbc.co.uk]
OTOH, there is no law stating a less qualified candidate who is not white or male must be accepted. You're pretty much trying to do what Damore did in his memo, insinuate a conclusion and lie by omission.
No, I'm just better informed than you and able to back up my statements with references. You merely throw around insults.
White males are not discriminated against in any way
Except the ways I mentioned in my original post, none of which you've been able to disprove.
Not even the Guardian tries to say that white men are evil, that shit is entirely the DM's area.
No one is attacking you for being white or male
Well,