Diversity At Google Hasn't Changed Much Over the Last Year (cnet.com) 439
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Not much changed at Google over the last year when it came to the diversity of the tech giant's workforce. Google released its annual diversity report on Thursday detailing the composition of its workforce. The percentage of female employees rose by .1 percent to 30.9 percent. The percentage of Asian employees grew by 1.6 percent to 36.3 percent. The number of black and Latino employees grew by .1 percent to 2.5 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively.
"Google's workforce data demonstrates that if we want a better outcome, we need to evolve our approach," said Danielle Brown, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Google, in the report. "That's why from now on ownership for diversity and inclusion will be shared between Google's leadership team, People Operations and Googlers. Our strategy doesn't provide all the answers, but we believe it will help us find them."
"Google's workforce data demonstrates that if we want a better outcome, we need to evolve our approach," said Danielle Brown, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Google, in the report. "That's why from now on ownership for diversity and inclusion will be shared between Google's leadership team, People Operations and Googlers. Our strategy doesn't provide all the answers, but we believe it will help us find them."
Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the purpose of this article supposed to be?
Re: Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not so much about feminism, it's social justice, and I'm not using that term pejoratively here or anywhere in this post, and I'm being sincere about this. The complaint about Google is that they aren't meeting enough diversity quotas that social justice warriors say they should. For example, they don't have enough black engineers. This used to annoy me, and normally I'd say what's wrong with merit based hiring? But no more. Google is obviously trying to push social justice with the way they delete and demonetize YouTube videos that have otherwise benign content, including two transexuals that committed the crime of not being left leaning, and two black ladies that were guilty of the same crime. That, and the way Google instills a culture of fear against employees don't de-diversify and join the echo chamber. I think it's time Google ate its own shit.
Silicon Valley is progressive, and California is as well, right? So why doesn't progressive California together, with progressive San Francisco (and its surrounding progressive cities) force progressive Google to start hiring on more diverse talent? Would it not be the progressive thing to do? I'm being serious here. Would that not promote social justice? In fact, why not force them to replace their Chief Diversity Officer with a notable civil rights leader? Obviously their existing CDO isn't doing her job. Really, how can it be argued that she is? Google's diversity numbers are even worse now than they were last year.
Google is mostly white males, which means it is in need of a re-balancing. Not enough black people? Fire enough white guys to make room. Don't worry, they're progressive, they'll understand that this is for the better good, because they also support equality. Not enough latino guys? Fire more white guys. Not enough native americans? Pacific islanders? You know what to do. Asians are over-represented? Don't worry about it, they're minorities, just don't hire any more until their numbers go down to meet the ratio. When dismissing white guys, make sure that the cisexual ones are the first to go. Once the ratios are representative of the population, you can hire white hetereosexual males again, just make sure the ratios remain intact. Again, they're progressives, in progressive California. They'll understand. The progressives know that white males got there from white privilege, and all of this is necessary. Having removed enough white males, this should help balance out the male to female ratio. If not, begin dismissing the minorities of most privilege, i.e. homosexual white males. Don't worry though as it won't come to that, the white population makes up quite a big percentage of the overall population.
I'm being serious about that. I'm a white male and I honestly couldn't care less. Do this with facebook too. Facebook and Google, more than all, should be the first movers, and fine them hard if they don't do this. So be honest, whom among the social justice warriors (again, not being pejorative here) and progressives would not want this? It sets out to accomplish one of your biggest goals. If not, why not?
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Re: Who Cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously their existing CDO isn't doing her job
He / she is a diversity hire. To fire him / her and appoint a more efficient one would go against the whole existence of this particular office in the first place.
Re: Who Cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
You jest, but this is exactly what happened last year. [nypost.com]
Apple's Diversity Chief was forced out after committing heresy. She said that a room of twelve white men could be diverse, because they could all come from different backgrounds and experiences. She was forced to apologize for this heinously offensive statement, and step down, and she was replaced by a white woman.
This makes it stunningly clear that what currently passes for social justice advocacy is really more about rigidly enforcing dogma than it is about helping people.
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I am cool with this as long as it applies to all jobs, not just "some" jobs. Let's make sure the ratios are the same for plumbers, kindergarten teachers, etc.
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Hillary you're drunk, go home.
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You do understand that all (most) these Manafort things they are looking at are from before he was associated with Trump in any way? And more to the point, he was working for the Podesta Group at the time...
Should Trump have done better homework before he hired him? Probably, but that's about all you can put on Trump in any way for that.
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Re: Don't worry Trump traitor, Mueller has plenty (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's feelings of diversity are just like that of California universities:
Multiple skin colors, all 51 genders,* and all 187 sexual orientations.**
* Diversity of opinion is not permitted.
** Cisexual cismales with white skin must choose one of the other 50 genders and/or one of the 186 other sexualities. Your skin color will be decided by your diversity officer fairly using diversity standard skin tone swatches.
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Re:When Trump dies in prison, you'll know bitch lo (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell us how you REALLY feel.
Seriously, you're going to let something as temporal as the POTUS drive you THIS fucking bug-nuts?
Do you ENJOY flagellating yourself this much?
You don't like him, you don't like his supporters.
FINE.
He's gone in 4 years IF YOU ACT LIKE SANE PEOPLE.
He's gone in 8 if you continue acting this way (and then gets replaced by someone just like him).
Don't you see how this sort of crazed, bitchy, vindictive behavior is simply pushing people in the near left and center ever further right, even as you and your compatriots dash ever further left?
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Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The story is that white employment at google fell over 8 percent in only 4 years!
I agree, that is amazing. To do that they'd have to do some serious "diversity" hiring. I assume that Google will be reluctant to fire productive workers, that is unless they expose their racism in a document that was leaked outside the company. Therefore the shift in demographics must come from natural attrition (people die, take different jobs, retire, etc.) and new hires. Unless a company is growing rapidly, and there's a pool of untapped "diversity" to draw from, they can shift only so fast.
I suspect that this pool of diverse employees must be very thin because graduates in fields like computer science is still dominated by white Christian males. There's a 2 to 1, or perhaps as high as 4 to 1, ratio of men to women graduating in these majors, depending on who you ask. I found out that women owned small businesses can get preferential treatment in Illinois. Unless your business is located where this kind of preferential treatment exists then your pool of hires will be less diverse.
That brings a saying I heard to mind, diversity is such a great idea that it takes the force of government to create.
Good job, Google! You are now well on the way to "diversify" yourself into oblivion. Keep this up and in maybe 4 or 8 more years you'll be begging for your "diversity" to move to Illinois where the government can pay for their reduced output at increased wages.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where the fuck do you get "Christian" from? White male, yes (in the US and Europe), but the vast majority of computer scientists I've met are atheist—particularly the white, male ones. Obviously the field attracts people who tend to be very analytical and rational. Of course you get the occasional religious freak, but it's rare.
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I tend to think that if they were christian, then instead of Linux we'd have Temple OS.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Where the fuck do you get "Christian" from? White male, yes (in the US and Europe), but the vast majority of computer scientists I've met are atheist—particularly the white, male ones. Obviously the field attracts people who tend to be very analytical and rational. Of course you get the occasional religious freak, but it's rare.
Maybe your social circle is limited, or maybe you aren't widely read.
Books in Print by Donald E. Knuth [stanford.edu]
- 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated [stanford.edu]
- Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About [stanford.edu]
Bacon, Bayes, Euler, Galileo, Leibniz, Maxwell, Newton, Pascal, Riemann . . . I could go on. I doubt you will illuminate STEM in the way they did, and they believed in God. It seems atheism is not a requirement for rational thinking, let along science and mathematics. That is a conceit that seems to be popular on Slashdot, but there is little to it.
List of Christians in science and technology [wikipedia.org]
I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:5, Insightful)
I want Google to be as 'diverse' as possible. That's because I'd personally like to see them fail as a business, because in my opinion they aren't good for the Internet, and for the software industry in general. And if there's one guaranteed way to make a company irrelevant, and eventually a total failure, it's to hire based on 'diversity' instead of skill and merit.
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:5, Insightful)
Interview with a manager that saw his company die from diversity hiring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Scott Adams, the same guy that writes Dilbert, has a similar story. Scott Adams was driven to writing comics because he saw his career hit a dead end from diversity hiring policies where he worked. Ignoring the inherent unequal distributions of qualities among different genetic populations is dangerous. Reality always wins out.
Consider this... If women did the same work as men but for 75% of the wages then a company consisting completely of women would beat all the rest. I have seen small companies run entirely by women but they've been veterinary clinics, medical clinics, and schools, but that's because women naturally gravitate to occupations where a strong nurturing personality is beneficial.
Here's another thing, women don't really want equal distribution in all occupations. Women make up a small portion of prisoners. Should we lock up women to make up for that? Women make up a small portion of the people that die in war, should we send more women out to fight and die? There's a small ratio of women that dig ditches, clean out sewers, climb power transmission towers, hang siding and shingles, pour concrete, pick up trash, stack bricks, and on and on. We shouldn't have women doing these occupations just to keep things "fair". Just as we shouldn't demand more women engineers to keep things "fair". What's "fair" is allowing people to get the jobs they are suited to by personality and merit. When we do that we have many males in engineering and many females in medicine.
We can have a meritocracy and prosperity or we can artificially enforce "diversity" and see civilization fall apart. Google will have to learn this one way or the other.
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:5, Interesting)
Well said. Wish i had mod points today.
Diversity shouldn't be a metric that matters in 95% of occupations. The ability to do the job you are hired to do is all that matters.
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:5, Insightful)
If women did the same work as men but for 75% of the wages then a company consisting completely of women would beat all the rest. I have seen small companies run entirely by women but they've been veterinary clinics, medical clinics, and schools, but that's because women naturally gravitate to occupations where a strong nurturing personality is beneficial.
Comments like this sort of stick in my craw.
I don't disagree that the idea that a company should hire a woman for every man hired in order to have some magic 50-50 ratio is ridiculous.
The question is whether or not a company is not hiring a woman for a position she could do because she's a woman.
There are plenty of examples of companies calling in John for an interview and not calling in Susan (or Enrique or Javon) even though they have duplicate resumes. And, to me, it's worthwhile to make certain that this isn't happening. "Oh, this is all low-level device driver stuff. Not something a woman would be good at, so I won't waste my time. Women developers are better at UI because women have an 'eye' for that sort of thing..."
That's the part that sticks in my craw: "Oh, women/men are better at..."
Heck, there are plenty of cases where courts have assigned child custody to women because, "women are more nurturing." Then they discover that Mom's a coke addict and the kids live in squalor. But, hey, that's better than living with Dad (y'know, the guy who left her because she was a coke addict).
Now the common response is, "Okay, but for the most part, women/men are better at..."
That may be true or it may not be. But you're potentially discounting a fantastic candidate because "most women wouldn't be good at that..." But what about the one who is?
I always hear people bringing up the paucity of male elementary school teachers. And they're right--imagine if you wanted to teach in elementary school but you couldn't even get an interview because you were male? And the reason is that, "most women are better with young children than men are." That's wrong--and I agree with that wholeheartedly. So why should it be different for women wanting to be developers?
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:4, Informative)
That may be true or it may not be. But you're potentially discounting a fantastic candidate because "most women wouldn't be good at that..." But what about the one who is?
If that's what you believe I wrote then you need to go back and read it again.
I'm merely recognizing that men tend to do better than women in software engineering and other STEM occupations. That means that if Google hires the best people for software engineering they won't get a 50/50 men/women ratio. The distribution will be more like 85/15 men/women. I get this ratio based on the ratio of men and women that graduate in computer science and related fields.
The question is whether or not a company is not hiring a woman for a position she could do because she's a woman.
What we see Google doing is passing over superior applicants for software engineering positions because that applicant is a man. We know this is happening because of documents leaked out from the company. Given that discriminating for jobs based on sex is illegal in the USA, and has been for years, Google should be sued into oblivion for this.
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I'll supply the standard responses for you. Women getting paid less is due to things like not valuing them, outright sexism or institutional issues. Since simply having a policy to pay them less is illegal, you don't see companies using that as a business model very often.
Prove it. Sue. Retire. Any lawyer would love to help. You can't because it does not exist.
Also, you picked the wrong statistic. That's the overall wage gap. You need the equal pay gap, so you can compare like-for-like.
Last year you were claiming the reverse, as if moving targets and framed arguments are the only way you can keep the lie afloat.
Obviously, only the deliberately obtuse are suggesting making things worse in order to "improve" equality. And of course, women do actually do a lot of unpleasant, demeaning and badly paid jobs too. It's a shame you waste so much energy containing about this misconception when you could be pushing for better conditions for men.
Ad hominem. Cant be an Ami post without poorly veiled hatred and harassment!
Then we wind up at the classic "if women get men's jobs civilisation will fall", a nostalgic echo back to the 1900s. Mustn't forget Scott Adams too, confirmed red piller and inventor of a foul tasting vegan microwave burrito.
Second and third course of ad hominem.
You have nothing to reason or convince with. You are powerless.
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I'll supply the standard responses for you. Women getting paid less is due to things like not valuing them, outright sexism or institutional issues. Since simply having a policy to pay them less is illegal, you don't see companies using that as a business model very often.
you missed a few reasons why women get paid less:
- Women value work life balance over additional salary
- Women value flexibility over additional salary
- Women value vacation days over additional salary
- Women value less job related travel over additional salary
- Women do not negotiate salary as often as men
What it comes down to? Women value predictability and stability over risk. Men will accept jobs that have inherently higher variability and risk in return for higher salary.
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the overall wage gap. You need the equal pay gap, so you can compare like-for-like.
Ok, let's go. First, menial tasks: recent Uber data (an extremely SJW company) had women choosing to work shorter hours, choosing less lucrative times of day, choosing less lucrative parts of the city, performing worse when on the same route at the same time of day. That's an unskilled task that requires reflexes. Uber's pay is calculated by a provably fair algorithm.
Then, skilled coding: biggest tech companies have currently extremely biased hiring, with about 25% workforce female. Yet that very same talent pool goes differently when you're not paid for your gender: top 1000 Linux kernel committers: 0.8% female, "key" package (as defined by testing migration) maintainers in Debian Stretch: 0.9%.
Women do have many upsides: much longer life, better ability to distinguish colours (both regular and mutated -- only women can be tetrachromats!), better sense of smell, better sociability. But none of those make you a better engineer. For that, you need more curiosity, higher intelligence, better work ethic (instead of putting kids first), etc.
For the causes, you need to look at hominids 200k years ago. When men were hunting a mammoth, women collected tubers with a kid in tow. Men were expendable, thus today they are still more willing to take risks, which lets them drive that Uber car a bit faster (and modern cars make safety good enough), visualize a 3d solid better, and so on. Women took safer jobs, and the qualities they then needed (ability to tell an edible root from a bad or poisonous one) are still there, except that there's very few jobs that pay well for that skill with colors or smells.
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For the causes, you need to look at hominids 200k years ago. When men were hunting a mammoth, women collected tubers with a kid in tow. Men were expendable, thus today they are still more willing to take risks
That's extremely speculative.
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Plenty of differences, for sure, but look at modern apes, and you'll see male aggression and risk taking, and female nurturing.
It makes sense from a biological evolutionary perspective. A female has to carry the baby to term, at a great personal investment, therefore the female is very selective in picking the right male to have sex with. This leads to a high risk/high reward situation for the males, competing for the same females.
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recent Uber data (an extremely SJW company)
I... What?!?
Uber, the company known for having an extremely toxic, sexist work environment and for trying to silence victims of sexual assault is "an extremely SJW company"?
I'm not even going to bother with the rest, it's so divorced from reality and carefully cherry picked. This being Slashdot, it will only get modded "troll" and "flamebait" anyway.
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I'm kind of at a loss to know what you think you even mean by "SJW" any more.
By "SJW", I mean believers in a recent extremely vile religion that preaches racial and gender discrimination, is thoroughly anti-scientific, sanctimonious and self-righteous. It also doesn't self-identify as religion to be able to exploit avenues of disseminating and legislating their rules that would be otherwise banned (kind of like L. Ron Hubbard exploited identifying as a religion).
Ah yes we hunted the mammoth.
It was hunting by humans that offed the species (that survived millions of years worth of ice age cycles, so habitat shif
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's what SJW (regressive) means:
The difference between progressive and regressive (SJW).
A progressive wants to improve life for all, usually with a focus based on class. A regressive wants to mainly focus on those ranked higher on the "regressive stack" (based on things like skin color and sexuality); if something is detrimental to someone lower on the regressive stack, but it benefits someone higher on the regressive stack, then it's okay ("the ends justifies the means").
A progressive tries their best to be "color blind" (as in, all people should be treated the same, everyone should have the same opportunities). A regressive believes that things like skin color and sexuality are more important than values or content of character.
A regressive will place those higher on the regressive stack on pedestals; you cannot joke or criticize these people, but you can joke, criticize, or wish death upon those lower on the regressive stack.
A regressive thinks in black-and-white terms with little nuance. You are either 100% with their cause, or you are 100% against. There is typically very little middle ground in their mind.
A progressive uses "privilege" to make people think about their position (i.e. "You (male/female) never have to think about which bathroom you have to go into. Other people would like to feel that way too."). A regressive uses "privilege" to shame and guilt, much like bad religious institutions (i.e. "Check your privilege!").
A regressive is fine with segregated spaces, but only for those higher on the regressive stack (such as black-only college dorms); anyone lower must 100% not have any space only for their group.
A progressive might respect culture but understands it can be fluid and not everyone celebrates all aspects of cultures the same (especially in melting pots such as the US). A regressive believes cultural appropriation is everywhere and that there is an inherent "cultural copyright" that only members of said culture can participate or allow others to participate in (while being uneducated about the origins of certain things, such as dreadlocks, or believing that only Mexicans can wear sombreros).
A progressive believes that even though people have done bad things in the past (or even present), blame is not to be put upon those that are part of those groups that did not take action in those things. A regressive believes in original sin (particularly for those lower on the regressive stack) and that blame and responsibility should be shared across generations and groups.
A progressive believes that, even if what one says is terrible and disgusting, people have the right to express their views. Bad ideas should be exposed so that they can be critiqued and shown why they are bad. A regressive believes that anything they deem bad should be suppressed at all costs; violence and censorship are perfectly fine to use ("no bad tactics, only bad targets").
A progressive seeks allies; the progressive and the ally may not agree on all things at all times, but will generally share a base set of values. The ally is an individual and is respected as such. A regressive seeks servants, under the guise of seeking allies; servants are not allowed to question anything the regressive says or does, and must always defer/be quiet/give up things or spaces to those higher on the progressive stack.
Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:4, Insightful)
If they aren't more skilled, why are diversity hiring practices divergent from meritocratic ones?
Re: I want Google to be very 'diverse' (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not work as a team?
You can't work as part of a team if you can't do the work.
Present a persuasive series of slides?
Presenting slides is fine and all, but what about the questions afterwards?
Be able to focus for six/twelve months on a mission critical project that doesn't show results until the end?
Again, being able to focus is not of any help if you can't do anything.
So, writing code is the Only thing Google wants people to do??
No, but writing code is central to what they do...
Either women can do the job or they can't. If a man can't do the job, they don't hire him and nobody says anything about it. Duh, you have to be able to do the job. If you can't do the job, then don't expect to be able to get the job.
What is the purpose of this effort? (Score:2)
Forget this article, ask yourself the question why some would even CARE if your skin color differs from that of your co-worker.
Go far enough left around the circle, and you eventually end up on the right.
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Re: Who Cares? (Score:4, Funny)
Why would you assume that only women wear dresses you sexist shitlord. I'll have you know I'm wearing a kilt right now.
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Googler here, staying anonymous for obvious reasons.
Honestly, there is a huge amount of care for this topic at the company from a certain very loud segment. There are also feminist groups circling the company with frivolous lawsuits. It's despicable, there is absolutely NO bias against non-white non-male candidates. We make every effort to recruit and retain people of any kind -- AS LONG AS THEY ARE ACTUALLY COMPETENT.
That last part is what these screeching harpies really care about. We can't MAKE people in
Re: Who Cares? (Score:3)
They want you to start hiring unqualified and incompetent candidates, obviously. They don't give a shit about your survival as a company; they only care about their ideology.
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Yep, I'd AC on this very reasonable posting, too, if I worked at Google and wanted to stay there. It's pretty much what Damore really said (no relationship to all the blatant out-and-out lies said about what he said) and they fired him for being sane.
What James said (Score:5, Insightful)
"Google's workforce data demonstrates that if we want a better outcome, we need to evolve our approach," said Danielle Brown, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Google
If you had listened to James Damore instead of doing the same illegal things over and over again, you might get a better result.
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I suspect that those "diversity officers" are there to hire their friends, rather than "diverse people in general".
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You want more 4 years of trump? no?
Then you will have to accept the fact that judging people by the color of their skin failed you miserably, and that there were enough white people in bad conditions to elect a fucking president.
Go back to judge people individually or be blind.
What is the goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is the goal? (Score:5, Funny)
Who works there?
Repeat: 'I identify as a black women, now give me a promotion and a big fat raise...'
Problem solved.
Problem is it's even worse than that (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the goal to have a 50% female workforce even though there's almost no chance of that happening
The goal is probably to have well above average female participation, as a kind of virtue signal.
What no-one seems to think about is that all of these large companies offering very high salary and bonuses for the small pool of potential technical female employees, what does that do for participation in smaller companies?
They simply have no way to complete for female employees, which means that females are inevitably poorly represented in smaller companies. That is really unfortunate because a smaller company is I think a generally nicer work environment for anyone, female or male... you simple have no room for the kind of nonsense that can get by at larger companies because everyone has to be productive and largely professional at a smaller company or they are gone.
If you have any kids just going to college about now you'd have to be insane too have them study anything but computers or some other engineering, they can do really, really well even just on internships over the summer (I have a friend with a daughter who just finished a CS degree and she had companies fighting for her like mad all through school).
She did sadly end up working for one of the large companies in part because of a huge bonus, that's what led me to mention that as a caution as I feel a little bit sad that will be her entry position in the technical world, when I think a smaller company would have suited her better.
Cheaper labor (Score:2)
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Is the goal to have a 50% female workforce even though there's almost no chance of that happening in terms of interest in the general population for the foreseeable future so they'll have to resort to lowering standards or upping hires for more diversity officers and other nontech positions basically defeating the supposed reason they're concerned?
Yes.
What happens if they overshoot the goal and men dip under 50%.
Nothing.
Are they just going to not care and ignore it like for how women now earn significantly
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shocking... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Shocking... (Score:4, Insightful)
Forgive me, but if Demore's essay really had such an effect, doesn't that prove him right?
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What do you mean? What aspect of the memo does it prove correct?
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All of Damore's errors I noticed were because he was a strongly biased leftist. You call him a Nazi? Ok -- he's that member of the Nazi party who dared to say "hey guys, why do we call the Jews an inferior race if they're easily testable as the very best group when it comes to intelligence? And why do we murder gypsies as "non-Aryans" if any anthropologist can tell you northern Indians are aryan but Germans are not? And why do we follow that mme Blavatsky drivel if we claim to be scientific?".
So he was
Re:Shocking... (Score:4, Insightful)
If they withdrew over that then good riddance.
Limited pool? I thought they made up 50% of the universe, which is the whole basis for claiming that if you employ less than 50% of them you're literally worse than Hitler.
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Limited pool? I thought they made up 50% of the universe, which is the whole basis for claiming that if you employ less than 50% of them you're literally worse than Hitler.
Oh dear, there you go using white male stuff like "logic" again ...
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Or maybe Damore screwed them this last year.
He screwed them by quitting? Oh wait, he was fired. So they actually screwed themselves. Well cry me a river (has the Californian drought ended already?).
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Well, it's because the GP should have used the correct term, HBCU [wikipedia.org]. But yes, if you know HBCU, you could guess what HBC meant.
Re:Shocking... (Score:5, Insightful)
The inertia of the insanely unfair and uncivilized treatment of blacks in USA is still underestimated.
That doesn't explain the historical trends. Before the civil rights era and during Jim Crow, most if not all measures of success for black people in the US were going up. Graduation rates, jobs, money, strong family, civic participation, etc. They were even trending better than whites in some regards. Something happened after the civil rights era and a victim culture took root in addition to the loss of family structure. A culture developed to resent white people, disregard strong family values, and be a victim that relies on the government handout.
You can't and shouldn't blame slavery for your lot in life. I think (god help me I am referencing this guy), Kanye West said it best to the effect: "If you think you have been a slave for 400 years when slavery ended ~200 years ago, that's a choice to be mentally enslaved. ". At some point, you have to be responsible for your own actions and not blame the past for your current situation. If you want a better future for your children you have to work for it.
Asians had a similar history in the US yet they are doing better than whites in almost all categories because of their culture of work and family values.
Are they discriminating against whites? (Score:5, Insightful)
62% of the population, but only 53% of Google employees... how would this come about except through strong discrimination in hiring practices?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know where you get that 62% number. But according to wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area#Demographics [wikipedia.org]
Yes, according to their numbers (?) (Score:3, Interesting)
A more interesting question is how they managed to go from 59.6% white techies in 2014 to 50.7% white techies in 2018. That's an 8.9% drop in four years. Presumably they're not preferentially firing white techies, nor are they preferentially quitting. That leaves hiring, which for some reason has fallen off a cliff, versus non-whites. Is there any innocent explanation for this?
On top of that, female techies have gone from 16.6% to 21.4% over the same four years. Since many of these new hires are undoub
Why not start at the top? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of the top executives at Alphabet are black or hispanic, Larry and Sergei are both white males. For such an important issue, they should be willing to give up their positions to historically disadvantaged people.
Or is this the usual "diversity for thee, but not for me" situation?
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You are racist! racÂist /rÄsÉ(TM)st/ - a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
Are you saying that once Google became successful that Larry and Sergei should have quit? Board of Director Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. looks like the Grand Wizard of the KKK to me.
I happen to know of of the attorneys for Google who is both Chinese and female.
But the real problem here is where is the racism? Sho
I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on this (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on this that received a great deal of attention...
The funniest thing is that despite not being adept at office and internet politics, Damore was actually pretty empathetic. He pointed out that the job description and environment were optimized towards what white men want.
SJWs responded by assuming that the only rational way to interpret it was that women weren't fit for the job, ignoring the possibility that the job wasn't fit for women.
So, it looks like Damore was right and insightful, even if he's already been converted to full Nazi. I don't really blame him in that scenario, given that his views were rejected by SJWs, and embraced by racist and sexist assholes. People are often going to associate with people that don't treat them as shitty as other people do.
Re: I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on t (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you talking about claims he made or just ones that seem implicit? His main actual sin that I saw was that seemed to be leaning to heavy on claims of the difference between genders being biological, when we are much better able to measure the cocktail of nature and nurture.
Again, I feel a lot of the criticism tends to be not on what he said, but on what was implied by what he said. But drawing conclusions requires preconceptions to fill in the blanks, particularly the overall legitimacy of corporate structure and management.
Now, it's quite possible that he's just a sexist jerk. But the memo is still quite readable if one operates under the assumption that traditional management and business structure is garbage that is heavily biased in favor of "rugged invididualism"-type affluent men. The jobs in question make up some of the main exceptions to overtime laws, and one biological difference between men and women is the women generally need more hours of sleep to not have impairments. Women are socially expected to be the one that takes care of a child, and these positions have horrible work-life balance. The traditions of promotion encourage aggressive behavior, which men are inculcated to engage in while women are inculcated to avoid. It's not hard to see how a lot of higher positions are deeply antagonistic towards women by design. And the obvious solution would not be to throw more women into the pool of candidates, but to alter the environment so that it's not hostile. And I believe that those changes would result in a HUGE improvement for diversity and productivity that dwarfs their current initiative.
Like I said, it's possible that Damore didn't intend for this kind of interpretation, but this makes for a far more interesting discussion than the conventional read on it.
Want to know why Google hasn't achieved nirvana? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it cannot be done!
There is NO way you cannot tell me those money grubbing hacks @ Google would not hire 100% purple poka-dotted zebras if purple poka-dotted zebras made them more profitable.
The fact is that there are significant cultural differences between demographic segments. And there is NOTHING wrong with that.
But, ultimately it translates into only 2.5% of the black population cuts the mustard at Google. It's not Google's issue, it's black culture as a wholes' issue.
When the percentage of black people or Latina's or females who value schooling and work ethics like oriental people do then you will automatically see a reversal of these numbers.
Governments, corporations, and educational facilities should not be in the business of cultural modification because we all know, assuming we are honest, that family and extended family/friends are the ultimate cultural arbitrator.
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As it stands right now, if Google wants to increase diversity in skin pigment for it's own sake, then what they're going to get is diversity in actual skills, instead. Less superb, and more average. And they don't want average, for obvious reasons. So the social diversity score simply follows the talent. Unforgivable, right?
Re: Want to know why Google hasn't achieved nirvan (Score:3)
most the people who make up America chose to come here
No, the vast majority of the people who make up America were born there, and had no say in the matter.
One step forwards, one step backwards? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of makes you wonder what could have nullified their efforts this heavily. I know they've had some well meaning changes that have made their minority hires feel genuinely uncomfortable, like how the traditional mentoring of new hires has been changed so that your mentor will always be of the same race, but I didn't imagine they'd be able to take as many steps backwards as forwards like this. Either that or then they've knocked some sense into their hiring practices, which should have come with such a big backlash it would be well known to people outside the organization, so I can't image anything could explain this except well meaning policies that have backfired strongly enough to make their diversity hires leave in the same numbers as they're able to shepherd them in.
I guess that's good for them as nobody deserves to work in a place that makes you feel uncomfortable enough to make you want to quit your job. However I am somewhat worried about their remaining staff because if I know these diversity types, a setback will only cause them to double their efforts rather than take a moment to think about what they're actually doing.
Re: (Score:2)
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Well, I don't know anything about what Google may or may not be doing in terms of hiring, but I can tell you what would
" grew by .1 percent to 2.5" (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a pretty big change in just one year since it's 4% greater. The article is misleading.
I did a series of interviews at Google in Kirkland, WA (between Seattle and Microsoft) because I had a free place to stay a couple of blocks away for a friend that's out of the country for two years working for Microsoft in Dublin that was looking for a house sitter. I also had two other friends that are also black that did the same. All three of us gave up before the end of the process. Despite being able to get rid of $1,500 a month and live somewhere nice and have a higher paying job, Google's interview process just made it not worth it. My two friends also gave up since both of them ran out of vacation time to take off from their current jobs to keep going back to Google.
The way I feel about the process is that if you screen resumes well, do a good phone screening, then in person interviews with three or four people, then another interview with someone more senior and you still can't make-up your mind then the problem is with your process, not the candidate. It shouldn't take six months of waffling to make a decision.
Re:" grew by .1 percent to 2.5" (Score:4, Informative)
I interviewed at that office in 2005 the year after it opened (IIRC), and I got tired of them not making a decision so I started looking for another job. I found another job, worked there for seven months then it went out of business so I started looking again. Out of a blue I got a call from Google saying they were preparing an offer. They stalled for so long that I not only was able to find a job, but I was already looking for another one.
I'm used to working for start-ups where you interview with a couple of peers then maybe the founder then they indicate almost immediately if they want you. The idea that you should wait 8+ months for them to decide is just ridiculous.
I turned down the offer since it was for a team that was already late on a project so they warned the usual up to 20% (assuming I remember correctly) bonus would not happen. Plus, they said vacation time would be limited to almost none for at least the first two years.
Re:" grew by .1 percent to 2.5" (Score:4, Informative)
indicate almost immediately
That's what the start-up I work for does. You don't want people to look for other jobs. I've lost many good candidates by taking more than a couple of days getting them an offer. You have to move fast. Google is so big and arrogant that they think this doesn't apply to them.
Re: (Score:2)
Have to agree, and add that whiteboards or silly algorithm tests are a big warning sign too. Google is kinda known for the latter...
Although still not as bad as Amazon's exams, and funnily enough their diversity levels are even worse.
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Not only that, but low turnover is generally a good thing, so you want your population to remain steady (I realize they might be mostly new hires and not replacements).
Big surprise. (Score:2)
Big surprise, and the steady descent of Google from kind of evil to really evil has not stopped either. No news here, but something to see here for those who have somehow not noticed.
This may be self-selecting (Score:3, Interesting)
And this is why ... (Score:2)
Google's Look-Ma-No-Raw-Figures "Transparency" (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you find any raw figures in the Google diversity annual report 2018 [diversity.google]? "Sometimes it is percentages that are given and raw figures that are missing," warns How to Lie With Statistics [slashdot.org], "and this can be deceptive too." And yet the lack of raw figures doesn't keep Google from boasting, "We are further increasing transparency. Google's publication of workforce representation data in 2014 helped shape the current industry conversation on diversity in tech. We aim to take the conversation-and our work to the next level as we further refine our approach, so this year we've published new and more detailed workforce representation data."
Need more information (Score:2)
By what percentage did *applicants* in each of these categories rise or fall? What about the percentages amongst promotions? Of course we're not going to solve systemic racism and sexism in the tech industry overnight. It takes generations to undo that kind of damage. But what we *can* do is make sure that no discriminatory hiring practices are taking place.
Percent does not mean what you think it means (Score:2)
When the summary is corrected for mathematical reality, the numbers are:
Women: +0.3%
Asians: +4%
Blacks: +4%
Latinos: +3%
Percent != Percentage Points
Re: Percent does not mean what you think it means (Score:2)
In other words, Google has demonstrated their past racism while suggesting they've hit their peak on women.
Doesn't Google have enough money (Score:2)
First, who cares? Second, just kill the company. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is mindless SJWism and everyone knows it but the cultists.
But any company that takes this seriously should put their existential future where their stupid mouths are... and just kill their company.
Hire people that aren't qualified merely on the basis of who is more or less statistically represented.
Burn the company to the ground. And when there's nothing left but ashes and finger pointing... the industry can be rebuilt by people with the courage and integrity to stand their ground.
I'm sure there are devotees of the cult that are offended by the statement, I am not an adherent to your religion.
I find the suggestion that I should take it seriously as silly as you would take the suggestion that only Christians following christian doctrine should be hired. Its that absurd.
But obviously fundamentalists are not known for being sensible. So this is going to continue until they burn it down. We already are seeing companies leave not only the bay area but California entirely. And not merely for tax or real estate issues but literally because the culture has gone toxic.
I know I know... The great sage has prophesied that when the planets align your golden age will come to pass... which is why everyone else has to get on the right side of history... because these people on top of everything else think they have an accurate prophesy of the future. Literally. Otherwise how would they know what was the "right side of history"... they're saying that in the end they'll get what they want. And yet the industry is already very international and most of the international partners on top of the domestic companies that are leaving are not ascribing to this stuff.
Its not good for any industry in which it takes over. Its even f'ing up hollywood, journalism, and academia is lousy with it.
But these people are not open to correction. They were told the word of god at some point and anyone that disagrees is a dirty infidel. So this is just going to have to play out to the pain.
I'm enjoying the show.
Don't worry help is on the way (Score:3)
The University of Chicago just announced last week that going forward, SAT scores will be "optional" when determining admission standards. Others, no doubt, will follow suit.
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
Guess who tends to do better on SAT tests? That's right - whites and asians. Blacks and Hispanics, on average, do far less well on SAT tests. Notice I said "on average". Obviously there are some Black and Hispanic students that do exceptionally well on the SAT tests but overall, as a group, they don't do as well as whites and asians do as a group. It's just a fact.
I suspect that at least one of the reasons that the University of Chicago chose to take this path is to "right" a supposed "wrong". Google has a very low percentage of black and Hispanic employees and Facebook and Microsoft are probably about the same. I don't know this for a fact but I would be willing to bet it is the case.
So the U of C has now "leveled" (i.e. tilted) the playing field in favor of two groups that traditionally don't do well on standardized tests. What could possibly go wrong?
and what ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Diversity for diversity sake is a totally misguided approach to... well, anything actually except maybe winning a diversity trophy.
If any group faces higher obstacles than others, that needs to be addressed. If any group is statistically significantly under-represented, that might justify checking for why it is so.
But intentionally hiring one group over another is actually the definition of discrimination, even if you do it in the name of enriching diversity.
"better outcome"? (Score:5, Interesting)
The US population is 62% white. Google's employee population is 53.1% white and new hires are 45.2% white. That seems like a pretty serious bias to me, but it's a private business and they can do what they want. What I don't understand is what "better outcome" they actually want to achieve. Dose Google want to become a "majority minority" company?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
and islam is asshole cancer.
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You mean religion in general is cancer.
Right, because Christianity and Judaism have been so toxic that cultures that live consistent with Judaeo-Christian norms have failed miserably.
Oh, wait, that didn't happen. Look at Israel and compare it to it's neighbors. The nation that exists, and was created, as a sanctuary for Jews in the world has the ability to produce all the water and food it needs for itself and then some. They produce some of the best technology and are able to fend off attackers which consistently have more numbers and resour
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Right, because Christianity and Judaism have been so toxic that cultures that live consistent with Judaeo-Christian norms have failed miserably.
What does that even mean?
Look at Israel and compare it to it's neighbors. The nation that exists, and was created, as a sanctuary for Jews in the world
...after they got their asses kicked out of there, and had to be reinstalled by force substantially later? That sounds a lot like failure to me.
has the ability to produce all the water and food it needs for itself and then some. They produce some of the best technology and are able to fend off attackers which consistently have more numbers and resources
...or would, if not for US foreign aid to Israel.
but also a religion that leads them to a path of suicide.
When you deprive people of other delivery systems, they will use their bodies. They may do this even without the influence of religion, if you take their homes away from them and subject them to an ongoing policy which looks very much like genocide.
That's not saying that Europeans were entirely peaceful and intellectual, they had plenty of wars based on national borders and their interpretation of how to best worship a god.
They had plenty of wars based on profit which
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Right, because Christianity and Judaism have been so toxic that cultures that live consistent with Judaeo-Christian norms have failed miserably.
The only difference of import between Islam and Christianity is the REPETITIVE nature of being a practicing Muslim.
Religion at low levels is a manageable annoyance. Religion of people who organize their life around it is how you get ISIS and heaven's gate.
Religion is not cancer. You could argue that people can be peaceful, intellectual, and also without religion. I'd like to see an example of such a culture. Best we see of that is a culture that replaces worship of a god or gods with worship of a leader or of government.
Religion is absolutely a cancer. Too many have leveraged religion for their own aims granting themselves legitimacy that would otherwise be denied to them without it. Religion is a dangerous vehicle of control (yet far from the only one) the world is fa
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Merely because the people whose land was stolen are pissed and are fighting to get it back?
Israel, as it exists today, was created in 1947. That's over 70 years go. The people that had this land "stolen" are quite likely all dead. The few that remain, if any, are not likely in fighting form. The people fighting today are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of that generation. How many generations removed can they still call this their land?
I grew up in the USA, as did my parents and grandparents. If I go back far enough I can find ancestors from Germany and other European nations. Do
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How many generations removed can they still call this their land?
Wait - you’re claiming that the religious zealots from Europe who said they have an eternal homeland after 2000 years are reasonable but the second and third generation of the people displaced are not, even though they are still stateless and occupied by said European religious zealots?
Those that can behave themselves and not be pissed about a 70 year old gripe will live in peace and prosperity within the borders of Israel. Those that can't will be imprisoned, not killed or forced out.
You seem to not know a heck of a lot about this, so it’s unsurprising you are parroting propaganda, but the Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank face starvation rations and no clean water in one case and di
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