Nothing about the Google memo?

http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

It was dumb. Pretty much everyone who saw it agreed it was dumb. The dumb memo starts off by saying that its position is unheard of at Google. For some reason, people believe this memo is a typical stance at Google regardless.

Can you name something specific about it that was dumb?

It made lots of claims about male and female behaviour, saying that it was statistically such and evolutionarily such. But it didn't rely on any statistics, it didn't rely on any biological research, and the policies it proposed on that presumed basis would affect highly specific individuals for whom general statistics would not be useful predictors anyway.

There's this repeating theme of the extreme and "alt", right having a cargo-cult understanding of science.

Yes, and yet for a trained scientist to be so dumb you need to add ideological blenders, it isn't that he's never seen actual science up close.

Blinders, Dinner.

As a matter of fact it did cite peer-reviewed scientific literature which was later described as the consensus in the field, but Gizmodo decided it'd be better reading if they cut out the citations.

Actually the original one did. Whilst I don't entirely agree with the conclusions, this was at least a well thought-out, researched and argued piece, albeit the research coming from sources that range from 'questionable' to 'solid research.'

Usually I find the 'wimmin in tech' debate from men quite tiresome, a depressingly large slice of men in tech are unable to deal with women inside the workplace in a professional way - although a number of women have issues here too - which can be seen across the world of tech, SV just amplifies things as we get to see with the likes of Uber.

It's a shame Google opted to fire rather than counter, but its about par or the course, and it's not like the memo didn't presage such action to the author. I mean they highlighted the echo chamber and bias effects, exactly what did they think the consequences would be?

And, as ever, the left try to shut down debate on such issues, whilst the internet-right make shutting down the debate look rational on the surface.

I'm pro-women in tech - throughout my career there's been a higher percentage of competent females than males, albeit with a depressingly large disparity between sample sets - but many diversity programs tend to be bollocks, divisive and irritating. Make sure people know what is, and isn't, acceptable.

And make sure there are consequences. If your Marketing Director thinks pawing at the new DBA, who genetics has happened to equip with a pair of tits, is acceptable, educate with a verbal warning and then apologizing.

Bad behaviour persists because it gets tolerated, and all the diversity programs in the world won't achieve a thing if there is an air of acceptability for it. And yes, the tech industry is particularly bad at this because it's riddled with beta-males who think they're magically entitled to a women because they're "good people." Seen it too many times. Their inflated view of their own moral rectitude being used to excuse all manner of obnoxious behaviour.

It's going to be loooong time before that shit gets flushed out of the system, and all the diversity programs and sacking of people with differing opinions won't do anything to speed that up. Sacking for actively bad behaviour, on the other hand, may just focus some individuals on the acceptability of their own actions.

the screed did bring up many good "jumping off" points that would/should bring lively debate & discussion to the topic of diversity. But generally (in my experience anyway) these jumping off points don't adhere to the "narrative" pitched by the corporation party line so are ignored or dismissed. Worst case/typical case is whomever brings up said points in a public forum are hammered like the protruding nail they are.

In other words whenever these corporate "diversity/consideration of others/ethnic or gender appreciation" statements are disseminated or related classes or activities are held.......shut the fuck up and let the corporation ramble, because part of your job (that you get paid for) is enduring the corporate ramblings. Corporate ramblings are not "open to discussion" unless that discussion enhances their narrative. It's their world, you just live in it.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Ok, thanks to @Order2Chaos and @Ebeneezer Goode for pointing that out. Obviously I was reading the downright deceitful Gizmodo version; the real version leaves a very different impression at least as far as sourcing his claims is concerned. What I said on that account earlier clearly does not apply.

...however, he still doesn't understand what he is talking about, only now it can be pinpointed in misunderstandings of the source he cites. Here's an example:

So my original reading through Gizmodo had him say things like 'research suggests' without citing any research. In the actual text, there is a link here to this study, which demonstrates pretty conclusively that men (not so much women) in societies with greater gender equality act differently than in societies with less.

This in no way contradicts the social construction of gender. On the contrary, saying that the extent of societal freedoms will shape gender-specific behaviour is the most basic assumption of any idea of social construction of gender. Damore seems to be thinking roughly along these lines (though he never spells his argument out): If men are less like women in societies with more freedoms, then that must mean they are different by nature, and that difference is now free to express itself. But that interpretation (1) blindly assumes that men's actions in a society with greater gender equality are more natural, which is unproven; (2) that nature and society are engaged in a zero-sum game, which is conceptually demonstrably false; (3) that cultural backlash does not exist, which is ironic given that his document posits itself as such backlash; and (4) then his argument continues, and even though he has just cited affirmatively the idea that societies with greater gender equality lead to more freedom for people to express their gender, he now goes on to discredit the very criteria by which that study defined gender equality as being biased and misleading.

One half of this is a strawman argument: He seems to be arguing against the position that no differences between men and women exist. But very few people claim that, and you certainly don't have to believe it to be true in order to support gender equality and diversity in the workplace.

The other half is a misunderstanding of constructivism. Everything human beings think about is constructed by their mental processes, and those are in many ways dependent on society. Realising this in no way denies that objective reality exists. Gravity wasn't different in Aristotle's times than it is now, and yet Newton fundamentally changed the way in which we construct gravity, and Einstein showed us that Newton wasn't representing reality accurately either, although in the mainstream we still use Newton's rather than Einstein's construction, and in fact in private we assume that objects follow Aristotle's laws -- we are surprised when we see them float in space even though we know that they float in space, for instance. All of these are real differences; their description contains nothing that could be disproved by pointing to an empirical study of how gravity actually works.

Finally, I am sticking to my original third criticism: He uses statistical ideas about how women act to prescribe policies for dealing with a highly specific and unusual group, namely Google-level experts in their sciences.

So the thing is nowhere near as dumb as it appeared in the Gizmodo version, but it is still factually and logically wrong.

This, FTW.

I haven't read the memo in detail (I have better things to do) but Alphabet's knee-jerk reaction to this "crisis" pretty much confirms the "echo chamber" hypothesis.

How wrong does a person have to be to rate being fired for stirring the pot?

Weather forecasters are wrong more than 50% of the time, but they get to keep their jobs.

Okay, serious answer:

They guy was an idiot for posting the document, even if it was only meant to be distributed internally (again, he should have known better).

But it's not like he leaked Alphabet Inc.'s corporate secrets, or advocated violence or other nonsense. He should have been disciplined and Alphabet should have viewed this as an opportunity for learning and discussion. Instead, because the memo went public, the company was forced into a corner by the wingnuts.

I'm not defending this gentlemen nor do I entirely advocate his point of view. He was a dumbass, plain and simple. But if you're going to make dumbassery a fireable offence, you may as well clear out 3/4 of the entire American workforce.

I don't mean to say that there wasn't anything in his memo that was worthy of criticism, but a lot of the coverage and responses seem to imply that he basically said "Women suck at coding and Google shouldn't hire them," or "Diversity is bad," which wasn't the case. I think Google's reaction really does prove his point about it being an echo chamber.

The most compelling argument I've read has nothing to do with the specific research and all to do with how no woman can ever be expected to work well with him again. That's a productivity issue.

How come nobody read this part:

Aha, found it: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788

If a person can't work with others who have a different opinion--and one that has NO bearing on doing actual work--isn't that a problem with that person?

No wonder you teach instead of do.

If we worked together and I thought you were an imbecile, do you think I would treat you the same as a non-imbecile?

Unless my imbecility affected my ability to work, what would it matter what you think of me?

And are you suggesting the guy who wrote the Google memo is an imbecile? It's a very articulate and, I might add, scientifically supported argument. You may not agree with him, but surely that doesn't make him an imbecile, does it?

Let me ask a hypothetical. Would those who support this man's firing be so quick to do so if, say, he had written a well-argued memo about police violence against blacks, and he was terminated for promoting racial disharmony? Or inciting hatred against law enforcement?

The ability to speak well doesn't endow one with the right to be considered intelligent.
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But God just isn't there.

And religion is an insidious and poisonous hustle.

No, honey-dripping in defense of shoddy ideas must me punished with as brutal ridicule as the dumbest Dayton post.
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No, I'm saying that he doesn't think women are good engineers.

I haven't said whether he should be fired or not.

You should probably report your mom for sexual abuse.

Dwarfs aren't good NBA players. So what?

Soma needs to make a mmo