Google done' goofed - fires employee for "opinions"

[interchange]

For those who haven't read the memo, he doesn't say that women are inferior, less intelligent, or less able to do the work of software engineering. He says that they are less driven to pursue this kind of occupation, and that there are ways to make it more appealing to women without engaging in reverse discrimination.

I don't know if everything he says is accurate or consistent with research, but what I do know is that science has recognized differences in gender which go beyond the obvious differences in genitalia and body morphology.

I think the reaction to this memo is overstated.

I read it and it seems clear that, regardless of the biases he has in producing it, he is trying to work toward a more diverse workplace and is legitimately concerned about potential problems in Google's cultural practices toward hiring. It seems that his general principle is that Google would do better at their stated goal by paying more attention to certain general gender differences in making policy decisions. And this is hated against because these suggestions, while perhaps more successful at achieving their actual aims, appear less virtuous and even sexist to some viewers.

Let's assume he is even spot on correct (I don't assume this by a long stretch, but I also don't find his arguments baseless). In this scenario, Google should still fire him if their priority of appearance of virtue outweighs the value added by his suggestions' potential achievement of virtue.

 

[agent00f]

And yet in the vast majority of your posts you do that.

Pointless argument when you literally can't understand the vast majority of my posts.

 

[Commodus]

Tell me, do you think all people are naturally inclined to want, and would excel in all types of jobs? Or would you admit the simple truth that there are innate, natural, differences between individual people? Then extrapolate it out, there will be similar differences between groups - especially when genders have underlying physical and hormonal differences.

Are we to be ignorant and pretend all people are the same? Let's end gender specific sports and see how well that works out. Ignorance is not how we properly handle inclusion and open mindedness. Censoring any discussion itself is ludicrous for anyone calling themselves Liberal. There will be a backlash to draconian and discriminatory practices that ignore basic truths in favor of meeting quotas for imaginary reasons.

Saying men and women are not inclined towards specific types of work is FAR REMOVED from saying they are inferior, or unwanted. Daughters will not grow up to be NFL Lineman. Difference is not inferior, it is not inherently bad or wrong. Nor is speaking of it wrong, especially if it ends up being true. If we're willing to be honest and face such truths then maybe we won't be lead around by bad policies seeking to right wrongs that don't exist.

If not many women are inclined to code, why should we care? There will still be outliers ready to fill the positions, there just won't be as many signing up as some trumped up quota is going to demand. The expectations are fake, the differences are real, and people should just be happy. Instead we get a mob wanting to tar and feather over the slightest mention of the way things are.

You're arguing against a straw man.

I did not say that everyone is always potentially capable of everything. The question is what's actually innate versus taught, and Damore's problem is that he claims most women are innately ill-suited to programming through some very broad, dodgy claims. And even if he were right, what if the ratio of women in programming could still be higher, like 30 percent instead of 17?

You see the problem here? He's using some vague hand-waving to justify the current ratio, but he doesn't have even the crudest idea of what the 'natural' ratio should be. He just wants women to give up trying for better representation... but oh, if he wants to tell women they're inferior, he should have that freedom.

 

[FIVR]

How could you not think you'd be fired after posting such things. His arguments aren't even supported by science. What is wrong with OP's mind?

 

[agent00f]

I read it and it seems clear that, regardless of the biases he has in producing it, he is trying to work toward a more diverse workplace and is legitimately concerned about potential problems in Google's cultural practices toward hiring. It seems that his general principle is that Google would do better at their stated goal by paying more attention to certain general gender differences in making policy decisions. And this is hated against because these suggestions, while perhaps more successful at achieving their actual aims, appear less virtuous and even sexist to some viewers.

Let's assume he is even spot on correct (I don't assume this by a long stretch, but I also don't find his arguments baseless). In this scenario, Google should still fire him if their priority of appearance of virtue outweighs the value added by his suggestions' potential achievement of virtue.

No, it's pretty clear he's an oppressed alt-right hero doing what he can for the cause. This whole discussion is basically right wingers competing who can get the biggest case of the vapors.

How could you not think you'd be fired after posting such things. His arguments aren't even supported by science. What is wrong with OP's mind?

Apparently some goog nerds confused the bill of rights for their HR policy.

 

[brandonbull]

the very post above yours has a study that says he is right and you are wrong. also, truth doesn't care about fairness or hostility. and he does't call for exclusion of females from google, but for honest meritocracy. For example, the mostly male scientists who have created the studies he references know that your internet female friends are wrong and they are right.

@DigDog, Some "contributors" on this board deem facts and truthiness as inconvenient roadblocks in their pursuit to assign the latest and greatest negative labels to others. They must get a daily email detailing the victim du jour and the only acceptable narrative for said victim, and anything that deviates from that must be nuked from space.

 

[agent00f]

the very post above yours has a study that says he is right and you are wrong. also, truth doesn't care about fairness or hostility. and he does't call for exclusion of females from google, but for honest meritocracy. For example, the mostly male scientists who have created the studies he references know that your internet female friends are wrong and they are right.

@DigDog, Some "contributors" on this board deem facts and truthiness as inconvenient roadblocks in their pursuit to assign the latest and greatest negative labels to others. They must get a daily email detailing the victim du jour and the only acceptable narrative for said victim, and anything that deviates from that must be nuked from space.

The Real victims here.

 

[Commodus]

Finding a cause is only the 2nd part of doing a study. Quite clearly there are clear distributions between men and women. So are you saying that not only are the conclusions wrong, but the data wrong?

I'm not necessarily saying the core data is wrong. What I am saying is that it presents a wildly incomplete picture, and that Damore is making numerous leaps of logic to shoehorn it into his view of the world. For example, the argument that women are more neurotic. The study everyone points to on that doesn't actually say whether or not that's some inherent trait or inflicted by years of conditioning. Women are far more likely to be targets of abuse, harassment, sexual assault and body shaming. How much does that play into the findings?

This is what's frustrating about how people use data in arguments, and it's not exclusively a conservative problem: that tendency to infer far more from a set of figures than what they actually say, and that refusal to question something the moment it looks even vaguely plausible. Look at the OP: effectively, he's saying "see, Damore has a doctorate from Harvard! Therefore we can assume everything he says is always true!" Only it turns out that Damore doesn't have a doctorate, and merely having a vaguely related degree doesn't make you either qualified to speak on a subject or immune to political bias.

 

[Sunburn74]

No, it's pretty clear he's an oppressed alt-right hero doing what he can for the cause. This whole discussion is basically right wingers competing who can get the biggest case of the vapors.

Apparently some goog nerds confused the bill of rights for their HR policy.

This. I don't see the fuss.
Idiot posts unprotected speech that clearly interferes with work being done at his job site. He gets fired for disrupting the work-site.
What the hell are we talking about?

 

[jackstar7]

This. I don't see the fuss.
Idiot posts unprotected speech that clearly interferes with work being done at his job site. He gets fired for disrupting the work-site.
What the hell are we talking about?

I assume it'll come back to ethics in gaming journalism.

 

[Sunburn74]

For example, the argument that women are more neurotic.

I find this hilarious. As a married man for several years, I have come to realize that single women have to deal with a ton of absolute insane shit from horny, sex driven men and generally give very sane responses to this general constant madness. Whats odd is to the sex driven man their response is seen as neurotic; in hindsight as I look back its clear to me that maybe the ladies were seated in the crazy bus, but guys are definitely the bus driver.

No offense, guys are way more neurotic than women. Start with looking at rates of depression and suicide.

 

[interchange]

No, it's pretty clear he's an oppressed alt-right hero doing what he can for the cause. This whole discussion is basically right wingers competing who can get the biggest case of the vapors.

Is there any argument which you don't agree with that doesn't get classified as alt-right propaganda?

 

[agent00f]

I find this hilarious. As a married man for several years, I have come to realize that single women have to deal with a ton of absolute insane shit from horny, sex driven men and generally give very sane responses to this general constant madness. Whats odd is to the sex driven man their response is seen as neurotic; in hindsight as I look back its clear to me that maybe the ladies were seated in the crazy bus, but guys are definitely the bus driver.

No offense, guys are way more neurotic than women. Start with looking at rates of depression and suicide.

A lot of these people have zero clue what actually goes on in the corp world. Google is already being investigated for gender/pay gap, ie little boys club, and thus on their best behavior. You make it through these investigations by playing up diversity/outreach programs to show that at least you're trying. Then comes along this dumbass posting manifestos about girls being icky or whatever, and everything proceeds as everyone expects.

Is there any argument which you don't agree with that doesn't get classified as alt-right propaganda?

Just because you're too dumb to get a read on this guy doesn't mean much.

 

[xthetenth]

Must be why there are so many asian women in tech, because that asian math gene, it's all starting to make sense now.

This brings up something that I'm not sure if people outside the industry, or even those inside the industry who aren't paying attention or are trying not to notice, know.

The gender gap in programming is pretty strongly nationality based. In and outside the US, programmers from countries outside the US/Europe are drawn from a pool that is blatantly more balanced in terms of gender.

Not noticing it, and pretending that the abberation that is the US and Europe is the default state of affairs is offensively lazy work, and indicates an approach to problem solving that "oh hey we forgot to put black people in our training set of images of people so our photo recognition AI didn't tag black people in photos as people" google really should be working to counter. It's the sort of blithe, blinkered ignorance that isn't really compatible with a company that isn't content to draw from the talent of one small subset of the population and wants to get its services to the whole world.

In short, the free market thinks that unexamined prejudice is unprofitable, eat your hearts out conservatives.

 

[realibrad]

I'm not necessarily saying the core data is wrong. What I am saying is that it presents a wildly incomplete picture, and that Damore is making numerous leaps of logic to shoehorn it into his view of the world. For example, the argument that women are more neurotic. The study everyone points to on that doesn't actually say whether or not that's some inherent trait or inflicted by years of conditioning. Women are far more likely to be targets of abuse, harassment, sexual assault and body shaming. How much does that play into the findings?

So here is what he said...

"
Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences
are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions.

Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).
○ This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist
and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."

What he says is generally true. Neuroticism is more common in women. Study after study finds this. I linked to one already, but here is another.

https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb1/prof/PSY/KPW/15_genderdifferences.pdf

It does not give the physical causal factor, but it shows a very clear view of the differences in the distributions.

This is what's frustrating about how people use data in arguments, and it's not exclusively a conservative problem: that tendency to infer far more from a set of figures than what they actually say, and that refusal to question something the moment it looks even vaguely plausible. Look at the OP: effectively, he's saying "see, Damore has a doctorate from Harvard! Therefore we can assume everything he says is always true!" Only it turns out that Damore doesn't have a doctorate, and merely having a vaguely related degree doesn't make you either qualified to speak on a subject or immune to political bias.

But those in the field of study agree that there are differences. Men and women have differences in the physical, not just social. When we look at women's brains over a broad group vs men, we can see the clear differences in the distribution. The standard deviation causes overlap, but there are clear differences.

 

[realibrad]

I find this hilarious. As a married man for several years, I have come to realize that single women have to deal with a ton of absolute insane shit from horny, sex driven men and generally give very sane responses to this general constant madness. Whats odd is to the sex driven man their response is seen as neurotic; in hindsight as I look back its clear to me that maybe the ladies were seated in the crazy bus, but guys are definitely the bus driver.

No offense, guys are way more neurotic than women. Start with looking at rates of depression and suicide.

Every major study disagrees with you.

 

[agent00f]

Every major study disagrees with you.

Let's not pretend you're smart enough to read studies.

 

[jackstar7]

What? I can clearly keep digging my way out of this hole. Look, I even found a bigger shovel!

[more of this thread, in brief.]

 

[Blackjack200]

This brings up something that I'm not sure if people outside the industry, or even those inside the industry who aren't paying attention or are trying not to notice, know.

The gender gap in programming is pretty strongly nationality based. In and outside the US, programmers from countries outside the US/Europe are drawn from a pool that is blatantly more balanced in terms of gender.

Not noticing it, and pretending that the abberation that is the US and Europe is the default state of affairs is offensively lazy work, and indicates an approach to problem solving that "oh hey we forgot to put black people in our training set of images of people so our photo recognition AI didn't tag black people in photos as people" google really should be working to counter. It's the sort of blithe, blinkered ignorance that isn't really compatible with a company that isn't content to draw from the talent of one small subset of the population and wants to get its services to the whole world.

In short, the free market thinks that unexamined prejudice is unprofitable, eat your hearts out conservatives.

Yeah, the idea that any of this is rooted in science rather than a self-serving attempt to explain a discrepancy is hilarious.

 

[woolfe9998]

I find this hilarious. As a married man for several years, I have come to realize that single women have to deal with a ton of absolute insane shit from horny, sex driven men and generally give very sane responses to this general constant madness. Whats odd is to the sex driven man their response is seen as neurotic; in hindsight as I look back its clear to me that maybe the ladies were seated in the crazy bus, but guys are definitely the bus driver.

No offense, guys are way more neurotic than women. Start with looking at rates of depression and suicide.

Whatever the reason, depression is twofold higher among women:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression/art-20047725

So far as suicide goes, men are much more likely to actually die by suicide, but women are far more likely to attempt suicide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

Because women tend to use pills, which is only sporadically effective, while men tend to use firearms, which are quite effective.

 

[realibrad]

Yeah, the idea that any of this is rooted in science rather than a self-serving attempt to explain a discrepancy is hilarious.

But there are gender differences based in science?

Jesus, is this what it has gotten to now? Women have differences in their brains. Is it really so hard to believe that those differences manifest in differences in aptitude and preferences?

There is a reason there are more female psychologists beyond social pressures.

 

[woolfe9998]

I'm not necessarily saying the core data is wrong. What I am saying is that it presents a wildly incomplete picture, and that Damore is making numerous leaps of logic to shoehorn it into his view of the world. For example, the argument that women are more neurotic. The study everyone points to on that doesn't actually say whether or not that's some inherent trait or inflicted by years of conditioning. Women are far more likely to be targets of abuse, harassment, sexual assault and body shaming. How much does that play into the findings?

Did you read it? While it doesn't claim certainty on how much could be based on biology versus socialization, it does draw some conclusions:

Combined biological and sociocultural explanations have been offered to explain these findings. Neuroticism and Agreeableness are genetically based, species-invariant, and the result of adaptation to selection pressures which vary across men and women (Buss, 1995). Budaev (1999) suggested an evolutionary hypothesis that Neuroticism and Agreeableness together represent a single dimension with low Neuroticism and low Agreeableness at one end, and high Neuroticism and high Agreeableness at the other. His data suggested men and women fall at opposite ends of this dimension.Costa et al. (2001) stipulated that a purely evolutionary explanation entails two corollaries: First, the traits on which men or women differ are consistent across cultures; second, gender differences in these traits are of the same general magnitude. Costa et al.'s (2001) findings supported the former. However, gender differences were larger, rather than smaller, in industrialized countries where more progressive socioculture gender role norms would presumably lead to smaller differences. Thus, Costa and colleagues concluded that gender differences on Neuroticism and Agreeableness stemmed from stable evolutionary and biological bases, but Social Role Theory (Eagley, 1987), which articulates socialization processes leading to different roles and behaviors for men and women, also held potential usefulness for understanding gender differences in Neuroticism and Agreeableness (Costa et al., 2001; McCrae, et al., 2005).

 

[agent00f]

Did you read it? While it doesn't claim certainty on how much could be based on biology versus socialization, it does draw some conclusions:

But there are gender differences based in science?

Jesus, is this what it has gotten to now? Women have differences in their brains. Is it really so hard to believe that those differences manifest in differences in aptitude and preferences?

There is a reason there are more female psychologists beyond social pressures.

For nearly all of human history and prehistory, women mostly got subservient roles. Yet in the last century or so things have rather turn around with the same selfish shits complaining with the same excuses the whole way.

Must be the genetics that makes them destined to be wrong.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

But there are gender differences based in science?

Jesus, is this what it has gotten to now? Women have differences in their brains. Is it really so hard to believe that those differences manifest in differences in aptitude and preferences?

There is a reason there are more female psychologists beyond social pressures.

I find it interesting that generally speaking, the same people that will espouse the vast differences between a male, female, trans, gay, bi, etc mind which would cause grave pain, anguish, and otherwise discomfort to that person if their gender identity/preference isn't accounted for, will also refuse to accept that there might be genuine differences in the minds of individuals, extrapolated to groups of individuals, that might give them different interest, preferences, and courses of life.

 

[Yakk]

Apparently he already got a job offer from WikiLeaks...

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/...ange/wcm/c95dcfc6-1ea6-4a59-bd1a-3e695560b2e1