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Comment by eco | Hacker News Reader

> Media outlets like TechCrunch, Gizmodo and Motherboard jumped on board to declare the memo an “Anti-Diversity Manifesto.” It appears that the ideological echo chamber extends beyond Google’s campus.

As I look up and see this article flagged on HN (since unflagged).

The points and ideas from his memo may be wrong or they may be right (or anywhere in between) but more important than this incident has been the reaction to it. I don't understand the attempts at shutting down conversation about it. If you think he's wrong, you share your opinion and persuade others. You don't shut down the conversation and pretend the issues don't exist.

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There have been several very active threads about this incident, the conversation has been mostly people talking past each other, the headline is inflammatory, and the article adds nothing new to the discussion.

If people want to talk about it, let them talk about it. If you don't want to read them talking about it, don't read them talking about it. It's weird hearing anyone claim we need less discussion and communication about anything. An unproductive conversation won't hurt anyone. If anything it'll teach everyone we are further apart on an issue than anyone thought and that maybe we need to step back and think about the issue more broadly.

> An unproductive conversation won't hurt anyone.

An unproductive conversation, becoming more hostile, can hurt the HN community. This is supposed to be a place for reasoned conversation. It's already difficult to maintain that. A raging flamewar won't help in that direction.

It seems to be one of the only MSM outlets taking a neutral view.

> I don't understand the attempts at shutting down conversation about it

To try to shed a little light on this phenomenon, the "it" you refer to expands to "why women and minorities may be biologically less qualified for this job, and those that are here as our teammates are illegitimate in some way."

Using the expansion in your paragraph:

=====

I don't understand the attempts at shutting down conversation about why women and minorities may be biologically less qualified for this job, and those that are here as our teammates are illegitimate in some way. If you think he's wrong, you share your opinion and persuade others. You don't shut down the conversation and pretend that women and minorities are biologically as qualified for this job, or that their hires are as legitimate as anyone else's.

=====

That's what some people are hearing. Hopefully it's obvious why management at most companies would consider these discussions to be less than helpful in fostering the most productive work environment.

> the "it" you refer to expands to "why women and minorities may be biologically less qualified for this job, and those that are here are illegitimate in some way."

Accepting your characterization here for the sake of argument: if his claims are so laughably ridiculous as to be easily refutable, people should just have pointed to studies refuting it (of which there are plenty) and gone about their day. When you can't bring up a topic in a respectful way without being shouted down, it's a bad situation.

His "theories" have been destroyed for decades. It's always the same old shit. We are tired of it. If you don't even have the decency to document yourself before blurting out such crap, you may not deserve much patience.

Remember: this guy lost a job. Discriminations kill and ruin the lives of millions routinely.

According to scientists in the field, his theories are correct.

http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...

If you read the memo, he is completely against discrimination, including positive discrimination.

I'd be wary of saying the psychologists (especially the EvoPsych dude) are "scientists in the field" because he was quoting biology and they are 100% not biologists. Dr Soh is really the only one qualified to comment here. Also the other three are ... privileged white dudes with track records of being anti-SJW/"snowflake", etc.

Another one: https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manif...

Please show me the other well informed people that claim the opposite.

That's Dr Soh, one of the people from the Quillete article, and the one I said had a decent claim to being able to comment.

Here's a evolutionary biologist's thoughts on the manifesto -

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2017/08/06/what-diff...

Yeah, but they weren't debunked for decades. Nobody thought to check that before demanding he be silenced

It is a serious problem if people are hearing that - by which I mean, if many people understand the document one way, and many people understand it in a completely different way, then how can we even communicate as a society?

>>You don't shut down the conversation and pretend the issues don't exist.

This generally happens when ideas presented in the conversation are radical and dangerous to a point the target people in the discussion feel an existential threat.

Look at the nature of this discussion. Presented in its simplest form, its a case for a merit based system. The socialist types don't like this, the very fact that merit is being discussed implies their entitlement to free resources at the expense of other hard working people is threatened. They can't allow it to go on.

You don't want people to start thinking about it.

Honestly we don't need this kind of drivel right now, either. The discussion we should have been having this whole time is way more complex than you're making it, and you appear to be oversimplifying on purpose to make a political point. If you are, kindly stop.

It just got flagged again. How does this flagging thing work?

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