Comment by where_do_i_live | Hacker News Reader

Comment by where_do_i_live | Hacker News Reader

where_do_i_live

I watched this interview just a bit ago, and it gave me a better understanding of what James' was trying to articulate. After like 5 days of confusion about the memo, the outrage, and now the firing - I think I can come to a conclusion that he is firstly, not sexist, and secondly is a proponent of equal treatment of both men an women. And thirdly wanted an honest discussion on this topic.

I do think it will come to pass that Google will lose a unlawful termination lawsuit (or settle)

This engineer was further, exploring the question in what appears to be a very scientific manner based on the latest academic research into these questions, as best as I can discern that appears accurate.

This entire conversation is tainted by so many numerous other items that it is almost impossible to discuss without bringing in emotion, tangential arguments, anecdotes, and just random statements. This really is a category 5 hurricane of our current political/cultural battles brought to light.

I'm coming from a very liberal perspective, and I found it really hard to agree with others on how this is a very sexist memo. It appears that this young man is truly trying to explore the nature of these issues, and how it applied to his former company - who ostensibly wanted to encourage curiosity and a range of discussion.

I often find myself very upset at the fringe right for many of their ideas, but I've usually treated the far left (are they fringe now?) as more just annoying and irrelevant and harmless (the anti-vaxxers(maybe not harmless here), safe space, microaggression proponents) I really think the loose liberal group - that I self select to be a member of - really screwed the pooch on this one. This whole debacle does appear to be a rush to judgement and virtue-signaling. Ugh - I'm not usually on the side of the alt-right/conservatives, but on the merits of this issue - there is a point they are making that is important. HOWEVER and this is important - all the other awful truly sexist and misogynist things that is part of the alt-right is detestable, but as famously said elsewhere - This is not the droid you are looking for.

> I do think it will come to pass that Google will lose a unlawful termination lawsuit (or settle)

It'll be hard to convince anyone that it'd be viable for him to continue his work after ostracizing a sizable part of Google's workforce by implying they are undeserving of their jobs.

It could have been an attempt to start an honest discussion, but it was horrendously articulated, failed miserably to get the point across while offending a ton of people. He has shown appallingly poor judgement in his choice of format and utter disregard for the consequences of openly questioning corporate policies.

>ostracizing a sizable part of Google's workforce by implying they are undeserving of their jobs.

He didn't. The only one who was (literally) ostracized was Damore.

>consequences of openly questioning corporate policies.

Well, the policy was (supposedly) that you could in fact question corporate policies. Of course 'everyone knew' that it was bullshit, but at least now it's been proven and thrown into public for all to see.

I'm fine with a company not wanting openness, less so with such a company pretending to want openness. If Google subscribes to modern-day Lysenkoism (because they think it'll get them more profit) then that is their right, but at least quit the whole pretense and be honest about it: "Our company is about making money, not truth, not justice, not the betterment of society, but money, money, money."

But of course, that gets you less starry-eyed young minds than the "Don't be Evil" of yesteryear, so it's understandable they keep the mask on. Corporations are sociopaths.

> Of course 'everyone knew' that it was bullshit,

Up until it went viral and everybody with a computer read it, Google was mostly ignoring it. When it leaked outside the company, it could no longer be ignored because it was damaging the company's reputation.

Yes, and that is the problem. The use of public shaming to silence opponents (or to force their employers to fire them). The ones wielding this cudgel like to say "Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences!", but this sort of suppression of speech will have consequences as well.

Yes, Adria Richards can probably tell you about how this suppression of speech works. She was fired when the internet got angry that she publicly complained about a joke that she felt was offensive, and literally DDOSed her employer until they let her go.

Correct, her publicly shaming someone (which caused that person to be fired) backfired spectacularly (and led to her being fired). That's what I meant by this sort of suppression having consequences of their own. No one won anything.

You mean when she violated the code of conduct that she was claiming for herself, by engaging in harassing photography?

Disguising their attacks as a defense, and blowback as an attack is a staple of the progressive playbook by now. Once you tease apart actual cause and effect in these situations, the presupposed victim and oppressor labels tend to fall apart. Especially when one side gets uncritical media coverage across the board.

It didn't seem to prevent her from making a career out of her status as a victim either. Not so much for the person she got fired. Which makes it all the more unpalatable that this agenda is often pushed under the guise of accountability.

It's the first I've heard of the DDoS though. Got a source on that?

yes, it was all over the discussion at the time and there's a ton of articles about it at https://www.google.com/search?q=adria+richards+ddos

But aside from the sources - Damore was fired when he violated a code of conduct by complaining about diversity. Richards was fired when she violated a code of conduct by complaining about jokes that offended her. They are pretty analogous situations if you're capable of looking at them in the abstract. It turns out that mass internet outrage as coercion is a staple of pretty much everyone's playbook, and it is disingenous at best to recognize it only when it is done by people you disagree with.

What is disingenuous is labeling a statement that starts with the words "I support diversity and inclusion" as being against diversity. Claiming he violated a code of conduct by doing so requires myopia of the highest degree.

Second, you are failing to distinguish between mass coercion by media based on lies, with a popular backlash based on an accurate account of the facts. Richards was in developer relations and made a giant stink when she demonstrated being unable to relate to developers.

a) "I'm not disagreeing with you, but a careful examination of the facts seems to say that you're wrong". Can that statement be described as disagreeing with you or not?

b) Damore wrote the memo that caused the backlash, not the media.

Adria Richards was employed as a "developer evangelist". Some evangelists are expected to tell the world around them to repent and be converted, it is true. But developer evangelists I don't think fit that job description.

Nobody "used" public shaming to silence anyone. It was Google's reputation as a nice place to work that was tarnished when it became public knowledge Google employed people who not only thought a large number of his colleagues were not adequate to be his colleagues (and he did say as much when he mentioned that the bar was being lowered in name of diversity) and were only hired because they had the right genitalia, but thought it'd be a good idea to share this belief. Some people will doubtlessly find it insulting.

For anyone who hasn't read the actual memo yet, what he did say was "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate". That's not anywhere near "a large number of his colleagues were not adequate to be his colleagues" or "were only hired because they had the right genitalia". All it means is that a larger share of qualified white/asian/indian male candidates get rejected, compared to qualified diversity candidates. Anyone claiming otherwise is blinded by outrage.

It's not news though. I've positioned myself squarely on "the left" without much of a thought before the Brendan Eich case. Then I discovered that "the left" has no intellectual integrity whatsoever. The dishonesty has become unbearable. They turn you into a straw man and then ostracize you, just like a cult. You have to constantly police your own thought, lest you say something that can be used against you in the worst possible way, by someone who doesn't like you. It's "orwellian" in every sense of the word.

A minor nitpick, I would say that the main difference between what's happening now and the Orwellian model is that the coercive pressure for maintaining ideological conformity is mostly not government power (yet, in the US). Instead, it's corporate and similar organization power (such the organizing board of a popular conference).

When people say "orwellian", they're often thinking "1984".

I'm thinking "Animal Farm". It's a process, a takeover of the mind. It doesn't start with government and doesn't end at government.

To be fair, it's not "orwellian" in literally every sense of the word, that was just a figure of speech.

Some smart people think that you may be more right than I realized: https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/08/10/walter-olson-a-circ...

Effectively they're saying that the "Hostile Work Environment" clause is used to pressure corporations to limit speech of their employees. Evidence also suggests enforcement is ideologically biased.

No doubt the US govt has its levers to pull in media and business. And I venture that as regards our use of the term Orwellian Orwell was discursive of power in general, rather than governmental power in the specific.

I couldn't agree more. It used to seem like the left was more scrupulous but as I get older I wonder whether that was just youthful naivety. Certainly they seem to have abandoned their scruples these days.

If only he was "exploring the question in what appears to be a very scientific manner based on the latest academic research into these questions". The FIRST warning sign to anyone reading his manifesto should have been how woefully undercited it was. He revealed that he really doesn't understand, much less has read, the science.

http://www.epi.org/publication/womens-work-and-the-gender-pa...

How is this link related to the bulk of his claims?

There is significant scientific evidence that most of the differences in employment observed between women and men and minorities and white men can be explained by socialization.

When conditions are set that reduce or control for these social factors (including implicit bias) the differences in performance that James Demore attributes to "biological" factors disappear.

How is this not related to the bulk of his claims?

> When conditions are set that reduce or control for these social factors (including implicit bias) the differences in performance that James Demore attributes to "biological" factors disappear.

That's a bold prediction supported by no real-world evidence whatsoever. Where's your control group? Where's the retort society that has all this bias removed or even quantified?

Of course societal effects affect the outcome of a person's career, but the idea that there is absolutely zero influence of biological differences is pure dogma. However, it's convenient (if not imperative) to believe, if you're a strong social constructivist.

Or... you know, you've actually got a PhD in sociology and have read the research. This is armchair-pundit-bullshit akin to climate change denial. Everyone knows better than the researchers who've actually done the work and are immersed in the field.

How about we accept the consensus of the scientists? Rather than calling it dogma because it doesn't agree with YOUR world view.

First of all, you didn't answer my question. Where is your research that brings evidence to support your prediction? Sociology in particular isn't very diligent in actually applying the scientific method.

Secondly, you're making an "argument from authority", which is an intellectual embarrassment. Scientific knowledge is not based on consensus, but on evidence. The theory behind climate change is not supported by the amount of scientists that "believe" in it, but by the evidence they bring forth.

csoze: "Rather than calling it dogma because it doesn't agree with YOUR world view." galacticpony2's statement was valid, csoze, yours is not. As Damore and the scientists who have done the research have stated is biology is PART of the reason. The social constructivists TEND to say the opposite, meaning they TEND to say it's entirely social and literally deny any evidence of a role played by biology even when the evidence is undeniable, such as when experiments involve manipulation of brain chemistry, or control for social influence. That's dogma, and validates galacticpony2's assertion.

If you watch Peterson's video, or more importantly looked at the links in the description, the theory of social constructivism has been disproven through experimentation. The more gender equity there is in a social, the more disparity there is between the interests of men and women and this is universal across all cultures. And what you said about conditions that reduce social factors is false. As Peterson explained there's no reproducible valid science showing that what you say is true.

Assuming you've looked at the actual document (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...) and not redacted/censored versions of it, it does in fact have a lot of links...[0] How many citations would you expect though? He's not publishing for an academic journal. He's not even publishing for an audience outside of coworkers.

[0] Links from the paper in order not counting internal g/ go/ links, whatever those are (not all of them technically citations, but some are; many just to help point out that a technical definition is being used and a common parlance one the reader may have in mind shouldn't be used):

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25098770?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

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

http://righteousmind.com/largest-study-of-libertarian-psych/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizin...

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

http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf (My favorite in-context just because the link text is "research suggests", a common phrase that all too commonly lacks any sort of citation or link of any kind.)

http://quillette.com/2017/07/15/time-stop-worrying-first-wor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality#Risk_fac...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/the-war...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01623095929...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5068300/

https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2011/SPP457/um/23632422/Hakim...

https://groups.google.com/a/google.com/d/msg/coffee-beans-di...

http://www.businessforum.com/WSJ_Race-on-Campus-05-06-2016.p...

https://www.city-journal.org/html/real-war-science-14782.htm...

https://heterodoxacademy.org/problems/

http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psyc...

https://becauseits2015.wordpress.com/2016/08/06/a-non-femini...

http://www.warrenfarrell.net/Summary/

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-per...

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00139

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201209/li...

https://nypost.com/2016/04/17/conservative-professors-must-f...

https://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2011/08/18/44...

https://www.google.com/search?q=political+correctness

https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why-it...

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691616659391...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jjycJDLHc9oixA7FiG3-M2yJ...

http://www.spsp.org/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response

He's an engineer for Google (with a purported PhD from Harvard - likely to only be a MS) that wrote a 10 page article critiquing his company - specifically - for ignoring the science when making decisions about company culture. From someone with his credentials making these claims I expect 15+ peer reviewed sources with at least 1 review article from each field that studies the topic (sociology, economics, anthropology, psychology, biology).

Someone with his credentials should not expect to be spoon fed justifications for company hiring practices. If he had opened discussion on the validity of specific findings and which experiments contain the most valuable information for predicting benefits of policy changes, I don't think there would have been this outcry.

But if he wants to discuss the science he first needs to make it clear that he's read it.

You know, I for one maintain that he shouldn't have to do any of these things to avoid getting fired and getting branded a sexist by the dishonest media. But that's exactly what happened. Being more scientific wouldn't have helped him one iota. Keeping his mouth shut would've helped.

Yes. Tall grass gets cut. Sad, isn't it? This is known as the Chilling Effect.

Given how strongly he's had his view misrepresented, I don't think giving references would've helped him. He was very careful to pick his words, to no avail.

It's the science itself that these people don't want to accept, if it doesn't support their idea that people and society are malleable enough to solve all these unequal distributions.

You probably heard of research that shows that the female population clusters towards to the mean in various features, IQ being one: http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2017/06/why-a...

If we suppose that being successful in STEM correlates strongly with a high IQ, the mere fact that there exist fewer females with a high IQ would be one reason why there would be fewer females in STEM. That's just an objective, logical conclusion. Another logical conclusion would be that no diversity program could change this discrepancy.

The sound way to challenge this would be to challenge the research here, i.e. the foundation of the argument, instead of persecuting a person making such an argument. In other words: "Don't shoot the messenger".

Are you seriously implying that IQ tests are a clean measure of a biological trait? Heritability for IQ ranges from ~40-60% That's pitiful.

No, I'm not. I didn't mention the word "biological", I'm not making any claim on what the underlying reasons for the distributions are. Does it have to be "clean" anyway? What does "clean" even mean? Do you believe society creates this distribution? If so, I'd be interested by which mechanism.

Secondly, heritability may only account for 40-60%, but that's more than zero. Now, how many percentage points do you suppose could be influenced by diversity programs over at Google?

This attempt at summarizing the research is innumerate, disconnected from empirical data, and offensive. Research on gender and IQ does not show that "there exist fewer females with high IQ" --- even stipulating the validity of the research Damore is leaning on, that's now how the statistics work. And there are an enormous number of women in STEM: the concern is that there are few of them in computer science.

Before you attempt to reason from basic principals to a defense of the status quo, you should attempt to fully understand those principles.

> This attempt at summarizing the research is innumerate, disconnected from empirical data, and offensive.

Maybe you should elaborate on why it is innumerate and disconnected. As for calling it "offensive", that's entirely irrelevant. It outs you as somebody who is more interested in silencing people than debating them on more objective merits.

> Research on gender and IQ does not show that "there exist fewer females with high IQ"

Research does show that there exist fewer females at either ends of the distribution and more towards the center, compared to males.

http://www.aei.org/publication/statistical-tests-shows-great...

This does mean that there exist fewer female individuals with exceptionally high or exceptionally low IQs. That is indeed how statistics work.

If you want to contest that the research is flawed and that the result is wrong, do that. If we suppose the data is valid, then my conclusion is sound.

> And there are an enormous number of women in STEM: the concern is that there are few of them in computer science.

The broader concern is STEM, not just computer science. Sure, there's an enormous amount of women in STEM, there's also an enormous amount of men in STEM and if you put both in relation, the relative amount of women in STEM is quite low (compared to other fields).

The only real argument here is how much (if any) of that is due to causes that aren't social.

> The only real argument here is how much (if any) of that is due to causes that aren't social.

Negligible, based on the statistics. The differences, if they even exist, are minuscule, while the gender disparity is enormous. It strains credibility to imagine that the root cause of the gender disparity in STEM employment is innate, especially since the disparity varies across cultures and subfields.

I think it's also worth pointing out that their argument just changed dramatically, and that what they said in their followup can't readily be reconciled with their original claim that studies showed "fewer high IQ women".

How so? You're evading supporting your argument. You just make claims.

I'm not sure you even realized you changed arguments when you switched from "there aren't as many high-IQ women" to "there is a higher variance in the distribution of male intelligence as there is in women". I'm curious to see how you'll rebut, and, if you do, will use your rebuttal to gauge how detailed my response will be.

(Obviously, there is a [weak] rebuttal that preserves the original claim with the new distributional argument).

If M ~ N(u,v_m) and W ~ N(u,v_w) [where N refers to the normal distribution], with v_m > v_w, then P(M > T) > P(W > T) for all T > u. I.e if the trait is approximately normally distributed with equal means among two groups, the group with the higher variance will exhibit more extreme values. Why is this a change in argument?

His argument from the wider variance in male IQs directly supports the statement of "fewer high IQ women", given some definitions of that term (i.e. where exactly you place the cutoff for high IQ). His follow up served to clarify the ambiguous term. I'm not sure where you're coming from here.

> Negligible, based on the statistics.

This isn't something that's actually known.

> The differences, if they even exist, are minuscule, while the gender disparity is enormous.

Small differences can dramatically change outcomes.

> It strains credibility to imagine that the root cause of the gender disparity in STEM employment is innate, especially since the disparity varies across cultures and subfields.

"It strains credibility" is another veiled argument from authority. The "root cause" can be different for every culture. Let's imagine that a culture forces STEM to be disproportionately desirable because of societal/economic pressure. It will push more people into the STEM field that wouldn't have joined "naturally".

Then, let's imagine a culture where there are no pressures either way whatsoever. The "innate" differences (if they are allowed to exist) will dominate the outcome completely.

Now let's look at some real-world examples: https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2...

Would you suspect that more societal pressure (in either direction) is applied in Europe/USA or in China/India/Latin America?

Small differences can sometimes dramatically change outcomes, but that's not a response, it's just handwaving. You have to specify the mechanism by which that particular small difference would result in an 82/18 split for CS, but a 65/35 split for mathematics.

Why? I'm not the one making strong claims, why should the burden of proof rest on me?

My "opponent" maintains that any "non-social" causes are "neglible". He doesn't have to explain what exact social mechanism causes one split for CS and another split for mathematics. I think that's entirely besides the point anyway.

My point is merely that because even small differences in variance can dramatically change outcomes, the differences can't be disregarded just because they are small.

My point also is not that the social effects are neglible! I'm sure they're quite significant, in fact.

You did, in fact, make the original extraordinary claim, which was that there are so few high-IQ women that their scarcity significantly explains the 82/18 gender cap in computer science. Obviously, the underlying science does not agree with this argument, and you've presented no other argument backing it up. I don't think you can legitimately retreat to "burden of proof" rebuttals.

> You did, in fact, make the original extraordinary claim, which was that there are so few high-IQ women that their scarcity significantly explains the 82/18 gender cap in computer science.

I didn't actually claim that, you just keep going with the misrepresentations, otherwise you'd have not leg to stand on. I was very careful to put enough weasel language and conditionals in there to not make a factual claim, exactly because I didn't bother to look into whatever some (potentially flawed) research says.

What I actually said was: "If we suppose that being successful in STEM correlates strongly with a high IQ, the mere fact that there exist fewer females with a high IQ would be one reason why there would be fewer females in STEM. That's just an objective, logical conclusion. Another logical conclusion would be that no diversity program could change this discrepancy."

I'm not making any claim as to whether the supposition is true, or whether the correlation is true, or what IQ is, or whether the influence is even significant. All this is happening in your imagination, through confirmation bias.

> Now let's look at some real-world examples: https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2...

How in the world is this article supposed to buttress your argument that women are somehow innately unfit for STEM careers? The article literally says "A recent study found that rather than too few girls opting to study scientific subjects or women forgoing careers to care for their children, the biggest cause of gender imbalance in Stem is cultural." Clicking through the link, you get to this paper [1], which is in fact a pretty thorough refutation of your entire position.

[1]: http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopa...

reposting my previously flagged post, in the exact wording:

> How in the world is this article supposed to buttress your argument that women are somehow innately unfit for STEM careers?

I never made that argument. You're in the same boat as the people that got James fired by misrepresenting his view. Whether it's lack of reading comprehension or malevolence on your part, I'm not going to deal with you further.

> The article literally says "A recent study found that rather than too few girls opting to study scientific subjects or women forgoing careers to care for their children, the biggest cause of gender imbalance in Stem is cultural."

I'm not actually saying the causes aren't cultural. To the contrary.

> Clicking through the link, you get to this paper [1], which is in fact a pretty thorough refutation of your entire position.

I don't see how exactly that's the case, but given that you're unable to even represent my position properly, I'm not interested in investigating this with you any further.

The EPI is heavily funded by labour unions which have a major stake in the continued acceptance of central tenets of Marxist/postmodernist ideology, like the existence of race/gender/class based social dominance hierarchy and the importance of creating laws that discriminate against the identity group that is perceived to be at the top of this hierarchy.

For a scientist's analysis of the memo, see this:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manifes...

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