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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

The most troubling thing about this whole issue for me is the weird fetish about "biology" on both sides of the debate.

As Mr. Hume told us a few hundred years ago, nature simply is, and doesn't tell us what ought to be. As such I have trouble understanding why we are approaching the issue from this angle.

Instead of obsessing about biology, we should care about how we want our workplaces to look. And I would welcome a diverse workplace instead of male or female monoculture. We can shape how our society works, we're not slaves to nature.

I find this discussion funny in the context of say Israel having countless women serve in the army for decades now. Someone must have forgotten to tell them about their biological limitations. Having worked in China for a while, where as a result of the one child policy pretty much everybody is expected to start a fruitful career, women just worked and had children at the same time. Someone must have forgotten to tell them that this is impossible.

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Let me quote someone who has said it much better than I can:

"But it is crucial to distinguish the moral proposition that people should not be discriminated against on account of their sex — which I take to be the core of feminism — and the empirical claim that males and females are biologically indistinguishable. They are not the same thing. Indeed, distinguishing them is essential to protecting the core of feminism. Anyone who takes an honest interest in science has to be prepared for the facts on a given issue to come out either way. And that makes it essential that we not hold the ideals of feminism hostage to the latest findings from the lab or field. Otherwise, if the findings come out as showing a sex difference, one would either have to say, "I guess sex discrimination wasn't so bad after all," or else furiously suppress or distort the findings so as to preserve the ideal. The truth cannot be sexist. Whatever the facts turn out to be, they should not be taken to compromise the core of feminism.

[..]

The nature and source of sex differences are also of practical importance. Most of us agree that there are aspects of the world, including gender disparities, that we want to change. But if we want to change the world we must first understand it, and that includes understanding the sources of sex differences. "

-- Steven Pinker, The Pinker/Spelke Debate https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.htm...

EDIT: formatting

>The nature and source of sex differences are also of practical importance. Most of us agree that there are aspects of the world, including gender disparities, that we want to change. But if we want to change the world we must first understand it, and that includes understanding the sources of sex differences. "

completely agree with Pinker's sentiment but it is very important to note that for him understanding nature is emancipatory.

For him understanding our natural limitations is a means to figure out how to overcome them. For people preoccupied in this debate scientific discovery about differences seems to be used in the way some mad 19th century eugenistics used it, as a quasi religious justification of the status quo.

This is exactly the wrong way to approach the topic, and precisely how the googler attempted to portray the existing evidence. This produced the outlash.

Except that the author of the memo used it exactly in the Pinker sense:

"We want more diversity. I want more diversity"

"What we're doing, it's not working"

"Maybe we're doing it wrong. Maybe we're missing something"

"Here are things [well-supported by the science] that we might be missing"

"Here's how we might use this knowledge to make things better"

If that truly was or is his intention I don't think he has found the best way to express this. Pointing towards female neuroticism, criticising 'politically correctness' and vague allusions to 'Marxism', he managed to make himself sound like a real jerk with exactly the agenda in mind women do not want to experience any more.

If you want to have a cool-headed discussion don't style yourself as a martyr and accuse other people of silencing you. This is not the way to have that discussion.

> female neuroticism

While he used the technically correct term, its use without explaining the term was definitely unwise. I explain here: http://blog.metaobject.com/2017/08/the-science-behind-manife...

> accuse other people of silencing you

Considering they fired him, not exactly a baseless accusation.

This is a fascinating thought about the emancipatory aspect to this, but I also recognize it presupposes obstacles at the current boundaries that are capable of being pushed as opposed to some fixed upper limit constraint. I think the area where we could all benefit from much thought is just what sort of effort would be involved in this boundary enlarging in order to weigh the cost of such an endeavor. I think its always fair to presume yielding boundaries and is probably my optimism that speaks, but it seems to me a lot of the outrage spans from someone declaring ultimate constraints and fixed boundaries. More thought should go to harnessing the potential energy if you will for doing work in a certain force field to draw a physical analogy and understanding the friction experienced in the motions of both bodies. If one presents less effort, that is a key fact to consider.

Have you read Adam Grant's piece on linkedin? I think you'd like it. Basically the argument is that biological differences exist but are small or mostly isolated to a few (mostly physical) domains. And that those domains have little to do with computer science, the reason google has less women than men is mostly a cultural problem.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/differences-between-men-women...

It is indeed an interesting piece.

And have you read Alexander Scott's piece on how mistaken Grant is about the actual state of science? http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... Basically the argument is that Grant has failed to actually read the science he cites, because it the actual results from that science don't say what Grant say they says, especially as it relates to Damore's memo's worldview.

And then you can read Grant's reply to Alexander, and Alexander's reply to Grant. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... All pretty interesting.

And the outcome of all that, for me, is a strong reinforcement of the Pinker quote that mpweiher quoted: feminism must not be held hostage to the science, because otherwise many scientists will see things that will require them to become non-feminists.

But is it Google's culture that is the problem? I mean if there are only 1:5 female to male graduates in engineering/cs, then it stands to reason that if Google has more than that ratio, they are probably fine, in terms of their own distribution model. (Not sure what the actual ratios are in either case).

I'm more disturbed by the visceral reaction to a memo that was meant to be internal, made enough effort to stay somewhat centrist and isn't really calling out any individual, but mostly calling for a re-evaluation of their processes based on empirical data. Even if his thesis may be in error, or may have said things that bother some.

If Google has a disproportionate share of females coming through the hiring pipelines, then other companies are only going to be even more lopsided.

The problem must be fixed before Google gets into the equation, not at the Google level.

> If Google has a disproportionate share of females coming through the hiring pipelines, then other companies are only going to be even more lopsided.

Not if Google attracts women that would not otherwise be applying at other tech firms.

>I find this discussion funny in the context of say Israel having countless women serve in the army for decades now. Someone must have forgotten to tell them about their biological limitations.

I find this comment funny in the context of the fact that only 3% of IDF soldiers in combat roles are women. Would this be an acceptable percentage in software?

> As Mr. Hume told us a few hundred years ago, nature simply is, and doesn't tell us what ought to be

It unfortunately isn't that simple. About a century ago, one of the fathers of social psychology, no less, and an opinion leader at the time, offered the following quote:

> In the most intelligent races, as among the Parisians, there are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains. This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion. All psychologists who have studied the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man. They excel in fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason. Without doubt there exist some distinguished women, very superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, of a gorilla with two heads; consequently, we may neglect them entirely. -- Gustave Le Bon

There's more to 'the weird fetish about "biology" on both sides of the debate' than just wishing a better society into existence. There's a bias that feeds on deep cultural history that must be shed light onto and overcome.

How on earth did educated men ever come to this sort of conclusion? Did they simply not come into contact with any women other than, say, a scullery maid or their sassy teenage daughter? I just can't understand it. Did these men have no respect for their wives?

The same way "educated" men came to the conclusion that the earth is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth, that orbits are perfect circles...plus epicycles, that breaking the sound barrier was impossible, that bacteria cannot possibly have anything to do with disease and washing hands in hospitals is a waste of time, etc. etc.

Not to defend the manifesto or it's content:

1) It's all to common for people to reinterpret a claim of the form "biology has significant effects on the behavior of humans in the aggregate" into "we can assume biology is a limiting factor on individuals". Since the latter is an indefensible position this technique is used to preemptively invalidate any argument that actually only claims the former. This is what you've just done here, intentionally or not and it's an unacceptable intellectual dishonesty.

2) You're also dramatically misattributing the attempt to determine "what ought to be" to only one side of the argument. One of the article's key points is that the pro-diversity advocates take it for granted that "what ought to be" in the world of tech employment is a 50/50 split between the genders based on the biological basis of sex-at-birth ratios. The truth is that the natural, not unjustly-influenced equilibrium is not known to anyone on any side. Choosing any specific ratio (even 50/50) necessarily implies defining what the genders are or should be. (Including how many genders there are and which ones you accept!) For example, saying that the ratio should be 50/50 is to say that in this respect women should not differ from men, even by their own choices.

To your point on 1) regarding the individual, I think the memo author's original point may have been too inconspicuous "...so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions." I agree with the flaws in projecting stats to any given individual.

That point about equilibrium is very interesting; makes me wonder about civilization fitness and competitiveness for those that discover the natural equilibriums and exploit them to their advantage. Sort of like a Star Trek Next Generation episode where some planet's society was able to measure all the traits in their children and direct them to where they were optimized. Makes me want to dig up that old plotline and see what the writer's thought about such a ordering of society.

Did you read the thing? You have the greatest gender balance in comp sci in the least egalitarian societies. There's a body of scientific literature you could consult if you wanted the diversity you claim to want.

But that is precisely what I said! Developing countries are egalitarian out of necessity. For them economic emancipation is principally important, and just by accident lifts women and minorities up.

We have grown a little too soft it seems. Our (western) over-emphasis of freedom of choice is actually segregating us. We're giving in to our worst instincts and then claim that they are biological facts that we cannot escape from. That is not a good idea.

> Developing countries are egalitarian

Except they are not, by pretty much all measures. It's just that people are less free to choose what they want to do.

"Developing countries are egalitarian"

I have to wonder what you think is meant by the words egalitarian and developing.

I understand egalitarianism in real material terms. The ability to shape your own future as your wish, upward mobility, a fundamental sense of optimisim about your future prospects, and so forth.

This is very much present in developing countries, whereas people in large swathes of the developed world seem to be preoccupied lamenting their own insecurities and limitations on all sides of the political spectrum.

I think a good deal of Westerners would do well to spend some of their time in a developing country that is on the economic upswing if they still think that the rest of the world is lacking in political or cultural regards.

> nature simply is, and doesn't tell us what ought to be

A lot of studies have probe the opposite (recent studies, not old ones).

> I have trouble understanding why we are approaching the issue from this angle.

Because you have cases like Norway, one of the most genre equality countries, where the ratios or men/women in tech are even worse that less genre equality countries. And the most accepted theory for this is based on biology (actually other theories fall apart because they don't have any evidence).

> I find this discussion funny in the context of say Israel having countless women serve in the army for decades now.

The biology also explain this. Skills are not unique and their values are diffuse. Even if the average men is stronger than the average women, if you select a man and a woman is not always the case the man is stronger than the woman.

You can say biology doesn't matter but the facts are that there is a strong correlation and should be taken into account. So I suggest to not to ignore it and read about the topic.

>A lot of studies have probe the opposite (recent studies, not old ones).

You should familiarise yourself with the philosophical basis of the is/ought distinction.

There is no good reason to assume that scientific inquiry, which tells us a fact about the world in any way tells us what we should want or should do.

Scientific evidence is a tool to evaluate whether we are effectively pursuing our normative values. Science itself will never be able to set those values for us.

> You should familiarise yourself with the philosophical basis of the is/ought distinction.

don't assume I am not. You could be making a mistake

> there is no good reason to assume that scientific inquiry, which tells us a fact about the world in any way tells us what we should want or should do.

actually the scientific community has this into their theories. There are two factors: biological factors and the environment. At they beginning they weren't sure about the biological factors so they make test in one day old infants. And there is a high correlation between genre and interest even with one day old.

Respectfully, it very much appears that you do not understand the is/ought distinction. But I assume that you know yourself better than we strangers do.

Given that, to most of us, the is/ought distinction makes the sentence "nature simply is, and doesn't tell us what ought to be" a tautology, and given that you say 'a lot of studies' have demonstrated otherwise, I'm super curious what you mean. Could you explain, please?

I just wrote the following response to the child comment that you deleted. So here's my response, in case it's useful to you:

--------------

That is totally not what "is/ought distinction" is about, at all. Perhaps start your reading with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem , although I'm sure there are better sources.

The idea is that the answer to one of the following two questions is of no use in deciding the answer to the other one:

  Is it the case that X?
  Should it be the case that X?

--------------

Aside from your confusion about what the word "ought" means, I think the rest of your (now-deleted) comment is straightforwardly correct.

Ops, I am really sorry. I kept reading and realizing that I was confused and needed to read more. That my comment could be not related and I missunderstood the concept. I wanted to take more time to read and express myself better and so I deleted the comment in order to rewrite it when I came back home after reading more.

Your response is useful. Thanks.

I don't want this to be out of context. Here exactly my original comment:

I assumed in his context he means you are a biological entity but there is not correlation with the abstract entity (the mind). Because of that you can state your personal interests are not linked with your DNA in any way. But this has been probed to be false. Scientist have observed a high correlation between the testosterone and the social skills and interests. As the testosterone that is generated based on our DNA you can link you abstract entity with your physical entity. So scientist can predict how social are you going to be or whether you will be more interested in dolls or mechanical objects before you have even be born.

This is the biological factor, and then you have the cultural factor, the one you call "the ought to be". So genetically you have a predisposition to be one way, but this can be shaped by the environment, not only because you can reason about your behavior and change it but because the environment also modifies the DNA and so the levels of testosterone (and more things). How much can you shape the biological predisposition is a good question to answer. For example: I could say that being gay or straight is a biological factor but I doubt any environment factor can change that, maybe you will fake it for the shake of the social acceptance but not changing it.

EDIT: I forgot to say that the testosterone has an influence in the plasticity of the brain.

You're completely right - science can't dictate what should be, only what is. But part of the problem, as I see it, is that there are far too many people who dismiss any science that says things are different from the way they think things should be.

On the flipside, there's far too many people who do the opposite and ignore what "should be" using "what is" as the excuse.

While is does not imply ought, is limits the possible. I want to be a billionaire, but no matter my wish the fact of the matter is otherwise.

I think even preceding ultimate limitations of population level inequalities is the cost one assumes by not optimizing subpopulations to what they're good at or enhancing or integrating their natural traits to the task at hand. We can brush aside natural scientific realities but I'd imagine it would come at some degree of peril. Maybe that cost can be absorbed by tuning things correctly. At the least we should continue to explore sex based biological differences and see what the contours of reality present for us around all the varied human activities the sexes can find themselves in.

What percentage of Sayeret Matkal are women?

Sayeret Matkal, like all elite units, is closed to women. [1]

But it’s difficult to claim that women are equals in the IDF (even the IDF admits that less than 4 percent of women are in combat positions). Many are in “combat-support” positions that can involve anything from opening the gate of the army base to cleaning guns—and which, by the way, command a lower salary than combat positions. And tellingly, there is only one female general in the entire IDF. [1]

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/ga...

Norway has female special forces members ("Jegertroppen").

Gaddafi famously had female bodyguards, but perhaps for very different reasons.

Many muslim countries have female special forces (again prehaps fro very different reasons)

Countries who have troops in the ME (including the US) tend to have women in (or attached to) commando units because the locals get very shooty when male soldiers search their women. But those SF women tend to not get involved in pure combat missions due to lack of physical strength.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39434655 they are all about interacting with the public, but they are proper soldiers.

Sure, they're trained as soldiers, and they go out on patrols. But if you have a target, a "go to this place and kill everyone you see" mission, you don't usually bring the women.

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