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Comment by tchaffee | Hacker News Reader

> that means that it's a topic that needs to be discussed instead of being censored and the author fired.

Here is what CEO said on the about it in his response [1]:

"many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions."

The author of the original memo wasn't fired because of trying to discuss the topic. He was fired because he violated Google's code of conduct, which expects:

"each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."

If you intimidate enough employees via a widespread memo, you will get fired. I see no problem with that. The freedom to discuss a topic also comes with responsibilities.

As an example, would anyone expect to keep their job if they published a memo with "Blacks on average are [insert negative here]." at any big company anywhere in the world? Regardless of scientific basis? It's an absurd expectation, unless you work at a company doing scientific research on that specific subject.

[1] https://www.blog.google/topics/diversity/note-employees-ceo-...

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The main problem I see with that is that poll that says that a third of the employees didn't disagree with the memo. If there's such a large percentage that agree with it then it's time for discussion. It's not a minority opinion and that memo shows what a lot of people think but will not be afraid to express.

So, instead of having open discussion on the topic which would help changing ideas, those opinions are being suppressed and the people holding them will be further radicalized.

In my comment I quoted the CEO saying many parts of the memo are open to discussion. Discussion and debate comes with responsibilities, and one of the responsibilities per the CoC is that you do not intimidate or harass other employees.

Is it unreasonable to say you are not allowed to intimidate or harass other employees?

> be afraid to express.

They should be afraid to express an opinion that violates the code of conduct. The code of conduct values some things over others, and a workplace free of harassment and intimidation is more important to Google than making sure no one is ever afraid of expressing an opinion. It might well be the opinion of some engineer in Google that all blacks should be called niggers. That engineer should rightly be afraid of expressing that opinion no matter how deeply held that opinion is, and no matter how many other employees share that opinion.

> the people holding them will be further radicalized.

Source?

Ok, where is the intimidation or harassment? He expressed unpopular opinion and unenlightened points of view but is there harassment?

In another comment, you say it's the mention that women tend to have on average more neuroticism although you seem to acknowledge in that comment that it has basis in research [1]. If, as you say, it's a fact, then how can it be harassment?

You cannot have reasonable discussions, if you dismiss what you consider to be true facts because you consider them to be harassment. There could be factors that could cause a statistical difference between genders due to physiology or due to culture (I disagree with the memo's author in his dismissal of cultural and parenting influences on gender behaviors) and any discussion of diversity would need to take those into account.

Now, the author claims that his memo had notes to supporting evidence but the leaked copies do not have that.

[1] For the record, I haven't found the research on that and I'm rather skeptical of that result.

There is a leaked copy with the links intact: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

The citation for higher neuroticism is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#..., this in turn cites http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.81..., which confirms the claims.

> ... gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas.

> where is the intimidation or harassment?

Many employees felt intimidated and that they now had to prove in a work setting that they are not "more neurotic on average than men". This is about human relationships. If enough people say they felt intimidated, how can anyone dispute that? Can you prove they didn't feel intimidated? Can I prove they did feel intimidated? No to both questions. It's not in the domain of science or facts. It's in the domain of human relationships and emotions.

> If, as you say, it's a fact,

I said it was a fact? Where? I actually don't care if it's a fact or not. It just doesn't mean a lot to me either way.

> then how can it be harassment?

Easy. There is zero relationship between facts and harassment. I can tell the truth and harass you. I can also lie and harass you.

If I pass your workspace every day and say "You have a smaller penis than the average man and some people here are better at programming than you" does it matter whether both of those are facts? It's still clearly harassment. Unless we have an inside joke.... human relationships are far more complex than science. No wonder so many of us would like to shoehorn everything into black and white scientific facts!

> You cannot have reasonable discussions, if you dismiss what you consider to be true facts because you consider them to be harassment.

Of course you can. A reasonable discussion around your penis size at work wouldn't include facts about your penis size. The reasonable discussion would be "that's inappropriate and if you don't leave me alone I'll report you to HR for harassment."

You are confusing "facts" with "appropriateness". One is a scientific concept, the other is a social concept. The two have almost nothing to do with each other.

> the author claims that his memo had notes to supporting evidence

It might be interesting, but it doesn't matter in the least in this case. The domain isn't science. Per the Google code of conduct, it expects "each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."

Do you see anything about science in the code of conduct? Or is it talking about culture and human relationships?

> Many employees felt intimidated and that they now had to prove in a work setting that they are not "more neurotic on average than men".

Since we can't read minds, we don't know how they felt. We only know that they said they felt that way. When you believe it is for a higher cause - like fighting the patriarchy - lying about your feelings is a minor consideration.

Witness how many of these identity activists lie about being pushed, lie about having their space invaded to accomplish their ends:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRlRAyulN4o

Not a single one of them says "Hey, no, lying isn't right." The collective values of that massive group of identity activists has no regard for truth, on this level.

We can't deny that there is cultural overlap between the identity activists in this video, and the identity activists currently working at Google.

You're basically saying what I'm saying: harassment isn't something that can be objectively determined. Googlers might be lying about it, they might be telling the truth.

If you don't want to get fired for harassing folks, and you don't have great people skills, you should probably keep your controversial opinions at home. YMMV.

> In my comment I quoted the CEO saying many parts of the memo are open to discussion.

It's open, but you'll be fired.

> Is it unreasonable to say you are not allowed to intimidate or harass other employees?

If talking about something is considered intimidation or harassment, which is the reality of the situation in USA 2017, then yes I consider it unreasonable.

All these do-gooders are going to reap what they sow in the long run, and it sure as heck isn't what they think it is.

> It's open, but you'll be fired.

A gross mischaracterization. Open never means anyone can just say whatever comes to mind.

"Open discussion??? Oh goody!!! Kike, kike, kike, kike, the bosses are cheap Jews! Wait, what??? You're firing me? Whaaaaaaa, look at me tears, you promised open discussion!!! I'm suing, all woe is me!"

I'm confident you're not that naive, and I hope you can see the point of my exaggeration. Everything, even open discussion, has limits.

The CEO made it clear which parts of the memo were ok (almost every part of it). And which parts violated the code of conduct.

Violate the code of conduct, and you're fired. Sed lex, dura lex. Everything has limits. So the discussion then is about what those limits should be.

> If talking about something is considered intimidation or harassment,

It's not. There are almost endless things you can talk about at work that aren't considered harassment or intimidation. There isn't a little rule book to guide you. It's up to you as an adult to to have adult relationships with your co-workers and to figure out for yourself what other people are comfortable hearing and what they consider harassment. I'm sure you already know that you can't tell a female employee she has bigger than average tits, no matter how factual it is or even if it's just "talking about something". But the more subtle points are up to you to work out with your co-workers. Be enough of an jerk to enough people by just "talking about something", and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

This has been the reality since humans have had emotions. Every adult with an ounce of understanding about human relationships knows that there is a lot of stuff you can't talk about at work.

> which is the reality of the situation in USA 2017

Where did you get this idea that you ever had some kind of right at some point in history to talk about whatever you want to talk about at work - with no care towards how it makes your fellow employees feel? For most of America's business history you could get your butt thrown out the door just for saying something the boss doesn't like. You're actually slightly more protected in USA 2017, but a smart boss will find a way if he doesn't like what you say. So will your co-workers.

I guess at one point in USA history you could more easily get away with sexually harassing female employees. Safe to say that's not the point in history you're trying to return to? If I'm right, can you describe the point in history you are trying to return to and why it was better? What was ok then that isn't ok now? Specific examples please?

> All these do-gooders are going to reap what they sow in the long run, and it sure as heck isn't what they think it is.

I guess we should be afraid... of.... something? Your revenge? Back up your vague threat with what you predict will actually happen or with what you plan on doing.

Well, how does one tell the difference between:

and:

"each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."

Is there a definition for what constitutes "harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination"?

I think anyone interested in not having a note placed into their HR file now knows it is perhaps not a good idea to ask such questions.

> Everything, even open discussion, has limits.

Exactly - the author of the manifesto is free to discuss these concerns with his manager and have them ignored, or leave. They shall not be discussed publicly, or else.

Anyone that said "Kike, kike, kike, kike, the bosses are cheap Jews!" wouldn't be taken seriously, because such ideas are obviously false. The content of this manifesto cannot be dismissed so easily, if it could I suspect someone would have done it and intellectually humiliated this person using superior ideas. The problem is, that's not possible in this case. Hence, in the spirit of equality and harmony, there's really only one practical approach, the one that was taken.

I'd rebut some of your other specific points, but as much fun as these arguments are, they don't really serve any purpose.

For me, it comes down to whether we want to live in a society where we acknowledge reality, or not. Where people debate ideas, or not.

> how does one tell the difference between...

By talking to people and using your people skills.

> Is there a definition for what constitutes "harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination"?

Yes. It's not a written definition. It's a living and changing definition created by the people who work there and how YOU make them feel. You need to use your people skills in order to extract the definition from your co-workers.

> wouldn't be taken seriously, because such ideas are obviously false.

This is the core of your misunderstanding. The scientific merit of ideas has zero relationship to whether or not you are harassing someone. Anyone who said the offensive things I wrote wouldn't be taken seriously and would be fired because they are offensive. True or not. Obviously true or not. And for all you know, whoever said the above does work for cheap Jews (my apologies if I've offended anyone with this language - I love Jews like everyone else and I hope you can understand I'm using this for illustration purposes only).

> For me, it comes down to whether we want to live in a society where we acknowledge reality, or not. Where people debate ideas, or not.

Look Mom! We are freely debating something right here, right in society!

Don't confuse "Google" (an employer) with "society". No one is forcing you to work at Google nor for your employment status to be determined by their code of conduct.

Even HN has a code of conduct, and yet you seem to be ok debating things here.

> Yes. It's not a written definition. It's a living and changing definition created by the people who work there and how YOU make them feel. You need to use your people skills in order to extract the definition from your co-workers.

Agreed, but that's my very complaint! As they say, the pendulum has swung too far! (In my opinion, of course.)

> Look Mom! We are freely debating something right here, right in society! Don't confuse "Google" (an employer) with "society". No one is forcing you to work at Google nor for your employment status to be determined by their code of conduct.

What bothers me is the trajectory we are on. You can debate things "in society", but "freely"? Have you not read news articles on the increasing suppression of free speech on campuses, or people being physically attacked for what they believe in? And of course, Google is free to do whatever it wants, that is true, but please don't simultaneously say that it is indisputable that they have a culture of free speech, or that their messaging is somewhat out of line with their actions.

I'm not unsympathetic to the other side of this debate, how people (myself included) perceive the world makes it extremely difficult to appreciate different points of view, and I often think people are far off the mark, for example the commentary on the intentions of the author of this manifesto.

These conversations agitate me because it can seem like people think you are completely wrong, even though I doubt (or hope not) that is your intent or belief.

EDIT:

I imagine you've seen this: http://huyenchip.com/2017/08/09/sexism-in-silicon-valley.htm...

"We need to be careful when encouraging affirmative action in tech to ensure it doesn’t reinforce the philosophy of treating women differently."

This is one of the things I had in mind when I said "All these do-gooders are going to reap what they sow in the long run, and it sure as heck isn't what they think it is." Yes, women may be getting hired, but for what reason matters.

> Agreed, but that's my very complaint! As they say, the pendulum has swung too far! (In my opinion, of course.)

I'm glad we're finally getting to some sort of consensus that this is firmly in the realm of human relationships and has little to do with facts and more to do with opinions. Your co-workers' opinions of you are very important. Like it or not, fair or not, that is never going away. Fortunately you have some freedom in where you choose to work and can try to find a good cultural fit to your own values.

> What bothers me is the trajectory we are on.

Newspapers need clickable headlines to stay in business. I'm not worried. There was never a guarantee in the USA that you will have a public forum for whatever nonsense (or genius) you want to spew. It has always been up to the public, or your co-workers, if they want to give you a forum. As long as the government isn't interfering with my speech, I can handle company policy, co-workers, friends and family, and the general public, all with just by using my people skills.

> please don't simultaneously say that it is indisputable that they have a culture of free speech, or that their messaging is somewhat out of line with their actions.

No one, not me, not even Google, is claiming their primary goal is free speech. Per their CoC, a primary goal is a workplace free of harassment. Which by definition limits your speech. In fact they fired someone for what he said, no apologies. So I don't see any inconsistency. Your speech is indeed limited at work if you work for Google or any big company in the world.

Now if conservatives at Google, as a minority, are being harassed or silenced just because of their political views, then I do agree that is a problem, and one I hope they fix. Not in the name of free speech, but in the name of another stated goal they have: diversity.

> I imagine you've seen this

She also admits that sometime the best way to have women feel comfortable in tech is to just first get a lot of women into tech. Chicken and egg problem. I encourage aggressive affirmative action once you've already identified existing bias against any minority. Sexism and racism are problems in the tech world. When they aren't problems anymore, the affirmative action will go away due to market forces. No company will bear the cost of affirmative action if there is no risk of lawsuits from minorities currently being excluded.

I continue to disagree with much of what you say, not just for the sake of disagreeing but because I think it is material to society working towards a maximally harmonious, successful/competitive, and "fair" position, but I don't think it's possible to make any progress. To me, this conversation seems like a fairly representative example of what is one of the underlying causes of our failure to communicate in society. But, life goes on.

Exactly my point of view. I'm pretty much aligned with the left when it comes to moral values but political correctness drives me crazy.

If talking about something is considered intimidation or harassment then people will not talk about it and the 30% or so who agree with that memo will continue agreeing with it in private and maybe talk about it in echo chambers like redpill on reddit but will not talk about it publicly.

So, they will not be able to see the other side point of view, they will not be able to evolve their thinking.

The problem is that this phenomena is not limited to Google, it's also in campuses and it means that while Americans have "free speech", they need to self-censor if they do not want to compromise their careers. And I don't believe that people who are hiding their opinion can be convinced and can change their mind. This, I believe is why Trump ended up winning (which to me is a catastrophe for all of the things I care about).

Yes, if you deny the reasonable conversation then the extremists will claim it as validating their ridiculous standpoints.

You can see this in action if you read the response to this on any extremist online gathering spot. A lot of people didn't fully read or comprehend the memo and use it as proof of their nonsense world view.

> If you intimidate enough employees via a widespread memo, you will get fired.

Which part of the memo was intimidating, harassing, or illegal? Which part promoted biases?

> As an example, would anyone expect to keep their job if they published a memo with "Blacks on average are [insert negative here]."

No, but that's because of my low expectation of fairness from corporate leadership and middle management, not because I think that opinion is harassing, intimidating, or illegal. I suppose you could argue that it promotes bias, but then you'd have to make the case that it wasn't true. Otherwise it would be reality with the bias, right?

> Which part of the memo was intimidating, harassing,

"Women on average have more neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)." is one example.

Just because something is true or a fact does not give some magical guarantee that people will not feel intimidated or harassed if that fact is presented in a certain way or in a certain context. And perhaps people who have lived an entire life of being discriminated against might not even care about the context.

In order to make sure people don't feel intimidated, you need to use people skills, not science skills. You need to listen, you need to empathize, and ask questions. You need to be able to feel what someone else is feeling. Almost always this means in person. The opposite of blasting out a memo (which happens to insert some scientific facts) from behind your computer screen.

Having good people skills often has little to do with science or even the truth.

> not because I think that opinion is harassing, intimidating,

If you can't see why a sweeping generalization about blacks (or any other group) can be harassing or intimidating, may I respectfully suggest you could use some education in the area of people skills? I'm saying that having come myself from a place where I had little respect for the soft skills involved in sales, marketing, diplomacy, charisma, leadership, and so on. You seem to have a great deal of respect for the truth and reality. Reality and truth also include feelings, and it's very rare that scientific truth helps anyone navigate how to make others feel like they are not being harassed or intimidated.

> my low expectation of fairness from corporate leadership and middle management

Why would you have any expectation of fairness from them? It's nowhere in their job description, and they don't get paid to be fair. At place like Google, very often they are being paid because they have a smidgen of people skills the tech folks below them are so sorely lacking in.

Hey, I'd like to challenge your view about advice to "learn people skills" which seems to push responsibility to one group, those who aren't already people skilled enough.

There are more extroverts than introverts in the world. The first group is happy with social contact, talking with people and generally score better in empathy. Introverts are the other way around: they prefer to use text, do not like to give in to emotions and score worse in people skills. That's according to the book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" but I guess it's not a controversial point to make anyway, and while you can find many outliers as in any discipline, I think it's a fairly good generalization.

Now, it may depend on the company or group, so two scenarios:

1) Introverts are a majority, extroverts a minority - maybe that's a tech company: shouldn't extroverts use their people skills and be able to figure out that introverts mean no harm and just prefer to communicate by sending long pieces of text with many scientific sources cited instead of talking with even one person? They might have even been doing this for many years, in the introvertive bubble of their fellow colleagues who shy away from emotions. Of course, extroverts could still feel emotionally touched and maybe even attacked as the minority - but then, been empathetic and knowing the style of introverts, shouldn't they try to teach them people skills? Are we sure firing this person is going to be an actual lesson to him? Or maybe there is no way to teach introverts people skills, as Google with a load of money and staff cannot even challenge beliefs of one employee? How come then we can ask single introverts to learn it on their own? Does it mean we're all doomed as more and more tech companies change from big groups of introverted engineers to cross-disciplinary team with a mix of characters?

2) Extroverts are a majority, introverts are a minority - again, using their people skills extroverts would surely recognize that introverts are not comfortable with people skills... so if introverts are a minority, is firing them for miss-following the code of conduct, written most likely by the majority i.e. extroverts, a form of discrimination? For the sake of diversity, shouldn't they all learn about more scientific, less emotional approach? Or should you be schooled only if you're in the minority without those skills?

IMO author of the memo made a decent attempt at using his people skills on this paper - what the post from Sabine acutally acknowledged, although you could generalize based on her background she's an introvert as well. It just looks like that other people have higher expectations of people skills but the question is have they done enough to learn the science skills themselves or just assume that everyone should have people skills at the exact level they want because they dictate so as a majority.

(Cheers, sorry for all the mistakes, English is not my native language.)

Agreed. Those are all very good points.

If this guy has any defense at all, it could be that he's a minority somewhere on the spectrum of Asperger's, and that a diverse company also needs to somehow accommodate his inability to understand how his statements could have made others feel.

On the other hand, it's quite possible he's just an angry white male who feels like he's being left out but got it off his chest when empowered behind his computer screen, and with his weapons of scientific fact. Jabs of harassment are often delivered buried within a harmless context.

Perhaps a bit of both. It will be for the courts to decide.

Long term, you gave me some ideas. If my company ever gets big enough to have a mix of introverts and extroverts I wonder if it would be a good idea to pair introverts and extroverts so they can "protect" each other? Extroverts can help introverts from saying really insensitive stuff, and introverts could help train the extroverts about when to leave the introverts alone, and to stop harassing them about "being more social". Just a thought...

This entire post is incredibly dangerous.

> Having good people skills often has little to do with science or even the truth.

I can only assume you're liberal based on your stance, but you do an enormous amount of damage to progressive values and true diversity when you state things like this. Establishing harassment as something independent and impervious to truth creates the ultimate echo chamber that enables a post-fact world. So anyone who comes to you with a fact or a quantum of reality you don't like should be considered a harasser? How does this apply when you write your own positions? Truth is what allows us to move forward as a society, and to ignore it is to doom us to follow what makes us feel better, not what's right. There are numerous examples through out history where I'm sure the majority would have liked to ignore facts in order to make themselves feel better and maintain the status quo. Good people skills has everything to do with leading us to better and positive understanding of objective truth.

You create a strawman diverting from the document in question by talking about "sweeping generalization about blacks," when the previous poster was clearly addressing the document, not your flimsy hypothetical. And yet, you then proceed to paint tech folks below management as completely lacking in the people skills to understand management and your enlightened position.

To be clear, I thought the conclusions of the document were dumb, but your handling of controversial topics strikes me as equally dangerous, if not more so. I think your heart is in the right place, but strive to be like John Milton in how you digest the arguments of others: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed..."

edit: sp & truth

> Establishing harassment as something independent and impervious to truth creates the ultimate echo chamber that enables a post-fact world.

Why is harassment determined by humans in a court of law, very often using their gut instincts, if it has some ultimate test tube truth that can be used to decide whether or not it occurred? What's the lab test I'm not aware of? Ok, I'm being a little facetious, but still, can you even guide me to an written objective source of truth that describes exactly what harassment is and isn't? I can provide tons of concrete examples and we all know it when we see it, but I think it's incredibly hard to give an objective description. It's certainly never about words. One person's "nigger" is friendly, the other person's "nigger" is harassment and how it was intended and how it was received both have to do with what each person was feeling. Is there a way to to objectively determine truth about how people felt when they said or heard something?

> So anyone who comes to you with a fact or a quantum of reality you don't like should be considered a harasser?

I never said that. I did say that harassment is about human relationships and people skills and not in the domain of facts. You can lie to someone and harass them. You can tell them the truth and harass them. You can lie to someone and make their day better. You can tell the truth to someone and make their day better. There is very little relationship between objective truth and people skills.

> You create a strawman

No, it's an analogy. And a very very close one. The original document made sweeping generalizations about women. I simply replaced "women" with "blacks" so it's easier to see the pattern of how offensive it is to make sweeping generalizations. True generalizations, or false one, folks don't like being put in a bucket of "you tend to act this way because you are an _fill in the blank_".

> Truth is what allows us to move forward as a society,

Agreed. Scientific truth and emotional truth are two very different things. Relationships don't really have a "what's right" or an objective truth do they? It's always very objective.

> Good people skills has everything to do with leading us to better and positive understanding of objective truth.

And understanding of the objective truth is a goal for some people. Other people have zero interest in the objective truth and are more interested in their emotional life and relationships with others. Or something else. Maybe art. Or sales. Both of which have little to do with objective truth. Don't assign your personal values to others.

> but strive to be like John Milton

I don't know Milton. I'll check him out. Thanks for the recommendation.

Then perhaps google should not solicit opinions on the matter, as they did in this case?

They didn't solicit opinions on the matter, don't be dishonest.

Yes they did. The post was on an internal board which, if I understand right, was in response to a question by Google management about their diversity practices.

Are you dreaming? That's not how this went down at all.

Does soliciting employees' opinions on a matter absolve the employees from continuing to follow the code of conduct?

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