How I wish Sundar Pichai had responded to James Damore's memo about diversity
curtisb.posthaven.com
curtisb.posthaven.com
That last part in particular seems patronizing. It implies that people who wanted Damore to be punished did/could not reach that conclusion if they had exercised rational thinking and reasonable judgment. So the OP seems to be begging the question here, because the memo he believes Google's CEO should have written is the kind of memo the CEO would write if he thought the anti-Damore crowd to be irrational and over-emotional.
If one thing has become painfully obvious it's that most people calling for his head did not read the memo at all (the evidence is in this thread). Others only read it after the media had framed it how they want. Others misinterpreted it, possibly intentionally. Others still think he deserved to be fired because he CC'd it to the whole company.
That is not acting in a calm and rational manner.
More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd? Correlation does not equal causation.
I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either.
> More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd?
Because their statements indicate that, here is what Sundar Pichai wrote:
> “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.”
The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it.
https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-ja... does seem to try very hard to get a meme going that displays Danielle Brown as pure evil.
> The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it.
Actually, it does.
Women on average are more prone to anxiety
Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.
which suggests that women are less able to handle stressful jobs. Of course Damore's suggestion is to make jobs at Google less stressful, but if someone wants to feel outraged at that, they absolutely can.
This is a statement about women in general, a substantiated, cited and refutable one. It is not a statement about his colleagues who (probably) have a different distribution of traits than the general population. 40% of Americans are obese, that doesn't mean 40% of your colleagues are, are be surprised if the obesity rate of google is the same as the general population.
> Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.
This was a suggestion on how to make the population of google more representative of the population in general.
2. Google could theoretically double their employment pool and enjoy the side effects of that, like lower wages. That's good for Google if it doesn't backfire.
Edit - I love it when they go through your history and even down vote the posts they agree with.
It also says something about the company that he couldn't get this done or believed it cannot be solved via internal processes.
> Because their statements indicate that, here is what Sundar Pichai wrote: “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.”
There, that's an argument that is substantial and non-circular. The person who has the ultimate executive power on hiring and firing asserted something in his public reasoning for firing Damore, and that assertion was wrong.
But this still doesn't mean that the CEO is irrational or failed to read the memo. People are allowed to make judgments based on the core assertions of a document, and they're allowed to "read between the lines", i.e. use logic and reasoning to see what is inferred beyond what is explicit. To use a historical example, back when people were up in arms about the PATRIOT Act, did everyone who oppose it also read all 132-pages of the legislation [0], or watch the debate on C-SPAN and give fair hearing to the bill's sponsors?
When opponents claimed that the PATRIOT Act was anti-American, like when the EFF claimed the PATRIOT Act would give the FBI a "'blank check' to violate the communications privacy of countless innocent Americans" [1], were opponents being overly hysterical, given that the bill does not even contain the words "blank check", nor is there any assertion that the bill seeks to scale back 4th Amendment protections. And believing the PATRIOT Act would undermine American principles is on its face absurd, given that its official name is: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001"
"Uniting and Strengthening America"
Of course not, these explicit requirements are just as absurd as believing that "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are white!" is a conclusive rebuttal against accusations of being racist against white people.
People can believe, based on all the arguments that Damore made in his memo, that he is in fact opposes diversity efforts, even if he literally states "I value diversity and inclusion". People can argue that Damore has insinuated that Google has hired inferior employees in their flawed pursuit of diversity, given that Damore literally stated these things:
1. Only facts and reason can shed light on these biases, but when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence. This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies.
2. Google has created several discriminatory practices: Programs...for people with a certain gender or race. A high priority queue and special treatment for 'diversity' candidates. Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for "diversity candidates" by decreasing the false negative rate
3. We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and a whiner. Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is being spent to water only one side of the lawn.
Here's a rational interpretation of those statements:
1. Google's left-wing bias has prioritized diversity to the point that no one is willing to speak up against policies that are extremist and authoritarian.
2. Google's hiring initiatives effectively discriminate on the basis of gender. And the special treatment for women ("diversity" candidates) lowers the bar for their hiring.
3. It's not just hiring but retention too, as Google exclusively bends over backwards to accommodate and coddle women. But if gender-related complaints are raised by men, they are ignored (here again, Damore's assertion would mean that Google has imposed practices and policies that directly violate federal law).
Maybe Google's CEO, and maybe a few of Google's women, see these two arguments:
1. Science does not support the viability of a M/F ratio in engineering because there are naturally fewer women then men for whom engineering is desirable.
2. But Google, with its left-wing bias, is so desperate to find women engineers that its current hiring and retention practices are not only discriminatory (in the illegal sense), but Google has lowered the bar when considering "diversity" candidates.
-- and then they logically conclude that Damore is implying the high probability that some of Google's current women engineers are not as qualified as they should be, as a result for Google's irrational and unrealistic diversity quota, which, because it is unrealistic, required Google to give special treatment and lower the bar for women candidates.
I guess it's possible that Damore actually believes what he asserts but that, miraculously, despite of Google's fucked up quest, all of the women who Google ended up hiring are actually perfectly qualified, and no men were discriminated in the process.
But that seems like the less rational interpretation.
And not to be a pedant, but if you want to dismiss Pichai's interpretation as "irrational" because Damore's memo literally does not "suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited." Then what do you think of Damore -- who asserts that women's preferences/tendencies, such as neuroticism and people-not-object preferences, are not social constructs but biological traits "universal across human cultures" -- and then links to the following study as evidence?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004....
It's a metastudy Richard A. Lippa of 6 studies; when aggregating the results of these studies, Lippa states that "gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences". But Lippa argues in his conclusion that current research is limited, that "more cross-cultural research is needed", and when researchers improve their predictive models, they might find "messy" results:
> e.g., results that show both biologic and social–environmental factors contributing to gender differences, to varying degrees for different traits, and varying kinds of interactions between biologic and social–environmental factors. Indeed, I will go on the record here. I predict that such ‘messiness’ will reign in future research on gender differences in personality and interests. If my prediction proves true, we should not be dismayed. Rather, we should simply say, ‘Such is life.’
This assessment of the current state of research is reduced by Damore to: "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren't just socially constructed because: They're universal across human cultures. They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone"
If Damore is allowed that much latitude in interpretation scientific research, I don't think we can say that Pichai's latitude in interpreting Damore's memo as unreasonable.
[0] https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ56/PLAW-107publ56.pdf
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20060605152308/https://www.eff.o...
I never said they were being more rational, I don't know why you keep arguing that straw man.
More importantly, their rationality is less important because they weren't demanding someone get fired. When you're demanding someone be fired the burden of evidence is much higher and it better be fact based and not interpreted.
If you murdered someone you better have a good reason, I'm not interested in your reasons for not murdering someone and whether they are rational or not.
I also hold the CEO making a formal statement to a much higher standard than an employee writing an internal document. Damper was a cog in a machine, Pichais statement is going to have some big ramifications within Google and possibly much wider.
Your analogy about murdering someone vs. not murdering them doesn't seem to apply. Google's CEO reportedly debated about the decision with his direct reports [0]. By Monday, they had apparently decided that the memo indefensible and a clear violation of the code of conduct.
If the CEO has reached the conclusion that Damore is guilty of a fireable offense, what is the purpose of waiting? Unless he had doubts about the merits of the case, or he thinks Damore should be given one more chance to make a pubic apology, or he thinks Damore should be given a week to clean things out and make peace. All of these things would require waiting, which means that waiting is not a neutral opinion about the case or its perceived urgency.
If I see someone and immediately shoot them, I'd be in trouble because I don't have a good explanation for why I acted immediately.
If I see someone from 100 yards charge at me brandishing what could be a weapon, waiting some time before shooting is reasonable, but waiting for too long is foolish.
If someone walks towards me carrying what looks like a bomb, and then tells me that he is in fact carrying bomb and reveals to me its bomb-like features, and then tells me he's going to detonate the bomb at a playground 100 yards away as he starts walking to that playground, my decision to wait becomes an even more of an opinionated, non-neutral decision.
Again, just because I think that acting immediately was not irrational doesn't mean that I think Google handled things remotely well. They may have handled things in what logically seemed like the least fucked up way possible, given all the other fuckups that were all allowed to accumulate.
Since this is apparently grounds for termination, what would be the point for waiting between deciding the verdict and carrying out the sentence? Unless the Google CEO had doubts, or that he thought Damore could apologize and save face given the opportunity, or that
[0] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/10/16125452/google-sundar-pich...
No, I assume that people making completely unfounded claims about the contents of the memo (we've seen them in every single thread about it) have not read the memo.
Maybe it just means that they wouldn't have jumped directly to "punching Nazis", name-calling and other forms of uncivil discourse. There is a wide gulf between disagreeing with someone, thinking they violated the Code of Code and deserve to be fired, and openly calling for violence. I think disengaging the immediate emotional response to the (real and perceived) implications of the memo would have shifted the response more to the former end of the spectrum.
Isn't this essentially saying that groups get privileged by being perceived as minority, as opposed to majority, making it the flip side of the same originally problematic practice?
And the most important part is actually about treating people as individuals not statistics. And if using statistics, do not use a general statistic where a specific one should be used. (Which is some fancy named logical fallacy.)
What's more firing that guy means actually leaning into his argument that dissent is silenced. While his opinion is apparently unpopular at least with media, that is not a good argument. If everyone got fired for doing something unpopular we'd have something worse - fanaticism combined with hypocrisy.
For example, he states that "there's currently very little transparency into the extent of our diversity programs" and "these programs are highly politicized which further alienates non-progressives", but he doesn't have or know the names of these programs? How is that actionable?
Damore states that Google's "Microaggression training incorrectly and dangerously equates speech with violence", but the hyperlink for that text does not go to an example of Google's training materials, but to an Atlantic article [0] that mentions has literally zero references to Google, because it's a critique of policies and training adopted by colleges. How is that Atlantic article, titled "Why it's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence", relevant unless Google is using the same slidedeck as UC Santa Cruz?
Sorry for the rant. Getting annoyed at the implication that people who unload their worldview as a memo should be be treated as a principled dissenter, even if the dissent lacks evidence and logical arguments when scrutinized.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why-it...
Even if there is just evidence that a practice has been accepted without serious scrutiny and is efficacy is not being verified.
He linked to a secondary opinion and argument source. Fine, it is not a primary data source. This does not invalidate the arguments.
As far as I can understand you have to actually show harm in those microaggressions causing trouble and then show that your intervention aimed at reducing them is effective in terms of previously perceived problems. Likewise you have to evaluate any side effects.
So the accusation is even more levelled at the decision person who approved the training and not at the training itself. They are being indirectly accused of biased and bandwagon thinking. (If you carefully read the article you link to you'd know that. No offense intended.)
By the way, he said that training is incorrect (logically) and not based on evidence. Easy to disprove by showing evidence. Have any? The "not backed by evidence" link is pretty strong.
It'd you cannot get through the paywall, here's different review. (0) Especially the section about impact of microaggressions is interesting - and this is on more studied racial ones. Suggesting interventions with this kind of evidence is not responsible.
Apparently engaging with evidence is outmoded or something.
Regardless of whether he made the right or wrong call, Pichai, could not for one moment "be candid".
Whatever he said, or did, would become public and whatever he did as head of a very large and well known consumer-facing company, would reverberate beyond the company [and would be parsed for meaning and perh lawsuits]
The only wiggle room he had was to play it down a bit, maybe waffle and delay till his team could formulate a more nuanced response.
Agree or disagree these sorts of things can turn into PR fiascos --perhaps some of it their own doing because of how they market themselves --Walmart, another consumer facing company, markets itself differently and would have more wiggle room --probably lots more.
But no, a Google can't publish a "we screwed up" mea culpa style response that a brash start-up can.
But deciding to wait is not nothing nor a neutral decision. People in Silicon Valley of all places should know that.
It takes time for companies like Google to settle on decisions --important ones. People who work there would know (what's their joke 'deprecated, not ready'?)
That they/he made such a swift decision is extraordinary --he could have waited some time --it's not like they would suddenly have people huffing and frothing with pitchforks at the ready inciting a rash decision.
I'm sure they have some prepared statements for these things. They could have issued an interim prepared statement to stall a bit. Either way they lose money. So it's about finding a least uncomfortable balance.
I mean, it's one guy --he said some controversial and not so controversial things. It's not like someone jumped from the top of one of the buildings or something. Or the stock plunged 40% in a matter of a week.
If someone writes they value diversity then it does not prove they do. It's a persuasion tactic. The most obvious example is "I'm not racist, but..." Pay attention to what comes after the "but".
Up is down, echochambers are diverse, exclusion is inclusive, and open hostility is welcoming. We shall make tech a better place by screaming from the rooftops how atrocious of a place it is and how it's the fault of the bulk of the people working in it.
Why isn't it working, I wonder? If only we could put our finger on it.
It would've been sufficient to stop at "I have not yet made a decision about how to respond to James Damore's memo about diversity at Google. I am going to wait for the outrage to subside".
Instead, it was a swift firing and attempt to sweep it under the rug. The fact that people actually took off work because they were 'offended' probably paints an even worse picture for reason in the Valley.
For this reason I don't think all the people who stayed home were fake-offended or scare-quote offended. Some just haven't hit certain developmental milestones, of the sort where you can think about population distributions, probabilities, or think about the universe without an evil genius rewriting everything to fit your fractally wrong worldview.
I know if I thought everybody thought I was stupid because of my race, or gender, or some other crap like that, because "Science," and they were forming expectations by it and were wrong but there was nothing I could do about it... it would really suck, and I might want to stay home. (It would be stupid to stay home, because there's a perfectly good golf course across the street from HQ, but I digress...) The magnitude of their reaction is very understandable.
If you (a woman, let's say) hear Chris say, "fewer women are able to be good engineers than men," and treat that the same as, "You are not a good engineer," then you're wrong about what was said and what was meant. You'd be lacking the ability to perform a basic act of reading comprehension in certain contexts.
Relatedly, many people can't think about population distributions in a sensible way in any context.
Another is the inability to handle a statement like "There might be a smaller proportion of men suitable for engineering because of biology." Clearly there's some chance it's true, but plenty of people will say there's no chance that the proportions aren't identical by gender. Which is an absolutely crazy thing to think, because there's like, some chance you're wrong.
But Damore didn't say either of those things.
That mindset is not particularly more intellectual or rational than not having read the full memo. If a politician says:
I'm not a liberal, and all of my best friends are conservatives, but I'm going to vote in support of abortion rights and universal healthcare
-- are constituents being obtuse if they perceive that their representative is in fact a liberal?
I'm not a man, and all of my best friends are women, but I'm going to have a prostate checkup tomorrow after football training.
then calling them a man instead of a transwoman who happens to enjoy football is definitely inconsiderate.
I agree that you don't always have to believe someone's self-characterization, but it is usually polite to still go along with it.
OK, we don't need to get into a debate about transgender issues and laws. Your analogy feels deeply flawed in several other ways, though. If someone's best friends are all women, that has...what exactly to do with whether that person is a man or a woman? If you see someone playing football who looks and claims to be a woman, you'd still think that her playing football is evidence that she might possibly be a man? Seriously?
In any case, someone's gender identity is not something likely that directly impacts me. If someone claims to be a man, I have the option of being "polite" and to "go along with it", whatever the hell that means. Or I don't even have to bring the issue up at all.
But if I'm a conservative voter whose Republican House member keeps voting for universal health care and limitations on gun ownership, the situation isn't one where politeness is part of my decision making process. My Congressmember's behavior and beliefs, unlike Pat's gender identity, affects my rights and livelihood as an American citizen. I don't have to believe he is truly represents my Republican preferences on the basis of his stated party affiliation, or him swearing on his Bible that he truly is a Republican even as he votes against gun rights/abortion regulations/lower taxes/etc, etc.
Likewise, Google's management does not have to believe that Damore sincerely values diversity, if they believe what he actually says in his memo reflects someone hostile to Google's diversity efforts and goals. It is not "inconsiderate" for Google's execs to read between the lines of Damore's various claims and rhetorical arguments. Damore is a Google employee who believes he is doing the right thing by taking a moral stand against Google's management, he didn't ask to be politely coddled.
I'm not sure what your assumptions are. That James Damore, who is politically conservative but who asserts themselves to be pro-diversity, is not objectively pro-diversity, but is just a sadly confused/deluded conservative? That I'm not obligated to believe that James Damore is pro-diversity, nor acknowledge that identity to him other than out of polite consideration?
OK, we don't need to get into a debate about political discrimination issues and laws. Your analogy feels deeply flawed in several other ways, though. If someone's best friends are all conservatives, that has...what exactly to do with whether that person is a liberal or a conservative? If you see someone voting for universal healthcare who claims to be a conservative, you'd still think that them voting for universal healthcare is evidence that they might possibly be a liberal? Seriously?
In any case, someone's political affiliation is not something likely that directly impacts me. If someone claims to be a liberal, I have the option of being "polite" and to "go along with it", whatever the hell that means. Or I don't even have to bring the issue up at all.
But if I'm a woman whose fitness club member keeps suggesting having a football game and uses the showers with obviously male anatomy, the situation isn't one where politeness is part of my decision making process. My fitness club member's behavior and beliefs, unlike Damore's political affiliation, affects my comfort and virtue as a loving wife. I don't have to believe she is truly a woman on the basis of her stated gender, or her pointing out her choice of dress even as she engages in all kinds of inappropriate behavior.
Likewise, the National Organization for Women's management does not have to believe that Pat is sincerely a woman, if they believe what she actually does reflects someone hostile to NOW's female empowerment efforts and goals. It is not "inconsiderate" for NOW's execs to read between the lines of Pat's various activities. Pat is a NOW employee who believes she is doing the right thing by taking a moral stand against NOW's management, she didn't ask to be politely coddled.
Not sure what we're arguing about anymore. You said [0] you've seen "lots of comments on HN that interpreted [Damore] as saying something indistinguishable from those things [e.g. fewer women are able to be good engineers than men)."
I replied with what was not meant to be a direct disagreement (I don't doubt you've seen those comments), but to suggest that someone can read Damore's memo and by reading between the lines , argue that Damore was asserting/implying things even as he didn't literally say them. This includes thinking that Damore is anti-diversity even if he claims to be pro-diversity, because some people who act very racist have been known to claim that they are not racist and that they have many friends of different racial groups. That's all.
I get that Damore supporters don't have to agree with how anti-Damore folks have chosen to interpret and paraphrase Damore's memo. I argue only that it's hypocritical to dismiss such arguments-via-interpretation (especially since Damore used it when referring to articles and studies).
Huh? What was she arrested for? And this girl (high school? junior high?) is representative of NYC?
edit: And is she someone who could possibly hired by Google? If not, why would your observed reactions of her be a useful reference in judging whether people at Google were "fake-offended"?
Does that make this smiling arrested man a "boy"? http://t.co/9QAI4voo1M
I don't think everyone would agree that someone's opinion of or behavior towards law enforcement implies something useful about their rationality (or lack of) when it comes to gender issues.
But giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming this person truly is an immature fool, why would you think that someone you know in a personal capacity grants you insight to mindsets the Google Mountain View employees whom you don't know at all, or to their reasoning for hating Damore's memo? Just because I know some Asians who are fucking terrible at PHP doesn't bestow me with special insight about Facebook (powered in part by its high proportion of Asian programmers) service outages and security fuckups.
So where are you on the trail of developmental milestones and worldviews? Because believing that women, whom you know nothing about nor have ever met, can be explained based on your observations of an irrational woman you know in NYC, that seems like a worldview more influenced by solipsism and arrogance than empiricism and logic.
What the author is really saying is: I wish Sundar Pichai recognize - That being fired is humiliating (Empathy) - That Damore is a "victim" (Diversity) - That the employer can fire anyone at anytime BUT you should discuss it with each-other, tolerate, cooperate (Inclusion)
These are things even Damore himself wouldn't approve.
"...modern-day Internet lynching..." Lynching, a practice primarily used by white men to terrorize black citizens
It is telling if a company does not want this looked into. It is a PR disaster if true. Shareholders could see that as mismanagement by hiring inferior employees. If it is false, then it will probably bring no extra glory.
James had a chart showing and stating exactly that in the original memo! [0]
Gizmodo thoughtfully decided to exclude this chart when they made the memo public.
0: https://diversitymemo-static.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/popu...
Here is a poll conducted by Indeed.com that also demonstrates the differences outlined by Demore in his memo. http://blog.indeed.com/2016/07/18/do-millennial-men-women-wa...
Do you need more examples?
Libertarians who say any speech should be allowed do not relate to the fact that what you say in words can and will be expressed by yourself and others in their actions. Condescension towards --and unjust treatment of-- women, and the feminine in general, is a consequence of the same sexist thoughts expressed by Damore.
You can't be both for it and against it. Our speech and actions both originate from our thoughts.
Something like "the author wrote 'abc', which I consider to be hate speech because..."
It's not a burning issue for me, so if you don't have examples, that's fine. I was just hoping to be enlightened a bit on this, but no worries either way.
Dude, you need a girlfriend, a women friend, a daughter or a mother whom you respect in your life. Then you'll understand the ways in which acts like this hurts them so deeply.
It's terrible.
Fair enough.
> Then you'll understand the ways in which acts like this hurts them so deeply.
I'm self-reflective enough to know that I'm unlikely to ever be as good at predicting emotional reactions of others as most people.
That said, I have been deeply hurt by statements that made me feel less valued than I thought I deserved. That does not mean that they were hate speech. Even at the time, I was fully aware that they were justified, which made them hurt even more.
Amusingly, trying to think of an instance of this reminded me of the time in high school when I was supposed to write an essay on gender roles in the work place. I made an evo psych argument that gender specific division of work made sense in the ancestral environment, but that conditions had changed and attempts at segregation were failing to realize this. My teacher marked me down for "not engaging with the question" (or something like that, my memory is hazy). I was so mad at myself for going off on that tangent.
No-one tries to stop you from saying nice things that they already agree with.
At the individual level you have very little choice over who will try to control your speech.
Maybe today it's someone who agrees with you, but maybe tomorrow it will be someone who disagrees with you, and because you have limited control over that it's better to make sure that you don't allow people to limit speech - even speech you disagree with.
And this is why you have the ACLU defending Milo: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-represe...
My comment was only in reference to your claim that 'sexism is not free speech'.
Whatever you think of James and his memo, and whether it is sexist or not, there is nothing in there that wouldn't be protected as free speech if it came down to that.
(Like some racist arguments were disproved reasonably well in the past.)
Blacklisting someone for "toxic atmosphere" or "spreading bad thinking" is essentially Orwellian or inquisition.