Comment by kuschku | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kuschku | Hacker News Reader

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EDIT: I'll just post a bunch of quotes from the memo, and let you judge if that sounds left-wing.

> the Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ and sex differences)

> Stop alienating conservatives: Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently.

> conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is require for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.

> I would start by breaking down Googlegeist scores by political orientation

> Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture

> which makes it clear why it’s a phenomenon of the Left and a tool of authoritarians

> Considering that the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean left, we should critically examine these prejudices

> Google’s left leaning

No he doesn't. Please read the memo.

Yes he does. He argues that political diversity is most important

> Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently.

and that Google should change its hiring practices to improve this, instead of ethnical or national diversity.

And he makes up more pseudo-scientific arguments for why Google should hire more conservatives:

> conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is require for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.

In the context of his memo - where he states that Google is too far left-wing - the recommended changes are obvious: Hire more conservative. He also recommends to track the political affiliation of all existing employees to track the diversity gap there:

> I would start by breaking down Googlegeist scores by political orientation

This is the same kind of affirmative action that he criticizes just a few paragraphs before.

Is it affirmative action if they are hiring with the belief that they the hiring decision they are making will best improve the performance of the company?

If you have evidence that diversity has a positive impact on company performance and you have two candidates who other otherwise exact equals except one is a woman/conservative. Is it affirmative action to choose the under represented option?

I don't think it's affirmative action rather its just good business sense. I consider affirmative action to be the hiring of a group who is perceived to be discriminated against, simply because of that discrimination.

We could look at the legal definition of affirmative action that German courts considered illegal:

Affirmative Action, or illegal discrimination, is given when a company bases its hiring decisions in any way on anything but the employees merit. If age/gender/race/political beliefs/religious beliefs/etc have any influence on the hiring decision, it is illegal discrimination.

And he argues similarly, that affirmative action in any way is bad, and Google shouldn't do it - then he argues again that Google should do it, but only for the benefit of conservatives.

Let's compare what he writes to the German definition:

"treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group"

Check.

"Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races."

Check.

"[Our programs] can easily backfire since they incentivize illegal discrimination."

Check.

So he is 100% on-board with the German definition. Google's existing programs, OTOH, are not. They would be illegal in Germany if the definition you've given is correct.

The only thing I can find in his "Suggestions" for the "benefit" of conservatives is the following:

"Stop alienating conservatives"

"We should empower those with different ideologies to be able to express themselves."

Wow, stop alienating a group of people and allow them to speak. That's just horrific. Off with his head!

Where did he call for hiring more conservatives specifically for being conservative? I think I missed that part.

Actually for some reason I interpreted as "Stop alienating conservatives", but clearly there is no where in the article where he alludes to this, well except for a few dozen times.

I was able to find no such suggestion. Perhaps you can point it out? Here's the full text of the memo: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

It starts with "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes.", and has many suggestions on how to increase diversity (not just viewpoint diversity), all ideas attributed to the left†.

†I feel compelled to mention I find that left/right are woefully inadequate labels, and serve better as a tool to divide and conquer people so they don't unite on common interests. But they work well-ish enough in this case, and a discussion on this would be long and orthogonal to the topic at hand.

Edit: Reading your other reply, it seems you think any action at all done to increase diversity is affirmative action. That's not what's usually meant by the term.

Read the comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988905

I quote several paragraphs from the memo where he argues specifically for that.

He has a very specifically and explicitly centrist position:

"Neither side is 100% correct and both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society or, in this case, company. A company too far to the right may be slow to react, overly hierarchical, and untrusting of others. In contrast, a company too far to the left will constantly be changing (deprecating much loved services), over diversify its interests (ignoring or being ashamed of its core business), and overly trust its employees and competitors."

When he, in a centrist document, puts up arguments for and against both side, you only selectively quote the ones for the right and against the left.

That is dishonest and so incredibly transparent that I wonder why you bother. Even if your goal were to discredit him with your dishonesty, it should be obvious that you won't achieve your goal, only damaging yourself in the process.

[EDIT: I don't know his personal political views, so edited to say that the document is centrist]

He never criticizes the right.

Quote me a single argument from the document that criticizes the right, at all.

I've given a dozen quotes criticizing or ridiculing the left from the memo.

> That is dishonest and so incredibly transparent that I wonder why you bother. Even if your goal were to discredit him with your dishonesty, it should be obvious that you won't achieve your goal, only damaging yourself in the process.

It's dishonest of you to claim he has a position when he only criticizes one side, and always defends and supports the other.

From the section I quoted in the very comment your responded to:

"A company too far to the right may be slow to react, overly hierarchical, and untrusting of others."

Just above that he has a table of "left biases" and "right biases", and both are equal in length.

But yes, as a centrist who thinks that Google has too many left biases, he criticizes those left biases more.

Which is something else that he states explicitly:

"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. For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and the authoritarian element that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal representation."

Google has basically no left biases. Most of the biases he mentions are authoritarian ones, which are on an entirely different axis.

Many people can't visualize this concept, so we can take the political compass as a helpful tool: https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/us2016.png

So you disagree with his analysis. That's OK. I think you're wrong, but reasonably people can disagree.

What's not OK is simply dismissing and ignoring his analysis, treating it as if it didn't exist, and then misinterpreting the rest based on that.

I'll try to illustrate it for you:

I say "I love books so much that I have my entire apartment covered in bookshelves, with books three levels deep and it's still not enough, books are littering the floor so I can't walk and can't clean up any longer. I think I need to get rid of some books".

So say you disagree with the first part. Say even that you are correct, that I had made some fundamental mistake and there were actually bookshelves I hadn't considered and if I only cleaned up and used them I wouldn't need to get rid of any books. Is it then OK to just remove that first part, only cite "I think I need to get rid of some books" and then conclude that I must hate books because I want to get rid of them? I think not.

(And no, he didn't argue that he wanted to get rid of anyone, just to clip that potential willful misinterpretation)

This is not a disagreement on analysis, but on axioms.

One of the axioms of free society is one of fairness and equality.

Any argument that suggests a treatment should be applied to group X, but not to group Y, is therefore automatically invalid.

Any argument that suggests that a group should be treated differently because of a group tendency is automatically invalid.

Anyone who disagrees with this disagrees with the most fundamental axioms of modern society. Yes, I realize there is an ongoing revolution happening of people that feel that this axiom is wrong, and they should get an advantage over other groups, but I disagree with that fundamentally.

This is an axiom held even higher than the constitutional rights any country grants, as all those derive from this axiom. The reason so many people are angered by actions of both the left and the right is that they feel that this axiom is being attacked.

> Any argument that suggests a treatment should be applied to group X, but not to group Y, is therefore automatically invalid.

Exactly. So you are 100% in agreement with James.

>Anyone who disagrees with this disagrees with the most fundamental axioms of modern society. Yes, I realize there is an ongoing revolution happening of people that feel that this axiom is wrong, and they should get an advantage over other groups, but I disagree with that fundamentally.

Again, that is exactly what James is saying, and I have quoted him a number of times now whereas you have not provided a single instance of him saying the opposite.

If you think he is not saying that, then what we have is disagreement in analysis.

On a more meta level, you seem to think that because you profess adherence the correct beliefs, the right "Axioms", you are freed from the burdens of proper analysis. I remember that very vividly from my classes at Uni in Germany, for example an essay writing class where a significant number of my fellow students thought that they would be graded on the "correctness" of the opinion they had penned, rather than the quality of the essay. So they handed in essays that were absolutely embarrassing. "Gesinnungsästhetik"

I would suggest the following exercise for you: take an opinion you absolutely disagree with. Then write an essay supporting that idea. Make it as good as you can. Then write another one tearing it up. Then another one tearing that one up.

> Exactly. So you are 100% in agreement with James.

I am? "You need to have conservatives to have a balanced view, hire more of them" (paraphrased from the attract more conservatives part) isn't something I've ever said.

> On a more meta level, you seem to think that because you profess adherence the correct beliefs, the right "Axioms", you are freed from the burdens of proper analysis

False. But I think that if you disagree with society on the base axioms of it, you should leave it.

By your argument, you should be able to rally in the streets and protest for allowing child cannibalism, too.

It's just an opinion, too, nothing wrong with it. If people want it, we should just let them.

No thanks.

There are certain moral axioms a society is based on, if you disagree with them you can leave. (For example, the German constitution has an eternity clause, making some basic axioms of society immutable for eternity)

> conservatives...hire more of them" (paraphrased..

That's not "paraphrased". You just blatantly made that up. What he actually wrote is you should not silence them.

> if you disagree with society on the base axioms of it, you should leave it

So why don't you?

>By your argument, you should be able to rally in the streets and protest for allowing child cannibalism, too

By your logic, you should be able to commit genocide and we should have to applaud you for it.

See, I can also make up shit out of thin air.

>There are certain moral axioms a society is based on

Yes, such as non-discrimation. Which is what he writes:

"treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group "

"Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races."

"Discriminating .. is misguided "

Anyway, stop with your moral outrage based on nothing but yourself. If you see horrible things everywhere, but can't actually show any of them except by "paraphrasing" (i.e. making shit up out of thin air), maybe the problem is with you, not with others.

> So why don't you?

I'm not the one going against all of society by holding a fringe opinion.

> See, I can also make up shit out of thin air.

I didn't make shit up. You said any possible statement should be discussed logically, there should be no opinion that we should disregard just based on axioms, as that would silence parts of the political spectrum.

> Yes, such as non-discrimation. Which is what he writes:

And yet he says that having conservatives is something that is a value just in itself, and that Google should strive to have more conservatives.

I'm not making shit up out of thin air, that's specifically what he argued.

Or what purpose does the paragraph praising conservatives so overly awesome mental abilities, and he paragraph saying that having people from all political spectrums is a value in itself, serve, if not as a call to action?

He is specifically calling for more conservative employees at Google.

Hell, he specifically called for registering all democrats and conservatives at Google.

Are you seriously that ideologically blinded that you can't see a political discrimination when it's staring you into the eye?

Being able to list potential problems with being too far to either political extreme doesn't make you a centrist. Someone to the left of the center of the left, or the right of the center of the right, much less either side of the overall center, can easily do that.

You can be pretty far out and still see the guy two steps farther out as dangerously deluded.

Sure. He could be a raving lunatic right wing whacko for all we know. But that's not in his document, and not in his interviews.

> But that's not in his document

Neither is anything that would support him being described as a “centrist”.

To repeat the quote from the top of the thread:

"Neither side is 100% correct and both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society or, in this case, company. A company too far to the right may be slow to react, overly hierarchical, and untrusting of others. In contrast, a company too far to the left will constantly be changing (deprecating much loved services), over diversify its interests (ignoring or being ashamed of its core business), and overly trust its employees and competitors."

This is exactly a centrist position.

Now you can reasonably argue that on balance the document isn't centrist. I think you're wrong, but reasonable people can disagree.

That there isn't anything in there that would support a description of centrism is trivially false.

Its not centrist position, unless "centrist" is so broad as to include every position not at the farthest extreme of either the left or right, as anyone not at a far polar extreme could agree with it.

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