Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

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try to portray Google as a place that's roiled by political fighting where the leaders are struggling to keep control over a irresponsible and politically radical workforce

What of Google managers quoted in media vehemently saying they wouldn't hire people harboring certain political positions? Why is it that so many of my acquaintances who work at Google pig-piled James Damore over his professional competence, despite none of them being in a position to have any idea about that? All of this smacks of a degree of ideological groupthink I would label as "virulent."

What you are saying would still fit if the overwhelming majority of Google had a large political skew and subscribed to a particular ideological groupthink. The majority would feel that, "people share their views openly, a wide range of opinions are respectfully shared, most people have the right to get into and stay out of political discussions," since conversations about things everyone agrees with can only go so far without an "enemy" who disagrees. A minority in that situation would still feel oppressed. It's how well minorities are treated which is the true indication of how open and benevolent an organization is.

> What of Google managers quoted in media vehemently saying they wouldn't hire people harboring certain political positions?

I respond that this is inconsistent with both stated policies and established practice, and such managers can and should be targeted to answer for their bias and have it corrected. I would also respond that if a journalist with an axe to grind were to search hard enough and interview enough people, they're bound to find someone they can put on a pedestal and point to saying "look at how corrupt these people are!"

If anything, a person believing this sort of anecdote about an organization says more about the believer than the organization in question.

> Why is it that so many of my acquaintances who work at Google pig-piled James Damore over his professional competence, despite none of them being in a position to have any idea about that?

That does sound unfair: Damore was a senior engineer, which not a title that's given out lightly. Again, though, peoples' possibly unfair commentary on his professional abilities says nothing about the quality of discourse in the company. And again, one's willingness to balloon these sorts of individual anecdotes into indictments of an organization as a whole say more about the person doing the indicting than the organization in question.

> if a journalist with an axe to grind were to search hard enough and interview enough people, they're bound to find someone they can put on a pedestal and point to saying "look at how corrupt these people are!"

Given that such managers were quoted saying such things in public communications, that makes your spin on this look doubtful.

> Again, though, peoples' possibly unfair commentary on his professional abilities says nothing about the quality of discourse in the company.

It said a whole lot about my fellow classmates. Yes, those acquaintances were all people who were once my college friends who I spent a lot of time with, but drifted away from. (One of them I once would have counted as my "best friend.") I would never have imagined that they would engage in mob-like condemnations of that harshness. Really, something struck me as being completely out of whack. The most likely Occam's-friendly explanation I can think of is some kind of ideological groupthink at Google.

> such managers can and should be targeted to answer for their bias

The point is that such managers are NOT being targeted. The lynching of James Damore was enthusiastically conducted by the very top of the management hierarchy and they are on record as having lied in public about what he actually said. Rather than correct their own bias, Pichai has stated that he has "no regrets" over his behavior and the legitimate concerns that were raised by James continue to remain unaddressed because they conflict with the dominant ideology.

Disagree that the concerns raised were legitimate. It was a hodgepodge of cherry picked science, and motivated reasoning and slander against all of his female workers.

Sunday agrees with me. Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong about what was in there?

> It was a hodgepodge of cherry picked science

Not all scientists would agree.

http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU

> motivated reasoning and slander against all of his female workers.

Only if you don't take what he says at face value and impute motivations which aren't directly stated in the text. The very need of this imputation to justify his treatment and the huge reaction, as well as the intellectually dishonest way in which the Google management and the left-leaning press engaged in hit pieces -- all of this smacks of ideological groupthink.

The very fact that people can reasonably disagree about the interpretation of the memo, contrasted with the outsized reaction are pretty damning.

Here's a feminist who disagrees with Damore's position in his memo, who lays out a cogent argument for why he's wrong, and there is systemic bias, but who thinks the reaction was a "little off,"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA

Also, note that my position is that there is also some cultural bias in the programming field -- as a field. (Hackers in the HN sense have model train clubs as their cultural forebears.) However, this doesn't preclude that women within our current cultural context may well decide not to become programmers for their own reasons, and that some of this motivation may be correlated with their gender -- without there being systemic bias within hiring organizations.

How on Earth can you say that? The standards applied to Damore are ridiculous and would be considered openly discriminatory and harassing if applied to the women you are so eagerly defending.

Did Damore refer to them as "bitchgrammers"? Do their writings get leaked and misrepresented to the press, who then strips them of their links and fans the flames? Do they lose their jobs for bringing honest citations to the table?

No, in fact, they can apparently just claim to be made to feel "unsafe" by a memo responding to official company workshops, and decide to stay home, with no repercussions. Their opinion pieces are lauded as brave, and they are rubber stamped as important evidence and valid lived experience even if made up 100% of anecdotes.

Well if that's the level of fragility that is the norm, then what Damore went through amounts to a human rights atrocity. But of course, displaying an ounce of empathy for a "cis white man" is no longer fashionable, and I can already hear the chuckles and hollering from the Bay Area all the way here to Europe at the mere suggestion.

Discrimination is equality, heartlessness is sympathy, fragility is strength, ... It boggles the mind how this is not black on white obvious, no pun intended.

It's a strange world when stating the obvious is seen as an extreme position worthy of lynching.

There is no need for cherry picking. The scientific evidence that men and women have different interests and that those interests become more pronounced as the society becomes more egalitarian is overwhelming.

Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? Sex Differences in Big Five Personality Traits Across 55 Cultures http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf

This seminal paper has been cited over 3000 times and the findings have been replicated by numerous researches.

The blue church dogma that female underrepresentation in tech is due to oppression is not supported by the evidence.

James Damore should not have been lynched. He is owed a sincere apology.

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