doubleshame

In my opinion, a lot of this rhetoric is being repeated. But the points raised by the original memo require a bit of perhaps subtle mathematics to understand.

This is an attempt at curating a list of relevant math and rationality articles, so that we can at least speak the same language when talking about this.

Start here: I personally view it as the base model of all beliefs that we can hold. It talks about some kinds of things that we can know and how much we should have confidence in what we know.

Bayes theorem: http://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule_guide

Except... wait for it... the employer: Google.

Employees at work: shouldn't be discussing issues that distract them; shouldn't be socializing with each other because work and personal life should obviously be separate; they should just keep their heads down and keep working.

There's no doubting that all recent controvertial topics have led to the ideas that: divide up society into individuals afraid to express their opinions; human expression is not an important goal and that the workspace where you spend most of your time is ONLY to do the job like a machine.

Once there was this women sitting at table. I wanted to go talk to her.

I wanted to say "Hi, the rain really is beautiful, isn't it". But I didn't know if she associated the rain with painful trigger emotions, so I didn't.

I wanted to say "Hi". But I didn't know if she spoke English, and I didn't want to discriminate against people who don't, so I didn't.

I wanted to say "Hi" in all the possible languages of the world. But I didn't want to discriminate against deaf people, so I didn't. If she was deaf, would she not have been offended?

So in the end, in this fictional story, I didn't say anything at all.

There is no certain knowledge, there are only distributions. I know nothing, and I am learning more all the time. But I do the best I can based on my past experiences.

A bayesian approach to the world, will not neglect what you know; but it will update your model rapidly based on new information, perhaps information specific to the person that you are interacting with.

Communication is impossible without good faith.

So, the next time someone asks you if you speak Spanish, tell them you do not, and use the opportunity to show them the world that is uniquely you. Let your identity have an integrity that YOU own. The next time they see a person who looks Spanish, they might approach it differently. And they'll also remember that Spanish looking people are nice people to interact with.

It's established to be a CONTRIBUTING factor.

What makes it controversial is that we can't know HOW MUCH it contributes.

It's very bad to use this factor as a basis for discrimination.

It's awesome to use differentiating factors that we already know of to make our collective spaces better and more accepting of everyone.

Wait you're saying that of you take the top 100 women and the top 100 men in chess, who've been given the best of everything to succeed, that you can still distinguish performance on this intellectual task merely on the basis of sex?

What are we going to do to solve this problem? Perhaps we should encourage more women in chess and train them better from all early age.

Chess is sexist! Why do we even encourage things like chess in this enlightened age.

And only a sexist person would bring up chess in this discussion. Atone!

/s

Actually this could be a single sith as well.

Also you don't normally get more than two, so there's that.

You are a man of far more experience than I am. Thank you for sharing.

I believe I included a lot of the general discussion we've seen in my response.

To answer your question as I gleaned it from children of sibling posts: how to foster inclusion of foreign looking ideas:

- always assume good faith (this really covers it all actually)

- listen carefully and understand what was meant

- always speak to the point that was being made instead of to the person, or worse to the words themselves

- allow both yourself and the other people to change their opinions

Ideas are just memes. We need to have the humility to see that and not associate people / ego / self with them.

Please allow me to honestly engage with you and break this down.

You're a black man at Google.

There is a study that says that ON AVERAGE across a large population of people, black men are relatively uneducated and relatively underperform on a particular aptitude test.

It is a known fact that although the larger population has 50% black people, only 10% of Google employees are black.

Now, let's assume that the common intention is to ensure equal OPPORTUNITY for all men. Please assume good faith for the purposes of this demonstration.

One fine day, you wake up to see an article posted by a white man that makes the following claims

- on average white men perform better at the standardized test (link to study)

- the standardized test tests similar skills that are needed for programming, and is similar to the Google interview

- therefore fewer black men get through the interview

- further, it is unfair to just give black people extra marks to pass. it leads to bad performance at work and diminishes the achievement of a black man who got in on pure effort

Now, a black man who cares would

- ask, wait a minute, why are blank men underperforming on the tests? Perhaps we skills fix our schools and colleges!

- point out flaws in the article (study is bad because... / AA is good because... / Other assumption is wrong because...)

These are engaging with the article in good faith.

A person interested in equal opportunity would not do the following

- burn the white man. Arrrggghhh!

- oh no that guy shared a study that shows that the black community is behind and points out what could be the problem. Let's shoot the messenger.

- falsely assign ecological bias to the article: white man said that all black men are bad programmers (not true, he was talking about populations)

These engage with the article in a manner that damages your goal of equal opportunity for black people.

Look for the opportunity to find systemic biases and problems and correct them. Assume good faith.

Don't be blind to something that makes you feel bad (and it shouldn't!) And therefore seek to burn it down without a thought.

Only three sith deal in absolutes.

This. I wish there official response from Google would have just opened up to their stance and stood ground. Instead of flimsily trying to appease everyone. It would have been more respectable.

Google firing him may just be good business. Time will tell.

More alarming is how people and the media have misrepresented and reacted to the content, even if they disagree with it.

You missed the conclusion

- you can say absolutely anything you want, as long as it's not something we say is harmful of course

So much back and forth