I fail to understand the outrage but attribute that to the fact that few bothered to read the document before allowing themselves to be outraged by it - such is the shallow, feeling-fueled, hysteria-laden media cycle of today.
The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination - specifically 'positive 'discrimination which it discredits while presenting alternative policies that are more inclusive (according to the author) and reflective of inherent psychological differences.
Have I read it wrong? Somebody correct me if I missed the controversial bits.
Edit: OK, it comes off the rails a little at the "Why we’re blind" section but overall it's food for thought (and no doubt a catharsis for many Right-leaning Googlers).
3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences
The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women, while programming doesn't have much women despite being on the social/people-oriented end of the spectrum?
It's not that people are angry about the article's conclusions despite acknowledging the strength of the logical/factual basis. It's that people won't give sloppy reasoning the benefit of the doubt when they don't like the conclusion.
There is bad with the good. The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. The premise that the differences between them are social as opposed to literal is a much easier way to force the same point (and IMO more correct but I respect I lack the science to be certain). This person lacks tact and the way they view the entire political sphere as just left/right is ultimately of concern. Way too simplistic outlook IMO.
Would you feel the same way if the author--instead of focusing on sex differences instead chose to focus on eugenics? What if s/he argued that the reason blacks/African-Americans were under-represented in tech/at Google was because of eugenics?
> and no doubt a cartharsis for many Right-leaning Googlers
And this is where I kind of break down on the whole argument. I've already made similar comments below, but I sort of what to expand on this sentiment. I do not think that the views of the author of this piece were political in any way shape or form. They are purely idealogical, and the ideology that he professes has no basis in reality. This is what we may criticize.
I will employ an extremely gross simile to illustrate my point. Suppose that some item exists in the world called a "whizzer". A whizzer spins extraordinarily fast. So fast in fact, that we can't even tell which direction it's spinning for sure. We can use rough guesses to determine the spinning, and support it with some evidence from the environment. If I claim that the whizzer spins left, and you claim that the whizzer spins right we have reached a state of deadlock. Would you call our disagreement in this case one of politics? Suppose I had some information that hinted the spinner spins left. (Analogous to evidence that women are actively stopped from entering technical fields due to sociological rather than natural factors, which exists in multitudes.) There is still no evidence that the whizzer spins right. Arguments that the situation of the United States' gender divisions are natural rather than sociological can easily be dismissed by looking at clear evidence. Women are not as discouraged from entering fields like biology, or medicine. These are just as technical and difficult as other STEM fields. This implies that the factors that affect this are sociological rather than "natural". This evidence is not indisputable and it does not tell the whole picture, but it points in a general direction.
If we return to the whizzers, let's suppose my evidence is very similar. It's not all-knowing, or all-answering but it provides a general direction. There's nothing "political" about this. The "other side" is simply not providing an actual basis of evidence. Your argument does not hold up to any burdens of truth. It's as if the person with no evidence that the whizzers spin right is furious that I should try and make decisions that assume the spinner spins left. That's what all the evidence points towards!
The argument that the email's sender makes is inherently flawed. There exist issues with the conclusions that they make because their reasoning is flawed. I am not demonizing a political opinion, or attempting to police your ability to think or express your opinion. The email fails to convince anyone because it lacks an accurate argument.
I am not trying to demonize you. I don't think this has anything to do with Right / Left. Look at the facts. Look at the data. Listen to women from the industry who time and time again have stories of all the crap they've had to wade through. When all this overwhelming evidence claims something and the only thing the other side can produce are appeals to cognitive bias and naturalism, arguing that this is "just how the world works" it makes no sense because there is no sense in the argument.
If this were "how the world naturally works", how could we have possibly normalized so quickly? Women were only allowed to vote very recently in this country, black americans were only recently systematically segregated. There are people currently alive who have seen both of these greatly disruptive forces in direct action. What argument can possibly claim that those forces have completely dissipated in the United States? What about the United States allows such forces to be dissipated so quickly? Why are these issues more prevalent in places like Silicon Valley than other countries when the United States was one of the latest to adopt the different policies?
The argument simply does hold up to intellectual rigor. It fails to answer those questions in a consistent and convincing matter. If you believe that those questions are flawed, then why is that? Again, there exists no refutation except one born from cognitive bias and a flawed world-view. That's why people are opposed to it. It just doesn't make any sense. The conclusion is not a logical continuation of the premise, and that is why people are upset. I don't know or care where you lie on the political spectrum - all I see is a flawed argument.
Specifically you say "reflective of inherent psychological differences". What inherent psychological differences? Do you truly claim that you can generally predict the way your daughter will think differently than your son from the moment they are born? Do you think that these are in way accurate or determinate of your son or daughters future interests and achievements? Do you actually believe that they will have a "fair shake" regardless of whether they are male / female / white / black? That their life will be entirely based on the way they live it, and not on the way the world looks at them? Do you further believe that we shouldn't try and correct such distinctions?
If you actually want to engage in argument, then attempt to address these issues. Instead all I see is a further appeal to bias by just grouping this as a "right-leaning" opinion. What makes this right-leaning? All this does is further divide idealogical issues as if they have to be "one side vs another". It's nonsensical and all it does is further group or divide people rather than address the objective quality of the argument.
EDIT: May I ask why I'm being down-voted? It seems that no one is even willing to acknowledge these questions, let alone address them. I'm attempting to engage with people at a fair and even level. I don't intend to lecture or degrade, but simply discuss. A resistance to this is concerning.
One issue is that acknowledging potential differences between the sexes can setup prejudice that acts to fulfill those prejudices. This can lead to widening gender gaps possibly more that any real gap in performance.
So many do not blindly advocate equality because they believe it completely but do so to avoid the overly negative and reinforcing effects of prejudice.
I fail to understand the outrage but attribute that to the fact that few bothered to read
Rather than assuming those who disagree with you are shallow and hysterical (a contentious word choice, given the subject), perhaps consider why others might be outraged, you could try some empathy (though I know the article warns us against empathy).
The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination
I think it is explicitly anti-diversity in that it sees nothing wrong with the current order of things, if that order can be justified by failings in the weaker vessels that surround the author like empathy and neuroticism (as the author clearly thinks it can).
It does seem a remarkable coincidence that the natural order of things so neatly reflects the author's place at the top of the pyramid though, almost as if the rules had been written by people just like the author.
Since when is dialectics grounds for ostracism?
I doubt the author has faced ostracism, he certainly seems confident enough in expressing his disdain for a large number of the people he works with, without apparent fear of consequences. Since dialectics is usually taken as a search for truth, here are some things that the author believes which are not true:
Women are not more neurotic than men
Women are not less scientific than men
Women are not more interested in feelings and aesthetics than ideas (a curious dichotomy)
Women do not innately prefer jobs in social or artistic areas over say engineering
I notice a lot of misrepresentation of views on both sides, almost to the point of strawmanning. I think a charitable interpretation of the author's best points can be summarized as follows:
- Racism & sexism still exist, even at Google. This is bad. (On the bright side, the problem seems to be getting better over time.)
- It's good (and good for business) to eliminate discrimination based on gender, race, sexual preference, etc.
- There are many benign reasons why a completely unbiased company can still have skewed demographics. One possible reason is that women & men tend to differ in psychological makeup. (Unfortunately, it looks like links to some studies supporting this claim were removed from the post, along with some charts.)
- Therefore, Google should focus on eliminating bias & discrimination, not on getting employee demographics to match the nation as a whole. In short: focus on equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. If sex-specific psychological differences exist, the only way to get equal outcomes would be to lower the hiring bar for women or raise the bar for men.
- If men & women tend to be psychologically different, Google should be aware of that and change work practices to better accommodate women. For example: More pair programming, as (to use the language of the author) that allows more working with people rather than things. Though for competitive positions requiring long hours (usually management), such changes may not be possible.
These points seem to be put forth in good faith by a frustrated employee who lacks tact. Moreover, I don't think these topics should lie outside the realm of debate. Either they're not true, in which case they can be dismissed with counter-evidence. Or they are true, and Google is wasting tremendous resources trying to solve these problems in the wrong way.
Thanks, I really appreciate this distillation. If we've learned anything, it's that trying to write stream of consciousness screedy manifestos like this is super hard and people should probably just stop trying. Still though, despite some of the questionable logic and missing evidence (which I'm surprised it's not a lot worse given the way these kinds of things get written -- middle of the night after some last straw), this person seems to be sincerely trying to spark a dialogue of mutual benefit to both sides of the debate and the company as a whole. Yet so many of the comments in this thread are just intensely dismissive and uncharitable. They aren't like, "ok so he fucked up here and here for this reason, I can see where he was going with this point and that point and there are some kernals of truth there, let's engage with this, etc." No, they are more like "this guy got this and this wrong, therefore it's all wrong, and therefore he should just stop now and recognize what a piece of shit he is." It really does feel sometimes like the chilling effect tactics of past rightist regimes has now been weaponized by us on the left out of some sort of unconscious spirit of payback or settling past debts of oppression. It's not a good look.
As a female engineer I don't resonate with the proposed changes for woman working with other people etc. I'm a very independent worker and that's partly why I've thrived in this field. In short, I don't think companies should make any adjustments based on gender. Just ignore it - that part I agree with - let people self select what and where they want to work themselves. And I also don't agree with quotas though I see how they might have served a purpose at one time.
If other woman are anything like me, the bullet list comparing two different points of view are cringe. People are so hard to define. And woman in particular I think generally don't feel like their potential is known yet because their presence in the workplace is so young relatively. So the last thing anyone wants is to be categorized by old stereotypes.
> If men & women tend to be psychologically different, Google should be aware of that and change work practices to better accommodate women
I'd rephrase that more like:
"If we want diversity of thought and disposition, we should make room for diversity of work styles (pair programming, remote work, etc.). If the women-work-differently hypothesis has merit, it will help address the gender imbalance while making room for other kinds of excluded people."
It's worth pointing out that "tact" is a cultural construct and highly subjective.
It's also worth pointing out that emotional arguments are generally better received than dispassionate ones. People tend to think emotionally at least as much as they reason, so sanitizing thoughts in the wrong way would neuter the position.
It’s interesting that the author considers the conceptual framework of microaggressions spurious, while describing his negative experiences as a conservative Googler in terms of what a feminist might describe as microaggressions. To further undermine his own point, he asserts that several harms against conservatives have been caused by these microaggressions.
The difference between effective negative feedback and harassment/microaggressions is the former encapsulates a desire for the person receiving the feedback to succeed. Or, in the feminist lexicon, empathy.
I think the author is implicitly referring to more than simply unpleasant interactions at work.
As someone who is neither American nor conservative, I have to give it to them that there is a level of virulence from some on the left that is far beyond mere microagression, but is not acknowledged as such: there are continuous attempts to ban some speeches on campuses. If a ban fails it is picketed (which is OK), sometimes violently (which is not): speakers may receive death threats, and so can attendees. At first nobody cared because it was happening to far right hate-clowns (not that this would be a good reason to ignore this in thebfirst place), but this has drifted toward anything non-left, and now is even happening to people who do not toe the line, however liberal they may be (cf. the edifying story of Bret Weinstein).
Are there conservatives whining at things that are in fact tiny microagressions, and the hypocrisy is funny? Absolutely. But there is also a legitimately more dangerous phenomenon that is slowly growing, and the worrying part is that it is not being acknowledged by the 'moderate' left. The fact that political crusaders on their side routinely attempt to ban free speech, or send death threats, should be very much a concern to progressives. Instead it is oddly glossed over, and/or lumped in with microagressions or counter-demonstrations.
During Obama's first term people on the left could not understand how the American right could tolerate the crazies from the Tea Party and were looking the other way whenever their insane ideas were uttered. But today we are seeing the very same behaviour on the left when these psychotic episodes pop up. That is not normal. Regressive and authoritarian tendencies should be acknowledged and denounced, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they come from.
I think there's a bit of a difference in conservatives complaining about their ideas not being honestly considered and being excluded because of (perceived) groupthink, and claims like saying "America is the land of opportunity" or wearing a sombrero or making a burrito while being white as "aggression", micro or not. If the question were about some people, out of sexist or other considerations, would exclude feminists from being considered the part of intellectual discourse, that complaint would not get much pushback. Most reasonable people would agree that feminists should have equal chance to present their case, and for it to be considered on merits. What gets significantly more pushback is widespread attempt to use "microagression" framework to police everyday conduct and "micro"-criminalize or shame routine behavior - food choices, activity choices, clothing choices, even how a person sits - it all can be "microagression". Microagressions are[1]: "Where are you from?", "America is a melting pot", "I believe the most qualified person should get the job.", presence of liquor stores in certain neighborhoods, commenting on certain behaviors (note there how telling person of one race about being loud and another about being quiet is aggression, but the reverse is not, because obviously everything depends on the race!) posting a funny picture about Obama[2], or "Statements that indicate that a White person does not want to or need to acknowledge race" and "statement made when bias is denied"[3]. I think there's a bit of a difference here between the complaints.
I noticed that as well. I find it interesting that the alt-right has started to embrace so much of modern feminist/liberal terminology and tacitly accepted so many of the premises.
The modern alt-right conservative: "I don't believe in safe spaces, but please stop bullying me!"
The intellectual contortion required to get from the premise to the conclusion is actually quite impressive.
> On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:
> They’re universal across human cultures
Except the gender ratio in science/engineering is anything but universal across cultures. 70% of science/engineering students in Iran are women: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/12/09/set-to-ta.... Indeed, in many parts of the world that are not known for being "liberal" with regard to gender equality, women make up a significantly higher percentage of the scientific workforce than in the U.S.: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-science-technology-e... (44% in Latin America, 40% in Eastern Europe, 37% in the Arab states).
> Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).
If this were true, shouldn't women's interest in CS be going up now that the web is all about feelings/aesthetics/social? Programming, in my view, is actually in the middle in the "people versus things" spectrum. It's much more about people than, say, math. And of course, 45% of math majors are women, so I'm not sure how that fits into the author's theory.
> Women on average are more cooperative
Maybe, but does the degree of that effect explain the observed differences in representation? Tech is actually very cooperative. Compare, for example, litigation, which is all about confrontation and acrimony. But a third (and growing) of all litigators are women!
Oh dear, this seems like a bit of an unwise thing to have written. Whether or not it's true, it's something you're Not Allowed to reason about, where "Not Allowed" is in the sense of PG's http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html .
I agree that giving someone an unfair advantage because of their gender or race is a form of discrimination. Gender and race are just two of many factors that individuals might struggle with when it comes to their career and life.
If you're an introvert, short, fat, nerdy-looking or you have a weak posture; there's no support group to offset your shortcomings and all the insidious ways in which they will sabotage your career! It's no coincidence that CEOs look like and talk like CEOs - We live in a superficial world and we are animals; there is no need to moralise things; it might just come across as hypocrisy.
I was talking to coworker who recently transferred from China to the US. He told me that China is will dominate the US because diversity is the greatest US weakness.
Kind of shocking because our company is about 1/3 White, Indian and Chinese. But he doesn't see that as diversity. I think that is the answer that he can't see. Once groups accept each other as equals diversity becomes a non-issue. It does take work and there are lot of people who are not ready.
In addition, China is not one culture. It has many but maybe they are not as visible? I suspect secretly they are still very active behind closed doors.
In general, I feel that many immigrants have come from societies that are much more homogeneous. When they see US racial or gender problems some think that it's a weakness. I think that these problems can (and will) be solved but I can understand that given their upbringing they see it as an unsolvable problem.
Unfortunately, I don't think mandatory "busting unconscious bias" training will work for everyone. For some, their bias is just too deep. In time, I think many come around but some will never change. Unfortunately, they do hold a lot of power and when you report to one, you can find yourself setup to fail before you know it.
I've said this before: Women, please don't put up with stuff and don't give up. Please seek out a mentor who can help you become an executive in the company. The best way to fix this is to rise above it. It is not easy but please don't give up.
And for the "people against affirmative action", there are other ways to address your concerns. You can ask harvard to accept donations to increase class sizes. When some all-male colleges started accepting women, they doubled the class size. Please don't make it a race war. Harvard really only cares about money (and reputation). Find out what they want in order to get what you want. You don't have to take slots from people escaping a 300-year cycle of poverty. No it is not your fault, but it is your country (for better or for worse).
I appreciate everything you said. It was tough for me studying an engineering degree in college but since then working has been a breath of fresh air. I feel I owe a lot of that to the spirit of professionalism within companies.
It's interesting your Chinese friend said that. I recently found out that unless you are ethnically Chinese, even if you are born in China you aren't a citizen.. correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like a big reason why America will continue to thrive - because it values innovation over particular attributes of the people involved.
Well, this is an issue that I would never have dared to tackle, myself, mainly because I do not have the political skill to do it safely. So, I offer a thank-you and a salute to the less inhibited guy who rose up and drew the first bullet. Now that I have had a chance to read this and observe the public reaction, my own views have developed further.
I was already of the opinion that the various -ism movements each represent a form of discrimination themselves, towards the inverse set of people that they represent. That starts to become a problem when there are people in the intersection of many inverse sets of -isms. This time, let's not create another -ism; let's not make "counterminorityism" just another thing to bash people over the head with.
Instead, it is time to design a continuous reintegration process for our network of distinctive identity groups, to ensure that they do not become incompatible over time. We need a social/psychological framework for identifying and rectifying arbitrary imbalances of resources and social power, because that is a common theme in the root causes of all of the -isms. We need to acknowledge our culture's memes [1] as an increasingly powerful force, worthy of serious study and possibly even regulation or open engineering; take a close look at the psychological manipulation of advertising, to see why this is needed.
This true unification, for lack of a more specific word, would likely be every bit as disruptive to current social and economic structures as the decline of slavery; most powerful organizations would prefer to play meaningless games with the -isms, perhaps even play one minority off of another [2] to prevent a unification. It is something that we will have to develop from the ground up, and develop over time, with collaboration from all fields and all identities. As you can see, at this point, my (our?) feelings and thoughts on the matter are still rough, unpolished, in a state of growth. We need to start seriously thinking about these things, lest we find ourselves on the losing side of a new -ism.
[1] Ideas, beliefs and themes that persist in our collective psyche, not animated gifs.
[2] We are all in a minority. If you aren't, then that is your minority, and you get no love, no assistance, because of what you are. Welcome to the minorities.
I'm amazed that people are seriously upset by someone publishing that.
Somehow, most of the women I know don't complain about harassment much. The one who does complain mostly gets it from her female boss. The one in SF tech says that Uber people tend to be jerks but the rest of the industry there isn't bad.
The one from France has more problems with age than with sex. The lawyer has had some annoyances, but finds it useful to be underestimated by the other side. The ocean lifeguard fought her way onto the L.A. County lifeguards (competitive with no special allowances for women, and few women make it; this is the real-world Baywatch) and is proud that some macho guys apologized to her.
This probably reflects that they're all horse people. Once you're used to dealing with somewhat pushy half-ton animals, microaggressions aren't a big deal.
A 2011 Norwegian documentary series had an episode called "The Gender Paradox" that examined this very issue in depth with interviews with evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists and sociologists. It arrived at the conclusion that employment disparities increase in many professional fields due to natural divergent proclivities when socio-economic opportunities become equal for the sexes.
ON AVERAGE in Norway (one of the top 5 most equal countries), females prefer more people-oriented fields such as medicine and males will favor more systems-oriented fields such as engineering. Again, this is ON AVERAGE. There are major overlaps in many fields (e.g. arts and research sciences) - and in some fields there is virtually none (e.g. nursing vs sanitation). This is not controversial amongst scientists who do their best to suspend ideological or wishful thinking.
He started out well, but about halfway through meandered into bullshit. Bad data, cherry picked data, incorrect incorrect understanding of the science, incorrect conclusions -- he even referenced the Cultural Marxism Conspiracy theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx...
By the time we hit "why we're blind" he's gone fully off the rails.
I sympathize with him -- and even agree with several points, but he did himself a huge disservice here.
Why do you call Cultural Marxism a conspiracy theory? Have you actually read through any of the papers being pumped out by humanities departments in academia? Not only is marxism on full display, it's actively promoted. Hell, it's one of the foundational elements of Critical Theory.
Google (and other tech employers) wants to discriminate in favor of hiring more female engineers, because teams with a little bit higher ratio of female engineers work better overall, even if individual female engineers are not the best individual contributors on their teams.
However, openly stating that Google wants to discriminate in favor of females - is illegal.
So Google uses double-speak and encourages hiring more females under "affirmative action" and "diversity" guidelines.
Not everyone understands double-speak, so there is disconnect between what Google is trying to do and opinions on the ground ("why do we discriminate against males in favor of females?").
That disconnect results in internal popularity of "Anti-Diversity" papers like this.
Or maybe Google wants to hire more female engineers because they realize that 19% representation does not reflect any kind of natural proclivity and therefore must reflect some kind of discrimination. One might plausibly argue that innate differences - more in preference rather than ability - could account for a small difference. 55:45? OK, I can believe that. 60:40? Beginning to wonder. 81:19? Absolutely not.
Where discrimination clearly exists, Google could quite reasonably want to compensate for it. No, not by lowering the bar or setting quotas. Legality aside, we should all know by now that hiring less able candidates isn't good for anyone - often least of all for the candidate who is being set up to fail. Other approaches include casting a wider net, training interviewers to avoid unconscious bias that could lead to false negatives, increasing retention by providing support and additional training (e.g. in negotiating techniques at performance-review time).
None of these lead to anyone less qualified overtaking anyone who is more so. They drive people like the "echo chamber" author nuts only because those people refuse to acknowledge that the problem exists (or matters) in the first place. Because they can't conclusively pin either the problem or solution down to one place in our social code, they decide it's a feature rather than a bug. It's the very same tendency that makes them - and anyone who enables or defends them - crappy engineers. I'll bet "echo chamber" guy was on the way out already, for reasons unrelated to political beliefs. It's not "brave" to manufacture an excuse for getting canned that doesn't require acknowledgement of one's own insufficiency.
I'm really wondering if those removed hyperlinks are pointing to sources for the stuff that's stated as facts. I really miss any references of some of the claims he's making and I find it hard to believe that the writer added none at all.
We had this discussion years ago on my Harvard class list, back during the Larry Summers flap.
Obviously, no one would be/could be against women choosing whatever field of study and work that fulfills them the most. (I say that with 6 daughters in mind!)
However, perhaps the lower representation of women in STEM is simply because they find other fields more interesting (law, medicine, what-have-you). STEM (at least the academic path) is a fairly single-minded grind, and that wouldn't appeal to many people. Apparently it appeals to fewer women than men, and I don't blame them! What's so great about STEM, honestly? It's just another field of human endeavor, with no particular reason to value it more highly than others. (Certainly, it's clearly valued by the HN community, but we're a tiny slice of the real world.)
(I did learn (sadly) from that discussion that women have been grossly discriminated against in certain scientific fields in academia--one of my classmates is the astronomy head at a midwestern university, and she had plenty of examples to share, getting there.)
Aside: Seems to me that the public outrage is at least partially just virtue-signaling.
Yeah, I assume it's the gossip aspect. Tech people love to mock tabloids and celebrity magazines, but they (we) still flock to this kind of "leak" and the takedowns of whoever is the current tech messiah.
As for the document itself, you can read literally the exact same bullshit posted on HN several times a day (and then the same kind of responses that were in the motherboard piece), so I'm not sure what's worth writing home about.
> I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
What are your opinions about this? Do you think biological differences leads to social differences (not only gender but race, height, etc)? Do our "intelligences" [1] differ based on our gender? [2]
Some US sports are very non diverse, but it's ok because it's majority non white, and everyone agrees is mostly meritorious - Athletic performance is hard to fake (outside drugs).
Yet even suggesting that minds are subject to the same kinds of differences is considered heresy. It's almost dualistic - as if we're all born with a mind/soul of the same capability.
It is one thing to debated the veracity of a view, it is another to declare that that view should not be debated. For every point there is a counterpoint; every argument a counterargument. Arguing that the reasoning is flawed is not sufficient to ban it from discussion.
So, would you also agree that the existence of climate change should still be up for debate, even though there is overwhelming scientific evidence in one direction?
NB: I do not know what the scientific consensus is on cognitive differences between men and women.
[+] [-] factsaresacred|8 years ago|reply
The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination - specifically 'positive 'discrimination which it discredits while presenting alternative policies that are more inclusive (according to the author) and reflective of inherent psychological differences.
Have I read it wrong? Somebody correct me if I missed the controversial bits.
Edit: OK, it comes off the rails a little at the "Why we’re blind" section but overall it's food for thought (and no doubt a catharsis for many Right-leaning Googlers).
Since when is dialectics grounds for ostracism?
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
1) Gender differences exist
2) ???
3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences
The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women, while programming doesn't have much women despite being on the social/people-oriented end of the spectrum?
It's not that people are angry about the article's conclusions despite acknowledging the strength of the logical/factual basis. It's that people won't give sloppy reasoning the benefit of the doubt when they don't like the conclusion.
[+] [-] Quarrelsome|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcguire|8 years ago|reply
Could we get some sources for these claims?
In particular, I'd like to see values and standard deviations for "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways."
[+] [-] aagha|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spaceseaman|8 years ago|reply
And this is where I kind of break down on the whole argument. I've already made similar comments below, but I sort of what to expand on this sentiment. I do not think that the views of the author of this piece were political in any way shape or form. They are purely idealogical, and the ideology that he professes has no basis in reality. This is what we may criticize.
I will employ an extremely gross simile to illustrate my point. Suppose that some item exists in the world called a "whizzer". A whizzer spins extraordinarily fast. So fast in fact, that we can't even tell which direction it's spinning for sure. We can use rough guesses to determine the spinning, and support it with some evidence from the environment. If I claim that the whizzer spins left, and you claim that the whizzer spins right we have reached a state of deadlock. Would you call our disagreement in this case one of politics? Suppose I had some information that hinted the spinner spins left. (Analogous to evidence that women are actively stopped from entering technical fields due to sociological rather than natural factors, which exists in multitudes.) There is still no evidence that the whizzer spins right. Arguments that the situation of the United States' gender divisions are natural rather than sociological can easily be dismissed by looking at clear evidence. Women are not as discouraged from entering fields like biology, or medicine. These are just as technical and difficult as other STEM fields. This implies that the factors that affect this are sociological rather than "natural". This evidence is not indisputable and it does not tell the whole picture, but it points in a general direction.
If we return to the whizzers, let's suppose my evidence is very similar. It's not all-knowing, or all-answering but it provides a general direction. There's nothing "political" about this. The "other side" is simply not providing an actual basis of evidence. Your argument does not hold up to any burdens of truth. It's as if the person with no evidence that the whizzers spin right is furious that I should try and make decisions that assume the spinner spins left. That's what all the evidence points towards!
The argument that the email's sender makes is inherently flawed. There exist issues with the conclusions that they make because their reasoning is flawed. I am not demonizing a political opinion, or attempting to police your ability to think or express your opinion. The email fails to convince anyone because it lacks an accurate argument.
I am not trying to demonize you. I don't think this has anything to do with Right / Left. Look at the facts. Look at the data. Listen to women from the industry who time and time again have stories of all the crap they've had to wade through. When all this overwhelming evidence claims something and the only thing the other side can produce are appeals to cognitive bias and naturalism, arguing that this is "just how the world works" it makes no sense because there is no sense in the argument.
If this were "how the world naturally works", how could we have possibly normalized so quickly? Women were only allowed to vote very recently in this country, black americans were only recently systematically segregated. There are people currently alive who have seen both of these greatly disruptive forces in direct action. What argument can possibly claim that those forces have completely dissipated in the United States? What about the United States allows such forces to be dissipated so quickly? Why are these issues more prevalent in places like Silicon Valley than other countries when the United States was one of the latest to adopt the different policies?
The argument simply does hold up to intellectual rigor. It fails to answer those questions in a consistent and convincing matter. If you believe that those questions are flawed, then why is that? Again, there exists no refutation except one born from cognitive bias and a flawed world-view. That's why people are opposed to it. It just doesn't make any sense. The conclusion is not a logical continuation of the premise, and that is why people are upset. I don't know or care where you lie on the political spectrum - all I see is a flawed argument.
Specifically you say "reflective of inherent psychological differences". What inherent psychological differences? Do you truly claim that you can generally predict the way your daughter will think differently than your son from the moment they are born? Do you think that these are in way accurate or determinate of your son or daughters future interests and achievements? Do you actually believe that they will have a "fair shake" regardless of whether they are male / female / white / black? That their life will be entirely based on the way they live it, and not on the way the world looks at them? Do you further believe that we shouldn't try and correct such distinctions?
If you actually want to engage in argument, then attempt to address these issues. Instead all I see is a further appeal to bias by just grouping this as a "right-leaning" opinion. What makes this right-leaning? All this does is further divide idealogical issues as if they have to be "one side vs another". It's nonsensical and all it does is further group or divide people rather than address the objective quality of the argument.
EDIT: May I ask why I'm being down-voted? It seems that no one is even willing to acknowledge these questions, let alone address them. I'm attempting to engage with people at a fair and even level. I don't intend to lecture or degrade, but simply discuss. A resistance to this is concerning.
[+] [-] bhouston|8 years ago|reply
So many do not blindly advocate equality because they believe it completely but do so to avoid the overly negative and reinforcing effects of prejudice.
Think of this as a form of "Noble lie"
[+] [-] grey-area|8 years ago|reply
Rather than assuming those who disagree with you are shallow and hysterical (a contentious word choice, given the subject), perhaps consider why others might be outraged, you could try some empathy (though I know the article warns us against empathy).
The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination
I think it is explicitly anti-diversity in that it sees nothing wrong with the current order of things, if that order can be justified by failings in the weaker vessels that surround the author like empathy and neuroticism (as the author clearly thinks it can).
It does seem a remarkable coincidence that the natural order of things so neatly reflects the author's place at the top of the pyramid though, almost as if the rules had been written by people just like the author.
Since when is dialectics grounds for ostracism?
I doubt the author has faced ostracism, he certainly seems confident enough in expressing his disdain for a large number of the people he works with, without apparent fear of consequences. Since dialectics is usually taken as a search for truth, here are some things that the author believes which are not true:
Women are not more neurotic than men
Women are not less scientific than men
Women are not more interested in feelings and aesthetics than ideas (a curious dichotomy)
Women do not innately prefer jobs in social or artistic areas over say engineering
[+] [-] chroma|8 years ago|reply
- Racism & sexism still exist, even at Google. This is bad. (On the bright side, the problem seems to be getting better over time.)
- It's good (and good for business) to eliminate discrimination based on gender, race, sexual preference, etc.
- There are many benign reasons why a completely unbiased company can still have skewed demographics. One possible reason is that women & men tend to differ in psychological makeup. (Unfortunately, it looks like links to some studies supporting this claim were removed from the post, along with some charts.)
- Therefore, Google should focus on eliminating bias & discrimination, not on getting employee demographics to match the nation as a whole. In short: focus on equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. If sex-specific psychological differences exist, the only way to get equal outcomes would be to lower the hiring bar for women or raise the bar for men.
- If men & women tend to be psychologically different, Google should be aware of that and change work practices to better accommodate women. For example: More pair programming, as (to use the language of the author) that allows more working with people rather than things. Though for competitive positions requiring long hours (usually management), such changes may not be possible.
These points seem to be put forth in good faith by a frustrated employee who lacks tact. Moreover, I don't think these topics should lie outside the realm of debate. Either they're not true, in which case they can be dismissed with counter-evidence. Or they are true, and Google is wasting tremendous resources trying to solve these problems in the wrong way.
[+] [-] bayonetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taysic|8 years ago|reply
If other woman are anything like me, the bullet list comparing two different points of view are cringe. People are so hard to define. And woman in particular I think generally don't feel like their potential is known yet because their presence in the workplace is so young relatively. So the last thing anyone wants is to be categorized by old stereotypes.
[+] [-] humanrebar|8 years ago|reply
I'd rephrase that more like:
"If we want diversity of thought and disposition, we should make room for diversity of work styles (pair programming, remote work, etc.). If the women-work-differently hypothesis has merit, it will help address the gender imbalance while making room for other kinds of excluded people."
[+] [-] humanrebar|8 years ago|reply
It's worth pointing out that "tact" is a cultural construct and highly subjective.
It's also worth pointing out that emotional arguments are generally better received than dispassionate ones. People tend to think emotionally at least as much as they reason, so sanitizing thoughts in the wrong way would neuter the position.
[+] [-] asploder|8 years ago|reply
The difference between effective negative feedback and harassment/microaggressions is the former encapsulates a desire for the person receiving the feedback to succeed. Or, in the feminist lexicon, empathy.
[+] [-] Hasknewbie|8 years ago|reply
As someone who is neither American nor conservative, I have to give it to them that there is a level of virulence from some on the left that is far beyond mere microagression, but is not acknowledged as such: there are continuous attempts to ban some speeches on campuses. If a ban fails it is picketed (which is OK), sometimes violently (which is not): speakers may receive death threats, and so can attendees. At first nobody cared because it was happening to far right hate-clowns (not that this would be a good reason to ignore this in thebfirst place), but this has drifted toward anything non-left, and now is even happening to people who do not toe the line, however liberal they may be (cf. the edifying story of Bret Weinstein).
Are there conservatives whining at things that are in fact tiny microagressions, and the hypocrisy is funny? Absolutely. But there is also a legitimately more dangerous phenomenon that is slowly growing, and the worrying part is that it is not being acknowledged by the 'moderate' left. The fact that political crusaders on their side routinely attempt to ban free speech, or send death threats, should be very much a concern to progressives. Instead it is oddly glossed over, and/or lumped in with microagressions or counter-demonstrations.
During Obama's first term people on the left could not understand how the American right could tolerate the crazies from the Tea Party and were looking the other way whenever their insane ideas were uttered. But today we are seeing the very same behaviour on the left when these psychotic episodes pop up. That is not normal. Regressive and authoritarian tendencies should be acknowledged and denounced, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they come from.
[+] [-] Moshe_Silnorin|8 years ago|reply
Your ideology is ascendant. Congrats. But please don't tell me destroying someone's earning capacity is a micro aggression.
And know, this can't last. This strange moral fad will pass: our modern Lysenkoism is about to be killed by cognitive genomics.
The lies require constant maintenance while the truth drips in from every pore.
[+] [-] amiga-workbench|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|8 years ago|reply
[1] http://sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf [2] http://time.com/32618/microaggression-is-the-new-racism-on-c... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
[+] [-] santoshalper|8 years ago|reply
The modern alt-right conservative: "I don't believe in safe spaces, but please stop bullying me!"
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
> On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:
> They’re universal across human cultures
Except the gender ratio in science/engineering is anything but universal across cultures. 70% of science/engineering students in Iran are women: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/12/09/set-to-ta.... Indeed, in many parts of the world that are not known for being "liberal" with regard to gender equality, women make up a significantly higher percentage of the scientific workforce than in the U.S.: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-science-technology-e... (44% in Latin America, 40% in Eastern Europe, 37% in the Arab states).
In the Soviet Union, a majority of engineers were women; after the fall that proportion went way down (from 60% to 40%): http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6985/downlo....
> Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).
If this were true, shouldn't women's interest in CS be going up now that the web is all about feelings/aesthetics/social? Programming, in my view, is actually in the middle in the "people versus things" spectrum. It's much more about people than, say, math. And of course, 45% of math majors are women, so I'm not sure how that fits into the author's theory.
> Women on average are more cooperative
Maybe, but does the degree of that effect explain the observed differences in representation? Tech is actually very cooperative. Compare, for example, litigation, which is all about confrontation and acrimony. But a third (and growing) of all litigators are women!
[+] [-] Smaug123|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jondubois|8 years ago|reply
If you're an introvert, short, fat, nerdy-looking or you have a weak posture; there's no support group to offset your shortcomings and all the insidious ways in which they will sabotage your career! It's no coincidence that CEOs look like and talk like CEOs - We live in a superficial world and we are animals; there is no need to moralise things; it might just come across as hypocrisy.
[+] [-] swframe2|8 years ago|reply
Kind of shocking because our company is about 1/3 White, Indian and Chinese. But he doesn't see that as diversity. I think that is the answer that he can't see. Once groups accept each other as equals diversity becomes a non-issue. It does take work and there are lot of people who are not ready.
In addition, China is not one culture. It has many but maybe they are not as visible? I suspect secretly they are still very active behind closed doors.
In general, I feel that many immigrants have come from societies that are much more homogeneous. When they see US racial or gender problems some think that it's a weakness. I think that these problems can (and will) be solved but I can understand that given their upbringing they see it as an unsolvable problem.
Unfortunately, I don't think mandatory "busting unconscious bias" training will work for everyone. For some, their bias is just too deep. In time, I think many come around but some will never change. Unfortunately, they do hold a lot of power and when you report to one, you can find yourself setup to fail before you know it.
I've said this before: Women, please don't put up with stuff and don't give up. Please seek out a mentor who can help you become an executive in the company. The best way to fix this is to rise above it. It is not easy but please don't give up.
And for the "people against affirmative action", there are other ways to address your concerns. You can ask harvard to accept donations to increase class sizes. When some all-male colleges started accepting women, they doubled the class size. Please don't make it a race war. Harvard really only cares about money (and reputation). Find out what they want in order to get what you want. You don't have to take slots from people escaping a 300-year cycle of poverty. No it is not your fault, but it is your country (for better or for worse).
[+] [-] taysic|8 years ago|reply
It's interesting your Chinese friend said that. I recently found out that unless you are ethnically Chinese, even if you are born in China you aren't a citizen.. correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like a big reason why America will continue to thrive - because it values innovation over particular attributes of the people involved.
More than 1/3 of top tech companies in the US are started by immigrants. http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-founded-by...
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] smsm42|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp...
[+] [-] the_cyber_pass|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devrandomguy|8 years ago|reply
I was already of the opinion that the various -ism movements each represent a form of discrimination themselves, towards the inverse set of people that they represent. That starts to become a problem when there are people in the intersection of many inverse sets of -isms. This time, let's not create another -ism; let's not make "counterminorityism" just another thing to bash people over the head with.
Instead, it is time to design a continuous reintegration process for our network of distinctive identity groups, to ensure that they do not become incompatible over time. We need a social/psychological framework for identifying and rectifying arbitrary imbalances of resources and social power, because that is a common theme in the root causes of all of the -isms. We need to acknowledge our culture's memes [1] as an increasingly powerful force, worthy of serious study and possibly even regulation or open engineering; take a close look at the psychological manipulation of advertising, to see why this is needed.
This true unification, for lack of a more specific word, would likely be every bit as disruptive to current social and economic structures as the decline of slavery; most powerful organizations would prefer to play meaningless games with the -isms, perhaps even play one minority off of another [2] to prevent a unification. It is something that we will have to develop from the ground up, and develop over time, with collaboration from all fields and all identities. As you can see, at this point, my (our?) feelings and thoughts on the matter are still rough, unpolished, in a state of growth. We need to start seriously thinking about these things, lest we find ourselves on the losing side of a new -ism.
[1] Ideas, beliefs and themes that persist in our collective psyche, not animated gifs.
[2] We are all in a minority. If you aren't, then that is your minority, and you get no love, no assistance, because of what you are. Welcome to the minorities.
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
Somehow, most of the women I know don't complain about harassment much. The one who does complain mostly gets it from her female boss. The one in SF tech says that Uber people tend to be jerks but the rest of the industry there isn't bad. The one from France has more problems with age than with sex. The lawyer has had some annoyances, but finds it useful to be underestimated by the other side. The ocean lifeguard fought her way onto the L.A. County lifeguards (competitive with no special allowances for women, and few women make it; this is the real-world Baywatch) and is proud that some macho guys apologized to her.
This probably reflects that they're all horse people. Once you're used to dealing with somewhat pushy half-ton animals, microaggressions aren't a big deal.
[+] [-] ankushnarula|8 years ago|reply
ON AVERAGE in Norway (one of the top 5 most equal countries), females prefer more people-oriented fields such as medicine and males will favor more systems-oriented fields such as engineering. Again, this is ON AVERAGE. There are major overlaps in many fields (e.g. arts and research sciences) - and in some fields there is virtually none (e.g. nursing vs sanitation). This is not controversial amongst scientists who do their best to suspend ideological or wishful thinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
[+] [-] mAdamTus|8 years ago|reply
By the time we hit "why we're blind" he's gone fully off the rails.
I sympathize with him -- and even agree with several points, but he did himself a huge disservice here.
[+] [-] marknutter|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dennisgorelik|8 years ago|reply
However, openly stating that Google wants to discriminate in favor of females - is illegal.
So Google uses double-speak and encourages hiring more females under "affirmative action" and "diversity" guidelines.
Not everyone understands double-speak, so there is disconnect between what Google is trying to do and opinions on the ground ("why do we discriminate against males in favor of females?").
That disconnect results in internal popularity of "Anti-Diversity" papers like this.
[+] [-] notacoward|8 years ago|reply
Where discrimination clearly exists, Google could quite reasonably want to compensate for it. No, not by lowering the bar or setting quotas. Legality aside, we should all know by now that hiring less able candidates isn't good for anyone - often least of all for the candidate who is being set up to fail. Other approaches include casting a wider net, training interviewers to avoid unconscious bias that could lead to false negatives, increasing retention by providing support and additional training (e.g. in negotiating techniques at performance-review time).
None of these lead to anyone less qualified overtaking anyone who is more so. They drive people like the "echo chamber" author nuts only because those people refuse to acknowledge that the problem exists (or matters) in the first place. Because they can't conclusively pin either the problem or solution down to one place in our social code, they decide it's a feature rather than a bug. It's the very same tendency that makes them - and anyone who enables or defends them - crappy engineers. I'll bet "echo chamber" guy was on the way out already, for reasons unrelated to political beliefs. It's not "brave" to manufacture an excuse for getting canned that doesn't require acknowledgement of one's own insufficiency.
[+] [-] lotsoflumens|8 years ago|reply
Some guy not only speaks his mind, but has the balls to actually write his thoughts down.
The completely predictable response from "forward thinking progressives" follows.
[+] [-] JelteF|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LouisSayers|8 years ago|reply
We should appreciate our differences and understand them rather than bury them under "equality".
I hope some good comes of this.
[+] [-] cpr|8 years ago|reply
Obviously, no one would be/could be against women choosing whatever field of study and work that fulfills them the most. (I say that with 6 daughters in mind!)
However, perhaps the lower representation of women in STEM is simply because they find other fields more interesting (law, medicine, what-have-you). STEM (at least the academic path) is a fairly single-minded grind, and that wouldn't appeal to many people. Apparently it appeals to fewer women than men, and I don't blame them! What's so great about STEM, honestly? It's just another field of human endeavor, with no particular reason to value it more highly than others. (Certainly, it's clearly valued by the HN community, but we're a tiny slice of the real world.)
(I did learn (sadly) from that discussion that women have been grossly discriminated against in certain scientific fields in academia--one of my classmates is the astronomy head at a midwestern university, and she had plenty of examples to share, getting there.)
Aside: Seems to me that the public outrage is at least partially just virtue-signaling.
[+] [-] fatbird|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davesque|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magicalist|8 years ago|reply
As for the document itself, you can read literally the exact same bullshit posted on HN several times a day (and then the same kind of responses that were in the motherboard piece), so I'm not sure what's worth writing home about.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] skywhopper|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jorgemf|8 years ago|reply
What are your opinions about this? Do you think biological differences leads to social differences (not only gender but race, height, etc)? Do our "intelligences" [1] differ based on our gender? [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc...
[2] https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-w...
[+] [-] MichaelGG|8 years ago|reply
Yet even suggesting that minds are subject to the same kinds of differences is considered heresy. It's almost dualistic - as if we're all born with a mind/soul of the same capability.
[+] [-] Invictus0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebola1717|8 years ago|reply
And if there's anything decades old social science research has taught me, it's the Overton Window: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
[+] [-] scribu|8 years ago|reply
NB: I do not know what the scientific consensus is on cognitive differences between men and women.
[+] [-] door|8 years ago|reply
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