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People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it.
It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
This feels like the blue and black (white and gold) dress. It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece.
The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people. Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. Given the massive disparity we see in tech it's ridiculous that this individual felt the need to lambast the relatively minimal amount of work being done to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture across the industry.
If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today.
When somebody's views are being attacked for being misogynistic and alienating to their female colleagues, it is not suppression of free speech and diverse political opinion it is common decency. Nobody is infringing on your free speech but they will respond. All of these cries of 'authoritarian left-wing thought-police' makes me think We need a manifesto on White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech.
[disclaimer: I work at Google, my words are my own and not my employers]
I believe that equal opportunity among all persons is manifest. But I think the manner in which we encourage/enforce/promote it, especially in the workplace, demands debate. We must be able to disagree with the methods without any question of our belief of its purpose.
The most disgusted I've ever felt at a workplace was when my boss, prior to me interviewing someone, said, "and she gets an extra point because she's a woman." The government punishes us on research tax breaks if we don't have enough diversity.
So what am I supposed to say to this person when she asks what set her apart from the other candidates to be hired? "No you weren't the best candidate, but you are a woman." That disgusts me and I refuse to do it.
My job is not to balance an arbitrary math equation that x% of engineers are supposed to be women. That's an issue far larger and more systemic. It can't be fixed this way.
What I can do is remind myself that my job is to pick the best candidate, and my definition of "best" may be fraught with bias, so I need to be exceptionally perceptive to question what capabilities each candidate might bring to the job that I don't naturally consider to be ideal.
Apologies for the ranting nature of this comment. I feel frustrated when faced with the reality that what the establishment wants are at such odds with my morals and convictions.
Reading the letter, what surprised me was how political it was, framing everything as a "left vs right" cultural fight. I think if it was up to me I'd probably fire anybody on either side of that debate who started circulating shit like this. As soon as you're on that level, nothing good is going to come of it and you're just going to make a lot of people angry, which is very bad for the business in a lot of different ways.
The workplace is no place for politics like this. If you are going to strictly stick to narrow issues that are relevant to the job, then maybe, but as soon as you're writing a 10 page manifesto with phrases like "the Left's affinity for those it sees as weak" or "some on the Right deny science" or "the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics" you are way out of line. It doesn't matter if you are correct or not, politicising your workplace in that way shows a stunning lack of judgement.
The author's arguments have been completely misrepresented. He pointed out widely-believed and sometimes scientifically-established differences in the DISTRIBUTION OF traits in men and women. He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful. What is his conclusion about how we should behave? "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group." Wow, what a monster.
The reaction to the memo is really the most damning thing about the whole affair. Everyone is just rushing to virtue signal, to demonstrate their own purity of thought. They've just proved the author's point. Honestly, Google might have even been rational to fire him, due to the toxic situation created by the mass outrage. How incredibly damning of our society.
A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
It's not about virtue signaling, he was almost certain to be terminated just because it was a ridiculously stupid thing to say - you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar and expect people not to be upset about it (and that's 100% what he did, he also made up pseudo-scientific bullshit to try to justify it, but he flat out insulted countless people within his company).
Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization, it becomes impossible for this person to be an effective member of the team:
- The next time a woman interviews for his team, and he votes against hiring, how does the hiring committee interpret that vote?
- The next time he's peer reviewed by a woman, how does that review get interpreted?
- The next time he peer reviews a woman, how does that review get interpreted?
- The next time a female candidate interviews with the author and is denied, how likely is it that the candidate will believe they had a fair interview, or is the organization perpetually exposed to increased legal risk forever?
Such a manifesto is not just fundamentally wrong, it's toxic and shows a profound lack of awareness for any professional.
It's quite ironic: in their push for equality and inclusion, these liberals have created an environment where one faces exclusion and persecution for simply having political beliefs that align with a large portion of their fellow U.S. citizens. This is a very real thing. I never felt uncomfortable with my own political alignment before 2015 but I wouldn't dare put a GOP candidate sticker on my laptop now. It's not that I have an aversion to my own party; I simply feel targeted and fear being (incorrectly) labeled a bigot or mysognist simply because of the candidates I've voted for.
That's how far this has gone. I am saddened that more moderate voices have not spoken up like this brave ex-Googler but given the climate and the consequences, I understand it.
Since you more or less pasted your comment from the other thread, I'll TLDR my same reply:
The claims in this document are FAR from "widely-believed" or "scientifically established". By count, most of his claims are just asserted. But even most of the claims with a link are highly debatable.
This is NOT a particularly good advocacy document on the core scientific questions surrounding inequality. It may have some points in the cultural commentary bits, but stop presenting this as good work (on diversity). It's shoddy and amateur.
What else is the American mind unfairly closed to? Why is "women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers" the threshold issue? What else should we be more open-minded about? We're also very closed-minded about:
* Child labor
* The facially legitimate grievances of Al Qaeda
* Universal suffrage
* The illegality of marital rape
Does it just happen that this particular issue, the one pertaining to nerds working for six-figure salaries at software firms, is the last straw?
> "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group." Wow, what a monster.
The problem is that Google already does do this, for the most part. So what does it mean to say that Google ought to treat people as individuals, if that is already the current state of affairs? The argument, as coded in the document, was that Google ought to cease making any efforts to correct disparities in representation.
As a moral or rational argument, this falls flat on its face. Suppose that there was science to show that cognitive differences between men and women or different races is 100% inborn (there isn't, not even close). Even then, there's still the problem of whether the magnitude of those differences justifies the magnitude of differences in representation. There is not nearly enough data to make a case here, and by presenting the case as made, the author of the doc was doing more than just observing the state of the science. He was making an unsubstantiated claim that his coworkers, or at a minimum the sex and/or races they belong to, are inherently deficient at performing the work.
These traits are measured with self-report surveys. I.e. personality quizzes. Not to malign the field of psychology, but this isn't the gold standard of science, IMHO.
Having read Mr. Damore's document, I can find very little in it of substance. It deals with politics and gender in only the very broadest of terms. It does not delve deeply into the scientific issues at hand, instead sprinkling his platitudes with wikipedia links to give them weight.
That being said, I completely agree that the US's nasty brand of liberalism is in a sad state. Our response to this manifesto should have been a cold critique of its many flaws, not the blind hysteria we've apparently opted for instead.
The author accused Google of discriminatory hiring practices and "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates" (under the subhead, "The harm of Google biases"). Just because he couched his claims in a boring, vague manifesto doesn't mean he didn't imply something that impugns the qualifications of his coworkers.
I don't know where everyone is reading their versions of the letter, but I don't think you could read the Gizmodo reprint and misrepresent the argument:
This is where I read up on it, and the letter was written very reasonably, IMO. That article also includes a response from google's brand new VP of Diversity, Integrity & Governance.
I know this is a sensitive topic, but Google's reaction is really just business. Women represent a huge and quickly growing sector of the economy. Public corporations would never take a big risk of their bottom line to support an individual's rights (ignoring whether those claims of rights are even valid or not). And, it's kind of silly to blame 'liberals' - because it transcends politics. Businesses are about making money.
(By the way, I think it is reasonable for some individual rights to be protected within the walls of a corporation, but as far as I understand it, many US citizen's rights, like free speech, do not cross over into private domains. I wish it was different.)
Previously, "the truth" was right leaning; it is now left leaning. Unfortunately, many people find (and have always found) that all it takes to dismiss an opposing moral position is to point out that their opponent's position is untruthful, and the discussion (or lack thereof) ends there.
A sibling poster has linked us to PG's essay on "What you can't say", which states my concerns more eloquently and thoroughly.
His argument seems to boil down to "men and women are different, maybe that's why there are fewer women in tech".
That's not an argument, it's speculation that there's an argument. The bulk of the manifesto is a repetition of tropes about men vs women.
> Honestly, Google might have even been rational to fire him, due to the toxic situation created by the mass outrage. How incredibly damning of our society.
This is always the case. Even companies who are sane need to respond to the foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy of Twitter and related cesspools. As disgusting as the Brendan Eich thing was, I never really blamed Mozilla. I'm just not sure how tech in particular ended up so strongly under the influence of a relatively small amount of loud, shitty people.
Honestly I knew where this was going when I saw him mention biological differences. Which is a shame because many of his arguments are actually interesting. The tl;dr is actually chilling in the light of this firing.
His points were that some diversity policies were misguided and may even cause harm but are impossible to correct because they are taboo.
His memo was well-argumented and he was open to contradiction, which on several points could have been brought.
It was not aggressive, not dismissive, not sexist. I personally view his firing as totally excessive and downright anti-intellectual.
Critics, we are not yet in a post-sexist society. We have to improve many things for women and minorities, we have many efforts to make to reach true equality. Shutting down debate on your tactics will not help.
> A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
From the article:
> Google’s new vice president for diversity, integrity and governance
A brand of religion with its own sheriff no less.
Who seriously believe you have freedom of speech and thought in such a monocultural place?
While I have a lot of problems with the memo, I was pissed to see CNN's subtitle on this topic: "Boss condemns manifesto sent by a male engineer that claims women aren't suited for work in tech." To say that the manifesto claimed "women aren't suited for work in tech" is more than a gross mischaracterization, it's outright false.
That's one way to read it. Another way would be, "Stop trying to promote diversity, it alienates the racists and sexists who work here."
I don't think this is an unfair reading. One of the bullet points in the conclusion is literally that the company's diversity programs are problematic because they alienate non-progressives.
> "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group."
"But beware of this particular subgroup, because they are biologically inclined to not be as interested or good in the subject."
> Everyone is just rushing to virtue signal, to demonstrate their own purity of thought
No, people are pissed that it's 2017 and people are still trying to make an argument for the superiority of testosterone as a predictor for success in a particular field. Can't we just give everyone a chance, instead of trying to pigeonhole them right away?
> A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
Please don't pay attention to the actual religious agenda being pushed by the party currently in power. You know, the one that is actually running an inquisition against LGBTQ people? The one that wants to tell women what to do with their bodies? No dogma there, surely.
> This is the closing of the American mind.
The closing of the American mind started happening when a political party decided to take over religion and anti-intellectualism as their platform. That's why we've gotten to the point where being called an "expert" is paramount to an insult in certain contexts.
For a significant portion of American history there was an established difference in the distribution of the ability of people to own property. More recently there's an established difference in the distribution of the ability of minorities, students, and liberals to vote in certain states (NC, WI, TX, among others). There was an established difference in the incidence of AIDS during the 80's. There are established differences in the distribution of outcomes related to conviction of minor drug possession, soliciting prostitution, and a host of other non-violent crimes. Heck, there's an established difference in the distribution of police pulling people over or otherwise detaining people without cause in many municipalities.
Trying to justify discrimination by referring to the direct result of discriminatory behavior is obscene.
I agree that the author's arguments have been misrepresented, but as much by the author as anyone else. What we have is someone who is trying to couch borderline crazy views as reasonable and thoughtful and is smart enough to keep the lid on his underlying opinions with some success. But, read the author's footnotes for a real tl;dr -- he baldly states without evidence (indeed contrary to all the literature) that women are paid equally for equal work, that political correctness is a tool of leftists and authoritarians, and on and on.
His constant protestations that he's really interested in promoting diversity BUT is just the new "some of my best friends are X, but".
That didn't even seem like the main point. The main point was that people are psychologically oppressed: you can't even talk about the possibility of different gender behavior being rooted in biology without fear of retribution.
It seems he made that point and then continued to make a bunch of other points, and its those other points that many have a problem with.
I read a good chunk in agreement, but then it just took a left turn. Between its thinly-vieled promotion for 'conservative values' and some very thin 'therefore' conclusions midway through, it would never be able to stand up to the heights of intellect that its author probably intended it for.
If you know that some idiot wrote this manifesto as a manager, could you assign a woman to work with him? Not in good conscience. An open culture is desirable because it lets the company get going with what its shareholders want it doing.
"A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma."
Indeed. I also felt reminded of dynamics in the realm of religion.
You have unwittingly provided an example of the "unconscious bias" against women that Google's programs seek to unpack and correct.
The term "virtue signal" implies that one's reaction is motivated by a desire to make an impression on others, a superficial and calculated response. But to a woman, reading an essay full of gender stereotypes can create a real sense of pain and outrage. So when you're saying "virtue signal", you're really mostly talking about men.
This response has the tone of justification by exactly the very minds condemned as being closed.
I read the article which attempts to establish as fact very clearly unsubstantiated subjective claims. Never mind the toxicity -- the dude is just flat wrong.
"Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group."
Regardless of whether you agreed with the letter or not, it's 100% correct in asserting that it's super difficult to have productive, rational conversations about the issue of diversity. Google just reinforced that fact.
One thing that bothers me as someone who works at Google (but is speaking purely his own opinion) is that this manifesto implies some pretty wrong things about our hiring process. In particular, it conflates diversity sourcing programs with a lower hiring bar.
As an engineer who's done a fair bit of volunteer recruiting work as well as conducted interviews, my experience has been that race- and gender-specific programs are used exclusively as outreach, sourcing, and mentorship tools. James claims there are "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate," which strikes me as untrue. Regardless of how they are sourced, once candidates are in the interview pipeline their are all treated exactly as rigorously as one another.
In other words, recruiters are responsible for finding, reaching out to, and advocating for candidates. Once they source the candidate they "throw them over the fence" to the cold, hard interview process, which involves experienced interviewers and a hiring committee of senior-tenure engineers. The aim is to ensure you can trust that those who make it out how the hiring committee to be top-notch.
After years and years of working at the company I haven't heard even a whisper of complaint among anyone about the quality of people we're hiring. After working with people of all stripes I can say I haven't met a single person where I thought to myself "how did this loser get through the filter."
Here's the writing on the wall that I think is being ignored: google has thousands of employees, with all types of opinions. I guarantee you some of those people have controversial opinions, and some of those people share those controversial opinions.
Everybody blames the author for creating a disturbance, but you can't create a disturbance without people being interested in what you say. The fact that it was so widely circulated (instead of ignored like 99% of blog posts) suggests to me that a number of people at the company feel like he had some really good points.
It's scary to me that the "safe space" crowd gets to define what views are offensive, and inherently make it an unsafe (even firable) place for those who disagree to express who they are and what they believe.
I read the memo and didn't find it particularly persuasive; but this dismissal does further its core point. It's a bit tone deaf of Google to fire an employee concerned about groupthink.
This is disappointing. I didn't really agree with his premise, and I think he was generally wrong honestly, but I don't think his views were so unrealistic or offensive that this was warranted. I think this was probably done mainly because there was negative media about it. Which sort of demonstrates that Google is just another corporation that doesn't really value its employees that much. Maybe as a collective, but not on an individual basis. I think it's important not to let their moral posturing about social issues cloud our judgement about that.
The best explanation of why he was going to be fired and why that was the right thing to do (that I read) came from Yonatan Zunger, who had recently left a Human Resources position at Google; especially his third point, in the following post on Medium:
In many way, it was not an unfamiliar sort of rant for the internet, and I was struck by the author's earnestness and apparent sincerity. It's possible that I make too many allowances for behaviour, and it's possible that I'm easily mislead.
I thought his ideas were not in any way useful, or actionable, even had he been correct;
That the ideas were poorly expressed, and full of such fringe 'truths' as are derived, insincerely, from cherry-picked science in order to be sold as snake-oil cures for the cognitive dissonance of the conservative and vulnerable;
That the expression of these ideas was immensely foolish, especially appearing in the context of what I took to have been his initial intent, an appeal of tolerance of diverse viewpoints at Google.
However, I'm always most disturbed by vitriol online when it's in service of beliefs that I share. It makes me deeply uneasy.
What I don't get in many of the left-leaning comments is that they're basically saying that 'patriarchy'/society is the only reason why women are underrepresented in tech.
In India/Russia, there are way more women represented in tech then in US. Do you think that these cultures are more welcoming/less sexist to women than US? It should be so in your world view.
I suspect that the companies in these countries doesn't have a diversity program, and they hire everyone for purely business reasons. Why do you think that diversity problems solve anything on the long term?
I live in Eastern EU and many people are actually sexist here ( men and women are favor of enforced gender roles ), unlike in Top 20 countries. But I suspect the gender disparity in tech is better than in the us, or largely the same. Isn't this kind of disproves the notion that gender differences are caused by sexism?
As a minority woman in tech I'm not bothered much by his document, but that's only because I don't work with this guy or folks like him. His manifesto doesn't pain me, but that's only because I have a secure job coding all my favorite things with people who don't spew this kind of unsubstantiated crap to my colleagues, giving them spurious reasons to doubt my abilities and inherent qualities.
My sympathies are with those who work in more precarious situations. I'm no authoritarian, but I'm ok with this guy getting fired - he used his platform unwisely and at this point the damage control gained by firing him probably outweighs whatever benefit the company might get by keeping him.
However, I'm plenty perturbed by the willful lack of understanding all around these parts about (at the very least)
- how diversity programs work / what they do
- how hiring works
- how oppression works
- how public words can affect others
It's incredibly ironic that a company that apparently cares about diversity enough to have a "Vice President for Diversity" fired an employee for presenting an opposing viewpoint - to their diversity policy of all things.
Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concerned with normalizing racial/gender composition to present the illusion that discrimination and biological variation are non-existent (except for discrimination against males, whites, and Asians, because for some reason it's not considered discrimination if it affects them). It's not about doing the right thing, it's about PR - hence the decision to cave in to whatever the pitchforks are demanding.
It's a shame that honest criticism of diversity policies and gender issues is considered taboo enough to get someone fired. If we really cared about diversity, then we'd welcome opposing viewpoints and counter them with facts, not silencing. We have a culture of anti-intellectualism and dogmatism around certain topics that for whatever reason are considered sacred and not allowed to be challenged (ie. political correctness), and its disgraceful.
It was a bit of a Jerry Maguire moment even if you agree with some of it.
At work you should be professional and not only work to make yourself and the company/product better, but the people around you better.
It is mostly not healthy to get political or ideological at work unless you want to divide people. A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base. You should treat everyone at work like a client and not go all tribal or into cliques that end up in groups that are constantly complaining.
If you don't like something you can work to change it but in a company the size of Google that is not always possible. If you don't like the ideology of a company then leave. Do a good job yourself, setup your own thing if you want to control everything, but don't bring down other individuals, encourage them and make them better, create respect internally. Don't rock the boat, try to guide it, if you can't, hop on a new ship. In the end we live in a free country but work for companies that are more dictatorial/authoritarian where we are just sharecroppers on their feudal land. Companies are not democracies unless they are really small and even then they are not.
Sometimes manifestos are needed [1] but for the most part it is like calling out an employer. Not only will it probably not change the company, it will follow you around for better or worse.
Oh, there’s one final lesson: you never know when something you write is going to unexpectedly be published in the Wall Street Journal. So watch those split infinitives.
A company that claims to embrace diversity does not tolerate a diverse opinion - right or wrong. I can understand why San Fran is so anti-conservative, but I cannot accept this blatant hypocrisy of being so intolerant and even aggressive towards those who dare to divert! Companies like Google do something worse than censorship - they induce self-censorship, which is something that even the Commies failed to accomplish! Let people think and say whatever they want and only judge them by their actions. The fragile society of today that can't accept anything, but an applause, is doomed! Okay, women, you disagree with his statement - prove him wrong, don't silence him up! If I ever wasted any effort on paying attention to what people think or say about me, my life would've been mostly wasted! Let people say or think whatever they want - I am personally okay with hate speech, too! I'd prefer somebody exhausting their hatred with words toward me than finding a more destructive outlet! I guess, our society today is less mature than ever! We have a bunch of crybabies that need "participation awards" and "goodie bags" and can't accept the realities of life!
> Employment here is based solely upon individual merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence.
How are you going to achieve 50/50 diversity in the company if the pool of candidates is far from that distribution? (unless you go and don't hire the best ones to balance the distribution)
EDIT: As kevingadd said, I might be wrong assuming the goal for diversity target for Google. It can be something more realistic and be close to the ratio of the pool of candidates. In that case I am wrong in my assumption. This is also a good link he provided: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-v...
I'm sad to see this guy fired. He tried very hard to make it clear that he believes diversity is valuable, that discrimination is real and needs to be addressed, and that he was discussing distribution at the population level rather than individuals. And he cited several references in support of his ideas - giving dissenters ample opportunity to attack his arguments on the basis of their merits. The memo had some rough edges and questionable assertions to be sure - but to me at least he came across as a reasonable person that you could have an intelligent discussion with.
But rather than discussing the ideas in the memo, people who have never met him and who presumably don't know the context with which the memo was released have twisted his arguments, made assumptions that he racist and sexist beyond hope of recovery, and needed to be fired.
I understand that his memo was extremely inflammatory and therefore probably not appropriate for the workplace (although, again, I don't know the exact context in which it was distributed initially). But now that it's gone viral - wouldn't it be better to have the discussion rather than trying to silence him and pretend it never happened? Because I am sure there are more people out there with the same views. People who are in charge of hiring decisions, are terrified to discuss their views in public, and are now that much less likely to ever change.
Personally, it's not immediately obvious to me when reading the memo or the cited references that he was wrong. There are a lot of crackpots out there who cling to indefensible ideas and refuse to change their minds in the face of overwhelming evidence - but this guy didn't feel like one of them to me. To me this felt purely like identity politics winning out over intelligent debate and the pursuit of truth.
This is starting to be scary. Instead of government companies are acting as thought police. I think a lot of people will watch what they are saying publicly from now on.
[+] [-] sctb|8 years ago|reply
If you have a new account and want to comment (thoughtfully, as opposed to flaming) please email us at [email protected] and we'll whitelist you.
[+] [-] tunesmith|8 years ago|reply
It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
[+] [-] postnihilism|8 years ago|reply
The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people. Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. Given the massive disparity we see in tech it's ridiculous that this individual felt the need to lambast the relatively minimal amount of work being done to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture across the industry.
If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today.
When somebody's views are being attacked for being misogynistic and alienating to their female colleagues, it is not suppression of free speech and diverse political opinion it is common decency. Nobody is infringing on your free speech but they will respond. All of these cries of 'authoritarian left-wing thought-police' makes me think We need a manifesto on White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech.
[disclaimer: I work at Google, my words are my own and not my employers]
[+] [-] Waterluvian|8 years ago|reply
The most disgusted I've ever felt at a workplace was when my boss, prior to me interviewing someone, said, "and she gets an extra point because she's a woman." The government punishes us on research tax breaks if we don't have enough diversity.
So what am I supposed to say to this person when she asks what set her apart from the other candidates to be hired? "No you weren't the best candidate, but you are a woman." That disgusts me and I refuse to do it.
My job is not to balance an arbitrary math equation that x% of engineers are supposed to be women. That's an issue far larger and more systemic. It can't be fixed this way.
What I can do is remind myself that my job is to pick the best candidate, and my definition of "best" may be fraught with bias, so I need to be exceptionally perceptive to question what capabilities each candidate might bring to the job that I don't naturally consider to be ideal.
Apologies for the ranting nature of this comment. I feel frustrated when faced with the reality that what the establishment wants are at such odds with my morals and convictions.
[+] [-] mehwoot|8 years ago|reply
The workplace is no place for politics like this. If you are going to strictly stick to narrow issues that are relevant to the job, then maybe, but as soon as you're writing a 10 page manifesto with phrases like "the Left's affinity for those it sees as weak" or "some on the Right deny science" or "the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics" you are way out of line. It doesn't matter if you are correct or not, politicising your workplace in that way shows a stunning lack of judgement.
[+] [-] wildmusings|8 years ago|reply
The reaction to the memo is really the most damning thing about the whole affair. Everyone is just rushing to virtue signal, to demonstrate their own purity of thought. They've just proved the author's point. Honestly, Google might have even been rational to fire him, due to the toxic situation created by the mass outrage. How incredibly damning of our society.
A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
This is the closing of the American mind.
[+] [-] jjirsa|8 years ago|reply
Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization, it becomes impossible for this person to be an effective member of the team:
- The next time a woman interviews for his team, and he votes against hiring, how does the hiring committee interpret that vote?
- The next time he's peer reviewed by a woman, how does that review get interpreted?
- The next time he peer reviews a woman, how does that review get interpreted?
- The next time a female candidate interviews with the author and is denied, how likely is it that the candidate will believe they had a fair interview, or is the organization perpetually exposed to increased legal risk forever?
Such a manifesto is not just fundamentally wrong, it's toxic and shows a profound lack of awareness for any professional.
[+] [-] chrissnell|8 years ago|reply
That's how far this has gone. I am saddened that more moderate voices have not spoken up like this brave ex-Googler but given the climate and the consequences, I understand it.
[+] [-] elefanten|8 years ago|reply
The claims in this document are FAR from "widely-believed" or "scientifically established". By count, most of his claims are just asserted. But even most of the claims with a link are highly debatable.
This is NOT a particularly good advocacy document on the core scientific questions surrounding inequality. It may have some points in the cultural commentary bits, but stop presenting this as good work (on diversity). It's shoddy and amateur.
[+] [-] tptacek|8 years ago|reply
* Child labor
* The facially legitimate grievances of Al Qaeda
* Universal suffrage
* The illegality of marital rape
Does it just happen that this particular issue, the one pertaining to nerds working for six-figure salaries at software firms, is the last straw?
[+] [-] groupthinkqmark|8 years ago|reply
The problem is that Google already does do this, for the most part. So what does it mean to say that Google ought to treat people as individuals, if that is already the current state of affairs? The argument, as coded in the document, was that Google ought to cease making any efforts to correct disparities in representation.
As a moral or rational argument, this falls flat on its face. Suppose that there was science to show that cognitive differences between men and women or different races is 100% inborn (there isn't, not even close). Even then, there's still the problem of whether the magnitude of those differences justifies the magnitude of differences in representation. There is not nearly enough data to make a case here, and by presenting the case as made, the author of the doc was doing more than just observing the state of the science. He was making an unsubstantiated claim that his coworkers, or at a minimum the sex and/or races they belong to, are inherently deficient at performing the work.
[+] [-] jaredklewis|8 years ago|reply
What are these well known and scientifically established differences in the distribution of traits between men and women?
The research linked in the the document are based on The Big Five Personality Traits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
These traits are measured with self-report surveys. I.e. personality quizzes. Not to malign the field of psychology, but this isn't the gold standard of science, IMHO.
Having read Mr. Damore's document, I can find very little in it of substance. It deals with politics and gender in only the very broadest of terms. It does not delve deeply into the scientific issues at hand, instead sprinkling his platitudes with wikipedia links to give them weight.
That being said, I completely agree that the US's nasty brand of liberalism is in a sad state. Our response to this manifesto should have been a cold critique of its many flaws, not the blind hysteria we've apparently opted for instead.
[+] [-] danso|8 years ago|reply
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideo...
[+] [-] hardwaresofton|8 years ago|reply
https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...
This is where I read up on it, and the letter was written very reasonably, IMO. That article also includes a response from google's brand new VP of Diversity, Integrity & Governance.
[EDIT] - original (as pointed out by the commenter below) is here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideo...
Read that instead
[+] [-] afpx|8 years ago|reply
(By the way, I think it is reasonable for some individual rights to be protected within the walls of a corporation, but as far as I understand it, many US citizen's rights, like free speech, do not cross over into private domains. I wish it was different.)
[+] [-] hkmurakami|8 years ago|reply
Previously, "the truth" was right leaning; it is now left leaning. Unfortunately, many people find (and have always found) that all it takes to dismiss an opposing moral position is to point out that their opponent's position is untruthful, and the discussion (or lack thereof) ends there.
A sibling poster has linked us to PG's essay on "What you can't say", which states my concerns more eloquently and thoroughly.
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
[+] [-] sethev|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wutbrodo|8 years ago|reply
This is always the case. Even companies who are sane need to respond to the foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy of Twitter and related cesspools. As disgusting as the Brendan Eich thing was, I never really blamed Mozilla. I'm just not sure how tech in particular ended up so strongly under the influence of a relatively small amount of loud, shitty people.
[+] [-] Iv|8 years ago|reply
His points were that some diversity policies were misguided and may even cause harm but are impossible to correct because they are taboo.
His memo was well-argumented and he was open to contradiction, which on several points could have been brought.
It was not aggressive, not dismissive, not sexist. I personally view his firing as totally excessive and downright anti-intellectual.
Critics, we are not yet in a post-sexist society. We have to improve many things for women and minorities, we have many efforts to make to reach true equality. Shutting down debate on your tactics will not help.
[+] [-] josteink|8 years ago|reply
From the article:
> Google’s new vice president for diversity, integrity and governance
A brand of religion with its own sheriff no less.
Who seriously believe you have freedom of speech and thought in such a monocultural place?
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|8 years ago|reply
I don't think this is an unfair reading. One of the bullet points in the conclusion is literally that the company's diversity programs are problematic because they alienate non-progressives.
[+] [-] dguaraglia|8 years ago|reply
"But beware of this particular subgroup, because they are biologically inclined to not be as interested or good in the subject."
> Everyone is just rushing to virtue signal, to demonstrate their own purity of thought
No, people are pissed that it's 2017 and people are still trying to make an argument for the superiority of testosterone as a predictor for success in a particular field. Can't we just give everyone a chance, instead of trying to pigeonhole them right away?
> A particular brand of liberalism has reached the point of being a religion, and the establishment is running an inquisition against any who dare to question its points of dogma.
Please don't pay attention to the actual religious agenda being pushed by the party currently in power. You know, the one that is actually running an inquisition against LGBTQ people? The one that wants to tell women what to do with their bodies? No dogma there, surely.
> This is the closing of the American mind.
The closing of the American mind started happening when a political party decided to take over religion and anti-intellectualism as their platform. That's why we've gotten to the point where being called an "expert" is paramount to an insult in certain contexts.
[+] [-] kamaal|8 years ago|reply
This isn't just in America. This is happening all over the world.
Right wing politics is now the only refuge for people who want to speak their mind.
As much as scary this is, this is the truth.
[+] [-] sulam|8 years ago|reply
Trying to justify discrimination by referring to the direct result of discriminatory behavior is obscene.
[+] [-] Tloewald|8 years ago|reply
His constant protestations that he's really interested in promoting diversity BUT is just the new "some of my best friends are X, but".
[+] [-] guelo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabalamat|8 years ago|reply
I think you mean "illiberalism".
> This is the closing of the American mind.
I've just switched to Duck Duck Go. Others, I have no doubt, will also be making decisions on which technology companies they wish to support.
[+] [-] m-j-fox|8 years ago|reply
He was right about one thing.
[+] [-] tomc1985|8 years ago|reply
I read a good chunk in agreement, but then it just took a left turn. Between its thinly-vieled promotion for 'conservative values' and some very thin 'therefore' conclusions midway through, it would never be able to stand up to the heights of intellect that its author probably intended it for.
[+] [-] chiaro|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imartin2k|8 years ago|reply
Indeed. I also felt reminded of dynamics in the realm of religion.
[+] [-] abalone|8 years ago|reply
You have unwittingly provided an example of the "unconscious bias" against women that Google's programs seek to unpack and correct.
The term "virtue signal" implies that one's reaction is motivated by a desire to make an impression on others, a superficial and calculated response. But to a woman, reading an essay full of gender stereotypes can create a real sense of pain and outrage. So when you're saying "virtue signal", you're really mostly talking about men.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ryan-allen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jroseattle|8 years ago|reply
I read the article which attempts to establish as fact very clearly unsubstantiated subjective claims. Never mind the toxicity -- the dude is just flat wrong.
"Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group."
I totally agree, and this individual got his due.
[+] [-] hardwaresofton|8 years ago|reply
Regardless of whether you agreed with the letter or not, it's 100% correct in asserting that it's super difficult to have productive, rational conversations about the issue of diversity. Google just reinforced that fact.
[+] [-] jfasi|8 years ago|reply
As an engineer who's done a fair bit of volunteer recruiting work as well as conducted interviews, my experience has been that race- and gender-specific programs are used exclusively as outreach, sourcing, and mentorship tools. James claims there are "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate," which strikes me as untrue. Regardless of how they are sourced, once candidates are in the interview pipeline their are all treated exactly as rigorously as one another.
In other words, recruiters are responsible for finding, reaching out to, and advocating for candidates. Once they source the candidate they "throw them over the fence" to the cold, hard interview process, which involves experienced interviewers and a hiring committee of senior-tenure engineers. The aim is to ensure you can trust that those who make it out how the hiring committee to be top-notch.
After years and years of working at the company I haven't heard even a whisper of complaint among anyone about the quality of people we're hiring. After working with people of all stripes I can say I haven't met a single person where I thought to myself "how did this loser get through the filter."
[+] [-] alexandercrohde|8 years ago|reply
Everybody blames the author for creating a disturbance, but you can't create a disturbance without people being interested in what you say. The fact that it was so widely circulated (instead of ignored like 99% of blog posts) suggests to me that a number of people at the company feel like he had some really good points.
It's scary to me that the "safe space" crowd gets to define what views are offensive, and inherently make it an unsafe (even firable) place for those who disagree to express who they are and what they believe.
[+] [-] Afforess|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrs95|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] escape_goat|8 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
In many way, it was not an unfamiliar sort of rant for the internet, and I was struck by the author's earnestness and apparent sincerity. It's possible that I make too many allowances for behaviour, and it's possible that I'm easily mislead.
I thought his ideas were not in any way useful, or actionable, even had he been correct;
That the ideas were poorly expressed, and full of such fringe 'truths' as are derived, insincerely, from cherry-picked science in order to be sold as snake-oil cures for the cognitive dissonance of the conservative and vulnerable;
That the expression of these ideas was immensely foolish, especially appearing in the context of what I took to have been his initial intent, an appeal of tolerance of diverse viewpoints at Google.
However, I'm always most disturbed by vitriol online when it's in service of beliefs that I share. It makes me deeply uneasy.
[+] [-] ViktorV|8 years ago|reply
In India/Russia, there are way more women represented in tech then in US. Do you think that these cultures are more welcoming/less sexist to women than US? It should be so in your world view.
I suspect that the companies in these countries doesn't have a diversity program, and they hire everyone for purely business reasons. Why do you think that diversity problems solve anything on the long term?
I live in Eastern EU and many people are actually sexist here ( men and women are favor of enforced gender roles ), unlike in Top 20 countries. But I suspect the gender disparity in tech is better than in the us, or largely the same. Isn't this kind of disproves the notion that gender differences are caused by sexism?
[+] [-] thex10|8 years ago|reply
My sympathies are with those who work in more precarious situations. I'm no authoritarian, but I'm ok with this guy getting fired - he used his platform unwisely and at this point the damage control gained by firing him probably outweighs whatever benefit the company might get by keeping him.
However, I'm plenty perturbed by the willful lack of understanding all around these parts about (at the very least) - how diversity programs work / what they do - how hiring works - how oppression works - how public words can affect others
[+] [-] RealityNow|8 years ago|reply
Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concerned with normalizing racial/gender composition to present the illusion that discrimination and biological variation are non-existent (except for discrimination against males, whites, and Asians, because for some reason it's not considered discrimination if it affects them). It's not about doing the right thing, it's about PR - hence the decision to cave in to whatever the pitchforks are demanding.
It's a shame that honest criticism of diversity policies and gender issues is considered taboo enough to get someone fired. If we really cared about diversity, then we'd welcome opposing viewpoints and counter them with facts, not silencing. We have a culture of anti-intellectualism and dogmatism around certain topics that for whatever reason are considered sacred and not allowed to be challenged (ie. political correctness), and its disgraceful.
Relevant video: Peter Thiel: What is Multiculturalism Really About? [1996] https://youtu.be/E6cxRYgqfHY
[+] [-] drawkbox|8 years ago|reply
At work you should be professional and not only work to make yourself and the company/product better, but the people around you better.
It is mostly not healthy to get political or ideological at work unless you want to divide people. A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base. You should treat everyone at work like a client and not go all tribal or into cliques that end up in groups that are constantly complaining.
If you don't like something you can work to change it but in a company the size of Google that is not always possible. If you don't like the ideology of a company then leave. Do a good job yourself, setup your own thing if you want to control everything, but don't bring down other individuals, encourage them and make them better, create respect internally. Don't rock the boat, try to guide it, if you can't, hop on a new ship. In the end we live in a free country but work for companies that are more dictatorial/authoritarian where we are just sharecroppers on their feudal land. Companies are not democracies unless they are really small and even then they are not.
Sometimes manifestos are needed [1] but for the most part it is like calling out an employer. Not only will it probably not change the company, it will follow you around for better or worse.
Oh, there’s one final lesson: you never know when something you write is going to unexpectedly be published in the Wall Street Journal. So watch those split infinitives.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/what-i-got-wrong-in-the-peanu...
[+] [-] nikolay|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jorgemf|8 years ago|reply
> Equal Opportunity Employment
> Employment here is based solely upon individual merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence.
How are you going to achieve 50/50 diversity in the company if the pool of candidates is far from that distribution? (unless you go and don't hire the best ones to balance the distribution)
[1] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
EDIT: As kevingadd said, I might be wrong assuming the goal for diversity target for Google. It can be something more realistic and be close to the ratio of the pool of candidates. In that case I am wrong in my assumption. This is also a good link he provided: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-v...
[+] [-] freetime2|8 years ago|reply
But rather than discussing the ideas in the memo, people who have never met him and who presumably don't know the context with which the memo was released have twisted his arguments, made assumptions that he racist and sexist beyond hope of recovery, and needed to be fired.
I understand that his memo was extremely inflammatory and therefore probably not appropriate for the workplace (although, again, I don't know the exact context in which it was distributed initially). But now that it's gone viral - wouldn't it be better to have the discussion rather than trying to silence him and pretend it never happened? Because I am sure there are more people out there with the same views. People who are in charge of hiring decisions, are terrified to discuss their views in public, and are now that much less likely to ever change.
Personally, it's not immediately obvious to me when reading the memo or the cited references that he was wrong. There are a lot of crackpots out there who cling to indefensible ideas and refuse to change their minds in the face of overwhelming evidence - but this guy didn't feel like one of them to me. To me this felt purely like identity politics winning out over intelligent debate and the pursuit of truth.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply