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The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

• ubernostrum 9y ago
  Ah, yes, the true believer in meritocracy, who assumes that the present-day distribution of careers and job titles is a perfect reflection of inherent skills, talents and interests hard-wired in by biology. Because there is no evidence whatsoever that anyone's ever tried to rig large-scale societal systems to discriminate on the basis of factors like race or sex, and even if there ever had been such a thing, it is completely eliminated now and has no lingering consequences whatsoever! And anyone who disagrees is obviously living in some kind of censorious leftist echo chamber.
  • anon0394678 9y ago
    The existence of sexism and the existence of sex-specific biases in interests are not mutually exclusive. Also note that biological biases does not mean behavior is hard-wired, nurture (societal influence) and nature can both play a role at different weights. If such a natural bias exists and all and sexism is eliminated then there will still be a gender gap among the employees. And forms of affirmative action that aim for 50:50 balance will either have to attract an unusually large number of above-average talent for that specific gender (this strategy can only work locally but not globally) or will result in equally-talented people being disfavored based on their gender. And if there is an assumption that the gender gap is caused by sexism but it is also arises due to natural biases then some people may feel slandered as sexists when they're already acting as gender-neutral as possible. This can breed resentment when you (or your group as a whole) get blamed for something that you're not causing. Disclaimler, this post contains little original thought, most arguments are stolen from https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-...
    • ubernostrum 9y ago
      Well you see, brand-new account created to hide from those scary terrible lefties who'd obviously ruin you otherwise, the probability that the distribution we observe today matches the "natural" distribution is, how shall I put this, very low. Now you might ask how I know this, and the answer is simple: open society-wide legally-endorsed discrimination is a thing within living memory here in the US, and a thing that is the present-day situation in quite a few parts of the world. It is simply unreasonable to expect that all consequences of it have been perfectly eliminated by now in order to justify "but women didn't hunt wooly mammoths back in the day, so their brains evolved different from men" as an explanation for why women are underrepresented in tech compared to the general population.
      • anon0394678 9y ago
        > Well you see, brand-new account created to hide from those scary terrible lefties who'd obviously ruin you otherwise I am not exactly hiding my intent here, so I am not sure what there is to gain from pointing out the obvious. And no, I do not think that there is someone out there hellbent on ruining my life. It's just a simple countermeasure against a low-probability, high-impact event. And real life conversations are naturally ephemeral, the internet on the other hand does not forget and may randomly amplify whatever I am saying beyond the level I am comfortable with. Throwaway accounts restore some of that natural communication. > It is simply unreasonable to expect that all consequences of it have been perfectly eliminated by now I did not say that this is the case. Sexism and natural biases can exist at the same time. But some people might find it more difficult to be a good and tolerant citizen if the sexism hammer gets wielded against the whole group on every occasion even though only some fraction of the group is actually sexist and another part of the issue stems from natural causes. You also have to consider that some people may agree that sexism is a problem but disagree on what exactly constitutes sexism. Are crude, offensive jokes made in private sexism? What if it is accidentally overheard by the other gender, even though it was not meant to? Like video games some people may enjoy those jokes but never act on the surface message conveyed by the joke in real life. And thus they do not consider it sexist. Others disagree, that much is obvious, but if that disagreement can not even be discussed openly then there's a problem. Anyway, I do agree with the googler that the current overton window is heavily slanted to the point where quite a big fraction of the population feels uncomfortable and excluded, otherwise trump would never have gotten that much support.
  • spaceseaman 9y ago
    I think your tone is a little smug but completely agree. To be frank I empathize with the writer of the article a bit. He worked very hard to achieve his position, and with that hard work comes a belief that the system he achieved in was inherently fair. It's difficult to call the situations we benefit from unfair - it's important for our self-worth that we value our accomplishments. But the key is that the author's achievements in this unfair world are no less impressive. They still achieved great things given their lot in life, yet they should still be willing to acknowledge the many advantages they've had every step of the way. They're slight in many cases, true. But they exist and we are all aware of them. It's a shame the author of the email feels that these policies are based on a political agenda rather than an idealogical one. EDIT: I think it's also important to note that since this is an idealogical decision, I think it's totally within Google's power to make broad and impactful policies like this. They aren't beholden to all idealogical viewpoints within their company. They should attempt to respect political differences, but I don't think that this issue is political in any way. It's an issue of how you see the world you live in. Is it a fair world that needs no correction (or should not be corrected for some reason) or is it world that needs to be steered in a different course. Google is within their power to choose an idealogical direction for the company on such an issue, and it's up to the employee to decide if that matches with their worldview. I may not have used entirely the correct terminology for political opinion vs. ideology (I would defer to a sociologist for this), but I think the point that remains is that Google is not aligning themselves with a viewpoint on governmental policy, but instead adjusting the way their corporate environment works to better match the company's view of how the "world works". Every company has to have such a thing due to the immense amount of power we grant large corporations in this country (imo of course). EDIT 2: I would further encourage the parent poster to not get too reactionary themselves about the issue. Mainly people on the so-called "other side" believe that they are being demonized for a political opinion, when in reality they are being criticized for something that we believe is a very flawed way of looking at the world. Take care not to address them as much as an enemy, but as someone who has seen very different parts of the world than you. Give them a guided tour, not a lecture with snark. I empathize with your intense emotions - I myself get very emotional about this due to events in my personal life - but if you let them dominate the conversation, then people will just try and claim that you're being "too emotional" further reinforcing their flawed reasoning.
  • TimTheTinker 9y ago
    I took it as more of an argument against intentional, institutional discrimination (e.g. affirmative action) than an endorsement of the current system or an argument that we should leave things as they are.
• greenyoda 9y ago
  There's already extensive discussion of this here, with the full text linked as the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934581
  • agarden 9y ago
    Most of the people on that page hadn't read the document.
  • factsaresacred 9y ago
    That post is 12 hours old, the comment with the link was posted 30min ago.
    • ehsankia 9y ago
      And most people in that post had not seen the document. They were commenting on the biased reporting from an article, who themselves got a biased interpretation from an employee. That's 2-3 levels of indirection there.
• Smaug123 9y ago
  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 http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html .
  • wsrGoWkWeJ3i7w 9y ago
    Now is the perfect time to write stuff like this. Especially if you're a higher-up in Google
  • naiveattack 9y ago
    This was an excellent read about how to deal with the irrationality and repression of mobs. Thanks. Perhaps this is where anonymous speech is important as it allows the discussion of ideas without giving importance to the persons behind them. Of courae, allowing for the fact that nothing can be truly anonymous :)
    • TheLilHipster 9y ago
      > Perhaps this is where anonymous speech is important I'd like to rebut that point as we have anonymous, mainstream means to socialize nowadays. Chaotic (4chan) and moderated (mediums like Hacker News). Users speak truth to power all the time on these platforms, is it effective? eh. IMO there is a lot of value in these words coming from someone (from google) who is clearly switched-on, yet has A LOT to lose. Either the discussion is presented to the general populace and we accept it and learn from it, or the google employee becomes a martyr. Either way, the fallout of this document is what interests me.
• factsaresacred 9y ago
  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). Since when is dialectics grounds for ostracism?
  • Quarrelsome 9y ago
    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.
    • ubernostrum 9y ago
      It's perfectly all right to say that there are statistical differences between the average biological man and the average biological woman. The problem is to then assume a gigantic pile of facts not in evidence (that the differences observed are 100% biological with no cultural influence whatsoever, that they conclusively explain gender disparities in many fields, etc. etc.) and accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being one of those terrible mean lefties who will unperson you for speaking the truth. Generally, this type of person lasts up until the moment blind interviews become widespread.
      • ebfd 9y ago
        The two positions in the debate are that sex differences are 100% environmental and 0% biological vs. <100% environmental and >0% biological. Nobody believes that they are 100% biological.
• Quarrelsome 9y ago
  > Microaggression training wat? They now train people in microaggressions at work? Is the "training" mandatory?
  • havetocharge 9y ago
    It's not mandatory.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • humanrebar 9y ago
      It sounded like it was a mandatory part of managerial training.
  • DonbunEf7 9y ago
    It's not mandatory. However, when I was at Google several years ago, it showed up on my calendar, it was not optional, my manager said that I was expected to attend, and I attended. But it's not mandatory.
    • Kenji 9y ago
      If my boss told me I am expected to attend a "microaggression training" I would quit instantly. Oh wait - that wouldn't happen because I don't work at a libero-fascist place. I have no time for bullshit, I need to get stuff done.
      • freyir 9y ago
        You sound like a real high performer.
        • Kenji 9y ago
          I am very lucky to be in an environment where pretty much everyone just wants to get stuff done. It's peaceful, barely any politics.
• asploder 9y ago
  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.
  • santoshalper 9y ago
    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!"
    • twh270 9y ago
      This is incredibly disingenuous. Much of the left considers simple disagreement to be micro-aggression, while at the same time finding it perfectly acceptable to launch hate-filled screeds of animosity and hatred at anyone who doesn't toe the line, e.g. "You're a fucking animal that deserves to be put down!!" Your comment implicitly supports this sort of misbehavior, implying that any complaint by an "alt-righter" is just whining and carries no legitimacy. Both the far left and alt-right have adopted extremist positions and in general have nothing good to say about each other. Please don't legitimize hateful, unacceptable behavior from the left just because the alt-right has learned to play some of the same games.
      • smhost 9y ago
        > This is incredibly disingenuous. > Much of the left considers simple disagreement to be micro-aggression... Tone down on the hypocrisy. If you want your side's arguments to be evaluated fairly, don't make ridiculous oversimplifications of the other side's positions.
• hudibras 9y ago
  Wow, I didn't know I could cringe that much in such a short time.
  • davesque 9y ago
    The only thing cringe worthy IMO was that he didn't appear to cite any studies or data to back up his claims. Or did that publication of the document omit things like that? If he had done so, would it still be cringe worthy?
    • ggreer 9y ago
      From Gizmodo's summary: > Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted. I'm guessing the author did link to studies (or at least summaries of studies), but these were removed by Gizmodo or the leaker.
      • davesque 9y ago
        Yes. I'm seeing now many reports that the Gizmodo publication, which was billed as the "full 10-page" memo, was, in fact, abridged and omitted links to data that the author had cited to support his arguments. Very disingenuous.
• hudibras 9y ago
  Wow, I didn't know I could cringe that much in such a short time.
• rayiner 9y ago
  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-take-over-tech-70-of-irans-science-and-engineering-students-are-women/#44efca2e44de 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-engineering-and-mathematics-stem 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/download 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!
  • ChuckMcM 9y ago
    Agreed, it is a common trap of people who are 'smart' to assume their own reasoning is valid even without external confirmation. I appreciated that they included sources for their reasoning but I expect that if that was posted to the politics list inside Google it was probably sliced and diced several times. It apparently generated quite a bit of conversation there and my guess is a couple of 'centithreads' at least. It would be interesting to see the full discussion. There were two very interesting discussions with similar sorts of intellectual gymnastics when I was there, one involved whether or not getting rid of bottled water helped the environment and the other how the phrase 'free tibet' was such a trigger for Chinese nationals.
• Invictus0 9y ago
  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.
  • scribu 9y ago
    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.
    • davesque 9y ago
      That's a straw man reply. You cherry picked one of the most easily defensible claims and then implied that the OP would disagree. What gives you the right to implicate them in this way? Or did I miss another post in this thread where the OP did, in fact, express skepticism of climate change?
      • scribu 9y ago
        What stops me from implicating them in this way? The OP made an unqualified assertion - "for every point" - which means it would apply even to the most extreme example. Edit: And I didn't ask the OP if they are skeptical of climate change. I merely asked if they would be in favour of letting those that are skeptical express their opinion.
        • Pilfer 9y ago
          >The OP made an unqualified assertion - "for every point" No, it is possible to defend every point imaginable. Look up "Hempel's ravens". It is trivial to generate evidence supporting or opposing any claim you like.
    • TimTheTinker 9y ago
• jerrylives 9y ago
  > internal meme network i really want to believe that at Google there is a massive distributed cluster dedicated solely to facilitating meme throughput
  • akhilcacharya 9y ago
    There most likely is, I know an engineer that works on it. Apparently they were one of the teams piloting Tensorflow for Android...have no idea why though....
    • humanrebar 9y ago
      Sometimes the best places to swing for the fences, technologically, are places far away from the core business, where the impact of a half-baked idea is minimal.
  • ericjang 9y ago
    this is true. Source: I work at Google
  • jboggan 9y ago
    Recently left Google and I can confirm, Memegen is real and draws significant resources to operate.
    • jerrylives 9y ago
      So reading the article above it didn't make clear - are these memes generated by AI or is it just an internal meme creation / sharing site?
      • gciruelos 9y ago
        the latter
  • icco 9y ago
    http://thefw.com/take-a-peek-inside-googles-internal-meme-generator/ http://thefw.com/take-a-peek-inside-googles-internal-meme-ge...
• davesque 9y ago
  I don't really understand why this is getting so much attention. It's just some guy's opinion.
  • magicalist 9y ago
    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.
  • skywhopper 9y ago
    It's a toxic set of opinions that's unfortunately very representative of large numbers of white male tech employees. It's getting attention because it's useful to see laid out so clearly the biases, blatantly wrong assertions, and invalid logic such folks use to perpetuate the idea that "everything's fine in tech hiring".
    • remarkEon 9y ago
      Thanks for proving his point.
    • stagbeetle 9y ago
      > It's a toxic set of opinions that's unfortunately very representative of large numbers of white male tech employees. Do you have any data on this?
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• drdeadringer 9y ago
  It seems that my receiving my SWE Lifetime Member pin about a week ago is a bit fortuitous.
• mcguire 9y ago
  "Status is the primary metric that men are judged on[4], pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail." Wow. I see it now. Thanks for opening my eyes! I really feel for the hard pressed CEOs of the world, forced to take those high status jobs with nothing but high pay to compensate them for the lack of satisfaction.
  • TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    You misunderstand. The point is that high-status men are judged positively, just as highly attractive women are. Low status men and women considered unattractive are the ones who suffer from the judgement.
  • adrianmonk 9y ago
    Well, "pushed" and "forced" aren't exact synonyms. I assume he meant internally pushed by some kind of innate force. Anyway, there were things I disliked about this document, but on this point you could just as easily turn that on its head. He could be saying that women are less likely to be sucked in by the dubious value proposition of becoming an unhappy workaholic in order to upgrade an already very high tech salary to an even higher salary. When your salary is high enough to very comfortably meet your needs yet your free time is very scarce, the marginal utility of more money is low but the marginal cost of less time is high. So there's limited practical reason to fight for a promotion/raise, though you might still do it if there's another thing about your salary that's important to you, which is that it should be higher than others' salaries.
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    The fact that you thought "CEO" when you read "men" is the point. By definition, most men aren't leaders of companies, but they get lumped in with them as equally tainted, overpaid power-misers.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • mcguire 9y ago
• jondubois 9y ago
  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.
  • TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    When you have a culture where more than 40 million people live below the poverty line and even wealthy people can be bankrupted by medical conditions, debates about workplace privilege seem like a niche form of special pleading. The US economy is a monstrous engine powered by discrimination and inequality. Discrimination against (mostly) college educated women who might want to be developers is barely a footnote in the much wider political picture where access to high quality education, business development opportunities, housing, and health care, are so strictly rationed they might as well not exist for a depressingly large percentage of the population. If discrimination is wrong, then it's wrong for everyone. If it's only wrong when some people are affected by it, then it's still discrimination - and the argument is really about which kinds of discrimination are socially acceptable, which aren't, and to whom.
    • jondubois 9y ago
      Very true, it's completely arbitrary in the grand scheme of things and it doesn't deserve so much limelight. If it's a problem in one company, then the discussion should be kept within the confines of the one company instead of making it everyone's fault and everyone's problem. It's preemptively biasing us to overcompensate in areas that are already very well compensated.
  • taysic 9y ago
    While I agree with you, the article did not mention that any unfair advantage was being given to women yet I've seen so many claim this. Instead it says "the author argues that women are underrepresented in tech not because they face bias and discrimination in the workplace, but because of inherent psychological differences between men and women. " So instead it just seems to be arguing that there is no disadvantage in what may appear to be unfair. It also says "Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety." That seems super subjective unless the author has some concrete examples. While they may be right, if we policied everything other people said so that any one person would feel comfortable expressing an unpopular opinion... I don't think the author wants to open that can of worms?
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• mAdamTus 9y ago
  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_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.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • marknutter 9y ago
    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.
    • mAdamTus 9y ago
      Nutter indeed.
• cbeach 9y ago
  "Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently." As an experiment, I'd like to see if HN upvotes or downvotes this statement from the memo. I'm willing to put my karma score on the line to find out what HNers believe (this will help me decide if HN is a community worth investing further time in).
  • ryanx435 9y ago
    The HN community lives in a very large ideological bubble. The technical articles are good, though.
    • cbeach 9y ago
      It's a pity isn't it? I hoped the HN community would still see the value in "diversity of opinion" - even if said notion was uttered by a "haram" individual. The leftist, tribal mindset is clearly a powerful and poisonous thing for all sorts of communities. Let me know if you find a better one for discussing new tech.
      • TimTheTinker 9y ago
        That's kind of an "us vs them" statement. Tribalism in any camp is counterproductive.
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    You might be getting downvoted by people who don't like this kind of experiment. Or your use of scare quotes or something. I'm not sure you can draw a lot of conclusions from the score on your post. But, yes, most of the HN community lives in a bubble. If we're honest, we all do, but people who take pride on their education and intelligence are especially challenged when finding that kind of humility.
    • cbeach 9y ago
      Good points. I have removed the scare quotes (not intended as such)
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• jorgemf 9y ago
  > 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] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc... [2] https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-why-men-and-women-think-and-act-differently https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-w...
  • MichaelGG 9y ago
    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.
    • fatbird 9y ago
      It's not heresy. Sports represent a closed ecosystem of relatively straightforward traits->skill benefits. Professions are not bounded the way athletic roles are. The fields of law and medicine removed various sexist barriers to women participating, and female participation increased; I've seen no one suggest that the professions have significantly shifted in nature due to an influx of female brains. Against that, we have a long history of pseudo-scientific arguments that biological differences matter and thus justify discrimination. And we have a long history of ending discrimination and proving those arguments to be bullshit, so we're now rightly sceptical of the sort of biological determinism that the manifesto author wants to resurrect.
      • jorgemf 9y ago
• ryanx435 9y ago
  Prediction before reading any comments: highly uovoted comments will find some detail to nitpick to prove this wrong, thus maintaining the ideological bubble. Downvoting comments will generally agree with the paper in the article. Edit: yup, except not as many downvoted comments as I was expecting.
• nol13 9y ago
  :popcorn:
• swframe2 9y ago
  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).
  • rifung 9y ago
    > 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. Has said coworker seen the research which suggests diversity increases company performance? http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-...
    • 9y ago
• 0xbear 9y ago
  As a former Googler: dude is _so_ getting fired and blacklisted. I've seen people driven out just for saying someone else looks good in a bathing suit. Not a direct or indirect report, mind you, a person completely outside the chain of command, at a team event in (IIRC) Hawaii. A small minority of people takes victim mentality and makes it near religious internal dogma. The rest just go along with it due to fat paychecks and the lack of desire to get fired for not being PC enough.
  • door 9y ago
    > I've seen people driven out just for saying someone else looks good in a bathing suit. understandably, as that is extremely unprofessional and sexual harassment
    • stagbeetle 9y ago
      Your comment was one of the points argued in the memo. It's important to understand and prioritize intention or else: >increases [in our] our sensitivity, which is not universally positive: sensitivity increases both our tendency to take offense and our self censorship, leading to authoritarian policies. This means distinguishing between a well-meaning comment and a maleficent or predatory remark.
      • door 9y ago
        your intentions don't excuse inappropriate behavior. if you really didn't intend to say something that made someone feel disrespected, your response should be "Oh, I am so sorry, I won't make that kind of comment in the future", not "Well you're wrong for being offended." that kind of response is basically saying "your feelings don't matter, all that matters is what is going on in my head and not what I actually did and how it actually made you feel"
        • stagbeetle 9y ago
          Intent is vital in the deliverance and sentencing of criminals (as well as severity). You'll find that the U.S.A's EEOC does not label one-off remarks as sexual harassment.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#EEOC_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#EEOC_Definit...
• FlashGit 9y ago
  Well I'm fully on board with the notion that (workplace) diversity is overrated nonsense but this document could only be described as counter-productive at best. So things like this will only be used to justify the very thing he claims to be objecting to.
• JacobJans 9y ago
  This guy claims that women are more neurotic and talkative than men; and that they prefer thinking about aesthetics; and that women are more "cooperative." The subtext is that this is the reason we shouldn't support women becoming software engineers. Uggghhh.
  • glorkk 9y ago
    You either fail at reading comprehension or you are being dishonest. Nowhere does the author say we "shouldn't support women becoming software engineers". His argument is simply that women are, on average, less inclined to become software engineers because of innate psychological differences, which explains the unbalanced gender ratio in tech. He suggests we should stop all forms of "positive" discrimination in the form of employment quotas that are aimed to correct the gender imbalance, and instead select individuals based on their merit.
    • notacoward 9y ago
      > employment quotas that are aimed to correct the gender imbalance, and instead select individuals based on their merit. That is itself misrepresentative enough that your own snark about reading comprehension or dishonesty rebounds on you. Quotas aren't the issue. Echo Chamber Guy is railing against all measures to increase diversity, including many that would improve the correlation between merit and hiring/promotion.
  • notacoward 9y ago
    There's a lot wrong with the screed, but its use of "neurotic" is being overplayed. It's clearly not being used in either a clinical diagnosis or pop-culture sense. Rather, it's a reference to the "five factor" personality model, in which "neuroticism" is not an unqualified negative. Also, to the extent that it is a negative and is more prevalent among women, it's likely to be a social construct for which we should correct, not (as the echo-chamber author) an immutable fact that we should use as an excuse for inaction.
• chroma 9y ago
  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.
  • taysic 9y ago
    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.
• Animats 9y ago
  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.
  • rifung 9y ago
    > Somehow, most of the women I know don't complain about harassment much. It does not seem productive to trivialize and disregard people's issues only because we haven't witnessed them ourselves. Indeed this attitude is actually why an internal group where people can report sexist, racist, and other inappropriate behavior is called "Yes at Google", because so many people thought this kind of thing doesn't happen, or at least it wouldn't at Google.
    • tbrownaw 9y ago
      It does not seem productive to trivialize and disregard people's issues only because we haven't witnessed them ourselves. There's a difference between trivializing or disregarding particular complaints, vs questioning just how representative they are of the broader situation.
    • xyzzyz 9y ago
      yes-at-google had some really ugly stuff when they started out, but then everyone run out of stashed stories, and it's been almost exclusively petty issues for the past few weeks, and most of which look like people acting in good faith, just genuinely unaware of the impact having on the reporting person. Looks like the really bad stuff doesn't actually happen all that often. Thing is, life in general is filled with stuff that makes people uneasy, but you always have to judge the intent before you can condemn the behavior. The y-a-g format is completely opposite of this.
• LouisSayers 9y ago
  Good on him. We should appreciate our differences and understand them rather than bury them under "equality". I hope some good comes of this.
• devrandomguy 9y ago
  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.
• JelteF 9y ago
  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.
• devrandomguy 9y ago
  How is it sexual?
  • door 9y ago
    straight men commenting on the attractiveness of women's bodies is pretty blatantly sexual. what other reason is there to make that kind of comment? "pure aesthetics"? like Wow Jessica from accounting's body is consistent with Greek Ideals about Archetypal Female Beauty. come on.
    • devrandomguy 9y ago
      Commenting on someone's bathing suit is not inherently sexual, because we do it in non-sexual contexts; for example, I complemented my nephiew's new swim trunks earlier this summer. A particular complement might be sexual, but we shouldn't assume that. For all we know, the guy is gay, and we are now discriminating against that. Furthermore, commenting directly on the awesomeness of someone else's body is also not inherently sexual. Have you never admired a female athlete, the way you admire a male athelete?
      • door 9y ago
        >Furthermore, commenting directly on the awesomeness of someone else's body is also not sexual. Have you never admired a femal athlete, the way you admire a male athelete? I am bisexual so the analogy doesn't quite work lol. and yes sometimes that can be non-sexual, but a workplace is not a place to make those kinds of comments because it is a VERY thin line and can easily make someone uncomfortable. and 99% of the time men commenting on women's bodies is sexual or has sexual undertones so it's really a corner case here. when's the last time you heard a straight man say something like "wow she always has super cool outfits and I love what she does with her makeup" or whatever lol.
        • devrandomguy 9y ago
          I used to have conversations like that with a female roommate, and since then, have developed some interesting ideas about human-born artwork. It sounds to me like the phenomenon you are describing is a form of dysfunctionality that is not universal to all men. It is incorrect, specifically sexist, to insist that all men can only see woman for their sexual potential. Please stop, you are doing us all (including women!) a great disservice.
• didibus 9y ago
  I hear a lot of complaints about conservative ideas being shunned and bullied, but I disagree completely. Why haven't I read a 10 page pro-diversity creed circulating at google? I haven't heard or read about progressive ideas in a long time, a long long time. I'd be willing to bet a pro diversity creed would get much stronger bullying against it too. Anyways, I'm tired of this issue, and people trying to pretend there's an optimal truth. This is a human made field, if we wanted, we could change it. We just need to agree on what to optimize for, and there lies the problem, I don't think we know or care what we ultimately optimize for. Too me, it seems we're currently optimizing for the stock market. And until it's clear that women make a big impact on that, people will be cautious to fray too far from what's been tried and worked in the past.
  • tmh79 9y ago
    First of all, let me lead with: I'm a neoliberal democrat type person, I support diversity initiatives, reaching out to and supporting under represented communities, making changing to work culture to help people who haven't succeeded historically (IE mothers who leave to take care of their kids) etc. I disagree with most of the points in the guys doc. > Why haven't I read a 10 page pro-diversity creed circulating at google? The corporate culture in SV is pretty far to the left (all things being considered), you don't see things like a 10 page pro-diversity creed circulating internally because for the most part, those type of documents are official company policy. IMO, this is a good thing. I think open discussion of ideas like the one in this document would be beneficial because they are easy to refute and all people involved can take it as a learning or educating experience. The guys conclusions aren't "morally bad", but they are "demonstrably wrong" and its easy to see why if honest discussion was permitted. The problem is, open discussion is not permitted because the culture of the left seems to confuse "demonstrably wrong" with "morally bad" and thus makes having bad ideas a sin, instead of say, an opportunity that one can be educated on an enlightened.
    • didibus 9y ago
      How many people in SV join Google and spend time thinking about why those policies are in place, what underlying principle and reasoning has warranted them? How many explanation is there for why the current Google status quo leans left or appears to do so? Is that open for discussion too? I don't think so. Now, I also find it ironic that status quo is considered progressive. The underlying principle of progressivism is change, continuous improvement through conscious change, measured by the impact on the lowest common denominator and the sum of all value. That is, you want to make the pie bigger and the smallest piece of pie bigger too. I'm open for conversation, but you need to hear all data points to make an informed decision, one way discourse is possibly worse then no discourse.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• feelin_googley 9y ago
  "...(ignoring or being ashamed of its core business)..." This deserves its own "manifesto". In case of any misinterpretation, I interpret "core business" to mean the ever exciting business of selling online ads.
• JelteF 9y ago
  How is this not on the front page btw? It has almost 200 points an comments in 2 hours and it's placed 37 at the moment. This seems like a failure of the HN ranking algorithm. @dang (or someone else) could you explain what's up here?
  • TimTheTinker 9y ago
    Another article along similar lines seems to have received similar un-accounted-for down-modding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14834758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14834758
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• CalChris 9y ago
  Trump didn't get that much support. He lost the popular vote by 2.9M.
  • bitlax 9y ago
    Hillary feared losing her mandate by winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote, so she over-campaigned in states like California and New York which would be a lock for any Democrat. She "won" the popular vote but lost the only real race that was being run.
    • CalChris 9y ago
      You have an impressive imagination.
      • bitlax 9y ago
        You have an unimpressive comeback.
  • anon0394678 9y ago
    49% is still millions of people, i.e. a lot of support. Surely you wouldn't just discount a (large) minority.
    • CalChris 9y ago
      Actually, 46.1% of a 55.4% turnout. And yes, I'll dismiss anyone who voted for Trump for whatever reason that they voted for Trump.
      • anon0394678 9y ago
        I hope you're not just multiplying those percentages, because that would imply that 0% of the non-voters would have voted for trump if that had voted. Point is, he got millions of people. One has to consider why. I think that the whole spectacle around political correctness and telling white people in lower social strata that they're inherently privileged resonated negatively with them and is one of the things that drove them into trump's arms. It's not a great sales pitch for diversity.
• adjkant 9y ago
  I have one simple ask here. To those who agree with any of this article beyond "we should be able to discuss this openly", please read this. People have all read this document, and if you agree with it, you value diversity of opinion. I'm not asking anyone to debate it - there's plenty of that here which doesn't seem to be going anywhere, as usual, which you can and should join into to try to reverse that. But read this first. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-...
• mrcabada 9y ago
  I believe the gap is more cultural-made than sex-made. Basically there are the same differences of capabilities between two random males and between a random male and a random female.
  • the_cyber_pass 9y ago
    If you are talking about IQ the data would support you, the problem comes when you look at standard deviation and we see men have a slightly higher standard deviation which leads to the extremes on both sides being overwhelmingly male. It's not something we need to worry about much in day to day interactions because you wont notice it but in hyper selective environments it might become an something people notice.
    • mrcabada 9y ago
      How do we now this isn't something that is being caused due to the female being suppressed in our history? This studies are biased due to the fact that females haven't been treated equally for centuries and this affects on how the female see the world, affecting the real purpose of the study. It's like taking a male that you have treated emotionally bad and you tell him thru all his life he can't do this and that and a male where you tell him he must be strong, he must do this and that. Boths are males and I bet you will find the same differences between these two males and between a male and a female.
• throwayakdfjxjk 9y ago
  I'll just leave this here: http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender-in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/ http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mas...
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• nthcolumn 9y ago
  He, and it is a 'he' has missed the point entirely. It is not that we do not recognize that people are different, it is that we value that diversity and therefore endeavor to remove from our community such impediments to achieving a balanced social group. It is a classic dominant social group position that the incomers fit in rather than the group dynamic have to change to accommodate. It is surprising to have a Google thought-leader with such low-brow views. If you think you are in an echo-chamber or bubble perhaps it is simply because nobody agrees with you.
• smsm42 9y ago
  Can anybody explain to me why it is called "anti-diversity" or even "sexist"[1]? Never in the whole document the author argues against diversity. [1] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp-employee-memo https://www.recode.net/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp...
  • the_cyber_pass 9y ago
    It's a product of the left/right divide in modern American politics. It's mostly a dog whistle so the other side knows he is ok to unperson.
• TimTheTinker 9y ago
  Is this being downmodded? (230 points, 3 hours ago, 298 comments, and already on page 4)
  • TimTheTinker 9y ago
    #290 6 hours later. This must have been down-modded. Before we ascribe political intent, however, consider that they may downmod controversial posts regardless of political leaning.
• lotsoflumens 9y ago
  TL;DR 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.
  • Pulcinella 9y ago
    Are not those people also just speaking their mind?
    • lotsoflumens 9y ago
      I assume they are .. however, they take no risks with their shaming.
  • needlessly 9y ago
    He doesn't even attach his own name to the writing. He's a coward
• vfulco 9y ago
  Wow, refreshing. The truth will set you free.
• dennisgorelik 9y ago
  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.
  • notacoward 9y ago
    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.
• alexryan 9y ago
  I’m very sad to see this happening to a great company like google. I first encountered the new culture at Google I/O extended event I attended a few months ago. It disturbed me very deeply but I couldn’t figure out exactly why since I didn’t actually disagree with anything that the diversity proponents wanted to achieve. I’ve had some time to process it though, and here’s the deeper issue that I find so disturbing about what seems to be happening at google ... How we habitually respond to “uncomfortable situations” in life matters a great deal. As individuals, it strongly influences our trajectory in life. In companies, the predominant tendency strongly influences the trajectory of the company. One option is to habitually respond by “getting curious” and by “identifying that part of our predictive model of the world which is weak and seeking to understand the situation more deeply with the intent of strengthening our predictive model.” When we choose this option we tend to want to listen intently to those who believe differently than us, to seek to understand the deeper needs that are driving them, and to strive to pursue win-win (or “positive sum”) solutions to problems. The option tends to leads to a strengthening of “moonshot thinking” because our confidence in our ability to solve problems grows in direct proportion to the strength of our predictive model of the world. Another option is to habitually respond by “being offended”, ”to sink into victimhood, powerlessness, learned helplessness”, “dividing into us vs them”, “initiating conflict”, “appealing to authority to protect us from the threat of them”. When we choose this option, we tend to disconnect from those who believe differently than us, to be unaware of the deeper needs that are driving their behavior, and to sink into pursuing win-loss (or zero sum) solutions to our problems. This option tends to lead to a strengthening of a downward spiral of “victimhood thinking” which decreases our confidence in our ability to solve difficult problems by skillful means. edited: What I find so tragic about this is ... we have 7.5 billion minds in this world growing ever more connected to each other and to vast sums of knowledge by the internet. From a first principles perspective these minds represent more than enough resources to solve the most challenging problems that affect us all. If we would only fight each other with win-loss intent LESS and instead direct our aggression towards solving the difficult important problems that affect us all, we could solve these difficult problems so much more quickly. Why would we choose waste time fighting each other, when we could, for example, be building a piece of the puzzle that helps researchers cure the leukemia that my friend’s young son was just diagnosed with? Why would we make that choice? Presumably this was the hope of the google founders who established the mission of “organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible.”? I propose that >the tendency to “get offended” and “seek win-loss” solutions to problems should be targeted for extermination. We are better than this. > the tendency to “get curious” and find “win-win” solutions should to take its place.
• needlessly 9y ago
  Peter Thiel would loves anti-diversity. Whoever wrote this should go to Palantir
• URSpider94 9y ago
  Wow, this paper is a textbook example of begging the question. The author makes a number of completely unfounded generalizations about women and men, then goes on to use those as a basis for protesting against Google's corporate diversity programs. I wonder if the author would like to keep walking out on his very weak limb, and claim that African-Americans are under-represented in tech because of their genetic characteristics.
• abalone 9y ago
  Also ridiculously racist. Really! Amidst his rambling "evolutionary psychology" argument concerning the gender gap he also protests racial diversity programs.[1] And his explanation for that? Are black people also bad at programming because of evolution? It's buried here: "Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ and sex differences)." (emphasis mine) So non-whites are doing worse in engineering because they're dumber, according to science. Seriously, does dressing these views up in pseudo-academic prose make them any less racist? [1] "Stretch, BOLD, CSSI, Engineering Practicum (to an extent), and several other Google funded internal and external programs are for people with a certain gender or race"
  • TRUMPISYOURPREZ 9y ago
    Asians seem to be doing quite well in STEM and score higher than whites on IQ tests.
  • Qub3d 9y ago
    I can't speak for software engineers as I'm not really one myself, but I have seen evidence that guys in the development and IT fields are legitimately scared of interacting with women and in the process violating some rule they didn't know of [0]. Reality may be different from what they perceive, the but point is that some men do actually perceive this "threat". The motivations of this internal letter, whatever they are, seem to be almost certainly highly emotional. Whenever a difficult, nuanced topic like the one HN is discussing here comes up, its important to consider the medium by which all of us are communicating. Your quote with emphasis added is a perfect example: it may have been something this particularly frustrated individual threw out without much thought (the entire letter going public at all shows a lack of thought), but it could very well have been dog-whistling to racists. The thing is, we can't know. Unless we're in a forum (in the Socratic sense) where thoughts can be clarified, I propose we take things at their face value. That's all we can confidently do. [0]:http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664
• aliakhtar 9y ago
  The first ever computer programmers were women.Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, etc did pioneering work in the field. Women can absolutely be great programmers.
• ankushnarula 9y ago
  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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
• fatbird 9y ago
  Yonatan Zunger, a (recently departed) distinguished engineer at Google, wrote a very good response: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788 https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
  • rcpt 9y ago
    chroma's summary above does a much better job understanding the manifesto than that medium post imo (cf https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14938457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14938457 ). Yonatan just hones in on that one botched idea and then berates the author for the rest of the post.
    • fatbird 9y ago
      Chroma's summary is a "charitable interpretation" (his words), and shouldn't be considered necessarily accurate or representative of the manifesto author's intent. A straight faced reading of it yields something not nearly as constructive as what Chroma presented. Yonatan isn't simply berating the author. He's explaining in detail why the manifesto is problematic in many ways that have to do with context and circumstance. What the author presents as ideological intolerance, Yonatan describes as the host of practical considerations to running a business and a workplace that, one suspects, the author wouldn't have a problem with if he weren't feeling constrained.
• sgustard 9y ago
  My son was in the hospital recently and the head surgeon was a woman. Her primary assistant was a woman. The anesthesiologist and her assistant were women. There was a male nurse or two. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have encountered this situation 25 years ago. I'm sure "biological factors" mean "most women don't go into medicine" because of the years of hard work separated from their families, and they aren't excited by the technical bits. Even if you wanted to hire women doctors, they don't bother going to medical school. I'm sure a thousand male doctors wrote a thousand letters just like this one as they saw their workplaces changing. And guess what, it happened anyway, and the state of medical care across the world is better than ever. The field of software engineering is still crawling out of the stone age.
  • koffiezet 9y ago
    I think it's more a cultural problem where certain jobs and studies are very polarized and tied to a specific gender. This is not just software engineering/it, but a lot more common than you would think, also the other way around. When talking about masters, where consistently over the last 10 years or so, 56% of the students is female here in Belgium, law, medical and chemistry studies are currently 60%+ female and some studies, like language, biology, crime, pharmaceutical are 70%+ female, arts and psychology 80%+ and pedagogy and logopedic/audiologic over 90%. That are pretty huge gaps, and yet that's not something you hear about that often. These stats are taken from multiple reports (in Dutch) from a few universities here in Belgium in years ranging from 2010 to 2013 [1] [2], and one report I only have on paper (all with pretty similar results) Yes there are also many areas where it's more equally divided (surprisingly, mathematics and economics), but I don't think it's necessarily the 'software engineering' field, it's for a large part society. My gf for example studied chemistry, and even if she's a bit of a geek sometimes, she never even considered software engineering/it as a study. And when I asked her why, she said it just doesn't have any appeal to her, although when I taught her to write small scripts in python and some basic HTML she thought that was awesome. And I know quite a few geeky girls just like her, doing stuff ranging from having studied sexology, veterinary, economics, law, chemistry, ... Only 3 of the ones I knew started in software engineering and 2 never finished. One became a cop, the other switched to medical, and the one that finished her degree now teaches mostly math since she didn't see herself writing software her entire career. The only way I see to get more women interested in engineering in general, is to get girls interested from a young age. You can't just wave your magic wand around and wish there's a even a 70/30 male/female ratio when only 10% of the software engineering students in the first year is female, and many of them drop out over the years. [1] https://www.kuleuven.be/diversiteit/pdf/20130927%20Gender%20en%20Studenten%20Openbaar.pdf https://www.kuleuven.be/diversiteit/pdf/20130927%20Gender%20... [2] http://www.ugent.be/nl/univgent/waarvoor-staat-ugent/diversiteit-en-gender/beleidscel/pers-en-publicaties/mv-rapport.pdf http://www.ugent.be/nl/univgent/waarvoor-staat-ugent/diversi...
• cpr 9y ago
  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.
  • fatbird 9y ago
    When I see someone mention virtue signalling, I dismiss them as posturing for their community of opinion. Is that fair?
• smithsmith 9y ago
  The author has a point. One suggestion to hire people without bias is to make the interview online for the most part and then conduct very few face to face interview with multiple rounds and getting an averaged feed back of the interviewees in text format and judge based upon it.