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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

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.
  - darepublic 9y ago
    Blind interviews is a good idea that I think could/should satisfy parties on both sides. I mean it's really putting your ideas to the test. And either way you can take some comfort knowing that, if properly set up, the process will be fair. Now the correlation between a good interview and doing well on the job is another issue altogether.
    - mos_basik 9y ago
      May or may not be completely relevant, but seems like it's in the ballpark: a couple of months ago, a conference sponsored by GitHub was postponed because the authors of all the (blind) selected papers were male. HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/6f8u2s/githubs_electronconf_postponed_because_all_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/6f8u2s/githubs_...
    - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
      Yes, I can attest to this too, harkening back to the classical orchestral auditions. This is why every player is put on probation for 6 months to a year. Their colleagues then vote them into the orchestra or they get voted out. This is the part that is about how they actually do their job. Getting voted out is pretty rare, but I have known a few people who have been voted out of top ten orchestras after the probation period. I can't tell you how tragic it is for everyone involved, especially the players who vote them out, because every single player knows how hard it is just to get to the point of sitting in their chair. Players who win auditions are extremely motivated to show up with their music memorized and perfect for every single rehearsal, sectional, and concert. They are on their first date behavior. So if they fail, there is usually a great reason that has to do with showing up unprepared or being rude to colleagues on a regular basis, or playing louder than the section all the time, or in some cases, showing up to work drunk or something ridiculous. But even when people have a substance abuse problem, the orchestra usually tries to help them first. So, perhaps there could be a probation period after tech interviews the same way we have them? (Actually, my friend told me that the Boston-based company, Wayfair, does this. Do any other companies do this? I think it makes sense for both parties. It's a drag when someone has had to relocate and they don't pass through to tenure, but those are the breaks, I guess.)
- Hnrobert42 9y ago
  Yeah. I was willing to give him a fair hearing until he listed a handful of differences between men and women that he ascribes to biology without any factual support. And therein lies the unconscious bias against which he is railing. To him, there is no question that men and women, on average, are fundamentally different in ways that affects their ability to and interest in work in tech. I agree with him that folks shame those his viewpoint into silence. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.
  - TimTheTinker 9y ago
    Here's an article that provides some factual support for the author's viewpoint, with commentary (this was featured on HN a few weeks ago): https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/why-brilliant-girls-tend-favor-non-stem-careers https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/wh...
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    Having personally experience the effects of different levels of testosterone I find it hard to believe any claim of the differences between men and woman at the population level not at least in part being biological.
    - grey-area 9y ago
      There is a long way between claiming there are no biological differences between men and women (of course there are), and the specific claims of differences in the article (which are remarkably specific and tailored to areas of male behaviour the author clearly valorises, e.g. status driven = good, empathy = bad).
      - agarden 9y ago
        I did not get "status driven = good, empathy = bad" from the article. In his section titled "Men's Higher Drive for Status", the author suggests that status-driven is bad: "We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life. "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. Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths." And then in a footnote: "Considering women spend more money than men and that salary represents how much the employees sacrifices (e.g. more hours, stress, and danger), we really need to rethink our stereotypes around power."
- wsrGoWkWeJ3i7w 9y ago
  >The premise that the differences between them are social as opposed to literal is a much easier way to force the same point It's much easier yes, but it then steers the direction into "well, if the difference between men and women's preference for CS is just social, can't we correct the 'gap' with affirmative action hires? Give women more chances!" and you end up in the same hole. We can't pussyfoot around it. Men and women ARE biologically different. Men prefer engineering and are better at it, no matter what culture you look at (the Iran numbers provided above are bogus.) How much more money could Google make if they start hiring based on skill alone? A whole lot.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. Is it taboo? Or is it just taboo in this context? The premise is also shared by some arguments for trangender rights -- that gender identity is involuntary and biological at least to some degree.
  - Quarrelsome 9y ago
    I think anything that tries to brush 50% with a hue that isn't literal biological fact is tenuous and gets people's backs up. e.g. > Men are more violent than women. I mean that's somewhat factual (i.e. considering crime rates) but the very mention of the phrase is tinged with ulterior motive so it becomes taboo. Basically you're better off sticking to literal difference, avoiding sociologically and focusing on differences being social or cultural because then you won't piss off up to 50% of people and people are more likely listen to you. e.g. > The way we bring up men and the societal pressures placed upon them makes them more violent than women. I think less people are gonna be mad about that and then you can use it as a stepping stone to make whatever point this was your platform for. Sure it might actually be less _correct_ then the other way of putting it (I don't know the science precisely enough to judge either way) but that's taboo for ya. Unless you're writing specific science about the biological differences between men and women it doesn't matter that you made the same point differently.
    - ithkuil 9y ago
      Well it does make a difference when you're talking about the countermeasures that society (or in this case a private company) should adopt to fix the problem. If you claim that the cause for male violence lies solely in the upbringing you might in the best case waste a lot of resources in the worst case cause a lot of psychological suffering so common in all our attempts to "fix" the "wrong" behaviour of kids (left-handed, homosexual, ...).
- home_boi 9y ago
  > The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. This is the assumption being made by diversity hiring and diversity advocates. That some races/genders have different perspectives and viewpoints than others. It can quickly follow that some of these viewpoints may make a person more or less fit for certain careers.
  - Quarrelsome 9y ago
    The difficulty is whether those differences are biological, social or cultural. Its hard to tease those differences apart with our current tools. I'll stick with the assumption that its the latter two just because its more convenient and diplomatic. Maybe the genetic data we mine in future generations will give us the real answers but I don't see any advantage in pressing the biological argument until then (as I'm not working directly in that field).
    - renaudg 9y ago
      We don't need to wait for genetic data mining, this has been widely studied already. Differences are visible within the first two days of birth : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222673203_Sex_Differences_in_Human_Neonatal_Social_Perception https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222673203_Sex_Diffe... and are present in monkeys too : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/ I'll let you draw the conclusion.
      - Quarrelsome 9y ago
        Yes but to speculate that a baby's desire to look at a face more means they're less able to negotiate their pay is a bit of a leap (as opposed to that being social or cultural). Sure there are literal differences between gender but one still has to ask that if those differences are big enough to make a difference following the YEARS of nurture or not. I'll wait till the genetic data mining transitions this from speculation to fact thank you very much.
      - mcguire 9y ago
grey-area 9y ago
I fail to understand the outrage but attribute that to the fact that few bothered to read Rather than assuming those who disagree with you are shallow and hysterical (a contentious word choice, given the subject), perhaps consider why others might be outraged, you could try some empathy (though I know the article warns us against empathy). The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination I think it is explicitly anti-diversity in that it sees nothing wrong with the current order of things, if that order can be justified by failings in the weaker vessels that surround the author like empathy and neuroticism (as the author clearly thinks it can). It does seem a remarkable coincidence that the natural order of things so neatly reflects the author's place at the top of the pyramid though, almost as if the rules had been written by people just like the author. Since when is dialectics grounds for ostracism? I doubt the author has faced ostracism, he certainly seems confident enough in expressing his disdain for a large number of the people he works with, without apparent fear of consequences. Since dialectics is usually taken as a search for truth, here are some things that the author believes which are not true: Women are not more neurotic than men Women are not less scientific than men Women are not more interested in feelings and aesthetics than ideas (a curious dichotomy) Women do not innately prefer jobs in social or artistic areas over say engineering
- remarkEon 9y ago
  Sorry, but there's a whole host of psychological research that has long established behavioral differences between male and female. I find this new rejection on the Left of what are simply basic observations of biologically formed behaviors to be extremely bizarre. I'm really struggling to understand it because to me it seems like the same kind of science rejection we'd see on the Right if we were talking about climate change.
  - grey-area 9y ago
    I didn't claim there are no biological differences between men and women (of course there are), but that doesn't back the specific claims of differences in the article (which are remarkably specific and tailored to areas of male behaviour the author clearly valorises and identifies with, e.g. status driven = good, empathy = bad).
mcguire 9y ago
"Grounded in reality?" Could we get some sources for these claims? In particular, I'd like to see values and standard deviations for "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways."
- renaudg 9y ago
  Here you go : https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/why-brilliant-girls-tend-favor-non-stem-careers https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/wh...
  - smhost 9y ago
    When feminists say that women should have control over their bodies, do they literally mean that women should shape their own biology by restructuring society?
  - acdha 9y ago
    That blog post doesn't go into biological reasons — read through it and for each bit of evidence, ask whether the relationship described could be explained by social expectations in early childhood. Talking about career preferences in high school students is much later than what people are talking about – socialization starts before they can talk! I'm married to a neuroscientist and have spent a lot of time talking with other researchers. Nobody denies that there are measurable low-level biological differences (the hormone levels alone guarantee that) but I've noticed that everyone who actually does research in the area is extremely careful to point out that while you can measure e.g. statistically significant differences in the ratios of white and grey matter, nobody has linked those low level traits to higher-level cognitive abilities, much less success in a profession which combines many different cognitive skills. An additional key point which is often missed is that our brains are plastic and will change in response to what we do: if you found that, say, a group of men out-performed women on tracking moving multiple objects you would still need to ask whether that was biologically predetermined or simply caused by boys being encouraged to play sports, hunt, etc. which developed that skill and/or girls being discouraged from doing the same.
bhouston 9y ago
One issue is that acknowledging potential differences between the sexes can setup prejudice that acts to fulfill those prejudices. This can lead to widening gender gaps possibly more that any real gap in performance. So many do not blindly advocate equality because they believe it completely but do so to avoid the overly negative and reinforcing effects of prejudice. Think of this as a form of "Noble lie"
- throwanem 9y ago
  You mean it's a falsehood cynically advanced by a power elite to maintain a social order which would otherwise be uprooted, and those responsible torn toe from nail, by the vast majority upon whom it inflicts grave injustice toward some greater goal whose tangible benefits somehow never make it as far as them?
  - bhouston 9y ago
    You'll have to explain the missing logical steps as I do not see how you got to this conclusion.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      There are no logical steps to miss. None are required. The concept of the "noble lie" originates in Plato's inexplicably popular power fantasy The Republic. Its purpose there is as I describe it here; I differ only in choosing terms rather less congratulatory than the old fraud used himself.
      - bhouston 9y ago
        The world I live in is filled with various Noble lies and self deceptions and mass deceptions. It does seem necessary to me for the modern world that isn't constantly at war with itself to exist. There is so many that I do not know where to begin and I am not going to begin. This one seems on balance like one of the less harmful ones.
rayiner 9y ago
The argument basically proceeds as follows: 1) Gender differences exist 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women, while programming doesn't have much women despite being on the social/people-oriented end of the spectrum? It's not that people are angry about the article's conclusions despite acknowledging the strength of the logical/factual basis. It's that people won't give sloppy reasoning the benefit of the doubt when they don't like the conclusion.
- smsm42 9y ago
  > The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. Probably because nobody actually knows right now what actually causes the differences and how. The case that is caused exclusively by entrenched sexism - somehow driven by people graduating from the same institutions who have been fighting sexism for decades now, and by the same people who repudiate and denounce sexism on every corner - also does not sound very convincing. Sexists, of course, do exist, so does sexism, but presenting it as sole driver and concluding any deviation from 50% or whatever the population demographics would be is the ironclad indicator for sexism is as "unrigorous handwaving" as the opposite extreme.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Read what Rayiner wrote more carefully. Computer science is unique among STEM fields --- even mathematics --- in its gender imbalance. The "???" here has a name: it's called "special pleading". It's not hard to see why people would get angry at a special pleading intended to excuse gender disparities.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      The article is objecting to special pleading in a different direction. In other words, there's another train of thought: 1) Sexism exists 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by sexism I think the original article was making a more nuanced argument allowing for an interconnected set of factors explaining the gender imbalance.
spaceseaman 9y ago
> and no doubt a cartharsis for many Right-leaning Googlers And this is where I kind of break down on the whole argument. I've already made similar comments below, but I sort of what to expand on this sentiment. I do not think that the views of the author of this piece were political in any way shape or form. They are purely idealogical, and the ideology that he professes has no basis in reality. This is what we may criticize. I will employ an extremely gross simile to illustrate my point. Suppose that some item exists in the world called a "whizzer". A whizzer spins extraordinarily fast. So fast in fact, that we can't even tell which direction it's spinning for sure. We can use rough guesses to determine the spinning, and support it with some evidence from the environment. If I claim that the whizzer spins left, and you claim that the whizzer spins right we have reached a state of deadlock. Would you call our disagreement in this case one of politics? Suppose I had some information that hinted the spinner spins left. (Analogous to evidence that women are actively stopped from entering technical fields due to sociological rather than natural factors, which exists in multitudes.) There is still no evidence that the whizzer spins right. Arguments that the situation of the United States' gender divisions are natural rather than sociological can easily be dismissed by looking at clear evidence. Women are not as discouraged from entering fields like biology, or medicine. These are just as technical and difficult as other STEM fields. This implies that the factors that affect this are sociological rather than "natural". This evidence is not indisputable and it does not tell the whole picture, but it points in a general direction. If we return to the whizzers, let's suppose my evidence is very similar. It's not all-knowing, or all-answering but it provides a general direction. There's nothing "political" about this. The "other side" is simply not providing an actual basis of evidence. Your argument does not hold up to any burdens of truth. It's as if the person with no evidence that the whizzers spin right is furious that I should try and make decisions that assume the spinner spins left. That's what all the evidence points towards! The argument that the email's sender makes is inherently flawed. There exist issues with the conclusions that they make because their reasoning is flawed. I am not demonizing a political opinion, or attempting to police your ability to think or express your opinion. The email fails to convince anyone because it lacks an accurate argument. I am not trying to demonize you. I don't think this has anything to do with Right / Left. Look at the facts. Look at the data. Listen to women from the industry who time and time again have stories of all the crap they've had to wade through. When all this overwhelming evidence claims something and the only thing the other side can produce are appeals to cognitive bias and naturalism, arguing that this is "just how the world works" it makes no sense because there is no sense in the argument. If this were "how the world naturally works", how could we have possibly normalized so quickly? Women were only allowed to vote very recently in this country, black americans were only recently systematically segregated. There are people currently alive who have seen both of these greatly disruptive forces in direct action. What argument can possibly claim that those forces have completely dissipated in the United States? What about the United States allows such forces to be dissipated so quickly? Why are these issues more prevalent in places like Silicon Valley than other countries when the United States was one of the latest to adopt the different policies? The argument simply does hold up to intellectual rigor. It fails to answer those questions in a consistent and convincing matter. If you believe that those questions are flawed, then why is that? Again, there exists no refutation except one born from cognitive bias and a flawed world-view. That's why people are opposed to it. It just doesn't make any sense. The conclusion is not a logical continuation of the premise, and that is why people are upset. I don't know or care where you lie on the political spectrum - all I see is a flawed argument. Specifically you say "reflective of inherent psychological differences". What inherent psychological differences? Do you truly claim that you can generally predict the way your daughter will think differently than your son from the moment they are born? Do you think that these are in way accurate or determinate of your son or daughters future interests and achievements? Do you actually believe that they will have a "fair shake" regardless of whether they are male / female / white / black? That their life will be entirely based on the way they live it, and not on the way the world looks at them? Do you further believe that we shouldn't try and correct such distinctions? If you actually want to engage in argument, then attempt to address these issues. Instead all I see is a further appeal to bias by just grouping this as a "right-leaning" opinion. What makes this right-leaning? All this does is further divide idealogical issues as if they have to be "one side vs another". It's nonsensical and all it does is further group or divide people rather than address the objective quality of the argument. EDIT: May I ask why I'm being down-voted? It seems that no one is even willing to acknowledge these questions, let alone address them. I'm attempting to engage with people at a fair and even level. I don't intend to lecture or degrade, but simply discuss. A resistance to this is concerning.
aagha 9y ago
Would you feel the same way if the author--instead of focusing on sex differences instead chose to focus on eugenics? What if s/he argued that the reason blacks/African-Americans were under-represented in tech/at Google was because of eugenics?
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  It would honestly not surprise me that it would be A-OK here. We've already had someone defending Charles Murray.

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.
- darepublic 9y ago
  Blind interviews is a good idea that I think could/should satisfy parties on both sides. I mean it's really putting your ideas to the test. And either way you can take some comfort knowing that, if properly set up, the process will be fair. Now the correlation between a good interview and doing well on the job is another issue altogether.
  - mos_basik 9y ago
    May or may not be completely relevant, but seems like it's in the ballpark: a couple of months ago, a conference sponsored by GitHub was postponed because the authors of all the (blind) selected papers were male. HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/6f8u2s/githubs_electronconf_postponed_because_all_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/6f8u2s/githubs_...
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    Yes, I can attest to this too, harkening back to the classical orchestral auditions. This is why every player is put on probation for 6 months to a year. Their colleagues then vote them into the orchestra or they get voted out. This is the part that is about how they actually do their job. Getting voted out is pretty rare, but I have known a few people who have been voted out of top ten orchestras after the probation period. I can't tell you how tragic it is for everyone involved, especially the players who vote them out, because every single player knows how hard it is just to get to the point of sitting in their chair. Players who win auditions are extremely motivated to show up with their music memorized and perfect for every single rehearsal, sectional, and concert. They are on their first date behavior. So if they fail, there is usually a great reason that has to do with showing up unprepared or being rude to colleagues on a regular basis, or playing louder than the section all the time, or in some cases, showing up to work drunk or something ridiculous. But even when people have a substance abuse problem, the orchestra usually tries to help them first. So, perhaps there could be a probation period after tech interviews the same way we have them? (Actually, my friend told me that the Boston-based company, Wayfair, does this. Do any other companies do this? I think it makes sense for both parties. It's a drag when someone has had to relocate and they don't pass through to tenure, but those are the breaks, I guess.)
Hnrobert42 9y ago
Yeah. I was willing to give him a fair hearing until he listed a handful of differences between men and women that he ascribes to biology without any factual support. And therein lies the unconscious bias against which he is railing. To him, there is no question that men and women, on average, are fundamentally different in ways that affects their ability to and interest in work in tech. I agree with him that folks shame those his viewpoint into silence. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.
- TimTheTinker 9y ago
  Here's an article that provides some factual support for the author's viewpoint, with commentary (this was featured on HN a few weeks ago): https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/why-brilliant-girls-tend-favor-non-stem-careers https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/wh...
- danieltillett 9y ago
  Having personally experience the effects of different levels of testosterone I find it hard to believe any claim of the differences between men and woman at the population level not at least in part being biological.
  - grey-area 9y ago
    There is a long way between claiming there are no biological differences between men and women (of course there are), and the specific claims of differences in the article (which are remarkably specific and tailored to areas of male behaviour the author clearly valorises, e.g. status driven = good, empathy = bad).
    - agarden 9y ago
      I did not get "status driven = good, empathy = bad" from the article. In his section titled "Men's Higher Drive for Status", the author suggests that status-driven is bad: "We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life. "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. Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths." And then in a footnote: "Considering women spend more money than men and that salary represents how much the employees sacrifices (e.g. more hours, stress, and danger), we really need to rethink our stereotypes around power."
wsrGoWkWeJ3i7w 9y ago
>The premise that the differences between them are social as opposed to literal is a much easier way to force the same point It's much easier yes, but it then steers the direction into "well, if the difference between men and women's preference for CS is just social, can't we correct the 'gap' with affirmative action hires? Give women more chances!" and you end up in the same hole. We can't pussyfoot around it. Men and women ARE biologically different. Men prefer engineering and are better at it, no matter what culture you look at (the Iran numbers provided above are bogus.) How much more money could Google make if they start hiring based on skill alone? A whole lot.
humanrebar 9y ago
> The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. Is it taboo? Or is it just taboo in this context? The premise is also shared by some arguments for trangender rights -- that gender identity is involuntary and biological at least to some degree.
- Quarrelsome 9y ago
  I think anything that tries to brush 50% with a hue that isn't literal biological fact is tenuous and gets people's backs up. e.g. > Men are more violent than women. I mean that's somewhat factual (i.e. considering crime rates) but the very mention of the phrase is tinged with ulterior motive so it becomes taboo. Basically you're better off sticking to literal difference, avoiding sociologically and focusing on differences being social or cultural because then you won't piss off up to 50% of people and people are more likely listen to you. e.g. > The way we bring up men and the societal pressures placed upon them makes them more violent than women. I think less people are gonna be mad about that and then you can use it as a stepping stone to make whatever point this was your platform for. Sure it might actually be less _correct_ then the other way of putting it (I don't know the science precisely enough to judge either way) but that's taboo for ya. Unless you're writing specific science about the biological differences between men and women it doesn't matter that you made the same point differently.
  - ithkuil 9y ago
    Well it does make a difference when you're talking about the countermeasures that society (or in this case a private company) should adopt to fix the problem. If you claim that the cause for male violence lies solely in the upbringing you might in the best case waste a lot of resources in the worst case cause a lot of psychological suffering so common in all our attempts to "fix" the "wrong" behaviour of kids (left-handed, homosexual, ...).
home_boi 9y ago
> The suggestion that men and women ARE different is taboo. This is the assumption being made by diversity hiring and diversity advocates. That some races/genders have different perspectives and viewpoints than others. It can quickly follow that some of these viewpoints may make a person more or less fit for certain careers.
- Quarrelsome 9y ago
  The difficulty is whether those differences are biological, social or cultural. Its hard to tease those differences apart with our current tools. I'll stick with the assumption that its the latter two just because its more convenient and diplomatic. Maybe the genetic data we mine in future generations will give us the real answers but I don't see any advantage in pressing the biological argument until then (as I'm not working directly in that field).
  - renaudg 9y ago
    We don't need to wait for genetic data mining, this has been widely studied already. Differences are visible within the first two days of birth : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222673203_Sex_Differences_in_Human_Neonatal_Social_Perception https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222673203_Sex_Diffe... and are present in monkeys too : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/ I'll let you draw the conclusion.
    - Quarrelsome 9y ago
      Yes but to speculate that a baby's desire to look at a face more means they're less able to negotiate their pay is a bit of a leap (as opposed to that being social or cultural). Sure there are literal differences between gender but one still has to ask that if those differences are big enough to make a difference following the YEARS of nurture or not. I'll wait till the genetic data mining transitions this from speculation to fact thank you very much.
    - mcguire 9y ago

grey-area 9y ago

I fail to understand the outrage but attribute that to the fact that few bothered to read Rather than assuming those who disagree with you are shallow and hysterical (a contentious word choice, given the subject), perhaps consider why others might be outraged, you could try some empathy (though I know the article warns us against empathy). The doc presents a point-of-view, grounded in reality. Furthermore it's not "anti-diversity", but rather anti-discrimination I think it is explicitly anti-diversity in that it sees nothing wrong with the current order of things, if that order can be justified by failings in the weaker vessels that surround the author like empathy and neuroticism (as the author clearly thinks it can). It does seem a remarkable coincidence that the natural order of things so neatly reflects the author's place at the top of the pyramid though, almost as if the rules had been written by people just like the author. Since when is dialectics grounds for ostracism? I doubt the author has faced ostracism, he certainly seems confident enough in expressing his disdain for a large number of the people he works with, without apparent fear of consequences. Since dialectics is usually taken as a search for truth, here are some things that the author believes which are not true: Women are not more neurotic than men Women are not less scientific than men Women are not more interested in feelings and aesthetics than ideas (a curious dichotomy) Women do not innately prefer jobs in social or artistic areas over say engineering

remarkEon 9y ago
Sorry, but there's a whole host of psychological research that has long established behavioral differences between male and female. I find this new rejection on the Left of what are simply basic observations of biologically formed behaviors to be extremely bizarre. I'm really struggling to understand it because to me it seems like the same kind of science rejection we'd see on the Right if we were talking about climate change.
- grey-area 9y ago
  I didn't claim there are no biological differences between men and women (of course there are), but that doesn't back the specific claims of differences in the article (which are remarkably specific and tailored to areas of male behaviour the author clearly valorises and identifies with, e.g. status driven = good, empathy = bad).

mcguire 9y ago

"Grounded in reality?" Could we get some sources for these claims? In particular, I'd like to see values and standard deviations for "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways."

renaudg 9y ago
Here you go : https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/why-brilliant-girls-tend-favor-non-stem-careers https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/wh...
- smhost 9y ago
  When feminists say that women should have control over their bodies, do they literally mean that women should shape their own biology by restructuring society?
- acdha 9y ago
  That blog post doesn't go into biological reasons — read through it and for each bit of evidence, ask whether the relationship described could be explained by social expectations in early childhood. Talking about career preferences in high school students is much later than what people are talking about – socialization starts before they can talk! I'm married to a neuroscientist and have spent a lot of time talking with other researchers. Nobody denies that there are measurable low-level biological differences (the hormone levels alone guarantee that) but I've noticed that everyone who actually does research in the area is extremely careful to point out that while you can measure e.g. statistically significant differences in the ratios of white and grey matter, nobody has linked those low level traits to higher-level cognitive abilities, much less success in a profession which combines many different cognitive skills. An additional key point which is often missed is that our brains are plastic and will change in response to what we do: if you found that, say, a group of men out-performed women on tracking moving multiple objects you would still need to ask whether that was biologically predetermined or simply caused by boys being encouraged to play sports, hunt, etc. which developed that skill and/or girls being discouraged from doing the same.

bhouston 9y ago

One issue is that acknowledging potential differences between the sexes can setup prejudice that acts to fulfill those prejudices. This can lead to widening gender gaps possibly more that any real gap in performance. So many do not blindly advocate equality because they believe it completely but do so to avoid the overly negative and reinforcing effects of prejudice. Think of this as a form of "Noble lie"

throwanem 9y ago
You mean it's a falsehood cynically advanced by a power elite to maintain a social order which would otherwise be uprooted, and those responsible torn toe from nail, by the vast majority upon whom it inflicts grave injustice toward some greater goal whose tangible benefits somehow never make it as far as them?
- bhouston 9y ago
  You'll have to explain the missing logical steps as I do not see how you got to this conclusion.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    There are no logical steps to miss. None are required. The concept of the "noble lie" originates in Plato's inexplicably popular power fantasy The Republic. Its purpose there is as I describe it here; I differ only in choosing terms rather less congratulatory than the old fraud used himself.
    - bhouston 9y ago
      The world I live in is filled with various Noble lies and self deceptions and mass deceptions. It does seem necessary to me for the modern world that isn't constantly at war with itself to exist. There is so many that I do not know where to begin and I am not going to begin. This one seems on balance like one of the less harmful ones.

rayiner 9y ago

The argument basically proceeds as follows: 1) Gender differences exist 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by gender differences The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. "Women prefer working with people." Okay, so that's why the majority of accountants are women? That's why STEM fields that don't involve people at all (math, biology) actually have quite a lot of women, while programming doesn't have much women despite being on the social/people-oriented end of the spectrum? It's not that people are angry about the article's conclusions despite acknowledging the strength of the logical/factual basis. It's that people won't give sloppy reasoning the benefit of the doubt when they don't like the conclusion.

smsm42 9y ago
> The problem with the "???" step is that it's unrigorous handwaving. Probably because nobody actually knows right now what actually causes the differences and how. The case that is caused exclusively by entrenched sexism - somehow driven by people graduating from the same institutions who have been fighting sexism for decades now, and by the same people who repudiate and denounce sexism on every corner - also does not sound very convincing. Sexists, of course, do exist, so does sexism, but presenting it as sole driver and concluding any deviation from 50% or whatever the population demographics would be is the ironclad indicator for sexism is as "unrigorous handwaving" as the opposite extreme.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Read what Rayiner wrote more carefully. Computer science is unique among STEM fields --- even mathematics --- in its gender imbalance. The "???" here has a name: it's called "special pleading". It's not hard to see why people would get angry at a special pleading intended to excuse gender disparities.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    The article is objecting to special pleading in a different direction. In other words, there's another train of thought: 1) Sexism exists 2) ??? 3) Differences in representation are explainable by sexism I think the original article was making a more nuanced argument allowing for an interconnected set of factors explaining the gender imbalance.

spaceseaman 9y ago

> and no doubt a cartharsis for many Right-leaning Googlers And this is where I kind of break down on the whole argument. I've already made similar comments below, but I sort of what to expand on this sentiment. I do not think that the views of the author of this piece were political in any way shape or form. They are purely idealogical, and the ideology that he professes has no basis in reality. This is what we may criticize. I will employ an extremely gross simile to illustrate my point. Suppose that some item exists in the world called a "whizzer". A whizzer spins extraordinarily fast. So fast in fact, that we can't even tell which direction it's spinning for sure. We can use rough guesses to determine the spinning, and support it with some evidence from the environment. If I claim that the whizzer spins left, and you claim that the whizzer spins right we have reached a state of deadlock. Would you call our disagreement in this case one of politics? Suppose I had some information that hinted the spinner spins left. (Analogous to evidence that women are actively stopped from entering technical fields due to sociological rather than natural factors, which exists in multitudes.) There is still no evidence that the whizzer spins right. Arguments that the situation of the United States' gender divisions are natural rather than sociological can easily be dismissed by looking at clear evidence. Women are not as discouraged from entering fields like biology, or medicine. These are just as technical and difficult as other STEM fields. This implies that the factors that affect this are sociological rather than "natural". This evidence is not indisputable and it does not tell the whole picture, but it points in a general direction. If we return to the whizzers, let's suppose my evidence is very similar. It's not all-knowing, or all-answering but it provides a general direction. There's nothing "political" about this. The "other side" is simply not providing an actual basis of evidence. Your argument does not hold up to any burdens of truth. It's as if the person with no evidence that the whizzers spin right is furious that I should try and make decisions that assume the spinner spins left. That's what all the evidence points towards! The argument that the email's sender makes is inherently flawed. There exist issues with the conclusions that they make because their reasoning is flawed. I am not demonizing a political opinion, or attempting to police your ability to think or express your opinion. The email fails to convince anyone because it lacks an accurate argument. I am not trying to demonize you. I don't think this has anything to do with Right / Left. Look at the facts. Look at the data. Listen to women from the industry who time and time again have stories of all the crap they've had to wade through. When all this overwhelming evidence claims something and the only thing the other side can produce are appeals to cognitive bias and naturalism, arguing that this is "just how the world works" it makes no sense because there is no sense in the argument. If this were "how the world naturally works", how could we have possibly normalized so quickly? Women were only allowed to vote very recently in this country, black americans were only recently systematically segregated. There are people currently alive who have seen both of these greatly disruptive forces in direct action. What argument can possibly claim that those forces have completely dissipated in the United States? What about the United States allows such forces to be dissipated so quickly? Why are these issues more prevalent in places like Silicon Valley than other countries when the United States was one of the latest to adopt the different policies? The argument simply does hold up to intellectual rigor. It fails to answer those questions in a consistent and convincing matter. If you believe that those questions are flawed, then why is that? Again, there exists no refutation except one born from cognitive bias and a flawed world-view. That's why people are opposed to it. It just doesn't make any sense. The conclusion is not a logical continuation of the premise, and that is why people are upset. I don't know or care where you lie on the political spectrum - all I see is a flawed argument. Specifically you say "reflective of inherent psychological differences". What inherent psychological differences? Do you truly claim that you can generally predict the way your daughter will think differently than your son from the moment they are born? Do you think that these are in way accurate or determinate of your son or daughters future interests and achievements? Do you actually believe that they will have a "fair shake" regardless of whether they are male / female / white / black? That their life will be entirely based on the way they live it, and not on the way the world looks at them? Do you further believe that we shouldn't try and correct such distinctions? If you actually want to engage in argument, then attempt to address these issues. Instead all I see is a further appeal to bias by just grouping this as a "right-leaning" opinion. What makes this right-leaning? All this does is further divide idealogical issues as if they have to be "one side vs another". It's nonsensical and all it does is further group or divide people rather than address the objective quality of the argument. EDIT: May I ask why I'm being down-voted? It seems that no one is even willing to acknowledge these questions, let alone address them. I'm attempting to engage with people at a fair and even level. I don't intend to lecture or degrade, but simply discuss. A resistance to this is concerning.

aagha 9y ago

Would you feel the same way if the author--instead of focusing on sex differences instead chose to focus on eugenics? What if s/he argued that the reason blacks/African-Americans were under-represented in tech/at Google was because of eugenics?

zimpenfish 9y ago
It would honestly not surprise me that it would be A-OK here. We've already had someone defending Charles Murray.