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Except for the fact that it implies that men are in higher, more well paid positions because of inherent biological traits. If you truly believe people are equ

Except for the fact that it implies that men are in higher, more well paid positions because of inherent biological traits. If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must see a society where white men are the most powerful, most privileged class, as a failure of society. The author cannot claim to believe in equality and then go on to justify inequality with biological traits.

H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
But if the biological innate differences exist, why must they be disregarded?
searealist 9y ago
The manifesto author is arguing for equality of opportunity. It's possible to have this and end up with different outcomes because of differing abilities or priorities. Also, Whites are _underrepresented_ in tech relative to their percentage of the population. edit: The parent edited their comment to remove the "white" qualifier from "men".
- interpol_p 9y ago
  And women are much more severely underrepresented in tech. So why argue against fixing that? It will simply make the tech industry better.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    I don't think the original author argued against fixing it, I think he advocated different approach to fixing it, based on different understanding of what "it" is.
    - interpol_p 9y ago
      By eliminating programs intended to help increase diversity, by "de-emphasising empathy" and by making Google more of a safe space for people with viewpoints similar to his own. Got it!
      - smsm42 9y ago
        > By eliminating programs intended to help increase diversity The key words here are "intended to". There's a difference between doing something and intending to do something. Unfortunately, intending to do something is sometimes not enough to actually do something - you also have to do it in the right way, otherwise you might intend to do one thing and instead do another thing. > de-emphasising empathy Not the best sound-bite, which of course means it will get quoted a lot. Happens to techies, not all of them are good writers, yet less of them can write a text that would be robust under hostile interpretation. The point, however, was to use data instead of feel-good anecdotes. > making Google more of a safe space for people with viewpoints similar to his own What's wrong with making Google more safe for people working there?
  - searealist 9y ago
    This is a strawman. Neither I nor the manifesto author has argued in favor of sexism. Why did you call out "white men" in an article about representation at Google? It doesn't make any sense when white people are underrepresented at Google. edit: Now the parent has edited their comment to remove "in favor of sexism".
    - interpol_p 9y ago
      Here is where the author argues for sexism (from his TL;DR) > Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business. The implication here is that equal representation of women at Google is bad for business. That women aren't in tech and leadership positions because of biological traits. This is sexism. Right here. This point and its thorough embedding in every aspect of the article.
      - searealist 9y ago
        > The implication here is that equal representation of women at Google is bad for business. That women aren't in tech and leadership positions because of biological traits. This is an incomplete picture of what that statement says. It does not say that 50% representation would necessarily be bad for business, but that discriminating against men to achieve this goal would be bad for business.
        interpol_p 9y ago
        Helping others succeed and building a diverse environment is not discriminating against men.
        searealist 9y ago
        Having an agenda of hiring and promoting women over men is discriminating against men. Very few people dispute this happens.
nopatternhere 9y ago
> If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must The two don't follow, at all. Lets replace this statement, and make it about the NBA. "If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must see a game where black men hold the vast majority of positions as a failure of the game". If the NBA example should be laughed at, why shouldn't the opposite? Neanderthals don't exist anymore, but homo sapiens do, despite very little relative advantage to us. Small differences in averages between groups will lead to dramatically different results. For the best example of all, see casinos (advantage: 2-4%) versus gamblers.
- interpol_p 9y ago
  Are you serious? Of course it doesn't make sense if you change my words to be about the NBA. Look at the government. The majority of the US government leadership is older white males. Either you think: wow, white males are really good at getting into top government positions. Old white males must be superior to other humans. Or you think: society really gives an advantage to older white males and it's much easier for them to get into government. Maybe power structures are balanced in their favour? (Hint: the latter is true. The author of the article thinks along the lines of the former, that's why it's sexist and discriminatory and people are upset by it.)
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Or maybe it's both? After eliminating incorrect biases, perhaps we'd find top leadership to be 60/40 male/female. Or even 40/60 (I'd be surprised but hey). Maybe women have a higher avg IQ but a smaller standard deviation. Then what? I'm only taking issue with the sacrosanct idea that every mind is equal and that we should expect proportional representation in everything that's not obviously physically biased like sports. (How the brain isn't physical is still an open question.)
    - interpol_p 9y ago
      Or maybe IQ itself favours only certain types of intelligence and the test is fundamentally flawed because it simplifies intelligence into something that distorts our understanding of it? How long did we think women performed more poorly with spatial reasoning tasks? Then we realised cultural gender inequality was the culprit, not biological traits [1]. The original author continues to propagate the harmful idea that women aren't making it because of biology, when there is no evidence to support that biology is the reason. And you seem to believe the same thing, despite the science in this area changing and even reporting the opposite results. [1] https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/06/why-judy-cant-add-gender-inequality-and-the-math-gap/ https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/06/why-judy-cant-...
MichaelGG 9y ago
There's zero evidence that people are equal. Physically, everyone knows and admits this. Women are given separate physical contests as they are smaller, slower, and weaker than men. Certain races do better in some sports - no one can make a fuss, as it's obvious, plus whites aren't the ones usually dominating. Yet all of a sudden when it comes to mental pursuits (which are physically based in the brain and supporting chemicals), somehow then we're all equally capable and the huge biases that exist when using other organs don't exist. And not only don't exist, but so obviously don't exist that anyone suggesting so is met with "I'm literally shaking". There seems to be nothing more to the diversity drive than "I want it to be so". I'm not saying it's all fine how it is, but pretending the population should be reflected perfectly is baseless. Further, he points out diversity only goes one way. If there's too much white male, then it needs fixing. But if white males are underrepresented, then that's fine. It's like that review of the 90% black cast of Black Panther: "Hella diverse!" Same for pointing out if you're hiring for diversity and lowering standards for "diverse" hires, you're making it worse for everyone. And as he mentions, this diversity usually isn't. Hiring a bunch of people with the same views but making sure their skin tones or gender identity fill up a big list... Doesn't give you any useful diversity of thought at all. Being intellectually dishonest and acting existentially offended when someone points out the obvious is why the left is losing out, slowly. And it sucks because the backlash is likely to hurt civil rights and progress.
- interpol_p 9y ago
  > Yet all of a sudden when it comes to mental pursuits (which are physically based in the brain and supporting chemicals), somehow then we're all equally capable and the huge biases that exist when using other organs don't exist. And not only don't exist, but so obviously don't exist that anyone suggesting so is met with "I'm literally shaking". It's not "mental pursuits," it is that our society rewards men the most for excelling in fields which are created and controlled by men. When the majority of CEOs, leadership and top government positions are taken by men, it's going to be easier for men to keep gaining and holding those positions. Women will and do face more discrimination trying to enter these fields purely because they are women. By creating a space for women to excel, by trying to fight the pay gap, and by trying to get women into leadership, we are not discriminating against men. I'm not saying that our society, as it stands, should reflect the population perfectly. I am saying that our society needs to change to treat its population equally. And in doing so our tech companies, governments and other industries will change too. For the better. > Same for pointing out if you're hiring for diversity and lowering standards for "diverse" hires, you're making it worse for everyone. No one is "lowering standards" for diverse hires. No one. Why are you even implying this? > And as he mentions, this diversity usually isn't. Hiring a bunch of people with the same views but making sure their skin tones or gender identity fill up a big list... Doesn't give you any useful diversity of thought at all. All I got from his manifesto on this was he wants more people who think like him. His manifesto argues for less diversity, if anything. > Being intellectually dishonest and acting existentially offended when someone points out the obvious is why the left is losing out It's not taking offence, it is surprise that so many people are still willing to argue for inequality and are blind to the extreme imbalances of our society.
Goladus 9y ago
Except for the fact that it implies that men are in higher, more well paid positions because of inherent biological traits. His point is quite clearly based on statistical reasoning, not absolutes. He makes this point blatantly clear when he makes the point about salary negotiations. He says that people with high agreeableness have more trouble negotiating than people with low agreeableness. Because high agreeableness is statistically more common among women, this is treated as a gender issue when it is quite clearly a personality issue. If you're going to consider this a problem, why not address agreeableness directly? Why frame it as a gender issue that ignores both agreeable men and disagreeable women?

H4CK3RM4N 9y ago

But if the biological innate differences exist, why must they be disregarded?

searealist 9y ago

The manifesto author is arguing for equality of opportunity. It's possible to have this and end up with different outcomes because of differing abilities or priorities. Also, Whites are _underrepresented_ in tech relative to their percentage of the population. edit: The parent edited their comment to remove the "white" qualifier from "men".

interpol_p 9y ago
And women are much more severely underrepresented in tech. So why argue against fixing that? It will simply make the tech industry better.
- smsm42 9y ago
  I don't think the original author argued against fixing it, I think he advocated different approach to fixing it, based on different understanding of what "it" is.
  - interpol_p 9y ago
    By eliminating programs intended to help increase diversity, by "de-emphasising empathy" and by making Google more of a safe space for people with viewpoints similar to his own. Got it!
    - smsm42 9y ago
      > By eliminating programs intended to help increase diversity The key words here are "intended to". There's a difference between doing something and intending to do something. Unfortunately, intending to do something is sometimes not enough to actually do something - you also have to do it in the right way, otherwise you might intend to do one thing and instead do another thing. > de-emphasising empathy Not the best sound-bite, which of course means it will get quoted a lot. Happens to techies, not all of them are good writers, yet less of them can write a text that would be robust under hostile interpretation. The point, however, was to use data instead of feel-good anecdotes. > making Google more of a safe space for people with viewpoints similar to his own What's wrong with making Google more safe for people working there?
- searealist 9y ago
  This is a strawman. Neither I nor the manifesto author has argued in favor of sexism. Why did you call out "white men" in an article about representation at Google? It doesn't make any sense when white people are underrepresented at Google. edit: Now the parent has edited their comment to remove "in favor of sexism".
  - interpol_p 9y ago
    Here is where the author argues for sexism (from his TL;DR) > Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business. The implication here is that equal representation of women at Google is bad for business. That women aren't in tech and leadership positions because of biological traits. This is sexism. Right here. This point and its thorough embedding in every aspect of the article.
    - searealist 9y ago
      > The implication here is that equal representation of women at Google is bad for business. That women aren't in tech and leadership positions because of biological traits. This is an incomplete picture of what that statement says. It does not say that 50% representation would necessarily be bad for business, but that discriminating against men to achieve this goal would be bad for business.
      - interpol_p 9y ago
        Helping others succeed and building a diverse environment is not discriminating against men.
        searealist 9y ago
        Having an agenda of hiring and promoting women over men is discriminating against men. Very few people dispute this happens.

nopatternhere 9y ago

> If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must The two don't follow, at all. Lets replace this statement, and make it about the NBA. "If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must see a game where black men hold the vast majority of positions as a failure of the game". If the NBA example should be laughed at, why shouldn't the opposite? Neanderthals don't exist anymore, but homo sapiens do, despite very little relative advantage to us. Small differences in averages between groups will lead to dramatically different results. For the best example of all, see casinos (advantage: 2-4%) versus gamblers.

interpol_p 9y ago
Are you serious? Of course it doesn't make sense if you change my words to be about the NBA. Look at the government. The majority of the US government leadership is older white males. Either you think: wow, white males are really good at getting into top government positions. Old white males must be superior to other humans. Or you think: society really gives an advantage to older white males and it's much easier for them to get into government. Maybe power structures are balanced in their favour? (Hint: the latter is true. The author of the article thinks along the lines of the former, that's why it's sexist and discriminatory and people are upset by it.)
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  Or maybe it's both? After eliminating incorrect biases, perhaps we'd find top leadership to be 60/40 male/female. Or even 40/60 (I'd be surprised but hey). Maybe women have a higher avg IQ but a smaller standard deviation. Then what? I'm only taking issue with the sacrosanct idea that every mind is equal and that we should expect proportional representation in everything that's not obviously physically biased like sports. (How the brain isn't physical is still an open question.)
  - interpol_p 9y ago
    Or maybe IQ itself favours only certain types of intelligence and the test is fundamentally flawed because it simplifies intelligence into something that distorts our understanding of it? How long did we think women performed more poorly with spatial reasoning tasks? Then we realised cultural gender inequality was the culprit, not biological traits [1]. The original author continues to propagate the harmful idea that women aren't making it because of biology, when there is no evidence to support that biology is the reason. And you seem to believe the same thing, despite the science in this area changing and even reporting the opposite results. [1] https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/06/why-judy-cant-add-gender-inequality-and-the-math-gap/ https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/06/why-judy-cant-...

MichaelGG 9y ago

There's zero evidence that people are equal. Physically, everyone knows and admits this. Women are given separate physical contests as they are smaller, slower, and weaker than men. Certain races do better in some sports - no one can make a fuss, as it's obvious, plus whites aren't the ones usually dominating. Yet all of a sudden when it comes to mental pursuits (which are physically based in the brain and supporting chemicals), somehow then we're all equally capable and the huge biases that exist when using other organs don't exist. And not only don't exist, but so obviously don't exist that anyone suggesting so is met with "I'm literally shaking". There seems to be nothing more to the diversity drive than "I want it to be so". I'm not saying it's all fine how it is, but pretending the population should be reflected perfectly is baseless. Further, he points out diversity only goes one way. If there's too much white male, then it needs fixing. But if white males are underrepresented, then that's fine. It's like that review of the 90% black cast of Black Panther: "Hella diverse!" Same for pointing out if you're hiring for diversity and lowering standards for "diverse" hires, you're making it worse for everyone. And as he mentions, this diversity usually isn't. Hiring a bunch of people with the same views but making sure their skin tones or gender identity fill up a big list... Doesn't give you any useful diversity of thought at all. Being intellectually dishonest and acting existentially offended when someone points out the obvious is why the left is losing out, slowly. And it sucks because the backlash is likely to hurt civil rights and progress.

interpol_p 9y ago
> Yet all of a sudden when it comes to mental pursuits (which are physically based in the brain and supporting chemicals), somehow then we're all equally capable and the huge biases that exist when using other organs don't exist. And not only don't exist, but so obviously don't exist that anyone suggesting so is met with "I'm literally shaking". It's not "mental pursuits," it is that our society rewards men the most for excelling in fields which are created and controlled by men. When the majority of CEOs, leadership and top government positions are taken by men, it's going to be easier for men to keep gaining and holding those positions. Women will and do face more discrimination trying to enter these fields purely because they are women. By creating a space for women to excel, by trying to fight the pay gap, and by trying to get women into leadership, we are not discriminating against men. I'm not saying that our society, as it stands, should reflect the population perfectly. I am saying that our society needs to change to treat its population equally. And in doing so our tech companies, governments and other industries will change too. For the better. > Same for pointing out if you're hiring for diversity and lowering standards for "diverse" hires, you're making it worse for everyone. No one is "lowering standards" for diverse hires. No one. Why are you even implying this? > And as he mentions, this diversity usually isn't. Hiring a bunch of people with the same views but making sure their skin tones or gender identity fill up a big list... Doesn't give you any useful diversity of thought at all. All I got from his manifesto on this was he wants more people who think like him. His manifesto argues for less diversity, if anything. > Being intellectually dishonest and acting existentially offended when someone points out the obvious is why the left is losing out It's not taking offence, it is surprise that so many people are still willing to argue for inequality and are blind to the extreme imbalances of our society.

Goladus 9y ago

Except for the fact that it implies that men are in higher, more well paid positions because of inherent biological traits. His point is quite clearly based on statistical reasoning, not absolutes. He makes this point blatantly clear when he makes the point about salary negotiations. He says that people with high agreeableness have more trouble negotiating than people with low agreeableness. Because high agreeableness is statistically more common among women, this is treated as a gender issue when it is quite clearly a personality issue. If you're going to consider this a problem, why not address agreeableness directly? Why frame it as a gender issue that ignores both agreeable men and disagreeable women?