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On managing outrage in Silicon Valley
- mnm1 9y agoThis idea that all opinions are equal and need to be respected is ridiculous and needs to stop. Politics is real and political opinions and actions have real consequences. Not all political opinions should be respected. In fact, it's our duty as citizens to evaluate and mock / scorn the opinions of others that we see as toxic. No one is protected from this and people that think they are, are feeling entitled to something that they do not deserve. Protections of free speech apply to government actions only. This isn't a free speech case. Google can do whatever it wants, including firing the poster of the manifesto. If Google, for whatever reason or no reason, doesn't want such thinking in its organization, it should have no qualms about firing the poster. There is no safe space, except from the government, for political opinions. The poster should know that by know. People have been fired for way less. Many companies would not want a toxic person like that in their midst and that's perfectly fine. It creates a toxic workplace and brings everyone else down. That's a great reason to fire someone.
- jblow 9y agoI find pretty unconscionable this line of rhetoric, which I see a lot lately from people on the left: "this isn't a free speech issue, because it's not the government doing the censoring". I want to live in a society that embraces liberal values like freedom of expression. Preventing the government from encroaching on those values is a good idea. But if we then go and clamp down on those freedoms everywhere else, then it won't matter that the government doesn't do it -- nobody will be able to express themselves freely anyway. This seems to be the society that the 'progressives' want and it disturbs me enough to have completely alienated me from that movement, and I am far from the only one, so I don't know why they aren't stopping and questioning the efficacy of this philosophy right about now. If we are really a society that embraces liberal values, then we want those values to be upheld throughout the society, not just in the part explicitly controlled by laws.
- mnm1 9y agoSo then the government should step in and provide protections against his firing? Should they tell Google, no you can't fire this guy even though you don't like him and he's bringing down the morale of your whole workforce? Should that apply to someone who might actually be a neo-Nazi or become one during an employment term? Should Google be forced to hire / unable to fire people tattooed with swastikas or ones that verbally support ISIS or any other number of despicable positions? And how is the government going to choose the right side of enforcement here? Company A wants to fire an employee for X and now we have government intervention to the utmost degree. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of society that "embraces liberal values like freedom of expression." No one has a right to a job or to not have their opinions trashed because they're stupid, cruel, or whatever they may be. If you're complaining that corporations have too much power, I agree, but that's a completely different point.
- jblow 9y agoNo, I didn't say anything of the kind. I am saying that this kind of mob shaming-and-silencing mentality is deplorable. And if you choose to engage in that, then you will alienate a lot of people, including many of the best people. I am not saying anything about government, and as I said in my previous posting, I find it weird that people keep jumping to this. We're talking about ethics, not law.
- mnm1 9y agoAt least we agree that some acts of expression are deplorable, just not which ones.
- rcoveson 9y agoNot implying that I agree with anything the author said, but could you give an example of a "toxic" quote from the original memo? I'm confused because your comment makes it sound like we're talking about some vitriolic diatribe, which isn't the case at all. Honestly, this whole thread could use more quotes from the original text. It's disturbing to me how much meta-conversation is being had about the author and his email without real examples. One of the biggest failings of the memo was its lack of citation where it was most needed; can we not hold ourselves to a higher standard?
- mnm1 9y agoThat's really up to Google to decide in this case. My personal opinion on whether his writings are toxic is irrelevant. It seems a lot of people are outraged by it, both in and out of Google. If Google does decide that this is toxic, even if just from a PR point of view, they should have no problem firing the guy. That's my point. Expressing opinions is not an action without consequences.
- rcoveson 9y agoI agree with you, but I would add to what you're saying by noting that this very thread and the opinions expressed in it, along with those expressed by the media, will influence Google's decision in a huge way. If a sufficient percentage of the general public considers this memo toxic and irredeemable, this guy could get fired (and I agree, that is absolutely Google's prerogative). On the other hand, if the pervasive opinion is that the views he expressed, wrong or right, were not expressed in an overly negative or aggressive way, Google is likely to keep their engineer. This isn't unlike The Oatmeal vs. Funnyjunk, or the United Airlines thing. The Internet and the opinions expressed on it really do make decisions for people, companies, juries, and the like.
- mnm1 9y agoI agree that the opinions of the general public will influence that decision. To some extent, they should as they have always done. This is part of living in a society and sharing things electronically. One needs to be aware of this before sharing opinions, especially when they are specifically related to one's employment. This isn't a case of making a joke on Twitter and getting fired for it. His opinions also have an effect on his co workers and the whole company so I see no reason why this shouldn't be so. Imagine trying to work with this guy as a woman, knowing he thinks less of you simply because you're a woman. He really should have thought of this before sharing his rant or even putting it on a computer. He can't claim he doesn't know what happens to shared digital data (you can't control it) because he's a Google engineer.
- thescribe 9y agoI agree as long as your ideas are equally mocked. Otherwise your position boils down to "No one should be able to disagree with me as long as I say the topic is sensitive"
- mnm1 9y agoIt's up to others how much they mock my ideas. No one can guarantee equality in the mocking, but yes all people should be free to mock, disagree, or respond however they wish to my ideas.
- stefantalpalaru 9y ago> Protections of free speech apply to government actions only. From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
- whipoodle 9y agoMaybe it's okay for people to be outraged about some things.
- fireflash38 9y agoSure is! People can be offended all they want. Where things get really iffy is when they want 'justice'. It often means that they try to get that person fired or lambasted in front of their peers. I don't see how that's at all constructive, let alone 'justice'. At the very least, it leads to even more divisiveness, instead of rational discussion. As a thought experiment: have you ever seen someone change their mind or worldview as a result of being insulted & fired?
- navait 9y agoMy manager threatened one of my co-workers with termination if they didn't take a more proactive approach towards making the code he wrote more robust. He took out specific examples of shit code he wrote, and had us criticize it and the mindset that created it. It changed how he programmed for the better and his outlook towards his job.
- stagbeetle 9y agoThe first step is to want to help. Too many, all across the spectrum, have his mindset that people that do or think things they don't like should be destroyed and locked away from "civilized society." A common rebuttal I see from these sorts, after being questioned why they don't take it upon themselves to sit down and understand one another (I will concede there is a very very very small minority that this shouldn't be done with, but you're unlikely to ever interact with them), is that it's not their duty to help these people. Unfortunately, this makes the issue worse when you start exiling certain groups and radicalized with hate. Here's an interesting article (isolated incident) where those with extreme views were shown compassion and understanding, and ultimately disavowed their ideas: Black Man Gets KKK Members To Disavow By Befriending Them: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-man-daryl-davis-befriends-kkk-documentary-accidental-courtesy_us_585c250de4b0de3a08f495fc http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-man-daryl-davis-be...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sbierwagen 9y agoIt's interesting to note that the only reason this is a news story is because "a Google engineer" wrote it. If the essay had been published entirely anonymously, then it would have attracted no attention at all, like a dozen similar essays. The story is the source, not the content.
- JoshTriplett 9y agoThe story is not "a Google engineer wrote it". The story is "a large fraction of Google circulated and endorsed it". That's what makes this news.
- jerrylives 9y agoHave there been any articles / pieces about it from women working at Google? I'd be interested in hearing that perspective.
- tptacek 9y agoA large fraction of Google circulated it. Is there evidence that a large fraction endorsed it? That's not remotely the impression I get.
- camperman 9y agoMore than a third of respondents to his survey either strongly or almost agreed with the documents point of view.
- pnathan 9y agoWhat happens when the lone voice is in the right, and the mass of people are in the wrong, and all of the preponderance of current science and wisdom is against the lone voice? It's no great stretch to find examples through history of this in different social contexts.
- s73ver 9y agoIf the preponderance of current science is against the lone voice, then it's highly likely that the lone voice is not in the right.
- arnioxux 9y ago"Science" is often thrown around to justify things it shouldn't. Sociology hasn't had as much success as "hard" sciences so we should distinguish between the two. (for example with the controversy around major psychology experiments being unreplicable etc)
- glenstein 9y agoIn the history of science we are apt to celebrate singular voices that overturn conventional wisdom. What we don't see is the large number of cranks with TimeCube theories who imagine themselves to be geniuses. The history of science has a kind of survivorship bias toward good ideas, and most people who think they're the next Galileo are almost definitely wrong.
- wutbrodo 9y agoI have some pretty ironclad faith in the scientific method, but far less so in the scientific establishment. Don't get me wrong, I don't think scientists are doing a bad job and don't think I could do any better as an individual if I were a scientist. But most people's understanding of "science" goes through tons of filters that hurt its quality: statistical illiteracy among scientists, messed-up incentives in the publishing process, political pressure within research, skew in what the media is incentivized to cover, the obscene amount of dishonesty and incompetence in science reporting, etc etc. I've yet to meet someone with such faith in science whose understanding of what "science" is goes beyond pop-science articles and things that all of their friends "know" are scientific fact.
- blablabla123 9y agoThe thing is, the guy wrote what many people think - outside of tech. It just so happens that techies happen to be very open oftentimes. I mean, what this person wrote, I heard it on various occasions in different formulations from various people. Even a woman (a Psychologist student at that time) once told me she'd rather have a male dentist and a male president. I imagine tech industry to be brutal for woman, but so are probably a lot of other areas like construction works, virtually anything with hand-labour involved, not to speak about the military. Anyways, it's great that people in the tech industry speak what they think. Maybe things change faster this way.
- geofft 9y ago> The thing is, the guy wrote what many people think - outside of tech. Sure, but tech is a field that requires intelligence, and Google a company that hires specifically for intelligence. The fact that people are stupid isn't news. The fact that a Google employee is, and that apparently a large fraction of the company agrees with his views, is definitely news. The entire foundation of this essay is based on assumptions, anecdata, and debunked science. It is not an essay rooted in intelligent thought and an honest examination of the facts by any means. It is an ideological position and nothing else.
- blablabla123 9y agoYes, Tech requires intelligence. Google in particular in famous for checking analytical intelligence in their interview. I know that's not 100% correct but I call this "pure number crunching intelligence". People there know how to solve this and that, can approximate problems and solutions. This gender thing might be formulated as an analytical problem but it suffers high complexity. It's better to be understood empirically. But how can these people understand it empirically if there are no women around? Are they reading enough about this complex topic to still make informed decisions? Probably not. I have an illustrative example: in Germany in those regions that have the least foreigners, there are the most Neo Nazis and people are more likely to vote for right wing parties. Disclaimer: I didn't read more than a few sentences of such a stupid essay because I have better to do with my time. But in any case, you cannot solve this problem by writing "a better essay". IMHO this problem has to do with complexity and it cannot be solved with facts.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y ago> I don’t think it made much sense, and what I did understand of it seemed very poorly argued. As someone who forms opinions, I care more about the argument than how poorly it was argued. Is it biased, or even racist or sexist, of me to have such a view? Edit: I wish the author of this piece sounded less frightened.
- jff 9y agoI'd be frightened too if I was writing an article on Techcrunch that could potentially be seen as supporting the memo too much, since as we've seen that's the sort of thing that gets people fired once Twitter finds out about it.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago> He is one individual in a company that employs more than 72,000 people. Why has Silicon Valley spent the weekend talking about him Because we're not talking about a memo posted by one random engineer that got the reaction it deserved for declaring a large fraction of his co-workers sub-standard engineers (among the myriad broken things in that memo). That would have been a story for all of five minutes. Instead, we're talking about how a large fraction of a major tech company quickly and enthusiastically endorsed it and circulated it. "Hey, finally someone says it ought to be OK for me to denigrate my co-workers, treat them as sub-standard engineers and sub-standard humans, and propagate junk science to prop up my prejudice! I feel validated!" That this is even remotely a popular sentiment, rather than something that gets you treated like you just said "the earth is flat", is the story here.
- Dude2018 9y agoWell you cant have positive discrimination and claim it's meritocracy. It's a shame it casts a negative light on diversity people who actually joined Google through effort rather quotas.
- jblow 9y agoDid you read the memo? It doesn't seem like it.
- geofft 9y agoI have read the memo, and this seems like an accurate summary. It's phrased in words that sound reasonable, but the ideas aren't reasoned, and it's a particularly common trick to use reasonable words to express unreasoned ideas to fool those who only skim a text.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoSee, that's kind of the problem right there. You define the ideas to be "unreasoned", and therefore any presentation of those ideas is unacceptable, no matter how stated. Can you state why you find the ideas unreasonable, without some variant of "all right-thinking people know", and without misrepresenting the ideas?
- kristianc 9y agoThe major elephant in the room here, which the memo doesn't seem to address, is that as late as the 1960's, computer programming was seen as a natural career for young women. Has biology changed that much in the last fifty years?
- nancye 9y agoThe chart from this article is worth looking at: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... It wasn't just in the sixties - women's participation in computer science was growing until the mid eighties. As a woman who's helped other women learn to code, all I can say is that the interest is certainly still out there.
- toxiccwm 9y agoNo one who is serious about this doubts that there are women who are interested in tech and able to acquire the skills. The key question is how many women have this interest, absent any worries about matching the number to men perfectly. Even asking that question apparently causes a very interesting reaction.
- sillysaurus3 9y agoOne possibility is that a massive number of men picked up coding in the 80's. Anyone have a graph that shows absolute numbers rather than percentage points?
- Houshalter 9y agoI recall reading a study somewhere that showed by High School, there are about the same percentage of girls interested in computers as the percentage of women in the tech industry. This article seems to present the same hypothesis, that girls are less likely to have access to a computer and develop an interest in programming. If this is the case, then the gender imbalance has nothing to do with sexism in the tech industry or hiring practices. Google's efforts to hire more women is doomed to failure if there aren't an equal percentage of women coming in the first place.
- OoTheNigerian 9y agoSilicon Valley controls a lot of the world's communication and we should be really worried if silencing of unpopular opinions is the order of the day. As a "minority" I perhaps disagree with a lot of what this person has written but my reaction to it will be to counter his arguments with a better one rather than go on to silence him. -- I have already written about this somewhat during the past elections. https://medium.com/@oothenigerian/trump-v-clinton-silicon-valleys-mind-bending-hypocrisy-is-more-of-a-threat-to-freedom-than-dd6263af03ac https://medium.com/@oothenigerian/trump-v-clinton-silicon-va...
- cm2187 9y agoAnd calling "fake news" any opinion they disagree with. I find it pretty problematic that Facebook wants to police the political debate. Kind of like if gmail started blocking emails sent to a gmail account if it disagrees with its content.
- hncens0rship 9y agoAnd yet this community argued heavily against the idea that social media sites were censoring conservative opinions during the election / now. lol.
- yesbabyyes 9y ago> Kind of like if gmail started blocking emails sent to a gmail account if it disagrees with its content. I'm pretty sure that gmail's superior spam filter was one of its big initial selling points?
- losteverything 9y ago< But this groupthink terrifies me when it’s used to bully people for exercising their right to free speech. How will we know what people are truly thinking if we rush to silence them? This is called growing up. We dont need to know how everyone thinks. We dont want to know either. We tailor our words to our audience. We avoid saying or typing dumb things. We only say what we really feel to our confidante. These outwardly stupid writings are simply that: bad childish judgement.
- caseysoftware 9y agoLet's be honest. Many companies and people - such as yourself - don't want dissent. And that's fine. You'll have total agreement and get a lot done.. for a while. But then the clueful people will leave and be replaced with yes (wo)men who know what productive work looks like but are incapable of actually doing useful things. A great organization that makes leaps and bounds will turn into an okay company that grows by a couple points a year.. and then get wiped out when the new thing/idea comes along.
- losteverything 9y agoThe author used the word "terrified" groupthink bullies. I say it is not a fear as being grown up means outlandish words are understandable ( ie not grown up) Its not about dissent... I put opinion texts in the same category as amazon reviews: the first few are not to be believed.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y ago> We dont need to know how everyone thinks. We dont want to know either. So ignore it? You must hate graffiti.
- losteverything 9y agoI need to know how my relative thinks, not my neighbor's sister. Yes. Tuning out people what i do.
- bkeroack 9y agoHacker culture used to trend towards libertarian ideals: free speech absolutism, cyberpunk freedom, etc. Now we have a huge mass of people at Google forming a rage mob to punish someone for expressing an unpopular idea. Should people lose their livelihoods and be blacklisted from the industry because you disagree with them? (see also Brendan Eich)
- drewrv 9y agoMost people don't want to work with jerks, and in a libertarian ideal would be free to choose whether to do so. Most companies choose to get rid of jerks for a ton of sensible reasons. In a libertarian ideal they'd be free to choose who to hire/fire. Large groups calling for someone to lose their job is totally in line with libertarian ideals. Nobody is calling for government regulation, this is just the (employment) market at work.
- Dude2018 9y agoWho is the majority at Google though? You might be surprised that it is silent and the other kind of jerks would have to leave.
- shaftoe 9y agoThat's all well and good, but one of the core instincts of libertarianism is a deep distrust of angry mobs. I don't think the SV crowd gets how reasonable the author looks to everyone else and how unreasonable the angry rants on Twitter look.
- CodeCube 9y ago"everyone else" ... I don't know man, I haven't been ranting about this on twitter, and I find the author's document to be completely unreasonable, and many of the arguments against it to be entirely reasonable. Maybe this just says more about our individual social groups ... or one of us is wrong about how prevalent one viewpoint is vs the other. Could be me :)
- burntsushi 9y ago
- Meekro 9y ago"If Galileo had said that people in Padua were ten feet tall, he would have been regarded as a harmless eccentric. Saying the earth orbited the sun was another matter. The church knew this would set people thinking." -- Paul Graham, What You Can't Say [1] "And worse than simply thinking these things or saying them in private, you’ve said them in a way that’s tried to legitimize this kind of thing across the company, causing other people to get up and say “wait, is that right?”" -- senior Google guy, in condemnation of the essay [2] [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html [2] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788 https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
- hncens0rship 9y agoSV/YC culture is extremely toxic, and people hate having that pointed out to their faces. edit: sv/yc are toxic for how they actively shame outsider opinions, then headhunt the individuals who put said opinions forward. from sama's what i heard from trump supporters, "Almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names—even people from very red states were worried about getting “targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him”. One person in Silicon Valley even asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement before she would talk to me, as she worried she’d lose her job if people at her company knew she was a strong Trump supporter." like for instance on this website, where flagged & downvoted comments lead to rate limiting. sorry guy i can't respond to, it's the mods' fault. minority opinions get to say 1, maybe 2 things, before being silenced. controversial threads are flagged or removed by dang and co from the front page within an hour. ever have a convo with a conservative on here, where they just stopped responding to you? was probably silenced by the moderation team. this discussion is flagged to obscurity, while the stupid circle jerk post about "google engineer breaking his bubble through global travel!" is on the front still. http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump-supporters http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump-supporters
- johan_larson 9y agoToxic how?
- guelo 9y agoSo you like free speech except when people use their speech to call out speech they don't like? Let's stop bullshitting, this isn't about any core principles, it's just another battleline in our ugly politics.
- EddieRingle 9y agoOne of my first exposures to this "manifesto" was on Twitter with someone starting a thread with "Google has a Nazi problem." The majority of the other responses I read either attacked the author, dismissed the entire text in whole, and/or refused to actually argue the paper's points because they saw them as so ridiculous or "obviously" wrong. I read the paper. I don't see at all how it relates to fascism, Trumpism, or whatever you want to call it. I am against discrimination, and that includes positive discrimination. If there were factual inaccuracies in what the author wrote, why not discuss them? Why not use high-quality sources to validate your argument? I wish it was the opposite, but I don't have the time to research the psychological/sociological perspectives on these issues. Human civilization has grown thanks to being able to specialize. I specialize and (hopefully) make contributions in one field, but I depend on others that have specialized elsewhere to provide knowledge and resources I can depend on.
- grey-area 9y agoSince most of these threads are pretty content free, and you asked for it, here's a rebuttal, by a woman who's good at math. https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/slideshow/embed_code/key/3LAlcESJTBxIBg https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/slideshow/embed_code/key/3... Of course men and women are different on average, but are they different enough to justify the massive disparity in tech? No.
- EddieRingle 9y agoThanks! However after looking through the slide deck, it seems that the author tries to argue that because mathematic ability isn't so important in CS, biological differences can't explain the disparity between the men and women in CS. That's a quite a leap, I think. If CS doesn't involve a lot of math, what does it involve that might be impacted by biological or psychological causes? (P.S. I went to a STEM high school and I know plenty of women who are absolutely stellar in mathematics and science, so I know that's not the issue here.)
- grey-area 9y agoNo, that's not the argument, perhaps read all the slides, in particular slides 20/21. It's true that cs doesn't involve a lot of math, but that's really just a side point and a little in joke for mathematicians. The argument is the disparity is so small that it could not account for the massive disparity we see in tech. Re your question on biological or psychological causes, why limit your consideration to those areas? The evidence points to social or economic causes, given the large shifts in women over just a few decades: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...
- artursapek 9y agoWhy are people so outraged at this guy? I read what he wrote and it honestly sounds like he's trying to be helpful. It's at least polite. The knee-jerk "SEXIST!" reactions to him come off extremely self-righteous and immature. There are a hundred other male-dominated careers and I never, ever hear women complain about not being equally represented in them. Why? Because they're not attractive careers.
- dudul 9y agoIn addition to career attractiveness, the thing is tech is an easy target for the modus operandi. Companies in tech deeply need to have a good image and reputation. When your business model is B2C and you're targeting growth at all cost you can't afford a boycott campaign on Twitter, or a few blog posts on medium about sexual harassment, etc. Other mostly male-dominated industries do not have this characteristic. Do construction companies care about PR? Do financial companies care? Do oil exploitation companies care?
- cm2187 9y agoI am not sure Uber users really care about sexism at Uber when it's 2am, they are outside of a bar and need to find a cab. I don't think users will switch away from gmail or google.com en masse because of the male/female ratio in this company. In fact outside of the microcosm of the Silicon Valley and its satellites, I don't think these issues are drawing that much attention.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cm2187 9y agoAnd hundreds of female dominated careers that no one seems to find problematic. In France, judges or doctors are predominantly female. These are high skills/high responsibility jobs. I don't see anyone claiming this is a discrimination.
- kristianc 9y agoIt seems that the focus is always on the reaction to these pieces, and I wonder why. It's obvious why people are angry - he's trying to find a biological justification to exclude a class of people from a high-status career. That's something that has mostly been dismissed as quackery, and has been shown to have some pretty negative consequences throughout history. The onus of people who want to stick up for this guy is surely to find evidence to support his proposition, rather than go after people mad at the content of the post itself?
- nyxtom 9y agoChange is hard for everyone with any systemic bias in the game. Outrage is a byproduct of that systemic bias and comes from a primal level need to eliminate a percieved threat. It's quite natural of a reaction. But it only proves the authors point overall. Nevertheless, someone can have a seemingly innocent and accurate observation such as: there appear to be less women in tech overall and we seem to be forcing policies which appear to reduce the overall quality of our performance. Some of this may be subjective, "quality" for instance. His conclusions and assumptions may or may not be accurate and may not make a difference in moving the needle forward. Some might be accurate on some standard deviation level. But he doesn't deserve to be fired or harmed for putting out his opinion. It is natural to want to be outraged by something that is interpreted as a threat and there is significant historical context for doing so. Hostility towards women working at all as one example. Or perhaps for instance, the "bro"/"frat" culture of silicon valley being pretty rampant. A side effect of hiring people straight out of college perhaps? The only way to be constructive in this is to continue to challenge the status quo. Violent outrage does nothing but prove the point that we are incapable of getting past any systemic bias to make our case heard. I appreciate the effort to try and question the effectiveness of a policy and question the bias of a percieved political echo chamber. If there is historical precendent (and I claim there is) that refutes the underlying argument, then state those clearly. One such example is that women have repeatedly mentioned exiting the field because of how they are typically treated by their peers. It is a bit ironic that the author mentions tribalism as a problem at Google because exclusivity of women, bros promoting bros, and the overall bias is quite obvious in the industry. Another commenter mentioned this here, but the obvious historical context for programming and computer science being a natural fit for women in the early days. Social tribalism and the echo chamber indeed has everything to do with the problem, but not in the way I think many are implying. To wit, I actually think that also approaching diversity of thought would be beneficial to Google - perhaps even help eliminate the same homogenous bro culture; just as much as it might help reduce progressive bias or any other systemic bias that plagues the community from hiring diverse talent.
- russelluresti 9y agoRegarding the "is it okay to fire this engineer" argument the author is making - here's what I'd ask the author. If you were managing the team this person was on, would you feel comfortable placing a female engineer on the team to work with him knowing the he fundamentally believes women are inadequate engineers? That answer should be "No." By that alone, that engineer has created a toxic team environment. You can't put a female engineer on his team, he can't work across teams with other female engineers, he shouldn't be interviewing potential female engineers given his obvious bias against them, etc. If this isn't a reason to fire someone - what is?
- SamReidHughes 9y ago"knowing the he fundamentally believes women are inadequate engineers?" He doesn't believe that at all, and I'd like to hear why you think he does.
- bassman9000 9y agoYou've clearly misrepresented his views, and probably haven't read the thing at all. His point is against positive discrimination trying to even what he perceives is an statistical reality: less women apply for the job for biological reasons. The fact that there are less women applying doesn't mean you can't find one suitable for the job, and one that's better than any other candidate applying for it.
- copx 9y agoTry to find even just one female neuroscientist or evolutionary biologist who argues that men and women are not fundamentally different at a biological level and that the different behaviors, the different interests and preferences we are seeing are not largely rooted in biology. The author of this piece pretends that the opinion of ignorant far-left loonies is somehow the reasonable and intelligent one while the engineer who simply referred to the scientific consensus is the one who is ignorant. No, the SJWs are ignorant, in fact delusional. The science backing that men and women are fundamentally different, including how their brains work, is much more solid and clear than say the science behind climate change. Not that I deny climate change, or that it is man-made and an existential threat. Those are reasonable assumptions based on the scientific evidence we have. However, the assumption that men and women only behave differently and make different career choices because of some "evil sexist patriarchy" which is indoctrinating and forcing people into certain gender roles.. that is not a reasonable assumption. It is completely at odds with the state of science. It is a shame that a company like Google whose business is based so heavily on science and engineering gives in to these crazed post-modernists who are willfully ignorant of all science which contradicts their insane ideology. Also this has nothing to do with trying to exclude women from IT. Nobody denies that there are women who genuinely enjoy, say, software engineering and are good at it and nobody says they should be disqualified because of their sex. But the truth is that there are far less women than men who are like that, and that this will never change because of biological factors. Maybe one can increase the number of women in IT a bit more by addressing cultural factors still keeping them out, but you will never see an equal number.
- grey-area 9y agoHi, no one is arguing that men and women are identical, but here is a ref to some research on the topic https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/slideshow/embed_code/key/3LAlcESJTBxIBg https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/slideshow/embed_code/key/3... See slide 20 and 21 for the citation. Perhaps you feel this is the product of 'an insane ideology', personally I find it more convincing than the huge jumps in your argument and the original one, which jump from the assertion that men and women are different (I think most agree), to there are less women than men in IT, ergo there are far less women who enjoy or are capable of engineering. In academic studies even tiny variations between genders are interesting, in real life not so much, the gap between genders would have to be very large to matter given the variation in individuals and experience levels. In case you're not feeling convinced here is a graph which I find hard to square with a biological difference incapacitating women when near technology: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... Early computing science had a lot of women; a woman helped land men on the moon, but the declined dranaticallly till recently over just a few decades. I find your argument that women just don't like tech for biological reasons unconvincing.
- fnovd 9y agoI read the memo, and compared to the stuff I read from the real "deplorables" (on 4chan, The_Donald, etc.), it was pretty tame. Yes, many of his ideas are backwards and unjustified. At the same time, many of his arguments were perfectly sane (e.g. silencing all dissenting opinions leads to an increasingly toxic and divided culture). If you want people like him to actually change their minds, you have to be willing to hear them out first. You can't show someone where they went wrong if they're too scared to tell you what they think in the first place. Sexism in the workplace clearly exists. We've seen it manifest too many times for any rational person to deny it. At the same time, many of the initiatives that SV companies pursue to combat sexism are treating the symptoms rather than the cause. Googlers should try to make sure that they are consciously fighting their unconscious biases when hiring, but changing your hiring practices isn't going to eradicate sexism. Many of these diversity "action-plans" are more effective at improving a company's PR than they are at actually combating sex-related discrepancies. They become self-serving, even though their goal is noble. The author of the memo was trying to get at that, but that message was lost due to his problematic views on biological determinism, among other things.
- warcher 9y agoThis is increasingly my concern-- There really seems to be a prevailing opinion that racism and sexism are just fine when directed towards white men. You can drag a white guy for pretty much any societal ill you like on the internet these days, and while there are some pretty great points to be made with respect to blaming a lot of modern society's problems on its principal architects (old white dudes), this is no way to win hearts and minds. We're currently suffering through four years of self-imposed punishment as a result of being a bunch of judgmental assholes in pursuit of a goal that any reasonable human would accept as self-evident-- that people deserve to be treated fairly and without prejudice, no matter their race, sex, gender identity, et cetera. That the American Dream is available equally to all Americans. I spend a lot of time offering feedback to people in a professional capacity and I am frankly shocked at the level of discourse I see on the internet from progressives. If I pulled this kind of shit at work I'd be finished, because I don't see any way I could possibly be effective communicating an idea to anybody in this fashion. Almost as if the media doesn't really give a shit about justice or equality, but rather generating rage-clicks and internet lynch mobs to move advertising inventory. :-\
- rhapsodic 9y agoNo matter what side of this debate you're on, I don't think you can argue against the notion that there is only one side of it whose adherents can feel completely free to express their opinions or argue their case without fear of retaliation. Many stupid, unsupportable statements have been made by people on the left side, but I've yet to see much in the way of internet rage mobs formed against them. I think if google tries to punish the manifesto's author, there needs to be a massive backlash. Perhaps a grassroots effort to lobby the federal government to bust them up as a monopoly. It doesn't matter what, just cause them pain and suffering through whatever legal means are available. Suppose, for example, once Yonatan Zunger's current employer becomes public knowledge, that company was inundated with phone calls and nasty tweets until they decide that keeping on the payroll is not worth the trouble. Would that be fair? I don't think so, but it would no different than if the manifesto author is outed and fired for expressing his opinions.
- rhapsodic 9y agoThe parent of this post is getting a lot of upvotes, and a lot of downvotes.
- jmull 9y agoFight angry outrage with threats of angry outrage? It's hard to see how that makes sense. Personally, I hope Google ignores the angry people on all sides and does the right thing. I think it's ok to have principles and standards and to stick by them when the situation is tough. (Otherwise, what's the point?)
- rhapsodic 9y ago>Fight angry outrage with threats of angry outrage? It's hard to see how that makes sense. Not threats of angry outrage, actual angry outrage. The left's tactics should be used against them, in greater degrees, until they cease using those tactics.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoShow them how wrong they are by becoming like them? That's... not very wise. Also cowardly.
- 11thEarlOfMar 9y agoLikewise, are they different enough to justify the massive disparity in nursing? As of 2011, 90% of nurses in the US were women[0]. That's even more skewed than tech. Moreover, the average income of a nurse in Silicon Valley is $100k. To my knowledge, there is no outcry or movement to bring more men into the nursing profession. [0] https://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupations.pdf https://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupa...
- GVIrish 9y agoThat's kinda whataboutism though. Yes there is a disparity in nursing, teaching, garbage collection, whatever. How is that relevant to tech? The issue in question is that women (and minorities) are underrepresented and sometimes experience discrimination/unfair treatment in the IT industry. Why is that, and what are some solutions to that? Do we need solutions to that? If the nursing profession addressed gender disparity in some way that can be applied to tech, then that is worthy of inclusion in this discussion. If not, it's not particularly relevant.
- URSpider94 9y agoThere, in fact, is a movement to bring more men into nursing. http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2011/09/male-nurses-break-through-barriers-to-diversify-profession.html http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2011/09/mal... Quotes from the article: "Through this initiative, called 20 x 20: Choose Nursing, it awards scholarships to undergraduate and graduate male nursing students; recognizes excellent nursing schools for men; and has created a poster advertising campaign designed to appeal to men." “One day, men might actually make up 50 percent of the nursing workforce, in a similar way that women have been able to enroll and work in law, engineering and medicine,” Lecher says. “That would be true gender inclusion and balance.” And, there are some really good reasons to have more men in nursing -- as nurses take over more and more primary care duties from physicians, it's a really good idea to have gender diversity in providers, especially for sensitive issues like prostate care and STD's.
- mcguire 9y agoSlightly more up-to-date data: http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and-risk/gender-ratio-of-nurses-across-50-states.html http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and-risk/... There is, indeed, a movement to bring more men into the nursing profession. "Although all of the benefits of becoming a nurse would plausibly outshine any kind of challenges nurses face...there are still reasons that prevent men from eagerly pursuing a career in nursing. Even today, despite the growth in healthcare, nursing is still perceived as a field that is less prestigious, and so requires less training and education. One male student, named Gillis, noted that a recent graduate of Stanford, who was interested in a nursing program, was told, “Stanford grads don’t become nurses.” There were also students, ones who excelled in school, but were also told something along the lines of, “You’re too smart to become a nurse.” Also, there’s that old sense that men still feel as if nursing is a female profession, and so men choose to pursue a field that’ll be viewed as more appropriate for men. "Of the nearly five hundred [male nurses] who participated [in a survey] 73 percent claimed that negative stereotypes of men working as nurses realistically contributed to the shortage, 59 percent noted that what might deter men was that nursing has always, especially in previous generations, been seen as a female profession, and the rest, 42 percent felt that men lacked male models and mentors within the field." http://everynurse.org/men-entering-predominantly-female-career-field/ http://everynurse.org/men-entering-predominantly-female-care... https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/mar/01/why-so-few-male-nurses https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/mar/01/w... Even more, men have some advantages in the nursing profession. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/03/124266/male-registered-nurses-make-thousands-more-salary-female-counterparts https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/03/124266/male-registered-nur... https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/04/why-do-male-nurses-get-paid-more https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/04/why-do-... https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/08/women-in-leadership https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/08/women-i...
- mcguire 9y agoI'm a little confused when he writes, "Yet a newer form of discrimination is starting to greatly alarm me, and that’s discrimination against anyone with a point of view that’s deemed offensive to the tech majority." This has been the case for as long as I've been in the industry. Heck, it's probably older than the industry. Simply saying, "there’s still far too little diversity" has been enough to get you mocked, downvoted, shouted down, and generally dismissed for decades. There's nothing at all new about it.
- asciicircum 9y agoCould someone opposed to the arguments the manifesto makes explain to me what quotes caused them to strongly dislike it? Reading the reactions to the manifesto I'm left feeling like I'm taking crazy pills. I must have read a different manifesto. AFAICT the main idea of the manifesto is that biological differences between men and women account for part of the representation gap. This seems to be perfectly logical and fair to me. Whether the explained part is significant or just a fraction of a percent should definitely be discussed. The available version of the manifesto not having its sources makes this a lot harder though. > The text of the post is reproduced in full below, with some minor formatting modifications. Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted. If your offense is with the manifesto misrepresenting the amount of the gap explained by biological differences I can relate to your point of view and this post is not directed at you (which quotes of the manifesto lead to this impression would still be interesting to hear). If not, I would really like to understand where you are coming from. The manifesto does not seem sexist (e.g. representing women in tech as inadequate) to me. Some quotes from the manifesto to support my claim: > I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. > 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 > Many of these [biological] 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. > I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. > I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism). Please help me understand.
- peacetreefrog 9y agoThe problem is bringing up biological differences (even just in terms of groups and allowing for lots of individual overlap, and even in this case, when the differences aren't nec better or worse, just differences). It's a non-starter to many people, particularly on the left (see the Bell Curve). One the one hand, I sort of get it, given historically people have used biology/similar arguments to justify a lot of awful things. If Hitler was around now, it'd be sort of disgusting to ask people to engage his argument on its merits (this is where some of the Nazi language re: this manifesto comes in I think). But, when it's presented like it is here, making clear that individual variation is much greater than differences between groups (e.g., he's not talking about existing female engineers at google or anyone else in particular), stressing that diversity/human dignity/worth etc are all paramount even if there are group level biological differences/trends. Then I think the lynch mob/monoculture/not engaging reaction is in the wrong, and the reaction to this very much proves one of the guy's main points. But that's my two cents.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ben_jones 9y agoCan we also acknowledge that a lot of groups are profiting from outrage?
- PrimalDual 9y agoWhen I first read the manifesto, It sounded like a regurgitation of Jordan Peterson's content. After being immersed in his lectures I found it very hard to contradict his points not just because of his eloquence but also because of his method for vetting ideas. I am very glad that his stuff has gained so much popularity because I may finally find counterpoints stick against his arguments.
- merdreubu 9y agoThere's also a fair amount of Jonathan Haidt influence.
- mempko 9y agoJust as he has a right to say it, I have a right to argue, complain, ridicule, etc. Why should his view be given a platform while mine is denounced. Seems people want to silence his critics. Controversial views are not safe from criticism just as any other views.
- mcappleton 9y agoWomen don't go into tech because they don't like it. Boys like legos, girls like dolls. Sure there are occasional tomboys but the fact is most girls just don't like engineering.
- Moshe_Silnorin 9y agoDon't try to gaslight people. Posting terrible arguments for sides you disagree with is lame epistemic pollution.
- mcappleton 9y agoLol denying reality to support your fantasy is pretty lame too
- sctb 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952141 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952141 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- thowaway26539 9y agoI think that it would not be a bad thing to have more diversity of thought in the tech community, or at least to have some basic level of considerate behavior toward people with different opinions. I grew up in Red America; while I'm politically neutral/apathetic at this point, most of my friends/family are still varying shades of red. It was a drag to have all of my colleagues constantly and casually make insulting remarks about people that I care about. Once, during an oncall shift, I pulled an all-nighter dealing with PagerDutys trying to keep our team's systems up; came in the next day and had to sit through a presentation where an assortment of republican party figures (no, not just Trump) were used as examples of "low IQ people" as part of some contrived metaphor that speaker was trying to make. Everyone laughed. No one made any comment about how this was unprofessional/inappropriate. Felt pretty angry. This kind of environment is unhelpful to everyone. Obviously for folks on the right it is unpleasant, but for folks on the left it contributes to a culture of excessive contempt and hatred, increasingly detached from any actual contact with the people that they hate. This is not helpful for building winning coalitions.
- dudul 9y agoIt makes me think of one of our Slack channel at work that is full of jokes about Trump, the GOP, stupid republican voters, etc. To make it clear, I personally don't give a damn F about politics, I don't vote, don't follow any political "drama". But the fact that people feel that it is appropriate to do that at work is pretty mind blowing to me.
- int_19h 9y agoIt's the ongoing increase in partisanship. It makes it easier to form ideological bubbles even where they didn't exist before, because the ratio is so skewed to begin with, it's entirely possible to end up in a group of people selected by some unrelated criteria (e.g. a work team), and find out that there's a significant overlap ideologically. So issues that were not okay because of the potential to offend someone etc, gradually become acceptable, because (at one particular point) there was no-one in particular to be offended. Of course, once established as part of the culture, this becomes self-reinforcing...
- Shank 9y ago"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." No matter how you read the original manifesto or the responses to it, I think there's a level of separation one must achieve before they pass judgement on it. If you let yourself live in the binary black-and-white world that the manifesto author created, where views are either left _or_ right, you're bound to get fired up. This is a natural reaction to the fact that party identification and attacking identity tend to trigger much more primal responses than if party was removed. In my humble opinion, Google is a very good example of a company with a mixed culture. They're a hugely conservative company in how they manage their finances, pay taxes, hire employees, and operate their company to the normal world. At the same time, they attempt to create "Googley" spaces where thinking and diversity are promoted. Are these necessarily right wing and left wing ideologies? Maybe. But it's definitely a mix -- you don't see Google spending 100% of its money on social programs, nor do you see it spending 0% of its money on social programs. Does the manifesto author have a reason to write? Yes. He's clearly scared, and clearly feels attacked, perhaps on a regular basis, in the workplace. Like many an engineer before him, he attempted to identify the problem and presented several solutions that may or may not work. Now, were the solutions he presented the correct ones? I personally am inclined to say no. Just as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The article was eloquent and well pointed at specific "problem areas" the author presumed to be at fault. The author did not provide anything to corroborate his hypothesis that things like removal of empathy would do any good to help the situation at Google. Similarly, the author's attack on outreach programs aimed at minorities did not make any effort to show how these programs were exclusively harming non-minority participants. Now, obviously, there are questions on the other side of the plane too -- specifically on whether or not diversity initiatives help or whether or not empathy helps either. I haven't done this research -- but the author hasn't done his research, so I feel this is fair. I'm just pointing out that Google is a for-profit company. They tend to make decisions that are economically viable, and they may or may not have done research on these types of things in the past -- though I would assume they have. Again, this is a company infamous for A/B testing shades of blue for engagement. It would be silly if they were burning their cash pile on programs known to be detrimental or non-working. To summarize: if you write a manifesto, I expect you to pull some figures and prove some points before you start pulling the political party card and getting everyone riled up about your thoughts and opinions. If you read a manifesto, don't conflate perceptions as fact without examining and thinking about them closely for a long period of time. It will ONLY lead to pointless arguing and senseless fighting, while the real issue gets ignored.
- elihu 9y ago> But this groupthink terrifies me when it’s used to bully people for exercising their right to free speech. How will we know what people are truly thinking if we rush to silence them? I think "right to free speech" is a weak and kind of scary argument to be making here. Inside a corporation, you don't have the same right to free speech you would have on the outside. HR can fire employees for things that wouldn't get you arrested for saying in public. To quote the alt-text for https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ > I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express. I think a better argument would be that the "manifesto" wasn't actually saying anything particularly controversial, it was just a statement of opinion that many reasonable people would agree with. Perhaps it contains some assumptions that aren't backed up by recent research, but unknowingly saying something that's not true shouldn't ordinarily be a fireable offense. I would rather work at an employer where employees feel free to discuss hard problems that are relevant to the work environment for which there aren't any easy answers than one where minority opinions (or even majority opinions that contradict the leadership) are silenced. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to work at an employer where people felt free to say deliberately offensive things without repercussion.
- int_19h 9y ago> I think "right to free speech" is a weak and kind of scary argument to be making here. Inside a corporation, you don't have the same right to free speech you would have on the outside. HR can fire employees for things that wouldn't get you arrested for saying in public. It's an argument that certainly makes a lot of sense from a libertarian perspective. But those of us on the left have already dismissed similar arguments - we know that when private commercial entities are sufficiently powerful, the limitations that they impose on their employees, customers etc can be so strong that they cannot be unchallenged (see the entire history of workers' rights movement, basically). We consider this immoral, and advocate for various limitations on the ability of businesses to do whatever they want. If free speech is a public good, then why shouldn't the same standard be applied to it? I'm not even talking about legal aspects here, but purely the ethical side of things - shouldn't we at least condemn a situation where an entire industry effectively suppresses some opinions using its economic levers (employment among them)? And if it's not considered a public good, then that should be explicitly stated, because that used to be one of the pretty basic tenets of liberalism.
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- Const-me 9y agoIn US, only 1.5% plumbers are female: http://www.contractormag.com/blog/stop-calling-yourself-plumbette http://www.contractormag.com/blog/stop-calling-yourself-plum... In IT, in 2008 women held 25% of all professional IT jobs in the US: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/03/22/women-in-tech-female-developers-by-the-numbers/#629291461760 https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/03/22/women-... An order of magnitude difference. I have never seen discussions about gender-based discrimination for plumbers, or biological or sociological factors preventing women to seek career in plumbing. My personal opinion, on average, women just don’t want to do plumbing. And the society seems to be OK with that. I wonder what’s so special with the software development that causes companies to do positive discrimination, gender-based hiring targets, and other stuff these companies apparently do in the US?
- kamaal 9y ago>>I have never seen discussions about gender-based discrimination for plumbers In general only jobs which have a high value of effort/money-earned are preferable to anybody. Im pretty sure most plumbers don't get into plumbing because they are passionate about it. Also curiously you can be passionate about something if you earn well doing it. So, ultimately its all about home much money you can make, at what effort. Make plumbing a high paying job and calls for diversity in plumbing will go up like no tomorrow.
- ubertaco 9y ago>Im pretty sure most plumbers don't get into plumbing because they are passionate about it. I'm pretty sure most office desk jockey computer nerds don't get into being stuck sitting at a desk all day because they're passionate about it. I'm pretty sure most professional head-trauma punching bags don't get into being an NFL defensive tackle because they're passionate about it. I'm pretty sure most accountants don't get into hunching over spreadsheets and calculators because they're passionate about it. See? I can concoct blatantly-false statements from lots of my-opinions-are-universal bubbles!
- kamaal 9y ago
- mvindahl 9y agoLike it or not, I think speaking openly against defined corporate dogma will get you in trouble in most places. He should probably have realized that and adjusted his course accordingly. Outright being fired is a pretty harsh sanction, and in this case it probably only came to this after the story blew up and Google had to exert damage control in public. A more conventional response would be an uncomfortable talk with your manager and the implicit warning of your career being sidetracked. That alone is enough to keep most people in line. I don't think the core of this matter is if he was right or wrong, or if he overstepped the red line of PC. I think it's about any culture or any company having things that you shouldn't say. You can challenge these but you do so at your own peril. I think if a Google employee wrote a ten-page, widely circulated, manifesto on the ickiness of ad trackers, he or she would get into similar trouble.