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It's not about virtue signaling, he was almost certain to be terminated just because it was a ridiculously stupid thing to say - you can't tell your teammates t

• remarkEon 9y ago
  I'm sorry, he did not tell his teammates they were hired because Google lowered the bar. Again, he's talking about on average differences and noting that the goal (50/50 representation) might not only be misguided but actively harmful. Why is this so controversial? He's talking about a process not individuals on his team or anywhere else at Google.
  • danso 9y ago
    At the risk of repeating myself, the memo's author did in fact say that "Google has created several discriminatory practices", which include "hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates". What else are we supposed to infer from the author's assertions if not that at least some of Google's diversity candidates have been let in because of weakened standards? Is he talking about a hypothetical, alternate-universe Google? It doesn't seem so, despite the passive tone of the memo. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.html#document/p6 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideo...
    • DalaiObama 9y ago
      By that logic anyone criticizing a company's hiring practices must be fired. If someone claims their employer discriminates against black candidates, you must equally infer they think some of their white coworkers have been let in because of weakened standards, and out they go... I mean, I'll admit there is a small core of logic there, but I think it's pushed absurdly far. Wouldn't it make more sense if hiring standards could be discussed without firing anyone who wants to change them?
      • makomk 9y ago
        I have in fact occasionally seen similar arguments used by right-wingers when someone complains there aren't enough black people, women, etc somewhere. It struck me as a nasty and cynical rhetorical trick when they did it too - and they didn't even go as far as demanding anyone be fired.
    • peacetreefrog 9y ago
      Doesn't he mention it in the context of an explicit 50/50 men/women goal? Maybe it's achieving that scenario which could lower the bar, without saying anything about the current women working at Google?
      • rustynails77 9y ago
        This is an amazing discussion and it really needs to occur. What scares me is how much this conversation is being ruled by an angry emotive mob, at the expense of democracy and free speech. There is almost no fact in any of these comments. Why MUST we have 50% of male and female in any industry? Have you noticed how almost every media outlet ignores female dominated industries (such as veterinary science) [0], where over 85% of vets in the western world are female? The strongest argument in this thread appears to be that there must be equal numbers for equality, but it's only EVER applied to male dominated industries (Google it if you doubt me). However, not only is this argument unjustified, it's continually selectively applied by most mainstream media outlets, again and again. There is no challenge or balance to any of these arguments from the mainstream media. I am disappointed that Google sacked this engineer. To understand this mindset, you really need to watch this video on Yale. People being shut down from talking because they're male or white [1] or because angry mobs don't like what they have to say. People in this thread talk about sexism and yet they struggle to provide any evidence (while I can point at truck loads of evidence of misandry, eg. domestic violence, veterinary science, etc). This Yale video talks about this exact problem i'm describing. We have a society where you are no longer allowed to express selective views (even with evidence). Google have confirmed this with their dismissal of this engineer. What we've become concerns me deeply. To all of the people who have stood up for free speech (and you're in the clear minority in this thread), I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you want to be able to sort out the media that's worth listening to, watch reporting on this topic closely over the next few days. Look for extreme prejudice and emotive language from the media. To quote an excellent quote from the Yale video, "these are moves of power, not reason" (3 minutes in, [1]). So where are the rational arguments? What about the percentage of female university graduates with relevant skills? What about Dr Simon Baran Cohen's findings on very young children and trends to their thinking patterns? Where are the facts? Why are most people side-stepping facts? Now please re-read this entire thread and ask yourself about freedom of speech. Ask yourself about democracy. Ask yourself about how many people have presented facts. There is something seriously wrong. You should be deeply concerned about the lack of debate, the lack of evidence, the number of emotive arguments and the message Google has sent to anyone who doesn't toe the politically correct line. [0] http://career-advice.careerone.com.au/career-development/professional-development/girls-just-wanna-be-vets/article.aspx http://career-advice.careerone.com.au/career-development/pro... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK4MBzp5YwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK4MBzp5YwM
  • gizmo 9y ago
    He didn't just argue that there was a difference in the distribution but that the underlying cause was biological. Companies like google hire people who excell at certain skills and are therefore at the tail end of the corresponding distribution where the differences in likelihood occurence are largest. If he believes that for engineering there are 10 men for every woman at both tail ends of the distribution then the "natural" gender ratio in engineering teams must be 10:1 or standards are lowered in the name of diversity. The implications of that worldview are totally toxic.
    • qu4z-2 9y ago
      > The implications [...] are toxic. And therefore it is false?
      • gizmo 9y ago
        It is false because the science is bunk. Social conditioning likely explains all (and definitely explains most) of the measured differences, not biology. The author has a popular science level understanding of gender differences. Based on that he concludes women are unsuited to be engineers compared to men.
        • qu4z-2 9y ago
          > It is false because the science is bunk. Well, then make that argument.
    • remarkEon 9y ago
      Which is, of course, not what he said.
    • JSONwebtoken 9y ago
      Why did you present it as if this is just something that the guy "believes?" I thought that was the strongest argument of his memo and the perhaps the point with the biggest scientific backing. If you wanted to pick out any argument out of those 10 pages to disassemble, you could have chosen any one of his arguments that haven't been corroborated by hundreds of years of scientific consensus.
  • budde 9y ago
    He may have not told his direct teammates they lowered the bar but he certainly implied that women and underrepresented groups have at a whole at Google: > The Harm of Google’s biases: ... > - A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates ... > - Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate. Do you really not see the concerns this engineer has introduced for Google over his ability to objectively judge his peers who are women or members of an underrepresented group or at least how such coworkers might now have these concerns if they find themselves working with him? Do you not see how the long-term detriment and risk to Google could be (substantially) greater than the value the engineer brings to the company? Even if you remove the high-mindedness and virtues that tech companies like to project in their PR, do you not see how this is the only rational business choice for a Fortune 50 company?
    • weberc2 9y ago
      Seems like Google introduced the problems, he merely exposed them.
    • bostik 9y ago
      There is something I don't understand. The third quoted line should raise an entirely different question. You are in the position where you want to constantly hire a lot of qualified candidates. If you have discovered a way to decrease false negative rate, why would you not apply that across the board? It's like you have learned how to fix hiring but then carry it out only with some arbitrary cohorts. Sounds irrational to me.
      • panda88888 9y ago
        My guess is maybe because it cost too much to implement it across the board, and the side effect that focused application results in more minority/women hires.
  • RA_Fisher 9y ago
    The paper confused sex and gender badly. E.g. Man and male are not nearly equivalent groups. How could someone who thought so deeply about the subject miss that?
    • odessacubbage 9y ago
      how is the distinction relevant for an engineering candidate? unless you're implying that google has a pilot child labor project in the works it strikes me as highly superfluous
    • remarkEon 9y ago
      I don't think it wise to mix two controversial topics, especially since on their face they seem kind of contradictory. Gender identity discussions and biological dimorphism are both hugely emotional topics, and mixing them here would lead us down a discussion path we don't want to go.
    • rdtsc 9y ago
      > The paper confused sex and gender badly. E.g. Man and male are not nearly equivalent groups. How could someone who thought so deeply about the subject miss that? Ok, but how do you propose the paper to be rewritten taking those into consideration. Or do you suggest that Google force every employee go through a medical exam to determine their sex and make sure no one chooses to identify as a different gender to pass through the hiring process easier... Sorry, I don't quite see what you're getting at there basically, it can interpreted in a few ways.
    • axaxs 9y ago
      For 99% of the world, these terms are interchangeable. How does this argument relate to the article?
      • RA_Fisher 9y ago
        For example there are both transsexual people and transgender people but they're different in kind.
  • bobdole1234 9y ago
    I'd suggest you don't write any manifestos at work, obviously you'll be caught unaware by how people read your text.
    • oceanplexian 9y ago
      I am pretty sure the author didn't call it a manifesto. The label was retroactively applied by those covering the story. It's a great, real-time example of language being subtly manipulated to shape public opinion.
      • rtx 9y ago
        Maybe to relate it to that bombers manifesto, since there is a show about it on TV.
• darawk 9y ago
  > It's not about virtue signaling, he was almost certain to be terminated just because it was a ridiculously stupid thing to say - you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar and expect people not to be upset about it It should absolutely be ok, if it's true. Which it unequivocally is. > (and that's 100% what he did, he also made up pseudo-scientific bullshit to try to justify it, but he flat out insulted countless people within his company). What about his post was pseudo-scientific? He cited studies, and to my knowledge, the actual facts of what he said are fairly uncontroversial. > - The next time a woman interviews for his team, and he votes against hiring, how does the hiring committee interpret that vote? Did you read the document? He explicitly embraces diversity. He even says he's in favor of programs to help promote diversity.
  • tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
    He cited studies, but not until very recently did anyone have the version which actually contained the references. Gizmodo deliberately removed all charts and links, and for a while they had the only copy. It was a profoundly dishonest thing to do on their part. I'd be surprised if 5% of people commenting online even realize he cited sources.
    • xienze 9y ago
      Yeah Gizmodo went "ruh-roh, this guy's argument is making too much sense, better fix that!"
  • api 9y ago
    In many companies any form of out of line crosstalk can get you fired regardless of it's truth.
    • weberc2 9y ago
      Maybe, but it doesn't mean we should promote it. Half of these comments are positively jubilant about the whistleblower's termination.
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• imron 9y ago
  What is the more sexist statement: a) Men and women should be hired based on merit, and ability to perform required tasks. b) Men and women are unable to compete based on merit and women need special consideration in order that equivalent number of men and women are hired. The author of the manifesto was arguing for (a) and against (b).
  • mrkgnao 9y ago
    Neither is well-posed. Humans, contrary to what they may tell themselves, are not effective, impartial judges of "merit". Diversity initiatives correct for this deficiency.
    • redial 9y ago
      Try to.
  • saimiam 9y ago
    What if the tasks he wants done by meritorious candidates were selected by a very heteronormative, white dominated bloc of powerful people? In your view, would that call into question the propriety of asking a minority candidate to compete against a majority candidate? Even the SATs struggles/d with making sure their tears didn't implicit strengthen the scores of any one group of students.
    • imron 9y ago
      For programming and technical tasks, there are objective ways to measure accuracy, correctness and performance of code that don't require any consideration of someone's race, gender or sexuality.
      • etchalon 9y ago
        I've never encountered a programming exercise which was completely objective, outside of pure instructionals. Engineering has large degrees of opinion mixed into any non-rudimentary implementation.
• weberc2 9y ago
  This is the strangest rationalization for the firing of a whistleblower I think I've ever heard... Given that Google's hiring practices caused the offense, why should we shoot the messenger? > Such a manifesto is not just fundamentally wrong, it's toxic Isn't this how every Inquisition is justified?
  • smt88 9y ago
    > Isn't this how every Inquisition is justified? A private company firing someone over their views is a long, long way from an Inquisition. Your right to say and believe things is not a right for continued employment. The same libertarian argument that you seem to be making has been made the other way many times -- that companies should never be compelled to retain an employee for any reason.
    • weberc2 9y ago
      You misread my post. I was criticizing the ridiculous rationalization: "his views aren't just wing, they're toxic". The punch line is that this line of reasoning is indistinguishable from a witch-hunt. "I don't like views that I don't like and those who expose them shouldn't be tolerated!"
    • kromem 9y ago
      You may want to research the early days of McCarthyism and the blacklist. Is this the first firing that was perhaps an overly sensitive reaction concerned with appeasing a very touchy ideological base? Because I can think of a number of other people railroaded out of a job because of online "outrage." We aren't all that far from an Inquisition (not prongs and tongs type Inquisition, but a "your job depends on agreement" type Inquisition). The most significant thing missing from the equation is that the most vocal social justice voices lack political influence and power. If you see this movement organize politically and get candidates in office, any student of history should recognize that things will get worse for open expression of ideas before things get better.
• enoch_r 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, if his "manifesto" had talked about white privilege and how many of his white, male co-workers had, for their entire lives, been the beneficiaries of massive disparities in American society that led them to have an increased chance of becoming Googlers, and argued that we should work to ameliorate those disparities at all levels of society, including during the hiring process at Google, would you still call for his termination? Such a claim would, after all, be an insult to many of his coworkers, who might feel as if he believes they're only at Google because society lowered the bar for them. Personally I'd like it if people could make both arguments in a reasonable fashion and not jump immediately to outrage and calls for termination.
  • tunesmith 9y ago
    Interesting question, but I don't think it is symmetrical because of the power dynamic.
    • a_puppy 9y ago
      You're thinking of a men vs. women power dynamic. But that's not a realistic power dynamic, because neither men nor women act as a block. (For example, 44% of female voters in the 2016 election voted for Trump!) The actual power dynamic here is feminists vs. non-feminists, and at Google right now the feminists have a lot of power--as evidenced by the fact this guy got fired.
      • tunesmith 9y ago
        Men and women don't need to act as blocs for an asymmetrical power imbalance to exist.
      • Domenic_S 9y ago
        Not trying to be a smartass, I'm only commenting because I was genuinely confused for a moment -- the word is _bloc_ in this context. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bloc https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bloc
• arnioxux 9y ago
  > you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar It only hurts because it is plausible and causes self-doubt. But Google can prove this conclusively just by plotting the distribution of performance reviews between "diversity hires" and the regular pool of employees. You either show that there are negligible differences (the diversity program works) or the guy is right (the average bar did get lowered). Google will never publish this data because they are cowards.
  • bobdole1234 9y ago
    One of the biggest problems that Google has with it's employee retention is imposter syndrome. You take a lot of really smart people and get them to work together, and most of them are going to feel like they're not as smart as their peers. Anything that creates self-doubt is going to really fuck up their retention. Anyone who writes a manifesto to do just that should expect they'll be promptly walked out of the building.
    • Domenic_S 9y ago
      If you have some insider information I'd love to hear it, because this sounds totally implausible: "I work at the world's most powerful tech company, get paid embarrassing sums of money to do it, and get good reviews from my manager. But I don't feel super smart, so I quit."
      • bobdole1234 9y ago
        So, two things: Google is weirdly self organizing, which can take some serious getting used to. Your manager isn't there to tell you what to do, YOU are supposed to figure out what you should be doing for the most part, aside from some broad strokes from your tech lead (who isn't your manager). This really messes with a lot of peoples internal hierarchy compass, which leads to feelings of being lost and directionless. When you come in as a newbie, and you see all these people seemingly directing themselves effortlessly, and creating cool shit day in and day out, it can be seriously soul crushing. You're still on your tricycle trying to figure out how to do anything at Google, and aside from your laptop, virtually everything is a technology that is Google specific and shares almost nothing with anything you've touched before. Between those two things, a lot of people feel like they'll never make it. They hold on for their 1 year anniversary if they can and then shop their new Google experience around to find a good exit.
• futun 9y ago
  This is both a misrepresentation of what happened and a misunderstanding of mathematical distribution.
• deleted 9y ago
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• MarkMc 9y ago
  How far do you take it? For example, here is an article suggesting that female doctors are better than male doctors: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/12/female-doctors-superiority/511034/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/12/female-do... Should a female doctor avoid mentioning this article to a male colleague to avoid getting fired?
• sidcool 9y ago
  One thing I like about Russians and the Germans in professional circles is they indulge in unadulterated expression of opinions. Not to say they speak whatever thing comes to their mind, simply that they don't sugarcoat stuff. If you don't like it, it's upto you. The employee in this case deserved a reprimand, not termination.
  • taway_1212 9y ago
    > One thing I like about Russians and the Germans in professional circles is they indulge in unadulterated expression of opinions. It's ironic that the two countries who not so long ago were horrific totalitarian regimes now are more free (at least in this aspect) than USA - "the land of the free".
• Banthum 9y ago
  You argument would suggest this: If an organization does, at any time, use hiring priorities besides work ability, and thus hires people whose work ability was not as good as it could be - from henceforth on, nobody can ever criticize those hiring policies, because that would imply criticizing the people hired under those policies. >Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization, it becomes impossible for this person to be an effective member of the team Funny, lots of people I've worked with have alienated me, and others, and various groups of people (different teams, specialties, ages, men, conservatives, etc). We somehow still manage to keep functioning in the same building. You, with bigotry of low expectations, seem to think women don't have the maturity for that.
• dixie_land 9y ago
  it is a known fact that close to year end Google would go on a "diversity hire" binge to make their diversity numbers look good. literally recruiters are telling female candidates simply to apply and guarantees hire.
  • arkem 9y ago
    Can you provide me with a pointer to more information about this? It seems pretty extraordinary and I'd like to see more before I believe it.
• djrogers 9y ago
  > Given that the document has (rightfully) alienated women inside and outside his organization This argument only work is every woman can only see themselves as part of the group and are incapable of seeing themselves as individuals. I would be willing to bet that there are women (and other diversity hires) at Google that know they are capable of doing their jobs and deserving of being hired. Some of those people might object to being lumped in with the whole and not being seen as individuals.
• Romanulus 9y ago
  It is no measure of health to be adjusted to a profoundly sick society... but of course, you'll read that quote then give yourself a pat on the back, sadly.
• Gregaros 9y ago
  You really ought to read his document before commenting. And when you do, keep an eye outfor any quote whatsoever that says justifies your claims. You won't find one.