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I appreciate where you are coming from. And I agree we should, "strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead j

I appreciate where you are coming from. And I agree we should, "strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create." And I honestly believe that diversity and outreach programs are part of that process. The economic and social structure of the United States is the result of historical processes that were driven by racism and sexism; disparities in wealth and power between these groups continue to exist today due to that legacy. To take one example, "If average black family wealth continues to grow at the same pace it has over the past three decades, it would take black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth white families have today." [0] While it is a great sentiment that everyone should be treated purely as individuals and it is something to strive for, it completely ignores the economic reality of our country and is an ahistorical approach to public policy or the construction of a hiring pipeline. We can argue about to what role public companies can or should play to reduce these historical inequities. I think that outreach and education at all levels to increase the number of candidates from underrepresented groups in the tech hiring pipeline is a great step and that reducing these inequities, beyond being ethical, will create a stronger workforce. Others might disagree and have good reasons to disagree. That is a conversation worth having, but it needs to happen in the historical context in which we find ourselves. Writing a manifesto that claims that the disparity in tech is the result of biological differences that lead women to be inferior at performing in tech and leadership capacities is not the way to start this conversation. In fact this is the exact kind of sentiment that you call out by saying, "I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place." [0] http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/ http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/

sp527 9y ago
There are a lot of holes in the arguments you're laying out, but I'll comment on just a few: * Google is a profit-motivated entity. They have to act in the interest of their shareholders. Correcting for historical imbalances - to the extent that it negatively perverts hiring standards - doesn't factor into the calculus of a responsible corporation. * Jews were systematically exterminated in a historical event that was even more recent than slavery. Countless more were left destitute. Why are they any less deserving of positive bias? * There are millions of White people across the Midwest who are dirt poor because manufacturing is no longer a meaningful economic sector in this country. What about them? And more generally, believing that there's a contemporary responsibility to correct for historical imbalances leads you down a fantastically absurd rabbit hole. We should instead be addressing the present socioeconomic condition (which will indirectly benefit many of the historically disenfranchised). And that is the job of government. Not corporations.
- someguydave 9y ago
  Your comment is well-written, I appreciate it. Several states in the Midwest (Indiana, for example) are actually undergoing a manufacturing boom. Google may have just shot itself in the foot here by making it clear that Midwestern political views are not welcome. I would wager that a sizable chunk of Google's technical workforce hail from the Midwest.
  - whateveracct 9y ago
    > Midwestern political views Is this sarcasm or are you serious? Please don't normalize this memo as if it's rational American political thought. Fwiw I grew up in and went to school in Indiana and it makes this google memo no less awful -.-
    - someguydave 9y ago
      Midwestern folks respect competence without regard to race or sex. Google has clearly indicated that they think otherwise.
  - vkou 9y ago
    Yet, making it clear that this form of behaviour is acceptable would not be shooting itself in the foot, when it comes to hiring and retaining women? "Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" does not sound like a great recruiting pitch. Never mind that it is also an incredibly shitty thing to do.
    - FooHentai 9y ago
      >where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender! "We put a policy in place that dictates that hiring should be on the basis of something other than capability" "Oh my god why are employees questioning whether hires were made based on capability or something else?" Seems pretty reasonable. It is far from the first time this point has been made: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/58e/1a4/ae3/58e1a4ae36717528770103.pdf https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/5...
deleted 9y ago
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Super_Jambo 9y ago
I'm not sure how generational wealth inequality is relevant to gender diversity? Surely rich and poor families in the US are having boys and girls at roughly the same rates? Or have I missed something here?
TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
You comment makes me wonder: At what point has the pursuit of diversity been "enough?" What's the actual end game, so that we know we've achieved it? Is it to have an perfectly statistically balanced ethnic representation in a company's workforce based on global population densities? Will Google know that they've "succeeded" at diversity when 50-odd percent of programmers are women, and the bulk of their workforce are Asian and Indian, since they make up the majority of people on the earth? Is Google's goal to have the best programmers they can find, but which fit within the global demographics, because they conclude that there is absolutely no correlation between gender, race, culture, or creed in the aptitude for, or desire to pursue, any given human endeavor? Or, perhaps, to use your example, is the goal to actually increase the preference for non-white, non-males in order to "catch up" other genders and ethnicities until their population groups exhibit the same level of wealth? There are a lot of tangents to all of this, but I'm trying to stick to the main point here: at what point will we know that American corporations have achieved "enough" diversity, and that outreach programs and hiring preferences are no longer necessary? What's the idealized situation look like? (Honest question.) What's the measure of success? Also, are companies in other parts of the world trying to achieve the same thing? Are companies, say, in India and China, hiring white and black people like crazy because they also recognize the extreme and urgent need to diversify their workforces? The answer to that question might help clarify the first.

sp527 9y ago

There are a lot of holes in the arguments you're laying out, but I'll comment on just a few: * Google is a profit-motivated entity. They have to act in the interest of their shareholders. Correcting for historical imbalances - to the extent that it negatively perverts hiring standards - doesn't factor into the calculus of a responsible corporation. * Jews were systematically exterminated in a historical event that was even more recent than slavery. Countless more were left destitute. Why are they any less deserving of positive bias? * There are millions of White people across the Midwest who are dirt poor because manufacturing is no longer a meaningful economic sector in this country. What about them? And more generally, believing that there's a contemporary responsibility to correct for historical imbalances leads you down a fantastically absurd rabbit hole. We should instead be addressing the present socioeconomic condition (which will indirectly benefit many of the historically disenfranchised). And that is the job of government. Not corporations.

someguydave 9y ago
Your comment is well-written, I appreciate it. Several states in the Midwest (Indiana, for example) are actually undergoing a manufacturing boom. Google may have just shot itself in the foot here by making it clear that Midwestern political views are not welcome. I would wager that a sizable chunk of Google's technical workforce hail from the Midwest.
- whateveracct 9y ago
  > Midwestern political views Is this sarcasm or are you serious? Please don't normalize this memo as if it's rational American political thought. Fwiw I grew up in and went to school in Indiana and it makes this google memo no less awful -.-
  - someguydave 9y ago
    Midwestern folks respect competence without regard to race or sex. Google has clearly indicated that they think otherwise.
- vkou 9y ago
  Yet, making it clear that this form of behaviour is acceptable would not be shooting itself in the foot, when it comes to hiring and retaining women? "Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" does not sound like a great recruiting pitch. Never mind that it is also an incredibly shitty thing to do.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    >where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender! "We put a policy in place that dictates that hiring should be on the basis of something other than capability" "Oh my god why are employees questioning whether hires were made based on capability or something else?" Seems pretty reasonable. It is far from the first time this point has been made: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/58e/1a4/ae3/58e1a4ae36717528770103.pdf https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/5...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Super_Jambo 9y ago

I'm not sure how generational wealth inequality is relevant to gender diversity? Surely rich and poor families in the US are having boys and girls at roughly the same rates? Or have I missed something here?

TheRealDunkirk 9y ago

You comment makes me wonder: At what point has the pursuit of diversity been "enough?" What's the actual end game, so that we know we've achieved it? Is it to have an perfectly statistically balanced ethnic representation in a company's workforce based on global population densities? Will Google know that they've "succeeded" at diversity when 50-odd percent of programmers are women, and the bulk of their workforce are Asian and Indian, since they make up the majority of people on the earth? Is Google's goal to have the best programmers they can find, but which fit within the global demographics, because they conclude that there is absolutely no correlation between gender, race, culture, or creed in the aptitude for, or desire to pursue, any given human endeavor? Or, perhaps, to use your example, is the goal to actually increase the preference for non-white, non-males in order to "catch up" other genders and ethnicities until their population groups exhibit the same level of wealth? There are a lot of tangents to all of this, but I'm trying to stick to the main point here: at what point will we know that American corporations have achieved "enough" diversity, and that outreach programs and hiring preferences are no longer necessary? What's the idealized situation look like? (Honest question.) What's the measure of success? Also, are companies in other parts of the world trying to achieve the same thing? Are companies, say, in India and China, hiring white and black people like crazy because they also recognize the extreme and urgent need to diversify their workforces? The answer to that question might help clarify the first.