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> The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree ...So we've fired t

> The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree ...So we've fired the person starting the debate? Am I missing something here?

camperman 9y ago
Yeah - a high caste Tamil Brahmin has fired someone for expressing the belief that not all people are equal :)
pimmen 9y ago
As the note basically says; starting a debate does not excuse you from suggesting that some of your co-workers are there because of a "lowered bar", your evidence being psuedo-scientific bullshit about the tech-skill distribution among minorities and women.
- kbart 9y ago
  "your evidence being psuedo-scientific bullshit" *Citation needed.
  - pimmen 9y ago
    The fact that these engineers passed the same hiring process, consisting of problem solving, that other employees also were subjected to, and that these workers deliver enough value to pass the fitness evaluations? If you're suggesting they were subjected to different practices, contrary to what HR at Google is stating, then you better cough up evidence. Do the women and minorities at Google perform worse than White males?
    - kbart 9y ago
      I'm not saying that women or minorities are somewhat inferior (neither does the memo btw, if you've read it carefully), but there are fundamental differences among these groups, like it or not. Ignoring these differences only makes things worse, and no bar lowering, mandated positions of certain group etc. will help. Problems must be solved at the root causes, not fighting their consequences.
  - te_chris 9y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silicon-valley-weapon-choice-women-google-manifesto-gender-difference-eugenics https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silico...
    - imron 9y ago
      Counter citation: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-... This part in particular is worth considering: "..if minds differ across sexes and races enough to justify diversity as an instrumental business goal, then they must differ enough in some specific skills, interests, and motivations that hiring and promotion will sometimes produce unequal outcomes in some company roles. In other words, if demographic diversity yields any competitive advantages due to psychological differences between groups, then demographic equality of outcome cannot be achieved in all jobs and all levels within a company."
- Pyxl101 9y ago
  > psuedo-scientific bullshit A professor of social psychology at Rutgers said: > The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right. An evolutionary psychology professor said: > For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history. I know a little about sex differences research. On the topic of evolution and human sexuality, I’ve taught for 28 years, written 4 books and over 100 academic publications, given 190 talks, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and mentored 11 Ph.D. students. Whoever the memo’s author is, he has obviously read a fair amount about these topics. Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences. (Blank slate gender feminism is advocacy rather than science: no gender feminist I’ve met has ever been able to give a coherent answer to the question ‘What empirical findings would convince you that psychological sex differences evolved?’) http://archive.is/z6xxP http://archive.is/z6xxP
  - croon 9y ago
    Quotes below are from your link: > But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm. > Again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace (accounting for, perhaps, a few percentage points of the variability between men’s and women’s performances). Sex differences in occupational interests, personal values, and certain cognitive abilities are a bit larger in size (see here), but most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway > Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at. > Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex. That the empirical claims are accurate doesn't mean that they are relevant to the (memo) author's motive for writing it, whatever that is.
- mejin 9y ago
  What can Google or any other company do to hire more from one group (example, women) other then by making it easier (lowering the bar) for those groups to be hired?
  - pimmen 9y ago
    Other work Google has done to attract engineers from underrepresented groups is reaching out to women and minorities with tech skills and make them interested in working there. Since they still need to pass the same hiring practices, and the same continuous fitness evaluation, we have evidence that these engineers from underrepresented groups do measure up to the task.
  - tedmiston 9y ago
    Help get the underrepresented group involved in tech opportunities and activities early on in life that they wouldn't have otherwise. Create STEM schools and give kids computers in elementary school. Use more fun robotics in the classroom. Teach programming literacy. Let kids make games. Of course the caveat to these approaches is that it takes ~13-17 years from kindergarten until high school graduation / college graduation to when the candidate can then use the skills by starting a tech job. That said, I think upstream educational opportunities like these are the best long-term solution to diversifying the tech population.
  - tchaffee 9y ago
    > What can Google or any other company do to hire more from one group (example, women) 1. Making the workplace less hostile to that group. The code of conduct and this firing both seem to addressing this point. 2. Making sure salaries are equal for equal work. Google might have some problems in this area. 3. Investing in the hiring pipeline (education) to make sure bias isn't occurring earlier in the pipeline. Those are just a few ideas. Someone really committed to that goal could surely find more ideas.
  - xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
    Focus on the pipeline, k-12, getting girls excited about tech. Then in a decade you'll have a much wider pool of talent to select from and can just take the best while appeasing diversity advocates. The same could be done for racial minorities.
- slavak 9y ago
  He referred to a "lowered bar" in the form of a reduced false-negative rate for "diversity candidates"; at no point in the document did he imply his female engineer colleagues are less qualified. He also had a reference to apparently support this assertion, but since the hyperlink leads to an internal Google group we can't really know its contents unless a Googler informs us. From the original memo: > However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices: > ... > Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
  - pimmen 9y ago
    Let's assume this guy knows statistics; by lowering the rate of false-negatives, you raise the rate of false-positives. This means that he's heavily implying Google has employed undeperforming engineers with these practices.
    - rtx 9y ago
      Isnt that whats affirmative action is about. People need to own it. Yes skills may vary depending on hiring practices. But so what?
      - doubleshame 9y ago
        This. I wish there official response from Google would have just opened up to their stance and stood ground. Instead of flimsily trying to appease everyone. It would have been more respectable.
    - benchaney 9y ago
      This is only true if the total number of trials and the test outcomes stay the same, which is definitely not the case here.
    - asdfologist 9y ago
      Honest question: without seeing the reference he used to back his assertion, how did you conclude that his belief about this is wrong? Or did you actually manage to read it?
baltimore12 9y ago
Yes you are missing something

camperman 9y ago

Yeah - a high caste Tamil Brahmin has fired someone for expressing the belief that not all people are equal :)

pimmen 9y ago

As the note basically says; starting a debate does not excuse you from suggesting that some of your co-workers are there because of a "lowered bar", your evidence being psuedo-scientific bullshit about the tech-skill distribution among minorities and women.

kbart 9y ago
"your evidence being psuedo-scientific bullshit" *Citation needed.
- pimmen 9y ago
  The fact that these engineers passed the same hiring process, consisting of problem solving, that other employees also were subjected to, and that these workers deliver enough value to pass the fitness evaluations? If you're suggesting they were subjected to different practices, contrary to what HR at Google is stating, then you better cough up evidence. Do the women and minorities at Google perform worse than White males?
  - kbart 9y ago
    I'm not saying that women or minorities are somewhat inferior (neither does the memo btw, if you've read it carefully), but there are fundamental differences among these groups, like it or not. Ignoring these differences only makes things worse, and no bar lowering, mandated positions of certain group etc. will help. Problems must be solved at the root causes, not fighting their consequences.
- te_chris 9y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silicon-valley-weapon-choice-women-google-manifesto-gender-difference-eugenics https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silico...
  - imron 9y ago
    Counter citation: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-... This part in particular is worth considering: "..if minds differ across sexes and races enough to justify diversity as an instrumental business goal, then they must differ enough in some specific skills, interests, and motivations that hiring and promotion will sometimes produce unequal outcomes in some company roles. In other words, if demographic diversity yields any competitive advantages due to psychological differences between groups, then demographic equality of outcome cannot be achieved in all jobs and all levels within a company."
Pyxl101 9y ago
> psuedo-scientific bullshit A professor of social psychology at Rutgers said: > The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right. An evolutionary psychology professor said: > For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history. I know a little about sex differences research. On the topic of evolution and human sexuality, I’ve taught for 28 years, written 4 books and over 100 academic publications, given 190 talks, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and mentored 11 Ph.D. students. Whoever the memo’s author is, he has obviously read a fair amount about these topics. Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences. (Blank slate gender feminism is advocacy rather than science: no gender feminist I’ve met has ever been able to give a coherent answer to the question ‘What empirical findings would convince you that psychological sex differences evolved?’) http://archive.is/z6xxP http://archive.is/z6xxP
- croon 9y ago
  Quotes below are from your link: > But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm. > Again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace (accounting for, perhaps, a few percentage points of the variability between men’s and women’s performances). Sex differences in occupational interests, personal values, and certain cognitive abilities are a bit larger in size (see here), but most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway > Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at. > Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex. That the empirical claims are accurate doesn't mean that they are relevant to the (memo) author's motive for writing it, whatever that is.
mejin 9y ago
What can Google or any other company do to hire more from one group (example, women) other then by making it easier (lowering the bar) for those groups to be hired?
- pimmen 9y ago
  Other work Google has done to attract engineers from underrepresented groups is reaching out to women and minorities with tech skills and make them interested in working there. Since they still need to pass the same hiring practices, and the same continuous fitness evaluation, we have evidence that these engineers from underrepresented groups do measure up to the task.
- tedmiston 9y ago
  Help get the underrepresented group involved in tech opportunities and activities early on in life that they wouldn't have otherwise. Create STEM schools and give kids computers in elementary school. Use more fun robotics in the classroom. Teach programming literacy. Let kids make games. Of course the caveat to these approaches is that it takes ~13-17 years from kindergarten until high school graduation / college graduation to when the candidate can then use the skills by starting a tech job. That said, I think upstream educational opportunities like these are the best long-term solution to diversifying the tech population.
- tchaffee 9y ago
  > What can Google or any other company do to hire more from one group (example, women) 1. Making the workplace less hostile to that group. The code of conduct and this firing both seem to addressing this point. 2. Making sure salaries are equal for equal work. Google might have some problems in this area. 3. Investing in the hiring pipeline (education) to make sure bias isn't occurring earlier in the pipeline. Those are just a few ideas. Someone really committed to that goal could surely find more ideas.
- xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
  Focus on the pipeline, k-12, getting girls excited about tech. Then in a decade you'll have a much wider pool of talent to select from and can just take the best while appeasing diversity advocates. The same could be done for racial minorities.
slavak 9y ago
He referred to a "lowered bar" in the form of a reduced false-negative rate for "diversity candidates"; at no point in the document did he imply his female engineer colleagues are less qualified. He also had a reference to apparently support this assertion, but since the hyperlink leads to an internal Google group we can't really know its contents unless a Googler informs us. From the original memo: > However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices: > ... > Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
- pimmen 9y ago
  Let's assume this guy knows statistics; by lowering the rate of false-negatives, you raise the rate of false-positives. This means that he's heavily implying Google has employed undeperforming engineers with these practices.
  - rtx 9y ago
    Isnt that whats affirmative action is about. People need to own it. Yes skills may vary depending on hiring practices. But so what?
    - doubleshame 9y ago
      This. I wish there official response from Google would have just opened up to their stance and stood ground. Instead of flimsily trying to appease everyone. It would have been more respectable.
  - benchaney 9y ago
    This is only true if the total number of trials and the test outcomes stay the same, which is definitely not the case here.
  - asdfologist 9y ago
    Honest question: without seeing the reference he used to back his assertion, how did you conclude that his belief about this is wrong? Or did you actually manage to read it?

baltimore12 9y ago

Yes you are missing something