4 ms·

You cannot pose as a parangon of free speech when your company just fired a dissenting voice. For all intents and purposes the content of the memo was balanced

by eeks 9y ago

You cannot pose as a parangon of free speech when your company just fired a dissenting voice. For all intents and purposes the content of the memo was balanced, polite, and restricted to the Google audience. The adult reaction should have been to punish the leaker (which I believe should be an actual breach of the code of conduct) and organize internal debates to allow multiple viewpoints to confront. Rallying with the hysterical mass and shutting down the minority voice is certainly not about supporting debates and free speech. It's about throwing red meat to the wolves so the company can quietly solve its all too real gender pay gap issues without making too much PR waves.

jsf666 9y ago
> real gender pay gap issues There is no such thing, there's been a plethora of research about this that disprove this false claim
TeMPOraL 9y ago
I agree. Having read the original memo, if anything in there actually violates Google's Code of Conduct, then they need to have a serious discussion about the CoC itself (and how they interpret it).
- xenadu02 9y ago
  Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct? And he assumed he wouldn’t suffer any consequences for claiming 1/3 of his coworkers were meek easily spooked neurotics?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct? Go and actually read the original memo at https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncensored-memo-with-charts-and-cites-339f3d2d05f https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso.... Which, for this particular point, links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizin... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism (see in particular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences). From which you can access about a metric fuck ton of actual research. We can't expect to have any reasonable discussion on the topic if the standard of criticism is not reading the piece one is criticizing, and then stating obvious falsehoods (like "didn’t bother to do any research") as facts - probably hoping other readers also won't bother checking. EDIT: Also: > Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... Those are actual falsifiable statements. They can be either true or false. The whole idea of considering them as "viewpoints" is ridiculous and it's precisely what's the problem with the whole environment surrounding the discussion.
    - nxmehta 9y ago
      > Those are actual falsifiable statements. They can be either true or false. The whole idea of considering them as "viewpoints" is ridiculous and it's precisely what's the problem with the whole environment surrounding the discussion. Stop it - you are being extraordinarily deceptive with statements like this. Did you actually read this memo? And I mean read it critically? Are these quotes falsifiable statements? "These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics." Didn't see a citation for that. Care to cite the evidence? Can we prove that this assertion is true or false? "This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs." Would love to read your citation for anxiety leading to lower number of women in high stress jobs. "Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them." Again, I'd love to see some evidence showing that the desire for work life balance is the reason that men disproportionately in leadership positions in tech. Stop pretending that just because the author has sources that his conclusions are supported. His argument was poor. Anyone with reasonable reading comprehension could see that, politics be damned.
  - novembermike 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences Neuroticism is an actual measurable thing and the research seems to indicate that women typically measure about half a standard deviation above men on it. I honestly didn't know this before but it seems like when he's making these claims he's using objective research that finds these things across cultures.
  - stefantalpalaru 9y ago
    > Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >> being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” > Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Pichai seems to think that "neurotic" is an insult. Turns out it's just part of an established model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
  - MistahKoala 9y ago
    I would be surprised if a highly-intelligent biologist with some background in genetics wrote such a document on a whim rather than on evidence and information acquired over the course of his academic work. I'm not saying it's impossible - just that I'd be surprised.
  - EJTH 9y ago
    Im curious, did you even read the thing? Your rage is out of proportion with what was actually written in the paper...
deleted 9y ago
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by eeks 9y ago

jsf666 9y ago

> real gender pay gap issues There is no such thing, there's been a plethora of research about this that disprove this false claim

TeMPOraL 9y ago

I agree. Having read the original memo, if anything in there actually violates Google's Code of Conduct, then they need to have a serious discussion about the CoC itself (and how they interpret it).

xenadu02 9y ago
Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct? And he assumed he wouldn’t suffer any consequences for claiming 1/3 of his coworkers were meek easily spooked neurotics?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct? Go and actually read the original memo at https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncensored-memo-with-charts-and-cites-339f3d2d05f https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso.... Which, for this particular point, links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizin... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism (see in particular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences). From which you can access about a metric fuck ton of actual research. We can't expect to have any reasonable discussion on the topic if the standard of criticism is not reading the piece one is criticizing, and then stating obvious falsehoods (like "didn’t bother to do any research") as facts - probably hoping other readers also won't bother checking. EDIT: Also: > Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... Those are actual falsifiable statements. They can be either true or false. The whole idea of considering them as "viewpoints" is ridiculous and it's precisely what's the problem with the whole environment surrounding the discussion.
  - nxmehta 9y ago
    > Those are actual falsifiable statements. They can be either true or false. The whole idea of considering them as "viewpoints" is ridiculous and it's precisely what's the problem with the whole environment surrounding the discussion. Stop it - you are being extraordinarily deceptive with statements like this. Did you actually read this memo? And I mean read it critically? Are these quotes falsifiable statements? "These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics." Didn't see a citation for that. Care to cite the evidence? Can we prove that this assertion is true or false? "This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs." Would love to read your citation for anxiety leading to lower number of women in high stress jobs. "Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them." Again, I'd love to see some evidence showing that the desire for work life balance is the reason that men disproportionately in leadership positions in tech. Stop pretending that just because the author has sources that his conclusions are supported. His argument was poor. Anyone with reasonable reading comprehension could see that, politics be damned.
- novembermike 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences Neuroticism is an actual measurable thing and the research seems to indicate that women typically measure about half a standard deviation above men on it. I honestly didn't know this before but it seems like when he's making these claims he's using objective research that finds these things across cultures.
- stefantalpalaru 9y ago
  > Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >> being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” > Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Pichai seems to think that "neurotic" is an insult. Turns out it's just part of an established model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
- MistahKoala 9y ago
  I would be surprised if a highly-intelligent biologist with some background in genetics wrote such a document on a whim rather than on evidence and information acquired over the course of his academic work. I'm not saying it's impossible - just that I'd be surprised.
- EJTH 9y ago
  Im curious, did you even read the thing? Your rage is out of proportion with what was actually written in the paper...

deleted 9y ago

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