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>After years and years of working at the company I haven't heard even a whisper of complaint among anyone about the quality of people we're hiring That point i

>After years and years of working at the company I haven't heard even a whisper of complaint among anyone about the quality of people we're hiring That point is less persuasive after Google has demonstrated it will terminate people who complain - even if they do so in a reasoned manner.

52-6F-62 9y ago
That's a major crux, though. You're implying that what this fellow did was provide a reasoned complaint, but if I were to distribute manifestos at my workplace, unsolicited and unofficially, I'd be disciplined or terminated regardless of what was written in it. To add to that, it wasn't a constructive argument with a new solution -- the only proposition was regressive action. I'd posit that it's akin to someone arguing that since civil rights were not smoothly implemented, we may as well roll back the clock because some members of society had it easier that way. It's pretty weak, and certainly not what I'd call a well-reasoned manner.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  My understanding is that it was shared on a message board of some kind intended for employees to share and discuss their thoughts. If that isn't true, and he sent this document out to some mailing list or what have you - then I take back what I said and agree with you (though firing seems a tiny bit extreme). To your second point, the document proposed multiple steps at investigating or remediating the problem, such as the author saw it. Regardless, I hope you would agree that applying the standard of "You cannot discuss a social problem unless you have a solution to it, or else you will be fired" seems suboptimal.
  - dymk 9y ago
    > "You cannot discuss a social problem unless you have a solution to it, or else you will be fired" This isn't what happened though; this guy circulated an authoritative sounding memo accusing the women in Google's workforce as being held to a lower bar as the men, and outright stating that their "biological differences" was holding back engineering productivity.
    - dijit 9y ago
      That's precisely _not_ what was said. But I guess the brigading has commenced- I would invite you to read the thing without bias and read it's citations and sources. Even if you disagree that we could do more to remove things like, stress and status to make tech less appealing to men.. you might find out why people are agreeing with him and why this piece circulated internally. Mostly, it seems, scientists agree[0] with the "facts" he states that arent' google specific. So dismissing it outright without having the discussion is only doing the women in tech a disservice. [0]: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
      - dymk 9y ago
        > Mostly, it seems, scientists agree with the "facts" he states that arent' google specific Really? Yonatan Zunger[1] seems to disagree with you. [1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788 https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
        dijit 9y ago
        Four PhDs in Social and Gender Biology disagree with him. http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
        52-6F-62 9y ago
        He had some great thoughts and elucidated the best I've seen so far. Thanks for contributing this.
        observation 9y ago
        Yonatan Zunger says this: > nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else. Except it turned out James Damore of the DM has a Masters in Biological Systems from Harvard. And is experienced engineer working in Search (he disputed the author's chops there too).
- dijit 9y ago
  Calling it a "manifesto" is only being done by the media though, it's a memo, or at best the first post on a forum topic. A "memo" thats primary focus was to have an open discussion based on statistical evidence and ideally foster a more welcoming environment to people who are not currently represented as well as Google would like.
- stillhere 9y ago
  It's not a manifesto. It is an opinion on how to make Google better and confront its biases. They are always looking for ways to improve but PC is beyond what is acceptable to look at.
pkilgore 9y ago
"reasoned manner" != suggesting colleagues have inherent traits that make them less biologically suited to their work. I get it. Some of the points in the memo were reasonable. But just because the bread and cheese on your shit sandwich look delicious, doesn't mean it's not still a gross shit sandwich.
- WhiteOwlLion 9y ago
  On page 3, he clearly discusses overlap between men and women even with biological differences. He did not write in absolutist terms. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these 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. _______________________________________________________
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  I meant "reasoned manner" in the sense that it was a document with footnotes citing scientific research, and that he wasn't out on the plaza screaming about how he hated women, or something like that. The former, even if you object to the conclusions or the spirit they are offered in, you can just ignore by not reading it, or rebut by pointing out flaws with your own document. The latter is obviously a real problem in every way. Suppose someone asked why it is that Jews are overrepresented in things like winning nobel prizes, being millionaires, working as a college professor, or working in politics. My answer would be that Jews tend to have higher than average intelligence, so it is only natural that they are overrepresented in fields that require higher intelligence. But wait - some of my colleagues are not Jewish! Am I suggesting that my colleagues are less biologically suited to their work? Oh dear, that can't be right. Maybe the politically correct answer is that there is a secret cabal of Jews who run society and try to elevate their own into positions of power... but, come to think of it, that doesn't sound like such a good answer either. Maybe the real PC answer would be to accuse whoever asked of being a racist. To your point about some of the arguments in the document being gross and terrible, I'd like to discuss those points in particular. I read the document and didn't see anything obviously wrong or objectionable. If there is something wrong, it seems to me the thing to do is correct with a better argument or better evidence, not fire the author for having the wrong opinion.

52-6F-62 9y ago

That's a major crux, though. You're implying that what this fellow did was provide a reasoned complaint, but if I were to distribute manifestos at my workplace, unsolicited and unofficially, I'd be disciplined or terminated regardless of what was written in it. To add to that, it wasn't a constructive argument with a new solution -- the only proposition was regressive action. I'd posit that it's akin to someone arguing that since civil rights were not smoothly implemented, we may as well roll back the clock because some members of society had it easier that way. It's pretty weak, and certainly not what I'd call a well-reasoned manner.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
My understanding is that it was shared on a message board of some kind intended for employees to share and discuss their thoughts. If that isn't true, and he sent this document out to some mailing list or what have you - then I take back what I said and agree with you (though firing seems a tiny bit extreme). To your second point, the document proposed multiple steps at investigating or remediating the problem, such as the author saw it. Regardless, I hope you would agree that applying the standard of "You cannot discuss a social problem unless you have a solution to it, or else you will be fired" seems suboptimal.
- dymk 9y ago
  > "You cannot discuss a social problem unless you have a solution to it, or else you will be fired" This isn't what happened though; this guy circulated an authoritative sounding memo accusing the women in Google's workforce as being held to a lower bar as the men, and outright stating that their "biological differences" was holding back engineering productivity.
  - dijit 9y ago
    That's precisely _not_ what was said. But I guess the brigading has commenced- I would invite you to read the thing without bias and read it's citations and sources. Even if you disagree that we could do more to remove things like, stress and status to make tech less appealing to men.. you might find out why people are agreeing with him and why this piece circulated internally. Mostly, it seems, scientists agree[0] with the "facts" he states that arent' google specific. So dismissing it outright without having the discussion is only doing the women in tech a disservice. [0]: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
    - dymk 9y ago
      > Mostly, it seems, scientists agree with the "facts" he states that arent' google specific Really? Yonatan Zunger[1] seems to disagree with you. [1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788 https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
      - dijit 9y ago
        Four PhDs in Social and Gender Biology disagree with him. http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
      - 52-6F-62 9y ago
        He had some great thoughts and elucidated the best I've seen so far. Thanks for contributing this.
        observation 9y ago
        Yonatan Zunger says this: > nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else. Except it turned out James Damore of the DM has a Masters in Biological Systems from Harvard. And is experienced engineer working in Search (he disputed the author's chops there too).
dijit 9y ago
Calling it a "manifesto" is only being done by the media though, it's a memo, or at best the first post on a forum topic. A "memo" thats primary focus was to have an open discussion based on statistical evidence and ideally foster a more welcoming environment to people who are not currently represented as well as Google would like.
stillhere 9y ago
It's not a manifesto. It is an opinion on how to make Google better and confront its biases. They are always looking for ways to improve but PC is beyond what is acceptable to look at.

pkilgore 9y ago

"reasoned manner" != suggesting colleagues have inherent traits that make them less biologically suited to their work. I get it. Some of the points in the memo were reasonable. But just because the bread and cheese on your shit sandwich look delicious, doesn't mean it's not still a gross shit sandwich.

WhiteOwlLion 9y ago
On page 3, he clearly discusses overlap between men and women even with biological differences. He did not write in absolutist terms. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these 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. _______________________________________________________
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ImSkeptical 9y ago
I meant "reasoned manner" in the sense that it was a document with footnotes citing scientific research, and that he wasn't out on the plaza screaming about how he hated women, or something like that. The former, even if you object to the conclusions or the spirit they are offered in, you can just ignore by not reading it, or rebut by pointing out flaws with your own document. The latter is obviously a real problem in every way. Suppose someone asked why it is that Jews are overrepresented in things like winning nobel prizes, being millionaires, working as a college professor, or working in politics. My answer would be that Jews tend to have higher than average intelligence, so it is only natural that they are overrepresented in fields that require higher intelligence. But wait - some of my colleagues are not Jewish! Am I suggesting that my colleagues are less biologically suited to their work? Oh dear, that can't be right. Maybe the politically correct answer is that there is a secret cabal of Jews who run society and try to elevate their own into positions of power... but, come to think of it, that doesn't sound like such a good answer either. Maybe the real PC answer would be to accuse whoever asked of being a racist. To your point about some of the arguments in the document being gross and terrible, I'd like to discuss those points in particular. I read the document and didn't see anything obviously wrong or objectionable. If there is something wrong, it seems to me the thing to do is correct with a better argument or better evidence, not fire the author for having the wrong opinion.