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Thank you for clarifying. Regarding the first point, about women being higher in neuroticism, the author does provide a source - wikipedia. I understand there

Thank you for clarifying. Regarding the first point, about women being higher in neuroticism, the author does provide a source - wikipedia. I understand there are different versions of the document, some of which omit sources or links. The version I'm using as a reference [1] maintains a hyperlink to Wikipedia's page on sex differences in psychology. Wikipedia may not be the most reputable source, although I've always thought quite highly of it, but in this instance, Wikipedia, which does seem to support the author's contention, has it's source, an academic psychology paper. The paper's abstract [2] does also repeat the Google author's claim, that women are higher in neuroticism. As far as the Google author's sourcing goes, I believe linking to a well sourced article on Wikipedia should be a sufficient citation for the document (which wasn't intended as an academic paper but something more like an argument on a forum - per my understanding). I don't see how this claim, that women are higher in neuroticism, leads to what you alleged the author was claiming - that the biology of women hurts productivity at Google. This seems to me like a possible explanation of why there are not as many women in leadership positions, and not an argument that the women who are in leadership positions have any defect. By analogy, suppose I was asked why there were few Chinese basketball players, and I answered that height is useful in basketball, and Chinese people are shorter on average than white and black players. This may be a suitable explanation for the observed phenomenon, or it may not be, but either way you should not interpret me as claiming that Yao Ming is a short person. For your second point, this seems obviously true. The "false negative rate" presumably refers to when candidates who would be good hires are rejected for some undesirable reason. In other words, the test is generating an incorrect negative (your interview comes back "Do not hire" on a person who would make a good candidate). This false negative rate effectively "raises the bar" to get hired at Google, albeit in an undesirable way. The initiatives that the author links to in this section are presumably aimed at reducing the false negative rate for women, and thereby lowering the bar that women need to clear to get hired. Obviously it's a good thing to reduce your false negative rate. You get more qualified employees and people who are qualified get a good job. The discriminatory part of this, which the Google author is highlighting, is that Google wants to reduce the false negative rate FOR WOMEN and isn't applying these same initiatives to hiring in general. I agree that the author did not have enough regard for the social context of his post. He seems to have believed Google's lies that they cared about letting employees express themselves and share ideas to improve the company - when, of course, Google is a soulless corporation that will fire anyone with the temerity to criticize their sacred cows. I think that says roughly that the employee was a bit naive. [1] - https://www.scribd.com/document/355823379/Google-s-Ideological-Echo-Chamber#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/355823379/Google-s-Ideologic... [2] - http://doi.apa.org/buy/2001-01642-012 http://doi.apa.org/buy/2001-01642-012

ghort 9y ago
> The initiatives that the author links to in this section are presumably aimed at reducing the false negative rate for women, and thereby lowering the bar that women need to clear to get hired. You (he) can't say that you are lowering the bar since a false negative is positive like any other positive. Widening the bar is a more apt analogy.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  Reducing the false negative makes getting a job "easier" (a higher percentage of applicants succeed) and therefore is lowering the bar. I understand your point about how this metaphor may not be exactly the right language to use, but that seems like a trivial difference in semantics and not content.
  - ghort 9y ago
    I don't think it's a trivial difference. Lowering the bar suggest that people are now being accepted on lesser merits. But a false negative is a binary condition. Both positive and false negative results are over the bar. False negatives are positive results we misjudge. If he is suggesting something else he should say that and support it. I would define "a higher percentage of applicants succeed" as "more likely".
    - ImSkeptical 9y ago
      Imagine that applicants were scored between 1 and 100 and anyone with a score over 90 is offered a job. Suppose that being nervous in an interview gives you a -5. A nervous applicant has a higher bar - a 95. Someone says maybe we aren't hiring enough women because women have been socialized not to be engineers and are therefore nervous when applying. Let's work on a program to help women be less nervous, then we'll hire more. Now the DM author says "let's apply that program to everyone, not just women, otherwise we'll be lowering the bar for women." And Google immediately fires him. Your observation is that he shouldn't have said "lowering the bar" but it's objectively true. In this example, the bar for women is 90 + the likelihood of being nervous * 5. If you remove the second term for women and not men, you are lowering the bar for women.

ghort 9y ago

> The initiatives that the author links to in this section are presumably aimed at reducing the false negative rate for women, and thereby lowering the bar that women need to clear to get hired. You (he) can't say that you are lowering the bar since a false negative is positive like any other positive. Widening the bar is a more apt analogy.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
Reducing the false negative makes getting a job "easier" (a higher percentage of applicants succeed) and therefore is lowering the bar. I understand your point about how this metaphor may not be exactly the right language to use, but that seems like a trivial difference in semantics and not content.
- ghort 9y ago
  I don't think it's a trivial difference. Lowering the bar suggest that people are now being accepted on lesser merits. But a false negative is a binary condition. Both positive and false negative results are over the bar. False negatives are positive results we misjudge. If he is suggesting something else he should say that and support it. I would define "a higher percentage of applicants succeed" as "more likely".
  - ImSkeptical 9y ago
    Imagine that applicants were scored between 1 and 100 and anyone with a score over 90 is offered a job. Suppose that being nervous in an interview gives you a -5. A nervous applicant has a higher bar - a 95. Someone says maybe we aren't hiring enough women because women have been socialized not to be engineers and are therefore nervous when applying. Let's work on a program to help women be less nervous, then we'll hire more. Now the DM author says "let's apply that program to everyone, not just women, otherwise we'll be lowering the bar for women." And Google immediately fires him. Your observation is that he shouldn't have said "lowering the bar" but it's objectively true. In this example, the bar for women is 90 + the likelihood of being nervous * 5. If you remove the second term for women and not men, you are lowering the bar for women.