7 ms·

> a population of engineers is not randomly selected so isn't appear guasian with respect to averages of the global population That's totally irrelevant - so i

by ntuch 9y ago

> a population of engineers is not randomly selected so isn't appear guasian with respect to averages of the global population That's totally irrelevant - so irrelevant that the fact you posted it suggests you don't understand what's being discussed here. The "manifesto" didn't say anything even remotely in the same universe as, "male employees of Google are different from female employees" (a claim to which you might respond, "that's not true because engineers aren't randomly selected." The manifesto explained why there are fewer females in the field of engineering. It's like if I point out that there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter. Your statement is like saying that professional basketball players aren't selected randomly, they're selected (in part) for height. Totally irrelevant to a discussion of why there are fewer overall. I'm on mobile right now. If you like, I'll gladly take apart the rest of your post when I get home. But this bit is a good start. It's really indicative of the kind of person who has criticized the memo.

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
In your "counter" example you highlight my point. Asians, on average, might be shorter, but if you come in with that knowledge and then present the conclusions that asians in professional basketball perform worse than others (exactly what this individual attempted to do with women) would be insane since the asians that do play basketball professional tend to be just as tall as everyone else that does [As an aside, basketball is huge in china and they placed 6th at the last Olympics so it's a nonsensical example anyway]. And it's relevant because it's his fundamental thesis. As for the field of engineering as a whole, he completely ignores the fact that ratios in other high stress high prestige professions such as medicine and law [0][1] (which have dramatically higher barriers to entry than technology while also having a much stronger historical precedence for being male dominated [we forget that programming was female dominated until the 70s]), while not even, hover at around 2:1[0][1] as opposed the 4 or 5 :1 we see in technology. He made no verifiable claims that the women in tech were performing at any lower level just attempted to use global stats (questionable ones at best as noted above) to justify painting diversity initiatives as unnecessary. The sad thing is there are some kernels of not terrible ideas burred at the bottom of all the pseudo science bullshit. I'd love to see more programs opened up to all engineers, because again, just because the average male is more assertive doesn't mean the average male software engineer at google is. [0]http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-by-gender/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-by-gende... [1]https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/market_research/lawyer-demographics-tables-2015.authcheckdam.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/m...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ntuch 9y ago
  > asians in professional basketball perform worse than others Can you quote the exact portion of his post that made this claim? If not, then why did you state it?? > he completely ignores the fact that ratios in other high stress high prestige professions such as medicine and law [0][1] (which have dramatically higher barriers to entry than technology while also having a much stronger historical precedence for being male dominated [we forget that programming was female dominated until the 70s]), while not even, hover at around 2:1[0][1] as opposed the 4 or 5 :1 we see in technology. That sucks that he ignored that. Fortunately, others have addressed it. Here you go: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... (in particular, section IV). So, there it is, addressed, as you requested. You are still wrong, and the google engineer is still right.
- micahbright 9y ago
  >and then present the conclusions that asians in professional basketball perform worse than others (exactly what this individual attempted to do with women) Could you quote exactly the line where he "attempted to do the same with women who work at Google"? That would be pure gold. I read the memo, but I don't recall that part. I'm thinking, one of us may have our blinders one. I just want you to do the work since it is your claim, and it's a 10 page memo.
  - lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
    It's implicit in the thesis. It's there in the very first fucking line if you use [0] source. Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business. The fundamental disconnect between people like the OP and companies like google is over the the idea that there is an untapped well of talent locked away in groups under represented in the space. That's the whole reason these diversity programs exist. You can look no farther than the countless blog posts on how hard interviewing and sourcing candidates that get upvoted here. Candidate acquisition is hard and expensive and it is not helped by exclusionary hiring practices. [1] As much as we'd love to live in a world where we all spoke lojban and full meaning in language was implicitly clear, we're stuck with English so context and tone matter. At best you have a tone deaf person writing a tasteless memo full of bad science and incorrect assertions, at worst you have all the toxic thinking that makes a lot tech such awful places to work. Engineering deserves better than bad math and dog whistles. It's really hard to argue "discrimination" when as a white guy in tech every team you're on will be full of people like you, think like you, hire like you and all the existing metrics are designed based around how you were raised. Like, there really is nothing in this world easier, than being a white dude in tech in my experience so it's very difficult to take any thing said there in good faith.
craigsmansion 9y ago
> It's like if I point out that there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter. Let me stop you right there and black swan you for a moment before the argument deteriorates into an alt-right "Freedom of speech" argument. -Do you contest there are female (software) engineers, or at least one female software engineer, in the highest echelons that are completely technically on par with their male counterparts? -Can you prove that these female engineers (or even this single female engineer) has a "man brain" that allows her to be on par with her male counterparts? If you cannot do that, the rest of any argument is bupkis. Until then, females should be assumed to be equivalent regarding that task. Any large employer that does not attempt to correct this potential disparity to add to their workforce is stealing from its shareholders--to put it in conservative terms, and consequently, correcting any mistakes with regards to this equality objective is fully legitimate. The manifesto explained nothing, but postulated that "guys like things and girls are emotional and that's why they make worse engineers, which makes the hiring process unfair" which doesn't follow, at all. Maybe he just got fired for being terrible at logic and science; not a great trait in an engineer.
- ntuch 9y ago
  > Do you contest there are female (software) engineers, or at least one female software engineer, in the highest echelons that are completely technically on par with their male counterparts? Why would I contest that? After I just said, "there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter." Your question is like asking, "do you disagree with the fact that yao ming is at least as tall as other basketball players" Seriously man, WTF are you doing? Are you even reading my posts??? > Can you prove that these female engineers (or even this single female engineer) has a "man brain" that allows her to be on par with her male counterparts? What??
  - craigsmansion 9y ago
    > Why would I contest that? Good, you do not contest that, which, frankly, would have been a silly thing to do. > After I just said, "there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter." So, "there are fewer women in IT because women tend to be [biological argument]" Now what here is the [biological argument]? We've already established that there is at least one woman who is just as capable a programmer or software engineer as any man could be. That means this woman is exceptional because either: A) She has a specific biologically determined male trait or B) She is not exceptionally different in any biological way but somehow has a unique environment that allows her to be an exceptional programmer. Occam's razor suggests B here, in the absence of extra-ordinary evidence to suggest A. Therefore it would be prudent for any employer to offer a benefit for women to shortcut the much complicated and convoluted environmental and social factors that are involved in the B scenario. Any interlocutor who claims to have found evidence of the [biological component], and as such support A, but does not back this up rigorously, can be assumed to be working against the interests of the employer. Whether this is for ego, political, or religious reasons is irrelevant.

by ntuch 9y ago

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago

In your "counter" example you highlight my point. Asians, on average, might be shorter, but if you come in with that knowledge and then present the conclusions that asians in professional basketball perform worse than others (exactly what this individual attempted to do with women) would be insane since the asians that do play basketball professional tend to be just as tall as everyone else that does [As an aside, basketball is huge in china and they placed 6th at the last Olympics so it's a nonsensical example anyway]. And it's relevant because it's his fundamental thesis. As for the field of engineering as a whole, he completely ignores the fact that ratios in other high stress high prestige professions such as medicine and law [0][1] (which have dramatically higher barriers to entry than technology while also having a much stronger historical precedence for being male dominated [we forget that programming was female dominated until the 70s]), while not even, hover at around 2:1[0][1] as opposed the 4 or 5 :1 we see in technology. He made no verifiable claims that the women in tech were performing at any lower level just attempted to use global stats (questionable ones at best as noted above) to justify painting diversity initiatives as unnecessary. The sad thing is there are some kernels of not terrible ideas burred at the bottom of all the pseudo science bullshit. I'd love to see more programs opened up to all engineers, because again, just because the average male is more assertive doesn't mean the average male software engineer at google is. [0]http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-by-gender/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-by-gende... [1]https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/market_research/lawyer-demographics-tables-2015.authcheckdam.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/m...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ntuch 9y ago
> asians in professional basketball perform worse than others Can you quote the exact portion of his post that made this claim? If not, then why did you state it?? > he completely ignores the fact that ratios in other high stress high prestige professions such as medicine and law [0][1] (which have dramatically higher barriers to entry than technology while also having a much stronger historical precedence for being male dominated [we forget that programming was female dominated until the 70s]), while not even, hover at around 2:1[0][1] as opposed the 4 or 5 :1 we see in technology. That sucks that he ignored that. Fortunately, others have addressed it. Here you go: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... (in particular, section IV). So, there it is, addressed, as you requested. You are still wrong, and the google engineer is still right.
micahbright 9y ago
>and then present the conclusions that asians in professional basketball perform worse than others (exactly what this individual attempted to do with women) Could you quote exactly the line where he "attempted to do the same with women who work at Google"? That would be pure gold. I read the memo, but I don't recall that part. I'm thinking, one of us may have our blinders one. I just want you to do the work since it is your claim, and it's a 10 page memo.
- lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  It's implicit in the thesis. It's there in the very first fucking line if you use [0] source. Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business. The fundamental disconnect between people like the OP and companies like google is over the the idea that there is an untapped well of talent locked away in groups under represented in the space. That's the whole reason these diversity programs exist. You can look no farther than the countless blog posts on how hard interviewing and sourcing candidates that get upvoted here. Candidate acquisition is hard and expensive and it is not helped by exclusionary hiring practices. [1] As much as we'd love to live in a world where we all spoke lojban and full meaning in language was implicitly clear, we're stuck with English so context and tone matter. At best you have a tone deaf person writing a tasteless memo full of bad science and incorrect assertions, at worst you have all the toxic thinking that makes a lot tech such awful places to work. Engineering deserves better than bad math and dog whistles. It's really hard to argue "discrimination" when as a white guy in tech every team you're on will be full of people like you, think like you, hire like you and all the existing metrics are designed based around how you were raised. Like, there really is nothing in this world easier, than being a white dude in tech in my experience so it's very difficult to take any thing said there in good faith.

craigsmansion 9y ago

> It's like if I point out that there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter. Let me stop you right there and black swan you for a moment before the argument deteriorates into an alt-right "Freedom of speech" argument. -Do you contest there are female (software) engineers, or at least one female software engineer, in the highest echelons that are completely technically on par with their male counterparts? -Can you prove that these female engineers (or even this single female engineer) has a "man brain" that allows her to be on par with her male counterparts? If you cannot do that, the rest of any argument is bupkis. Until then, females should be assumed to be equivalent regarding that task. Any large employer that does not attempt to correct this potential disparity to add to their workforce is stealing from its shareholders--to put it in conservative terms, and consequently, correcting any mistakes with regards to this equality objective is fully legitimate. The manifesto explained nothing, but postulated that "guys like things and girls are emotional and that's why they make worse engineers, which makes the hiring process unfair" which doesn't follow, at all. Maybe he just got fired for being terrible at logic and science; not a great trait in an engineer.

ntuch 9y ago
> Do you contest there are female (software) engineers, or at least one female software engineer, in the highest echelons that are completely technically on par with their male counterparts? Why would I contest that? After I just said, "there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter." Your question is like asking, "do you disagree with the fact that yao ming is at least as tall as other basketball players" Seriously man, WTF are you doing? Are you even reading my posts??? > Can you prove that these female engineers (or even this single female engineer) has a "man brain" that allows her to be on par with her male counterparts? What??
- craigsmansion 9y ago
  > Why would I contest that? Good, you do not contest that, which, frankly, would have been a silly thing to do. > After I just said, "there are fewer Asians playing professional basketball because Asians tend to be shorter." So, "there are fewer women in IT because women tend to be [biological argument]" Now what here is the [biological argument]? We've already established that there is at least one woman who is just as capable a programmer or software engineer as any man could be. That means this woman is exceptional because either: A) She has a specific biologically determined male trait or B) She is not exceptionally different in any biological way but somehow has a unique environment that allows her to be an exceptional programmer. Occam's razor suggests B here, in the absence of extra-ordinary evidence to suggest A. Therefore it would be prudent for any employer to offer a benefit for women to shortcut the much complicated and convoluted environmental and social factors that are involved in the B scenario. Any interlocutor who claims to have found evidence of the [biological component], and as such support A, but does not back this up rigorously, can be assumed to be working against the interests of the employer. Whether this is for ego, political, or religious reasons is irrelevant.