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>James Damore is a junior programmer who wrote a 10 page 'manifesto' accusing his colleagues of having inferior genes. Did he? I've seen it represented this wa

>James Damore is a junior programmer who wrote a 10 page 'manifesto' accusing his colleagues of having inferior genes. Did he? I've seen it represented this way but it was my understanding that averages of society were being talked about in the manifesto. So from my understanding it didn't say anything about the women at Google who would presumably be on the far right side of the distribution either way. Men tend to be more physically violent than women, but that's not saying that a particular group of men is necessarily more or less violent than a particular group of women.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Did he? I've seen it represented this way but it was my understanding that averages of society were being talked about in the manifesto. Of course he didn't. It's easy to debunk by actually reading the original memo - I'm pretty sure people summarizing it that way are betting that their readers won't bother to check the source. Also, it's ironic that the ostensibly pro-diversity critics are literally equating "different" with "inferior" here.
- thebooktocome 9y ago
  Two real numbers are different: is one necessarily less than the other? Yes. This is a consequence of the law of trichotomy.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That's only if you reduce the problem to one parameter. Two points on a plane are different: is one necessarily less than the other? No. The question itself is ill-formed. You need a metric to transform the points to a form that can fit into the "less than" comparison. A common transformation would be e.g. euclidean distance - under which two different points (e.g. (2, 4) and (4, 2)) can end up being equal. Real-life problems are multi-dimensional issues with very complex metrics.
    - thebooktocome 9y ago
      See the figure on page four and the subsequent laundry list of individual traits.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        What about it? The figure literally says "this is bad and I don't endorse that". And if that's not enough, the paragraph that the figure is used to support says: "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." If someone says "I explicitly don't claim X", you can't then go and say they're claiming X.
        thebooktocome 9y ago
        Read your own quote. > Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways... He does argue that the population means for various traits are different. If two means are different, one is lesser than the other.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        > and "Y implies X" That's what you are asserting, not the author. Isn't that a textbook definition of a straw man?
      - sixo 9y ago
        Two traits (distributed according to that figure) form a distribution on a plane.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> Did he? I've seen it represented this way but it was my understanding that averages of society were being talked about in the manifesto. Of course he didn't. It's easy to debunk by actually reading the original memo - I'm pretty sure people summarizing it that way are betting that their readers won't bother to check the source. Also, it's ironic that the ostensibly pro-diversity critics are literally equating "different" with "inferior" here.

thebooktocome 9y ago
Two real numbers are different: is one necessarily less than the other? Yes. This is a consequence of the law of trichotomy.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That's only if you reduce the problem to one parameter. Two points on a plane are different: is one necessarily less than the other? No. The question itself is ill-formed. You need a metric to transform the points to a form that can fit into the "less than" comparison. A common transformation would be e.g. euclidean distance - under which two different points (e.g. (2, 4) and (4, 2)) can end up being equal. Real-life problems are multi-dimensional issues with very complex metrics.
  - thebooktocome 9y ago
    See the figure on page four and the subsequent laundry list of individual traits.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      What about it? The figure literally says "this is bad and I don't endorse that". And if that's not enough, the paragraph that the figure is used to support says: "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." If someone says "I explicitly don't claim X", you can't then go and say they're claiming X.
      - thebooktocome 9y ago
        Read your own quote. > Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways... He does argue that the population means for various traits are different. If two means are different, one is lesser than the other.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        > and "Y implies X" That's what you are asserting, not the author. Isn't that a textbook definition of a straw man?
    - sixo 9y ago
      Two traits (distributed according to that figure) form a distribution on a plane.