5 ms·

That may summarize the goal of the memo, but it does not adequately summarize the content, which has a large focus on biological differences between the sexes b

That may summarize the goal of the memo, but it does not adequately summarize the content, which has a large focus on biological differences between the sexes being this Big Factor that is not yet "priced in" to diversity programs. In reality he was probably way, way off on the impact of biology, but he confirmation biased his way forward regardless, then peppered the memo with hedges to offset the backlash.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mjevans 9y ago
I agree with abtinf about the best interpretation of ideas within the memo. It is a result that the author of that memo should have reached after counseling and seeing evidence supportting of /equality/ programs actually being about equal treatment (or at least fair, as in having multiple possible measurements and a consistent policy of utilizing the best scores to reach a determination.). I feel like a lot of animosity was allowed to fester among all parties due to a lack of intelligent, open, and respectful discourse about problems and perceived problems.
- oddlyaromatic 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "equality" programs. "Diversity" programs are by nature unfair- they provide explicit preferential treatments to specific groups in order to counteract presumed other factors that make those groups less likely to be present in the first place. He clearly has beef with the unfair nature of those programs but they are still the best way I know of concretely responding to realities of a complicated world filled with prejudice and bias beyond any one organization's control. There's always room for improvement based on new data though.
  - IanCal 9y ago
    > "Diversity" programs are by nature unfair- they provide explicit preferential treatments to specific groups in order to counteract presumed other factors that make those groups less likely to be present in the first place. Often, but not necessarily. Since this is a forum for people who like to be technically correct, I'll throw my two cents in here. To give an example, let's assume that there's a split between group A and group B between high cost and low cost universities. Group A are 90% of the high cost students and group B are 90% of the low cost students. Google send representatives to mostly the high cost universities at the moment, because they're assumed to have the best students. This is resulting in a remarkably large proportion of As at Google. To counteract this, you could go and explicitly target Bs, which would fit with your description. Or, you could lower your threshold and start sending reps to lower cost unis as well. This increases diversity yet at no point is specifically preferring Bs. I picked this example of high cost/low cost unis purely because it's easy, not to make any statement about whether this kind of thing happens or is important for future performance. this is also not a hugely important point, but it was floating about in my head.
    - oddlyaromatic 9y ago
      I think that's fair. I guess I could have specified "the kind of diversity programs with which James Damore has a problem". But I take your point. In principle, this is actually close to what actually ends up happening, except with limited resources it becomes a really tricky dynamic. Let's say Google has 10 reps, and in the old days 8 went to A, 2 to B. If they now send 5 to A and 5 to B... The A group will feel that they lost something, and the B group will feel like they never even HAD 8 reps, so not necessarily feel that things have become fair... It might be fairest to have a period of 2 going to A and 8 going to B for the same length of time that 8 went to A, and THEN balance it to 5 and 5... But if A suddenly goes from 8 to 2... well, those people are going to be writing memos like nobody's business about it. Even at 5 and 5, there will be memos. Even at 7 and 3, possibly. The slightest change to the status quo could provoke a memo. (and for the record I do appreciate this comment, in case that didn't come across.. I'm responding in a similar spirit... not important but worth thinking through all the same)
belorn 9y ago
Memo size is: 178 lines, 3339 words, 22264 bytes. How big part of the memo is focused on differences between the sexes? The section called Personality differences that everyone talks about is: 11 lines, 245 words, 1662 bytes. Even if we include the only other place in the memo which reference this section (Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap), we are only adding a total of 7 lines, 222 words and an additional 1402 bytes. The large focus of the memo was political diversity. About 97 lines, 1671 words and 11071 byes was written on that topic.
- oddlyaromatic 9y ago
  When I can, I'll respond in detail. Maybe I'm crazy.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mjevans 9y ago

I agree with abtinf about the best interpretation of ideas within the memo. It is a result that the author of that memo should have reached after counseling and seeing evidence supportting of /equality/ programs actually being about equal treatment (or at least fair, as in having multiple possible measurements and a consistent policy of utilizing the best scores to reach a determination.). I feel like a lot of animosity was allowed to fester among all parties due to a lack of intelligent, open, and respectful discourse about problems and perceived problems.

oddlyaromatic 9y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "equality" programs. "Diversity" programs are by nature unfair- they provide explicit preferential treatments to specific groups in order to counteract presumed other factors that make those groups less likely to be present in the first place. He clearly has beef with the unfair nature of those programs but they are still the best way I know of concretely responding to realities of a complicated world filled with prejudice and bias beyond any one organization's control. There's always room for improvement based on new data though.
- IanCal 9y ago
  > "Diversity" programs are by nature unfair- they provide explicit preferential treatments to specific groups in order to counteract presumed other factors that make those groups less likely to be present in the first place. Often, but not necessarily. Since this is a forum for people who like to be technically correct, I'll throw my two cents in here. To give an example, let's assume that there's a split between group A and group B between high cost and low cost universities. Group A are 90% of the high cost students and group B are 90% of the low cost students. Google send representatives to mostly the high cost universities at the moment, because they're assumed to have the best students. This is resulting in a remarkably large proportion of As at Google. To counteract this, you could go and explicitly target Bs, which would fit with your description. Or, you could lower your threshold and start sending reps to lower cost unis as well. This increases diversity yet at no point is specifically preferring Bs. I picked this example of high cost/low cost unis purely because it's easy, not to make any statement about whether this kind of thing happens or is important for future performance. this is also not a hugely important point, but it was floating about in my head.
  - oddlyaromatic 9y ago
    I think that's fair. I guess I could have specified "the kind of diversity programs with which James Damore has a problem". But I take your point. In principle, this is actually close to what actually ends up happening, except with limited resources it becomes a really tricky dynamic. Let's say Google has 10 reps, and in the old days 8 went to A, 2 to B. If they now send 5 to A and 5 to B... The A group will feel that they lost something, and the B group will feel like they never even HAD 8 reps, so not necessarily feel that things have become fair... It might be fairest to have a period of 2 going to A and 8 going to B for the same length of time that 8 went to A, and THEN balance it to 5 and 5... But if A suddenly goes from 8 to 2... well, those people are going to be writing memos like nobody's business about it. Even at 5 and 5, there will be memos. Even at 7 and 3, possibly. The slightest change to the status quo could provoke a memo. (and for the record I do appreciate this comment, in case that didn't come across.. I'm responding in a similar spirit... not important but worth thinking through all the same)

belorn 9y ago

Memo size is: 178 lines, 3339 words, 22264 bytes. How big part of the memo is focused on differences between the sexes? The section called Personality differences that everyone talks about is: 11 lines, 245 words, 1662 bytes. Even if we include the only other place in the memo which reference this section (Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap), we are only adding a total of 7 lines, 222 words and an additional 1402 bytes. The large focus of the memo was political diversity. About 97 lines, 1671 words and 11071 byes was written on that topic.

oddlyaromatic 9y ago
When I can, I'll respond in detail. Maybe I'm crazy.