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That's the thing: there is no misrepresentation. A bunch of people here are trying to use smoke and mirrors to cry "repression" of their ideas, but when you boi

That's the thing: there is no misrepresentation. A bunch of people here are trying to use smoke and mirrors to cry "repression" of their ideas, but when you boil it down to the basics the memo just says that: "we shouldn't do anything to increase diversity, because women are biologically different and hence they won't be interested." The moment you point out that the same kind of argument was made about black people not long ago, most of the trolls just disappear.

humanrebar 9y ago
> "we shouldn't do anything to increase diversity..." He didn't say that either. In fact, he advocates for more diversity and suggests changes that, at least according to him, should increase diversity without the negatives he's concerned about.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  Renowned sociologist James Damore - citing a study that has been debunked about how "women focus more on people than things" - builds a case for how to improve inclusiveness. I'm a bit skeptical about that.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    OK. So you think he wrote the memo in bad faith and/or ignorance. Just say that. Why argue that it says things it doesn't? The NYT piece could have just said something like, "...fired for harboring anti-diversity attitudes that are obvious from reading a deceptively worded diatribe," or something like that. At least be honest about what he literally said and what additional context and inferences add to the picture.
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      > So you think he wrote the memo in bad faith and/or ignorance By now I'm convinced he wrote the memo in bad faith. The moment he beelined to every alt-right media outlet wearing a "Goolag" t-shirt it was clear this wasn't just an honest mistake. Even an idiot would understand that writing a memo setting up a "left vs. right" argument and then attacking Googlers as "repressors misguided by leftist ideals", while laying out a flawed biological argument for why "women are not well suited for engineering" is not going to go down smoothly. It's no coincidence that he admittedly kept pushing this around when it got ignored until it eventually "made it to the public." Had he really wanted to have an honest discussion with HR about practices, he could've emailed them directly. Then he sued immediately after getting fired. Very tight timeline for a well-intentioned snafu. > Why argue that it says things it doesn't? Where did I do that? > At least be honest about what he literally said and what additional context and inferences add to the picture. At least be honest about the actual content of the memo. The additional context and inferences are just fluff to mask the base premise: "women are biologically different, that means they probably don't want to work here, please stop trying reaching out to them, you are discriminating against everyone else."
      - mistermann 9y ago
        > Where did I do that? Here: "while laying out a flawed biological argument for why "women are not well suited for engineering" is not going to go down smoothly" Do you actually not realize that's what he said? Since we're on HN, I bet you wouldn't make such a sloppy mistake of imprecision if the topic was something other than gender/race/sexuality.
        dguaraglia 9y ago
        OK, let's assume I'm wrong: what did he say? If he didn't try to highlight the biological difference why bring it up at all? Why claim Google is "a leftist ecochamber" for trying to increase diversity when the population is clearly not 80% men? So far I've gotten a lot of people saying "he didn't day that!" but without explaining what he said. Please clarify.
        mistermann 9y ago
        > So far I've gotten a lot of people saying "he didn't day that!" but without explaining what he said. There have been at least two large threads on HN on this topic. You would have me believe everyone is saying "he didn't say that!" but with no explanation of what he he said? What he said was that in the aggregate, women and men statistically have different interests, behaviors, and performance in different fields. I can't imagine how sheltered of a life you'd have to live to not be exposed to this in real life, or more appropriately, how intellectually dishonest you'd have to be to pretend you've never noticed. To me, this rise of anti-intellectualism in the west is rather scary.
        dguaraglia 9y ago
        > women and men statistically have different interests, behaviors, and performance in different fields Fair enough. That's a valid theory to entertain, and I'm sure there's a growing body of science supporting both sides of the debate. Now, the question is this: if that was the case, how do we determine the extent to which the biological factors affect career selection, when we live in a society that encourages gender stereotypes? If we don't know the extent, how can we jump to conclusions about outreach generating "a discriminatory framework"? That, at the end of the day, is my main complaint about Damore's memo. It's just a weak attempt at generating outrage. > To me, this rise of anti-intellectualism in the west is rather scary. Anti-intellectualism has many faces. The fact that we are discussing this in an open forum, and that we could probably sit on a coffee shop and have a civilized discussion about it is proof that the whole narrative about "liberal values = cultural Marxism" is at least partially bogus. Meanwhile, the same people who complained about stifling free speech at Google are threatening to leak the names of liberal Googlers to alt-right websites. Where's the outrage about that?
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      > So you think he wrote the memo in bad faith and/or ignorance. Just say that. Why argue that it says things it doesn't? This is the "only the literal words should be taken" argument - but words can have contextual meanings above and beyond their literal meanings. "Urban crime", for example, literally just means "crime in an urban environment" but is often used as a dogwhistle for "crimes committed by POC". Same with Damore's memo - he may not literally have said the things people are seeing but - if you assume it was written in bad faith (which the pseudoscience and "I'm just asking the questions" would indicate) - the dogwhistles are clear.
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    I don't think that study's been debunked. But I would really like to see if it was, would you mind explaining? Were there methodological issues or did it fail to replicate in a larger better designed study?
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      The article I linked lists some of the issues. Essentially the study could be measuring for a number of things instead of gender aptitude for "liking things instead of people." But that's besides the point, even if the study was correct jumping from "newborn males are slightly more likely to stare at a mobile longer" to "that means adult women are less interested in computer sciences" is preposterous. Even further, jumping from that to "hence trying to be more inclusive in hiring is discrimination against males" is just the kind of shit I'd expect from alt-right writers, not engineers. But then again, Damore was very quick to jump on that train, so maybe he had a ticket already.
      - JamesBarney 9y ago
        I searched this whole thread and can't find any comment you made that links to an article. Would you mind posting it? I'd love to have my mind changed. Most of my friends are liberal and think this science is bunk, but from what I've read there is a lot of evidence that women are more interested in things than people, and a moderate amount of evidence that at least some of this preference is biological.
        dguaraglia 9y ago
        Here's the article I linked containing some criticism of the methodology: http://www.thetutorking.com/2014/08/criticisms-of-connellan-baron-cohen.html http://www.thetutorking.com/2014/08/criticisms-of-connellan-.... This paper came up barely a decade ago. Studies showing the influence of gender stereotypes on behavior go back decades. To clarify, I'm not saying that there's 0 possibility that there are differences between sexes, just that trying to rationalize the current gender imbalance in engineering as "girls being girls and boys being boys" is a bit disingenuous, considering different countries perform differently. This article has some interesting data to mull over: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/there-are-only-3-countries-where-girls-feel-more-comfortable-with-math-than-boys/284272/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/th... There's no "right answer" right now, and yet there's a lot of people around here defending Damore's memo as if all the premises were completely accurate.
yahna 9y ago
Which is a pretty ridiculously slanted and incomplete argument that goes completely against company views.
mistermann 9y ago
> The moment you point out that the same kind of argument was made about black people not long ago, most of the trolls just disappear. Or they completely stop taking you seriously. The increasing absurdity of this discussion is astonishing.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  > Or they completely stop taking you seriously. You take yourself really seriously, for someone defending the modern equivalent of phrenology.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    What is this referring to?
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      You try to dismiss my obvious analogy with "the biological argument" made by racists, but fail to see the glaring equivalence Damone is making between purported biological characteristics and outcomes in STEM fields. Phrenology tried to use physical traits to determine behavior, this is not very different.
      - mistermann 9y ago
        Except I didn't do that? I was merely pointing out how silly you are being. > "we shouldn't do anything to increase diversity, because women are biologically different and hence they won't be interested." This is not the argument. You should be ashamed of yourself for behaving like this.
        dguaraglia 9y ago
        > This is not the argument. You should be ashamed of yourself for behaving like this So what is the argument?

humanrebar 9y ago

> "we shouldn't do anything to increase diversity..." He didn't say that either. In fact, he advocates for more diversity and suggests changes that, at least according to him, should increase diversity without the negatives he's concerned about.

dguaraglia 9y ago
Renowned sociologist James Damore - citing a study that has been debunked about how "women focus more on people than things" - builds a case for how to improve inclusiveness. I'm a bit skeptical about that.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  OK. So you think he wrote the memo in bad faith and/or ignorance. Just say that. Why argue that it says things it doesn't? The NYT piece could have just said something like, "...fired for harboring anti-diversity attitudes that are obvious from reading a deceptively worded diatribe," or something like that. At least be honest about what he literally said and what additional context and inferences add to the picture.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    > So you think he wrote the memo in bad faith and/or ignorance By now I'm convinced he wrote the memo in bad faith. The moment he beelined to every alt-right media outlet wearing a "Goolag" t-shirt it was clear this wasn't just an honest mistake. Even an idiot would understand that writing a memo setting up a "left vs. right" argument and then attacking Googlers as "repressors misguided by leftist ideals", while laying out a flawed biological argument for why "women are not well suited for engineering" is not going to go down smoothly. It's no coincidence that he admittedly kept pushing this around when it got ignored until it eventually "made it to the public." Had he really wanted to have an honest discussion with HR about practices, he could've emailed them directly. Then he sued immediately after getting fired. Very tight timeline for a well-intentioned snafu. > Why argue that it says things it doesn't? Where did I do that? > At least be honest about what he literally said and what additional context and inferences add to the picture. At least be honest about the actual content of the memo. The additional context and inferences are just fluff to mask the base premise: "women are biologically different, that means they probably don't want to work here, please stop trying reaching out to them, you are discriminating against everyone else."
    - mistermann 9y ago
      > Where did I do that? Here: "while laying out a flawed biological argument for why "women are not well suited for engineering" is not going to go down smoothly" Do you actually not realize that's what he said? Since we're on HN, I bet you wouldn't make such a sloppy mistake of imprecision if the topic was something other than gender/race/sexuality.
      - dguaraglia 9y ago
        OK, let's assume I'm wrong: what did he say? If he didn't try to highlight the biological difference why bring it up at all? Why claim Google is "a leftist ecochamber" for trying to increase diversity when the population is clearly not 80% men? So far I've gotten a lot of people saying "he didn't day that!" but without explaining what he said. Please clarify.
        mistermann 9y ago
        > So far I've gotten a lot of people saying "he didn't day that!" but without explaining what he said. There have been at least two large threads on HN on this topic. You would have me believe everyone is saying "he didn't say that!" but with no explanation of what he he said? What he said was that in the aggregate, women and men statistically have different interests, behaviors, and performance in different fields. I can't imagine how sheltered of a life you'd have to live to not be exposed to this in real life, or more appropriately, how intellectually dishonest you'd have to be to pretend you've never noticed. To me, this rise of anti-intellectualism in the west is rather scary.
        dguaraglia 9y ago
        > women and men statistically have different interests, behaviors, and performance in different fields Fair enough. That's a valid theory to entertain, and I'm sure there's a growing body of science supporting both sides of the debate. Now, the question is this: if that was the case, how do we determine the extent to which the biological factors affect career selection, when we live in a society that encourages gender stereotypes? If we don't know the extent, how can we jump to conclusions about outreach generating "a discriminatory framework"? That, at the end of the day, is my main complaint about Damore's memo. It's just a weak attempt at generating outrage. > To me, this rise of anti-intellectualism in the west is rather scary. Anti-intellectualism has many faces. The fact that we are discussing this in an open forum, and that we could probably sit on a coffee shop and have a civilized discussion about it is proof that the whole narrative about "liberal values = cultural Marxism" is at least partially bogus. Meanwhile, the same people who complained about stifling free speech at Google are threatening to leak the names of liberal Googlers to alt-right websites. Where's the outrage about that?
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > So you think he wrote the memo in bad faith and/or ignorance. Just say that. Why argue that it says things it doesn't? This is the "only the literal words should be taken" argument - but words can have contextual meanings above and beyond their literal meanings. "Urban crime", for example, literally just means "crime in an urban environment" but is often used as a dogwhistle for "crimes committed by POC". Same with Damore's memo - he may not literally have said the things people are seeing but - if you assume it was written in bad faith (which the pseudoscience and "I'm just asking the questions" would indicate) - the dogwhistles are clear.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  I don't think that study's been debunked. But I would really like to see if it was, would you mind explaining? Were there methodological issues or did it fail to replicate in a larger better designed study?
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    The article I linked lists some of the issues. Essentially the study could be measuring for a number of things instead of gender aptitude for "liking things instead of people." But that's besides the point, even if the study was correct jumping from "newborn males are slightly more likely to stare at a mobile longer" to "that means adult women are less interested in computer sciences" is preposterous. Even further, jumping from that to "hence trying to be more inclusive in hiring is discrimination against males" is just the kind of shit I'd expect from alt-right writers, not engineers. But then again, Damore was very quick to jump on that train, so maybe he had a ticket already.
    - JamesBarney 9y ago
      I searched this whole thread and can't find any comment you made that links to an article. Would you mind posting it? I'd love to have my mind changed. Most of my friends are liberal and think this science is bunk, but from what I've read there is a lot of evidence that women are more interested in things than people, and a moderate amount of evidence that at least some of this preference is biological.
      - dguaraglia 9y ago
        Here's the article I linked containing some criticism of the methodology: http://www.thetutorking.com/2014/08/criticisms-of-connellan-baron-cohen.html http://www.thetutorking.com/2014/08/criticisms-of-connellan-.... This paper came up barely a decade ago. Studies showing the influence of gender stereotypes on behavior go back decades. To clarify, I'm not saying that there's 0 possibility that there are differences between sexes, just that trying to rationalize the current gender imbalance in engineering as "girls being girls and boys being boys" is a bit disingenuous, considering different countries perform differently. This article has some interesting data to mull over: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/there-are-only-3-countries-where-girls-feel-more-comfortable-with-math-than-boys/284272/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/th... There's no "right answer" right now, and yet there's a lot of people around here defending Damore's memo as if all the premises were completely accurate.

yahna 9y ago

Which is a pretty ridiculously slanted and incomplete argument that goes completely against company views.

mistermann 9y ago

> The moment you point out that the same kind of argument was made about black people not long ago, most of the trolls just disappear. Or they completely stop taking you seriously. The increasing absurdity of this discussion is astonishing.

dguaraglia 9y ago
> Or they completely stop taking you seriously. You take yourself really seriously, for someone defending the modern equivalent of phrenology.
- mistermann 9y ago
  What is this referring to?
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    You try to dismiss my obvious analogy with "the biological argument" made by racists, but fail to see the glaring equivalence Damone is making between purported biological characteristics and outcomes in STEM fields. Phrenology tried to use physical traits to determine behavior, this is not very different.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      Except I didn't do that? I was merely pointing out how silly you are being. > "we shouldn't do anything to increase diversity, because women are biologically different and hence they won't be interested." This is not the argument. You should be ashamed of yourself for behaving like this.
      - dguaraglia 9y ago
        > This is not the argument. You should be ashamed of yourself for behaving like this So what is the argument?