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> What of Google managers quoted in media vehemently saying they wouldn't hire people harboring certain political positions? I respond that this is inconsisten

by jfasi 8y ago

> What of Google managers quoted in media vehemently saying they wouldn't hire people harboring certain political positions? I respond that this is inconsistent with both stated policies and established practice, and such managers can and should be targeted to answer for their bias and have it corrected. I would also respond that if a journalist with an axe to grind were to search hard enough and interview enough people, they're bound to find someone they can put on a pedestal and point to saying "look at how corrupt these people are!" If anything, a person believing this sort of anecdote about an organization says more about the believer than the organization in question. > Why is it that so many of my acquaintances who work at Google pig-piled James Damore over his professional competence, despite none of them being in a position to have any idea about that? That does sound unfair: Damore was a senior engineer, which not a title that's given out lightly. Again, though, peoples' possibly unfair commentary on his professional abilities says nothing about the quality of discourse in the company. And again, one's willingness to balloon these sorts of individual anecdotes into indictments of an organization as a whole say more about the person doing the indicting than the organization in question.

stcredzero 8y ago
> if a journalist with an axe to grind were to search hard enough and interview enough people, they're bound to find someone they can put on a pedestal and point to saying "look at how corrupt these people are!" Given that such managers were quoted saying such things in public communications, that makes your spin on this look doubtful. > Again, though, peoples' possibly unfair commentary on his professional abilities says nothing about the quality of discourse in the company. It said a whole lot about my fellow classmates. Yes, those acquaintances were all people who were once my college friends who I spent a lot of time with, but drifted away from. (One of them I once would have counted as my "best friend.") I would never have imagined that they would engage in mob-like condemnations of that harshness. Really, something struck me as being completely out of whack. The most likely Occam's-friendly explanation I can think of is some kind of ideological groupthink at Google.
alexryan 8y ago
> such managers can and should be targeted to answer for their bias The point is that such managers are NOT being targeted. The lynching of James Damore was enthusiastically conducted by the very top of the management hierarchy and they are on record as having lied in public about what he actually said. Rather than correct their own bias, Pichai has stated that he has "no regrets" over his behavior and the legitimate concerns that were raised by James continue to remain unaddressed because they conflict with the dominant ideology.
- ryanobjc 8y ago
  Disagree that the concerns raised were legitimate. It was a hodgepodge of cherry picked science, and motivated reasoning and slander against all of his female workers. Sunday agrees with me. Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong about what was in there?
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    > It was a hodgepodge of cherry picked science Not all scientists would agree. http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU > motivated reasoning and slander against all of his female workers. Only if you don't take what he says at face value and impute motivations which aren't directly stated in the text. The very need of this imputation to justify his treatment and the huge reaction, as well as the intellectually dishonest way in which the Google management and the left-leaning press engaged in hit pieces -- all of this smacks of ideological groupthink. The very fact that people can reasonably disagree about the interpretation of the memo, contrasted with the outsized reaction are pretty damning. Here's a feminist who disagrees with Damore's position in his memo, who lays out a cogent argument for why he's wrong, and there is systemic bias, but who thinks the reaction was a "little off," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA Also, note that my position is that there is also some cultural bias in the programming field -- as a field. (Hackers in the HN sense have model train clubs as their cultural forebears.) However, this doesn't preclude that women within our current cultural context may well decide not to become programmers for their own reasons, and that some of this motivation may be correlated with their gender -- without there being systemic bias within hiring organizations.
ryanobjc 8y ago
A

by jfasi 8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago

> if a journalist with an axe to grind were to search hard enough and interview enough people, they're bound to find someone they can put on a pedestal and point to saying "look at how corrupt these people are!" Given that such managers were quoted saying such things in public communications, that makes your spin on this look doubtful. > Again, though, peoples' possibly unfair commentary on his professional abilities says nothing about the quality of discourse in the company. It said a whole lot about my fellow classmates. Yes, those acquaintances were all people who were once my college friends who I spent a lot of time with, but drifted away from. (One of them I once would have counted as my "best friend.") I would never have imagined that they would engage in mob-like condemnations of that harshness. Really, something struck me as being completely out of whack. The most likely Occam's-friendly explanation I can think of is some kind of ideological groupthink at Google.

alexryan 8y ago

> such managers can and should be targeted to answer for their bias The point is that such managers are NOT being targeted. The lynching of James Damore was enthusiastically conducted by the very top of the management hierarchy and they are on record as having lied in public about what he actually said. Rather than correct their own bias, Pichai has stated that he has "no regrets" over his behavior and the legitimate concerns that were raised by James continue to remain unaddressed because they conflict with the dominant ideology.

ryanobjc 8y ago
Disagree that the concerns raised were legitimate. It was a hodgepodge of cherry picked science, and motivated reasoning and slander against all of his female workers. Sunday agrees with me. Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong about what was in there?
- stcredzero 8y ago
  > It was a hodgepodge of cherry picked science Not all scientists would agree. http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU > motivated reasoning and slander against all of his female workers. Only if you don't take what he says at face value and impute motivations which aren't directly stated in the text. The very need of this imputation to justify his treatment and the huge reaction, as well as the intellectually dishonest way in which the Google management and the left-leaning press engaged in hit pieces -- all of this smacks of ideological groupthink. The very fact that people can reasonably disagree about the interpretation of the memo, contrasted with the outsized reaction are pretty damning. Here's a feminist who disagrees with Damore's position in his memo, who lays out a cogent argument for why he's wrong, and there is systemic bias, but who thinks the reaction was a "little off," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA Also, note that my position is that there is also some cultural bias in the programming field -- as a field. (Hackers in the HN sense have model train clubs as their cultural forebears.) However, this doesn't preclude that women within our current cultural context may well decide not to become programmers for their own reasons, and that some of this motivation may be correlated with their gender -- without there being systemic bias within hiring organizations.

ryanobjc 8y ago