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> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate Damore deliberately chose to cast do

> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate Damore deliberately chose to cast doubt on whether the women Google hired were as good as the men. Otherwise, it's easier and less controversial to just argue that any form of discrimination is wrong.

koheripbal 6y ago
"cast doubt". That's a weasel word, because he said nothing of the sort.
forgot_again 6y ago
Given the existence of affirmative action policies in which gender gives a positive boost to some women and may compensate for some deficiency, technical or otherwise, that's a reasonable assumption to make.
xiphias2 6y ago
At Google casting doubt was a good in the early days. Even in search relevance of the results were the most important factor, even if it meant much less clicks, and the culture that Eric Schmidt created with the founders reflected that. Nowadays I think it's a better strategy at Google to not discuss if you don't agree with its policies. It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics.
- jpdb 6y ago
  > It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics. There are large swathes of people who can't just "discard politics" because they are directly affected by the current political status quo.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Sorry, but if you're talking about Googlers, that's bullshit, they're fine. 200k/yr, 300k/yr+ worth of fine. It's great to have empathy for people in a less fortunate position, and yes we have a lot of problems in our society, but FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet.
    - jpdb 6y ago
      Is this a class reductionist argument? Are you saying, for example, a black women at Google doesn't deal with adversity and is no longer effected by politics because they make a large amount of money?
      - pas 6y ago
        Everyone is affected by "everything". Especially politics. People discussing it means they need to acknowledge how policies affect them and how it affects others, and is it good or bad "in general". Or is that a too naive view of what Googlers are supposed to be capable of?
      - xiphias2 6y ago
        Right now a hard working black woman would have much harder time kicking herself out of Google than a white man. Also women are especially encouraged to go for promotion, and as a white man it just made me want to put in the work to go for promotion less there. What I learned over time is that it's just better to work 8x5 days, don't do overtime/weekends, because it's not worth it anymore. For 8x5 hours of work Google is amazing.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet. Heterosexual cisgender white christian male FAANG software engineers may be. Racism and other bigotry doesn't stop affecting you because of economic class or other social position of advantage orthogonal to the basis of the bigotry. Similarly, police officers are also a relatively privileged group of people, but 90% of mistaken identity shootings of off-duty police by police between 1982 and 2010 were shootings of black or hispanic officers.
      - hackissimo123 6y ago
        > 90% of mistaken identity shootings of off-duty police by police between 1982 and 2010 were shootings of black or hispanic officers. That's an interesting statistic. Can I have the source? (This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to cast doubt on what you said.)
zozbot234 6y ago
That's actually not what "false negative rate" means - what he's trying to say is that you can find more candidates which are just as good, because you're putting more effort into searching for them. But of course it's an easy thing to miss, especially if you're not familiar with that terminology - and with existing tech-hiring practices that accept a higher false-negative rate to begin with. Damore never expected his memo to be spread as widely as it was, and this ongoing confusion is part of how it became such a political hot potato.
waheoo 6y ago
It doesnt cast doubt though.. You cant have so much more women than the rest of the industry without that being true. There literally is not enough women coming through engineering schools to allow for that without you a) discriminating against men based on sex, and b) lowering the bar for women. There is no doubt. It is a mathematical given.
- sz4kerto 6y ago
  I see what you mean I think but it's really not a mathematical given. If you have two groups where group 1 with size S scores X with variance V==0.4X on average in a given skill (score means competence), and group 2 with size S/2 scores 0.8X with variance V on average; then it's possible to recruit a set of people from group 2 and the same number of people from group 1 so that the average competence level of people hired from group 2 is higher. All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.). So even if we accept that the average female engineer is not as good as the average male, and there are less female engineers than male, and that Google hires more female engineers than other players in the industry (relative to male hires), it is still absolutely possible that the bar is not lower. Maybe they look harder, maybe they pay more to female engineers with a given competence level, maybe there's no difference, etc.
  - jashmatthews 6y ago
    It’s not hard to imagine that Google simply hired an enormous outsized chunk of the top female talent via outreach and just making vastly better offers to industry leading women.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    I dont think you understand the hiring pool available to mountain view at all. The rate of female attendance in comp sci has been in decline since the 70s. At my university it was quite literally 100 to 1. You cant have a 50-50 hiring pool without some fuckery there. And for what its worth i absolutely do not accept that the avergage female engineer is not as good as the average male engineer. If anything, they are anecdotally better equiped. > All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.). So what amounts to increase their total comp because theyre female and you have a quota to fill? Thats sexual discrimination is it not? I really need to say while im passionately pissed off about the way identity politics has infected this industry i am more than welcome to more females joining the industry and more than hapoy to see the broculture fuck right off.

koheripbal 6y ago

"cast doubt". That's a weasel word, because he said nothing of the sort.

forgot_again 6y ago

Given the existence of affirmative action policies in which gender gives a positive boost to some women and may compensate for some deficiency, technical or otherwise, that's a reasonable assumption to make.

xiphias2 6y ago

At Google casting doubt was a good in the early days. Even in search relevance of the results were the most important factor, even if it meant much less clicks, and the culture that Eric Schmidt created with the founders reflected that. Nowadays I think it's a better strategy at Google to not discuss if you don't agree with its policies. It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics.

jpdb 6y ago
> It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics. There are large swathes of people who can't just "discard politics" because they are directly affected by the current political status quo.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Sorry, but if you're talking about Googlers, that's bullshit, they're fine. 200k/yr, 300k/yr+ worth of fine. It's great to have empathy for people in a less fortunate position, and yes we have a lot of problems in our society, but FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet.
  - jpdb 6y ago
    Is this a class reductionist argument? Are you saying, for example, a black women at Google doesn't deal with adversity and is no longer effected by politics because they make a large amount of money?
    - pas 6y ago
      Everyone is affected by "everything". Especially politics. People discussing it means they need to acknowledge how policies affect them and how it affects others, and is it good or bad "in general". Or is that a too naive view of what Googlers are supposed to be capable of?
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      Right now a hard working black woman would have much harder time kicking herself out of Google than a white man. Also women are especially encouraged to go for promotion, and as a white man it just made me want to put in the work to go for promotion less there. What I learned over time is that it's just better to work 8x5 days, don't do overtime/weekends, because it's not worth it anymore. For 8x5 hours of work Google is amazing.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet. Heterosexual cisgender white christian male FAANG software engineers may be. Racism and other bigotry doesn't stop affecting you because of economic class or other social position of advantage orthogonal to the basis of the bigotry. Similarly, police officers are also a relatively privileged group of people, but 90% of mistaken identity shootings of off-duty police by police between 1982 and 2010 were shootings of black or hispanic officers.
    - hackissimo123 6y ago
      > 90% of mistaken identity shootings of off-duty police by police between 1982 and 2010 were shootings of black or hispanic officers. That's an interesting statistic. Can I have the source? (This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to cast doubt on what you said.)

zozbot234 6y ago

That's actually not what "false negative rate" means - what he's trying to say is that you can find more candidates which are just as good, because you're putting more effort into searching for them. But of course it's an easy thing to miss, especially if you're not familiar with that terminology - and with existing tech-hiring practices that accept a higher false-negative rate to begin with. Damore never expected his memo to be spread as widely as it was, and this ongoing confusion is part of how it became such a political hot potato.

waheoo 6y ago

It doesnt cast doubt though.. You cant have so much more women than the rest of the industry without that being true. There literally is not enough women coming through engineering schools to allow for that without you a) discriminating against men based on sex, and b) lowering the bar for women. There is no doubt. It is a mathematical given.

sz4kerto 6y ago
I see what you mean I think but it's really not a mathematical given. If you have two groups where group 1 with size S scores X with variance V==0.4X on average in a given skill (score means competence), and group 2 with size S/2 scores 0.8X with variance V on average; then it's possible to recruit a set of people from group 2 and the same number of people from group 1 so that the average competence level of people hired from group 2 is higher. All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.). So even if we accept that the average female engineer is not as good as the average male, and there are less female engineers than male, and that Google hires more female engineers than other players in the industry (relative to male hires), it is still absolutely possible that the bar is not lower. Maybe they look harder, maybe they pay more to female engineers with a given competence level, maybe there's no difference, etc.
- jashmatthews 6y ago
  It’s not hard to imagine that Google simply hired an enormous outsized chunk of the top female talent via outreach and just making vastly better offers to industry leading women.
- waheoo 6y ago
  I dont think you understand the hiring pool available to mountain view at all. The rate of female attendance in comp sci has been in decline since the 70s. At my university it was quite literally 100 to 1. You cant have a 50-50 hiring pool without some fuckery there. And for what its worth i absolutely do not accept that the avergage female engineer is not as good as the average male engineer. If anything, they are anecdotally better equiped. > All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.). So what amounts to increase their total comp because theyre female and you have a quota to fill? Thats sexual discrimination is it not? I really need to say while im passionately pissed off about the way identity politics has infected this industry i am more than welcome to more females joining the industry and more than hapoy to see the broculture fuck right off.