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Sounds like the James Damore event for Facebook.

waheoo 6y ago
Yea except James damore didn't do anything wrong. Sounds like this guy actually went after certain people. James damore just asked a question.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  >James damore just asked a question. Relevant: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions I'm sorry, but Damore claimed that women biologically lacked the ability to fill as leadership and programmer roles as men, which broke his employment agreement with Google to not perpetuate stereotypes, hence he was fired. The window dressing and weak-worded arguments in his memo may have you thinking otherwise, but he was fired specifically for this reason, and even he confirmed as much to the press. Edit: For all the Damore apologists replying, here's the statement in question that he made: >>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.
  - AbrahamParangi 6y ago
    Not to pick a side, but did you read the Damore memo?
    - three_seagrass 6y ago
      Yes, more than once, hence the comment about how it's weakly worded. Did you?
      - AbrahamParangi 6y ago
        I did, which was why I was surprised by the statement "Damore claimed that women were biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles"
        three_seagrass 6y ago
        Emphasis Added: >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. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... If you're a Damore apologist, usually now is the time that you say, "That's not what he really meant." Edit: To catch my drift, see the patronizing responses devoid of evidence from the apologists.
        verroq 6y ago
        If I said women are biologically not as tall as men, does that mean women biologically incapable of being as tall as men? Or does that just mean that given a tall person, it's more likely to be a male? Maybe a math example? Let Female ~ N(161.8, sigma), Male ~ N(170.0, sigma) Let's say someone is Tall if height > 170.0 cm Then P(Male|Tall) > P(Female|Tall). The entire argument is that given 1000 people, where 800 are men and 200 are women. Suppose that 1/10 is an exceptional engineer. There are going to be 80 men and 20 men who are exceptional. Suppose we want to only hire exceptional people. Trying to achieve 80 men and 80 women (equality) using the same pool will result in 60 unqualified women being hired. Now whether these incentives will result in the pool being rebalanced is a more nuanced discussion, but from a realist point of view, there is no reason to hire unqualified people.
        KMag 6y ago
        Being tall isn't usually regarded as an ability. Also, if I remember correctly, he was talking about differences in the long tail, not differences in the mean. If you're looking for biological long-tail distribution differences, sports world and Olympic record differences are probably your best argument. A combination of sexism and biological differences are to blame for there being very few female players in the NFL, NBA, and MLB, despite none of them currently having rules against female players. (I'm only aware of Ann Meyers Drysdale.) In any case, virtually nobody argues against natural physical ability differences between men and women. Damore was clearly talking about mental abilities, so pointing out physical ability differences are a straw-man argument.
      - throwawayqiofnq 6y ago
        With all due respect, I don't think your assertion is correct that the Damore memo claimed that "women [are] biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles". Instead, what the memo said was that statistically, women have a different distribution of traits than men, and this difference in distribution may lead to, on average, women being less predisposed to software engineering roles as they exist today. It did not say that women are incapable of being software engineers. Instead the message is that women who are happy in a software engineering role (and therefore women who will work as software engineers) are going to be further out on the bell curve than men who are happy as software engineers, and so there will be fewer of them. The memo also suggested some ways to improve gender diversity without discrimantory hiring practises (based on the assumption that these statistical trait differences are in fact the main cause of gender ratio differences), which I think was a positive contribution to the discussion. Overall I think the memo made some good points (although it is maybe a little long-winded and could be more rigorously cited). I'd encourage you to read it in full if you haven't just to understand what it's saying. There is a PDF at https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... . Edit: I do agree that claiming that women may have different abilities, as opposed to simply preferences, is problematic and oversteps the bounds of professionalism. This claim was limited to two words in one place in the document ("and abilities"), but I don't think that's the major bent of the document.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > I'm sorry, but Damore claimed that women were biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles If you are so sure of that, you can probably find an actual source written by Damore for everyone to see it with their own eyes?
    - threeseed 6y ago
      > https://www.vox.com/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp-employee-memo https://www.vox.com/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp-em... "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" And also states that "women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading" due to biological reasons such as "higher agreeableness".
      - FeepingCreature 6y ago
        Indeed, Damore was careful to respect the difference between individuals and distributions. Of course everyone immediately ignored that and behaved like he'd been talking about the former.
  - mdoms 6y ago
    > Damore claimed that women were biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles No he didn't. You can't just make things up dude.
  - throwaway989659 6y ago
    The statement you are making here is not in any way logically equivalent to the quote you have supplied below to support this idea. Stop lying for political purposes.

Yea except James damore didn't do anything wrong. Sounds like this guy actually went after certain people. James damore just asked a question.

three_seagrass 6y ago
>James damore just asked a question. Relevant: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions I'm sorry, but Damore claimed that women biologically lacked the ability to fill as leadership and programmer roles as men, which broke his employment agreement with Google to not perpetuate stereotypes, hence he was fired. The window dressing and weak-worded arguments in his memo may have you thinking otherwise, but he was fired specifically for this reason, and even he confirmed as much to the press. Edit: For all the Damore apologists replying, here's the statement in question that he made: >>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.
- AbrahamParangi 6y ago
  Not to pick a side, but did you read the Damore memo?
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    Yes, more than once, hence the comment about how it's weakly worded. Did you?
    - AbrahamParangi 6y ago
      I did, which was why I was surprised by the statement "Damore claimed that women were biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles"
      - three_seagrass 6y ago
        Emphasis Added: >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. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... If you're a Damore apologist, usually now is the time that you say, "That's not what he really meant." Edit: To catch my drift, see the patronizing responses devoid of evidence from the apologists.
        verroq 6y ago
        If I said women are biologically not as tall as men, does that mean women biologically incapable of being as tall as men? Or does that just mean that given a tall person, it's more likely to be a male? Maybe a math example? Let Female ~ N(161.8, sigma), Male ~ N(170.0, sigma) Let's say someone is Tall if height > 170.0 cm Then P(Male|Tall) > P(Female|Tall). The entire argument is that given 1000 people, where 800 are men and 200 are women. Suppose that 1/10 is an exceptional engineer. There are going to be 80 men and 20 men who are exceptional. Suppose we want to only hire exceptional people. Trying to achieve 80 men and 80 women (equality) using the same pool will result in 60 unqualified women being hired. Now whether these incentives will result in the pool being rebalanced is a more nuanced discussion, but from a realist point of view, there is no reason to hire unqualified people.
        KMag 6y ago
        Being tall isn't usually regarded as an ability. Also, if I remember correctly, he was talking about differences in the long tail, not differences in the mean. If you're looking for biological long-tail distribution differences, sports world and Olympic record differences are probably your best argument. A combination of sexism and biological differences are to blame for there being very few female players in the NFL, NBA, and MLB, despite none of them currently having rules against female players. (I'm only aware of Ann Meyers Drysdale.) In any case, virtually nobody argues against natural physical ability differences between men and women. Damore was clearly talking about mental abilities, so pointing out physical ability differences are a straw-man argument.
    - throwawayqiofnq 6y ago
      With all due respect, I don't think your assertion is correct that the Damore memo claimed that "women [are] biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles". Instead, what the memo said was that statistically, women have a different distribution of traits than men, and this difference in distribution may lead to, on average, women being less predisposed to software engineering roles as they exist today. It did not say that women are incapable of being software engineers. Instead the message is that women who are happy in a software engineering role (and therefore women who will work as software engineers) are going to be further out on the bell curve than men who are happy as software engineers, and so there will be fewer of them. The memo also suggested some ways to improve gender diversity without discrimantory hiring practises (based on the assumption that these statistical trait differences are in fact the main cause of gender ratio differences), which I think was a positive contribution to the discussion. Overall I think the memo made some good points (although it is maybe a little long-winded and could be more rigorously cited). I'd encourage you to read it in full if you haven't just to understand what it's saying. There is a PDF at https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... . Edit: I do agree that claiming that women may have different abilities, as opposed to simply preferences, is problematic and oversteps the bounds of professionalism. This claim was limited to two words in one place in the document ("and abilities"), but I don't think that's the major bent of the document.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > I'm sorry, but Damore claimed that women were biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles If you are so sure of that, you can probably find an actual source written by Damore for everyone to see it with their own eyes?
  - threeseed 6y ago
    > https://www.vox.com/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp-employee-memo https://www.vox.com/2017/8/5/16102476/google-diversity-vp-em... "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" And also states that "women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading" due to biological reasons such as "higher agreeableness".
    - FeepingCreature 6y ago
      Indeed, Damore was careful to respect the difference between individuals and distributions. Of course everyone immediately ignored that and behaved like he'd been talking about the former.
- mdoms 6y ago
  > Damore claimed that women were biologically incapable of leadership and programmer roles No he didn't. You can't just make things up dude.
- throwaway989659 6y ago
  The statement you are making here is not in any way logically equivalent to the quote you have supplied below to support this idea. Stop lying for political purposes.