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> No one wants to post some James Damore screed decrying the longhouse . . . . Did you read what he actually wrote, instead of just the whines of Googlers and

> No one wants to post some James Damore screed decrying the longhouse . . . . Did you read what he actually wrote, instead of just the whines of Googlers and the journalists who amplified them? I ignored the whole thing for a long time, but when I finally read it word for word out of curiosity well after the shitstorm, I thought it was one of the most reasonable and blatantly obvious things I had ever read.

archagon 3y ago
Clearly, it made a number of women at the company very uncomfortable. So maybe you’re missing something.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  Reality can be uncomfortable but that's no excuse for what happened.
- Tommstein 3y ago
  Literally anything can make "a number" of people claim to be uncomfortable, especially when it involves an examination of discrimination that favors them. I missed nothing, and I award you an F for your non-rebuttal "rebuttal" of what Damore wrote.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Losing your privilege feels like oppression In this case, it's explicit privilege in hiring, promotions, and legal mandates for reporting in layoffs. Seems like he's pushing for equality
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xvector 3y ago
  It's ridiculous to fire someone because they make other people "uncomfortable."
  - archagon 3y ago
    It’s ridiculous to publish a manifesto at work that alienates 15%+ of your coworkers.
    - xvector 3y ago
      Coworkers can get alienated by anything. If someone that looks disfigured makes their colleagues uncomfortable, should they be fired? What about someone that holds a religion that makes their colleagues uncomfortable? Should they be fired? Firing people because they make you uncomfortable is ridiculous. It's possible to be a grown-up adult and move on with your life if something makes you uncomfortable.
      - archagon 3y ago
        Firing someone because they published a controversial manifesto at work is the farthest thing from surprising.
        xvector 3y ago
        I don't think it would make a difference if he published it on a private blog, and people at work saw it. Cancel culture doesn't differentiate between your work and personal life.
        archagon 3y ago
        This is an unfalsifiable statement.
Izkata 3y ago
Not only was it well written, it was sourced with actual research. The initial public leak stripped that out to try and make it sound less reasonable, it took a bit before the original was released publicly. Also people forget that he posted it privately to an internal review group, looking for feedback before submitting it, and that internal group was the one that leaked it.
acdha 3y ago
I did, but being familiar with the space helped identify all of the areas where the reasonable sounding prose was hiding shoddy reasoning in service of old tropes. Here’s a long but useful read if you haven’t looked at the studies commonly cited before: https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boots-on-what-the-evidence-says-about-mr-damores-google-memo-bc93c8b2fdb9 https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot...
- ackfoobar 3y ago
  The section on overlapping bell curves is disappointing. > if you pull out a random man and a random woman, you have about a 77% chance the man will be taller > you’d have about a 2% advantage over sheer random chance if you bet on the man to be more invested in achieving I have no doubt that math is correct, but that's not the point. A small difference in the means becomes a big difference at the tails. And Google does select for the tail. This response did the math: https://medium.com/@ryanbaldini/worth-noting-small-differences-in-the-means-of-two-distributions-can-lead-to-large-differences-at-c0d0f217ab56 https://medium.com/@ryanbaldini/worth-noting-small-differenc...
  - acdha 3y ago
    There are a few sex-linked neuroscience differences linked to innate rather than learned behavior, but they tend to be very low-level skills which aren’t directly linked to high level tasks, much less performance at a job which requires many high-level skills. A slight difference in, say, verbal versus spatial memory doesn’t tell you who’s a better programmer, and in studies it’s consistently been found that top performers mix a variety of skills. Google employs on the order of 140k people and it’s unlikely that more than a few of those are so dependent on one of those narrow skills that it would dominate hiring, much less that the bias would always run in a single direction.
    - ackfoobar 3y ago
      Are you replying to me? Anyway, the example you give - verbal tilt - makes other career prospects more desirable, so the person is less likely to become a programmer.

archagon 3y ago

Clearly, it made a number of women at the company very uncomfortable. So maybe you’re missing something.

nvm0n2 3y ago
Reality can be uncomfortable but that's no excuse for what happened.
Tommstein 3y ago
Literally anything can make "a number" of people claim to be uncomfortable, especially when it involves an examination of discrimination that favors them. I missed nothing, and I award you an F for your non-rebuttal "rebuttal" of what Damore wrote.
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
Losing your privilege feels like oppression In this case, it's explicit privilege in hiring, promotions, and legal mandates for reporting in layoffs. Seems like he's pushing for equality
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xvector 3y ago
It's ridiculous to fire someone because they make other people "uncomfortable."
- archagon 3y ago
  It’s ridiculous to publish a manifesto at work that alienates 15%+ of your coworkers.
  - xvector 3y ago
    Coworkers can get alienated by anything. If someone that looks disfigured makes their colleagues uncomfortable, should they be fired? What about someone that holds a religion that makes their colleagues uncomfortable? Should they be fired? Firing people because they make you uncomfortable is ridiculous. It's possible to be a grown-up adult and move on with your life if something makes you uncomfortable.
    - archagon 3y ago
      Firing someone because they published a controversial manifesto at work is the farthest thing from surprising.
      - xvector 3y ago
        I don't think it would make a difference if he published it on a private blog, and people at work saw it. Cancel culture doesn't differentiate between your work and personal life.
        archagon 3y ago
        This is an unfalsifiable statement.

Izkata 3y ago

Not only was it well written, it was sourced with actual research. The initial public leak stripped that out to try and make it sound less reasonable, it took a bit before the original was released publicly. Also people forget that he posted it privately to an internal review group, looking for feedback before submitting it, and that internal group was the one that leaked it.

acdha 3y ago

I did, but being familiar with the space helped identify all of the areas where the reasonable sounding prose was hiding shoddy reasoning in service of old tropes. Here’s a long but useful read if you haven’t looked at the studies commonly cited before: https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boots-on-what-the-evidence-says-about-mr-damores-google-memo-bc93c8b2fdb9 https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot...

ackfoobar 3y ago
The section on overlapping bell curves is disappointing. > if you pull out a random man and a random woman, you have about a 77% chance the man will be taller > you’d have about a 2% advantage over sheer random chance if you bet on the man to be more invested in achieving I have no doubt that math is correct, but that's not the point. A small difference in the means becomes a big difference at the tails. And Google does select for the tail. This response did the math: https://medium.com/@ryanbaldini/worth-noting-small-differences-in-the-means-of-two-distributions-can-lead-to-large-differences-at-c0d0f217ab56 https://medium.com/@ryanbaldini/worth-noting-small-differenc...
- acdha 3y ago
  There are a few sex-linked neuroscience differences linked to innate rather than learned behavior, but they tend to be very low-level skills which aren’t directly linked to high level tasks, much less performance at a job which requires many high-level skills. A slight difference in, say, verbal versus spatial memory doesn’t tell you who’s a better programmer, and in studies it’s consistently been found that top performers mix a variety of skills. Google employs on the order of 140k people and it’s unlikely that more than a few of those are so dependent on one of those narrow skills that it would dominate hiring, much less that the bias would always run in a single direction.
  - ackfoobar 3y ago
    Are you replying to me? Anyway, the example you give - verbal tilt - makes other career prospects more desirable, so the person is less likely to become a programmer.