nodamage

74 ms·

721.
by nodamage 9y ago
You might view it as cherry picking (even though it's not the only line in the memo written with a condescending tone), but to me it is a big clue that the memo was not written in good faith to solicit discussion, but rather to push a
722.
by nodamage 9y ago
I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.” A lot of people have used that argument in defense of what he wrote, as
723.
by nodamage 9y ago
No. Note that my post makes no argument as to whether the claim "all differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination" is accurate or not. I could have left that part out, but didn't want to only quote half a sen
724.
by nodamage 9y ago
> If you look at this data you can see there is clear distinction in the types of work chosen on average between the sexes. These choices align nicely with the findings of personality research between the sexes. I am not disputing this a
725.
by nodamage 9y ago
"Once we acknowledge that not all differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination, we open our eyes to a more accurate view of the human condition which is necessary if we actually want to solve problems." This is co
726.
by nodamage 9y ago
> I'm fairly certain that the aggregation of jobs described as "tech industry" in this statistic are a rather different collection of jobs pre-mid 80s and post-mid 80s. Not necessarily because of people massaging a statist
727.
by nodamage 9y ago
> it does not logically follow to say, "I've identified this "gap," therefore this "gap" is bad and it is caused by the big bad mean oppressive bullies, group X. This is a misrepresentation of the opposing v
728.
by nodamage 9y ago
I never made that claim, nor do I think such a claim is accurate. But since you seem to be more interested in being snarky rather than engaging the conversation in good faith I think it's time for me to move on here.
729.
by nodamage 9y ago
Yes. It is one thing to acknowledge that biological differences between men and women exist. It's an entirely different thing to claim that these biological differences are the reason why there are so few women in the tech and leadersh
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by nodamage 9y ago
> Overall, though, I thought her piece was well written and she seems to get at the real issue and even has a possible solution that doesn't involve just hiring women for purposes of optics only - fighting the battle far earlier and
731.
by nodamage 9y ago
Even in her anecdote she doesn't actually come out and say they lowered their standards until they ended up hiring women who "couldn't do the work", at least in terms of technical ability. Her only description of these w
732.
by nodamage 9y ago
> No, the core of the article was pointing out that setting arbitrary quotas for female hires and then sacrificing your standards in order to meet those quotas does more harm than good. Is this actually occurring at Google due to the exi
733.
by nodamage 9y ago
> For me, her main buildup was hiring women to meet a "diversity goal" resulted in pressures to hire some women who couldn't do the work. This creates a perverse feedback loop that unfairly taints future women candidates w
734.
by nodamage 9y ago
> What he said was that in the aggregate, women and men statistically have different interests, behaviors, and performance in different fields. ...which therefore explains the lack of women in tech and leadership. People are taking excep
735.
by nodamage 9y ago
Except that he literally wrote: "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 representatio
736.
by nodamage 9y ago
"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 leadershi
737.
by nodamage 9y ago
How is that misrepresenting what he said? Yes, it is true that there will always be individuals that are deviations from the norm. That is already implied in either scenario. Here is a direct quote from the memo: "I’m simply stating th
738.
by nodamage 9y ago
> But Google (or any company) would want to hire the "best" candidates over "qualified" candidates wouldn't they? How exactly do we quantify the difference between "best" and "qualified" and i
739.
by nodamage 9y ago
If that's the case then immediately giving interviews to several right-wing YouTubers and telling them he's a "huge fan" is simply terrible optics...
740.
by nodamage 9y ago
Yes there is definitely room for discussion on what the best approach should be. Unfortunately the author of the memo comes across as trying to push a specific agenda (multiple paragraphs condescendingly railing against "leftist ideolo
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by nodamage 9y ago
> Don't we, in effect, have scenario 2? There are way more men compared to women who study computer science/engineering. Where I studied, only 4% were women. I'm not sure, especially for a company like Google, I would assu
742.
by nodamage 9y ago
Yes I would agree that we shouldn't expect all industries to have 50/50 gender representation, and in fact aiming for such a goal is misguided. However, I am not convinced that the status quo in the tech industry reflects a "
743.
by nodamage 9y ago
It is a hypothetical scenario but it illustrates the fundamental difference in perspectives: In scenario (1) otherwise qualified female candidates are overlooked during the hiring process due to systemic biases in the industry. Programs are
744.
by nodamage 9y ago
If you have two equally qualified candidates but 90% of the time the male candidate is hired over the female candidate, and then you change your hiring practices to reduce that ratio to 50%, are you now discriminating against the male candi
745.
by nodamage 9y ago
This seems like an absurd false equivalence given that the banking infrastructure provides a much larger scope of services than Bitcoin offers.
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by nodamage 9y ago
> You are changing the nonce over and over again until the HASH of the block meets some criteria. For example, your hash is below some value (it starts with a certain number of zeroes). This is important. Yes I am aware of this, I simpli
747.
by nodamage 9y ago
"We" refers to society that you wish to convince to adopt Bitcoin as a currency. As has already been mentioned, the mere fact that people are willing to spend electricity on mining does not inherently demonstrate that it is a good
748.
by nodamage 9y ago
> Given a choice between trusting a person/corporation and trusting a mathematical equation, I would rather place my trust in the mathematics. This comes across as incredibly naive. Just consider the whole Segwit2x controversy and t
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by nodamage 9y ago
> If you knew the technical details of blockchains, you would not think that. And yes, the process IS much more than wasing massive amounts of energy. Feel free to elaborate...
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by nodamage 9y ago
A cryptocurrency enthusiast would tell you that the energy consumed is not "wasted" because it is necessary to secure the block chain. Personally I find this argument unconvincing and somewhat tautological. 1) Surely we can come u

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