Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by axaxs on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:12AM (#14954599)

I cannot believe what I'm reading in this thread, especially from usernames I recognize and respect. If this is really what is ascertained from this, our two sides' differences are too large to be reconciled. Consider maybe some people truly want to work with the best of the best, ignoring race or gender. Let the cards fall where they may based on merit.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by mikeash on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:22PM (#14959421)

I'm all for hiring based on merit and nothing else. 100%, that's what I'd want to see.

But actually doing so is a fantasy. Building bias-free selection processes is really, really hard. I don't think anyone actually knows how. (At least not useful ones. You can trivially eliminate bias by never hiring anyone, for example.)

It looks to me like this is the fundamental agreement between the two sides here. Both sides want to hire the people who will be best at the job, full stop. People who think James Damore is correct believe that the typical hiring process, or at least some achievable tech hiring process, already achieves this, and any modification is necessarily selecting worse candidates. People on the other side, such as myself, believe that the hiring process selects for far more than just merit, and diversity programs are an attempt to fix that.

So, yes, let's pick the best of the best. How?

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by vyhd on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @02:34AM (#14955040)

An alternate way to phrase it for you, then. Why are you assuming that these programs do not produce the "best of the best"?

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