It's unbelievable that in 2017, in a field that is vastly dominated by males, someone would have the gall to claim "trying to introduce more diversity is repression."
Can you imagine if the roles were reversed, and the nurses association said "well, we don't really want more males in the profession because they are clearly not biologically ready to deal with people. We'd love to have them, but clearly they are not interested so we'll set a quota on how many can be certified per year"? The same people defending Damore would be flipping their shit.
Because it's not your definition of equality? Why not impress us with your own brand of philosophy by writing a cited, 10-page memo on the topic, then maybe you'll get buy-in.
> It's unbelievable that in 2017
Why? Is 2017 the year that its ok to repress individuals in favour of their respective political/identity group statistics? "introducing more diversity" is a sinister sugar-coating of what's happening here.
> we don't really want more males in the profession because they are clearly not biologically ready to deal with people
You mean imagine an entirely different thing? If someone explained why so few men chose to go into nursing using the same reasoning, they would not "[flip] their shit" - only because you manufactured an aspect not in the memo. He doubly-so didn't suggest setting a quota on women in IT, which is the cherry on the strawman.
I didn't "compare Damore to Rosa Parks", someone argued that Damore shouldn't have voiced his opinion for fear of not being hireable, and I compared this to Rosa Parks being told she'd have difficulty catching a bus. Given the comments you've posted already across HN, I believe it is you that has a problem.
> someone argued that Damore shouldn't have voiced his opinion for fear of not being hireable, I compared this to Rosa Parks being told she'd have difficulty catching a bus
Same thing.
No one is "pretending [they] are a repressed minority", you just assume this because you think that has to be the case before individual equality is necessary. Minorities and majorities, repressed or otherwise, all deserve fair treatment.
And yet, here you are, advocating for using a weak "biological" argument to be unfair to a minority.
A: "Damore's memo says 2 + 2 = 5!!"
B: "No it doesn't."
A: "prove it doesn't!!"
I defend Damore's memo against stuff it didn't say, what exactly can I specify, other than quote the entire thing to demonstrate what isn't in it? The memo accurately portrays itself, it even starts of with a summary stating it's main points and aims.
What I have done is repeatedly ask you which specific part led you to your conclusions. You want me to prove a negative here? The burden is on you to defend your claims.
You have also attributed a number of claims to me that I have not made (e.g. there is zero gender-bias in tech). I also do not bear a burden of proof for claims I did not make.
Very simple: tell me what exactly in Damore's memo resonates with you, why do you think it's true. That's all. Even if it's restating, in two sentences, what you believe to be the content of the memo.
> What I have done is repeatedly ask you which specific part led you to your conclusions. You want me to prove a negative here? The burden is on you to defend your claims.
And when I do, you just say "but he never said that!". Apparently there's no interpretation possible other than whatever super narrow interpretation you came to. Everything else is poppycock.
> You have also attributed a number of claims to me that I have not made (e.g. there is zero gender-bias in tech)
That's rich. You asked me to prove there's a problem. Why would you ask me to do it? If you acknowledge that there is gender bias, then how can you possibly believe there is no problem? It doesn't follow.
Also, I think Damore's 50/50 diversity logic stoked lot of bad feelings both for and against. No diversity policy aims for 50/50, rather help raise the percentage of under represented (in this case women) more than what was in the past. He modelled his whole memo based on this 50/50 diversity split and went on to suggest that biologically 50/50 representation is not at all possible, which may be true but that is not the point or aim of a diverse workplace.
I read the memo 3 times over several days just to make sure that I don't miss a key thing (and I'm still no fully sure). But I bet a hell lots of people who commented on it didn't even read it thoroughly once.
One could argue though that Damore should have expected this (but maybe he actually did. I can totally imagine that he had mentally prepared himself before to get fired over this).
When you want to prove a paper wrong you don't need delve on every nuance, you just need to prove the base premise is flawed. Not sure why Damore deserves a different treatment, when clearly he's trying to build an argument and proposes "solutions" based on it.
> One could argue though that Damore should have expected this
Oh, I'm pretty sure he was looking for this.
Even if so, that assumes that the base premise actually has been correctly identified.
His base premise was not "women are worse engineers than men". Yet this is what most critics and media argued against.
His base premise was about differences in the average distribution of traits, which is a completely different thing, doesn't say anything about abilities of an individual, and actually is not that flawed. There is plenty of scientific evidence pointing towards that direction. It's not total consensus but describing it as "flawed" would be pretty ignorant, as far as I can interpret the scientific status quo.
But understanding this base premise required that people actually would have put some own thought into what they read, and were open to nuance.
(That's an honest question, BTW, not trying to be inflammatory)
From the point of view of a young white male fresh out of school, to hold them back for no other reason than a female PoC is deemed more diversically attractive, is indeed repression.
You are OK with a woman not being hired because of gender bias - which exists right now, instead of in a potential future imagined by Damore - as long as you get hired. In other words: let's not solve the current problems, just so that we introduce one that might potentially affect you.
Nice.
Proof/citations please. And with "concrete numbers" - if you are going to correct for bias, you need to know its magnitude.
Concrete numbers? Just look at the current 80%/20% division. Considering people like Damore exist, it's fair to assume that at least a >0% skew exists because of gender bias. But don't take it from me, just go ask any woman o(even the ones that Damore mentions in his memo.)
Next question?
(BTW, what a ridiculous argument you are trying to make. Even Damore, who you take as an eminent authority in the subject, admits there's gender bias in the industry.)
Whatever. When facts fail, thrown around labels and malicious speculation.
> people like you in the field ... OK to apply gender bias
> Even Damore ... admits there's gender bias in the industry
Please provide quotes for either me or Damore being in favor of some kind of "[application] of gender bias". Or that where I claim there is no gender bias? Please drop that strawman.
> it's fair to assume that at least a >0% skew exists because of gender bias.
And Where does Damore claim there is no gender bias? Other than right at the beginning where he says "I am not denying sexism exists".
> go ask any woman
seriously..
> what a ridiculous argument you are trying to make
Well, you are the eminent authority of ridiculous arguments.
Supporting the completely out of whack status quo is enough. I know, next up you'll say "I never said I support the status quo!". Because that's what you do.
> > go ask any woman > seriously..
Seriously. How many female engineers do you work with on a day-to-day basis? How many do you know outside of work? Ask them about their experiences with sexual harassment or gender stereotyping. Every woman I know who works in tech has had to deal with some of it at some point or the other.
> Well, you are the eminent authority of ridiculous arguments.
At leas I have arguments, you have none.