Many of the media interpretations of what James Damore wrote were very biased, and effectively amounted to hit pieces. His use of terms like "Trait Neuroticism" were direct uses of psychological terms which just sound bad as everyday English. Evolutionary Biology also tends to have a "dismal" feeling to it, like Economics can.
One can't take fields like Evolutionary Biology and Economics as morally prescriptive. In that direction lies madness, clearly. However, to then take a knee-jerk ideological stance towards science and declare that everyone must be equal inside is just the West's version of Lysenkoism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
As is usually the case, reality is complex, requires a nuanced understanding, and might sound depressing if you give it a pessimistic read:
Most of the pieces about the memo didn't take time to highlight that "neuroticism" and "agreeableness" refer to Big-5 personality traits, not the everyday understanding of the words.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between descriptive and normative statements.
Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between statements about distribution of something within a population, and statements about all members of that population.
Basically its lexical nature introduces perceptual bias that skews any factor analysis for biological structures - i.e. behavior between genders, for example. The way Damore uses it to support his hypothesis wasn't correct.
>And that is what the Big Five represents: a consistent model of how humans reflect individuality using language, no more. There were no considerations of findings in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, observations of behavior of people or animals in real situations – none of this was used at the research stage leading to the development of the Big Five. In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.
Thanks for that. I find that reaction much more informative than the name-calling sent at James Damore.
In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.
Well, one should expect that something based on self-report surveys to be about that disconnected from underlying biology. "...lexical perception reflects some elements of it" -- where {it} == {underlying biology}
As per usual, the reality of what goes on inside us is probably more complicated than our mental model of it.
Incorrectly using evidence to support your opinion as you broadcast it at work, and not listening, discussing, or considering critical feedback (like this) is a different matter. Especially when it means incorrectly classifying your co-workers and trying to change how your work fights social biases.
Sorry, but while your observation is interesting, there is nothing incorrect about citing such evidence.
Especially when it means incorrectly classifying your co-workers and trying to change how your work fights social biases.
Exactly how did James Damore go about classifying specific co-workers? [Citation Needed] Seriously, cite James Damore and show how he "classified" anyone in particular.
> Women, on average, have more:
> - Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas...
> - Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness...
> - Neuroticism...
Damore supports this with a link [1] to a Wikipedia article, which immediately says:
> On the scales measured by the Big Five personality traits women consistently report higher Neuroticism, agreeableness, warmth (an extraversion facet)...
Damore incorrectly uses this information to make the broad statement that "Women have..." instead of "Women self-report...". This is incorrectly classifying your women coworkers as being, among other things, more neurotic than their male counterparts.
You may think, "So what?", but this is being used in an argument about how a company fights social biases, and this is incredibly relevant because lexical self-reporting is open to the same biases that are being fought. Damore, intentionally or not, glosses over this, but more importantly was not receptive to this type of feedback, hence the broadcasting.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#...
Just because there is correlational evidence for the general population, it doesn't automatically follow that any given explictly selected population (such as Google's employee population) follows the stated correlation. Does he say so explicitly, and can you honestly rule out a speculative reading of his memo? I asked you for James Damore citing any particular coworker as having any particular quality. Still, the best you can do is to nitpick words and impute motives.
Also, what's particularly wrong with sensitive, agreeable, and warm people? I'm quite sensitive, though I'm only agreeable and warm in certain contexts. I could see how all of those traits could be of great benefit to developing many of Google's apps. Your implication that those traits are somehow bad also smacks of bias.
Given all the above, it sure seems like I could purport to read between the lines and say that you have some kind of vested interest in a particular reading of his memo, but my doing so would be falling into the very kind of irrational projection I'm self-referentially citing. So am I wrong in making this kind of projection? If I'm wrong for doing that, then it would seem you're wrong for your projections as well. If you say I'm correct about the projection, well, I'll take that just as well.
You asked for a citation from Damore's memo, and I provided it. Anything you personally feel or think about yourself is anecdotal evidence and not really relevant. If anything, how you personally feel about this new information (that you requested) can be analyzed for confirmation bias.
Considering the question is about (lack of) representation, it is very much about the women who are not coworkers.
Its interpretation as evidence for what I asked for is pretty stretched and tortured. Thanks for that!
Until the people who dislike what he had to say are willing to have an honest conversation about things he actually did say, progress here is impossible, and further backlash and resentment against minorities is inevitable.
I see their point, but there is a way of discussing it in a way that would minimize this risk. On the other hand, if you have some assumptions and consider their negation offensive, it's very difficult to have any form of conversation.
Has the Big Five model been actually debunked? Or, rather, has it received criticism.
But, yes, your focus on the content of the memo itself is a breath of fresh air in this overall debacle of a discourse.
2. I think it takes more than one article (which has been cited once, by the author themselves) to unseat the Big Five.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/citedby...
3. As an aside, note that the article finds significant sex differences (p=0.00) in 10 out of 12 items on its proposed scale, STQ-150, if I'm understanding it correctly.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/table/p...
2. Appealing to number of citations is an appeal to popularity (fallacy) because it avoids criticizing the content. It's also not "unseating" the big five, just demonstrating how the big five is incorrectly used as biological factor analysis. There are other applications is psychoanalysis the big five can be use for.
3. If you read the paper, you'd see that Table 3 is used in conjunction with other data to prove their hypothesis on projection-through-capacity bias.
In that case, the only proper response is to report that the word neurotic is not scientific.
I think that's a discussion worth having. That would've been a lot better than just firing the guy!
It also saddens me that a number of Damore's suggestions to make the workplace more "nurture-trait-friendly" got overshadowed by those dubious extrapolations. It seems interesting and fruitful to me to explore the work dynamics and psychology present in more "nurture" fields and see how well they translate to software development and collaboration.
There is a silver lining to all this for me: it shows that whereas women used to have little voice in the public sphere, "American women" as a class now have a sufficiently loud voice that even its less-well-thought-out ideologies have traction and influence in civil society (along with all that entails, including having possibly self-proclaimed representatives and "thought leaders").
There is nothing good about someone who has a "sufficiently loud voice" -- if that loudness comes not from principle and merit, but from emotional toxicity.
After awhile, onlookers catch onto the fact one is spending all of their time moving the goalposts.
Short people, ugly people, fat people, disabled people... The list of discriminated against populations is practically endless and you can’t let it tear you up or drive you crazy if you’re one of them.
Why is it important that they have a sufficiently loud voice "as a class?" This seems backwards to me. The whole point of liberation is liberation to be treated as an individual not as a member of a class based on something contextually irrelevant like your biological sex.
Empowering the individual is a noble goal, but that is a separate battle with a different front.
I think it's made to seem that way by media coverage and political propaganda(especially from the left) more than it actually is. The problem is that it's easy to analyze something by arbitrary groups but in doing so often if not usually miss things (indeed this was one of Damore's key themes in his original essay).
The rhetoric may be actualizing, but I still think it's more a case of bad analytical generalizations than actual decision-making. Although, it's getting worse, as the whole drama with Jordan Peterson last year over pronouns demonstrated. At the core of his concern seemed to be he growing number of increasingly narrow and increasingly arbitrary suspect class definitions (or whatever they call it in Canada).
The original concept of a suspect class in the US was codified to serve as a legal guidelines for determining whether discrimination had taken place. The idea was to balance the ideal of democratic freedom to enact laws with the political reality that some clearly identified recognized groups (mainly Black Americans) had not been allowed to participate in the democratic process that produced the laws under which they had to conform. Many of those laws were shown to be prima facie discriminatory and evidence suggested plenty more were intended to be discriminatory in practice. And by virtue of minority status, they'd be unable to effectively challenge those discriminatory laws through democratic means. Women classified as a quasi-suspect class by virtue of historical disenfranchisement, despite their not being a minority.
But, it has been at least century since women were granted the right to vote. "Women as a class" have been one of the strongest political factions in the United States for decades. Roe v. Wade was 1973, a decade before any Millenial was even born. Pandering to women is pervasive in US politics on both sides.
The narrative that women had no voice, political will, or influence until Last Thursday is persistent and massive historical revisionism.
My guess is that he will be settled with to avoid the annoyance or simply destroyed in court.
Many media outlets aggressively attacked his memo, but the argument isn't "his arguments are validated because outlets attacked his memo"; it's that the response to his memo was malicious and slanderous, and this is wrong even if his arguments are bad. Bad arguments should be met with good arguments, not hate and slander.
Obviously my statement is not evidence either. I only wanted to point it out because this is so often overlooked when it comes to these issues. This is an arena where our cognitive biases are especially pernicious, and any discussion needs to address them.
Of course taking this into account cannot completely eliminate selection bias, and the sample size either way is probably too small to be all that meaningful. It sounds like the attitude of her manager towards the incompetent developer is actually the most significant point here: this incompetent developer is being retained and in fact praised by her manager for diversity despite the obvious issues. Does the manager treat incompetent male developers the same way? The implication of the post is clearly "no", but again selection bias is possible.
In deep corporate America, there are plenty of people who have virtually no responsibilities beyond a few basic configuration tasks. They are still unable to perform many of these tasks without significant help from coworkers. And we cover for them.
Every incompetent coworker I can think of was a man. I do not think this is confirmation bias, I think it's basic statistics, because most of the engineers those employers hired were men.
I don't know about corporate America in particular, but corporate anything is a big pile of useless dipped in incompetent, where all the work is done by contractors who are also useless and incompetent. Because there is noone in the damn org that knows how to hire a competent techie in the first place.
So for me the OP's experience is more simply explained by working for an organisation that doesn't know how to hire engineers, not anything to do with diversity drives.
I don't present my situation as anything more than anecdotal, it's just what I've noticed. And to answer your question no the manager does not treat male developers the same way, they're held to a higher standard. In fact the "middle-aged white male" has to be above average at this particular company to be kept on.
I'd wager a third of the nodejs "developer community" could be described that way. The key thing is was she hired to write sql queries?
I tend to reserve judgement until their effort can be judged. If he or she is slow but learning and improving, I'd accept (and probably raise with a manager) that the hiring process is flawed and try to help him/her.
If its just utter idiocy, I'm less forgiving.
I literally had a business analyst come to me - the new guy at the time - on her last day after several years of working in the org and ask me what her email address is.
Or the BA who insisted she didnt need to write a clear and specific spec for a feature, because she could just open up dreamweaver and put some buttons on a page.
Those sorts of people I have zero fucking time for, and will drink merrily when they quit/are fired.
And then they're your boss. Or your boss's mate.
Except, make 'technical management' decisions like "we should use mongodb because it's web-scale".
I think this is untrue. I know a lot of male "sofware engineers" who are totally incompetent and remain well employed.
One could speak of someone having more skill than another, but if both skillsets have no value, it doesn't really matter.
Oh yes. Especially if you work in, say, a big financial corporation- the kind of large, monolithic organisation that isn't a technology company, per se, but uses technology (as only a large monolith would). In that kind of place, you can expect the majority of "technical" employees to be largely uninterested in, and therefore fairly clueless about, technology (i.e. they're just in it to jump over to tech management roles down the line). So, software engineers who can't write SQL queries are a thing. A common, inescepable fact of life, indeed.
I would not like to say whether I'm speaking of personal experience with such organisations. It wouldn't be proper.
I have met plenty of white men who have masters level CS education, have worked for Google and other top name companies, and can't produce a line of useful working code to save their lives.
The reasons why corporations frequently hire people who don't actually produce anything are varied and complex, but it happens, a lot.
If someone is incompetent and also happens to be from a minority group then everyone starts complaining about how they are a "diversity hire" but with incompetent white males they just shrug and go "that's the way it is." In other words, it is so common with white males that no one even notices.
You could be right this is definitely a possibility. I did not intend to suggest that all white male programmers are awesome, certainly not the case.
Personally, I'd be very interested to see Damore's code. We already know that he lied about both a PhD and being a chess master. [2] I would not be shocked at all to find out that he's not good at programming.
[1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna...
[2] https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18271/is-james-dam...
"23. Damore was diligent and loyal, and received substantial praise for the quality of his work. Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance ratings, placing him in the top few percentile of Google employees. Throughout the course of his employment with Google, Damore received approximately eight performance bonuses, the most recent of which was approximately 20% of his annual salary. Damore also received stock bonuses from the Google amounting to approximately $150,000 per year.
24. Damore was never disciplined or suspended during his entire tenure at Google.
25. Based on Damore’s excellent work, Damore was promoted to Senior Software Engineer in or around January 2017—just eight months before his unlawful termination by Google."
> Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance
How are these ratings done, by the team/manager or externally? IME when it's done by the same team then reviews are more about politics than performance.
when Damore speaks out against politics affecting hiring and promotion, he is wrong
I'm fascinated how one can reconcile both beliefs
So I'd still like to see his code. And talk with some of his coworkers.
Also, sweeping assertions like "had no reason" assume facts not in evidence. We mainly don't know what happened at Google. Or why he didn't complete his PhD. We have only heard his side of the story, and only part of that.
> We mainly don't know what happened at Google.
We don't, beyond public evidence (including one in the lawsuit and outside). But that evidence we do have, and it does not align with your presumption that Damore was poor performer, unless you accept a completely invented premise that all his peers in Google somehow colluded to fake his reviews and performance evaluations, but he was still unhappy and decided to push the diversity angle to achieve... I don't know what, getting fired from a job where everybody, according to you, were going out of the way to make him happy? I don't think this is a workable hypothesis, and certainly not one that bears minimal skeptical scrutiny.
You can't be called "skeptical" if you only mistrust evidence which does not fit your preconception, but accept and even invent one that fits one. That's not skepticism, that's agenda.
> all his peers in Google somehow colluded to fake his reviews and performance evaluations.
Oh, do you have copies of those? I would like to see them, too thanks. Otherwise, you don't have much in the way of evidence that those exist. You have a proven liar about performance making claims about performance. He could be correct in this case, or he could be lying again.
> all his peers in Google somehow colluded to fake his reviews
Have you ever been part of a performance review process? Even the best-designed ones are imperfect and political. Sometimes not-very-good people get promoted. Sometimes very good people don't. I have heard a number of stories from Google pals of people energetically trying to manipulate the process.
When it's my job to read performance reviews and promotion packets, I take them with a grain of salt. I look at work output and actually talk with people. Which is all I'm saying I'd like to do here. Maybe Damore really is competent. Maybe he isn't. I'd like to see for myself.
No, he did not lie about this. You are lying about it. His linkedin listed him as having been part of a PhD program and people took it to mean he had a PhD. There is absolutely no evidence he ever intended to mislead anyone about this.
So, please stop spreading lies.
====
Note the business insider article you linked uses these weasel words:
James Damore, the fired Google engineer who wrote the now-infamous memo on diversity at the company, has removed mention of PhD studies in biology from his LinkedIn profile.
The removal comes after Wired writer Nitasha Tiku confirmed with Harvard that Damore has not completed his PhD.
He then goes on to call out the "Right-wing argument" appealing to his credibility because he had a PhD.
If you read carefully, you'll see that they frame as if it was this embarassing thing that they'd shamed him into doing, to encourage lazy, non-critical readers to reach the same conclusion that you did, while using the technically correct words to avoid defamation liability. But, careful analysis of the facts shows that I am correct. He did not lie about the PhD, others either lied on his behalf without his knowledge; or were confused by careless/overly-optimistic reading of the LinkedIn profile.
So at the very best, his resume was misleading because he was incompetent at putting together a resume. That doesn't jibe with the theory that he's so very brilliant. The fact that he quickly edited it when called out confirms even he saw it as misleading; that he didn't comment or apologize suggests it was not a simple mistake.
Ah, and now that I go look for images, it did not list him as being part of a PhD *program". it just said "PhD, Systems Biology" under education:
http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598b0f3776084a30198...
I'm glad to hear you weren't misled by that thanks to your expertise, but there's no denying that is misleading to a general-audience reader.
1. Damore truthfully specified he's a PhD student
2. You (I assume innocently) and others (some innocently, some maliciously) misconstrued this as a claim that he has a PhD degree
3. Despite Linkedin information being completely true and whole error being contained in your bad reading alone, you and others called Damore a liar.
4. Damore removed that true information to avoid further confusion
5. You construe it as a proof that Damore was a liar, since if he removed completely truthful information that some people misread and used it against him, he must have intended to mislead from the start, and that's why he specified his PhD student status exactly as it truly was.
6. This also proves Damore was incompetent, since he wrote his Linkedin page in a way that a hostile or inattentive reader was able to misunderstand his page where it suited his preexisting notions, which would never happen if Damore was any good at writing Linkedin pages, as it is known that well-written (or merely competently written) Linkedin page is impossible to misread or misinterpret, no matter how much you try.
7. This is further proven by the image, since Linkedin design and forms do not allow to distinguish incomplete PhD study in progress from a finished one and display merely a length of the study but not the completion status, clearly Damore intended to mislead by using the only options available in the Linkedin interface.
This sounds like extremely tortured logic aimed at arriving at predetermined conclusion that Damore is a bad person. Looks like you're continuing to mine for something that explains why Damore is a bad person (failing at the premise he's a bad programmer above), to avoid addressing what he said on merits - since if he's a bad person, he can't be right on merits, obviously, no bad person has ever said anything true.
Note, you don't have to address it if you don't want to, but if you do, personal attack is not the best way to go, even if a very common one.
My argument is that if in LinkedIn's education section you list a school and a degree -- which he did -- people take that to mean you have the degree. Ergo, he falsely claimed to have a degree he didn't.
Could that be an accident? Might it just be incompetence? Maybe. But given that he also falsely claimed on his resume to be a chess master, I think the simple explanation is that he lied about both.
That he then quickly removed things when called out with neither explanation nor apology fits in with the "lies to make himself look good" narrative. A person who had made an innocent error generally feels bad about the error and says so.
Your thing about LinkedIn form design seems to be pure fiction. I just checked: you can enter any text you like, including no text at all. People without a degree don't have to put a degree in. I spent an entire 3 minutes looking at examples, and people fill in all sorts of things, including "PhD Candidate" and "PhD Student (incomplete)" to make it clear they are not claiming the degree.
This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.
That's what he did! That is, that's what he did when someone finally got around to asking him about it in an environment where he trusted that he'd be given time to say his side in an unedited manner, which does not include any of the hit pieces you have linked. I believe it's mentioned in his interview with Jordan Peterson, which is the first public interview he gave.
Again you are blaming him for your own error.
This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.
First, it is absolutely a personal attack. You're attacking his character and coding ability, which are not relevant to the topic. Ok, technically, you're passively suggesting it via speculative commentary but it amounts to the same thing.
Second, your inferences aren't reasonable, and they're unreasonable in exactly the manner that one would predict based on consumption of inflammatory and deliberately misleading propaganda aimed primarily at smearing Damore. For example, you inferred that he "didn't say anything or apologize," apparently relying on entirely on hostile bloggers to convey that message to you on his behalf. Remember that until this blew up, he was a private individual. He has no platform of his own and no way to offer any response that your chosen sources did not provide to you. So it is completely and utterly unreasonable to hold him accountable in such a way.
Furthermore, the fixation with LinkedIn is unreasonable. LinkedIn profiles are notoriously unreliable and many are neglected and incomplete, since many members are not actively seeking employment (yet retain membership for the social networking). If you had looked at Damore's whole profile rather than just the image, it was clear that not much effort had been put into it. This is consistent with his story that he had not been actively seeking employment when Google offered him an interview based on his Chess playing.
Which brings us to the chess issue. And yes, it seems that Damore stated on his resume that he's a FIDE Master, a term of art that it seems clear that he misused. Specifically he wrote "FIDE Master in Chess (>99th Percentile)". Other claims about chess-playing on his resume seem to check out as far as I can tell[0][1]. So yes, it's an interesting question why does he say that on his resume. I have not found an explanation, but can certainly think of others not mentioned in that stackexchange link, such as he misunderstood proper use of the term. Obviously a mistake, one that shouldn't be made, but nothing like the dishonesty you're accusing him of, especially when you give him no opportunity to explain himself.
Meanwhile, in this obsession with minor errors in an inexperienced young person's first resume or linkedin profile(errors that are easily cleared-up in a phone interview if you actually care), you are apparently giving a pass to someone who anonymously leaked a co-workers' fair and well-reasoned internal posting to outrage media to encourage hit pieces and start a witch hunt. ... which ultimately resulted in the employer being hit with a ton of negative press and a high-profile lawsuit.
So, no, your inferences are not remotely reasonable or appropriate by my estimation.
[0] http://www.uschess.org/results/2003/nya/?page=WINNERS&xsecti...
[1] I don't know what "Board 1 and Conference Champion" means, and "Rise of Nations" is a PC strategy game.
I made no error in parsing his LinkedIn. He may have made an error in writing it, but the common interpretation for what he wrote is that he was claiming a PhD.
I'm glad you finally admit he did the same thing on his resume. Again, there could be an innocent explanation for it, but the reasonable inference is that he said what he meant. If he would like to correct the record on this topic, he's welcome to publish something explaining.
His character and coding ability are both relevant to the topics at hand, his advocacy and subsequent lawsuit lawsuit. The former speaks to his reliability; both speak to motivation. As does, now that you mention it, the fact that the interviews he gave were to right-wing antifeminists.
I also think it's hilarious that when talking about his apparent resume fraud, he's a delicate "inexperienced young person", but when coding and opining on diversity programs he's a brilliant genius who has never done a thing wrong. You're straining at gnats and swallowing camels here.
The irony is that in the lawsuit damore filed, he outright names a bunch of people who work at Google and have said various levels of innocent comments. He's leaked out internal information to outrage media in order to punish and start a witch hunt. I've already seen combinations of images containing information about said named employees float around the more witch hunt-y side of the internet.
Also, there's a bit of difference between "Let's discuss whether diversity is done right in Google" and "I will keep hounding you until one of us fired. Fuck you" (real quote), "We are at a point where the dialogue we need to be having with these people is ‘if you keep talking about this shit, i will hurt you." (again real quote), "We should be willing to give a wink and a nod to other Silicon Valley employers over terminable offenses" (trying to make your opponents unemployable), “You’re being blacklisted by people at companies outside of Google,” and, of course, "How do you let people know you don’t take their ideas seriously? … No-platforming fascists does scale. So does punching one on camera." and "Get in touch with your friendly local antifa" - this one is especially juicy as a lot of people insanely called what Damore did "violence" but then turn around and literally endorse actual physical violence.
You also ignore the selective censorship of usernames going on, when he could've censored all the names to ignore igniting any potential witch hunts. Can you provide an explanation for this? He could've shown the pattern without putting other people at risk.
People that read that are wrong (at least sometimes), since Linkedin shows degrees-in-progress and completed degrees the same way. Not ideal interface, for sure, but that's what it is. People that do not know that make mistakes. It's their mistake.
> Could that be an accident? Might it just be incompetence? Maybe.
Surely, it may be incompetence - not understanding how Linkedin profile works. But it's not Damore's incompetence.
> That he then quickly removed things when called out with neither explanation nor apology
If people misunderstood what was on his Linkedin page, and undeservedly called him a liar and attacked him for that, and he removed the controversial item despite it being true - I think demanding apology from him for you misunderstanding him and falsely calling him a liar is taking the entitlement thing too far. If somebody owes an apology, it's people who called him a liar despite him publishing completely true information - but of course I do not hold by breath for that.
> fits in with the "lies to make himself look good" narrative.
Surely it fits your narrative. The problem is it is not true.
> A person who had made an innocent error generally feels bad about the error and says so.
Nobody owes you feeling bad for telling the truth and you misunderstanding him. It would be nice if people who did the misunderstanding felt bad and did not blame others for their mistake, but I recognize this is not how the Internet works. If you misunderstood something, it's other guy who should be feeling bad for not working harder to prevent any chance of you making a mistake. The other guy is always responsible, he's clearly either a liar or an idiot for letting you to misunderstand him.
> Your thing about LinkedIn form design seems to be pure fiction. I just checked: you can enter any text you like, including no text at all.
That misunderstanding thing happened to you again. I haven't said you cannot enter free text in Linkedin. I said the form does not have completion status for education. Yes, you can hack around that by adding various text to a degree program name or any other field. If Damore knew in advance there would be a mob of hostile attackers scrutinizing everything he ever did under a microscope to find even a tiniest flaw and blow it up out of proportion, he would probably do it too. But he just wrote true facts about his educational record, without thinking about being extra defensive and using tools given to him by Linkedin. Linkedin provides tools to set beginning and end time for educational record, and program name, but does not have a setting for "incomplete" or "in progress" status.
> This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.
You "reasonable inferences" - which, as far as blaming others for your misunderstanding goes are not reasonable at all - are what is the personal attack, since they seek to impugn Damore's character without addressing his actual arguments. That's the definition of personal attack.
That is exactly what people do on paper resumes, which also let you type what you want. Why? Because falsely claiming (or even giving the impression of claiming) an academic degree is a giant no-no. People get fired for that.
You repeatedly ignore that he also falsely claimed to be a chess master. Is your theory there that it was also just an accident, forced by software? That the word processor somehow made him put "FIDE Master in Chess (>99th Percentile)" and that he as a computer expert just couldn't figure out any other way to use the tool?
I'm not the one fitting a narrative here, pal. I see your DARVO.
I call bullshit. Show me three examples of people "getting fired for giving the impression of claiming they had a PhD on LinkedIn" when there's a plausible case to be made that it was an innocent mistake with at least equal blame on the reader.
I just looked at my LinkedIn profile, which I haven't updated in at least 2 or 3 years, probably more. For reasons I don't know, it lists two entries for my education.
[UNIVERSITY XYZ]
Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science, [Second Major]
[YEAR] - [YEAR + 4]
[UNIVERSITY XYZ]
Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science
[YEAR] - [YEAR + 4]
Damned if I know. Did I intend for it to be confusing? Certainly not, I'm sure I just filled out the forms with what I thought the program could work with and would make sense. Maybe I used some Wizard-style Q&A format that they don't use anymore. I really have no clue at all. But there it is, ready for someone to screencap and use to embarrass me if they wanted to, mocking my apparent inability to create a properly formatted LinkedIn profile.
I also note that there's nothing filled in for "description" or "activities" or anything like that. When I was young and did not have much of a resume of relevant accomplishments in my work history, I often included, on my paper resume, an honor society membership and an elected treasurer position I'd held for two semesters in a student group. These seem like details I would have added to LinkedIn, had the interface had a section for it(as it does now). But there isn't anything there. Did I remove them? Did I just never bother to add them? Or was the "activities, etc." field added to the schema after I created my profile? Certainly, the javascript-based interactive editor available now, was not the editor I used when I originally created my profile.
What I do know is that I've never directed anyone to my LinkedIn profile. I've never encouraged an employer to review it and the only interactions I've had come from former co-workers and recruiters. At this point I consider it more of a professional obligation than anything else, and log in every so often mostly to check messages and update endorsements.
I also know that I've seen work histories that look really weird, often when people work in multiple positions at the same company for years but that company also changes ownership multiple times. So you have a bizarrely fragmented presentation of a story I know to be fairly simple. Something like "was hired entry-level, switched departments, got promoted, and is now Senior Account Manager for Whatever domain" winds up looking like a career with 5 different positions on 4 different teams in 3 different companies. I consider that to be a decent indication that many people either don't spend a lot of time on their profiles, or else find the interface cumbersome enough that they're unwilling to deal with it long enough to convey a real resume-style work history.
There is no plausible claim that the reader is to blame here. If you show his entry, sans name, to 100 people asking them what degrees he claims, I'd be that at least 90 would say he had a PhD and a BS. Just as people looking at his current LinkedIn profile would understand he now claims an MS.
It does.
> LinkedIn lets you type what you want.
It also does, it doesn't contradict the previous sentence. As I said, Linked in does not have data item for degree being complete or not (I am not sure how familiar you are with data modeling, but situation of having a model for some property and deriving it from ad-hoc texts in unrelated data items are very different). Some people do extra work by using degree name or other fields to work around this, some don't bother. Neither are liars.
> That is exactly what people do on paper resumes, which also let you type what you want.
No, that's a very different case. Paper resume is completely freeform. Linkedin has set of forms, some of which are free text, which you can use - if you want to - to cover for shortcomings in other places, like use degree or program name to express completion status. Some don't bother to because they think it's be clear from context. Sometimes it is not. It happens. It'd be good to recognize that.
> Because falsely claiming (or even giving the impression of claiming) an academic degree is a giant no-no. People get fired for that.
People get fired for all kinds of things, like expressing unpopular opinion, as it turns out. But there's world of difference between claiming the degree on resume (which didn't happen) and somebody misreading ambiguous output of a site.
> You repeatedly ignore that he also falsely claimed to be a chess master.
Why I should address this unrelated claim before we address the one at point? If you admit you were wrong on the Linkedin part - and recognize the fact both claims are personal attacks, since they have little to do with the claims Damore is making or you were making - we can consider the chess thing. Before that it's just a distraction - what about this? what about that? what about that third thing? forget that I didn't prove the first two, what about the fourth thing? Nope, won't work this way. You have to substantiate every one of your claims, not just bring a new one once previous one was questioned.
> I see your DARVO.
You are implying that you're somehow a victim here? Nice one. So far you are the one denying the facts (as in, ones about Damore's performance) and personally attacking him (as in, bringing irrelevant claims about his character to discussion about his factual claims), and of course claiming that somebody here is "offender", without any proof of offense made - unless you consider you misunderstanding Damore's Linkedin profile as "offense" to you and you being "victim"? That'd be rich. The fact that you have a nice acronym in your pocket doesn't change any of that.
Spare me the condescension on data modeling. LinkedIn barely has a data model; it is a modestly structured version of a resume, with a bunch of free text fields. It is not a "very different case". People will often ask for "a resume or a LinkedIn link" in job applications because they serve the same purpose. LinkedIn will automatically render your LinkedIn profile in resume form. They are in practice the same.
And in either case, if you say "PhD, Systems Biology, Harvard" in the education section, reasonable people will believe you claim to have a PhD. That's how I read it. That's how many people read it. And if you did a user test, I'm sure that's how most people would read it. That anonymous Damore fanboys now claim they'd read it differently is not proof of anything about the wider world.
You can claim that it was a mistake on his part (and others have), or that his documented social ineptitude (as his fellow students talked about) mean that he just didn't understand the social implications of what he wrote. But then you would have to grapple with the other lie on his resume, which is why you are spinning so vigorously away from it.
I am not denying any "facts" about Damore's performance. I agree he worked at Google and didn't get fired for a while. I agree that he claims his performance was great. Those are facts. As I said at the beginning of this thread, I'd like to see that for myself. People who lie on resumes are not trustworthy sources for their job performance.
When you mislead an individual in real life and that person suffers actual consequences from that mistake, apology and forgiveness help repair the relationship.
A media hack writing about this has not suffered a real interpersonal offense over the issue, nor have any of the self-righteous audience passing judgment. As these people have not suffered any actual harm they are not owed an apology, nor would an apology given under such circumstances function as it is supposed to. There is no interpersonal relationship to repair in the first place.
Anyhow, publishing something on the web invites anybody to look at it whenever they please. Putting a profile on a site specifically made for people to evaluate your professional standing is very much inviting people to look at it when they want to know who you are. That is literally the purpose of LinkedIn.
S: There are lots of sh--ty white male programmers working in the industry.
wpietri: Personally, I'd be very interested to see Damore's code. We already know that he lied about both a PhD and being a chess master. [2] I would not be shocked at all to find out that he's not good at programming.
You brought up Damore after the parent mentioned "shitty white male programmers". You speculated that you'd expect to discover that he was a bad programmer.
I'd like to see what wpietri's home life looks like. Based on his comments in this thread, I would not be surprised to discover that he's a terrible parent and has a bad relationship with his children.
Would you not find that a completely offensive and uncalled for personal attack? But I didn't lie! It wasn't an attack! It's not technically slander or libel or defamation, and technically is what matters. I just stated what I wanted to see and speculated based on some reasonable inferences. Oh, you don't think my inferences are reasonable? Prove it.
But no, I wouldn't think it offensive if it were relevant to the topic at hand. Which it isn't in your imaginary version. And if you're upset about the "shitty white male programmers thing", take it up with the person who wrote it, but it wasn't me. I just said I wanted to see his code so I could see what kind of programmer he is.
Regardless, if that's the best you have, I think we can conclude I said nothing that is either slander or defamation. You accusing me of doing so, ironically, appears to be defamation. I look forward to the effusive apology you apparently believe due in such situations.
None of your criticism of Damore was relevant. You just jumped on a bandwagon of hate. You picked up a pitchfork and joined a witch hunt. Gaston held up a picture of The Beast and told him he was coming in the night to get your children, and you joined the mindless mob.
I know that I will not be able to convince you now, because your mind is stubbornly closed. Your ego is too sensitive to admit that you have no valid justification for your denigration of Damore. All I hope is that someday, you'll be able to recognize a witch hunt for what it is and resist the urge be swept up in the pathetic, cowardly, petty hate-mongering.
If you just base it on what you see, yes. But if you're partial to top brass interviews and conversations about getting this or that person to pad diversity, and of talk about overlooking skills since "we need more X", then no (of course that would still be partial knowledge of the overall state of the market).
Not really. I have a lot of faith in our engineering staff so I wonder how he got hired and how he avoids getting fired. The uncomfortable truth is that if he was an employee that "looked good" I would know the answer to those questions.
It's not specifically gender or racial bias either. We ran a study of 700 candidates for a role, running regular hiring against blind assessment and found that the major difference for that role in that organisation was socio-economic... they'd been excluding great candidates who went to less prestigious universities.
Also nobody ever seems to ask: diversity of what exactly? What's the target? Life experience? There is no qualitative score for that, nor is any single person's life more or less interesting and influential than anyone else.
The only thing we can objectively and accurately measure is merit, motivation, and results, and we should use those metrics alone for hiring and advancement, in addition to fighting subjective bias (like removing names and photos from resumes) and making sure there's equivalent opportunity for anyone to try. After that, it would be best if just let people do what they want to do and move on.
I don’t know to what extent this is true, or even how to measure it, but it would help explain why “diversity” initiatives seems so illogical some times, which has perplexed me too.
> Appearance and other unchangeable physical traits? How unfortunate since they have nothing to do with interests, abilities, or character.
As GP pointed out, companies aren't really after that.
When a company does not discriminate on race or gender, it generally stays silent about it, because "not actively discriminating" is just normal hiring on merit. When a company boasts about their diversity program, there's a strategy behind it. Maybe it's because the management believes increasing diversity beyond the industry distribution creates a better working environment (as you indirectly point out, the connection here is speculative). Or maybe they know it's good PR, and also a diverse workplace creates a nice CYA for the company in case of a disgruntled employee filing in a bullshit harassment lawsuit.
Perhaps a willingness to have a dialogue
Much like how when debating the advocacy for a higher education degree I have heard people defend the effort as evidence to accept direction and a capacity to see something through to the end
I think there is merit in what of my own opinion I recognise in your commenting critically of diversity efforts
gp> Diversity based on outward appearance is one of the most convoluted and ridiculous movements ever.
Namely, that you think people should be met with openness and that contemporary diversity efforts seem to restrict that openness
But I feel that is using individual logic on systems
I think the proponents of diversity efforts would most likely support individual openness as well because they also recognise the systemic structures that currently restrict that openness
Like how a degree implies broad connotation about your ability to be a professional in a field when only representing a fraction of what real experience you will utilise in that profession
These diversity efforts seem to be implying generalised correlation to identify inequalities that are restricting universal openness and modifying their behaviour to remove the identifier
Or perhaps they are showing they are willing to use legal measures if exclusive minds refuse to recognise the data supporting "The only thing we can objectively and accurately measure"
Jon Stewart gave a post-retirement interview in which he talked about this issue in the comedy world. He initially wrote off criticism of the lack of diversity in the writer's room for The Daily Show, since he always told people that he was interested in hiring more women and minorities. He eventually realized that the channels along which people came to the job was already selecting for white males, and that more diverse hiring required rethinking those channels.
That has nothing to do with diversity based on appearance nor will those policies help.
Here's [1] an overview of a bunch of programs. It includes data on how they've affected employee composition and discusses why certain things fail or succeed. The first success it cites is voluntary diversity training. The sort Google has. The sort that James Damore attended and then got angry about.
As said before: remove any selection bias, then hire those who can do the work, want to do the work, and have shown to do the work well before. Then measure performance and promote using the same objective processes. That's it.
Perhaps we can boil down the issue as the difference between making hiring as fair as possible, or making hiring ensure a certain outcome. The first option is good since it produces fair results, but the latter is actually what's happening in most places.
Diversity-based policies currently are only focused on the outcome, but the outcome is not what should be designed for. The outcome should just be what it will naturally be (whether it's "diverse" or not) and we should only control for selection and opportunity. This is what diversity-based policies do not help since you cannot work backwards from the outcome, you must start with making a fair process and just let people do what they want do beyond that.
Clearly not when every company recruits from the same 10 schools.
We all want smartest, more capable and most reliable people, not a mix of smart and average and dumb just to "represent". Picking the top schools aligns for that, as long as your competitive enough to hire them.
However, if that's what you want to believe then more power to you. Hire whoever you want. I'm just agreeing with OP that the target of diversity programs is decidedly not to get diversity of life experience -- because there are much better ways to attain that than hiring by skin color or gender.
Otherwise, in-state tuition probably can't be a factor.
https://www.bis.org/review/r160531e.pdf asks literally "Diversity of what exactly?"
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/07/01/google-apolog...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/08/09/faceapp-spa...
https://www.rt.com/viral/400927-robots-racist-sexist-bank-lo...
http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-huawei-smartphone-bea...
But why does that make it okay? I absolutely believe that you're right in that there has been worse discrimination over the decades and that maybe old white men can find jobs elsewhere, but that doesn't make discrimination okay. It's not okay when those "old school companies" discriminate against any minorities and it's not okay when some discriminate against old white men.
Say 100% discrimination is the KKK lynching people. Say 50% discrimination is redlining and refusal to hire. Then what are white males facing? Maybe 10%? Yes, it matters. And also yes, it's not in the same league as what other groups have had to face.
More recent studies don't show any bias against women in callback rates. In fact, some show slight bias for women (and if you're willing to look at non peer reviewed sources, more than a slight: https://talent.works/blog/2018/01/08/the-science-of-the-job-...)
"The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview."
"Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door."
source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...
I agree on the data thing. I think when you get down to the bottom of things, lumping people under a label and treating them as a cohesive unit is part of the problem. If that’s true, getting permission from a small cohort of that group is still bad, because you’re assuming if these three people are okay with it then it’s okay.
It’s that incident with Chevy Chase and the n-word that started this line of thought for me. I don’t care if Richard Pryor said it was okay. He is one voice. Don’t act surprised if other people don’t agree. Being surprised means you’ve already decided all black people are the same and a sample size of one means you’re okay to do something.
Or, people can learn to read and act on the content of an argument rather than immediately trying to discredit someone with appeals to popular bigotry.
But in general, telling someone they've been a jerk all their life leads to certain existential crises that they will do just about anything to avoid.
People don't just get defensive, they get cruel. There's a whole group of tricks that are basically gaslighting the person. They take an aggressively "reasonable" stance and trying to convince the person they're crazy and it's all them.
Because this happens often enough that many of these 'overtures' are obvious, it makes interacting with moderates a waste of time. I've seen person after person get DDOSed by a handful of people throwing walls of text at them but really just tangenting the conversation off into oblivion.
So when someone who is actually in your group takes a moderate position, unless you know them personally, you can't know if they're really a moderate or just a troll. That's not to say you spend effort on people at the extremes, it just means you are hesitant about overly-moderate people the way you are about people asking you for help on a street corner. You've tried it before and it's a scam so often you don't even want to make eye contact.
I would prefer it if all of us could leave gender/race/religion at the door and talk but that's now the how the internet works now.
Ah, everybody's a bigot but the actual bigots
more about that incident: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/wilfrid-lau...
this is the same university that gave away a pay raise based on gender: http://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-pay-rais... That ended up in some female professors that were hired in the same time as some male professors having a higher pay after the raise even though they were paid the same before it.
Then there must be a biological difference between women from different cultures that's also contributing, because I've only observed this "lack of interest" in Anglosphere women.
From my experience, for instance, Indian women have no such problem and are in fact strongly represented within the IT profession and I've worked alongside several of them. Women in my country of birth (Greece) have no such problem and about two fifths of the Greek programmers I know are women. In the British universities I studied and the British workplaces I worked in the last few years, on the other hand, women are about a tenth of all programmers I've met.
So because it's a bit absurd for Anglo women to be so specifically genetically programmed to stay out of the IT professions, I'm going to assume it's not a genetic, but a cultural thing going on.
Btw, I've discussed this with a female Indian software engineer I was working with and she explained that in India, working in IT is seen as an office job and so more suited to women. Traditional gender roles, innit.
Now this doesn't mean women are incapable or bad at copmuter engineering or anything in IT. Quite the opposite, women are just as capable and can be just as good in IT as men, there is no reason they can't.
If what you say is true and indian culture views IT as an office job and therefore a woman's job, then I don't see how that contradicts the assertion that there are biological cognitive differences, women can do the same job, they are just less inclined to be interested in it. On average.
So while gender roles may play a role (pun intended) in the distribution of gender in the IT job, expecting a 50/50 representation is entirely fictional, there will be a bias towards one or the other based on simple cognitive development tendencies.
---
0: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-017-1600-2
1: doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.10.011.
It’s very obvious to me that the negative reaction was greatly amplified by the ever-outraged and ever-posturing social (media) justice contingent.
(it's secondary, but FWIW, I'd debate that the Damore memo contained a lot of truth: yes it contained some truth, but it contained more/deeper falsehoods and wrong conclusions, IMO. So it's a bit unproductive to focus on the "truth" part. OTOH it's horrifically unproductive and wrong to fire someone for expressing a misguided, but not inherently evil/malicious p.o.v.)
I don't think anyone believes in the opposite, that biological difference in gender plays exactly zero part in lack of interest in tech from women. The memo was suggesting this could play a part, but not whether if biological differences are significant or even meaningful.
To the best of my knowledge, we can't disentangle biological from cultural biases across gender. Hunting down biological reasons isn't productive and threatens gender equality initiatives, hence the massive backlash.
Should we question the ideals of gender equality in the workplace? That's probably the discussion the memo wanted to inspire, but it only led to out cries of "sheeple better wake up" and "hell no."
Its not that way for white guys to receive hundreds of Nos?
How do you know that they were hired just because of their minority status?
So, no, there are no examples with evidence of people hired just for minority status in the lawsuit filing.
You might think that's not direct evidence, but it's evidence that supports the story in the paragraphs I outlined.
It says explicitly in paragraph 179: "Upon information and belief, the Google employee was not selected due to the fact that the hiring managers were looking solely for “diverse” individuals, and as a Caucasian male, the Google employee did not help fill their mandatory (and illegal) quotas."
And then "the Google employee’s former director initiated a “Diversity Team Kickoff” with the intent to freeze headcount so that teams could find diversity candidates to help fill the empty roles. Google was specifically looking for women and non-Caucasian individuals to fill these roles."
I think _you_ think that _I_ think this is damning proof and that the case is settled, and I've never claimed that. I just said that there are examples of people being hired because of their diversity status, with supporting evidence.
I'm not saying the evidence is true, or that it's directly related, but it _is_ "supporting evidence".
Yes, at 188; I addressed it. It's evidence provided for something, but not the thing you claimed.
> It says explicitly in paragraph 179: "Upon information and belief, the Google employee was not selected due to the fact that the hiring managers were looking solely for “diverse” individuals, and as a Caucasian male, the Google employee did not help fill their mandatory (and illegal) quotas."
Yes, that's an allegation. No evidence supporting this allegation is included (and, further, it used the “on information and belief” language which indicates that the party filing the lawsuit does not have first-hand knowledge that the allegation is true, but expects to have evidence—e.g., attained through discovery—to prove it should the case go to trial.)
This is perfectly normal for a lawsuit complaint, of course, but does not support your claim of examples (or even an example) with evidence in the filing.
I understand that it's not proof of it, like I said, and I understand that there's no direct evidence supporting that claim.
What I'm saying is that the email they embed there is supporting evidence of the narrative outlined in those paragraphs.
And I don't understand how you can say "no evidence supporting this allegation is included" then.
At this point, I'm not sure how to phrase myself to get my point across either - english is a second language, so please excuse me.
I'm quite certain that we are in agreement - what we probably disagree with is my distilling this down to the single sentence that I did initially.
But even that is a sentence distilled in good faith on my part, I don't feel that I misrepresented it that badly, and it's the kind of sentence I'd use around the dinner table until someone wanted to dig further into it.
That maybe one of the saddest statements in the history of modern discourse. It’s not your fault for saying it, it’s that you needed to say it.
We have reached the point where identity matters more than content. This is the exact opposite of the MLK dream as I understood it.
No offence but I think it's kind of harmful to everyone when you make arguments based on your race and gender.
Why would it matter that you are "a mixed race woman in tech"? Your comment should be judged only by its content, not by its author's race or gender, right?
Preemptive comments of this type, which reflect the posters hostile prejudgement of the likely responses, are IMO, contrary to the letter and spirit of the HN guidelines including the rule of presumption of good faith, frequently (as in this case) involve preemptive violations of the guideline against commenting on downvotes, and contribute to a hostile atmosphere rather than productive debate.
If you are going to post something, with or without a disclaimer about your own background, do so without commenting about how you expect people to react in comments or votes. If there are responses you take issue with, take issue with them when they exist.
Of course. They'd get fired.
Could you elaborate a little more about its "ugliness"?
That's just it; it really did not. It contained a lot of things that people who aren't members of those groups he targeted think are plausible.
"I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. "
And what, specifically, would those differences be?
The balance of the evidence, is that there are some biological differences in preferences. Both biological and cultural factors are at play. As groups, women and men are about the same in terms of average IQ, however, men tend to have a higher population of the extreme outliers. (Both extremely smart men and extremely stupid men.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw
Since the human brain and its interaction with culture is very complicated, more research is needed. But a fair reading of what we have so far would seem to indicate: it's both.
Beware of ideological just-so stories that make you feel good. Also, if it sounds messy and complicated, it sounds like actual biology and psychology.
There are some great weasel words like: "there is good evidence ... play a role ..."
Without a hypothetical mechanism, this is all quite speculative.
> [Plenty]
> It looks like there is only indirect evidence,
And there go the goalposts, red-shifting into the sunset.
> "correlation means causation" / "there is good evidence ... play a role ..."
Well, remember that Damore's claim was that there is evidence that we cannot categorically rule out biological causes for the skewed representation, in addition to discrimination.
For that claim, even much weaker evidence than what exists would have been sufficient.
No, while that was a supporting claim, the conclusory claims everything in the manifesto are offered to support are that specific policy changes are justified.
> Also, he did not reject Google's core values, unless you take a biased and imputational reading.
As an example, empathy is a core publicly-stated internal value of Google which Damore explicitly called for de-emphasizing. There's nothing “biased and imputational” about reading Damore’s words to mean what they explicitly say.
No. The main reason he gives for policy changes is that the policy isn't working. Numbers haven't budged, despite measures getting ever more extreme and likely illegal. He then suggests that maybe, just maybe, the policy is based on a false assumption. And then delivers some evidence that this could be true. And then presents some ideas of what policies might have a better chance of working.
> empathy is a core publicly-stated internal value of Google which Damore explicitly called for de-emphasizing
Where? I've searched a bunch of places and can't find this, for example:
https://www.google.com/about/philosophy.html
I also googled "google values" and none of the posts so far have had "empathy" in them, though it could be that I haven't searched enough. Anyway, empathy is not a value. Empathy is an emotional capacity. His criticism of empathy is, as far as I can tell, based on the thesis of Paul Bloom's recent book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. [1][2][3].
"Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make."
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compass...
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29100194-against-empathy
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/books/review-against-empa...
"We cannot rule out biological causes" and "We should base our HR policy on this speculative research".
There, fixed that for you.
Also, the research is not at all speculative, quite the opposite. It is immeasurably more solid than the blind assertion that unequal representation is caused entirely/solely by oppression/discrimination etc., for which there is very little evidence overall, and virtually none that holds up to any sort of scrutiny.
Background: there is little to no evidence for the assertion that discrimination/oppression is the sole cause of the under-representation of women in tech, but that assertion is the basis of the HR policies that Damore criticized. In fact, the evidence that it is even a contributing factor is at best scant/anecdotal.
The evidence that Damore cited is incomparably more solid.
"Abstract
Utilizing MRI and cognitive tests data from the Human Connectome project (N = 900), sex differences in general intelligence (g) and molar brain characteristics were examined. Total brain volume, cortical surface area, and white and gray matter correlated 0.1–0.3 with g for both sexes, whereas cortical thickness and gray/white matter ratio showed less consistent associations with g. Males displayed higher scores on most of the brain characteristics, even after correcting for body size, and also scored approximately one fourth of a standard deviation higher on g. Mediation analyses and the Method of Correlated Vectors both indicated that the sex difference in g is mediated by general brain characteristics. Selecting a subsample of males and females who were matched on g further suggest that larger brains, on average, lead to higher g, whereas similar levels of g do not necessarily imply equal brain sizes."
I don't understand how your criticism "indirect correlational evidence" applies to this study, could you maybe elaborate on how you would improve this study?
I would like to point out that saying this changes are due to evolution not sex is unvalid because then nothing will be due to sex, not saying that you think that but just getting it out of the way.
b - higher capacity of empathy might be in part to biological: "Testosterone may reduce empathy by reducing brain connectivity" http://www.psypost.org/2016/03/testosterone-may-reduce-empat...
c- people who have a higher level of empathy might be interrested in fields which need a higher level of empathy, or seek to join fields that directly interact with people [ I don't have a source for this one. It seems logical to me, but it is unproven. if you know a study that proves or disproves it. Please link it]
d - higher levels of women interessted in other fields leads to less women interrested in tech
Although at the same time and despite being pretty far right on the political spectrum, I think there is some truth to the idea that big companies "should" hire visible minorities over and above those that are fully qualified, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of legitimately qualified people, or that it causes significant harm to product quality.
The hard truth is if you only hire white guys from Stanford you've got a ton of overlap in their background and the way they think. If you only hire black women from Somalia it's the same. You're going to have significant similarities. Making teams more diverse is extremely important and beneficial as long as all are otherwise qualified.
Designers, sure, it's very eqsy to think of examples where diverse backgrounds improve business outcomes. But let's not pretend that there is any difference in business outcomes if Foxconn's assembly lines snapping iPhone parts together are entirely Chinese hands vs if they were to equally represent all members of the united nations.
Asserting that there is a benefit needs to be seriously qualified, as it can certainly be everything ranging from a benefit, to negligible, to an actual handicap.
That's most definitely a cultural thing, and I believe its what diversity programs try to address.
> As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry.
I get that, but I think your boss was still wrong to think and phrase of it that way. No one should be disqualified simply because of their race or age. Give more points to minorities? Yes definitely. But reducing points because you're of a certain race and age just sounds icky, and is probably illegal.
Social skills are a thing, even if they're logically equivalent statements.
If it's a cultural thing, why is one version (attitude/culture) towards it considered better than the other (and thus one has to be "addressed")?
If it is a cultural thing, then surely the correct response is not to mandate gender balance in corporate hiring practices, but to alter the education and socialization of girls. Whether it is cultural or biological, the results are the same: fewer women have the interest to excel in specific fields. App Camp for Girls might be a better approach than diversity hiring.
The history of women in tech completely contradicts your belief. The lack of representation is a real problem, we can debate how to fix it, but to claim it doesn't exist is baseless and harmful.
https://hackernoon.com/a-brief-history-of-women-in-computing...
The issue is that it doesn't matter. Women might be less interested in tech, as in if you took 100 men and 100 women and measured their interest the men might be higher.
That doesn't mean no women are interested in tech, or that those who are interested are less competent.
I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why?
[1] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medical-school-gra...
Nursing is one of the best all-around careers in the US when you take all factors into account (barriers to entry, pay, potential advancement, availability of jobs in both urban and rural areas, lack of ageism, long-term stability, etc.). Certain specialist nurses like CRNAs can make $150k+. Nurse practitioners also have a higher median salary than software developers in the US according to the BLS.
It's not that shallow. Using your example, the interesting things become visible when you dig down into different types of work done in the medical profession. Scott Alexander has a very convincing piece on the whole topic:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...
The issue of interest is tackled in section IV of the post. If you scroll down to the end of the section, there are interesting charts there, showing gender distribution of doctors among medical specialties. The distribution happens to align nicely with the theory of differences in interests, explored in that section.
It does matter. As technology becomes more deeply embedded into our society the assumptions made by the people that designed that technology get amplified and hardened. Have you not heard the story about the soap-dispenser that wouldn't recognize black skin? It's a minor annoyance now, but it won't be when the technology is responsible for more critical stuff.
https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-...
>For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why?
Becoming a doctor requires an immense amount of capital and free time. There are structural barriers that prevent women from accessing this capital and free time as easily as men can.
There is also a long history of "men are doctors, women are nurses".
Two such arguments for this kind of policies:
- by giving them jobs which they wouldn't otherwise have the skills to fill you are trying to break the "cycle" (more on that below)
- having different viewpoints in a team can be beneficial beyond the skill set those people should bring according to their role (ex. for developing apps that don't just cater to the hipster young)
Another thing to consider is that the way you measure performance may be biased, resulted from decades of privileged groups having the leadership role in that domain/area and having developed it in certain ways that caters to their skill set.
For the "breaking the cycle" part, I mean that systematic discrimination results in people of certain origins simply not having the opportunity/chance to have developed the skills to be competitive with the privileged classes. And no, you can't just fix this by giving them a "chance to learn", some of the negative impacts on these groups of people are permanent and happen in early life. Obviously trying to handle this problem in the workplace is just a "hack", it's too late already but it does have the benefit that now those people get included in a social environment that they would normally be cut out from, get payed more than they would otherwise and, hopefully, this will trickle down to their children and grandchildren so in a few generations of doing this we don't actually need to be doing it anymore.
I'm not saying that all of this means I'm convinced affirmative action is doing more good than bad, just that I see it has possible benefits.
Irish immigrants started out from a culture, where the typical peasant was 1/2 to 1/4th as wealthy as the median pre-Civil War American Slave. There was a period of time when ethnic Irish political machines helped to place the party faithful into cozy government jobs. This was beneficial, up to a point. However, there is a point where such subgroup politics becomes so corrupt, the leaders of that group keep their people in deliberate isolation to maintain their power.
The IQs of many ethnic immigrant groups to the US can be shown to have increased after several generations. The Polish and Italian immigrant groups' IQs increased from 85 to over 100 over the 1st half of the 20th century. There seems to have been a reversal of such trends for African American communities starting in the 60's. There are also studies of the African American children of US armed forces personnel in Germany. Their IQs are the same as other children growing up in Germany. My conclusion is that the leadership of the African American community and the influence of the US political Left, by glorifying a toxic subset of their ethnic culture, is holding the group back, in cultural isolation, in such a way as to harm the prospects of their children as strongly as lead in the water of Flint Michigan.
Yes, because of improved living conditions, and better food compared to the old country - not because of political leadership.
In part because of leadership -- chiefly thought leadership, a part of which came in the form of assimilation. The power of human capital -- culture -- should not be underestimated. If it's just access to resources like improved food and living conditions, then every group would progress at the same rate. If it's just access to resources, then giving people resources would automatically make them richer. However, there are a number of Africans who advocate stopping aid to Africa. Africa is full or resources, and Japan has very few. Why is Japan so much wealthier?
Most of the answer is human capital.
If the cultures of the Polish and Italians were not encouraging their younger generations to better their fortunes through education and business, then the cultures would have lowered the material wealth of the groups and held them back, in much the same way that the early Irish immigrants to the US lowered the quality of life in their slums.
In this, there is much hope. If cultural transmission can raise up the 19th century potato famine Irish to the 1st world mainstream, there is basically nothing it can't accomplish. (However, culture runs deep, below the level of the conscious mind. It can't be transmitted by simple edict.)
I voted for Obama. However, in retrospect, he was part of the shift of the American left into an authoritarian version. Those collegiate "progressive" protesters who say, "F your free speech" are part of this unfortunate shift.
which toxic culture are they supposedly glorifying?
Urban thug culture.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell...
There is a genteel African American culture. I've known people from that thread of American culture. It valued learning, rationality, responsibility, and manners. Also, not all Black Americans are too crazy about Obama's legacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phPXTWJhnYM
Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech.
I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are terrible at their job stand out. People notice it, but few say it.
Our company recently hired a black woman as a "Software Engineer" who can't write a SQL statement. She has a "taken some tutorials" level of programming skill as far as I have noticed and produces things very, very slow. People notice this, and it makes them angry. I'm sure the other engineers talk about this even more when I'm not in the room. Our boss is proud of how much he is "making the team diverse" yet it's only going to cause problems for the team.
I like to think I was hired based on my skillset, not to improve the numbers. I've worked hard to get here. People likely forget or don't care how "diverse" I am when I am working because I produce. And I fully support bringing in diverse candidates, it's essential to get those viewpoints, so long as they are a qualified candidate to start with.
I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. Almost all of the women from my social circle are smart, pragmatic, driven and successful yet have zero interest in a technical career. They excel in their given industries but ours they want no part of. I don't believe intelligence is more prevalent in either gender, but I do believe there are some traits that shape who we are.
That's something that's rarely addressed, for fear of being ostracized.
As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry.