I tend to attribute this type of thing to what I call the "identity politics" wing of the left. In a Parliamentary system they probably would be in a different party than you.
Maybe I am on the autistic spectrum, or ots teh fact I studied science but i thought that Damore's memo was fairly well written. First time I went through it he made a couple of points where I though to myself "that sounds controversial", but then in every case he had backed it up with some study validating it to some extent.
It was certainly a lot better written than the majority of the media's reporting on it.
Quote: Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”
Or is that one ok because it hasn't been debunked?
In which case, according to Wikipedia, the Frankfurt school "consisted of neo-Marxist dissidents uncomfortable with existing capitalist, fascist, or communist systems." Has that been debunked? If so, where?
Also, Google even agrees with him: https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552
"Did I read this right? Susan Wojicicki said that women find “geeky male industries” (as opposed to “social industries”) “not very interesting” and Sundar cites research on gender differences."
I see the memo personally as more young-and-naive and I'm not one who thinks naivety is something that should get you fired, per se (though, much of his whines at the end were directed directly at Google being explicitly anti-conservative; rightly or wrongly, employees who noisily complain in public about their employer do often get dismissed). But he certainly wade into some touchy waters armed more with opinionated commentary sources versus hard science. There is a century's worth of troubling eugenics-oriented history on that "IQ and biological differences" quote that should inform one that this is not a remark to toss off lightly, and merely semi-support that with a link to a conservative think-tank link (that itself IMHO was pretty naive).
Chop the last bunch of the manifesto and it would be more interesting, but as it stands, the memo was not just "men and women are different" and how that applies to STEM careers. In the end, it was also a whine about how Google is Capital-L Left and "alienating conservatives" too.
He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome
I agree with OP that this difference in interests is probably socialized. Men and women are very obviously socialized differently, not to mention at many places (tech companies especially), the social atmosphere is one that favors men (boys) with keggers and nerf guns.
Damore's memo isn't very convincing from that perspective, because if the difference can be explain by 20 years of socialization, it can also be changed, and Damore's argument seemed to be based upon some inherent difference between the sexes and his solutions predicated on that assumption. Then again, not really sure exactly what he was arguing because it was meandering.
It's been argued to death at this point, but it genuinely surprises me that people find his poorly sourced memo (or whatever you want to call it) as the centerpiece for this topic. With that as the starting point, no wonder the discussion is garbage. The people who support viewpoints like Damore's should aim higher because it is not helping their case.
To give a more complete answer, here's a section from his memo:
De-emphasize empathy.
I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.
There are multiple claims there. He does refer to a blog post, but reading that, do you have any clue what that blog post may be about or how it applies to his argument?
This article explains in great detail how that is not the case in any significance and there are even examples where men and women have been socialized oppositely and still end up choosing typical gender interests.
> argument seemed to be based upon some inherent difference between the sexes
Yes, men and women are different.
That's why it is bad. Just because you've got sources doesn't mean you are saying anything useful and I'd argue the discussion proves that. He's got sources, which is somehow supposed to mean he's correct. He's blessed his argument with associations with academia, but doesn't really make compelling arguments.
This article explains in great detail how that is not the case in any significance and there are even examples where men and women have been socialized oppositely and still end up choosing typical gender interests.
> some inherent difference between the sexes
Yes, men and women are different.
It doesn't do it at all convincingly. If sexes have been socialized differently for tens of thousands of years (and they have), and one of the sexes has been intentionally limited by the other for long durations of this time (they have), then how do you say what is biological and what is sociological? He never bothers with this.
No society has lasted tens of thousands of years and many were in complete isolation which already says something about how the same roles formed again and again. Also we see the same thing in animals.
Banging on about a controversial subject that can cause upset and disruption in a work environment. Does that sound very professional, or something that a smart person would do? And do you really want that kind of person in your team?
He didn't insult anyone, although some amount of his coworkers did feel insulted.
The difference between these two things is significant.
Put differently: We are going down a dark road when someone simply being offended by pretty mainstream views mean those views are the problem.
Where did you see the word "Jewish". I didn't see it when I read the text, it's not in the relevant footnote, and I did a search and didn't find it.
Regarding the Marxist part: I'm not an expert on this but I believe it's called "critical theory" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory.
What exactly didnt make sense to you with that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx...
"The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that William S. Lind in 2002 gave a speech to a Holocaust denial conference on the topic of Cultural Marxism. In this speech Lind noted that all the members of The Frankfurt School were "to a man, Jewish", but it is reported that Lind claims not to question whether the Holocaust occurred and suggests he was present in an official capacity for The Free Congress Foundation "to work with a wide variety of groups on an issue-by-issue basis""
Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”
His entire memo is a distillation of reactionary talking points. That overall impression rather than any single argument is probably what pissed off a lot of his coworkers because these battles are much older than him.
Damore got what he wanted, he wanted to be a martyr, probably because that was all he was ever going to be good for. He’s the truest of snowflakes, stop giving idiots this platform and maybe they’ll go away.
BTW: the original comment was based on his job. Google didn’t hire him to make comments like that, they hired him to code. That’s all I meant, don’t shit where you eat, if you’re hired to code do that job and focus on that. I don’t know what this generations problem is with not being able to keep it together in a professional workplace, but the problem is this generation, not the rules.
Your account also looks like it's tending to use HN primarily for ideology and politics. We don't allow that, because it's destructive of the intellectual curiosity that HN is supposed to be for. I've posted about this a lot, if anyone wants to understand how we apply that rule: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
He did post the memo to an employee-led internal forum on diversity... Clearly the problem was he posted the wrong opinion.
From what I remember he did not. Someone at Google publicized a document written by Damore on a Google forum.
He then reworked the doc a bit to be less overtly offensive (the published version is one of these later ones), still got shot down in a friendly way by the sympathetic part of the Google population for bullshit reasoning. Eventually it got wider circulation - not sure by whom, but he certainly didn't object to that.
At some point, when managers and friendly inclined folks tell you to shut up at work, you do. If you decide to pursue the topic further, don't whine when people disassociate themselves from you - not for the content of your speech, but for your conduct and the disruption that comes with it.
> Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at. http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
More from her about Damore's memo and scientific research in this space:
> Despite how it's been portrayed, the memo was fair and factually accurate. Scientific studies have confirmed sex differences in the brain that lead to differences in our interests and behaviour.
> As mentioned in the memo, gendered interests are predicted by exposure to prenatal testosterone – higher levels are associated with a preference for mechanically interesting things and occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations. This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields tend to be dominated by men.
> We see evidence for this in girls with a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, who are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone in the womb. When they are born, these girls prefer male-typical, wheeled toys, such as trucks, even if their parents offer more positive feedback when they play with female-typical toys, such as dolls. Similarly, men who are interested in female-typical activities were likely exposed to lower levels of testosterone.
> As well, new research from the field of genetics shows that testosterone alters the programming of neural stem cells, leading to sex differences in the brain even before it's finished developing in utero. This further suggests that our interests are influenced strongly by biology, as opposed to being learned or socially constructed.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manife...
EDIT: I wish I understood why I've been downvoted so that I could improve my comments in the future. Is the problem that it's too verbose? OK, I've tried to shorten it and replaced the links to three studies with a link to Deborah's article above.
For example, for many years Law was 95% male. You could say that it was a masculine profession because it’s all about conflict while women prefer peacemaking. But today 50% of new large firm attorneys are women. Law isn’t any softer or gentler now—in fact it’s probably less civil. Same for teaching. We explain teaching being dominated by women on the basis that teaching is about nurturing. But in India, the vast majority of teachers are men.
You could easily say that programming is feminine. It’s not at all physical, all about cooperating and communicating with other people, it’s about managing expectations, etc.
Also, the truck analogy has been debunked. It’s explained by the fact that girls have a higher affinity for faces than boys. Which makes sense: infants don’t have any association between trucks and masculine professions like construction work. They can’t. Any gender difference observable at a very young age has to be unrelated to the associations adults have between trucks and masculinity.
> why we have any reason to believe that programming is a “masculine” profession
By exclusion: we have checked everything else we could think of and found no other logical explanation for the disparity of sexes in STEM. That doesn't mean women's preference is the true underlying reason, but then, we don't have a better explanation, or even any other explanation consistent with facts. Still, AFAIK, Damore never claimed it was THE reason, he just raised it as a possible and the likeliest explanation - given no other explanation seems to work.
> But in India, the vast majority of teachers are men.
I don't think India is a valid example here, because there is still a lot of inequality in that society. Let's talk about countries on the higher end of the equality spectrum, like Finland or Sweden.
> Also, the truck analogy has been debunked
[Source missing]
I would characterize programming as very far on the “Things” side of the axis that is “People vs Things”.
See: Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/47af/4a7e87267aba681fb69715...
The fundamental task of programming – sitting in front of a computer, reasoning about the machine and the system, and writing code and debugging systems for hours on end — is about as “thing”-oriented as I can conceive of. One needs to do a great deal of this to get a CS degree.
Another dimension to consider is Systematizing versus Empathizing (citations omitted). Programming seems to be far on the systematizing side.
As a thought experiment, what jobs might be further on the side of “things“ and “systematizing” than programming?
(I don’t know of any studies that characterize the programming in these dimensions. I’m providing my intuition.)
I’m not super familiar with the practice of law, but I would guess that it’s actually fairly close to the middle of both of those spectrums. The law itself is systematic but practicing it involves working with people at every level (client, counterparty, judge, regulator). It’s possible to write and deliver code, or root-cause and fix a bug report, without interacting with another soul.
The practice of law at a business firm (where 50% of associates are women) occasionally involves people, but for the most part is thing oriented. I do less coordinating with team members and the client than when I was an engineer, because everything is on the record. You don’t have long meetings with the client to get their use cases, etc. When you do interact with people it’s systematized and highly artificial. Youre not trying to connect with the judge as a person. You’re breaking down an often highly abstract issue into constituent parts to help the judge understand it. And the things you’re dealing with are typically more abstract. The subject matter isn’t a website with pictures or human users. The subject matter is a lien, or a credit default swap, or a regulation embodying an economic theory. You talk about these abstractions as if they were things.
> The fundamental task of programming – sitting in front of a computer, reasoning about the machine and the system, and writing code and debugging systems for hours on end — is about as “thing”-oriented as I can conceive of. One needs to do a great deal of this to get a CS degree.
From the GP:
>You could easily say that programming is feminine. It’s not at all physical, all about cooperating and communicating with other people, it’s about managing expectations, etc.
Here's the real disconnect, and it's all about the environment that is cultivated wherever you happen to be. These are really two wildly different professions that happen to be lumped under one title. On the one hand you have the concrete, generative work where you are creating a thing out of the void. And on the other, you have the political infighting and jockeying to be allowed to do that generative work, and all of the overhead involved in such operations. These are wildly disconnected activities, and it should be no surprise that people gravitate towards one extreme or the other, with very few rare unicorns that can do both at a high level.
As for his writing ability, it may not be at the level of Mark Twain, but it seems quite eloquent to me...
Was it really rife with fallacies? Lee Jussim (professor of social psychology at Rutgers University) wrote:
> The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right.
Geoffrey Miller (evolutionary psychology professor at University of New Mexico) wrote:
> For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate.
Debra W Soh (PhD in sexual neuroscience):
> Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at.
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
It doesn't seem reasonable to characterize this memo as rife with fallacies or unsupported generalizations when multiple scientists are willing to go on the record saying the memo's science is generally correct. I have not seen similar in-depth rebuttals from other scientists claiming it's wrong. (If anyone knows of one I'd be glad to read it. I have seen brief quotes from scientists in articles written by reporters, but nothing with depth or analysis.)
EDIT: I wish I understood why I've been downvoted so that I could improve my comments in the future. Would anyone be willing to explain the downvote?
In culture war topics, the only real citations that can count are people above reproach, or people who are unknown but experts in their fields, which is a fine needle to thread. Also raw data, but few of us here would be qualified to understand the raw data.
I was mostly poking my head in to answer the question of why you're being down voted, IMO. I'm on the opposite side of your understanding of this research based on a cursory glance (nothing says 'unbiased' like including the phrase 'feminist campaigners' in the conclusion of a scientific publication).
This week's Weeds podcast has some interesting alternative theories based on the results from various Scandinavian countries where they legislated some gender equality stuff and it neither worked out as well as people on the left would like, nor as much of a disaster as people on the right predicted.
Reply to a reply, so I'm out, back to what I'm actually good at, building stuff for other humans to use.
I was at a club, and the first thing a brown woman said to me was "I had to get out of that room -- it was too white in there!". These bullies are just replacing one in-group with another. The root problem is tribalism and groupism, and only individuality, not a re-slicing of identities solves that.
Is this about revenge, or is it about equity?
Adapting behavior is reasonable, but there's men also need to be able to have a voice, or you're going to get some major pushback. Hopefully we can keep this kind of war at a low simmer when trump is up for re-election.
More specifically, that means making sure that men do have a voice. I've seen a lot of silencing tactics deployed that are based on gender, or social class. It's all well and good to say "well that's how minorities always felt", but it doesn't actually make any part of this situation better.
I know that sounds simple, but it really it. We get to work and we fix it.
Are you in Denver? Let's meet up if so and talk about trying to fix this mess.
If any other HNer is in Denver, the invitation stands. Let's meet up and talk and try to fix it.
Equality of opportunity (meritocracy) or equality of outcome (sounds like a nasty place where people are selected on things like race, or gender)?
That being said, you can't have a strict equality of opportunity without acknowledging which people didn't have that opportunity. I think it's much easier to fix this problem if you focus on the person (e.g. Sandra couldn't afford college) rather than the group (Sandra's black and statistically less likely to have been able to afford college).
The problem is people use these bullshit heuristics that happen to suit their mental model of how they want their neighborhood/workplace/world to look ("We don't have a black woman in accounting, what's wrong with that hiring manager?" or "Everyone on the database team is Indian why can't they hire a white guy?") rather than just trying to be fair while still acknowledging systemic issues people have had because of the groups they may belong to.
"Equality of opportunity" is a phrase I no longer trust, because it obfuscates the true differences in moral ideology. Just be explicit about which factors you think should create unequal outcomes, and which ones shouldnt, and a real conversation can happen from there.
Equality of opportunity is meant as: Inequality should rise from personal choice and decisions, otherwise, why should anyone strive to be better than anyone else?
I suggest looking at the history of states that favor equality of opportunity (equality) against equality of outcome (equity).
I'll leave you with this Soviet joke: 'They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.'
Please see this idea illustrated in two ways: -http://deplorablyconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02... -https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S01680102140029...
You see the term 'equal opportunity employer' -- it is meaningful and fair.
How does the term 'equal outcome employer' sound?
The only discussion I'm willing to have is one in which we discuss a particular area of treatment or opportunity.
http://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/I...
It is very clear this is not equal opportunity but equal outcomes. Trying to make equal outcomes requires some serious mental gymnastics because numerous decisions collectively contribute to our direction, standing, and potential in life.
> Be civil...Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. (could be multiple but is the same paragraph so assuming combined as 1 point)
> Assume good faith.
> Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle.
I wasn't however assuming bad faith, I was attempting to use humor to jolt someone out of uncritically adopting what I consider an asburd position (that there is any danger of a metaphorical "war on men", in any sense other than as a talking point).
That's US-centric. Until a century ago the majority of humans did not have a lot of freedom. Living under some autocratic ruler. The skin color or gender was irrelevant: only who you were the child of. A Chinese noblewoman had a lot more freedom than a English farmer.
You'll have to specify that better; for instance, is the farmer a landowner, or a serf? Both work in agriculture and can so rightly be termed a farmer.
Well, "That's US-centric".
Racism doesn't even translate well to other countries today: not every country has the situation that a significant part of the population has ancestors that were relocated by force and had to work as slaves in recent history, and are easily distinguishable by skin color ("race").
Different countries, different problems. Hence, different delineations in the various culture wars all over the world.
By 1900 European powers dominated almost everything, including China who were bulled into war by the British. If you were a subject of any of those colonial powers, you certainly were at a disadvantage to your foreign masters. This isn't even considering gender. Out of all of those empires, how many were led by women? There were exceptions here and there, but men dominated.
It's not US centric nor incorrect by any means to suggest that Caucasian males have had significant advantages in social relations for an extended period of time.
rate limited, but to reply:
Read Caucasian as white or European and don't get stuck on semantics. Germany only very recently favored this race (or another vague term, "Aryan") more than anyone else in history, so most people know what it means, the semantics are a digression and not an answer to what has happened historically.
Also, this isn't guilt tripping nor "hating" on my ancestors, it is pointing out obvious facts. Many of us are products of this domination and have connections to both sides.
That's a big part in making that conversation US centric.
As a leftist, yes. I understand to be on the left means to strive for equality of power among people, economic and social. To be on the right means, at best, not to care about power inequalities between people.
I cringe every time when other people think that feminists and SJWs (I would prefer to call them by different terms but I don't know any) are leftist. They are only in a certain very narrow sense, which makes them often to be on the right, paradoxically. They often do not care about oppressed white males. But if you do not care about some oppressed group, then you don't stand for equality.
Feminism became to be included in the left, because in the past, all women were oppressed. It's no longer the case, and some feminists do not actually care about equality of other groups.
Some biologist put it nicely in a discussion: The left (as a broad political movement) might suffer from a predatory problem - being joined by someone who is oppressed, but doesn't actually want equality, only power. But that's the nature of the game.
And this conflict is nothing new, either. Noam Chomsky, a giant of the left, has been affected by it in the 70s, when he defended free speech of a Holocaust denier.
Reply to reply, so I'm out.
I’m for all of those things but there is zero doubt society has moved left fast.
Definitely factions of society have, though I wouldn't say society as whole just yet. Those factions have thought-leaders who are unusually viscous and aggressive (e.g. heaping abuse on those who disagree with them, calling them "garbabe-people" etc.). I'd wait for things to settle down before making the final call.
This account began as a throwaway. I used to comment with my real name, in the days before the war broke out. In the days when pg used to comment here regularly. The days when, if someone disagreed with you, they'd tell you so, or why you're wrong, or maybe that you're a dumb-dumb. Now, if you don't follow approved talking points in your social media communiqués, you're in real danger of being pilloried, and - as these things go - you're more likely to be attacked by fellow members of the party. I've identified as left-leaning my entire life, but I've never for a moment feared this sort of personal sabotage from a right-leaning person. This is a pursuit of ideological purity at any cost.