Google Employee's Memo: "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber", Goes Internally Viral - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Streecer;52547175]There's no gene in the human brain that tells us to work a certain job, we're more complicated then that. Not everything in life can be boiled down to hard sciences. And if you start thinking that way you might write something as misinformed as this memo.[/QUOTE] I've seen research on chimpanzees showing preferences in toys become gender-skewed from a young age, research on humans showing that children raised as the opposite gender by their parents still tend towards certain gender traits associated with their biological sex, and a whole heaping helping of research showing that men and women differ in their attitudes towards different types of problems. There is ample evidence that men and women are as different mentally as they are physically. You're right, it's more complicated than 'there's a gene in the human brain that tells us to work a certain job', but if the actual mechanism of action is that men tend to be more interested in systems-heavy tasks while women tend towards social work then a statistical discrepancy between the sexes should be expected even without social norms skewing it further. Expecting full gender parity in hiring, which is what he's talking about, is unreasonable. The thing that's he's missing in the manifesto is that social skills are really, [I]really[/I] important for programmers, and I think the de-emphasis of human factors is a serious problem for the industry. People who can code are dime a dozen; people who can code but also engage with the right people in the right ways to find the right things to code are the ones you keep. I've worked with a number of developers who were programming geniuses, but couldn't empathize with the user, couldn't work as a team, and couldn't figure out how to get assistance or clarification when they needed it. Those skills are [i]essential[/i] to working at a large company, but they're not part of the popular image of programming skills. This Google employee is justifying why systems-focused programming might be male-dominated, but if systems-focused programming isn't optimal to begin with then his argument isn't very useful. Personally, I don't want to see companies just say 'yeah we got to get more women into STEM, so we hire strictly 50/50'. I want to see them make an effort to change the culture of programming into a more social, more collaborative, more people-focused discipline, at which point the gender disparity will go away.

[QUOTE=Streecer;52547175]Not everything in life can be boiled down to hard sciences. And if you start thinking that way you might write something as misinformed as this memo. This memo comes from the perspective of somebody who clearly thinks that social science "isn't real science." Not only because he claims it's controlled by "the left," and I presume therefore is wrong somehow. But because it attempts to substitute social science for biology when it really shouldn't. The entire biology side of this memo is absolute bunk. He uses biology to reinforce gender stereotypes, insists that those stereotypes are the reason women cannot break into software engineering, and then complains about traditional gender roles all in the same breath. It's a fucking mess. [/QUOTE] Actually he mostly referred to psychology rather then biology, which is most definitely not a "hard science". Granted, the stuff he writes about probably falls under the biological level of analysis part of it, but it's still psychology. The "systemizing" notion that you mock actually comes from the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory"]Empathizing–systemizing theory[/URL] The theory has a pretty substantial "Criticisms" paragraph on wikipedia, but I think it has more to do with the controversial subject matter rather then the actual problems (which there still are some, but mostly related to that part when the dude who invented it tried to use it to explain autism and it backfired). [QUOTE=Streecer;52547175]He's spent an entire memo talking about stereotypes for women, except instead of acknowledging them as stereotypes introduced by society, he says that they're generally true because of biology, and therefore that's why there are less women in tech. It's incredibly backwards.[/QUOTE] That's his argument though, that there are significant reasons why in the current system there will always be more men willing to be engineers then women. How do you know for sure that these are stereotypes introduced by society, rather then having some biological correlate? I am not arguing that is not the case, but the truth is that there are many things in the nature vs nurture debate that we don't understand and your opinion on this matter (that the differences in preferences are caused only by the society) can just as easily turn out to be false as his opinion (that there are some biological correlates behind them) could. It's not a healthy altitude to have. How would you react if it really was proven that the E-S theory is true and neurological differences between dudes and gals do affect job and interest preferences to a statistically significant degree? I mean, it's not some bellcurve type-style alt-right science thing. This is what [I]Nature[/I], a peer-reviewed journal wrote about the book about it: [QUOTE]"The idea that males are more interested in systemizing than females merits serious consideration ... It is unquestionably a novel and fascinating idea that seems likely to generate a rich empirical body of literature as its properties are tested. The second part of the theory—that females are more empathic than males—is more problematic."[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Sableye;52546433]I just have one gripe with this, we know this isn't true with computer programming. The field was dominated by women from the very beginning up through the 1970s when things went backwards. [B]One of the arguments I've heard about the drop in women participation in programming in the 1970s and 80s was that personal computers became the purvuew of men and boys got computers while girls got barbies, so women had very little computer experience before going into college, and college education shifted from math based, mainframe centric views of computers to small PC computer programming which shut women out of the profession in general[/B] there's no psychological reason why women can't understand computer langauge, infact women tend to score higher in writing and language based courses in general and we also know women are more than capable of being top rated mathmaticians, so there's no real truth behind his assumption that women are bad at tech based jobs due to them being women.[/QUOTE] Something that really frustrates me about discussions like this is that they often fail to give credit to the fucking [I]tremendous[/I] power culture has on shaping us as an individual, from how we perceive the role of our gender and sexuality to how we define ourselves as a person. Culture causing issues like this doesn't make culture bad and doesn't place the blame on any individuals, but it is up to us as a collective to work towards changing our cultural perceptions. And these perceptions don't just malign women! Like, think about male teachers or male nurses. Negative stereotypes or jokes abound, yes? Yet there's no real reason for the tremendous gender discrepancy in these fields at all, besides the built-up effect of decades/centuries of small cultural influences. The "wage gap" for women has a lot to do with this, too, in that it relates highly to what jobs women are ever so subtly steered into throughout their life. Outreach programs are great, because if nothing else they start directly countering some of these little niggling cultural thoughts by directly confronting them. Letters like this one aren't deserving of one being fired or being ostracized or being mistreated, but they always feel quite shallow and more than a little bit narrow-sighted. The role of gender in our society is a complex one that has too much (imo) role in deciding who we become right now, but we are on a path to fixing this. I just hope that instead of going for the easy/obvious targets (that end up being a symptom, not the cause, in some cases) we remember to work against the more ingrained and subtle cultural influences that got us here. I think one of the [I]best[/I] examples of doing this was when the [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/europe/britain-ads-gender-stereotypes.html"]UK recently cracked down on gender stereotypes in advertising[/URL].

[URL="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences"]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences[/URL] [QUOTE]But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10 percent of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm. Moreover, men are more emotional than women in certain ways, too. Sex differences in emotion depend on the type of emotion, how it is measured, where it is expressed, when it is expressed, and lots of other contextual factors.[/QUOTE]

Surprise surprise. [url=https://www.recode.net/2017/8/7/16110696/firing-google-ceo-employee-penned-controversial-memo-on-women-has-violated-its-code-of-conduct]Firing expected after Google CEO says employee who penned controversial memo on women has violated its Code of Conduct[/url] ("Firing expected" is Recode's interpretation, Google's staying silent on that point for now.) [quote=Sundar Pichai, Google CEO]First, let me say that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”[/quote]

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;52549320]Surprise surprise. [url=https://www.recode.net/2017/8/7/16110696/firing-google-ceo-employee-penned-controversial-memo-on-women-has-violated-its-code-of-conduct]Firing expected after Google CEO says employee who penned controversial memo on women has violated its Code of Conduct[/url] ("Firing expected" is Recode's interpretation, Google's staying silent on that point for now.)[/QUOTE] [quote]"each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”[/quote] Unless it's against a dissenting opinion, in which case calls for violence/lynchmobbing is fine.

[QUOTE=Thlis;52549326]Unless it's against a dissenting opinion, in which case calls for violence/lynchmobbing is fine.[/QUOTE] I don't think google can control people who aren't their employees edit: sucks that he might get fired! if only he had a union.

Guess Google didn't find it all that enlightening.

Wrongthinkers get punished. Google is proving his point.

[QUOTE=Thlis;52549326]Unless it's against a dissenting opinion, in which case calls for violence/lynchmobbing is fine.[/QUOTE] Did any Google employees call for violence or lynchmobbing? Genuine question.

[QUOTE=Boaraes;52549594]Wrongthinkers get punished. Google is proving his point.[/QUOTE] 1. He hasn't been fired. 2. If it's explicitly the codes of conduct what do you suggest they do?

It isn't over The guy has a case for wrongful termination. [URL="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google-to-punish-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo-commentary.html"]https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google-to-punish-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo-commentary.html[/URL]

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52549658]1. He hasn't been fired. 2. If it's explicitly the codes of conduct what do you suggest they do?[/QUOTE] 1. [URL="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/google-fires-engineer-who-crossed-the-line-with-diversity-memo/"]Search the news for Google and Fire[/URL] 2. To consider the California Labor Code Section 1101 Also, here's a link to 4 scientist's responses to the memo [url]https://archive.is/VlNfl[/url]

[QUOTE=Thlis;52549674]1. [URL="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/google-fires-engineer-who-crossed-the-line-with-diversity-memo/"]Search the news for Google and Fire[/URL] 2. To consider the California Labor Code Section 1101[/QUOTE] 1. alright I was wrong 2. This code section? [QUOTE]1101. No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office. (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.[/QUOTE] This man wasn't engaging in politics or participating in politics, he wrote a memo which has political and (perhaps unintentional) bigoted overtones. Nor was he running for public office. Google wasn't controlling or directing him in his political activites nor were they stopping him from being a political conservative. That's how I see it anyway.

The version of the memo with the sources leaked. Should I post it? Edit: Wait a minute there is a section in which the guy points out ways we could produce diversity in there.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52549718]1. alright I was wrong 2. This code section? This man wasn't engaging in politics or participating in politics, he wrote a memo which has political and (perhaps unintentional) bigoted overtones. Nor was he running for public office. Google wasn't controlling or directing him in his political activites nor were they stopping him from being a political conservative. That's how I see it anyway.[/QUOTE] Nah, you're right. They didn't stop him from being a person with "politically conservative" views, they just stopped him from being an employee because he expressed an opinion that directly criticizes what is wrong with blind diversity for diversity's sake. I mean, does this truly sound bigoted to you? [quote]I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem. Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber. Despite what the public response seems to have been, I’ve gotten many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired. This needs to change.[/quote] Being welcome to different ideas and methods of executing changes for the better is pretty opposite to bigotry, don't you think?

[QUOTE=OmniConsUme;52549754]The version of the memo with the sources leaked. Should I post it? Edit: Wait a minute there is a section in which the guy points out ways we could produce diversity in there.[/QUOTE] Do it

Here is the Memo with the sources not stripped out. [URL="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf"]https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf[/URL] Tell me if it get's taken down i got a copy.

[QUOTE=Dave_Parker;52549785]As always, some people agree with the firing, some disagree, and some think it didn't go far enough. (the comments are the fun read) [media]http://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/894738041759084544[/media][/QUOTE] I didn't know Mcarthy had a sex/race change

[QUOTE=Boaraes;52549762]Nah, you're right. They didn't stop him from being a person with "politically conservative" views, they just stopped him from being an employee because he expressed an opinion that directly criticizes what is wrong with blind diversity for diversity's sake.[/QUOTE] Do you see anything in the code that says people that hold a political opinion can't be fired? And I disagree with the notion that it's diversity for the sake of diversity [QUOTE]I mean, does this truly sound bigoted to you[/QUOTE] No but this part does: [QUOTE]Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing). These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.[/QUOTE] I want to stress that I'm not calling this dude a bigot, merely that I think some of what he's expressed in the memo is bigoted. I think the section that I'm quoting this from is why google gave him the axe moreso than anything else he wrote. [editline]7th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Dave_Parker;52549785]As always, some people agree with the firing, some disagree, and some think it didn't go far enough. (the comments are the fun read) [media]http://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/894738041759084544[/media][/QUOTE] This is shitty though, don't do this google

Probably won't even make it to court. Google likely fired the guy with full expectation of doing a quick out of court settlement to bury this ASAP. They don't want bad press from keeping him around or from a lengthy lawsuit.

Science kinda checks out, I think it's the wording itself is the problem. This guys thrown Culteral Marxism to explain the heavy left-leaning bias in the humanities and social science. I don't think he should have been fired but he has issues trying to explain things.

[QUOTE=JETFIGHTER5;52549861]Probably won't even make it to court. Google likely fired the guy with full expectation of doing a quick out of court settlement to bury this ASAP. They don't want bad press from keeping him around or from a lengthy lawsuit.[/QUOTE] I assume Google have very good lawyers even if it did go to court.

[quote]This is shitty though, don't do this google[/QUOTE] A lot of people on twitter really want companies to purge anyone with views remotely like that, so that is why I'm kinda defensive, in fact you can probably guess the usual suspects (Brianna Wu, and her like)

I love this Engineer guy. He doesn't give a shit about morals or empathy just the ethics and facts. He even offers solution to perceived problems instead of just bitching. The world needs more of him.

[QUOTE=Shirt.;52549896]I love this Engineer guy. He doesn't give a shit about morals or empathy just the ethics and facts. He even offers solution to perceived problems instead of just bitching. The world needs more of him.[/QUOTE] Since when have a lack of morals or empathy ever hurt anyone am I right?

i don't think he should have been fired

[QUOTE=killerteacup;52544285]things can't "seem" like empirical thoughts, they either are or they aren't. The problem is the gizmodo document doesn't supply his sources. Without his sources, it's pretty hard for us to judge which parts of his essay are fact and which are conjecture.[/QUOTE] I've read up on the literature, it's all basically accurate. Particularly the bit about a society with, lets say, the most advanced erasure of gender based social constraints producing the most marked disparity in the distribution of the sexes in a given field. What i want to point out though is that the original memo was a well articulated, itemized essay with sources, citations, statistical, psychological and sociological backing, even delving into big five personality traits and their distribution between the sexes, including conscientiousness, which by the way is the #1 predictor of life success and status, above even IQ. And yet the head of the diversity department's response was basically "This advances incorrect notions, and i wont link to the essay because i think it's wrong. We're continuing on our crusade because it's the good thing to do, diversity is our strength", while citing nothing, giving no arguments to support that claim and [I]refusing to engage any direct criticisms in any capacity whatsoever. [/I]And is predicated mostly on emotional appeal, appeal to authority and what basically amounts to reciting slogans without substantiation. Socrates would bust a gut at such naked sophistry. No response at all would've actually been a better move, because at least it wouldn't have displayed an utter inability to confront any arguments against their position whatsoever. That retort letter was a fucking disgrace and anyone with a rational head on their shoulders should be able to see the castle's built on sand. Also i can't find the comments that were there before, but when i first read this, there was a great deal of comments quoting the bits about ideologically based suppression of a plurality of viewpoints and going "wow you poor poor conservative, denied your right to be an asshole in public", or quoting easily verifiable, well substantiated statistical realities such as neurotisism or consciousnesses distribution and going "i'm still trying to decipher this strange strange text..." and other replies going "lol yeah what a douche". If you wrote a political satire with people like this 20 years ago you'd be damned for presenting unrealistic stereotypes that don't reasonably represent anything, but here we are. And of course the guy who voices his complaint about a functionally authoritarian ideological space inside the company that punishes those who voice a contrary opinion is fired. How anyone can then say he was wrong is beyond me. Also it bugs me how the news is reporting this as an "anti-diversity manifesto" when it's clearly endorsing diversity of ideas and viewpoints, and condemning the marxist informed equality of outcome and social constructionist ideological position, which he calls out by name. If it's intentional or not, that's a clear and fundimental misrepresentation of the original essay, which i find troubling. [QUOTE=Lambeth;52549942]Since when have a lack of morals or empathy ever hurt anyone am I right?[/QUOTE] It's not lack of morales or empathy, in fact it's the insistence on morales in the sense of serving the truth in the face of, let's say, pathological empathy and other assorted sophistry. Don't conflate condition-less empathy or appeal to emotion with being morale. Despite what people like to think, a large part of hitler's M.O. was based in pathological empathy and sophistry. The whole master race thing was about the pure aryan race's morale burden as the master race to care for the uncivilized and inferior untermench, and lift them up from their supposed squalor as the intrinsic responsibility of the master race to bear. And the whole hate boner for the jews and gypsies was predicated on the idea that they were socially destructive elements that were actively antagonizing the master race's just morale prerogative, and therefore had to be removed so that the good work to help the poor untermench could get underway. If empathizing or sympathizing with everyone at all times was the ideal mode of behavior in all circumstances, there would be no other mode of behaviour because it would all be wrong and produce undesirable results, and be weeded out, as the only social behaviours that would function properly/prosperously would be those predicated on, for lack of a better description, a maternal set of principals, leaving nothing else standing. But that's not what we see, so that must not be the case. Don't ascribe all that is good in the world to one distinct set of principals or behaviors, that's seriously fucking dangerous and obviously wrong, because if that was true, there wouldn't [I]be[/I] a plurality of behaviors or principals, because there would only be one functional set to deal with all of reality.

[QUOTE=Shirt.;52549896]I love this Engineer guy. He doesn't give a shit about morals or empathy just the ethics and facts. He even offers solution to perceived problems instead of just bitching. The world needs more of him.[/QUOTE] I'm hesitant to agree with this because it's entirely possible for someone to be both empathetic and logical, and I think it's the best way to be rather than of the extremes.

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52550265]I've read up on the literature, it's all basically accurate. Particularly the bit about a society with, lets say, the most advanced erasure of gender based social constraints producing the most marked disparity in the distribution of the sexes in a given field. What i want to point out though is that the original memo was a well articulated, itemized essay with sources, citations, statistical, psychological and sociological backing, even delving into big five personality traits and their distribution between the sexes, including conscientiousness, which by the way is the #1 predictor of life success and status, above even IQ. And yet the head of the diversity department's response was basically "This advances incorrect notions, and i wont link to the essay because i think it's wrong. We're continuing on our crusade because it's the good thing to do, diversity is our strength", while citing nothing, giving no arguments to support that claim and refusing to engage any direct criticisms in any capacity whatsoever. And is predicated mostly on emotional appeal, appeal to authority and what basically amounts to reciting slogans without substantiation. Socrates would bust a gut at such naked sophistry. [...] [/QUOTE] I read through the link that [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1574071&p=52549674&viewfull=1#post52549674]Thlis[/url] provided, of different experts weighing in on the memo. They all agree that the science in the memo is accurate, though they disagree between each other regarding his conclusions. But what I particularly enjoyed was this comment: [quote=Geoffrey Miller, expert in human sexuality and evolutionary psychopathology](Even Google’s new ‘VP of Diversity’, Danielle Brown, criticized the memo because it ‘advanced incorrect assumptions about gender’; I was impressed to see that her Michigan State B.A. in Business and her U. Michigan M.B.A. qualify her to judge the scientific research.)[/quote] I read that, and my first reaction was :godzing: