What else is the American mind unfairly closed to? Why is "women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers" the threshold issue? What else should we be more open-minded about? We're also very closed-minded about:
* Child labor
* The facially legitimate grievances of Al Qaeda
* Universal suffrage
* The illegality of marital rape
Does it just happen that this particular issue, the one pertaining to nerds working for six-figure salaries at software firms, is the last straw?
> What else is the American mind unfairly closed to?
Unfairly is precisely the point on which your question turns. If you have interesting points to raise in favor of Al Qaeda, you should absolutely be allowed to raise them, and you should not be fired for so doing. I don't think your arguments will have much merit, but if they're cogent, i'm happy to hear them.
The whole point of his manifesto, and the reason why your post misses it, is that he wasn't fired because of the truth or falsehood of what he said. His arguments weren't evaluated on their merits, and presumed to be the wanderings of a mind ill-suited to the tasks at Google's hands. Nobody even bothered to directly address the question of whether he was right, because they were too invested in how it made them feel. That is the problem.
We should be open-minded about everything. Including child labor, ending universal suffrage, and the virtues of Al Qaeda. We should be able to reject bad ideas on their merits, each and every time, because we understand what and why we believe. We should embrace disagreement, because it makes concrete our own worldview. The fact that the VP of Diversity of at Google simply dismissed the arguments of a widely circulated (and therefore, likely, widely agreed with) memo speaks volumes. And it may be that he's wrong. It may be that his arguments are completely empty of substance, maybe the studies he cites are pseudoscience. But if a decent number of Googler's agree with him, as appears to be the case, then his arguments should be addressed directly, on even ground, on their merits - not shamed into silence. If he's wrong, it should be easy to demonstrate it.
I think you should get used to the idea that reasonable people disagree strongly with the notion that they should be open-minded about any idea. There are plenty of things I am not open-minded about:
* The suitability of African people for chattel slavery
* The historical reality of the Holocaust
* The criminality of child sexual exploitation
Obviously, having spent more than 15 minutes on the Internet, I'm aware that there is some doofus connected to a keyboard somewhere who is prepared to open a lively and spirited dialog about all three of those issues. But, like a lot of other reasonable people, I'm not open to that dialog, and attempting to engage me in it will have consequences: I will never work with or in any way associate with a Holocaust denier or a child pornography advocate.
This can bother you as much as you choose to let it bother you, but the degree to which it bothers you won't have much impact on my thinking.
People love linking to Paul Graham's "What You Can't Say" essay in this context. I've never had a conversation of any sort with Paul Graham that led me to believe that he was a crazy Cheetoh-stained Holocaust denier, or an advocate for the rights of the Cheetoh-stained or Holocaust-history-averse. I think "What You Can't Say" is by far his worst essay. And I'm hopeful that tire-fire threads like these do a better job of illustrating why than anything I could write to explain my point further.
I hold the principle of open-mindedness higher because I personally don't see a downside to it. Closed-mindedness always struck me as a symptom of insecurity. Being insecure about something like the criminality of child sexual exploitation doesn't sound like something I ever want to espouse, so if you want to tell me why you think it's a good idea, I'll listen (the likely outcome being the conclusion that you're a whacko, and moving on).
Being open-minded doesn't mean I'll sit still while someone endlessly or facetiously justifies an objectionable notion. If I've heard it before, or it's insincere, I'll dismiss it outright, as I imagine you would.
But on principle, I'll listen to an earnest attempt to demonstrate the merit of anything, even something I'd otherwise categorically reject. You might not influence my position in the slightest, but being open-minded doesn't mean easily persuaded, either. It just means being willing to incorporate new information or ideas in your decision-making process.
People love linking to Paul Graham's "What You Can't Say" essay in this context. [...] I think "What You Can't Say" is by far his worst essay. And I'm hopeful that tire-fire threads like these do a better job of illustrating why than anything I could write to explain my point further.
Why do you feel it's his worst essay? People generally regard it as one of his best. Jessica said it's her favorite, for example.
It's difficult to infer from this thread why it's his worst. Rather than guess, I thought I'd ask.
Well, I have basically nothing but respect for Jessica Livingston, but if that's what she believes, she's wrong about that. She had to be wrong about something eventually!
I'm pretty sure this isn't what Graham meant to write, but the only thing I ever see people take away from that essay is "the worst ideas are unfairly maligned". Judge the essay for its actual impact on the marketplace ideas. What's the good that's come of it?
> Darwin himself was careful to tiptoe around the implications of
his theory. He wanted to spend his time thinking about biology,
not arguing with people who accused him of being an atheist.
That's quite a bit different from calling it her favorite. Anyway, I was only curious.
> But, like a lot of other reasonable people, I'm not open to that dialog
One of the reasons why even gruesome speech is considered protected is so that people with such opinion can speak out and let everyone know who they are. If someone speaks in favorable terms about sexually abusing children, you will think twice about sending your children to that person's home. However, if such speech is prohibited, you will never know this person's intention and that would put the children living near that person at risk
You personally do not have to debate them, but their speech should still be protected
Speech is "protected" from intervention by the state. It's not protected from commercial and social consequences, nor could it reasonably be, because we also have the freedom to choose who we associate with.
If "consequences" implies loud and effective speech that demolishes the speech it is responding to, or even an individual choice not to associate with the utterer, I agree. If it implies crap like doxing, boycotts, and professional sabotage, then I think something essential gets lost in our defense of free speech. Free speech isn't just an amendment, it's a basic principle that makes everyone safer.
Boycotts are speech. Refusing to associate with people is speech. Holding people accountable for what they say is speech
Are you in favor of censoring such speech?
I ask because the only way to get rid of the "consequences" you deride is to introduce large-scale censorship designed to privilege the person who speaks first. Which then turns any debate into nothing more than a race to be first to say something, after which one can censor one's critics under the guise of preventing boycotts, etc.
There's a difference between censorship, and arguing that something is ethically wrong and that we shouldn't do it. Censorship is being in favor of some sort of governmental, lawful, or otherwise forceful action preventing these practices, and I am not in favor of that.
I am generally in favor of "refusing to associate" since that implies personal choice.
"Holding people accountable" is semantically meaningless since it can be applied to both appropriate and wildly inappropriate actions.
There are also different kinds of boycotts - like, there's a difference between boycotting a book, and boycotting the publishing company of a book. These are more on a spectrum and should be debated on a case-by-case basis. But these days, many social-media-driven boycotts are on the chilling-free-speech side, which is why I spoke generally about them above, even though there are exceptions.
There's still no way out here for you. The only way to shut down your social "chilling effect" is to impose an equally-powerful social "chilling effect" on everyone except the first person to speak.
That's untrue because there is always a remedy for speech, and that's more speech. Actual speech, in contrast to a boycott, or doxxing, or professional sabotage. "Make your argument", don't seek to prevent them from making theirs.
There's a difference between speech, and seeking to punish someone for their speech. Failure to recognize that spirals us to an ever-more authoritarian atmosphere until you find yourself the one being punished.
Boycotts are "more speech". Campaigns to refuse to associate with a person or company are "more speech".
The comment I initially replied to categorized "speech that demolishes the speech it is responding to". That's still speech. Trying to declare it off-limits, legally or socially, is still an attack on speech.
Similarly, your "punish someone for their speech" is... well, you're condemning people who responded to speech with more speech. Because you didn't like the speech they responded with. There is no way to be a free-speech absolutist and be against boycotts, blacklists, and all the other "authoritarian" stuff you're complaining about, because those things are just as much speech as what they're responding to.
The difference I'm trying to point out to you is that a free-speech absolutist gets trapped in self-contradiction. If they really are an absolutist about speech, then it doesn't matter if they choose to categorize some speech as designed to discourage or suppress other speech. They're still committed to defend it, and any action to stop or even just advocate against it would fall afoul of their own absolutist principle.
I do not start from a position of absolutism on speech, or tolerance, or a good many other things, and so I happily get to think through the nuances and have a much better chance of avoiding self-contradiction.
This is where Google dude's free-speech defenders get in trouble; many of them want to be, or want to be seen as, free-speech absolutists (if for no other reason than to say they don't agree with Google dude but feel obligated to defend his right to say what he wants). But they also want to condemn people who spoke out against him, called for him to face consequences, called for boycotts and refusals to associate, etc., and cannot do so without being self-contradictory since they themselves need to engage in "speech to discourage free speech" in order to do that.
> I think you should get used to the idea that reasonable people disagree strongly with the notion that they should be open-minded about any idea. There are plenty of things I am not open-minded about:
The examples you cite are obviously extreme, and so you obviously put me in a bit of an unfair position in having to defend them, so I will start out by unequivocally stating that I do not hold this belief, nor do I advocate it or believe it in any way.
With that out of the way, saying you would never countenance holocaust denial is in many ways equivalent to the Catholic church saying it would never countenance a heliocentric universe. The science up to that point was on their side. The 'known' facts and their religious scholarship were on their side. But they were wrong. Similarly, you know the holocaust happened because you've read it happened. You weren't there. You likely don't know anyone who was there, or if you do, their memories are quite old, and modern science knows quite a bit about how fickle memory can be. It is possible the the holocaust did not happen. Unlikely in the extreme, but possible.
Now, am I going to waste my time listening to a holocaust deniers argument? No, probably not. I put an extremely low prior on the holocaust being ahistorical. So low that it's unworthy of even the most passing consideration. However, that prior is not zero, and it should never be zero. If I started hearing enough people that I respect saying, "hey, you should really listen to this holocaust denier's argument, it's kind of interesting", I might start to pay attention.
My point in defending a non-zero prior for all beliefs is simply to illustrate that you have some prior belief about what this Google engineer has said. You either have or have not read what he actually wrote. I think it likely you haven't. Because what he actually says is fairly reasonable. Certainly not in the 'holocaust denial' realm of truth-probability.
If you have the time and inclination to post here about it, then you have the time and inclination to reject his arguments directly, rather than simply dismissing them out of hand. What is the point of that sort of dismissal? It convinces no one. It changes no opinions. It adds nothing to the universe. This guy made a rational, intelligent argument in support of his case. He cited studies, he explicitly embraced the ideals of diversity, but simply disagreed with a few of the methods. If you disagree, that's fine. But have the courage to do so substantively. Maybe you'll change some people's minds, and actually further the cause you seem to be arguing for.
So what are the criteria for ideas which cannot even be discussed? Equating "gender differences are real and should inform our approach to diversity" to holocaust denial seems absurd.
His claim: across various traits, men and women have distributions that differ in mean but still largely overlap. This is a possible non-bias cause of the gender gap in tech. Specifically to ward off the concern you're about to raise, he adds a tedious note and graphic: http://diversitymemo.com/#possible-causes-gender-gap
You read all of this, and promptly summarize: "women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers."
He argues that Google should end diversity programs. The document doesn't just poorly summarize social psych and sociology research, but uses it to justify a proposed change in company practice and culture that would perpetuate the status quo.
In addition, he showed an incredible lack of judgement in publishing the document. Anybody could tell you that a lot of people would be hurt by this document, regardless of its scientific merit. As such, it makes sense to approach this sort of thing very carefully, as it is possible to be a total asshole and ruin team cohesion while still being "right". Regardless of the validity of these arguments, it should be immediately clear that the document would produce no substantive change from a policy perspective and cause other employees, rightly or wrongly, to feel attacked.
He argues that Google should end diversity programs.
Not really, he suggests replacing them with other diversity programs that he claims (whether correctly or incorrectly) would work better.
In addition, he showed an incredible lack of judgement in publishing the document.
Yes. He forgot his place and and committed heresy against the party line. That's always a dumb thing to attach your real name to.
Regardless of the validity of these arguments, it should be immediately clear that the document would produce no substantive change from a policy perspective and cause other employees, rightly or wrongly, to feel attacked.
That's an interesting argument, that people's feelings should have precedence over seeking truth.
it makes sense to approach this sort of thing very carefully, as it is possible to be a total asshole and ruin team cohesion while still being "right"
It reads like he did try to be careful to the best of his ability; it's just that in such a hostile environment, not even professionals have sufficient ability.
> Anybody could tell you that a lot of people would be hurt by this document, regardless of its scientific merit.
This is a ridiculous statement. Scientific merit should be the only consideration when you are saying something you believe is important. If you're engaged in small-talk, go ahead and throw scientific accuracy out the window, but not in anything substantial.
This right here is actually the source of the problem. The current societal environment tells you "here are topics that you have to discuss with utmost sensitivity, even if you are completely confident you are right, and have all the evidence."
Your (and presumably, the google employee that got fired) response?
If you are a scientist, and publishing in a peer review journal, I think you are close to correct. If you are a dilettante coming to de novo conclusions about controversial topics, you probably aren't qualified to declare something as science.
There is a very long list of odious things you can claim "science" justifies; in fact, it's kind of hard to think of something you can't six-degrees-of-science your way to defending. This isn't the rhetorical kill-shot you think it is.
> There is a very long list of odious things you can claim "science" justifies;
Does the length of such a list invalidate the items in the list? I don't see your point.
> in fact, it's kind of hard to think of something you can't six-degrees-of-science your way to defending.
Just because something is not directly implied by something else, doesn't mean there is no correlation. If you are working on a mathematical proof, would you give up if you cannot reach the end in 6 (or any arbitrary small number) of steps? Would you declare the assertion wrong? If yes, you're just a bad scientist.
Again, my argument here is simple: it is hard to think of a horrible thing you could say that you couldn't justify using the logic you presented upthread, which makes your argument seem pretty unpersuasive.
> Regardless of the validity of these arguments, it should be immediately clear that the document would produce no substantive change from a policy perspective
What? Sure it is. You say he said "Women are, in the the large, excepting some outliers, biologically disfavored to become programmers" when he didn't.
My point has in fact very little to do with how you choose to frame the point at issue; rather, it takes issue with the supposed principal underlying it, which is that there should be no "things you cannot say".
Clearly there are plenty of things we all (to a first approximation) agree that you cannot in earnest say at your workplace.
It depends. On the one hand you don't want to sow discord at the workplace, on the other hand you don't want to dismiss critical ideas because the majority don't agree with something.
There are other ways to combat illogical ideas.
As an atheist I would not fire people for being believers (even if it were lawful to fire on that basis) --just because "I know better". If one of them tried proselytizing, by law I can't do anything about it, but even if I could, there would be better ways to combat irrational appeals and sowing of fear.
That said, what if the engineer has "only" presented the ideas as a private person at a "men's club"? If that's not okay, then this infringes upon people's speech outside of work as a citizen --that's chilling. There are Walmarts out there.
I believe in making tech an attractive career path for women --as a society we underutilize them and don't extract the value we could --as the soviets did from their women. But at the same time, I am sensitive to kerbing speech.
This doofus didn't write a memo about keeping people of faith out of Google, and he didn't write it at some secret "men's club".
Instead, he had the poor judgement to publish in a workplace forum an argument that the women at Google tended to be there due to reduced standards for hiring women, because biologically women tended to be less suitable for the kind of work they were being hired to do.
Timothy Lister had a term for this kind of thing in _Peopleware_: he called it "teamicidal". If you do something teamicidal at your dev job, you should expect repercussions. You are paid to contribute to a team, not to fuck it up in an effort to remake it in your image.
(I think Google took the easy way out here, by the way, and that there were more productive ways they could have responded to this, rather than let it fester for days until they were cornered into a dramatic response. But: I don't work at Google, and my epistemological certainty about this is somewhat low.)
Frankly ascribing differences in career path and aptitude to biologics is unfounded. I'm unaware of any rigorous study which would indicate such (and we have the Soviets and Chinese who can speak to the contrary of his assertion).
That said, I don't agree with sacking someone because they said something unproven and because it can make people feel bad. I know some Googlers, men and women, and they tell me stories about people getting fired over small indiscretions (a bar, for example) and about people getting called in an office for saying off-handedly "lady" or girl. While not getting the same reprimand for saying guy or boy.
On the other hand belittling "middle America" is kind of a pastime with many a Googler. (When you point out that South Florida is heavily Hispanic and that those Hispanics vote republican, they find it hard to believe, for example.)
Aren't those effectively the same claim? If we take his non-bias cause to be true, that directly means that women have biological disadvantages to becoming programmers. He is in fact saying that's why the gap exists.
No. He says that genetically-influenced behavioral traits which are observable in aggregate across genders may lead women/men to respond differently to different work environments. Then he suggests a few ways Google can promote diversity without discriminating against anyone.
His facts aren't even controversial to anyone who knows the science at this point. Google has basically shown themselves as anti-science and evil.
I don't understand why people think that reframing things as disputes about "genetically-influenced behavioral traits which are observable in aggregate across genders" is such a powerful argument. We all know what that means. We get it: he's not biased against any one individual woman, just against the statistical distribution women come from. Replacing the word "misogyny" with 10 Latinate jargon words isn't an argument; it's just bad writing.
Most people don't consider the mere statistical description of aggregate group behavior "misogynous". Nor should they. You use powerful emotional rhetoric when you embrace this rhetoric, but the one condemning the women/men involved for their different aggregate preferences seems to be you.
More philosophically, there are compelling reasons to favor "equality of opportunity" and "freedom of choice" over any "equality of outcome" that can only be achieved through coercion and discrimination. At the very least, if someone doesn't want to do something of their own accord, it is hardly doing them a favor to coerce them into changing. And from where comes our moral standing to judge the preferences of other people anyway?
Do you mean black people or women? Or is this an attack on educated people regardless of their gender or racial orientation or identification?
The Mismeasure of Man is a 1981 book by Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The Big-Five model which underpins most of the relevant research in psychology) dates to the mid-1990s. If you want to attack it for being unscientific, you will have to learn about it. Good luck.
It's more that it's very valuable to know the history of how people have tried to claim "science" justified their prejudices. And by "you people" I mean Googlebro and his adoring fans. None of whom apparently thought very hard about the math of the stuff they were claiming, and so missed that the sciencefacts they keep appealing to would predict a far smaller effect size than what we actually observe. But they're going to keep appealing to the sciencefacts anyway and feel that this provides a complete and unchallengable explanation for gender ratio in tech, because confirmation bias is strong.
No? He's addressing, in part, preferences, that are distributed differently.
If some women, on average, want to do things differently than men, on average, that will result in some apparent gap in the averages -- not because of advantage, disadvantage or bias, but because you're looking at a difference in average preference.
He's saying that's why the gap exists, but he's saying it on an aggregate level, not an individual one. He's not saying all women are disadvantaged, he's saying the proportion of women who are unqualified is greater than the proportion of men who are.
Except, to establish that it is somehow a biological difference, he would have to rule out cultural bias. Otherwise he's falling back on pseudoscience to justify his position. And, the facts have repeatedly shown that cultural bias is keeping women and minorities out of tech.
As an example, I could present a graph showing that most Italians are Catholic and argue that it shows a genetic predisposition. But, such an argument would clearly be absurd.
Generally we talk about issues that are relevant. None of those issues are relevant to anything that's going on in the tech industry, the question of what to do about diversity is.
2. The belief that women should be allowed the vote
3. The belief that homosexuality isn't a mental illness
4. Any expression of support for democratic socialism
And we could go on and on. Does anyone doubt, for example, that people weren't once fired for supporting socialist ideologies? Or for being gay?
Your response could have been posted without modification of intent in response to the firing of a gay person in 1952.
The existence of other off-limits topics tells us precisely nothing about this particular topic. Neither does the mere fact that a topic is currently off limits tell us anything about its Goodness or Rightness.
* Child labor
* The facially legitimate grievances of Al Qaeda
* Universal suffrage
* The illegality of marital rape
Does it just happen that this particular issue, the one pertaining to nerds working for six-figure salaries at software firms, is the last straw?