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Google's "Anti-Diversity" Screed

cbi1972

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Here's The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

A software engineer’s 10-page screed against Google’s diversity initiatives is going viral inside the company, being shared on an internal meme network and Google+. The document’s existence was first reported by Motherboard, and Gizmodo has obtained it in full.

In the memo, which is the personal opinion of a male Google employee and is titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” the author argues that women are underrepresented in tech not because they face bias and discrimination in the workplace, but because of inherent psychological differences between men and women. “We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” he writes, going on to argue that Google’s educational programs for young women may be misguided.

The post comes as Google battles a wage discrimination investigation by the US Department of Labor, which has found that Google routinely pays women less than men in comparable roles.
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  • Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
  • This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.
  • The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.
  • Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression
  • Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression
  • Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.
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CharminTide

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Tidewater said:
Google found the author and fired him.

James Damore.
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As your link notes, he was fired for violating the company's code of conduct. Here's a follow-up memo that Google's CEO sent to employees, presumably after the firing.

This has been a very difficult time. I wanted to provide an update on the memo that was circulated over this past week.

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.”

The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender. Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”

At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.

The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree—while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct. I’d encourage each of you to make an effort over the coming days to reach out to those who might have different perspectives from your own. I will be doing the same.
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Jon

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Bamabuzzard said:
This is why in today's climate of sensitivity, it is best to simply keep your mouth shut and do what they ask you to do. He should have known he was going to get terminated before he ever put thoughts to a keyboard on that one.
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today?

I'm not sure that saying that women are innately neurotic would play in any large business in the last 20-30 years. The misplaced outrage I see in this is from the far right and people who don't seem to understand that freedom of speech only applies to government
 
Tidewater

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CharminTide said:
As your link notes, he was fired for violating the company's code of conduct. Here's a follow-up memo that Google's CEO sent to employees, presumably after the firing.
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I am sort of agnostic on "diversity."
I believe that everyone should be able to compete in matters where race/gender/whatever-class-you-care-to-name do not matter (which is almost every case).
I believe that excluding anyone from competing because of race/gender/whatever is wrong.
On the other hand, I believe that pursuing diversity for the sake of diversity is a fool's errand.
I believe in pursuing excellence regardless of the "diversity" of the applicants.
 
CharminTide

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Jon said:
today?

I'm not sure that saying that women are innately neurotic would play in any large business in the last 20-30 years.
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The Brietbart and Pepe crowd are already hailing this man as a champion against the "Radical Left."
 
Tide1986

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Interesting read:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.532.5392&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Abstract

Most research looking at psychological similarities and differences between women and men has been carried out in North America and Western Europe. In this paper, I review a body of cross-cultural evidence showing that it is precisely in these Western countries that women and men differ the most in terms of personality, self-construal, values, or emotions. Much less-pronounced gender differences are observed, if at all, in Asian and African countries. These findings are unexpected from the perspectives of the two most influential frameworks applied to sex differences coming from evolutionary psychology and social role theory. However, recent research related to social comparison and self-categorization theories suggests a promising approach to explain why more egalitarian societies can paradoxically create greater psychological differences between women and men.
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It is a curious finding that there are greater psychological differences between the sexes in freer, more egalitarian societies.
 
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Bamabuzzard

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Jon said:
today?

I'm not sure that saying that women are innately neurotic would play in any large business in the last 20-30 years. The misplaced outrage I see in this is from the far right and people who don't seem to understand that freedom of speech only applies to government
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Guess I missed some details. LOL! I must have left my outrage there to. Because I'm not outraged. Should I be outraged? Just asking.
 
cuda.1973

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Tidewater said:
I am sort of agnostic on "diversity."
I believe that everyone should be able to compete in matters where race/gender/whatever-class-you-care-to-name do not matter (which is almost every case).
I believe that excluding anyone from competing because of race/gender/whatever is wrong.
On the other hand, I believe that pursuing diversity for the sake of diversity is a fool's errand.
I believe in pursuing excellence regardless of the "diversity" of the applicants.
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Glad that someone else started this thread, instead of me.

Anyway.............

Diversity for the sake of diversity is crap. There, I said it: deal with it.

Previously, I have mentioned that when I had a "real job" (ok, 30 years ago), the only thing we cared about was excellence.

And we had plenty of diversity.

We had American-born engineers, from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. Including filthy Italians. And "pollocks" and "bo-hunks". Russian, Greek, "kraut"..............you name it, we had them.

Lots of foreign-born engineers. One was a guest of Schicklgruber's fun camps. Another was said to have spent time (in what he called) a "Soviet military-style prison." (Had to take their word for it, since none us knew for sure. One of them never rolled up his sleeves. Someone said they saw him once roll up his sleeves, in the washroom. Yes, he was hiding the number on his arm.)

Engineers from Egypt, including one who was Jewish.

Engineers from Israel. And Persia. (Iran, to the rest of you.)

Ones from India, both Hindu and MooseLimb.

Chinese. Vietnamese. For crying out loud, we even had Koreans. (For reasons that were never made clear, the rest of the Asians looked down on the Koreans. Why? "Because they are Korean. Don't you get it?" Obviously not.)

We made a lot of significant advancements, in our field. OK, we didn't have our version of the Bell System Technical Journal, to blab to the world. But, we did them anyway. (Lots of reasons why we didn't tell the world, aka the competition, about any of it.) We demanded excellence, and I can assure you there was lots of "diversity", when it came to how the job was to be done. (For some reason, I was always on the "winning" side. Sometimes it was after the other side botched everything, and "my side" had to come in, and fix the mess. "Told you so, but you wouldn't listen. One day, you'll learn".) (Hint: they didn't!)

OK, at this point, someone will ask "Yeah, well I bet you didn't have any female or African engineers, right?"

Correct.

Know why?

None ever applied. At least not when I was in a position to review any resumes.

But, that problem goes further back.

In undergrad school, out of 1500 students, only one was black. He was in my EE graduating class, but I never shared any classes with him. There were 10, maybe 12 gals. Two were in my EE class.

One of them................

I can not say what we called her, but if you knew that back story, you would understand. Which was..................

ATT "discovered" her. In return for her graduating on time, ATT made a nice gift, to the Engineering Dept. Save for one class, she never attending class, the last 2 years. Sometimes, she would show up for the exams. For some classes, she only showed up for the final.

"How do you know this, and why should we believe you?"

The professor who made her show up for class was someone that I knew from student-faculty groups that I participated in. (Three years of student gubbament, all spent fighting "the man". Who fought back. For some reason, they didn't like those of us who rocked the boat. One of my cohorts spent 7 years to graduate, as he spent more time fighting the man, than studying. OTOH, I made sure I got out of there, on time, as I truly despised that place.) Anyway, he told me the whole story, including how he refused to buckle under. I think his contract was not renewed, after I left. Gee, I wonder why..........

So, you have to ask yourself why so few women and blacks studied engineering? If they don't study it, you can't hire them, because they don't exist.

(Of course, this did not stop our own internal "diversity notzys" from lecturing us. As far back as the late 70s. I remember this one especially militant black woman who came down to Texas, to read us the riot act. She wasn't interested in hearing "we can't hire what doesn't exist." Not sure what became of her. Maybe she went to work for ATT.)

I think the numbers, for female engineering students is now up around 20% or so. I kinda sorta doubt the number is anywhere near that, for American black. (I might also point out that "back in the day" the only Asians were the professors. I don't think that is the case today.)

Next post coming up.............
 
cuda.1973

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Heh, heh, heh...............been holding this one, in reserve, just waiting for the right time...................

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9504

Well, here you go, gang: engineers go to a seminar on "advanced manufacturing techniques" (held at L6U, for some obtuse reason), and instead are subjected to a full hour of "microagressions" "trigger warnings" and "implicit bias".

HUH? What the _blank_ does any of that mean, and what does it have to do with ANY kind of manufacturing?

I know what "expectation bias" is, which is one reason I don't believe a lot of "studies" that are published. (Translation: they expect a certain answer, and frame the conditions to reflect what they want it to reflect. And ignore anyone who says "You have no idea what you are talking about." Or something like that.)

AH! But this explain why women and "minorities" avoid engineering: they have to deal with engineers!

Carpenter told Campus Reform that the DAC recommends everybody be educated about the impacts of implicit bias, asserting that “When faculty and students aren't aware of implicit bias, they unwittingly engage in behaviors that continue the discrimination and discouragement of women and underrepresented minorities in science, mathematics, and engineering disciplines.”
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Oh, I see..............

Dr. Pedro Derosa, who chaired the panel discussion, agreed that “social stereotypes” are the main reason for the lack of women and minorities in STEM fields, explicitly rejecting the notion that the observed differences have anything to do with qualities inherent to any of those groups.
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Well, thanks for clearing that up, bub.

“When implicit biases result in entire groups being underpaid or being subjected to higher scrutiny or standards or being excluded from opportunities altogether, we have a problem,” Derosa said.
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Oh, so when it is only one person, who is grossly underpaid, that is ok. I guess. Which is why the Big Boss, in DC, saw to it that I was grossly underpaid, the last year or so that I worked there.

"We can't pay you what you are worth, since you are sick so much and are missing a lot of work."

Oh, ok. Not discrimination. I was just a scofflaw. All my fault. I see.

Soon afterwards, I was diagnosed with cancer, and was not expected to live.

He lost his job, 2 years later. I didn't cry. How cruel of me!

Anyway, back to the story...............

Well, there you have it: engineers are the problems that only nerdy dorks become engineers.

Well, DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look, the bottom line is we are dorks. We're nerds. We get it. We want to be left alone. If you are not "like us", then you are not going to fit in. "Like us" has nothing to do with gender (real or imagined), heritage, melanin levels, or any of that. It has to do with a certain mindset, and an approach to how things work. You are either an engineer, or you are not. I've known and worked with folks who are mathematicians, scientists, or whatever. They may be dorky nerds, but NONE of them were engineers. And they were fish out of water. They needed to find themselves. No one shunned them, but even within the broad world of dorky nerds, there is an engineering subset.

Which, in a nutshell, boils down to this:

You can't make an engineer do something they don't want to. It isn't going to happen. Try to make them adopt to some arbitrary system, and they will instead focus their energies to avoiding the system.

But, this is what happens when you let professors, any kind of professors, come up with a system. Doomed to failure.

As another digression...................(yes, my forte!), my cousin sent me this, last night:



Pure coincidence. (The fact the hand might be feminine............good grief, arguing with a woman is bad enough...................)

BTW, he was a crappy engineer. A mathematician. Eventually, he found his niche: reviewing safety data, in Southern's nuclear facilities. Number crunching, and ZERO engineering.

(Trust me: he could not change the oil, in his car, if he had to. Some engineer..............)
 
cuda.1973

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http://www.dailywire.com/news/19474/breaking-fired-google-employee-says-hell-likely-hank-berrien :pDT_popc1:

Damore revealed he had submitted a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board before he was fired claiming that Google’s upper management was “misrepresenting and shaming me in order to silence my complaints,” adding it was “illegal to retaliate” against an N.L.R.B. charge.
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In his memo, Damore wrote:

Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety. This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed. The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology … Only facts and reason can shed light on these biases, but when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence. This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies.
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Needs to be sent off to one of Uncle Josef's camp, to get his head right.

(Wonder if he can eat 50 eggs?)
 
TideEngineer08

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I tried to read some of it. I have yet to find where he sounded like a raging d-bag, but likely that's because I'm a knuckle dragging conservative.

I can't help but find it just a tiny bit ironic that those who seem to champion that women are just like men, and recoil at the notion that women are, on average, more sensitive than men, are having to stay home from work due to the stress of being subjected to this memo.

Also, a company who prides itself on its quest for diversity has now fired someone for expressing their opinion. I guess diversity is great so long as we all think and act the same.
 
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