The Google memo firestorm

[l82start]

Hmmmm.... Weren't medicine, law, and the physical sciences also once seen as male-dominated? How is that we big, bad computer programmers managed to scare the ladies off but doctors and lawyers couldn't?

a weird and probably more humorous than true theory just occurred to me... the nerd effect.. doctors and lawyers tend to be socially skilled alpha male professions, programming (in my imagination) tends to be the profession of choice for the high intelligence low social skilled nerd, having to put up with awkward and uncomfortable crap (the kind that all boys clubs tend to have when they are at there worst) from the former is not so bad... taking it from a guy who could be cast in a revenge of the nerds remake... not so much....

my apologies to all my non nerd socially skilled programing friends here on the forum..

[dualstow]

Well if not socially skilled = arrogant, I believe Tyler said there was no shortage of that in tech firms. This was in a thread about Uber/Kalanick.

(stray thought: I wonder if a German piece of software ever mistranslated "Uber/Kalanick" into high colonics. Never mind )

[WiseOne]

Trust me, there's no shortage of arrogant bastards in the medical and legal profession, male and otherwise. Also, having been in both fields, I'd rate computer science a lot lower on the arrogance scale. Much higher on the nerd scale, of course.

[Tyler]

Well if not socially skilled = arrogant, I believe Tyler said there was no shortage of that in tech firms. This was in a thread about Uber/Kalanick.

Arrogance is universal, although in my experience it can take different forms depending on the profession. For example, the average arrogant doctor likely has a major God complex while the average arrogant engineer probably thinks he's the smartest person on the planet surrounded by morons on all sides. Mix in lots of money and low emotional intelligence, and arrogant techies can be plenty painful to deal with even before you get to outside influences like political themes that feed on that sense of intellectual superiority.

[jhogue]

Well if not socially skilled = arrogant, I believe Tyler said there was no shortage of that in tech firms. This was in a thread about Uber/Kalanick.

Arrogance is universal, although in my experience it can take different forms depending on the profession. For example, the average arrogant doctor likely has a major God complex while the average arrogant engineer probably thinks he's the smartest person on the planet surrounded by morons on all sides. Mix in lots of money and low emotional intelligence, and arrogant techies can be plenty painful to deal with even before you get to outside influences like political themes that feed on that sense of intellectual superiority.

Exactly.
I have no doubt that the design of the "defeat device" software behind the VW diesel scandal was hatched by an arrogant group of very smart German engineers who thought that actually obeying stupid US EPA standards was beneath them.

[dualstow]

WiseOne, et al, let me know if there is a paywall. (Might be able to get by using anon mode).

http://nautil.us//blog/outraged-by-the- ... 8-60920101

I don’t normally write about the underrepresentation of women in science. Reason is I don’t feel fit to represent the underrepresented. I just can’t seem to appropriately suffer in my male-dominated environment. To the extent that one can trust online personality tests, I’m an awkwardly untypical female. It’s probably unsurprising I ended up in theoretical physics.

[Kriegsspiel]

https://www.scribd.com/document/3686883 ... on-Lawsuit

[Kriegsspiel]

Rubin Report with James Damore

From SEP 2017. 93 mins long.

As Tyler Cowan says, interesting throughout.

[Kriegsspiel]

According to the NLRB, Google was not only justified in firing Damore, but he also sexually harrassed women by referencing scientific studies,

"notwithstanding _____ effort to cloak _____ comments with 'scientific' references and analysis, and notwithstanding _____ 'not all women' disclaimers.' Moreover, those statements were likely to cause serious dissention and disruption in the workplace."

This insanity right here.

[Kriegsspiel]

Damore, Diversity, and Disruption at PSU

A protest campaign to hoard free tickets claimed more than half the seats, suppressing turnout. Nevertheless, surrounded by officers and protected by an entourage of private security, James Damore spoke to an audience of 270 people. He was joined on the panel by former Evergreen State professors Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, PSU philosophy professor Peter Boghossian, and critic of third wave intersectional feminism Helen Pluckrose.

Explaining what had moved him to write the “Google memo,” Damore said that he found the analyses of the company’s sex disparity, offered during a conference on diversity and inclusion, to be unsatisfactory. “They went through these different things, like microaggressions and unconscious bias, and said that is why we only have 20 percent women,” he recalled.

After the conference, Google solicited feedback from staff. Damore obliged with a ten page document entitled “Google’s Ideological Echo-Chamber,” in which he argued that sex differences on average may help explain the male/female disparity at the company. He also offered suggestions about how the workplace environment could change to appeal to more women. But when his memo was leaked to the press and published, it was stripped of important nuance and links to supporting data, and Damore was viciously mischaracterized as a misogynist and a racist.

“James argues, accurately, that there are differences between men and women,” evolutionary biologist Heather Heying said during the panel discussion. “This is a strange position to be in, to be arguing for something that is so universally and widely accepted in biology. . .You can be irritated by a lot of truths, but taking offense,” — here, Heying paused as hecklers shouted and began to walk out — “is a response that is a rejection of reality.”

A non-student protester then yanked the cables from the sound system and shoved the equipment to the ground, breaking an antenna. She was promptly detained by police. “[Damore’s] a piece of shit!” she screamed as she was issued a citation for criminal mischief in the second degree. “Even the women in there have been brainwashed!” Another protester stated: “Nazis are not welcome in civil society."

[Xan]

Is there something I'm missing here? It seems like these protestors are from a different planet. Have they taken leave of their senses or have I?

[Mountaineer]

Is there something I'm missing here? It seems like these protestors are from a different planet. Have they taken leave of their senses or have I?

Devolution in action. But we already know that, it began in a garden a long time ago. It accelerates toward the end.

[Kriegsspiel]

Is there something I'm missing here? It seems like these protestors are from a different planet. Have they taken leave of their senses or have I?

The most likely explanation is that there's an entire generation of people who are so desperate to be protesters and social activists on par with those of the 20th century that they're prepared to invent their causes out of whole cloth.


In case you've been missing it, this type of behavior has been happening for years now. The quote at the end of the article by the campus police is pertinent, where he says (paraphrasing) "you're so extreme that I have to escort you off campus? I just don't see it" The modus operandi seems to be extreme disproportionate violence (or the threat of violence) so that anyone with opinions that differ from the Leftist students is obstructed. I'm surprised you haven't heard about the protests: Milo Younappolis, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, Christina Hoff Summers, Warren Farrell, etc. Mostly at Cal Berkeley.

"And I would say to those of you who are screaming out and not letting us finish our sentences.. if we are such dangerous people; let us speak. The more we speak that should become apparent. The fear is that the more we speak, the more reasonable we'll sound and people will realize there has been censorship on this campus."
- Christina Hoff Summers

"I don't think [the 1st Amendment] is relevant right now."
- Utah University student protesting Ben Shapiro

"You should be ashamed of yourself. You're fucking scum. You are fucking scum. You are a fucking rape apologist, incest supporting, woman hating fucking scum."
"... is there somewhere else I can wait? Where she won't follow me?"
"You're fucking scum."
"I just want to listen to someone else's opinion, I'm not even on a side here, I just listen to as many people as I can."
"Yea, well why would you pay money to listen to a fucking rape apologist if you weren't fucking one? Fucking scum."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iARHCxAMAO0