Utopia Talk / Politics / James Damore (Cont)

Dukhat Member	Wed Jan 10 21:45:18 "You see this left and right, not understanding the science, conflating facts with values failing to grasp that fact are not alone normative, for how things ought to be. "It should be noted that the "contentious" part i.e the parts about gender are a small part of the memo and not even included in the TL:DR section." But it premised his whole argument. He acted as if the differences between men and female are immutable. You also cite some random scientific study about how boy's brains are bigger in some ways. This is the same thing Damore did and would similarly get you fired from every workplace. His belief in biological determinism was the key point of contention and it’s simply not ture. No matter what isolated studies you find, cognitive scientists all universally agree: reaching maximum cognitive ability has a lot more to do with effort and hard work than gender. And women and men are not different enough where effort is not still by far the single-largest factor in success. A smart, hardworking woman will beat a lazy, smarter man. And using biological determinism ignores the complexity of cognitive development which has many environmental cues which are also determined by cultural factors. Things like boys getting legos while girls get dolls. Culturally, men often get the “problem-solving” toys while girls don’t. This is but one example. Can you extract what cognitive differences there may be due to biology from environmental factors? Of course not … so don’t make sweeping generalizations about biology being the kingmaker when it’s not so clear cut. "you cannot dismiss their feeling of uncomfortableness." “I can, if their feelings are not justified or based on misunderstanding. I can still conduct a dialogue with them, but I don't have to entertain feelings void of the facts, it will hysteria. I have had women tell me (regarding personal safety, rape and violence) trying to shut me down, "you don't know how it feels being a women". It is true, I don't, but I do know what surveys and crime stats says that women feel unsafer, while men suffer the majority of violent crimes. “ Context matters. In a workplace, an employer has large latitude. This has less to do with political views and more with employers wanting the workplace to be a comfortable place. If you make others uncomfortable, you’re gone. As for violence, Men face more violent crime but how much rape do they face. Do you really think that getting stabbed with being robbed gives you the ability to understand what it’s like to raped when being robbed? There are significant differences in the way women and men experience crime and I’d say the woman’s experience and fear of being raped makes being a woman worse. Sure you can say that men can get raped too but almost no man is afraid of that extremely rare circumstance happening while most women have had some point where they are afraid of that happening. But again, I can respect your personal opinion in your own relations and if you want to avoid histrionic women. At work, I would expect both sides to never talk about that shit. “Feelings of discomfort can be weaponized, with or without malicious intent. It is very difficult to fight back against this, you are at a disadvantage. This is my take from what you are saying, it is my own conclusion.” Meh. This is not unique to Damore. And it is not unique to gender issues or politics or anything. Any social environment, especially the workplace, has to be managed. There’s the axiom that you should never talk about religion, politics, or sex at work or even among friends. People with minority status ALWAYS have to manage this issue. They have to take stock of what motivates the main in-group and then make sure not to aggravate that in-group. The most basic instinct of all humans is tribalism and people not in the major in-group are always in peril. What google was basically asking from its sensitivity seminars is that the dominant in-group: white males take steps to do the same for minority groups in order to improve relations at google. And really, all of it is just virtue-signalling. Something like over 60% of the google workforce is white males. All these inclusivity seminars only make a small diference because at the end of the day, technology is meritocracy with huge shortages of talent and that talent, for a multitude of reasons, is found mostly in white males in the work force. Context is everything. Damore in a complete and total vacuum might have had a compelling intellectual arugment that could’ve saved. Google was faced with not firing Damore and facing evidence that it is enabling discrimination against women (it has pending lawsuits related to its lack of workplace diversity) and creating a hostile work environment; or firing Damore and facing a lawsuit from Damore for discrimation as well. Given that the facts on hand mean Google is more imperiled by cases that say they discriminate against people who aren’t white males; they went with the logical choice. Having a political viewpoint is not a protected class in the eyes of the law. All the far-right people who support him now were the same people who wanted to exclude communists from everything a generation agao. And that’s given that Damore was acting in good faith. I’d say he was a troll given his behavior and how aggressively he tried to push the memo sending and spreading it everywhere. The memo was out for a month without much happening. Did he really seriously think his memo was a brilliant proof that would make Google recant all it’s diversity iniatives? Him acting like a victim and martyr for his conservative views doesn’t help either. Sounds more like he was an insensitive idiot rather than a champion of free speech to me. http://ars...ias-at-google/?comments=1&vs=b More reading and the most balanced account I’ve seen about what happened.
Aeros Member	Wed Jan 10 22:45:07 no he said that taking the entire population of men and women as a whole, certain psychological trends and outcomes become statistically relevant.
Aeros Member	Wed Jan 10 22:46:05 for instance he said women as a whole tend to have higher levels of neurotacism and conflict avoidance. Which is true.
Forwyn Member	Thu Jan 11 01:03:37 "The memo was out for a month without much happening." Which means that all of the employees bitching and threatening to quit should have been raked over the coals. There was no issue until some SJW leaked the memo to stir the pot. Fire them.
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 07:58:16 "He did what the employer asked for. I don't agree _he_ created problems." I disagree here. The employer asked for feedback on a diversity session. He provided that feedback. He then sought out more sessions and continued talking about it. He submitted the memo onto the diversity forum (and seemingly got nowhere). Not getting the response he wanted, he submitted it to a company wide platform. If all goes was doing was providing responses his employer asked for, he wouldn't have submitted the thing many times over. "There is certain science that does not survive the motivated reasoning people deploy. You see this left and right, not understanding the science, conflating facts with values failing to grasp that fact are not alone normative, for how things ought to be." Indeed. People seem to be taking things like "women are more neurotic" and interpreting that to mean that they might not be as suited for high-stress jobs. That's an extreme leap of faith with very little support. Higher stress doesn't really mean much, as coping mechanisms can easily level the playing field. "I can, if their feelings are not justified or based on misunderstanding. I can still conduct a dialogue with them, but I don't have to entertain feelings void of the facts, it will hysteria. I have had women tell me (regarding personal safety, rape and violence) trying to shut me down, "you don't know how it feels being a women". It is true, I don't, but I do know what surveys and crime stats says that women feel unsafer, while men suffer the majority of violent crimes." Except there is a perfectly reasonable interpretation to his statements wherein people are offended. And justified. If he didn't mean it that way (which I'm saying is possible - I personally don't know and one can still say negative things without meaning the fully offensive interpretation someone comes up with), he had plenty of opportunities to fix his wording. He had plenty of opportunity to not fucking submit the memo publicly for all googlers. He chose to push it without any such considerations. If you repeatedly push a message you know night be misinterpreted, you are responsible for that. People cannot read minds. "So far you have cited one research, which he did not cite and that had nothing to do with average group differences, which is what seems to be what most people went crazy over. It is presented under the heading, "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech"." Yes, I cited one incredibly ridiculous claim he made because I don't feel like going through my own research project just to prove some dumb ho wrong. Even presenting facts can be wrong if your extrapolation of those facts are incorrect. For instance, we could talk about how TC doesn't have a job. Perfectly reasonable fact. If we then used TC as an example of the poor and downtrodden never being given an opportunity to succeed on their own merit, everyone would laugh hysterically because we know TC can't even keep a shit job, let alone prove himself worthy of higher standing. Facts alone are cool, but interpretation of those facts is necessary to make a reasonable argument. There's a reason I pointed out that Damore cited a lot of Wiki and opinion articles. It's because there was this trend of providing something possibly believable, but then jumping the shark with how he interpreted things. Ok, so here we have a mind bogglingly stupid statement: "But that is not even important in light of the fact that _all_ these genetic males, showed male typical behavior and difficulty fitting in with girls. Prior to confusing them with the "truth" and giving them testosterone. Small sample size, sure, but not an irrelevant discovery. It support Damores statement." Because it is followed by this: "Difference in brain structure of 1 month old babies. On top of the earlier studies of 1 day old infants things vs people preference. Baby boys are bombarded with testosterone in utero and during the first months after birth. It drops off after 5-6 months to rocket up when we reach puberty." So, what you're saying is that genetic males produce a large amount of testosterone in the womb and for up to 6 months after birth. But we expect these genetic males to act like females, even though they developed via testosterone and weren't compliant with estrogen regimens? If course they're going to act like males, they have a biological imperative, via that testosterone they've been fueled with, that's never been neutralised. They've never been treated like actual females from a chemistry perspective. That's my entire point: you say things are hardwired in the DNA, and yet cite evidence that the brain gets radically changed by chemistry (i.e. not dna) and you then question why a genetic male acts male when their brain is wired male and they haven't been compliant in the rewiring? Holy hell is that dumb. We both know you're better than that. As I said, that study is completely useless. The methodology doesn't remotely come close to any standard of control of test subjects (which is understandable, these are people who are allowed to act beyond the control restraints of an experiment). It literally doesn't say anything. Forwyn: "Which means that all of the employees bitching and threatening to quit should have been raked over the coals." No, the memo was created and had a limited exposure for a month. It wasn't posted to wide reaching forums (internal mailing list) until August 2nd. It was leaked on the 4th or 5th. He was fired on the 7th. They was no issue before hand because exposure was extremely limited. Once it hit a wide range of people, backlash became clear.
Forwyn Member	Thu Jan 11 11:14:43 Right. No one had an issue with it until a leaker intentionally created a social media SJW-storm.
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 11:16:51 Do you actually have evidence that no googlers were talking issue with it in the 2-3 days before it was leaked?
Aeros Member	Thu Jan 11 12:02:44 The issue is that there was such a reaction in the first place. Clinical psychologists actually did a peer review of the memo and could find nothing in it that was not well cited or against established literature. There are opposing points as in any fuzzy science field like Psychology but nothing Damore said was out of the bounds. The issue here is people heard "men and women are different" and immediately extrapolated what that meant from there to Damore said Women are inferior to men. Which is not what he said. For example, Men also have higher level of social mal-adjustment compared to women. As such the Prison system is also dominated by men. Should we create diversity programs there to improve the number of women incarcerated so that women are more represented in the Prison population? It seems people are more then happy to point out the biological and psychological differences between men and women when its a "bad" thing rather then a "good" thing. What about Nursing? Women dominate that field. Should we institute programs to allow men to become Nurses and create parity in that particular workplace? The double standard is pretty obvious to anyone who bothers to look. No diversity programs to incarcerate more women. No diversity programs to let more men become nurses. A smart person would point out Men are more likely to act out against social norms and thus run afoul of the law, and women are more likely to seek a nurturing career because of basic psychological indicators at the population level. And this is the crux of the lawsuit. Google attempted to cut corners. Fewer women then men are applying for jobs in Tech. If only 30% of the applicants are women but you want 51% of your workplace to BE women, you would have to bend labor laws to bring about that outcome. This is an objective truth. So in order to create "parity" in the workplace you would be necessity have to discriminate based on gender. Which is illegal in the United States.
Aeros Member	Thu Jan 11 12:06:18 It should also be noted that the lawsuit is also not specifically about women or white people. There are 3 separate classes. Women are covered under the Conservative and Caucasian class, while Asians are covered under the Male and Conservative class according to Harmeet Dhillon and are probably the anonymous class members to the lawsuit for the time being.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Jan 11 12:41:20 Hood Well we just disagree then, but I think on those matter of his motivations and how people may feel or interpert the facts, I think it is an issue that we have to work to bridge on a grander scale. It requires tact from people like Damore and more calm from those that went hysteric. I have read and seen enough of Damore to think he acted in good faith. As for the study. It was posted under the heading "possible non-bias causes..". He was making a case that some of the explanation is in our biology. Notice I used the word "innate" you have interpreted this into "hard wired in DNA". Innate could be DNA, it is of course not a coincidence that _genetic_ males get testosterone in utero and through out their life, but innate means you are born with it, it may very well be caused by other say biochemical processes. The castrated boys, the study on brain structure and the study on things vs people preference of 1 day old babies all point to gendered behavior being... innate. As in not caused by socialization. Further down the road socialization will no doubt play a role, but the slate contains infromation. "Holy hell is that dumb." I think you can do better. I already have this kind of report with posters here, I would rather you not be one of those. If you think I am wrong, there are better ways to say that, but first, please read what I am saying.
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 12:50:25 "Clinical psychologists actually did a peer review of the memo and could find nothing in it that was not well cited or against established literature." You apparently do not read. The issue was not when he stated facts, but when he attempted to interpret them. Saying "women show higher levels of neuroticism than men" is just a fact. Saying "that could explain why women might not be suitable for executive positions within a company" is pretty much bullshit. Sure, anything is possible, but arguing such opinions as positive reinforcement for your suggestion that programs for women should be ended is pretty insulting. (Aside: sexist programs that target only one gender, or racist programs that exclude based on race, are entirely different animals to be discussed; this is about damore) Here's a direct quote: "I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership." Please note: this says that women aren't equally represented in leadership because biologically they lack the ability and drive to take those positions. That's a pretty fucking "fuzzy" interpretation of [women have more neuroticism and are more agreeable]. Another quote: "In addition to the Left’s affinity for those it sees as weak, humans are generally biased towards protecting females." Pretty offensive for him to pretty much label everyone not-male as weak. Make no mistake, he didn't clarify this at all. He starts talking about this by saying that the left is compassionate for the weak, and then goes on describing anyone that is [receiving programs] is weak. I'd like you to source a clinical psychologist that actually backed this statement. Hell, find a clinical psychologist that backed any of damore's interpretation of facts. It's those interpretations that are just plain wrong.
Forwyn Member	Thu Jan 11 12:54:38 Well, I guess someone took issue before it was leaked: Alex Hidalgo Subject: You are a terrible person Feel free to pass this along to HR. Keep them in the loop for all I care. May as well do it early. You're a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you. -Alex
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 13:06:24 "I think on those matter of his motivations and how people may feel or interpert the facts, I think it is an issue that we have to work to bridge on a grander scale. It requires tact from people like Damore and more calm from those that went hysteric" I wouldn't disagree with this. People are definitely too quick to be offended, but I speak from a perspective that is on the extreme end of that spectrum. Just about nothing offends me. It takes many, many instances of bullshit to get me offended. I am definitely not the best choice to make a neutral assessment of this. "Notice I used the word "innate" you have interpreted this into "hard wired in DNA". Innate could be DNA, it is of course not a coincidence that _genetic_ males get testosterone in utero and through out their life, but innate means you are born with it, it may very well be caused by other say biochemical processes." The problem here is that it's not innate. We have the power to change all of that. It's NATURAL for genetic males to receive testosterone in utero, but it isn't innate. Damore was clearly trying to suss out difference in male and female biology. If you can correct that with hormones or just prevent it from happening (by limiting hormones), it runs counter to Damore's arguments. We could probably easily make all females act more male just by adding regular testosterone to their systems. We've done that. It indicates that the difference is not biological in nature. ""Holy hell is that dumb." I think you can do better. I already have this kind of report with posters here, I would rather you not be one of those. If you think I am wrong, there are better ways to say that, but first, please read what I am saying." Considering that the phrase here was issued at the end of my post, after directly addressing what you had said and the conclusions made from them, it's pretty disingenuous to accuse me of not reading what you said. I clearly read it, I clearly responded to it. I called your conflating statements dumb. I didn't attempt to disregard your entire post based on those two statements, only that they cannot both be true. Either in utero testosterone affects the brain in ways that will present in personality unless intervened upon, or the female kids were truly going against their female nature. But if you're saying that they didn't have a female nature (due to testosterone exposure and no compensation with estrogen), then we cannot say that they referred back to a male nature despite being female. They never reached the stage of being female on the chemical level. I stand by my comment; is really dumb to stick to both of your comments - they are in conflict. If you interpret calling into question one of your statements (and not you yourself) to be jerguling or something, that is on you. I'm pretty clearly sticking to what you've argued.
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 13:08:11 "then we cannot say that they referred back to a male nature despite being female." Reverted*
pillz Member	Thu Jan 11 13:25:57 "Saying "women show higher levels of neuroticism than men" is just a fact. Saying "that could explain why women might not be suitable for executive positions within a company" is pretty much bullshit. " No, it isn't bullshit. It's him putting forward an explanation supported by research as to why women are less interested in tech jobs. He can be wrong, but that doesn't make him a monster or a criminal. And there isn't anything sexist about it, he isn't discriminating based on ability but explaining differences with biology. And not in an attempt to assail the ability of women individually but explain trends important to hiring practices. "(Aside: sexist programs that target only one gender, or racist programs that exclude based on race, are entirely different animals to be discussed; this is about damore) " Incorrect. Dude's memo was specifically intended to address these programs by explaining the 'need' for them and demonstrating that they are well intentioned but misguided, "Here's a direct quote: "I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership." Please note: this says that women aren't equally represented in leadership because biologically they lack the ability and drive to take those positions. That's a pretty fucking "fuzzy" interpretation of [women have more neuroticism and are more agreeable]. " No it isn't. It's just an interpretation made by comparing biological facts to popular trends in career choice. It might be wrong, but you certainly don't prove so by saying 'waaaah sexism'. "Hell, find a clinical psychologist that backed any of damore's interpretation of facts. It's those interpretations that are just plain wrong." Okay, here you go. >>> 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. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manifesto-isnt-sexist-or-anti-diversity-its-science/article35903359/
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 13:40:59 Pills, you're a fucking tard. The psychologist says interest in a specific field. Damore clearly stated that biology is directly (partially) responsible for SUCCESS (i.e. representation in leadership). You cannot ignore half of his argument to say that a psychologist supported him. It's pretty stupid of the psychologist to completely ignore the leadership aspect of damore's argument, as you have.
Sam Adams Member	Thu Jan 11 13:46:07 If a chick or a minority typed these things, they would get a warning letter.
pillz Member	Thu Jan 11 14:27:51 Hood, you are absolutely retarded. Decreased interest in a field will result in fewer women in the field, and obviously (failing discriminatory promotion practices), fewer women in positions of leadership (assuming ability and interest in leadership is equal across the population. In this case, Damore is assuming interest and ability in leadership positions is not equal. While Soh did not explicitly support that statement, you did say: "Hell, find a clinical psychologist that backed any of damore's interpretation of facts." Read the above sentence again and locate the instance in which you used the word 'any'. As in 'and of damore's interpretations'. Soh is a clinical psychologist who backed at least one of his interpretations. I'm not sure how you became Cuckhat jr but keep it up.
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 15:22:57 You should read Damore's statement. A second time, apparently. Soh backed part of his statement and ignored quite a bit of it. She did not make any statement on leadership, and she did not make any comment on ability. That would put Damore at 1 of 3 for that interpretation.
pillz Member	Thu Jan 11 15:31:47 "Hell, find a clinical psychologist that backed any of damore's interpretation of facts." "That would put Damore at 1 of 3 for that interpretation. " Im not sure what the issue is here?
hood Member	Thu Jan 11 15:44:15 His interpretation of those facts was 66% wrong. There were many other conclusions he made, why are you focusing on this single one that was mostly wrong?
Dukhat Member	Thu Jan 11 22:39:11 I'd like to point out that programs to increase workplace diversity by allowing employers to discriminate in favor of historically oppressed groups like blacks and women have all been endorsed and sanctioned by the courts and are mostly settled law (though republicans keep trying to weaken them). Most of Damore's conclusions (much less his faulty assumptions which people have been arguing about) wanted to basically end all the diversity programs can be considered trolling or its equivalent from a legal standpoint. Google would simply never do that because it would open itself to even more lawsuits from minority groups and those lawsuits would have much greater standing than Damore's current lawsuit. I don't know what he was thinking really. None of his purported goals were ever achievable. His inability to empathize or see things in truly strategic terms doomed him.
Forwyn Member	Thu Jan 11 23:26:21 Calling out counterproductive programs is not trolling. Ideological echo chambers are not legally required, and the abolition of such an environment is not grounds for a lawsuit.
Forwyn Member	Fri Jan 12 01:53:57 BTW, AA programs being ruled legal is not the same as quota systems, which have been ruled specifically not legal.
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