bean29
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Post by bean29 on Aug 13, 2017 0:26:49 GMT -5
I read it because I'm seeing increasingly that news headlines exaggerate or even outright mischaracterize the substance of what is being reported on. So when controversial things happen, I don't trust that the headline is correctly labeling what happened and I like to see what source data I can find to either support the headline or call it into question. There are parts of the memo I agree with, parts I disagree with. The news headlines have been misleading, though. After reading the text of the memo, I completely disagree with headlines characterizing the memo as "anti-diversity" or "sexist." I also wouldn't call it "incendiary" other than the fact that it's not acceptable to discuss any non-PC opinions. This is not an employee I would have fired at my company (of course I do not face any public scrutiny like Google does, so their criteria is different.) It's an employee I would have engaged with to discuss his ideas. Would I have agreed with or implemented his ideas? I don't know. But I didn't read this as a sexist or anti-diversity screed, I read it as an examination of whether Google's current methods are reasonable and effective. Fwiw, I read his words last week, didn't agree with him, but didn't think he would get fired or that his words were something he should be fired over.
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justme
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Post by justme on Aug 13, 2017 0:34:34 GMT -5
I read parts. I couldn't keep reading. It was equal parts eye rolling and making me want to stab him in the head. Not always for the misogyny, but also for just stupidity, trying to conflate political issues to gender, the moronic footnotesin guise of citations, and just awful writing ability.
Just couldn't get through ten pages!
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Aug 13, 2017 10:16:39 GMT -5
OK. the guy lost any credibility in my eyes when he decided to base his claims on the genetic differences between men and women -- and then that laundry list of "women's traits". (and if any of you men want to argue with me about this - I'll be sure to point out that it's pretty obvious YOUR mother didn't have the right mix of testosterone while YOU were in her womb because your ability to think and reason is way off - maybe almost woman-like.) <-- that's sarcasm. the bad kind. I wouldn't want to work with this guy - I don't think he would be fair in office politics and I'd be afraid he wouldn't be above blaming the women on his team (or the end users or any woman involved in a project) for the traditional things that go wrong with projects. Even if a project isn't a failure, I'm pretty sure he'd beef about how the 'girls didn't do their job'. <-- and why yes, I have worked for a male manager like that (and a female manager who need someone to throw under the bus and it couldn't be a guy). And I've worked with women that spend more time pissing and moaning about aspects of their jobs then they do actually working their jobs. And they piss and moan about it to me - someone who has zero power to change anything about their jobs! Sounds a bit like my SIL. Constantly fussed about anything and everything. Rarely said much positive. I believe she considered complaining to be conversation. Maybe it's the same with your former co-workers.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 13, 2017 10:37:50 GMT -5
Fwiw, I read his words last week, didn't agree with him, but didn't think he would get fired or that his words were something he should be fired over. I knew instantly that he'd be fired and blackballed out of tech forever. I've been telling all y'all for years that there is groupthink on the coasts that you will lose your livelihood, family and friends if you don't say the right words and phrases at the right time. American society is not free, and we will try to elect people to push back on and break our oppressors suppression of us I have a friend that grew up in in the Northeast, graduated from Princeton, etc. She describes their social circle as very "latte liberal". It was a funny conversation because she was acting embarrassed as if she was confessing something shameful to me, but she said that as she gets older she's realizing she agrees with some Republican/conservative views. She was blushing and talking in a hushed tone like she was disclosing some deep, dark secret... that she had some conservative leanings that she'd just discovered. I was trying hard not to laugh. But she explained that in the northeast social groups she was from, a person who expressed a view like "tax rates are progressive enough, I don't agree with more taxation" or "I think affirmative action is more harmful than helpful" would be labeled, shamed and drummed out of the group. She described it like any different views weren't just disagreed with, they were not acceptable. Interesting to hear her description. I have friends who are fairly extreme on both sides of the spectrum. I fall somewhat in the middle, but have some views on either end. I'm very, very grateful that if this is socially unacceptable my friends have not seen fit to inform me.
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cktc
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Post by cktc on Aug 13, 2017 11:21:34 GMT -5
I read parts. I couldn't keep reading. It was equal parts eye rolling and making me want to stab him in the head. Not always for the misogyny, but also for just stupidity, trying to conflate political issues to gender, the moronic footnotesin guise of citations, and just awful writing ability. Just couldn't get through ten pages! I couldn't even get through one page! A shame, because I am mildly curious what he actually meant to accomplish. A safe place for employees to complain about company hiring and development practices? Why is that necessary? How about employees focus on their own work and discuss their issues with management when it actually relates to them?
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quince
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Post by quince on Aug 13, 2017 11:41:03 GMT -5
I read the whole thing.
I disagree with most of it, but I agree with something in there about evidence/data being needed and not doing things based on feelings.
I think the way to do this is to NOT circulate something like this, but put it together and try to get in touch with HR to exchange ideas. This "Hey, women are different and that's why they are underrepresented and make less!" being circulated? There's a right way and a wrong way to do things in the workplace, and this isn't the right way.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 13, 2017 12:21:21 GMT -5
I'm truly in the middle, politically speaking, and you get the shut down from both sides, not just the left. Some companies are inherently more conservative, and some more liberal, with most falling somewhere in between. I've had to keep my own views to myself, as several people in my small office--especially the powers that be--were staunch Republicans. You know what I call that? Normal. It's a private company. They all have their own culture. You know the best way to influence it? Definitely not by pointing out all perceived flaws, but by babysteps.
I am not surprised that this guy got fired. Google is the definition of progressive--trying out new ways of doing everything. They don't want people working for them holding them back from that. This memo demonstrated completely how entrenched this employee was in believing the status quo was the only possible solution. That kind of thinking does not move a company like Google forward, so why keep him?
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Aug 13, 2017 13:33:01 GMT -5
I read parts. I couldn't keep reading. It was equal parts eye rolling and making me want to stab him in the head. Not always for the misogyny, but also for just stupidity, trying to conflate political issues to gender, the moronic footnotesin guise of citations, and just awful writing ability. Just couldn't get through ten pages! I couldn't even get through one page! A shame, because I am mildly curious what he actually meant to accomplish. A safe place for employees to complain about company hiring and development practices? Why is that necessary? How about employees focus on their own work and discuss their issues with management when it actually relates to them? I definitely agree with that.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 13, 2017 14:59:45 GMT -5
I think he's right, but that he did know/should have known that he would get fired for this. His premise is little more than "men and women are different in real ways that are not just societal constructs". That shouldn't be groundbreaking to anyone. I also completely believe in his thoughts that essentially we don't have to push to make sure everything is 50% women, just like we don't push to make sure everything is 50% men. We need opportunity to abound, but that's not the same as forcing quotas.
In the end though, lots of people are right about lots of things, but the hot take or bullet point of their views is going to lead to bad PR. Pretty much any stance against any sort of diversity (even if it is manufactured diversity that makes no sense) is going to cause the holder of that stance problems. This is why if you have intelligent views on emotionally-charged topics (not necessarily correct, just intelligent thought-out views that may or may not actually be correct)...you need to keep your mouth shut in your work environment. Workplaces don't want to hear it. They want to hear people on the company line.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 13, 2017 15:05:41 GMT -5
Where I work a condition of employment is that we treat our private personal views with the same discretion we give to confidential company documents. For a memo like that we'd be out on a security violation. Applies to everyone from senior management to interns. He posted the memo on an internal Google site designed to promote discussions within Google and only accessible to Google employees. After the controversy started, someone anonymously leaked the memo to the media; not sure of the timeline but I believe the entire memo wasn't leaked until after there were headlines in the media about the controversy at Google regarding a "sexist" and "anti-diversity" treatise that an employee wrote. Are you saying the views themselves were wrong and shouldn't be put on an internal, private company site accessible only to Google employees? (Assuming he's not the one that leaked the memo to the media.) Are his views problematic and the "security violation" or was it the leaking of the memo that would be the security violation? The security violation is the person who "leaked" the memo. The problem is in anyone believing that Google actually wanted to promote any kind of real discussion. We have the same kinds of thing at my job, often centered around "diversity" (we're huge on diversity of pretty much all types). It's supposed to be "discussion", but pretty much everyone is smart enough to understand the "discussion" if you're going to post something had better be about an amazing experience you had for our company in relation to diversity.
We have some of the same discussion pieces around financial services products. Again, you'd better be smart enough not to "discuss" that some of the products we offer in general (lines of products like some forms of life insurance) are HORRIBLE ideas that nobody should waste their money on. And when people want to discuss why some of our employees don't have these particular products, your answer had better not be "because I'm not a moron so I wouldn't buy this garbage". In corporate environments, "discussion" is really code for "the façade of discussion". It's a PR move by the "company" to make the employees feel warm and fuzzy.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Aug 13, 2017 15:13:33 GMT -5
I couldn't even get through one page! A shame, because I am mildly curious what he actually meant to accomplish. A safe place for employees to complain about company hiring and development practices? Why is that necessary? How about employees focus on their own work and discuss their issues with management when it actually relates to them? I definitely agree with that. many have been fired for cause on far less than this. whatever he may have intended to accomplish, circulating a 10 page treatise on why your company's new initiative is wrong-headed would get a lot of people fired. Doesn't matter the topic. This wasn't the way to do so in any diplomatic fashion as an attempt to make your voice heard and keep your job. I worked with a woman who got fired because she said something against the company direction in an elevator after the quarterly staff meeting. One sentence, one off-hand - and perhaps ill-conceived - comment. While it did seem a little harsh to me - could have been written up, warning, etc. I wondered about other aspects of the situation. I know her boss wasn't thrilled with her work as he had expressed disappointment in her contributions on more than one occasion and clearly regretted hiring her. So perhaps there were other nuances to her getting fired off this comment in that her boss said - no, I don't want to have to work with her and HR on a PIP or somesuch, ee not worth the effort. One of the articles I read on this particular googler here, his resume lists a phd but when contacted the university stated he did not complete that degree. So - right there is another fireable offense. If he misrepresented his credentials to get the job, he may not have been as great a contributor as he thought he was. The very least we can take away from his job performance is that he isn't too swift on how to maneuver politically in an organization, doesn't understand when he is being offensive, is self-aggrandizing and perhaps arrogant. www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/08/08/business/08reuters-google-diversity.htmlarticle states that he had phd from harvard on resume at linkedin, but harvard says he only completed masters degree
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justme
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Post by justme on Aug 13, 2017 15:23:42 GMT -5
I don't think anyone's advocating a 50/50 split, but most would say the splits in male dominated (or for that matter female dominated fields) are not where they would be naturally if you were able to take culture/socialization out of the equation.
While yes there are some differences between males and females a lot of those differences some, like the writer, attribute them wholly to biology when culture and socialization and a large if not sole part in it.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 13, 2017 16:07:17 GMT -5
Yes, we're not talking about anything close to 50% here. Here's an interesting tidbit I read in an article: "For example, we could look to the percentage of women majoring in computer science at highly selective colleges and universities. Women currently make up about 30 percent of the computer science majors at Stanford University, one key source of Google’s elite workforce. Harvey Mudd College, another elite program, has seen its numbers grow steadily for many years, and is currently at about 50 percent women in their computer science department. Yet Google’s workforce is just 19 percent female. So even if we imagine for a moment that the manifesto is correct and there is some biological ceiling on the percentage of women who will be suited to work at Google — less than 50 percent of their workforce — isn’t it the case that Google, and tech generally, is almost certainly not yet hitting that ceiling?" www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/11/16130452/google-memo-women-tech-biology-sexismMy main issue with the memo is exemplified by this: "Many defenders of the manifesto have eagerly, and, as far as I can tell, earnestly, pointed me to the manifesto writer’s frequent claims to support diversity in the abstract, as if these are supposed to be reassuring. (“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists. ...”) They are not reassuring. " My impression is this guy is lying about valuing diversity at all. Nothing in the memo explains why he may value it, and pretty much everything in there tells me that he doesn't. The way he lays out his argument is terrible. If I were to try to make his argument, I would start with defining diversity, provide many examples and rationale why this diversity is important--applied to various job categories at Google, and then try to explain why it may not be possible or that beneficial in his particular area. I suspect after the reasoning for it in other areas, this may be a difficult task to accomplish. Instead, his argument very much comes off as a rant with a tone of reason--but still a rant. "Waah, it's so unfair these other groups get special attention. <pouty face>"
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jkapp
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Post by jkapp on Aug 13, 2017 19:49:19 GMT -5
Yes, we're not talking about anything close to 50% here. Here's an interesting tidbit I read in an article: "For example, we could look to the percentage of women majoring in computer science at highly selective colleges and universities. Women currently make up about 30 percent of the computer science majors at Stanford University, one key source of Google’s elite workforce. Harvey Mudd College, another elite program, has seen its numbers grow steadily for many years, and is currently at about 50 percent women in their computer science department. Yet Google’s workforce is just 19 percent female. So even if we imagine for a moment that the manifesto is correct and there is some biological ceiling on the percentage of women who will be suited to work at Google — less than 50 percent of their workforce — isn’t it the case that Google, and tech generally, is almost certainly not yet hitting that ceiling?" www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/11/16130452/google-memo-women-tech-biology-sexismMy main issue with the memo is exemplified by this: "Many defenders of the manifesto have eagerly, and, as far as I can tell, earnestly, pointed me to the manifesto writer’s frequent claims to support diversity in the abstract, as if these are supposed to be reassuring. (“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists. ...”) They are not reassuring. " My impression is this guy is lying about valuing diversity at all. Nothing in the memo explains why he may value it, and pretty much everything in there tells me that he doesn't. The way he lays out his argument is terrible. If I were to try to make his argument, I would start with defining diversity, provide many examples and rationale why this diversity is important--applied to various job categories at Google, and then try to explain why it may not be possible or that beneficial in his particular area. I suspect after the reasoning for it in other areas, this may be a difficult task to accomplish. Instead, his argument very much comes off as a rant with a tone of reason--but still a rant. "Waah, it's so unfair these other groups get special attention. <pouty face>" So you believe he's lying about diversity? So what? Do you actually think companies care about diversity? Shit no (especially in diversity of opinions and thoughts)! They only care about the "appearance" of diversity. I've worked for countless companies that also state the workplace is like a "family." Now that is the biggest bold-face lie if there ever was one...has anyone ever felt like they were part of a "family" at work? If so, they must come from a very dysfunctional family that treat each other like shit. But, of course, I would never say that in a company meeting, because these "families" don't like to have their bullshit called out
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 13, 2017 21:29:07 GMT -5
Yes, we're not talking about anything close to 50% here. Here's an interesting tidbit I read in an article: "For example, we could look to the percentage of women majoring in computer science at highly selective colleges and universities. Women currently make up about 30 percent of the computer science majors at Stanford University, one key source of Google’s elite workforce. Harvey Mudd College, another elite program, has seen its numbers grow steadily for many years, and is currently at about 50 percent women in their computer science department. Yet Google’s workforce is just 19 percent female. So even if we imagine for a moment that the manifesto is correct and there is some biological ceiling on the percentage of women who will be suited to work at Google — less than 50 percent of their workforce — isn’t it the case that Google, and tech generally, is almost certainly not yet hitting that ceiling?" www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/11/16130452/google-memo-women-tech-biology-sexismMy main issue with the memo is exemplified by this: "Many defenders of the manifesto have eagerly, and, as far as I can tell, earnestly, pointed me to the manifesto writer’s frequent claims to support diversity in the abstract, as if these are supposed to be reassuring. (“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists. ...”) They are not reassuring. " My impression is this guy is lying about valuing diversity at all. Nothing in the memo explains why he may value it, and pretty much everything in there tells me that he doesn't. The way he lays out his argument is terrible. If I were to try to make his argument, I would start with defining diversity, provide many examples and rationale why this diversity is important--applied to various job categories at Google, and then try to explain why it may not be possible or that beneficial in his particular area. I suspect after the reasoning for it in other areas, this may be a difficult task to accomplish. Instead, his argument very much comes off as a rant with a tone of reason--but still a rant. "Waah, it's so unfair these other groups get special attention. <pouty face>" So you believe he's lying about diversity? So what? Do you actually think companies care about diversity? Shit no (especially in diversity of opinions and thoughts)! They only care about the "appearance" of diversity. I've worked for countless companies that also state the workplace is like a "family." Now that is the biggest bold-face lie if there ever was one...has anyone ever felt like they were part of a "family" at work? If so, they must come from a very dysfunctional family that treat each other like shit. But, of course, I would never say that in a company meeting, because these "families" don't like to have their bullshit called out Well, personally, when I feel someone is trying to lie to me, I tend to doubt every word they say. I agree that the family stuff is BS, but I also believe having some diversity in a company can be quite beneficial for the bottom line. For a company, such as Google, that tries to do so much for so many different people, it can be critical. I think at least some people there recognize that fact. Anyway, that is their stated goal, and when employees try to go against their employers' stated goals, they get fired. Happens everywhere.
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skubikky
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Post by skubikky on Aug 14, 2017 6:41:22 GMT -5
I read parts. I couldn't keep reading. It was equal parts eye rolling and making me want to stab him in the head. Not always for the misogyny, but also for just stupidity, trying to conflate political issues to gender, the moronic footnotesin guise of citations, and just awful writing ability. Just couldn't get through ten pages! But, this man had the courage to write it. Even though it was just an "internal" board, he knew the risk he was taking and decided to do it. Google as his employer can do as they please. Not sure that in the spirit of "open and honest communication" that he should have been fired but that was Google's call. As many here said, they might have agreed with some of his statements and disagreed with others. Just as you would with most other written opinions pieces. He dared to address something that is seen as sacrosanct.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 7:20:11 GMT -5
I think the issue is that he didn't do it very well.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 14, 2017 9:14:33 GMT -5
I read parts. I couldn't keep reading. It was equal parts eye rolling and making me want to stab him in the head. Not always for the misogyny, but also for just stupidity, trying to conflate political issues to gender, the moronic footnotesin guise of citations, and just awful writing ability. Just couldn't get through ten pages! But, this man had the courage to write it. Even though it was just an "internal" board, he knew the risk he was taking and decided to do it. Google as his employer can do as they please. Not sure that in the spirit of "open and honest communication" that he should have been fired but that was Google's call. As many here said, they might have agreed with some of his statements and disagreed with others. Just as you would with most other written opinions pieces. He dared to address something that is seen as sacrosanct. I'm not sure I necessarily agree that he "knew the risk he was taking". We'll never know obviously, but it seems unlikely he understood he was risking having this leak to the media, become a national news story, etc. He probably didn't even think he was going to get canned (because who writes things they think are for sure going to get them fired?). That's the part that makes me feel bad for him a bit, like "poor guy, he thought the forum put forth as encouraging discussion was actually there to encourage discussion...he never stood a chance!".
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 14, 2017 9:18:22 GMT -5
I think the issue is that he didn't do it very well. He didn't do well from a standpoint of presenting a researched paper...but given that it was an internal forum meant to "encourage discussion", I thought he did ok. I feel like some of it was because it sounded like it was supposed to be a technical researched piece due to the writing style, and so it falls far short of some scientific argument...though if he's a technical guy, that's probably just his favored writing style (specifically for trying to put forth an argument on paper).
I don't have high hopes for internal forums for discussion as to how professional the ideas are presented (which again, I think it has a lot to do with his technical writing style not matching his technical expertise on the subject).
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 9:36:25 GMT -5
I don't think the issue was that the memo wasn't well written or even that it didn't contain incontrovertible support. It was a memo written on an internal message board intended to foster debate and discussion within a company that actively encourages employees to pursue passion projects, work on unusual things that they think might benefit the company, think of new and creative ways to look at problems, be disruptive. If the issue was that the memo was poorly thought out or that the research was not credible, then that's easy enough to discuss, disprove, ignore or even provide counseling on.
Instead, it appears that the very subject - affirmative action - was exposed to be a topic that is verboten.
I'm interested because I think some of this relates directly to some large shifts in current culture and also to why we have the president we have. As media and certain societal pressure grows to eliminate diverging thoughts or even discussion on on certain topics, there is a growing resentment and pressure on people to push back. Over time, I think it's adding to the divide and creating more problems than it solves as people who might have otherwise engaged in discussion instead feel mislabeled and react by growing defensive and hardened in their positions.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 9:41:47 GMT -5
I read parts. I couldn't keep reading. It was equal parts eye rolling and making me want to stab him in the head. Not always for the misogyny, but also for just stupidity, trying to conflate political issues to gender, the moronic footnotesin guise of citations, and just awful writing ability. Just couldn't get through ten pages! Yeah, he's not someone who has a future at persuasive writing. His writing reminds me of the writing of my older son and many of his nerdy/math-engineering friends. They don't realize how naive and pompous they sound when they write; they are approaching writing as they would a programming problem - list relevant facts, follow logic = result.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 14, 2017 10:18:07 GMT -5
I don't think the issue was that the memo wasn't well written or even that it didn't contain incontrovertible support. It was a memo written on an internal message board intended to foster debate and discussion within a company that actively encourages employees to pursue passion projects, work on unusual things that they think might benefit the company, think of new and creative ways to look at problems, be disruptive. If the issue was that the memo was poorly thought out or that the research was not credible, then that's easy enough to discuss, disprove, ignore or even provide counseling on. Instead, it appears that the very subject - affirmative action - was exposed to be a topic that is verboten. I'm interested because I think some of this relates directly to some large shifts in current culture and also to why we have the president we have. As media and certain societal pressure grows to eliminate diverging thoughts or even discussion on on certain topics, there is a growing resentment and pressure on people to push back. Over time, I think it's adding to the divide and creating more problems than it solves as people who might have otherwise engaged in discussion instead feel mislabeled and react by growing defensive and hardened in their positions. I read another forum discussion on this subject that provided the memo with his linked citations. The discussion moved to how the citations didn't provide support to what he was claiming, were opinion pieces, and discussed pop psychology subjects that were poorly regarded by consensus of the actual people in the field of psychology. (I did not bother to read these myself.) My gist from my general familiarity of the subjects is that he's making mountains out of molehills. These studies almost never reveal anything conclusive at all, are unable to account for confounding variables, and often are too small to generalize to larger populations. Perhaps if he made his argument utilizing a logical progression like the example I previously mentioned, I'd be more compelled to go on to examine the specific claims he makes. I just found it to be a mess, however, and not worth my time to bother with it.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 10:36:19 GMT -5
I don't think the issue was that the memo wasn't well written or even that it didn't contain incontrovertible support. It was a memo written on an internal message board intended to foster debate and discussion within a company that actively encourages employees to pursue passion projects, work on unusual things that they think might benefit the company, think of new and creative ways to look at problems, be disruptive. If the issue was that the memo was poorly thought out or that the research was not credible, then that's easy enough to discuss, disprove, ignore or even provide counseling on. Instead, it appears that the very subject - affirmative action - was exposed to be a topic that is verboten. I'm interested because I think some of this relates directly to some large shifts in current culture and also to why we have the president we have. As media and certain societal pressure grows to eliminate diverging thoughts or even discussion on on certain topics, there is a growing resentment and pressure on people to push back. Over time, I think it's adding to the divide and creating more problems than it solves as people who might have otherwise engaged in discussion instead feel mislabeled and react by growing defensive and hardened in their positions. I read another forum discussion on this subject that provided the memo with his linked citations. The discussion moved to how the citations didn't provide support to what he was claiming, were opinion pieces, and discussed pop psychology subjects that were poorly regarded by consensus of the actual people in the field of psychology. (I did not bother to read these myself.) My gist from my general familiarity of the subjects is that he's making mountains out of molehills. These studies almost never reveal anything conclusive at all, are unable to account for confounding variables, and often are too small to generalize to larger populations. Perhaps if he made his argument utilizing a logical progression like the example I previously mentioned, I'd be more compelled to go on to examine the specific claims he makes. I just found it to be a mess, however, and not worth my time to bother with it. I'm not remotely putting forth the argument that his memo and views are correct or that it's well written. But there are many, many incorrect and poorly written memos in business. I'm not a Google employee, but I suspect if Google's internal message boards are anything like the internal corporate message boards I've seen, there are more poorly written memos with little to no research or incorrect research than there are well-written ones with incontrovertible research. Internal idea boards tend to be a mishmash of ideas, many of them in the preformative stages like ideas you'd hear at a brainstorming session where people are free thinking and calling out things that pop into their minds. Internal idea boards in many cases don't sport publication-ready pieces that are vetted and researched, so it wouldn't be a surprise that this memo (like many of the others) was not well written and/or contained little to no research. The surprise is that the discussion of affirmative action and whether there are differences between men and women itself appears to be the issue, not the quality of the memo. If the quality of the memo was the issue, that would have been a quick fix - send it back to the employee to correct or work with the employee to develop the ideas or provide better sources. If the company had actually done that - shown how the "support" was incorrect or engaged on dialogue such as "yes, in some ways affirmative action does "discriminate" against one class in favor of another but here is why we believe it is justified" - that would have been a reasonable way to handle it.
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saveinla
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Post by saveinla on Aug 14, 2017 10:39:16 GMT -5
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 11:04:56 GMT -5
A response like this article would have been a reasonable way for a company to respond to this employee memo. Interesting discussion could have followed. Maybe the discussion would spur an idea or educate someone who hadn't previously seen that data. I still think Google's decision to fire this employee was reasonable in response to the public controversy. And if there were internal knowledge or evidence that the author was sexist or racist, regardless of what the public controversy was, any company - public or private - would rightly regard this guy as a problem that needed to be booted. But absence any other evidence, just based on a read of the memo itself, I think it's unreasonable to label the author a "misogynist" who "penned an anti-diversity screed" as the media has described it. And labeling him in that way misses out on a chance to educate or persuade.
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justme
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Post by justme on Aug 14, 2017 11:10:11 GMT -5
Is writing ten pages on a discussion board really inviting discussion? I mean, really, who the hell is going to read that and comment without having a lot of time on your hands because you'd have to write a paper just to respond!
Just like the people here who write a wall of text, I just roll my eyes and scroll pass it assuming it's some type of diatribe again.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 11:12:24 GMT -5
Again, it's true rigor is not necessary for an internal discussion board. It's that he attempted to convey rigor without actually doing so. If he had either written a less formal piece, OR actually provided a well organized (balanced, better presented) and documented piece... either way I don't think he would have been fired. Just my take.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 11:14:08 GMT -5
Again, it's true rigor is not necessary for an internal discussion board. It's that he attempted to convey rigor without actually doing so. If he had either written a less formal piece, OR actually provided a well organized (balanced, better presented) and documented piece... either way I don't think he would have been fired. Just my take. You believe that the quality of the memo - writing and research - was the main issue here? That if the memo had been more engagingly written and provided more substantive research Google would not have fired him?
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Aug 14, 2017 11:19:55 GMT -5
Is writing ten pages on a discussion board really inviting discussion? I mean, really, who the hell is going to read that and comment without having a lot of time on your hands because you'd have to write a paper just to respond! Just like the people here who write a wall of text, I just roll my eyes and scroll pass it assuming it's some type of diatribe again.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 11:23:16 GMT -5
Again, it's true rigor is not necessary for an internal discussion board. It's that he attempted to convey rigor without actually doing so. If he had either written a less formal piece, OR actually provided a well organized (balanced, better presented) and documented piece... either way I don't think he would have been fired. Just my take. You believe that the quality of the memo - writing and research - was the main issue here? That if the memo had been more engagingly written and provided more substantive research Google would not have fired him? I'm saying I could have written a memo that would have drawn attention to his concerns without being actionable for bias or being anti- diversity.
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