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Comment by Seenti | Hacker News Reader

>First off, that's your opinion of the paper, ok? That's not a fact about the document.

Of course it's a fact about the document. Damore does not say this. If you claim he did, you should easily be able to prove it by quoting him saying it. No one has done that, because the accusation is false. The burden of proof is on the accuser. The accuser is not presumed to be telling the truth on the basis of their social standing, gender or the emotional intensity of their reaction.

>But here's the deal, a bunch of other really smart people think it did do exactly what you claim it didn't. Now what? Are they wrong, you're right? On what basis?

On the basis of the content of the memo, they are wrong.

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He claimed that Google's diversity policy lowered the bar for hiring, how can you read that and not think he was claiming that a portion of his female/minority coworkers were underqualified for their jobs?

> He claimed that Google's diversity policy lowered the bar for hiring, how can you read that and not think he was claiming that a portion of his female/minority coworkers were underqualified for their jobs?

This is the full quote, "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate." Latter emphasis mine.

I read this the same way that he writes it: that Google takes steps to reduce the false negative rate for diverse candidates but does not take these steps with non-diverse candidates. Policies like re-trying failed phone interviews, or automatically passing resume review for diverse candidates are examples of this (these are examples I've witnessed, I don't know if they in place at Google). They still need to pass the final interview loop, so they're not underqualified. But extra steps earlier in the interview process reduce the false negative rate.

Personally, I think these steps are an acceptable means of getting a more diverse group of candidates but I'd still respect my co-workers if they disagreed. To point out the fact that this results in some non-diverse candidates being denied when they could have gotten offers is factually correct. More importantly, to point this fact out is not to call the diverse candidates passed under such a system underqualified - as I pointed out earlier all candidates pass the final interview loop so all candidates are qualified.

No matter what qualifiers he tries to put on it, saying the bar is being lowered implies there are people at Google that he thinks do not deserve to be there.

The author deliberately stated that the "lowered bar" only goes insofar as reducing the rate at which qualified and diverse candidates are rejected. Disregarding the words that the author intentionally wrote - likely to prevent the interpretation that underqualified candidates are accepted - is a significant disservice, in my view.

To better illustrate what it means to reduce the false negative rate without admitting underqualified candidates, consider the following scenario:

* Phone interviews have a 50% false negative rate.

* On-site interviews have a 0% false negative rate.

* Neither type of interview has a false positive rate.

* Non-diverse candidates get one phone interview, and if the interview is positive they go on to an on-site interview. If the onsite is positive, the candidate gets an offer.

* Diverse candidates get two phone interviews. If either is positive, they move on to the onsite which, if passes, gets an offer.

In this setup, no candidates are underqualified since there are no false-positives in either the phone interview or the onsite. Non-diverse candidates have a 50% false negative rate; 50% are erroneously disqualified at the phone interview stage. Diverse candidates have a 25% false negative rate. Since they go through two phone interviews, there's only a false negative if both (0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25) phone interviews are false negatives.

It is under the section talking about the harm to Google. How is decreasing the rate at which qualified candidates are rejected harmful?

He is saying that this is harmful to Google, so he is saying it shouldn't be done, so he is saying that certain people who have been hired should not have been hired.

No matter what qualifiers you put on the statement he is saying that some of his former coworkers should not have been hired.

At most he's saying some of his coworkers would not have been hired and the non-hire decisions would be incorrect. I think the harm comes in as follows: suppose you have a way to drastically reduce false negatives without increasing false positives. Suppose you also have difficulties hiring enough engineers. Should you apply these programs to improve the demographics of your company (potentially to reduce lawsuit risk) or should you apply these programs more broadly to reduce the hiring shortage and reduce overwork and stress on all the engineers in your company that are on teams with people shortages? I think that's a question that can at least warrant a conversation, although I see good arguments for both sides.

His claim was that "lowering the bar" was hurting Google, not that Google should "lower the bar" further by expanding those policies. Using the term "lower the bar" has negative connotations and he is using it in reference to minority employees.

He also doesn't cite any proof that these hiring policies he is against actually exist, or even define what policies he believes exist. There is just some undefined diversity policy that he is against.

That would be a false positive rate, and it would be a reasonable interpretation if you deliberately ignored the rest of the sentence. There is no justification for ignoring the rest of the sentence.

He tried hard not to say that. But if he had, so what? Maybe he'd have been right?

If Google has lowered the bar for women in various ways, why should it be impossible to point that out? Just because some women would be offended by it? So what? Nobody has the right to be offended by facts.

> Nobody has the right to be offended by facts. What are the "facts"?

He doesn't back up his claim with any data at all. Where is his supporting data that Google's hiring practices in regards to minorities hurts Google? He's just making a baseless claim that doesn't logically follow from any of the evidence he provides before it.

He said it CAN lower th

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