RealityNow

Of course there are strong social influences - little boys are given toy trucks while little girls are given dolls. But that's not the same thing as discrimination in hiring and the workforce, which is what these affirmative action policies tackle.

> "And no, the diversity debate doesn't 'get too much attention'. It gets significantly less attention than it should"

First of all, it's not even a "debate" as the memo has shown. It's a one-sided emotional crusade against the opposition, and you're not allowed to disagree with the hivemind.

Why is it only considered a "problem" and attention-worthy when women are underrepresented? Nobody gives a shit about men being underrepresented in certain professions, or women being underrepresented in the trades. There's a clear double standard here.

Great article. Sad that if this article had been written by a man, it would not be getting any attention and the comments would be calling the author "sexist".

Here are my 2 cents as a male (thus my opinion on the issue automatically doesn't carry any weight to most of you). Women chose to pursue tech less than men (just look at any open source project), and this starts way before college. I took CS in high school - not because anybody encouraged me, but because I taught myself how to code as a kid in order to make videogames and cheat at them - and there were very few women in that class.

That's why it boggles my mind when people act as if discrimination is the reason why women are underrepresented in tech. Girls are underrepresented in introductory CS courses in high school, meaning they're clearly not even choosing to pursue the field as much as men. You can't claim discrimination if they're not even signing up for the introductory classes. And anyone who's taken a CS course in college knows that at least half the students there have been coding since they were kids (I graduated a while ago so I'd imagine that's even more the case now) - again, not because anybody told them to, but because they sought that knowledge out themselves - which can be intimidating to newcomers who've never seen "Hello, World".

Videogames are probably the main reason why men pursue CS more than women. The naive feminist will say "videogames are targeted towards boys". Yes they are - but that's because videogame developers are predominantly male, and game developers are more likely to create games that they themselves would enjoy. Videogames being male-dominated is simply a reflection of gendered biological differences, not some conspiracy to exclude women.

Any sort of discrimination on the basis of gender/race is a problem, that's a given and nobody will dispute that. But it should not be considered a problem that women choose to pursue tech less than men, just like it's not considered a problem that men are less likely to pursue nursing, primary/secondary education, psychiatry, fashion, and yoga teaching. Men who like yoga don't give a fuck about the underrepresentation of men in yoga classes.

At the end of the day, this "diversity" debate gets way too much attention. There used to be a time when the focus was on the tech and doing cool things, not what people looked like.

Makes sense. The longer your work day and the more financially stressed you are, the less sex you're going to tend to have. Birth rates have been decreasing in the first world countries for a reason.

I never really understood this loaded/gendered "brogrammer" term. In my experience programmers tend to be shy, introverted, soft spoken, and more socially awkward than average - the exact opposite of the type of person "bro" typically refers to. I've never worked at a company where the programmers are the extroverted outspoken machismo ex-fraternity type who regularly lift weights and play beer pong at their bachelor pads before hitting the bars/clubs.

Martin Shkreli (the pharma CEO who gained fame after jacking up the price of a drug by 5000% overnight) is referred to in the press as "pharma bro". What makes him a "bro"? He's awkward, unpolished, and more resembles the overcompensating nerd from high school than the binge-drinking football-playing jock who got invited to the parties.

Tech has never had a "brogrammer" culture. The term is just used to paint the picture of programmers as being misogynistic.

So what's the solution? How do we bring jobs back to these depressed rural areas?

The paradox of capitalism is that business interests (capital) are in direct opposition to workers' interests. Businesses are incentivized to reduce costs, which means paying workers as little as possible, squeezing as many hours out of them, and laying them off as soon as they're not needed.

Sure everyday workers are sometimes the customers as well, but that's becoming less and less the case. Google and Facebook don't make their money off you, they make them from advertisers working on behalf of businesses. Real estate developers in Manhattan don't make money building affordable middle class housing (hence the non-existence of such developments), they make them off luxury high-rises targeting the wealthy.

Combine that with technological advances and globalization allowing increasingly consolidated corporations to replace workers with robots/software and move jobs overseas, and the end result is that wealth is more concentrated, the economy is more concentrated (plutonomy), and your average Joe living in rural New England just doesn't matter as much to the vault-holders in an economic system where we only see each other as dollar signs.

No amount of retraining or "bootstraps" is going to bring the jobs back. It's just not possible to compete with the corporations and their larger moats and bankrolls. The only option is to work for them, or perish. These corporations aren't building anymore satellite offices in rural areas or opening up to remote work (due in part to the increasingly competitive job market), so the only option is to move to expensive cities with chronic housing supply shortages. These rural areas are as economically useless to the wealthy elites who run the show as the homeless people camped outside their offices.

Anybody who claims we're not ready for a UBI yet is living in a bubble.

I'm at a point where money doesn't matter to me anymore except in the sense of retirement. I'm not rich by any means, I'd just rather live a life working on the most important problems in life, which these days I believe are mostly political/economic.

http://www.endwageslavery.org/

You're completely misconstruing what Larry Summers and the memo's author said.

The memo's author outlined some gender differences, and offered suggestions based on these differences to make working at Google more appealing to women.

Here's the excerpt from Larry Summer's speech that the ignorant masses and agenda-driven feminists have misconstrued to confirm their biases and advance their agenda:

> "So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them."

He is not saying that women are biologically less capable of pursuing math and science than men.

[1] http://www.harvard.edu/president/speeches/summers_2005/nber....

> But to espouse a stupid thing as 'women are less capable'

Where in the memo did he say this?

So is stating that women tend to be more empathic than men sexist and creating a hostile environment?

Fair point. I do think that as a male you're not really allowed to say that "prostitution empowers females", it seems that only females are allowed to say that.

One time a woman working at a prominent NGO in human trafficking told me that prostitution was oppressive to the woman. I told her that although that may be the case some of the time, there are women out there doing it by choice. She got really angry at me and went on an emotional tirade.

It's definitely one of those "touchy" PC subjects where honest debate is difficult without being shamed and called "sexist".

> Google aim to bring the diversity close to the male-female ratio in the applicant pool.

This is a laudable goal only if gender isn't used to discriminate against candidates. Discrimination on gender and race is wrong, period. Discriminating against men, whites, and Asians is still discrimination, and is not ok.

Nobody's going to disagree with you that environment and the individual play a strong role in affecting one's character. These straw man arguments are getting old.

> Are there any studies that concludes empathetic people become psychologists

I don't know, but it would follow from common sense that people who are better at X will be more likely to pursue a career where being good at X is beneficial.

> Also, is empathy a function of only gender

Definitely not. Empathy can most certainly be developed.

Bullying and teasing is not diversity of thought. Diversity of thought means being open to people with different perspectives and opinions. Bullying and teasing is unacceptable.

The author did not state or imply that his co-workers were undeserving of their jobs. He was simply stating that biological differences may influence one's career ambitions.

For example: Women tend to be more empathetic than men, and this may have something to do with why they're more likely to pursue psychiatry as a profession than men.

This statement does not imply that men shouldn't pursue psychiatry, just that they're probably less likely to do so. I don't see how that statement is sexist.

> affirmative action is practiced in colleges while companies practice seeking diversity out of the same pool of qualified applicants

I'm not sure what the difference there is. Google calls itself an "affirmative action employer", and thus likely engages in the same kind of affirmative action that colleges do.

It's unfortunate that you've been the brunt of such prejudices. But as long as affirmative action is conducted the way it is (discriminating in favor of underrepresented minorities), those prejudices will always exist.

A better and more fair way of promoting diversity is to keep the interview process strictly meritocratic and gender/race-blind, but engage in initiatives that help prepare underrepresented minorities (ideally from low income backgrounds) for the interview process and encourage them to apply. My one stipulation would be that these programs should be open to anyone, rather than being restricted by race/gender.

Just because women tend to be naturally more empathetic than men doesn't mean that men aren't fit to be psychologists. It just means that more women will pursue that profession.

> Generalizing characteristics of people based on their gender is harmful

So we should completely deny that there are differences between genders?

I strongly disagree that we should be denying reality.

The channel he voiced the memo was apparently opt-in, thus I don't see that as inappropriate.

If an opposing viewpoint backed by facts and evidence make you feel alienated, then the problem is not with the person who presented the facts. Affirmative action by definition discriminates in favor of women and underrepresented racial minorities, and this is simply a fact - the very definition of affirmative action itself.

I'm a huge proponent of diversity in the sense of embracing people with different perspectives and ideas. Deciding that you need X% of females and Y% of colored people does not make you a proponent of diversity, except in the shallow sense of wanting some set of racial representation. The strongest advocates of this form of racial diversity in my experience tend to actually be the most hostile towards diversity of opinions - like all the people deeming this memo sexist who fail to bring up any coherent argument backing up their claims (since most of them never read the document).

And one of the points of the memo was that we need to de-moralize diversity and allow people to have an honest discussion over it (which he ironically got fired over).

Diversity of thought > Diversity of appearance

> Those who study 14-16 hrs day to get into top universities aren't looking for minimum wage jobs at fast food chains.

Well obviously. They study 14-16 hours/day so that they don't have to be minimum wage workers at fast food chains, because that's the only option they'll have if they go to a "shit" school.

With a UBI, the bottom rung will no longer have to work those humiliating minimum wage jobs. They'll have the freedom to pursue their own interests, whether that be entrepreneurship, the arts, etc. Those corporate wage slaves working 14 hours/day will probably work less, maybe even only part-time. Even if nothing changes, at least the option to walk away without having to stress about money will be there.

That being said, UBI isn't the solution to all of society's problems. I just think its the most urgent policy decision that needs to be implemented due to its simplicity and massive implications.

Right. And just look at Trump. He adamantly denied Obama's U.S. citizenship, joked about grabbing women by the genitals, made fun of a war vet for being captured, mocked a disabled person, etc. His wife has nude pictures. They're president and first lady. People are fed up with political correctness, and the bubble is starting to burst.

Apologies if the presentation was unclear, will see if I can make that clearer.

> Additionally, a workplace works best without the friction of being a place for the discussion of politics or controversial topics. Let alone "innocuous" jokes.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. I prefer workplaces, or any environment for that matter, where we all respect each other enough to be open to the discussion of any topic and not easily offended over stupid meaningless jokes. That does not mean that one has to share their political beliefs or be pestered to engage in controversial debate - but a culture where everyone has to watch out for every little thing they say because any non-PC mark could be misconstrued and used as grounds for firing simply because someone deemed it offensive is intellectually hostile, unhealthy, and not the type of environment I want to be in.

> The author is upset that he is not greeted with hugs and applause for his memo. So what?

That's not why the author is upset. The author got fired.

Open communists? Interesting, I've never met any of those. Perhaps Silicon Valley and California are a lot different in that regards to NYC, where declaring yourself a communist is sacrilege.

That was simply a list of topics that PC culture has deemed indisputable and heresy to even question. The topic of whether or not they're appropriate in a work environment is a whole different discussion.

The Google memo was pertaining to their own company's diversity policy, and hence should be fair game for discussion. If that makes you feel uncomfortable, then the Obama quote at the bottom of the article summarizes my thoughts.

That's essentially the problem that the article is trying to bring attention to - our culture of intellectual hostility.

The only way this will ever change is if people stop caving in to political correctness.

I realize it's a prisoner's dilemma in that individually it's in nobody's best interest to speak out, but that's an incredibly selfish mindset. We need to start valuing integrity and doing the right thing. It was never in any slaveholder's best interest to speak out against slavery, or in any white person's best interest to speak out against racism in a Southern community in the early 1900s after a lynching - but speaking out was the right thing to do and should be commended.

Essentially what you're saying is that, because he's a white male, his opinion on the matter isn't taken as seriously. In other words, this is a clear case of sexism/racism.

Summary of results from prostitution decriminalization experiment:

* Female gonorrhea rates decreased 40% * Reported rape offenses decreased 30% * No evidence that decriminalization increases human trafficking

> She has a theory, though, in that while she knows for some men rape is about power, "I think the argument that we're making is that that might not be true for all men, and for some, these activities could be substitutes."

> In other words, for some men, rape may be just about sex. And if there's a legal and accessible market for it, the number of rapes in a community may go down. This has not been a popular theory or study. And for many, it challenges the notion that rape is about violence and power, and not sex. "So I consider myself a feminist, but I think this finding angers a lot of feminists," Shah said. "It is a very controversial idea."

What the hell is this "rape has nothing to do with sex" nonsense and why does challenging this absurd assertion anger feminists? How removed from reality do you have to be to believe that forcing sexual intercourse on someone has nothing to do with sexual attraction?

But back to the topic of criminalization, it's downright disingenuous to conflate prostitution with human trafficking. And I don't believe the government should be in the business of imposing its moral whims on the decisions of consenting adults.

I disagree. It's impossible to critique certain issues such as those pertaining to gender without offending people. But if someone is going to get offended because someone presented an alternative viewpoint to what they believe, than that's their problem.

Imagine if we weren't allowed to debate, say, programming languages or SQL vs. NoSQL because one side needs to be coddled and can't take the heat. That's essentially what we're doing with "diversity" policies and gender dynamics.

Diversity and gender issues are one of those sacred issues that for whatever reason are not allowed to be challenged

It's incredibly ironic that a company that apparently cares about diversity enough to have a "Vice President for Diversity" fired an employee for presenting an opposing viewpoint - to their diversity policy of all things.

Further evidence that Google and the other large institutions don't actually give a rat's ass about "diversity". Diversity has absolutely nothing to do with diversity of thought, and is only concerned with normalizing racial/gender composition to present the illusion that discrimination and biological variation are non-existent (except for discrimination against males, whites, and Asians, because for some reason it's not considered discrimination if it affects them). It's not about doing the right thing, it's about PR - hence the decision to cave in to whatever the pitchforks are demanding.

It's a shame that honest criticism of diversity policies and gender issues is considered taboo enough to get someone fired. If we really cared about diversity, then we'd welcome opposing viewpoints and counter them with facts, not silencing. We have a culture of anti-intellectualism and dogmatism around certain topics that for whatever reason are considered sacred and not allowed to be challenged (ie. political correctness), and its disgraceful.

Relevant video: Peter Thiel: What is Multiculturalism Really About? [1996] https://youtu.be/E6cxRYgqfHY

I only skimmed through Part I, but why is the author hiding the professor's and dean's name? Nothing is going to change if the guilty aren't publicly outed. (Obviously names should be accompanied by evidence to support the accusation)

> things are better than ever in thousands of years of Korean history.

This has to be the weakest and most ridiculous argument commonly used to justify the status quo. Are you implying that all of the suffering outlined in this article is necessary in order for citizens to not be starving and society to advance?

Same logic could be applied to 17th century conquistadors exterminating Native American populations and American plantation owners whipping their slaves. Sure there are some downsides like the whole human rights issue of genocide and slavery, but things are so much better now than they were hundreds of years ago!