Google fires diversity critic

[Arenis]

While I generally disagree with the conservative spectrum of ideologies, it's rather tiresome to see people and news-agencies mislabel the text. It's neither 'anti-diversity' or 'diversity critic'. Diversity is not the issue, according to the writer; he even acknowledges the advantage of it. He is however, critical of the way the diversity-goal is being worked towards. He then gives his personal reasoning, which could be a lot more nuanced I agree (and I certainly don't agree with all of his reasoning).

[Teleros]

I don't see anything indicating that this was done on company time.

What, you think all the things the author of the 10-page memo complains about happened only out of office hours ?

Just as an example though, here's the first sentence in the section titled "Google's Biases":

"At Google, we talk so much about unconscious bias as it applies to race and gender, but we rarely discuss our moral biases."

Original document.

[Elegiac]

What, you think all the things the author of the 10-page memo complains about happened only out of office hours ?

Just as an example though, here's the first sentence in the section titled "Google's Biases":

"At Google, we talk so much about unconscious bias as it applies to race and gender, but we rarely discuss our moral biases."

Original document.

I was referring to the writing of said piece.

[LMuhlen]

I work with women who are software engineers, and they do as good a job, and sometimes better (they tend to communicate more) than men.

Shhhh... they are exactly the same as men. EXACTLY the same!! If anything they are more the same a man than men themselves.

Can't... distinguish... mustn't... distinguish...

They don't communicate more. NO!! That's inappropriate!!

The same... at everything...

Must menstruate to be the same... Must find a way to bleed... brb!

[GreenJesus]

I don't know why he exposed himself considering he knew who the audience he intended to read it... what did he expect? The diversity office and SJW's to go "ooh wow you are so right dude."??? he works for google... you can't be anonymous on google's servers dude.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

While I agree with some of what he has in the manifesto I think the problem is that you cannot stereotype an entire gender. I work with women who are software engineers, and they do as good a job, and sometimes better (they tend to communicate more) than men.

Are women/men different in their natural dispositions? Yes. Are some men more sensitive to people's emotions and more communicative? Yes. Are some women more logically minded and have comparative Emotional IQ to men? Yes...

So if these women want to work for a software company, or in science, or other STEM fields, I do not think men should be discouraging that. And this manifesto, whether his intention or not, is doing exactly that.

I think it's sad that it's been represented as such. The manifesto itself actually want more diversity - as you say yourself, women tend to communicate more. What the author claim in his document is that culturally, we've made places like google more attractive mostly to male employees. Instead of trying to make it more attractive through its culture, google tries to fight against that through arbitrary quota, which feels like both groups are being discriminated against.

I don't see the author making the claim that it's impossible for women to work in the tech industry as is. In fact, he says that there are women in the industry that are happy with how it is right now. But he also feels that there could be more if only Google made the effort of changing its toxic culture to be more inclusive rather than exclusive.

[Lulbalance]

At least 50% of people in any given country would consider themselves conservative. how are you promoting diversity by only ever employing progressive liberals?

Completely false, at least by the definition of American social conservatism. Can't believe people didn't call you on that made up stat, lol.

[Deleted]

You have freedom of speech from government interference. you are not free from consequences. Google is a company and it is free to fire people who hurt it's brand, which this douche definitely did.

So if Google decides to do a 180 and fires all their arab workers because potential customers dont like arabs (in which case they hurt the business), youll hearthfully agree aswell? Or only if the dice rolls your way?

[TheTaurenOrc]

welp just as I expected a beta cuck if I ever saw one. No wonder this keyboard warrior had so much free time to write a manifesto on whats supposed to be a quick internal way of sharing memes for lols.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

I should qualify that I do not believe in a quota system/affirmative action; I think they are well meaning, but create more problems in the long run... (like Asian people being turned down from some colleges recently).

I think the main problem, really, with the manifesto is tone/tact and some amount of stereotyping both men and women... Some men are going to be natural nurturers, and some women are going to be natural "problem solvers", or whatever other male stereotype exists.

People should be what they want to be... not what society expects them to be.

It is true that the manifesto feels aggressive at time. Perhaps that is the reason why it created such emotional, widespread reactions.

One of the issues with how the manifesto present data is that it acts as though they were universally true. Obviously, when looking more carefully at the evidence he presents, the picture shows a tangent, not a stone-set truth. So I do agree that the issues seems to come essentially from how it was presented rather than what was presented.

Yet this makes me uneasy. Are we genuinely going to close the door to something that would genuinely upgrade our society's workplace atmosphere?

[Jimmy Woods]

The guy may make a few decent points, but as soon as he mentions women having lower IQ then men it doesn't matter. Even if women have lower IQ then men why would that matter for their engineering job or coding job? Not everyone working at google needs to be super smrt.

My favorite line:

[9] Yes, in a national aggregate, women have lower salaries than men for a variety of reasons. For the same work though, women get paid just as much as men. Considering women spend more money than men and that salary represents how much the employees sacrifices (e.g. more hours, stress, and danger), we really need to rethink our stereotypes around power.

Women be shopping. Even if we assume true, what is the relevance?
One of the more interesting points he brings up is about what he claims that men more often then women devote more of their lives into their work. Interesting subject but I'd just wonder does working more make you a better worker or a more valuable employee? Where are the studies that show these connections? Maybe these men work more because they have nothing going on in their lives outside work? I could go into lots of anecdotal evidence about this issue, but unlike the author I'd rather base my stance on facts and not feelings.

Also

[7] Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”

I know [7] is refering to "the left" which he claims Google aligns with, but Google and communism LOLOL. Google's one of the filthiest capitalist corporations in the world. As a liberal that loves the free market and capitalism it's truly amazing how so many of America's leading corporations get demonized by conservatives for perceived liberal ideologies yet they employ so many Americans at great wages and make tons of profit and are socially conscious compared to say the conservative President's businesses that hire cheap unskilled foreign labor so upper management get all the gains.

[Dextroden]

I should qualify that I do not believe in a quota system/affirmative action; I think they are well meaning, but create more problems in the long run... (like Asian people being turned down from some colleges recently).

I think the main problem, really, with the manifesto is tone/tact and some amount of stereotyping both men and women... Some men are going to be natural nurturers, and some women are going to be natural "problem solvers", or whatever other male stereotype exists.

People should be what they want to be... not what society expects them to be.

So when people have grievances, they are supposed to watch their tone? Or is it with people opinions like these?

I ask really because you reminded me the phrase "tone policing" was a thing before. Were people that didn't like the way things were with diversity supposed to mind their tone?

Or can we plunge deeper and the new age racism of "You have white privilege" is the reason he should mind his tone?

[Illana]

I should qualify that I do not believe in a quota system/affirmative action; I think they are well meaning, but create more problems in the long run... (like Asian people being turned down from some colleges recently).

I think the main problem, really, with the manifesto is tone/tact and some amount of stereotyping both men and women... Some men are going to be natural nurturers, and some women are going to be natural "problem solvers", or whatever other male stereotype exists.

People should be what they want to be... not what society expects them to be.

Idealism ahhhhhhh, how naive.

You're never going to get a cultural vacuum where people are not influenced by their environment.

[ro9ue]

While I agree with some of what he has in the manifesto I think the problem is that you cannot stereotype an entire gender. I work with women who are software engineers, and they do as good a job, and sometimes better (they tend to communicate more) than men.

Are women/men different in their natural dispositions? Yes. Are some men more sensitive to people's emotions and more communicative? Yes. Are some women more logically minded and have comparative Emotional IQ to men? Yes...

So if these women want to work for a software company, or in science, or other STEM fields, I do not think men should be discouraging that. And this manifesto, whether his intention or not, is doing exactly that.

I agree with most of what he said.

I'm not even sure if what you're saying is disagreeing with what he said. He's not stereotyping at all. He actually makes the distinction you made in your second paragraph about natural dispositions.

Again, not sure how he's discouraging women from working in those fields, and even if he was, do you think women are so fragile that if one person was discouraging them they would completely change their whole career path? I think that's the oddest thing about a viewpoint like this. Often the people on the side of women having equal opportunity treat women, at least subconsciously, as a fragile gender that can't handle anything within the ballpark of negativity.

The guy simply states men and women, statistically speaking, pursue different fields. Not sure what's wrong with that. I'm sure there are plenty of fields where women dominate men, and I don't think we should be like, let's try to make it 50/50. Any time a quota of any sort is instituted, standards are compromised.

[Dextroden]

@Connal

Society expects you to call diversity quotas, affirmative action and LGBT good things. (This is not a personal endorsement nor mocking of these things. Just that western society expects you to call those things good.)

So. Should someone accept them because western society demands or else you are a racist, sexist, misogynist or whatever terms that make you a despicable person that should be ignored?

[Elegiac]

@Connal

Society expects you to call diversity quotas, affirmative action and LGBT good things. (This is not a personal endorsement nor mocking of these things. Just that western society expects you to call those things good.)

Clearly it doesn't since criticism of these things is extremely prevalent at most levels of discussion.

[Dextroden]

No, I think that if anything has merit, but might hurt someone's emotions, the logical/practical use is of more value than someone's emotions. But that's just me...

So if scientists discover that there is a part of The brain that draws people to crime or harm of others and it was prolific in one ethnicity over others (Not naming any), should that research be rendered defunct by emotions even if the research holds up?

I just recall you are a person that doesn't like emotion in science. Like climate change.

[Dextroden]

Clearly it doesn't since criticism of these things is extremely prevalent at most levels of discussion.

And if you quoted all of my post, you'd see the part where criticising these things tends to get you a scarlet letter.

Or, even better. Why did this guy lose his job and was immediately deemed racist by certain posters?

[ro9ue]

It is true that the manifesto feels aggressive at time. Perhaps that is the reason why it created such emotional, widespread reactions.

One of the issues with how the manifesto present data is that it acts as though they were universally true. Obviously, when looking more carefully at the evidence he presents, the picture shows a tangent, not a stone-set truth. So I do agree that the issues seems to come essentially from how it was presented rather than what was presented.

Yet this makes me uneasy. Are we genuinely going to close the door to something that would genuinely upgrade our society's workplace atmosphere?

I don't think its responsible for us to attribute any intent. Whether good or ill. I don't think it sounded aggressive. It seemed like a pretty rational essay to me.

Truth is, there's a lot of people making similar rational arguments out there that are perfectly reasonable positions to have debated, but there's an aura of hatred out there that labels any dissenting opinion as an evil attack, which is why I'm assuming they tried to remain anonymous. When I heard about this originally it was on CNN, and the commentators were so incredibly irrational, I already knew if I looked his memo up, I'd probably just find some innocuous text. Of course I was right. And not even surprised. The words describing this were "Misogynistic, Ridiculous, Hate-filled, Offensive" etc.

As hard as I might try, I can't see how any reasonable person thinks what was in that document was in any way offensive.


I also read the CEO response, and while I think he hid a bit behind the "Code of conduct" rule, I still give him some credit that he said he agrees with some of the memo. We're in a climate now where denouncing a gender-related critique anything short of pure evil will not suffice. He at least didn't wholesale disagree, so I think that's baby steps in the right direction.

I can't foresee myself not using the services Google provides, but their recent issues with YouTube censorship along with this is just frankly disappointing.

[Dextroden]

I think "good" should come from actions/merit/use... not a directive from society.

- - - Updated - - -



No, it should not be defunct. Since there is actual data that points to it... that is exactly emotions > logic/data, which I am against.

So, why do people keep summoning the specter of eugenics to taint conversation about biology? Why do you seem fine with that?

Even if his statements might not be the most rainbow producing ones, it's not like he said "Science says women can't do coding".