James Damore Suing Google, do you think he has a case?

[HumbleDuck]

Define the word and present your logic then, because I know what positive discrimination is, and yes, it is discrimination, that's why it has "discrimination" as part of the name. If you want to substantiate why positive discrimination should be allowed, go right ahead. I doubt you will be able to. This always bombs right in the face of whoever tries to educate the unwashed masses on the inherently illogical construct.

That's some next level reasoning right there!
I already told you what the difference is.

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Just because you flap the word "positive" in front of discrimination doesn't make it all off a sudden not discrimination. Just because you and others deem this form of discrimination acceptable also doesn't make "positive discrimination" not discriminatory. Yes, it is exactly the same thing as "normal" discrimination, its just that you happen to support it.

Actually it does. Two different words with two very different meanings.

[Deleted]

That's some next level reasoning right there!
I already told you what the difference is.

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Actually it does. Two different words with two very different meanings.

Yea no, its not positivediscrimination it is positive discrimination. The only thing that differs is that you happen to agree with said discrimination.

[Levelfive]

Plenty of things, like mechanical aptitude, show notable gender differences (and are also linked to adrogens). Plenty of abilities also do not develop because of preferences (but when people are forced into developing them by their circumstances they do it just fine). They do not necessarily need to be separated in this particular context.

So, you got no studies to support your claim i take it?

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Equality/egalitarianism in one area does not necessarily extends to any other area.

The wikipedia page you linked uses this source for the androgen claim https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3270350/ which is the same one referenced earlier that is covered by the meta-analysis paper I linked. Your source does include this section, though:

"Socialization Effects on Spatial Ability

Several types of evidence suggest that spatial abilities are influenced by social experiences. Sex differences in spatial ability have been seen to depend on socioeconomic status (SES), with differences apparent in children from middle and high SES backgrounds, but not in children from low SES backgrounds (Levine, Vasilyeva, Lourenco, Newcombe, & Huttenlocher, 2005). SES effects were suggested to result in part from access to experiences that facilitate spatial ability.

The experiences most often suggested to contribute to spatial ability include play with boys’ toys (e.g., construction sets, videogames) and engagement in boy-typed activities (e.g., sports) that encourage manipulation and exploration of the environment (e.g., Baenninger & Newcombe, 1989; Connor & Serbin, 1977). The link between spatial ability and aspects of sex-typed activities is weak-to-moderate (e.g., Newcombe, Bandura, & Taylor, 1983), with some variability and inconsistency that likely reflects methodological and conceptual issues (Baenninger & Newcombe, 1989; Voyer, Nolan, & Voyer, 2000). Nevertheless, correlations are not evidence of causation: engagement in boy-typed activities might enhance spatial ability or instead reflect that ability, that is, children with high spatial ability might be attracted to toys that allow manipulation and exploration, or a third factor (such as early hormones or gendered socialization) may influence both of them. Some longitudinal data suggest that the causal path is from abilities to activities rather than the reverse (Newcombe & Dubas, 1992).

It is, therefore, important to note direct experimental evidence that spatial ability can be enhanced by experience. In particular, spatial ability can be improved through practice and training, with generalization beyond training stimuli. For example, playing an action video game was seen to improve both spatial attention and mental rotation ability (Feng, Spence, & Pratt, 2007). Training benefits both sexes, with women sometimes benefiting more than men, so that training may eliminate a sex difference (Lawton, 2010).

Finally, stereotypes that emphasize women’s cognitive inferiority appear to impair their performance. This has been demonstrated in experimental studies of both math and spatial abilities, in which test-taking conditions are manipulated to emphasize or de-emphasize cognitive sex differences and their malleability. Women who were told that sex differences in math have genetic causes performed worse on math tests than those who were told that the differences have experiential causes (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2006). Women who were told that men outperform women on spatial tasks performed worse on a mental rotations test than women who received neutral information, and the poorer performance of the group given negative stereotypes appeared to reflect increased emotional load (Wraga, Helt, Jacobs, & Sullivan, 2007). The effect of stereotype information on spatial sex differences has also been seen in judgments of line orientation (Campbell & Collaer, 2009)."

It is one thing to claim there's a discrepancy, it is another thing entirely to dishonestly claim we know there's a biological mechanism that accounts for it, because we simply do not--as it turns out you can make those differences disappear altogether in a controlled experiment (which REALLY makes biological explanations tenuous):

"I think it’s important to acknowledge the very rightful discomfort that arises when scientific studies attempt to trace such differences to biologically determined origins. Yet, across decades of research, no biological cause has actually been identified as a suitable explanation for the spatial reasoning discrepancy. Studies regarding testosterone and mental rotation, for example, found inconsistent or absent effects across cultures, prompting inquiries into “differing cultural values” to account for the results. And gaps between men’s and women’s scores on some spatially-geared tests have significantly shrunk in the past few decades, which is interesting because noticeable evolutionary or nature-based development might take thousands of decades to take effect. (“Nurture”-based conditions are of course rapidly changing.) Still though, the gap has lingered, and a satisfying and empirically-supported explanation as to “what gives” was not achieved until 2008, when researchers eliminated the performance gap under a single simple condition.

In a now-famous study, psychologists at the University of Berlin falsely told participants that they had been selected to participate in a series of tests “to measure the ability to put oneself in someone else’s position” - a fabrication devised to avoid confounding factors in their real study on gender identity priming. They prepared a text describing a day in the life of a “stereotypical woman” who takes care of her family, works part time, and is insightful, helpful, and agreeable. They also prepared an equivalently-structured text outlining the activities of a stereotypical manly man who is tough, risk-taking, and does weight training after work. Subjects were randomly given one of the two texts, and then asked: “If you were the person described in the text, which adjectives would you use to describe yourself?”

Soon after participants described themselves with either the male- or female-associated traits, they were asked to take a mental rotation test presented as independent of the first part of the study, supposedly to measure their personal spatial aptitude. On this mental rotation test, women who were “primed” with the female identity scored an average of 3.86 on the exercise, compared to the female-primed males’ average of 5.14. Okay, expected. But then when primed with the male text, women scored an average of 5.49, while men scored 5.53… wait a second, what?

As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman. (well then.) Although this study is of course not a logically definitive answer to all things “nature versus nurture,” it does add a tremendous structural asset to the growing mountain of evidence that “natural” ability differences are confounded by identity and subconscious self-stereotyping. Demographic expectations may be subtle or overt, but they are omnipresent, and they are likely much more powerful than most of us have ever considered."

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry...eotypical-male

https://link.springer.com/article/10...199-008-9448-9

The whole androgen / extreme male brain theory / autism / systematizing / things over people link also seems to fall apart:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27460188 :

"There is a marked male preponderance in autism spectrum conditions. The extreme male brain theory and the fetal androgen theory of autism suggest that elevated prenatal testosterone exposure is a key contributor to autistic traits. The current paper reports findings from two separate studies that test this hypothesis.

METHODS:
A parent-report questionnaire, the Childhood Autism Spectrum Test (CAST), was employed to measure autistic traits in both studies. The first study examined autistic traits in young children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a condition causing unusually high concentrations of testosterone prenatally in girls. Eighty one children with CAH (43 girls) and 72 unaffected relatives (41 girls), aged 4-11 years, were assessed. The second study examined autistic traits in relation to amniotic testosterone in 92 typically developing children (48 girls), aged 3-5 years.

RESULTS:
Findings from neither study supported the association between prenatal androgen (testosterone) exposure and autistic traits. Specifically, young girls with and without CAH did not differ significantly in CAST scores and amniotic testosterone concentrations were not significantly associated with CAST scores in boys, girls, or the whole sample.

CONCLUSIONS:
These studies do not support a relationship between prenatal testosterone exposure and autistic traits. These findings augment prior research suggesting no consistent relationship between early androgen exposure and autistic traits."

And finally:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...es-us-smarter/

https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...the-workplace/

https://www.cio.com/article/3191607/...d-results.html

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-fu...ersity-matters

http://medicieffect.com/

https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter

https://blog.capterra.com/7-studies-...the-workplace/

https://www.ft.com/content/4f4b3c8e-...7-00144feabdc0

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/da...-soup-0513.pdf

[Lochton]

Forced diversity gone as expected.

[Milchshake]

As in, a bouncer for a club or something?

I'm thinking more of one of those ushers at football stadiums. Or maybe a wal-mart greeter. Both are great gigs for retired people looking to supplement their income.

[rda]

That's some next level reasoning right there!
I already told you what the difference is.

You simply postulated that positive discrimination "unlike discrimination is neither unjust nor prejudice". That's not persuasive in the least.

Like I said, I know what positive discrimination is, and yes, it is discrimination. If you want to argue that it isn't, you better say something other than simply postulate "it is not discrimination".

[luckydevours]

At first i was sympathetic to the guy, that maybe he was just misunderstood. Anyway, my opinion was that Google shouldn't have fired him right away (i am from Germany, employees have rights here, and i don't like this "hire and fire" mentality).

But now that he has made himself the poster boy for the alt-right, fuck him! I hope he gets humiliated in court and has to spend all the money he collected from his supporters to pay his legal costs.

[ati87]

At first i was sympathetic to the guy, that maybe he was just misunderstood. Anyway, my opinion was that Google shouldn't have fired him right away (i am from Germany, employees have rights here, and i don't like this "hire and fire" mentality).

But now that he has made himself the poster boy for the alt-right, fuck him! I hope he gets humiliated in court and has to spend all the money he collected from his supporters to pay his legal costs.

I don't think that even in Europe he would have been able to keep his job after acting like a toxic shit.

[modernshaman]

As most corporations in the US still lean conservative,

Stopped reading there. You have to be beyond insane to think that big corperations are right wing.

[Celista]

Stopped reading there. You have to be beyond insane to think that big corperations are right wing.

They are. A couple of west coast corporations and one or two with liberal tendencies in the northeast are outliers.

[luckydevours]

I don't think that even in Europe he would have been able to keep his job after acting like a toxic shit.

Atleast in Germany i think you cannot fire someone for such a single offense if he had a clean record up until that point, but i may be wrong.

[modernshaman]

They are. A couple of west coast corporations and one or two with liberal tendencies in the northeast are outliers.

"A couple"
Do you know how many corperations promote gay marriage? Promote more immigration? Whats conservative about any of these companies.

[Shalcker]

The wikipedia page you linked uses this source for the androgen claim https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3270350/ which is the same one referenced earlier that is covered by the meta-analysis paper I linked.

You're making multiple assumptions that have nothing to do with my argument.

Your source does include this section, though:

I'll repeat point you seem to be constantly ignoring - biological factors only decide part of ability/preference.

Thus having other factors also affecting same abilities is perfectly fine; noone denies they exist.

It is one thing to claim there's a discrepancy, it is another thing entirely to dishonestly claim we know there's a biological mechanism that accounts for it

No, we decidedly do not know biological mechanism that accounts for it; all we have is "presence of this stuff during development mostly produces such traits/abilities/preferences". Some of those normally happen to be present in males, other happen to be present in females. Quite reasonable theory.

We're not at the point where we can say "this is how presence of androgen affects brain development, here are the areas affected, here is path through which it produces observable behavioural traits" - i would say we're at least decades away from that, if not centuries.

as it turns out you can make those differences disappear altogether in a controlled experiment (which REALLY makes biological explanations tenuous)

You're talking about subset of observed "differences"; it would be nice to see replication of this study too.

Can you also show reverse - men doing better at verbal parts of the test after being primed female? I mean, if it is all society and stereotypes, surely such effect would appear as well?

...and then we can just have men everywhere, because everyone can perform just the same, and in your example men still show slightly better performance then primed women.

There is also problem with consistency of female performance in some tasks...

The whole androgen / extreme male brain theory / autism / systematizing / things over people link also seems to fall apart:

Umm, all that this "disproves" is androgen theory as likely source of autism; nothing to do with "extreme male brain / systematizing / things over people".

[Lumicide]

Maybe white conservative men should stop saying dumb shit which is causing them to rub people the wrong way?

White liberal men surely have no problem getting hired.

Yea, fuck those conservatives and their wrong-think. People's opinions must be uniform, we must all agree on the party line!

[Themius]

Yea, fuck those conservatives and their wrong-think. People's opinions must be uniform, we must all agree on the party line!

No... they don't have to be... but if they are stupid I mean why not bash them on it?

[Mormolyce]

still waiting for you to show a quote that was offensive or hateful from this man

Are you confusing me with Themius?

But seriously, what is "crowd control"? I mean my first thought was riot police.

[ipaq]

As in, a bouncer for a club or something?

He wish =D.

Usually they ended just being idiots on welfare.

[Levelfive]

You're making multiple assumptions that have nothing to do with my argument.

I'll repeat point you seem to be constantly ignoring - biological factors only decide part of ability/preference.

Thus having other factors also affecting same abilities is perfectly fine; noone denies they exist.

No, we decidedly do not know biological mechanism that accounts for it; all we have is "presence of this stuff during development mostly produces such traits/abilities/preferences". Some of those normally happen to be present in males, other happen to be present in females. Quite reasonable theory.

Your post betrays your lack of understanding for what you've linked, what you've said, and what you've read. The point you are consistently ignoring is that there's no conclusive evidence that biological factors play any part in abilities and preferences--that doesn't mean they don't, it means no link has ever been established (and we've been searching and searching), particularly when those differences shrink rapidly with changing social conditions, or disappear entirely in a controlled experiment for even the largest gap. Differences exist, but we simply don't yet know the cause. And given how small those differences are, even now at what is really the beginning of women participating in what have always been male domains, it's illogical bordering on asinine to assert they account for an 80/20 split, whether they're biological or not--as has been noted elsewhere, you hardly need to look to a biological explanation that has failed to materialize after decades and decades of research when the historical and legal record of women's systematic and structural exclusion is glaringly in evidence. There's nothing particularly new or surprising about some men insisting with bad science that their overrepresentation is biologically ordained as a way to protect a status quo that has meant a lower bar for them, especially as they see a default affirmative action for white men that they have always enjoyed slip away, but it is indeed slipping away, and good riddance.

[Shalcker]

Your post betrays your lack of understanding for what you've linked, what you've said, and what you've read. The point you are consistently ignoring is that there's no conclusive evidence that biological factors play any part in abilities and preferences--that doesn't mean they don't, it means no link has ever been established (and we've been searching and searching), particularly when those differences shrink rapidly with changing social conditions, or disappear entirely in a controlled environment for even the largest gap.

You're completely wrong on this part. There are multiple twin studies, and also various adoption studies showing quite noticeable effects from "nature" distinct from "nurture" part.

Can you overcome those? Sometimes you can; sometimes you cannot. It is uphill struggle, and stuff you use to make it easier for those struggling can often be used by those who didn't struggle before to get even better or to get to desired performance faster.

Differences exist, but we simply don't yet know the cause.

You're selling science short. There are multiple way to get "nurture" out of equation; what is left has to be "nature".

And given how small those differences are, even now at what is really the beginning of women participating in what have always been male domains, it's illogical bordering on asinine to assert they account for an 80/20 split, whether they're biological or not--as has been noted elsewhere, you hardly need to look to a biological explanation that has failed to materialize after decades and decades of research when the historical and legal record of women's systematic and structural exclusion is glaringly in evidence.

Plenty of biological explanations materialized; not all of them were accepted. Just like not all "social" explanations were - in more equal countries split grows, not shrinks, so "exclusion" is inadequate explanation.

How many levels of selection would you need for, as example, 5% ability/preference gap to end up with 20/80% split?

[Levelfive]

You're completely wrong on this part. There are multiple twin studies, and also various adoption studies showing quite noticeable effects from "nature" distinct from "nurture" part.

Can you overcome those? Sometimes you can; sometimes you cannot. It is uphill struggle, and stuff you use to make it easier for those struggling can often be used by those who didn't struggle before to get even better or to get to desired performance faster.

You're selling science short. There are multiple way to get "nurture" out of equation; what is left has to be "nature".

Plenty of biological explanations materialized; not all of them were accepted. Just like not all "social" explanations were - in more equal countries split grows, not shrinks, so "exclusion" is inadequate explanation.

They may have materialized, but they didn't hold up. Here's Damore's source for that claim, in case you're interested: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf Here's some analysis of that paper:

"In fact, Table 2 shows that, after controlling for human development index, the only gender equality-related factor that predicted gender differences was the ratio of female smokers. In other words, gender equality in general doesn’t change women’s personalities, or the difference between men and women. Rather, human development index changes men’s personalities much more than women’s.

That doesn’t support the claim that gender-liberal societies allow men and women to express innate differences more freely. If that interpretation were correct, women and men should diverge in gender-liberal societies independent of egalitarianism. Instead, men change personality in more egalitarian societies regardless of gender issues; women don’t.

How can we explain that? Maybe personality differences are mediated by power. It makes sense that relatively powerless individuals should be more agreeable and socially alert, less assertive, and more fearful/neurotic — that’s simply rational. How does it interplay with gender? In hierarchical societies, most men are (like most women) subordinate to a powerful minority, so the average man would act much like the average woman. In relatively egalitarian societies, men on average are less subject to oppression by other men, but women still remain low-powered on average relative to nearby men...That’s just one possible alternative interpretation. There are others. The point is, the study quoted by the author doesn’t come anywhere near demonstrating his claim." https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2.../#51440307591b

Here's an article that looks at the science of some of the "big five" personality traits the paper is based on and that feature prominently in Damore's memo (without even getting into the myriad criticisms of the big five's methodological flaws and scope): http://www.businessinsider.com/googl...science-2017-8

Empathy: "A 2000 review of 10 studies related to gender differences in empathy also suggests men and women don’t have innate differences in this area. The researchers found that such distinctions were only present in situations where the subjects were 'aware that they are being evaluated on an empathy-relevant dimension' or in which 'empathy-relevant gender-role expectations or obligations are made salient.' In other words, differences had to do with how people responded to expectations of them, not any inherent abilities. Adam Grant, a professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has also highlighted the fact that differences between men and women’s professional preferences are not genetically determined.

'The data on occupational interests do reveal strong male preferences for working with things and strong female preferences for working with people,' Grant wrote in a LinkedIn essay responding to Damore’s claims. “But they also reveal that men and women are equally interested in working with data.'"

Extroversion / Agreeableness: "In the memo, Damore suggested that women are biologically prone to express their extraversion as gregariousness instead of assertiveness, and to be more agreeable than men.

That difference, he claims, 'leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.' Again, Damore didn’t cite any evidence for this part of his argument. A 2005 analysis of 46 meta-analyses of gender differences suggests it’s false.

According to the American Psychological Association, one experiment in that analysis involved participants who were told that they would not be identified as male or female. Under those conditions, 'none conformed to stereotypes about their sex when given the chance to be aggressive.' The researchers found the opposite to be true, in fact: 'women were more aggressive and men were more passive,' they wrote.

And a meta-analysis of leadership effectiveness published in 2014 suggests that when it comes to others’ evaluations of leaders (as opposed to the leader’s own perception), 'women are rated as significantly more effective than men.' When looking at self-ratings, however, 'men rate themselves as significantly more effective than women rate themselves.' That suggests that context and learned expectations are responsible for some observed gender disparities."

Neuroticism: "Damore also suggested that women are biologically prone to feel higher levels of stress and anxiety, and posited that difference might contribute 'to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.'

The only source he gave for this information is Wikipedia. However, the misconception might have stemmed from analyses of the Revised NEO Personality inventory (the prominent personality test mentioned above).

On the test, according to a 2001 secondary analysis, women reported themselves to be higher in neuroticism. But those responses are based purely on self-perception (which is heavily influenced by social and cultural factors) so it’d be problematic to consider that a biological difference."

On the claim of work / life balance: “'Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average,'” Damore wrote.

As evidence for this, he cited a 2006 paper published in the British Journal of Guidance and Counseling.

That article highlights the fact that more women value a balance between their professional and home lives than men. It also suggests that men are more likely to make their careers their first priority. However, nowhere does that paper suggest that these preferences come from biological or evolutionary differences between the sexes.

In fact, it makes this caveat: 'They are differences of degree, with large overlaps between men and women. They are not fundamental qualitative differences, as often argued in the past in order to entirely exclude women from ‘male’ occupations such as management, the military and the professions.'"

Links included in the article.

Here's a paper that directly contradicts the claim that these traits are universal across cultures (from which we're supposed to conclude they must have biological causes): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...A6690/abstract

The nature instead of nurture claim loses explanatory power when differences shrink and disappear and aren't universal. You can make the claim that there are differences between men and women, but you can't--credibly--claim to know what accounts for them. The differences are small, shrinking, and thus far of unknown origin, so people should really stop misusing science--or even a veneer of it--as a cudgel against women and people of color to justify and maintain a retrograde and collapsing status quo.