
The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo - mimbs
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/the-most-common-error-in-coverage-of-the-google-memo/536181/?single_page=true
======
Chardok
Regardless on your opinions of the memo, this article nails it right on the
head; Gizmodo and other major news outlets handled this _very_ irresponsibly,
posting their version that had no citations, and leading the reader, even at
the very beginning, into forming the opinion that this was simply a guy being
"anti-diversity".

Whatever your thoughts on the subject are, it needs to be pointed out that
this type of journalism is absolutely _not_ neutral (even though they will
swear up and down that they are) and should be, at the very least, condemned
for doing so. This is and will be an increasingly difficult problem,
especially when people just read a headline and a summary.

~~~
wcummings
This article doesn't say anything about citations, unless I'm missing
something. I've read the memo, "citations" (some of them hardly qualify) and
all. "Anti-diversity" might be a little hyperbolic, but it's hard to argue it
is anything else _in good faith_.

The author feels comfortable making the claim _women are biologically more
neurotic_ , in a _professional setting_ , no less. His "citation" for this
fact is _Wikipedia_. This is unimaginative sexist bullshit that everyone has
heard before. That people feel the impulse to defend this is disgusting.

Whatever innate differences there are between men and women are small and
nowhere near as big a factor in the gender-ratio as say, arrogant weirdos
sending credos to their entire company declaring women unfit to work in their
industry.

~~~
mpweiher
> The author feels comfortable making the claim women are biologically more
> neurotic,

Nope. "Neuroticism" is a technical term, a big-five personality trait.
Everyone has it to some degree and having less is not necessarily better, just
like all the other traits.

What you are getting all riled about is "neurotic", which is related to a
psychiatric condition (although the term is apparently no longer used – who
knew?)

> declaring women unfit to work

Yeah, he didn't do that.

Please calm down and read the actual text. If things seem weird or rile-
worthy, maybe ask first. Or look.

I did a little writeup, [http://blog.metaobject.com/2017/08/the-science-
behind-manife...](http://blog.metaobject.com/2017/08/the-science-behind-
manifesto.html) there are probably others that are better.

EDIT: language

~~~
wcummings
I know what neuroticism is.

~~~
mpweiher
Fantastic!

So why did you then use "neurotic" and get all riled up about it when the
document says "neuroticism", which is (a) nothing to get riled up about and
(b) a simple scientific fact (as best we know)?

------
agentgt
What pains me is before reading this article I was slightly biased because of
previous articles.

Actually it doesn't pain me... it really pisses me off that so many journalist
are fooling people... particularly me.

When I read the bloomberg article (which I submitted to HN and now I want to
just bang my head on the table for doing it) I was actually slightly siding
with Google. Even though I was constantly telling myself "lets see the memo
before judging" I could feel myself making a biased assumption.

I'm so annoyed with myself.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I feel the same. When I first read the censored Gizmodo version, I thought to
myself, "Whoah, this guy is making up too many assumptions without any
references!" Later, when I found the original version with references, I felt
a bit stupid for judging him.

~~~
mpweiher
For me it was the other way around. I was aware of the references, so I just
nodded and moved on, not realizing how incendiary some of these things sound
when you don't have the context.

For example, "neuroticism" being just a technical term for a normally varying
personality trait, not "mental illness".

~~~
novembermike
Yeah, I was surprised to see that Neuroticism was a technical term for a
phenomenon with a well studied gender gap. If you don't know that it sounds
pretty mean.

------
alexandercrohde
This is an incredibly well-written article. I wish I had the emotional
distance and mastery of english express myself with such grace.

Unfortunately for me (and everyone) it takes me a lot longer to find the exact
words for my frustrations in a situation like this. So I end up wanting to say
inflammatory accusations like "PC-group-think witch-hunt," which captures my
anger but doesn't really convince anybody on the other side (but rather
escalates the tension).

The author cleverly brings both sides together by picking a starting point we
all agree "Accuracy in journalism matters" and dissecting how that value was
compromised [in this particular case] in order to promote another value:
"Diversity matters."

Paul Graham describes such a technique in his seminal essay.

[[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. If
you argue against censorship in general, you can avoid being accused of
whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to
censor. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use
of labels to prevent discussion. The spread of the term "political
correctness" meant the beginning of the end of political correctness, because
it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of
any of the specific heresies it sought to suppress.

]

~~~
agarden
Sometimes I think Conor Friedersdorf is my hero. He regularly turns out
articles on prickly topics with a cool, compassionate tone.

------
meri_dian
>"Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of more jobs for working-class
Americans. In service of that end, he has proposed canceling free-trade
agreements, building a wall to keep out immigrants, and eliminating lots of
environmental regulations. Critics who avow that they favor more jobs for the
working class, but oppose achieving more jobs through those specific means,
are not described as “anti-job,” especially when they suggest specific
alternatives for job-creation. Even if their alternatives would result in
fewer jobs than the Trump administration’s plans, that still wouldn’t make a
writeup of their proposal “an anti-job memo.”"

Great point. While reporting on this memo isn't 'fake news', it is an example
of reactionary, knee jerk, click bait journalism, which is a pernicious
problem that stifles nuanced debate, and is probably doing more damage to our
society than literal 'fake news'.

~~~
weberc2
Yeah, when I read through the HN comments from the Bloomberg post, I couldn't
believe how many people spoke about this guy as though he was an actual Nazi.
I can't imagine anyone honestly reading that article and coming to that
conclusion. It's almost like once someone signals that this guy is The Bad
Guy, reason and individual thought go out the window. Of course, I imagine
those folks would disagree with my characterization (and probably make all
manner of insinuations about my character or allegiances), which is admittedly
not very charitable. That said, there are only so many times you can watch the
same pattern of events unfold...

EDIT: In case people don't know what I mean by "pattern of events", I'm
thinking of cases like the Christakis/Yale fiasco where people make
reasonable, respectable, constructive critiques of progressive values and are
met with popular outrage.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
Seriously, it sounds like the author of this article is the first journalist
who actually read the article in full and reflected on its contents.
Unfortunately, it's a few days too late - the rest already spread wrong
summaries, the misinformation has been spread, and the author of the memo
fired.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
I think you are giving all the click-bait writers far too much of a benefit of
doubt. Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that they don't know
what they are doing.

They know exactly what they are doing, and what they are doing is creating
outrage and profiting from it in this eyeball-click-ad driven journalism
economy.

Very few are going to have the wherewithal to forego hundreds or thousands of
dollars in ad revenues for the sake of a slightly more gently or fairly worded
headline or article. The incentives just do not match up.

~~~
strictnein
Yep, and sadly even major news orgs like CNN are doing this now. Case in
point:

"Google CEO cuts vacation short to address controversial memo that argued
women aren't biologically fit for tech jobs "

[https://twitter.com/CNN/status/894904419766108161](https://twitter.com/CNN/status/894904419766108161)

"A Google engineer argued that women aren't biologically fit for tech jobs."

[https://twitter.com/CNN/status/894951392779141120](https://twitter.com/CNN/status/894951392779141120)

~~~
Danihan
This is intentional. It's intended to capture attention from people who will
feel a need to argue that the headline misrepresents the content of the memo
(which is does).

Then CNN converts that emotionalism and clicks and comments into ad dollars.

It's exactly why the media LOVES any controversial "wedge" issues. They
polarize people, and polarized people argue incessantly. And people who are
arguing == views and ad dollars.

~~~
tajen
Or is it intentional by the leaders of CNN to try to side with Google on that
case?

------
matchu
It's important to distinguish between what the memo's author says, and what
effect his words actually have. It _is_ an anti-diversity memo, even if it
isn't intended as one.

The author makes shaky statements about gender, reinforcing sexist
stereotypes. The author applies rationalist disclaimers, which enables
already-sexist readers to feel that their sexism is rational. And, most
distressingly, the author asserts that Google made a mistake hiring many of
the women who work there. Actively making your minority coworkers feel
unwelcome is an anti-diversity behavior, and it was an obvious and predictable
consequence of how he chose to communicate.

I don't claim to know the author's intent, or how he truly feels about the
women he works with. But, regardless of whether he's actually opposed to
diversity, we judge words by their consequences. These words are thoroughly
anti-diversity in consequence, and judging them in a vacuum is dangerously
naive.

~~~
Danihan
Define sexism...

Is believing men and women on average have different hormone levels and
generally speaking, this leads to different behaviors and proclivities,
sexist?

Is admitting there is _any_ difference between the two sexes, sexist?

Is using different pronouns for men and women sexist?

I honestly don't know where someone draws the line who finds this memo
"sexist."

~~~
matchu
I haven't decided yet whether I think the memo is sexist. But I'm confident
that, because of how it's written, sexist people who read it will feel
validated in their sexism.

It uses the same core argument as sexism: women are less suited to certain
tasks, perhaps biologically. And it reaches the same conclusion: we should
roll back our pro-diversity and pro-empathy programs. A sexist person who
reads this will therefore feel that it supports their views, and, because the
argument seems rationalist, they'll conclude that their poor treatment of
women is rationalist. That might not be the intent of the document, but it
_is_ a predictable outcome.

Words that validate sexist behavior, intentionally or unintentionally,
contribute to the problem. Regardless of the merit of the underlying idea, or
the valuable conversations it inspired, it's important to remember that the
memo itself did harm. It's appropriate that some people are focusing on that.

~~~
slavak
This idea of avoiding saying something because of how horrible people might
choose to interpret it is something I find, frankly, terrifying. This is going
beyond just censorship and going into the realm of trying to censor reality.

Where do you draw the line on something like this? Are we allowed to publish
statistics that show black people are proportionally more involved in crimes,
or is this taboo because a white supremacist might use it to claim blacks are
inherently criminal? What if you write something apparently neutral but some
terrible person somehow finds a way to twist it to their ends? Do we get to
condemn you ex-post-facto over this?

~~~
matchu
I'm not saying _don 't_ have these conversations. Rather, have them carefully,
and choose your words with the consequences in mind. There are many good and
thoughtful ways to talk about potential issues with Google's gender diversity
programs, but instead this memo made some _especially_ bad choices.

For one thing, the memo focuses on needlessly contentious issues, instead of
sticking to actionable arguments. It's valid to say that decreasing stress in
engineering and leadership positions might attract more women, because modern
women tend that value that more. But framing it as a _biological_ issue is
hard to prove, and doesn't help support his logistical point. It _only_ has
the consequence of hurting people.

The memo also presumes that Google's full-time diversity experts haven't even
thought of his concerns. He asserts that seeking out women necessarily lowers
the hiring bar for them, instead of asking "How are we mitigating the risk
that our pro-diversity push might _itself_ introduce bias into our ideally
gender-agnostic perf evaluations?" That's a valid question, and I'm sure
Google's diversity team has answers, and I'm sure that some people wouldn't be
satisfied with those answers. But jumping to the conclusion that Google's
women must be less qualified than the men, just because _he_ can't think of a
way to mitigate bias in the hiring pipeline, is self-centered and
disrespectful.

I'm very much in favor of a world where it's equally okay to express all
ideas! But that doesn't mean we should be equally okay with all modes of
expression. No matter which side we're on, we need to think first, then speak.
Given the meta-thesis of the memo (especially the "prioritize intent"
section), I'm not convinced that the author took much time to consider needs
beyond his own.

~~~
slavak
> It's valid to say that decreasing stress in engineering and leadership
> positions might attract more women, because modern women tend that value
> that more. But framing it as a biological issue is hard to prove, and
> doesn't help support his logistical point. It only has the consequence of
> hurting people.

What it sounds like you're saying is that saying women are on average more
sensitive to stress based on extensive scientific research which implies a
strong biological basis, is contentious and hurtful. But then for some reason
saying modern women tend to put more value on a stress-free environment, based
on nothing but an unsupported assertion, is somehow better?

I don't have a crystal ball, but I suspect you're being naive and that the
outrage would have been much the same no matter how he'd chosen to frame this
statement. The very assertion that men and women have some innate differences
that might be worth exploring seems to be tantamount to blasphemy --
particularly when coming from a man!

> The memo also presumes that Google's full-time diversity experts haven't
> even thought of his concerns. He asserts that seeking out women necessarily
> lowers the hiring bar for them, instead of asking "How are we mitigating the
> risk that our pro-diversity push might itself introduce bias into our
> ideally gender-agnostic perf evaluations?" That's a valid question, and I'm
> sure Google's diversity team has answers, and I'm sure that some people
> wouldn't be satisfied with those answers. But jumping to the conclusion that
> Google's women must be less qualified than the men, just because he can't
> think of a way to mitigate bias in the hiring pipeline, is self-centered and
> disrespectful.

This is just you projecting your presumed intentions on the author. At no
point in the memo did he claim or imply that Google's women are less qualified
than the men. The only paragraph that can really be taken to say that is the
part about "lowering the bar" for diversity candidates; Which is, admittedly,
an unfortunate choice of words in retrospect. However the same sentence
clarifies that the bar is "lowered" by decreasing the false-negative rate for
diversity candidates, meaning those that are accepted are still qualified at
the same standards. The sentence also includes a reference for this claim, but
this is unfortunately to an internal Google group so we don't know its
contents.

On the other hand, right at the start of the document the author takes pains
(including a big colorful picture to illustrate the point) to point out that
"you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level
distributions," which should make it pretty clear that he's NOT claiming
Google's female engineers are less qualified.

> I'm very much in favor of a world where it's equally okay to express all
> ideas! But that doesn't mean we should be equally okay with all modes of
> expression. No matter which side we're on, we need to think first, then
> speak. Given the meta-thesis of the memo (especially the "prioritize intent"
> section), I'm not convinced that the author took much time to consider needs
> beyond his own.

This is saying that one must choose his words like a politician and consider
the reaction of the world at large when distributing a personal opinion
document not intended for wide publication to a select group of individuals.
The idea that one's career might hinge on using the proper newspeak in such a
document is, frankly, terrifying to me. Do people have a right to be upset
about his choice of wording or angry at his opinions? Sure, absolutely! But
losing your career for this, over an opinion that is, arguably, not really
harmful or hateful and expressed in a relatively considerate tone, is
something else entirely.

~~~
matchu
Mm, thanks for calling out the false-negative thing! I think I misparsed that
the first time around and got confused between decreasing false negatives and
increasing false positives. That's embarrassing, sorry ^_^`

In any case, I think I made a mistake suggesting specific improvements to the
memo; lemme pop off the stack a bit:

It's not okay to publish a document to your coworkers that will predictably
make them feel unsafe. Full stop.

When you want to express an idea at work, you need to engage in empathy, and
try to express yourself in such a way that your coworkers will still feel safe
with you. If you can't figure out how to express an idea without hurting your
coworkers, then, yeah, you don't get to express it unless you figure something
out :/ That's an appropriate workplace policy, and I'm comfortable with the
general idea that freedom of expression is subject to some conditions. I know
not everybody agrees with that prioritization, though!

More importantly, I'm just tired of articles like this one dismissing the
social consequences lens outright. There's more than one valid issue being
raised in our community right now, and the importance of one doesn't
invalidate the others. Let's have both conversations: how to enable expression
of less common ideas, and how to ensure that we express them empathetically.
If we approach the problem thoughtfully, I think we can optimize for both :)

(BTW I edited this comment a lot during the first 30 minutes, and pretty
significantly changed its contents. Sorry if that ends up being an issue!)

~~~
slavak
I actually tend to mostly agree with you on this. I think the safest and most
rational policy is just to avoid discussing sensitive topics at work so as not
to risk creating a hostile atmosphere, and I don't consider this an
unreasonable restriction on freedom of expression. Talk politics and
immigration with your friends and family, not your teammates at the office.

My problem is that Google as a company, at least as far as the Mountain View
campus goes, apparently disagrees. My understanding -- and it's possible I'm
wrong -- is that Google supports and encourages openly discussing a variety of
topics at work, and the internal tool he used to publish his memo was designed
and used exactly for this purpose. (What Googlers apparently describe as "an
internal-only Reddit.") If this is true then he was fired not for discussing
inappropriate topics, but for holding opinions the hive-mind finds
disagreeable.

Either you as a company support discussing sensitive topics in the office, or
you don't. If you don't that should be made clear and enforced equally for
everyone. If you do then you can't pick and choose which opinions you approve
of based on what's popular, and expressing a dissenting opinion should not, at
the very least, be a fireable offense!

------
thowaway26539
It would have been much more fair to call it an "anti affirmative-action
memo". Framing it as an "anti-diversity screed" is a pretty biased move, not
to mention how they removed his supporting content as well. Certainly there
are many who hold the opinion that "anti affirmative-action === anti
diversity", which is a point worth debating separately, but I still find the
framing used by most of the news articles very misleading.

~~~
4bpp
This (conflating opposition to a process or movement for X with opposition to
X) seems to be a common trick in the political discourse nowadays, and is
unfortunately called out very rarely. We didn't hear many instances of "anti-
jobs" as suggested in this article, but it seems like describing a variety of
institutions as "anti-white" has been a right-wing staple since long before
the emergence of well-connected Tumblr and Twitter rubes who could plausibly
be described as such.

------
sandstrom
The author of the memo is basically saying the same thing that got Larry
Summers axed as president of Harvard.

    
    
        Harvard University President Lawrence Summers [was fired] for 
        mentioning at a January 14 academic conference the entirely reasonable 
        theory that innate male-female differences might possibly help explain 
        why so many mathematics, engineering, and hard-science faculties 
        remain so heavily male.
    

Isn't the idea with free speech that you allow people to say things that you
disagree with?

Or as someone else has already phrased it nicely:

    
    
        "After all, if freedom of speech means anything, it means a willingness 
         to stand and let people say things with which we disagree, 
         and which do weary us considerably."
    

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/02/why-
fem...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/02/why-feminist-
careerists-neutered-larry-summers/303795/)

------
clairity
i appreciate the article for pointing out a nuance often lost in this kind of
situation: that teasing out positions and perspectives requires a careful
reading, and summaries are often (intentionally) misleading.

but let's be clear: the memo was a political document (in the common sense of
the word, rather than about government machinations). sure, james damore may
have been trying to have an honest conversation (and honest discussion should
totally be encouraged), but the guy's biases and position were clear right
from the title onward. he was attempting to assert what he thought was a
superior position and got shot down. now others who (secretly or otherwise)
share some portion of that position feel vulnerable and defensive, and we get
heated discussions driven by primal emotions using otherwise rational-sounding
words. it's politics.

that's what the media is zooming in on, because that's where the charged
emotions are. cynically, yes, that sells papers (or whatever), but less
cynically, that's also where we collectively seem to want more discussion
because the social norm is (potentially) shifting and not at all well-defined
or collectively understood. the media didn't make a mistake so much as it
instinctively cut right to the chase.

~~~
mpweiher
> biases and position were clear right from the title onward

What were those "biases" and "positions", pray tell?

> vulnerable and defensive

You mean those that lied about what the guy wrote and then attacked that made-
up wrongthink?

~~~
bandrami
It's actually about ethics in game journalism?

------
alistproducer2
I'm going to join in on the chorus of people here who are voicing their
displeasure with the way the modern media works. I'm a left winger but I feel
much the same way about the media and the chattering class as the most noxious
parts f the right wing. It's not so much that the media is biased in one
direction or the other; it's that MSM has mostly abrogated it's responsibility
to inform the public. the media, and the class of people that create its
content, see themselves as influencers more than reporters.

As an example, take the performance (and I do mean that literally) of Jim
Acosta when he made a speech disguised as a question to Stephen Miller about
the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Who told Mr. Acosta that what the public
wants from its journalists are speeches instead of substantive questions?

It's often said that politicians want to be movies stars. these days it seems
that the journalists want to be politicians and it's become a problem that
Americans all over the political spectrum are beginning to see.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>MSM has mostly abrogated it's responsibility to inform the public.

That's a myth.

The only real responsibility they have is to maximize profits for their
shareholders.

~~~
alistproducer2
I dispute that. Most major newspapers in the states have existed long before
it was common for media outlets to be publicly traded companies. The term
"fourth estate" dates back almost to the time of the French Revolution so
while it's always been expected that newspapers need be profitable to exist,
the interests of its readers and those that stand to profit from the paper
have not always been so far apart as they are now.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
It would seem that not much has really changed since then:

"To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be
conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, `by restraining it to
true facts & sound principles only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few
subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could
not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's
abandoned prostitution to falsehood. _Nothing can now be believed which is
seen in a newspaper._ Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that
polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known
only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowlege
with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body
of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that
they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time;
whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history
of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names
of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected
from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a
successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his
will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who
never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them;
inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is
filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the
great facts, and the details are all false."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Norvell, _June 14th, 1807_

------
dgudkov
All major Canadian media called the memo anti-diversity. So unprofessional and
biased.

[1] [https://www.google.ca/search?q=anti-
diversity+canada+google](https://www.google.ca/search?q=anti-
diversity+canada+google)

------
jasode
_> to help him avoid alienating his audience,_

The gender-diversity topic is too charged to accomplish that. Seriously, I
would challenge essayists from either side of the debate to write any
significant words on the subject that does not "alienate the audience".

------
mhalle
Completely agree that the reporting on this memo would have benefited greatly
by more careful reporting by the journalism community.

While that may be the case, however, it isn't like the uproar and
misinterpretation couldn't have been predicted. Whatever the academic merit of
the memo author's claims, the memo was thrown into a social context that was
clearly primed for snap judgement.

Particularly regarding social issues, how we write is just as important as
what we write. An effective argument connects and convinces, anticipating
possible reactions and (mis-)interpretations of the reader.

The irony is that the memo is missing the necessary empathy and social
awareness for the audience, qualities that the author attributes to women.

------
eli
It's ironic that many of the comments here assume Gizmodo and others were
acting out of malice to intentionally mislead their audience.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I don't know since I can't read their minds, but both options are troubling.
If they did it for easy click-bait money, it's ethically bad. But if they did
it on purpose, this is even worse, because it means they manipulate other
narratives in the same way. If they can convince very smart HN readers, how
totally helpless is the rest of the population?

~~~
eli
Why is assuming journalists are unethical different from assuming Google
engineers are sexist?

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
That's why I prefer not to assume anything.

------
erikpukinskis
I generally liked the memo, and I'm pretty aggressively pro-affirmative
action. Some of the memo is factually wrong, but I think he tried to be
measured, and I'm proud of him.

The sentence that popped out at me is this one:

"I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make
it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. For each of these
changes, we need principled reasons for why it helps Google."

I think it's hard for women to understand this, because they are much more
likely to have an intrinsic understanding of why pro-diversity social
engineering makes sense. As a man, it has often not been obvious to me. I
learned a long time ago to assume that women are right about gender stuff, and
that assumption has done me extremely well. I've learned an incredible amount,
and those acts of goodwill made women much more inclined to be gentle with me
and explain things.

But I don't think institutionalizing that kind of trust is tactically
feasible, and I'm not sure it would even be a good thing if it happened.
Because I think pro-diversity policies will be _strengthened_ , not weakened,
if staff can form a rigorous story about how they help the company.

I believe affirmative action helps Google, so I don't think it will be
impossible to tell that story, but it won't be easy. It will take work. Mostly
because liberal circles don't really talk about it. Diversity is seen as a
benefit to diverse people, and therefore good, 'nuf said, as the the Google VP
quipped.

I think affirmative action is valuable for the reason the anonymous memo
writer thinks it's problematic: because different people are different. I
don't think if 50% of Google coders were women that Google would stay the
same. I think it would become a very different because women have some
differences from men in aggregate.

And so changing admission requirements to help more women get the jobs
shouldn't necessarily be seen as lowering the admissions standards, it should
be seen as changing the set of things that coders are allowed to focus on. And
we should assume that we'll see a whole new influx of a different kind of men
too, men who are more similar to the women in the middle of their bell curve,
than the men at the middle of theirs.

But ideally the way that should happen is not by saying "let's take 50%
women", but by saying "if we were to accept 50% more women, what new kinds of
Googler would we be adding? How will those folks make Google stronger? How can
we change our hiring criteria to find the best of that kind of Googler?" and
yes, those criteria would bring in a lot more women, but they'd also bring in
a smaller number of new men! And everybody involved would have an
understanding of how Google was getting better. Those women would have more
respect. Those men would be better appreciated, even as they were operating
outside of old Google norms.

I will say, just ramming 50% more women into the culture is probably fine
though. While I mostly agree with the memo's general thrust, that it would be
better to do this a different way, I think the alarmism is a little out of
place. It's certainly a problem that conservatives are afraid to speak up
about gender issues, but I doubt that's Google's biggest culture problem right
now.

~~~
agarden
I think the idea you are advocating, that they should change the nature of the
job to make it more accommodating to a more diverse talent pool, is the kind
of thing the memo was advocating. See the section titled "Non-discriminatory
ways to reduce the gender gap".[1] In that section, he suggests making the
work more cooperative instead of competitive and making part-time work first-
class, among other things. He also suggests making the work more
collaborative, which seems a lot like your "changing the things coders are
allowed to focus on." He then goes on to note that doing this will also mean
Google will diversify the kind of male that it gets, just like you do.

Or am I missing some difference in what you are suggesting and what the memo
suggested?

1\. [http://diversitymemo.com/#reduce-gender-
gap](http://diversitymemo.com/#reduce-gender-gap)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yes, I think our methodology is the same, but the memo seems to expect that
Google will still be <50% women in that scenario, whereas I believe it will be
brought to 50%. Which is why I don't see the quota system as a fundamental
risk to Google, whereas he does.

------
bandrami
I'm not sure why anybody thinks his "intention" or "motivation" are important.
Can somebody who thinks that say more?

~~~
zbyte64
Because one of his recommendations was to put a greater emphasis on intent?

~~~
bandrami
OK, but that's begging the question (to use this phrase correctly, for once).

I _intend_ to write the next generation search engine. Should Google reward me
for that?

------
arca_vorago
What this is all really about, when it get's boiled down, is the testing of
the freedom of speech by using offense to rally the mob for censorship of a
minority. If the oligarchy gets this style of democratic self-censorship past
us, it's one more nail in the coffin of freepeoples everyone.

------
rabboRubble
Apparently, I do not have strong standing from which to comment on this. I'm
prone to neuroticism​. My bad. I would have never independently discovered
this about myself without a Google guy to point it out.

Thanks Google dude!

------
Aron
This article is so well written I am left wondering what happens if the tide
completely reverses and it becomes overwhelmingly clear that Google should not
have fired him.

------
quxbar
> To me, the Google memo is an outlier—I cannot remember the last time so many
> outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone
> possessed.

How about every article or video about cryptocurrency, PRISM, AI, 'Data
Science' and a litany of other topics in tech? I have seen almost no 'tech'
journalism of any merit, so I'm not surprised to see sloppy coverage of
another complex issue. But that shouldn't stop meaningful HN comment threads
:)

The fact is, the memo does not simply put forth a question for debate, it
treats a massive legacy of misogyny in our culture as a feature, not a bug. He
really genuinely sees no problem with a world that pushes people into gender
roles. In fact, he thinks we should optimize for it. It's a selfish tantrum
thrown by someone feeling a lack of affirmation - disguised as vague argument
that he really understands people, tech, and companies much better than his
bosses.

If you helps for you to remove anything about identity in here: it's as if
someone posted a cruel, snide rant in defense of GOTO statements, attacking OO
programmers. Not only is he wrong, he made an extended case for the wrong
argument and did it in a way that inflict maximum company damage.

So yeah it would be a big ol' red flag.

~~~
josteink
> Not only is he wrong

That's merely your opinion, which clearly can be seen from the comments here,
has disagreement.

> he made an extended case for the wrong argument and did it in a way that
> inflict maximum company damage.

How did he inflict damage on the company?

Whoever _leaked_ this _internal memo_ did the damage, but I haven't seen any
witch hunt or firing in that regard.

Strange, eh?

------
joelrunyon
Why is this on the second page with 246 points in 1-2 hours? Seems strange...

~~~
md224
Not sure if you'll see my reply, but this happens often to HN submissions on
politically charged topics. The topic gets flagged to death. It's been like
this for a long time.

~~~
joelrunyon
Why wouldn't I be able to see your reply?

------
Dowwie
What are the chances anyone at Google read the Memo as carefully as this
author did before persecuting James Damore?

~~~
Diederich
I suspect the contents of the memo had little to do with Google's official
reaction to it.

------
turc1656
Stop the presses. You mean to tell me the major media organizations used a
misleading headline and description for something highly politicized?! I'm
shocked. Shocked, I tell ya.

------
peterwwillis
Language and gender nit-pick: having men and women at 100% parity is not
gender diversity, it is gender-binary. You would have to hire a lot more non-
binary-gendered people for it to be diverse.

~~~
sn9
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if non-binary-gendered people are _over-
represented_ in tech.

(This is just an impression I have based on things I've read in the past, so I
can't be sure.)

------
Marazan
True fact: saying "I'm not a racist but..." makes anything you say afterwards
definitely not racist.

------
vkou
Prefacing an argument with "But before you guys mistakenly think that I'm
racist - remember - I have black friends" is not the most important point in
an argument.

It is, arguably, the least important one. So much so, that it is a non-
sequitur.

