Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

Your threat response point seems like dressing up a group's overreaction to make it justifiable. It's also another example of different standards being applied to liberal groups vs conservatives groups (offending conservative groups is basically a sacrament, but saying anything that can be remotely twisted into an offensive statement toward a liberal group is nearly criminal). I've never seen anyone make any sort of threat-response/justifiable-offense argument when conservatives are upset about, say, "blasphemy day" or just the constant misrepresentation in the media. In particular though, there's nothing which should remotely cause offense, even in the selection of quotes you shared (but good on you for quoting and not taking offense at strawman--very few of Damore's critics have been so kind). Damore's arguments (however factual) were better than I could make, but it's ridiculous that the criticism is that he didn't successfully prevent everyone from taking offense. He couldn't have done more to prevent offense without damaging his own case. I think this is another case of the left refusing to be pacified by anything less than complete political capitulation. Meanwhile any sort of expression from liberal groups, even defamation or riots, are defended, and any one who criticizes them have impossible standards. The double standards here should be unbelievable.

Great, do that.

> Your threat response point seems like dressing up a group's overreaction to make it justifiable.

Your overreaction point seems like dressing up a group's threat response to make it seem unreasonable.

There are threat responses and irrational behaviour on both sides (whichever side you naturally agree with) and failing to recognise that means that you're not empowering yourself to engage with this topic on any useful level.

I wrote about threat response in my post on this: https://medium.com/finding-needles-in-haystacks/we-need-to-t...

I plan on it.

> Your overreaction point seems like dressing up a group's threat response to make it seem unreasonable.

I think it is unreasonable. Damore took every precaution to avoid offense without changing his position. Perhaps more importantly, we go so far as to censor someone who makes any statement that can possibly be spun as a criticism of women, yet we permit and even encourage all manner of absurd, anti-male speech.

> There are threat responses and irrational behaviour on both sides (whichever side you naturally agree with) and failing to recognise that means that you're not empowering yourself to engage with this topic on any useful level.

First of all, I'd like not to use "threat-response" as a synonym for "taking offense", because the former could be easily conflated with an actual threat (damage to person or property vs damage to hubris). That said, Damore went to every conceivable length to avoid causing offense; I think you and his other critics are effectively asking him not to criticize at all. Not speaking about a sensitive topic at all is hardly empowering oneself to "engage this topic on any useful level".

I think it's also worth pointing out that the left has nurtured a culture in which some groups are encouraged to take offense, and this is used to silence and shame other groups. I think that's what's happening here--a lot of people have been relentlessly fed propaganda about privilege and patriarchy and oppression have been trained to see it everywhere. I think this is a better explanation for the events that transpired than "Damore is evil/insensitive/etc".

Perhaps every precaution within his ability. Unfortunately he made plenty of provocative mistakes. I highlighted some in the Medium post I linked to.

> First of all, I'd like not to use "threat-response" as a synonym for "taking offense"...

If you think that's what I'm doing then you're mistaken. I'm talking about stress hormones, cortisol, fight or flight.

There are probably better [primary] sources, but Tania Singer & her team at the MPI in Leipzig do a lot of work with stress responses caused by things other than "damage to person or property".

When you use the language that Damore used, in a confrontational way as opposed to a collaborative way, that reaction can be the result. Threat responses are caused by threats, including threats to identity groups, or to future prosperity (something that significantly affects the life chances of any offspring).

Whether you consider it "unreasonable" or not is irrelevant. My advice is to approach the debate in a collaborative way, instead of being confrontational like Damore, and you'll more likely avoid that outcome.

Damore did everything right here. Whatever you think, his post was collaborative, not confrontational (he remained focused on what Google could do to improve, repeatedly affirmed his commitment to the common goal, etc).

So, women are a portion of society who've spent hundreds of years fighting for equal treatment, a portion of society who weren't allowed credit cards until the 1970s, who have been told their brains were too small for serious things like voting... a portion of society who still face discrimination today (although today it's usually more nuanced and less overt). Damore said openly that Google were lowering the bar to let them in and amplified ideas that make it harder for the women (and other 'diversity' hires) already in Google, and you're surprised people got cross. Really? That surprises you?

Damore did the equivalent of walking into Jerusalem, picking a side, then immediately spouting policy changes he wanted to see... then acting all hurt when he got punched in the face and kicked out of Israel for causing trouble.

This isn't about being a world-class communicator, this is about an adequate communicator for the problem he was trying to solve.

How would you react if I told you your views were biased and extreme? Even if I think they are, telling you that in the introduction of my memo (like Damore did) is not going to get the reaction I want.

> ...but it's plainly wrong to attribute this drama to him instead of the reactionaries who were so giddy at the opportunity to take offense that they needed to invent content and context to be outraged about.

Not so plain as you think.

A scientific approach to determining the 'natural' gender balance would require a lot more 'biological' data and be able to combine it in a model with cultural factors and understanding of biases. Damore does not have that evidence, and doesn't indicate that he understands it.

A model like that would need to be able to predict why womens participation in computing dropped in the 80s. It would be able to explain why women are only 10% of computer science faculty in the USA, but 40% in China.

Without that model, leaping to conclusions about how many women to expect in a company like Google is bad science, and making HR policy changes on the back of this would be bad management.

No such model exists, but Damore leapt past that stage and in doing so abandoned any hope of scientific support.

He used inflammatory terms like lowering the "bar", accused Google of bias and fostering extreme views, talking about womens biological interests and abilities, and spoke in absolutist language rather than collaborative language.

Damore wanted to effectively reduce the number of women in the workplace, that's a threat. And he used inflammatory language while doing it, so the threat was as clear as day. I find it amazing that you're surprised by the reaction.

> Seems like blaming the woman in the full burqa for being raped--if only she had better covered herself, she might not have caused this response in her rapist.

I'm not going to respond to that, but I consider that comment both inaccurate and inappropriate.

So you agree it was the content and not the presentation? At any rate, Damore didn't say that Google lowered the bar, he said that diversity policies can devolve into that, but some people are addicted to outrage and will hear what they want.

> Damore did the equivalent of walking into Jerusalem, picking a side, then immediately spouting policy changes he wanted to see... then acting all hurt when he got punched in the face and kicked out of Israel for causing trouble.

No, Damore worked at Google; his everyday life is affected by Google's policies and rhetoric and general ideological-bubble-ness. He didn't "walk in and start espousing policies". It's also worth noting that he posted in response to a request for opinions on a skeptics message board; he didn't shout it from a mountain. Your analogy is completely divorced from reality.

> This isn't about being a world-class communicator, this is about an adequate communicator for the problem he was trying to solve.

This still sounds like victim blaming. Maybe we shouldn't be critiquing the guy who pointed out a few injustices and maybe we should look at the people who feigned outrage to silence him.

> Without that model, leaping to conclusions about how many women to expect in a company like Google is bad science, and making HR policy changes on the back of this would be bad management.

Yes, but he wasn't "doing science", he was posting on a message board. Besides, his point isn't "Here's a model that explains the disparity"; it's "the current model--discrimination hypothesis--has inconsistencies". Finally, being wrong (even about a contentious topic) doesn't merit public damnation, slander, excommunication, etc. That his model is incomplete is a red herring; he wasn't at fault, Google, Gizmodo, and the hoard of slanderous SJWs here and across the Internet are at fault.

> He used inflammatory terms like lowering the "bar", accused Google of bias and fostering extreme views, talking about womens biological interests and abilities, and spoke in absolutist language rather than collaborative language.

Sorry, none of this remotely merits the response he received. In fact, if anyone else spoke in this manner about any other topic, it would be a significant improvement. If the discrimination-theory folks were held to this standard, it would be a massive improvement. I'm not going to punch a guy for being in the 98th percentile of communicators instead of the 99th, especially when his critics and opponents are largely shouting lies and profanity.

> I'm not going to respond to that, but I consider that comment both inaccurate and inappropriate.

That's fine, but that's basically what's happening here. Damore went far above and beyond what was reasonable, and you're blaming him for not doing more. This is inappropriate.

No... I don't agree.

Both Damore's content and the way it was communicated contain serious flaws. The content contained conclusions unsupported by evidence, and the communication (amongst other problems) contained pointlessly divisive and inflammatory comments that he really didn't need to make to address his concerns.

> At any rate, Damore didn't say that Google lowered the bar, he said that diversity policies can devolve into that, but some people are addicted to outrage and will hear what they want.

Oh please. Damore literally used those exact words.

He said Google policies "effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate".

The most generous interpretation of that statement is that a greater percentage of candidates from under-represented demographics are hired, but that bends the word "bar" to mean something other than its actual meaning... i.e. turns an otherwise weak point into inflammatory rhetoric.

> ... the people who feigned outrage to silence him.

I'm curious. So you think a large group of people is pretending to be outraged about something they're not actually outraged about? Does this behaviour require coordination or happen naturally? If it's coordinated, where is the evidence of collusion, is there an email list? If this collective outrage-feigning happens naturally then under what other human circumstances do humans exhibit this group mock-outrage behaviour, other than when the 'right' complaints about the 'left'? How do you know this outrage is "feigned" and not real?

Why should I believe this is more than just partisan bias on your part? Outgroup biases are well documented, after all, and your use of 'SJW' seem to put you in or near one of the right/alt-right/gamergate/white-supramacist camps, no idea which.

> Sorry, none of this remotely merits the response he received.

What do you mean by the response he received?

If you mean the loss of his job... then in no other context would someone be able to retain their job after undermining so many of their own colleagues or causing so many negative news headlines for their company... let alone both.

If you mean something else then I don't feel a need to be part of that discussion.

Regarding the response received, I was talking about the firing and public flogging. And Google created the headlines for firing him so questionably.

At no point have I "resorted to ad hominems", nor do I see anything that could have been misunderstood that way.

Perhaps you're referring to when I asked you to differentiate your position from partisan mud-slinging?

Note that I made that request after you'd written a diatribe about how the left manufactures feigned offence to silence its critics. And now you're upset that I'm using ad hominem attacks?

Fascinating.

> I feel pretty good about my case

You haven't made a case. A case involves making a point and then supporting it using evidence, which at no point have you done. Instead you've argued using rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims, which is a very different thing.