
Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral' - mcenedella
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzbm4a/employees-anti-diversity-manifesto-goes-internally-viral-at-google
======
throwaway2812
I've read the doc. At first skim, I thought it was going to be a reasonable
"stop the echochamber" style doc, that points out issues with over-loving
diversity without thinking about the impact of it, and that decries the
strong-left culture at Google that can be alienating to right-leaning
employees.

But in reality, dude went full /r/TheRedPill and The_Donald on this. I think
the best description I heard of the doc was 'right diagnosis, but overall
lazy'. The doc called for reinforcement of stereotypes and removal of
mandatory bias training. I can see how someone can see the surface and
identify potential problems with it, but ultimately bias training is created
by people with real credentials to be doing so -- psychologists, analysts,
people who look at data and key results, both empirically and academically. To
assume that a privileged engineer would know better than this hardworking team
is pretty insulting, I think.

There have been some ridiculous, over the top reactions to the doc, but I
think it was mostly a case of someone of privilege not understanding why
diversity programs are in place and feeling empowered to shit on people
without any because they scratched the surface of problems. Again,
/r/TheRedPill style content.

It did spark discussion, and I think the consensus is that while there are
some valid points about the left-leaning employee base, the overall doc fails
to adequately dig into the matter, and does so in a hostile way while decrying
anyone who disagreed with OP.

opinions my own.

~~~
usmeteora
Welp, before the entire document was released I made a long statement below
based on what I read, trying to give a reasonable consideration for somebody
elses viewpoint, but then I read the document where the reader noncholantly
listed the following things as inherent underlying biological differences
unique to women, not to be up for debate, as the nondisputable premise for how
to address the ideological echo chamber,here were the top most infuriating
things I read. I must be infuriated because I'm a women and I'm neurotic,
which brings me to #1.

"Neuroticism: higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance".

Of course, women are neurotic, so that explains alot of why women in
comparable roles just arent doing as well.

"Harder time negociating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.
These are just average differences, but this is seen as soley a womens issue"

Well thank you for clearing that up. There is aboslutely nothing that causes
these differences in women and it is entirely based on their faulty self
perception that is there for a reason which must exist because....well you
know the answer, which brings me to my next point...

"Women are more agreeable." The only mental response I had to this statement
was "are you sure women are more agreeable, or do you just perceive that they
agree with you and have no real comprehension of how much they disagree with
you?"

"Men's higher drive for status."

Someone please correct me if there is another response I'm supposed to have
other than only being able to utilize blatant sarcasm to try to enter into the
mindset of the author of this article, and me trying to be agreeable to it:

Well, thank you for pointing out these fundamental permanent underlying unique
biological traits holding women back from progress that Google has taken an
unhealthy and self destructive burden on by trying to correct.

If women could just...stop living in denial about how neurotic they are, how
they are more agreeable, and overall just, not as motivated to reach high
status positions, along with the obvious fact that they are more into social
things than code, and that women like people and men like things, then maybe
women could start coming to terms with why they are less successful, and we
could have more pyschological safety in the work place if more men in the
office could be open about these things and not feel scared to propogate them
as undisputable truth.

Perhaps some cooperation and pair programming would help, but I'm not
necessarily Google should arbitrarily engage in doing that "just" to make it
more appealing to women, instead Google should "be more open about the science
of human nature". The sooner we can all just acknowledge women are neurotic
agreeable socialites that eventually want to work part time and aren't driven
by status, the sooner we can close the gender gap here at Google.

Thank you, thank you so much for all the other people just like me at Google
who agree with me but are too scared to say it because...well once you say it,
it sounds so pathetically incorrect I'm the only one who is so drenched in my
own understanding of reality that everyone else is clearly in denial about,
who had the courage to say it.

Thank you, thank you again for your time.

~~~
mirko22
What he said is actually correct from Psychological standpoint

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Ge...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Gender_differences)

The ratios of each trait combined together is what gives you your personality.

~~~
usmeteora
Did you read the sentence right after that where they talk about attributing
factors, and do not end any of those sentences with "and thats what gives you
your peronality"?

"A plausible explanation for this is that acts by women in individualistic,
egalitarian countries are more likely to be attributed to their personality,
rather than being attributed to ascribed gender roles within collectivist,
traditional countries.[109] "

I wonder if anxiety and neuroticism reports by women are results of
historically not being equal or having equal opportunities for venues for
independence. I Wonder how living in collectivist traditional countries or
working in environments with traditionalist roles about what females roles
should be would cause a women anxiety if she didnt really fit those roles.

I wonder if its ever wondered if women are just a certain way or rather is
anxiety and "neuroticism" reports are due to the world they live in.

I wonder if we could change that world.

nah...its probably just their personality...

------
fennecfoxen
Google is substantially located in the Bay Area. Of course they hate
ideological diversity, in practice if not in principle. It is an attitude
common in their workforce.

This is a tendentious statement, so I will relate my own experience. Once upon
a time I was working in California, at a tiny startup, and was reading some
election results from "back home" in North Carolina, which had just passed
Amendment One by about a 3:2 margin. Observing the results thoughtfully, my
coworker casually remarked "wow, 60% of North Carolina is literally horrible,
terrible people."

I just quietly sat back and thought "why, how nice of you, sir, to refer to
some unknown fraction of my family and the friends I had growing up in such a
lovely manner."

At one point my girlfriend (now an ex-girlfriend) attended a party that he was
hosting. She had just left Missouri out of disgust for its Missouri-ness, and
was very much in love with San Francisco and its people – yet left the party
modestly offended – not for saying anyone in particular was bad this time, but
just _with all the best of intentions_ saying it was inevitable that they'd
all come around to the modern views on things like gay marriage (and, in the
process, utterly trivializing their religion, values, and world-views).

I do not seek to cast him as a bad person for this remark. This is a man who,
if anything, is one of the nicest people I know, easily far above the average,
and a quitessential San Franciscan (well above and beyond your typical tech
hipster). But he is immersed in a culture which specifically and explicitly
denies human dignity of people who are not alike and do not think alike.

This is very sad. You would think if there is one lesson we could take from
the history of the US, religious tolerance in the colonies, slavery, the Civil
War, the Civil Rights Movement, our wars with Native Americans, the likes of
the Japanese Internment, women's suffrage, _everything_ ... if there's one
resounding strain here, it's that you _don 't un-people people_.

 _(but it 's okay to un-people these people, because they're bad people!)_

In conclusion:

I sympathize with this guy who wrote this manifesto. It is also unfortunate
that, from what I hear and understand of the matter, this guy is factually in
error, probably sexist, and almost certainly undermining his cause.

~~~
threatofrain
Of course Bay Area people hate ideological diversity? As opposed to religious
North Caroliners? Are you telling me that Bay Area culture should look to
North Carolina to learn a little more about what diversity and tolerance look
like?

What's your sense of scale here? What does ideological plurality mean to you?
What does North Carolina secularism look like? Does North Carolina have a
cultural embrace of secularism? Is the bathroom bill a good thermostat for
what issues have play in North Carolina?

I would argue that the Bay Area is very fertile ground for diversity. The Bay
Area Christians build enclaves of high quality here, bastions of middle-to-
high SES wealth, aspirations, and sensibilities. They stand as quality in
contrast to the community right outside their legally protected walls.

I would say that the Bay Area is a cutting-edge experiment of secularism and
plurality that the world is watching.

~~~
heartbreak
Where did OP say anything about looking to NC as a cultural role model? S/he
was making a point that people in SF are intolerant, not that people in NC
_are_ tolerant.

~~~
threatofrain
If you say that someone is short, it goes to say that you have a comparison
model, and that something is tall. Measuring SF as intolerant naturally
invites a comparative measure, and here we are discussing how inviting SF is
to North Carolina Christians.

I am discussing vice versa by asking mere questions.

It might enrich the discussion to say that it's still illegal for men to have
sex with men in North Carolina, it's just unenforceable. North Carolina is
also working to say that sodomy laws are not unconstitutional.

The Christians I know around the Bay Area are under no such threat. If
anything, churches are enclaves of extreme quality in the Bay Area. It goes to
show what a fertile ground this is for diversity.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> If you say that someone is short, it goes to say that you have a comparison
> model, and that something is tall.

Since you bring it up, I will observe that I found New York to be a lot more
tolerant in practice. Statistically, the political leanings are pretty
comparable, but somehow people are less strident in practice, even during my
tenure at a company _with an explicit institutional commitment to social
justice causes_.

Among other things, I suspect it may simply be that a lot of people come to
New York from a lot of places for a lot more reasons than they do San
Francisco. But at the end of the day, it's not even really that Bay Area
culture is stridently anti-Christian per se. It's just strident about
everything. San Francisco is the sort of place where people scrawl anti-
parenting graffiti on the changing tables in the restrooms at Whole Foods to
_shame_ new parents for their crimes against the planet.

(My circle of acquaintances in London is still quite small, so I hesitate to
generalise, but at least in the tech scene, everything is very
_international_.)

> The Christians I know around the Bay Area are under no such threat. If
> anything, churches are enclaves of extreme quality in the Bay Area. It goes
> to show what a fertile ground this is for diversity.

1\. There's something about describing religion merely in terms of "churches"
and "enclaves" as if there's a box around the realm of acceptable religious
activity. Telling people that they are permitted to meet in a consecrated
building weekly is the _start_ of religious tolerance, vaguely akin to not
prosecuting people under sodomy laws.

2\. If you don't know someone with a strong negative opinion of AB 569, you're
not really in touch with that diversity.

~~~
threatofrain
1\. Telling people are they permitted to meet... is the start of religious
tolerance?

Was there a thought even slightly in your mind that this was even mildly in
tension? Like there will be laws on the books striking people from meeting in
a Christian church? Like a political momentum is coming?

That churches are allows to operate tax-free, that Churches often operate
businesses flagrantly in view of the community but nobody cares (education),
and that there isn't any political force close to bringing tension on this
matter, shows that churches are not merely tolerated... they are politically
privileged.

? Can you think of any other group with this much power?

And in the Bay Area, I think that's clearer. Churches are bastions of middle-
to-high SES wealth, revenue, sensibilities, and aspirations. They are places
where parents can aspire for their children to be lawyers, doctors, or
engineers. Black churches in other areas work differently; worse. I wonder if
a lot of Bay Area Christians never attend even one black church.

I cannot believe it when Christians talk about persecution in California
inside their churches. It blows my mind. Will there be a Proposition 8 for
Muslims? If you're talking about religious diversity, then I understand. I'm
promoting secularism, not religion.

Try to think of any group that has this much political privilege, while
simultaneously talking about religious oppression, as if they stand for
churches as well as mosques.

2\. Why are you talking about whether I'm in touch with diversity?

~~~
fennecfoxen
> Was there a thought even slightly in your mind that this was even mildly in
> tension?

Not in any practical sense, but that's a pretty low bar, isn't it? The point
is that even _your own comments_ are loaded with views about how

> Churches often operate businesses flagrantly in view of the community but
> nobody cares (education)

Look at the world-view implicit there. This is what I am pointing at. You seem
to propose that a church doing things outside "be a place for crazy-people to
gather" is something like fundamentally overstepping boundaries.

They have a parable for that. "You do not light a lamp, only to place it under
a bushel basket."

> I cannot believe it when Christians talk about persecution in California
> inside their churches.

Imagine that you are working in California and hold what is an altogether-
common Christian view: that "the legal vehicle of marriage should be offered
only to man-woman couples with the general idea of founding a family."

Now imagine you donate, in secret, to a cause which supports that view (e.g.
Proposition 8) — whilst being sensitive of the fact that many people would
find this to imply that they are invalid as people, and so you make a point of
not breathing a word of it, instead making it a special point in your daily
life to treat any person who would be affected by this with respect. Suppose
all of your colleagues and all those who interact with you will rush to your
defence if you are accused of any impropriety in this regard.

There is a credible case that you should live in fear of being found out,
being decried a hateful bigot in public forums, and losing your job. It has
been amply demonstrated.

> Black churches in other areas work differently; worse... Will there be a
> Proposition 8 for Muslims?

The problems faced by black churches or Muslims may be more acutely serious in
a variety of cases, and more serious overall as well, but of course this fails
to justify any mistreatment of anyone.

------
chippy
How can a journalist ever consider themselves to have self esteem in their
work if they never read the primary documents that are central to the story?

She writes: "Motherboard has not viewed the full document, but a screenshot we
reviewed."... That's all!

The article then follows is a kind of social media reaction recap. Possibly
reactions by some people who also have not read the actual primary source,
perhaps? (How can we tell?)

Shoddy journalism if that is the case. I mean the whole thing sure _sounds
like_ it's pretty bad, but _sounds like_ is literally _hearsay_ and not good
journalism.

Edits - perhaps the author of the article has reasons for not publishing the
screenshot they are basing their reporting on? Could it be copyright /
permission from the document author, or the screenshot maker?

~~~
koonsolo
Maybe if the journalist read the whole document, and made an honest story
about it, we wouldn't be discussing it right now.

Journalism is entertainment, don't expect something more. If you want to be
informed, do your own investigation, or read a book written by someone who
knows the stuff.

------
alanfranzoni
I'd really like to see this document as a whole before judging.

By the way, I think that being really open means listening to opinions without
"rage quitting" for holding an unpopular opinion, or calling him a "racist" or
"white male supremacy supporter", which is a way to turn down an argument
whatever its merit is.

Is the document's author a jerk? Let's explain that to him, and maybe shame
him on a data-driven basis.

Has the author some valid point, but went too far with speculations? Maybe
he/she doesn't deserve all this uproar.

~~~
ehsankia
Dragging this to public and trying to shame the person is absolutely the wrong
move. They're just proving his point that these people are not open to
rigorous discussions.

The perfect example is Milo. Every time he gets kicked out of a campus, his
point gets proven. But almost every time I've seen someone sit down with him
and debate his flawed arguments, he got pretty much proven wrong on most of
them.

~~~
joe5150
how much energy are we supposed to devote to sitting down with and debating
people like Milo? that works out well for him because he has nothing else to
do with his time; most people don't have the luxury.

~~~
ehsankia
Then don't go to the event. No one's forced anyone to attend it, just like no
one's forced anyone to read this document or agree with it. There are millions
of shitty discussions being conducted on the web at any given second. If you
tried to stop every single one, you'd probably waste far more time.

------
koonsolo
Why does US have these diversity problems? Is it such a huge deal that most
women are not interested in technology? Is it such a huge deal that you have
to work with a few women? Is it such a huge deal that as a technical woman,
you have to work mostly with men?

I can tell you, in Belgium, in my experience and what I hear, this is not an
issue whatsoever. Most women I worked with actually preferred working in teams
of mainly men.

Do you really care so much whether the person you work with is male, female,
black, white, comes from a different background, etc? I just want to work with
people that I like and who can handle the job.

~~~
usmeteora
This is interesting. I'm a female Electrical Engineer in the United States.
Females are obviously a minority in the Engineering teams, but interestingly
enough, there are a few older female Engineers I know who came from Eastern
Europe after spending 10-15 years doing Engineering there, and said they never
had an issue with sexism until they came to the U.S.

I'm not sure whether an elaboration by them would indicate that they
experience more sexism by men, or that overall its more of a topic brought up
by women, but they did say there were more issues with men here.

I think alot of the issues with women in the U.S. vs Europe are due to the
fact that Europe is more urbanized and concentrated. Women and men live and
work in closer quarters with more socialized economics where women are overall
more educated, urbanized, financially independent, and the sexual and in
general culture is more liberally progressive.

In the U.S., we are way behind when it comes to womens socioeconomic equality,
and education quality in general. Concurrently, there are large number of men
live suburban lives, with housewives who are to some degree financially
dependent on them, and the idea of an a women who doesn't fit the
housewife/trophy wife/soccer mom/etc etc whateve that American culture props
up as a way of life for women to idolize, causes more cultural friction and
results in more emotional isolation for women working in male dominated work
forces.

Not all of it is intentional. Most guys I work with are fine, but older than
me, married. I'm 27 single and don't intend to settle down anytime soon, maybe
travel more if anything. So every company I've worked for, is filled with men
who golf together or do other things. I'm not explicitly excluded anymore than
I'm not interested in doing those things and they know that. If I was invited,
I wouldnt go.

This is overall pretty a pretty trivial example, but I am trying to emphasize
how the undercurrent of culture in America is a large contributer to this, and
not necessarily any one persons fault or a mans conscious decision to come
across as exclusionary.

Regardless, the document this article refers to goes far beyond that, and I
have to say, as an INTJ female, this biology crap is ridiculous. I am
introvert and would prefer any day to stay inside and read, code, play video
games than go out and "socialize".

In my experience, as an educated female introvert, I am demonized for NOT
being a social butterfly, I have been called a bitch for not smiling when I
say something in a meeting, because there is a subconscious expectation that
girls are supposed to be adorably cute in everything that they do, or ease
poltiical or social tension and are viewed as "out of line" for being the
source of it, and men are rewarded for agressive aberrhant behavior and lauded
as the leader of the group for equally outlier behavior. If a man is confident
in his capabilities, I've found him to be considered respected, but if a women
is confident in her opinion in a meeting or her belief in her own
capabilities, I've often been told I'm a know it all, and am reminded
immediately why I need to be "knocked" down a peg to be reminded how I'm not
as great as I think I am. It can be a little confusing to work in male
dominated environment and be punished for the same behavior that men are
rewarded for. This does not happen to me as much at my current job, or on my
team or my department, but you have to wonder how much day to day life in the
long term impacts what paths women take in their lives and careers based on
the rewards and punishments they receive and their economic incentive to act
and perform like a man, which is all subject to current socioeconomics and
politics, moreso than a woman's "biology"

This document serves one purpose and on purpose only, to perpetuate
stereotypes that many women do not meet, and recategorize all actions and
behaviors they have that women DO meet the "White male" stereotype and
according to this document I mean "objectively qualified software engineer
with an open mind and idealogical diversity" as non lady like.

Furthermore, the fact that this document is even being considered as
potentially accurate to some degree by any "intelligent" software engineer is
more of a testament to how they probably should supplement some of their tech
education with history.

The last time I checked:

The very first compiler: Grace Hopper

Nuclear Power: Lise Mitner

Code that got us to the moon: Margaret Hamilton

Spread Spectrum Technology/Wireless Communication: Hedy Lamar

Inventor of Acorn Computer and ARM Processor: Sophie Wilson

Current CEO of AMD: Lisa Su

Those are just off the top of my head and by the top of my head I mean

Nuclear power, which is the most abundant clean energy source on the planet
right now,

First flight to the moon, the precedents for Wifi

etc etc, I'm probably missing some awesome women, there is no proof whatsoever
that a females biology makes her less capable of being an equally qualified
software engineer.

This general argument has been used for thousands of years in various flavors
to justify a lack of womens rights or capabilities and they have never in
retrospect sounded anything less than ridiculous, with their conclusions
implying nothing less than the ONE thing ANY software engineer, and anyone who
listened to day 1 of Intro to Science in the 5th grade should know, and that
is correlation is not causation.

Women used to suck at math before they were allowed to go to school.

In the same way, technology is a new industry, and women are already a
minority status in so many other industries its bound to reflect here as well,
but the existence of a gap is a correlation to biology, as well as the many
contributing factors to the cultural differences that influence the mass
aggregation of how far women go when it comes to being socioeconomically
independent individuals with advanced careers.

less than 50 years ago it was argued women shouldnt have careers because how
can we procreate our species if women are working passed when the can have
kids.

Well now we have technology and better healthcare to enable women to be
healthier live longer and have kids much later in life.

Every excuse about biology as an objectively and permanently limiting factor
to womens capabilities is a blatant lie that has shown itself to be one time
and time again throughout history .

And to answer your last question, I personally really don't care about the
diversity of my team if they are all good people who can work well, but I
WOULD care if a coworker propogated a document saying I'm inferior to them
because of my biology as a female.

On a very similiar note, to further this argument with studies and words that
are not mine, by some of the mst lauded Economists of our time, I recommend
the book "Why Nations Fail" which goes through many countries and places in
history showing that the socioeconomic advancement of a people or a country,
despite many arguments about certain countries or ethnicities being "less
evolved over time" which was and in some places still is an argument and
justification to why so many countries and millions of people persist in
poverty, and actually that the ability for a country and a people to advocate
for themselves is very much a result of the soecioeconomic system they live
in, supplementing studies of groups of people an entire cities with the same
biology and ethnic evolution and history who live in prosperous countries or
not, entirely based on the political structure of that country incentivizing
venues for massive growth in healthcare, education, human rights etc.

I would argue the existence of highly educated competitive female software
engineers is just like most of history and people in the world upon objective
studies, based on a complex structure of what incentivizes people and how much
their culture allows/encourages/or punishes the advancement of womens
education and independence, and this is a snapshot in time of which it would
be irresponsible for us to make permanent conclusions about the mental
capabilities of women due to their "biology" without efforts to extracate and
analyze nature vs nurture in mass.

~~~
throwaway417164
> I have to say, as an INTJ female, this biology crap is ridiculous.

That's an interesting way to put it. The estimates I've seen (e.g. [1], [2])
have the frequency of INTJs among men significantly higher than the frequency
of INTJs among women. If INTJs are more likely to become engineers, then those
frequencies predict that there will be more male engineers than female
engineers.

[1] [https://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/estimated-
frequencies.h...](https://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/estimated-
frequencies.htm?bhcp=1)

[2] [https://mypersonality.info/personality-types/population-
gend...](https://mypersonality.info/personality-types/population-gender/)

~~~
usmeteora
Yes this is true.

However, if you read the document, the author basis the premise of his
perception of faulty and "good intentions gone wrong" programs to correct for
gender pay gap disparity as due to the "underlying biologicial differences"
between men and women.

Women are far less likely to be INTJs, but most female Engineers I know are
not INTJs, and furthermore, if you are using the idea that INTJ is an
indicator of someone being more likely to be an engineer or STEM I guess we
can say in this case, and that somehow there is a biologicial difference
(plausible, were not advanced enough in biology and sciences, psychology and
neurobiology to be able to atribute personality genres to unique biologicial
differences that can correctly an consistently identify a Meyers Brigg
personality type, maybe its possible in the future, maybe not, maybe thats not
the underlying relationship, who knows yet), then the entire premise of the
author is debunked.

If my personality type whether as a male or female, is going to kick me in a
direction more likely to end up in STEM (interest in math and sciences) then
youre statement reconcludes there is no "underlying biological differences"
that exist for all women that never occur with men.

The idea that personality traits contribute to biological nuances that can
occur in men and women, then the author loses his point.

I'm also not aware of any Meyers Briggs personality type that comes with the
term "neurotic" but according to the author, all women are, and this is not
even up for debate.

I'm also leaving out the entire obvious consideration that I would assume is a
given in all these conversations, but seem not to be addressed in any way
whatsoever by the authors 10 page document, that even if we could attribute
say INTJ or similiar MBriggs personality types to highly correlating with
females in STEM, and then showing less women are likely to have those
personality types, we still don't know what causes personality types, or have
biologicial blueprints for them, so we can not assume "underlying biological
differences between sexes" especially considering MBs are not sexually based.

Furthermore, we are leaving out the fact that humans are an evolving species
and we experience a microcosm of our own societal influences that influence
how people think, act, perceive, spend, procreate, educate, eat etc based on
our socioeconomic construct. To throw aside the mere idea that being
surrounded by men who actually write off most of your actions as neurotic and
believe this as truth, could not have some lng term damaging effect on your
ability to be taken seriously or perceived as successful or result in an
imposed biased with a positive feedback loop on how the gender who is not in
an economic majority of empowerment may be held back, is just about as
childish and ignorant as missing the point of a first science experiment where
you failed miserably because you didn't have controls for your experiment, or
consider that different contributing factors could result in different
outcomes and calibrate for them.

No, from this authors perspective, women are neurotic. This is a fact:

"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to
the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower
number of women in high stress jobs."

[https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-
di...](https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-
screed-1797564320)

~~~
throwaway417164
Right: it's clear that there's no sharp divide between men's and women's
aptitude for STEM jobs. There are many excellent women engineers, and many men
who have no aptitude for engineering.

It's also true that there seem to be population-level differences that are
connected to aptitude for engineering. If we're trying to answer the question
"to what extent is sexism excluding women from engineering?" then these
differences become important. If there are no population-level differences
then any deviation from a 50/50 sex ratio among engineers is probably due to
some kind of sex discrimination. But if there are real population-level
differences then it would be a mistake to insist on a 50/50 sex ratio, and a
mistake to assume that sexism is the problem if the ratio is not 50/50\. (Of
course, there might still be sexism, even if there are also population-level
differences.)

The problem comes when people try to apply population-level sex differences at
an individual level. Even if fewer women have an aptitude for engineering,
that says nothing at all about any individual female engineer. The right way
to assess an the ability of an engineer, whether male or female, is by looking
at the information about what they've done -- they've achieved X
qualification, won Y award, built Z product etc. -- not by assuming gender
differences that can only be observed at the population level. Unfortunately,
both negative and positive discrimination muddy the waters here, making these
signals less useful.

------
factsaresacred
Here it is for those who wish to read it (which should be everyone who voiced
an opinion on it): [http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-
div...](http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-
screed-1797564320)

Edit: two paragraphs in and it's making lots of well reasoned points. Why the
outrage? And why the outrage _before_ the majority of people actually read the
thing?

Serves to prove the authors point.

~~~
plexicle
The first few paragraphs were the only reasonable parts of the entire
document. It quickly goes off the rails.

>Edit: two paragraphs in and it's making lots of well reasoned points. Why the
outrage? And why the outrage before the majority of people actually read the
thing?

Ironic... did you actually read the thing? Past the first "two paragraphs,"
anyway?

~~~
throwaway080517
The personality trait section appears to at least be consistent with current
findings[1]. I see a lot of comments on the article berating the "De-emphasize
empathy" section as well, but it's starting to become clear empathy has a lot
of bugs in it. Paul Bloom advocates for compassion instead of empathy[2].

There's definitely assumptions in the article e.g. Men (may) prefer coding due
to the average innate preference of things vs people (and then vice versa for
women)and the belief programs exclusive to minorities due more harm than good,
but outside of those this seems like a fairly well researched document that,
for better or worse, has a dissenting opinion from the group.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826203/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826203/)
[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-
Compass...](https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-
Compassion/dp/0062339338)

------
xendo
I like how some of the commenters try to force HR to take an action by
threatening to leave. That's hell of a way to promote diversity, and freedom
to express yourself. Diversity is a double edge sword: you need to be able to
accept other people opinions if you expect them to accept you. P.S. I
obviously haven't read the document, and all the comments really reference
only short statement without any context, so it's really hard to comment on
it.

~~~
majkinetor
Indeed. Honestly, I would let them leave. That atitude makes them IMO unfit
for teamwork, if one such incident makes them abandon their jobs and blackmail
entire department.

~~~
laughinghan
You and GP don't cite any commenter in particular, but none of the tweets
mentioned in the article strike me as trying to force HR or blackmail anyone
to do anything.

They seem to me like they're saying they don't want to work somewhere their
teammates think they're biologically inferior, but they're hoping that HR will
ensure that people who think so don't stay on the team.

~~~
stagbeetle
Here you go:
[https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893287112732291072](https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893287112732291072)

It was quoted in the main story.

~~~
laughinghan
That is exactly the tweet I had in mind. Does it not seem reasonable to you
for someone not to want to work on a team where their coworkers think they're
less biologically suited to the work, and to hope that HR agrees that they
shouldn't be expected to work with such coworkers?

~~~
stagbeetle
You're correct. However, the author of that tweet went around the wrong way
with the manner of her expression.

The tweets she put out today come off as combative and hammy.

> _It actually gives me motivation to leave Google for the first time in
> years; the only reason why I enjoy Google is our unified networking._

> _Fact: White men are not marginalized like me in tech. White man: You are
> racist, my grandpa was a great man. You are this relevant._

> _Dear white men who thinks they are marginalized, my single eye lash is more
> marginalized in tech than all of you._

There are proper ways to voice one's concern, but violence against others is
not one of them.

~~~
pdkl95
> went around the wrong way with the manner of her expression

So it's only ok for women to be frustrated by systemic stereotyping and
marginalization, _if-and-only-if_ she acts like a traditionally oppressed
woman in public? Women should just stay in the closet instead of pointing out
porblems in the workplace?

> violence against others is not one of them.

What "violence"? What kind of framing or mental gymnastics are you using to
interpret any of those posts as "combative" or interpreted as "violence
against others"?

~~~
stagbeetle
> _What "violence"? What kind of framing or mental gymnastics are you using to
> interpret any of those posts as "combative" or interpreted as "violence
> against others"?_

The same violence you are imposing upon on me with your words. Albeit these
are in the realm of microagressions, it is violence nonetheless. A more modern
violence.

Throwing pejoratives at people is verbal violence: _What kind of framing or
mental gymnastics..._

As is responding with loaded questions, like: _Women should just stay in the
closet instead of pointing out problems in the workplace?_ This is
intellectually dishonest and does more to insight altercation than have an
informed and open discussion.

Coincidentally, these are not too far off from the author's comments.

------
gspetr
> "If HR does nothing in this case, I will consider leaving this company for
> real for the first time in five years," she wrote in a threaded tweet.

Maybe I'm missing something but since when did HR become the Thought Police?
Do people actually believe that if you intimidate someone into silence they
will stop having these thoughts? Last I checked the psychological research in
this area suggested that people rebelled against it and doubled down, even if
in private.

And the threat itself - suppose she does leave the company and then what?

A person that's ready to throw both a tantrum on social media and your
company's reputation under the bus the moment she hears a colleague voice an
unpopular opinion does not sound like a smash hit with hiring managers, more
like a risk and a liability.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Since forever? The job of HR is the protect the company. If a single employee
is causing a problem that impacts work through the majority of the company
they will find a way to remove the problem. There's a reason politics is
generally discouraged at work. We're generally all guilty of it, but it leads
to problems in unit cohesion. The military tends to handle this well with the
whole "you'll think what the branch wants you to think" mentality because you
literally cannot have infighting on the line. It also tends to make you a lot
more tolerant of people when you're depending on them to watch your back.

------
glorkk
> Motherboard has not viewed the full document, but a screenshot we reviewed
> shows it's titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber."

How can you write an article about a document you have never read? It is a
disgrace this Vice/Motherboard article is the first result on Google. This is
not a news article, but a biased blog with a blatant political agenda.

------
romanpoet
Knowing nothing about the manifesto, the article's frequent use of weasel
words makes me want to support to author of the manifesto.

~~~
drdeadringer
Could you provide some examples of these weasel words?

------
noncoml
> replacing Google's diversity initiatives with policies that encourage
> "ideological diversity"

I somehow think that if one aims for "ideological diversity" then
"gender/race/minority diversity" will come for free.

But the question is how to you target "ideological diversity" when hiring.

~~~
ubernostrum
"Ideological diversity" usually boils down to "fill the place up with people
who think like me, the person calling for ideological diversity".

~~~
chronid
Judging by the reaction "diversity" also seem to boil down "fill the place up
with people who think like me, the person calling for diversity".

Also, extrapolating anything from a text we cannot see rapidly brings us in
strawman arguments territory.

------
mindfulhack
The 'biological differences between the sexes' is scientific data that needs
to be mindfully assessed - Google of all companies ought to embrace this data
and act on it accordingly. Statistically, I'd say there absolutely are
majority differences between the sexes, so the sophisticated action is what do
we do with this knowledge.

It depends what the company wants to achieve. Some smarter R&D/focus
group/more intelligent way of integrating diverse populations into the
company's DNA, not just blunt diversity employee policies in some PR-friendly
reactionary manner.

------
jsiepkes
A lot of people outraged but apparently no one was outraged enough to leak the
document. Can't be that hard to leak the text in it anonymously.

~~~
anon12345690
Even worse, all the outraged folk say you shouldnt bother trying to find it -
guess its not worth forming our own opinions

[https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893324341630218241](https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893324341630218241)

------
Jugurtha
Obligatory bit from Greg Wilson's "What We Actually Know About Software
Development, and Why We Believe It's True".

[https://vimeo.com/9270320#t=1525s](https://vimeo.com/9270320#t=1525s)

And the book recommendation: "Why Aren't More Women in Science?: Top
Researchers Debate the Evidence". (researchers from either side of the
arguments debate each other in the same book.)

------
chmike
Ignoring or repressing that there are differences in women and men doesn't
seam wise. However, there are a few important things to keep in mind about it.
The difference is multivariate and some people may have some properties of the
other gender. As a consequence, infering the capabilities of a person just
from the gender written on the ID card is plain stupid. Another thing I want
to say about this is that IT is a vast domain requiring various competences.
Each gender has some properties that make it more fit for some of these
competences. So in practice there is room for everybody.

The conclusion is to get the right person for the job. The gender shouldn't be
considered because the reality is not black and white.

Base on this reasoning, complains about imbalance of gender quota or salaries
are not acceptable. The salary is/should be attached to the job and
performance, not the gender.

In France we have a similar issue with the porportion of black football
players in the national team. People who complain about that don't understand
that they just picked the best players. This gender debate is the same
problem.

------
snvzz
Where's this manifesto?

The story link is to some opinionated article that seems to hate it.

~~~
chillydawg
Apparently everyone at google is too scared of getting fired for leaking it.
Either that or they're all in bed.

------
jamesdmiller
This document will eventually be released if for no other reason then
discovery in a lawsuit alleging Google has a hostile work environment.

------
manigandham
Where is the actual manifesto? How can there be any judgement without the
primary source?

------
davidivadavid
Is it just a coincidence that the subject was mentioned in a recent SSC
article? [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-
are-m...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-
not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/)

------
this_is_an_acc
This manifesto may or may not have a valid point, without seeing the contents
we will likely never truly know. Apologies for the lengthy post to follow.

Let me start by saying that diversity is always important. Without diversity
you tend to end up with an echo chamber that produces things that are only
worthwhile for the subset of people represented within the group.

However, it is important to think about the cost that diversity targets can
have on both the under-represented and over-represented groups within a
company. Diversity targets for hiring or promotion will mean the over-
represented group(s) will tend to view those who are hired or promoted with
disdain. Meanwhile the under-represented group(s) may well doubt their
position within the company, worrying that they are in their position only due
to belonging to the flavour of the month diversity target. The other part is
that members of the under-represented group who were previously employed on
their own merits are likely to hold a similar position to that of the majority
group(s), for similar reasons.

Now it's time for an anecdote... My girlfriend works as an engineer in an oil
and gas company. Her company is fully on board with the current gender
diversity push, and has created several new positions at a fairly high level
specifically to meet their diversity targets. These are high level positions
with no one reporting to them in the current structure (which was defined by
the massive restructure following the fall in oil prices). Her issues with the
positions and their seniority boils down to education and time in the
industry. If they were being filled by candidates based on skill, a large
proportion of them would be male (and probably white). This would be because
the vast majority of the people with the relevant experience are white males.
By pushing the female agenda, she fears that not only will these roles be
filled by poor candidates, it will also promote the stereotype that women are
unsuitable for the job.

There is room for diversity targets, but they must be mindful of the talent
pool available for the specific job. Whilst it hurts at this point, the most
reasonable course is to promote equality in education. If your company is
hiring on skill, then the equality issues will resolve in time, without making
anyone resentful of the first year grad who got promoted to team leader
because the company needed to meet a quota.

To derail myself slightly following the above wall of text. Would the current
white, male disgruntlement be as bad had there not been the GFC etc, and the
subsequent (and continuing layoffs/stagnation of wages?

------
throwaway123441
Everything anyone will say publicly with their name about this, is lies.

He did not shit on leftist values. That can't even be a misunderstanding, that
was just a lie (plain and simple). He simply pointed out that society uses a
mix of leftist and rightist values, and neither side is 100% right.

Google has people openly say that "if you are republican then you should be
fired" (and much much worse).

Nobody will criticize these lies, because this is a witch hunt, and one where
this guy must be publicly shamed and destroyed, and anyone who speaks up
against it must also be destroyed.

I hope many Googlers take notes and screenshots, because this is a clear
discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen. I know some Google employees who are
adding to their lists of future discrimination lawsuits. Harassment for
political opinions.

This is what happens if you express an opinion against the dogma that is
"There is ZERO difference between genders, it's ALL societal, NOTHING innate".

The guy started with a whole section about how you cannot use averages to
judge individuals (he even had graphs showing exactly how you cannot), but
that a 50/50 equal men/women engineering pool is not a realistic goal nor
helpful because there are innate differences between men and women.

He then sprinkled it with some cherry-picked and possibly incorrect research,
but is the basic premise wrong? No.

~~~
throwaway123442
> He then sprinkled it with some cherry-picked and possibly incorrect
> research, but is the basic premise wrong? No.

If I say "There are clear differences between the performance of black and
white people on various cognitive tasks." That's a true statement. If I follow
it up with "and that's due to the biological inferiority of the black race",
I'm probably a racist, even though my basic premise is not wrong.

The arguments one uses to support a conclusion are as important as the
premises one started with.

------
holydude
Sigh. Again an artificially created problem. I dunno maybe we all should work
from home and interact with other entities using just handles.

~~~
jgtrosh
Is it legal to employ anonymous people (or entities I guess) in any country? I
guess both parties can pay taxes separately and I assume it has happened for
some security research, insider info, special consulting, but I don't know if
that's actually legal. (It seems to me to go against the common way for
governments to regulate workforce.)

~~~
Klockan
HR is usually not involved in your actual job and they are the only ones at
the company who need to know who you are.

------
makarb
The diversity of opinions of the article and the embedded tweets was to be
expected. Is it so hard to write unbiased articles? ...

