Ask HN: Why has discussion of the Google Manifesto been censored? - AJRF
======
r721
This list of "Most active current discussions" is pretty useful for cases like
those, I use it a lot (flagged ones are shown there too):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active)

Discussions of "Google Manifesto" (two of them are still listed among
"active"):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934581)
(146 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14937778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14937778)
(132 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14937895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14937895)
(556 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14939636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14939636)
(344 comments)

~~~
leereeves
That's a really useful link. "Active" should be in the top bar.

------
brudgers
I suspect that users are flagging stories about it. I suspect that the reason
users flag it is the quality and temperature of the comments stories about it
tend to elicit. Of course I could be wrong.

Good luck.

~~~
gervase
I think this is the correct answer. HN goes to extensive efforts to avoid
flame wars in comments, and in the one post on the topic I saw reach the front
page (before being removed), the comments were an absolute hellhole.

~~~
moomin
I didn't flag it, but when I last looked all the comments were of people about
as well informed as the author and I filed under "trash fire, don't get
involved".

~~~
ctlby
Nearly all of the document's factual claims are squarely in the middle of
academic consensus. If you find the arguments morally troubling, just say so,
but don't contribute to the raving anti-scientific delusions of the blank-
slate crowd.

~~~
moomin
I couldn't have caricatured the original posts better myself. Bravo.

------
vorpalhex
I don't know, and in media stories about it, it has required a significant
amount of chasing to actually _read_ it. I don't agree with it, and it overly
politicizes a social kind of argument - but I think it's important to drag
these things into the light and debate them with clear facts and sources, not
to let them linger in the darkness.

For all it's faults, it did have one good suggestion - that programming may be
more attractive to a lot of folks if we make it more collaborative in nature.
That's an area where some otherwise really talented engineers suffer, and if
we expand the discipline I think it would be a meaningful improvement for all.

~~~
ebola1717
I think the value of debating it is overrated. This thread on Twitter
summarizes why I don't think debate on this issue is valuable:
[https://twitter.com/drnerdlove/status/894200932489146370](https://twitter.com/drnerdlove/status/894200932489146370)

I'd also add to that the notion of the Overton Window. There are many views we
as a society decide are not debateable, and debating them would normalize
those viewpoints.

~~~
marknutter
He's essentially saying that debating people you disagree with about sensitive
topics that have real world consequences is not worth the time because those
people are wrong and they aren't going to be affected by the outcome one way
or the other. So because he thinks the other side is wrong from the outset,
and is quite certain they have no skin in the game, they aren't to be listened
to. This is why people are leaving the left in droves.

------
SirensOfTitan
I would imagine the conversation around it would end up quite unconstructive.
Many find this a deeply emotional issue, and I think it needs to be both
supported and challenged in the logical realm. Julius Caesar's paraphrased
defense of Catiline comes to mind here:

> Chosen fathers of the Senate, all men who decide on difficult issues ought
> to free themselves from the influence of hatred, friendship, anger and pity.
> For when these intervene the mind cannot readily judge the truth, and no one
> has ever served his emotions and his best interests simultaneously. When you
> set your mind to a task, it prevails; if passion holds sway, it consumes
> you, and the mind can do nothing.

A rebuttal that says: I disagree, whomever supports this is {a pig} supports
the author's ideas around suppression of discussion while doing nothing to
dissuade less passionate readers. I call this "The Trump Problem": people
should be able to present their opinions and discuss them toward perhaps a
better conclusion. Right now, dissenters of the popular opinion seem to either
choose to be silent or get "backed into a corner and strive to justify
themselves" (As Dale Carnegie has mentioned). A deeper analysis of the
Manifesto on junk-v-decent arguments would be useful for everyone, even if you
think the entire document is crap.

------
majewsky
Do you mean on HN or elsewhere?

On HN, a story is scored both on the number of upvotes and on the number of
comments. When a story has a lot of comments (in proportion to the number of
votes), that story is punished based on the idea that it's probably only a few
people talking to each other very agitatedly without producing many novel
insights.

I have not followed the Google Manifesto discussion, but it's easy to imagine
that this prediction holds true in that case.

~~~
onion2k
_When a story has a lot of comments (in proportion to the number of votes),
that story is punished based on the idea that it 's probably only a few people
talking to each other very agitatedly without producing many novel insights._

Perhaps you're right, but a topic could spark an agitated _yet wholly
positive_ discussion. Pushing it down the list _just_ because a few people are
commenting a lot wouldn't make much sense in some discussions.

~~~
majewsky
That's the problem with algorithms. Even if they're right 90% of the time, the
10% errors are so much more noticeable.

------
viraptor
Without specific links it's hard to tell, but there are some automatic rules
that often kick in in cases like this. The penalty I notice most often is the
comments-vs-points ratio. If people just keep adding comments without voting
for the article itself, the link gets penalty and may lose quite a few
positions.

Whether you want to call that censorship is up to you, but there are a few
projects which attempted reverse engineering of the HN sort order and the
features were primarily automatic. What I'm trying to say is: what influences
the positions is usually the nature of the discussion rather than the content.
Can't prove it for every case though.

------
spacemanmatt
Beats me, but Yonotan Zunger's open letter in response is a much better focus,
IMO.

~~~
hw
it's as toxic of a response as the original manifesto, imo

~~~
ebola1717
I'm sorry, but it really feels like you just said this:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?la...](https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en)

------
Dude2018
It would be interesting to see an anonymous agree/disagree poll. I bet it
would be a Brexit/Trump type of outcome. Censorship only extends until polling
booth. For now.

~~~
tedmiston
There's an active anonymous poll for it on the app Blind
([https://us.teamblind.com/](https://us.teamblind.com/)) with a thread titled
"How do you feel about the Google diversity manifesto?"

(SPOILER: Poll answers and results copied below.)

Votes: 450

Answers in order from most disagreement to most agreement:

1\. 114 votes - "I disagree with it. It should be lit on fire."

2\. 142 votes - "I generally disagree with it, but it has some valid points
that should be discussed."

3\. 100 votes - "I generally agree with it, but it's a little rough around the
edges."

4\. 69 votes - "I agree with it. Author is a hero."

5\. 25 votes - "I don't care about these issues."

------
occultist_throw
To answer the question, what good does discussing this do?

The issue with "Tech + Workplace + Women" is a discussion topic flameworthy of
abortion, gun rights, and the like. To the opposition, you are evil. Nothing
good came come of this.

There will be people who bulletpoint everything wrong. There'll be others that
call for fallacious statements. There will be others that claim that they're
not getting proper discussion because of being screamed out. There'll be
others that just will be blatantly sexist (and removed/hellbanned).

What good does discussing this do? Ive seen various combinations of these same
discussions, and devolve to a textural screaming match.

Tl;Dr. Boring, no answers, everyone's "wrong" some way and some how. How about
nice mathematics or programming puzzles?

edit: seriously, modded down? I'd much prefer why you think I'm wrong. I've
seen 300+ comment threads about "sexism in the tech workplace" more than a few
times. They devolve to screaming matches and dry commentary nobody responds
to.

~~~
acdha
The problem is that we're not talking about some aesthetic issue like tabs vs.
spaces but rather large groups of peoples’ ability to participate in this
industry. Shrugging it off with “what good does it do?” is only possible if
you aren't affected by that and it's not a neutral position since it's
effectively saying that the reactionary position is okay with you.

It also ignores a lot of good which has come out of these discussions. I've
seen a number of colleagues become far more thoughtful about interaction
patterns, social structure, etc. in response to this discussion and they've
uniformly reported that this has improved the quality of work, too.

That should not be surprising: after all, do problems in your applications go
away if you don't monitor or discuss them? You may similarly have to deal with
the guy who's really defensive to protect his perceived status but … he's not
going to cause fewer problems if you don't.

~~~
occultist_throw
> Shrugging it off with “what good does it do?” is only possible if you aren't
> affected by that and it's not a neutral position since it's effectively
> saying that the reactionary position is okay with you.

You know nothing about me.

I work in academia. We have one of the largest "Gender Studies" (Read womens'
studies, men need not apply). Yet our IT in my group is 100% sausagefest.

I know of women who've applied. I'm not privy to the interviews at my time and
tenure... but it's completely bullshit to say that every woman is not
competent to do my job.

What can I do? I'm sure I could do an email campaign like this. But I'm 1
person, and I'm looking to work elsewhere due to managerial "issues". It's not
__MY __problem to solve ineffectual and bad management. But my solution is to
leave.

> It also ignores a lot of good which has come out of these discussions. I've
> seen a number of colleagues become far more thoughtful about interaction
> patterns, social structure, etc. in response to this discussion and they've
> uniformly reported that this has improved the quality of work, too.

If one of the most "Liberal" universities can't get it right, why would I
expect most anywhere to?

> That should not be surprising: after all, do problems in your applications
> go away if you don't monitor or discuss them? You may similarly have to deal
> with the guy who's really defensive to protect his perceived status but …
> he's not going to cause fewer problems if you don't.

The nail that sticks out gets the hammer.

~~~
acdha
I'm not saying you're a bad person, only that the conversation is important to
people who don't have the option of ignoring it. No, you can't change the
world but that doesn't mean we should give up and not even talk about the
problem.

Also, having spent a fair amount of time in academia, describing it as liberal
utopia is simplistic to the point of being wrong. Right-wing media loves to
describe it that way but it's not example hard to find examples of
universities fighting against fair wages, unionization, etc. — just watch what
happens if someone suggests grad students or adjuncts should have financial
security — and there are no shortage of examples of men who might even make a
pretense of being feminist while ignoring or even stymieing support for
working mothers, fair hiring or promotional practices, etc.

The only thing I've seen make any of this improve is sunlight.

~~~
occultist_throw
> I'm not saying you're a bad person, only that the conversation is important
> to people who don't have the option of ignoring it. No, you can't change the
> world but that doesn't mean we should give up and not even talk about the
> problem.

Thank you. I do try the fight, when I see a potential gain. I also see a great
deal of flailing around, just because. Maybe they're trying to find their area
they can change things. Who knows.

I do know I'm a white guy. Tall one.I know Ive never bought into the
victimhood culture of SJWs, but yes, bad shit does indeed happen to women and
minorities. I've seen it.

> Also, having spent a fair amount of time in academia, describing it as
> liberal utopia is simplistic to the point of being wrong. Right-wing media
> loves to describe it that way but it's not example hard to find examples of
> universities fighting against fair wages, unionization, etc. — just watch
> what happens if someone suggests grad students or adjuncts should have
> financial security — and there are no shortage of examples of men who might
> even make a pretense of being feminist while ignoring or even stymieing
> support for working mothers, fair hiring or promotional practices, etc.

Err, not quite. Yes, the University is still subject to capitalist forces. So
they're against graduate student rights, uses a great deal of temp and "part
timers" to skirt around full time employment benefits. I know there's a few
profs in Labor Studies that rattle the Communism banner. But they can, because
they __are __tenured.

Me? Since I'm IT/professional, I don't qualify for the union. So, no
protections. That means anonymous commentary. Cause just like this (presumed)
guy, I nor any of my co-workers can speak out.

Look at how upper management is already responding to this? "If he reported to
me, I'd fire him myself"... Literally anyone who shares even partial agreement
with his email is being blackballed.

Some of my friends called it the Liberal Circular Firing Squad. If we all
don't get in line, exactly as others have, we're wrong. Blammo. The
Republicans don't seem to do that, although they do have their spats.

~~~
pcnix
>Look at how upper management is already responding to this? "If he reported
to me, I'd fire him myself"... Literally anyone who shares even partial
agreement with his email is being blackballed.

But his reasoning for that is pretty legit though. If someone is willing to
call a third of your colleagues incompetent to their face, I'm not sure how
they'll be able to work together in that team and hope to actually make things
happen. It's hard to expect the women on his team to continue working with him
after he calls their competence into question after they've proved themselves
by climbing to the same position he holds.

I feel like the reasons for the firing were not that he had different views,
it was that he did not have the tact to approach this problem properly, and
handled it really badly. There are much better ways to have a discussion
around this than this manifesto, and those are discussions worth having. But
not this one, this is just inciting a flame war.

