
About This Googler's Manifesto - bmahmood
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788
======
tibiapejagala
I might partially or totally disagree with the original manifest, but this
reply is repulsive. I would never want to have a "senior" like this.

So much emphasis on how senior he is, how junior you have to write something
so wrong. How OP's career is over. The 3rd point reads like navy seals
copypasta but with HR instead.

If you don't see any other way to deal with OP's views than described in this
belittling rant, than you are no more senior than he is.

And a minor nitpick about this rant's top highlight:

>Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy
for both your colleagues and your customers.

This is a non-statement. Replace 'engineering' with science, medicine,
finance, customer service, politics, retail, programming etc., and it will
sound as correct.

~~~
untog
> This is a non-statement. Replace 'engineering' with science, medicine,
> finance, customer service, politics, retail, programming etc., and it will
> sound as correct.

That's the entire point. That you don't get that is telling. Engineering is
not some magic meritocratic endeavour where we all succeed by writing the very
best code we can. It's messy, and it involves working with people just as much
as it does a text editor. Hence this whole assertion of women being ill suited
for the job is _complete nonsense according to the logic presented in the
manifesto itself_.

~~~
nhaehnle
Mildly amusing observation: You're defending the original article, yet at the
same time you're perpetuating sexist assumptions (to be clear, I mean the
assumption that men are inherently worse than women at certain tasks). This
isn't meant to attack you, just thought I should point it out in case you
haven't noticed.

~~~
untog
I see what you mean. But following on from the article linked (which does the
same) I'm addressing that the manifesto isn't even consistent in its own
logic. My comment wasn't intended as an all-encompassing take down of the
entire manifesto!

I've updated the end to reflect that I'm talking about the inconsistency in
the manifesto itself.

------
pacala
> And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could
> not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t
> assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might
> have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a
> group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able
> to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace
> environment.

Textbook thoughtcrime punishment. The heretic must be isolated and extirpated,
with physical violence for good measure. Don't you dare interact with him, or
else you'll be ostracized as well.

~~~
untog
[I've made about four edits to this post and still can't do it justice -
should have drafted it more thoroughly. Others have made my points much more
effectively and this is just a distraction, so I'll remove it]

~~~
brandonhsiao
Imagine for a second that, controlling for all environmental factors, the
average IQ of men was shown to be 3 points lower than women. (Totally
hypothetical.) Additionally, women in this world outperform men at chess by a
noticeable margin.

There is a valid argument in this case to be made about how the reason women
are better than men at chess is partly biological, and that chess diversity
programs should be cognizant of this. How would you propose this be brought up
in today's climate without offending people?

I don't know if you haven't read the manifesto, or are happy making
simplifications for the sake of making conclusive moral statements, but it is
_wildly dishonest_ to claim the manifesto argued that "women are genetically
inferior." It argued that on average, looking at various traits and
preferences, men and women are better at and care about different things, some
of which make them better suited -- again, on average-- to some professions
than others.

You can disagree and that can be a fun internet argument, but judging by the
reaction to this manifesto, the sheer outrage while misrepresenting the
manifesto's content, sort of demonstrates the author's meta-point about
ideological homogeneity.

~~~
untog
> There is a valid argument in this case to be made about how the reason women
> are better than men at chess

But there isn't. There is an argument that women are, _on average_ , better
than men at chess. But that argument does not apply to an individual person.
Why would you use male vs female average IQ when judging who becomes a member
of the chess team? Why not assess the candidates IQ? Or, maybe have them play
chess and see how well they do?

There is a persistent theory that diversity programmes exist to promote
underqualified minorities over qualified white people. That's not true. The
aim of the programmes is to find people who have been disadvantaged by this
exact kind of (often subconscious) "well when you average group X out over the
entire country ignoring educational achievement and employment history,
typically they're not so good" thinking and have lost out on past
opportunities.

You're right, I was using some excessive shorthand in my original post and
will amend it - the assumptions are not genetic, they are social. But the
point still stands, why be making these assumptions at all?

~~~
brandonhsiao
* I've always assumed "frogs are bigger than toads" has "on average" implied, and that obviously some toads are bigger than some frogs.

* If the real goal is to find overlooked, qualified people, we should expect to see more moneyball type thinking, and less lazy diversity-for-diversity's-sake thinking.

* The current trend of hyperfocusing on social causes of behavior and making biological ones taboo seems dangerous. I would argue that a comprehensive, accurate description of how people work makes you better at grounding your compassion in effective results. To that end, overlooking something as big as biology seems an easy way to enact a policy that's well-intentioned but harmful.

* Some people may appeal to biology in a sexist way and maybe history has many examples, but some people really just want to know what the truth is. Another way of making this point: [https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/846520296240693248](https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/846520296240693248)

------
edison85
Having read the full manifesto, I find myself agreeing with the author's
thought process for a bunch of his points and clearly disagreeing with others.
He presented them well, not offensive at all, and if I had a discussion with
him I'm sure he seems open to change certain beliefs if presented with ample
evidence. I would generally love talking to this guy. Instead everyone shames
him, tells him his mostly very valid thought process is sexist and his career
is done. This guy woukd never discuss this with anyone and things will go on
as they do today or worse he'll ostracize the left completely and will go in
his own bubble and no positive change. This is what happened with Trump, an
acquaintance posted on Facebook how the gender wage gap was almost nonexistent
at the same job, industry and role but how we should instead work towards
empowering women to better deal with promotions and re entering work force
after pregnancy and unanimously got destroyed by maybe a hundred fb friends.
He removed most of them and started jut posting pro trump stuff and I don't
blame him

~~~
smb06
You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is
finding it offensive.

That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Maybe everyone _is_ stupid. Not really -- some are malicious, for example,
this medium post starts with a bald-faced lie.

~~~
retox
You're correct, but this story is being buried on HN. The lie at the
beginning;

>about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically different and we
should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just
not worth it

------
zorpner
_Perhaps more interestingly, the author does not appear to understand
engineering._

This guy gets it. It's a deep temptation to abstract engineering away from
humanism, but the idea that code can solve problems is an immature
understanding of software. People have the problems; people provide the
solutions. Code is a tool & intermediary, and hardly essential to the act of
problem-solving.

~~~
smsm42
Yet, if we look at Google's track record, they have much better luck with
technical problems than with people-interaction problems. Search driven by
algorithms - excellent. Social networks - epic fail. Advertising backend -
money juggernaut, mostly driven by clever algorithms, as I understand? Mobile
OS backend - great (well, ok, not too bad). Mobile OS frontend - meh. Chrome
is kinda borderline, but I think technology has much more to do with its
success then it having the best UX on the market. Shopping experience (outside
of captive market of mobile users) - not too hot. Goggles - a flop.

In general, I feel if I am talking about a product from Google, I could expect
a lot of very clever technology, but kinda basic UX. Sometimes it works - e.g.
search works with basic UX just fine, that's what most people need. Sometimes
people would just take the technology and add their own UX and that'd work
fine too. But I personally get a feeling that Google's core competence is
exactly in places that you are calling "hardly essential". Am I wrong?

~~~
jogjayr
You're forgetting important Google products where design or user experience
played a crucial role in winning.

Gmail - the dominant webmail platform that made pioneering use of AJAX; before
it you had to refresh the page to check if you had new email. And whose
inbuilt chat client crushed Yahoo Messenger/MSN/AOL. People came for the 1GB
of free storage, stayed for the friends they made on chat.

YouTube - Video juggernaut that has a pretty good community and mobile app.
Sure it was an acquisition but it's been a Google property far longer than it
was independent. If they weren't good at design or community-building they
might have easily screwed it up; it's happened with Yahoo's Flicker
acquisition.

Google Productivity Suite - The UX on these is hit-or-miss actually; the
Google Drive web UI is a massive fail for me. But you can't deny the success
of these very consumer-focused applications. They've been executed very well
and clearly enough people like them that the opinion of someone like me is
irrelevant.

Orkut - You might laugh but it absolutely ruled social in India and Brazil
till Facebook caught on.

Chromecast - it's done all right; 30 million sold so far

Not to mention this one

> Search driven by algorithms

also misses the mark. Google Search's user experience was also revolutionary.
Their homepage was (and still is) sparse and uncluttered; laser-focused on
providing the user with the best search results and absolutely nothing else.
They didn't try to become a "portal" like Yahoo even though everyone told them
they were crazy to not capitalize on the popularity of their homepage.

~~~
codeisawesome
Don't completely disagree with you. But,

Gmail:

From my hazy memory of the time it was released: 1\. Best usage of AJAX and
providing complex interaction without refreshing the page. 2\. More storage
space than any other provider.

Both, technical feats of excellence?

Youtube:

It was an acquired product, and there were quite a few points at which the
YouTube community reacted angrily to Google driven changes, prominently when
they made Google+ mandatory for comments.

GPS, Orkut, Chromecast and Homepage decisions: I agree on your point here.

~~~
runamok
Gmail in my opinion was powerful because it was used search vs. painstakingly
moving messages into folders. It also had auto-threading so you would not have
the clutter of re:re:re:re: ad nauseum... And most of all it was very fast.

~~~
jogjayr
Yes! Email conversation threads! I'd forgotten that one. Also a +1 for UX.

You might quibble about this but recognizing that fast search is better than
foldering is also UX. It seems obvious to us now but maybe it wasn't that
obvious in 2006 (or maybe it was, I didn't know anything about UX or design
back then). Yes making the search go fast is a technical feat and without good
tech you can't have a good user experience even if the design is good (see
WebOS).

------
searealist
> You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior)
> published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically
> different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be
> engineers, it’s just not worth it.

This sets the tone for the entire article: An emotionally driven rant that
refutes nothing and argues against a strawman.

~~~
Goladus
And yet, it has 178 upvotes at the time of posting.

~~~
cropsieboss
Because postmodernist and neomarxist ideas are appealing to idealists dreaming
of utopia.

It's quite weird that an article with 0 citations, 0 proper rebuttals of
arguments in the original manifesto gets so much attention. It is pure leftist
circlejerk.

For example, show me a single study demonstrating proper effectiveness of
unconscious bias training. HR departments in FB and Google have those. Studies
of the effectiveness do not exist or show no effectiveness.

HR in many companies is comprised of leftist sociology, psychology majors who
disregard results in their own fields which do not align with their equity for
all philosophy.

~~~
dang
Would you please not use HN for ideological battle? It is not what the site is
for, and we ban accounts that primarily do it.

------
Uhhrrr
This essay is just bad.

In section 1 the author presupposes that the facts presented in the original
post are false (but then fluffs on presenting any evidence for this). Maybe
he's right! If someone else writes that piece, it would be a valuable
contribution.

In section 2 he writes about the social aspect of engineering, which certainly
exists, but pretends that being engaged and interested in the technical side
of things doesn't matter at all. Ignoring technical details while creating
your planet-scale system is like trying to fly a C-130 in a vacuum.

Section 3 is straight bullying.

~~~
Inconel
Section 3 is most troubling to me as well, even if I can mostly agree with
some of his other points. I particularly enjoyed the notion of the manifesto's
author being punched in the face while at work, and this being a reason Mr
Zunger couldn't have other people working with him, rather than perhaps
requiring those people not punch others in the face. In a different scenario
this kind of attitude towards workplace violence might be labelled victim
blaming.

As an aside, I always wonder whether people like Mr Zunger, who are seemingly
so nonchalant in their casual dismissal of the use of violence against those
they disagree with, have every had this kind of violence visited upon
themselves. In an effort to be charitable, I'm going to assume it comes from a
position of privilege and ignorance, rather than malice.

~~~
nl
You realize that the "punch in the face" line is a philosophical point about
how angry the author made people, right?

If someone did actually punch the author in the face they would (and should)
be fired and charged with assault.

~~~
Inconel
Hmm, I'm not a native English speaker, although I do consider myself fluent at
this point, and I'm not terribly bright, so I fully admit I could be
misinterpreting things, but the quote didn't seem particularly philosophical
to me, it read quite literal. I suppose I might categorize it as hyperbole,
although even in that case, I typically don't like the use of such hyperbole
when it comes to violence. It has a habit of detracting from otherwise
sensible points.

~~~
nl
I agree it has clearly detracted from the point as this discussion shows.

But it's pretty important to realize that "punching someone in the face" is a
crime, and no company can allow that.

~~~
thehardsphere
Maybe you missed it, but there's been a distinct trend in America lately to
suggest that violence can be OK in political contexts. I would not assume that
the author was apeaking figuratively, because many authors who would likely
agree with the author would not be.

~~~
avisser
Here here. "Punch a Nazi" is no longer figurative.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvmGWqFYBGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvmGWqFYBGk)

------
Overtonwindow
I'm deeply troubled by the response to this "manifesto". Pitchforks are out
for this guy, and when they find him, it won't be pretty. I think that's
wrong. He has expressed his opinion, and people are free to confront, and
denounce him all they want. But this guy might lose his job. His career. All
for voicing his opinion. I don't think it matters that he did this internally.
Had he stood up at a discussion in Palo Alto and said these words, the
pitchforks would still be out. Our country has reached a dangerous fork in its
evolution where the freedom to speak can literally ruin your life. There was a
time when people were, and still are, shot for speaking their minds. Is this
the natural evolution we are heading towards?

~~~
Lagged2Death
_But this guy might lose his job. His career. All for voicing his opinion._

This has always been true and I can't understand how you would imagine it was
ever otherwise.

~~~
philwelch
I'm not sure if you're being defensive or cynical here. It's true that people
have always lost their jobs and careers (sometimes lives!) for voicing
unpopular opinions.

What's interesting is how people's moral judgment of that correlates with
their sympathy for the particularly unpopular opinion in question. Lots of
people lost their jobs and careers for voicing opinions that were sympathetic
to Communism, and we call that "McCarthyism" and "a witch hunt". This guy
loses his job and many of us would cheer for it.

~~~
Lagged2Death
I don't know that much about McCarthyism but I think it's safe to guess that
you know less. It was considered a witch hunt because nobody cared about facts
or evidence, the spectacle was the point. Victims we're persecuted because
they were juicy, suceptible targets, not because of anything they did or
didn't do.

The situation we're discussing here is pretty different.

~~~
philwelch
> It was considered a witch hunt because nobody cared about facts or evidence,
> the spectacle was the point. Victims we're persecuted because they were
> juicy, suceptible targets, not because of anything they did or didn't do.

You're right--you don't know a lot about McCarthyism. The "Hollywood Ten"
screenwriters who were blacklisted by the film industry (private employers
making employment decisions!) were, in fact, members of the Communist Party
USA, an organization that was directly controlled and financed by an
adversarial world power. There was substance behind the spectacle.

As for people being accused of things without evidence--well, witness the
people in this thread who keep repeating the lie that the author of the
manifesto considers his women coworkers less capable than he is, the outright
fantasizing in OP about the author getting punched in the face, etc. Looks
pretty spectacular to me.

~~~
Lagged2Death
_The "Hollywood Ten" screenwriters who were blacklisted by the film industry
(private employers making employment decisions!) were, in fact, members of the
Communist Party USA..._

Yes, but 1) that was just the tip of the iceberg labelled "McCarthyism," and
2) even at the time, the issue wasn't that they had joined a political party,
the issue was what that party proposed to achieve.

In the case of the Google's manifesto, I don't see anyone upset that the
author holds an unpopular opinion or that he publicized his unpopular opinion;
it's the content of the opinion itself that's at issue.

Both McCarthy himself and the Googler in question here tried to harm other
people's careers by spreading untruths in a self-aggrandizing way. That seems
like the most natural parallel to me.

------
TheCoreh
I'd seriously like to know if the author meant this literally:

> a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you
> in the face

If that's indeed the case, isn't that on itself a huge problem we should deal
with? If someone is risking being a victim of physical violence on the
workplace over disagreements on political positions we should be seriously
concerned.

~~~
minwcnt5
Oh come on, it's obvious hyperbole. I wouldn't actually punch this guy in the
face if I had to work with him, but I would certainly would silently wish I
could.

~~~
atom-morgan
Considering how often words are labeled violence today, it's bizarre that
words about actual violence is hyperbole.

------
to_bpr
Is there any other professional industry as politically divided and toxic as
tech has become?

Is there any other industry in which private companies shove their "values"
down the throats of their employees in the manner we experience in tech?

~~~
DenisM
Academia. Not an industry, but still a field of professional activity.

~~~
atom-morgan
And Susan Fowler said academia is more sexist than tech. Which one is more
liberal?
[https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/880949030900989953...](https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/880949030900989953?refsrc=email&s=11))

------
interpol_p
It's just embarrassing at this point that an engineer at a well known company
like Google even _thinks_ like this. (The original author, not Yonatan.)

Reading the original manifesto felt like something my 17-year-old self would
write. Too clever and completely oblivious at the same time.

~~~
hindsightbias
I have this thing about reading footnotes first:

"I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and
reason."

I miss the days when libertarians weren't ashamed to admit so. But back then,
they could debate the difference between von Mises and Hayek.

Today... not so much. Ideology isn't Book Deep, it's Google Search Deep.

~~~
int_19h
In general, I see people self-identifying as "classic liberal" when they want
to underscore that they're not ancap, and value strong (but limited in scope)
governments to protect property rights.

~~~
ue_
It's a shame that people (especially propertarians and "classical liberals")
seem to be more concerned about property rights than fostering individualism.

~~~
thehardsphere
How do you get individualism if individuals can't own anything, including
themselves?

~~~
ue_
I take the distinction between private and personal property to be important,
as Proudhon and later Marx described.

>There are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the
dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, naked
property. 2. Possession. “Possession,” says Duranton, “is a matter of fact,
not of right.” Toullier: “Property is a right, a legal power; possession is a
fact.” The tenant, the farmer, the commandité, the usufructuary, are
possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the heir who is to come into
possession on the death of a usufructuary, are proprietors. If I may venture
the comparison: a lover is a possessor, a husband is a proprietor.

[https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudho...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/property/)

And to learn about why property is against individualism, I recommend Oscar
Wilde's _The Soul of Man Under Socialism_ and Bookchin's concerns:
[https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-
oscar/soul-...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-
man/)

Even the Stirnerian egoists take issue with private property:
[http://www.spunk.org/texts/intro/faq/sp001547/secF4.html](http://www.spunk.org/texts/intro/faq/sp001547/secF4.html)

~~~
int_19h
You don't even need to go for Marx to discover that distinction, or challenge
the idea that property is a natural right. It was remarked upon by that
renowned pinko commie, Thomas Jefferson:

"A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment
of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that
establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of
Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands
been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he
has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to
occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can
be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till
then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as
trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the
grant."

"It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived
from nature at all... It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the
subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an
acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether
fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for
the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation,
the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is
given late in the progress of society."

(Note that these are slightly contradictory; I presented them in chronological
order.)

------
kyrre
> (1) Despite speaking very authoritatively, the author does not appear to
> understand gender.

> I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1) ... I am neither a
> biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone
> else.

heh

~~~
cropsieboss
Yeah, and somehow he knows it goes against nearly all research.

That manifesto is obviously inspired by recent rise in popularity of Jordan B
Peterson. That guy is a very good psychologist.

~~~
jgrowl
I was thinking the same thing. There a lot of points he brought up that
Peterson brings up, especially about neuroticism and conscientiousness.

Maybe a little of Sam Harris thrown in there too. I saw people in the comments
on gizmodo freaking out about the point about avoiding empathy. It's a nuanced
point that is completely lost on them that compassion can be a better trait
than empathy.

~~~
Aron
Yeah that was my impression as well. He's been travelling the same Jordan
Peterson/Sam Harris circuit I have. I could probably list the reasons but just
his use of Big Five personality traits makes it highly likely.

I think to some extent this Googler may survive his effort to Larry Summer
himself simply because his arguments are so familiar at this point. If he had
actually said true things that hadn't already been circulating as a standard
counter-narrative, he'd probably have fewer supporters and die on his cross.

------
maehwasu
> What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a
> manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your
> colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs, and that they’re
> only being kept in their jobs because of some political ideas.

The author seems to assume this is obviously false, and neatly avoids the fact
that in many companies, industries, and academic settings, there are indeed a
large fraction of people who are not good enough to do their jobs, and are
only kept in those jobs because of political ideas.

~~~
hiptobecubic
The document was written by a Googler about Google and is being commented on
by a Xoogler that literally just left the company. It's not a general
statement about human incompetence. It's _about Google specifically._

------
cameldrv
The irony is that one of the touted business case reasons for diversity is
that it gives a diversity of perspectives and ideas, which can be useful to
solving a problem. I agree with this analysis. If we listen to Yontan though,
any team that has a member with a different perspective will be punched in the
face. That's a very clear argument for homogenous teams, at least as long as
you don't want a workplace with constant fistfights.

~~~
unityByFreedom
> The irony is that one of the touted business case reasons for diversity is
> that it gives a diversity of perspectives and ideas, which can be useful to
> solving a problem. I agree with this analysis. If we listen to Yontan
> though, any team that has a member with a different perspective will be
> punched in the face. That's a very clear argument for homogenous teams, at
> least as long as you don't want a workplace with constant fistfights

Excluding people who have prejudices towards men and women does not mean you
have "homogenous teams". It may mean you have fewer conservatives.

Also, some folks' ideas are so extreme that they exclude others' rights. We've
seen this throughout history with conservatives. Working rights, voting
rights, and marriage rights.

The woman who denied gay marriage licenses did it on the basis that her right
to express her religion was being infringed upon. Who's being exclusive there?
The woman, or the gay men who wanted to get married?

------
throwaway72695
I posted this in another thread where the entire thread got flagged. This
response on medium is scary and demonstrates what I’m concerned about. At this
point the left has gotten to a point where witch hunts, blacklisting,
exclusion, and suggesting that people could acceptably be subject to violence,
for thought crime are accepted and encouraged tactics.

I’m a closeted conservative in tech, hence the throwaway account. Some of what
the manifesto said is overly broad or wrong headed, in particular at least
from my perspective generalizing views held by conservatives on climate change
and similar issues, but one thing in particular stood out: The left and by
extension Google do not tolerate diversity of viewpoint or worldview.
Diversity of race or sex is viewed as critical but real diversity, that of the
lens through which people view the world is to be stomped out with prejudice.
If you don’t agree with the leftist secular view you are a bigot. If you are
religious you must apologize for your bigotry and convince others it is only a
social activity or something private that won’t affect how you behave or what
you believe in other spheres. As a conservative orthodox Catholic and a
devotee of Saint Josemariá Escrivá, I feel like I have to hide my faith and my
views. If people understood that my devotion to doing my work as perfectly and
as generously as I can is driven by my desire to serve God and mankind they
would be shocked and disappointed. Even worse, my views on the existence of an
absolute unchanging morality would be viewed as bigotry even though I don’t
advocate discrimination and am willing to happily work beside those who
believe and practice differently. It is not enough that we work side by side
and treat each other with respect, I must believe and accept leftist dogma in
my heart or I am a bigot and I am unfit to write code, work with others, or
function in a management role. From my perspective the exclusion, demonization
and intolerance from the left for those who dare to merely believe and live
their own lives differently is terrifying. I don’t know how we come back from
the current state of things to a liberal, open society where diversity of
belief and viewpoint is prized.

~~~
roguecoder
Why on earth do you think people should be expected to tolerate a "diversity
of views" on whether they are inherently less qualified than white men?

------
lsh123
"It’s true that women are socialized to be better at paying attention to
people’s emotional needs and so on — this is something that makes them better
engineers, not worse ones."

Looks like the author of this blog post agrees with the author of the
manifesto on his main point.

~~~
roguecoder
"Socialized" is the key word here: these skills are taught, and thus are
learnable. There is no excuse for men not learning these skills once they
discover they lack them.

------
seibelj
I won't say anything positive or negative about either the original post or
the rebuttal because publicly touching any of this is career suicide. But I
will comment that as assertive the original author was about things, citing
various facts and studies, was not the rebuttal similar in repeatedly saying
the original author was wrong and citing his own studies? Can anyone in social
science really say anything is fact? Social science is about the weakest
"science" there is in terms of absolute proof and sureities

~~~
orangecat
The rebuttal cited no studies. It asserts that the manifesto's claims about
gender "flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for
decades", and as far as I can tell this is utterly false.

~~~
nopatternhere
What's great is the next sentence: "But I am neither a biologist, a
psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else." So, you
know it is false, completely, and that we should ignore it because it is
false, but you are unqualified to provide any examples? Sigh.

------
ahmedahamid
Quite honestly, the most concerning thing to me about this whole manifesto is
the outright dismissive reaction it is getting from everyone.

I know that some people agree with the author and I want to see his point of
view studied, analyzed and critiqued in the most objective and thorough manner
possible. For instance, do we have evidence on gender biases among different
engineering roles? If the answer is yes, is this bias due to organic
inclinations attributable to inherent gender differences? Is any part of such
inclinations - if any - historically/socially constructed? If it is something
that has historical roots, is imposing diversity rules and regulations a
temporary/transient measure necessary to counter an existing imbalance until
unfair advantage is extenuated? Or is it something we need to maintain
indefinitely?

Without rigorous examination of the claims in this manifesto, we are running
the risk of having a growing base of believers of an under-scrutinized
opinion, individuals who do not speak their minds solely due to social
pressure.

------
Grue3
A good example of what senior managers at Google think of people who _actually
write their code_. The manifesto writer is an idiot, but this Yonatan Zunger
guy doesn't paint himself in a good light here either.

------
Udik
So basically Yonatan Zunger is saying that the fact the women are
underrepresented among Google engineers depends entirely from the misogynistic
attitude of the company, and that its interviewers are maschilist assholes.
So, he says, it took him "half of the past day" to try to fix the mess caused
by a guy that dared to suggest that _maybe_ the company and its employees are
not such misogynistic assholes after all. Excellent job!

------
evangelista
I do not like this article or the author's approach to argumentation.

The author attempts to argue like this: "I am so right I do not have to argue
why I am right and even if I did, you would be too dumb to understand it.
_waves hands around vaguely_ there is lots of science proving everything I
think is true. I am too lazy to cite any of it or even indicate what arguments
you made specifically are wrong, online people back me up on this please.
Therefore: SEXIST! YOU ARE A SEXIST PIG AND HAVE HURT PEOPLE'S FEELINGS AND I
WOULD HAVE YOU FIRED!" </end article>

This approach to arguing is exactly why I left the Democratic Party last year
and won't be coming back until it changes. The behavior of the online mobs
supporting Liberal causes (especially in high tech) turned me off so
thoroughly I can never return. Stereotyping everything you disagree with as
racist, sexist or the general category of "nazi" no longer impresses me.

YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO START ACTUALLY BACKING UP YOUR ASSERTIONS, THE
BULLYING APPROACH HAS STOPPED WORKING.

Anyways, so lets spend a minute talking about the piles of imaginary science
the author believes to exist for a moment.

Are you sitting down? Zero. There is zero science, anywhere, stating that 50%
of women MUST be engineers. There is none. The idea that 50% of engineers MUST
be women is a WANT. It is a GOAL. It is a DESIRE. At no point in history has
50% of engineering EVER been done by women, WHY must we all agree that this is
a rational objective?

Where the tech industry gets it wrong is that it has decided to RAM this
opinion down everyone's throats and force them to adhere to ever more
stringent speech and behavioral codes and attempt to make everything in tech
so bland, so PC, so placid, so devoid of argumentation or competition that
perhaps we can vaguely tempt a woman or two into joining a bunch of sweaty
engineers in a basement and chug Red Bull all night to push shitty code to a
failing server on AWS.

Surely more training in micro-agressions is the problem keeping women away and
not the disgusting pit stains. Right? After ten years of diversity summits,
women who code, peer pressure, online mobs ranting...the net effect has been a
completely imperceptible change in the number of women working at Facebook and
Google. This approach and all the feel good antics and cheerleading
surrounding it has failed.

Who needs imaginary science to show us that women don't really want to be
engineers when we have reality?

Yet we are all supposed to buy completely into the notion that at some point
in the future, if all sexism and other barriers are removed, that 50% of
engineers WILL be women. Why must that be true?

What I think the goal SHOULD be is that 100% of women should have mentorship,
access to education, representation, engineering peers and early tutelage. Of
the women who have talent at engineering, they should all be able to find
placements in engineering if they do the work necessary.

And why is it always engineering? Why not coal mining? Why not nuclear
engineering? Pig farming? Deep sea fishing? Plumbing? Carpentry? Why the
incessant, unrelenting insistance from all corners that 50% of engineers MUST
be women and no other profession?

Every time I ask this question, I am informed that: "We have banned people
from asking why 50% of nurses are not men."

Why have you banned people from asking this question? Have you banned them
from asking this question because you are right? Or have you banned people
from asking this question because the answer makes you uncomfortable and does
not support your worldview?

~~~
johnny22
I ain't tryin to refute the rest of this, so you don't have to worry about
that but this bit..

"And why is it always engineering? Why not coal mining? Why not nuclear
engineering? Pig farming? Deep sea fishing? Plumbing? Carpentry? Why the
incessant, unrelenting insistance from all corners that 50% of engineers MUST
be women and no other profession?"

I've never personally advocated for 50/50 because I have no idea if it will or
could ever happen, but for the rest, the answer is simple..

The tech industry is my home, it's what I know, and I feel like I have
experience there. I have no experience in fishing, or coal mining, or pig
farming, or any of that other stuff.

Doesn't it seem obvious that folks in tech would care about other folks in
tech vs spending their time talking about industries they may or may not have
experience in? It seems self-evident, so I have no idea why this point is ever
brought up in this context.

~~~
MartinCron
Exactly. If I had devoted my career to a different industry that had serious
diversity problems, I would be advocating for corrective actions in that
industry.

------
tvaughan
And this is what happens when all we care about is if a person can balance a
b-tree from memory in a job interview.

------
zwischenzug
'I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to provide
details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document
is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in
the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a
psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.'

Ironic that he confuses gender and sex here, further emphasizing his
ignorance.

The general point about flying 'directly in the face of all research done in
the field for decades' is not only not true, it's absurdly so:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=autism+extreme+maleness+baro...](https://www.google.com/search?q=autism+extreme+maleness+baron+cohen)

[https://iancommunity.org/cs/understanding_research/extreme_m...](https://iancommunity.org/cs/understanding_research/extreme_male_brain)

and this exactly is in the area of 'systematising' and 'empathy' that the
original author tries to provoke discussion on.

I also find it interesting that the original memo discusses supposed gender
differences arising from sex that 'women in tech' discussion frequently puts
forward, viz that women are less likely to ask for pay rises.

------
jackfraser
What an incredibly intellectually lazy way of attempting to deconstruct that
manifesto this is!

> 1.I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to
> provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire
> document is actively incorrect

"This is wrong, I don't have to tell you why" is a pitiful statement in and of
itself, and perhaps more importantly, is not an argument. The author merely
positions himself against the document with this, with no justification other
than to reference fields that have shown themselves to have bias against
reliable statistics relating to the subject matter in question.

> Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and
> empathy for both your colleagues and your customers.

Yes and no. Specialties exist for a reason, and fields like "ux designer",
"customer success coach", etc. exist because there's a clear need for people
with those skillsets. If engineers were adept at that - and yes, of course
some are, but most don't seem to be - then those professions wouldn't have
broken out into their own domains of knowledge as quickly and at as large of a
scale as they have.

That aside, this entire line of thought isn't much of an argument, because:

> If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away
> with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you
> that you have been lied to.

I don't think the manifesto author ever said that men were incapable of
empathy, or that they should never use it. He does suggest that being able to
separate oneself from emotion is useful in a technical argument; I'll concur
that ego can get in the way of making the right choice (e.g. Not Invented Here
syndrome). There's a clear difference between your own emotional state, and
your ability to empathize with another's.

In an ideal state, we are calm and collected with our own emotions and avoid
letting them make decisions for us, while considering the emotions of others.
Neurotypical people of all genders are entirely capable of doing this; the
approach may differ, but if the author is at all suggesting that we need women
in order to be able to have empathy in an engineering context, he's
essentially saying men are incapable of the same, which is palpably incorrect.

> It’s true that women are socialized to be better at paying attention to
> people’s emotional needs and so on — this is something that makes them
> better engineers, not worse ones.

An unfounded assumption. Women are not merely socialized to be better at this;
they've evolved to be better at it. This is true across every civilization in
history; the gender role is an outcome of the evolved behaviour, which has
teleological value in terms of its benefit to interpersonal relationships and
successful propagation of family lines. Suggesting that it's merely a
"socialized" thing is part of a chain of argument that leads down the path of
believing that all humans are blank slates oppressed into particular
behaviours, which runs contrary to all the research. Stephen Pinker is a great
resource if one wants to find out more about this.

> What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a
> manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your
> colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs, and that they’re
> only being kept in their jobs because of some political ideas.

Ad-hominems aside, the argument here is that people with different political
ideas should simply stay quiet. The original manifesto author made it clear
that he's on-side with the growing number of people in the Western world that
are becoming increasingly tired of being told that they aren't allowed to
present their opinions. The original essay was not mean, hurtful, hateful, or
scathing; it may have been wrong, in one's view, but to call it harmful
implies the exact kind of emotion-based reasoning that we need to be able to
avoid when dealing with sensitive or ego-bound topics.

> I am no longer even at the company and I’ve had to spend half of the past
> day talking to people and cleaning up the mess you’ve made.

This isn't your job, and nobody made you do that; if anything, you've been
part of the Streisand Effect, whereing more and more people talking about
something in order to "clean up the mess" simply spreads the mess wider.

> Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign
> anyone to work with you?

Do you think that the manifesto author is going to act like a Mad Men
caricature and harass women or refuse to work with them? What evidence has
made you think so? Is having a strict personal adherence to a corporate-
approved philosophy a requirement at this workplace? How is that justifiable?

> good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you
> in the face,

How is physical violence even remotely a reasonable thing to suggest in
response to an essay? I have got to assume that Zunger was actually _angry_ at
the time of typing this, because the emotion - bordering on hatred - is
evident in this last segment.

> But our company is committed to maintaining a good environment for all of
> its people, and if one person is determined to thwart that, the solution is
> pretty clear.²

"All of its people" is a set that is known to contain a non-zero number of
people that agree with this manifesto author. If the way that you maintain a
good environment for your chosen group of people is to simply remove everyone
that doesn't perfectly fit the mold, it may be dishonest to use language that
makes you sound magnanimous or ecumenical when the true goal really is
division and a lack of diversity.

All in all, a poor response, not much better than the official one from the
company, that does nothing to address the legitimate concerns raised and
rather seeks to sweep the problems back under the rug for the comfort of all
involved. It might work this time, and the next time, but eventually if
there's going to be any settled truth to this matter, we'll have to have open
discussions about it instead of simply shutting it down.

~~~
totemizer
as i wrote it elsewhere already regarding the original "manifesto":

i am curious, if this person is ok with questioning their belief in "traits"
that are defined on the level of sex. after all they are the one who says that
"some ideas are too sacred to be discussed" and when i bring this up, i often
find that the "differences" between the sexes are exactly one of these ideas.

the reactions to this talk are a good example.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqR4cw9Amlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqR4cw9Amlg)

~~~
heurist
Are you okay with people questioning your questioning of gender differences?
Obviously there are differences. It is frustrating to continually have to
explain how irrelevant they are to performance in 99.9% of business functions.

1\. The cohesiveness of the organization is more important than any particular
individual.

2\. Men have greater variance in many skills than women do, so there are more
men on the high end and low end of the talent spectrum.

3\. On average we are the same, and there are enough humans around today that
few of us exist in a zone with no significant overlap.

4\. The genetic and developmental formation of men exposes us to greater
mutation rates than women. The mutations that add the extra variance in talent
can have chaotic and deleterious effects in other aspects (for instance
diminished social awareness, autism, aggression).

5\. Socially aware individuals are more likely to seek and form stronger
teams. A talented individual has a high productivity relative to other
individuals, but teams can multiply in ways individuals can't.

6\. High individual talent can be abrasive and egotistical. Egos are toxic on
teams and in business because they prevent you from seeing the wider picture.
A wide perspective is vital to obtaining a competitive edge. Abrasion over
time causes other team members to burn out, causing loss of intellectual
capital and a bad brand in the talent market. (Not all talented individuals
are abrasive).

7\. Without a solid team you have no chance at accomplishing anything
worthwhile.

8\. Empathetic individuals keep the team emotionally secure and are able to
design organizational structures that best leverage existing resources.

9\. Organizational diversity has been shown to positively impact collective
performance. Every new perspective is an edge over the competition, an insight
into a new set of consumers.

10\. Gender balances out in the end. We are all taking our own roads through
life and each of us has a unique skill set that we are using to make ourselves
happier in this weird imbalanced society. In a hierarchical organization, one
can leverage their skills to obtain higher posts even if they are not exactly
the same skills of their predecessors. It all contributes.

It's simple. The argument is pointless. The only reason I'm posting this is
because Yonatan put himself on the front lines of this particular fight and he
didn't have to. He's going to have to argue his point down to meaningless
details to convince those absurdly stubborn people who refuse to get their
heads out of the sand.

Yes, we are different. That's a good thing.

~~~
totemizer
I am ok with people questioning anything, the only situation when this is not
ok when there is an emergency, and for those situation we should be prepared
ahead, so there is no question what we have to do. I see that you agree that
the differences are irrelevant. Or how I would say, the effect size is too
small to be considered as a factor.

1\. however any organization should have a purpose beyond sustaining itself
and if it has no such, it should be dismantled immediatelly

2\. probably true, but it's definitely more about the circumstances than about
the individuals

3\. agreed

4\. this is as much about diagnosing behaviors as about expressing the said
behaviors. my views of how minds work significantly differ from the views that
use these diagnoses

5\. i don't believe in "talented individuals". rest of this point is fine by
me.

6\. this whole thing is nonsense to me. sure, what you say is true, but as I
said I don't believe in talent. I also don't believe that you need to be
competitive to be productive. I don't think a team or an individual has to be
competitive in any situation besides competitions, and those are actually
quite rare. obviously, if someone believes they are competing when they are
not or should not, that can be extremely destructive.

7\. the grass is green, the sky is blue, and truisms are truisms. :)

8\. sure, but to be empathetic is to express empathy when it's appropriate,
which can be learned. some people learn it fast other's maybe never. but most
often the reason for this is not because they were born like that, but because
the circumstances didn't allow them to learn it.

9\. diversity is good in ecosystems because it gives resilience. that's true
again, in almost any sufficiently complex situation

10\. depends what you mean by "balance" & "in the end". certainly i don't see
it being nowhere balanced currently, i know lots of people who are forced into
roles based on their gender (sometimes even by their sex) that they can not
fulfill and it's just bad for everyone involved.

I don't think we are different enough for us to talk about it how different we
are and definitely we are not different enough so we have the society built
around these differences as it is right now. Maybe not where you live, and if
you are lucky like that, be glad for it. Where I live, women are oppressed
actively. They have to spend way more time to be accepted by their peers than
men, they have to work way more than men to be accepted as productive. They
have less chances to have say in important decisions. etc.

------
gnl
The amount of emotionally charged black and white thinking that permeates this
debate is mind-boggling, as is the ability of the outraged side to create a
straw man out of thin air through cherry-picking and blatant
misinterpretation. Truly one of the most impressive displays of mental
gymnastics I have seen and I'm not sure which is more terrifying - the idea
that this is done unconsciously or consciously.

From the original manifesto:

> [...] I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists,
> and don’t endorse using stereotypes. [...]

> [...] Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in
> part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and
> leadership. [...]

> [...] If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never
> truly solve the problem. [...]

> [...] Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace
> differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole
> story. [...]

> [...] Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from women in the following
> ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the
> distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part
> due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t
> see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these
> differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women,
> so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level
> distributions. [...]

> [...] I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that
> Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for
> existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the
> majority. [...]

> [...] I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender
> roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals,
> not as just another member of their group (tribalism). [...]

Gizmodo's summary:

> In the memo, which is the personal opinion of a male Google employee and is
> titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” the author argues that women are
> underrepresented in tech not because they face bias and discrimination in
> the workplace, but because of inherent psychological differences between men
> and women.

From Zunger's post:

> You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior)
> published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically
> different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be
> engineers, it’s just not worth it.

How any person of average intelligence possessing a modest grasp of the
English language can draw these conclusions is beyond me.

Granted there is an argument to be made for the manifesto's author not doing
the best possible job of expressing himself in such a way as to increase the
likelihood of sparking a civil debate on what is clearly a very sensitive
issue. I am also not the biggest fan of his preoccupation with the one-
dimensional and in my opinion overly simplistic left/right political spectrum.

I will not argue for or against the specific conclusions he draws in regard to
the role of genetics in the different distribution of traits among men and
women, as I have neither the time nor the interest to look into the research
(nor the opportunity, really, as a number of links have been apparently
omitted from the publication, which, one might assume, lead to sources the
author was basing his arguments on).

What I do find fascinating however, and the reason I'm writing this, is that I
see someone basically going "guys, have we actually stopped to consider that
maybe _that_ could be one of the reasons why we're observing _this_ and if not
why not - here's what I think" while doing everything humanly possible to
emphasize that they are in no way denying that there is a problem and in no
way suggesting that _that_ is the only reason. And instead of getting "yes we
did and here's what we concluded and why" or "no we didn't, let's talk about
it", they're viciously shamed and attacked for entertaining the very thought.

A comment here referred to this as thoughtcrime punishment and I couldn't
agree more. This is plain and simply dogma at work, and the way I see it, it
has no place among intelligent people engaged in science and/or engineering.
And yet here we are.

We have no problem accepting that differing trait distribution between
different genetic groups can be a significant factor in a disproportionate
representation of some groups in certain fields - soldiers in combat roles,
construction workers, athletes, etc. And yet when it comes to the brain,
suggesting a similar difference is suddenly taboo.

Even before doing any research, the idea that the brain is somehow exempt from
all of this seems highly questionable and would merit the most rigorous
examination to confirm or reject.

Here's a thought though - it doesn't matter to this debate. We could talk
about if/why men are on average better/worse than women in whatever and throw
around studies until we are blue in the face, but in the end when someone
wants to do a job, the only thing that should matter is - can that person
deliver. We need to be focused on making sure that this is indeed the only
thing that matters and let natural tendencies and capabilities produce
whatever representation of genetic groups they produce and if it's similar to
the general population that's fine and if it's not, that's fine too.

Let me emphasize again, that _we 're already doing this_ in many fields.
Everyone is not born equal. We know that's true, we know enough about genetics
to recognize that differing distribution of traits among genetic groups are a
thing and yet we're so terrified of being seen as racist or sexist, that we'll
keep a few precious blindspots no matter what and defend them to the death
whenever someone dares suggest that we might want to shine a light on them.

Another thought - there are children growing up right now that don't
understand race. I guess some might even be lucky enough that they don't
understand gender. They see different people with different skin, hair,
features, body shapes, genitals, skills, manners, likes and dislikes. They'd
do perfectly fine going through life with the simple understanding that 'yes,
people are different', but then we get to them and explain how, you see, this
group of people is oppressing that group of people, these people are like this
and those are like that, and instead of seeing individuals we teach them to
see the emotionally charged baggage-ladden labels that we insist on slapping
on everyone - black people and white people, men and women, gay and straight,
African American, Hispanic American, Chinese American, Native American and so
on.

Significant, lasting cultural change doesn't happen overnight, it takes
decades and it takes children looking at the world with fresh eyes and adults
capable of recognising their biases and making sure to die without passing
them on in order to make place for someone better.

Of course, discrimination is a problem that needs some solution now rather
than in decades. It's likely too late for the adults among us to erase our
biases. We can recognize we have them, we can minimize them and we can put
measures in place to make sure they can't do too much damage - blind paper
reviews/auditions/tests as well as bias awareness training strike me as
solutions that can only do good.

Among other things, we're most definitely missing out on brilliant female
engineers in CS due to sexism and an often toxic environment, which is clearly
a lose-lose situation for everyone. I think it's worth considering that we
might just be missing out on brilliant male engineers as well, due to
affirmative action, which is also sexism.

Forcefully engineering and moulding society into whatever shape someone
decided it's supposed to have through positive discrimination isn't change.
It's the appearance of change, while fueling social conflict, hurting
economical, technological and scientific progress and drawing the lines that
divide us, thus reinforcing the very foundation of racism, sexism, religious
intolerance and any of the countless other stupid reasons we come up with to
fight each other - seeing people as members of a group rather than
individuals.

I'd like to suggest we take a step back and reevaluate whether we're more
interested in pragmatic solutions that genuinely lead to a stronger, happier
and more harmonious society or in playing make-believe and indulging in some
justice fantasy with a very questionable basis in reality.

------
lsh123
When people I manage ask me about career advice, I always start from "Love
what you do, do what you love". Over the years I saw a few examples of people
who were pushed into mathematics, computer science, etc. by parents or
environment but who didn't like it. Some changed their careers (my high school
classmate opened a backery after a few years at Google - she absolutely loves
it and would never go back to technology.

I believe we are all different and this is a good thing. The real hard social
issue I think is that not all jobs are considered lucrative by the society
(which is also reflected in the pay). In the ideal world, there would be good
well paying jobs for everyone to fulfill their dreams.

------
smithsmith
This point has been already made by Eric Raymond in his article "Women in
computing: first, get the problem right"
[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2118](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2118)

------
es2017
I am a female engineer and I partially agreed with the original manifesto. To
be pragmatic, I rather work with a qualified SWE than someone hired by
lowering the hiring bar due to political correctness. I am also fed up with
the empty assumption that diversity will bring positive productivity. What is
the problem with meritocracy? I think any competitive SWE (regardless of the
gender) will not be intimidated by such manifesto.

------
elevenfist
Wow, I can't believe these comments. I give. HN is stupid. Programmers are by
and large stupid, we just have a set of specialized skills.

I'm starting to understand now why so much code is documented so poorly.

And yet, there's smart posts like these that give me some glimmer of hope.
Thanks for stemming the tide. I hope those of us not totally brain dead can
figure something out.

------
andy_ppp
Ugh... having staff is going to be a pain the the arse isn't it :-/

I'm guessing if this guy knew everyone he worked with, say ~ 50 people, he
would not _dare_ to write something like this.

And yes I'm talking about _both_ of these manifestos.

------
gnl
Something just occurred to me, which isn't directly related to the original
article, but is I believe relevant to the debate that ensued around it. Apart
from any ethical, social and economical considerations, one of the easiest
arguments to make against sexism is that even from the point of view of pure
self-interest it is plain stupid. Passing on a perfectly qualified candidate
because of what's between their legs (assuming that's not directly relevant to
the position in question) is completely irrational and self-sabotaging.

While there may be high quality studies proving a preferable distribution of
certain relevant traits in men or women, that information gives you at best
some minimally higher chance that if you were to pick someone at random from
the group with the better distribution they might be slightly more capable in
that one particular way, maybe, which may or may not result in a higher
qualification for the position depending on countless other factors and their
combination or interaction with the trait in question. In other words it's
completely worthless compared to the much more precise and specific
information that you can gather from directly evaluating the individual in
front of you.

Here's a thought experiment on the topic of enforced diversity. Disclaimer -
I'm pulling the numbers out of the air and they aren't relevant. The example
is also a little contrived for the sake of argument, I'm just trying to
illustrate a principle.

Let's say we have a medical university that admits 100 candidates. The
admission tests are administered and evaluated blindly, the professionals
responsible for the evaluation aren't aware of anyone's gender, ethnicity,
age, looks, they don't have any information beyond the content of the tests.
They have also undergone bias awareness training, just in case, because why
not.

The 500 candidates who apply are ranked according to their test results. In
addition to these anti-bias measures, the university has a diversity goal of
admitting 50% women (medicine is probably not the best example for this, but
bear with me here). Now whether the enforcement of those goals is written in
stone or strongly recommended with whatever pressure/incentives behind it, the
result is quotas.

As it happens, for whatever mix of reasons, genetical, prenatal, environmental
or social, at this particular time in this particular place only 40% of the
top 100 happen to be women. The diversity goals however dictate that 50% must
be admitted, so 10 men will be refused admission in favor of ten less
qualified women. Let's say for the sake of argument that they all graduate
successfully.

And now let's say I have to undergo a medical procedure and pick a doctor. I
know for a fact that all 10 doctors available to me have been to the very same
university. Not being an MD myself and not having any recommendations, I am in
no position to judge their qualifications, so all I have to rely on is gut
feeling and metadata. And I know for a fact that there's a higher chance that
a female doctor from that university has been admitted on quotas instead of
skill and I'd know that chance is higher even without the information how many
women were in the top 100 because of the very possibility which does not exist
for men. And now I end up in a position where gender mainstreaming and
diversity efforts, in particular quotas, somehow managed to make sexism a
reasonable, rational basis for making a decision, which wouldn't have occurred
to me in a thousand years.

Without quotas, I have no good reason to care about my doctor's genitals or
the color of their skin. With them I just might.

If that's not shooting yourself in the foot, I don't know what is.

------
dlwdlw
There's a bit if immaturity in the manifesto despite it being very rational
and well-reason. In my mind, it's the immaturity of a rich kid who is very
intelligent, having had the best teachers, and also well meaning and trying to
do good.

To understand what affirmative action actually tries to do it must be
understood that there are 2 primary types of moats. One is a "Test Moat" that
tests required abilities. A firefighter being able to carry 100 pounds is an
example. The other is a "Privilege Moat". This is primarily based around
gating access to resources to a privileged few to create abundance. This
gating is socially created and maintained.

These moats have a lot of overlap. Asking a candidate if they know what a
'function' is is a simple type of test moat. Asking a web developer to create
a red-black tree on the fly is a privilege moat.

(Google is in a bit of a strange spot as there is a widespread belief that web
developer who DOES know how to create a red-black tree on the fly is better
than one who doesn't. Most companies do not have the attraction or excess
capacity to actually care about this, they take what they can get. (or
stupidly mimic the Google process) They don't have the bandwidth to care about
privilege moats.)

The moat being sacred is the capstone for the delusion that allows selfishness
to be hidden and prevents growth of moral guilt. Privilege moats not only gate
access but also must assuage guilt.

Test moats naturally grow into privilege moats over time. Especially as the
tested skill becomes commoditized. The existing base naturally feels
threatened.

Affirmative action is about de-sacredizing privilege moats. It is primarily
destructive in nature. There's no nice way to shit over something. It's
primary purpose is to destroy specific types of culture. Even today, the
culture of "White man's Burden" is still being destroyed and is generally
considered a good thing that it is.

In Google's case, de-sacredization may primarily be about recognizing that
certain skills are nice to have but not NECESSARY. It lowers the bar because
new candidates will no longer be able to keep up with passionate Haskell
discussion during lunchtime on break from adjusting CSS.

Going a step further, it is de-sacredization of the idea that your work must
be your life. That you must live and breath code to be a "real" coder. This
idea CANNOT co-exist with the idea that coding needs to become a core
competency. I don't live and breath reading and writing but I still read and
write.

This touches on the author's valid point that certain positions have more
stress and that the development of male gender roles to be more feminine has
lagged behind. (I have a pet theory that this is driven by lack of economic
incentive and is due to Americas obsession over money. Cultures that value
psychological and familial happiness/health may be further along in developing
the flexibility of male gender roles)

However, this valid point is mixed up with the real privilege moats that
should be adjusted. The author is overall well meaning and representative of
valid thoughts and ideas and deserves none of the flak he has taken. He simply
had more courage. Bring up these ideas and absorbing them to create a counter-
idea is what can inspire real change. Many self-described liberals are very
hypocritical in this respect, creating privilege moats based on capacity for
self censorship.

 __

What I 've mostly described here are bars that are lowered because they are
needlessly high. However another motivation for lowering bars are their second
order effects. It creates role models and opens up a potential life path in
the eyes of children. It makes a domain seem friendlier and more enforced
(less unsaid social requirements).

It can also be somewhat apologetic in extreme cases. The affirmative action
movements for African Americans in the U.S. and the lower castes in India come
to mind. Without affirmative action, the initial momentum and privilege for
certain subgroups would continuously compound and maintain tiers of
ability/people. All tiers would theoretically grow together, but the relative
distance would grow. Capitalism does this too via the initial capital
allocation.

Growing relative distance creates a sense of unfairness and unless there is
infinite abundance, market auction dynamics will cause the upper tiers to have
almost everything. Very poor people can have instant connection to their
friends via facebook but still be fighting a headwind when trying to pull
themselves out of poverty. (There is expectation that the government maintains
a decent privilege moat so that its citizens can live abundant lives, enforced
with guns if necessary. The only governments that can't do this are those
where moats of ineffective because the issue is already within the moat.
China/India have their hands full.)

Notice how affirmative action for things like education (candles lighting
candles) is much more accepted than affirmative action for capital (zero sum).
The tech-gender-gap story is somewhere in the middle. Does tech create enough
abundance that it can effectively be infinite for all people int he bay area?
Is it artificial scarcity due to greedy execs? Will lowering the cultural bar
for Google cause it to become uncool and cause the cool smart people to leave?

who knows...

~~~
codygman
Thanks for writing this out. It effectively communicates many of the
underlying reasons for the state of technology in regards to race and how it
affects accessibility.

------
lol2143651
The easiest way to see the article is just fighting a strawman of the original
manifesto is to notice the article never directly quotes the manifesto.

~~~
maehwasu
To quote the original manifesto would be to normalize hatred.

~~~
alexmat
If I quote Hitler in a debate about world war 2, am I normalizing the
Holocaust?

~~~
etchalon
It's a question of how you quote him. If you quote him to argue against him,
especially if you do so in a reasonable, thoughtful way, you would be implying
the initial statement or argument was reasoned, and thoughtful.

"Normalization" is the process by which we treat ludicrous things as not
ludicrous, but debatable.

~~~
TimTheTinker
Treating other people's opinions as ludicrous might work as a strategy to an
extent, but in the long run that approach will only create further division
and ostracism.

Tear apart the ideas with friendly, well-reasoned arguments, yes! Ideas are
fair game. Fight fire with fire, not gasoline.

------
CalChris
[flagged]

Mods, you can have all of my points if you'll unflag this story. It is
extremely well written by someone who could well have been in the OP's chain
of command and who knows the company culture.

Edit: thanks mods, the article has been unflagged.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
Same. This reflects very poorly on YC/HN.

------
carsongross
As with the original post, I look forward to the thoughtful, tightly reasoned
and unemotional discussion that this post will generate.

~~~
akras14
Haha

------
lol2143651
Not an argument

~~~
Barrin92
there is no need for one. Google is a company, not a marketplace for people's
prejudices. They have every right to shut discourse like this down, and they
should because it is insulting to every women working at Google.

The good thing about being a company instead of a townhall is that you don't
need to accomodate adolescent men feeling insecure about their female
coworkers.

~~~
TimTheTinker
I didn't see anything in the "manifesto" that seemed insulting to women...
care to elaborate?

~~~
Barrin92
saying that women are biologically worse engineers would be the primary
candidate

~~~
TimTheTinker
I didn't see that at all. What I understood him to be saying was that on
average (across society), there are various biological differences. I don't
see any insult there, intended or not.

I thought his only intent was to argue against institutionalized
discrimination.

~~~
thehardsphere
It was.

Apparently, lots of people either haven't read the "manifesto", or have but
have read into it something not explicitly stated by the author.

I think some critics have claimed that the things explicitly stated by the
author _implictly_ mean something bad, but they haven't actually made the
effort of showing that conclusion is supported by anything the author wrote.

------
Scaevolus
"(2) Perhaps more interestingly, the author does not appear to understand
engineering."

The manifesto's author has a degree in Biology, not Computer Science. He
probably learned enough programming on his own time to pass a technical
interview, but never learned the "softer" parts of a CS degree that address
working effectively as a team.

Programmers without degrees miss bits of the standard curriculum, often
rigorous algorithmic analysis, but deciding that empathy is irrelevant to such
a communal enterprise is a unique deduction!

~~~
ukj
Not unique. Lacking nuance (a.k.a biased?).

I have reached similar deduction based on my suspicion that I suffer from EDD.
I don't think I understand what empathy is. Perhaps as a concept, but I have a
hard time putting it in practice (according to others).

On the other hand, I poses exceptional analytical rigor (bullshit detector?)
that (combined with my lack of empathy) manifests as what people often call
"somebody who speaks his mind".

I lack tact. Another hypothesis is that I am just a selfish jerk. An asshole.
Or an introvert. I don't really know - I have many hypothesis. Bayesian
analysis proves difficult.

Either way - this predisposition me, no - forces me to function in the world
despite my deficiencies. And so I'd like to think that I am succeeding at
being useful, even without empathy, but it is blatantly obvious that I
gravitate towards problems where I don't have to deal with humans too often.

All in all, though - I think this opinion is somewhat consistent with the
observation that "man systemize, women empathize"?

That insight alone is sufficient for me to know (and accept) that any team I
am on, needs the counter-balance of an empath to mitigate the risk of my
shortcommings.

