
The e-mail Larry Page should have written to James Damore - egb
https://www.economist.com/news/international/21726276-last-week-newspaper-said-alphabets-boss-should-write-detailed-ringing-rebuttal
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sctb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15020532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15020532)

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metalliqaz
Pretty good article. The economist can be counted on for insightful takes on
current events. I recommend everyone add it to their daily reading list.

There is one problem with the article, though. It's not going to bring along
any of the right-leaning people who are upset about anti-male discrimination
and other such things. The article opens (smartly) by calling out “motivated
reasoning”. But by the end, it references a list of lefty (from their
perspective) links. Perhaps a better interpretation of Damore's own references
would have been better.

Is it so unacceptable to admit that yes, men and women are different, but not
mutually exclusive, and that women have plenty of the things the company
wants?

Edited last sentence for clarification.

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alexandercrohde
I entirely disagree on the "Motivated reasoning," point. Making that
suggestion serves to discredit an argument without providing evidence (and
complicates the debate) and it's doubly un-useful because either side could
use it here (or in almost any argument)

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metalliqaz
That would only be true if the criticism was "motivated reasoning" and nothing
else. Going on to cite and discuss evidence for your claim is a good argument.

You could say the same about "ad hominem" or "straw man". I could just argue
against anything by saying those things, even if they aren't true.

Let's look at motivated reasoning in this case. Google has diversity
initiatives. What is their motive? Google exists to make money for their
shareholders, the greatest beneficiaries being the executives and the board.
Google has determined that they can be more successful (and therefore make
more money) by being inclusive. Seriously now, how likely do you think it is
that a company like Google is willing to give up their technical edge?

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benchaney
> You could say the same about "ad hominem" or "straw man". I could just argue
> against anything by saying those things, even if they aren't true.

These sorts of arguments are easy to refute. Motivated reasoning is impossible
to prove in either direction.

~~~
metalliqaz
I disagree with that. And even if it was, what difference would it make?
Between two people with incongruous assertions, one has to be wrong.

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trevyn
Larry doesn't really send company-wide emails anymore, that's Sundar's job
now.

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Aron
Pretty sure in a critically charged environment this article would fare far
worse than the one it is criticizing. And the tone is so snotty and
condescending.

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bberrry
It baffles me how this rebuttal is convincing to anyone. Damore argued group
differences are _in part_ responsible for the relatively fewer women in tech.
I can't see how that over-arching point has been refuted here, no matter how
snarky the response.

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PrimHelios
Because he didn't provide any proof of his claim except a few cherry-picked
misinterpreted Wikipedia articles. What proof is there that biological
differences are _at all_ responsible? Damore clearly can't seem to find any,
or he just didn't care enough to try to find any.

His over-arching point is fundamentally incorrect (as evidenced by the fact
that other countries see engineering as a stereotypically female job), and
even if it _were_ correct, he didn't provide any actually acceptable proof of
said claim.

Let's ignore what I just said though and look at your "group differences are
_in part_ responsible" line there. What does it matter if something is _in
part_ responsible? How does that at all completely invalidate the possibility
that Google is discriminatory? Let's say for a second that Google actually
does discriminate against women. Is that perfectly fine now because biological
differences are _in part_ to blame? How does that at all invalidate the actual
problem being addressed by the diversity memo?

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Chris2048
For the articles to be "cherry-picked" they must be picked from ones that draw
an opposite conclusion.

There is a difference between proving something is _possible_ and that
something is True. Damore may have only demonstrated the first, but this is
enough to refute the claim "There is sexism in tech because the gender ratio
is not equal".

This is why it is important that group differences are in part responsible -
it puts a burden on Google et al to _find_ the magnitude if that influence,
rather than attribute _all_ of it to sexism. In other words, you can't
attribute anything to sexism (without proof) as soon as there are multiple
possible influences/causes.

~~~
PrimHelios
>For the articles to be "cherry-picked" they must be picked from ones that
draw an opposite conclusion.

No, it means he picked articles that supported his viewpoint while ignoring
the ones that didn't.

>There is a difference between proving something is possible and that
something is True. Damore may have only demonstrated the first, but this is
enough to refute the claim "There is sexism in tech because the gender ratio
is not equal".

Damore demonstrated the first, and then used that to say that to completely
discount any sexism in tech.

>This is why it is important that group differences are in part responsible -
it puts a burden on Google et al to find the magnitude if that influence,
rather than attribute all of it to sexism. In other words, you can't attribute
anything to sexism (without proof) as soon as there are multiple possible
influences/causes.

That exact statement could be used against Damore and his supporters.

EDIT: to add to this, Damore would've been completely justified if he had said
this to open a dialogue, but he didn't. He should have said "There are
multiple possibilities, let's not immediately jump to conclusions.", but he
didn't. He took a handful of Wikipedia articles, twisted around what they said
to fit his confirmation bias, then said "I'm right, you're wrong, deal with
it." and then claimed that was the truth (his twitter handle is @fired4truth).
He's very clearly a narcissist who can't handle that he could possibly be
wrong.

~~~
Chris2048
> it means he picked articles

That's what I mean, He picked those that drew one conclusion, apart from those
that drew the opposite, which were not picked.

> then used that to say that to completely discount any sexism in tech

What do you mean "discount"?

> That exact statement could be used against Damore and his supporters.

How? I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying Damore and his supporters are
claiming there is no sexism in tech, i.e. the influence of sexism is zero?

> I'm right, you're wrong, deal with it.

Right about what?

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FLUX-YOU
What a dumb pretense for an article. If you want to write something
criticizing James' memo, just do _that_. Don't use Larry Page as a scenario
for your message and headline.

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alexandercrohde
I almost wonder if they're hoping people will misread the article, think it
was an email, and share it on that mistake. It's strange to contrive
hypothetical headers.

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mosdave
I don't disagree with your point, but this is a literary device that the
Economist uses sometimes.

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keepper
Great article.

If anyone who agrees with James Damore's point is motivated to see the reason
these arguments are summarily dismissed by many, I recommend reading "the
mismeasure of man", by Stephen Jay Gould.

The idea of biological determinism has one fatal flaw... the grouping.

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jackcosgrove
Stephen Jay Gould was later found out to have mismeasured data he used in that
book.

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html?r...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html?referer=)

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devindotcom
This was definitely the best takedown I've read of not just the claims but the
ideas behind the claims made in the memo.

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jackcosgrove
The article makes many of the same errors that they accuse Damore of making.
It's inherent in rhetoric, also known as "motivated reasoning". I guess
whoever draws the line between rhetoric and comprehensive, good-faith
arguments wins the day.

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DarkKomunalec
> Your memo was a great example of what’s called “motivated reasoning”

Guess he'll have to join the throngs of people fired for motivated reasoning
to arrive at 'diversity is strength' and 'everyone is equal'.

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CobrastanJorji
I see you are interested in logical fallacies. You may also be interested in
the one called "tu quoque."

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maehwasu
By that logic, you are never allowed to notice the unbalanced application of a
rule or principle.

Slightly off-topic, most "logical fallacies" actually have very important
heuristic uses. Just to get the ball rolling, "ad hominem" becomes extremely
useful in a world in which we have limited access to full information, and
have to constantly evaluate the reliability of outside parties.

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mosdave
so not only has the Economist taken to quoting Game of Thrones, but it now--
taking as axiomatic the validity of said quote--projects this assumed validity
onto the interpretation of real-world events? What a time to be alive.

~~~
trevyn
Generalizing from fictional evidence! This is a thing!

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generaliza...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generalization_from/)

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IanDrake
Decries "unsupported claims" then goes on the make a whole bunch of
unsupported claims.

Not very compelling, which is too bad because I was hoping to read something a
lot more succinct.

