Society/Culture Feminism - 2017 Thread - Pt II

[ShanDog]

There’s no basis for this claim. The richest company in the world would fundamentally disagree with that.

Apple sacked their head of diversity for saying that diversity of opinion was as important as diversity of sex, race, etc.

That was another wonderful kettle of far-left fish too. Even more ridiculous in many ways.

 

[Appa]

He can put caveats in, but they mean nothing when he goes on to say

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.

This, is utter bullshit.

Facts are bullshit?

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

There’s no basis for this claim.

Don't tell shareholders this. They thought they were investing in a company whose primary motivation is profit.

 

[King Brown]

We aren't writing scholarly articles either. So?

Google's economic model is conservative market driven, absolutely. Their social and political ideologies are certainly not. This is self evident given the topic of discussion.

Conservative and capitalist are not synonymous, that Kidd Vicious thinks this further illustrates his tribalism.

 

[King Brown]

Don't tell shareholders this. They thought they were investing in a company whose primary motivation is profit.

What does this have to do with “conservative”? They are capitalist, they can still purport to have progressive social values in spite of that.

 

[cartwright]

Point scoring? Please. I'm trying to understand the arguments you and KV make because I don't. You and he approach what is written by Damore on such a different level I genuinely don't understand how such a vastly different conclusion can be reached unless it's ideologically driven. I'm yet to see anything that shows otherwise. You even say Damore is using opinion which makes him sexist - his work is cited! If you don't agree with his interpretation, that's one thing. But you're assigning him a political label of misogynistic and woman hating when the very purpose of his paper was to highlight how dissenting opinion is treated in that very way in ideological echo chambers like Google. You are proving him right.

Maybe you need to re-read it, without your own bias.

One part he says something about high stress positions, and working long hours - inferring this is a male thing. In reality, that is rubbish.

I have never said he’s a misogynist. I said sexist. There’s a distinction there, which I think you’re well aware of.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Google's economic model is conservative market driven, absolutely. Their social and political ideologies are certainly not. This is self evident given the topic of discussion.

And which do you think they are primarily concerned with?

And their employee and board profile indicate their commitment to gender equality is more market driven PR than any genuine commitment.

And as far as I can tell, their donations to the major parties are 50/50.

 

[King Brown]

One part he says something about high stress positions, and working long hours - inferring this is a male thing. In reality, that is rubbish.

Do you know many women offshore drilling rig operators? Many women underground coal miners?

 

[King Brown]

And which do you think they are primarily concerned with?

And their employee and board profile indicate their commitment to gender equality is more market driven PR than any genuine commitment.

And as far as I can tell, their donations to the major parties are 50/50.

If they were conservative in social outlook, their donations would be 100% Republican.

 

[ShanDog]

And their employee and board profile indicate their commitment to gender equality is more market driven PR than any genuine commitment.

Further highlighting how shallow the exercise is.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

If they were conservative in social outlook, their donations would be 100% Republican.

I never said they were conservative in social outlook.

I said they are far more committed to their economic bias. IMO their social outlook is PR driven. It's hollow. It may even have been you that pointed out un-diverse their employee profile is.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Further highlighting how shallow the exercise is.

What exercise is?

 

[ShanDog]

One part he says something about high stress positions, and working long hours - inferring this is a male thing. In reality, that is rubbish.

Very specific of you. Lots of good evidence to support your assertion that 'this is rubbish' too.

Here's what else the "sexist" James Damore says:

I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using
stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at
population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this,
then we can never truly solve the problem.

So he agrees there is a gender representation problem. Such a sexist...

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.

You left off a fairly important part of that paragraph in your previous quote.

Below I'll go over some of the differences in distribution of traits between men and women that I
outlined in the previous section and suggest ways to address them to increase women's
representation in tech without resorting to discrimination.

Offering his views on how to get more women in the tech workplace. Gee he must really be sexist at his core.

I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more.

Such lies.

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. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that
don’t fit a certain ideology. 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).

He's clearly malevolent in his intentions.

I don't agree with everything he has written, and I find some of his sources spurious. What is clear to me, is that he was neither nefarious nor sexist. His argument that Google was not tolerant of conservative ideas and fosters an echo chamber have been shown to be 100% correct. Ideologically possessed and biased readers of his work completely ignore the overarching point in order to focus a laser-like outrage on the minutia of his arguments, missing the point entirely in order to justify dismissing him and his views/arguments entirely.

 

[ShanDog]

What exercise is?

Fostering the ideological echo chamber Damore describes through censoring and firing those with dissenting or unacceptable views, and actively recruiting minority groups to fill positions in order to achieve diversity targets. If it's all about the bottom line, it's not even benevolence that is driving Google to do it.

If it's actually more to do with the politics of Silicon Valley's elitists like I think it is, then it's a horrible ideological agenda that forces people like Damore to be the Winston Smith's of Google and play the part of loving Big Brother. I guess a positive is that they only get fired when they engage in wrongthink at Google.

 

[Chief]

That one was rather self explanatory.

Are they particular people? I don’t know what you were trying to say.

The only thing that I could get from it was “a dickhead posted this”.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[King Brown]

I never said they were conservative in social outlook.

I said they are far more committed to their economic bias. IMO their social outlook is PR driven. It's hollow. It may even have been you that pointed out un-diverse their employee profile is.

If economic bias and profit were their sole motives, then why would they leave the the 30% of women on the table that would be available in a more equal industry? It would be contrary to their motive.

The reality is around 20% of any engineering or computer science class in the West that graduates is women. Of those who enrol in those subjects, again around 20% are women. The only places this isn't true are countries like Iran and Pakistan where women are specifically cut off from applying for higher status professions (medicine and law) and have little choice but to study technical degrees. The talent pool that someone like Google is recruiting from is split 80:20 in favour of men.

Where women have the choice to study and pursue what they want, they typically chose not to study computer science and engineering subjects. Why is that? It can't be because of gender roles, because this behaviour is exhibited at its strongest in countries ranked the highest for gender equity, like Sweden.

 

[11sjw]

Are they particular people? I don’t know what you were trying to say.

The only thing that I could get from it was “a dickhead posted this”.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

and that says more about you.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

If economic bias and profit were their sole motives, then why would they leave the the 30% of women on the table that would be available in a more equal industry? It would be contrary to their motive.

Are you disputing the fact profit is a company's primary motive?

Where women have the choice to study and pursue what they want, they typically chose not to study computer science and engineering subjects. Why is that? It can't be because of gender roles, because this behaviour is exhibited at its strongest in countries ranked the highest for gender equity, like Sweden.

Have a read about women's experiences in the tech sector.

 

[King Brown]

Are you disputing the fact profit is a company's primary motive?

No. Your assertion is that it overrides all other concerns. If so, why wouldn't it override belief in gender roles?

Have a read about women's experiences in the tech sector.

I've read them, and how do they differ substantially from any other sector, even those which are dominated by women? Do you think women in law, medicine, veterinary science, etc have it easier? Sexism in the workplace does not explain the 80:20 split in tech on its own.

 

[King Brown]

His argument that Google was not tolerant of conservative ideas and fosters an echo chamber have been shown to be 100% correct. Ideologically possessed and biased readers of his work completely ignore the overarching point in order to focus a laser-like outrage on the minutia of his arguments, missing the point entirely in order to justify dismissing him and his views/arguments entirely.

This is probably his most important point:

[W]e have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology.​

No different to climate deniers.

 

[Chief]

What do you mean hypocrisy? We were talking about the far left's tendency to throw up huge barriers to any non-accepted point of view, mischaracterise the person trying to share that view and to argue along extremes in order to segregate anyone not far left enough to be deemed part of the in-group. If you take a look at the content of the Google law suit, you can see that consistently occurring by Google employees in response to Damore's paper, as well as other issues.

Again, I'll emphasise that the phenomenon isn't just the territory of the left, but it seems to me like it has a particular venom to it when it comes from that direction. I think it's to do with the claims to higher morality that are usually associated with the topics involved.

Breitbart is well known for its nuanced analysis and honest consideration of opposing views. Not an ounce of venom to be found.

Those chaps marching with mosquito repellent torches or whatever, chanting “Jews will not replace us”? Just looking for venom-free, sophisticated discourse.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

No. Your assertion is that it overrides all other concerns. If so, why wouldn't it override belief in gender roles?

My point was it's stated belief is PR.

I've read them, and how do they differ substantially from any other sector, even those which are dominated by women? Do you think women in law, medicine, veterinary science, etc have it easier? Sexism in the workplace does not explain the 80:20 split on its own.

For starters; more tech companies are startup, new capital and more reliant on contract work where biases can be exploited. And those industries have more contact with government employers whether through direct employment, contract work or stronger regulation.

 

[King Brown]

My point was it's stated belief is PR.

So why not recruit more women?

For starters; more tech companies are startup, new capital and more reliant on contract work where biases can be exploited. And those industries have more contact with government employers whether through direct employment, contract work or stronger regulation.

Most tech companies aren't startups.

The biggest tech companies (in terms of employees) are IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Intel, DXC - publicly traded companies that are all over 40 years old who essentially function like any other corporation. There's this misconception that tech is basically Silicon Valley of the past 20 years, when it is anything but.

Take Oracle, a completely unsexy, boring company to work for. Basically more about protecting their patents than doing anything interesting technology wise. They derive most of their income through large contracts with other big corporations and government:

https://www.oracle.com/corporate/careers/diversity/index.html

The tech split is 76:24.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

So why not recruit more women?

Most tech companies aren't startups.

The biggest tech companies (in terms of employees) are IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Intel, DXC - publicly traded companies that are all over 40 years old who essentially function like any other corporation. There's this misconception that tech is Silicon Valley of the past 20 years, when it is anything but.

There is lots of, and a growing proportion of' employment outside these.

What impact do you think an incident like Gamergate (which was years in the making) has had on prospective female tech industry workers?

 

[King Brown]

There is lots of, and a growing proportion of' employment outside these.

I think you'll find this isn't the case. Most people in 'tech' work for large firms or government. If they don't work for these, they certainly don't work for venture capital funded cowboy firms like Uber, or the companies they aspire to like Apple or Google. The reality is very few people in the industry ever work for that type of company.

What impact do you think an incident like Gamergate (which was years in the making) has had on prospective female tech industry workers?

Gamergate, really? You're not demonstrating causality here. The split between men and women in engineering alone has been prevalent for decades.