[geofft]

I don't think anyone is disputing that there are biological differences between men and women (on the average) that result in unequal distributions of some outcomes. An easy example is "fastest marathon" or "number of babies".

The dispute is that there are biological differences between men and women that are relevant to qualification to work at Google in software engineering.

[moduspol]

Nobody is questioning their qualification. The memo doesn't.

There quite possibly are biological (and cultural) differences that ultimately affect the representation of women among Google software engineers that are not sexism. As a result, a diversity / hiring policy that assumes sexism is far and away the only relevant cause is not likely to work well.

Is this really that much of a stretch?

[cderwin]

That's the argument alt-right folk who actually deserve our hostility are trying to use Damore to make. Damore, however, is instead arguing that those biological differences make women less likely to pursue engineering as a field, not that those difference make them inferior.

[geofft]

Then why are the programs he's criticizing all about either successfully hiring or retaining women who are already interested in working at Google?

He also explicitly mentions ability: "Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all 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."

(Also, let's be clear, someone who seeks out the support of Stefan Molyneux to advocate his viewpoint cannot be meaningfully distinguished from alt-right folks who supposedly want to distort his viewpoint.)

[Aapjes]

People's qualifications are not all the same. Imagine that Google wants to hire 1,000 people, but 10,000 people apply for a job. Then Google logically ought to take the best 1,000 people that apply.

With diversity quota's, the company may decide to hire a less able woman in favor of a more able man.

[jacalata]

The reality is that 2,000 of them are indistinguishably good and diversity programs are intended to make sure that google hires equally able women out of that group instead of choosing all the men.

[Aapjes]

Imagine a theoretical scenario where they have 500 female applicants and 9,500 male applicants, but desperately want a 50/50 workforce. Then they logically would hire all female applicants, including those who are not part of the 2000 most capable applicants.

Using your number, with 2k out of 10k applications being indistinguishable elite, that means 1 in 5 applicants are suitable to be hired on merit. Assuming that female applicants are no better or worse than the men, you'd expect 100 of those 500 female applicants to be indistinguishable from 1,900 male applicants.

So then 400 women would be hired who are in fact distinguishable worse than those elite 100 women and 1,900 men.

[deanCommie]

You clearly have no idea how hiring works at major tech companies like Google.

1: Even if there are a 1000 positions, and only 1000 candidates, if they are underqualified, they do not get hired. Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, try to have an objective bar, not one relative to the available candidates.

2: Nobody is pressuring for a 50/50 workforce. It's an ideal, and a reasonable-sounding long term goal, but even the most aggressive pro-diversity initiatives do not set a target of 50/50 ratio. In fact, in most cases HIRE targets aren't set at all. The targets are set for opportunities - ie number of diversity candidates evaluated or interviewed. The hiring process remains pure.

Source: Work for major top-10 tech company and do a ton of hiring, and diversity training.

[geofft]

> Imagine a theoretical scenario where they have 500 female applicants and 9,500 male applicants, but desperately want a 50/50 workforce.

I agree with your conclusions from these stats, but why is this theoretical scenario relevant? Do we believe that this more closely resembles the actual scenario than one where there are, say, 4,000 female applicants and 6,000 male ones?

[geofft]

The company may also decide to hire a less able man in favor of a more able woman.

Given that the vast majority of incompetent people I've worked with have been men (if not all of them), I'm surprised to see less attention to this phrasing of the problem. Maybe it is too politically incorrect to bring up?

[dunkelheit]

> Given that the vast majority of incompetent people I've worked with have been men (if not all of them), I'm surprised to see less attention to this phrasing of the problem. Maybe it is too politically incorrect to bring up?

I downvoted this.

Given that there is a fair amount of incompetence in tech; that there is also a significant number of women in tech; that you are not a junior person and that men and women have similar abilities, I find this statistically implausible. Please consider the possibility that you have a subconscious sexist bias against men.

[geofft]

> Given that there is a fair amount of incompetence in tech; that there is also a significant number of women in tech; that you are not a junior person and that men and women have similar abilities, I find this statistically implausible.

Why is this statistically implausible?

There is a fair amount of incompetence in tech; there are a significant number of women in tech; I am not junior; men and women have similar abilities; many men seek tech because it's high-status instead of because of intrinsic technical interest (Damore 2017); many men have a sexist bias towards men.

The natural statistical result is that while both competent men and competent women get hired (as they should!), incompetent men get hired much more often than incompetent women.

Is this logic flawed?

> Please consider the possibility that you have a subconscious sexist bias against men.

I am certainly considering that possibility, and I know exactly why I might have that bias if it is in fact a bias: every single person I've been frustrated at working with has been a man. I don't want to be biased, and would definitely appreciate being talked out of this, if it is in fact a bias.

[Aapjes]

The hiring ratios for Google track the ratios of the applicants, so that could only be true if the female applicants are better than the male applicants. This may be true, but I've seen no evidence of this.

That the vast majority of incompetent people you've worked with have been men can be explained by the gender ratio at Google. If most workers are men, then most incompetent workers would also be men, if men and women are equally likely to be incompetent.

My impression is that female workers at Google disproportionately work in the less technically hardcore jobs, which may actually be easier to be competent at or you may interact with those workers differently. So this may also skew your anecdotal observation.

Damore may have been worried about an increase in pressure to hire women leading to hiring women for the more technically hardcore jobs, which given the few female applicants for these jobs, could then lead or may already have led to worse hires then if there had been no pressure by the company to have pro-female gender bias.