[stcredzero]

I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth.

Many of the media interpretations of what James Damore wrote were very biased, and effectively amounted to hit pieces. His use of terms like "Trait Neuroticism" were direct uses of psychological terms which just sound bad as everyday English. Evolutionary Biology also tends to have a "dismal" feeling to it, like Economics can.

One can't take fields like Evolutionary Biology and Economics as morally prescriptive. In that direction lies madness, clearly. However, to then take a knee-jerk ideological stance towards science and declare that everyone must be equal inside is just the West's version of Lysenkoism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

As is usually the case, reality is complex, requires a nuanced understanding, and might sound depressing if you give it a pessimistic read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw

[FabHK]

+1.

Most of the pieces about the memo didn't take time to highlight that "neuroticism" and "agreeableness" refer to Big-5 personality traits, not the everyday understanding of the words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between descriptive and normative statements.

Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between statements about distribution of something within a population, and statements about all members of that population.

[bduerst]

Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation.

Basically its lexical nature introduces perceptual bias that skews any factor analysis for biological structures - i.e. behavior between genders, for example. The way Damore uses it to support his hypothesis wasn't correct.

>And that is what the Big Five represents: a consistent model of how humans reflect individuality using language, no more. There were no considerations of findings in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, observations of behavior of people or animals in real situations – none of this was used at the research stage leading to the development of the Big Five. In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/

[stcredzero]

Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation.

Thanks for that. I find that reaction much more informative than the name-calling sent at James Damore.

In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.

Well, one should expect that something based on self-report surveys to be about that disconnected from underlying biology. "...lexical perception reflects some elements of it" -- where {it} == {underlying biology}

As per usual, the reality of what goes on inside us is probably more complicated than our mental model of it.

[bduerst]

Sure, which may be fine for the burden of proof for a personal opinion.

Incorrectly using evidence to support your opinion as you broadcast it at work, and not listening, discussing, or considering critical feedback (like this) is a different matter. Especially when it means incorrectly classifying your co-workers and trying to change how your work fights social biases.

[stcredzero]

Incorrectly using evidence to support your opinion as you broadcast it at work

Sorry, but while your observation is interesting, there is nothing incorrect about citing such evidence.

Especially when it means incorrectly classifying your co-workers and trying to change how your work fights social biases.

Exactly how did James Damore go about classifying specific co-workers? [Citation Needed] Seriously, cite James Damore and show how he "classified" anyone in particular.

[bduerst]

Sure - The example in context to this thread is right here in Damore's memo:

> Women, on average, have more:

> - Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas...

> - Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness...

> - Neuroticism...

Damore supports this with a link [1] to a Wikipedia article, which immediately says:

> On the scales measured by the Big Five personality traits women consistently report higher Neuroticism, agreeableness, warmth (an extraversion facet)...

Damore incorrectly uses this information to make the broad statement that "Women have..." instead of "Women self-report...". This is incorrectly classifying your women coworkers as being, among other things, more neurotic than their male counterparts.

You may think, "So what?", but this is being used in an argument about how a company fights social biases, and this is incredibly relevant because lexical self-reporting is open to the same biases that are being fought. Damore, intentionally or not, glosses over this, but more importantly was not receptive to this type of feedback, hence the broadcasting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#...

[lawnchair_larry]

I think you may have it backwards. I'm not sure if you read his memo, but it was actually Damore who was inviting discussion and listening to feedback. He was not met with anything resembling constructive discussion, but instead was fired and publicly shamed, in most cases based on fabrications of statements that he did not make, and that did not reflect his intent. Even this techcrunch article is full of them unfortunately.

Until the people who dislike what he had to say are willing to have an honest conversation about things he actually did say, progress here is impossible, and further backlash and resentment against minorities is inevitable.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

As someone on HN once said, we won't discuss the core of the problem not because what he said is untrue, but because the outcome of discussion may hurt peoples' feelings, and this is not the right thing to do...

I see their point, but there is a way of discussing it in a way that would minimize this risk. On the other hand, if you have some assumptions and consider their negation offensive, it's very difficult to have any form of conversation.

[SmirkingRevenge]

Google's primary business model, is literally to build the worlds best, most gigantic person-classification engine, and classify people with it. To sell shit.

[rendall]

> Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation.

Has the Big Five model been actually debunked? Or, rather, has it received criticism.

But, yes, your focus on the content of the memo itself is a breath of fresh air in this overall debacle of a discourse.

[FabHK]

1. Whether or not the Big Five are appropriate for the analysis or not, or whether they're ultimate truth or not, doesn't really matter for the point I and GP were making: Damon's terminology is jargon from differential psychology and easily misunderstood. ("Women score higher on neuroticism on average" does not mean "Women are too neurotic to work as engineers in big companies", or whatever.)

2. I think it takes more than one article (which has been cited once, by the author themselves) to unseat the Big Five.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/citedby...

3. As an aside, note that the article finds significant sex differences (p=0.00) in 10 out of 12 items on its proposed scale, STQ-150, if I'm understanding it correctly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/table/p...

[bduerst]

1. And my point is that even with it's correctly understood, it is still incorrect. I agree that the entire document was overly vague and open to interpreters inserting their own ideas, usually tied to their own political identity.

2. Appealing to number of citations is an appeal to popularity (fallacy) because it avoids criticizing the content. It's also not "unseating" the big five, just demonstrating how the big five is incorrectly used as biological factor analysis. There are other applications is psychoanalysis the big five can be use for.

3. If you read the paper, you'd see that Table 3 is used in conjunction with other data to prove their hypothesis on projection-through-capacity bias.

[akvadrako]

So your point is that, even though the reporters neglected to explain (or understand) the term neurotic, they were justified because the ultimately correct explanation is that it's meaningless in context?

In that case, the only proper response is to report that the word neurotic is not scientific.

[stcredzero]

In that case, the only proper response is to report that the word neurotic is not scientific.

I think that's a discussion worth having. That would've been a lot better than just firing the guy!

[bduerst]

No, my point is that worrying about the semantics of the word neurotic is a pointless exercise because even when correctly understood in the case of the big five, it's still incorrectly used scientifically by Damore.

[jhanschoo]

I agree. It seemed to me that Damore's memo was nevertheless fallacious, though nevertheless totally unworthy of the criticism that he received. Unlike in fields we are used to, psychological results have remarkably little prescriptive power given the inherently complex and malleable nature of social structures, and it's still pretty much up in the air how much or little effect nature has on preferences and to what extent a social arrangement is able to affect/has affected/reinterpreted/transformed those preferences without effecting a change in overall happiness/satisfaction.

It also saddens me that a number of Damore's suggestions to make the workplace more "nurture-trait-friendly" got overshadowed by those dubious extrapolations. It seems interesting and fruitful to me to explore the work dynamics and psychology present in more "nurture" fields and see how well they translate to software development and collaboration.

There is a silver lining to all this for me: it shows that whereas women used to have little voice in the public sphere, "American women" as a class now have a sufficiently loud voice that even its less-well-thought-out ideologies have traction and influence in civil society (along with all that entails, including having possibly self-proclaimed representatives and "thought leaders").

[stcredzero]

There is a silver lining to all this for me: it shows that whereas women used to have little voice in the public sphere, "American women" as a class now have a sufficiently loud voice

There is nothing good about someone who has a "sufficiently loud voice" -- if that loudness comes not from principle and merit, but from emotional toxicity.

[TeMPOraL]

The way I see it is that the feminism movement of old basically won - women voices are being heard and treated as equally important in the society. But like many movements, instead of dissolving after successful accomplishment of its mission, it transformed into a form that tries to perpetuate its own survival and status of importance.

[notfromhere]

I would disagree with that. Women still face plenty of discrimination in society

[stcredzero]

This is true. Asians face plenty of prejudicial discrimination as well. I would say that everyone faces some form of it. My mother always says, "Living well is the best revenge."

After awhile, onlookers catch onto the fact one is spending all of their time moving the goalposts.

[jackvalentine]

You’re a hundred percent right. Living well is the best revenge.

Short people, ugly people, fat people, disabled people... The list of discriminated against populations is practically endless and you can’t let it tear you up or drive you crazy if you’re one of them.

[collyw]

You should give an example

[Goladus]

"American women" as a class now have a sufficiently loud voice

Why is it important that they have a sufficiently loud voice "as a class?" This seems backwards to me. The whole point of liberation is liberation to be treated as an individual not as a member of a class based on something contextually irrelevant like your biological sex.

[jhanschoo]

I agree that it is backwards, but it's heavily ingrained in US politics that decisions revolve around classes. Politicians make decisions thinking about which class they will benefit, which class (and their representatives) they will receive support from, etc.

Empowering the individual is a noble goal, but that is a separate battle with a different front.

[Goladus]

I agree that it is backwards, but it's heavily ingrained in US politics that decisions revolve around classes

I think it's made to seem that way by media coverage and political propaganda(especially from the left) more than it actually is. The problem is that it's easy to analyze something by arbitrary groups but in doing so often if not usually miss things (indeed this was one of Damore's key themes in his original essay).

The rhetoric may be actualizing, but I still think it's more a case of bad analytical generalizations than actual decision-making. Although, it's getting worse, as the whole drama with Jordan Peterson last year over pronouns demonstrated. At the core of his concern seemed to be he growing number of increasingly narrow and increasingly arbitrary suspect class definitions (or whatever they call it in Canada).

The original concept of a suspect class in the US was codified to serve as a legal guidelines for determining whether discrimination had taken place. The idea was to balance the ideal of democratic freedom to enact laws with the political reality that some clearly identified recognized groups (mainly Black Americans) had not been allowed to participate in the democratic process that produced the laws under which they had to conform. Many of those laws were shown to be prima facie discriminatory and evidence suggested plenty more were intended to be discriminatory in practice. And by virtue of minority status, they'd be unable to effectively challenge those discriminatory laws through democratic means. Women classified as a quasi-suspect class by virtue of historical disenfranchisement, despite their not being a minority.

But, it has been at least century since women were granted the right to vote. "Women as a class" have been one of the strongest political factions in the United States for decades. Roe v. Wade was 1973, a decade before any Millenial was even born. Pandering to women is pervasive in US politics on both sides.

The narrative that women had no voice, political will, or influence until Last Thursday is persistent and massive historical revisionism.

[smrtinsert]

Just because a media outlet might have been aggressively attacked his memo, doesn't mean his arguments are valid. He cherry picked various pieces and came to conclusions that weren't causal. At the end of the day, his perception of what is happening at Google is just that, perception.

My guess is that he will be settled with to avoid the annoyance or simply destroyed in court.

[weberc2]

> Just because a media outlet might have been aggressively attacked his memo, doesn't mean his arguments are valid.

Many media outlets aggressively attacked his memo, but the argument isn't "his arguments are validated because outlets attacked his memo"; it's that the response to his memo was malicious and slanderous, and this is wrong even if his arguments are bad. Bad arguments should be met with good arguments, not hate and slander.

[vfulco]

The topic matter was above the IQ of the vast majority of the protesters so we got a mob rule, peasant like response.

[stcredzero]

Did James Damore ever claim that women overall have lower IQs than men overall? [Citation Needed]