[exolymph]

This was published in response to a lament about James Damore, in case anyone is wondering about the immediate context. The proximate issue was that women and men, on average / in aggregate, are different. But the general principles apply to other issues as well.

[civilized]

Ah yes, Mr. Damore. Author of a document the entire prestige media called an "anti-diversity screed" in perfect lockstep, even though anyone could read it for themselves and see it was nothing of the sort.

2017 sure was a year for the history books.

[RangerScience]

I found that JD's document was a moderately anti-diversity screed, tho. I did a deep read (the document, everything the document linked to, most of the things that those linked to) back when it all went down.

IMO, while James raised a valid question ("how do we know any of this is working, or even can work?"), some of his mistakes were in attempting to answer it (instead of solidly beginning a conversation); attempting to answer it on his own (instead of recruiting a diverse group of backgrounds to answer it); attempting to present his answers as more substantial than the underlying investigation could support (instead of doing a substantive sociological investigation); in the answers he provided (aligned with historical misogynistic orthodoxy); how he presented those answers (in a way not inviting or encouraging questioning); etc. I really, really wonder what would have happened if he'd sought out diverse co-authors.

Ironically, (AFAICT) the entire core issue of diversity in the first place is answering questions from/with only one perspective; and (AFAICT) much of the core issue of equity is having people with one perspective answering important questions for people with a different perspective.

So there really wasn't any possible way for him to succeed at anything beyond raising the question, on his own.

[civilized]

I would highly recommend you read the beginning of the linked SSC article. It's about people who had fresh perspectives getting shut down by authorities who were mad about what they said. And how those authorities always have an excuse in terms of something the person didn't say or do perfectly.

If Damore didn't perfectly solve America's diversity problems in one swoop, I guess that's a mark against him -- but what about the people who attacked him rather than helping to realize his vision of a more candid, psychologically safe discussion of corporate diversity policy? People like Sundar Pichai, very rich, comfortable, powerful folks who chose to rhetorically demonize Damore rather than showing literally any courage to critique his points in a nuanced way?

And no, it wasn't an anti-diversity screed. Powerful people said it was, so now people scramble to say how the powerful people were kinda right. They weren't. They lied.

[RangerScience]

I understand why you're assuming I didn't read the linked article, but I'm not sure (or perhaps disinterested?) in proving that I did. SSC is excellent, has some of my top favorite things on the entire internet, and I don't think I've seen anything from it that I'd consider problematic or of poor quality.

TBH, I didn't pay much attention to what others said about JD's document. I saw there was a controversy, looked at a few things about that controversy, then went to the source and came to my own conclusions. Those were some of my conclusions.

Sure, JD didn't say diversity was bad. He said something along the lines of what I'll paraphrase as "these are the insurmountable blockers to this kind of success for people who aren't like me." Which, like... if you don't see how that's the problem, I can 100% throw some effort trying to communicate to you how that's the problem. Just ask :)

Here's questions: Do you feel like your reply, here, was in any way a critique of my points in a nuanced way? Do you feel like what I've presented of my take on JD's document was a critique of his points in a nuanced way?

[ALittleLight]

I read Damore's document and your summary and description of it seems entirely foreign and inconsistent to me. For example, you summarize it as "these are the insurmountable blockers to this kind of success for people who aren't like me". In Damore's document he discusses ways to promote diversity within Google by accounting for differences between men and women and adjusting Google's hiring and promotion practices to focus less on traits that are more represented among men.

In other words, Damore does not view diversity problems as insurmountable blockers. Damore also says of himself that he is less likely to be assertive in ways that are rewarded at Google and explains that efforts to appreciate traits that are better represented among women would also benefit men evincing those traits. In other words, Damore doesn't break things down into "people like me" versus "people not like me". It seems like your summary is completely wrong.

I've noticed that a lot of Damore critics have very strong opinions that seem not well informed by Damore's actual writing. Can you highlight any specific thing from Damore's document that is wrong?

[RangerScience]

I think I can. Here's the document: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideol...

JD says: "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways", and then has the nice overlapping bimodal distribution graph. In my read, this data is foundational to many of his arguments, but there's a fundamental flaw in his application of it, which is: why you should expect anyone at Google (or, well, any sub-group with a filter process) would be meaningfully predictable by or representative of their biology's bimodal distribution, in the first place?

I've noticed that a lot of Damore proponents never actually engage with the questions I ask them. Can you provide answers to the questions I've already asked?

Edit: Acccctually. I'm noticing that this is exhausting for me (wouldn't be surprised if you felt the same) annnnd I don't predict it'll generate all that much worthwhile buuuut I have an idea.

Rather than hash over something someone else said four years ago - what do you think of workshopping something that you'd like to express, that you think would receive a negative reception "by the orthodoxy", ala JD? Because I'm willing to bet my time and energy on my thesis that "tone" is what sunk his essay, and that I can help someone else express themselves in a way that'll receive a much, much better reception.

(I realize that while I might just be betting my time and energy, you'd be likely to be betting much more, but we're rather limited by this medium haha)

[civilized]

It's so deeply misinformed to say that Damore posited insurmountable blockers to groups of people not like him. It is impossible for me to understand how someone can claim to have read the document and this is what they understood it to be saying.

First of all, he stressed that the relevant traits exist in abundance in all groups, as each group has a wide range of people within it. He had a giant graph illustrating this at the outset. He couldn't have been more clear.

Second, he was talking about psychological tendencies and preferences, not a literal inability to do tech work.

[civilized]

Yes, I think your characterization of Damore's document is deeply flawed, to an irresponsible degree, and I have no problem telling you that directly. The "insurmountable blockers" thing is particularly ridiculous, as I explain in another comment in this tree [1]. I do believe my comment is an appropriately nuanced critique of a flatly ridiculous position.

I'm glad that you like SSC though and I'm sure we could get along and discuss this rationally and fairly. I did not say that you didn't read the SSC article, only that you should look at it to appreciate the relevance to the current conversation.

All that said, I'm not going to hold back on how poorly I think you've understood what Damore said.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29610370

[RangerScience]

Fosho. Rest of discussion in other tree; for here, just this bit. You said:

> I would highly recommend you read the beginning of the linked SSC article

That definitely reads to me like you saying I didn't read it. Can you take a moment and attempt to understand how that would come across as having that meaning?

[nine_k]

The problem with the reaction to Damore's paper, to my mind, that instead of people pointing at the paper's shortcomings and trying to refine the approach to see if the idea could make sense if researched with more rigor, they urgently rejected it wholesale because it was irritating to the sensitivities of the modern progress faith. Nobody wanted to be a target of a public scandal in which rational reasoning, or even being objectively right, is not a way to win.

The problem with human societies is that they crave faith, they crave an easy mental model of the world and an easy way to tell "us" from them, but science by construction is anti-faith, it's built of questioning everything.

[jl2718]

If I’m not mistaken, this was an individual contribution to an internal discussion, not at all part of his job. When you say he should seek diverse opinions, is that not exactly what he did in submitting this to a discussion including many diverse opinions?

[RangerScience]

Yeah, I wasn't able to find much on that aspect of the situation. Thing of it was, it very much DID NOT read to me as one "turn" of a discussion, but something attempting to be a solid answer; the conclusion of a discussion, after which no more discussion should happen. IMHO, he said about twice as much as he should have; which is to say, IMHO he should have just asked a bunch of questions ("are we looking at middle and highschool interest rates in STEM when we determine diversity goals?") where instead he both asked and answered questions (MS and HS interest rates in STEM means it's pointless to try to do [all these other things]).

In other words, to the extent that it was true that it was a contribution to an internal discussion, and to the extent that that matters, it had many critical flaws as a contribution to a discussion.

[Wolfenstein98k]

He was asked to contribute his thoughts, and he did.

He backed it up with evidence.

It may be that he didn't use all the evidence available and some supports contrary views - I'd be surprised if this weren't the case - but he was engaging in good faith, expecting someone else to present that counter-argument.

I don't mean this to be disrespectful but it appears the majority of your criticism boils down to tone-policing.

[RangerScience]

> tone policing

No, I get that, and you're not wrong. But...

The more time I spend with people who've been emotionally abused, listening to their experiences, the more I understand how huge a part of abuse is the tone of speech involved in that abuse.

And again, I see that core diversity issue: a lot of us don't start out noticing tone pretty much at all (I definitely didn't!), or with tone having a meaningful impact on our experience of someone else's words, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or doesn't matter, or doesn't have an impact. And the more I notice all that, the happier I am with my words, the better they seem to be, and the more people seem to understand them.

As an example of the same communication with very different tone, so I can talk about it: "Here is what's going on, and here's the evidence that demonstrates it". "Here's what I think, and here's what I saw that led me to think that."

IMHO, the first one has a "tone" of "conclusiveness" (similar to "stop words", from Less Wrong). The only way for me to continue the (notional) conversation is to take an adversarial stance; the "tone" of the sentence is one of concluding the conversation. Contrast with the second one, which as a "tone" of "inclusion"; I'm bringing you along with my experience; and which I find has an inherent effect of inviting people to continue the conversation; the "tone" of the sentence if one of encouraging a continuation of the conversation.

I do think JD was attempting to contribute in good-faith (or, more so than less so; people are complex to begin with). IMHO it was a poor contribution in critical ways, and it's both sad and ironic to me how related those specific failures are to the diversity conversation to which he was attempted to contribute.

[tomrod]

More tone deafness, if I read the grandparent right.

[rep_lodsb]

Yes, it was moderately anti-diversity. But many people reacted as though it did say something like "women belong in the kitchen". Okay, it's been some time since I read the document, and there may have been parts that weren't phrased as tactfully as you - or I - would have liked. Well, here's my heretical thoughts:

So what if there are minor differences in brain development that have some statistical effect? It doesn't mean that all members of group X are somehow unsuited for a particular career - let alone deserving of less dignity as human beings - but it could explain why fewer of them choose to pursue it. Different people have different talents and inclinations, and membership in a particular group defined by biological factors could well be correlated. But that is irrelevant when it comes to individuals.

In Nazi Germany, one propaganda poster said "You are nothing, your People (Volk) is everything". So in their ideology, the individual by itself doesn't matter, only as part of the group.

But every one of us is different from each other, and membership in some Group (whether defined by ethnicity, gender or anything else) may be a small part of it, but it does not define who we are.

There does seem to me to be an orthodoxy today. One that claims that any underrepresentation of some group must be the result of systemic discrimination, and that it has to be corrected by whatever means necessary. More and more, it tends to see people not as individuals, but again as representing some particular group, with relations between those groups always defined in terms of oppression and victimhood.

This orthodoxy has become the most dominant force on the political "left", but strangely enough, it is supported by some of the largest corporations as well - corporations that also increasingly control our access to information. Are they really just trying to counteract historical injustices? Will the invisible hand of the market guide us into a better society, once the CEOs are no longer straight white cis-males? Or do they, like so many others, just want to be on top of the power dynamics that they frame every human relationship in?

[clavicat]

If Damore had instead offered his opinion that Google lacked diversity because of white-supremacist patriarchy, Donald Trump, and rapey tech bros, somehow I doubt that you would have conjured this list of excuses to pathologize him for voicing his opinion and provoking a mob to demand that he be deprived of his livelihood. No, you probably would have described the backlash as an atrocity being inflicted on a courageous voice for denouncing social injustice. This is a splendid example of a selective demand for rigor. In order to share an opinion, you apparently have to “do a substantive sociological investigation”—do you think the other parties in the same conversation were performing field studies and submitting their master’s thesis? You blame him for “not starting a discussion”—even though he had written what he did as a contribution to an ongoing discussion. You blame for having any certitude in his own opinion—I’m sure the mob baying for his head just really disliked fanaticism. Oh, he was supposed to recruit co-authors—this is an absurd demand that goes far beyond even what is expected of academic papers, which do have sole authors.

This is how ideologically dominant positions always shore up their hegemony. Every time an enemy of theirs fails to dot every I and cross every T, you can be sure that the regime will magnify their missteps all out of proportion and invent procedures that they failed to follow in order to justify whatever act of savage repression is visited on them.

>much of the core issue of equity is having people with one perspective answering important questions for people with a different perspective.

Again, remind me which “perspective” was calling for the other side to be rendered unemployable?

[f137]

So, you basically say he was wrong to state his opinion openly.

> I really, really wonder what would have happened if he'd sought out diverse co-authors.

I wonder too what would have happened if Jesus sought out diverse co-authors for his teachings.

[SkyMarshal]

> attempting to present his answers as more substantial than the underlying investigation could support (instead of doing a substantive sociological investigation);

This was the main issue I noticed when I read it. It read like a newbie academic making the classic fallacy of assuming the conclusion, then citing only sources that support that conclusion, while ignoring 1) that those sources are not definitive or conclusive, and 2) the body of research and evidence that may disprove it.

It's much easier to disprove an assertion than prove one true. In fact all of science is based around rigorously disproving hypotheses, simply because Process of Elimination is the most robust and reliable way of surfacing new truths while minimizing false positives.

Back to Damore's paper, if you're going to write a critique of something so controversial in society, you can't just cherry-pick sources that agree with you. A better approach would have been, as you observe, to raise questions about some issues and challenge society to a discussion, but without trying to prime or anchor it with pre-conceived conclusions.

[roenxi]

The specific context seems almost like a distraction; there is a fundamental issue being raised here. Is there such a thing as a prosocial repeated lie? The existence of a known, obvious and unchangeable inconsistency in the social fabric can paralyse the ability of people to find the truth using logic and reason.

Which isn't to say that the discourse has to be logically consistent - it isn't ever going to be. But it should be open to challenges from a logical basis. One of the strengths of western society is that persistently asking "why are we doing [X] it doesn't make sense?" or repeating "there is evidence that approach [Y] gets better results" has often resulted in change. Compared to somewhere like the USSR where the system collapsed before it let people just go out and make their own lives better.

[Lambent_Cactus]

I'm sure you could come up with a hypothetical prosocial falsehood, like "aliens assassinated JFK for petty reasons, but they're very vain and will destroy the Earth if word gets out." If you become President and learn the real story, you damn sure better stick to the script about the grassy knoll!

But I think it's also possible to have pro-social taboos, particularly if they're attempts to correct for some indefensible (but maybe cognitively appealing or historically convenient) past error.

So for example, imagine a society that long practiced infanticide against the neurodivergent, and state-backed violence, disenfranchisement, and murder against the merely socially awkward. After intense and often violent social struggle, this society now affords them (us) formal equality, but big gaps in wealth and power remain, and a revanchist minority (with a terrorist fringe) openly wishes for a return of the old ways.

That society might develop strong taboos against "just asking questions" about whether shy people really had it so bad, or whether society should worry about whether they're treated fairly, or whether there isn't some innate biological difference that accounts for their relative lack of success. That would probably be a good thing!

There's some amount of epistemic deadweight loss you would happily accept to be extra guarded against backsliding on the core ethical commitments. You might even come out ahead epistemically, where there would otherwise be strong but subtle cultural biases, pressures of ideological convenience, and cognitive-scientific artifacts around in-groups and out-groups that make _false_ claims about the shy, awkward, or neurodivergent more appealing than the objective facts merit.

[jimbob45]

“Prestige media” is a new term I haven’t seen before. It sounds like a classier sounding version of MSM or liberal media or left-leaning outlets. I’m very curious to hear where you first heard that term.

[civilized]

I'm not sure where I heard it either to be honest. But the idea is that there are some outlets we respect more than others -- perhaps legitimately, based on average quality on most topics, and not putting foot in mouth with blatant falsehoods -- and these outlets have an overwhelming tendency to horribly misrepresent events that touch on certain "culture war" issues.

[Wolfenstein98k]

Why does it matter where they first heard the term?

It feels - based on your presumptions - like you're gearing up to attack them if the source isn't acceptable.

(This may be completely inaccurate and I'm just being hypervigilant)

[jimbob45]

I’m on his side on this and certainly don’t want to attack him lol

However, I’m curious because it’s a much nicer-sounding term than the alternatives, seemingly engineered. Given the difficulties Conservatives have had in expressing distrust of newspapers, news stations, etc, I’m wondering if it came from a Conservative source.

[nextaccountic]

Do you have a link that discusses this?

[Lambent_Cactus]

The problem with signing up with an underground Straussian heretic network is that if you're not actually beset by the Inquisition or by Stalinism, you're likelier to trap yourself in an epistemic filter bubble than to discover some secret truth.

Damore wasn't burned at the stake or shot in the head; he was fired from one especially cushy software job at a giant, publicly-traded company. And rather than grappling with the effects his memo might have had on such a complex environment, or even sticking to pursuing the empirical facts about his claims, he decided to pursue a career as a right-wing micro-celebrity, only engaging with conservative activists and alt-right trolls. And he's been stuck there ever since, with his fellow culture warriors clapping each other on their backs about what brave heretics they are, instead of getting back to building anything interesting.

[nyolfen]

> Damore wasn't burned at the stake or shot in the head; he was fired from one especially cushy software job at a giant, publicly-traded company.

perhaps you missed the part where he was defamed and slandered in international press. his name became shorthand for a crude stereotype of a bigoted tech bro, totally undeservedly, for (very!) gently questioning the policies of a giant publicly-traded company.

[heyitsguay]

I think you can draw parallels between that trajectory and the dynamics of "censorship" (moderation) on big social media platforms.

You compare Twitter vs. Gab or Reddit vs. Voat, and these free speech alternatives get stuck in that alt-right filter bubble precisely because social media moderation has been largely (certainly not entirely) effective at targeting hatred and toxicity. When you only ban a bunch of hateful toxic people from your platform, any competing platform for the banned will be dominated by hateful toxic people, and nobody wants to be a part of that. If Reddit bans cat pictures tomorrow, suddenly there is a huge opportunity open for a competing platform that can appeal to wide mainstream audiences. This dynamic helps keep social media moderation in check.

Similarly, if there had been hard, actionable truth at the core of Damore's claims, there would have been a huge opportunity to gather evidence and observe effects and come up with an organizational system that better reflected the reality of human social relationships. If that wasn't the case, then all he would be left with is the path he seems to have taken - align with a camp in the culture wars and seek exposure through identity-based media.

[DarylZero]

>Similarly, if there had been hard, actionable truth at the core of Damore's claims, there would have been a huge opportunity to gather evidence and observe effects and come up with an organizational system that better reflected the reality of human social relationships.

Why would the opportunity to change the organizational system have anything to do with whether there was any truth to what he said?

Just being right doesn't create such opportunities.

[d0mine]

It is not enough to know the truth when there are trillions of reasons ($) to preserve the lie.

It is easy: 1. ban inconvenient views on popular platforms. Start with disgusting views ("think of the children" is a great start), when extend (it helps when there are people who can be offended by anything--encourage it) 2. flood marginal platforms with trolls/provocateurs 3. point at the disgusting content your trolls generated and claim that anybody who uses the uncensored services is disgusting by association.

War is peace.

[civilized]

You were right about this for a while, although I sympathized with his bitterness. But now he actually ended up getting into art and he's really good. Check out his Twitter feed sometime.

Very few people seem to bother sympathizing with the unwoke autistic nerd, but I feel happy for him that he transcended this deeply unfair, absurd, traumatic incident in his life and found something beautiful to do.

[Lambent_Cactus]

I did actually check out his twitter feed before writing this, where I saw that his bio, pinned tweet, and several of his most recent tweets (https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/1456653034671517703, https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/1453034087036424194, https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/1448325924756332546), are all about either the memo controversy or other culture war grist. It's who he has decided to be.

Some of the AI-generated art is nice though, so more power to him on that.

[civilized]

His pinned tweet is great. Never has a simple "lol" more sharply skewered elite hypocrisy. They want your opinion on how to boldly change things, but only if it agrees with their pre-existing orthodoxy on how to boldly change things. They're the exact same as the people they criticize in that article, if not far worse. The author of the piece he QTed is editor of Wired.com, one of the most vicious hate-brigaders and misinformers during the Damore affair.

The other ones you link are a little boring I grant. But I notice you're filtering away all the jokes and art and focusing on culture war things. Interesting choice there given that I was trying to draw your attention to the other stuff.

He doesn't just do AI art. He does beautiful original art. First tweet after the pinned one. It was quite striking to me, but seems you didn't notice it.

Consider asking yourself who is the one blinkered by obsession with the culture war?

[clavicat]

>Damore wasn't burned at the stake or shot in the head; he was fired from one especially cushy software job at a giant, publicly-traded company.

How do you think regimes normally deal with dissent? Extreme violence makes for vivid imagery but it’s not typical. Usually, it’s as simple as threatening to fire you from respectable employment and education. This is how the entire Eastern Bloc kept a lid on things.

[Lambent_Cactus]

The Eastern Bloc did ... kind of a lot of violent coercion? The penalty for jumping the Berlin Wall was not losing your job.

[clavicat]

Yes, but being shot was not the fate of a typical dissident under late socialism. Gentler states like that of Hungary also managed to suppress dissident and not with bullets. More typical is the following:

>Konrád lost his job by order of the political police in July 1973. For half a year he worked as a nurse's aide at the work-therapy-based mental institution at Doba.

[Lambent_Cactus]

Orders of the political police are backstopped by violence. I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing?

Either way, the head-shooting and the stake-burning are Scott Alexander's metaphors here, from the linked SSC post. As the severity, suddenness, and violence of the sanctions heretics actually face go down my intuitions about his Parable of Lightning start to change. Dial them all the way down to Damore's situation (private business terminating at-will employment, for repeated on-the-job behavior that creates HR problems, totally non-violent) and my intuitions flip entirely.

All the rhetorical work of the Parable is done by this false equivalence. That it falls apart when stated so plainly causes me at least to worry about the reliability of SSC's digressive style. What other unfounded assumptions slip through on mood affiliation when you're not disciplined enough to write straightforwardly?