About This Googler's Manifesto

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788

by bmahmood • 9 years ago

302 338 9 years ago

interpol_p22• 9 years ago

It's just embarrassing at this point that an engineer at a well known company like Google even thinks like this. (The original author, not Yonatan.)

Reading the original manifesto felt like something my 17-year-old self would write. Too clever and completely oblivious at the same time.

Barrin923• 9 years ago

yep. Some other article looked into some comments made by googlers discussing this 'manifesto' and the supporter comments could have come straight from 4chan.

Glad that a senior engineer speaks out about this. No company needs to tolerate troglodytes.

I work in finance and when something even fractionally as frivolous as this would have been published you would find yourself out of employment five minutes later. I consider the unprofessional startup culture that some companies like Google explicitly fostered to be at least partially responsible.

TimTheTinker7• 9 years ago

I understood the original manifesto's main argument to be against intentional, institutional discrimination (e.g. affirmative action) -- with many supporting points.

I don't know what's shameful about that (unless you're referring to something else). He did seem to value gender equality in the sense that men and women should be valued and respected equally (unless I'm reading into it).

interpol_p22• 9 years ago

Except for the fact that it implies that men are in higher, more well paid positions because of inherent biological traits.

If you truly believe people are equal and deserving of equal treatment then you must see a society where white men are the most powerful, most privileged class, as a failure of society.

The author cannot claim to believe in equality and then go on to justify inequality with biological traits.

hindsightbias• 9 years ago

I have this thing about reading footnotes first:

"I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and reason."

I miss the days when libertarians weren't ashamed to admit so. But back then, they could debate the difference between von Mises and Hayek.

Today... not so much. Ideology isn't Book Deep, it's Google Search Deep.

CalChris6• 9 years ago

There are no libertarian issues involved in this kerfuffle. This is a corporation, a free association of people, and an individual. If Google wants to shitcan the OP, von Mises is silent on the subject. The big bad state of CA is silent on the subject as well. And I don't think any classical liberals would find a kindred spirit in him regardless of how he labels himself.

Also, he does say Stop alienating conservatives. So let's get that charade over with and just call him a conservative and dispense with any libertarian nonsense.

int_19h2• 9 years ago

In general, I see people self-identifying as "classic liberal" when they want to underscore that they're not ancap, and value strong (but limited in scope) governments to protect property rights.

api4• 9 years ago

I no longer use libertarian for the same reason I hesitate to use atheist. Head over to the relevant subreddits. Last time I visited /r/libertarian I saw people advocating the flat Earth, and /r/atheism is a hate sub. Like it or not those who use a term color it. I try not to self identify with terms used by idiots and haters.

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

What exactly are you implying?

Perhaps the author is simply not a libertarian. Not everyone who identifies themselves as "classically liberal" is. Some people others would describe as "conservative" use that label also.

I also don't see what using that term has to do with the author's debating ability. If anything, it's my experience that most people who use "classical liberal" have read all of those books and prefer to root themselves more in Burke's premises.

LyndsySimon• 9 years ago

It's just embarrassing at this point that an engineer at a well known company like Google even thinks like this. (The original author, not Yonatan.)

Is this not exactly the sort of reaction that the author is speaking against when he refers to "viewpoint diversity"?

interpol_p22• 9 years ago

I'm sure the women who work with him love that his "viewpoint diversity" considers them to be more neurotic, less able to deal with stress, and less suited to the high demands of a senior Google engineering role than himself!

Aunche4• 9 years ago

I'll admit that there are several problems with the Googler's manifesto. However, it's more embarrassing that the Medium writer chooses to attack a strawman instead of addressing the entire point of the manifesto in the first place.

Goladus12• 9 years ago

No, Yonatan Zunger is the one who should be embarassed. He lies in his very first paragraph, setting up a straw man which is consistently relied upon throughout the piece.

The original manifesto is thoughtful, articulate, thorough, and sincere. It provides a basis for dialog, discussion, and disagreement. Zunger's article is mostly a pile of fallacious rhetoric that by chance raises a few interesting ideas that could be twisted into a legitimate counter-argument to a couple of the manifesto's points if you tried really hard.

jackfraser3• 9 years ago

What an incredibly intellectually lazy way of attempting to deconstruct that manifesto this is!

1.I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect

"This is wrong, I don't have to tell you why" is a pitiful statement in and of itself, and perhaps more importantly, is not an argument. The author merely positions himself against the document with this, with no justification other than to reference fields that have shown themselves to have bias against reliable statistics relating to the subject matter in question.

Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers.

Yes and no. Specialties exist for a reason, and fields like "ux designer", "customer success coach", etc. exist because there's a clear need for people with those skillsets. If engineers were adept at that - and yes, of course some are, but most don't seem to be - then those professions wouldn't have broken out into their own domains of knowledge as quickly and at as large of a scale as they have.

That aside, this entire line of thought isn't much of an argument, because:

If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you that you have been lied to.

I don't think the manifesto author ever said that men were incapable of empathy, or that they should never use it. He does suggest that being able to separate oneself from emotion is useful in a technical argument; I'll concur that ego can get in the way of making the right choice (e.g. Not Invented Here syndrome). There's a clear difference between your own emotional state, and your ability to empathize with another's.

In an ideal state, we are calm and collected with our own emotions and avoid letting them make decisions for us, while considering the emotions of others. Neurotypical people of all genders are entirely capable of doing this; the approach may differ, but if the author is at all suggesting that we need women in order to be able to have empathy in an engineering context, he's essentially saying men are incapable of the same, which is palpably incorrect.

It’s true that women are socialized to be better at paying attention to people’s emotional needs and so on — this is something that makes them better engineers, not worse ones.

An unfounded assumption. Women are not merely socialized to be better at this; they've evolved to be better at it. This is true across every civilization in history; the gender role is an outcome of the evolved behaviour, which has teleological value in terms of its benefit to interpersonal relationships and successful propagation of family lines. Suggesting that it's merely a "socialized" thing is part of a chain of argument that leads down the path of believing that all humans are blank slates oppressed into particular behaviours, which runs contrary to all the research. Stephen Pinker is a great resource if one wants to find out more about this.

What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs, and that they’re only being kept in their jobs because of some political ideas.

Ad-hominems aside, the argument here is that people with different political ideas should simply stay quiet. The original manifesto author made it clear that he's on-side with the growing number of people in the Western world that are becoming increasingly tired of being told that they aren't allowed to present their opinions. The original essay was not mean, hurtful, hateful, or scathing; it may have been wrong, in one's view, but to call it harmful implies the exact kind of emotion-based reasoning that we need to be able to avoid when dealing with sensitive or ego-bound topics.

I am no longer even at the company and I’ve had to spend half of the past day talking to people and cleaning up the mess you’ve made.

This isn't your job, and nobody made you do that; if anything, you've been part of the Streisand Effect, whereing more and more people talking about something in order to "clean up the mess" simply spreads the mess wider.

Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you?

Do you think that the manifesto author is going to act like a Mad Men caricature and harass women or refuse to work with them? What evidence has made you think so? Is having a strict personal adherence to a corporate-approved philosophy a requirement at this workplace? How is that justifiable?

good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face,

How is physical violence even remotely a reasonable thing to suggest in response to an essay? I have got to assume that Zunger was actually _angry_ at the time of typing this, because the emotion - bordering on hatred - is evident in this last segment.

But our company is committed to maintaining a good environment for all of its people, and if one person is determined to thwart that, the solution is pretty clear.²

"All of its people" is a set that is known to contain a non-zero number of people that agree with this manifesto author. If the way that you maintain a good environment for your chosen group of people is to simply remove everyone that doesn't perfectly fit the mold, it may be dishonest to use language that makes you sound magnanimous or ecumenical when the true goal really is division and a lack of diversity.

All in all, a poor response, not much better than the official one from the company, that does nothing to address the legitimate concerns raised and rather seeks to sweep the problems back under the rug for the comfort of all involved. It might work this time, and the next time, but eventually if there's going to be any settled truth to this matter, we'll have to have open discussions about it instead of simply shutting it down.

dogecoinbase2• 9 years ago

Ad-hominems aside...

That's clearly not an ad hominem -- it's not even close to the definition! And, the rest of what you said is even more incorrect. Fortunately, no one is obligated to spend their time to refute your bullshit.

TimTheTinker7• 9 years ago

Insults don't add anything helpful to the discussion, and only contribute to further polarization across political divides.

jackfraser3• 9 years ago

no one is obligated to spend their time to refute your bullshit.

I agree wholeheartedly! However, others would like to. I'll be over there talking to them; please find your way to the nearest safe-space where kitten and puppy images await you.

totemizer2• 9 years ago

as i wrote it elsewhere already regarding the original "manifesto":

i am curious, if this person is ok with questioning their belief in "traits" that are defined on the level of sex. after all they are the one who says that "some ideas are too sacred to be discussed" and when i bring this up, i often find that the "differences" between the sexes are exactly one of these ideas.

the reactions to this talk are a good example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqR4cw9Amlg

heurist• 9 years ago

Are you okay with people questioning your questioning of gender differences? Obviously there are differences. It is frustrating to continually have to explain how irrelevant they are to performance in 99.9% of business functions.

1. The cohesiveness of the organization is more important than any particular individual.

2. Men have greater variance in many skills than women do, so there are more men on the high end and low end of the talent spectrum.

3. On average we are the same, and there are enough humans around today that few of us exist in a zone with no significant overlap.

4. The genetic and developmental formation of men exposes us to greater mutation rates than women. The mutations that add the extra variance in talent can have chaotic and deleterious effects in other aspects (for instance diminished social awareness, autism, aggression).

5. Socially aware individuals are more likely to seek and form stronger teams. A talented individual has a high productivity relative to other individuals, but teams can multiply in ways individuals can't.

6. High individual talent can be abrasive and egotistical. Egos are toxic on teams and in business because they prevent you from seeing the wider picture. A wide perspective is vital to obtaining a competitive edge. Abrasion over time causes other team members to burn out, causing loss of intellectual capital and a bad brand in the talent market. (Not all talented individuals are abrasive).

7. Without a solid team you have no chance at accomplishing anything worthwhile.

8. Empathetic individuals keep the team emotionally secure and are able to design organizational structures that best leverage existing resources.

9. Organizational diversity has been shown to positively impact collective performance. Every new perspective is an edge over the competition, an insight into a new set of consumers.

10. Gender balances out in the end. We are all taking our own roads through life and each of us has a unique skill set that we are using to make ourselves happier in this weird imbalanced society. In a hierarchical organization, one can leverage their skills to obtain higher posts even if they are not exactly the same skills of their predecessors. It all contributes.

It's simple. The argument is pointless. The only reason I'm posting this is because Yonatan put himself on the front lines of this particular fight and he didn't have to. He's going to have to argue his point down to meaningless details to convince those absurdly stubborn people who refuse to get their heads out of the sand.

Yes, we are different. That's a good thing.

zorpner• 9 years ago

Perhaps more interestingly, the author does not appear to understand engineering.

This guy gets it. It's a deep temptation to abstract engineering away from humanism, but the idea that code can solve problems is an immature understanding of software. People have the problems; people provide the solutions. Code is a tool & intermediary, and hardly essential to the act of problem-solving.

searealist7• 9 years ago

Then Google itself doesn't "get it", given how their interview process values technical qualities above all else.

yongjik• 9 years ago

Google's interview process is to guarantee basic technical competency. However you cannot reliably gauge social competency in a 4-hour interview: that's why Google will later look at the evaluation by your coworkers to determine your promotion.

Before joining armchair HR quarterbacking, it might help you to consider that Google is one of the most successful IT companies and the post you read is by a successful and well-respected ex-Googler. If you can think up something in 30 seconds, they've thought about that.

smsm4211• 9 years ago

Yet, if we look at Google's track record, they have much better luck with technical problems than with people-interaction problems. Search driven by algorithms - excellent. Social networks - epic fail. Advertising backend - money juggernaut, mostly driven by clever algorithms, as I understand? Mobile OS backend - great (well, ok, not too bad). Mobile OS frontend - meh. Chrome is kinda borderline, but I think technology has much more to do with its success then it having the best UX on the market. Shopping experience (outside of captive market of mobile users) - not too hot. Goggles - a flop.

In general, I feel if I am talking about a product from Google, I could expect a lot of very clever technology, but kinda basic UX. Sometimes it works - e.g. search works with basic UX just fine, that's what most people need. Sometimes people would just take the technology and add their own UX and that'd work fine too. But I personally get a feeling that Google's core competence is exactly in places that you are calling "hardly essential". Am I wrong?

letalvoj• 9 years ago

First of all failure of the Google+ shows absolutely nothing important for this discussion. Secondly it's just your personal opinion that the Android is ugly.

Anyway, how can you even compare UX/UI design decisions with the companies ability to handle work-place environment and stuff diversity?

So yes... You are wrong like lightyears away wrong.

dsacco• 9 years ago

In what way is Chrome "kinda borderline"?

If you mean borderline in terms of success, there are only four or five meaningfully used web browsers. Of those, Chrome has the largest desktop and mobile marketshare, respectively.[1]

If you mean borderline in terms of Google's ability to release a product that appeals to a sense of usability and design aesthetic instead of just raw technical excellence, I would say that Chrome handily accomplishes that. In my opinion, the Chrome user interface very clearly resonates well with people, and one of the biggest reasons for its continued success is Google's understanding of what users want and how they like the use web browsers, not just Chrome's capabilities and performance.

Web browsers have a lot of surface area for "user interaction", and I think Chrome's interface really streamlines a lot of what people organically do when they're browsing. It's not just excellence under the hood, it's a studiousness that carries over into empowering users. As a specific example: I don't think that Chrome is a technically superlative application platform, but the ability to use it as a platform for running other apps has made life much easier on Linux when there are no native apps for certain things.

_______________

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#...

jogjayr3• 9 years ago

You're forgetting important Google products where design or user experience played a crucial role in winning.

Gmail - the dominant webmail platform that made pioneering use of AJAX; before it you had to refresh the page to check if you had new email. And whose inbuilt chat client crushed Yahoo Messenger/MSN/AOL. People came for the 1GB of free storage, stayed for the friends they made on chat.

YouTube - Video juggernaut that has a pretty good community and mobile app. Sure it was an acquisition but it's been a Google property far longer than it was independent. If they weren't good at design or community-building they might have easily screwed it up; it's happened with Yahoo's Flicker acquisition.

Google Productivity Suite - The UX on these is hit-or-miss actually; the Google Drive web UI is a massive fail for me. But you can't deny the success of these very consumer-focused applications. They've been executed very well and clearly enough people like them that the opinion of someone like me is irrelevant.

Orkut - You might laugh but it absolutely ruled social in India and Brazil till Facebook caught on.

Chromecast - it's done all right; 30 million sold so far

Not to mention this one

Search driven by algorithms

also misses the mark. Google Search's user experience was also revolutionary. Their homepage was (and still is) sparse and uncluttered; laser-focused on providing the user with the best search results and absolutely nothing else. They didn't try to become a "portal" like Yahoo even though everyone told them they were crazy to not capitalize on the popularity of their homepage.

nl9• 9 years ago

Not entirely sure I agree but talking to your point:

Doesn't this support the idea that Google needs to improve their people-interaction? And one way to do that is to hire for people who are better at it?

jameshart• 9 years ago

If you think the defining characteristic of google search is that it is 'driven by algorithms' you are massively underestimating it.

Search is the problem of understanding what a person is looking for, and finding a resource which provides it. That is 100% about people and human factors. There's a reason why people look at google search frequencies to understand social trends; why we read meaning into the 'suggested search completions' google provides for certain terms; why an unfortunate first-placed search result for a term can make global news headlines. Search is so much more than an algorithmic problem.

runamok2• 9 years ago

I would say their search engine definitely has improved to the point you no longer need "google-fu" and can just type in a question as if you were asking an all knowing Oracle. So yes, I think they now have a deep understanding of how humans think and articulate...

s_kilk2• 9 years ago

Another choice quote from a little further down:

If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you that you have been lied to.

This industry seems to have a problem with socially maladjusted young men who actually believe this. Then when the reality of their careers doesn't match the tech-shut-in fantasia, they lash out, like the manifesto author has done.

koonsolo2• 9 years ago

I came across a lot of socially maladjusted geniuses. If you try to put them in the wrong environment with the wrong assignments, bad stuff happens.

If you are able to manage them well, and let them do low level technical stuff, you can get amazing things out of them.

carsongross• 9 years ago

As with the original post, I look forward to the thoughtful, tightly reasoned and unemotional discussion that this post will generate.

akras14• 9 years ago

Haha

lol21436513• 9 years ago

The easiest way to see the article is just fighting a strawman of the original manifesto is to notice the article never directly quotes the manifesto.

maehwasu2• 9 years ago

To quote the original manifesto would be to normalize hatred.

alexmat3• 9 years ago

If I quote Hitler in a debate about world war 2, am I normalizing the Holocaust?

bmpafa• 9 years ago

This seems a little melodramatic. And even if I bought that the 'original manifesto' was espousing 'hatred,' I'm not sure what 'normalizing it' means.

This logic seems an awful lot like a book-burning mentality.

lol21436513• 9 years ago

No, it's just that it is easier to shame dissidence than to try to rebut it.

philwelch5• 9 years ago

You're getting downvoted for now, but you bring up an interesting point that's worth making more explicit.

If some set of ideas is so repugnant that quoting it, even in a rebuttal, "normalizes hatred", then why try to rebut it at all? Shouldn't it be enough to simply use social norms to shame the author into submission without addressing his arguments? Nobody feels the need to write rebuttals against NAMBLA, because we as a society live within a consensus that pedophilia is wrong.

The usual response is that ideas like the ones expressed in the "manifesto" are still widespread enough that they need to be addressed. But if a set of beliefs is that widespread, then by definition, there isn't a consensus and social norm against them. As a result, you need to address these ideas straight-up, even if you personally find them repugnant.

To dismiss them as "hatred", unworthy of being quoted even in rebuttal, just means that you've giving up on convincing anyone else to your point of view. And at some level, that's fine. I personally choose to isolate myself from people who don't believe in things like vaccines or climate change because I don't have the patience to deal with them.

But if you want to actually change people's minds, you have to deal with the fact that some people hold opinions that you personally find repugnant, and you have to address those opinions in an intellectually honest way. That's the table stakes for writing any kind of rebuttal, and once you've bought into that, there's no reason not to go all the way. In their famous debates, Lincoln thoughtfully listened and responded to Douglas's points, he didn't just rant and rave about giving Douglas a podium to speak from "normalized hatred".

CalChris6• 9 years ago

The article quotes “ideological echo chamber.” It also further quotes:

The manifesto talks about making “software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration” but that this is fundamentally limited by “how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be;” and even more surprisingly, it has an entire section titled “de-emphasize empathy,” as one of the proposed solutions.

So basically you're just factually wrong.

Aunche4• 9 years ago

While those are technically quotes, it looks like they're there just for the Medium author to mock them.

maehwasu2• 9 years ago

What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs, and that they’re only being kept in their jobs because of some political ideas.

The author seems to assume this is obviously false, and neatly avoids the fact that in many companies, industries, and academic settings, there are indeed a large fraction of people who are not good enough to do their jobs, and are only kept in those jobs because of political ideas.

hiptobecubic• 9 years ago

The document was written by a Googler about Google and is being commented on by a Xoogler that literally just left the company. It's not a general statement about human incompetence. It's about Google specifically.

lordCarbonFiber• 9 years ago

citation needed

lol21436513• 9 years ago

Not an argument

Barrin923• 9 years ago

there is no need for one. Google is a company, not a marketplace for people's prejudices. They have every right to shut discourse like this down, and they should because it is insulting to every women working at Google.

The good thing about being a company instead of a townhall is that you don't need to accomodate adolescent men feeling insecure about their female coworkers.

TimTheTinker7• 9 years ago

I didn't see anything in the "manifesto" that seemed insulting to women... care to elaborate?

s_kilk2• 9 years ago

Replying with a standard maga-snowflake quip is also not an argument.

sctb• 9 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14939770 and marked it off-topic.

to_bpr• 9 years ago

Is there any other professional industry as politically divided and toxic as tech has become?

Is there any other industry in which private companies shove their "values" down the throats of their employees in the manner we experience in tech?

DenisM• 9 years ago

Academia. Not an industry, but still a field of professional activity.

Gatsky• 9 years ago

This is absolutely true.

atom-morgan2• 9 years ago

And Susan Fowler said academia is more sexist than tech. Which one is more liberal? https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/880949030900989953...)

bboreham• 9 years ago

When I worked at a large bank we had mandatory classes in the company values, and adherence to the values was explicitly measured in annual appraisals.

thinkingemote• 9 years ago

It's just American and silicon valley tech. Not world-wide.

DrBazza• 9 years ago

Arguably politics is a profession. Just look at recent elections in the US and the UK to see how nasty it can get.

retox2• 9 years ago

Game development, though that's still tech. The cause may be that these fields are mainly formed of young Americans who have recently been through the marxist training camps known as university.

searealist7• 9 years ago

You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior) published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just not worth it.

This sets the tone for the entire article: An emotionally driven rant that refutes nothing and argues against a strawman.

Goladus12• 9 years ago

And yet, it has 178 upvotes at the time of posting.

cropsieboss3• 9 years ago

Because postmodernist and neomarxist ideas are appealing to idealists dreaming of utopia.

It's quite weird that an article with 0 citations, 0 proper rebuttals of arguments in the original manifesto gets so much attention. It is pure leftist circlejerk.

For example, show me a single study demonstrating proper effectiveness of unconscious bias training. HR departments in FB and Google have those. Studies of the effectiveness do not exist or show no effectiveness.

HR in many companies is comprised of leftist sociology, psychology majors who disregard results in their own fields which do not align with their equity for all philosophy.

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

We have to signal our virtue somehow.

dang5• 9 years ago

Similar things happen for most rants.

seibelj• 9 years ago

I won't say anything positive or negative about either the original post or the rebuttal because publicly touching any of this is career suicide. But I will comment that as assertive the original author was about things, citing various facts and studies, was not the rebuttal similar in repeatedly saying the original author was wrong and citing his own studies? Can anyone in social science really say anything is fact? Social science is about the weakest "science" there is in terms of absolute proof and sureities

orangecat3• 9 years ago

The rebuttal cited no studies. It asserts that the manifesto's claims about gender "flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades", and as far as I can tell this is utterly false.

nopatternhere8• 9 years ago

What's great is the next sentence: "But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else." So, you know it is false, completely, and that we should ignore it because it is false, but you are unqualified to provide any examples? Sigh.

ggggtez2• 9 years ago

Read the authors other posts on the same medium blog for his rebuttal of your arguments. I'd rather not paraphrase.

CalChris6• 9 years ago

[flagged]

Mods, you can have all of my points if you'll unflag this story. It is extremely well written by someone who could well have been in the OP's chain of command and who knows the company culture.

Edit: thanks mods, the article has been unflagged.

Eric_WVGG• 9 years ago

Same. This reflects very poorly on YC/HN.

evangelista• 9 years ago

I do not like this article or the author's approach to argumentation.

The author attempts to argue like this: "I am so right I do not have to argue why I am right and even if I did, you would be too dumb to understand it. waves hands around vaguely there is lots of science proving everything I think is true. I am too lazy to cite any of it or even indicate what arguments you made specifically are wrong, online people back me up on this please. Therefore: SEXIST! YOU ARE A SEXIST PIG AND HAVE HURT PEOPLE'S FEELINGS AND I WOULD HAVE YOU FIRED!" </end article>

This approach to arguing is exactly why I left the Democratic Party last year and won't be coming back until it changes. The behavior of the online mobs supporting Liberal causes (especially in high tech) turned me off so thoroughly I can never return. Stereotyping everything you disagree with as racist, sexist or the general category of "nazi" no longer impresses me.

YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO START ACTUALLY BACKING UP YOUR ASSERTIONS, THE BULLYING APPROACH HAS STOPPED WORKING.

Anyways, so lets spend a minute talking about the piles of imaginary science the author believes to exist for a moment.

Are you sitting down? Zero. There is zero science, anywhere, stating that 50% of women MUST be engineers. There is none. The idea that 50% of engineers MUST be women is a WANT. It is a GOAL. It is a DESIRE. At no point in history has 50% of engineering EVER been done by women, WHY must we all agree that this is a rational objective?

Where the tech industry gets it wrong is that it has decided to RAM this opinion down everyone's throats and force them to adhere to ever more stringent speech and behavioral codes and attempt to make everything in tech so bland, so PC, so placid, so devoid of argumentation or competition that perhaps we can vaguely tempt a woman or two into joining a bunch of sweaty engineers in a basement and chug Red Bull all night to push shitty code to a failing server on AWS.

Surely more training in micro-agressions is the problem keeping women away and not the disgusting pit stains. Right? After ten years of diversity summits, women who code, peer pressure, online mobs ranting...the net effect has been a completely imperceptible change in the number of women working at Facebook and Google. This approach and all the feel good antics and cheerleading surrounding it has failed.

Who needs imaginary science to show us that women don't really want to be engineers when we have reality?

Yet we are all supposed to buy completely into the notion that at some point in the future, if all sexism and other barriers are removed, that 50% of engineers WILL be women. Why must that be true?

What I think the goal SHOULD be is that 100% of women should have mentorship, access to education, representation, engineering peers and early tutelage. Of the women who have talent at engineering, they should all be able to find placements in engineering if they do the work necessary.

And why is it always engineering? Why not coal mining? Why not nuclear engineering? Pig farming? Deep sea fishing? Plumbing? Carpentry? Why the incessant, unrelenting insistance from all corners that 50% of engineers MUST be women and no other profession?

Every time I ask this question, I am informed that: "We have banned people from asking why 50% of nurses are not men."

Why have you banned people from asking this question? Have you banned them from asking this question because you are right? Or have you banned people from asking this question because the answer makes you uncomfortable and does not support your worldview?

johnny22• 9 years ago

I ain't tryin to refute the rest of this, so you don't have to worry about that but this bit..

"And why is it always engineering? Why not coal mining? Why not nuclear engineering? Pig farming? Deep sea fishing? Plumbing? Carpentry? Why the incessant, unrelenting insistance from all corners that 50% of engineers MUST be women and no other profession?"

I've never personally advocated for 50/50 because I have no idea if it will or could ever happen, but for the rest, the answer is simple..

The tech industry is my home, it's what I know, and I feel like I have experience there. I have no experience in fishing, or coal mining, or pig farming, or any of that other stuff.

Doesn't it seem obvious that folks in tech would care about other folks in tech vs spending their time talking about industries they may or may not have experience in? It seems self-evident, so I have no idea why this point is ever brought up in this context.

MartinCron6• 9 years ago

Exactly. If I had devoted my career to a different industry that had serious diversity problems, I would be advocating for corrective actions in that industry.

TheCoreh• 9 years ago

I'd seriously like to know if the author meant this literally:

a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face

If that's indeed the case, isn't that on itself a huge problem we should deal with? If someone is risking being a victim of physical violence on the workplace over disagreements on political positions we should be seriously concerned.

notjack• 9 years ago

This is not a disagreement on political positions, this is a belief that women are inherently less capable than men at software engineering. It's a direct attack on the legitimacy and humanity of his coworkers. A disagreement over political positions would be if the author wrote a manifesto about the efficacy of sin taxes or nuclear treaties, not that his teammate Sandra is biologically inferior at her job and undeserving of it.

MichaelGG11• 9 years ago

It's no different than a guy in the NBA wondering out loud if the bias towards men might have a biological component, so that even if the systemic barriers are removed, we might expect far different than 50/50 female/male in the NBA. But no one thinks that - it's obviously silly because physical attributes are so obvious.

So we'll use Wikipedia as a perfect summary of all the research on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

"significantly higher variance in male scores, resulting in more than twice as many men as women scoring in the top 2%."

But certainly that study and all the others are just wrong, or they're measuring the wrong thing and it's not applicable to software.

I dunno, perhaps the ratio should be 45/55 once the systemic bias is removed. Or maybe it's 55/45 - maybe the systemic bias is beyond terrible and males are worse at software and we've got it all backwards. Doesn't seem like there's anything supporting 50/50 other than some weird notion that everyone's not physically equal at all, but somehow our brains are.

Aunche4• 9 years ago

It's completely unreasonable to take a critique on hiring practices or a broad statement about demographics personally. I'm not going to take offense to the statement that men tend to be more aggressive than women. Likewise, if someone claims that Google's policy of favoring elite schools leads to hiring underqualified candidates, would Googlers from MIT suddenly be offended? Of course not. However, that's precisely what you're suggesting with women.

Udik5• 9 years ago

this is a belief that women are inherently less capable than men at software engineering

Should we therefore assume that women are equally capable as men at running the 100 meters, or at playing football? Don't get me wrong, I'm a male and probably half the women my age run faster than me or play football better than I do. But you know that this doesn't generalise: on average, men are faster runners and better football players. And you're ready to admit that because the thing is unequivocally measurable. Nonetheless, you consider any statement about gender differences that are not as easily measured as unthinkable and unacceptable. How is that?

edit: downvoters, please care to answer my question. I'm interested in your opinion.

minwcnt5• 9 years ago

Oh come on, it's obvious hyperbole. I wouldn't actually punch this guy in the face if I had to work with him, but I would certainly would silently wish I could.

atom-morgan2• 9 years ago

Considering how often words are labeled violence today, it's bizarre that words about actual violence is hyperbole.

cbreeden• 9 years ago

Lol, your comment makes it seem like it wasn't a hyperbole.

jamesdmiller2• 9 years ago

If a Google employee ever does get punched in the face by a fellow employee, he could use this line in a lawsuit alleging that Google has created a hostile workplace. A jury might not see this line as hyperbole. It was inconsiderate for this former senior Google employee to put his company in legal jeopardy.

Scaevolus• 9 years ago

"(2) Perhaps more interestingly, the author does not appear to understand engineering."

The manifesto's author has a degree in Biology, not Computer Science. He probably learned enough programming on his own time to pass a technical interview, but never learned the "softer" parts of a CS degree that address working effectively as a team.

Programmers without degrees miss bits of the standard curriculum, often rigorous algorithmic analysis, but deciding that empathy is irrelevant to such a communal enterprise is a unique deduction!

ukj7• 9 years ago

Not unique. Lacking nuance (a.k.a biased?).

I have reached similar deduction based on my suspicion that I suffer from EDD. I don't think I understand what empathy is. Perhaps as a concept, but I have a hard time putting it in practice (according to others).

On the other hand, I poses exceptional analytical rigor (bullshit detector?) that (combined with my lack of empathy) manifests as what people often call "somebody who speaks his mind".

I lack tact. Another hypothesis is that I am just a selfish jerk. An asshole. Or an introvert. I don't really know - I have many hypothesis. Bayesian analysis proves difficult.

Either way - this predisposition me, no - forces me to function in the world despite my deficiencies. And so I'd like to think that I am succeeding at being useful, even without empathy, but it is blatantly obvious that I gravitate towards problems where I don't have to deal with humans too often.

All in all, though - I think this opinion is somewhat consistent with the observation that "man systemize, women empathize"?

That insight alone is sufficient for me to know (and accept) that any team I am on, needs the counter-balance of an empath to mitigate the risk of my shortcommings.

kyrre• 9 years ago

(1) Despite speaking very authoritatively, the author does not appear to understand gender.
I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1) ... I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.

heh

cropsieboss3• 9 years ago

Yeah, and somehow he knows it goes against nearly all research.

That manifesto is obviously inspired by recent rise in popularity of Jordan B Peterson. That guy is a very good psychologist.

jgrowl• 9 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. There a lot of points he brought up that Peterson brings up, especially about neuroticism and conscientiousness.

Maybe a little of Sam Harris thrown in there too. I saw people in the comments on gizmodo freaking out about the point about avoiding empathy. It's a nuanced point that is completely lost on them that compassion can be a better trait than empathy.

ue_4• 9 years ago

He may be a good psychologist, but he frequently speaks on political issues in which he appears to be consistently misinformed, especially his conception on postmodernism, Marxism and the nature of proof[0].

[0] https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/40520012623631155...

dlwdlw• 9 years ago

There's a bit if immaturity in the manifesto despite it being very rational and well-reason. In my mind, it's the immaturity of a rich kid who is very intelligent, having had the best teachers, and also well meaning and trying to do good.

To understand what affirmative action actually tries to do it must be understood that there are 2 primary types of moats. One is a "Test Moat" that tests required abilities. A firefighter being able to carry 100 pounds is an example. The other is a "Privilege Moat". This is primarily based around gating access to resources to a privileged few to create abundance. This gating is socially created and maintained.

These moats have a lot of overlap. Asking a candidate if they know what a 'function' is is a simple type of test moat. Asking a web developer to create a red-black tree on the fly is a privilege moat.

(Google is in a bit of a strange spot as there is a widespread belief that web developer who DOES know how to create a red-black tree on the fly is better than one who doesn't. Most companies do not have the attraction or excess capacity to actually care about this, they take what they can get. (or stupidly mimic the Google process) They don't have the bandwidth to care about privilege moats.)

The moat being sacred is the capstone for the delusion that allows selfishness to be hidden and prevents growth of moral guilt. Privilege moats not only gate access but also must assuage guilt.

Test moats naturally grow into privilege moats over time. Especially as the tested skill becomes commoditized. The existing base naturally feels threatened.

Affirmative action is about de-sacredizing privilege moats. It is primarily destructive in nature. There's no nice way to shit over something. It's primary purpose is to destroy specific types of culture. Even today, the culture of "White man's Burden" is still being destroyed and is generally considered a good thing that it is.

In Google's case, de-sacredization may primarily be about recognizing that certain skills are nice to have but not NECESSARY. It lowers the bar because new candidates will no longer be able to keep up with passionate Haskell discussion during lunchtime on break from adjusting CSS.

Going a step further, it is de-sacredization of the idea that your work must be your life. That you must live and breath code to be a "real" coder. This idea CANNOT co-exist with the idea that coding needs to become a core competency. I don't live and breath reading and writing but I still read and write.

This touches on the author's valid point that certain positions have more stress and that the development of male gender roles to be more feminine has lagged behind. (I have a pet theory that this is driven by lack of economic incentive and is due to Americas obsession over money. Cultures that value psychological and familial happiness/health may be further along in developing the flexibility of male gender roles)

However, this valid point is mixed up with the real privilege moats that should be adjusted. The author is overall well meaning and representative of valid thoughts and ideas and deserves none of the flak he has taken. He simply had more courage. Bring up these ideas and absorbing them to create a counter-idea is what can inspire real change. Many self-described liberals are very hypocritical in this respect, creating privilege moats based on capacity for self censorship.

What I've mostly described here are bars that are lowered because they are needlessly high. However another motivation for lowering bars are their second order effects. It creates role models and opens up a potential life path in the eyes of children. It makes a domain seem friendlier and more enforced (less unsaid social requirements).

It can also be somewhat apologetic in extreme cases. The affirmative action movements for African Americans in the U.S. and the lower castes in India come to mind. Without affirmative action, the initial momentum and privilege for certain subgroups would continuously compound and maintain tiers of ability/people. All tiers would theoretically grow together, but the relative distance would grow. Capitalism does this too via the initial capital allocation.

Growing relative distance creates a sense of unfairness and unless there is infinite abundance, market auction dynamics will cause the upper tiers to have almost everything. Very poor people can have instant connection to their friends via facebook but still be fighting a headwind when trying to pull themselves out of poverty. (There is expectation that the government maintains a decent privilege moat so that its citizens can live abundant lives, enforced with guns if necessary. The only governments that can't do this are those where moats of ineffective because the issue is already within the moat. China/India have their hands full.)

Notice how affirmative action for things like education (candles lighting candles) is much more accepted than affirmative action for capital (zero sum). The tech-gender-gap story is somewhere in the middle. Does tech create enough abundance that it can effectively be infinite for all people int he bay area? Is it artificial scarcity due to greedy execs? Will lowering the cultural bar for Google cause it to become uncool and cause the cool smart people to leave?

who knows...

codygman• 9 years ago

Thanks for writing this out. It effectively communicates many of the underlying reasons for the state of technology in regards to race and how it affects accessibility.

tibiapejagala• 9 years ago

I might partially or totally disagree with the original manifest, but this reply is repulsive. I would never want to have a "senior" like this.

So much emphasis on how senior he is, how junior you have to write something so wrong. How OP's career is over. The 3rd point reads like navy seals copypasta but with HR instead.

If you don't see any other way to deal with OP's views than described in this belittling rant, than you are no more senior than he is.

And a minor nitpick about this rant's top highlight:

Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers.

This is a non-statement. Replace 'engineering' with science, medicine, finance, customer service, politics, retail, programming etc., and it will sound as correct.

ggggtez2• 9 years ago

On that last sentence, that's the whole point. The manifesto claims empathy for colleagues and customers is not required, but clearly it is.

nopatternhere8• 9 years ago

The manifesto claims empathy for colleagues and customers is not required, but clearly it is.

Can you help me understand how you reached that conclusion? Here is the relevant section of the original:

De-emphasise empathy.
I've heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy — feeling another's pain — causes us to focus on anecdotes, favour individuals similar to us, and harbour other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.

blub3• 9 years ago

This Zunger person is a pretty good example of a conflict-(mis)handling approach which I've seen a lot in the past years on tech-oriented social networks:

* public humiliation - check (casting doubt on the engineering skills of the individual).

* threat of violence - check ("a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face").

* retribution through firing - check

* speaking as a champion of all that is good, castigating the evil "outlier"

Basically trying to completely destroy the career of someone whose opinions are for different reasons unpalatable.

The author should go to a psychologist to have their anger managemnt issues threated. They think they've taken a stand, but instead they've just shown they're unfit to be in any leadership position, can't control their emotions properly and can't even make a cogent argument.

Goladus12• 9 years ago

So much emphasis on how senior he is

I have trouble getting past the blatant lie in the first paragraph. And then the case he presents to support his first objection is to... not present a case at all.

By the time he gets to the digression where he advances a new and peculiar hypothesis about what engineering is all about (and where he seems to redefine empathy to mean something different from what the google memo meant), the negative impression was rather solidified.

Edit: Here is the lie:

... the manifesto a Googler ... published internally about .. how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just not worth it.

(1) to imply that it is not possible for women to become engineers is an absurd claim on the face of it.

(2) Even with a less preposterous reading of what Zunger meant by "make it possible for..." the Googler did not assert anything like that in the manifesto.

untog8• 9 years ago

This is a non-statement. Replace 'engineering' with science, medicine, finance, customer service, politics, retail, programming etc., and it will sound as correct.

That's the entire point. That you don't get that is telling. Engineering is not some magic meritocratic endeavour where we all succeed by writing the very best code we can. It's messy, and it involves working with people just as much as it does a text editor. Hence this whole assertion of women being ill suited for the job is complete nonsense according to the logic presented in the manifesto itself.

nhaehnle• 9 years ago

Mildly amusing observation: You're defending the original article, yet at the same time you're perpetuating sexist assumptions (to be clear, I mean the assumption that men are inherently worse than women at certain tasks). This isn't meant to attack you, just thought I should point it out in case you haven't noticed.

philwelch5• 9 years ago

Engineering is not some magic meritocratic endeavour where we all succeed by writing the very best code we can. It's messy, and it involves working with people just as much as it does a text editor.

Life involves working with people. Empathy is a life skill. Logical reasoning is also a life skill, but some jobs require more of it than others.

Hence this whole assertion of women being ill suited for the job is complete nonsense according to the logic presented in the manifesto itself.

Well, good thing that's not what the manifesto was asserting, then.

am19883• 9 years ago

If you don't see any other way to deal with OP's views than described in this belittling rant

If that's how you read it then I feel like you missed the entire point.

This is a non-statement. Replace 'engineering' with science, medicine, finance, customer service, politics, retail, programming etc., and it will sound as correct.

Again, I'm feeling like you missed the point.

Uhhrrr• 9 years ago

This essay is just bad.

In section 1 the author presupposes that the facts presented in the original post are false (but then fluffs on presenting any evidence for this). Maybe he's right! If someone else writes that piece, it would be a valuable contribution.

In section 2 he writes about the social aspect of engineering, which certainly exists, but pretends that being engaged and interested in the technical side of things doesn't matter at all. Ignoring technical details while creating your planet-scale system is like trying to fly a C-130 in a vacuum.

Section 3 is straight bullying.

Inconel4• 9 years ago

Section 3 is most troubling to me as well, even if I can mostly agree with some of his other points. I particularly enjoyed the notion of the manifesto's author being punched in the face while at work, and this being a reason Mr Zunger couldn't have other people working with him, rather than perhaps requiring those people not punch others in the face. In a different scenario this kind of attitude towards workplace violence might be labelled victim blaming.

As an aside, I always wonder whether people like Mr Zunger, who are seemingly so nonchalant in their casual dismissal of the use of violence against those they disagree with, have every had this kind of violence visited upon themselves. In an effort to be charitable, I'm going to assume it comes from a position of privilege and ignorance, rather than malice.

nl9• 9 years ago

You realize that the "punch in the face" line is a philosophical point about how angry the author made people, right?

If someone did actually punch the author in the face they would (and should) be fired and charged with assault.

Grue3• 9 years ago

A good example of what senior managers at Google think of people who actually write their code. The manifesto writer is an idiot, but this Yonatan Zunger guy doesn't paint himself in a good light here either.

lsh1232• 9 years ago

"It’s true that women are socialized to be better at paying attention to people’s emotional needs and so on — this is something that makes them better engineers, not worse ones."

Looks like the author of this blog post agrees with the author of the manifesto on his main point.

roguecoder3• 9 years ago

"Socialized" is the key word here: these skills are taught, and thus are learnable. There is no excuse for men not learning these skills once they discover they lack them.

tvaughan• 9 years ago

And this is what happens when all we care about is if a person can balance a b-tree from memory in a job interview.

pacala5• 9 years ago

And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.

Textbook thoughtcrime punishment. The heretic must be isolated and extirpated, with physical violence for good measure. Don't you dare interact with him, or else you'll be ostracized as well.

irl_zebra• 9 years ago

I believe he's talking about punishing the overt act of publishing this large manifesto and the negative consequences that flow from it. Not the thinking or discussing his views.

muninn_2• 9 years ago

Shouldn't even be talking about it. It's simply not an option. Violence is not acceptable. Period. Discussing it as a repercussion for a possibly misguided manifesto is not an option. It's disgusting.

MartinCron6• 9 years ago

Who would think that publishing a manifesto might have consequences?

muninn_2• 9 years ago

Tell me about it. Reading that made me sick. I don't necessarily agree with the original manifesto, but the idea that "a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face" is an acceptable thing to say is ridiculous.

If this "manifesto" was actually racist and bigoted, it still doesn't excuse violence, or the suggestion of violence. That is FAR worse. It's un-American. We tolerate groups like the KKK or Black Panthers or Westboro Baptist because even if they are vehemently WRONG, they have a right to speak freely.

Not to mention, one person published what they thought at risk of being ostracized by their community and workplace. The other person doesn't work at Google, has 0 real risk, and is just taking the status quo stance and presenting a holier-than-thou approach.

This is all you need to see: "Either political analysis of authoritarian regimes, or interesting facts about science, depending on my mood."

What this means is:

Wahhhh Trump! I'm pretty moody and better than you, so I'll only discuss something if I can look good doing it or I can impress everybody.

rhapsodic• 9 years ago

Tell me about it. Reading that made me sick. I don't necessarily agree with the original manifesto, but the idea that "a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face" is an acceptable thing to say is ridiculous.

Agreed. Yonatan Zunger holds some very disturbing views. Google is better off being rid of him.

untog8• 9 years ago

We tolerate groups like the KKK or Black Panthers or Westboro Baptist because even if they are vehemently WRONG, they have a right to speak freely.

We also don't hire the KKK. Those of us who run companies or manage people respect our employees more than to have a gay employee pair program with a member of the Westboro Baptist Church. Free speech does not mean immunity from the consequences of your actions.

mcphage2• 9 years ago

The heretic must be isolated and extirpated, with physical violence for good measure.

More like "the [heretic] has burned any social capital or respect their coworkers might have had for them, and so no longer are capable of working in a collaborative environment with their peers"

blub3• 9 years ago

Having just read the manifesto, I've seen someone trying to approach a very tough subject in an awkward way. They were not hateful or fanatical.

It was disappointing to see they didn't provide citations for their statements, but the argumentation is quite nuanced and contains plenty of disclaimers, clarifications and apologies. The "neuroticism" statement was quite crass, but otherwise I must confess that I don't have the necessary knowledge to disprove the manifesto's argumentation. Furthermore, some statements match what I read in some evolutionary psychology books.

I believe it would be very helpful if people could correct the manifesto author's statements and provide references instead of attacking the author.

I don't see why they should lose social capital or the respect of their coworkers. Why does the US society want to punish people so severely for expressing opinions in a polite way instead of correcting them when necessary and giving them a second chance?

Goladus12• 9 years ago

More like "the [heretic] has burned any social capital or respect their coworkers might have had for them, and so no longer are capable of working in a collaborative environment with their peers"

This says more about the bigotry and intolerance of the coworkers than the author of the manifesto. It also confirms the manifesto author's point entirely about the echo-chamber hostility towards anyone who doesn't toe the line.

If someone can't read that thoughtful, polite, sincere, and clearly-written piece and respond without "losing respect for their co-worker", they are far too sensitive.

throwaway12124• 9 years ago

I've worked successfully with a number of people whose opinions on many subjects were radically different than my own. It's called being a professional.

untog8• 9 years ago

[I've made about four edits to this post and still can't do it justice - should have drafted it more thoroughly. Others have made my points much more effectively and this is just a distraction, so I'll remove it]

rainbowmverse• 9 years ago

> The manifesto clearly lays out the fact that women are genetically inferior and that most women developers shouldn't have their job.

This could be very easily misread by someone not paying close attention. Consider "argues that" instead of "clearly lays out the fact that."

_xhok• 9 years ago

Imagine for a second that, controlling for all environmental factors, the average IQ of men was shown to be 3 points lower than women. (Totally hypothetical.) Additionally, women in this world outperform men at chess by a noticeable margin.

There is a valid argument in this case to be made about how the reason women are better than men at chess is partly biological, and that chess diversity programs should be cognizant of this. How would you propose this be brought up in today's climate without offending people?

I don't know if you haven't read the manifesto, or are happy making simplifications for the sake of making conclusive moral statements, but it is wildly dishonest to claim the manifesto argued that "women are genetically inferior." It argued that on average, looking at various traits and preferences, men and women are better at and care about different things, some of which make them better suited -- again, on average-- to some professions than others.

You can disagree and that can be a fun internet argument, but judging by the reaction to this manifesto, the sheer outrage while misrepresenting the manifesto's content, sort of demonstrates the author's meta-point about ideological homogeneity.

pacala5• 9 years ago

The manifesto argues that women are genetically inferior and that most women developers shouldn't have their job.

Can you please substantiate? Link for the manifesto: https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...

ukj7• 9 years ago

The manifesto argues that women are genetically inferior and that most women developers shouldn't have their job.

Are we reading the same manifesto? The one I read argues that men and women are different. Pros and cons. Strengths and weaknesses.

I think you are the one holding a binary view while conflating different and inferior?

jasonkolb• 9 years ago

What an absurd statement. The manifesto argues that women are genetically inferior and that most women developers shouldn't have their job.

That's not what he said at all. He said they are, on average, different, but people can't talk about it without resorting to these Trumpish generalizations and accusations. Did you actually read it?

Lagged2Death6• 9 years ago

Textbook thoughtcrime punishment.

People are fired for exhibiting corrosive, counterproductive, or otherwise bad attitudes every day. Are they all victims of "textbook thoughtcrime punishment?"

Goladus12• 9 years ago

People are fired for exhibiting corrosive, counterproductive, or otherwise bad attitudes every day. Are they all victims of "textbook thoughtcrime punishment?"

The Google manifesto does not represent a "corrosive, counterproductive, or otherwise bad attitude." That so many people are insane or lazy enough to think it does is precisely the author's point.

LordHumungous• 9 years ago

The author completely ignores the accusation that Google silences people with non-conforming ideologies, then suggests that the author of the manifesto should be punished. Almost seems he accepts that there is an echo chamber, and approves of it?

stephenboyd• 9 years ago

That's not punishment, it's problem-solving. It's about protecting the company, not what the manifesto author deserves. Yonatan Zunger didn't promote any kind of retribution or vengeance for writing the manifesto, just that they would have to stop the employee from further degrading the workplace environment with the most reliably effective response, termination.

Goladus12• 9 years ago

Anyone who thinks the Google author's piece represents degradation of the workplace environment needs to put up a valid non-circular argument for why that is the case.

No one has. And no one will, because the piece is very polite, sincere, well-written, and reasonable.

Anyone can claim their feelings are hurt by someone speaking the truth as they see it. That doesn't mean you get to use that claim (true or not) to impose your will forcefully on others any time you want to.

_qbjt• 9 years ago

Wow, I thought what the author said was hyperbolic until I read this response. Come on now. How many SF Bay Area tech workers would actually assault another employee over comments posted on the Internet? How many software engineers at Google have ever even been in a fight?

This "punch you in the face" thing seems to be a sticking point for most of the comments here and I think people are misrepresenting what the author is trying to say. He's not advocating for violence, he's considering a possibility in which he would have to make managerial decisions based on animosity between employees over this "manifesto". That's reasonable. I'm not sure what kind of culture they have at Google, but from my time working as a software developer I've rarely discussed politics at the office. I avoid it. It has the potential to bring down the morale of the team. Just don't see the point in throwing a wrench into the gears of the company you work for to make a political point.

Don't you dare interact with him, or else you'll be ostracized as well.

Oh please. There's a reason why the writer of this "manifesto" felt the need to grovel and apologize in every opening paragraph. He knew how his peers would take it. You can't just raise into question the fundamental capability of every woman you work with and then expect them to want to work with you. People lose friends over Facebook posts. He deserves to be ostracized for bringing this crap into the office. There are no "thoughtcrimes" here, just someone with a persecution complex fomenting strife amongst his own colleagues. Would you want to work with someone like that?

pacala5• 9 years ago

[...] raise into question the fundamental capability of every woman you work with [...]

Can you please substantiate? Link to the "manifesto", https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...

joveian• 9 years ago

I agree with everything you say but I would also say that this type of response from a manager (even with the reduced third section) is a major contribution to a hostile work environment. Public ego-tripping is the antithesis of a good manager and saying "you are wrong about everything and suck at life" when you are about to fire someone is always the wrong thing no matter how frustrated you are with that person or how true you think that statment is.

I also think that using violent imagery to make a point is a bad idea in almost any context, even if clearly not ment literally. He did at least explicitly say he would not include that part if writing when on the job.

Overtonwindow• 9 years ago

I'm deeply troubled by the response to this "manifesto". Pitchforks are out for this guy, and when they find him, it won't be pretty. I think that's wrong. He has expressed his opinion, and people are free to confront, and denounce him all they want. But this guy might lose his job. His career. All for voicing his opinion. I don't think it matters that he did this internally. Had he stood up at a discussion in Palo Alto and said these words, the pitchforks would still be out. Our country has reached a dangerous fork in its evolution where the freedom to speak can literally ruin your life. There was a time when people were, and still are, shot for speaking their minds. Is this the natural evolution we are heading towards?

Lagged2Death6• 9 years ago

But this guy might lose his job. His career. All for voicing his opinion.

This has always been true and I can't understand how you would imagine it was ever otherwise.

unityByFreedom8• 9 years ago

Right. Firing at-will is legal. Firing on the basis of a protected class, such as race or gender, is grounds for a lawsuit.

philwelch5• 9 years ago

I'm not sure if you're being defensive or cynical here. It's true that people have always lost their jobs and careers (sometimes lives!) for voicing unpopular opinions.

What's interesting is how people's moral judgment of that correlates with their sympathy for the particularly unpopular opinion in question. Lots of people lost their jobs and careers for voicing opinions that were sympathetic to Communism, and we call that "McCarthyism" and "a witch hunt". This guy loses his job and many of us would cheer for it.

mrdodge• 9 years ago

It's going to get a lot worse, now that these people have been forced out of power in goverment, they will turn their eye to other things.

am19883• 9 years ago

Maybe he should have thought about that before he posted it. The author of the medium article is right that the manifesto implies that a lot of coworkers are less capable.

It's a grey area though.

fatso833• 9 years ago

Where does he say that?

There are lots to say/critique on that manifest, but Yonatan's commentary piece is pure dishonest bile. Ironically it also strengthens the claim of an authoritarian regime at Google and its "our way or the highway" policy when facing discussions.

The piece is simply garbage. It was an ad hominem that attacks viewpoints the original author never presented, such as "... how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers". Quite the opposite.

nxmehta• 9 years ago

But this guy might lose his job. His career. All for voicing his opinion.

Perhaps you aren't employed in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

If you are in fact aware of this concept, then I really don't understand your hyperbole.

roguecoder3• 9 years ago

People keep claiming this, but I know not one single sexist developer who can't find a job. Not even the ones who actually, literally committed sexual assault: they are all still employed.

It is only possible to justify identifying with this asshoel by completely ignoring the harm his "speech" does to his company's culture while vastly over-inflating the consequences he is likely to face. If he had said, "programmers should sit down, shut up, stop whining and write what they are told" no one here would have a lick of sympathy for him getting canned.

gnl2• 9 years ago

The amount of emotionally charged black and white thinking that permeates this debate is mind-boggling, as is the ability of the outraged side to create a straw man out of thin air through cherry-picking and blatant misinterpretation. Truly one of the most impressive displays of mental gymnastics I have seen and I'm not sure which is more terrifying - the idea that this is done unconsciously or consciously.

From the original manifesto:

[...] I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. [...]
[...] Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. [...]
[...] If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem. [...]
[...] Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story. [...]
[...] Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from 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. 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. [...]
[...] 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. [...]
[...] 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). [...]

Gizmodo's summary:

In the memo, which is the personal opinion of a male Google employee and is titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” the author argues that women are underrepresented in tech not because they face bias and discrimination in the workplace, but because of inherent psychological differences between men and women.

From Zunger's post:

You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior) published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just not worth it.

How any person of average intelligence possessing a modest grasp of the English language can draw these conclusions is beyond me.

Granted there is an argument to be made for the manifesto's author not doing the best possible job of expressing himself in such a way as to increase the likelihood of sparking a civil debate on what is clearly a very sensitive issue. I am also not the biggest fan of his preoccupation with the one-dimensional and in my opinion overly simplistic left/right political spectrum.

I will not argue for or against the specific conclusions he draws in regard to the role of genetics in the different distribution of traits among men and women, as I have neither the time nor the interest to look into the research (nor the opportunity, really, as a number of links have been apparently omitted from the publication, which, one might assume, lead to sources the author was basing his arguments on).

What I do find fascinating however, and the reason I'm writing this, is that I see someone basically going "guys, have we actually stopped to consider that maybe that could be one of the reasons why we're observing this and if not why not - here's what I think" while doing everything humanly possible to emphasize that they are in no way denying that there is a problem and in no way suggesting that that is the only reason. And instead of getting "yes we did and here's what we concluded and why" or "no we didn't, let's talk about it", they're viciously shamed and attacked for entertaining the very thought.

A comment here referred to this as thoughtcrime punishment and I couldn't agree more. This is plain and simply dogma at work, and the way I see it, it has no place among intelligent people engaged in science and/or engineering. And yet here we are.

We have no problem accepting that differing trait distribution between different genetic groups can be a significant factor in a disproportionate representation of some groups in certain fields - soldiers in combat roles, construction workers, athletes, etc. And yet when it comes to the brain, suggesting a similar difference is suddenly taboo.

Even before doing any research, the idea that the brain is somehow exempt from all of this seems highly questionable and would merit the most rigorous examination to confirm or reject.

Here's a thought though - it doesn't matter to this debate. We could talk about if/why men are on average better/worse than women in whatever and throw around studies until we are blue in the face, but in the end when someone wants to do a job, the only thing that should matter is - can that person deliver. We need to be focused on making sure that this is indeed the only thing that matters and let natural tendencies and capabilities produce whatever representation of genetic groups they produce and if it's similar to the general population that's fine and if it's not, that's fine too.

Let me emphasize again, that we're already doing this in many fields. Everyone is not born equal. We know that's true, we know enough about genetics to recognize that differing distribution of traits among genetic groups are a thing and yet we're so terrified of being seen as racist or sexist, that we'll keep a few precious blindspots no matter what and defend them to the death whenever someone dares suggest that we might want to shine a light on them.

Another thought - there are children growing up right now that don't understand race. I guess some might even be lucky enough that they don't understand gender. They see different people with different skin, hair, features, body shapes, genitals, skills, manners, likes and dislikes. They'd do perfectly fine going through life with the simple understanding that 'yes, people are different', but then we get to them and explain how, you see, this group of people is oppressing that group of people, these people are like this and those are like that, and instead of seeing individuals we teach them to see the emotionally charged baggage-ladden labels that we insist on slapping on everyone - black people and white people, men and women, gay and straight, African American, Hispanic American, Chinese American, Native American and so on.

Significant, lasting cultural change doesn't happen overnight, it takes decades and it takes children looking at the world with fresh eyes and adults capable of recognising their biases and making sure to die without passing them on in order to make place for someone better.

Of course, discrimination is a problem that needs some solution now rather than in decades. It's likely too late for the adults among us to erase our biases. We can recognize we have them, we can minimize them and we can put measures in place to make sure they can't do too much damage - blind paper reviews/auditions/tests as well as bias awareness training strike me as solutions that can only do good.

Among other things, we're most definitely missing out on brilliant female engineers in CS due to sexism and an often toxic environment, which is clearly a lose-lose situation for everyone. I think it's worth considering that we might just be missing out on brilliant male engineers as well, due to affirmative action, which is also sexism.

Forcefully engineering and moulding society into whatever shape someone decided it's supposed to have through positive discrimination isn't change. It's the appearance of change, while fueling social conflict, hurting economical, technological and scientific progress and drawing the lines that divide us, thus reinforcing the very foundation of racism, sexism, religious intolerance and any of the countless other stupid reasons we come up with to fight each other - seeing people as members of a group rather than individuals.

I'd like to suggest we take a step back and reevaluate whether we're more interested in pragmatic solutions that genuinely lead to a stronger, happier and more harmonious society or in playing make-believe and indulging in some justice fantasy with a very questionable basis in reality.

cameldrv• 9 years ago

The irony is that one of the touted business case reasons for diversity is that it gives a diversity of perspectives and ideas, which can be useful to solving a problem. I agree with this analysis. If we listen to Yontan though, any team that has a member with a different perspective will be punched in the face. That's a very clear argument for homogenous teams, at least as long as you don't want a workplace with constant fistfights.

unityByFreedom8• 9 years ago

The irony is that one of the touted business case reasons for diversity is that it gives a diversity of perspectives and ideas, which can be useful to solving a problem. I agree with this analysis. If we listen to Yontan though, any team that has a member with a different perspective will be punched in the face. That's a very clear argument for homogenous teams, at least as long as you don't want a workplace with constant fistfights

Excluding people who have prejudices towards men and women does not mean you have "homogenous teams". It may mean you have fewer conservatives.

Also, some folks' ideas are so extreme that they exclude others' rights. We've seen this throughout history with conservatives. Working rights, voting rights, and marriage rights.

The woman who denied gay marriage licenses did it on the basis that her right to express her religion was being infringed upon. Who's being exclusive there? The woman, or the gay men who wanted to get married?

edison852• 9 years ago

Having read the full manifesto, I find myself agreeing with the author's thought process for a bunch of his points and clearly disagreeing with others. He presented them well, not offensive at all, and if I had a discussion with him I'm sure he seems open to change certain beliefs if presented with ample evidence. I would generally love talking to this guy. Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid thought process is sexist and his career is done. This guy woukd never discuss this with anyone and things will go on as they do today or worse he'll ostracize the left completely and will go in his own bubble and no positive change. This is what happened with Trump, an acquaintance posted on Facebook how the gender wage gap was almost nonexistent at the same job, industry and role but how we should instead work towards empowering women to better deal with promotions and re entering work force after pregnancy and unanimously got destroyed by maybe a hundred fb friends. He removed most of them and started jut posting pro trump stuff and I don't blame him

unityByFreedom8• 9 years ago

Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid thought process is sexist and his career is done

What? This guy has gotten an unbelievable amount of attention and debate on the topic he wanted to discuss, both in support and against it.

Trump got the same attention, and constantly complained he didn't get enough.

Enough with this lie that certain [far right] conservatives don't get enough press. They get plenty of it by making outlandish statements that they know will get them lots of attention, both good and bad.

fatso833• 9 years ago

You fail to see the difference between attention and actual debate. Very few of the opposing views actually try to dissect his statements, but choose to rant away. Yonatan's piece being a prime example of an ad hominem that attacks views he never once wrote in favour of.

It's also quite dishonest of you to liken a reasonably well written, source referenced piece with the rants from the clown in the oval office. The manifest was to start a debate, not chants of MAGA.

Instead of general statements about outlandish remarks, attack what he actually said.

smb065• 9 years ago

You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is finding it offensive.

That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

SamReidHughes2• 9 years ago

Maybe everyone is stupid. Not really -- some are malicious, for example, this medium post starts with a bald-faced lie.

asciicircum2• 9 years ago

You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is finding it offensive.

This is exactly what's been going through my mind following the threads on this issue today.

That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

I think this is a false dichotomy. The offended comments seem to be offended by arguments similar to those in the manifesto rather than those in the manifesto. E.g. offense is rightly taken at the argument "biological differences explain job preferences" while the manifesto argues "biological differences explain job preferences [in part]".

So rather than [A] being being offended by something that is not offensive (i.e. stupid) or [B] the manifesto being offensive I think we're left with [C] people being rightly offended by something that's not in the manifesto.

With this the argument becomes: That makes no sense unless people have bad reading comprehension

Which I happily accept :)

Goladus12• 9 years ago

You are saying what the guy posted wasn't offensive and also that everyone is finding it offensive.

Heh, interesting point, though I chalk it up to a bit of carelessness. When you say:

That makes no sense unless everyone is stupid.

Actually it has nothing to do with intelligence or stupidity and everything to do with what ought to be considered a baseline "thickness of skin," in the context of a discussion of corporate policies and priorities. Parent is saying that a reasonably normal and well-balanced person should be able to read the manifesto without being offended. Certainly, anyone who thinks they are in a position to provide advice to a company with a half a trillion dollar market cap should have a thick enough skin to read that without getting offended.

Also, it's worth considering the distinct possibility that the people acting offended and outraged by the manifesto aren't being genuine. Or else they haven't read it and have simply been told to be offended. That's how this works. A bunch of writers for big-name media properties get people outraged by running a story claiming that a Googler wrote an "Anti-Diversity Screed," which sounds awful of course. The problem is that such a claim is simply not true.

dictum• 9 years ago

Instead everyone shames him, tells him his mostly very valid thought process is sexist and his career is done.

It's a method: https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

s3cur3• 9 years ago

Broken link (missing a colon): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

baby• 9 years ago

"That's how you create monsters".

Reminds me of that guy in France, Dieudonné. He was a pretty famous comedian and he ended up making a joke about jewish people on TV. The jewish lobby got hard on him, got him banned from TV channels. Consequently he got banned from radios, cities started refusing him touring, etc...

Now he became a huge antisemitic and he's friend with all the extreme-right people.

edison852• 9 years ago

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/google-fires-viewpo...

He was contacted by breitbart the alt right extremist nationalist paper which is comprised of very xenophobic individuals, at least as of now, and he responded to their emails and not to others as far as I can tell. He's now clearly pissed and will speak out because he's ostracized completely by the left. MIT Harvard phd, damn it got another Dieudonne

Udik5• 9 years ago

So basically Yonatan Zunger is saying that the fact the women are underrepresented among Google engineers depends entirely from the misogynistic attitude of the company, and that its interviewers are maschilist assholes. So, he says, it took him "half of the past day" to try to fix the mess caused by a guy that dared to suggest that maybe the company and its employees are not such misogynistic assholes after all. Excellent job!

throwaway72695• 9 years ago

I posted this in another thread where the entire thread got flagged. This response on medium is scary and demonstrates what I’m concerned about. At this point the left has gotten to a point where witch hunts, blacklisting, exclusion, and suggesting that people could acceptably be subject to violence, for thought crime are accepted and encouraged tactics.

I’m a closeted conservative in tech, hence the throwaway account. Some of what the manifesto said is overly broad or wrong headed, in particular at least from my perspective generalizing views held by conservatives on climate change and similar issues, but one thing in particular stood out: The left and by extension Google do not tolerate diversity of viewpoint or worldview. Diversity of race or sex is viewed as critical but real diversity, that of the lens through which people view the world is to be stomped out with prejudice. If you don’t agree with the leftist secular view you are a bigot. If you are religious you must apologize for your bigotry and convince others it is only a social activity or something private that won’t affect how you behave or what you believe in other spheres. As a conservative orthodox Catholic and a devotee of Saint Josemariá Escrivá, I feel like I have to hide my faith and my views. If people understood that my devotion to doing my work as perfectly and as generously as I can is driven by my desire to serve God and mankind they would be shocked and disappointed. Even worse, my views on the existence of an absolute unchanging morality would be viewed as bigotry even though I don’t advocate discrimination and am willing to happily work beside those who believe and practice differently. It is not enough that we work side by side and treat each other with respect, I must believe and accept leftist dogma in my heart or I am a bigot and I am unfit to write code, work with others, or function in a management role. From my perspective the exclusion, demonization and intolerance from the left for those who dare to merely believe and live their own lives differently is terrifying. I don’t know how we come back from the current state of things to a liberal, open society where diversity of belief and viewpoint is prized.

roguecoder3• 9 years ago

Why on earth do you think people should be expected to tolerate a "diversity of views" on whether they are inherently less qualified than white men?

ahmedahamid• 9 years ago

Quite honestly, the most concerning thing to me about this whole manifesto is the outright dismissive reaction it is getting from everyone.

I know that some people agree with the author and I want to see his point of view studied, analyzed and critiqued in the most objective and thorough manner possible. For instance, do we have evidence on gender biases among different engineering roles? If the answer is yes, is this bias due to organic inclinations attributable to inherent gender differences? Is any part of such inclinations - if any - historically/socially constructed? If it is something that has historical roots, is imposing diversity rules and regulations a temporary/transient measure necessary to counter an existing imbalance until unfair advantage is extenuated? Or is it something we need to maintain indefinitely?

Without rigorous examination of the claims in this manifesto, we are running the risk of having a growing base of believers of an under-scrutinized opinion, individuals who do not speak their minds solely due to social pressure.

lsh1232• 9 years ago

When people I manage ask me about career advice, I always start from "Love what you do, do what you love". Over the years I saw a few examples of people who were pushed into mathematics, computer science, etc. by parents or environment but who didn't like it. Some changed their careers (my high school classmate opened a backery after a few years at Google - she absolutely loves it and would never go back to technology.

I believe we are all different and this is a good thing. The real hard social issue I think is that not all jobs are considered lucrative by the society (which is also reflected in the pay). In the ideal world, there would be good well paying jobs for everyone to fulfill their dreams.

zwischenzug• 9 years ago

'I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.'

Ironic that he confuses gender and sex here, further emphasizing his ignorance.

The general point about flying 'directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades' is not only not true, it's absurdly so:

https://www.google.com/search?q=autism+extreme+maleness+baro...

https://iancommunity.org/cs/understanding_research/extreme_m...

and this exactly is in the area of 'systematising' and 'empathy' that the original author tries to provoke discussion on.

I also find it interesting that the original memo discusses supposed gender differences arising from sex that 'women in tech' discussion frequently puts forward, viz that women are less likely to ask for pay rises.

andy_ppp• 9 years ago

Ugh... having staff is going to be a pain the the arse isn't it :-/

I'm guessing if this guy knew everyone he worked with, say ~ 50 people, he would not dare to write something like this.

And yes I'm talking about both of these manifestos.

gnl2• 9 years ago

Something just occurred to me, which isn't directly related to the original article, but is I believe relevant to the debate that ensued around it. Apart from any ethical, social and economical considerations, one of the easiest arguments to make against sexism is that even from the point of view of pure self-interest it is plain stupid. Passing on a perfectly qualified candidate because of what's between their legs (assuming that's not directly relevant to the position in question) is completely irrational and self-sabotaging.

While there may be high quality studies proving a preferable distribution of certain relevant traits in men or women, that information gives you at best some minimally higher chance that if you were to pick someone at random from the group with the better distribution they might be slightly more capable in that one particular way, maybe, which may or may not result in a higher qualification for the position depending on countless other factors and their combination or interaction with the trait in question. In other words it's completely worthless compared to the much more precise and specific information that you can gather from directly evaluating the individual in front of you.

Here's a thought experiment on the topic of enforced diversity. Disclaimer - I'm pulling the numbers out of the air and they aren't relevant. The example is also a little contrived for the sake of argument, I'm just trying to illustrate a principle.

Let's say we have a medical university that admits 100 candidates. The admission tests are administered and evaluated blindly, the professionals responsible for the evaluation aren't aware of anyone's gender, ethnicity, age, looks, they don't have any information beyond the content of the tests. They have also undergone bias awareness training, just in case, because why not.

The 500 candidates who apply are ranked according to their test results. In addition to these anti-bias measures, the university has a diversity goal of admitting 50% women (medicine is probably not the best example for this, but bear with me here). Now whether the enforcement of those goals is written in stone or strongly recommended with whatever pressure/incentives behind it, the result is quotas.

As it happens, for whatever mix of reasons, genetical, prenatal, environmental or social, at this particular time in this particular place only 40% of the top 100 happen to be women. The diversity goals however dictate that 50% must be admitted, so 10 men will be refused admission in favor of ten less qualified women. Let's say for the sake of argument that they all graduate successfully.

And now let's say I have to undergo a medical procedure and pick a doctor. I know for a fact that all 10 doctors available to me have been to the very same university. Not being an MD myself and not having any recommendations, I am in no position to judge their qualifications, so all I have to rely on is gut feeling and metadata. And I know for a fact that there's a higher chance that a female doctor from that university has been admitted on quotas instead of skill and I'd know that chance is higher even without the information how many women were in the top 100 because of the very possibility which does not exist for men. And now I end up in a position where gender mainstreaming and diversity efforts, in particular quotas, somehow managed to make sexism a reasonable, rational basis for making a decision, which wouldn't have occurred to me in a thousand years.

Without quotas, I have no good reason to care about my doctor's genitals or the color of their skin. With them I just might.

If that's not shooting yourself in the foot, I don't know what is.

smithsmith• 9 years ago

This point has been already made by Eric Raymond in his article "Women in computing: first, get the problem right" http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2118

es2017• 9 years ago

I am a female engineer and I partially agreed with the original manifesto. To be pragmatic, I rather work with a qualified SWE than someone hired by lowering the hiring bar due to political correctness. I am also fed up with the empty assumption that diversity will bring positive productivity. What is the problem with meritocracy? I think any competitive SWE (regardless of the gender) will not be intimidated by such manifesto.

elevenfist• 9 years ago

Wow, I can't believe these comments. I give. HN is stupid. Programmers are by and large stupid, we just have a set of specialized skills.

I'm starting to understand now why so much code is documented so poorly.

And yet, there's smart posts like these that give me some glimmer of hope. Thanks for stemming the tide. I hope those of us not totally brain dead can figure something out.

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