flatb

Liberalism is the core of American conservatism. That’s less true elsewhere.

I can’t think of a more dislike-able company than YouTube. I used to love youtube and watch it everyday and it would make me a happier, smarter person. Now youtube’s impact on their users is entirely negative and really the company needs to be destroyed. But they won’t be because they are now evil, and evil is profitable.

There are fewer people in Compton that watch tennis regularly, fewer coaches, fewer players.

The Williams sisters started playing tennis in Compton. Tennis is cheap, but not so culturally accessible.

Thereby self correcting perhaps.

Cite on “ton of collateral damage”? That’s the disputed point in my mind. I just see obstacles that are like speed bumps in parking lots. I don’t find speed bumps do a ton of collateral damage. They also don’t really “work.” But they are needed, and better to keep in place at this point, maybe they could be made slightly less common at the margins. Why not treat AML regulations similarly?

Humans will never outcompete ai in that regard however. Industry will eventually optimize for humans and ai separately: ai will know a lot and think quickly, humans will provide judgement and legal accountability. We’re already on this path.

I'll keep it simple, so that you can't keep obtusely ignoring it: there are stats on rape. So they are fact. There are no stats on "women's assertiveness". So they are not fact.

I hope so too. Let's check out the definition of discrimination.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discrimination

1. prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment

Hm. Let's check out the definition of sexism again.

1. prejudice or discrimination based on sex

Prejudice or discrimination. And discrimination also means prejudiced or prejudicial...since I'm not a tech person like yourself I wouldn't know what 'or' means, it's too complicated for me, but I think I do know what 'and' means: for example, you are wrong about your definition of sexism, and about your definition of discrimination, and about your use of 'or'.

This is great, I love learning new tech concepts on tech forums from tech experts.

Yes: the claims James Damore makes are cold, hard facts based on the many, many studies and statistics available on, for example, women's assertiveness (which is genetically and biologically quantifiable), that he carefully reviewed and contrasted in order to form an opinion. As such, they are facts, which do not fit the definition of discriminatory.

In order to be discriminatory, they would have to be broad, ignorant statements based on personal anecdote and prejudice that he pulled out of his ass right before adding 'on average' at the end of the phrase; since they are not that in any way, but carefully researched, unbiased observations, they do not fit the definition of discriminatory.

Now that you've explained to me what facts are, I finally understand James' logic, so please consider this argument won.

What happened to James, who simply circulated a fact-based memo telling half of his coworkers that they need special rules to make things fair since they're at least partly genetically inferior when it comes to the job, was yet another gratuitous act of SJW, PC, fact-censoring repression against one of society's most silenced and powerless collectives: top-salaried, Ivy League educated young white males working at the top companies of male-dominated high growth industries in the largest economy on the planet, like so many others we sadly see so often here on HN.

It's time we finally took a stand on these issues.

Saying "Women do on average have more of trait X" is sexism, not discrimination.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism

Definition of sexism

1. prejudice or discrimination based on sex

Enough. Just believe what you want, I give up. There's no sexism on the tech industry or schools. James Damore is right and is an oppressed victim of his own bravery. Whatever.

No it does not. It says that women are more agreeable and less assertive, on average.

Please, PLEASE look up the definition of 'discrimination' in any dictionary you like, and tell me if you really believe that saying 'women are more agreeable and less assertive, on average' does not fit the definition, or that James Damore's many characterizations of women on his memo ("higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance", "women generally have a harder time leading") don't, either. If that's the case, we are simply not going to agree with each other, so we shouldn't waste our time trying.

This is an outright fabrication. Nowhere did Damore write that women should be paid less, or that they were genetically inferior at tech.

Oh no, he simply stated that women get paid less not because of sexism, but because it's natural, since they genetically lack assertiveness and are worse at leadership positions and negotiating:

Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

And certainly he didn't say that women were genetically inferior in high-powered tech jobs! He simply said that they're genetically predisposed to dislike jobs that involve systematizing (such as...tech jobs), and that they're genetically inferior when it comes to handling stressful jobs (which, by pure chance, he happens to exemplify with Googlegeist, a...tech job), since they can't handle stress as well as men do because they're genetically predisposed to anxiety and neuroticism:

Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing). (...) More men may like coding because it requires systemizing. Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist

I don't even know why I bother. I regret getting into this argument. Believe what you like; as long as you see movements for social improvement as some kind of personal accusation, it's what you'll do anyway. Yes, women in tech are not discriminated against, or if they are, it's either exaggerated or there's a reasonable explanation for it. Whatever, downvote away.

It's on the memo itself. You can read it here, among many other places: https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...

On a section dedicated to offering alternative explanations to sexism for the gender gap in tech, James writes:

Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

The implication is that it's partly natural that women do worse and get lower salaries at tech. In case there's any adoubt, the section it's written in is titled "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech", in the subsection "Personality differences".

No, it's not there, it's on the memo itself, in his own words, in a section literally titled "Non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech" if you'd like a more reliable source than Wikipedia.

Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

Do you see it? The part where he says women are genetically worse leaders, and have worse salaries because they're genetically worse negotiators? Remember, the section is titled "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech", implying that women are paid less because it's natural, not because of sexist bias.

At any rate, I appreciate the patronizing "making well meaning but confused leaps of logic" pat in the head.

Have YOU read it? Jesus Christ.

Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

Yes, that does say that women are genetically worse leaders and implies that their lower salaries are at least in part because they are naturally worse negotiators.

The whole section it's written on is focused on explaining how sexism is mostly a exaggeration and that sex differences can instead be explained by genetic factors. Any more questions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

Damore said that those differences include women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism (a higher-order personality trait)

Imagine thinking that you can literally publish and circulate several revisions of an internal company memo telling 50% of your coworkers that they should be paid less because they're genetically inferior to you in regards to the job and then when people tell you that you're kind of a dick and they want nothing to do with you, getting outraged and making a grandstand about being unfairly and terribly oppressed, while bemoaning of course that people nowadays are "too sensitive".

Sadly, you can find many examples of this amazing exercise in woke coherence right here on HN.

#Edit, since I've been accused of "being ignorant" and not having read the memo by people who clearly haven't read the thing themselves. In a section titled "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech", wholly dedicated to justifying, among other phenomena, gender pay gap for reasons other than sexist bias, in James Damore's own words:

Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

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.

I've not cherry-picked these quotes. There are no omissions, they're whole, untouched paragraphs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d59r46/richard...

From someone who worked at MIT.

Sure. There are plenty of first-hand accounts of his behavior, a quick Google search will lead you to many.

Here's a link to one I've most recently run into from someone who worked at MIT. Yes, it's a Reddit comment, but if you check out his profile you'll see the user's been on the site for 11 years, has close to 140k karma, and has many posts in the past that refer to his professional career.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d59r46/richard...

A lot of people are acting like this is just about the Epstein comments. The MIT community was up in arms not just over that but at the mountain of shit Stallman has gotten away with over the last few decades, including crap like telling female researchers he'd kill himself unless they dated him, keeping a mattress in his office and inviting people to lay topless on it, defending pedophilia and child rape. He's been making women at MIT uncomfortable for years

I wish there were more to tell but it's exactly what it sounds like. He had a mattress in the corner of his office and he'd leave the door open and if you were a woman who happened to walk by or heaven forbid need to talk to him for academic reasons he would find an excuse to invite you to use it

You'll also find other similar stories on that thread.

Can you provide some examples that prove the existence a common pattern in the software development industry of people being "screamed at", "threatened", and "drummed out of their jobs" for not using gender neutral pronouns, please?

I'm more than ready to agree with you if you can.

I would also like to know, if you don't mind, what you consider to be good reason to "refuse to comply" with addressing someone in a way they prefer to be addressed, by using a three-letter word instead of another three-letter word.

Decades worth of small issues that Stallman was mostly unaware of

As a reminder, the "small issues" you mention include accusations, by several independent parties, of, among other things:

-Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office.

-Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him.

-Posting up signs in his workplace along the lines of "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)".

harsh, impolite, unempathetic, creepy or whatever BS they are throwing now at RMS.

He has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things:

-Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office.

-Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him.

-Posting up signs in his workplace along the lines of "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)".

Do you think that reprieving someone for threatening a colleague to kill yourself if they don't give in to your romantic/sexual advances is "throwing BS"? It's an honest question.

Can you detail, without strawmen or anecdotes, the thought process by which you equate asking to use gender neutral pronouns, or discussing the possibility of it, with "attacks"?

Stallman was reviled because he has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things:

-Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office.

-Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him.

-Posting up signs in his workplace along the lines of "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)".

Can you explain, in general, how armies and war are ethically relevant to Richard Stallman threatening coworkers to kill himself if they don't go on dates with him, or asking them to lay down topless on a mattress in his office?

Where is the crime here? The analogy is between a good thing not cancelling out a bad thing. The police are not involved. There isn't a crime. He has been pressured for making people very uncomfortable in pursuit of his sexual interests, which is a perfectly good reason to reprieve someone.

He has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things:

-Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office.

-Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him.

-Posting up signs in his workplace along the lines of "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)".

Do you mean to say that your analogy is relevant to the claims against RMS being partly or completely dismissed as a "necessary evil" comparable to shooting a person who's on a killing spree, when weighted against his contributions?

I'm just asking. I got that feeling reading your comment. I get that feeling reading a lot of comments here. I could be wrong.

As a reminder, he has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things:

-Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office.

-Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him.

-Posting up signs in his workplace along the lines of "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)".

Not to be picky, because to be honest I completely believe that what you say is plausible, but that's a lot of outrageous claims with very little in the way of examples or evidence.

I second your statement about Google Docs. I find it amazing that they don't put a bigger focus on performance. We're talking about tools that are essentially about being productive!

Any Google Docs product feels incredibly sluggish, and I feel this trend lately even in Gmail or Google Keep. It just constantly feels like those old-school fat clients constantly hiccupping because of a slow server.

Please don't give tough-guy "smart" advice like this on the internet. You're going to end up getting someone as naive as you into trouble.

I can guarantee that most any officer will charge you with 'resisting' or 'non-compliance' or some other fuzzy, indefensible legal charge just because you pissed them off by 'challenging their authority'. And now you missed your flight and have legal problems for what, to prove a point?

Here's some advice on what pretty much any officer will think in these kinds of situations: 'Oh, you want to make my life harder? I'll make YOUR life harder'. I know, it's bullshit, unprofessional childish behavior, but it's real. And believe me, he/she will win.

Be practical. Changing this stuff comes from legislation, not some brave grandstanding power-move that literally not even the rest of your fellow travelers will give a damn about.