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Only liberals are allowed to work at Google, and only liberals are allowed to express their political opinions on HN. The liberal-tech crowd groupthink enforcem

by jrcii 9y ago

Only liberals are allowed to work at Google, and only liberals are allowed to express their political opinions on HN. The liberal-tech crowd groupthink enforcement is real.

rbanffy 9y ago
That's why the far right invented Gab. Go, be happy there.
harlanji 9y ago
Upvoted gray. I’ve observed at least one of my comments removed from HN. I was a liberal when I came to SF, but people shut me down constantly since coming here... I determined I am being bullied for the first time; as a 30+ yo man it is an interesting thing to learn to combat. Talking to homeless guys, I’ve no doubt what happened to some of them. Today I put out a substantial demo to address this in the way I know how, tweeted on same twitter handle.
defertoreptar 9y ago
His cardinal sin was saying that men and women are biologically different. He could've said a lot, but as soon as he tried to give a biological explanation for why girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer toy cars, he entered taboo territory. It's a thought crime because it implies that cultural influences aren't 100% responsible for why more men are interested in STEM than women.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  No, he tried to use unrelated data on the biological differences between men and women to justify why Google shouldn't try to reach out more to women to diversify their workforce.
  - neveroffensive 9y ago
    This is also a bit of a miss-characterization. He tried to use data on the biological difference between men and women which _may_ be unrelated to justify why Google shouldn't forcefully diversify their workforce if it dose so at the cost of hiring the best people. Edit: I don't think that either side in this debate has actually met the burden of proof necessary to conclusively say that biological differences do/don't correlate on any level.
  - gowld 9y ago
    The memo had a section dedicated to changing Google to make it more welcoming to women. It mentioned "pair programming" as one female-friendly culture change.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      "We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this)."
- bduerst 9y ago
  Except he said women also lacked the abilities to be in tech and higher level management positions. This isn't just about children picking toys. >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.
  - aianus 9y ago
    It is entirely uncontroversial and well-supported to say that there are many more extremely stupid, or criminal, or violent, or genetically ill men than women at the bottom of the bell curve. Why is it so unbelievable that there are more men at the other end with extremely high ability? Just the fact that we have two different chromosomes X and Y is enough to increase our genetic variance (because if a gene on the X is faulty or extreme, we have no backup).
    - bduerst 9y ago
      It's not so much as unbelievable as in the burden of proof is not met for causation. Observational correlation does not mean causation. It's analogous to how a racist would argue that because there are more african american men in U.S. prisons, they are there because they are biologically inferior - when in reality, socioeconomic factors are demonstrably one of the largest causes and there aren't links to genetics. This is the argument that Damore was making, that there are less women in engineering and leadership positions not because of social constructs, but because of biological factors. The evidence he provided did not demonstrate ability differences. Sure, differences in preferences, yes, but those could be caused by the social constructs he was arguing against, and he didn't want to admit that. Edit: Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't you also the HN user that tried to argue for taking away reproductive rights from poor people?
      - aianus 9y ago
        > It's not so much as unbelievable as in the burden of proof is not met for causation. I agree that the burden of proof has not been met. From the studies cited on this Wikipedia page[0] it appears some studies have found this effect but it's not an accepted conclusion. > Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't you also the HN user that tried to argue for taking away reproductive rights from poor people? Link? I don't recall posting that and I do not support reproductive coercion of any kind. Although I do believe that poor people having children are setting themselves and their children up for suffering and maybe I said they shouldn't do so? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis
neveroffensive 9y ago
Both the left and the right have a similar problem of manipulating facts/truth/law to conform to their agenda and "ideal" world. Liberals are in the hot seat right now because they are the primary group in tech, but you can find the same behavior on the right, sometimes to an even greater extent. It's sad the extent to which we are willing to damage peoples lives for expressing their opinions. Freedom of speech is a sticky thing when you start to talk about employment and privately controlled contexts, especially if you are a libertarian. It would be nice if society in general was more willing to live and let live. Problems like these would occur a lot less, and society/debate would progress a lot more easily. I'm a firm believer it's a lot easier to prove someone wrong and educate them on their errors if they feel free to voice their true arguments. I hope in the coming years the libertarian party continues to gain strength, the left/right are almost lost causes at this point...
alexandercrohde 9y ago
I'm on Damore's side (if I had to pick a side) and yet I've been able to express myself fairly freely here on HN. I've also seen posts downvoted/killed consistently from both sides, and it's almost always well-deserved in my opinion.

by jrcii 9y ago

Only liberals are allowed to work at Google, and only liberals are allowed to express their political opinions on HN. The liberal-tech crowd groupthink enforcement is real.

rbanffy 9y ago

That's why the far right invented Gab. Go, be happy there.

harlanji 9y ago

Upvoted gray. I’ve observed at least one of my comments removed from HN. I was a liberal when I came to SF, but people shut me down constantly since coming here... I determined I am being bullied for the first time; as a 30+ yo man it is an interesting thing to learn to combat. Talking to homeless guys, I’ve no doubt what happened to some of them. Today I put out a substantial demo to address this in the way I know how, tweeted on same twitter handle.

defertoreptar 9y ago

His cardinal sin was saying that men and women are biologically different. He could've said a lot, but as soon as he tried to give a biological explanation for why girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer toy cars, he entered taboo territory. It's a thought crime because it implies that cultural influences aren't 100% responsible for why more men are interested in STEM than women.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
No, he tried to use unrelated data on the biological differences between men and women to justify why Google shouldn't try to reach out more to women to diversify their workforce.
- neveroffensive 9y ago
  This is also a bit of a miss-characterization. He tried to use data on the biological difference between men and women which _may_ be unrelated to justify why Google shouldn't forcefully diversify their workforce if it dose so at the cost of hiring the best people. Edit: I don't think that either side in this debate has actually met the burden of proof necessary to conclusively say that biological differences do/don't correlate on any level.
- gowld 9y ago
  The memo had a section dedicated to changing Google to make it more welcoming to women. It mentioned "pair programming" as one female-friendly culture change.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    "We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn't deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this)."
bduerst 9y ago
Except he said women also lacked the abilities to be in tech and higher level management positions. This isn't just about children picking toys. >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.
- aianus 9y ago
  It is entirely uncontroversial and well-supported to say that there are many more extremely stupid, or criminal, or violent, or genetically ill men than women at the bottom of the bell curve. Why is it so unbelievable that there are more men at the other end with extremely high ability? Just the fact that we have two different chromosomes X and Y is enough to increase our genetic variance (because if a gene on the X is faulty or extreme, we have no backup).
  - bduerst 9y ago
    It's not so much as unbelievable as in the burden of proof is not met for causation. Observational correlation does not mean causation. It's analogous to how a racist would argue that because there are more african american men in U.S. prisons, they are there because they are biologically inferior - when in reality, socioeconomic factors are demonstrably one of the largest causes and there aren't links to genetics. This is the argument that Damore was making, that there are less women in engineering and leadership positions not because of social constructs, but because of biological factors. The evidence he provided did not demonstrate ability differences. Sure, differences in preferences, yes, but those could be caused by the social constructs he was arguing against, and he didn't want to admit that. Edit: Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't you also the HN user that tried to argue for taking away reproductive rights from poor people?
    - aianus 9y ago
      > It's not so much as unbelievable as in the burden of proof is not met for causation. I agree that the burden of proof has not been met. From the studies cited on this Wikipedia page[0] it appears some studies have found this effect but it's not an accepted conclusion. > Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't you also the HN user that tried to argue for taking away reproductive rights from poor people? Link? I don't recall posting that and I do not support reproductive coercion of any kind. Although I do believe that poor people having children are setting themselves and their children up for suffering and maybe I said they shouldn't do so? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis

neveroffensive 9y ago

Both the left and the right have a similar problem of manipulating facts/truth/law to conform to their agenda and "ideal" world. Liberals are in the hot seat right now because they are the primary group in tech, but you can find the same behavior on the right, sometimes to an even greater extent. It's sad the extent to which we are willing to damage peoples lives for expressing their opinions. Freedom of speech is a sticky thing when you start to talk about employment and privately controlled contexts, especially if you are a libertarian. It would be nice if society in general was more willing to live and let live. Problems like these would occur a lot less, and society/debate would progress a lot more easily. I'm a firm believer it's a lot easier to prove someone wrong and educate them on their errors if they feel free to voice their true arguments. I hope in the coming years the libertarian party continues to gain strength, the left/right are almost lost causes at this point...

alexandercrohde 9y ago

I'm on Damore's side (if I had to pick a side) and yet I've been able to express myself fairly freely here on HN. I've also seen posts downvoted/killed consistently from both sides, and it's almost always well-deserved in my opinion.