The reality of the situation is that yall don't want to be excluded from communities for being racist, misogynistic, or creepy.
I think moderation and CoCs are needed, but this example looks to be an example of their misuse.
The reality is that you may be confusing a victim with your political enemies.
But, the employees at the foundation, who are responsible for keeping the community healthy, and for enforcing policies, would absolutely take complaints, then use personal accounts, email list history, chat history, and such. It's effectively like how HR works.
> The only thing I've heard
Right, because you're talking to the wrong people, and you're ignoring the fact that he has had folks complain about his behavior, and you're also ignoring his email list and chat history, which you could go look at.
You're acting like this is some kind of witch hunt, when it's simply "HR" enforcing "employment handbook" standards. It just happens to be that this is a set of volunteers, rather than employees.
I'm not the person you replied to but I've just spent a bunch of time looking at (what seem to be) the relevant posts on https://discuss.python.org/, along with a couple of external posts about the ban, and I've yet to find anything that looks like a pattern of shitty behaviour on the part of Tim Peters. I wasn't previously aware of him and I obviously may have missed something important, so I ask this in good faith: can you point to some of the specific emails/chats you had in mind? (I'm happy not to argue the point if you'd prefer not to; I'd just like to see the strongest anti-Peters evidence.)
The threads you've waved at do not show Tim to be the "racist, sexist or creep" that you've insinuated. Rather, they show a committee that can't handle questions, abuses its own rules, and hides behind HR & secret "complaints".
Of course, that's just my opinion from skimming. It'd be better to have someone credible give honest evidence, instead of someone defaming & blaming while projecting their bigotry onto others.
Can you provide any concrete evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever?
For example, Mr. Peters has published comments of his that were removed from the pertinent discussions, and I can vouch for their accuracy from my own recollection. (Since the Discourse forum can also be used via mailing list, and emails cannot be un-sent, presumably many other people can corroborate via their own local backups, too.) Can you find anything in them to suggest wrongdoing?
The fact that there is no official concrete list of bannable posts suggests there are no standalone posts to look at and be like "wow, how come he's not banned yet". On the other hand I know people who walk a very tight line and find loopholes in every rule, and mods have a very hard time "officially" banning those types (even for a short time to help them reflect on their behaviour). Maybe it was like a town where the main bully met unfortunate circumstances and all twenty witnesses haven't actually seen anything for some reason.
Okay, but can you provide any concrete examples of anything objectionable whatsoever?
> The fact that there is no official concrete list of bannable posts suggests
No; it suggests that he did nothing wrong. Which he didn't.
> On the other hand I know people who walk a very tight line and find loopholes in every rule, and mods have a very hard time "officially" banning those types
I observed him throughout the entire exchange. He did nothing wrong.
ryan_lane claims to know things here, but refuses to cite anything. Because, I contend, there is nothing to cite.
Yes, Mr. Peters apparently has a personality that rubs certain people the wrong way, and over time they get the impression of wrongdoing. I find this impression to be completely unreasonable. But more importantly, the Python Code of Conduct explicitly to "be respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences" and "show empathy towards other community members"; and the way that people find fault with Mr. Peters demonstrates nothing of the sort. It is rather about seeking uncharitable interpretation, which goes so far as to state overt falsehoods.
Also: speaking from personal experience as a moderator, "skill issue tbh". At any rate, despite its length, the Python Code of Conduct is not a bunch of legalese in which people might be able to find "loopholes". The judgment of whether someone is playing along is appropriately subjective, as it needs to be for such matters.
The problem is that it isn't being applied fairly. Not even remotely.
> Maybe it was like a town where the main bully met unfortunate circumstances and all twenty witnesses haven't actually seen anything for some reason.
The PSF goes out of its way to avoid this circumstance with its reporting and incident-handling procedures. It goes so far (which is part of the problem) that they explicitly use it to justify a refusal to show any kind of evidence, even in cases where nobody in the discussion can imagine a way that the evidence could identify a reporter.
I use their bias sometimes for detection. For example, the GP here advances a melodramatic allegation, which someone from their Wikipedian tribe would certainly have documented-- if the evidence aligned with their bias.
I'm glad as An American tax payer that we're not funding an organization with such petty politics and discriminatory behaviors.
Tim sounds similar to John Carmack recent she post about Meta:
> I wish I could drop (so many of) my old internal posts publicly, since I don’t really have the incentive to relitigate the arguments today – they were carefully considered and prescient. They also got me reported to HR by the manager of the XROS effort for supposedly making his team members feel bad
Once you have such a committee or COC, game over.
Or is it just a equlibra of just that they might be the best thing we have got currently or something similar?
Within perl we treated conference abuse privately in a seperate nonpublic group, but never mailinglist outbursts. This group had no power over anyone else. Esp. over devs with different opinions, who critized core devs over their work.
It also requires actual human effort though, so it's difficult to do. People hate doing difficult things and prefer to be part of "witch hunts" because they're easy IMHO. Discussion and discourse is key.
A failure mode with a lot of community management systems is that they're adopted because they have a general vibe of keeping the bad people out. And that vibe will see any criticism of the community management document/team/actions as a way to sneak the bad people in.
Imagine I told you I found a rando discord server dedicated to a tabletop RPG I love, but complained that the moderation team was a clique. I claimed that I feel forced to fit in by pandering to their sensibilities and biting my tongue on other topics even if they're just flat out provably wrong. Nobody would assume I'm just salty because I secretly want to post porn, cuss and be racist in #general. Because we all know discord mods are notoriously petty tyrants.
Now give that discord community a github page and copy-paste in an HR document. The way expectations snap into treating them like levelheaded professionals with unassailable intentions and righteous goals is the reason this topic always goes nowhere.
1. As the first person on the project, assume BDFL status and prepare to act that way as soon as you consider accepting a PR.
2. As a person, make sure you strongly understand what your moral values are, and why you hold them.
3. Proactively write your own Code of Conduct from scratch. It's important to have one so that you will not be pressured to use someone else's. It's important to ensure that it reflects your own values, not those of some activist organization (or another project that has been co-opted). Make it simple, but feel free to refer to additional documents. https://compass.naivete.me/ can be considered an example (this is not an endorsement, and again my recommendation is to write it yourself from scratch).
4. Do not have an "Enforcement Procedures" document, and actively reject any such proposal. The interpretation of your code of conduct should be apparent from the text itself, given a reasonable-person standard; you do not need to try to formalize the notion of a reasonable person.
5. If people think you are being unreasonable in your project governance, take that discussion somewhere else.
6. Remember at all times that everyone is free to fork your project. If people wish to do this over a governance dispute, it would be better for it to happen now than later. Do not try to prevent this from happening: do not attack the efforts of others (as has happened to XLibre), and also do not negotiate with others out of fear that they might start a fork. If they start a fork it is of no concern to you.
7. Only dictatorships and democracies are stable. While you are in charge, power rests only in those you directly appoint, and you may revoke this if necessary. When you are ready to leave, unless you have in mind a 100% trusted successor, ensure that your replacement is elected and that the project has a charter such that power can only rest with elected individuals.
All evidence I have seen points to the contrary.
> citing the rules he violated
I wish I could have the graciousness of Tim Peters. Those accusations were not made in good faith.
You can dig up any number of posts on anyone, as Richelieu has pointed out pre-Internet.
No, he does not. He has been a pillar of the community since the beginning, and well loved by many. He has also been trusted with various forms of moderation authority in the past, and his decisions were respected at the time.
> and they used the CoC to enforce a (temporary!) ban, citing the rules he violated.
Please read https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co..., and then https://tim-one.github.io/psf/crimes.html . Mr. Peters is, if anything, overly self-critical here. He quite frankly did nothing wrong. The supposed "rule violations" include things that no reasonable person could actually object to, as well as complete mischaracterizations of the observable facts. In some places, multiple points appear to refer to the same action. In some places it's unclear what is referred to and there has never been any official explanation. In no case is any evidence provided.
> If the CoC didn't exist, you'd be screaming "he didn't do anything wrong"
I am saying it (your use of the word "screaming" here is demeaning, substance-less rhetoric) because it is in fact the case. Many of the cited "violations" don't actually go against the Code of Conduct (https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/), even if they were true and accurate.
> but obviously, according to the well posted rules, he did
It is not obvious, because it is incorrect.
> and they enforced those rules for the good of the community.
No useful purpose was served by this suspension.
> The reality of the situation is that yall don't want to be excluded from communities for being racist, misogynistic, or creepy.
This accusation is baseless, incorrect, and offensive.
These are not mutually exclusive states. If anything, it has improved my esteem of PSL that they were willing to hold one of their "inner circle" up to scrutiny.
Even Linus Torvalds came around to the idea that he was a great software engineer and a mean individual to interact with. There's room for improvement in most if not all of us. I'm impressed at both Tim and the PSL for being able to disagree, go through a suspension, and come to terms. It's the kind of potential for growth that makes it a comfortable ecosystem to work in.
> The supposed "rule violations" include things that no reasonable person could actually object to
The problem with the "reasonable person" standard is that it's subjectivity masked in objectivity; we don't poll ten thousand people to decide what "reasonable" looks like. It's another term for "common sense," and... Common sense moves. Common sense said slavery was fine three hundred years ago. Common sense said homosexuality was an abomination sixty years ago. Common sense said you could be as awful to interact with as you wanted as long as you were making software people craved thirty years ago. We grow and change.
Their scrutiny is utter nonsense, as demonstrated by even a superficial examination of the facts.
He was (and still is) well loved by many (including myself, despite our political disagreements) specifically because of his demeanor.
> The problem with the "reasonable person" standard
And yet it's good enough to appear all over the law. None of the examples you describe bear any resemblance to the current situation.
Again: Tim Peters did not do anything wrong. We know what actions the list in https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co... refers to; most have been characterized unfairly or are even flat-out false. For the rest, if you have an argument as to how the action taken was actually in violation of what is described in https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/, you are welcome to present it.
The facts matter. Tim Peters did not behave badly. The reasoning given for his suspension misrepresented the apparent evidence, vaguely alluded to unproven private activity, and alleged harm in clearly benign actions.
Tim Peters preserved many of his removed posts, along with other relevant information, on a blog (https://tim-one.github.io/) which was largely following my lead in writing about my own prior ban from the forum (https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2024/07/31/an-open-letter-to... ; https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2024/08/10/open-letter-psf-c...) and preserving my own related deleted posts (https://zahlman.github.io/dpo_archive/). It's clear to me, from reading everything (much of which I saw pre-deletion; and also including things that were left up) that at least part of what people objected to in Mr. Peters' "conduct" is that he defended me (despite having many ideological disagreements with me).
I claim that I, too, did not behave badly. In particular, in "recommending" my ban, the Code of Conduct Work Group (which is unelected, and has considerable crossover with paid PSF staff; and to my understanding gets paid in some circumstances for code of conduct enforcement work even as the actual core developers are almost all volunteers) made bizarre mischaracterizations of my complaints — going so far as to falsely ascribe to me terminology that I do not use on principle.
You, specifically, should know about these sorts of things because you comment in these discussions all the time. For example, you participated in https://discuss.python.org/t/shedding-light-on-a-three-month... and your posts there demonstrate intimate familiarity with the situation, with quotes like "I suppose I have to point out that “This whole debacle…” wasn’t referring to just Tim personally and not just this one bylaw change but rather referring to, well, gestures to the last two months." (I remember reading that post, not logged in of course, back when you made it.)
You have seen the list of charges in https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co... so I think you reasonably should understand my position: to the extent that the referents of any of these actions were ever identified, the description is either nonsense or does not point at anything any reasonable person could consider actionable. If you disagree, please be concrete. The entire reason for the "endless litigation" you have repeatedly complained about is the lack of anyone on your side making any clear, understandable argument that anything Tim Peters did at any point was actually wrong. The closest I've seen to such an argument comes from ... Tim Peters (https://tim-one.github.io/psf/meaculpa), and frankly I think it's far too self-effacing.
The debt increases are a political choice: the budget was balanced at the turn of the century, which was used as the pretext for cutting taxes to a level which ensured the problems we’re seeing now based on highly unrealistic growth projections. Cutting all funding on open source, or science, or foreign aid, or even all of those combined is a drop in the bucket compared to our cost of healthcare being whole multiples higher than in our peer countries.
(And of course, it should go without saying that relying on the public to react to the government’s capricious behavior does not make for a stable funding situation for a nonprofit.)
I think of it like crime or natural disaster: a PyPI compromise could easily cause economic damages on the order of a bad storm or small terrorist attack. Collectively we spend billions trying to mitigate those societally rather than telling each person to defend themselves, and this feels like the same idea adapted to a different context.
Hopefully nobody else funds this critical infrastructure piece of both the government and private sector software world. Especially someone of a country/color/gender you don't like.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/defense-agency-pulls-openbsd-f...
Maybe that $500k that was earmarked for OpenSSL vulnerability testing would have found Heartbleed.
I think we just need to reduce the amount of discretion involved in government action of all kinds.
It's not an equal comparison. The biggest governments in the world don't need anymore consolidated power.
> I think we just need to reduce the amount of discretion involved in government action of all kinds.
This we both agree on.
And, at least, the government was elected and has votes to back its political power.
Other sources usually use money to back their political power, which is another problem altogether - political power should NEVER come solely from money.
The clawback is this sentence, yes? "NSF reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds if recipients, during the term of this award, operate any program in violation of Federal anti- discriminatory laws or engage in a prohibited boycott."
How exactly is "you must follow anti-discrimination law" a "naked" attempt at a double-bind?
(And, um, I'd be more worried about that "prohibited boycott" thing. It's mentioned explicitly in the sentence with the clawback, and I don't see where it's defined.)
This is a little-known but long-established part of US policy; see https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac for more details. My employer actually has a reminder in the legal trainings of our corporate responsibilities under these policies (and yes, it rubs me the wrong way).
Disappointing?
This is what Hacker News has been for at least a decade. Why would you expect any better?
We are talking about a grant here. I can't see anything wrong with offering someone money that comes with strings attached, when you don't owe anything in the first place. Especially when the offer is being made generally rather than targeting anyone in particular.
In my assessment, the "stated mission" reflects politics that indirectly resulted in harm to me personally, perpetrated by the PSF's Code of Conduct Work Group. The way that this "mission" is presented is in line with common statements that the administration has identified as discriminatory, and I believe they are justified in coming to that conclusion. The PSF represents it as something simple and agreeable; but while I indeed agree with the idea they represent it as, in practice I have seen it mean something very different, and objectionable. In making this representation I find that they commonly insinuate salacious, untrue things about people with value systems like my own, and I consider that representation to be simply dishonest.
The Work Group in question has a document of "Enforcement Procedures" for the Code of Conduct. I determined that these procedures may lead to making decisions that directly contradict what the Code of Conduct says. When I pointed this out, I was baselessly accused of citing previous (unspecified) moderation action against me as examples of the phenomenon that the Code of Conduct forbids but the Enforcement Procedures require ignoring. In so doing, it was proposed that I characterized these actions in terms that I explicitly reject using. (In fact, the main point of my post was to reject the term — as it is one commonly used in strawman representations of my position.)
I have firsthand knowledge of the NSF grant in question, but not the PSF’s participation in it. It would not remotely surprise me that they didn’t know about these terms, because there’s a large amount of paperwork and process involved and much of it predates the current administration.
> which makes the current activity read very much like a publicity stunt (after realizing they wouldn't be able to take the money)
I mean, I think the PSF has very explicitly communicated their intent to use the grant’s withdrawal as a fundraising opportunity. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable, it’s what I would do in their situation to make the best of things.
(I don’t know about you or what you’ve been through, so I don’t have opinions there. But nothing about the PSF’s behavior here appears facially incorrect or unreasonable to me.)
But ultimately, ideas are secondary to matter. Most people on this planet work for the profits of a very small group. If they weren’t divided, they could easily defeat that small group and organise society for the benefit of the majority.
As Warren Buffet said, class warfare is happening and his class is winning. We should all internalise that and engage in class struggle.
There is nothing organic about this, and organizations like the PSF play their role by never veering into economic and class warfare territory.
Considering the kind of money behind YCombinator, they're not exactly beating the rap.
> This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole. Further, violation of this term gave the NSF the right to “claw back” previously approved and transferred funds. This would create a situation where money we’d already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk.
This Admin has shown that it's willing to do/say what it wants; there is nothing to stop it from accusing PSF, without having to provide evidence, that it had violated the terms, and then take the money back. It's a risk they were right not to take.
Python underwent one of the most poorly conceived backwards incompatible version updates of any language. I believe that it did irreparable damage to Python's position as an application making or web stack language.
Yet today, it is still one of the most popular languages out there. I believe you can place this popularity at the feet of its outreach programs, which parlaid into being able to find new niches which it is currently thriving in.
In short, languages like Perl and Ruby didn't have a NumPy equivalent (PDL doesn't appear to be on anything like the same level, and Numo is a newcomer), while languages like R and Julia don't have the same perception as general-purpose (i.e. suitable for integrating numerical computing applications into a wider context).
Python isn't in these niches because of demographic-specific outreach programs, as demonstrated by the demographics of the niches.
Also, the updates were not "poorly conceived", although they were initially released half-baked. If anything, they didn't go nearly far enough.
I actually agree with you on this point. It's just that I believe that Python's focus on outreach is why it caught on in those applications in the first place. Without it, I feel like Python would probably occupy the same amount of mindshare of something like Ruby, and those niches it currently occupies would probably have been eaten by JavaScript.
It's certainly not because of any merits of the language itself as being newbie-friendly. I've had enough non-programmer friends and family asking me to explain why whitespace is used for blocks and the difference between using `==` and `is`.....okay I'm going to stop now before I start ranting.
> Also, the updates were not "poorly conceived", although they were initially released half-baked. If anything, they didn't go nearly far enough.
One fun little anecdote I love to throw around is that in the span of time that Python underwent a single seismic update, PHP underwent two, and did a much better job of enticing developers to make those jumps.
The difference is that PHP didn't break the entire universe at once, it just made small, backwards-incompatible changes that you could either shim, or rip through your project and do in-place fixes for. On the other hand, it also gave developers enormous carrots to entice them into upgrading - 5.3 had namespaces which allowed for clean code separation, and 7.0 was *significantly* faster. I hear PHP 8 now has a JIT compiler.
Meanwhile, it took forever for Python to give developers enough tooling to cleanly support Python 2 and 3 in one codebase, and it also lacked enough of a carrot to entice developers to upgrade. Projects like Mercurial thought that the upgrade was a complete waste of time and wish they had switched languages instead. The first Python version I was actually excited about was 3.5 because of type hinting and async/await, and there were still Python 2 holdouts up until the point when 2.7 was finally EOL.
So...."not far enough"....I beg your pardon? I feel like that would've gone even worse, and ended up in a repeat of Perl 6/Raku.
- PyGirls: DEI
- Girls Who Code: DEI
- Free Intro to CS classes in poor neighborhoods: DEI
- Free Coding Camps for low income families: DEI
- Africa Kids Code: DEI
- Coding Classes in Spanish: DEI
etc.
- Not coding, but my kids' chess tournament organizers waive tournament fees for girls and kids from low income families: DEI
If the foundation's core mission is to promote and support Python to as many people as possible, that includes people who would not normally be taking CS classes in schools or have access to resources, then that is DEI.
No, it isn't. DEI, as applied to the PSF, entails promoting and supporting Python to not as many people as possible, by singling out specific groups.
> - PyGirls: DEI
> - Girls Who Code: DEI
I think you mean "PyLadies", but yes, these programs are inherently discriminatory. Their existence also perpetuates the harmful stereotypes that young women would require some sort of special help, or that they benefit from being segregated from young men in the learning environment. (Note that segregating women from men logically necessitates segregating men from women.)
And if you have a daughter, the existence of programs like this sends the message that you should choose her activities according to what society wants for her, not what she wants for herself. That denies agency, and is sexist.
> - Africa Kids Code: DEI
Obviously not.
> AfricaKidsCode was founded by Mangaliso Mokoape in 2018. It is an organization whose primary agenda is to drive digital skills education among young people on the continent through innovation.
I.e., it's meant for people who live in Africa. That isn't a protected characteristic and doesn't exclude, for example, white South Africans. Further, the program doesn't describe itself as having any particular diversity or equity goals.
> - Coding Classes in Spanish: DEI
No, of course not. No critic of DEI makes such arguments, and the Trump administration has not said anything that reasonably supports such a conclusion. Getting there requires conspiratorial thinking. Language is not a "protected characteristic" in US law, and associating it with protected characteristics in order to argue against the Trump administration is psychological projection.
> - Free Intro to CS classes in poor neighborhoods: DEI
> - Free Coding Camps for low income families: DEI
No, and supposing so requires psychological projection.
What do you mean it's in their values?
More seriously, I can only respect someone (natural or legal) who refuses 7 figures for their values, which ever those might be and whether I share them or not.
The money was earmarked for PyPI and the refusal did not impact those who have other positions in the PSF. In 2020, when it was politically safe, the PSF made several BLM support statements. There are no statements about people of color in Gaza or extrajudicial killings off the Venezuelan coast in 2025.
Moreover, they got political capital from this action for an organization that was/is severely damaged by the ruthless and libelous leadership. And they prepare for another pendulum swing that might materialize in the 2026 midterms.
All in all, I'm unimpressed.
- they apply to _all_ of the org's activities, whereas previous statements only applied to the grant itself (it had to be used in X way) ; this is what PSF found untenable
- the gov can claw back the money if they deem you were violating the reqs pretty much as their discretion; while this might seem unlikely, the Trump admin is highly aggressive towards universities, withholding funding in a way that has not been done before under a bogus excuse of anti-semitism. It shows they will have their way and there's nothing you will be able to do about it.
mlindner•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
userbinator•2mo ago
Software quality has been on a downhill trend that's steepened noticeably in the past ~15 years. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together and see what's really happening but they'd rather we ignore the politically inconvenient elephant in the room.
Your downvotes don't matter, we see the truth regardless.
wiml•2mo ago
userbinator•2mo ago
I don't care if developers are cis trans black white male female or dogs[1] if they are competent. But there seems to be a recent trend of some who cry discrimination when their sub-par work is called out.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
brendoelfrendo•2mo ago
terminatornet•2mo ago
This sounds like you worked with or heard about 1 trans person who did shoddy work and now it's a "recent trend" that all trans software devs are saying it's discrimination.
JuniperMesos•2mo ago
----
"The doctors are sympathetic, and I think some of them even understand—regardless, they can offer no solace beyond the chemical. They are too kind to resent, but my envy is palpable. One, a trans woman, is especially gentle; perhaps because her own frustrations mirror mine, our cognitive distance sabotaging her authenticity." - https://ctrlcreep.substack.com/p/knowing-ones-place
SalmoShalazar•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
So your assertion is that trans people, gay people, people of color, and women are inherently worse at engineering jobs then straight white men, and companies/institutions that hire them are somehow producing worse software? Ignoring all other economic and technological trends that have materialized over the last two decades?
Also, just for the record, some of the most brilliant engineers I have worked with in my time fall into many of those categories.
wakawaka28•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
Every single one of these policies that I've seen over the last 20 years, including my role as a hiring manager in my past career, were aimed at leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities to people who aren't in the majority. The only effect I've seen is that now people who look like me actually have to compete with others.
Edit: For the record I'm asking for links from reputable companies who would realistically be setting the tone for the industry. Not some random ass listing for contract work.
wakawaka28•2mo ago
Other companies I can think of are Google and Microsoft. Many huge open-source projects have openly promoted specific racial outcomes. I might dig up links later but if you actually care about this stuff, Lunduke is a great source of references.
>Every single one of these policies that I've seen over the last 20 years, including my role as a hiring manager in my past career, were aimed at leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities to people who aren't in the majority.
That is how it's sold, but in practice it means you have to turn down perfectly good white people (especially white men) to get arbitrary demographic outcomes. If 13% of the population is black and almost none of them study engineering, you won't be able to get 13% representation without passing up on better white candidates. The same can be said about women and other minorities. Different demographics have different preferences and that is reflected in what they study and how hard they work at it. Yet we are supposed to think there is something nefarious if there is even a minor discrepancy in outcomes. Give me a break. This isn't the 1950s. Nobody would risk discriminating against a minority because it could cause a lawsuit. But discrimination against whites and men is not treated the same way, even when it can be proved positively. One of those 3 lawsuits against IBM was dismissed by an activist judge with a one-sentence non-explanation for example. If you complain about this stuff publicly your career is going to be damaged and everyone will at best think you are a bad sport.
scuff3d•2mo ago
I'm going to try very very hard to ignore the fact it was James O'Keefe that "broke" that story. He's only one step above Info Wars when it comes to being a reliable source, and it's well established he doctors videos to fit his narrative.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume that IBM did do something illegal here: they deserve to be sued and the person who was discriminated against is entitled to some kind of compensation (regardless of race/gender). But that's hardly evidence of some grand conspiracy against white men.
But maybe we can approach this conversation from a different angle. You clearly have a different view from me, so let's try to build up from some common starting place
Would you say it's a reasonable assertion that someone born into immense wealth and privilege (regardless of race/gender/sexual orientation) has substantially more opportunities in their life then someone born in abject poverty?
wakawaka28•2mo ago
Sorry, I don't have time to satisfy arbitrary demands like this. Job postings are ephemeral anyway. There have been articles written about this but I don't have links, and the way you're coming at me tells me you will never be satisfied.
>I'm going to try very very hard to ignore the fact it was James O'Keefe that "broke" that story. He's only one step above Info Wars when it comes to being a reliable source, and it's well established he doctors videos to fit his narrative.
O'Keefe did not originate this story. Lunduke gets a number of leaks himself. If you expect these maverick journalists to be well-liked, you're being totally unreasonable.
>But for the sake of argument, let's assume that IBM did do something illegal here: they deserve to be sued and the person who was discriminated against is entitled to some kind of compensation (regardless of race/gender). But that's hardly evidence of some grand conspiracy against white men.
CEOs of companies saying out in the open that they want more "representation" and that there are bonuses for hiring minorities not good enough? There are billions of dollars being spent specifically to attack whites and white men specifically, and to discourage whites from forming families. I'm not going to argue with you on this point. This should be rather obvious.
>Would you say it's a reasonable assertion that someone born into immense wealth and privilege (regardless of race/gender/sexual orientation) has substantially more opportunities in their life then someone born in abject poverty?
I know exactly where you want to take this and let me stop you right there. Would you agree that, assuming we are allocating financial assistance to poor people, that all equally poor people are equally deserving of help regardless of what they look like, or what is between their legs, or who they like to sleep with?
Anything that tries to blame present-day whites for crimes of the past is effectively collective punishment. Meanwhile, you can't even extract retribution from the children of convicted criminals at present, yet we are supposed to take the blame for a few individuals in the past based on the mere fact that they look like us? There is no evidence of widespread collusion against minorities at present. To the very limited extent you might argue that, I could argue that people of other demographics prefer their own consistently.
I don't actually want to continue this discussion lol. It's too tedious and I don't expect to convince you of anything based on how you write. But hopefully some of what I've said will lead you to reconsider some of your mainstream beliefs.
zahlman•2mo ago
If your company was complying with the law, the playing field was already definitionally level.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
zahlman•2mo ago
If you disagree, it's because you disagree about what "level" means.
It's as the other poster says:
> There are companies out there literally saying "We need less white people" and listing off every possible demographic as "welcome" except for white men, in the job posting.
When you do this, the playing field is ipso facto not level. When you "welcome" people regardless of demographic characteristics, and refuse to take these characteristics into consideration in the hiring process the playing field is ipso facto level.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
I'd think if our backstop for understanding if a level playing field was created by the law is the law, we'd want to verify the claim by external signal such as outcome observation if we aspire to some objective assessment.
zahlman•2mo ago
I am the one saying that this is inherently fair, and that doing so produces a definitionally level playing field.
Because that's just true. That's how fairness works. Fairness is when you don't discriminate on the basis of things (here, race, sex etc.) irrelevant to the decision you're trying to make (here, suitability for the position). Bias is when you do.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
I think civilizations have been struggling for several centuries with whether that's good enough. We are, in fact, coming up on the Christmas season for those who celebrate, and there's a pretty good story an Englishman wrote in the 1800s on this topic. Something about three spirits visiting and what a man's life comes to, even when he plays by every single written rule.
(You're hitting the nail on the head. Equality of opportunity vs. equality of possible outcome is the division in philosophy in this space. Are you familiar with the thought experiment Lyndon B. Johnson spoke of in 1965 about a relay race where the runners have unequal starting lines?)
zahlman•2mo ago
No. I said nothing of the sort.
What I said is that when those things happen, and then an employer disregards that history in the course of making a hiring assessment, the employer acted fairly.
It is not incumbent upon the employer to attempt to right prior injustices. It is in fact wrong to expect the employer to do so. Because the employer did not cause them.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
I am done with this discussion, in all sub-threads, because this is clearly going no where.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
> The law required you not to discriminate on the basis of sex etc.
> I am the one saying that this is inherently fair
So if most men start on a playing field where they are wealthier and most women on one where they are poorer, a level playing field will tend to maintain that level of inequality, will it not? And by your definition that would e fair.
In fact, there'd be an interesting observable consequence of this scenario: were it truly level, one could begin to observe population-level phenomena like "women are just poorer; that's innate to them" and be correct in observation but with an error in causality; it's not so much "innate" as "initial conditions coupled with a lack of mobility."
If it were initial conditions and a lack of mobility... An un-level playing field would encourage more mobility, would it not? And if you made it un-level in the right way, perhaps you could start to zero out those initial-conditions effects?
busterarm•2mo ago
I remember thinking to myself: "Woah, that's not only extremely illegal but also I potentially would qualify for such a role without said requirement. I wish I'd recorded that."
The person they hired ended up being a disaster in the two years she was with us and she hired an entire organization underneath her that was exclusively of her own ethnicity...and I don't mean her country but her own ethnic group within that country.
wakawaka28•2mo ago
JuniperMesos•2mo ago
> California passed Senate Bill 826 in October 2018, mandating gender diversity on the boards of public companies headquartered in California. The bill set deadlines in 2019 (for two women on five-person boards) and 2021 (for three women on seven-person boards).[66] It was challenged as unconstitutional on the grounds of violating equal protection.[67] The District Court ruled the challengers did not have standing, but was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The District Court then denied a preliminary injunction. It is now pending another appeal.[68] A separate lawsuit found the law unconstitutional on May 13, 2022.[69]
> In 2020, California passed Assembly Bill 979, requiring publicly held companies headquartered in California to include board members from underrepresented communities. The law requires at least one director from an underrepresented community by the end of 2021, and up to three, depending on board size, by the end of 2022.[70] The term "underrepresented community" is defined as "an individual who self‑identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self‑identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender."[71] The law was ruled unconstitutional on April 1, 2022.
Ancapistani•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
machomaster•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
InvertedRhodium•2mo ago
Now, go on, parrot the same question again. Surely you’ll bait someone into accepting your framing of the issue sooner or later.
scuff3d•2mo ago
As I've said many times in the comments. I have 20+ years experience working for corporations. All through the me too wave, the increase focus on DE&I, and the general move to try and be less exclusionary. I've worked with woman, gay people, trans, and people of just about every ethnicity you could think of. Never once, in all those years, have I ever feared for my job or felt excluded.
Literally the only people I have ever heard complain are the ones I know for a fact tell racist and sexist jokes because they always felt comfortable enough around me to tell them.
If the fact that we are a bit more mindful about being racist and sexist in the work place bothers you, I think you may need to look inward at your own behavior. Not outward.
torstenvl•2mo ago
If you can't make your point without leveling extreme and baseless allegations at fellow posters, that's a good sign that your point is without merit.
scuff3d•2mo ago
People have had three opportunities now to give concrete examples of behavior that should be acceptable and makes them feel excluded or like they need to walk on eggshells. Nobody has offered a single thing.
So point blank: What can you not say or do in these environments for fear of reprisal?
AlotOfReading•2mo ago
A new DEI director joined a previous employer and started a mandatory survey to affirmatively label everyone's trans status. Whatever you entered would be used to auto-update your public info page with details on whether you identified as trans or not, with no opt out. I hope I don't have to explain why that's ill-considered at best.
Anyway, refusing to fill it out immediately escalated to a disciplinary meeting with the director.
scuff3d•2mo ago
That's so bad it almost feels like someone trying to out trans people under the guise of DEI.
AlotOfReading•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
machomaster•2mo ago
ryan_lane•2mo ago
Sure, this person was probably bad at their job, and that's problematic, but this isn't an example of someone being fired because they said something non-problematic.
zahlman•2mo ago
The example says nothing of the sort.
AlotOfReading•2mo ago
zahlman•2mo ago
This is simply untrue. Such conduct was already completely and utterly unacceptable prior to "DEI", for decades. These policies have instead enabled disparaging comments about others based on race/sex/ethnicity — in particular, accusing people belonging to certain such groups of being inherently whatever-ist (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWoC90bbsdo), while defining away discrimination perpetrated against them (to move back towards the original topic, this claim was repeated many times in the discussion of the removal of references to "Strunk & White" in PEP 8).
> What can you not say or do in these environments for fear of reprisal?
For example, I doubt that you could refuse a request to state your "preferred pronouns", or critique the idea of making such requests or normalizing the culture around them.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
zahlman•2mo ago
Because I reject the underlying conceptual framework, as well as the worldview that makes such a "preference" important or valuable.
> If you're asked and refuse to say, how are people to know which ones to use?
By making their own judgement, as is everyone's natural right.
It is simply not reasonable to demand that others see you as you see yourself. It is correct and just that people are permitted to see others as they will.
When we speak of "pronouns" in this context, we speak of third-person pronouns. Therefore, it is inherent to the concept that I am not privy to the discussion when they are used to refer to me. To refer to others in third person, knowingly, in front of them, is in my view at least unprofessional and likely rude — as it entails speaking on that person's behalf.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
If not, you're quite unusual but I can't argue that.
zahlman•2mo ago
For all I know, countless people refer to me with female pronouns in discussions I can't observe. I get the impression that many people are constantly bothered by such a possibility. I only ever think about it when this exact discussion comes up, and then I simply do not care. I consider that the people in those discussions have the absolute right to do so.
Speaking of which, I have had this exact discussion many times in the last several years, and it's only because of the asking-about-pronouns culture that this is possible. In the decade or more that I knew transgender people in my life before that, none of this mattered and I could get on with my life, and have the same friendly relations with transgender people as cisgender people. There is more social friction now than there was then.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
Do you think you might feel differently on the topic if they did it continuously in discussions you can observe and when you tried gentle correction you were met with overt hostility?
zahlman•2mo ago
shadowgovt•2mo ago
zahlman•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
For the record, it's not because I have any particular issue with trans people. If they want to put that info in their bio, or other people do, that's fine. I'm just not interested.
So is your assertion that trans people don't exist? Or it isn't a real thing? And you think it's unfair that you don't feel comfortable talking about that at work? Just for clarity.
zahlman•2mo ago
No; and it makes so little sense to hypothesize that on the basis of what I actually wrote, that I cannot take seriously the possibility that you want to discuss this in good faith.
scuff3d•2mo ago
Edit: Ah, I see what you mean. My bad. I thought you meant "normalizing" the trans issue in general, not the request. I see why you got annoyed.
What's your objection to the request?
zahlman•2mo ago
Second: as a matter of ideology, I consider that people, on an individual level, should not be compelled to see others as those others see themselves, and certainly should not be compelled to express a particular view of others. That violates my conception of freedom of speech philosophically (and many have made the legal argument as well).
Those two points tie together: the social contract in play here is that you don't have to care about things that we agreed are a priori uninteresting about me, and therefore I should have the same freedom. The "pronoun culture" violates that contract. (N.B.: this culture is not just about asking people for third-person pronouns; it's about normalizing the act of proactively stating them in an introduction.)
This is not the same as the expectation of various social courtesies, because those concern face-to-face interaction. That is: if you tell me "my pronouns are...", my thought process is that this has no bearing on how I interact with you. When I speak with you, I will refer to you as "you", just as you would to me. The pronouns described are third-person; if you expect me to use them, you are inherently placing an expectation on conversations that do not involve you. (I am unaware of any world language with gendered second-person pronouns, and am happy not to speak any.)
I have had many activists try to tell me that they don't know me but they're sure I use third-person pronouns all the time in group conversations, to refer to members of the group who are present but who I'm not speaking to directly. I have tested this and they are wrong. It does happen rarely in groups of close friends where there is absolutely no question of gender. But even then, I disagree that "I discovered that someone in my group sees me as having a gender other than what I personally identify with" can be considered a form of oppression, or even an objective matter. The activists cannot have it both ways: if "gender" is something that people are free to "identify with", which leaves no identifiable or externally verifiable signs, then it cannot also be a natural fact about the world. Gender identity and gender expression are separate, and the latter is not fully under our control.
If you say that I should prioritize what others tell me over what I can directly observe, you are trying to control me (or enable others to control me). It is exactly the same as if you demanded that I agree that others are physically attractive if they believe themselves to be so.
zahlman•2mo ago
For example, the things James Damore said, that resulted in his firing and which were blatantly misrepresented all over social media and journalism — to the point of people directly quoting things and then asserting that the quote means something other than its actual meaning.
> Never once, in all those years, have I ever feared for my job or felt excluded.
Not even when people assert that discrimination against your kind doesn't count as X-ism?
> Literally the only people I have ever heard complain are the ones I know for a fact tell racist and sexist jokes because they always felt comfortable enough around me to tell them. If the fact that we are a bit more mindful about being racist and sexist in the work place bothers you
You directly equivocate here. If they are telling racist and sexist jokes "around you", that is not doing so "in the work place". Moreover, if they "feel comfortable enough around you to tell them", that requires that you aren't objecting to it.
scuff3d•2mo ago
Those were jokes/comments made to me in the workplace back when it was more acceptable. Those same people went on to complain they couldn't do that anymore.
As for Damore, I'm not going to debate the merit of that memo. But even the NLRB thought he went beyond projected speech, saying his memo was "harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive"
shadowgovt•2mo ago
It suggests they know these are not things to be said in mixed company and the real discomfort is the PSF events have become mixed company for them.
scuff3d•2mo ago
I'm happy to give people the benefit of the doubt. But this specific topic I don't think I've ever seen someone actually provide a real answer.
machomaster•2mo ago
How about you check the content of DEI indoctrination classes, what constitutes offense? Like 2 people talking and the 3rd overhearing is a violation. Like not playing with the fantasies and embracing reality is a violation. Being against (the "wrong one") discrimination is a violation. Like communicating too much with a woman is a violation as is talking too little. Don't let me started on a microaggression BS. In general, it is a violation if any delusional person decides to be offended, no matter the reality.
Did you know that liking progress, efficiency, technology, as well as simply being on time is a core of white suppremacy culture that is improperly and racially being imposed on the Black population? Now that you know (like we estsblished, the opinion of only one minority person like myself is enough to make it a fact) that you are a racist, you must repent.
Your clear dishonesty and bad-faith acting is what causes people to not engage you, not the lack of examples.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
> Like 2 people talking and the 3rd overhearing is a violation
This is the principle that "locker-room talk" in the workplace is not okay, and that's a good principle. Yes, it's not okay to have a "just us guys" conversation because the content of the conversation is not acceptable in the workplace. The fact a third-party overhearing it gets it reported isn't the issue.
> Like not playing with the fantasies and embracing reality is a violation
You'll have to be more specific about what fantasies you mean. I'm pretty sure I know, but you are continuing to dance around it and your reluctance to name words strongly suggests you know your opinion is unwelcome in polite society.
> Being against (the "wrong one") discrimination is a violation
Again, you'll have to be more clear. Sounds like you're toeing the line Damore toed before Google fired him.
> Like communicating too much with a woman is a violation as is talking too little
Neither of these are violations, and I don't think I know how someone concludes they are.
> Don't [g]et me started on [] microaggression BS
Microaggression theory is grounded in research dating back to the 1970s. Do you have some specific concerns with the research or its interpretation? The theory seems pretty sound from where I sit, but maybe I've missed something.
> Did you know that liking progress, efficiency, technology, as well as simply being on time is a core of white suppremacy culture that is improperly and racially being imposed on the Black population?
That's not at all what anyone has said. You are misinterpreting several layers of information that suggest to me that your frustration is second-hand. I'm going to have to call for a "cite your sources" on this claim.
> In general, it is a violation if any delusional person decides to be offended, no matter the reality.
This is, broadly, untrue.
scuff3d•2mo ago
What does this even mean? Can you give me one specific concrete example of what you want to say in the workplace that you think will end up in a conversation with HR?
I have gone through literally all the same corporate training everyone else has for 20 years across 5 different companies. I have always worked in fairly diverse places, and have never once experienced what you're talking about.
Ancapistani•2mo ago
Your response - “You're saying you feel excluded because you can't tell racist jokes?” - is a sufficient example of my point. Not only did I not imply that, but “racist jokes” aren’t even relevant to the conversation.
I refuse to defend myself against completely unfounded allegations.
scuff3d•2mo ago
I was primarily being hyperbolic. My main point is that generally people who are upset are upset that they can no longer say or do objectionable things in the workplace. Meanining every single person I have ever met in real life that complains about this stuff are the same ones who say horribly racist/misogynistic/homophobic stuff.
I'm asking, in all sincerity, what is one example of something you think is perfectly reasonable that you now have to avoid saying. Just one single example. I'd be thrilled if I could get one, because not only have I not seen one in this thread, but I have never seen one from anyone since this became a talking point years ago. It doesn't have to relate specifically to your workplace, you can generalize enough that it wouldn't be clear who you are or where you work.
Ancapistani•2mo ago
At one point, one of my social media profile began with “Father, husband, […]” - basically a list of the things that are most important to me. I was berated online for this after responding to a post by someone by offering a suggestion to a technical problem. This was about a month before PyCon, and both I and that person were in attendance. They made reference to their “joke” in a very public way - at least two others who had participated in the thread online were there, and they laughed and continued to name the entire list that my profile contained.
To be clear - I was not inferring that they were making fun of me, this was in direct response to a question I had asked during the Q&A portion of a talk. They were loud enough that the speaker called for quiet because they were unable to hear the following question.
I attempted to file a complaint following the PSF process, and was told “since this happened off-site, there’s nothing we can do.”
The following day the same person referenced that someone had tried to attempted a complaint about them, calling it “fragile masculinity”.
There have been other instances, one of which was significantly more serious and resulted in a close friend of mine leaving software engineering as a career entirely. I will not share that one - there’s no benefit to doing so, it would hurt my friend if they were to be reminded of it, and it would very likely identify me.
zahlman•2mo ago
Also as a reminder: in 2013 at PyCon, Adria Richards overheard people who weren't speaking to her and didn't know she was there, took offense to what they were saying, and ignored all official procedure to complain about it publicly on Twitter instead. That's why people were upset at her.
scuff3d•2mo ago
What the fuck are people saying that could be construed as racist? Literally in 20+ years I have never seen this or felt this way.
pseudalopex•2mo ago
gitaarik•2mo ago
scuff3d•2mo ago
zahlman•2mo ago
shadowgovt•2mo ago
ryan_lane•2mo ago
Phrasing outright racism/sexism in the form of a question seems to make it OK with other folks who tend to share the same mindset, but it isn't (and shouldn't be) effective in the workplace.
The devil doesn't need an advocate; especially not in a workplace.
zahlman•2mo ago
His questions did not carry any such implication and that is a blatant misrepresentation of the argument he was making. I've been over this so many times in the past and I keep being told that the words I read don't mean what they very obviously mean. (I'm accustomed to that being called "gaslighting" when it goes the other way, inaccurate as that is.)
shadowgovt•2mo ago
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4380791-NLRB-Advice-...
zahlman•2mo ago
Note that Wikipedia endorses Damore's claim there: "A research [sic] over large samples has shown that levels of neuroticism are higher in women than men.[25]" Similarly, greater variability in male IQ is backed by research. Findings like these adequately support the core of Damore's argument, i.e. that disparate outcomes in race- and gender-blind processes do not evidence any form of unconscious bias and do not demonstrate any moral failing in the hiring process.
The NLRB's findings refer to a supposed "effort to cloak with 'scientific' references and analysis", scare quotes theirs, as if to imply that the findings are not backed by science or that appeals to science are being used fraudulently here. Both are false. Similarly, the NLRB claims that Damore invoked "stereotypes" (their word, not scare quotes) in presenting this analysis, which is also false.
The NLRB further supposes that remarks such as the ones they quoted, were somehow "discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment". I find the claim of discrimination specious. Observing that one population demonstrates a wider range of capability than another in certain standardized testing, is not discriminating against either group, especially when no claim is made about mean ability. As for "sexual harassment", I genuinely cannot understand how any reasonable person could ever have alleged this in good faith. There is no flirtation here, no attempt at intimidation, no intent to offend or degrade, nothing. What Damore said, objectively, was no more "sexist" than observing that men are taller than women on average (Cohen's d of 1.86, by the way: https://copernicanrevolution.org/psychology-of-gender/sex-di...). Putting this in the same category as unwanted sexual advances is beyond ludicrous.
The NLRB finally notes that "Numerous employees complained to the Employer that the memorandum was discriminatory against..." All people who made such complains were objectively incorrect in their assessment. The words cited, nor anything else in the memo, plainly do not support such a conclusion.
Essentially, they haven't actually done any "interpretation" here; they have simply made absurd assertions about the effect of the material, in support of absurd assertions made by Damore's coworkers — which assertions are based on a reading that is at best rendered inaccurate by ideological blinders.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
> As for "sexual harassment", I genuinely cannot understand how any reasonable person could ever have alleged this in good faith
"Since Suzy is a woman, she is more neurotic than Bob" is also sexual harassment, just in terms of legal definitions. Not all sexual harassment is of the "I want intercourse" kind.
> What Damore said, objectively, was no more "sexist" than observing that men are taller than women on average
So it turns out that if you go around saying "Well of course Suzy's short, she's a woman," that is sexual harrassment. And while Damore didn't single out any specific coworker, he made clear that he was approaching working with his colleagues from a framework that made assumptions about them based on gender, and that made working with him dicey (especially at Google, where management roles shift so fluidly).
I think a piece of the puzzle you're missing is this: the law doesn't always trust science. And the law has reason not to. Eugenics was a science. Phrenology was a science. Race essentialism was a science. Science hasn't always pointed the way towards truth in all cases, and the law's method of finding fact differs from the scientific method with good reason. If something's scientifically true and a Title VII violation... it's a Title VII violation.
> All people who made such complains were objectively incorrect in their assessment. The words cited, nor anything else in the memo, plainly do not support such a conclusion.
When nearly everyone in a population group is making the same claim about their own emotional state... Wouldn't the "reasonable person" principle conclude that, from a legal standpoint at least, the claim should be accepted true for a reasonable person in that population?
zahlman•2mo ago
No, a reasonable person cannot do so, because this is a matter of fact. This conclusion is incompatible with what the word "stereotype" means. Objectively, an empirically backed statistical trend is not a stereotype. Again, this is like using the word" stereotype to describe the statement "on average, men are taller than women".
It is not a question of Damore believing he was creating a grounded argument from science. It is a question of the objective fact that he was doing so.
> And while Damore didn't single out any specific coworker, he made clear that he was approaching working with his colleagues from a framework that made assumptions about them based on gender
No. His framework does not "make assumptions about them", i.e. about individuals. It highlights things that are known to be true as statistical patterns. He was explicit in noting that he does not use these statistics to prejudge people, for example:
> 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.
He was explicit that his purpose in highlighting the statistics is to refute an argument he saw being made that a disparate outcome evidenced a bias. He offered an alternate explanation for the outcome.
To say that this is wrong is to say, in effect, that he is not allowed to hold the view, never mind express it. And it is to say that no refutation of the argument presented could be tolerated.
That is not how healthy discussion works. And as I recall, Damore's feedback was part of a program explicitly soliciting this sort of feedback.
Also notable, Damore also claimed (again correctly, again backed by statistical evidence) that women show on average higher openness and extraversion (other OCEAN traits) on the same studies where they show higher neuroticism. Nobody objected to that. Because the objection was rooted in emotional affect and a knee-jerk reaction to a word without understanding the underlying concept or caring about the evidence presented.
> Wouldn't the "reasonable person" principle conclude that,
I don't see why:
> In law, a reasonable person or reasonable man is a hypothetical person whose character and care conduct, under any common set of facts, is decided through reasoning of good practice or policy.[1][2]
I don't agree that the people in question were conducting themselves in anything like that manner.
zahlman•2mo ago
Do you disagree?
shadowgovt•2mo ago
Damore made the mistake of failing to realize that an American place of employment is not the agora. Given a couple opportunities to adjust his flight plan, he decided to stay the course. He was free to do so but he became a walking Title VII violation when he did and too much of a liability for Google to continue to employ.
On the plus side, I hear he landed on his feet so it all worked out in the end.
gitaarik•2mo ago
shadowgovt•2mo ago
And I don't believe a reasonable person can conclude that someone believes things like "women score higher on the psychiatric test for neuroticism" and then sets that belief aside when evaluating the behavior or performance of women on their team.
zahlman•2mo ago
Zeroth, statistical results like this are not at all like the "scientific racism" of the past. They are well accepted across a broad field of study and have shown themselves to be useful in understanding human behaviour. (Admittedly, a psychiatric evaluation is not a precise measurement. But it is not fundamentally based on a flawed assumption, and it is not being conducted by people with an axe to grind.)
First, OCEAN traits are basic material in psychology. By your argument, nobody with a relevant degree should be allowed to be employed anywhere; but they learn (not "believe") these things exactly because it makes them more qualified for their intended career path. It's the same as how doctors nowadays are expected to understand how culture mediates responses to pain, or how men's and women's health care facilities have proven themselves necessary (as has the need to disentangle what's caused by physiology or hormones from what's caused by psychology).
Second, Damore obviously understood the material he presented reasonably deeply. Nobody who looks into the psychiatric tests on that level would misunderstand what they mean. And, I mean, really, this is such an incredibly tangential thing to actual work. If I thought you belonged to a group with more propensity to self-doubt (I'm still not exactly being scientific here, but that's closer to what I've understood from my own reading), are you really saying that this would prevent me from fairly "evaluating your behaviour or performance"? The quality of your code doesn't change because of how you felt about it when you committed it.
Third, this is a claim that Damore fully understands as a statistical claim about the general population. He knows very well, and he makes it very clear that he knows very well, that this does not transfer to "women on one's team"; and furthermore he didn't argue that trait neuroticism makes people unfit for purpose (as above). The entire point of the argument is to explain why women disproportionately don't apply for the job, and thus relieve Google of the moral burden of correcting for that. (But he even offered suggestions for what they could do instead!)
Throughout all of that, Damore makes it abundantly clear what he's trying to debunk — the idea presented in the tl;dr: "Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression". If disparities in representation aren't caused by something purely external to the group (what "oppression" means), then they must be caused by something at least partially internal: i.e., a statistical group difference. And Damore is really making the mildest possible arguments about such differences. If you consider this objectionable, then logically you require everyone to believe that every group is statistically identical to every other group in every aspect except the one that defines the group (or at least: in every aspect relevant to performance in any job, etc.); that this is something that must be true a priori and cannot in principle be falsified even by actually doing the statistical work; and that disagreement is thoughtcrime. This is not a strawman; your argument requires this level of absolutism, because otherwise it is not fairly engaging with what Damore actually said.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
Quality of code is by no means the only, or even dominant, evaluation metric for Google performance reviews. There is significant opportunity for bias in how those evaluations work, and that is by design; an engineer that puts out pristine code but shirks oncall duties, responds poorly in performance reviews, is hostile to their coworkers, or pushes blame while pulling credit, is not ready for higher ladder rungs. It's one of the reasons performance reiviews are done by peers, so that being stuffed in a team with a bad manager is less likely to hamstring one's career. But, that does mean that if you're on a team with someone perceived to be sexist (here, I mean "believes different sexes have different inherent natures of behavior"), it sows a lot of doubt in their ability to objectively evaluate you.
I don't think Damore intended to create an uncomfortable working environment, but he did, sadly.
There's an interesting book, "The Myth of the Rational Voter," that touches upon how higher education (in economics, in the case of that book) influences one's political views. Damore may not have been scientifically wrong, but if he's expected to keep working with people who haven't been read-in on the science and don't agree with it even when they are... He made a career-limiting mistake suggesting that the company's approach should pivot to that avenue of research's conclusions. I think he made the mistake honestly, but it was incompatible with his continued employment and he didn't back down when that was made clear.
To answer your question more directly: "Yes. If I were working with a coworker that I know has publicly and thoroughly quoted science that indicates men are categorically more impulsive than women and he gives me, a man, a bad performance review, I would wonder if he did because he doesn't think men have the self-control to make good leaders." That's the hostile work environment, sadly.
> He knows very well, and he makes it very clear that he knows very well, that this does not transfer to "women on one's team"
Two issues with this in practice:
1) If it doesn't transfer to women on one's team, then why was it relevant?
2) If it applies specifically to the general population, than why was it relevant? Google already isn't hiring from the general population.
If that's actually the argument he put on the table, he committed a category error that undermined the whole exercise, which makes it more suspicious when he doesn't back down.
> If you consider this objectionable, then logically you require everyone to believe that every group is statistically identical to every other group in every aspect except the one that defines the group (or at least: in every aspect relevant to performance in any job, etc.); that this is something that must be true a priori and cannot in principle be falsified even by actually doing the statistical work; and that disagreement is thoughtcrime.
You have the meat of the situation yes. Title VII does make that assumption, and does not tolerate working protected-category differences into how employees are treated. I believe Damore was trying to make an argument merely regarding Google's diversification initiatives, but the argument he made had immediate implications for the current workforce (it's not like individuals from the categories with the personality traits Damore's manifesto suggests magically stop being of that category when they are hired, and I think reasonable people made that inference whether it was intended). There is a non-specious argument to make that the Civil Rights Act is behind the science (although, as I've noted previously, any claim it is should be treated with maximum scrutiny given where "the science" has led society in the past in this problem domain).
... but it is the law of the land, and as consequence, one cannot be "just asking questions" about protected categories in an employment environment without career risk.
zahlman•2mo ago
1. Okay. So the psychologists deserve a lifetime of unemployment for daring to choose that major. Understood.
2. This is, as far as I can tell, the same form of argument as: "Yes. If I were working at a company that I know has publicly discussed and implemented DEI policies that argue for hiring people on the basis of traits other than their ability to do the job, and I saw a coworker do a bad job, I would wonder if that coworker were an unqualified 'diversity hire'." This is, to my understanding, one of the arguments that got Charlie Kirk shot; as it's one of the ones people cite when trying to justify the shooting.
But that argument is more coherent, because it considers the effect of hiring policy on hiring, rather than the effect of statistical traits of the general population on hiring. And because it considers job performance as evidence of job aptitude, rather than misrepresenting a statistical difference as a "categorical" one and then making an interpretation about personality traits as they correspond to job aptitude. (Part of the memo was specifically about how to prevent personality traits from interfering with job aptitude, coming from a belief that they don't inherently.)
> one cannot be "just asking questions" about protected categories
Again: his feedback was explicitly solicited. It is extraordinarily unjust to solicit feedback but punish people for saying things you don't want to hear. This is in fact a hallmark of the sorts of authoritarian regimes Damore complained about.
> it's not like individuals from the categories with the ... traits ... magically stop being of that category when they are hired
No, but if the trait is relevant to job performance, then they do stop having that trait when they are hired, because the hiring process filters for it. That's the point. Damore repeatedly, explicitly stated throughout the memo that such stereotyping is inappropriate. It represents ignoring evidence you already have. "You are in a group that tends to X, therefore you are X" is false logic that Damore calls out as false logic. It is being projected onto him by the complainants. Reasonable people did not make that inference, because the inference is not reasonable — because it is not backed by logic, nor is it compatible with the principle of charity that is expected of reasonable people. Coming to these sorts of conclusions requires many unreasonable acts, such as repeatedly ignoring explicit disclaimers.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." People who have studied psychology and wish to work in an American workplace are welcome to do so. If they suggest modern psychological science indicates that Title VII is based on flawed reasoning and their coworkers have reason to believe they will act on that belief in an official capacity, that creates a hostile work environment. American businesses are not the places to lab-test OCEAN trait averages as policy guidance.
You have stated several times that Damore stated that wasn't his intent. I know he stated that (sidebar: one of the reasons this topic triggers my interest is I was there). I think, unfortunately for him, his protests failed the credibility test, fair or unfair that may be. He hadn't earned a benefit of the doubt from his colleagues (to be fair to him, "colleagues" is a very wide net the way Google organized itself back then; they were still acting like a small company in terms of organization when they employed over 50,000 people, and I think the experience with Damore was a nail in the coffin for their "big company with small-company ideals" model).
> publicly discussed and implemented DEI policies that argue for hiring people on the basis of traits other than their ability to do the job
I've seen this criticism in a couple of dimensions and I won't claim it doesn't happen, but (perhaps surprisingly) I agree with you to an extent. I'm not in favor of hiring people who can't do the job because they have other traits. Broadly speaking though, DEI initiatives are predicated on the core notion that most candidates are actually interchangeable, and if you don't back-stop in your company culture regular human biases, companies will hire more people who look, act, and think like them over equally-qualified people from different backgrounds. That's not the same thing as intentionally hiring unqualified people for a role; for most roles, strict stack-ranking of candidates is actually impossible because the responsibility domain is too broad.
> Again: his feedback was explicitly solicited
You are 100% correct, and I think Google as an org learned a valuable lesson about message channels in this story. There is also the dimension worth noting that the decision to keep it in house was taken out of both Google and Damore's hands because someone leaked the whole topic to the public, which thoroughly tied Google's hands; Damore's conduct in the public eye read worse than it did internally, so Google was faced with significant blow-back if they decided to go to bat for the guy at that point. It is entirely possible one of his coworkers did that on purpose, and that can be interpreted as malicious (... on the other hand, if the story is "Once the public knew about it, Google couldn't do anything but fire him..." Maybe the conduct was firing-worthy? All subsequent formal inquiry seems to concur it was).
> Reasonable people did not make that inference, because the inference is not reasonable
I think you make a reasonable case here, but unfortunately, I don't think the public agrees and we end up on the rocks of "reasonable person principle" again. If most of the public's interpretation doesn't fit the "reasonable person" standard, democracy as an experiment is a bit failed, yeah?
> such as repeatedly ignoring explicit disclaimers.
If you believe the disclaimers, you arrive at different conclusions than if you don't. Sadly for Mr. Damore, I think most people just didn't.
gitaarik•2mo ago
I mean, yeah of course, in a way statistics give us bias about everything. Just like a woke kind of bias will also affect someones perception. That's just always going on. But that doesn't mean we can't realise that every individual is unique, and can be a unique asset in a company / project / whatever?
ryan_lane•2mo ago
I also read through this in-depth at the time, and yeah, he definitely did carry such implication. Hiding it through quoting bad science doesn't aid his cause.
He's a racist and a sexist, and he's just good at doing in a quasi-grey area, so that other racists can rally behind him. It's effectively the alt-right playbook, as the alt-right is just a "more commercially friendly KKK".
zahlman•2mo ago
I have read through it many times. Such inferences require wilful misinterpretation.
If you disagree, please feel free to email me for further discussion. I use this username, on the Proton email service (specifically the one with a two-letter TLD).
> Hiding it through quoting bad science doesn't aid his cause.
The science he cited is not bad; it is well accepted in the relevant fields. For example, the "people vs things orientation" point is general knowledge in the field; it's a highly reproducible result with one of the largest effect sizes in all of behavioural science (see e.g. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-..., section 2).
> He's a racist and a sexist
The memo does not describe, or attempt to describe, any form of racial difference, whether hypothetical or measured. The only mentions of race are in reference to the existing Google policy, which is unavoidable insofar as that policy explicitly takes race into consideration. There is not even a remotely plausible basis for describing anything written here as racist, and you reasonably ought to understand this from your claimed "in-depth" reading.
> he's just good at doing in a quasi-grey area,
There is nothing "quasi-grey" about it except among people who are looking for a reason to misinterpret it. As an objective matter of fact he did not say the harmful things attributed to him.
> so that other racists can rally behind him. It's effectively the alt-right playbook, as the alt-right is just a "more commercially friendly KKK".
This is completely unfounded assassination of character which does nothing except to reveal your own biases.
ryan_lane•2mo ago
The fact that plenty of people disagree with you doesn't support your argument.
It feels like you're being defensive here because you agree with his rhetoric and you don't want to consider yourself sexist or racist, because "that makes you a bad person". You can have racist, sexist thoughts, and maybe in other cases still generally be good in your actions. This doesn't define your core being, even if you still have hateful thoughts. You'll never be able to improve yourself if you're unwilling to have your beliefs challenged.
> This is completely unfounded assassination of character which does nothing except to reveal your own biases.
He's become a hero of the alt-right, specifically because his approach to this aligns with their playbook. It's not character assassination, it's truth. He's trying to phrase things in a palatable way, but his underlying message is that minorities and women don't belong in tech.
Though he said he doesn't support the alt-right, he went on a media tour after being fired, on alt-right platforms. This is also something that generally aligns with alt-right playbooks. Distance yourself in speech, but not in action.
zahlman•2mo ago
First off, no, you are the only one in the discussion who brought up any charge of racism.
Second, no, this is blatant argumentum ad populum fallacy.
Third, the fact that you apparently refuse to cite anything from the memo is telling. I know that you cannot cite anything from the memo to support a charge of racism because I have read the memo and it contains nothing that can support a charge of racism even in your ideological framework.
If you disagree, quote the part that you think does so. I will be happy to explain why it does not.
> It feels like you're being defensive here because you agree with his rhetoric and you don't want to consider yourself sexist or racist, because "that makes you a bad person".
I am correctly pointing out that he said nothing wrong, because I agree with what he said. I am not sexist or racist; those qualities are moral failings, and therefore having them does make someone a bad person. There is objectively nothing sexist or racist about what was said, and therefore objectively nothing sexist or racist about agreeing with it. I have carefully explained why, repeatedly, throughout the thread.
I am not "being defensive", as that term implies a feeling of guilt. I feel no guilt, because I have done nothing wrong, and believe nothing wrong. I feel annoyance, because you are trying to tell me objectively incorrect things that you reasonably ought to know are incorrect, and because you are attacking an innocent person (Damore) whom I care about (at least on a philosophical level).
> You can have racist, sexist thoughts, and maybe in other cases still generally be good in your actions. This doesn't define your core being, even if you still have hateful thoughts. You'll never be able to improve yourself if you're unwilling to have your beliefs challenged.
It comes across that you say this with the intent of "giving me an out", but really it just comes across as condescending. The only "hateful thoughts" I have in this regard are towards a) those who promote an altered, unjust definition of "sexism" and "racism" in order to rationalize harmful, sexist, racist, morally incorrect policies like DEI; b) those who make false presumptions about my mental state.
I have "had my beliefs challenged" constantly by people like you for well over a decade. "Having one's beliefs challenged" does not entail changing them. "Improving oneself" does not entail agreeing with your viewpoint, either. It entails refining one's ability to reject it. Because it is incorrect.
> He's become a hero of the alt-right, specifically because his approach to this aligns with their playbook. It's not character assassination, it's truth. He's trying to phrase things in a palatable way, but his underlying message is that minorities and women don't belong in tech.
> Though he said he doesn't support the alt-right, he went on a media tour after being fired, on alt-right platforms. This is also something that generally aligns with alt-right playbooks. Distance yourself in speech, but not in action.
All of this is complete unfounded nonsense, repeatedly and directly contradicted by what Damore actually said. You have not read the memo. You have looked at the memo, pulled out some words, and come to a conclusion driven by your own ideological biases. But your understanding of the meaning is objectively incorrect. What you are doing here is roughly equivalent to reading someone say "on average, men are taller and physically stronger than women" and saying "get a load of this person, who apparently doesn't think women should play sports". And then also extending the point to "minorities", based on absolutely nothing at all.
(If you dispute the claim that men are on average taller and physically stronger than women, please feel free to cite your studies.)
The memo is here: https://www.jamesdamore.com/articles/googles-ideological-ech... Please feel free to read it this time.
shadowgovt•2mo ago
"Please don't comment on whether someone read an article." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> harmful, sexist, racist, morally incorrect policies like DEI
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity." (ibid)
zahlman•2mo ago
Damore's memo is not an article in this sense and it especially is not what OP submitted.
> "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
Why do you present this criticism to someone who offers evidence, but not to the other party, who is making assertions directly contradicted by the evidence for the purpose of character assassination? How is it not "political or ideological battle" to accuse someone, without evidence and in clear contradiction of available evidence, of being a "hero of the alt-right" who is following their "playbook"?
Further: I explicitly offered to continue the conversation by email instead. I received no email, and received a comment reply. It is not fair or reasonable to castigate me for replying.
Further: this subthread started with scuff3d making the sarcastic remark "God forbid they stand up for people and fight for an inclusive work environment. How dare they!", uncharitably representing someone else's position and clearly intending "political or ideological battle". This then allowed for you to introduce Damore as a topic, in proposing that someone else's entirely reasonable positions were somehow harmful and implicitly justifying that they should have gotten Damore fired, an ideological position unrelated to the PSF except insofar as the underlying ideology is treated as a topic.
zahlman•2mo ago
shadowgovt•2mo ago