patrick.net

drBu says

By the time they have a secure job, they are in early to middle 30's and many of them think that it is too late to have children.

Declining female fertility with age is a biological reality. Is the mere mention of that fact sexist?

rando says

Is the mere mention of that fact sexist?

Many facts are sexist, and reality of life is sexist as well.

rando says

Nope, sucky read that confirms yet again everything James pointed out. Just start with the very first line:

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

Yet another disingenuous strawman. Will they never end? James never once even implied we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers. Not in the least.

Maybe this guy is a genius. He could sue for liable every single media outlet that misrepresented what he said. He traded a 40 to 90 hour a week STEM job for potentially millions of dollars and never having to work again.

drBu says

I teach at a university, have a large research group that is about 20% women, and can confidently say that this is absolutely not the reason.

If women, as a group, invested as much energy and efforts into coding as they do complaining about men, the patriarchy, they would dominate the tech industry.

drBu says

I teach at a university, have a large research group that is about 20% women, and can confidently say that this is absolutely not the reason. The reason, at least in my field, is the length of highly competitive studies coupled with time investment - I have heard this over and over from women in my research group. By the time they have a secure job, they are in early to middle 30's and many of them think that it is too late to have children

and so many women (50% of medical school students now) become doctors how? It's very highly competitive with a bigger commitment of time (4 years undergrad, 4 years med school 4-7 years residency with hours averaging over 90 a week) and they don't get a job at all until they are in early to mid 30's. Your anecdotal experience doesn't jib with real life.

ThreeBays says

Oh I see, you think his outcome is not because of his own actions and lack of social intelligence. His outcome is because of unfair systemic bias. Sounds familiar.

His own actions did not merit being fired.

That outcome was a perfect example of the extreme and authoritarian response he described in his document, nicely proving his point that "some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed".

The outcome was indeed exactly because of unfair systemic bias against discussing those ideas.

bob2356 says

and so many women (50% of medical school students now) become doctors how? It's very highly competitive with a bigger commitment of time (4 years undergrad, 4 years med school 4-7 years residency with hours averaging over 90 a week) and they don't get a job at all until they are in early to mid 30's. Your anecdotal experience doesn't jib with real life.

So women are perpetually oppressed, harassed by so-called red pill people, and this is the reason why they do not go into engineering and hard sciences? I have not seen that here, and I have not seen it anywhere. What I have seen is that women have scholarships which men do not have, that they are invited to conferences more than men, basically just because they are women, etc. If there is any discrimination, it goes the other way and there is still shortage of women in these disciplines. May be the reason is not commitment length, may be they just do not like to be closeted in a lab without much contact with other humans, while men are OK with that.

With respect to my answer, this was what i got from women when I ask why they stop at BS or MS level as opposed to getting PhD. Perhaps med schools have different dynamics. Or they are lying to me, which is unlikely. And one can ask why surgeons are much more likely to be men? Is that specialty extremely sexist while other med specialties are not?

bob2356 says

and so many women (50% of medical school students now) become doctors how? It's very highly competitive with a bigger commitment of time (4 years undergrad, 4 years med school 4-7 years residency with hours averaging over 90 a week) and they don't get a job at all until they are in early to mid 30's. Your anecdotal experience doesn't jib with real life.

And medical students are never red pill people that discourage women from entering that field?

ThreeBays says

Oh I see, you think his outcome is not because of his own actions and lack of social intelligence. His outcome is because of unfair systemic bias. Sounds familiar.

Yeah, we know. Lowering the bar to hire more women is "taking away white male privilege", and if someone complains about it, he lacks the social intelligence to recognize that his being discriminated against to paper over biology is in fact fair.

We need women in this field - at all cost.

I like it!

http://www.marchongoogle.com/

OK, I plan to be in the crowd on August 19th.

I like the Think Different posters comparing Apple to Google, but am quite certain that Apple would stomp on any open discussion of the PC Koran as well.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

He did, but that one bad word choice gave Google an excuse, because...

I’d say his aim was perfect: anti-PC and inflammatory enough as to provoke a huge moralistic witch hunt reflex against it, but true and reasonable enough that it’s very hard to justify it’s firing. A lot of men are watching this and thinking “hmm… that makes sense to me.”.
Sundar Pichai cancelled a planned meeting at Google, citing security fears, but it appears it would just be very difficult for him to justify the firing in front of a crowd, many of whom agree with the memo.

In fact the firing is dubious enough to raise calls for Pichai resignation, EVEN IN THE NYT:

Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/opinion/sundar-pichai-google-memo-diversity.html?ref=opinion
———
[…]
Geoffrey Miller, a prominent evolutionary psychologist, wrote in Quillette, “For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate.”
[…]
What we have is a legitimate tension. Damore is describing a truth on one level; his sensible critics are describing a different truth, one that exists on another level. He is championing scientific research; they are championing gender equality. It takes a little subtlety to harmonize these strands, but it’s doable.
[…]
As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic, “I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed.” Various reporters and critics apparently decided that Damore opposes all things Enlightened People believe and therefore they don’t have to afford him the basic standards of intellectual fairness.
[…]
The mob that hounded Damore was like the mobs we’ve seen on a lot of college campuses. We all have our theories about why these moral crazes are suddenly so common. I’d say that radical uncertainty about morality, meaning and life in general is producing intense anxiety. Some people embrace moral absolutism in a desperate effort to find solid ground. They feel a rare and comforting sense of moral certainty when they are purging an evil person who has violated one of their sacred taboos.

This is a nice explanation for the cause of PC outrage about (former) google guy's memo:

From https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/894959693822558209

Heraclitusstudent says

purging an evil person who has violated one of their sacred taboos.

Let's burn Giordano Bruno for violating a sacred taboo (and blame burning him on his own actions and lack of social intelligence)...humanity has gone through that before.

By the same reasoning, everyone who publicly questions Islam deserves to die, because that questioning was in fact his own action, and shows his lack of social intelligence.

The NY Times article is surprisingly unbiased given the NY Times' recent history as a major purveyor of highly slanted "news".

This bit is very wrong tho:

Heraclitusstudent says

What we have is a legitimate tension. Damore is describing a truth on one level; his sensible critics are describing a different truth, one that exists on another level. He is championing scientific research; they are championing gender equality. It takes a little subtlety to harmonize these strands, but it’s doable.

A "different truth"? Wasn't the NY Times the primer mocker of Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts" phrase?

Championing equality of outcome regardless of merit is not a "truth" in any sense. It is an agenda.

But this line almost makes up for it:

Heraclitusstudent says

As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic, “I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed.” Various reporters and critics apparently decided that Damore opposes all things Enlightened People believe and therefore they don’t have to afford him the basic standards of intellectual fairness.

That's a perfect summary. The mischaracterization of Damore's statement is just amazing and relentless. As if what the guy actually wrote doesn't matter at all. He openly doubts their Koran and so must die.

Heraclitusstudent says

As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic, “I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed.” Various reporters and critics apparently decided that Damore opposes all things Enlightened People believe and therefore they don’t have to afford him the basic standards of intellectual fairness.

It's very true, and firing him will hurt Google. But still think the neurotic thing was a big mistake and it's the part that all the Damore Detractors in the Press will use to smear and mischaracterize.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

But still think the neurotic thing was a big mistake and it's the part that all the Damore Detractors in the Press will use to smear and mischaracterize.

But what about the copious scientific evidence that women are indeed more neurotic (prone to anxiety) than men are?

http://www.medicaldaily.com/women-are-far-more-anxious-men-heres-science-390002
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/brb3.497/abstract
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-anxious-sex/
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2008-02-sex-differences-brain-serotonin.html

The guy is right on all counts, including the greater average neuroticism of women.

Yes, they will smear and mischaracterize him, but he can very well defend himself with facts. The NY Times editorial gives some hope that the hysteria will give way to actual discussion of the underlying reality of biological sex differences.

Dan8267 says

People who are atheists are so because they are both intelligent and honest, and this combination forces them to be atheists.

This is the biggest lie on this thread. People have many motivations for denying God. Intelligence and Honesty have nothing to do with it. In fact, honesty and intelligence are likely to motivate a person to know God more fully.

Dan8267 says

Only fools believe in souls. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that arbitrary Bronze Age myth, and plenty of reasons to not from the complete lack of any evidence that souls exist to the failure of anyone who dies passing on a clear message to the living.

False. Jesus did.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

1. Being in control of your emotions is not the same as being emotionless.
Straw man argument that doesn't address what I said.

Lie

PeopleUnited says

2. Sex is not an emotion.
People have sex because of the emotions involved. How can you not know this?

It is a lie. Sex is like drugs, or any other high.

PeopleUnited says

The Zen master rightly defines it as ruling over your emotions rather than letting them rule over you.
No, that's the point. Ruling over your emotions does not prevent you from being stabbed in a robbery. Nor is there any cosmological force that causes people who fail to do so to magically get their comeuppance. Life if often unjust. It does not self-correct. To make life just requires act...
The Zen master never said ruling over your emotions was a magic shield of protection and people who have this gift can never be physically harmed. That is just a straw man you invented. It is dishonest.

PeopleUnited says

Intelligence and Honesty have nothing to do with it.

Bull-fucking-shit! I do not choose whether or not to believe in your false god. I am compelled to disbelieve in your false god by evidence and reasoning. It is logically impossible for a being to be omnipotent. It violates the laws of physics for a being to be omniscient. All evidence points to Christian myths being complete fabrications. All evidence shows that praying for someone's recovery and telling them about that actually makes them worse off.

PeopleUnited demonstrates exactly why Christian brainwashing is damn dangerous. He is incapable of even acknowledging the honesty of a person's rejection of the Christian god. Yet, this racist has no problem denouncing other gods as utterly ridiculous. Utter hypocrisy.

Dan8267 says

Bull-fucking-shit! I do not choose whether or not to believe in your false god.

We know Dan. But that is your choice. And it is not intelligent or honest.

PeopleUnited proves that Christianity is as dangerous as Islam. If assholes like him ever became a large enough minority, they'd wage a religious war against everyone else.

Dan8267 says

A mother dies and goes to heaven. Meanwhile on Earth her daughter is brutally raped. How the fuck could the mother be in perfect bliss? Hitler goes to hell, but Hitler's mom goes to heaven. How can any mother be happy when her child is being tortured for all eternity? Oh, Hitler's mom is also in hell? Then her mother can't be happy in heaven. OK with that? Keep regressing until you get to a common ancestor of you and Hitler. That ancestor and all others can't be perfectly happy either.

And once again, just as Dan cannot understand the Zen master story, he also does not understand what miracle God works in people's hearts when they are saved. When a person accepts the forgiveness of God, He not only forgives them, He gives them the ability to overcome their sins. On of those sins is being unwilling to forgive. A mother of a raped child (knowing that she is as guilty as the rapist, and yet was forgiven) who is Christian, has the ability to also forgive: the rapist, HItler, and any other scumbag. The reason you cannot understand this is that you don't understand forgiveness. You are bound by your negative emotions and living the hell on earth that the Zen master described.

www.youtube.com/embed/_uWMOZ0vaCY

So it's a good thing that this 12-year-old girl killed herself then? After all, she's in heaven with her dad, and her mom should just kill herself too, so that she can be with her husband a child, right?

Or are you saying this 12-year-old girl is burning in hell right now?

PeopleUnited says

You are bound by your negative emotions and living the hell on earth that the Zen master described.

Yes, there is objective reality, but it has no meaning without subjective interpretation, and you do have some control over that. Hamlet: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

The first chapter of the Dhammapada is about this idea: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.01.budd.html

Given that Buddhism was known in ancient Greece and Egypt, I would not be surprised if Jesus picked up some of this philosophy in Israel. He said very similar things.

Dan8267 says

www.youtube.com/embed/_uWMOZ0vaCY

So it's a good thing that this 12-year-old girl killed herself then? After all, she's in heaven with her dad, and her mom should just kill herself too, so that she can be with her husband a child, right?

Or are you saying this 12-year-old girl is burning in hell right now?

The real question Dan is are you willing to forgive?

rando says

PeopleUnited says

You are bound by your negative emotions and living the hell on earth that the Zen master described.

Yes, there is objective reality, but it has no meaning without subjective interpretation, and you do have some control over that. Hamlet: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

The first chapter of the Dhammapada is about this idea: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.01.budd.html

Given that Buddhism was known in ancient Greece and Egypt, I would not be surprised if Jesus picked up some of this philosophy in Israel. He said very similar things.

The wisdom you have shared is appreciated. There are pieces of truth in the teachings you have cited. Jesus however, was not influenced by anything other than His relationship with His heavenly father and the Holy Spirit, His experience on earth as a human, and the Word of God which he meditated on. Jesus was not a capable of lying and if He thought people should study some other source of wisdom than the Bible He would have said so.

PeopleUnited says

Jesus however, was not influenced by anything other than His relationship with His heavenly father and the Holy Spirit, His experience on earth as a human, and the Word of God which he meditated on

God killed/subsequent resurrection is very common in Near East mythologies. Osiris is a well-known example. It is very likely that Jewish mythology, which Jesus is a part of, was heavily influenced by Egyptian mythology (just like Hebrew writing originates in Egyptian hieroglyphs). A question which a rational person can ask is - why should we believe in Jesus and not Osiris?

Back to the original topic: The story of the young man who was fired by Google for circulating his opinion is corporate sponsored censorship. It is an attempt to create a safe zone. It is a lot like Dan's threads. You can only work for Google if you are willing to live by their alternate facts. You can only post on Dan's threads until you refuse to accept his alternate facts.

PeopleUnited says

There are pieces of truth in the teachings you have cited.

I feel the same about Jesus. I'm a fan of his philosophy, but not a believer in His divinity. No problem with me that you believe and want to tell others about it though.

PeopleUnited says

The story of the young man who was fired by Google for circulating his opinion is corporate sponsored censorship. It is an attempt to create a safe zone.

We are in absolute agreement there.