Tuesday, August 8, 2017

A Google employee recently released a ten-page argument against diversity in the workplace. It went viral, and he got fired. A lot of conservatives are freaking out because from the very first word the man asks people to respect his unpopular opinion.

The whole thing gets convoluted and wordy, so let's cut out the bullshit and see what his writing really says. I edited the original because it was nearly incoherent. That's a male thing, where half the success in your writing comes from making it so lengthy and obscure people read eight words and go, "Oh, fuck this shit!"


Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.

I get it. But people generally aren't "shamed into silence" unless they think a diversity seminar is a good place to whip out the old "two nuns and a black guy" joke.


At Google, we’re regularly told that biases hold women back in tech and leadership. Of course, men and women experience bias, technology, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story.

Blacks also say they're discriminated against at Google, but sometimes I feel discriminated against if the Google cafeteria cook forgets the bleu cheese in my salad, because what is salad without bleu cheese, and don't get me started on croutons.

I hope you're smart enough to keep up with my tangents.


Men and women differ biologically in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed: they’re universal across human cultures.

BOUDICA, QUEEN OF THE ICENI: Go fuck yourself. [CUTS HIS HEAD OFF WITH STONE AXE]


Women generally have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men.

BAD GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Hey! Good to see you. How are you today?

GOOD GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: How's that sweet Camaro running today? Man, I'd love to supercharge that puppy and take it for a few spins around the track.


These differences in part explain why women relatively prefer [Siri says, "Nope, not English!"] jobs in social or artistic areas. Men like coding and women like working on the front end, where you deal with both people and aesthetics.

MALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Sara, there's a recursion fault in your zero-sum logirhythmic simulation loop.

FEMALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Brad, I just won't be able to concentrate until you let me do something with your hair.


This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.

TYPICAL GOOGLE BOSS-EMPLOYEE INTERACTION:

FEMALE WORKER: Boss, I'd like a raise.

MALE BOSS: Wow! An assertive woman. Hang out here a second, honey, and let me get my camera.


We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism. But men are more strongly judged by status and women by beauty. Again, this has biological origins and is culturally universal.

Okay, got it. So when you meet a female who wants to be successful, shove her sharply backward while shouting, "BUT YOU'RE A GIRL!"


Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting.

FEMALE IN BAR: So what do you do for a living?

MALE IN BAR: I live on the edge. I'm that stereotypical man's man who can't be held down, always reaching for that brass ring and jumping off that mountaintop without a parachute. You've probably guessed by now: I'm a trash collector.


I’ll go over some of the differences in traits between men and women and suggest ways to address them without discrimination. First, women show a higher interest in people and men in things

Which is why the Home Shopping Network just sells carburetors and jock straps these days.


We can make software engineering more people-oriented with more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain jobs can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise.

AVERAGE FEMALE TECH EMPLOYEE: I'm just not interested in this code. Is there some way you can, like, put more Kardashians in it?


Women on average are more cooperative

I never, ever thought I'd say this: somebody needs to watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.


Women on average are more prone to anxiety.

Maybe because men don't wake up every morning to find a new rant by some smug tech female about why Google shouldn't hire dudes?


Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average.

Wow. Is this smart-guy talk for "motherhood"? Because I don't know of any other "work-life balance" that females require.

FEMALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Boss, can I take off the first week of September? I want to have a cappuccino and try yoga.


The male gender role is currently inflexible. Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role.

At least that's what my dad said after he stopped crying when I told him I wanted to dance professionally.

What "men" are we talking about? Is this whole sentence about peer pressure?

LITTLE GIRL #1: I want to be a nurse when I grow up.

LITTLE GIRL #2: I want to be a football player.

LITTLE GIRL #1: Wow! Good for you!

LITTLE BOY #1: I want to be a computer programmer when I grow up.

LITTLE BOY #2: I want to be nurse.

LITTLE BOY #1: Faggot.


If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles.

Because there's no way tech can learn to value female traits. Nobody wants to ask, "Siri, what's six times eighteen?" and have Siri reply, "Why are you bugging me? Math is hard."


I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering just to make it appealing to women. For example, people working extra hours or taking extra stress will inevitably get promoted, and if we try to change that too much it may have disastrous consequences.

Crazy thought: why don't we get some of those women wives?


I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices like programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race.

Things I hate:
  • Women in tech
  • Things that help women in tech
Stay tuned for my next 82-page memo, "Special Ed? Special RIGHTS!"


We’re told by senior leadership that helping women in the workplace is the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without any evidence this is just harmful left-wing ideology partly based on the fact that humans are biased towards protecting females.

Dude, enjoy being married to that HP calculator, and say hi to your best friends, Mr. Microwave Oven and Mr. PlayStation II.


Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side."

I'm not sure I understand this. He attacks females for sixty pages then pretends that both sides think the other is better off?

FEMALE: Oh, man -- I really wish I was a dude. Then maybe I'd be taken seriously in tech.

MALE: Oh, man -- I really wish I was a chick. Then I'd look better in stretch pants and nobody'd freak out if I ate a salad.


The same compassion for those seen as weak creates political correctness, which constrains discourse and is complacent [Siri says, "That word doesn't mean what you think it does!"] to the extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians that use violence and shaming to advance their cause. The frequent shaming in our culture has created the same silence, psychologically unsafe environment.

MALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Chicks shouldn't work at Google! They're prone to anxiety and aren't as dedicated as dudes.

FEMALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Dude, you need to shut up, because that is seriously messed up.

MALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Really? Now you're creating a toxic work space!


Suggestion: De-moralize diversity. As soon as we start to moralize an issue, we stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits, dismiss anyone that disagrees as immoral, and harshly punish those we see as villains to protect the “victims.”

Translation: I've got a scientific reason for firing all the chicks. Don't get mad at me.


Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently.

GOOGLE EMPLOYEE #1: Seriously, the earth is flat, and there's been a massive coverup for two thousand years to make us believe otherwise.

GOOGLE EMPLOYEE #2: Interesting. Let's go deeper into this.


Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races.

MALE GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Seriously, if I can't get a mentor I'm calling my lawyer NOW. [PAUSE] It's a lady? Oh, HELL no!


Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts.

Google is trying to create equal opportunities for women who want to work. This statement only makes sense if women are also struggling to be high-school dropouts who are killed in jail.


De-emphasize empathy. I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. Relying on affective empathy causes us to focus on anecdotes and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases.

Got it. So if predominantly white male police forces kill unarmed blacks five times more often than unarmed whites, those are just anecdotes prompting shit like "diversity" and should be ignored.


Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.

Okay.

You're an idiot and you shouldn't be let outdoors.

Wow -- now all that anxiety is gone.

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