Originally this was going to be about some of my older writing on the
blog, but my friend just happened to tell me about some drama going
on in Google that I think fits pretty well with stuff I’ve talked
about in my past (2014) articles, so I figured it would be better for
a Monday Chat.
Just yesterday (August 5th as of writing) a pastebin was
leaked from apparently an anonymous engineer working at Google,
decrying their overarching corporate goal of diversity due to its
effect of silencing certain ideas for solely “moral reasons” and
forcing a completely equal corporate society where one doesn’t have
to exist. As always, many have already thrown the essay off as
inherently sexist – however, word from inside says that many of the
engineers, no matter their background, agree with what it says. So, I
figured I might as well take a neutral look to see whether or not
this really does have some merit.
The essay starts with the writer defining some of his language, just
as left and right political bias, psychological safety, as well as
Google’s own biases (I won’t go into detail his precise
definitions, as they’re extensive and also pretty much how they’re
used in the everyday. If you’d like to see them yourself you can
read the pastebin for itself. I’ve included a link below my
thoughts). He describes that Google tends to have an extremely left
wing bias, which is where its extensive diversity mantra comes for,
and that it is generally bad for any business to have an extreme
political stance (which is true). After this then comes the more
controversial part of this so-called manifesto.
The writer decides to explain some of the biological differences
between male and female, and how that might explain why not as many
females go into the software engineering side of the workforce. His
first point is spot on – the concept between empathizing versus
systematizing. This concept explains that women tend to be more
attached to people than to things (and men vice versa) which causes
them to pick jobs that follow this logic, such as teachers,
psychologists, and doctors, just to name a few. And this makes sense
– these jobs have a much greater percentage of females working in
them than men, while men work in more technical jobs such as software
engineering. And really, there’s nothing wrong with this – a
teacher is easily as economically valuable as an engineer (for if
there are no teachers, where come the engineers?). These social jobs
were once primarily suited toward men, due to an actual case of
gender discrimination. Now, that’s not to say that their can’t be
female engineers – biology and genetics aren’t end alls,
especially when it comes to humans, and so there should definitely be
a sizable group of girls wanting to become engineers and scientists,
and they should have all the right to hold those jobs. But you can’t
force a girl who doesn’t want to be an engineer to be an engineer –
just like you can’t force a boy who doesn’t want to be a teacher
to be a teacher.
His second point here is a bit more questionable. He states that
women are more agreeable over assertive, and therefore have a harder
time negotiation for salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and
leading. I’ve found that this concept is pretty universal among all
human beings, not just women. Many people will go for the easy but
small win rather than the hard but big one just because they’re too
afraid to speak for themselves, and I’ve never really seen this
connected to women specifically outside of typical discriminatory
portrayals. I feel that there is a large amount of weak, agreeable
people in this world and a small amount of strong, assertive ones and
that this is not dependent on gender, nor any other case –
especially not biologically.
Same general feeling with his third claim – that women tend to be
higher in neuroticism. I’d actually argue the exact opposite for
this – in highly stressed environments, women tend to react more
solemnly, whereas men deal with their situation with high anxiety.
It’s also more common for higher intelligent males to pick up the
trait of neuroticism than it is for higher intelligent females to.
After this, he makes a few smaller claims which I all disagree with –
such as “men have a higher drive for status” and “women are on
average more cooperative” – but I’ll save talking about those
and instead come back to his main point.
Where I completely agree with him is the fact that companies – and
in fact, people in general – should not moralize ideas in order for
them to be bulletproof. The concept of “diversity” shouldn’t be
invincible from argument because its, well, “diversity” – in
fact the only concepts that should be invincible from argument is
fact and truth itself. But diversity is not in its entirety fact and
truth – there is parts of diversity that is derived from facts and
truth, but the concept itself is not completely impenetrable. And, of
course, there is business fact that taking such a far left
ideological stance not only hurts your employee’s opinion of you
(such is the matter of this pastebin) but also might ward off
potential workers as well. So I do believe all of the writer’s
suggestions are sound. As for the people throwing this off as blatant
and inherent sexism – well, I know it’s a long read, but I feel
like making generic defamation articles without actually reading the
work seems pretty silly, no?
But really, overall this is probably one of the more poorly construed
calls for action that I’ve seen. A lot of it does get muddled in
the core of the piece – making multiple assumptions on the opposite
gender always seems like a pretty bad idea, as human beings and our
naturally contradictory nature don’t tend to follow the stereotypes
all that often (which is why I’d say take my own assumptions with a
grain of salt). But, as for the idea of Google moralizing certain
parts of their policy so that others cannot argue against it, it’s
clearly a bad idea that doesn’t exactly work in the companies
favor. In sum: If someone wants to be an engineer, let them be an
engineer. If they don’t, then don’t. If someone wants to speak up
against a policy, let them do so and then argue for or against it
formally and logically. No topic is too holy to be argued – what
one should do is show with facts and truth why diversity is as good
as it is, don’t completely dismiss arguments against it in calling
in “belligerently sexist”. I have seen some articles that have in
fact taken this stance, taking what the pastebin says and making the
arguments of why it is completely wrong. And while I am more in the
gray area in terms of how I feel about it, I can find myself
appreciating those who argue for or against it without just saying
“its completely sexist so you shouldn’t even read it” or
“google is an authoritarian SJW engine trying to destroy us with
its liberal propaganda”. And that’s the conclusion I find myself
writing at the end of all of these, but people still seem to not get
it, and so I have to repeat myself every time. Oh well!
Link to the pastebin: https://pastebin.com/nJwfKjZc
Currently reading: I’ve begun to focus solely on House of Leaves
and the Military Battles book, as I’m the farthest in both and am
honestly just ready to finish them. I’ve also started back up my
e-library after my last one with 5,000+ books was destroyed in a
terrible accident (Library of Alexandria 2.0). I’ve decided that
this time I’m not going to bulk download and instead just add a few
at a time and read them. I’ve added a couple of science and
mathematics papers as well as a few literature classics like Pride
and Prejudice and Moby Dick. I’ll get around to them…
eventually.
Currently playing: My attempts last week of organizing what I play
have gone horribly awry, and I’m now at the point where I have to
hold off what I play because I straight up don’t have enough space
on my computer to handle it. I’ve started playing, among others:
Rise of Nations, Empire Earth, Age of Empires 2 (I think I included
this last time?), and Mount of Blade Warband (which includes a bunch
of mods I installed, which is why it makes up the bulk of my
playtime). Something’s got to go here.
Currently watching: Much more fruitful have been my attempts to
organize what I watch. I’ve decided to go down the infamous “1001
films you must see before you die” list, speaking that I’ve
already got 60 of them down I figure I might as well tackle the
beast. Right now I’m on Les Vampires, a crime series from
1915 which is considered to be the first miniseries ever made. And to
be honest, for being completely silent and in black and white this
thing is pretty damn entertaining – though the fact that it’s 6
hours long in total has me worried. As for TV, I had actually planned
to drop Game of Thrones this week but Showtime changed the
show time (!) of Twin Peaks to one hour earlier without
telling anybody so I was forced to watch Game of Thrones yet
again while I waited for the Twin Peaks rerun. On a much
better note because of this I ended up staying for a playing of the
newest two episodes of Rick and Morty which were actually
surprisingly great. I’ve always had a grudge for this show based on
its obnoxious marketing schemes (this newest one was particularly
bad) so I had never watched the show until now. But… at least the
show’s good I guess? Also planning on seeing Dunkirk in
theaters tomorrow (or today as of writing).
Currently listening: Not much new. Some Scum Fuck Flower Boy and
some of the Dunkirk soundtrack. That’s about all for new
music!
Well, that’s all for now. Remember to follow Codex of Aegis on
Twitter and Facebook for more updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment