Emails reveal extent of Google's toxic work culture

[AresKrieger]

39 minutes ago, RagnarokDel said:

I havent used bing in forever but the last time I did even searching for a company brand directly didnt give you the company's website as the first result. The only reason Google is #1 is because it's the best search engine

I never said there were better alternatives (well for search engines anyway), I just don't pretend to like google as they are a mega corporation that operates under the same creed as any other.

[Misanthrope]

2 hours ago, Memories4K said:

No, that's not what i'm saying; i never said anything about being able to measure EXACTLY how much more neurotic, open, or conscientiousness a person is but simply that we already knew there was a discrepancy in which cultural factors were accounted for and compared to each other.
Ok so hold on, you have a problem with any studies that show the difference between men and women, EVEN IN SOCIETIES THAT ARE MORE EGALITARIAN THAN OURS, because you can't be bothered to compare the data between regions of culture?

 

Oh boy there's a lot to unpack here it seems.

 

First you should probably have one of these:

 

Now let's see if I can unpack this, succinctly. So I am not trying to dismiss your arguments, I am not trying to be insulting, I am just trying to keep this a conversation and not a battle of essays.

 

The reason why I bring up how to exactly measure one's personality traits it's intentional: Statistical analysis paints a broad picture overall and it's a useful tool if you can account or consider what goes into it, what the data represents, what factors cannot be measured, etc. From the perspective of a Sociology major or someone studying any kind of behavioral science this is a useful tool to get a starting point. From the perspective of an employee this data however can only serve to create unreasonable expectations from people because of their background without considering how they might be outliers.

 

Quick example: I think we all have experience or know stories about not even getting a callback or interview because of some arbitrary requirement like 'You need X years of experience for Y position' While it's understandable that HR reps might get a mountain of applicants they might want to filter out they also know that this is a tool to help them navigate potential skill sets not a 'set in stone' requirement. Companies that do strictly adhere to 'don't hire anybody without an MBA from an Ivy league school' can expect to be come stagnated and not very competitive in short order.

 

What Damore is suggesting is basically profiling women according to pre-conceived notions, that women need certain kind of special considerations and jobs because on average, that's what the statistical data shows.

 

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Like that's fine, hey, it's possible that the reason why nursing is so female dominated in ALL THESE DIFFERENT REGIONS might be to reasons outside of the legal and social treatment of women (which is going to be hard for you to prove what cultural factors actually would matter outside of social and legal treatment) but then what evidence do you have that it's cultural outside of social and legal factors?

It is some because, again, it's not a rule. No of course your environment also plays into this, the point is that even when the environment is accounted for when you compare the data you see that the impact has only maximized the variables left. No, there's not a set percentage of nature vs nurture; everybody is different within their own group, it's about comparing groups with other groups. Yes, you can reliably predict human behavior on groups based on psychology; that's like asking me "Well how do you know the group of people who like chocolate ice cream will actually choose chocolate when they all take a trip to the ice cream shop?" Well of course maybe there's some people who want to try something new or are bored with chocolate but by-and-large the "We love chocolate ice cream club" is going to pick chocolate ice cream. 

I am going to cut it off right there because then you go off into feigning laughter in a passive aggressive way so yeah, not useful.

 

So two more things here: First you claim that "the environment is accounted for when you compare the data" and no it really isn't. The overall social structure of a society might have a bearing on the primary care givers of the individual but the crucial, formative years of said person are entirely dictated by the primary care givers that for a number of reasons might impose impossible-to-determine (for the scope of evaluating employees, which is the point of the discussion) effects on the behavior of a person.

 

So to continuing to your second point "Yes, you can reliably predict human behavior on groups based on psychology": citation needed. Seriously show me this because I believe we need to basically get rid of the Judicial system altogether, create an AI that can predict human behavior and just go minority fucking report on society: we'd be completely crime free within two or three generations at the most!

 

No, what you're talking about is that if you deep dive so to speak into a specific individual, create a detailed psychological profile and validate it among maybe a panel of experts you could reasonably explain past behavior with a degree of precision that is useful to try and correct such behavior or help a person out of damaging behaviors that decrease his quality of life and even then only to a certain extent. That's what psychology can do. At times even individual therapists might be able to do, individual social workers or criminal psychologists might be able to provide detail profile and predict possible outcomes on a case by case basis not as an infallible tool.

 

So if Google actually spends years interviewing a person and has a panel of experts evaluating potential employees they could gain some deep insight into what the person can do, what the behavior will be like, etc. Do you honestly think this is what goes on with an HR department on a corporation?

[ItsMitch]

this thread didnt really go well did it?

[CryptoMatt]

On 1/10/2018 at 5:47 PM, Fooshi said:

We want diversity, but not really.

 

Just waiting for that shocking news story of someone with a vendetta at Google abusing their access privileges in a way to publish political opponents' private info.

or the story of them coving up that happening 

[ResidentRad]

Its not surprising that a forum of pre-teens doesn't appreciate the complex and outright terrifying power dynamics in a workplace that could lead to this kind of situation, creating a toxic environment and souring people against one another. 

[MrDynamicMan]

17 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

So you're saying there's a biological potential that's as objectively measurable as physical strength for personality traits? Based on what? Statistical studies? Studies that actually do not always account for how much is determined by biology and how much is determined by upbringing, cultural factors and such?

 

You're really going to tell me that you've finally solved the age old question of Nature vs Nurture to win an internet argument?

Well you're already using an ad-hoc fallacy here.  The statistics are proof positive of the dimorphic traits even if the specific biological cause for said dimorphism has not been identified. 

 

Neurobiology is still an exceedingly young field and we are not yet able to pinpoint the specific cells that causes this dimorphism. Also, behaviourally dimorphic trends are present in every society I know of throughout all of history.

 

Also, the only alternative to humans not having some level of biological determinism is that all humans are born mentally identical and upbringing determines all their faculties, which even you must admit is self evidently false.

 

 

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Good for you but then you proceed with this:

 

 

So why, to quote you, "OBVIOUSLY NOT ALL WOMEN" and why just some? You know for certain that there's only biological factors that influence this? If not, do you know specifically by what percentage is affected by biology? Can you reliably predict this? Are you going to just tell me percentages without understanding those percentages are not taking into account how much social factors influence the behavior, something we cannot know and that nobody can predict?

Just some because thats what the evidence says. means are obviously not descriptive of all the individuals on spectrum but rather simply the individual that sits on the mean value. 

 

can I know what % is specifically affected by biology.

No.

" Are you going to just tell me percentages without understanding those percentages are not taking into account how much social factors influence the behavior"

this again is fallacious. Accurate predictions can be made from statistical analysis without knowing the underlying mechanics of said statistics. there is clearly a biological factor, it is clearly quite influential, but the extent of the influence is not yet determined.

 

to create an analogy for this, lets look to physics, and, for simplicities sake, gravity. Now, I have no cooking clue how or why mass attracts other mass across infinite distances, but I have equation derived from statistical analysis that perfect desrcibes motions of object under the influence of gravity. The most fundamental causes of a phenomon need not be known for there to be a casual predcition to be accurately made

 

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Suddenly your outrage at screaming "Sexual diphormism is real!" is basically just putting the car before the horse: You already have your conclusion, that women are inherently different in their behavior because of biology and then work your way back to find "evidence!" that would confirm your bias.

 

That's now how science works and that's not the reason why studies like the one Damore cited were conducted. 

no, sexual dimorphism is blatantly present in humans, as shown in bone structure, skin structure, tissue, reproductive organ, etc. There is exceedingly clear data that humans are mentally dimorphic too. Just because we cannot yet pinpoint the underlying biological constructs does not make these observations any less true. Also you're completely strawmanning saying that the cart is before the horse here, and your own position is hilariously biased. 

[WkdPaul]

Thread cleaned though it's possible some replies were missed, if so please report them.

 

Discussing religion and politics isn't allowed on the forum (as in attacking a party or religion or their opinion on a subject). Please keep the CS in mind when interacting with others.

[Eduard the weeb]

Don't some google employs actually live at google 

not important to the topic but I read somewhere they do

[mikegray]

If this thread really has to be a Thing, the following might be worth adding to the OP:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16882270/google-diversity-hiring-executives-cory-altheide

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, MrDynamicMan said:

no, sexual dimorphism is blatantly present in humans, as shown in bone structure, skin structure, tissue, reproductive organ, etc. There is exceedingly clear data that humans are mentally dimorphic too. Just because we cannot yet pinpoint the underlying biological constructs does not make these observations any less true. Also you're completely strawmanning saying that the cart is before the horse here, and your own position is hilariously biased. 

You keep listing confirmation on different areas that are measurable and henceforth subject to objectivity while openly admitting "Neurobiology is still an exceedingly young field" meaning most bets are up.

 

So far you did nothing but re-state that "Sexual Dimorphism is real" on other areas of human biology.

 

I do not disagree with that statement. I just don't agree this is direct and irrefutable evidence that behavior is also dictated by this dimorphism and to what extent and whenever or not is enough we can safely form pre-conceived notions based on gender.

 

I am saying is nowhere near enough for laymen like Damore to drive conclusions based on studies not intended for the purpose he uses them. You* disagree. You have not offered any new arguments to this, you just re-state "No, I win cause sexual dimorphism" without expanding.

 

EDIT: *Not necessarily you specifically btw, just overall.

[Marinatall_Ironside]

Are all of these authentic, or fabricated?

 

Can I get a source where I can read the full emails, unedited?

[Marinatall_Ironside]

22 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

These communications seem to occur within the internal employee networks of Google, and as such would probably be inaccessible to outsiders.

Then they could have been fabricated.

 

I took a look at the article, and that's just how I feel.

[WkdPaul]

Locked.

 

The fact that we have to come back every few hours to clean up aggressive replies and personal attacks just proves this is going nowhere.