The Google Memo: Equality vs. Diversity

Here I read the essay for Quillette that I wrote in summer 2017 about James Damore, the Google Memo, and the tradeoff between equality and diversity in corporate life. This essay is included in my new book 'Virtue signaling', available now on Amazon: amzn.to/2PTe0NH
My books most related to this topic are:
The Mating Mind: amzn.to/2GQ2DAI
Mating Intelligence: amzn.to/2YNXHCt
Virtue Signaling: amzn.to/2O62gGJ
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon: / geoffrey_miller

[@atosign]

As psychologists we must be cautious with generalization, in particular from mostly student samples to a tiny minority at high-tech companies, in which the effects of sex differences can be expected to be much smaller than the effects of general individual differences. So, it's bold to claim that those probably very minor direct effects of sex differences in tech workers would account for the large sex differences in employees at tech companies. More likely, the discriminatory factors that were reported by female employees (see google memo on Wikipedia) more importantly account for the unbalanced demographics. Direct effects of sex differences and those discriminatory factors are not completely mutually exclusive, so you decide whether to highlight minor effects to get the warm glow of pseudo-intellectualism or whether to speak up for social justices.

[@bradbarnes1839]

Guys if you can work on the audio a bit, it was a bit in a box sounding and also had a background hiss

[@GeoffreyMillerPhD]

Yep, we're working continually to level up the production quality. Thanks for your patience.

[@beachdancer]

Asking them to tell you what evidence would change their minds is something that is often done with the deeply religious, "What evidence would make you stop believing in God?" This request rarely goes down well. I do have the impression that we are dealing with religious thinking rather than science.

[@hourmazdmar7135]

Awesome! This is a very informative and interesting ways to create content! Jam packed with insight

[@pfsellers]

link to article quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/

[@gujono.eiriksson8553]

Fucking background is awesome!

[@slothlovechunk]

I think the problem with the memo is not about the science, it was about the conclusions and how to use the sex differences. For example: Damore spent two pages talking about sex differences and then suggested that Google should hire more Republicans because that's a better measure of diversity than men vs women (in-built diversity he spent so much explaining.) I don't think he should have been fired. I also don't think Colin Kaepernick should have been fired (essentially). Both offended people in their workplace and became problematic in their workplace.

[@tonysouter8095]

The low production standard does no justice to the author of "The Mating Mind" (2000). There's even an edit glitch just before 6:00. How did THAT get through? A little training in talking-head presentation would help, especially to appear to engage with your audience more personally. It needs to be shorter. It takes too long to get to the major points. It would be easy to add a few subtitled points so we attend to the most important messages. More expensive would be a few cut-aways to vaguely representative images (even non-copyrighted cartoon stills); that would break the visual monotony. If you inherit tons of money, hire an animator. I'd like to see this channel succeed.

[@GeoffreyMillerPhD]

Good suggestions. I'm trying to level up the production values as we go.

[@germanaquila2666]

Background gets me ready for some spiritual experience

[@Lockjaw95]

Wtf is that background lmao

[@Benjamin93swe1]

Dude, love the background! More of that creative spirit! Go forth, fellow libertarian!

[@beachdancer]

To argue for the need of diversity while also arguing that people were born as blank slates, is consistent if the theory includes social pressures causing differences.

[@slothlovechunk]

Basically you're showing Damore's contradiciton from the other side. He believes that men and women differ significantly, but don't think Google should seek demographic diversity. He is of an exact opposite contradiction that the social justice warriors hold: men and women don't differ significantly, but Google should seek demographic diversity. They are both equally wrong. He is not resolving a paradox, he hold the opposite paradox.

[@guitardizzle1]

Sadly, the people who need to see this probably have you blocked on Twitter already. The more content like this, the better though! I can send this short, informative info in the direction of people who are right on the edge of being unreasonably “inclusive”.

[@trentonknauer9118]

I predict that you’ll achieve 1M by a year from today, two years at the latest...

[@GeoffreyMillerPhD]

Thanks! Hope so. KZbin is a marathon, not a sprint, as they say...