Can you now be fired for quoting scientific literature?
You can. Pointing out inconvenient hard facts has always be a firing (or hanging) offense. Just think Galileo.
Pretty much means the ones doing it are fundamentalists with no interest in facts, but you can find these people anywhere. And when they manage to seize power, things go south.
Actually, the hugely emotional response to his statements that are basically a non-emotional analysis is pretty telling. This reaction gives a lot of credibility to him. If he were factually wrong, it should have been easy to demolish him on that. But apparently it was not, so a different route was chosen. It unfortunately also means things are badly screwed up at Google and there are topics there that are important, but that you are forbidden to think about.
As far as I can see, _all_ the criticism is not because he has bad facts, but because he sounds unfriendly. The criticisms have no facts at all, incidentally. This is basically moral outrage from a point-of-view that he must be wrong of course, no factual arguments involved.
I agree on the PR mistake on his part. While "Neuroticism" is the correct term here, he apparently missed that most of his audience will not be educated enough in these matters to recognize that. He should have used some fluffy friendly term for it and put "Neuroticism" in the footnotes.
Indeed. This is just one of the things you measure. And it is not even that men do not have it. It is "women on average score higher on it" and that is a pretty hard fact.
... now isn't that ironic for said engineer, getting fired because his audience is too uneducated...
That is how it usually works these days. Do not like what experts say? Fire them!
While this guy is not an expert psychologist, he clearly has done real research into the facts and gets them mostly right. That is apparently his key offense, besides not bowing to his corporate masters and keeping silent.
He used these as clinical terms. What he wrote is in line with psychological research. Now, the causes for this and the degree can be debated, and whether something should be done about it, but these are pretty hard facts. Apparently quite a few people here cannot deal with facts if they do not match their preconceptions.
That is just the thing: They cannot. So they have to make it "obvious" that he was wrong by simply punishing him. Oh, and implicitly threaten anybody that even considers it possible that he may have had a point. Classical approach when you actually have no arguments.
Ah, yes. A fundamentally fascist (Yes, it matches. Read the definition of "fascism".) thing to do: Remove the heretic from the group and make sure he is eradicated.
This is not a good sign at all. What is going on here is fundamentally messed up. On the plus side, anybody smart should now avoid working at Google like the plague.
In any case, it gives him quite a bit of credibility with regards to his statements about Google culture.
I read the thing and I did not find any "gender stereotypes" in it either. I found him pointing out that there are mechanisms that make men and women different in some regards and that these seem to have an impact on the statistics of the professions men and women select. Which is a pretty hard fact, come to think of it, you just need to count. But apparently Google is now a cult and facts do not matter anymore.
He also stated several times that he is pro-equality. His main argument was that if there are significantly less women in IT, then a hiring policy that hires 50/50 is highly problematic. This also is a rather obvious fact.
Now, he may have worded some things badly, but the massive attacks on his statements are not justified by what he wrote. It seems more that he touched a taboo subject and now all those that do not want it discussed are attacking with a high level of aggression (and a low of level of factual arguments, if there are any at all) to shut up any further discussion. Not good and pretty much confirms there is a real problem here and that a lot of people want it swept under the carpet.
What will happen is that withing a very short time drivers will ignore them. And then when they run into real ones, they will be surprised and cause accidents. This is really beyond stupid.
Making it something that need to be explicitly enabled is fine. Removing it is not. That is just some authoritarian asshole enforcing their view of how the world should be. It also does not make people more secure compared to making it something that needs to be enabled. It means that people that need it have to use hackish ways to get it and more often than not these will be worse.
Maybe you should learn to think before criticizing people that can do it. For example, you completely missed _where_ that equal distribution is assumed. But what can you expect from a fanatic....
That methodology is invalid. Takes some actual hard-science background to see, but then it becomes glaringly obvious. You fell for using an equal-distribution assumption for a complex problem. As in essence that distribution is what you expect to show is true, you basically used circular reasoning. A beginner's mistake.
The first thing I get from that is that any explanation for a gender disparity that includes biology or general societal attitudes are off the table.
Indeed. It does not get much more anti-science and anti-fact than that. It pretty much screams that a discussion based on reality is not welcome and that any attempt to discuss based on facts will be punished. This is a pattern typically seen in fanaticism.
Indeed. I seem to know more and more pretty smart ex-Googlers that just could not stand it anymore.
Incidentally, "feelings", or rather analysis of said on your customer comes into play when doing engineering consulting, at least in the younger tech industries like IT where your customer may be incompetent, superstitious, insecure, inexperienced, etc. and, in fact, not really an engineer and only partially or not at all able to judge the merits of your proposed solutions. I would expect that for mature disciplines like yours, the situation you describe is the common one.
Zunger is pretty much an idiot. He states "Engineering is not the art of building devices; it’s the art of fixing problems." That is so wrong is is staggering. It also means that he is not an engineer. Engineering _is_ the art of building technological artifacts. Whether they actually solve a problem is pretty much irrelevant.
Incidentally, the art of fixing problems is called "management", and that may explain why Zungur is so badly off as that art is in very bad shape these days. He is right about one thing though: The Google thought police will crack down on this harshly. The person writing that document should never have identified himself as a Google worker.
Actually, trains solve EITHER the problem of moving freight or the problem of moving people.
You clearly do not understand how a modern railway network is constructed. Or alternatively, the Europeans must have magic, because they use it for both at the same time. Clearly the darkest of witchcraft is at work here.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you now be fired for quoting scientific literature?
You can. Pointing out inconvenient hard facts has always be a firing (or hanging) offense. Just think Galileo.
Pretty much means the ones doing it are fundamentalists with no interest in facts, but you can find these people anywhere. And when they manage to seize power, things go south.
Actually, the hugely emotional response to his statements that are basically a non-emotional analysis is pretty telling. This reaction gives a lot of credibility to him. If he were factually wrong, it should have been easy to demolish him on that. But apparently it was not, so a different route was chosen. It unfortunately also means things are badly screwed up at Google and there are topics there that are important, but that you are forbidden to think about.
As far as I can see, _all_ the criticism is not because he has bad facts, but because he sounds unfriendly. The criticisms have no facts at all, incidentally. This is basically moral outrage from a point-of-view that he must be wrong of course, no factual arguments involved.
On a related note, Google is screwed.
I agree on the PR mistake on his part. While "Neuroticism" is the correct term here, he apparently missed that most of his audience will not be educated enough in these matters to recognize that. He should have used some fluffy friendly term for it and put "Neuroticism" in the footnotes.
Indeed. This is just one of the things you measure. And it is not even that men do not have it. It is "women on average score higher on it" and that is a pretty hard fact.
... now isn't that ironic for said engineer, getting fired because his audience is too uneducated...
That is how it usually works these days. Do not like what experts say? Fire them!
While this guy is not an expert psychologist, he clearly has done real research into the facts and gets them mostly right. That is apparently his key offense, besides not bowing to his corporate masters and keeping silent.
He used these as clinical terms. What he wrote is in line with psychological research. Now, the causes for this and the degree can be debated, and whether something should be done about it, but these are pretty hard facts. Apparently quite a few people here cannot deal with facts if they do not match their preconceptions.
That is just the thing: They cannot. So they have to make it "obvious" that he was wrong by simply punishing him. Oh, and implicitly threaten anybody that even considers it possible that he may have had a point. Classical approach when you actually have no arguments.
Ah, yes. A fundamentally fascist (Yes, it matches. Read the definition of "fascism".) thing to do: Remove the heretic from the group and make sure he is eradicated.
This is not a good sign at all. What is going on here is fundamentally messed up. On the plus side, anybody smart should now avoid working at Google like the plague.
Indeed. But my guess is that most now raging at him never read the actual text. It is not even very long.
In any case, it gives him quite a bit of credibility with regards to his statements about Google culture.
I read the thing and I did not find any "gender stereotypes" in it either. I found him pointing out that there are mechanisms that make men and women different in some regards and that these seem to have an impact on the statistics of the professions men and women select. Which is a pretty hard fact, come to think of it, you just need to count. But apparently Google is now a cult and facts do not matter anymore.
He also stated several times that he is pro-equality. His main argument was that if there are significantly less women in IT, then a hiring policy that hires 50/50 is highly problematic. This also is a rather obvious fact.
Now, he may have worded some things badly, but the massive attacks on his statements are not justified by what he wrote. It seems more that he touched a taboo subject and now all those that do not want it discussed are attacking with a high level of aggression (and a low of level of factual arguments, if there are any at all) to shut up any further discussion. Not good and pretty much confirms there is a real problem here and that a lot of people want it swept under the carpet.
What will happen is that withing a very short time drivers will ignore them. And then when they run into real ones, they will be surprised and cause accidents. This is really beyond stupid.
And all you have now done is to confirm my analysis. Well done! And yes, "authoritarian asshole"!
Just my point. But apparently this thing is now in the hands of somebody both inexperienced and too arrogant to know that.
Making it something that need to be explicitly enabled is fine. Removing it is not. That is just some authoritarian asshole enforcing their view of how the world should be. It also does not make people more secure compared to making it something that needs to be enabled. It means that people that need it have to use hackish ways to get it and more often than not these will be worse.
I just wrote "complex problem". Maybe you have a reading dysfunction?
Maybe you should learn to think before criticizing people that can do it. For example, you completely missed _where_ that equal distribution is assumed. But what can you expect from a fanatic....
That methodology is invalid. Takes some actual hard-science background to see, but then it becomes glaringly obvious. You fell for using an equal-distribution assumption for a complex problem. As in essence that distribution is what you expect to show is true, you basically used circular reasoning. A beginner's mistake.
The first thing I get from that is that any explanation for a gender disparity that includes biology or general societal attitudes are off the table.
Indeed. It does not get much more anti-science and anti-fact than that. It pretty much screams that a discussion based on reality is not welcome and that any attempt to discuss based on facts will be punished. This is a pattern typically seen in fanaticism.
Maybe read an actual definition some time...
It is not even bluster: You are not worth the effort.
Pretty much sums up the abysmal state of affairs.
Indeed. I seem to know more and more pretty smart ex-Googlers that just could not stand it anymore.
Incidentally, "feelings", or rather analysis of said on your customer comes into play when doing engineering consulting, at least in the younger tech industries like IT where your customer may be incompetent, superstitious, insecure, inexperienced, etc. and, in fact, not really an engineer and only partially or not at all able to judge the merits of your proposed solutions. I would expect that for mature disciplines like yours, the situation you describe is the common one.
Zunger is pretty much an idiot. He states "Engineering is not the art of building devices; it’s the art of fixing problems." That is so wrong is is staggering. It also means that he is not an engineer. Engineering _is_ the art of building technological artifacts. Whether they actually solve a problem is pretty much irrelevant.
Incidentally, the art of fixing problems is called "management", and that may explain why Zungur is so badly off as that art is in very bad shape these days. He is right about one thing though: The Google thought police will crack down on this harshly. The person writing that document should never have identified himself as a Google worker.
Actually, trains solve EITHER the problem of moving freight or the problem of moving people.
You clearly do not understand how a modern railway network is constructed. Or alternatively, the Europeans must have magic, because they use it for both at the same time. Clearly the darkest of witchcraft is at work here.
Seriously.