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posted by martyb on Friday August 11 2017, @02:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the hurry-up-and-stop dept.

Google is struggling to discuss the recent diversity memo controversy internally:

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, canceled a scheduled all-hands staff meeting—moments before it was scheduled to begin—meant to address concerns over a controversial essay published by former employee James Damore.

In an email to staff, Pichai explained that questions from employees had been leaked and that, in some cases, specific employees' identities were revealed, exposing them to harassment and threats. Instead of today's large-scale meeting, which was to be livestreamed to Google's 60,000 employees worldwide, smaller groups will meet sometime in the future.

"We had hoped to have a frank open discussion today as we always do to bring us together and move forward. But our Dory questions appeared externally this afternoon, and on some websites Googlers are now being named personally," Pichai said in the email.

Also at CNET.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday August 11 2017, @03:45PM (17 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday August 11 2017, @03:45PM (#552368) Homepage Journal

    One of the questions leaked was apparently:

    "The doc asserted that Google has a lower bar for diversity candidates,” reads one question ranked highly by employees in an internal voting system. “This is hurting minority Googlers because it creates the perception that they are less qualified. What can we do to combat that perception?"

    They can't do anything, because the perception is absolutely correct. The definition of affirmative action is accepting less-qualified candidates. Which inevitably means that all members of the group are looked at skeptically, because you have no way of knowing who is really qualified, and who is a diversity hire.

    Affirmative action creates a hostile work environment for the very minorities it is meant to help. Good intentions over good results, typical SJW stuff.

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  • (Score: 1) by crafoo on Friday August 11 2017, @05:09PM (3 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Friday August 11 2017, @05:09PM (#552434)

    I know what we can do. We can embark on a complex and compulsory campaign to stamp out wrong-think. The key is to infiltrate public education and entertainment media. Black is white. Up is down. Science is sexist and racist.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @07:24PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @07:24PM (#552520)

      My whole grade school life was highly conservative. In fact the only part that wasn't was my parents, and the occasional openly liberal household/kids I went to school with (but you didn't discuss that at school, even if they did.)

      People also tend to forget all the anti-Russian/Communist propaganda from 50s-80s grade school, and our indoctrination against having our papers checked travelling inside our own country, and yet what happens today? Mandatory checks to fly on an airplane, random checks to travel by train, or bus, or boat, without ever hitting a border. TSA/VIPR is America's Communist paper checkers, and yet the largest push for that apparatus came from CONSERVATIVES (with a healthy dose of bipartisan authoritarianism), the very same ones who just a few decades before were reviling that exact sort of activity and pushing that agenda in schools.

      Oh America, your hypocrisy runs deep.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @11:44PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @11:44PM (#552640)

        Oh shut the fuck up, fag. All those checks are in place because we keep getting attacked by the Islamic terrorists that Liberals love to import here by the millions.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:54AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:54AM (#552793)

          Love to import because you love to take their . . . Oh crap, AC, everyone knows you are an Islamic refugee, filled with self-hatred and desire for forbbiden sex. Yes, in your country the used to say, "For children, a woman; for pleasure, a young boy; but for sheer ecstacy, a Melon!" But now, melons are in short supply. It is the closeted gays in the Republican party who are importing the poftas from the areas of combat. All those soldiers, stationed in areas where the "Peshawar School of Thought" prevails, and you do not think they would not want to bring their "translator" back with them? Oh American, the home of the Free and the Gay!

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 11 2017, @08:12PM (12 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday August 11 2017, @08:12PM (#552550) Journal

    The definition of affirmative action is accepting less-qualified candidates.

    This is flat out wrong, so wrong that one cannot but suspect that it is intentional. Why do you lie, brad?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:58PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:58PM (#552578)

      Help us out. I beseech thee! If affirmative action is not that, then what is affirmative action? Am I thinking about the same concept that you are thinking about? Do you have any conjecture about what the confusion might be?

      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 11 2017, @09:27PM (10 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Friday August 11 2017, @09:27PM (#552595) Journal

        If there are equally qualified candidates, preference should be given to the minority candidate. I know this is not how racists and "reverse discriminationists" and poor sexist (former)Googlers see it, but that is the program, and the law. Of course, if you do not know this, you probably were not hired in the first place, because of Affirmative Action! (Remember, equally qualified, Republicans rarely meet this standard.)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @10:27PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @10:27PM (#552622)

          Thanks! I think that answers my questions.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:19AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:19AM (#552769)

          And when they are other qualified more candidates, the minority candidate shall be hired regardless. :P

          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:40AM (1 child)

            by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:40AM (#552792) Journal

            My god, you are stupid, too stupid to work in my organization, which hires hundreds each year. OK, we will go to the Law:

            Mind you, if you read this, and you hold Federal Contracts, you may be liable irregardless (- did you see that? irregardless used properly?) for discriminatory employment practices, even if you or your family never owned slaves, you white privileged bastard:

            §60-2.10 General purpose and contents of affirmative action programs.

            (a) Purpose. (1) An affirmative action program is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity. A central premise underlying affirmative action is that, absent discrimination, over time a contractor's workforce, generally, will reflect the gender, racial and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects. Affirmative action programs contain a diagnostic component which includes a number of quantitative analyses designed to evaluate the composition of the workforce of the contractor and compare it to the composition of the relevant labor pools. Affirmative action programs also include action-oriented programs. If women and minorities are not being employed at a rate to be expected given their availability in the relevant labor pool, the contractor's affirmative action program includes specific practical steps designed to address this underutilization. Effective affirmative action programs also include internal auditing and reporting systems as a means of measuring the contractor's progress toward achieving the workforce that would be expected in the absence of discrimination.

            https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=3b71cb5b215c393fe910604d33c9fed1&rgn=div5&view=text&node=41:1.2.3.1.2&idno=41 [ecfr.gov]

            See? Equal opportunity. If you lose under such circumstances, I can only surmise that you are a substandard employee candidate. You see, it is no longer the case that no one was ever fired for hiring white. We are coming for your incompetence, whitey. Be prepared to compete on a level field without your white privilege! Sucks to be you.

            • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:48PM

              by Hawkwind (3531) on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:48PM (#552927)
              To be clear, in California gender and/or ethnicity cannot be used as a tie-breaker. 41 CFR60-2 does not give cover for this type of preference, a mistake our legal office has to point out frequently. May be of interest to those in CA, Prop 209 allows affirmative action where:

              (e) Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as prohibiting action which must be taken to establish or maintain eligibility for any federal program, where ineligibility would result in a loss of federal funds to the state.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209 [wikipedia.org]
               
              Cheers

        • (Score: 2) by slinches on Saturday August 12 2017, @10:28PM (5 children)

          by slinches (5049) on Saturday August 12 2017, @10:28PM (#553001)

          Yeah that may be the intent, but how often are there perfectly equally qualified candidates who only differ by race and/or gender? Considering that to be effective affirmative action would have to cover more than this almost non-existent scenario, how much better does a majority candidate have to be to get the job? How much discrimination is fair?

          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:38PM (4 children)

            by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:38PM (#553030) Journal

            Enough until there is no discrimination! For the USA, it is making up for a few hundred years of genocide and slavery and racism. It is like Aristotle said about straightening a stick, you have to over-bend it the other way for it to come back true.

            • (Score: 2) by slinches on Monday August 14 2017, @07:22PM (3 children)

              by slinches (5049) on Monday August 14 2017, @07:22PM (#553809)

              How do we know when to stop over-bending, then? What are the criteria that say we have corrected the initial bend without going too far the other way?

              • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday August 14 2017, @08:10PM (2 children)

                by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 14 2017, @08:10PM (#553822) Journal

                Kind of hard to go too far the wrong way, without subjecting people with white skin to some three hundred years of chattel slavery. But just enough until structural discrimination ceases to exist. And of course the pathetic whining of the racists is just a sign that Affirmative Action is having the desired effect. America is on the right course. Just need to identify all these Neo-Nazis, KKKers, and Alt-right racists, and publically shame them and get them fired from their jobs and booted off Google or Go-Daddy hosting! That part of bending the stick is easy to recognize as correct.

                • (Score: 2) by slinches on Monday August 14 2017, @10:16PM (1 child)

                  by slinches (5049) on Monday August 14 2017, @10:16PM (#553862)

                  I just don't buy the premise that you can correct discrimination with more discrimination. Even if you do succeed in leveling the outcomes, why would it not breed more of the same hatred that you're trying to eliminate? It's the same concept as the war on terror causing more terrorism as bystanders get caught in the cross-fire. In that case, doubling down on the discrimination will only give the racists and misogynists more disenfranchised and angry people to recruit and you'll never have a truly egalitarian society.

                  Instead, I think that if we promote inclusion and understanding and provide assistance to all of those who need it, structural racism/sexism will fade away on its own. Stop giving credence to the idea that race and gender are meaningful discriminators and the idea will fade into obscurity, simply because it's wrong.