skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
He said Google has '[h]iring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate', created in part because "humans are generally biased towards protecting females".
I believe, at least in California, households that have taken some effort to make their property more resilient to fire are given higher priority. I heard an interview with a firefighter on the radio talking about this a few weeks back.
Will they fire every Trump voter and every hardcore feminist now too?
It's unfair to assume Gizmodo intentionally removed those. Much more likely is whoever leaked it to them did so in plaintext.
No. There is even a proof we can't know the rules outside that formed these rules.
> Still, there's that nagging little voice in the back of my head: part of me can't help wondering what will happen, and how people will come to view it, if/when his apps catch on (as I suspect they will).

That was my thought too - once a critical mass of people are going to 'random' events it'll be Portlandia Over.
Below is the relevant section (although I don't see how anyone's saying they aren't good enough to work with):

I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:

- Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]

- A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates

- Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate

- Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)

- Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]

These practices are based on false assumptions generated by our biases and can actually increase race and gender tensions. We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology[7] that can irreparably harm Google.
> I'm not going to read two books just to figure out some google guy's 10 page memo - call me lazy but perhaps nobody is going to read two books just for that purpose.

Well, if it's any consolation, I wouldn't read it for that either. The blog posts and memos do accumulate, though, and at some point it's worth it just to have the sources to refer back to.
People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it.

It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs.
Completely disagree and I think the reaction to the post proved his point. Unfortunately this is now easily going to blow up into another donglegate.
Agreed.

But my point is that even if this person were qualified to make such assertions, his qualifications can be easily made invisible through editorialization.

If I've learned anything since November 2016, it's that messaging will frequently overpower facts.
That's one way to read it. Another way would be, "Stop trying to promote diversity, it alienates the racists and sexists who work here."

I don't think this is an unfair reading. One of the bullet points in the conclusion is literally that the company's diversity programs are problematic because they alienate non-progressives.
People also wrote fiction about traveling to the moon for a very long time before it actually happened. And Star Trek is credited with inspiring a lot of modern developments that are now ubiquitous, like cell phones and automatic doors.

(The automatic doors on Star Trek were being pulled open using ropes by hidden prop guys. The actors had to walk confidently forward as if they expected them to open when this was not guaranteed. They sometimes smacked right into them)
God, I hope people get over this shit soon!
It might. But I can't think of any.
They are a feature of the compiler - Clojure's are implemented in Java.
Per-file metadata increases significantly, but it gets rid of the per piece data (which in bittorrent v1 is 20 bytes of sha1 hash per piece and made up the bulk of the .torrent file).

The .torrent file only stores the merkle tree's root hash for each file, and the torrent client will query it's peers to get the rest of the merkle tree (verifiable against the root hash). The leafs of the merkle tree are the hash of each 16kb block.

Interesting consequences of this:

Piece size isn't baked into the file anymore (and I've seen torrents with 16mb blocks), the client can dynamically chose it's verification piece size by requesting only so many layers of the merkle tree. Or it could skip requesting the tree and verify the whole file at once.

Merkle tree roots will be globally unique. You can scan torrent files for duplicated files and download common files from multiple swarms.
I wonder if the guy in the article has considered buying his drug without insurance? In the case of the generic for Adderall XR it is about $70 with a GoodRx coupon at Walgreens, which is less than the $90 copay to get the brand drug with insurance.

Even if your insurance company lets you use generics, it is a good idea to take a look at GoodRx, and take a look at Walmart.

I've had generics where through my insurance my out of pocket was a $20 copay, but when I checked GoodRx there was a $12 coupon. I've had other generics, again with a $20 copay if I got them through insurance, where they were $4 at Walmart with no insurance or coupons.
So should we also ask how they confront the people who feel free to pin all bad things on white males and white privilege whether relevant, provable or not?

I've come across a few people from these companies and it's not that hard to come across people who have strong biases against whites and white men in particular. Sadly it's become a way to signal you're in the in-group.

Diffusing hostilities isn't achieved by becoming the thing you're trying to overcome.
Is anyone actually "helping folks pass the bar"?
I know a lot of people with PhDs from Harvard. That would and should play no role in my evaluation of whatever argument they're putting forward, if that argument has little to do with their area of expertise. Getting a biology PhD has no relevance to whether someone truly understands the literature in evolutionary psych.
The Purpose of Life - Video
This is most adaptive algorithms work, though. As your scenario gets played out over and over, the high threshold people will notice the decline in profitability and look for ways of improving the algorithm. They'll look at the various parameters and notice that the lower the volume delta the higher the return, so the volume delta parameter will come down. As everyone's volume delta comes down, the strategy will work less and less until it roughly equals the discount rate.

Anything that can be completely automated will lead to an elimination of excess returns. Having a single parameter that differs between market participants is not enough to stabilize a long-term imbalance.
...which is true and even google admits they do so to increase female count?
He is completely wrong on his assertions, and those assertions are not facts or science. As Pauli is reputed to have said, the author of the manifesto is “not even wrong”. He’s a white male fantasist.
Thanks Stalin.
While I agree that AIs need lots of experience with all kinds of situations to take all of them into account correctly, I don't think that a human body is necessary for that. It could be a network of surveillance cameras, or a fleet of sensor-stuffed cars or any other source of large numbers of observations. To predict the effect of an action, you don't need to be able to execute it yourself; or even if you can do it, there is no need to have done it; simply observing it is enough. There is no reason to suggest that AIs couldn't learn similarly through observation.
Everyone reading this that doesn't buy into the forced mandated groupthink... look here and see what the future holds. This is the ultimate goal.

The people claim to be for tolerance and diversity, but really, they are just angry bitter race-obsessed and gender-obsessed political activists.

It's going to get worse before it gets better...
>Note that contrary to what a social constructionist would argue, research suggests that “greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits.” Because as “society becomes more prosperous and more egalitarian, innate dispositional differences between men and women have more space to develop and the gap that exists between men and women in their personality becomes wider.” We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism.

"the lack of women in tech is fine becuase that's just what happens when women, who are biologically worse at programming, don't go into tech"
Voltaire is rolling in his grave.
We've closed this thread to new accounts because of trolling. If you're going to comment here, please take extra care to make it civil and substantive.

If you have a new account and want to comment (thoughtfully, as opposed to flaming) please email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll whitelist you.
When you do/say/write something that has the potential to cause problems for your employer, you should be aware of and prepared for the possible consequences.

I certainly would not write a multi-page screed criticizing the policies and practices of my employer, distribute it at work, and then expect to keep my job or have no repercussions.
I didn't say he was infallible by merit of a specialized academic degree. He could very well be wrong, but the fact that he has a PhD in Biology from a top Ivy League school should at least give his thesis academic plausibility (even among those who strongly disagree) and allow for the possibility of reasoned debate over the issue instead of a politically-correct witch hunt.
Well to judge him on his merits and not his credentials, the memo was neither rigorously argued or all that persuasive.

It is ironic that defenders who claim to want a meritocracy are also defending the author because of where he went to school.
By count, most of his claims are just asserted.

Most of the links in the original document were removed, either by Gizmodo or the leaker.

But even most of the claims with a link are highly debatable.

Although apparently you are in fact not allowed to debate them...
So, stating true, scientifically verified facts that challenge Google's official political ideology is now a fireable offence.

This is insane. The speed at which this ideology has taken over SV is breathtaking, and a massive disincentive for anyone not already so inclined to work there.
I did some studies about Bitcoin and have the same thoughts with you.

The problem is that most people who are buying Bitcoin today, not for its implication of the real world. They're buying Bitcoin and hoping it to go up in value.

It seems like it has ruined the core purpose of Bitcoin because now, no one wants to use it but keep it.

Instead of following the news about Bitcoin, I prefer to take a closer look at the technology behind it - Blockchain.

PS: When everyone around you suddenly become an expert in something, stay out of that something. This happened to stocks, real estate flipping, and dot com bubbles.
Ah yes I had forgotten about activity. :)
The man in question claimed that some large portion of folks are hired under diversity programs which supposedly “lower the bar”. That is, those people don’t deserve to be at Google, and he doesn’t believe that they are qualified.

That’s in his own words, and I would have fired him a hell of a lot faster than Google did, because I will not have my team disrupted by a prima donna.
Not really. A lot of people have weird views. Based on this Google can't hire any conservative Christians either.

I just don't think this should be a firing offense.
You are weighing the credentials more than the work at hand.
Men are object-oriented, women are functional.
It's not about suppressing speech because it's offensive, it's about suppressing intolerance to preserve tolerance.
But you don't call a library bubble sort function inside your own implementation of bubble sort!
Well, it's going to have to be a consideration if you want to defend yourself against a discrimination lawsuit. Google has more money than god, why is everyone's diaper going to DEFCON 1 over the notion of affirmative action?

I don't know why anyone needs to even give a shit about whatever "natural" differences exist or not. The law promotes equality. And if you're going to bitch about it, then fine, go vote for more Trump, I guess.
What's crazy, if these roles were reversed... the ACLU would be all over it.
Similarly, I hear houses that have been allowed to become completely indefensible (e.g., boughs on the roof, no fire clearing) are simply abandoned.
yeah, the entire screen against women in tech is not claiming anything about any women he works with, no siree
Maybe you misinterpreted my statement as defending this person being silenced and fired but I was not. Frankly I have no strong opinions with regards to PC culture. It does not affect me and I see the injustice that comes from both sides. My statement was more intended to be advice, if you haven't cultivated a reputation/influence and you step out of line you will be mocked, ostracized, and perceived as an unhinged idiot. I believe the result of this debacle backs my point.
Concept of God in Major Religions
This is one of those epic replies[1] that makes HN so neat. Wondering whether anything lives in Iron Mountain's hostile environment? No worries - the guy who provided software support for that project will elucidate the matter (with links to boot!).

[1] Perhaps the most epic of epic replies was Colin Percival's legendary snorter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
You are saying it like it is a 'fact' that women cannot handle stress. Your anecdotal experiences do not count.
Intentionally violating your employment agreement and expecting not to be disciplined for it is definitely a strange way to demonstrate your innate superiority over the other gender. Either this guy genuinely believed he was so right that he wouldn't get punished for this, or he wanted to quit and decided to try to martyr himself.

I'm personally not a fan of the memo's content but even if I were, it demonstrates incredibly poor judgement. Posting this sort of thing on internal work message boards and signing it with your name is just plain silly. If you want to have your 'rational discussion' about gender and race in tech and not get penalized for violating an agreement you signed governing your conduct, then do it on your own time and using your own equipment instead of your employer's equipment. This isn't hard. How does someone manage to get a PhD without acquiring a basic understanding of cause and effect?
From the code of conduct of google [1]:

> Equal Opportunity Employment

> Employment here is based solely upon individual merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence.

How are you going to achieve 50/50 diversity in the company if the pool of candidates is far from that distribution? (unless you go and don't hire the best ones to balance the distribution)

[1] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html

EDIT: As kevingadd said, I might be wrong assuming the goal for diversity target for Google. It can be something more realistic and be close to the ratio of the pool of candidates. In that case I am wrong in my assumption. This is also a good link he provided: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-v...
Two words are not a valid reference. If you want to be taken seriously, put some effort in your arguments.
It's quite ironic: in their push for equality and inclusion, these liberals have created an environment where one faces exclusion and persecution for simply having political beliefs that align with a large portion of their fellow U.S. citizens. This is a very real thing. I never felt uncomfortable with my own political alignment before 2015 but I wouldn't dare put a GOP candidate sticker on my laptop now. It's not that I have an aversion to my own party; I simply feel targeted and fear being (incorrectly) labeled a bigot or mysognist simply because of the candidates I've voted for.

That's how far this has gone. I am saddened that more moderate voices have not spoken up like this brave ex-Googler but given the climate and the consequences, I understand it.
>The train situation isn't going to get better by people being selfish and gaining a few extra minutes at the expense of everyone else's.

Doesn't that pretty much sum up the New York experience though? If everyone could not block the intersection, stand back from the baggage claim, and wait their turn then life would be better for everyone.
I'll half agree in that you are right, it is not censorship. But I think the caustic judgement of him and his words don't seem to match up with the text that I've read.
Apparently Google doesn't think that it has lowered the bar for women and minority candidates. So the memo's author has effectively raised a "Have you stopped beating your mother?" begging-type question. Should people get fired for poor rhetorical reasoning? Probably not, but this one happened to imply the inferiority of certain groups of employees.
What point? His post had a bunch of men's rights dogwhistles presented with a facade of dispassionate, objective reason.
That precisely is the chilling effect. The discussions are so treacherous and devoid of social etiquette that arguments cannot be made without risking career suicide, literally.

And if for no other reason, irrespective of the topic, that chilling effect is really disconcerting.
"In the year 1850, women were locked out of almost every major field, with a few exceptions like nursing and teaching. The average man of the day would have been equally confident that women were unfit for law, unfit for medicine, unfit for mathematics, unfit for linguistics, unfit for engineering, unfit for journalism, unfit for psychology, and unfit for biology. He would have had various sexist justifications – women shouldn’t be in law because it’s too competitive and high-pressure; women shouldn’t be in medicine because they’re fragile and will faint at the sight of blood; et cetera.

"As the feminist movement gradually took hold, women conquered one of these fields after another. 51% of law students are now female. So are 49.8% of medical students, 45% of math majors, 60% of linguistics majors, 60% of journalism majors, 75% of psychology majors, and 60% of biology postdocs. Yet for some reason, engineering remains only about 20% female.

"And everyone says “Aha! I bet it’s because of negative stereotypes!”

"This makes no sense. There were negative stereotypes about everything! Somebody has to explain why the equal and greater negative stereotypes against women in law, medicine, etc were completely powerless, yet for some reason the negative stereotypes in engineering were the ones that took hold and prevented women from succeeding there."
It's not clear why anyone would think his experience with yeast microbes translates into any relevant insight on the topics he discussed.
This is by far my highest upvoted post in this thread, even higher than ones that exhibit much stronger "virtue-signaling"

Given that, I'm guessing the justification for the statements is a little more self-evident than you're letting on. In it effort to save myself some time (seriously, you're asking me for about 20 minutes worth of work), just checking first, have you read the leaked document? It's at Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/leaked-document-details-apple-employee-in....

EDIT: Also, do the other replies to you make things a little clearer? Please keep in mind I'm not trying to be passive-aggressive, I come from similiar intellectual stock to you. That's why I'm in disbelief that you need pullquotes and an explanation to tie them together, I'm sure it'll click for you without that.
Well he lists several things. Why do you think that a special hiring queue for diversity hires and special classes for diversity hires is setting an equal bar?

Those things seem discriminatory to me.
yeah ok, this is not really the fault of the author then.

sharing idea's on a small scale is good for everyone, sharing controversial or reprehensible is inadvisable but forgivable.

Those that went public with it, or spread it in outrage need a damned good talking to at least.

but really, I'd say the guy has learned a lot.... it may even make him a better person, isn't that everyone's desire?
Yes, it is very much at least the latter. There is absolutely no scientific support for relgious beliefs.
From the article:

> Then, in 2014, her pharmacist told her that her insurance plan would cover only the brand-name drug, which cost her family some $50 more a month than the generic. If she paid for the generic herself, it would not have counted toward her deductible. Ms. Freundlich complained to her insurer, UnitedHealthcare, but could not get a clear answer.
This neatly explains why recursive depth-first searches are far easier to implement than recursive breadth-first searches. With BFS you'll need to explicitly pass in a queue to track unvisited nodes, whereas with DFS you already get a stack for free!
And listed data and studies to back up his claim. That it is controversial, does not mean it isn't true, and you haven't refuted it, simply stated it as if on it's face should have been grounds for dismissal.

All we really know is that the Silicon Valley thought bubble, and political intolerance is extreme to such a degree that people have to watch what they say and think at all times so as not to anger the thought police. The moral superiors.

No room for discussion. No room for debate. Just fall in line and be sure to advertise your virtue and 100% agree with views that the political left mandates you to hold.