I'm seeing a lot of friends in the tech field share this Medium post on Twitter and Facebook and have some thoughts about it:
So, about this Googler’s manifesto.
It's an 8 minute read.
We'll wait.
Here are my initial thoughts, and I'm curious what you think. To be clear, I have not read all of the manifesto in detail as I'm more interested right now in the impact is has and less so the content.
Yes, men and women are biologically different from an evolutionary perspective1. And, yes, in many ways we've transcended basic evolutionary pressures so that memetic transfer is highly influential in making us "us" (i.e. the power of culture, ideas, and nurture, not just nature).
I also sympathize with the author of the manifesto being roasted here because I too am grossly ignorant. I've said things and done things which are stupid and hurtful to others and, worst of all, I didn't do them with malicious intent. I was (and am) ignorant in many senses of the word. My intentions may seem right to me in that I'm just trying to help, but that doesn't mitigate the damage done. Sometimes it makes it worse. If I was just an enemy, people wouldn't care much what I say or do. When I'm a friend, that's when the results can be devastating.
This write up by Yonatan Zunger, I think, is really important. It helps cure many of their ignorance. I'm confident there are people who agree with concepts and ideas in the manifesto without realizing how harmful they can be to others.
Yonatan's post touches on free expression of ideas. I'm not saying "free speech" because too many only think in terms of law with that phrase. I'm more interested in the spirit of what the law is trying to protect. I'm in support of people saying what they really mean and believe. Hopefully they do it in ways which limit the amount of damage to others while still exposing themselves for some negative consequences in order to learn and grow (though I recognize this is rarely the case). Making mistakes and properly dealing with the results is how we eventually get wisdom.
From a evolutionary stable strategy perspective, we need people like this manifesto writer to share their thoughts so they can be exposed. What's the alternative? Would it be better if people who work with this individual have to deal with years of abuses and aggressions (even if only slight or barely expressed in words)? This goes for many other social problems like racism, bigotry, discrimination, etc. Do we really want that cancer lurking under the surface or exposed to the daylight so it can be called out for what it is and the harm it causes? For other ignorant people with "good intentions", which approach helps them change for the better?
Maybe it's a good thing to let these ideas be shared openly while working hard to ensure their negative consequences land squarely (and solely) on the originators of those ideas so they become personally aware of the harm involved.
At the same time, bad ideas can spread like wildfire and bring even more people into thinking in ways which harm others. It's no easy problem to solve, which is why I've been thinking about it in terms of evolutionary stable strategies. If the toxicity is normalized, discussed, and spreads, we end up with systemic risk. If it's never talked about because it's never openly expressed, it can fester in the shadows, also causing systemic risk.
I also liked this post because it's a great write up for explaining the various levels of software engineering. Most developers are not building Google. They don't level up beyond writing code for simple websites and small projects. I've resisted this on many levels myself. I've been programming since 1996 and co-founded a software company which has been running for over a decade now. Being a good developer means working well with people, but most developers have a reputation for only working well with code. As Yonatan pointed out, it takes grueling, difficult work for computer-focused people to become people-focused people. It takes time. It takes being called out when you're being an ignorant jerk by people who care.
If the larger discussion on this issue ends up bringing about positive change, does that mean the original manifesto had some value? Well, that's a slippery slope I'm not yet ready to go down. Saying bad ideas which harm others could be seen as good sounds like a broken window fallacy to me. At the same time, can we really move completely beyond evolution and the importance of evolutionary stable strategies which require some balance of good and bad actors for long-term stability?
For more on that, see this excellent video by Veritasium, one of my favorite edutainment channels:
On a personal note, thank you to the friends and family who care enough about me to call me out when needed. Without that, I can't become a better person.
What do you think of Yonatan Zunger's post?
How should we deal with the spread of ideas which cause harm to others (specifically if the intention is to normalize and promote them)?
1 Edit: by this, I mean physically most men and women have different body parts such as penises and vaginas, not that this may matter much at all when it comes to how we perform in the workplace.
Second Edit: This is a great talk I heard in 2014 at RESTfest by Lorinda Brandon (you can see my head there in the video, wearing a purple shirt) on how we approach the women in tech discussion.
REST Fest 2014 \ Lorinda Brandon from REST Fest on Vimeo.
