2017/08/08: James Damore and his Google Memo on Diversity (complete)

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No.
Two.
Some of you may have heard about leaked Google memo that has Bean circulating virally around the Internet for the last couple of days that was written by James Dim or who was fired for it last night.
And, uh, calling of his reached out to me and put us together.
And so I'm going to talk to James today about exactly what happened and why, and perhaps what should be done about it.
So oh, so that's what we're going to do it.
The interview I had with him, which finished at about three o'clock on Tuesday, August 8th, follows immediately after this introduction.
Hi, everybody.
I'm speaking today with James Dim or and unidentified Google employee who wishes to remain anonymous, reasons that I think are obvious on James last week put his hand in a blender bye, circulating an internal memo that I would say has become somewhat infamous.
So, James, let's start with Let's start with a bit of discussion about you.
Tell us who you are about your background and about what you were doing at Google, all right?
Yes.
So I I was actually just you know, I really interested in science and psychology and stuff.
And then I really liked puzzles.
And that's how I got into Google.
Actually, I did.
When their coding competitions.
They just recruited me out of that on DDE.
So I Google.
I was mostly working on a search and imagine video surgeon particular.
So what's tell us about your educational background a bit?
Uh, yes.
Ah, I just did a random science and math and undergrad and I ended up with a degree.
I didn't really know what I was going to do, so I I started doing research at M I T.
And then I went Thio Assistance Biology at Harvard.
I initially wanted to work with Martin.
Go back.
He's really great in evolution and game theory, but, uh, then I started working on other things.
So tell us a bit about systems biology.
What is that exactly?
What kind of research were you doing in my team?
I yes, ah, distance biology has many different meanings, but it's Jerry, definitely just mathematical biology, and I guess seeing biological systems as a whole rather than just individual molecules.
And so I like looking at populations, and so my interest in evolution.
So why did that make you are viable, candidate and Google.
You think, uh, I think they just saw a smart guy that could code.
Sure enough.
Now you've been there three years.
Is that correct?
But also as an intern before that.
Yeah, So about four years total.
And so how would you say you've performed as an employee of people being happy with you?
Or have you been traveler?
No.
I got promoted twice.
My last review was the highest possibles to per, which is the top few percent off.
So I definitely wasn't based on performance that they fired me.
Have you enjoyed working at Google?
Is it being a good experience?
Yeah.
I love Google.
That's horrible part.
Like I've always been the biggest Google and ally all.
Like I've never had an iPhone.
I've always tried to convince my friends to use android and all these different things.
And yeah, this just puts a sour taste in my mouth.
Okay, so So you've got a good educational background.
You were interested in things that Google would be interested in.
Your good coder.
You've worked with them for a number of years.
Done an excellent job on your pretty pro Google.
That's basically the back room.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, last week you wrote a memo which has attracted a tremendous moment attention.
And in that memo, you you made a number of claims, and the claims were and please correct me.
If I got this from non summarizing this property, you were attempting to describe reasons why they might.
Why a lack of genuine parody might exist within Google, for example, with an engine engineering or broadly, but also in occupations for fraud.
And, yeah, you laid out a very elaborated Darkman, and I reviewed it.
And as far as I can tell, your opinions are well supported by the relevant psychological science.
And I think what I'll do in the description of this video when I link it is putting the references so that people can decide for themselves.
I want to put up a Web page about gender differences in general, but I'll try to hit the highlights for this particular document.
So why did you do this?
Yes.
Ah, About a month and 1/2 ago, I went to one of our diversity summits, all of it one recorded and super secret.
And they told me a lot of things that I thought just were not right.
Okay.
What?
Having un recorded in super secret?
Well, I mean, they were telling us about a lot of these potentially illegal practices that they've been doing to try to increase diversity.
And what kind of practices?
Well, basically treating people differently based on what they're raised.
Where's Boulder?
Are racism?
Yeah, basically.
I see.
And so?
And it was ultra secret and un recorded.
In what manner?
Uh, yes.
Ah, most meetings at Google.
I recorded anyone.
Google.
Come watch it.
We're trying to be really open about everything.
Except for this.
They don't want any paper trail for any of these things.
Okay?
Why?
Because I think it's illegal.
And I mean, as some of the internal polls showed, there were a large percent of people that agreed with me on the document.
And so if everyone got to see this stuff then and they would really bring up some criticisms, Yeah, a large number of people in Google and a very large number of well informed biological scientists were so I mean, I was quite struck by your document, given that no, it would have been a decent document for a well informed psychologist research psycho used to write, but he was somewhat of an outsider.
But you've got the you got the highlights accurate as far as I'm concerned.
So Okay, so you went to this diversity meeting and you weren't happy with the sorts of things that you were being told.
And with the practices.
Is that both correct?
Yeah.
And what?
I mean, tool?
Uh, close of it.
I mean, there's a lot of ways in which they pressure people to increase the diversity of their team.
And, you know, there's no way to do that besides actually choosing someone based on their race or gender, right?
I don't know.
Precisely, uh, I am MME.
Or women or underrepresented racial minorities, you know?
Can I jump in here?
I am.
I would hesitate to say that that's 100% true across 100% right?
So the organization that I'm in, I have not personally seen anything that I would deem cross the line.
You know, I personally believe that there are a good amount of synergies to be found if you can combine, you know, slightly different ideologies into a room, and that is the thesis that some groups are working towards.
Obviously, there's going to be a distribution of how people follow the rules on dhe.
You know, it's unfortunate to hear that.
It's, you know, it could be that some people fall to the wrong side of that distribution, but that certainly wouldn't would not apply to everybody.
But it is certain that it's certainly also distressing to hear that there is acceptance of the idea that diversity can be mapped onto race and gender, especially with regards to performance, because there's no evidence for that whatsoever.
So okay, so you went to this meeting and then you decided to right this documented How long have you been working on it?
Before he released it?
Uh, yes.
Oh, I was doing it like throughout my free time.
I and I just wanted to clarify my thoughts on this, and I really just wanted to be proven wrong, because if what I was saying was right, then something bad is happening.
And so yet about a month ago, I submit to feed back to that program, and, you know, I saw that people looked at it, but no one actually said anything.
I basically said what I said in the in the document, and then I linked to the document itself.
And so I actually published this about a month ago, and it was only after I got viral and then leaked to the news that Google started carrying.
Okay, so how did it go?
Viral in And do you know and how was it leaked?
Yeah.
So there is a group that Google called skeptics.
And so I was like, Okay, maybe they'll be ableto prove me wrong in some way.
Like they're skeptical about things, right?
I was naive like us.
And so I sent him a message like, OK, what do you think about this?
Is Google in some sort of echo chamber?
I'm buying a necro chamber, and and then it just exploded after that.
And they are internal.
Yes, it was just a scratch her out, all of you.
And, you know, I wasn't the one that wasn't the skeptics group that started to spread it around.
Yeah, And then there were a lot of upper management that, uh, you know, specifically called it out and started saying how harmful it is and how is unacceptable.
This sort of viewpoint is not allowed a Google.
Yeah.
What sort of viewpoint?
Exactly?
The idea that there were differences between men and women that actually might play a role in in, In, In In the in the corporate world That that's a 1,000,000,000.
That's not acceptable.
Yeah, it seems so.
Can you know?
Understandably, it is this These issues are tricky morally and politically.
But the thing that was disturbing to me about watching the response to you is that as far as I could tell, there isn't anything that you said in that paper.
First of all, that is, in fact, biased in a matter that should open you up to the sorts of charges that have been opened up against you or that violates the scientific literature as it currently stands.
So both of those air rather distressing.
Yeah, and there's a lot of misrepresentation by upper management just to silence, May I think?
Yes.
And why is that, Do you think?
Why?
Why is it that Google couldn't actually Do you think that Google couldn't have come out and have an intelligent discussion about this instead of well, first of all, releasing like Danny.
I read Danielle Brown's response to you, which I thought was absolutely appalling, ill informed and the flowing.
And then they fired you.
Which seems to be like, really bad PR move.
But more importantly, doesn't actually deal with the issues at hand.
You know, they're basically saying something like, Well, what was the rationale for firing you?
Exactly What was the excuse that was given?
So the official excuse was that I was perpetuating gender stereotypes that you're perpetuating gender stereotypes?
And did they say anything else about your performance or about anything else that you had done?
No, there was.
That was the only reason.
And who fired you?
Technically, it was my HR representative and my director.
Okay.
And you and you, do you have any idea on whose orders they were acting?
Or if this was something that they conjured up themselves or I I'm sure it probably went from higher up than that because I misses a huge P R move so they would need approval from right higher up right?
And I think the CEO CEO actually made some comments about the issue today, which I'll probably cut into this video as we as I edited, so Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So the first question is, how are you doing?
I'm doing okay.
There's a lot of messages that I'm trying to sort through and just trying to figure out what I should do now, but, yeah, you've been given some interesting job offers.
Is Forest.
Yeah, I've got a surprising amount of support.
Yeah, well, I suspect in fact, I'm virtually certain that you have a majority viewpoint.
It's just that the people who hold the alternative perspectives, which are the radical social constructionists types who insist that everything is a consequence of socialization there, a little bit more organized politically.
But they're clearly wrong, scientifically that wrong, Factually.
They're wrong, ethically for that.
So So you You probably have more support than you think, and it will be very interesting to see how that turns out.
So So what do you think about having written this?
Are I mean now your life is going to be turned upside down, and for quite a while, I suspect I mean, so you put yourself out on the line doing this.
So what do you think about that?
Okay, it definitely sucks, but I At least I was proven right.
You know, when?
What do you mean by proven right?
Well, just that Behold, uh, culture just tries to silence any dissenting view and that we really need some more objective way of looking at these things.
Yeah, well, I felt the same way When the University of Toronto decided to no and attempt to shut me down after I made my videos, I thought, Well, that just proves my point because, I mean, I made the videos saying, Well, I don't like the climate that's developing, and it's making it very difficult to have conversations about certain things and your examples even more egregious, I think, because you know why at least objected to a piece of legislation that in principle would have been a benefit to unidentifiable group.
Let's say, transgender group.
I don't believe it is of any benefit to them, but you could make a case that it waas but you all you did.
As far as I can tell his review the border personality, literature and the literature on individual differences relating to men and women and that other groups.
And there's actually not very much opinion in your piece at all.
So what that is is that it is not possible to actually have a discussion about the scientific literature on these issues without putting yourself at risk.
And that's a hell of a thing for an engineer, because the engineers and rely on the facts.
As far as I can tell, one of the things I like about engineers is that they tend to stick very closely.
Didn't facts that they're not a very political group, you know, Generally speaking, they're much more practical.
Yeah, I I don't know how they can expect a silence.
So many engineers than intelligent people and just deny science like this.
Yeah, well, the question, too, is what are your supporters within Google going to do?
Because, you know, I would say you're a great warning man, because use you showed what happened.
You showed exactly what happens if you have enough.
I don't know what you call it.
Curiosity and courage, I suppose, But But mostly curiosity toe lay out what you think for discussion.
I mean, even if you open this conversation, you said that you know, you weren't jumping up and down and insisting you were right.
You were trying to lay out what you understood from doing a fair bit of reading and make the case that the these facts, the facts about the differences between men and women and employment, choice and payment and all that aren't being discussed.
And they're not being discussed Me, we know their example.
I don't put this citation in them description.
It's been very difficult for the Swedes, for example, to flatten out the gender distribution for engineers in Sweden and end in the Scandinavian countries in general, despite their advanced social engineering.
Let's call it, and they also can't get male nurses.
You know, I think it's four out of five nurses in Scandinavia, if I remember correctly, are female in the reverse number are our engineers are male, and you know that seems to be associated with this quite well founded.
Um, scientific observation that women tilt towards interesting people and men tilt towards interest in things and that that's associated with testosterone exposure in utero.
This is science, you know.
It isn't anybody beating an ideological trump because most of the people I would say that most of the people who are publishing this would have bean even happier had it turned out the other way.
You know, the findings actually run contrary to their biases, because academia is generally full of people whose biases are left.
And now and then, you know, scientific findings emerged to dispute, um, ideological proposition.
Certainly the case with the role of biology versus society in establishing gender differences.
So the science is very credible.
It doesn't mean it's completely beyond dispute.
But that's not the point either, because your survey was actually pretty decent survey off the current state of affairs with regards to individual differences that doesn't need this.
Right.
So Okay, so what?
What do you hear?
What does your family think about all this?
Yeah, they definitely support May, but they don't really know what I should do from here.
They don't want me toe.
Just go to a ton of news corporations and do all these interviews and stuff.
And because they just want to twist whatever I say towards their agenda, too.
It's not really clear what I should be doing.
Yeah, well, there's certainly no shortage of people that want to talk to you.
I mean, I've been contacted by 45 journalists who would like to speak with you.
We can talk about that afterwards, I could let you know who they are, but yeah, well, you've got a You've got a conundrum on your hands.
No, I mean your Europe, your ah, very straightforward person.
And you're obviously not grinding any acts, at least not in any order this way.
So my suspicions are that talking to the right people could be of substantial use to you, but I guess it also depends on what it is that you want.
I mean, not something we could talk about.
Now you've you've You've rattled up the cages of affairs of people and a fairly large organization.
Interestingly enough, just on the heels of Google and YouTube's announcement about the new free speech restrictions on on YouTube, you know, and they're inc of NGOs into that sensor said process.
So it's been quite a week for Google.
Lawyer would say.
So you've opened up this can of worms.
What is it?
So imagine if you're looking six months down the road and say and things happened that were good because of what you did.
What is it that you would like to have happen Uh, at the very least, I want because I do still care about Google.
I want some conversation to be had and for the ideologues did not just have their way, but yeah, I still don't have a clear vision on how exactly this will happen.
Yeah, how?
How this can spread farther than just google.
Well, have you spread farther?
Didn't just Google, that's for sure.
You know, I mean, I would say my experience is with the press is that the first thing that happens that will happen is that you'll get jumped on by people who call you the sorts of epithets that would be appropriate if you were a bad guy and you should just shut up and go away.
Okay, that's already happened, but I think you're gonna get through that real quick because I went through your your writings, which are not a screen, by the way and are certainly North and Diversity Street.
I went to the writings and and I can't see anything there that identifies you as the sort of person that could be easily in permanently tarred with a hateful epithets.
But, you know, it's logical for the public.
Let's say, including the media, to jump on someone like you when they blow a whistle, because the first thing that you might presume if someone's causing trouble is that there's something wrong with them.
So then you have to sort of beat them a while with the idea that there's something wrong with him to see what happens.
And so the first thing is, you have to withstand that.
But they don't seem to be any smoking pistols in your background.
So, for example, you were on ideal Google employees.
Well, that protects you a lot, and you don't have a history of this off any sort of trouble making.
And you have a soul and educational background and you're clearly a reasonable person.
And so the first then uses just to steal yourself to get through that.
And then what?
I think if you do talk to media organizations and especially if you talk to them the way that you're talking to me, which is extraordinarily Calman composed, then you're going to reveal yourself even more as a reasonable person and the press overall will start to shift behind you.
And I think the reason for that is one thing you gotta remember about the press is that when push comes to shove, they're actually rather in favor of free speech.
Yeah, given that without it, they would be Dan.
So I don't think like I don't think that you have to worry about being exploited and twisted by media sources.
I actually think that it might be to your advantage to talk to people.
You know, you can figure out who those people are, but you're just not the kind of person that could be easily transformed into a villain.
And the more that you could demonstrate that the better it might be, You know, for the cause that you're engaged in, but also for yourself.
Yeah.
So what?
So like, how are you feeling about this emotionally?
You must be in a bit of a state of shock.
Yeah, It's been a stressful week for sure.
Uh, but I'm not feeling too negative about it.
Yeah, I hasn't fully it.
May I don't think Yeah, well, it won't.
Because God only knows what's gonna happen to you over the next few weeks, right?
It's gonna be a real roller coaster.
And you know the other thing that you might consider is that it's possible that this will turn out extraordinarily positive for you.
You know, there's gonna be it's gonna be a rough ride, but to the degree that you were accurate in your observations, then you know it's not that easy to.
It's not that easy for the opponents of truth to have a battle with truth.
It's not easy have about reality, you know, toe live.
So can I go over some of the things that you stand so we can discuss that, sir?
Okay, so I'm going to take a look here.
So you started with pretty good solo statement, I've been say, Google's political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety.
But shaving into science is the antithesis of psychological safe.
Well, that seems even more relevant now.
Your science has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas air too sacred to be honestly discussed.
Well, check that one off too.
Right?
Certainly seems to indicate that it was the case.
The lack of discussion Foster is the most extreme an authoritarian elements of this ideology.
Some of the extremely in stream is all disparities and representation.
Or do the impression that's a good one, right?
That's a unit variant hypothesis.
It's very, very simple minded.
And then the authoritarian element you defined as the idea we should discriminate to correct for this oppression.
Great.
And then you make a claim just difference in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, bound for business.
Okay, so that's your thesis, and then you go along and try to justify it.
So the first thing you do is talk about left wing versus right wing biases, and I should point out that you don't concentrate on the left biases or on the right biases.
You're completely even handed with regards to laying out the pros and cons.
So the left of passion for the week disparities air do the injustices.
Humans are inherently cooperative changes good slash unstable, open and idealistic.
Fair enough man Dan on with regards to the relevant psychological literature where we see that political correctness is motivated by agreeableness and that liberalism is fundamentally predicted by opens and the right biases, respect for authority.
Disparities.
Air natural, unjust humans are inherently competitive.
Changes dangerous, stable.
That would be high conscientiousness and low openness.
And they're closed rather than open and pragmatic rather than idealised.
Yeah, well, I don't think any reasonable person could read that.
Call him and say that you were coming down hard on the side of either part of the political spectrum.
Yeah.
Dr.
Peterson, can I jump in with a question?
It appears from my interactions with many people that they are projecting words that were not written onto the paper.
And would you be able to elaborate on the ski mas that people develop and how they classify information in their minds?
Because this is very much how Steri attacks form, I would think, is by kind of just grouping a bunch of disparate but semi related people or things together and then projecting an idea that may or may not pertain to that.
Yeah, well, it's a It's a low resolution thought issue.
I mean, what what's happened to James is that he No, he he put up his hand and said, Wait a second.
I don't agree with the diversity ideology, and he was immediately classified essentially was misogynist and bigot.
And that's the simplest thing to do, right, because misogynists and bigots will hold viewpoints that are anti female and racist.
And so it's a lot easier just to paint someone with a broad brush, especially if they're violating the tenants of your implicit temperament.
Let's say that it is to dive into the details where Riel thought occurs.
And I think one of the sins that James committed was that he actually dared to make this about details rather than about vague, hand waving ideology.
That's very annoying to people who don't want to think in order to analyze his claims.
You'd have to go through well, let's say 20 or 30 scientific papers and actually understand what they mean.
And that's very annoying, especially if you're pursuing a given agenda.
So okay, so then you say neither side is 100% correct, and both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society or in this case company.
Yeah, well, I think the data is solo they're doing in.
Our research has indicated that open people who are primary liberals, start companies and the more closed people, the conservatives, the traditionalists are good at running them.
They're better at building managers and and administrators that's associated with high conscientious.
So you've got it right there.
A company too far to the right, maybe too slow to react over a higher lar, hierarchical and untrusting.
And a company too far to the left will be well over.
Just diversify its interests already trust its employees and competitors and changed perhaps too rapid.
Yeah, great, fine, perfect, Nicely balanced.
As far as I can tell, only facts and reasons can shed light on these biases.
But when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google's left bias has created the politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by a shaming dissenters into silence.
Well, that certainly seems to be the case.
Okay, this silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist in authoritarian policies.
All right, Google were regularly told that implicit, unconscious and explicit vices are holding women back in tech and leadership.
Of course, men and women experience bias tech and the workplace differently.
We should be cognizant of it, but it's far from the whole story.
On average, men and women biologically different.
In many ways, these aren't just socially constructed because they're universal across cultures, clear biological causes.
Links to pre natal testosterone, biological males, castor that birth and raised his females often still identify and act like males.
The underlying traits are highly heritable, and they're exactly what we would predict from evolutionary psychology.
Perspective.
No, I'm not saying that all man different from women in the following ways, or that these differences are just.
And then you put in a nice chart indicating that the amount of overlap between men and women hurt.
Trade is greater than the amount of difference, right?
So you state that directly, that's that's perfect.
That's a very good way of defending your thesis and also of not overstating the case.
Then you do a nice job off of also graphically indicating what happens if the distribution is ignored and people are just treated as if their unit polar representatives of a given group, which is kind of what the day with the people who are predicating the push for diversity on gender and race are assuming right, Yeah, which is which is really so funny because it's really a biologically essential ist argument much, much greater than then.
Then the argument that you're making which is that men and women and the members of different races are so different that in order for a full diversity of viewpoint to be achieved, you have to pull in people by race and gender, which which implicitly states that the differences are so great that the distribution stole over mine.
Yeah, you couldn't make a more racist and misogynist statement than that.
And it's also technically wrong because men and women are more alike than they are different.
Maybe if you summed up all the differences you could absolutely differentiate between, you know, in all likelihood you could.
But some of those differences are could've irrelevant to the workplace.
Okay, then you go through the personality difference literature, and you're exactly right on.
Now I see that the CEO took you to test for using the word neuroticism.
However, that is the technical term in the personality, literature and their historical reasons.
For that, a better word might be negative emotion.
But it's clearly the case that women are higher negative emotion than men, and that needs that they are, on average, less tolerant of uncertainty and stress.
They suffer more psychologically for equivalent levels of uncertainty and stress.
And that is also why cross culturally, women have more depressive disorders and anxiety.
This works, and the research on that is rock soul rock.
Solid men have their own problems, right?
They're more likely to be antisocial.
They're much more likely to be imprisoned.
They're more likely to have learning disabilities.
So it's stating that there are differences in the rates of certain kinds of psychopathology.
Is doesn't put any, either gender into a position of relative inferiority.
Eso.
And then you quote research that suggests that greater nation level gender equal leads to psychological dissimilarity, dissimilarity in men and women's personality traits.
Absolutely.
That's what the Scandinavian studies indicate.
There's been a number of them, and they're very large stones.
So you got that right.
But what the researchers demonstrated was that as come come as, um, countries moved to flatten out the socioeconomic playing field and remove discrimination, the differences between men and women or many of the differences between men and women, maximize instead of minimizing.
And in Scandinavia, you really see maximization of the difference in men and women with regards to interest in people, vs interest in things, a major about your issue men's higher drive for status.
Yeah, well, we know that women are hyper gone missing, that they choose men on the basis of their socioeconomic status.
Right?
Well documented cross cultural.
And also just rational.
Because women have to make themselves dependent when they are pregnant and when they have infants.
That makes perfect sense for them to seek out the most confident person they could manage the most confident and generous person they could manage in order to help them bear the burden.
So so not no, no dispute there at least.
No, you're not, um, diverting from the central tenets of evolutionary psychology and biology, people will just take those findings.
But you're not conjuring this out of thin air.
There's a nice, solid scientific literature behind so and, you know, it is also very interesting to look at the U.
S.
Labor stance on gender differences in occupations, you know, because it's so funny to watch the radical feminists only go after the high status occupations like 100% of bricklayers are now way.
Don't hear that being being complained about.
And of course, men occupied most of the outside jobs they move or and they won't do more of the dangerous Jones as well.
So So These are all factors that are relevant but completely undiscussed, as far as I could tell by the sort of ideological types that have bean going after you.
So women are, on average, more cooperative, especially with members of their in group.
Whether they're more cooperative members of their out group is a different story, right, because agreeable people are in group oriented and very hard on our group members, which I think it's partly why the PC types are so hard on their enemies.
Because, you know, guard that most predators predators on infants essentially something like that.
Women on average are more prone to anxiety.
Yes, that's true.
Women on average, look for more work life balance.
That seems to be the case.
I don't know if the literature on now this is tight, you know.
But it's certainly the case that law firms, for example, have a hell of a time keeping their women in partnership positions because most of them don't want to work the 60 hour work week, 16 80 hour work weeks that are necessary to performance out that extremely high level Dr Peterson.
For anybody who might be new listening in, you mentioned that a lot of women might not be interested in working those 60 to 80 hour workweeks.
Do you think it makes sense to expand upon that just a little bit?
I know you talked to her to me, but you've also mentioned the thing about why would anybody want todo no matter what gender is, we got to get the mystery right here.
The mystery isn't why there are a bunch of people who are low status because almost everyone's low status, comparatively speaking, great men and women like it's a small minority of people were high status on any dimension, and they tend to be hyper successful and they tend to be men.
So you see this in a scientific publishing, for example, so the median professor male publishes as much as the median professor female.
But the vast majority of the high publishing people are males, and that seems to be because there are small percentage of males who are very status seeking, very focused, very energetic and very much prone to put their career first.
And part of the theory for why that is is that some men, Yeah, that the the evolutionary and sexual tradeoff for men with regards to high status is much higher than it is for women.
So there's good documentation.
I confined these references to that the number of sexual partners or opportunities that a man has in previous years, tightly associated with the socioeconomic status, whereas the number of partners or opportunities for part right that a woman has negatively correlated with her status.
And that might be partly because high status women who are looking for either even higher status men priced themselves out of the mating market.
And there's actually a pretty good documentation of that as well.
So So you're fine.
You're fine with all of that.
The harm of gun was biases.
To achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices.
Programs, mentoring and class is only for people with a certain gender race, Ah, 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.
Yeah, that's a big problem.
Either have standards or you don't the processes that if the standards produce a non equitable.
Oh, come then.
What happens is people criticize the standards, and that would be fine if if the standards board no relationship to the job.
But the problem is, is that if you have your hiring practices set up halfway intelligently and it's never perfect, you're actually hiring for attributes.
Step would make job effectiveness much more likely.
Yeah.
So how did you come across all this information?
Part of it was through that diversity summit and just looking through all the stuff that we have online or in through our internal sites.
Yeah.
So you're doing a fair bit of litter to review.
Yeah.
Yeah.
These practices are based on false assumptions generated by our viruses that can actually increase race and gender tensions.
Yeah, well, the whole unconscious bias thing is a great example of that is like first of all, those tests the implicit association test are nowhere near reliable or valid enough, so nowhere near the quality necessary to diagnose anyone as having a unconscious bias.
Second, the second, the data relating those so called unconscious biases to actual behavior is weak.
Third, there's no evidence whatsoever that anti unconscious bias training programs have any positive effect whatsoever and some that they have negative effect part because people don't like to be called Racists on and marched off the forest Re education training.
So suggestions demoralized diversity.
Yeah, that would be good and start to define it more appropriately, right?
Yeah, And just just start having a real conversation about what proper hiring practices should be, which should be objective standards universally employed without bias.
Because that is the best we could do that that's still going to introduce some non equal outcomes.
But of course, hiring practices they're designed to do that for exactly.
Clearly designed to reward more intelligent people.
Having that, I was hardly irritable.
But that's actually a real problem.
Yeah, and we definitely set up hiring practices to reward conscientious people.
So and what are when?
What about propensity to negative emotion?
It seems to me that screening for stress tolerance is a reasonable thing to do in high stress jobs unless you want to put the person in a position where they're likely to collapse to be miserable.
I don't see any utility.
And now, Dr Peterson, I had a question actually relating to that from an employment standpoint.
Is there an optimum sensitivity to stress that you've seen from the most economically productive employees?
By that?
I mean, I feel like there's a middle ground between people who are laid back versus people who are probably overstimulated by external factors that make them self conscious.
And these people, I think, at least, that the lower mid levels of many companies actually have a little bit more anxiety that powers their ascension through the dominance hierarchy.
Yeah, well, it's a tricky issue, because you're probably this sort of negative emotion that might be useful in motivating you is probably more associated with conscientiousness than with neuroticism like neuroticism seems to be late, pretty tightly to anxiety and emotional pain.
Frustration, disappointment, grief.
Those off sort of fit into that those categories, whereas the negative emotion, perhaps that's associated with conscientiousness and and industriousness in particular seems to be more something like self contempt and disgust and so conscientious people are made uncomfortable by their lack of productive effort.
But that doesn't seem to be associated with trade neuroticism.
It's a different thing, so that's probably why it's so necessary to get the cycle metrics right, right and to get the get the measurements right?
So the best hiring the best hiring screeners are Big five personality tests, roughly speaking, especially weighted towards conscientiousness and for complex jobs and general cognitive ability test.
Although there's some question about the legality of those in the current political situation.
So all alienating conservatives is both known inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be hired conscientiousness, which is required for much of the judge, jury and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company?
Yes, absolutely.
So now here's what you suggest.
Confront Google's biases.
Well, you've done that.
You've seen how that went.
I would start by breaking down.
Google is scores by political orientation and personality to give a fuller picture into our Howard.
Viruses are affecting our culture.
That's a fine idea.
Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders.
Air races.
Yes, well, obviously having open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.
Well, I guess that's what we're trying to do right now.
Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is misguided and biases mandating increases for women's representation, homeless work related violence, s prisons and school dropouts.
Yes, it's the same thing.
It's the same issue as the bricklayer issues.
Well, what you gonna do?
You chase the nurses out of the women out of nursing and Madison and psychology and social work and and university undergraduate programs where they're radically overrepresented.
So what about Jews?
You can get rid of them to their override.
Representative.
Most complex occupations and Asians as well.
So are you on that?
You're only gonna do this in very limited circumstances.
Gonna figure out some way to put a limit on that, are you?
Seems very unlikely.
I almost wonder what the A.
D.
L is you know will be thinking 66 months from now or 12 months from now.
Given the high number of recent United States Ashkenazi Jews in leadership positions at companies that are advert advocating for less of themselves or less people who are in the bucket that they're in.
Yeah, well, as long as the discussion centers on the overrepresentation of white men, people seem to have no problem.
But you start to break that down a little bit.
And because Jewish white men are particularly overrepresented.
That's why we're gonna make an issue out of that.
Really, we're gonna do that so that Asians are already having a harder time getting into universities.
So that's well documented.
So and that that's a terrible thing, partly because of the cost to the individuals involved that also the cost of society, because it means that we're not taking the people who are most competent and allowing them to expand their education to the greatest degree possible.
And because there aren't that smart, competent people are actually rather rare.
And it's two societies advantage to exploit the hell out of them and, you know, pay the well for now.
But it's not like they're of no benefit.
And everyone knows that when they tried to hire someone confident, de emphasize empathy.
Yes, empathy is a good ethic for small family units and a terrible ethic to run a company by.
It looks like conscientiousness is the right ethic to run a company, I think conscientiousness, we don't have good animal Mormons for conscientious man se, but I think conscientiousness probably evolved so that human beings could could operate in groups that were larger than just kin sized, you know, because inequity makes sense at Akin level every month.
Children, too, have a good outcome in life once resources distributed equally between them.
So it's not like it's something that doesn't have a niche.
Micro prioritized intentions are focused on micro aggressions, et cetera and other unintentional transgressions.
Increases are sensitive.
You do a nice job of criticizing now I read.
Darryl Wing Sues Book on Microaggression It's an appalling.
It's an appalling load of trite, to put it bluntly.
And that leaves Scott.
Lilian Sound, who's a very good psychologist, has recently published a paper shredding the the construct validity of the concept of micro Gresh.
So it's a nonviolent construct right from the bottom up.
It's purely ideological in nature, and it's also one of those constructs that allows anyone who's offended, too, to weaponize their recognize discourse around it.
So we consider making unconscious training bias training mandatory for promotion.
Two minutes.
Yeah, that should not be considered.
It should be stopped.
There's no scientific basis whatsoever for proceeding with that operation so great.
Well, you know, it's a pretty straightforward document as far as I'm concerned, and I've gone through it with a fairly fine tooth comb as a behavioral scientist and I would like to state for the record that I believe that what you said in there, if not accurate, was at least representative of the current state of art.
Um oh, well trained Psychometric Lee informed psychologists who are experts in the field of individual difference.
So congratulations.
You have a such a price for it.
All right, Well, thank you very much for the conversation.
Oh, what a question.
Why did you agree to talk to me?
I I'm a huge fan, so I know that you went through a similar being.
Any influence on this mean you're gonna pay up?
Actually, I'm not sorry.
I'd like to say I was sorry, but I'm no, actually really cleans.
I do think that you're going to be a pay a big price for this, but the next concert prince will be very caused it And I I I think you did an excellent job on this document.
I think you were very careful.
I think the fact that you're being labeled with epithets and that you were fired is absolutely reprehensible.
You know, it's clear to me that you're just trying to figure out what the hell's going on and that you know, you're not You're not any of the things that people would like to think you are so that they don't have to bloody well think about what it is that you said it did.
So, like, congratulations to you, courageous people are rare.
And you put yourself on the line and I really learned out the last year, so I would say, Keep your head up, assume that this is gonna work out.
I wouldn't hide from the press because I think the press is actually you're the right kind of person for the press to be something for you to use.
You know, you're well spoken quiet.
You're you're you're convincing, irrational.
You're obviously at least you come across as a decent guy.
Very, very rapidly.
Um, there's no reason I would say there's no reason not to let people see who you are, because I think that would improve your credibility and make your message even more powerful.
So you think No doubt.
I mean, you're you are have every right to defend your privacy, you know?
But yeah, and that's fine.
But I don't think that you have any reason to be afraid of the press.
I would say a couple of Spain's when you're talking to the press.
Don't apologize.
Don't tell people what you're not.
Don't tell them that, you know, get Nick Anonymous sergeants.
That's a technical error.
And stick to your damn guns, you know, as as quietly and forthrightly as you can.
And, man, you're gonna come out on top of this because you're you're on the side of the right as far as I'm concerned.