hello so some of you may have heard
about the leaked Google memo that is
been circulating virally around the
internet for the last couple of days
that was written by James d'amour who
was fired for last night and 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 all so that's what we're going to do
with the interview I had with him which
finished at about 3 o'clock on Tuesday
August 8 follows immediately after this
introduction hi everybody I'm speaking
today with James d'amour and an
unidentified Google employee who wishes
to remain anonymous reasons that I think
are obvious and James last week put his
hand in a blender by 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 about what you
were doing at Google I yes so 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 one there coding
competition they just recruited me out
of that and so at Google I was mostly
working on search and image and video
search in particular
so what's tell us about your educational
background a bit I guess so I just did
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
started doing research at MIT
and then I went to a systems biology at
Harvard
I initially wanted to work with Markovic
she's really great in evolution and game
theory but then I started working on
other things so tell us a bit about
systems biology what what is that
exactly what kind of research were you
doing at MIT I yes a distance biology
has many different meanings but it's
generally just mathematical biology and
I guess seeing biological systems as a
whole rather than just individual
molecules and so I like looking at
population and so my interest in
evolution so why did that a viable
candidate and Google do you think uh I
think they just saw a smart guy that
could code fair enough now you've been
out three years is that correct but also
as new turned before that yeah so about
four years total sure how would you say
you performed as an employee you want
people being happy with you or if you
didn't together no I got promoted twice
my last review was the highest possible
superb which is the top few percentile
so I definitely wasn't based on
performance that they fired me and have
you enjoyed working at Google it should
be a good experience yeah I love Google
that's horrible part like I've always
been the biggest Google fanboy all like
I've never had an iPhone I always try to
convince my friends to use Android and
all these different things and yeah I
mean this just puts a sour taste in my
mouth okay so so you'd go to a good
educational backgrounds you were
interested in things that Google would
be interested in you're good coder
you've worked with them for a number of
years done an excellent job
you're pretty girl Google that's
basically the background yeah okay now
last week you wrote a memo which is
attracted a tremendous amount of
attention and then that memo
you made a number of claims and the
claims were and please correct me if
I've got this for not summarizing this
property you were attempting to describe
reasons why there might why a lack of
gender parity might exist within Google
for example and with an engine
engineering or broadly and also in
occupations more broadly and yeah you
laid out a very elaborated document 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 webpage
about gender differences in general but
I'll try to hit the highlights for this
particular document so why did you do
this
uh yeah so about a month and a half ago
I went to one of our diversity summits
all the unrecorded and super-secret and
they told me a lot of things that I
thought just were not right okay what I
mean unrecorded in super secret well
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
or Dildar are a system yeah basically
oh I see and so and it was ultra secret
and unrecorded in what manner uh yes I
most meetings at Google I recorded
anyone at 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 low-key
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 you know they would
really
of bringing up some criticism yes a
large number of people in Google and a
very large number of well-informed
biological scientists we may also add so
I mean ask I was quite struck by your
document given that no it would have
been a decent document for a
well-informed psychologists research
psychologist too right but here's
somewhat of an outsider but you got that
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 gold correct yeah and what would
I need to uh well so that and 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 what do you mean I don't work
should be precisely I more women or
underrepresented racial minorities guys
you know can I jump in yeah I am I
I would hesitate to say that that's a
hundred percent true across 100 percent
right so the organization that I'm in I
have not personally seen anything that I
would deem cross the line um 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 and 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 it would not apply to everybody
well yeah that's number one it's
certainly also distressing to hear that
there is acceptance of the idea that
diversity can be mapped on to race and
gender especially with regards to
performance because there's no evidence
for that whatsoever so okay so you
to this meeting and then you decided to
write this document and um how long had
you be working on it before he released
it yeah so 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 you know it's what I was
saying was right and something bad is
happening
and so yeah about a month ago I
submitted to feedback to that program
and you know I saw that people looked at
it but no one actually said anything -
butch lemon 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 it got viral and then
week two the news that Google started
caring okay so how did he go viral and
you know and how was it leaked uh yeah
so I there's a group at Google called
skeptics and so I was like okay maybe
they'll be able to prove me wrong some
way like they're skeptical about things
right
I wasn't naive like it and so I sent
them a message like okay what do you
think about this is Google in some sort
of echo chamber I'm eyeing an echo
chamber and you know then it just
exploded after that and you are internal
yet it was just spread throughout all of
Google do you and you know with the feat
was the skeptics group just started to
spread it around yeah and then there are
a lot of upper management that uh you
know specifically called it out and
started saying how farm full it is and
how is unacceptable this sort of
viewpoint is not allowed at Google yeah
what sort of you find exactly the idea
that there are differences between men
and women that actually might play a
role in in in the corporate world got
definite opinion that's not acceptable
yes same
well it 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 can
tell there isn't anything that you said
in that paper first of all that is in
fact biased in a manner 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 are
rather distressing yeah and there's a
lot of misrepresentation by upper
management just to silence me I think
yes and why is that do you think like
why why is it that google couldn't
actually you think that google couldn't
promote and have an intelligent
discussion about this instead of well
first of all releasing but Danny I read
Danielle Browns response to you which I
thought was absolutely appalling
ill-informed and appalling and then they
fired you which seems to be like really
bad PR room 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 case was that I was
perpetuating gender stereotypes that you
were perpetuating gender stereotypes
yeah and did they say anything else
about your performance or about anything
else that you'd done no there wasn't
that was the only reason and who fired
you technically it was my HR
representative and my director okay and
you ended deep do you have any idea on
whose orders they were acting or if this
was something that they conjured up
themselves or I'm sure it probably went
from higher up than that because and
this is a huge PR move so they we 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
use how are you doing I'm doing okay I
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 can give it some interesting
job offers as far as I feel yep I've
gotten at rising amount of the part yeah
well I suspect I'm sacked I'm virtually
certain that you have a majority view
point it's just that the people who hold
the alternative perspective which are
the radical social constructionist types
who exist in everything is a consequence
of socialization there are a little bit
more organized politically but they're
clearly wrong scientifically they're
wrong factually they're wrong ethically
for that matter so so 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 or 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 of line doing
this so what do you think about that it
it definitely sucks but at least I was
proven right
you know when what do you need my group
right well just that the whole 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 with
University of Toronto decided to no
attempt to shut me down after I made my
videos I thought well that just proves
my point this is I mean I made the
videos saying well I don't like the
climate that's developing it's making it
very difficult to have conversations
about certain things and your examples
even more egregious I think because you
know I at least objected to a piece of
legislation that in principle would have
been a benefit to an identifiable group
let's say the irons gender group I don't
believe it is of any benefit to them but
you could make a case that it was but
you all you
as far as I can tell is review the
modern personality literature and the
literature on individual differences
relating to men and women and 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 risk not to
hell of a thing for engineer because the
engineers and rely on the facts as far
as I can tell and one of the things I
like about engineers is that they tend
to stick very closely to the facts
they're not a very political group you
know generally speaking they're much
tactical yeah I don't know how they can
expect to silence
so many engineers and intelligent people
and to deny science like this yeah well
the question to is what are your
supporters within Google going to do
because you know I would say you're a
great warning man because you you showed
what happens 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 to lay
out what you think for discussion we
need to open this conversations you said
that you know you weren't jumping up and
down in existing you were right you were
trying to lay out what you understood
from doing the fair bit of reading and
and and make the case that see 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 I mean we know that example I
don't put this citation in the
description it's been very difficult for
the Swedes for example to flatten out
the gender distribution for engineers
and Sweden and it ended and 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
in Scandinavia if I remember correct
they are female and the reverse number
our our engineers are male and you know
that seems to be associated with this
quite well founded scientific
observation that women tilt towards
interesting people and men tilt towards
interesting things and that that's
associated with testosterone exposure in
utero this is a science you know an
attack isn't anybody beating and
ideological drum because most of the
people I would say that most of the
people who are publishing this would
have been 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 laughs and now
and then you know scientific findings
emerge to dispute an ideological
proposition that's certainly the case
with 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
of the current state of affairs with
regards to individual differences that
doesn't mean that right so okay so what
what are you buddy or what is your
family think moto this yeah they
definitely support me but they don't
really know what I should do from here
they don't want me to you know 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 to it's 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 four or five
journalists who would like to speak with
you we can talk about that afterwards I
could let you know who they are but um
yeah well you've got a you've got a
conundrum on your hands no I mean you're
Europe you're a very straightforward
person
and you're obviously not grinding any
axe at least not in any obvious way so
mice
missions 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 me that's something
we can talk about now you you you
rattled up the cages of a fair good as
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 their
incorporation of NGOs into that
censorship process so it's been quite a
week for Google I 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 happen
that we're 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 if we had and for
the ideologues to not just have their
way but yeah I still don't have a clear
vision on how exactly this will happen
you know how how this can spread farther
than just Google well you spend farther
than just Google that's for sure yeah
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 going to get through that
real quick because I went through your
your writings which are not a stream by
the way and are certainly not as a
diversity street a way to have your
writings and and I can't see anything
there that identifies you as the sort of
person that can be easily impairment
leotard with the hateful epithet 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 awhile with the idea that there's
something wrong with them 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 an
ideal Google employee well that protects
you a lot and you don't have a history
of this of any sort of troublemaking and
you have a solid educational background
and you're clearly a reasonable person
and so the first thing is is just to
steel yourself to get through that and
then what happened I think if you do
talk to media organisations and
especially if you talk to them the way
that you're talking to me which is
extraordinarily calm and 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 got to remember about the
press is that when push comes to shove
they're actually rather in favor of free
speech that given them without it they
would be dead click that 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
can be easily transformed into a villain
and the more that you can 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 I would say yeah it's
been a stressful week for sure
but I'm not feeling too negative about
it yet I hasn't fully hit me I don't
think yeah well it won't because God
knows what's going to happen to you over
the next few weeks right it's going to
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 going to be it's
going to be a rough ride but to the
degree that you are accurate in your
observations then you know it's not that
easy to do it's not that easy for the
opponents of truth to have a battle with
truth it's not even how about that
reality you know you to live so can I go
over some of the things that you said so
that we can discuss that sir today so
I'm going to take a look Pierce so you
started with a pretty good solid
statement I would say Google's political
bias has equated the Freedom From events
with psychological safety but shaming
into silence is the antithesis of
psychological safe well that seems even
more relevant now you're at Intuit yeah
the sign a sign is creating an ideologue
evil echo chamber where some ideas are
too sacred to be honestly discussed well
I checked I went off to write an entire
arena certainly seems to indicate that
with the case the lack of discussion
process is the most extreme and
authoritarian elements of this ideology
some of the extreme the extreme is all
disparities in representation or do you
oppression that's a good one right
that's as univariate hypothesis it's
very very simple-minded mmm-hmm 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 and
tech and leadership discrimination to
reach equal representation is unfair
divisive and bad 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 - if you're completely even-handed
its regards to laying out the pros and
cons so the left death passion for the
weak disparities are Delian justices
humans are inherently Crawford it
changes good / unstable open an
idealistic they're not men you get 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 openness and
the right biases respect for authority
disparities are natural adjust humans
are inherently competitive changes
dangerous stable that would be high
conscientiousness low openness and
they're closed rather than open and
pragmatic rather than idealist yeah well
I don't think any reasonable person can
read that column 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
um it appears from my interactions with
many people that they are projecting
words that were not written on to the
paper and would you be able to elaborate
on the schemas that people develop and
how they classify information in their
minds because this is very much how
stereotypes 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 low-resolution thought
issue I mean what's happened to James is
that he you know he 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
as misogynist and bigoted and that's the
simplest thing to do right because
misogynists and biggest 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 than it is to dive into the
details where real 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 ideologies
that's very annoying to people who don't
want to think because in order to
analyze his claims you'd have to go
through well let's say twenty or thirty
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
solid there too I mean our research has
indicated that open people who are
primarily liberals start companies and
the more closed people the conservatives
the traditionalists are good at running
them they're better at letting managers
and administrators and that's associated
with high conscientiousness so you've
got it right there a company too far to
the right maybe too slow to react over a
hierarchical and untrusted and the
company can fire the left will be will
over this diversify its interests
already trusts its employees and
competitors and change perhaps too
rapidly yeah great point
perfect nicely balanced as far as I can
tell only facts and reasons can shed
light on these viruses but when it comes
to diversity and inclusion Google's left
bias has created the politically correct
monoculture that maintains its hold by
shaming dissenters into silence well
that certainly seems to be the case that
okay this silence removes any checks
against encroaching extremist and
authoritarian policies alright
at Google we regularly told that
implicit unconscious and explicit biases
are holding women back Kentucky
leadership of course men and women
experience bias tech and workplace
differently we should be cognizant of it
but it's far from the whole story on
average men and women biologically
differ in many ways these aren't just
socially constructed because they're
universal across cultures clear
biological causes links to prenatal
testosterone biological males castrating
at birth and raised as females often
still identify an act like males the
underlying traits are highly heritable
and they're exactly what we would
predict from the evolutionary psychology
perspective
no I'm not saying that all men differ
from women in the following ways or that
these differences are just and then you
put in a nice chart indicating that a
the amount of overlap between men and
women portrayed is greater than the
amount of difference right and so you
state that directly that's that's
perfect that's a very good way of
defending your thesis and also on not
overstating the case then you do a nice
job of also graphically indicating what
happens if the distribution is ignored
and people are just treated as if
they're unipolar representing them
something different group which is kind
of what the duck put the people who are
predicating the push for diversity on
gender and race are assuming right which
is implement is really so funny because
it's really a biologically essentialist
argument much much greater than that
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 model yeah
you couldn't make a more racist and
misogynist statement than that and it's
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 can absolutely
differentiate between you know in all
likelihood you could but some of those
differences are clearly irrelevant to
the workplace okay then you go through
the personality difference literature
and you're you're exactly right on that
I see that the CEO took you to task
for using the word neuroticism however
that is the technical term in the
personality literature and there are
historical reasons for that a better
word might be negative emotion but it's
clearly the case that women are higher
in negative emotion than men and that
means that they are on average less
tolerant of uncertainty and stress they
suffer more psychologically for
equivalent levels of uncertainty stress
and that is also why cross culturally
women have more depressive disorders and
anxiety disorders and the research on
now
rock solid rock solid men have their own
problems right they're more likely to be
antisocial they're much more likely to
be in prison
they're more likely to have learning
disabilities so it's stating that there
are differences in the race of certain
kinds of psychopathologies doesn't put
any pride of gender into a position of
relative inferiority so and then you
quote research that suggests that
greater nation level gender equality
leads to psychological dissimilarity if
similarity 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 studies so you got
that right but what does what the
researchers demonstrated was that as
calm as countries move to flatten out
the socio-economic 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 versus
interests and things a major graduation
man tired drive for status yeah well we
know that women are high pergamus and
that they choose men on the basis of
their socioeconomic status right well
document and cross culture and also just
rationale because women have to make
themselves dependent when they are
pregnant and when they have infants and
it makes perfect sense for them to seek
out the most competent person they can
manage the most common and generous
person they can manage in order to help
them bear the burden so so not no no
dispute there at least no you're not
diverting from the central tenets of
evolutionary psychology and biology
people will detest those fine but you're
not conjuring this out of thin air
there's a nice sort of scientific
literature behind you so and you know
it's also very interesting to look at
the US labor stats on gender differences
in occupations you know because
it's so funny to watch the radical
feminists only go after the high status
occupations that's like a hundred
percent of bricklayers or men we don't
hear that being being complained about
and of course men occupy most of the
outside jobs they move more and they
will do more of the dangerous jobs as
well so so these are all factors that
are irrelevant but completely
undiscussed as far as I can tell by the
sort of ideological types that have been
going after you so women are now is more
cooperative yeah especially with members
of their in-group whether they're more
cooperative with members of their out
group is a different story right because
agreeable people are in group oriented
and very hard on out group members which
i think is partly why the pc types are
so hard on their enemies because you are
them as predators predators on instance
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 that is tight you know but it's
certainly the case that law firms for
example how the hell did keeping their
women in partnership positions because
most of them don't want to work the
60-hour workweek 60 to 80 hour work
weeks that are necessary to performance
out that extremely high level and so dr.
Peterson for anybody who might be new
listening in you mentioned that a lot of
women might not be you know interested
in working there's a 60 to 80 hour work
week do you think would make sense to
expand upon that just a little bit I
know you talked through hypergamy um but
you've also mentioned the thing about
why would anybody want to do that no
matter what in gender is we got to get
the misters 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 right men
and women life it's a small kind of
minority of people who are high status
on any dimension and they tend to be
hyper successful and they tend to be men
so you see this in scientific publishing
so the median professor mail 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 a small
percentage of males who are very stout
to seek very focused very energetic and
and very much prone to put their career
first and part of the theories for why
that is that some men are that that that
the evolutionary and sexual trade-off
for men with regards to high status is
much higher than it is for women so
there's good documentation I can find
these references to that the number of
sexual partners or opportunities that a
man has in previous year is tightly
associated with the socioeconomic status
whereas the number of partners or
opportunities for partnering that a
woman has is 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 pretty good
documentation of that as well so so
you're fine you're fine with all of that
the harm of those biases to achieve a
more equal gender and race
representation Hoople has created
several discriminatory practices
programs mentoring in classes only for
people with a certain gender or race 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
yeah that's a big problem either have
standards or they don't the process is
that if the standards produce a non
equitable outcome then what happens is
people criticize the standards and that
would be fine 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 out to buttes that would make
job detecting this much more likely yeah
so how did you come across all this
information part of it was through that
versity summit and just looking through
all the stuff that we have online or
into our internal sites yes oh yeah
doing a fair bit of literature review
yeah yeah these practices are based on
false assumptions generated by our
biases and 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 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 the car because people
don't like to be called racists and
marched off to forestry education
training so suggestions demoralize
diversity yeah that would be good and
start to define it more appropriately
right then just to start having a real
conversation about what proper hiring
practices should be which should be
objective standards universally applied
without bias because that is the best we
can do that's still going to introduce
some non equal outcomes but of course
hiring practices are designed to do that
for exactly clearly designed to reward
more intelligent people Evan that is
highly heritable 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 the 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 ability it not dr.
Peterson I had a question actually
relating to that from an employment
standpoint is there an optimum
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 at the lower mid
levels of many companies actually have a
little bit more anxiety that powers
their ascension through the dominant
hierarchy
yeah well it's a tricky issue because
you're probably the sort of negative
emotion that might be useful in
motivating you is probably more
associated with conscientiousness fed
with neuroticism like neuroticism seems
to be late pretty tightly to anxiety and
emotional pain frustration
disappointment grief those all sort of
fit in those categories whereas the
negative emotion
perhaps that's associated with
conscientiousness 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 efforts but that doesn't seem
to be associated with trade neuroticism
it's a different thing so that's partly
why it's so necessary to get the cycle
metrics right right and to get the to
get the measurement right so the best
hiring the best hiring screeners are
committing five personality tests
roughly speaking especially weighted
towards conscientiousness and for
complex jobs and general cognitive
ability tests although there's some
question about the legality of those in
the current political situation
so all alienating conservatives is both
non inclusive and generally bad business
because conservatives tend to be higher
in conscientiousness which is required
for much of the jury 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
we've seen how that went I would start
by breaking down Google is Scoresby
political orientation and personality to
give a fuller picture into how our
biases are affecting our culture that's
a
find idea stop restricting programs and
clauses to certain genders or raises yes
well obviously I'm going on an honest
discussion about the costs and benefits
of our diversity programs well I guess
that's what we're trying to end right
now disseminating just to increase the
representation of women in tech is a
misguided and biases mandating increases
for women's representation homeless
work-related in violent deaths prisons
and school dropouts yes it's the same
thing it's the same issue as the
bricklayer issue as well and what are
you going to do is going to chase the
nurses out of women out of nursing and
men and psychology and social work and
add University undergraduate programs
where they're radically over-represented
so what about juniors you're going to
get rid of them too and they're
over-represented in most complex
occupations and Asians as well so or
your honor you're only going to do this
in very limited circumstance you're
going to figure out some way to put a
limit on that or you seems very unlikely
I almost wonder what the ADL is you know
we'll be thinking six six months from
now or twelve months from now given the
high number of at least in the United
States Austin rowser Jews in leadership
positions at companies that are
advocating for less of themselves or
less people who are in the budget that
they're in yeah well as long as the
discussion centers on the
over-representation 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
over-represented that's why we can make
an issue out of that really you're going
to do that so now 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 but also the cost
to 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 to society's
advantage to exploit the hell out of
them and you know pay them well for that
but it's not like they're of no benefit
and everyone knows that when they try to
hire someone confident de-emphasize
empathy yes
empathy is a good ethics 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 but I think
conscientiousness we don't have good
animal models for conscientious and say
but I think conscientiousness probably
evolved so that human beings could could
operate in groups that were larger than
just kin sighs you know because inequity
makes sense at a kid level every month
or children to have a good outcome in
life and once resources distributed
equally between them so it's not like
it's something that doesn't have a niche
Micro a prioritized intention our focus
on micro aggressions etc and other
unintentional transgressions increases
our sensitivity you do a nice job of
criticizing that I read Derald wing
Sue's book on micro aggression it's an
appalling
it's not calling loaded the trait to put
it lightly and that leaves got
Lilienfeld it's a very good psychologist
has recently published a paper shredding
the construct validity of the concept of
micro aggression so it's a non-violent
construct right from the bottom-up it's
purely ideological in nature and it's
also one of those constructs that allows
anyone who is offended to weaponize
their revenue discourse around it so the
rate consider making unconscious
training bias training mandatory for
promotion committees yeah that should
matter 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 very fine toothed comb out of the
behavioral scientists 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 among
well-trained psychometrically informed
psychologists who are experts in the
field of individual difference so
congratulations
yeah yeah I'd pay such a price for it
alright well thank you very much for the
conversation ah one last question why
did you agree to talk to me I
I'm a huge fan and I know that you went
through it similar thing being any
influence on this I mean you're going to
pay out actually I'm not sorry yeah I'd
like to say I was sorry but I'm not
actually really pleased that I I do
think that you're going to be a pea
being praised for this but that the net
consequence will be very positive and
I'm 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 the affair to me that you're
just trying to figure out what the hell
is going on and they 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 and did
so like congratulations to you and then
courageous people are rare and you put
yourself on the line and I really
learned that in the last year so I would
say keep your head up assume that this
is going to work out it 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 your well-spoken
apply it you're you're you're convincing
irrational um Europe obviously at least
you come across on a decent diet 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 best 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 a reason to be
afraid of the press I would say a couple
of things 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 how to get make
anonymous audience that's a technical
error and stick to your damn guns you
know as as quietly and forthrightly as
you can and now you're going to come out
on top of this because you're you're on
the side of the right as far as I'm
concerned