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The Yale Problem Begins in High School

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Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#281

Post by marincounty »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #190
curiousgeorgio wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason I keep two HN accounts - I fear that any political comments I make here could jeopardize my professional life (about which I contribute fairly often). Online, that's a fairly easy thing to manage. In real life, it means I really have to walk on eggshells a lot, and I seldom participate in voicing my opinions (or supporting certain causes) in which I'd otherwise participate, solely out of fear. In m…

I do this too. I found it almost impossible to post on my account under my own name, on any topic about psychology, politics, economics, or diversity because I am too afraid of what I've said being taken out of context later, or used against me in ways I can't anticipate now. I found myself frequently writing a post, only to delete it shortly afterward, worrying that it was somehow too risky. In today's climate, you…

"I have been wanting to propose that HN or some site like it offer a feature where you can switch your post to "Anonymous Coward" later, if it proves to be too controversial. Or post as "Anonymous Coward", and later assign the post to your name if you feel OK about how the discussion turned out."

1. I've thought about this too.

2. I don't think it's possible because Google indexes these comments at lightning speed.

3. I used to wonder why HN only allows a user to delete for a specified period of time(a few minutes?). I think it's because of Google?

4. I have never used my real name on the Internet. Wait, I did have a Facebook account, but changed my real name years ago. I would like to use my real name, but just don't want to be taken out of context. Or, never forgiven fir having a bad day.

5. I would like to see the day where the IP owner can delete anything indexed by Google, or any database, but that will probably never happen.

6. People on here know the risks of posting under your real name, but the average person doesn't have a clue. They post away with a false sense of impunity.

7. What scares me most about the Internet never forgetting is what if a website decided to post your IP to your house number?

8. Then again 99.99 percent of the stuff I say, I believe strongly. It's just we need to play the phoney game in real life.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#282

Post by ps4fanboy »

HN suffers from this problem, and I have found it increasing over time. Sometimes I am afraid to upvote certain stories or comments as I fear the hidden moderators can see what people are voting on and punish them accordingly. I know that this is irrational but still those feelings creep in. Every time the hate mob takes someone down professionally and the more ridiculous the circumstances the more people self censor. The silent majority is the biggest political and social problem of our time. People forget that far left political movements have been just as bloody and hateful as far right. This stuff is dangerous.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#283

Post by MollyR »

gaius wrote: post #267
wildmusings wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most interesting part of the whole phenomenon. I think the answer is that everyone is scared to confront them. The modus operandi of this movement is to personally attack the character of anyone who disagrees with them. They've toppled university presidents, CEOs, and politicians. They got Rolling Stone to publish a completely unsubstantiated article falsely accusing a bunch of young men of a vicious gang…

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

Wow thank you for this link.

Its interesting to see where these horrible tactics come from.

It certainly frightening to see things like rule 13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

This is horrifying to see codified, and what I assume being practiced on purpose, like what those yale students did to their professor, or at least tried too.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#284

Post by [deleted] »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #205
TeMPOraL wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, thanks to Social Justice Warriors, you never know what comment could affect your career. Expressing opinion about merits of Angular.js is probably safe. But anything that involves gender - a study, or a remark about distribution of men and women in tech industry - is not to be touched with a ten foot pole if you value your employability. It takes very little to become a victim of a Twitter outrage.

Bingo. Let's say that I wanted to argue that -- just for the sake of argument, not necessarily as a true belief -- that discrimination is not a significant problem in tech hiring with respect to diversity, and that the key problem is that there aren't qualified candidates from special-interest-group-in-question applying in the first place, and so the majority of the problem is upstream when you consider tech companie…

[deleted]

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#285

Post by kps »

jseliger wrote: post #12

I've taught at two colleges and based on my (purely) anecdotal experiences and attention to the climate, I'd say that the number of students and faculty interested in stifling or censoring ideas is small but also very, very noisy. They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they're chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitiv…

  > Also, almost all of the censorship calls and nasty behavior /
  > comments came from students on the left.
Almost all nasty behavior / comments come from the dominant subgroup, which in this context is the left.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#286

Post by enjo »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #276

For a while now I've thought that 4-year residential college is a dying model. Here's how I view the value proposition of college and how it is being replaced by tech: * Validation of raw talent by a third party (admissions office) --> can be done by technology today in ways impossible 10 years ago and hard to imagine 30 years ago * Socialization around other people in the top decile (or higher) of book-smarts --> ca…

If I had to choose between two candidates with the same proficiency in a testable skill set (JavaScript, GAAP accounting, laying brick, whatever else), at this point I'd probably prefer someone who spent four years working on a fishing boat, or trying to make it as a musician, or on a church mission, or hiking the PCT / CDT / AT, or in the Marines, or something else challenging, over someone who went to an elite undergrad institution.

I reach the exact opposite conclusion. Give me a student who has spent four years learning how to learn. Someone who has had forced exposure to a whole lot of different disciplines. Who was forced to study things they don't much care about, because the value in doing so is so high.

Spending four years pursuing a passion, or working on a boat.. is.. great I suppose. But a well-rounded college graduate is something the tech crowd really doesn't value enough these days.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#287

Post by marknutter »

noxToken wrote: post #209
coreyp_1 wrote: post #137

This directly relates to us in tech. Specifically, there is a huge push to reach out to women and girls in CS. I am not opposed to females in CS at all. I will encourage males and females alike to pursue it, because I see CS as the great equalizer; the only thing that matters is what you produce. What I can't stand are these "Women in technology" conferences and workshops to "close the (gender) gap". Why? Because if…

>What I can't stand are these "Women in technology" conferences and workshops to "close the (gender) gap". Why? Because if you focus on one group, then you are actively not focusing on another. That's the problem though. Sometimes you need to give special attention to a group to ensure that their abilities and accomplishments are seen. You may not personally have this problem, but there are members of the "old guard"…

> That's the problem though. Sometimes you need to give special attention to a group to ensure that their abilities and accomplishments are seen

But this would imply that they actually possess these abilities and are accomplishing things with them. The problem isn't that we have droves of women programmers who are being systematically overlooked by potential employers - it's that there simply aren't very many women even interested in becoming programmers in the first place.

In my 10 years of software development I've never been in an environment where anybody cared about someone beyond how their code was written and how well they communicated with others. Women, at every place I've worked, have always been treated as equals. I personally wish there was more women in Tech but for completely selfish reasons - I like interacting with women. But as I mentioned down below, I just wish we had more people in tech in general, regardless of who they are.

For whatever reason, though, women 10-20 years ago weren't very interested in tech. The medical field and the hard sciences, sure, where they are actually very well represented. But not tech. But I'm guessing that's going to change on its own because of the one great equalizer - money.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#288

Post by yawaramin »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #205
TeMPOraL wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, thanks to Social Justice Warriors, you never know what comment could affect your career. Expressing opinion about merits of Angular.js is probably safe. But anything that involves gender - a study, or a remark about distribution of men and women in tech industry - is not to be touched with a ten foot pole if you value your employability. It takes very little to become a victim of a Twitter outrage.

Bingo. Let's say that I wanted to argue that -- just for the sake of argument, not necessarily as a true belief -- that discrimination is not a significant problem in tech hiring with respect to diversity, and that the key problem is that there aren't qualified candidates from special-interest-group-in-question applying in the first place, and so the majority of the problem is upstream when you consider tech companie…

The problem with starting these hypothetical-filled discussions is that they're not helpful. People can and have been positing many hypotheses about the pipeline issue in tech (and of course many other issues) and the discussions have been mostly heat and very little light.

What would be helpful, is if you would post actual objective findings--studies, analyses, etc. Cold hard facts. Otherwise you're just adding to the heat. Even my reply is not adding much right now, being primarily opinion.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#289

Post by caseysoftware »

warfangle wrote: post #238
caseysoftware wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had an ex co-worker who confided in me that he doesn't like gay people. I was very happy that he couldn't say that in public. Good call. As long as your opinions remain "acceptable" you have nothing to worry about.

There's a difference between discussing much a person hates a group of people and discussing why people hate people; There's a difference between discussing why racist halloween costumes are offensive (and perpetuate subconscious hate) and discussing whether or not hate speech has a place on college campuses.

The line I quoted says "doesn't like" not "hate" but by equating the two and then banning "hate speech" you are succeeding in your goal of shutting down ideas and discussion.

Well done.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#290

Post by flopto »

woah wrote: post #235
flopto wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The school (teachers and students together) recognizes an ideology (patriarchy) that they see as a problem and responds by creating a culture that opposes that ideology, in order to reduce the power of that ideology. I don't see any way to take a neutral stance on this issue, as ``doing nothing'' is supporting the status quo (patriarchy), so if you agree that patriarchy is a problem, then the school should be celebra…

So basically, anyone who disagrees with you is a racist/sexist?

Well, if racism and sexism are real (they are) and person A believes that these are bad, then if person B disagrees with person A, that means person B believes racism and/or sexism are not bad.

Language like "racist/sexist" suggests that it's a binary, that each person is either racist or not racist. It's more useful to recognize that the dominant culture in the US is racist and that people benefit from/support that culture to varying degrees. Person B supports it.

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