I enjoyed this. Could have just as easily been called "Being an experienced developer" because age doesn't factor in to his message that much.
Being a Developer After 40
341–350 of 583 posts
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#342The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…
I think the issue with 'white privilege' as a term is that people forget that the vast majority of people are not 'alright Jack'. It feels like an attack, like saying 'you have too much, give me some'.
Warren Buffet and Bill Gates might have won the game. Someone with $5M might have.
But your average 'privileged white male'? Even if we restrict it to the middle class, there's not that much to give up, you know? It's not as if we're all paid up on the mortgage with the retirement fund sorted and now we're just drilling away for more hookers and blow.
I have real issues with the rhetoric that seems to be cropping up as of late as it seems to push the focus away from the capitalist elite that own everything, and on to those who are in the same order of magnitude of wealth, battling away to keep their lives together.
We are friends, not enemies.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason I agree with you OP is because, as you, I am also from Eastern Europe and I can recognize the same traits in the current "white privilege" arguments to those that plagued Europe mid-century. Like now, during those times there were people arguing that the Jews are taking all the jobs, the good jobs (doctors, engineers, bankers, etc - basically every profession). And the solution was not to advocate for equa…
> For all the talk about white privilege, I never hear the solutions to it. What is OP supposed to do: not get the job? Not feed his family? How is he supposed to prove that he is aware of his "white privilege"? Of course he should take the job. The point of this discussion isn't to punish one group in favor of another; its to raise awareness that there is an underlying disadvantage for some types of people that has…
You picked a poor use case to support you claim.
If you change "35-year old black woman" to a "35-year-old white man", the 25-year-old still gets the job.It is about a "culture fit" (or, most likely, ageism, in this case) , not race.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll keep this polite and assume you're intelligent and informed, a courtesy you did not extend to me. You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right? I'm very, very aware of that fact. Hey, for the record, I'm partly Welsh. The Welsh have been oppressed by everybody! They're pretty damn white. Literally nobody is denying that I…
And see this is the part that I never got past. In your example, it's the cop that's committing the infraction. And yet, I'm the one that is expected to improve the situation, despite the fact that I've never been racist. I'm all for helping people that have been disadvantaged in life. What I'm not okay with is the fact that society expects me to do anything on the basis of my skin color or gender. I will do somethin…
In your example, it's the cop that's committing the infraction. And yet, I'm the one that is expected to improve the situation, despite the fact that I've never been racist.
I don't feel "guilty" if a white cop murders a black person, just like I don't feel guilty if I see somebody in a wheelchair. I do hate it, and I do try to consider how lucky I am, and maybe hopefully think about how I can make that situation better, or at least not make it worse.
The idea is literally just to recognize that the inequality exists.
Obviously the hope is that once we recognize that inequalities exist, we might want to address them somehow. Maybe as a society, maybe just as individuals being more mindful of how we treat others.
Like if I get resumes from "Edmund Smith" and "Jamal Brown." Should I automatically hire "Jamal Brown" because he "sounds black?" Hell no. Should I take an honest look at myself and make sure I'm not making assumptions based on what I assume to be Jamal's race and what I assume people of his race are like? Yes. If I work at a large company, should I maybe even look at the data and see if we as a company are rejecting "black sounding" candidates more often than "white sounding" candidates of equal qualifications? Probably, yeah, because it's the right thing to do and our company is only hurting itself if our hiring process is being compromised by inequal hiring practices.
Anyway, even if you hate those examples I just gave, know that the goal of recognizing privilege is awareness.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think that no women or minorities grew up in a small blue collar town, lived on social assistance, lost their parents, lived in a foster home? The concept of privilege does not mean "you did not earn what you have." It means "other people with circumstances like yours were prevented from earning what you have, because of their gender or ethnicity." It's not about tearing anyone down. It's about recognizing tha…
Do you think that no ... I have not assumed anyone else's privilege, or lack of privilege. I haven't made assumptions, demanding group guilt or deference, based upon a simplistic caricature or stereotype. It's not about tearing anyone down. I read a statement telling me to remember all of the privilege I have enjoyed since birth. My experience differs, and these sorts of simplified claims fail (the same sort of simpl…
> I haven't made assumptions, demanding group guilt or deference, based upon a simplistic caricature or stereotype.
Ok, the reason privilege is taboo in this society is because it often gets mixed up with prejudice and injustice. Privilege is both real and collective, prejudice tends to be collective but may be overriden individually, and injustice is always individual.
If we consider privilege to come from the unthinking assumptions of people in general (aka. their prejudices) you cannot do anything about it. It is there. You can choose to keep your unthinking assumptions in check, but cannot force the others to do so. You just enjoy when those assumptions work in your favor, and workaround/overcome them when they get in your way.
On the other hand, injustices do happen when individuals choose to manipulate those unthinking assumptions (either in themselves or in others) to gain unfair advantage. So, the "group guilt" you talk about is guilt by association; e.g. a logical fallacy.
By example, there are such things as beaten wives. The reason for this is that their husbands are violent jerks. IF male privilege would not make women a convenient target, the same jerks would go out and look for someone else to beat. So, if you are a decent male, you have the right to refuse taking any blame for wife-beating, while still acknoledging that this is a real problem caused (at least parcially) by male privilege.
And if people wants to still blame you after exposing your case in such a way, it means they are themselves looking for someone to hate. Don't let them bring you to their silly games.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#346The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…
> I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich
Yes, you earned your success, but being from a poor Eastern Europe family doesn't say anything about whether or not you experienced a "white privilege". Try imagine yourself being a colored female from a poor Eastern Europe family might help a bit.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It just means, for example, that it probably would have been even harder if you were an Eastern European woman who grew up in a poor family. Women here get hired easier (because US companies have the same policy for quotas, Intel is notorious for this), I know women who got an internship purely because they were women, there are free bootcamps and classes targeting women... not to mention all these special programs…
Let's look at the stats. Apple's diversity report [1] states their tech employees are composed of 79% male, 22% female. Facebook's diversity report [2] shows 85% males in tech vs 15% female. Google's is pretty much the same, and you can compare them all with interactive graphs [3]. Note the dominance of white and male in the graphs. The programs you mention for women are great, I agree. These are the steps we need to…
Those numbers can still mean it's easier for a women to get hired in the industry.
They can make the entry level for women lower and get those numbers simply due to the lack of women applying in the first place. That would mean it would be easier for a qualified women in the industry to get a job than a man of equal qualification. Which is ManlyBread was saying.
Reality tends to change when you, you know, actually understand logic and statistics.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll keep this polite and assume you're intelligent and informed, a courtesy you did not extend to me. You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right? I'm very, very aware of that fact. Hey, for the record, I'm partly Welsh. The Welsh have been oppressed by everybody! They're pretty damn white. Literally nobody is denying that I…
Is it more important to you to use that specific term, or to get your point across? Because the one seems to be getting in the way of the other, is the point that's under discussion here.
The point is way more important. Like I said, I do suspect that the term is actually hindering the effort at this point.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Deal with it. Just like the other arbitrary things that can needlessly hold a person or group of people back, if it can be fixed why not fix it? What's wrong with dealing with it that way? You seem to suggest to that people keep quiet, keep their head down and not rock the boat. That's a defeatist attitude and suggests that you don't think any effort should be spent trying to correct something that's broken in the…
> if it can be fixed why not fix it? Because your cure is worse than the disease. > you don't think any effort should be spent trying to correct something that's broken in the world. I think racism is bad. I think it's bad in all circumstances because it corrupts our meritocratic society. Using racism to fix racism is dumb. Because racism is bad in all circumstances .
Our meritocratic society? Which planet are you from? Here on earth, we have no meritocratic society, but we do have a lot of people who confuse the advantages of their birth + not dropping the ball with pure merit.
80% of humanity lives on less than $10 per day. Do you not believe that among those billions of people, there could be many who are just as smart and hardworking as you, but have no access to the physical, social, and cultural capital they need to rise above subsistence living?
If your so-called meritocracy only applies to 10% of the earth's population, it isn't much of one.
Re: Being a Developer After 40
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It jsut paints such a simplistic view of the world, not a real one, but one that is useful for rhetoric. Bingo. Race is just one facet anyway. We're all born with various advantages and disadvantages, none of which we have any control over. Just as an example, some people are better looking than others ... and those people tend to have an advantage, because they're better looking. They can get better jobs, better p…
> Bingo. Race is just one facet anyway. There's no part of examining privilege that says race is the only facet of one's existence soooooo at least you don't disagree with it there. To even make a statement like that is like getting mad at "breast cancer awareness" because "it's not the only kind of cancer." I can't emphasize enough that literally nobody is claiming that race is the only facet of one's existence.
The only facet that matters, then? Or, combined with gender the only facets that matter or let you be a part of the discussion?
I've been told off + blocked on twitter for chiming in about something I have intimate personal experience with, because white male.
Or the semi-famous video "you're a WHITE MALE!" (language warning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0diJNybk0Mw