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Being a Developer After 40

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Re: Being a Developer After 40

#391

Post by empthought »

kelukelugames wrote: post #254
gedy wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you know what? We're doing it wrong. How about you just call it "privilege" and leave it at that? This skin color labelling is pointless in the context of real privilege. A "woman of color" who grew up with servants in her birth country, went to private schools, top colleges, etc has a better chance at the C-suite than a Eastern European "white guy" who grew up poor and went to state schools etc.

Just like a white man can suffer from socio-economic disadvantages, a woman of color can benefit from class privilege. Who do you think it's going to have an easier life? Obama's daughters or some boys from the Appalachia region? It's unfair to discuss gender and race without considering class. It is also unfair to claim disadvantage in one without acknowledging benefits from the other two. This is also the biggest c…

How the heck is that a valid criticism of feminism? Feminism is intended to remedy the injustices of the hierarchical arrangement of men and women. That's literally all it is for. One may as well criticize La Raza for not addressing the oppression of Tibetans in China.

We already have isms that address class issues; they're called Marxism and socialism. Feminism isn't the mommy ideology that has to welcome all into its tent.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#392

Post by st3v3r »

maratd wrote: post #214
mhurron wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basic rights we take for granted (for example, walking into a store and not being treated as a potential thief, or having prospective interviewers assume we're professional/literate/presentable) are actually privileges that many people or color don't have. You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right? You know that 'White Pr…

> 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…

This is an abhorrent view to take. "I got mine, so fuck all of you."

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#393

Post by st3v3r »

crusso wrote: post #266
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #255

Earlier 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?" If the fix is "lay guilt upon and attempt to disadvantage all people of a certain skin color because some of that skin color have had an easier time in life", then it doesn't seem like much of a fix, does it? Racism and bigotry need to be wrong in all cases or the moral authority against them is diminished.

Except no one is talking about disadvantaging people of a certain skin color (white). We're talking about trying to help bring everyone else up to the same level.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#394

Post by st3v3r »

maratd wrote: post #294
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #255

Earlier 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 .

Anyone who thinks society is actually meritocratic is deluding themselves.

And no one is using racism to fix racism. Only someone who is desperately clinging to that advantage they have for being white would say that.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#395

Post by justinhj »

buserror wrote: post #85

I think that misses one big point here; and a point that I live by: Don't waste your neurons and time. Time is the most precious thing you have, so don't waste it learning stuff you won't need. Even if it's shinny. Resist, and for the things you do need, don't become an 'expert' -- pick the things you NEED and scope it well. Then hop along on the new tech that came around... I always see any new thing I take on as an…

This is where luck comes in. If you wait until something is super popular then you lose the advantage of being one of the first people that understand the technology when it goes into production. Also sometimes you may learn something that never pays off but later it feeds into something that does. I spent a lot of time learning Common Lisp and could never apply that knowledge at work until functional programming became more mainstream and Scala/Clojure became acceptable languages for production.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#396

Post by african_cheetah »

nucleardonuts wrote: post #224

I grow weary of hearing about "white privilege". I likewise grow weary of any of today's politically correct messages: women in combat, bathroom bills, work quotas, transvestite rights. It's all BS. I grew up a military brat. We didn't have a lot of money. I wore hand-me-downs, had iron-on patches on my knees. My family could not afford to send me to college, so I served in the military to get the GI Bill and worked…

> everyone has the same opportunities.

Not really. That's what it means. Being white makes it slightly easier to get some opportunities.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#397

Post by african_cheetah »

febed wrote: post #12

I have seen developers threatened to have their work visas not renewed if they did not work faster That was an eye-opener. For some reason I thought Switzerland was a worker's utopia with the relatively higher salaries.

It's not so different in the US either. My previous manager has indirectly referenced delaying my green card process if I didn't deliver on time.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#398

Post by crusso »

st3v3r wrote: post #393
crusso wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if it can be fixed why not fix it?" If the fix is "lay guilt upon and attempt to disadvantage all people of a certain skin color because some of that skin color have had an easier time in life", then it doesn't seem like much of a fix, does it? Racism and bigotry need to be wrong in all cases or the moral authority against them is diminished.

Except no one is talking about disadvantaging people of a certain skin color (white). We're talking about trying to help bring everyone else up to the same level.

As someone with white children applying for college, I can say without question that skin color is used to disadvantage certain people.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#399

Post by Kami_sama »

>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.

Nope, sorry I don't care.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#400

Post by BurningFrog »

interpol_p wrote: post #268
ManlyBread wrote: post #222

Earlier 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…

> Note the dominance of white and male in the graphs.

Not if you actually look at the graphs. Just taking the Apple data at random, the US numbers are

54% white, 18% asian, 11% hispanic, 8% black, etc.

The 2010 US census numbers are:

64% white, 5% asian, 16% hispanic, 12% black.

So whites are actually underrepresented, while there are 3.6x as many asians.

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