The power of role models • Hacker News Board

Re: The power of role models

#211

Post by ArkyBeagle » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:18 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #152

facepalm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would diversity the yardstick? The yardstick is creating useful products. (Edit: no there can not be more yardsticks in the long run - a company needs to survive. It gets paid for great products, not for virtue signalling).

There can easily be more than one yardstick. Edit: Yes, a company needs to survive. Which products or services a company provides are simple examples of choices that are not purely based on profit. Similarly, there's plenty of variety in how companies are run while still being able to survive. Maximizing profit at the expense of all else is a choice some do make, but that's not the only way to run a business.

Since we cannot disentangle rents from non-rents profits, I doubt there will ever be a coherent set of ideas on the subject.

Re: The power of role models

#212

Post by msie » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:19 PM UTC

throw_away_777 wrote: post #40

In my opinion, the solution proposed in the article of: " choosing a women over a man when growing your team, just because" is counter-productive. These kind of suggestions cause people to question why a minority got promoted, if it was because of qualifications or because of reverse racism. Reverse racism is still racism, and it breeds resentment.

If it comes down to the flip of a coin, why not add more diverse opinions if the team is male-heavy. Likewise if the team is female-heavy.

Re: The power of role models

#213

Post by watwut » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #163

stale2002 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. We need to be meritocratic. And the current world that we live in is NOT meritocratic, as half of the good talent is getting driven out of the industry. The way to promote meritocracy IS to support women. Anti diversity initiatives and environments are unmeritocratic.

Imagine a company which exists entirely online: no physical office, all employees work from home over the Internet. Imagine that all employees and managers and executives use gender-ambiguous screennames, and no one is allowed to ask any questions which would reveal identity, gender, etc. (Perhaps there's a small HR department that handles the real identities, but it's not allowed to share them with anyone else, nor…

I think that many skilled people would perform pretty bad and leave. Maybe especially in tech, I mean no other industry tout "culture fit" among most important criteria. For some reason, guys in tech need that social aspect of work.

Re: The power of role models

#214

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:22 PM UTC

tbirdz wrote: post #107

skywhopper wrote: post #12

Programming used to be a field with significant numbers of women, including true pioneers like Grace Hopper. IIRC, female computer science majors peaked in the 80s, and have been declining since. Even with those low numbers these days, a lot of women who are interested in programming and computer science are chased away early on, or they quickly move into more welcoming fields. So it's true that among senior staff, w…

>Rob is right that role models are important. I've heard this thought expressed a lot, but I have to ask a genuine question: Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their interest in the field? I'm a man, so maybe it is different for women. But I never really had any role models in programming that I looked up to/wanted to emulate. Personally, I was always interested in computers, softwa…

Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their interest in the field?

That's probably the wrong question to be asking.

There is a limited supply of people who are interested in technology for its own sake, and prefer computers over people.

In order for software to keep eating everything, the industry needs to attract more and more people who don't care quite that much or even people who DGAF and just want a paycheck.

That means having things that normal people care about (role models, respectability, etc), and not having things they can't stand ("RTFM" culture, socially-incompetent single coworkers, the "nerd" label, etc). Even if those things aren't all that important to us, and only serve to increase the amount of economic competition we face.

Re: The power of role models

#215

Post by skookumchuck » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #183

skookumchuck wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> friends and family? Yes. Started my tech company with a 4 figure loan from a family member. Am now independently wealthy. I was told I would fail every step of the way from just about everyone. > bank No. Never needed to. Never needed any other outside capital. My aunt got a loan from a bank to start her own successful business. (She was told that women couldn't get loans to start businesses. She was quite a firecr…

> Yes. Started my tech company with a 4 figure loan from a family member. Am now independently wealthy. I was told I would fail every step of the way from just about everyone. Congratulations for being born into a family that could support you economically. > No. Never needed to. Never needed any other outside capital. That was lucky. Banks don't loan to tech startups. Unless you have assets to put up as collateral (…

> your house that you have significant equity in

Choosing to put money into a house instead of a startup is a choice people make, and not the fault of somebody else.

Re: The power of role models

#216

Post by jeffdavis » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

Do aspiring computer scientists and engineers look up to managers? If not, then how does promoting them help?

Re: The power of role models

#217

Post by said » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

brennen wrote: post #172

pjc50 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like AA, first you have to admit you have a problem. (Not you personally, but there are plenty of people who claim it's just the natural order of things.) The profession does not conduct exit interviews, but fortunately every few weeks someone will write a blog post on why they (a women) left computer science. These articles may be posted to HN, where they often get a skeptical to hostile reception. Harrasment is the…

Yeah. As I've asserted a few comments over, there's an ample body of detailed, firsthand observation available to men who are sincerely interested in the problem. It's also possible for us to talk to women who work in the field and listen as they describe their experiences. The existing gender imbalance, routine discrimination in hiring and promotion, rampant harassment, and profoundly toxic social dynamics are all r…

> It's also possible for us to talk to women who work in the field and listen as they describe their experiences

When men and boys try to describe experiences—such as watching every girl in their high school computer science class receive amazing internships before any of the boys, regardless of their skill level—they're shamed and ridiculed. They certainly aren't given platforms by influential journalists and CEOs.

We can't give much weight to "experiences" while there are such uneven power dynamics in place regarding sharing them.

Re: The power of role models

#218

Post by watwut » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #194

tptacek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you disagree with Pike's implied priors, do so directly; don't huff about how logic that starts from a different set of premises to yours ends at a bad place when you swap the premises out from under it. One very simple, coherent way to arrive at Pike's position without sacrificing the notion of merit is to accept the idea that it's very unlikely that computer technology is unique among the professions in being su…

This women think that tech would do itself very good if it stopped to constantly congratulate itself on being best meritocracy in the world and attempted to make itself meritocracy. To tell it flat out, tech to me seems to be signalintocracy much more then meritocracy. We don't even talk about what merit is - like ever. We don\t know. If you broadcast the right set of signals and are confident, then you go up. If you…

I wonder why would someone downvote this.

To expand on the idea: in meritocracy, networking would matter much less then it matters in tech. Meritocracy would not see "culture fit" as so important as tech have it. Ability to work with others would matter, but there would be no beer test and crap like that. In meritocracy, your ability to socialize after work would matter less. Ability to organize own work would matter more then ability to sit there 80 hour a week being ineffective.

I also think meritocracy would lead to less fads nobody criticize until they are out of fashion at which point everyone criticizes.

So yeah, I stand by tech is not meritocratic and if it stopped being so self-confident about it, it could move closer to that ideal.

Re: The power of role models

#219

Post by acomar » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

have_faith wrote: post #193

mjibson wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their interest in the field? Rob's entire piece is about how a group of women in a highly technical field were influenced by role models. And we're still denying these women's responses?

It seemed quite obvious that the guy wasn't dismissing any of the women's own experiences and only providing his own personal perspective. Why the rush to assume malice?

It's not malicious, it's a form of apathy and I totally get the gp's reaction: all these women are saying their experience is X but my (presumably male) experience is Y so why not Y is dismissive. It's not intentionally malicious but it is casually apathetic to the issue being raised.

Most discrimination is not malicious. It's a whole bunch of small acts of apathy.

Re: The power of role models

#220

Post by grzm » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:27 PM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #211

grzm wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can easily be more than one yardstick. Edit: Yes, a company needs to survive. Which products or services a company provides are simple examples of choices that are not purely based on profit. Similarly, there's plenty of variety in how companies are run while still being able to survive. Maximizing profit at the expense of all else is a choice some do make, but that's not the only way to run a business.

Since we cannot disentangle rents from non-rents profits, I doubt there will ever be a coherent set of ideas on the subject.

Would you elaborate? I think it's often the case that complicated, entangled subjects can be understood once an attempt is made to do so. First attempts may miss the mark, but eventually useful progress can be made. And such disentanglement doesn't need to be complete or perfect to be useful. Or am I completely missing the mark?

Do I understand you to mean that as there's currently no method for disentanglement that one can only use profit as a yardstick? That other values a business owner may have, such as employee satisfaction, or health, or retention, can't be measured or discussed? I don't mean to put words in your mouth. I'm trying to unpack what you've said.