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What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

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Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#91

Post by erispoe »

stared wrote: post #57

My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also perceived intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a landmine)). I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences ( http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differ... ) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though). From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange information (learn, share…

Sure, there's average differences between groups. Between almost any two arbitrary groups you'll find significant differences.

The problem is that there's a very slippery slope between stating a difference, ascribing causality (the difference is due to biology, for instance), and justifying it as a moral imperative (we should treat men and women differently).

It's dangerous because if differences between groups are easy to pinpoint, they're much harder to explain. Even if you can get to a plausible causal mechanism, it doesn't say anything about how things should be anyway.

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#92

Post by johnny22 »

spiznnx wrote: post #85
johnny22 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came it from your SO's side, and then went away from it. I didn't grow up around uhmm "liberals" and "liberal doctrine", so I had to figure it out for myself.

If you have more to share I'd love to hear it.

It was kind of a gradual thing. I wonder if i could really summarize right now.

I do know that atm I'm way more concerned with fighting the gender binary where it counts .. ie: cis men. "average" cis men need feel free and safe to express themselves in less "binary" ways. Until they are, it seems like the violence will never stop.

Trans folks make up such a minority and deal with a lot of shit. I don't want them to be hurt as part of somebody elses proxy war.

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#94

Post by frik »

anonbanker wrote: post #19

This is a fantastic HN thread to scroll to the very bottom, and see which opinions have been greyed-out from heavy downvote bombardments. Highly recommended.

Yes, and the HN news of yesterday got flagged and my account shadow banned.

Apparently, someone should write a "What you can't say on Hackernews" (which will get banned) which lead to a "What People think you can't say on Hackernews"...

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#95

Post by geff82 »

Interesting thing is about gender and technology jobs. In „evil“ Iran, about 50% of students of computer science are women. Being a female software developer is common. Cousin of my wife is a programmer, another female friend of the family is a IBM mainframe programmer(now retired), my wife is an engineer with interest in computer science. So its not all about „brain structures“, it is about society. When Iran can do it, how will we westeners?

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#96

Post by tarsinge »

insickness wrote: post #83
stared wrote: post #57

My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also perceived intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a landmine)). I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences ( http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differ... ) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though). From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange information (learn, share…

"A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior." I was out on an internet date with Scandinavian woman a few years ago. She was some type of sociological researcher, which interested me. I told her that part of the discrepancy in representation between genders in tech could be biologically oriented and she immediately said, "I don't want to hear arguments from biology!" She said…

I can of understand her reaction (I would have had the same) and for me it’s in fact not very dangerous:

- to my knowledge it’s impossible to separate biology and culture with the data we have

- some discriminations were and are made by wrongfully attributing it to biological traits

- since it’s hard or impossible to separate things a lot of people (myself included) adopt « it’s not biology it’s culture » by default because we think if we are wrong it causes less harm and is less dangerous than falsely attributing something to biology, and if it’s right then it helps the society progress.

I understand closing the debate is frustrating for the scientifically minded and rationale people, but my opinion is that it’s not a bad heuristic for society as a whole at least until we make progress. But obviously the debate can happen in the right context, but I find it dangerous to introduce it in the actual climate of crtitical thinking we are in

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#97

Post by Steeeve »

olavk wrote: post #49

As someone living far away from SV, this is fascinating reading. But I think the survey could be more precise about what "can't say" really means. Will you get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or on a blog, or will you get fired for bringing it up in the workplace? I personally believe some viewpoints really are inappropriate to bring up in a professional working environment. If I genuinely b…

SV is an oddly judgemental area. When people have unpopular opinions they tend to discuss them quietly.

My wife doesn't work in tech, but she did lose a job over a post on a message board that didn't agree with her boss' politics. (She thought it was a waste of money to rename a school)

I'm wide open with the co-workers that I'm close to (i.e. in my working group). I'm more reserved among others, and since I work for a large entity, I'm aware of the people that pose a political challenge and do my best not to piss them off. I know of a few people in tech who let the wrong words out and ended up losing jobs as an indirect result. (it wasn't "you said X, you're gone", it was more "he said X and a few weeks later - surprise surprise... he doesn't work here anymore") I haven't seen anything like that outside of the bay area and I've worked all over.

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#99

Post by 4bpp »

cousin_it wrote: post #98

I wonder what percentage of HN users would subscribe to this sentence for some values of X and Y: "I am worse at task X than person Y for genetic reasons."

Why not run a poll rather than speculate idly? (Of course, the interesting comparison is probably between the percentage that would say that with "better" and with "worse" respectively. You'd also want some restrictions on the set X is drawn from to prevent worthless positives from low-status values of X such as sports, social skills or rote memorisation)

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#100

Post by matt4077 »

insickness wrote: post #83
stared wrote: post #57

My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also perceived intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a landmine)). I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences ( http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differ... ) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though). From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange information (learn, share…

"A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior." I was out on an internet date with Scandinavian woman a few years ago. She was some type of sociological researcher, which interested me. I told her that part of the discrepancy in representation between genders in tech could be biologically oriented and she immediately said, "I don't want to hear arguments from biology!" She said…

There are two reasons for that:

First of all, almost everything and its opposite can be argued from biology, and evolution. Among the reasons for that is a sort of circular logic, because many ideas of early human life we still hold are based on today’s stereotypes.

Secondly, arguing from biology denies the single most important difference of humans and other animals: that we are unique in having the capability to overcome our biology.

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