The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#71

Post by jancsika » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

> But we don’t have the same reaction for “geeks,” or “techbros”. Because our understanding of neurodiversity is painfully lacking, our culture tends to view men as a homogenous category, seeing all men as inheritors of privilege and all men as possessing the masculine traits that foster toughness and resilience.

Back in reality, the stereotypes of male nerds/geeks are:

* not interested in activities that leverage masculine traits, like sports

* not interested in the "rough" and often physically abusive hazing activities that go along with sports

* publicly ridiculed for being socially inept, having a hard time interacting with members of the opposite sex, not grooming in the typical way "tough and resilient" males do

Like any stereotypes those are often wrong. Nevertheless they come with enormous empathy-- most humans I know don't condone adolescents getting choked by bullies and will get sad when you tell them stories about it.

Furthermore-- and I don't think I'm alone in this-- my own empathy gap between my stereotype of male "geeks" and male "techbros" couldn't be any wider. I thought people only referred to each other as ${topic}bros to be ironic, the joke being that anyone who would do that seriously is worthy of derision.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#72

Post by DanielBMarkham » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

fouc wrote: post #37

Does anyone feel anti-social after a full day of programming? I always suspected that programming can temporarily reduce empathy at the end of the day. I don't have asperger's but I often feel a lot closer to that after a really intense day of speaking a machine's language.

I find context switching to be tough. So yes, moving directly from coding to a discussion on sensitive topics is a danger zone for me. I might easily say something I shouldn't.

But once I figured that out, I find the more I code during the week the more I enjoy social and creative activities. It's like one part of my brain is tired and another part needs to be doing stuff for a while.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#73

Post by Semkas » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

hateduser2 wrote: post #69

Semkas wrote: post #18

I have aspergers, and empathize with the feeling that society doesn't much care about our struggle (or, for that matter, knows how to deal with anyone who isn't neurotypical). One thing I have come to realize though (and I know this will be controversial on here) is that SV and tech in general is this special place where people with limited social skills can go to work for really high salaries to create things of oft…

The act that you don’t see the value in charisma says nothin about whether or not it should trump productivity. I think it’s highly reasonable that it would and maybe obvious that it should.

I see the value in charisma, but it seems uncontroversial to me that what most people consider "fair" is hiring people for their skill at a job, not their ability to make the interviewer like them.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#74

Post by Joeboy » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #71

> But we don’t have the same reaction for “geeks,” or “techbros”. Because our understanding of neurodiversity is painfully lacking, our culture tends to view men as a homogenous category, seeing all men as inheritors of privilege and all men as possessing the masculine traits that foster toughness and resilience. Back in reality, the stereotypes of male nerds/geeks are: * not interested in activities that leverage ma…

In the wider world, the stereotype of male geeks seems to be that having endured all the above we're seeking revenge on society (and especially women) for the wrongs they have inflicted on us. Admittedly in my actual life I don't perceive my actual self to be judged harshly by actual people, but in the abstract I get the strong impression that people like me are pretty awful.

Edit: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=tech+industry+men . You might get different results but for me the first "positive-looking" story is on page 4 - "The Fittest Guys in Tech - These 10 men break the tech-guy stereotype".

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#75

Post by dbattaglia » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #20

seanhandley wrote: post #10

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is true of men. Because women are now a victimised class, men are increasingly seen as victimisers, irrespective of their individual attributes or actions. I cannot agree with this more. Very, very well ob…

We really have to stop seeing people as members of a group first and an individual second. It is lazy thinking.

Idk, I feel like saying that humans should somehow manage to turn off grouping and categorizing things is kind of lazy. Categorization is such a critical part of our ability to navigate and understand the world. I think the trick is to be able to look at both at the same time and to constantly be willing to question your own biases.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#76

Post by j9461701 » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

>Gideon tells me that in his experience there are many autistic traits that don’t fit at all with our cultural conception of masculinity. Hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation is one of them, as is the tendency for those with autism to develop anxiety and depression—conditions that in the general population are higher in women than in men—the predilection of autistic people to prefer consistency and predictability also contrasts with the masculine trait of risk-taking.

This is unsurprising, considering autistic males tend to display slightly feminized neurological structure and behavioral traits compared to control males.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/201/2/116.full

http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(14)00725-4/pdf

Likely relatedly, the incidence of gender coherence issues (up to full gender dysphoria) are over 7 times more prevalent in the autistic community than the general population.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/the-link-...

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#77

Post by Madmallard » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

fouc wrote: post #37

Does anyone feel anti-social after a full day of programming? I always suspected that programming can temporarily reduce empathy at the end of the day. I don't have asperger's but I often feel a lot closer to that after a really intense day of speaking a machine's language.

Autism spectrum anomalies linked with cognitive metabolic abnormalities -> use a lot of cognitive energy all day -> regress while brain recovers

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#78

Post by jochung » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

Niksko wrote: post #8

This article is going to rub lots of people the wrong way, I suspect, but it's level headed, well reasoned and well written. Although I ultimately disagree with some of the conclusions drawn at the end, (particularly: > Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class.…

"The hard work of well intentioned people" has caused plenty of grief throughout the ages. Considering criticism off limits because it's not nice is exactly the kind of feels-first thinking that spergs abhor and which has no place in an environment where results must be delivered.

It also opens the door to creating drama because of the tone of the criticism, thus missing the original point (or deliberately deflecting from it). If you've worked under people for whom this is second nature, you know how destructive and poisonous this can be. "Please give me feedback" is code for "Flatter me", and not doing so results in "How dare you" indignation.

I don't think it's a coincidence that tech is one of the fields where this posturing found loud and well argued push back early, and no coincidence that high school mean girl tactics were the response.

If a memo is sufficient to cause one to feel unsafe, then being fired and slandered in media ought to be much worse. That's the empathy gap in action. People assume the problems that are talked about the most are the most important, not realizing those that are passed over can never be addressed in the first place.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#79

Post by watwut » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #64

watwut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen multiple women express surprise that I am programmer because "but you are women" or "I did not knew women can do that". I live in a bit behind the times place, obviously. Conversely, I have seen parents shocked that someone would put boy on art lesson. Is that part of your answer? Nevertheless, among my friends, parents agains boy doing computing were practically nonexistent. Computer was usually in boy r…

> Computer was usually in boy room and boys were heavily praised for every tiny thing they knew and expected to deal. Their sisters largely aware that it is for boys Thats notable. I can see the opposite is true among my friends who are younger, the girls got laptops because they need to socialise (and privately). Boys use the family computer placed in a communal area for fear they were going to watch porn I suppose.…

I count myself lucky to never having to deal with that "who uses computer is subhuman" thing. It was more of admired, because it implied that you have money. But interesting thing is, most of the time people back then speent on irc and muds.

I frankly find this setup quite unfair too, but don't see it around me being repeated. Not just because of boy access to private chat, but because of assumption parents openly makes about him. "You would mostly watched porn" is terrible message to the kid. I am also trying to teach my kids that computers are for more then just socializing and porn and show them productive things and puzzlers and such.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#80

Post by afarrell » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #53

fouc wrote: post #37

Does anyone feel anti-social after a full day of programming? I always suspected that programming can temporarily reduce empathy at the end of the day. I don't have asperger's but I often feel a lot closer to that after a really intense day of speaking a machine's language.

I don't lose empathy, but I lose the ability to understand or speak English. If someone interrupts me when I am in deep in the groove I can tell someone is talking to me, but I can't understand what they are saying and I can't reply. It takes me around 5 to 10 seconds to context switch back into English. Amusingly my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half…

> my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time

If you are interested in tools to reduce this sort of thing, my wife and I developed protocols that help. I've rot13'd them in case you are the type of person who hates unsolicited advice and would prefer to skip it:

- Jura bar bs hf vf qevivat n pne (NXN 2-gba-qrngu-znpuvar) naq jr ner pbairefvat, gur qevire pna fnl "cnhfr" naq gung rkcraqf bhg gb "V erfcrpg lbh naq gur guvatf lbh unir gb fnl. Ubjrire, V hetragyl arrq gb fuvsg zl nggragvba gb guvf bgure gnfx oevrsyl. Cyrnfr cnhfr fcrnxvat hagvy V fnl 'erfhzr' fb gung jura lbh ner fcrnxvat, V pna qribgr fhssvpvrag nggragvba gb yvfgravat gb lbh."

- Vs bar bs hf vf qbvat be guvaxvat nobhg n guvat naq gur bgure nfxf n dhrfgvba, jr vzzrqvngryl fnl "hzzz" gb fvtany gung jr ner guvaxvat. Guvf bar unf gnxra zr n juvyr gb ghea vagb n unovg orpnhfr frireny lrnef ntb V gevrq gb genva zlfrys abg gb rire fnl "hzzz" ba gur nqivpr bs zl choyvp fcrnxvat pynff va hav.

Vs lbh guvax guvf fbeg bs guvat zvtug or urycshy, lbh arrq gb gnyx nobhg vg nurnq bs gvzr gb npghnyyl qrsvar lbhe cebgbpbyf. bgurejvfr, gur zbfg yvxryl erfhyg vf pbashfvba.