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

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

#101

Post by alphonsegaston » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #94

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.…

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised Back in the day when social/legal barriers were removed for women, general expectation was that women would rise to the top in wide variety of fields. But that hasn't really materialized(eg: only a handful of noble prizes), despite decades of preferential treatment, despite women being educated in number much higher than men. So obvious…

> 1. Admit the mistake in the feminist theory ( One is not born but becomes a woman).

Feminists never made this mistake. It's literally the premise of one of the canonical Feminist texts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Sex#Volume_Two

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

#102

Post by noobermin » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

stupidcar wrote: post #34

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.…

> Acknowledging that women are 'vulnerable or marginalised' shouldn't remove their individuality, you can easily have both, but that's beside my point here) I don't think you can easily have both, and this problem underlies much contemporary political conflict. At its core is a pervasive hypocrisy: people readily engage in broad, often negative, stereotyping about groups they oppose, or are not a member of, while agg…

The only problem I have is people often say this as if "both sides do it" while that neglects the reality of the intensity of depth of hypocrisy you point out on either side. There isn't a symmetry here between the bigotry of the right and the intolerance of the left, and I get very suspicious of people who make a false symmetry argument.

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

#103

Post by greenrd » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

dbattaglia wrote: post #75

danieltillett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Idk, I feel like saying that humans should somehow manage to turn off grouping and categorizing things is kind of lazy.

I don't think that's what danieltillett was calling for at all. Rather, I think he was arguing for not letting group-level categorisations - such as gender or race - totally dominate over and blind us to attributes of individuals that may differ from what we would expect from our preconceived stereotypes of groups. Because when we do that with race, we do recognise that as racist - maybe not when the race in question is white, but in other cases, yes.

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

#104

Post by aklemm » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #94

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.…

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised Back in the day when social/legal barriers were removed for women, general expectation was that women would rise to the top in wide variety of fields. But that hasn't really materialized(eg: only a handful of noble prizes), despite decades of preferential treatment, despite women being educated in number much higher than men. So obvious…

The trouble I have with this quite common argument is that it is A) beside the point and B) childish. Just because men are treated badly often and that women display bad behavior often, the point here is a pretty specific type of treatment by men toward women that is unarguably bad behavior. The mature position stays focused on that because that is the priority right now, because it is severe and we are being asked to look at it.

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

#105

Post by noobermin » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

fnl wrote: post #54

stupidcar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Acknowledging that women are 'vulnerable or marginalised' shouldn't remove their individuality, you can easily have both, but that's beside my point here) I don't think you can easily have both, and this problem underlies much contemporary political conflict. At its core is a pervasive hypocrisy: people readily engage in broad, often negative, stereotyping about groups they oppose, or are not a member of, while agg…

Excellent summary of the core issue. Though I think there should be room for some nature vs. nurture debate. Exclusively attributing this behaviour to our genes seems a bit like the "lazy excuse" to me. I don't see why properly educating ourselves could not lead to a population with improved inter-group empathy (or both, i.e., trigger that evolution at the generic level, too). But yes, maybe changing our educational…

Didn't get that at all from their comment that there isn't room for nature vs. nuture, because they just mentioned statistics. Statistically significant variations between groups are not all due to nature. For example, it is a generally supported fact that differences in IQ are due to environment more than innate differences. Of course, it plays into it, but what one observes in life of course is a norm a vector across a huge dimensional space.

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

#106

Post by chrisbroadfoot » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

Semkas wrote: post #73

hateduser2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Charisma is a valuable skill as a software engineer. Have you ever needed to convince another team to implement a feature for you? Charisma helps greatly with that.

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

#107

Post by dominotw » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

alphonsegaston wrote: post #101

dominotw wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised Back in the day when social/legal barriers were removed for women, general expectation was that women would rise to the top in wide variety of fields. But that hasn't really materialized(eg: only a handful of noble prizes), despite decades of preferential treatment, despite women being educated in number much higher than men. So obvious…

> 1. Admit the mistake in the feminist theory ( One is not born but becomes a woman). Feminists never made this mistake. It's literally the premise of one of the canonical Feminist texts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Sex#Volume_Two

Yea I was quoting Simone DB, but I am not quite sure what you are trying to say.

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

#108

Post by dominotw » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

aklemm wrote: post #104

dominotw wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised Back in the day when social/legal barriers were removed for women, general expectation was that women would rise to the top in wide variety of fields. But that hasn't really materialized(eg: only a handful of noble prizes), despite decades of preferential treatment, despite women being educated in number much higher than men. So obvious…

The trouble I have with this quite common argument is that it is A) beside the point and B) childish. Just because men are treated badly often and that women display bad behavior often, the point here is a pretty specific type of treatment by men toward women that is unarguably bad behavior. The mature position stays focused on that because that is the priority right now, because it is severe and we are being asked t…

How is it 'beside the point', I was specifically adressing the comment in GP

> delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised

If we don't do that then wouldn't the obvious question be "why have women accomplished so little compared to men?".

You comment perfectly illustrates that point

> the point here is a pretty specific type of treatment by men toward women that is unarguably bad behavior.

You are saying "women as vulnerable or marginalised" when GP comment is saying we shouldn't do that. I was logically explaining why its not possible to do that.

Also, quite rude of you to call me immature and childish and implying that I am condoning 'unarguably bad behavior'.

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

#109

Post by greenrd » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

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…

> This is of course a failure of meritocracy, in the same way that charisma often trumps skill at a job (which is the big problem for anti social men).

It isn't a failure of meritocracy - in both cases, it's a failure to achieve meritocracy. Pet peeve.

And arguably the best solution to the lack of confidence in women problem is a two step process: to (a) educate women on the difference so that they can (b) try to address it themselves, if they choose to do so. If a woman wants to be a housewife or a teacher, what's wrong with that?

> So I don't know that we have it that bad, or that efforts to attract more woman (even if you consider the given reasons to be bogus) are really misguided.

To attract more women into tech in the numbers wanted, the only way is to solve the pipeline problem - encouraging girls at a relatively young age to choose programming as a career, and encouraging them to stick with their STEM major in the face of adversity (but ultimately it's their choice, of course). But multiple times on Twitter, I've seen the pipeline problem sneered at, ignored, or downplayed, by women who claim to be supporting women in tech. They've even sometimes attempted to shame me for focusing on the pipeline problem, as if it was somehow grubby and unhelpful.

The reality is, poaching female employees from one company to another achieves precisely zero for gender diversity in the industry as a whole, good as it may be for one company's PR in terms of its own gender numbers.

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

#110

Post by noobermin » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #65

> the third factor, Gideon said, was the empathy gap, where we tend to be more receptive to women’s pain than men’s. When women talk about being made to feel uncomfortable at work, or being sexually harassed, we feel empathy and want to punish the wrong-doers. 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…

The answer of course is to widen your sphere of empathy to other people. Neuroatypical individuals face some issues in society and thus deserve empathy, as women who face sexual harassment do.

Does book you cite mention neurodivergences at all? Reading the review on amazon didn't seem to say it did.