Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't talking about compassion (which may differ in shape but not volume) or Taliban culture (that I know little about, nor am particularly interested in).
Sounds like a way of conveniently ignoring my point. I’m aware it’s a caveat to the narrative you explain. That’s why it’s not reasonable to dodge the caveat on the grounds that you see a difference between “compassion” and “empathy” that is so massive that it would invalidate my comment, and that no culture from Europe to Taliban were cultures you were talking about. So... what countries were you thinking of, when s…
The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
151–160 of 280 posts
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#152> He said that society increasingly sees groups instead of individuals, to the extent that group rights may supersede individual rights in all sorts of contexts, including politicised work environments. 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 t…
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#153This 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 New York times had an interesting take on this in [1]. It argues that what we are seeing now is a resurgence of a victorian view of women as fragile beings that need to be sheltered from any possible harmful situation. This is bullshit; women are as capable as a man of saying no and tactfully pointing out when something emotionally difficult is happening. I think the problem is that we have gone from rightly taki…
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you broadly, but I think there are a few nuances here that make all of the difference. The first is that I feel that text is an AWFUL medium for communication for these sorts of discussions and criticisms, unless expertly crafted (as this article was, I feel). Numerous times I've had arguments with friends via text that get out of hand because of subtle misinterpretations of intent and phrasing, where as…
So, I took a few goes to write this. It isn't my money and I certainly support companies being able to run or not run their own speculative diversity programs as they want. That being said, corporations and/or the business world aren't really the appropriate place for social experiments that take a generation to take effect. They are an excellent tool for taking scarce resources and divvying them up short term with v…
I agree with you: our economic system is not the appropriate spot for social reform. Our economic system in America is capitalism. Maybe when I was younger–but I no longer have any expectation that a business will perform any altruistic act that does not align with its business model unless it's a PR stunt or the program is budgeted as employee quality of life (so it is effectively diced as employee comp).
I'm honestly curious what your idea of some low-hanging wins that make sense for a capitalist business to explore would be. Care to elaborate?
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are saying that people on Hacker News like to believe that the reason for the lack of gender diversity in technology culture is not due to a problem with technology culture, but rather due to a problem in other parts of society (gender norms). People on Hacker News think this because they feel safe and accommodated by technology culture and assume that it must be the same for other women.
Oh, so just garden variety tech feminism then. So what specifically do we need to do in tech? This is all very vague generalities at this point.
Dismissing opnions you disagree with as inconsequential or belonging to some agenda is essentially the core of political correctness. (At least if with the definition of "things hard to talk about", rather than which words to use).
> So what specifically do we need to do in tech?
What to do isn't the problem. Not only can you find far better writing on the subject in the wild, but there are people are already doing it. But since you are asking I will give you an example.
Hacker culture puts a large, disproportionately so even, emphasis on hobbyism. Stories like the one in the article, getting started when you were young and not doing much else are meriting. For a women to have be able have the same experience they would have to engage in a largely male dominated culture at an age (as in seniority) when many boys nor girls aren't particularly sociable with people of the opposite sex and when fitting in is especially important. So when we value things in computer culture other than things with technical merit and instead put merit in peoples backgrounds or the tools they use we do so with a culture that largely isn't accessible to women.
Maybe that is vague to you, but not everything is clear cut. As a said, people doing things change this. They give girls opportunities to get excited by technology in their own way. They give women from other fields a chance to get acclimated at tech companies on their own terms. They try to emphasis the things you can do with technology instead of the culture etc.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#156Does 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…
Regardless, I agree with afarrell: explain this to your wife so she can understand your behavior. If you've never explained it, she likely doesn't understand.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#157This 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 New York times had an interesting take on this in [1]. It argues that what we are seeing now is a resurgence of a victorian view of women as fragile beings that need to be sheltered from any possible harmful situation. This is bullshit; women are as capable as a man of saying no and tactfully pointing out when something emotionally difficult is happening. I think the problem is that we have gone from rightly taki…
We might, for example, recognize that many people, even competent adults, can be quite bad at dealing with awkward or hostile social situations, and can use help.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
The New York times had an interesting take on this in [1]. It argues that what we are seeing now is a resurgence of a victorian view of women as fragile beings that need to be sheltered from any possible harmful situation. This is bullshit; women are as capable as a man of saying no and tactfully pointing out when something emotionally difficult is happening. I think the problem is that we have gone from rightly taki…
Meaning that #meetoo has become yet another arrow in the SJW quiver...
Don't get me wrong, I donate the the ACLU to protect the speech of the social justice warriors of the world and any other exclusive world-view. However, it is important that we protect ourselves from being limited to these exclusive world-views and refuse that they limit us from exploring possible different solutions. Protecting our democracy is messy and hard.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#159> 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.
The key takeaway from Farrell's book is that men also suffer. We need to become OK with having compassion for men, full stop. Even the men for whom we cannot apply an additional qualifier like "neuroatypical".
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#160Earlier 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…
Would you please not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents? Nothing new can ever come of them, and they reliably degrade discussion into name-calling, complaints, and ever more generic statements. As demonstrated below.