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Getting free of toxic tech culture

blog.valerieaurora.org

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Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#161

Post by majormajor »

malvosenior wrote: post #102
majormajor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies? I'm both white, male, and at an SV company, and haven't seen them in my experience. From a managerial perspective I'd love to hire more people from underrepresented groups because it would mean a bigger pool to hire from, so I'm all for recruiting efforts, outreach/education programs, etc, but at the end of the day t…

Sure, from Damore’s Google lawsuit: https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121

Do you work there and can elaborate on what you're seeing? I'd like to see if there's a widespread trend people are reporting here, not just a washed-over retread of a few high-profile he-said/she-said incidents.

The screenshot in that twitter link is woefully free of context. There are several contexts I could imagine where it would be harmless (e.g. discussion of ways to get a more diverse representation in a discussion already centered around that), several other where it would be very bad (e.g. direct unsolicited managerial behavior advice). To me it sounds more like the former from the limited context and tone. I'd be more likely to take offense at the implication that as a non-Googler I'm cheesy and unimportant than the "white" part.

The people I know at Google claim it isn't accurate to say there's a culture of harassment or discrimination or anything. So... in absence of video recordings, etc, from either side, I believe the people I know personally.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#162

Post by HowdyDang »

Hi, Dang. You've been banning me for years. I feel like we have a pretty solid relationship.

You see, my resume is so solid that it gets me into any tech company I want for at least an interview or a tour. I make it a point to get onto their corporate inter/intranet and make a HackerNews account and post a valid contrarian position that you're guaranteed to always find a way to distort as a violation of guidelines. I repeat the process until your systems automatically ban/shadowban the entire IP/network from creating new accounts. And when I'm not doing this, the people I've trained to do this are out there doing the same. There's a whole lot of people who really don't like the colonial intentions of HackerNews moderation and censorship.

You don't even know how many opinions of potentially "correct people" you've preemptively stifled because of my efforts. :D

I've been doing this for years. The more overtly activist Silicon Valley gets, the more effective I become at disguising myself as a socialist, the more network access I get to the "correct people" with "correct opinions", the more networks your system automatically prevents from creating new accounts.

Seems petty? Perhaps I could be more efficient? Why am I even doing this? I'm sure you could conjure up a myriad of reasons that make sense to you, so there's no need to give you anything more beyond that. You're a smart guy, you'll invent something. In fact, I'm relying on that amazing capacity to defer to that self-healing moral plasticity you bathe your ego in.

You'll never see how you are part of the toxic tech culture. I have absolutely no interest in ever making you see this or changing your mind. The only interest I have is exploiting your moral plasticity.

Thanks for building and maintaining those censorship tools over the years. I can't wait to hijack the psychology behind these tools and steer it against the people you claim you're protecting. And I'm truly looking forward to how your moral plasticity justifies it.

Don't forget to leak the IP address, psychographic signatures, and behavioral profile of this account to your "secret" network of resistance collaborators. My honeypots are waiting to map your support system. <3 <3 <3

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#163

Post by jrs235 »

doesnt_know wrote: post #115
j4ship wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I am not responsible for others feelings. There should be clear rules of conduct at any job and a clear process of enforcement. This make the situation fair and certain. One easy rule is that if someone says "Only talk to me about work." then the other person has to respect it. No forcing of social acceptance , no shaming the other to believe what you believe, just focus on what you were hired for. This i…

Can I ask what you did in your role as a manager? Where I work, even though there are some titles that have the word "manager" in, the organization refers to anyone that have people report to them as "people leaders". They are responsible for the well being of the those that report to them. If you take away the part where you are responsible for your people, what is left? Even if you take the most clinical and roboti…

>People don't turn off their emotions just because they are getting paid to perform a task !??!

Isn't that what we expect professionals to do? I mean yeah professionals still have feelings and emotions but they learn to detach them from their job. Like how we expect police officers to conduct themselves... Like trained professionals.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#164

Post by HowdyDang »

Now that three manual bans have been issued, I'm testing to see if I've been shadowbanned.

If not, I can finally post a Dang-approved Guidelines-compliant opinion that won't get aggressively banned! Hang tight, I'm edit this comment to contain the opinion...

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#165

Post by tptacek »

codinghorror wrote: post #135
tptacek wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, it very probably is a tech-specific problem. Among the STEM fields, CS is almost uniquely imbalanced. STEM fields in general range from ~30-55% women, and those fields include things like Mathematics --- anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room --- which are strong proxies for CS ability. And, of course, among the professions in g…

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce... For web developers, it's 34%, which is roughly the same as dentists. Computer "science" is kinda BS as a field.

In that breakdown, "web developer" very likely includes a large number of designers and marketing specialists. We have firsthand numbers from companies like Google; after years of concerted effort to recruit and retain women, they just hit 20%.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#166

Post by tomlock »

golemotron wrote: post #93
tomlock wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could. But what evidence is there of that?

Every study of confirmation bias. If you see yourself as an outsider you look for evidence of it and it becomes your worldview.

Alright, but how do you determine it isn't a justified belief?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#167

Post by taneq »

cutcss wrote: post #153
ryandrake wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I actually abstained from all things that “would bother someone” I would never even be able to leave the house. No matter what you do, I guarantee that there is someone, somewhere, who will be gravely offended by it. This doesn’t even include the people who are out there actively looking for things to take offense to. Trying to please everyone is not a winnable game.

And even if you could please everyone that doesn't guarantees you are a net positive for society; for example Galileo had to bother a lot of people to convince them the earth rotates around the sun and not otherwise; and pretty much anyone with an unpopular opinion that at the end turned out be for the best had to bother a lot of people.

"If you're not making anyone angry, you're not doing anything important."

(Note, however, that the contrapositive is "if you're doing something important, you'll make someone angry", not "if you're making people angry, you're doing something important"!)

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#168

Post by golemotron »

tomlock wrote: post #166
golemotron wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every study of confirmation bias. If you see yourself as an outsider you look for evidence of it and it becomes your worldview.

Alright, but how do you determine it isn't a justified belief?

The real question is: how would you ever know if it isn't?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#169

Post by tomlock »

golemotron wrote: post #168
tomlock wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, but how do you determine it isn't a justified belief?

The real question is: how would you ever know if it isn't?

Here's the problem though - how do people determine that they're suitable judges of whether someone is marginalised or not?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#170

Post by rconti »

mpweiher wrote: post #9

As usual, the actual numbers don't back up the narrative. For example, significantly more men in the study left due to unfairness than women do: 40% vs. 31%. So either women are treated more fairly or these numbers don't mean anything, yet you would never know it from the text, which is all about the horrible things that happen to women. Hmmm...

I noticed that, too. I don't have time to read the entire article, but the numbers on the "Tech Leavers" link didn't fit the story. In fact, the numbers across genders were fairly equal. The "Women and STEM Occupations" link fit the story quite a bit better.
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