Getting free of toxic tech culture • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#341

Post by mcv » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:13 AM UTC

brucephillips wrote: post #204

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…

A more equal gender distribution doesn't mean that women are treated better. Take Hollywood, for example.

Does Hollywood have a more equal gender distribution? I heard the average movie has about 6 male roles for every female roles, including extras.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#342

Post by mcv » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

thiht wrote: post #334

JKCalhoun wrote: post #116

I agree with essentially everything in the article — and I'm not a marginalized type (white male, actually). • Avoid the "cult-like" trappings. • Avoid "genius worship" and call bullshit on the "reality distortion field". • Get a life (that is, a life outside of work – build stuff in your garage, hike, play in a band, paint, whatever). • Stay healthy. You're valuable to the corporation, they will allow for you to tak…

>• Get a life (that is, a life outside of work – build stuff in your garage, hike, play in a band, paint, whatever). I notice a trend in being demeaning towards people not wanting to do anything besides computing/tech. Why is that acceptable? Is my life worse because I don't do "hiking" or some other stuff? I like spending my free time coding, and I hate hearing I should do "something better with my life".

"Build something in your garage" could be tech related. But it's important to do things other than work.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#343

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #331

whatyoucantsay wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't the topic of the article already been "litigated to death" and been the subject of many flame wars? In what manner is that twitter link "off-topic" in the context of this article? Has the twitter link ever been discussed here rather than killed? I, for one, found it quite surprising. Based on news coverage and personal interactions with Googlers, I had no idea people were writing such things without reprimand…

This is what I don't understand. I'm now being threatened with being banned while adamsea is getting a slap on the wrist. If you're only allowed to discuss one side of this topic without getting kicked off HN, why even allow the threads in the first place? I was responding to the question: > Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies? What could I have done to…

I answered you here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16185062, which should clarify most of this.

I can see why, before reading that, you might think this was a double standard, but it isn't. The reason is that adamsea hasn't been using HN primarily for political battle (though I grant you his account history is close to that, and a different moderator might have called it differently). The key word here is 'primarily', which is the test we use, as explained in that comment I just linked to. I didn't reply to you on the basis of one isolated comment but rather on your use of HN overall, which is what we care about.

It's false, of course, that you're "only allowed to discuss one side of this topic without getting kicked off HN". If that were true, we wouldn't have flamewars, and boy do we have flamewars.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#344

Post by gaius » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

hypatiadotca wrote: post #323

adamsea wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you could say there is a specific instantiation of this problem in tech.

Well put. I’m always amused by arguments of the form “but this isn’t just a tech problem” - people get so mad about limiting the scope to one’s own expertise and experience, but also accuse you of overreach when you try to generalize beyond it! Can’t win.

I’m always amused by arguments of the form “but this isn’t just a tech problem”

Well, it isn’t. You can’t take a problem that is universal to all workers in all industries as evidence that one demographic in one industry is discriminated against.

And, it is easy to generalise: Workers on one side, bosses on the other.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#345

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

ant_mc wrote: post #340

dang wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments in this thread? and not post them to HN in general?

Would you please stop accusing me of that? I can't make a fucking comment without you up my fucking ass about it. I was illustrating the point that I think the standard proposed is not a good hard rule. The moderation here has become truly ridiculous.

If you abuse the site and get banned, you can't just create a new account to keep doing the same things. Shouldn't that be obvious?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#346

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:34 AM UTC

Sacho wrote: post #338

dang wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments or flamebait here. What you say isn't remotely plausible, since if it were true, software companies would be filled with non-programmers. Edit: I mean instead of programmers.

I think you read his comment in bad faith and ascribed "flamebait" and unsubstantiveness to it. Specifically, the comment states: > The willingness to slog though abusive working conditions is one of the most highly-selected-for trait in tech. The comment claims that "abuse tolerance" is one of the most highly-selected-for traits, not the only thing you need to become a programmer. Further, programming skill isn't ev…

The comment was edited after I posted that. Originally it said, "is the most highly-selected-for trait in tech".

It always shocks me when people silently do that to undermine someone's reply; it seems so blatantly dishonest. Do we need to make comments non-editable once they have replies?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#347

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #327

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…

>anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room As someone who has spent a lot of time in academic security conferences, I have to wonder what you are comparing them to. The only field with a worse female participation rate in my experience is networking (e.g. SIGCOMM). Check out this picture from EuroCrypt in 97 and count the ratio of women to…

[deleted]

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#348

Post by Double_a_92 » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 11:43 AM UTC

walterclifford wrote: post #255

tptacek wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

> We have firsthand numbers from companies like Google; after years of concerted effort to recruit and retain women, they just hit 20%. Is it possible that a "concerted effort to recruit and retain women" perhaps does more harm than good? Med schools in this country are now very nearly 50/50[1] and law schools are very slightly over 50% female[2]. Did medicine and law achieve this by the same type of concerted effort…

Medicine and Law is lots of "memorizing" work... In my experience women to "like" that better. At least most girls in middle and high school were better at those kinda tasks than boys.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#349

Post by Sacho » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 11:44 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #346

Sacho wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you read his comment in bad faith and ascribed "flamebait" and unsubstantiveness to it. Specifically, the comment states: > The willingness to slog though abusive working conditions is one of the most highly-selected-for trait in tech. The comment claims that "abuse tolerance" is one of the most highly-selected-for traits, not the only thing you need to become a programmer. Further, programming skill isn't ev…

The comment was edited after I posted that. Originally it said, "is the most highly-selected-for trait in tech". It always shocks me when people silently do that to undermine someone's reply; it seems so blatantly dishonest. Do we need to make comments non-editable once they have replies?

Hmm, I see, and I agree that it is very subversive to edit your comment without a mention. I think even just a single "edited" marker would be enough to cast doubt on the mismatch between comment and reply. It's also not a big deal to make comments uneditable after a reply, because the edit period is fairly small, and I don't think people actually use HN for "real-time discussion". Maybe it's interesting to see the rate of replies within the editable period of a comment?

Even then, I don't think your reply is correct in dismissing the claim. A charitable interpretation would be that the poster meant personality trait, not including programming skill. Even a very strict interpretation still leaves room for the poster's assertion, via this hypothetical:

- totality of traits used when determining programmer quality is 100%

- abuse tolerance is the most highly selected, at 10%

- programming skill is quantified by 90 different traits at 1% each

This would mean that people without programming skill would not become programmers, but the top trait would still be abuse tolerance.

Anyway, I feel this is getting highly nitpicky at this point, I don't feel the poster was trying to make a statistical claim, but rather just emphasize that they believe "abuse tolerance" is very important for programmers, which I don't find to be facially unsubstantive or "flamebait".

(disclaimer: I made several edits to this post as I was writing it out)

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#350

Post by whatyoucantsay » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #339

whatyoucantsay wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't the topic of the article already been "litigated to death" and been the subject of many flame wars? In what manner is that twitter link "off-topic" in the context of this article? Has the twitter link ever been discussed here rather than killed? I, for one, found it quite surprising. Based on news coverage and personal interactions with Googlers, I had no idea people were writing such things without reprimand…

It's a matter of degree. If you think we need more Damore wars, HN is not the site you're looking for. No, I wouldn't say the current submission's topic has been done to death at all, though I grant you that it touches on topics that have. But it's the other parts that led us to try turning off flags on the story. I would not call the experiment successful. Part of the art of substantive discussion, which is always i…

I am still glad to have been informed of what the tweet revealed, but thank you for the clear response. It provides a good explanation for what appeared indefensible.