Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

quillette.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 536 posts

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#71

Post by barrkel »

jabot wrote: post #10
cousin_it wrote: post #3

This is a "culture war" topic, let's prepare for the shitshow in the comments. I'd like to offer some advice to make things go a bit more smoothly. There's a widespread view that all beliefs are political, you can't be apolitical, and anyone arguing for a belief opposing yours must be an enemy. To me, that view is pretty much a type error. Beliefs are value-neutral. Only arguments for or against beliefs can be politi…

As a counter-point: People can hold beliefs because they have certain consequences. Simple example: "all people are created equal". This is a belief that is (probably) frequently held because it has assumed beneficial consequences for society. So if people choose to believe in something because that has certain consequences - then a belief can be political. EDIT: To expand on this a little... It seems to me that you…

When beliefs run counter to reality, the divergence between what is, and what is perceived ought to be, can increase to the point that the state's monopoly on violence is used to prop up a belief system.

If the gap is big enough, I think the result becomes indistinguishable from a theocracy, with analogues to blasphemy and ostracization for describing reality too closely, enforced by the state.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#72

Post by rayiner »

psyc wrote: post #36
scarmig wrote: post #26

This reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today. It's well known that men generally are stagnating economically, while women are catching up. In many metro areas, single women out earn single men. And so I came across this paper[0], which had some interesting research about that. And what struck me was this: there's an explicit assumption that men have worse socio-emotional skills than women, and that…

Lest we forget, it isn't only charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore who get thrown under a tank for daring to speak 'out of turn' wrt the social justice narrative. Just two hours ago, I happened to re-read the various vicious hit pieces written about Paul Graham several years ago, after he had the gall to speak his mind about representation. These are the times. Everywhere I look online, it's men vs. wo…

Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#73

Post by Scea91 »

jabot wrote: post #44
Scea91 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just note that believing something because it has nice consequences is just logically wrong. Formally: 1) A => B 2) I would really like B to be true, because it has some benefits. 3) Therefore A must be true. If we are in search of truth and want to build a consistent model of the world then we just can't accept this kind of reasoning. Also, even if A really turns out to be false, it doesn't mean that B can't be true…

First, please do not get too hung up about "all people are created equal". It's just an example in this context. > If we are in search of truth and want to build a consistent model of the world then we just can't accept this kind of reasoning. Yes, you can. It's called generalizing. Remember, we're not doing math here, this is ethics. Think about all the different situations where being treated equally to someone els…

> Think about all the different situations where being treated equally to someone else is a good thing. Now you generalize that into "everyone is created equal", and that turns into a justification for all these situations.

The valid generalization would be "everyone should be treated equally" not "everyone is created equal" which is a totally different thing.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#74

Post by tremon »

cousin_it wrote: post #3

This is a "culture war" topic, let's prepare for the shitshow in the comments. I'd like to offer some advice to make things go a bit more smoothly. There's a widespread view that all beliefs are political, you can't be apolitical, and anyone arguing for a belief opposing yours must be an enemy. To me, that view is pretty much a type error. Beliefs are value-neutral. Only arguments for or against beliefs can be politi…

some arguments are rational while other arguments are political

These attributes are mostly orthogonal though. Most evidence, even if conclusive, will show that certain approaches benefit one group more than some others. There is no such thing as purely evidence-based policy, because there is no agreement on what to optimize for.

I think this whole evidence-based fad completely misses the point. It insinuates that there is a perfect possible outcome that will benefit all equally, and that is simply not the case. And by focusing on the outcomes, it detracts from the real sticking point: let's talk about how to harmonize goals, instead of only results.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#75

Post by jabot »

Scea91 wrote: post #73
jabot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, please do not get too hung up about "all people are created equal". It's just an example in this context. > If we are in search of truth and want to build a consistent model of the world then we just can't accept this kind of reasoning. Yes, you can. It's called generalizing. Remember, we're not doing math here, this is ethics. Think about all the different situations where being treated equally to someone els…

> Think about all the different situations where being treated equally to someone else is a good thing. Now you generalize that into "everyone is created equal", and that turns into a justification for all these situations. The valid generalization would be "everyone should be treated equally" not "everyone is created equal" which is a totally different thing.

Good point.

EDIT: I think what you're doing here is criticising A by constructing A' and arguing that it is better (by having the same consequences while being less general). That is a good way of criticising the generalization as well.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#76

Post by anon12345690 »

rayiner wrote: post #72
psyc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lest we forget, it isn't only charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore who get thrown under a tank for daring to speak 'out of turn' wrt the social justice narrative. Just two hours ago, I happened to re-read the various vicious hit pieces written about Paul Graham several years ago, after he had the gall to speak his mind about representation. These are the times. Everywhere I look online, it's men vs. wo…

Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.

Screed? It was a simple memo, something that he meant for a few people and had shared internally for months before it became so widely misunderstood. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome.

Also, Google even agrees with him: https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552

"Did I read this right? Susan Wojicicki said that women find “geeky male industries” (as opposed to “social industries”) “not very interesting” and Sundar cites research on gender differences."

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#77

Post by [deleted] »

tome wrote: post #43
cousin_it wrote: post #3

This is a "culture war" topic, let's prepare for the shitshow in the comments. I'd like to offer some advice to make things go a bit more smoothly. There's a widespread view that all beliefs are political, you can't be apolitical, and anyone arguing for a belief opposing yours must be an enemy. To me, that view is pretty much a type error. Beliefs are value-neutral. Only arguments for or against beliefs can be politi…

> Beliefs are value-neutral. Only arguments for or against beliefs can be political or not. I wonder why you didn't go a step further to postulate "only actions can be political or not". Of course argument is action, but it could be claimed that only argument qua action is political.

[deleted]

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#78

Post by SuoDuanDao »

rayiner wrote: post #72
psyc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lest we forget, it isn't only charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore who get thrown under a tank for daring to speak 'out of turn' wrt the social justice narrative. Just two hours ago, I happened to re-read the various vicious hit pieces written about Paul Graham several years ago, after he had the gall to speak his mind about representation. These are the times. Everywhere I look online, it's men vs. wo…

Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.

I've heard this asserted several times, but nobody's said which of his sources they disagree with. Could you link to a source you disagree with and the basis for your disagreement?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#79

Post by snikeris »

scarmig wrote: post #26

This reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today. It's well known that men generally are stagnating economically, while women are catching up. In many metro areas, single women out earn single men. And so I came across this paper[0], which had some interesting research about that. And what struck me was this: there's an explicit assumption that men have worse socio-emotional skills than women, and that…

This episode of the Joe Rogan podcast w/ Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein touches on similar issues (among other things) and discusses why it's still important to have discussions like these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#80

Post by aaron-lebo »

anon12345690 wrote: post #76
rayiner wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.

Screed? It was a simple memo, something that he meant for a few people and had shared internally for months before it became so widely misunderstood. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome. Also, Google even agrees with him: https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552 "Did I read this right? Susa…

Nothing outright false, but that was the major problem with it. Just because you aren't obviously wrong and you safecheck yourself with facts doesn't mean you are actually correct in your assessment.

He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome

I agree with OP that this difference in interests is probably socialized. Men and women are very obviously socialized differently, not to mention at many places (tech companies especially), the social atmosphere is one that favors men (boys) with keggers and nerf guns.

Damore's memo isn't very convincing from that perspective, because if the difference can be explain by 20 years of socialization, it can also be changed, and Damore's argument seemed to be based upon some inherent difference between the sexes and his solutions predicated on that assumption. Then again, not really sure exactly what he was arguing because it was meandering.

It's been argued to death at this point, but it genuinely surprises me that people find his poorly sourced memo (or whatever you want to call it) as the centerpiece for this topic. With that as the starting point, no wonder the discussion is garbage. The people who support viewpoints like Damore's should aim higher because it is not helping their case.

To give a more complete answer, here's a section from his memo:

De-emphasize empathy.

I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.

There are multiple claims there. He does refer to a blog post, but reading that, do you have any clue what that blog post may be about or how it applies to his argument?

Post reply on HN