Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies • Hacker News Board

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#511

Post by racer-v » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #297

pc86 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strict equality of outcome means quotas, and that if the distribution of races, sexes, genders, sexual orientations, etc doesn't exactly match the entire population (or exceed it for certain disenfranchised groups) then something is horribly wrong and needs to be fixed. Very few people are in favor of that. That being said, you can't have a strict equality of opportunity without acknowledging which people didn't have…

Strict equality of opportunity is a pure lottery, which is just as absurd (if not more) as strict equality of outcome. Otherwise, it is claiming that certain factors (maybe, genetics or upbringing or geographic location or whatever else) should contribute to inequality of outcome, while others should not. The whole phrase, therefore, is a thought terminating phrase, allowing a speaker to ignore the nuance of which sp…

You can't control every factor. Arguing for "equality of opportunity" really just means taking a laissez-faire attitude as to who succeeds. It means not making explicit exclusionary rules as to who can participate, but also not undertaking a vain attempt to equalize every conceivable variable.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by fleetingmoments » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

tessierashpool wrote: post #336

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…

there’d be an uproar because it’s been extensively debunked and people keep saying it anyway.

No it hasn't.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by edna314 » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:59 AM UTC

jabot wrote: post #216

edna314 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they are not, then a policy that depends on equality of outcome will screw someone over. It means that someone would get less outcome than he or she would have gotten without the policy, true. > This has happened before, e.g. in medicinal research. Turns out, generalizing to the general population from a medicinal trial that consists only of men results in worse treatment for women. Wages or positions in compani…

> Wages or positions in companies are fundamentally different to medicine. We can decide how our companies look like. We can't decide how our body works. Well, for the most part, our power over our workplaces is also rather limited. True, you can leave, and go to a "different" company... > It's fine if you disagree with that, but I will have a hard time continuing the discussion. In hindsight this assumption although…

> However i think that it is worthwhile to question that assumption from time to time. Especially when, as mentioned in the article, more free societies like sweden or finland have more unequal outcomes than societies like iran (which iirc instituted a male quota for some STEM fields a few years ago).

This only shows that the measures that are taken might be inappropriate to fulfill their purpose of establishing gender equality and is unrelated to the mentioned assumption.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 10:32 AM UTC

kirillkh wrote: post #494

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development is an increasingly social job NOT because the people doing it are more social, but out of necessity. Anti-social cowboy programmers just can't produce the results the industry needs at this point it in time. Stories of success like Notch are increasingly rare.

From my experience as a programmer, while some level of communication is certainly important, most of my time and effort is spent concentrating alone at the task at hand. That's the central part of the job, communication only supports it. Communication is necessary to divide work across the team and exchange experience; it also provides some psychological relief and motivation. While all of these are important, I con…

I personally find the social part hard and the concentrated part easy, but I’m not an a type :).

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by fwdpropaganda » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

ESRogs wrote: post #490

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it accepted that feelings should be relevant here? I'm not trying to be provocative, I'm genuinely open to listen to your response to that. To paraphrase Data O'Briain, "zombies are at an all-time low but the fear of zombies could be incredibly high, doesn't mean we should have government policies to deal with the fear of zombies": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zopCDSK69gs If we're getting meta, I think that…

Feelings get in the way of changing minds. Ignoring your own or your opponents' feelings doesn't make them go away. Take a look at the article. How is someone who is concerned about sex differences in representation going to feel when they read, "Many academics in the modern world seem obsessed with the sex difference..."? The article shoots itself in the foot in the first sentence. It's not going to change minds bec…

> Feelings get in the way of changing minds.

So going even more meta, that's the first thing that should be addressed. I realise that eliminating feelings completely is a lost battle, but I thing at minimum how socially acceptable it is to make decisions based on feelings would be beneficial.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by SuoDuanDao » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 11:41 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #255

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toilet paper is often taxed too, but of course it doesn't fit the narrative.

You can use a bidet instead and never buy any toilet paper. If you are a woman you need to buy some sanitary products at least once a month.

Not necessarily. Diva cups are a thing. http://divacup.com/#

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by aje403 » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 12:08 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #498

aje403 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed in than the computer software industry." All other points aside, this is simply an untrue statement - the lofty heights of the average software engineer at Alphabet is not even fractionally close to the pinnacle of "intellectual difficulty" in our professional field.

The Damore memo wasn't talking about Laszlo Babai's graph isomorphism work, or deep reinforcement learning.

Neither have anything to do with the section of your post that I replied to

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Post by bloak » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 12:15 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #432

bloak wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect immigrants to more frequently choose careers that require fewer linguistic skills, such as engineering or music, rather than law or advertising, say. Some of my engineer colleagues are very hard to understand on the phone because of their language. It's hard to imagine them getting anywhere as a lawyer, for example.

In the UK, a large number of doctors and medical staff are foreign, particularly Indian or EU citizens. For Indians I'm guessing English is not a problem because they learn it at school, especially the ones from the poshest backgrounds. EU citizens will have similar command of English. For those who have studied in British institutions, foreign language courses are mandatory if they can't prove a level of English tha…

Not contradicting, but adding to that:

Some Indians speak English fluently, but in a way that most British people find incomprehensible. In contrast, and somewhat ironically, a German speaking bad English is often easier to understand than a random British person (as opposed to a British person from one's own social class and locality).

The level of English knowledge you need to study maths or engineering at a British university is obviously very much lower than the level required for studying law or working as a lawyer. Some otherwise intelligent people are bad at languages and will realistically never achieve knowledge of another language to a level sufficient to successfully work as a lawyer. In fact, I have been reliably informed that some Germans give up on physics as a career because they realise that they will never manage to learn English well enough to succeed in academia, which is a bit sad, really.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#519

Post by bjl » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

marrs wrote: post #188

bjl wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, he explicitly references anti-Semitic conspiracy theories as his source at multiple points. That alone is enough to completely undermine his credibility, leaving aside the myriad other problems with his memo.

Is this the "anti-semitism" to which you refer? Quote: Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The cor…

Yes, parroting debunked anti-Semitic conspiracy theories is anti-Semitic.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#520

Post by caseysoftware » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 3:16 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #150

traverseda wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most men I know are pretty heavily in favour of equality. That might change if we treat equality as a war against men, instead of something we all work towards. Adapting behavior is reasonable, but there's men also need to be able to have a voice, or you're going to get some major pushback. Hopefully we can keep this kind of war at a low simmer when trump is up for re-election. More specifically, that means making su…

"Equality" is the sticking point. Equality of opportunity (meritocracy) or equality of outcome (sounds like a nasty place where people are selected on things like race, or gender)?

Whenever I've asked about that, I've received this image (or similar) as the eventual goal:

http://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/I...

It is very clear this is not equal opportunity but equal outcomes. Trying to make equal outcomes requires some serious mental gymnastics because numerous decisions collectively contribute to our direction, standing, and potential in life.