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Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

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Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#41

Post by m_mueller »

rurounijones wrote: post #34
m_mueller wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who believes meritocracy is racist and sexist Is it bad that nowadays I've trouble identifying whether this kind of categorization is redpillers bile or an accurate representation of an increasingly dominant extreme left? Would you have a quote from that lady, and if correct, how did she get in the position of writing Linux COC?

Not that I believe the fierceness of the assertion however. The CoC's writer's blogpost https://where.coraline.codes/blog/my-year-at-github/ certainly proves she has issues with the term "meritocracy" > At first I had my doubts. I was well aware of GitHub's very problematic past, from its promotion of meritocracy in place of a management system And most articles I have read detail the idea that "meritocracy" is inher…

Thanks, see also my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281843.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#42

Post by aasasd »

carlmr wrote: post #3

I really wonder what's going to happen to Linux once Linus is gone. I think we've seen now that just a week after he took a break the community started falling apart rapidly.

It would probably be for the best if Linus stayed away for a while and saw what happens. That way he and the community could make a better plan for when he retires for real, and start steering in that direction now.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#43

Post by ghusbands »

m_mueller wrote: post #39
chroma wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s one: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 > “Meritocracy” is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men’s egos. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 > “Reverse racism” is such a weird phrase for “justice”. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 > Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi ai…

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

Part of the point is that the unprivileged don't get the same opportunities in many ways, so they don't do so well in tests but they still do well at the job; therefore, you need to give them extra leeway during recruiting and such.

Also, the experience of the less privileged is that some people use claimed-impartial tests and barriers to exclude them in particular, and so when a test comes along it is demotivating, as it might just be an attempt to exclude them. Look at the voting reforms in various places for examples of this.

Using tests to try for pure meritocracy only works when everyone has had the same kind of background and nobody has bias. Look at the examples of CVs/books sent around with just the name/gender changed and the huge difference in response rate to see the bias. Essentially, if you're recruiting (or filtering any set of people) and aren't actively controlling for bias (anonymization is key), you will be biased.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#44

Post by Marazan »

m_mueller wrote: post #39
chroma wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s one: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 > “Meritocracy” is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men’s egos. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 > “Reverse racism” is such a weird phrase for “justice”. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 > Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi ai…

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

No, it's about how many so called meritocracies are not actually meritocracies and instead are nepotistic circle jerks of self reinforcing bad behaviour.

That people think it is about enforcing equal outcome shows how threatened they are by the idea that maybe they didn't get where they are by being brilliant but by being a mediocre straight white male promoted and supported by other mediocre straight white males.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#45

Post by chroma »

m_mueller wrote: post #39
chroma wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s one: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 > “Meritocracy” is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men’s egos. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 > “Reverse racism” is such a weird phrase for “justice”. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 > Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi ai…

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

"Studies show" is carrying a lot of water. I don't have access to the study that is linked, but almost all of these studies about sexism in tech end up not being true. An excellent example was Gender Bias In Open Source: Pull Request Acceptance Of Women Vs. Men.[1] This study claimed to find evidence of sexism. If you looked at the data, it was clear that there wasn't any.[2] Still, it was the basis for articles by Vice.com[3], The Guardian[4], Business Insider[5], and the BBC[6]. None of these news organizations issued retractions. The bias in both academia and news organizations is such that they simply cannot be trusted to be accurate on this topic.

The bias in bay area tech companies is just as bad. If you express the slightest doubt about sexism being rampant in tech, you will be ostracized. If you speak up in protest when all the women in the office go to a free screening of Wonder Woman during work hours, while all the men have to stay and work, you will become persona non grata. These sorts of things have happened to me and others I know. It's infuriating. Even if sexism and racism are as bad as people like Coraline Ada claim, these "solutions" are making the problem worse. Discriminating on the basis of race and sex only serves to balkanize us and polarize opinions.

1. https://peerj.com/preprints/1733v1.pdf

2. Scott Alexander explains the whole saga: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/12/before-you-get-too-exc...

3. https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/9aep3y/women-are-bett...

4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/12/women-con...

5. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/more-evidence-of-sexism-o...

6. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35559439

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#46

Post by jf- »

ghusbands wrote: post #43
m_mueller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

Part of the point is that the unprivileged don't get the same opportunities in many ways, so they don't do so well in tests but they still do well at the job; therefore, you need to give them extra leeway during recruiting and such. Also, the experience of the less privileged is that some people use claimed-impartial tests and barriers to exclude them in particular, and so when a test comes along it is demotivating,…

From an organisation’s point of view, does it matter how one person came to be a better performer than another? Surely they just care about current state: this person performs better than this other person now.

Perhaps had their backgrounds been different, their performance would be different. Perhaps if the under-performer had more training, their performance would be better.

But right now, things aren’t different. From the organisation’s self-interested point of view, they should just choose the better performing candidate.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#47

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

chroma wrote: post #45
m_mueller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

"Studies show" is carrying a lot of water. I don't have access to the study that is linked, but almost all of these studies about sexism in tech end up not being true. An excellent example was Gender Bias In Open Source: Pull Request Acceptance Of Women Vs. Men .[1] This study claimed to find evidence of sexism. If you looked at the data, it was clear that there wasn't any.[2] Still, it was the basis for articles by…

> None of these news organizations issued retractions.

And then this gets repeated, retweeted and multipied, and finally people start the discussion with "obviously...", "it is widely known that...", "as it's been established...". Not only it gets a life on its own, but you can receive social punishment for just trying to discuss that.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#49

Post by chroma »

ghusbands wrote: post #43
m_mueller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

Part of the point is that the unprivileged don't get the same opportunities in many ways, so they don't do so well in tests but they still do well at the job; therefore, you need to give them extra leeway during recruiting and such. Also, the experience of the less privileged is that some people use claimed-impartial tests and barriers to exclude them in particular, and so when a test comes along it is demotivating,…

> Look at the examples of CVs/books sent around with just the name/gender changed and the huge difference in response rate to see the bias.

That's not true. The original studies used low class names for blacks and hispanics, but not for whites. (For example, they didn't use names like Cletus or Billy Ray.) Once this was corrected for, they found almost no bias in resume screening.[1]

1. https://economics.missouri.edu/working-papers/2014/wp1419_ko...

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#50

Post by icebraining »

m_mueller wrote: post #39
chroma wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s one: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 > “Meritocracy” is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men’s egos. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 > “Reverse racism” is such a weird phrase for “justice”. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 > Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi ai…

OK, so I can't really find fault with the CoC itself, but the motivation as described in your link is indeed questionable, though I'd say worthy of discussion: > Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also nai…

I think that quote reflects a concern about the equality of opportunity ("access to the same resources"), not outcome. And in particular, that rewarding merit as measured solely as the outcome, and not the struggle to reach it, will only reinforce that inequality, since two groups of people who have (on average) the same abilities will have different outcomes if they start from two different positions.
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