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As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

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Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#481

Post by andromedavision »

pj_mukh wrote: post #413
faceplanted wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Jordan Peterson any better in person than he seems in his book? I read it after a friend recommended it and he seemed completely insufferable and possibly mildly autistic based on what seemed like a real lack of understanding of the internal lives of others. Lots of people seem to like him, but I can't bring myself to watch him speak in person since everything I see just traversing the internet is framed as him "d…

Seconded. Tried to read some of his stuff. If he stuck to self-help, I think it'd be great. I have no idea why he tries to make (mostly nonsensical) political arguments/connections. Edit: For a deeper dive into why I specifically used the term "nonsensical". See this article [1]. I was thinking these exact things while reading his writing. [1] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-d...

> I have no idea why he tries to make (mostly nonsensical) political arguments/connections.

In these politically tumultuous times, you simply cannot separate the two. Nor could you do the same during the political upheaval of the 20th century seeing as though a lot of us have very strong political convictions.

If you pay attention to the guy, he talks about his pondering on whether without the benefit of hindsight bias that we have now, he would have been a happy guard at Auschwitz. It speaks to character; a very personal thing. When you map that on to what's happening today with all the polarization, there are many ways in which answering such questions honestly to yourself makes you a better person whether you're on the right or left of the political divide.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#482

Post by antt »

iliketosleep wrote: post #166
antt wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>well-documented differences in the male and female brains that are clearly evident in brain-imaging studies. Has there been any robust evidence that brain images correspond to any real world capability differences? An AMD and Intel cpu look very different under an xray too, but they run the same software at pretty much the same specs.

There is ample supporting evidence. Here is a good starting point: https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-... I should point out that men and women are more similar than different and we can generally "run the same software at pretty much the same specs". But that's a separate discussion - the original article is looking at differences in preferences, not abilities.

I've read your source and it doesn't point to any single behaviour being government by any single brain structure.

This shouldn't be a difficult ask.

The only hard and fast link there is one where they knock off genes in female mice and get them to act more like male mice.

This is specifically not what I asked proof for.

This whole debate smacks of phrenology to me. The last 100 years in philosophy have taught us that any Turing machine can act like any other with at most a quadratic reduction in speed. It is unfortunate that neuroscience is still stuck in a 19th century mode of thinking where we mistake form for function with all the terrible results of the 20th century to show for it.

If the brain isn't a Turing machine and people aren't capable of running any software in their head they so chose we are in a very uncomfortable place where we need to start looking at eugenics seriously again. A place I definitely do not want to be in.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#483

Post by saalweachter »

apatters wrote: post #225
alliecat wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal mining is a historic industry; we should not be pushing anybody into coal mining (Looking at you, Australia) I’m assuming you picked coal mining because it’s an example of a dirty, dangerous position in an industry that’s rightfully stigmatised by most modern countries. If you’re suggesting that we shouldn’t push women into dangerous jobs but it’s okay to push men into them, then I would counter that we should m…

> If you’re suggesting that we shouldn’t push women into dangerous jobs but it’s okay to push men into them No I didn't suggest this. My question was not about energy policies. Let's substitute coal miners for waste collectors (colloquially referred to as garbage men, because 99% of them are male), and ask the question again. Garbage collection is male dominated -- should we push more women into becoming garbage coll…

If I'm reading https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm correctly, ~82% of waste collectors are male.

On the other hand, ~42% of meat processors are women; that is certainly a dirty, dangerous unfun job.

The real male-dominated industries are lawn care, sewage treatment, and repair and maintenance. Coal mining is too small an industry to report demographics, but mining as a whole is "only" ~88% male.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#484

Post by olleromam91 »

KirinDave wrote: post #477
tomp wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An excellent example of this is how a 6-10% wage gap is considered an acceptable outcome of biological differences and choice, but a 10% average difference in primary education among young men is a crisis, with multiple think tanks suggesting society caters too much to young women and that being a young man is "a liability." That's just so wrong... (1) it's not that 10% wage gap is considered an acceptable outcome,…

(1) Young, talented people do this all the time. If your idea of how to dismiss this criticism is to suggest wage gaps themselves are fake and that somehow men are inherently more valuable to the workforce at an intrinsic level, you're going to have to do more than compare it to seniority-based compensation schemes. (2) Tom, to be crystal clear: I think both dismissals are equally bad things to do. My point is that p…

10% less education is similarly important to 10% less pay? One is opportunity, one is outcome...I think that's the idea

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#485

Post by KirinDave »

olleromam91 wrote: post #484
KirinDave wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) Young, talented people do this all the time. If your idea of how to dismiss this criticism is to suggest wage gaps themselves are fake and that somehow men are inherently more valuable to the workforce at an intrinsic level, you're going to have to do more than compare it to seniority-based compensation schemes. (2) Tom, to be crystal clear: I think both dismissals are equally bad things to do. My point is that p…

10% less education is similarly important to 10% less pay? One is opportunity, one is outcome...I think that's the idea

A person who is paid more has many more opportunities in their life should they choose to exercise that power (and in the case of poverty, the lack of money can literally determine your opportunity to live.

So I'm not sure I could possibly agree with your assertion as written.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#486

Post by KirinDave »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #449
KirinDave wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No ... the data shows that there is actually more equal opportunity, and yet there is gender divergence. Actually, it shows that there are more of these "opportunity metrics." But we need to ask how reflective of reality these metrics actually are, don't we? If the metrics are bad, that's also another explanation of this "paradox." If someone says, "equal time for paternity and maternity should cause this outcome",…

I think it's controversial because of the implied assumption that given equality measures, there would be basically equal outcomes ... and that if we don't see that, then for some reason should be skeptical. I don't think we should be. I think we should mostly trust the data. After my long while on this planet, I'm of the inclination that gender is existential and that only a huge degree of social coercion would lead…

> I think it's controversial because of the implied assumption that given equality measures, there would be basically equal outcomes ... and that if we don't see that, then for some reason should be skeptical. I don't think we should be. I think we should mostly trust the data.

I'm curious: do you know what these metrics actually are? Have you investigated how they are defined or what they're measuring? If so, do you find them sufficient? I ask out of genuine curiosity, because I'm having a lot of trouble fidning metrics that are not ad hoc or that don't have a lot of tricky assumptions about household income.

> I think we're probably going to have to accept that the world is gendered, and that this will mean some deviations here and there from a specific kind of aesthetic egalitarian which is neither possible, nor in the case of most people I think even aspirational.

One of the reasons I'm making a point of objecting to this is that folks like you are essentially reading this as a confirmation of a whole host of biases, which will subsequently (and have historically) been used to disadvantage a bunch of people. There isn't a question if "the world is gendered." In fact, the only people who assert this are in fact trans-exclusionary radical feminists and they're quite radical indeed.

So the question is not, "Is the world gendered?" But, "Are the measures we're taking sufficient to assure that talented individuals in any given field are not unduly coerced by social pressure to give up that work."

> I think most fields that women want to actually break into, they'll be able to do that in sufficient capacity even if it's not 50/50. But I also believe that in 100 years, the vast majority carpenters will still be men, that women will still be choosing to be primary caregivers to children more of then than men, and that we'll probably still be arguing about this.

This does seem like a significant simplification of the argument at hand. It's somewhat misleading as it stands to suggest that we should actually see 50/50 splits, and again in fact very few people suggest this. They suggest that systemic biases actually impact a variety of people to coerce their behavior in order to cater to these patterns. For example, women are multiply penalized by their choice to have childbirth, and men face systemic disadvantages if they want to be primary caretakers.

I'm not sure who you're retorting with this, but it isn't a common sentiment that the world is not gendered, just that gender is more nuanced than folks like to admit. I don't think anyone genuinely expects to see 50/50 splits in every profession, but we might expect to see more than 0.05% representation in boardrooms while also facing a storm of controversy about how male executives receive millions of dollars for sexually harassing women and abusing their power over other people's jobs.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#487

Post by sundvor »

leetcrew wrote: post #349
sundvor wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me that you're kind of equating a year of holidays with that of having a baby, which ensures the continuation of our species. In our (HN) case, that is putting a few more technologist offsprings into the mix for what that's worth. I can assure you looking after a baby the first year is not leisure time.

on the other hand, there are already quite a lot of us on this planet. not every single parent is doing a Good Deed by bringing yet another life into this world.

There are too many, but look at where that population growth is coming from.

Looking at the bigger picture we should be doing everything we can to encourage family growth within our own ranks. I'd argue that most people on HN etc would make excellent, above average parents if only because they are so engaged.

Sorry to go further off topic.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#488

Post by scottlamb »

docbrown wrote: post #375
scottlamb wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gender aside, this is still discrimination based on a persons “experience”, as you call it, or very simply: their employment status. This is against the law. Plain and simple. I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't sound right to me. Consider four people who graduated at the same age, then took different paths: * Experienced Eric worked for the same company for 11 years, is still there, and is considering a new job. *…

>The law you quoted appears to say it's illegal to discriminate against Unemployed Ursula for being currently unemployed, so she should have the same shot as Younger Yenina and Late Larry. It doesn't say her year of unemployment must be considered equal to Experience Eric's extra year of work. The argument made prior to this is not that an unemployed person is equal to a continuously employed worker but merely that u…

> The argument made prior to this is not that an unemployed person is equal to a continuously employed worker

Isn't it? Maybe that's not what you meant to say, but even now as I re-read your earlier comment I think that's what you said. Based on the downvotes and jimjansen's reply, I'm not alone. jimjansen's reply in fact seems to have taken you to mean that you simply cannot consider someone's experience at all, which is a totally unreasonable position and consistent with your wording. I tried to be more generous in my interpretation but simply can't interpret your earlier comment in way that's consistent with the (correct) idea that one can legally hire Experienced Eric rather than Unemployed Ursula because of his additional experience.

(By the way, unfortunately I think these discrimination laws are basically toothless because in real life there are many factors that legally can be considered, they're all subjective, and employers are under no obligation to explain their reasoning. So you can almost never prove discrimination unless they are dumb enough to tell you about it.)

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#489

Post by yks »

toxik wrote: post #192
msh wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that book, but it's wrong on childcare being less affordable. Atleast in Denmark and Sweden child care is heavily subsidized, to the point of being free for very low income parents (in dk). So there is no way it can make economic sense for mothers not to work. And stay at home moms (for more than 1-2 years) is rare compared to the USA.

You still pay the opportunity cost, even if you are getting a monthly income. Why should I hire the person who was away for a solid year on parental leave over the guy who has been working diligently during that time? Forcing parents to have equal amounts of parental leave, as we do in Sweden (well, we incentivized it,) is a form of imposed equality of outcome. Equality of outcome is often said to be some disease of…

The highest paying companies in the field don’t care about counting individual years of your experience and probably would hire a fresh grad over senior engineer any day, so as long as you crack the leetcoding interview, what difference does it make if you spent the last year on a parental leave?

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#490

Post by AnthonyMouse »

moorhosj wrote: post #431
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does this feel unfair in some sense? Yeah. But would it be less unfair to artificially punish the person who didn't take time off? Questionable... It's not even about punishment. Calling it discrimination is like saying that hiring based on years of experience discriminates against younger people. It's the wrong point at which to solve the problem. We know that taking a year off impacts employment prospects. If we…

You make very valid points about determining the actual outcome we prefer and channeling solutions to achieve them. There is some nuance. For example, a $5k tax credit might help me level the playing field today, but that $5k difference still exists for social security calculation.

> There is some nuance. For example, a $5k tax credit might help me level the playing field today, but that $5k difference still exists for social security calculation.

Sure, so identify the problems and fix them. The way social security works is illogical. It's supposed to be a safety net, so why do we pay in proportion to past income rather than giving everyone the same amount? Do the affluent somehow need a larger safety net? If anything they should be expected to have more of their own savings.

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