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

PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

pyfound.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 886 posts

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#621

Post by throwawaykf10 »

userbinator wrote: post #584
th wrote: post #341

It seems like a number of the "DEI is anti-merit discrimination" messages in this thread are overlooking how DEI work usually works. A relevant tweet from 2016 ( https://x.com/jessicamckellar/status/737299461563502595 ): > Hello from your @PyCon Diversity Chair. % PyCon talks by women: (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016 Increased diversity in communities usually comes from ac…

[flagged]

At least in the US, it seems to be the lower-educated, rabidly anti-DEI faction that seems to be dragging everyone else down with them.

> DEI has given the unintelligent a platform on which they can attack the intelligent. The effects of diversity quotas on code quality are horrifying.

Very, very curious on what basis these claims are being made. Empirical studies would be ideal, but even some anecdotes would be illuminating at this point.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#622

Post by somenameforme »

seattle_spring wrote: post #586
xdennis wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016 > Increased diversity in communities usually comes from active outreach work. PyCon's talk selection process starts blinded. There is no world in which 40% of programmers are women. 1% in 2011 is also probably evidence of discrimination. But too few people are willing to admit that if 40% of the speakers are women that represents a drop i…

> But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers. I've certainly heard that claim manu times, but never seen it backed up with actual data or even reputable anecdotes. Can you share the sources that led you to this conclusion?

You can see this very visibly in things like the Marines combat fitness tests. [1] In any case where strength is directly involved the requirement for a minimum score for men tends to be near the standards for a max score for women. In that particular test the ammo can lift range is 62-106 for men versus 30-66 for women.

Obviously men are stronger than women and so different standards are reasonable, yet this is also the exact same reason (well, one amongst many) that militaries traditionally did not permit women to participate in direct combat operation. A unit is only as strong as its weakest link.

The US military is now moving towards gender-neutral standards, but that will take one of two forms. If standards are maintained then it will be an implicit ban on women from the most physically intensive roles, or it will be lowered standards for everybody.

[1] - https://www.military.com/military-fitness/marine-corps-fitne...

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#623

Post by thaumasiotes »

klipt wrote: post #608
thaumasiotes wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Randomized studies show that men now face more hiring discrimination than women do This is an odd phrasing. These are exclusive categories that cover the possibility space†; it makes sense to say that "women are favored over men", but it doesn't make sense to say "men face more discrimination than women". Any number you come up with for "discrimination against men" is necessarily defined relative to the outcomes fo…

You might expect both 1. discrimination against women in male dominated industries and 2. discrimination against men in female dominated industries. Studies show that now 2. is worse than 1: https://academic.oup.com/esr/article/38/3/337/6412759 > Gender discrimination is often regarded as an important driver of women’s disadvantage in the labour market, yet earlier studies show mixed results. However, because differe…

> Studies show that now 2. is worse than 1

This is a coherent claim, but it can't be summarized as "men face more discrimination than women do". Neither (1) nor (2) is an amount of discrimination.

It could be the case, for example, that there are twenty times as many jobs in male-dominated industries as in female-dominated industries, and that men and women apply to these in perfect proportion to their availability.

(Your more specific claim, women do not face any negative discrimination in male-dominated industries, will mean that the amount of negative discrimination faced by women is lower than that faced by men regardless, but this isn't a necessary part of the way you've constructed the question.)

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#625

Post by verall »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #606
adriand wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEI is not standardized. Organizations can seek various outcomes using various means. Redacting the names of job applicants, so as to eliminate discrimination based on gender and ethnicity, is an example of DEI that does not afford special privileges to any group at all. It simply removes the special, unearned privileges from certain groups. I agree that not every unequal outcome is the result of discrimination. But…

[flagged]

> This is easy to explain on the grounds of ability.

What exactly are you suggesting here? If it's easy to explain, can you try to help me understand?

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#626

Post by kelnos »

xdennis wrote: post #574
th wrote: post #341

It seems like a number of the "DEI is anti-merit discrimination" messages in this thread are overlooking how DEI work usually works. A relevant tweet from 2016 ( https://x.com/jessicamckellar/status/737299461563502595 ): > Hello from your @PyCon Diversity Chair. % PyCon talks by women: (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016 Increased diversity in communities usually comes from ac…

>> (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016 > Increased diversity in communities usually comes from active outreach work. PyCon's talk selection process starts blinded. There is no world in which 40% of programmers are women. 1% in 2011 is also probably evidence of discrimination. But too few people are willing to admit that if 40% of the speakers are women that represents a drop i…

> But too few people are willing to admit that if 40% of the speakers are women that represents a drop in the quality of the talks.

Not necessarily. It's certainly possible that, if you go and rank the top 100 python speaker candidates, 40 of them will be women. The total number of female programmers will certainly influence the number in the top 100, but it won't define it.

GP said that the PyCon speaker review process starts blinded, meaning that reviewers don't know the gender of the speaker candidates. So if they got 1000 submissions, and had to pick 100 of them, and 40 of those chosen were women, they were likely among the top 100 speaker candidates, or at least approximately so.

> But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers.

Big fat [citation needed] there. (Not just for the idea that it happens -- I'm sure it has happened at least once -- but to support your assertion of "often".)

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#627

Post by 3oil3 »

xdennis wrote: post #577
gcanyon wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your mind, if the company had researched their past hiring and found that whites/males had been favored for the previous history of the company, how long would it be reasonable for them to favor minorities and other underrepresented groups to balance the scales?

If that's the case, I do think favoring non-whites and non-males is perfectly okay. But how do you think people arrive at the conclusion that whites/males have been favored in the past? Do they: 1) inspect their hiring practices and find evidence of discrimination 2) look at the proportion of minorities in the company vs proportion of minorities in the general population and conclude that any disparity is proof of di…

I think they come to that conclusion with that segregation thing? Besides that, all nonsense. We need the best for the job, the best we can have. Just the best, with no regards to anything else but the abilities to fulfil the job and all around it. Instead of non-sense of choosing someone based on racial, etnic, religous, etc... it goes both way. Instead of that, put more teachers in schools, provide free books/uniforms/utilities. Fix that damn airco in that kindergarden class. Better what makes better.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#628

Post by pabs3 »

hedora wrote: post #532

I wonder if we need a GPL v4 that revokes itself if the end user violates other people’s human rights. That way, this sort of situation would result in the revocation of the python license, instead of the grant proposal.

Python doesn't use the GPL, and such a license wouldn't meet the FSF Four Freedoms, nor the OSI Open Source Definition, so it would likely lead to a fork, less usage and less redistribution.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#629

Post by kelnos »

somenameforme wrote: post #622
seattle_spring wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers. I've certainly heard that claim manu times, but never seen it backed up with actual data or even reputable anecdotes. Can you share the sources that led you to this conclusion?

You can see this very visibly in things like the Marines combat fitness tests. [1] In any case where strength is directly involved the requirement for a minimum score for men tends to be near the standards for a max score for women. In that particular test the ammo can lift range is 62-106 for men versus 30-66 for women. Obviously men are stronger than women and so different standards are reasonable, yet this is also…

I'm pretty sure that the effectiveness of a soldier in combat depends on a lot more than just a strength score.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#630

Post by kelnos »

userbinator wrote: post #588
seattle_spring wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers. I've certainly heard that claim manu times, but never seen it backed up with actual data or even reputable anecdotes. Can you share the sources that led you to this conclusion?

Look at the FAA ATC hiring controversy. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...

Everything I've read (that isn't from a blubbering MAGA source) suggests that the "controversy" is entirely manufactured.
Post reply on HN