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Girls Who Code

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Re: Girls Who Code

#281

Post by xs_kid »

codahale wrote: post #249
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shanley Kane and her circle and sympathizers are spearheading this. Many of them show up in every HN thread about charged topics. I fully expect defense of them to show up in reply. It is part of my core being to be respectful to everyone, to listen to all sides, to feel empathy; however, when I am presented with a popular group in my industry that does none of those things, I am not sure how to react. What's depress…

Watching you clutch your pearls is fucking hilarious, so I've set up a weekly donation of a fair chunk of change to Shanley's Gittip account. Keep up the good work.

+1, adding some money to Shanley's account

Re: Girls Who Code

#282

Post by x0x0 »

xs_kid wrote: post #280
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shanley Kane and her circle and sympathizers are spearheading this. Many of them show up in every HN thread about charged topics. I fully expect defense of them to show up in reply. It is part of my core being to be respectful to everyone, to listen to all sides, to feel empathy; however, when I am presented with a popular group in my industry that does none of those things, I am not sure how to react. What's depress…

> several of her circle started Gittip accounts and they are cleaning house 459usd/week*52weeks/year = 23k/year - taxes = ~10k They will be rich soon.

I take your point, but if you earn $23k/year you aren't paying over 50% in tax. Particularly post eitc.

Re: Girls Who Code

#283

Post by jdunck »

Sssnake wrote: post #203
tptacek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because they are very well represented in the traditional professions: law, accounting, and medicine. They are not well represented in computer software. That's what we're talking about. Go to a crypto conference sometime. If, like me, you hail from computer software and not from academic cryptography and mathematics, you will probably be surprised at how much better women are represented there than in software.…

>They are not well represented in computer software Are they "well represented" in any skilled trade? Why is this one specific skilled trade such a unique cause for concern and inventing crazy reasons to blame the people in the trade?

Because software is eating the world.

Because entrepreneurship creates jobs.

Because software is the new means of production.

Because people different than you have problems which are different than yours.

Because dog-fooding is a great way to make something people want.

Lots more reasons, but chew on those.

Re: Girls Who Code

#284

Post by [deleted] »

Sssnake wrote: post #203
tptacek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because they are very well represented in the traditional professions: law, accounting, and medicine. They are not well represented in computer software. That's what we're talking about. Go to a crypto conference sometime. If, like me, you hail from computer software and not from academic cryptography and mathematics, you will probably be surprised at how much better women are represented there than in software.…

>They are not well represented in computer software Are they "well represented" in any skilled trade? Why is this one specific skilled trade such a unique cause for concern and inventing crazy reasons to blame the people in the trade?

[deleted]

Re: Girls Who Code

#285

Post by drewblaisdell »

tptacek wrote: post #59
gfodor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounded to me like you took pg's quote to mean he felt was blind to the factor opportunity takes towards gaining affinity for a subject. If this were true (and his next sentence seems to invalidate this) it would mean he felt that women were less capable, inherently, of appreciating computers and programming. At the risk of splitting hairs, this would be a misogynistic viewpoint. This is the narrative these clowns…

It's easier at this point to just say what I do and don't actually think. I don't think Paul Graham believes women are intrinsically less capable than men. I do think he has a blind spot regarding privilege and specifically the way his reputational energy reinforces privilege, and another related blind spot about how that fortified privilege impedes the progress of women in our field. Another way to put it would be,…

> I do think he has a blind spot regarding privilege and specifically the way his reputational energy reinforces privilege, and another related blind spot about how that fortified privilege impedes the progress of women in our field.

I don't know whether I agree or disagree with this (mostly, I just don't know what Paul Graham thinks about what he hasn't publicly spoken of), but this is a pretty serious claim to extrapolate from, as you wrote, an "impromptu essay".

I want to see meaningful change in the gender distribution/bias of this industry, but it's a shame that conversations about this frequently seem to contain detailed analyses of a reasonable person's "controversial remarks". It feeds a fire that shouldn't be fed.

Re: Girls Who Code

#286

Post by bermanoid »

philwelch wrote: post #68
gfodor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it the case that you do not screen candidates based upon any other criteria than skills-based assessment in other fields? That assumes people are robots. I don't care what field you are talking about, people are always going to screen for "culture fit", since it can be defined to mean anything you want. It's "can I work with this person", "does this person seem trustworthy and honest", etc. The only difference is…

"Culture fit" is a terrible word for it. What you do is you explicitly lay out the principles you expect people to follow and conduct behavioral interviews to find times they've followed those principles in the past. Here's an example: let's say you're a typical startup, and you need to move fast. You need to think fast and you need to act fast. Let's say you've made the decision to hire people around that principle.…

If someone rubs you wrong personally, why in the world would that not be relevant, especially on a small team? Sure, you don't have to be besties or anything, but being able to at least converse with someone makes any work relationship go a lot smoother, and inability to do so can cause serious problems.

I'd never let a good culture fit override a poor technical interview, but I've seen the consequences of hiring a brilliant programmer that happens to be an asshole, and it's not pretty. Am I misinterpreting what you're saying, or do you really think social skills should be entirely ignored when it comes to hiring?

Re: Girls Who Code

#287

Post by philwelch »

bermanoid wrote: post #286
philwelch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Culture fit" is a terrible word for it. What you do is you explicitly lay out the principles you expect people to follow and conduct behavioral interviews to find times they've followed those principles in the past. Here's an example: let's say you're a typical startup, and you need to move fast. You need to think fast and you need to act fast. Let's say you've made the decision to hire people around that principle.…

If someone rubs you wrong personally, why in the world would that not be relevant, especially on a small team? Sure, you don't have to be besties or anything, but being able to at least converse with someone makes any work relationship go a lot smoother, and inability to do so can cause serious problems. I'd never let a good culture fit override a poor technical interview, but I've seen the consequences of hiring a b…

> If someone rubs you wrong personally, why in the world would that not be relevant, especially on a small team?

Because business decisions should be made based upon facts and data, not based upon hunches and gut feelings. Going with your gut basically means throwing out the data and letting all of your personal biases decide the matter, consciously or unconsciously.

If it's a question of being able to work with others, then you can develop principles and behavioral interview questions around what you want your coworkers to be like. That's a bit of a pain in the ass, but empiricism was always more of a chore than just following your gut instinct.

Re: Girls Who Code

#288

Post by firebones »

lkrubner wrote: post #131
crassus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Prove that you're not a witch" is a very old tactic - and it's the opposite of the modern standard of guilt.

It is interesting that whenever this subject is brought up, someone will eventually introduce the subject of guilt. Can you articulate why you responded in this way? Do you feel that you have been accused of something? What exactly would the metaphorical equivalent of being a "witch" mean in this context? I'll point out that we could have a conversation about diversity in hiring without ever introducing the subject o…

Regarding great conversations being lost to the ages: a great idea for a service is an instant record button that preserves these things, regardless of source. Think pastebin + storify combined. The internet needs an instant record button.

Re: Girls Who Code

#289

Post by dinkumthinkum »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #268
azakai wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just going to throw this out here: only about 10% of nurses are male. Yet I rarely hear about the cultural problem of not having enough males in nursing, or how we can encourage more male nurses. Perhaps because you mostly read tech news sites, and not nursing news sites. This stuff (in both tech and nursing) rarely reaches the mainstream news sources, so people not involved in the industry generally are unawar…

Perhaps because you mostly read tech news sites, and not nursing news sites. This stuff (in both tech and nursing) rarely reaches the mainstream news sources, so people not involved in the industry generally are unaware of it. That's a good point. However, I was watching something on TV just yesterday about getting women into programming. My perception is that trying to get more women into programming is a much more…

Have you ever heard the phrase "one thing is not like the other?" I think that might apply here.

Re: Girls Who Code

#290

Post by dinkumthinkum »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #192
RivieraKid wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be sure (one can never know nowdays) – that's sarcasm right?

If it isnt clear then there is a problem.

You'd be surprised how many incredibly weird posts are on HN that are actually not sarcastic.
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