There's a deep, wonderful irony in someone writing on TechCrunch about possible disturbances in the sanctity of software development.
Beware the Pretty People
51–60 of 117 posts
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Here's an intellectual way to approach the problem: Stepping back from our society, in some meritocratic system why would 38% of a population[1] produce 90%[2] of the winners? And is it coincidence that the 38% group has controlled power, wealth, and privelege for hundreds of years, and still does in most other situations (governnment, non-tech business, etc.)? That is actually the least intellectual way you could a…
"I think that's enough to critique your original way of phrasing the problem." Then I don't think much of your thinking. Making up scenarios that are trivially refuted by a moment's thought is silly. How about 4) Aliens come down every night and surgically remove the bits of women's brains that are used in programming tasks. There, now I've really addressed the issue. See why 'making stuff up' isn't actually some mar…
Right, so even in fields you've been able to pick, you've not been able to show that women are the majority of the winners. You can say they're a little less frequently trumped by men. But you still have minorities in both cases.
Where are all these competent women who are eschewing tech because of the lack of hot guys? Which fields are they dominating?
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't defending any particular practice as being perfectly meritocratic. If you want to argue that a blind code test (or whatever) is more meritocratic than github code review, be my guest. The point I'm making is somewhat different. The pretty people and the social justice types oppose the idea of meritocracy itself. ...in some meritocratic system why would 38% of a population[1] produce 90%[2] of the winners? An…
> But that's where the "pretty people" will just call me a racist/sexist Not at all. There is little doubt that 'merit' defined as an capability or skill of an individual is not uniform. The point is that 'merit' is systemically produced. It is a function of money, aspiration, parental ambition, education, culturation, in-group bias, and many other factors. Another way to phrase this is 'privilege', though that word…
The point is that 'merit' is systemically produced. It is a function of money, aspiration, parental ambition, education, culturation, and many other factors. Another way to phrase this is 'privilege', though that word is considered some kind of anathema by people who don't like to see their elevated status and capabilities as somehow a function of their environment.
I don't think anyone is really arguing that privilege affects merit, but to say that what makes up merit can be called privilege is to say that they are one and the same, which they are note. Of course access to resources to grow whatever talent you have, and allow you to make the most of your ambition will affect your merit, but to discount talent and ambition entirely by making the conversation entirely about privilege is to error in the other direction.
In modern western societies we attempt to smooth the privilege curve through socializing some aspects of it, such as education, and to differing degrees, health. While obviously not perfect, I would argue that we at least attempt to mitigate the problem by supplementing the biggest differentiators in merit that are based on privilege. Beyond that, what do you suggest? I don't think it's possible to eliminate the benefit of privilege, entire nations have gone to war to try, and the result was not what what I would call a success by that criteria.
Meritocracy has the benefit of shepherding those most capable and qualified into the positions where they can do the most. There may be a system better for the individual and society, but I would need quite a bit of info and evidence before I endorsed it.
>> But that's where the "pretty people" will just call me a racist/sexist "creep" who can't get laid, and intellectual discussion stops.
> Anyone who actually understands the last 20 years of social science, far from 'stopping intellectual discussion' are more likely to recognize that you've simply not found out or understood the issue. Which can, of course, be a sin of racism or sexism, if one is willingly ignorant. But can just be naivete or a Dunning Kruger effect.
Did you really just do that? Did you just respond to someone complaining about how the conversation eventually degrades into the opposition tossing out labels instead of arguments by stating he's either racist, sexist or ignorant?
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't defending any particular practice as being perfectly meritocratic. If you want to argue that a blind code test (or whatever) is more meritocratic than github code review, be my guest. The point I'm making is somewhat different. The pretty people and the social justice types oppose the idea of meritocracy itself. ...in some meritocratic system why would 38% of a population[1] produce 90%[2] of the winners? An…
> But that's where the "pretty people" will just call me a racist/sexist Not at all. There is little doubt that 'merit' defined as an capability or skill of an individual is not uniform. The point is that 'merit' is systemically produced. It is a function of money, aspiration, parental ambition, education, culturation, in-group bias, and many other factors. Another way to phrase this is 'privilege', though that word…
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Re: Beware the Pretty People
#55It's funny, this article seems to be rather full of irony. At the beginning of the article, I started miss when a lot of the tech scene was a little more grass roots, but maybe that's just rose colored glasses. Obviously, things have gotten more sophisticated since the days of simple computers like the TRS-80 and while it's not possible to totally grep everything in a modern OS, I do miss some of the hacker ethos tha…
It's actually a lot easier to get started hacking now, in the age of Javascript and the web, than it was 25 years ago. I remember begging my dad to buy me Think Pascal when I got a computer so I could learn to program. Computers cost about $2500 then, and the compiler itself was about $200. Now one of the best languages to learn, Javascript, comes free with excellent developer tools in every web browser, which comes…
Rasberi Pi 2 $35
crummy usb drive $6
Keyboard from thrift store $2
Mouse from thrift store $3
Monitor from thrift store $10
A functional computer for $56. Not the best but probably a lot faster than the one you paid $2500 for.
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#56Funny how the nerd stereotype is used in different contexts. In the context of diversity in tech, nerds are a subculture dominated by White males. This culture has a misogynistic dark side, and it is important to show that you don't have to conform to this subculture to succeed in tech. However, in the context of the corporatization of tech, suddenly the nerds are the good guys. And funnily enough, nerd culture was a…
There is an important thread connecting the two: In the context of diversity in tech, nerds are a subculture dominated by White males. This culture has a misogynistic dark side... This is a popular and powerful attack line used by "pretty people" seeking power in tech. It's used to demonize the old guard. When the old guard tries to intellectually dispute it, as is their custom, one can then attack their person direc…
objective and meritocratic nerd hiring practices (e.g. hire-by-github, death by brainteaser)
That selects for adequately privileged (generally) white males with the spare time to create projects on github and a particular interest in brain-teasers.
To my knowledge, hiring in all fields is an utter joke, with essentially zero research ever having been performed. It's entirely based on bias and guided by HR-fueled fears of lawsuits.
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#57No one has or should have stranglehold on nor should claim to own an industry (territorialism). Industries just are -they don't care who the constituents are. People come and go. Does it matter what it once was, and what it's becoming? No. Stop the provincialism and the bemoaning of the illegitimate successors. Things change. They are meant to. People will always try to seek success wherever it can be found, now it's tech, decades from now it will be something else.
I really don't get this. Most people acknowledge there should be a more even balance of women in technology. But, the diversity is only welcome if the women are other nerds? If non nerds want to come to the party, that's despoiling things?
No one owns industries. Yes industries have a history and there were important people who started industries, but they mature and they become part of the mainstream --stop bemoaning this. Accept that things which become mainstream have to acquire aspects of the mainstream.
Of course, this is tech crunch and always wants to eat their cake and have it too.
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#58Funny how the nerd stereotype is used in different contexts. In the context of diversity in tech, nerds are a subculture dominated by White males. This culture has a misogynistic dark side, and it is important to show that you don't have to conform to this subculture to succeed in tech. However, in the context of the corporatization of tech, suddenly the nerds are the good guys. And funnily enough, nerd culture was a…
The nerd subculture is composed of White males among others, and certainly not dominated by them. It's funny you say nerds have a misogynistic dark side because often a group of nerds first congregate because they weren't interested in spending effort to be popular or attractive and so were a group of rejects and misfits hanging out with each other. You can force some women into 'nerd culture' to make it diversified but then the misfits and rejects are only going to leave and make another group because, well, they're rejected and seen as misfits by the other people you forcefully put in there.
The same will occur in the tech industry, as you forcefully insert people from other subcultures into the tech industry, rejects and misfits that first started the industry up will be, well, seen as misfits and become rejected, and will thus leave. The tech industry will become more diversified and conformist, and the misfits and rejects will move on to other things, and then some big wave of change will come from those other things, and those other things would be full of misfits and rejects who happen to be white males, (well america is majority white, what else do you expect), and then we can start this misogyny debate all over again.
You can't force everyone to work well with misfits and rejects. Though you can kick out the misfits and rejects, there will always be misfits and rejects, if not here, then they will be somewhere else, working on what society has ignored, so far.
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you want to take this percentage game further? Let's talk about Jews. If a system is truly meritocratic, how is it that 0.2% of the population of a particular demographic has 20% of the Nobel prizes? Do you think, by your standards, there is some sort of a Jewish "discriminatory behavior" at play here? I'm sure you see by now that playing this percentage game quickly gets very discriminatory itself. I think a cert…
> Do you think, by your standards, there is some > sort of a Jewish "discriminatory behavior" at > play here? Yes. No doubt. Jewish men have certain forms of privilege, which makes it easier for some of them to access elite scientific institutions. They also have several axes in which they lack privilege. Those axes are less significant in the earning of a Nobel prize. You seem to think you've discovered intersection…
It could be less privilege and more a long cultural history of intellectual activity and thus, being raised in an environment that encourages these kind of endeavors.
Re: Beware the Pretty People
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't defending any particular practice as being perfectly meritocratic. If you want to argue that a blind code test (or whatever) is more meritocratic than github code review, be my guest. The point I'm making is somewhat different. The pretty people and the social justice types oppose the idea of meritocracy itself. ...in some meritocratic system why would 38% of a population[1] produce 90%[2] of the winners? An…
> But that's where the "pretty people" will just call me a racist/sexist Not at all. There is little doubt that 'merit' defined as an capability or skill of an individual is not uniform. The point is that 'merit' is systemically produced. It is a function of money, aspiration, parental ambition, education, culturation, in-group bias, and many other factors. Another way to phrase this is 'privilege', though that word…
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