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100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

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Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#41

Post by Sir_Substance »

onion2k wrote: post #31
punkbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in the sense that we do need to bring in the most talented people, but I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem . In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to…

>And that's not the solution, that's the problem.

That depends on whether what we are doing now works or not. Change for its own sake rarely does good in the IT industry.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#42

Post by kaybe »

seivan wrote: post #28
punkbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

Basically what you're saying is that you're against identity politics. I am happy to see other people with these values. I live in Ground Zero of identity politics, so I don't get to see people with your opinions often. Thank you!

Ideally we'd be able to distinguish between identity and ability. However, we're mostly not. A keywords off the top of my head is the halo effect, but there are a lot more. The question is, how do we deal with this imperfection?

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#43

Post by smanuel »

onion2k wrote: post #31
punkbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in the sense that we do need to bring in the most talented people, but I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem . In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to…

> we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas

Can you elaborate on the definition of "privileged white male"?

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#44

Post by vacri »

digitalzombie wrote: post #23
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

There's no proof that women are systematically targeted to be ousted from the tech field. I haven't seen any research papers with any clear evidence of this other than that there are more boys than girls in a particular field. I'm sure there are other occupation with the same thing. There are too many Fillipino in Nurse career I don't see any body saying to diversify it. There are tons of Vietnamese in nails, my uncl…

Because of this people such as women will use this as an excuse

'people such as women'? Poe's Law has bested me on this one.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#45

Post by kaybe »

digitalzombie wrote: post #23
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

There's no proof that women are systematically targeted to be ousted from the tech field. I haven't seen any research papers with any clear evidence of this other than that there are more boys than girls in a particular field. I'm sure there are other occupation with the same thing. There are too many Fillipino in Nurse career I don't see any body saying to diversify it. There are tons of Vietnamese in nails, my uncl…

https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903

Have a paper from 1997. It's about how after they changed to blind auditions, the number of women hired as orchestra musicians rose severalfold. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#46

Post by white-flame »

collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

From a shallow headline perspective, women seem to bring in different angles of thought, creativity, and productivity than men, which is beneficial when blended together. There doesn't seem to be that sort of distinction between men across different races, as there is across gender.

Now, that's probably not the actual drive for the strong push for women in tech (equality, fairness, etc), but a case could be made for it.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#47

Post by makeitsuckless »

punkbit wrote: post #6
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

Diversity is no about what color your skin happens to be. (Color is mostly an American obsession anyway.)

And you've just confirmed in your own self-description that you're not adding all that much diversity regardless of what you look like. Remove the "I'm black" bit (and ok, the afro), and the description matches countless devs.

Diversity is not "bullshit", neither from a social-economic perspective, nor from the perspective of the strength of the teams we are a part of.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#48

Post by rjtavares »

gambiting wrote: post #22

"Blacks in Oakland frequently question why I would live in SF with people who don’t look like me" This is the most racist thing I read whole day.

Do you really think that is more racist than “You know this is a tech event, right?”? If your answer is yes, I would advise a bit of self-reflection.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#49

Post by brtt »

wantab wrote: post #36
gambiting wrote: post #22

"Blacks in Oakland frequently question why I would live in SF with people who don’t look like me" This is the most racist thing I read whole day.

I came to say the same thing. This is another, "Poor black me" article where he's offended by everything he construes to be against him. As if Atlanta is better.

You're a bit off-base there.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#50

Post by yummyfajitas »

onion2k wrote: post #31
punkbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in the sense that we do need to bring in the most talented people, but I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem . In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to…

Lets be concrete. I'm streaming realtime events and then running statistical models on the datastream in order to manipulate user behavior. What "different perspectives" are offered by women, non-Asian minorities or LGBQT+? Is there a secret prediction method that whites/asians don't know about? A special LGBQT+ streaming architecture?

On several occasions I've joined a company and been the only diversity carrier. I can't think of a single advantage beyond PR (I make group photos look more diverse, yay!) that my race has given the company. Any such advantage is miniscule in comparison to the advantages gained by my knowledge of statistical significance, multiple comparisons, regression and the like.

Realistically, if you wanted to add diversity of thought, you'd be far better off hiring a Frequentist of the majority race than a Bayesian of a different one. And if you wanted real (harmful) diversity of thought, you'd hire a magical thinker rather than someone persuaded by evidence.

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