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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

#81

Post by kasey_junk »

dudul wrote: post #78
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You realize that most engineers do have a college degree right? You realize that most engineers are not dumb script kiddies who went through 10 PHP tutorials to learn how to code? This doesn't match the dialogue I see here and other places about college graduates and/or job candidates who can't fizzbuzz or have no other skills required in the industry. Although I think it would be nice if we simultaneously had a ste…

Not sure I see your point. Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field. Just to be clear: I don't think all developers need a degree, but I think there is much more than just attending a 4 week codecamp required to become a good developer. The author makes it sound so trivial and easy.

> Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field.

Prove it. That has not been my experience in hiring at all.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#82

Post by hluska »

wantab wrote: post #53
brtt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a bit off-base there.

No. Not at all. Substitute all the words "black" with "white" and see all the "You're a racist!" comments come out if I had written it.

Brtt was too charitable. You are completely off base here, but hey, way to prove the writer's point!

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#83

Post by gone35 »

smtddr wrote: post #40
punkbit wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about letting kids choose what they want to do with their lives ? I used to be a music producer and learned everything by myself. I grown up in a white neighbourhood. I was the only emcee around, producing Hip-hop music, influenced by the Beastie Boys. I started coding really young. When I got the internet, I learned a lot about Hip-Hop, I was passionate. My first website was related about my passions, sharing m…

First, I downvoted your comment for the excessive negativity/abuse in it. You could have made your point just as clear without them. Second, I'm going to take your comment to point out something I've noticed when talking about sexism/racism. I'm going to call this theory of mine "Calibration". When I hear people say stuff like "What about letting [underrepresented group] choose what they want to do with their lives?"…

To add to your "calibration" framework: I sometimes explain the ethics of affirmative action in control theory terms as a kind of 'bang-bang' response[1]. So yes, things will be inequitable for the other side for a while, but you can't expect to efficiently correct longstanding historical inequities otherwise... Too bad it's this generation's "tag, you are it" moment to pay up for our forefathers' privilege, but that's just the way it is.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang–bang_control

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#84

Post by spacemanmatt »

wantab wrote: post #53
brtt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a bit off-base there.

No. Not at all. Substitute all the words "black" with "white" and see all the "You're a racist!" comments come out if I had written it.

There are a lot of ways to explain that power imbalances are critical context to racist statements. Yes, when black people say racist things in America, it's racist, but when white people do it, it's racism.

But the very best explanation is long-form stand-up comedy. If you don't understand, you really should watch this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#85

Post by hluska »

b6 wrote: post #75

I would be overjoyed if people would stop capitalizing "black", "white", etc. It feels like I'm reading something from Stormfront. Do we want body attributes and tribes to be less important in the future, or more?

You know, my iPhone has taken to auto-capitalizing the word 'white'. As a white man, this scares the hell out of me, as it strikes me as being racist as hell. I don't have the same reaction when I see the word 'black' capitalized. We are an odd species...

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#86

Post by spacemanmatt »

mikekchar wrote: post #72
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 am a white guy living in the rural Japan. I can tell you lots of stories of other expat white people accusing me of being a "Japan-o-phile" (apparently a bad thing) because I adopted a Japanese way of life. People have often warned me that "they [the Japanese people] will never accept you" and "you know you will never be Japanese". I get far more racism from these expats who feel betrayed that I have happily integr…

Thanks for one of the best expositions on fundamental xenophobia I've read in a while.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#87

Post by dudul »

kasey_junk wrote: post #81
dudul wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I see your point. Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field. Just to be clear: I don't think all developers need a degree, but I think there is much more than just attending a 4 week codecamp required to become a good developer. The author makes it sound so trivial and easy.

> Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field. Prove it. That has not been my experience in hiring at all.

It has been mine. I have been interviewing and hiring developers for the past 6 years, this was my empirical observation. I am glad you had a different experience.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#88

Post by digitalzombie »

vacri wrote: post #44
digitalzombie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry ESL, I was setting this up to talk about how the CEO of Reddit was using this as an excuse in her law suit.

"such as some women like CEO of Reddit" would be better. The original does make it seems like all women.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#89

Post by tbrownaw »

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…

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.

What is the difference in required skill sets, between what we do now and what we should be doing?

I think this can reasonably be split into two basic tasks: find (and sufficiently define) a problem to solve; and given a problem / set of constraints, find a good solution.

Which task is different between "now" and your ideal, and how does that difference require different skills?

.

In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to change it, and we can only change it by bringing in ideas that are different to what we have now.

This assumes that we're not already changing it. Also needing different ideas on what things to do, is different from needing different skills on doing those things.

.

That is best done by people who offer different perspectives on what we're doing at the moment.

Or, by asking or watching those people (all the million-and-one ways that for-profit companies do market research and user research and such).

In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc.

No. It's whoever has problems that need solving. Which has nothing to do with tech, and everything to do with the fact that "improve society" above seems to mean "moral progress".

Probably the best thing that happening in this regard right now, is the push for police to wear cameras. (So shouldn't that mean that the tech for this has been developed with higher-than-normal participation by non-rich-white-techie-dude people?)

.

The thing that really must change in order to get society making the best tech possible that really impacts lives in a positive way is that we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas. That can only happen by filling the chamber with more people who aren't privileged white males.

No. The echo chamber has nothing to do with who's in it, and everything to do with who has enough money to be the target demographic.

Either raise awareness that other people have money too (or can have money if they buy (on credit) what you're trying to sell), or convince people to work for social good instead of a paycheck.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#90

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

smtddr wrote: post #40
punkbit wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about letting kids choose what they want to do with their lives ? I used to be a music producer and learned everything by myself. I grown up in a white neighbourhood. I was the only emcee around, producing Hip-hop music, influenced by the Beastie Boys. I started coding really young. When I got the internet, I learned a lot about Hip-Hop, I was passionate. My first website was related about my passions, sharing m…

First, I downvoted your comment for the excessive negativity/abuse in it. You could have made your point just as clear without them. Second, I'm going to take your comment to point out something I've noticed when talking about sexism/racism. I'm going to call this theory of mine "Calibration". When I hear people say stuff like "What about letting [underrepresented group] choose what they want to do with their lives?"…

Re your footnote, I don't see how you can hold that belief.
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