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The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
11–20 of 280 posts
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#12The author is walking on thin ice by suggesting that sexual dimorphism has a significant effect on cognitive abilities. For her own safety, I hope she doesn’t live in San Francisco.
You think it doesn't?
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#13> He said that society increasingly sees groups instead of individuals, to the extent that group rights may supersede individual rights in all sorts of contexts, including politicised work environments. Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is t…
How do you explain the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study then?
Being adopted by white people doesn't make one magically immune to melanin-based discrimination from society at large, and self-confidence and encouragement from teachers can make up a large part of the mental conditioning that allows one to do well on IQ tests.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#14 I always felt that the fact that the tech industry is so welcome to techies and people with "aspie"-type personalities, indicates that in fact we as an industry have more empathy than other industries (or social groups) that shun these types of people (myself included) for what I believe are very superficial reasons.
So, I think the title of the article is extremely biased and draws the wrong conclusions from the writer's own research.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#15His childhood mirrors my own, although academic success is inverted. I wonder if there is some trait which transfixed us for life, I am certain that the interviewee (Gideon) and I are not alone. It also beggars the question. Although very non-PC. That were I a girl I would not be dissuaded from this course. I know this because there was literally zero support from anyone regarding computing as a hobby or profession.…
I have seen multiple women express surprise that I am programmer because "but you are women" or "I did not knew women can do that". I live in a bit behind the times place, obviously. Conversely, I have seen parents shocked that someone would put boy on art lesson.
Is that part of your answer?
Nevertheless, among my friends, parents agains boy doing computing were practically nonexistent. Computer was usually in boy room and boys were heavily praised for every tiny thing they knew and expected to deal. Their sisters largely aware that it is for boys and not expected of anything (not in my familly I found out only much later).
Note that my parents seen spending much time with computer as waste of time and were systematically attempting to send me out - but they did not seen it boyish nor seen me fundamentally incapable to master it. I had reasonable access to computer and to some books that were in household.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#16This article is going to rub lots of people the wrong way, I suspect, but it's level headed, well reasoned and well written. Although I ultimately disagree with some of the conclusions drawn at the end, (particularly: > Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class.…
Not particular to the Google stuff, but more of a general observation:
I am very much in favor of ripping the hard work of well-intentioned people to sheds, if it deserved to be ripped to shreds, like e.g. the fine "make proper God-fearing Christians of all those dark-skinned heathens" (the missionaries were/still are quite often well-intentioned and hard-working).
Now, some of the stuff that is done, well-intentioned, in the tech industry to promote diversity and/or make the workplace a friendlier space for women and other groups may end up achieving opposite results, driving co-workers apart and making the work environment more toxic for everybody.
Therefore, we must be able to discuss and criticize any and all such programs, and therefore the hard work somebody put into them, and stop such programs if we determine a detrimental outcome.
Like in science: you prod and poke and even try to shred-rip a theory (somebody put a lot of effort into), and if that theory withstands it probably is solid and sound.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#17> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is true of men. Because women are now a victimised class, men are increasingly seen as victimisers, irrespective of their individual attributes or actions. I cannot agree with this more. Very, very well ob…
I think these kinds of antagonisms are central to American society. Other parts of the world often find them alien and incomprehensible.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#18I have aspergers, and empathize with the feeling that society doesn't much care about our struggle (or, for that matter, knows how to deal with anyone who isn't neurotypical).
One thing I have come to realize though (and I know this will be controversial on here) is that SV and tech in general is this special place where people with limited social skills can go to work for really high salaries to create things of often dubious societal value.
I remember reading in a similar article that many "classical-liberal" types think that the wage-gap between man and woman may be caused by the fact that woman are naturally less competitive. Meaning that they are less careerist. This is of course a failure of meritocracy, in the same way that charisma often trumps skill at a job (which is the big problem for anti social men).
Here is my point: we have these different failures of meritocracy affecting different people, but for people (mostly men) with aspergers there is this special, well paying, industry. So I don't know that we have it that bad, or that efforts to attract more woman (even if you consider the given reasons to be bogus) are really misguided.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
To play devils advocate, the success of Asian Americans and Jews could also be explained by genetics. My own biases as well as basic knowledge of the respective cultures makes me fairly certain that it's culture in both cases rather than genetics, though.
The issue with claiming that genetics causes the success of certain races is that there is greater genetic variation within races than between them, and that there has been no discovered correlation between certain genetic traits and success. Plus that kind of thinking can lead to racist discrimination, which isn't good.
> there is greater genetic variation within races than between them
This is true, which is why we can only say something useful about averages between populations, but not extrapolate to particular individuals.
> there has been no discovered correlation between certain genetic traits and success
This is very false. IQ is largely genetic, and the biggest predictor of life success of any kind, especially in relatively well developed societies.
Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
#20> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is true of men. Because women are now a victimised class, men are increasingly seen as victimisers, irrespective of their individual attributes or actions. I cannot agree with this more. Very, very well ob…
We really have to stop seeing people as members of a group first and an individual second. It is lazy thinking.