Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 112 posts

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#101

Post by s-shellfish »

colordrops wrote: post #98
s-shellfish wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a comment on the internet uses physical strength and stature as an analogy for why there are less women applying to programming jobs, what exactly are they trying to say? Please don't treat me like an idiot because ambiguity is convenient.

I agree it was a poor analogy, but I am giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt and assuming that some idea of inferiority (that you seem to be implying) is not the intent of their comment. Women and men have traditionally had very different roles and expectations in society, and significant physical differences as well, and to think that these differences don't have an effect on preferences and motivations, an…

We are here conversing on hacker news. We are not in some fashion show or construction working environment. There are women on hacker news, and there are women all over the tech sphere. And often times, comments like this make the difference between choosing to pretend to be male to blend in so we can simply continue conversing like the technical people we are. Likewise, comments like this piss some women off, because we work very hard to be factual, logical, precise, and technically adept - and to have all of that dumbed down a point that basically amounts to 'men have more muscle, brains must work the same' is quite frankly at the very least, an extremely weak, limited argument. At worst, it's patronizing, offensive, it enforces a particular perspective, it silences other perspectives, it enforces a particular set of expectations, and it's simply, unscientific, rude, and exceptionally passive in it's implications.

There's the expectation that people will just fill in the gaps because that's how we think when we code large projects. But here, I must say no. I will not fill in these gaps for you. I work hard to be good at what I do and if it continues to be insisted that sex differences serve as a concrete foundation for technical, mathematical skill, that simply isn't true. My life is proof enough to me. It may not be proof to you, but that's what I get to live with, because of lazy thought patterns like this. The near constant need to prove myself to people who are privileged enough to not have to go to such extremes.

Expectations and roles, yes, I've heard all these arguments before. How does stuff like that change? Surely, you must be aware that repeating the same points will only serve to reinforce such a perspective?

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#102

Post by colordrops »

s-shellfish wrote: post #101
colordrops wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it was a poor analogy, but I am giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt and assuming that some idea of inferiority (that you seem to be implying) is not the intent of their comment. Women and men have traditionally had very different roles and expectations in society, and significant physical differences as well, and to think that these differences don't have an effect on preferences and motivations, an…

We are here conversing on hacker news. We are not in some fashion show or construction working environment. There are women on hacker news, and there are women all over the tech sphere. And often times, comments like this make the difference between choosing to pretend to be male to blend in so we can simply continue conversing like the technical people we are. Likewise, comments like this piss some women off, becaus…

You are reading things that I never said. I just said that I agreed that the analogy of "men have more muscle, brains must work the same" is bad.

Let me fill in the gaps for you. I never once said or implied that women are inferior in any way and unable to do what men do in software. Read my comment again. I'm saying that women THEMSELVES do not prefer to do the work, regardless of ability, due to societal conditioning. I'm not talking about all women either, just on average. And I'm talking about gender here, not sex. You seem to have some old ideas about gender. I would suspect that a trans individual might have some of the same biases and cis-women, as many trans-women pick up a lot of the social and cultural behaviors and preferences of cis-women, so hopefully that makes it clear to you that I'm not talking about fundamental physical differences.

Also, let me make clear that I agree with the goal of a blended, equal workplace. I'm only discussing the effectiveness about how and where we go about doing it, not whether we should do it at all. Don't misplace your anger toward me.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#103

Post by s-shellfish »

colordrops wrote: post #102
s-shellfish wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are here conversing on hacker news. We are not in some fashion show or construction working environment. There are women on hacker news, and there are women all over the tech sphere. And often times, comments like this make the difference between choosing to pretend to be male to blend in so we can simply continue conversing like the technical people we are. Likewise, comments like this piss some women off, becaus…

You are reading things that I never said. I just said that I agreed that the analogy of "men have more muscle, brains must work the same" is bad. Let me fill in the gaps for you. I never once said or implied that women are inferior in any way and unable to do what men do in software. Read my comment again. I'm saying that women THEMSELVES do not prefer to do the work, regardless of ability, due to societal conditioni…

I'm not angry. It's really easy to make a comment and run alongside one perspective of many thought paths. I'm entertaining my own here, just as you are doing. It's varied and diverse. Just because you don't understand my perspective doesn't mean it lacks value.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#104

Post by radiantswirl »

montalbano wrote: post #91
radiantswirl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not suggest that, because obviously people can listen to each other and reach sensible agreements. But if that's possible then how "genuine" is their intellectual difference in the first place? My question is this: what defines an organization other than a shared intellectual approach? Borders? Dare I say... Walls? I'm just saying that a "shared intellectual approach" is literally the definition of an organizati…

When I google the definition of 'organization' this is the 1st one that comes up: "an organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department." People can have different ways of fulfilling the same purpose. As for an example: I'm currently developing a fairly large open-source software package for numerical analysis. I do the majority of the coding but every few weeks I discus…

You sound very logical and well-meaning and seem to be a good person in general, so I have to resist my initial urge to turn this comment thread into a flame war, but:

1.) a shared "purpose" to me is literally the same as a "Shared intellectual approach" -- purpose is a synonym of what I was trying to say.

2.) I strongly disagree that "disagreeing with the way you do certain things within the frames/boundaries of pre-agreed purposes and projects" is what anyone is trying to say when they talk about "intellectual diversity." If your definition of intellectual diversity (just inferring here so lmk if I'm wrong) is "disagreeing about how a job should be done," then literally every company on Earth is diverse by that metric, so its not a particularly useful metric IMO.

3.) IMO when people refer to "intellectual diversity" they are referring to having strongly held and opposing viewpoints about issues that are much larger than "how this job should be done." The viewpoints that qualify as "intellectually diverse" in all discussions of the concept I've read are referring to politics and/or religion.

I respect that you have an effective working process with diverse and strong viewpoints about software, but I think that strongly opposing viewpoints about software do not meet the commonly-held criteria for "intellectual diversity." Strongly-held opposing viewpoints about religion and politics do.

Compared to politics and religion, It's easy and fun for you and your coworkers to strongly disagree about software development. When you guys strongly disagree about that topic, the final outcome (as you just described) is positive: Everyone learns new things and your product gets better.

But it's extremely difficult and potentially way less fun for you and your co-workers to strongly disagree about politics and/or religion while still having a positive final outcome for all involved.

My question is this: do you know anyone who can? Because if anyone can provide me with a link to an article/blog post about "intellectual diversity" as it seems to be defined in common parlance -- I.e. "group members holding strongly opposing viewpoints about politics and/or religion" -- let me know because I'd be fascinated to read about it.

My curiousity is this: I wonder if intellectually diverse organizations share characteristics and if there was a way to map all organizations and find out which ones are "intellectually diverse" and what commonalities they share. Some part of me wonders if CrossFit and yoga would be the most intellectually diverse but the other part thinks maybe they're self-selecting for some tribal/religious/political qualities that I'm not even aware of. Would be cool to find out :)

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#105

Post by [deleted] »

radiantswirl wrote: post #77
waisbrot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the narrative of whites discriminating against minorities You made up that narrative. The narrative presented in the article is > Williams noted that, "diversity is critical to our success as a company" Achieving "diversity" is not the same as mirroring the demographics of a company's home country and "over-representation" is not directly related to lack of diversity.

If "diverse" != mirroring the demographics of one's home country, then what does diverse even mean? What could possibly be a better metric than that? Mirroring the demographics of the world at large? If so, why would that be better?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#106

Post by neoburkian »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #100
neoburkian wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? I'm sure Bruenig is right when when he says that the ability to stay out of poverty is mostly determined by the ability to hold a job. But thats basically a tautology. Did AEI shoe-horn in their pet theories into the analysis? Sure. On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that hold…

>So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? The conclusion is that it has little impact on your ability to not be "permanently poor" as the prior commenter stated. >On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that holding a job is casually independent from the sets of behavioral traits that lead people into failing high school…

The steelman of the Success Sequence (i.e. ignoring the shoe-horning that Bruenig pointed out) is that there are cultural/normative/behavioral tendencies that come prior to systemic oppression or poverty. These tendencies have a "strong casual relationship" with life outcomes like teen pregnancy, successfully holding jobs, etc.

Is there any conceivable evidence for this view that would be compelling to you? Is there a possible state of life outcomes that cannot be explained by pointing at "the system"?

> Motivated reasoning requires a motivation

Suppose X says to Y, "you are desperate for claim Z to be true." I think a strait-forward reading implies that X has some motivation to believe in Z independent of Z's truth value. No claim regarding the nature of the motive is necessary.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#107

Post by lord_ring_111 »

The diversity should be built from startups rather than by big corps vacuuming small population. But then diversity is also about not having “fair share” of high paying jobs. For example no one complains about lack of diversity in non high paying industries. See https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm

Agriculture, mining, constrction, transportation are much worse in gender diversity than tech (over representation of male) but you never hear those stories. Similarly health and education are over represented by females by 3:1 and no voices in needing more males there.

Building more diverse statups are good entry point as diverse leaders there will help define tomorrow rather than being being a diversity cog in bug company.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#108

Post by lord_ring_111 »

swalsh wrote: post #12

Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure? I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area…

Amen. This is exactly what is wrong with many countries. In india for example tgere is caste based reservation purely for political gains as its easier to split people emotionally over race (easier to see) etc than over money. Same thing here. If some section of population wants c suite positions, they stir up need for fair representation of that section everywhere.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#109

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

neoburkian wrote: post #106
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? The conclusion is that it has little impact on your ability to not be "permanently poor" as the prior commenter stated. >On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that holding a job is casually independent from the sets of behavioral traits that lead people into failing high school…

The steelman of the Success Sequence (i.e. ignoring the shoe-horning that Bruenig pointed out) is that there are cultural/normative/behavioral tendencies that come prior to systemic oppression or poverty. These tendencies have a "strong casual relationship" with life outcomes like teen pregnancy, successfully holding jobs, etc. Is there any conceivable evidence for this view that would be compelling to you? Is there…

>The steelman of the Success Sequence

Well now I'm interested, what do you take to be the steelman of Bruenig's/my position?

>Is there any conceivable evidence for this view that would be compelling to you?

Well for one I'm not talking about behavioral tendencies writ large, I'm specifically talking about cultural and normative tendencies. Two you haven't posted any evidence that those come prior to systemic oppression.

>Is there a possible state of life outcomes that cannot be explained by pointing at "the system"?

Let's think about fish in an aquarium. Is there a possible state of the life outcome of a fish that isn't actually explained by pointing at the conditions of the tank? (I'm actually interested in your answer)

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#110

Post by manfredo »

java_script wrote: post #47
pwaivers wrote: post #31

> "The upside to this is that white people no longer make up the majority at Facebook." I am all for diversity, but this sentence upsets me. Decreasing one population in the place should not be the goal.

Then by definition you are not "all for diversity".

Depends. In my view you can be all for diversity but at the same time not deliberately attempt to achieve an underrepresentation of a particular group.
Post reply on HN