Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

Post by gspetr » Thu, Aug 10, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #166

gspetr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC Harvard listed 2.5% of people graduating from that same class of 2021 as being Native American or indigenous people from Pacific Islands (don't remember what they were called precisely) which are actually 0.2% of general population. I strongly doubt you can make an argument that these people are there on merit alone.

Again: 0.2% of the general population? Or 0.2% of people born in 2000?

I don't have the exact data of births by race but I suppose we can make a reasonable extrapolation out of this: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/03/u-s-hispanic...

If the most prolific group (Asians) has a growth of 2.9%, then the possibility of one group, even if minor to have had a growth of 1000%+ (0.2% to 2.5%) is virtually impossible.

I think this proves my point that Native Americans (including Native Hawaiians and other peoples) are vastly overrepresented at Harvard.

Post by rrmm » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

usmeteora wrote: post #169

rrmm wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of wonder about the 'high-stress.' Why is programming (or whatever you want to call it) high-stress? I mean there doesn't seem like there would be an inherent reason for it to be high-stress just considering the task. And what about women in jobs like nurses and teachers?

Programming is high stress in a lot of situations. Its very mentally challenging work but I completely understand your question, especially in relation to nurses who are dealing with life and death situations on a daily basis or teachers who are privileged with venues of essentially being able to teach parent and influence young minds and pivot their future. I don't want to do programmers a disservice by making the c…

Thanks for the nice reply. I do confess though my comment was a bit rhetorical as I'm a programmer myself.

The list of things you point out consists of mostly external factors. I know where they come from and that they seem essential since those are the conditions that all of us are familiar with, but to a large degree, they are ultimately historical impositions: that is how the job has come to be practiced. (There are of course practical concerns that shape how this came to be; namely, the difficulty of getting all the pertinant information necessary to make any changes on a piece of software or debug it).

So there is definitely a cultural aspect of it, but much of the culture may not be strictly necessary to the product. Consider for example Torvalds' rather blunt manner. I am fond of being blunt and I enjoy being a bit combative and adversarial when it comes to advocating ideas. I've seen this attitude commonly in various academic/industry/scientific. To an extent it's useful. But it can become a sport unto itself and mean-spirited easily, especially in unskilled hands. I suspect a great many people would not like to work in such an environment.

My own suspicion is that technical fields tend to attract a lot of people who have trouble reading/relating to emotions and males who've had little contact with women, a lot of contact with bullies, fragile egos, and a need to fit in. It gets ugly fast.

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

Re: Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'