The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#191

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #190

joshuamorton wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly. We do it all the time when the free market misses some context. I see no major difference between a carbon tax and an affirmative action policy. In both cases, the naively optimal action misses some important context, so the system is then tweaked to modify the outcome to take the external factors into account. Do you have any alternative that isn't isomorphic to affirmative action?

> Do you have any alternative that isn't isomorphic to affirmative action? Possible alternative: We need to embrace that all decisions we make are emotional, even the rational ones [1], and create a process that facilitates the desired change. I believe this can be done by hiring competent minorities into teams [2], where although they are a minority in general they will not be on their team. These teams should not o…

So, as an alternative to affirmative action, your proposing we create teams that are essentially ghettos for minorities, and suggesting that this will improve their respect amongst their peers?

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#192

Post by yorwba » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #184

asabjorn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think its a bit odd to try to compensate for implicit bias with explicit bias? To me it seems unlikely that bigotry, sexism and racism will be fixed by more of the same.

Not particularly. We do it all the time when the free market misses some context. I see no major difference between a carbon tax and an affirmative action policy. In both cases, the naively optimal action misses some important context, so the system is then tweaked to modify the outcome to take the external factors into account. Do you have any alternative that isn't isomorphic to affirmative action?

The better alternative would be to improve the situation where the original injustice occurs, not sometime later in the pipeline.

E.g. affirmative action in university admissions assumes that members of traditionally underprivileged groups did not have the opportunity to display their full potential and will have higher peak performance than their current scores suggest.

While this is true on average and affirmative action is the best you can do if you are limited to influencing this single funnel in the pipeline, it also ends up unfairly benefiting privileged members within unprivileged groups.

If more wide-reaching changes are possible, e.g. ensuring that everyone has the same chance to actually learn something in school, affirmative action would soon become redundant, since the difference it aims to correct would not exist any more.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#193

Post by asabjorn » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #191

asabjorn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have any alternative that isn't isomorphic to affirmative action? Possible alternative: We need to embrace that all decisions we make are emotional, even the rational ones [1], and create a process that facilitates the desired change. I believe this can be done by hiring competent minorities into teams [2], where although they are a minority in general they will not be on their team. These teams should not o…

So, as an alternative to affirmative action, your proposing we create teams that are essentially ghettos for minorities, and suggesting that this will improve their respect amongst their peers?

Read my comment again; in no way this is a ghetto for minorities as the teams are not entirely comprised of minorities and this team structure is supported by research that shows that it feels socially isolating to be the sole representative of your minority in your daily life. Maybe even a majority is not a minority on the team.

To be honest this kind of comment that makes any alternative proposal into a cartoon while attacking points clearly not made is whats wrong with american discourse. I think we can do better.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#194

Post by quotemstr » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

auxym wrote: post #82

katzgrau wrote: post #81

From one of the comments (author, Nathan Spears): > People with Asperger’s can navigate social situations remarkably well after they learn “the rules” of social interaction. That's my experience. I too, was socially awkward kid who taught himself basic programming by reading computer manuals around the age of 10. I constantly got picked on though out elementary and middle school. In high school it got a little better…

I took a quick look at the ASQ test mentioned in the article [1]. A lot of the things in there, I would have answered "definitely agree" when I was a teenager. Sometime in college, I forced myself to socialize, and did everything I could to learn what I needed to fit in. For example, I learned from the internet to dress and care for myself so I didn't look like a 17 year basement nerd, and a bunch of other things I g…

Many ill-adjusted young people become perfectly functional adults. That's why it's incredibly dangerous to make drastic and irreversible childhood interventions in response to indications that are most likely transient and self-resolving. Our society is insane.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#195

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #192

joshuamorton wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly. We do it all the time when the free market misses some context. I see no major difference between a carbon tax and an affirmative action policy. In both cases, the naively optimal action misses some important context, so the system is then tweaked to modify the outcome to take the external factors into account. Do you have any alternative that isn't isomorphic to affirmative action?

The better alternative would be to improve the situation where the original injustice occurs, not sometime later in the pipeline. E.g. affirmative action in university admissions assumes that members of traditionally underprivileged groups did not have the opportunity to display their full potential and will have higher peak performance than their current scores suggest. While this is true on average and affirmative…

>The better alternative would be to improve the situation where the original injustice occurs, not sometime later in the pipeline.

Well...yes. No where did I say that affirmative action policies are the only or a permanent solution, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who did. But they are an immediate bandaid that at least in theory stops the feedback loop.

In other words, I agree, but I'm asking in the context of "is there anything that can be done in that funnel that is superior to affirmative action", and it appears that you also agree that the answer is no. In which case, it comes down to whether or not the outsized[1] benefit to privileged minorities is worth it.

[1]: And depending on your opinions of privilege, there's compelling arguments to be made that the benefit to otherwise privileged minorities isn't outsized, they'd just be even more successful. Also that often you don't care about the most privileged since they'd all "pass" anyway, but the marginal group. But that's a bigger discussion.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#196

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 8:59 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #150

katzgrau wrote: post #81

From one of the comments (author, Nathan Spears): > People with Asperger’s can navigate social situations remarkably well after they learn “the rules” of social interaction. That's my experience. I too, was socially awkward kid who taught himself basic programming by reading computer manuals around the age of 10. I constantly got picked on though out elementary and middle school. In high school it got a little better…

> As an aspie, you're probably pretty damned good at actively learning the traits that seem to come naturally for other people. Makes me wonder how much of "neuro-diversity" is actually just "neuro-plasticity". Maybe many aspies are actually just "neuro-typicals" who were bullied and lost faith in social interactions, and thus spent much of their early life on geeky interests instead, developing better technical skil…

[deleted]

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#197

Post by pjc50 » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #179

lazyasciiart wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why affirmative action? Because if one person takes everything from another person, is it fair to say "you know, that was bad, and it shouldn't have happened, but since that's in the past we should just make sure that we treat both of them the same now"? (I will also note that all the work I see being done to end 'regular' discrimination, a.k.a get to the state where we do see people as individuals and don't act base…

Don't you think its a bit odd to try to compensate for implicit bias with explicit bias? To me it seems unlikely that bigotry, sexism and racism will be fixed by more of the same.

If you have a car that pulls to the right, you can compensate for this by steering to the left.

If the car is in fact travelling straight down the road while you're doing this, and a backseat driver says "you're pulling to the left, that's not a safe way to drive", are they correct?

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#198

Post by yorwba » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

chrisbroadfoot wrote: post #106

Semkas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the value in charisma, but it seems uncontroversial to me that what most people consider "fair" is hiring people for their skill at a job, not their ability to make the interviewer like them.

Charisma is a valuable skill as a software engineer. Have you ever needed to convince another team to implement a feature for you? Charisma helps greatly with that.

Have you ever convinced someone to do something which turned out to be a bad idea? Charisma is a social amplifier. If what it is amplifying isn't good enough, more charisma only hurts instead of helping.

Essentially, you need just enough charisma to avoid being steamrolled by others when you're right and they are not, while not having enough to steamroll them when it's the other way around.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#199

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #193

joshuamorton wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, as an alternative to affirmative action, your proposing we create teams that are essentially ghettos for minorities, and suggesting that this will improve their respect amongst their peers?

Read my comment again; in no way this is a ghetto for minorities as the teams are not entirely comprised of minorities and this team structure is supported by research that shows that it feels socially isolating to be the sole representative of your minority in your daily life. Maybe even a majority is not a minority on the team. To be honest this kind of comment that makes any alternative proposal into a cartoon whi…

But I'm not making it into a cartoon. You're suggestion is to take minorities and segregate them into specific majority-minority teams. Here's a definition of "ghetto" from a Google search:

> put in or restrict to an isolated or segregated area or group

That is absolutely what your proposal entails. Consider the outcomes of this proposal:

> I'm sorry, we don't have any $minority teams working on $area_of_expertise right now, so I don't see a good fit for you.

Note that now your minority group is explicitly a marker of what you can or cannot work on. Whether or not you intended it, your proposal creates a racially defined hierarchy, much in the same way that we already have stereotypes about "women work in frontend/ui roles", you'll only support those stereotypes and make them systematically ingrained. Further, without minority advocates and voices at the level of people picking the "minority" teams, minorities will be less likely to access those projects that are considered more interesting/challenging/prestigious.

And note that the more reasonable "make all teams minority majority" is not possible unless your population is also minority majority, and even then its artificial and perhaps too strict.

Please don't object to my calling a spade a spade. I've provided a reason that your suggestion is flawed, and instead of defending it on its merits, you've objected to my word choice.

Re: The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

#200

Post by pjc50 » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

Banthum wrote: post #148

noobermin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do we have that such a perspective is removing their individuality? The argument those of us on the left make is that people's individuality, their talent etc are disregarded because of their class/attributes etc., and society as it is set-up punishes some classes while rewarding others, rather than rewarding individuals as individuals.

The main thing that turned me against the modern left is the insistence on categorizing everyone into identity groups, and then treating their individuality as less important than the groups they represent. For example, every argument that any person has more or less of a right to speak on a given topic because of their identity markers also implicitly states that their identity markers are more important than their…

This is of course what the right has been doing for a very long time; do you think the intent behind the "Muslim ban" was based on treating people as individuals, or as members of a group?