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

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

#211

Post by mpweiher » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

pasquinelli wrote: post #188

mpweiher wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> claim that patriarchy is a misnomer because it's bad for men too. Nope. What I wrote that it is perpetuated/enforced by both men and women (arguably by women more than men) and has both negative and positive effects for both men and women.

yeah, that's the one. thanks for clearing up any confusion that i might have caused by not reproducing your post verbatim. anyway, gender roles and gender expectations.

Yes. "Gender roles exist, and they come with expectations for everyone" is a lot different from "the evil patriarchy is a conspiracy by men to oppress women".

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

#212

Post by Veelox » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #163

dcow wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of level-headed people on the right see things exactly that way too. What kills us, or at least me (I'll identify for the purpose of this argument), is trying to figure out why people "on the left" are so focused on fixing the symptoms by way of "reverse discrimination" (i.e. affirmative action) instead of focusing on ensuring that we continue to see people as unique individuals instead of–what we feel is the…

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…

>I will also note that all the work I see being done to end 'regular' discrimination ... is being done by the left.

Disclaimer: I am a random person on the internet so have as much faith in my anecdotal evidence as you have in humanity.

I think the issue with what you are seeing is confirmation bias. Because the left and right have different views on what causes the disparity between whites and blacks they go about trying to fix it different ways.

Those on the left see it as a systematic issue and want a systematic fix. There is implict bias in the system against blacks so if we add explicit bias for blacks it will come out about equal. Add the bias for long enough the system will correct for past injustice and everything will be fine.

This contrasts strongly with the view I was raised with, that the difference between whites and blacks is because of different cultures that place value on different outcomes or fail to instill positive traits into members of the culture. Some of the big ideas that are not valued is hard work, respecting property, valuing education, disdaining violence and avoiding having children until you can afford to support them.

The fix for this is to teach these values to those that do not have them. I grew up in a small very white community. Yet, when a black student at my highschool aged out of foster care. My family took him in for the rest of the school year. This let him get his diploma. While he understood most of these values, my father worked with him to control his temper.

Another example is a camp in rural Midwest that is for kids of prisoners even though it is close to a mostly white town the drive black children in from the major city because they want to help them and give them hope.

I guess all of this is to make the point that just because some opposes affirmative action does not mean they hate PoC. I won't denie some people are like that. But I think the majority of those against AA see it as fighting fire with fire and don't expect good to come from it.

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

#213

Post by danieltillett » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

fouc wrote: post #60

danieltillett wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't lose empathy, but I lose the ability to understand or speak English. If someone interrupts me when I am in deep in the groove I can tell someone is talking to me, but I can't understand what they are saying and I can't reply. It takes me around 5 to 10 seconds to context switch back into English. Amusingly my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half…

Almost sounds like the neurons dedicated for auditory processing have been temporarily allocated towards the visual/logical tasks, hence the delay in switching back ;)

Yes that is my hypothesis as well. I have always been able to effectively shutdown my auditory processing when I am concentrating intensely on something (I was notorious in my family for having to be yelled at to get my attention when reading).

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

#214

Post by asabjorn » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:30 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #199

asabjorn wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ri…

> segregate them into specific majority-minority teams

Again, you mischaracterize what I said:

"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 only be that minority as you in a truly inclusive system can't define people by a trait."

Where I in the follow up comment say:

"... 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."

> put in or restrict to an isolated or segregated area or group. That is absolutely what your proposal entails.

Because of the preceding comments I disagree with this characterization. These teams are an acknowledgement that many find it hard to feel like they are the sole representative of their minority in their daily life.

It is a tool that should only be applied at discretion and when appropriate, and to make it work it needs support.

> 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, ..

This was addressed in the proposal: "Since its a minority you probably have to do some extra legway in facilitating matching these teams well to problems the the team members find interesting and that there are growth opportunities. However, that is an ongoing conversation you should be having at any rate."

I never said it was easy and that we wouldn't have to have extra support to make this work. That support requires staffing, training, recruiting etc etc that spends extra effort to make this very difficult thing happen.

> 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.

To my points above these are clearly mischaracterizing of what I am saying by at best not carefully reading the proposal. I am asking you for the same respect in this discourse that I am giving you, and I believe that is fair.

Edit: @joshuamorton I am sorry, I can't keep pointing to the same quotes showing how you interpret what I say is different from what I actually said with no progress in our discourse. I think we just have to agree to disagree.

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

#215

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:30 PM UTC

tacomonstrous wrote: post #70

pgeorgi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is if other societies also adopt the triangle for classes of people in the way the American society does. Not all countries have "affirmative action" laws, which essentially codify victimhood large scale - and also beg the question in which other bucket everybody else belongs. Add an intuitive and statist interpretation of the drama triangle (instead of acknowledging that the same persons can be in diffe…

>Not all countries have "affirmative action" laws, which essentially codify victimhood large scale - and also beg the question in which other bucket everybody else belongs. The US doesn't have any 'affirmative action' laws. It has non-discrimination statutes.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by danieltillett » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

greenrd wrote: post #103

dbattaglia wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, I feel like saying that humans should somehow manage to turn off grouping and categorizing things is kind of lazy. Categorization is such a critical part of our ability to navigate and understand the world. I think the trick is to be able to look at both at the same time and to constantly be willing to question your own biases.

> Idk, I feel like saying that humans should somehow manage to turn off grouping and categorizing things is kind of lazy. I don't think that's what danieltillett was calling for at all. Rather, I think he was arguing for not letting group-level categorisations - such as gender or race - totally dominate over and blind us to attributes of individuals that may differ from what we would expect from our preconceived ster…

Yes that is exactly what I am saying. We should be viewing people as an individuals first and as a member of a group second. Almost all of us do this with people we know well, but many of fail to do this with strangers or opponents.

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

#217

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #214

joshuamorton wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ri…

> segregate them into specific majority-minority teams Again, you mischaracterize what I said: "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 only be that minority as you in a truly inclusive system can't define people by a trait." Where I in the follow up comment say: "... the teams are no…

>Again, you mischaracterize what I said:

You have not explained how this is a mischaracterization. Your proposal was to place minorities into solely majority-minority teams, my claim is that this is a form of segregation. Which of those two claims is a mischaracterizaiton?

The rest of this post is just distraction that appears to claim that this is morally good segregation, or scientifically supported segregation, but its still segregation.

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

#218

Post by Veelox » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #80

danieltillett wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't lose empathy, but I lose the ability to understand or speak English. If someone interrupts me when I am in deep in the groove I can tell someone is talking to me, but I can't understand what they are saying and I can't reply. It takes me around 5 to 10 seconds to context switch back into English. Amusingly my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half…

> my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time If you are interested in tools to reduce this sort of thing, my wife and I developed protocols that help. I've rot13'd them in case you are the type of person who hates unsolicited advice and would prefer to skip it: - Jura bar bs hf vf qevivat n pne (NXN 2-gba-qrngu-znpuvar) naq jr ner pbairefvat, gur…

Fyngr fgne pbqrk zhpu?

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

#219

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

mathperson wrote: post #202

joshuamorton wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject the claim that "believe women" has turned into what the article describes, except in alarmist circles. The reactions to different accusers I think sides with me on that. Consider Weinstein vs. Franken. Reactions we're very different, in part due to the political nature, but also because the Franken accusations are less extensive than the Weinstein ones. Alarmism like that article misses the context that Fran…

Are you asking for examples of the mob-like behavior? And lack of due process? Here are some: -Duke Lacrosse, Rolling Stone, Columbia-guy,... In the Lacrosse case there were legal repercussions in terms of the behavior of the prosecutor AND private entities ie. Gang of 88 issuing that infamous letter. Similarly in the Rolling Stone and Columbia cases. False witch hunts like these are indeed relatively uncommon..but t…

All three of those examples significantly predate the metoo movement, and I'd argue that none lacked due process:

- Lacrosse, due process was followed, but the prosecutor acted in bad faith.

- Rolling stone: The police investigation cleared them, there were no charges or anything, the story was considered a hoax/fake/discredited ~2 weeks after it was released.

- Columbia mattress guy: Found not responsible by the university.

I think I can agree that there was mob like behavior in those cases, maybe, but I don't see a lack of due process.

> Franken was clearly pressured out by the democractic party.

Yes, I think its a bit more confusing because of the Moore election at the same time, ie. the pressure may have been in part manufactured to prevent cries from republicans about hypocrisy from the democratic party, but that's a lot of conjecture. In any case, I think its pretty much unanimous that Franken's actions are less heinous than Weinstein/Moore, or at least the things that are considered credible.

>like the fantastic reporters at the Washington Post did during the Roy Moore expose.

Indeed, but there's a significant group of people that appear to think that that expose wasn't due process, and that anything that doesn't pass through the legal system is by definition not due process (and this is what I object to). It appears that GGP is someone who holds that opinion, but they avoided directly answering that question.

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

#220

Post by danieltillett » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #80

danieltillett wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't lose empathy, but I lose the ability to understand or speak English. If someone interrupts me when I am in deep in the groove I can tell someone is talking to me, but I can't understand what they are saying and I can't reply. It takes me around 5 to 10 seconds to context switch back into English. Amusingly my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half…

> my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time If you are interested in tools to reduce this sort of thing, my wife and I developed protocols that help. I've rot13'd them in case you are the type of person who hates unsolicited advice and would prefer to skip it: - Jura bar bs hf vf qevivat n pne (NXN 2-gba-qrngu-znpuvar) naq jr ner pbairefvat, gur…

This would be great if I was able to say anything or even comprehend what was being said. I am effectively like a dog being spoken to by its owner. Like the dog I know someone is talking to me, but I have no idea what is being said nor can I say anything back - about all I can do is look at the person intently and wait for the context switch to finish.