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The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

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

#251

Post by noobermin »

Veelox wrote: post #212
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…

>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 t…

The problem with your perspective is it's wrong. I don't mean to be mean to you, but it just isn't correct. The difference isn't culture, it's simply access to capital.

Here's an enlightening video[0], a 12-minute video about the representation of black families in media. It touches on the myth of black fathers not being involved with their kids, which is a good example of false attitudes that lead people to blame "culture" rather than systemic inequalities.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q21XGV2z7hw

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

#252

Post by kazinator »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #92
kazinator wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survival on planet Earth has critically depended on lazy thinking: generalizing from incomplete scraps of information, and acting in real-time.

While true, our current environment of organized society of billions of humans, all within the same info-sphere[0] is significantly different than the environment our species developed in. A lot of our natural tendencies end up being maladaptive in this new world. -- [0] - communication transcends distance now, and if something of importance happens anywhere in the world , almost everyone else on the planet knows abo…

It's the same zoo out there, only with mass communication, transportation, comforts and gadgets.

You meet someone in a deserted street, you have the same three seconds to evaluate their threat potential that your ape ancestors had.

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

#253

Post by asabjorn »

joshuamorton wrote: post #247
asabjorn wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm familiar with the research about the harms of being a minority and the impact it can have on performance, but as far as my claims about segregation go, those arguments are irrelevant. I strongly disagree. You have to respect the human in the equation if you want to facilitate inclusion, and make sure that you do everything to facilitate the change you desire. Otherwise you risk filtering for people that check t…

You've cherrypicked definitions of segregation and ghetto. I'll repeat the original definition that dictionary.com provided: > put in or restrict to an isolated or segregated area or group And here's a merriam webster definition of segregation: > the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area Does, or does your proposal not put or restrict minorit…

> It also appears that you're downvoting my comments, since all of my comments deep in threads responding to you are at 0, and most of my others in these threads are positive. If that's not the case, do let me know, but it makes me uninterested in continuing this discussion with you.

No, I actually do not have enough karma to downvote and even if I did I do not believe a participant in a discourse has the right to do that. It would be counterproductive for me to do so.

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

#254

Post by joshuamorton »

asabjorn wrote: post #253
joshuamorton wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've cherrypicked definitions of segregation and ghetto. I'll repeat the original definition that dictionary.com provided: > put in or restrict to an isolated or segregated area or group And here's a merriam webster definition of segregation: > the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area Does, or does your proposal not put or restrict minorit…

> It also appears that you're downvoting my comments, since all of my comments deep in threads responding to you are at 0, and most of my others in these threads are positive. If that's not the case, do let me know, but it makes me uninterested in continuing this discussion with you. No, I actually do not have enough karma to downvote and even if I did I do not believe a participant in a discourse has the right to do…

Alright. I meant no offense and was hoping this was the case, it just looked suspicious. :)

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

#255

Post by bap »

aperrien wrote: post #224

> What we do know, however, is that while girls and women do meet the diagnosis for >autism spectrum disorder, the ratio between men and women sits somewhere between 5:1 to >3:1. We also know that men and women’s interests diverge in ways that are congruent with >Baron-Cohen’s systematising- empathising spectrum. Women overwhelmingly prefer working >with people, and have “artistic” and “social” vocational interests,…

In case you're interested and aren't already aware:

UC Davis seems to be investing a bit in ASD research. This one, for instance, focuses on girls:

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/research/gain/ind...

..and there are a few others. Most focus on the intersection of Children and Autism in some form or another.

Alternatively SciAm ran an article a while back around just this issue of how and why we're "missing it" when it comes to recognizing ASD early (or at all) for girls.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-diffe...

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

#257

Post by Veelox »

noobermin wrote: post #251
Veelox wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 t…

The problem with your perspective is it's wrong. I don't mean to be mean to you, but it just isn't correct. The difference isn't culture, it's simply access to capital. Here's an enlightening video[0], a 12-minute video about the representation of black families in media. It touches on the myth of black fathers not being involved with their kids, which is a good example of false attitudes that lead people to blame "c…

I will be honest. I haven't watched the video yet, I will make another comment when I do. But a quick Google and I find[0] that 25% of white children and 67% of black children are raised in single parent homes. That seems like a lot if it is only access to captial and not culture.

[0] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/...

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

#258

Post by [deleted] »

gedy wrote: post #91
spodek wrote: post #65

> the third factor, Gideon said, was the empathy gap, where we tend to be more receptive to women’s pain than men’s. When women talk about being made to feel uncomfortable at work, or being sexually harassed, we feel empathy and want to punish the wrong-doers. But we don’t have the same reaction for “geeks,” or “techbros”. Because our understanding of neurodiversity is painfully lacking, our culture tends to view men…

This is a good summary of my experiences growing up. My friends and I were all considered nerds and wimpy boys, and experienced quite a bit of daily physical and verbal abuse in school. It was difficult/futile to get anyone in authority or the students to help and empathize. Seeing the reaction and outrage when a boy slapped a girl in the hallway though was very telling where people's biases are.

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by TeMPOraL »

kazinator wrote: post #252
TeMPOraL wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, our current environment of organized society of billions of humans, all within the same info-sphere[0] is significantly different than the environment our species developed in. A lot of our natural tendencies end up being maladaptive in this new world. -- [0] - communication transcends distance now, and if something of importance happens anywhere in the world , almost everyone else on the planet knows abo…

It's the same zoo out there, only with mass communication, transportation, comforts and gadgets. You meet someone in a deserted street, you have the same three seconds to evaluate their threat potential that your ape ancestors had.

No, it's not the same zoo, unless you live in Somalia.

Rule of law and working policing changes everything about your reactions to other people. In a typical western country, most of the time you feel threatened just by seeing someone on the street, you're imagining it (proof: count how many times "feeling threatened" turned into "actually being threatened"). Other people don't want to go into jail either, and violence achieves very little compared to patience and civil agreements.

But this is a sort of thing we still can handle real-time, reading things off each others' faces as we go along. Where the charade breaks down is all of our intuitions about state of the world, as we consume mass media.

Humans run on availability heuristic[0]. Quoting from the Wiki, "availability heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled, it must be important, or at least more important than alternative solutions which are not as readily recalled". Mass media give us heavily filtered view of the world, which does not, in any way, correspond to the real world we live in. Thanks to news reporting, you feel like you're surrounded by rich and beautiful people, constantly threatened by gangs and terrorists, and that everything around you is going to shit. None of that is true, and yet even knowing that, we all have trouble handling it in our heads.

The heuristics we are born with were optimized for small and very localized group of people, not for large, dense populations, and constant light-speed communication with everyone else on the planet.

--

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

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

#260

Post by kazinator »

sockgrant wrote: post #68
kazinator wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survival on planet Earth has critically depended on lazy thinking: generalizing from incomplete scraps of information, and acting in real-time.

Totally agree. But in some parts of society this is now a detriment that we’ve outgrown. But it’s really hard to fight our nature.

Not only that, we're busy teaching computers to replicate it and calling it names like "deep learning".
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