Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.
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10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
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Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#32Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.
was it harder before? Are you sure? I think your response doesn't change his argument, before tech was less relevant for the economy, so it was less stressful and had less status. That is why it wasn't interesting for men to get into it and preferred other jobs with more status and stress (and bigger salaries). But now the top companies are tech companies.
Would playing piano be harder if you had to make your own piano? If the level of playing expected of you remains unchanged then yes, certainly.
That to me sums up the difference. It is now vastly easier to write and run a program. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Programming careers realty do have a red queen race quality to them.
I really couldn't compare it to fields I haven't worked in. But I do think that programming certainly can reach hellacious levels of stress and complexity.
Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#33Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#34If you haven't, read and listen to this excellent podcast:
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...
The gender issues from this paper have been pretty well hashed out, but one really interesting thing, he makes the point about being conservative at a tech company. I actually think this is a bit misleading. I know a large number of tech people who would consider themselves libertarian (fiscally conservative), but NOT socially conservative. So, at least from my experience, I have to interpret his comments about conservatives vs. progressives as about social conservative, in which case I would say he does himself a disservice - a lot of the modern American social conservative movement is explicitly about exclusion and is anti-diversity. So, I think it's fair to say, if you're socially conservative and subscribe to the modern platform (believing LGBTQ individuals don't deserve full rights, for instance), it may be expected to feel a bit uncomfortable at a tech company, just like I would probably feel uncomfortable working for a defense contractor.
Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#35Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.
Wasn't there a period where "programmer" was the job of turning a flowchart from a "system analyst" into machine code? Basically a living compiler that didn't require a formally specified high-level language?
Yes, my mother mentioned offhand that she did it for a couple years. Didn't seem phased that it was programming - she considered the flowchart makers as the really smart ones... I can see that argument both ways.
Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#36Diversity always seems like a silly objective. Of all things, why focus on race and gender? How about hairstyle? Why not height? Maybe I feel like my weight is not represented fairly! I'm just poking fun. Those aren't real questions. The author promotes the only diversity that matters: diversity of thought. Anything else should at worst a proxy to get some.
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Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#37Diversity always seems like a silly objective. Of all things, why focus on race and gender? How about hairstyle? Why not height? Maybe I feel like my weight is not represented fairly! I'm just poking fun. Those aren't real questions. The author promotes the only diversity that matters: diversity of thought. Anything else should at worst a proxy to get some.
The only response to his post that matters are from the women in tech. Do they appreciate it? What's your guess?
Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#38Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.
And what do you believe his thesis is?
Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#39I recommend to all gender warriors on either side of the debate to read this talk given by Baumeister, which later became a book by Baumeister + Tice. It has a lot of insights into origins of the differences between men and women.
http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
One should not discount the additional biased inherent in the discussion, by the way. This is the corporate world and people are talking about selling their time or money. Perhaps one answer to all this is to opt out of the full-time corporate treadmill, start your own business or be self-employed.
Re: 10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google
#40This document conveys its message poorly and comes across as far less neutral than I think it's intending to be.
It raises some valid points, but it kind of feels like an extremely hamfisted interpretation of a recent blog post by Scott Alexander: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-m...
I don't think Google's official response to it is very good either, though.