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Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

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Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#31

Post by PeterStuer »

yk wrote: post #14

The fundamental problem is, that hard science fundamentally can not do that job. A policy document is a normative document, science produces descriptive accounts. Even if we assume for a moment that we had a full scientific theory of gender, then we would still need to know what to do with that. Should we then optimize for worker satisfaction, worker of female sex productivity, welcoming to female gendered customers,…

Science might not do that job, but a least it can point out to you the flaws in your reasoning, and, once you have settled on an reasoned objective, help you construct effective tools, techniques and programs to reach that objective. In other words, Science is what keeps you from insisting earth is the center around which the universe revolves, sacrificing virgins to the rain gods in a drought, or investing in gyms to get to the moon by improving the high jump.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#32

Post by kbuchanan »

I wish more people could see that if Damore is right about biological variation underpinning sex disparity in tech, this exposes an opportunity for women. In the absence of affirmative action, women who pursue engineering roles will reveal themselves as having above average interest in tech—not only above women generally, but above men too.

My evidence is anecdotal, but it's strong. I first noticed this after months of teaching at a coding school, but I found, with cohort after cohort, women reliably outperform the men. Note they're dramatically underrepresented (15 to 1). The interesting thing is that whatever the reason for their underrepresentation—be it oppression or biology, or a mix of the two—these women self-select into an elite group by braving a predominantly male environment. Odds are they're good at programming.

My point is that if you belong to a minority in a competitive environment, it's important to consider the upsides too, in addition to the real and steep obstacles.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#33

Post by caseysoftware »

Animats wrote: post #29
caseysoftware wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than one year after that article, Harvey Mudd's President says the last year was the school's worst ever resulting in a suicide, nearly 10% of the students on suicide watch, and having to simplify the curriculum from hard STEM with more electives. As someone who nearly went there (accepted but opted for one of their rivals), it's disappointing to see. Ref: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/08/02/540603927/a-co…

Harvey Mudd internal report mentioned: [1] (That's now inaccessable (403 Forbidden), and the page that linked to it, " http://tsl.news/news/6611/" , is failing with a Ngnix error (502 Bad Gateway).) I got to read it before it went down, and it sounded like they'd reached the student workload levels associated with the first two years of any serious engineering school. Their restructured student body wasn't ready for…

Ha. It's funny that it's gone now. I read it just after I posted my comment. That's just a coincidence.. right?

Also, the first two years at an engineering school is awful by definition. Generally by then you learn to a) prioritize, b) take the right combo of classes, or c) go somewhere else. I opted for a & b but many friends and smart people opted for c.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#34

Post by rdtsc »

> Hostility is, by its very nature, a violent attack on a person or group.

Remember reading about how what Damore wrote was "violence". Wonder what those who suffered from physical violence such as rape think when "violence" is used in such a context...

Then in general it seems like firing him was admitting defeat. Google could have responded by compiling a set of studies to disprove what they claimed were obviously wrong and misguided ideas. Surely they have enough people who know how to compile a research survey.

At the same time I bet Damore knew that this was going to lead to termination. He forced their hand publicly and they responded as any beaurocracy would be expected. There was basically 0 chance they would have said "oh thanks for the research and suggestions we will review and redesign some of our policies after you've publicly shamed us".

It seemed to them on the surface they won that battle but at the same time the admitted defeat too. It is a bit like someone responding to an argument where peer reviewed research is presented with "well, your mom is fat and you're stupid". That ends the argument, for sure, and the person saying it feels they've won the argument. But everyone else sees it as admitting defeat more or less.

The more interesting thing I found was that some "news" outlets like Gizmodo, chose to publish the letter but omitted the research. That seems strange. If one didn't know any better, they might assume they secretly agreed with the points made and did everything they could to promote them further. Few things work as well as deliberate and obvious censorship to make people pay attention.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#35

Post by ewjordan »

evangelista wrote: post #4

This is going to be somewhat long and heartbreaking but I promise it will converge on an intelligent point at the end. Every time I visit San Francisco, the heart of America's tech economy, I walk down Market Street and view dozens of adult human beings, many with traumatic brain injuries and psychological problems, living like animals, sleeping in tents, defecating directly on the ground and begging for help. In the…

That we don't acknowledge every drug addict that we walk by does not mean that we don't care or are not acting in many ways to attempt to help them. It just means that stopping and giving cash every time we pass them is not a helpful approach; giving money to good charities and advocacy for better city policies does much more.

I'd also mention that interacting with some homeless people can be dangerous and deadly. I've been attacked a few times while living in SF because I used to have a rule of engaging the homeless as normal people if they approached me, back when I had naive principles; I don't do that anymore, after being assaulted twice, once with a knife. While only a small percentage of the homeless are dangerous, that small percentage really do kill people (3 murders via homeless-on-local violence within a block of my place over the past few years), so anyone can go fuck themselves if you think I'm being heartless for not engaging anymore. Self preservation trumps compassion.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#36

Post by ViktorV »

tepe1 wrote: post #23
toomchsauce wrote: post #16

The number of women studying computer science rose dramatically during the tech bubble and dropped off after the crash. I think we're going through a similar cycle. When programming is lucrative and viewed as high status, it becomes a target for feminists and they push for more female coders. When it's not high status anymore (when the funding environment contracts again), girls will stop enrolling in CS as much and…

> It's my opinion that most women don't want to be programmers/ICs deep down, but in a bubble environment many women will gravitate towards CS because it's where the action is in the economy, and feminists pave the way with aggressive affirmative action campaigns that make programming an artificially attractive choice for women. Why is this your opinion? Have you spoken to a lot of women? Have you conducted any kind…

You were right on calling him out with his opinion. But you make the same mistake:

> But here's the thing: it's not mastermind feminists who are driving this. It's capitalism.

"Have you conducted any kind of surveys or polls? Or are you just making up whatever fits your biases?"

To be honest: It is probably a mix of the societal pressure from feminists, and you are right capitalism too. The hard thing is that this is not hard science, no one can know the real ratio of the two. For me it seems you're stating this like every societal changes root was better productivity ( communism, French revolution ? ).

> The idea that women can thrive in law, medicine and hard sciences but they can't master CSS is laughable. I don't see women thrive in math, physics, engineering science, but I might be wrong. Biology is a good counter example though.

To be honest I think it is perfectly possible that you are right in everything! But I'm also sure that there is no human being on this planet who could say that he understands this problem 100% while being fully rational, and not let the emotions punch trough here and there.

The point of my comment is that: I see one side as "There might be other factors" and the other is "There are no other factors". The second one is a much harder statement.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#37

Post by ordu »

nippples wrote: post #5

> The anti-science bias in this explanation has two faces, both well-meaning but both untrue. First, the science of gender difference is not gender stereotyping but, in fact, real, as the sources above will prove to any executive or person who studies them. Second, even if someone felt like that gender trait difference constituted untrue gender stereotypes, there is no hostility in the science. Hostility is, by its v…

The more I hear about feeling hurted by ideas or mere words, the more I believe that feelings is not something that we should take into consideration when speaking. Or even further, we need to hurt feelings deliberately, it is called desensetization (I go through such an experience and now I cannot find any idea that can hurt my feelings. There are ones I agree of, ones that I disagree of, I'm not sure about others and totally indifferent to the rest, but there are no ideas which is painful to think of). Everyone should learn how to not being hurt by words or ideas. Those who cannot should shut up and feel free to use custom filters while using internet.

It seems unheartful and even cruel, but I see no way how society can solve its problems without ability to talk about those problems.

Funny thing, but when I think about Russia's law that can charge for hurting religious feelings, I see the reasons behind that. It is not that I agree with it, but it is a perfectly rational thing to make society more religious and more governable, to create a society of obedient slaves, by promoting The Orthodox National Idea, instead of The rotten Communist National Idea. I can hardly believe that it'll lead to a good end, but at least we can see, that those who behind this promoting think at least one step ahead.

When I think about feminists fighting science, I see no rationality in their behaviour, it is counter-productive way to deal with problems. Their behaviour seems for me as just emotional reaction where thinking used only to find clever rationalizations for emotions.

) I'm not totally agree with Damore, I belive that he misses some important points, so it is arguable is his opinion is the science, but the point is his loudest opponents just reject all science Damore referred to.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#38

Post by ordu »

toomchsauce wrote: post #16

The number of women studying computer science rose dramatically during the tech bubble and dropped off after the crash. I think we're going through a similar cycle. When programming is lucrative and viewed as high status, it becomes a target for feminists and they push for more female coders. When it's not high status anymore (when the funding environment contracts again), girls will stop enrolling in CS as much and…

> It's my opinion that most women probably don't want to be programmers/ICs deep down...

Yes. But why most women don't want to be programmers? Damore pointed to some reasons, but they are not convincing. Society makes girls to belive that CS is not for girls. There are some differences caused by hormone levels, but I belive that differences caused by nurture is much more influential.

> So in context, his memo is really challenging the idea that women prefer economic equality.

Maybe. But the point is if this is so, than this preferences should be considered carefully and probably equalized.

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#39

Post by Animats »

caseysoftware wrote: post #33
Animats wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvey Mudd internal report mentioned: [1] (That's now inaccessable (403 Forbidden), and the page that linked to it, " http://tsl.news/news/6611/" , is failing with a Ngnix error (502 Bad Gateway).) I got to read it before it went down, and it sounded like they'd reached the student workload levels associated with the first two years of any serious engineering school. Their restructured student body wasn't ready for…

Ha. It's funny that it's gone now. I read it just after I posted my comment. That's just a coincidence.. right? Also, the first two years at an engineering school is awful by definition. Generally by then you learn to a) prioritize, b) take the right combo of classes, or c) go somewhere else. I opted for a & b but many friends and smart people opted for c.

If you go here [1] sometimes you can get the report. They may have a caching server that's out of sync. If the document is too small to read, open its frame in a new window.

[1] http://tsl.news/news/6611/

Re: Let’s Use Hard Science to Help Tech Companies Advance Women

#40

Post by js8 »

tepe1 wrote: post #23
toomchsauce wrote: post #16

The number of women studying computer science rose dramatically during the tech bubble and dropped off after the crash. I think we're going through a similar cycle. When programming is lucrative and viewed as high status, it becomes a target for feminists and they push for more female coders. When it's not high status anymore (when the funding environment contracts again), girls will stop enrolling in CS as much and…

> It's my opinion that most women don't want to be programmers/ICs deep down, but in a bubble environment many women will gravitate towards CS because it's where the action is in the economy, and feminists pave the way with aggressive affirmative action campaigns that make programming an artificially attractive choice for women. Why is this your opinion? Have you spoken to a lot of women? Have you conducted any kind…

>> It's my opinion that most women don't want to be programmers/ICs deep down

> Why is this your opinion?

It is my opinion as well, and I'll explain why. I suspected it based on anecdotal evidence from women I talked to (small sample), but in the recent discussions, I found this very convincing (as you can see from my comment there): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15025724

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