The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

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 different roles at any given time) and you have a society of people rushing to demonstrate that they're not the aggressor, either by ending up protected ("victim") or protecting ("rescuer").

I don't think you can easily have both, and this problem underlies much contemporary political conflict. At its core is a pervasive hypocrisy: people readily engage in broad, often negative, stereotyping about groups they oppose, or are not a member of, while aggressively resisting and resenting any attempt to stereotype about their own group, or groups they favour.

So, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, some people will make broad statements about Muslims, and the need for collective action within Islam to address religiously motivated violence. Others will reject this, and say Muslims in general cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of a minority of extremists.

Then, in the aftermath of a sexual harassment scandal, some people will make broad statements about men, and the need for collective action by men as a gender to address sexual harassment and sexual violence. Others will reject this, and say men in general cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of a minority of harassers.

Oftentimes, the same people will be on the complete opposite sides of each debate. And they will unthinkingly employ language and rhetorical tactics in one that they would utterly reject in the other. This behavior can be seen in almost all discussions across or about political affiliation, race, religion, gender, sexuality, and just about any other cleavage you can think of.

This is the real empathy gap. People reflexively respond to any criticism of their own groups with hostility, while attacking others without restraint, and dismissing hostility from members of that group as an overreaction. They recognise a degree of individuality and diversity within their own favored groups that they simply can't or won't recognise in others. They use tactics against their enemies that infuriate them when used against themselves. In some cases, they may recognise that those tactics are wrong in specific cases, and even in the abstract, but defend their use by themselves or their allies with excuses based on cambatting political correctness or appeals to historical victimhood.

Making all of this worse is that statistical thinking about groups is a necessary of component of any mature political debate. Certain traits or behaviors often are more prevalent within some groups, for a variety of reasons, and being able to recognise and talk about this is basic prerequisite for any attempt to address social and political problems.

In theory, people should have no problem recognising statistical differences in a group, while also recognising and respecting the inherent right and diversity of individuals within that group. In theory, people should be able to hear comment, even criticism, about their own groups, and judge it purely on its statistical reality, without feeling that it is a personal slight upon them. But in practice, this doesn't happen.

Besides the reflexivite hostility discussed, statistical thinking often does give way to blind stereotyping amongst outside observers, and this stereotyping gives rise to discrimination. Causal factors are ignored, or distorted, and adaptive traits are portrayed and inherent, and vice versa. Instead of helping to inform rational debate, this discrimination entrenches and exacerbates division. Soon, any statistical thinking about a group that carries an implied or perceived criticism becomes tantamount to discrimination, and groups become hypersensitive to it.

All of this is probably just an inherent flaw in human cognition, and likely unfixable, without some kind of attempt at species-wide genetic engineering that completely reconfigures our co-operative behavior.

High-functioning people with ASD invest enormous cognitive resources in passing for "normal". They memorise facial expressions and learn to decode them like hieroglyphics. They reverse-engineer social behaviour, learning to imitate normal behaviour and interpret the behaviour of others. They hide their stereotypies and preoccupations behind an affected facade.

The fact that someone looks "normal" doesn't mean that they don't have ASD, it may mean that they're managing their condition effectively in a hostile environment.

That being said, corporations and/or the business world aren't really the appropriate place for social experiments that take a generation to take effect. They are an excellent tool for taking scarce resources and divvying them up short term with value added.

There seems something very questionable about the idea a corporation embarking on a generational experiment to bring about social change if they have no evidence on it's efficacy. I'd probably call that small-scale political action funded by other people's money if I saw it in a public corporation, and would much prefer to see less of it. I'm a fan of evidence-based management.

I mean, the gender ratio's in tech are pretty lopsided; and we have enough stories to know there is outrageous behavior afoot. Surely there are some low hanging wins that can be hit a bit more quickly than 20 years out.

I am immensely grateful for the nerd-friendliness of the tech industry, as I spent my teen years being mocked for being a nerd. But if the tech industry has a higher-than-average number of members who are slightly anti-social, is it really surprising when people accuse this group of having little empathy to members of other social groups?

It is entirely possible for the tech industry to be nerd-friendly and women-hostile at the same time. I'm not saying it is the case, but it could be. And while I've been vocal against the idea of "hide the nerds so girls won't be scared of joining CS programs", I think it's worth considering whether we are being welcoming enough.