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Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

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Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#31

Post by rjknight »

abraxasz wrote: post #24

I'm from a minority, and I'm currently enrolled in a phd program (well, about to enroll in september) in a top university. I've been working really, really, really hard to get there. Like, really hard. So it does piss me off when people just waive their hands and say: "pfff, must have been affirmative action or something". That being said, I understand their reaction. When I put myself in a white male's shoes and I h…

"Discretion is the better part of valour" springs to mind. If I hired some great women for development roles and my first thought was to write a blog post saying "look at these great women I hired", I'd be doing something wrong. It detracts from the fact that they're actually great developers, and if they weren't then I wouldn't have hired them.

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#32

Post by cantastoria »

kamens wrote: post #22
cantastoria wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you come up with any possible explanation period? You're dodging my question.

An increase in women in tech majors and a company mission that strongly appeals to both women and men.

I'm pretty sure most universities have a company mission that appeals to both men and women and they haven't suddenly seen a 2:1 f/m ratio in CS majors. What makes Khan so different?

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#33

Post by mjmahone17 »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #20
LockeWatts wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a better criterion with which to measure?

How about proven ability to overcome adversity?

LockeWatts: What does the SAT have to do with writing software? I'd say being able to overcome adversity, i.e. being able to do more with what you've been dealt than others believe you can, is usually going to be a stronger indicator of future performance than is a test score. Furthermore, I'd argue in software development especially, you need to be able to overcome people's initial compunctions, and you need to be resourceful and able to figure out how to succeed when it seems like the chips are stacked against you.

As to how you test for that: why not ask? The SAT and ACT both have an essay portion. Why not ask candidates to write an essay, or tell you in person, about how they've overcome adversity? Also, how is asking interviewees how to solve a programming problem more quantitative than asking them how they've dealt with adversity?

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#34

Post by yummyfajitas »

Transparency has been requested by several people, and I think it would be helpful to flesh out transparency.

Here are a few quantitative questions which would help us get closer to the truth:

What % of the applicant pool was women?

What % of the potentially qualified applicant pool was women? [1]

How many interns were hired? [2]

Are there any objective numbers (i.e., besides the # hired) to suggest that a large fraction of the most qualified people were women?

[1] These numbers can allow us to do the same calculation I did here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5233153), or even a proper Bayesian probability update.

[2] I.e., if 3 interns were hired, this is a tempest in a teapot caused by a statistical fluke.

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#35

Post by yummyfajitas »

kamens wrote: post #22
cantastoria wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you come up with any possible explanation period? You're dodging my question.

An increase in women in tech majors and a company mission that strongly appeals to both women and men.

What % of the applicant pool was women?

Some hard numbers would help this discussion.

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#36

Post by JDDunn9 »

The world doesn't have to be evenly divided. Just because you see a group of people that are under-represented in a field doesn't mean it needs to be adjusted. We don't need to push for more white people in the NBA. We don't need to push for more men to become nurses. We need to push for equality of opportunity, not outcome.

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#37

Post by pmorici »

LockeWatts wrote: post #30
rjknight wrote: post #18

One of the commonly-stated reasons for why discrimination persists in a field is that people making hiring decisions are biased. They might not know that they're biased, but they have some notions about the kind of people they want to see working for their company, and they disproportionately hire those people. This is quite an insidious form of discrimination because it's hard to prove, but it is possible to catch p…

"how there are exclusive events for female staff where female leadership is advocated." Can someone on HN give me a level headed explanation, for why this is more appropriate than the opposite (An event exclusive to men)? It's never made sense to me why one is accepted and the other isn't.

It is a private organization is probably why; so they are allowed to discriminate. In government if they had a female issues oriented event there would be a foot note stating that men are welcome to attend.

edit: to respond to the below comment, I don't think it is socially acceptable. It just isn't something that affects people too adversely yet so while they may shake their head and fire off a tweet no one really cares enough to bring significant pressure to bear.

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#38

Post by hacker789 »

cantastoria wrote: post #7
jfim wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it the exact opposite of a meritocracy? If someone makes something awesome, it doesn't really matter if they're 14 year olds, women, men or aliens. I know at least I'd high five someone who made something cool, regardless of gender/age/other factors.

The parent is describing the postmodern definition of Meritocracy where "merit" is just a point view. In that world all achievements/failures must be evaluated in light of the person or group's privilege/race/class/gender and sexuality. People who subscribe to this definition really don't believe in meritocracy as it's generally viewed as a way to institutionalize white male advantage. Just a heads up :)

It's disheartening to watch online communities turn on themselves as they become infected with the cancer of postmodern feminism. It's a bullying, disempowering, dissent-crushing and divisive[1] ideology that erases individual experiences, obsesses over things one cannot control, demonizes nuance, and glorifies experiencing alleged "oppression", as defined in Marxist terms. It's toxic.

Unless things change, the evaporative cooling effect will leave Hacker News a divisive, infighting shell of its former self. Hopefully, a few new, positive communities will have sprouted by then. I'm constantly on the lookout.

[1] Look beneath the surface of any postmodern Marxist, anarchist, or feminist community, and you'll quickly see that dissent is completely non-tolerated, often in comical fashion. "Check your privilege" and similar anti-intellectualisms are internally thrown around like candy over any disagreement, new members are expected to prostrate themselves, and sub-communities are constantly splintering off and reemerging under new "leaders".

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#39

Post by mjmahone17 »

LockeWatts wrote: post #30
rjknight wrote: post #18

One of the commonly-stated reasons for why discrimination persists in a field is that people making hiring decisions are biased. They might not know that they're biased, but they have some notions about the kind of people they want to see working for their company, and they disproportionately hire those people. This is quite an insidious form of discrimination because it's hard to prove, but it is possible to catch p…

"how there are exclusive events for female staff where female leadership is advocated." Can someone on HN give me a level headed explanation, for why this is more appropriate than the opposite (An event exclusive to men)? It's never made sense to me why one is accepted and the other isn't.

It's the same reason "Black history month" is OK (if misguided) but "White history month" isn't: because EVERY month is white history month. Likewise, for tech events, if there's a focus on male-dominated things, such as drinking beer and playing Halo, or even a "hackathon" then, while it doesn't technically exclude women, the implication is that it's a "macho" event, even if that was never the intention. There simply aren't many events in tech that implicitly exclude men, while there are a lot of events, either due to who attends them (look at the conferences where 2 women show up) or how they're portrayed (using "booth babes," for instance) that implicitly exclude women.

Re: Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech

#40

Post by LockeWatts »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #33
mjmahone17 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about proven ability to overcome adversity?

LockeWatts: What does the SAT have to do with writing software? I'd say being able to overcome adversity, i.e. being able to do more with what you've been dealt than others believe you can, is usually going to be a stronger indicator of future performance than is a test score. Furthermore, I'd argue in software development especially, you need to be able to overcome people's initial compunctions, and you need to be r…

"I'd say being able to overcome adversity, i.e. being able to do more with what you've been dealt than others believe you can, is usually going to be a stronger indicator of future performance than is a test score."

Well you can say that, but I haven't seen any studies that would indicate as such. However, multiple studies have shown that logical reasoning, critical thinking, and mathematical aptitude all lead to better programmers. These are things the SAT attempts to select for.

"why not ask? The SAT and ACT both have an essay portion."

A much discussed and argued about section, precisely due to it's inability to be quantitatively and statistically analyzed.

Admissions officers at multiple schools indicated they gave the essay portion little to no consideration for precisely this reason.

"Why not ask candidates to write an essay, or tell you in person, about how they've overcome adversity?"

To colleges or jobs? For jobs, simply because it's a less efficient method.

"Also, how is asking interviewees how to solve a programming problem more quantitative than asking them how they've dealt with adversity?"

You can measure things about this. Candidate A took N minutes to solve the problem ideally, Candidate B took N + 5 minutes. All other things being equal, candidate A is superior to candidate B.

Furthermore, you can look at things such as programming fundamentals that are easily quantifiable, such as being able to correctly create a log(n) versus n search algorithm, or being able to correctly indicate why log(n) might be superior to n.

Finally, 'adversity' hasn't even been defined in this conversation, so I'm arguing against an ethereal concept. Please define it for me.

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