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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why you would think the “top N” of any given field would be men. There aren’t more men than women overall, and men aren’t inherently any smarter or more talented. If you’ve only ever worked in tech, though, maybe you have a skewed perspective.

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I wish you recognized the confirmation bias in your logic.

Men & women are socialized to compete in very different arenas & women are generally socialized not to compete with men.

None of that is proof that men are smarter or more talented. Men's intelligence may be more jagged than women's, but even if so, that doesn't mean 'better'.

It would mean that men & women's intelligence complements each other.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#534
post #376
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become what you are fighting against you become the problem. If the issue is not using a person's race to make blanket judgements against them then using someone's race to to counterbalance historical is equally as wrong. The message you are telling everyone is you should use someone's race to judge them. The people in power changes but the racism never goes away. You end up with foolish ideas like reparatio…

Golly People have been getting the message "you should use someone's race to judge them" in my country for over a hundred years In the USA since the seventeenth century Here Māori property is confiscated with gay abandon, laws written specifically for that purpose In the USA there was slavery. It has cast a long shadow, and still politicians are moving mountains to corral the black vote so it does not threaten entren…

Are you talking about:

"A significant portions of Māori land were confiscated by the New Zealand government, primarily after the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s through legislation like the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863. This process, known as raupatu, resulted in the seizure of over a million hectares of land from various iwi"

Wasn't there a Waitangi Tribunal investing breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi? Isn't there a Māori land court setup to deal with those issues?

Are there specific instances you want to refer to? We would like to understand a little more.

No one is trying to corral the black vote in the US. It generally goes to one party. It does not threaten the powerful. Black vs rich powerful isn't really an issue as many powerful people are black. Working class vs rich powerful is more of the classic stereotype.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#535
post #527

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> Almost always when you take the top N of something, there is a higher proportion of males than the general set of participants. Try to support this with data and you run into some real messy analysis: in a few cases where testosterone matters such as sports or hand grip strength, this is true and there’s a well-understood biological explanation for it. In most other cases, however, there isn’t a known mechanism and…

> Programming is a complex intellectual activity so it’s pretty clear that not only is there not a simple biological factor but there isn’t even a single test which would allow for there to be one. People have a wide range of skills used to find success in different areas and even if some of the low-level cognitive skills that have been speculated about such as ability to rotate 3-D shapes turned out to have a genetic component, that would be shown with something like a gender bias in people writing simulation or game engines rather than across the board

CS/EE as a field is about 80% male, depending on the year

When the pipeline is that thin, it’s hard to get an equal outcome at the professional level

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sat in an all hands where the vice president of HR proudly crowed to the company that they had hired 75% non-whites that quarter.

Seems like a lawsuit right there... is this happened I sure hope that there was a lawsuit! Or at least HR implementing new hiring practices company wide afterwards...

Who's going to start a lawsuit and get blacklisted? HR is normally pushing for this.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#537
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become what you are fighting against you become the problem. If the issue is not using a person's race to make blanket judgements against them then using someone's race to to counterbalance historical is equally as wrong. The message you are telling everyone is you should use someone's race to judge them. The people in power changes but the racism never goes away. You end up with foolish ideas like reparatio…

Nothing in my post mentioned reparations, nor did it imply that all efforts are equal or even valid. The foolish idea is that you can't do anything about racism because it'd require helping some people while not helping others. Which is a bit like thinking you can't feed the hungry because you're not giving food to the obese.

You can do a lot about racism from education to fairness laws but the one thing you can't do is use racism to stop racism. That's my core message.

That's my point. Why not give food to all? You just want to give food to who you think is hungry based on great grandparents being hungry. Everyone should eat even the obese.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encouraging specific people to submit applications is not illegal. Even based on those characteristics.

No that is also illegal. You can not target advertisements based on protected characteristics. > the Justice Department secured a settlement agreement with Meta (formerly Facebook) in February 2025, alleging that Meta’s ad delivery system used machine-learning algorithms relying on Fair Housing Act (FHA)-protected characteristics such as race, national origin, and sex to determine who saw housing ads

Securement of a settlement proves literally nothing.
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