I'm not a Woman in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#581

Post by richmarr » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #579

richmarr wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're defending white men against a point that I did not make. I was careful to make my original comment in a precise and defensible way. You admit that women and minorities experience more frequent and severe discrimination. From that follows that a sample of those people are statistically more likely to have greater experience with discrimination than an otherwise-similar sample of white men. That's the point I ma…

>Instead you chose to argue the point "everybody experiences at least some discrimination". You're probably right, but in doing so you choose a definition of the word "discrimination" so broad that it becomes much less meaningful. I grew up in a poor, primarily black/latino urban community. Not to anyone's surprise, the minority groups of the area (whites/asians) received far more discrimination than the majority gro…

I'm sorry to hear that you had a hard time.

> This idea that white people only suffer "small amounts of discrimination, under a broad definition" is a joke

...and is not something that I said.

The rest of your comment follows from that fundamental misunderstanding so I'll stop here.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#582

Post by rectang » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #544

koaladevops wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the beautiful things about the HN community is that we expect and welcome disagreement don't think this is really true ... in any online community. My comment would have been the same regardless of gender. Since apparently I can't articulate what I meant, let me direct to a blog post written by better writers than me : https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/phmt-arg...

> "don't think this is really true ... in any online community." Stick around and give us the opportunity to surprise you ;) > "My comment would have been the same regardless of gender." You might have intended the same point, but I suspect you would have articulated it differently. There were a few lines like "We probably are under more pressure than you" or "Everything is about you all the time anyway" that don't m…

Eventually, those "universal" rights have to be applied to an out-group or they are meaningless. There's no avoiding a conflict. Look at the hundreds of messages on this page which sum to "nothing is wrong, change nothing".

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#583

Post by falsedan » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #549

falsedan wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reflects the existing industry placements + recent graduates, which reflects the university applications, which reflects the high-school graduations, which reflects the typical 50/50 gender split of the general population. If women are self-excluding, what is causing the hostility in that environment? If they're systemically-excluded, how do we remove it?

Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment

Sure, but we're talking about women in tech.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#584

Post by lotharbot » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #582

lotharbot wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "don't think this is really true ... in any online community." Stick around and give us the opportunity to surprise you ;) > "My comment would have been the same regardless of gender." You might have intended the same point, but I suspect you would have articulated it differently. There were a few lines like "We probably are under more pressure than you" or "Everything is about you all the time anyway" that don't m…

Eventually, those "universal" rights have to be applied to an out-group or they are meaningless. There's no avoiding a conflict. Look at the hundreds of messages on this page which sum to "nothing is wrong, change nothing".

> "those "universal" rights have to be applied to an out-group"

Yes, absolutely! That's why I used the term "universal". They apply to everyone, not just favored groups.

> "hundreds of messages on this page which sum to "nothing is wrong""

A few. Most, you're reading uncharitably. I'd summarize the most common theme as more like "we've misidentified the precise problem, and as a result our solutions are ineffective or worse."

> "There's no avoiding a conflict."

Some types of conflict are essential and inevitable. Others are optional and unnecessary.

When you apply universal rights to a group that has been dehumanized, there is necessary conflict between those who wish to continue dehumanization and those who wish to end it.

But when you treat rights like a contest, you introduce unnecessary conflict, by creating incentives for various groups to try to knock one another down in order to compete for a more favorable spot in the hierarchy.

Focus on resolving necessary conflict, not artificially generating unnecessary conflict.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#585

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #474

omegaworks wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They revolted Hardly[0]. Don't believe the hype. The GOP won using gerrymandering, voter-suppression tactics and clever electoral positioning. Its tools: Voter ID laws and propaganda that deactivated potential voters. 0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...

The VAST majority of voters have ID, and it's relatively easy to get one. Most people need one to function in society, and in many states you register to vote in the same place you get an ID anyhow. Perhaps you can point to a few examples where more than one or two people were singled out who wanted to vote but were unable to because of the requirement for ID. It's been shown that voter fraud in several districts was…

https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-su...

> In states where the voter identification laws did not change between ’12 and ’16, turnout was up +1.3%. In states where ID laws changed to non-strict (AL, NH, RI) turnout increased less, and was only up by +0.7%. In states where ID laws changed to strict (MS, VA, WI) turnout actually decreased by – 1.7%.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#586

Post by Nadya » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:38 PM UTC

richmarr wrote: post #581

Nadya wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead you chose to argue the point "everybody experiences at least some discrimination". You're probably right, but in doing so you choose a definition of the word "discrimination" so broad that it becomes much less meaningful. I grew up in a poor, primarily black/latino urban community. Not to anyone's surprise, the minority groups of the area (whites/asians) received far more discrimination than the majority gro…

I'm sorry to hear that you had a hard time. > This idea that white people only suffer "small amounts of discrimination, under a broad definition" is a joke ...and is not something that I said. The rest of your comment follows from that fundamental misunderstanding so I'll stop here.

Which is why mindcrime feels you two are talking past one another; because you were. You're arguing statistics and the three of us (Caveman_Coder, mindcrime, and myself) are arguing that using that statistic to be dismissive is not acceptable. Which may not be what you're trying to argue, but is something it seems you are defending.

It is used to dismiss any experiences of discrimination faced by white men because "statistically they're more likely to be better off and experience less discrimination as a whole" which is not always true on an individual level or anywhere where being white puts them in the minority.

Let's go all the way back to a great, great grandparent that started this whole thread [0]. The argument is that white men can experience discrimination, and to tell people to piss off if they say otherwise. Then you specifically brought up that white men, statistically, experience less discrimination as a whole [1]. Which is not the argument put forward. The argument put forward was: "white men can experience discrimination, piss off if you say otherwise". Which is why mindcrime responds [2] that it is a mistake to understate the discrimination that white men can face.

You then follow up in [3] continuing to argue the statistic argument, when nobody is arguing the statistic. They're saying that being dismissive of white men's experiences of discrimination because of that statistic is bullshit which is the argument made in [0].

It may not have been what you meant - but it is how both myself and mindcrime interpreted your argument. If you still feel I've completely misread the discussion that is fine, I only wanted to explain how I came to my position.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703015

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703259

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703837

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14709785

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#587

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:43 PM UTC

spinlock wrote: post #212

treehau5 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. I learned this lesson a long time ago from the role models in my life that ended up getting burned because of having a differing viewpoint from whatever societal winds were blowing. I, and I realize probably cynically, now only elect to share, post, tweet, or whatnot whatever only can positively benefit my "brand". Sometimes I have to act like my own PR…

I don't want to make this a Trump thing ... but I"m gonna. I didn't like that he tweeted the CNN clothesline but I just read their response which was doxing and extorting a bs apology from the creator. It shows that the problem is worse than you've pointed out. Even if you're relatively anonymous, you'll be guilty by association if someone uses your words and amplifies them in a way you never could.

Well, the creator of the CNN clothesline wasn't merely "guilty by association" given he had a clear history of posting hate speech and creating fairly obviously bigoted content.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#588

Post by richmarr » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #586

richmarr wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that you had a hard time. > This idea that white people only suffer "small amounts of discrimination, under a broad definition" is a joke ...and is not something that I said. The rest of your comment follows from that fundamental misunderstanding so I'll stop here.

Which is why mindcrime feels you two are talking past one another; because you were. You're arguing statistics and the three of us (Caveman_Coder, mindcrime, and myself) are arguing that using that statistic to be dismissive is not acceptable. Which may not be what you're trying to argue, but is something it seems you are defending. It is used to dismiss any experiences of discrimination faced by white men because "s…

Thanks for explaining; very helpful.

The point that failed to land was first thing I said, i.e. that we are poor judges of our own informed-ness.

Assuming discrimination were uniformly distributed it might be a reasonable position to suggest to people that they hold firmly to their own opinion (i.e. telling others to "piss off").

However discrimination is not evenly distributed, which means white men as a population will be disproportionately affected by overconfidence effects like Dunning-Kruger and fail to correctly assess their own informed-ness.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#589

Post by kaosjester » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

meej wrote: post #267

"You’re victimising me when you do that. You’re indicating that it’s most likely I need special, extra support. Just because I’m female." This is exactly how I felt during my Microsoft internship in 1998 when the internal women's organization, HOPPERS, decided to change their successful "intern buddy" program from opt-in to opt-out. (Well, not really opt-out, because until I got upset with them about it they clearly…

My wife got angry quite a few times in graduate school because the university's Women in Computing group forcibly signed her up to their mailing list at the start of every academic year. She unsubscribed every year and, without fail, they silently added her back. Apparently they thought a woman in computing couldn't manage without being part of this group!

It's one thing to give people the space and support they ask for. It's quite another to shove space and support, unsolicited, upon them.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#590

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:08 PM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #308

EGreg wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to comment on a different factor on HN: When I posted this, the upvotes went up to +3 points, and then steadily have been declining to -2 points. No one has commented as to why they are downvoting or whatever. Fine. But I have noticed this on many of my other posts. And I wonder sometimes whether people actually have downvoting rings / clones on HN for topics/people/opinions! It seems to be free to downvote…

> It seems to be free to downvote or upvote, so economically it would make sense that there are no repercussions. Since there is no cost to downvoting, it is cheaper in terms of time and effort to--anonymously!--censor opinions than to express them. It's doubly bad because, in order to acquire downvoting privileges, you must first express enough "correct" opinions, which makes the system self-selecting for certain vi…

> Since there is no cost to downvoting, it is cheaper in terms of time and effort to--anonymously!--censor opinions than to express them.

Sometimes it's cheaper in terms of time and effort to downvote rather than engage because the comment or commentator displays obvious* signs that a discussion will be fruitless.

* To me, of course; I only represent myself and my opinions.