The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

His childhood mirrors my own, although academic success is inverted.

I wonder if there is some trait which transfixed us for life, I am certain that the interviewee (Gideon) and I are not alone.

It also beggars the question. Although very non-PC. That were I a girl I would not be dissuaded from this course. I know this because there was literally zero support from anyone regarding computing as a hobby or profession. In fact the opposite, they actively fought against it.

Again. I think I'm very unalone in this regard.

> He said that society increasingly sees groups instead of individuals, to the extent that group rights may supersede individual rights in all sorts of contexts, including politicised work environments. Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is true of men. Because women are now a victimised class, men are increasingly seen as victimisers, irrespective of their individual attributes or actions.

> The second factor, he thought, was an attachment to an outdated, blank slate view of human nature. He says that many people still insist on seeing the human brain as predominantly moulded by culture, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. There tends to be a hesitancy towards attributing any differences between people to any cause that is biological in origin. This hesitancy has been around for decades, and appears like it will not be alleviated anytime soon.

I agree with the first paragraph here, but not the second. I really believe that culture plays more of a part than most people think. Cultural differences would explain the higher wages among Asian Americans and Jews, this despite the historic racism that both of those groups have experienced. Both groups are minorities, yet on average still exceed in our society more than others.

To play devils advocate, the success of Asian Americans and Jews could also be explained by genetics.

My own biases as well as basic knowledge of the respective cultures makes me fairly certain that it's culture in both cases rather than genetics, though.

This article is going to rub lots of people the wrong way, I suspect, but it's level headed, well reasoned and well written. Although I ultimately disagree with some of the conclusions drawn at the end, (particularly:

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class.

I think labeling or delineating women as 'vulnerable or marginalised' and ignoring their unique qualities and idiosyncrasies is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Acknowledging that women are 'vulnerable or marginalised' shouldn't remove their individuality, you can easily have both, but that's beside my point here)

I legitimately didn't realise what the tone or conclusion of the article were going to be when I first started reasoning, because it does a good job of presenting scientific research without any inherent judgements. The other thing this article achieves that the cited manifesto failed to achieve was not to necessarily provide judgement, criticism or suggestions around 'what should be done about problem xyz'. It presents some facts, presents some opinions, and then (thankfully) doesn't decide to rip the hard work of well intentioned people to shreds. And for that, I think this should be commended.

> Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is true of men. Because women are now a victimised class, men are increasingly seen as victimisers, irrespective of their individual attributes or actions.

I cannot agree with this more. Very, very well observed and phrased.