Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

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I suffer from imposter syndrome all the time... but that's on me, not someone else. If you hire someone because of diversity alone over someone with a higher level of merit, then that was wrong. Also, telling someone that they were hired for diversity reasons alone is probably a bad move as well.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't try to get more women into tech, or into trash collection, or construction, or every other male dominated occupation, or men as nurses, etc... however, that doesn't mean having to change the rules for men or women. And pointing out that there are differences between men and women shouldn't instantly start of with a storm of hate.

"the average woman is shorter than the average man" ... "typical misogynistic cis white male patriarchal bullshit" ...

I'm not saying that everyone is volatile and prone to fits of excessive rage in response, but it really feels like there's no place for civil discussion or discourse with a growing portion of the population.

You know you are being completely hypocritical, right ?

You abhor discrimination during hiring. But yet you want to be able to discuss the differences between men and women in order to use them to discriminate.

> in order to use them to discriminate

[citation needed]

When did I say that I want to be able to use differences between men and women to discriminate?

I said that hiring on diversity over merit was wrong. That's it... I never said anything about sex in terms of merit. The only place any discussion of sex or diversity belongs is in terms of messaging and in terms of possibly promoting jobs that are disproportionate to natural propensity towards a given role.

If you can't discuss, review, document, test or otherwise examine bias in terms of nature, environment, upbringing, educational exposure and other factors, then you can't force equilibrium at the end of a long process.

You can't hire 50% women in an industry, where only 20% of those educated for that field are women. Also, so long as choosing a field of study or work is voluntary, the best you can do is maybe have a more fair representation of a given gender in a given field that doesn't show only above average looking women wearing glasses with a few geeky quirks, then relegate them to more personality quirks, or make them less capable over time.

And MAYBE it's okay to have a field where most of the people in that field are of a given sex. I don't see the SJWs trying to get women into garbage collection, or throwing a fit over the gender bias in nursing.

You're missing the point that there is a positive feedback loop at the source of the problem. The reason that women (or minorities for that matter) don't get into some fields of STEM is because there are no role models that tell them it's a good idea to do so. So there is a chicken and egg problem, and the only way do break the cycle is to give priority to such minorities. Is it fair to the members of the majority? Perhaps not. But in the end, I believe, it will justify the investment. Consider it a small price to pay for the millennia of oppression.

No there isn't positive feedback loop at the source problem and no giving priority to minorities does not make any sense. You don't have to. There is enough fight over the talent that anyone who actually has talent will get a job.

Having worked in tech for 20 years and hired and fired all sorts of people I am unconvinced there is a problem in tech as big as it's being claimed.

The idea that you can only have role models if they are your gender is really really absurd and if people are really falling for that then they have a problem not the tech-scene.

There is no actual evidence that diversity in gender does anything for a company besides creating more complex work environments. There are far more important types of diversity to strive for.

There's a difference between the two words, "reason" and "justification". I think you're confusing the two; if someone talks about X as a reason for Y, you think they're using X as a justification for Y.

It's complicated by the fact that sexist & racist people will try and use reasons as justifications, that they will use their misunderstanding of statistics to short-circuit decision-making in a faulty and biased way.

But we shouldn't outlaw talking about reasons all the same. The reason we shouldn't outlaw talking about reasons, in spite of the risk of odious people using them as justifications, is that you would otherwise proceed unscientifically. Reasons relate to theories about the world, and if you discard reasons, your theory about the world is wrong.

This is an extremely valuable insight, but I don't think it's the root cause of the screaming match we're currently observing.

Some have already decided that the REASON for gender imbalance in tech is rampant bias and male privilege, which they have publicly committed themselves to stamping out. Whether or not this is true, questioning the validity of that reason is considered an attack on their identity and value system.

Edit: I'm not sure it's clear from my comment, but to clarify, I am NOT SURE what the reason for the observed gender imbalance is. I'm not saying that it isn't bias/privilege/etc. I don't think the case has been proven one way or the other, but the personal attacks & utter misrepresentations I've seen used to try to shut down discussion is driving me pretty hard emotionally to one side at the moment.

Sure. But I think the reason people are so attached to this explanation, I think, is that other possible reasons sound like justifications for bias. I think both good and bad people get confused between the two.

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