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Comment by mieseratte | Hacker News Reader

> Recent studies conclude this is not a “pipeline” problem — qualified candidates can be found.

Really wish they'd provided a link to the stud(y|ies). There certainly exist qualified people of all stripes, but are there enough to meet a population-level representative size?

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There is a huge pipeline problem.

The only articles I've read claiming there isn't one have all been click bait pieces written by journos, not scientists or educators, and contain no data. Just wild ass speculation about the underlying causes of the pipeline problem.

Which, yeah. The pipeline problem has lots of causes. But saying "we don't have a pipeline problem because there are reasons women don't major in CS" makes no sebse. It's like saying the roof doesn't have a leaking problem because the real problem is that the gutters are clogged. I mean, sure, that's true, and we need to fix that to fix the roof. But the roof is still leaking...

The only real argument I've heard that isn't prime facie flawed in this way is the argument that you don't really need college educated computer scientists to fill your SWE roles. That may be true for some roles and some companies, but lots of positions (e.g. all the ones I hire for) do require a strong education in CS and math. PhDs in STEM fields that go on to good boot camps or masters programs in CS can be good fits, but those are even more rare.

And, again, even that argument has no data to back it in the articles I've read. It's just not prime facia illogical.

Part of the pipeline problem is that you're not winning over the most high achieving minority students to stem. I remember there was a Mexican American woman in one of my calc classes that was easily the best student and smoked everyone else (granted, it was at a second rate state school), but when asked what she wanted to do, she said she was going to be a dentist. People coming from underrepresented backgrounds don't want to spend 8 years doing a Phd, then a ML bootcamp, all so they can make low 6 figures at a job that could be outsourced or H1Bed at any minute when they could instead go to medical, dental, or law school and have a respected and well paid career.

> but when asked what she wanted to do, she said she was going to be a dentist.

Just guessing here, but there's probably a message board and clique of web blogs about dentistry full of people discussing the underrepresentation of minorities in their field and how they can fix their "pipeline problem".

Out of curiosity I just googled it, and yes, there is, and it's actually more serious than lack of diversity in adtech. If there aren't enough underrepresented minority applicants at Google, they will just have to hire an overrepresented minority to spy on you instead. But if the dental schools aren't producing enough minority dentists, those communities may not have access to quality dental care.

> But if the dental schools aren't producing enough minority dentists, those communities may not have access to quality dental care.

Sorry, I must have missed the memo that citizens can only visit dentists of the same ethnicity.

I'm just going by what the NYU College of Dentistry says. I assume they've thought a lot more about access to dental care than I have.

>Dentists who are underrepresented minorities are more likely to serve communities in need and therefore address disparities in dental care.

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/septem...

You shouldn't be surprised that people prefer to see doctors (and lawyers and plumbers etc) from their home country and speak their native language. Similarly, if you were living in a foreign country with a different national language, you'd likely prefer the same.

Just because someone is a different ethnicity doesn't mean we don't have a shared culture. Immigrants move to a country because they like the language/culture and want to be a part of it.

Immigrants move to a country to take advantage of the opportunities there and improve their standard of living. I have never met an immigrant that moved to a foreign country because they "liked the language/culture and want to be part of it".

Then maybe the incentives are wrong? If I ever move to another country, I'll pick the country based on the culture, not just on opportunity. It's too important not to think about.

depends on the (source:target) pair. People immigrating from India->US are coming from a vastly different background/goals/needs than those going US->India. Money probably dramatically beats out culture wants until you reach a certain point; those coming from a first-world country likely have lower monetary wants, and so culture has greater relative value.

Those coming from third-world to first-world are likely much more interested in money than culture, and I can't say for certain but my intuition is that the kinds of ethnic segregation (eg in NY/Chicago, where there's a whole array of little microtowns) that you see in the US are mostly generated by those poorer populations seeking wealth, not cultural value.

I imagine the equivalent American/European expat towns don't exist nearly as strongly/commonly in india/china, as the inverse exists in the US. (of course, you'd also expect less americans/europeans migrating to india/china, since the monetary difference isn't as strong).

What you are saying is true, which is why a single national language is important. People will naturally gravitate towards communities where their language is spoken, so we unify ourselves by ensuring that English is the common national language.

You find it difficult to believe that white dentists generally serve the communities they live in, which, by income squared with demographic data, tend to be overwhelmingly white?

Yes.

I find that difficult to believe, if you're being intellectually honest.

To be honest, I'm just not used to living in a place with ethnic division along geographic boundaries. It may exist, but I've not personally seen it so yea, it's hard to imagine. Not saying it doesn't exist, but you asked the question to me personally.

Ah well, it’s a significant problem in many parts of America. Pretty much every metropolitan area has ethnic segregation to some extent among geological lines. This is due to a variety of factors- white flight, a long history of oppression and a fairly recent desegregation movement, towns where black people weren’t allowed to stay the night, generational discrepancies exaggerating existing effects, etc.

It’s fairly normal for there to be a wide variety of reasons why specific areas are predominantly one or another ethnicity.

Indeed - although the point may still be valid.

Once you're qualified, it's natural to go off and place yourself where you can make money.

As an anecdotal example, in my local practice, there are a lot of Eastern-European and now Greek dentists. They're excellent and came here to make more than they would at home (and prop up the NHS whilst they're at it) - I do have a concern that there's likely to be an impact on dental care in their country of origin though. I know precisely that has happened with nursing.

> don't want to spend 8 years doing a Phd, then a ML bootcamp, all so they can make low 6 figures at a job that could be outsourced or H1Bed at any minute

Just wow. You are saying people with ML expertise and PhD can be replaced any minute! It just shows your own bias against certain people. I have never seen or heard anyone who brings certain deep technical expertise replaced in a minute. Hiring people is _really_ hard and hiring people with deeper technical expertise is even harder.

And whats up with 6 figure number? 6 figures go as high as 100,000-999,999USD and I am not sure if being somewhere in median of it (say $200K) will be considered low income?

The difference is that a premiere machine learning specialist from outside the country can work in the country immediately once immigration issues are taken care of. A premiere medical professional would still need to pass additional exams or certifications before they can work. Thus all things being equal, it is easier to replace a technologist from overseas than a medical professional.

Your talented classmate chose a good high-paying profession - what's the problem with being a dentist exactly?

> People coming from underrepresented backgrounds don't want to spend 8 years doing a Phd, then a ML bootcamp, all so they can make low 6 figures at a job that could be outsourced or H1Bed at any minute when they could instead go to medical, dental, or law school and have a respected and well paid career.

OK. So what? I think it's reasonable for people to decide they don't want to spend years in a PhD program.

I'm having trouble parsing your argument. Are you saying the pipeline problem is due to minority students choosing other more lucrative professions? Good! What's wrong with that?

That is what I was saying.

you don't need a phd to be a very successful software engineer. a bs is plenty of education. and if you get replaced, at the very worst move to one of the job creating hubs like seattle where amazon alone wants to hire over 10,000 software engineers. There's certainly about 10k jobs in other companies here as a dev.

Yes, the gutters might be clogged.

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