Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

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Ever noticed how among professional bowlers, there are fewer conventionally fit guys?

Why is that? You'd think they'd have the same ratio of fit guys as the rest of professional sports by your logic.

Or.

Is it because the current highest earning professional bowler has a lifetime career winnings of $5 million by 2019? Since he turned pro in 1980. So if you can, you play something else.

Similar thing is going on here. There aren't people gunning for QA jobs specifically, there are people gunning for software related jobs in certain companies. People will get various offers from various companies for various positions. And the position you get is a reflection, in part, of the best offer for the best position the best company gave you.

So while the entire pool may have applied for the QA job, some of the people who were given offers got better offers from better companies and/or for better positions.

And let's not forget there could also be a variation of the Dead Sea effect going on. Where those who aren't Indian women get promoted or transferred out of QA at a higher rate, leaving more Indian women in QA. So you have twin effects going on. Where Indian women are getting accepted into QA positions more than other positions and Indian women being passed over for promotions and transfers keeping them in QA positions.

A much more likely explanation on the bowling thing is that physical fitness is not required to be a good bowler. Consider:

-There are lower-paying sports where fitness does matter, and they all have fit athletes at the top.

-There are way more conventionally fit folks than there are pro athlete slots; It's not like the select few fit people in the world are being exhausted before they can fill the ranks of all professional athletics.

You're throwing 12 - 16 pound balls about 16 mph in a way that causes the ball to spin. That takes a decent amount of arm and upper body strength to do it well consistently. Some amount of fitness is required.

If bowling paid like the NBA, you'd see very few non-fit pro bowlers.

At $5 million over 42 years, you bowl because you like it, not because it makes money. People who are fit but are otherwise not good enough to play high-paying professional sports can probably find better paying jobs elsewhere.

Professional bowling is populated by the people it is populated with partly because this is as good or better an option than others that they have.

I feel like you kinda dodged the point here by shifting the definition of fitness.

I would speculate that most top tier bowlers do have the arm and upper body strength to do it well.

They also have a variety of body-fats and other attributes that don't particularly impact performance.

>If bowling paid like the NBA, you'd see very few non-fit pro bowlers.

Why do you think that would be the case if it doesn't impact performance?

If chess paid like the NBA, we still wouldn't expect top players to look like NBA athletes.

I said you don't see "conventionally fit" guys. You inferred my claim was that physical fitness was not required.

And the reason I used bowling is because it is a physical sport. And with physical sports, better overall physical fitness can give you an edge.

Hell, even in chess they're beginning to consider how physical conditioning impacts performance.

But now you're kind of at the point of arguing the metaphor. There are more desirable positions in software development and less desirable ones. And everyone is applying for everything. And if one group is cut off from the more desirable ones, they will start to become over-represented in the less desirable ones.

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