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Comment by thrance | Hacker News Reader

The idea that there could be biological dispositions to using a computer, the least natural thing I could think off, is well and truly absurd. Anyone still "interested" in this topic is coming from a place of unsubstantiated vice signalling, and completely uninterested in hearing any actual biologist's take on the subject, in my experience.

Let's not forget that the first generation of programmers was mostly women, until the job became high-status enough that men could take over. Takeaway: it's all bullshit.

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It's really quite funny too, because women were a huge population of programmers and computer science graduates all the way up to the mid 1980s, when the ratios began flipping in favor of men. The biological argument would assume that either something changed biologically from 1980s onwards to make women less predisposed to be programmers, or (the more usual argument I see) 'that they were just doing the gruntwork' which usually exposes them as who they are.

> women were a huge population of programmers

wasn't that there were a lot of women working as operators, but that job went away along with the punch cards.

Not defending the guy, but he's possibly on the autistic spectrum, given he grinds solo on his projects for decades and stuff.

He may perceive his own appetite for programming as being linked to some form of autism. Because, well, computers are not people, so it's nice to avoid people.

Given that there is a proven gender discrepancy in the distribution of autistic disorders, it's not completely absurd to imagine that men could biologically be more attracted to working with computers than women.

How does DNA know about computers?

Computers allow people to interact with the world while avoiding direct human interactions, which autists tend to have a hard time with.

I don't know if it's true at all...

Could there be a difference in the social reward centers of the brain, based on gender, possibly from the biological necessities of having children? We know reward centers are not the same, between the sexes, since heterosexual attraction is the norm (and why gay conversion therapy can't work). Some brain structure and function is hard coded.

Could these hormone influenced reward centers differ in social rewards, or for human interaction? Computers are not human. Maybe [1], but don't expect much research proving it one way or the other.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190130175604.h...

How would that explain the very basic fact that most programmers were women in the early days of computing? It can't. The most important factors deciding which gender is most represented in programming are sociological.

You need to look at the history of it all. There wasn't the freedom back then, that we have now, where women could choose their profession based on personal interest. Back then programmers were women. It wasn't considered a man's job [1].

[1] https://www.history.com/articles/coding-used-to-be-a-womans-...

When you look at the history of it all, it clearly shows that men have always been misogynistic bigots oppressing and driving women out of educational opportunities and professional careers, and they still all, even more so today than ten years ago, due to the rise of GamerGate, MAGA and Project 2025.

Without wanting to go too far out of my depth, I have read a few times now that a lot of the perceived growth in autism rates could be attributed to our society pushing people into adopting behaviors previously attributed to "actual" autism. Spending time on the computer as a kid (playing video games, etc.) is still mostly a boy activity, because of societal reasons, and can certainly lead to adopting these behaviors later in life in some cases (not making any value judgment here). I would be willing to bet that, had programming stayed a women-dominated position, we'd have more women than men on the spectrum today.

This is wildly extreme in the nature vs nuture debate. What is your opinion of gay conversion therapy?

I'm telling you: I'm out of my depth here. I don't need opinion on gay conversion therapy though, it's been shown repeatedly to be completely ineffective (and extremely cruel too). What's your point?

Careful though, I'm not telling you that playing video games as a kid makes you autistic, I'm telling you that doing so can make an individual adopt behaviors previously thought to define/be exclusive to autism.

Well, behaving like an autist is obviously not good. If it is by nuture then we can prevent it by e.g. prohibiting video games for kids.

If it is by nature (being gay is generally accepted to be by nature) means that it cannot be changed by nuture.

The trans issue is currently the hot frontier of this debate.

In case you are ignorant. This is about the "things vs. people" finding. You can e.g. find it linked on wikipedia in the "Sex differences in humans" article.

If it's biological or not is kind of hard to prove without unethical experiments.

I am not disputing that there exists differences in vocational choices between genders. Programming as a discipline is a textbook sociological example though: it was women's work when it was thought as "gruntwork", and then became men's work when it got prestigious enough, almost overnight (in historical scales). If ever there exists some biological predispositions towards programming, they are largely overriden by sociological factors, to the point that using biology to explain why programmers are mostly men today is truly ridiculous.

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