Smell Ya Later, Nerds | Hacker News Reader

Smell Ya Later, Nerds

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15 pointsprotomyth13 comments

I considered her opinion on tech to be invalid when she claimed that tech isn't merit based. All of the people I've met and worked with have taken lots of effort and [informal & formal] education to get where they are today.

Then I saw the last bit of it: "[...] I will miss terribly, like writing about poop and that time my editor tried to get me to go on a date with a sex robot and What Will Elon Musk Think of Next and that one month where John McAfee went completely insane; "

That rather explains her position. She doesn't get into the low lying details of tech.

The minor irritants I can relate with her and agree with her on.

> I considered her opinion on tech to be invalid when she claimed that tech isn't merit based.

She links to a research based critique of the meritocracy narrative right in the article, right in the point on meritocracy. Please read TFA. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-usa-startup-con...

> That rather explains her position. She doesn't get into the low lying details of tech.

You have to be able to write your own compiler to have any insight into the social dynamics and economic realities of silicon valley? Do you really believe this? Your assertion is laughable. It's clear that once you judged her opinions "invalid" you read just enough of the article to rationalize your opinion.

"I considered her opinion on tech to be invalid when she claimed that tech isn't merit based."

How is tech merit based? Truthfully, most vocational jobs are more merit-based than technology. We see technology companies filtering on a long list of items (school attended, age, etc.) that have very little to do with merit. If you have had opportunity, technology is a wonderful career, but it just isn't merit-based. It does suffer from the same problems as every other professional career.

The merit-based utopia meme needs to leave so we can actually look at the trends and decide if some things need correcting.

Plebs are never assessed on merit because they don't have any. So you get better treatment for one pleb or another pleb because of what school they went to or their gender, but in the end it's all just interchangeable plebs anyway. If you have real talent ("tech bloggers" need not apply) and a bit of a spine then that is going to be the dominant factor in your success. But we see so many stories these days about how various little plebs aren't getting some perceived due that it's becoming a degenerate force.

You are literally calling most people in the world 'plebs'. What is wrong with you?

Also a side question: does me commenting in this thread make it less likely to sink? Because this is the kind of submission that needs to be aborted in the womb.

Ah the language.

How effortlessly, out of all of the possible selections of colloquialisms and metaphors one could select, the ease of cognitive flow.

Maybe, just maybe there is an itsy bitsy bit of merit in her commentary?

You didn't answer my question.

The tech industry lately seems to be mired in this either-or thinking about meritocracy. How about we admit it's a bit of both?

Being connected and having the same hobbies and coming from the same IIT as the hiring manager will help, not hurt you. Is anyone denying this? That's why all the career advice boards remind merit-focused new college grads that "it matters who you know, then it matters what you know".

On the other hand, there isn't a lot of room in organizations for people who don't get it done at all. Merit - or at least the appearance of merit - matters a great deal. Maybe in larger, more mature organizations and industries people can hide out and network with the right people to stay in their no-show jobs.

However, bootstrapped startups don't really have a lot of sinecures for random "VP, Business Development" slots to go around.

It is true that no system in the world has or could ever have a perfectly accurate merit assessment system... but has any one noticed that improvements in merit assignment and lower barriers to entry lead to less representation of women at the top, not more? In highly structured environments with statistical ranking systems, the portion of women at the top is miniscule. For example, women make up about about 55% of registered players in the American Scrabble Associations raking system, but on some occasions there are no women in the top 50 ranked (the most there has ever been was just a few) [1]. The only places where women are highly represented at the top are places with strong diversity programs. For example, Rwanda leads the world in terms of women's representation in parliament, but that is because a very large number of seats are reserved exclusive for female candidates, while the rest are open to anyone [2].

1. http://rcm-papers.net/scrabble-ratings-gender.html

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7620816.stm

Interesting point. That Rwanda situation is interesting because it enforces a baseline of 30%. I am sure it's easier to get from 30% -> 50+% than it is from a much smaller number to 30%.

Chess, Go, Math Olympiads, and other such pursuits are other examples of situations where female representation is miniscule.

However, we can't assume this is anything biological because that would be sexist, so we need to assume that there is extreme misogyny at play, which increases as the level of competition gets higher and higher.

Philip Greenspun explores this in his article from a few years ago, in the arena of academic science:

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

Dear Jessica,

We won't miss you either.

All the best,

The Tech Industry

What an angry person.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com