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Comment by punkbit | Hacker News Reader

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education!

I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, etc.

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I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in the sense that we do need to bring in the most talented people, but I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem.

In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to change it, and we can only change it by bringing in ideas that are different to what we have now. That is best done by people who offer different perspectives on what we're doing at the moment. In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc.

The thing that really must change in order to get society making the best tech possible that really impacts lives in a positive way is that we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas. That can only happen by filling the chamber with more people who aren't privileged white males. And I say that as a privileged white male.

>And that's not the solution, that's the problem.

That depends on whether what we are doing now works or not. Change for its own sake rarely does good in the IT industry.

> we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas

Can you elaborate on the definition of "privileged white male"?

I'm going to assume you understand the 'white male' aspect. 'Privileged' in the sense that they came from a middle-income home where they had access to things like a computer and books, were fortunate to attend schools that were reasonably well funded, had the opportunity to attend college and university, didn't live in fear of crime throughout their childhood, had outdoor space to play in, had good access to healthcare, etc.

That isn't that sort of background that everyone has, but it is the sort of background that 90% of people in the IT industry had. Consequently IT professionals tend to have somewhat skewed notions of what the world is like. Changing that would make it more likely that people build things that make a positive impact on society because you can't fix a problem if you don't know that it's a problem.

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure you don't put all white people in one basket, labeled privileged.

So, by your definition there should be "white non-privileged people" as well, right? This means we shouldn't talk about black, white, etc. people but we should talk about having more non-privileged people in tech?

I like this thinking but I don't understand what should be the mechanisms for making it happen. The only universal (both for privileged and non-privileged) unit of measurement I can think of is talent. Which brings us back to square one - we need more talented people in tech. Which means that people who are responsible for hiring other people should not only look at prior experience, education, etc. but should also be able to discover talent. Which is hard but I think that's the right direction.

Am I right?

+1. We need to be giving a leg up to the poor Ukrainian kid whose mother is a cleaner rather than giving it to a middle class kid just because the latter is black.

Many SF authoritarians would rather support the latter, even if they don't need help, simply based on skin colour, and a limited life experience that equates 'white' to 'middle class American'.

Yes, you are right, but (as I said in my first reply) we need to look at talents that aren't just the technical skills that industry demands right now. We need to populate tech with people who are good at things that we don't necessarily look for right now - having good philosophers, ethicists, sociologists, teachers, artists, etc would improve our industry immeasurably.

Looking beyond experience and education is vital (but very hard).

Where I work, we have the concept of a "subject matter expert". This is someone that the technical people can work with, to sove problems outside the technical person's expertise. Using technology outside the SME's expertise.

Why can't this idea of collaborating with outsiders work for the industry as a whole? Why must everyone be able to do everything?

Talent isn't a universal unit of measurement. Talent we attribute to results, even when there is glaring evidence that many of those results are as dependent on factors outside of a persons control than on any abilities of that person.

Thats what the discussion about privilege is really useful for. Keeping it in the forefront of your mind (especially if you are successful) that many people have similar capability/potential as you, but they experience different circumstances that can radically alter the outcomes.

My favorite saying to remember is "He thinks he hit a home run in life, when he was born on third base."

So is that 90% figure from some poll or study? I'm curious where it comes from because not even 90% of the IT industry is white. There are a lot of Asians.

Lets be concrete. I'm streaming realtime events and then running statistical models on the datastream in order to manipulate user behavior. What "different perspectives" are offered by women, non-Asian minorities or LGBQT+? Is there a secret prediction method that whites/asians don't know about? A special LGBQT+ streaming architecture?

On several occasions I've joined a company and been the only diversity carrier. I can't think of a single advantage beyond PR (I make group photos look more diverse, yay!) that my race has given the company. Any such advantage is miniscule in comparison to the advantages gained by my knowledge of statistical significance, multiple comparisons, regression and the like.

Realistically, if you wanted to add diversity of thought, you'd be far better off hiring a Frequentist of the majority race than a Bayesian of a different one. And if you wanted real (harmful) diversity of thought, you'd hire a magical thinker rather than someone persuaded by evidence.

I'm streaming realtime events and then running statistical models on the datastream in order to manipulate user behavior.

Having a more diverse team that includes someone with a more emotionally-driven perspective could lead to someone asking the question "Is the way we're manipulating user behavior actually ethical?"

This isn't about finding different technical solutions to problems; it's about finding different problems.

The idea of an emotionally driven person making ethical decisions scares the crap out of me. For example, empathy (a popular mode of emotional decisionmaking in ethics) is known to be racist:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108582/

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

And most emotionally driven ethical discussions on HN lean towards popularity contests - compare the outcry against online harassment of that gamergate girl to the online harassment of Charles Carreon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Carreon), for example.

But even if you are right, what does diversity in the traditional sense of your post above have to do with it? Are you suggesting that women/LGBTQ+ people are more emotional and less rational?

"Having a more diverse team that includes someone with a more emotionally-driven perspective could lead to someone asking the question "Is the way we're manipulating user behavior actually ethical?" [Emphasis added]

Geez, I really hope that that was just an unfortunate turn of phrase. You can't possibly mean that non-(white-males) have a quote "more emotionally-driven perspective", do you?

I read the post to suggest that the existing team was obviously not very emotionally sensitive since they are explicitly working to "manipulate behavior" which sounds sinister. Perhaps hiring more folks who are both rational AND emotionally sensitive to their users is the diversity they need.

What's sinister about it? If you ever make a design change to increase conversions, you are working to manipulate user behavior. Are landing pages, a/b tests, pretty designs, and pictures of human faces now "sinister"?

Making a nicer product that increases user engagement is manipulating the product to match what the user likes, not manipulating the user. Changing the order and quality of ranked news articles, bending the truth, using behavioral science to promote addictive dependence,advertising products you don't actually make are all manipulating the user.

There is a big difference and yes, "manipulating the user" is sinister.

I specifically discussed putting human faces on the landing page to get more conversions and other design changes (e.g., button color, button copy). These don't change the product, only the landing page.

That's not a lie or bending the truth. It is manipulating the user.

I would suggest you stay away from describing your business practices as "manipulation", though. Almost all connotations of that word in psychology, law, and business imply deceit.

It sounds like you are decorating the showroom to boost sales... I hope it works out well for you. I was thown by the initial desciption that sure didnt sound like faces and buttons: "I'm streaming realtime events and then running statistical models on the datastream in order to manipulate user behavior."

It's pretty trivial to find examples where societal biases create negative results for companies that do not move beyond them.

For instance, in some places (you may be aware of ;) there is a societal bias that heterosexual anglo men are hyper sexual. That they are literally untrustworthy due to it is not an uncommon bias. It is an easy jump from that bias to an implicit (or even explicit) belief that it is better NOT to hire engineers to build streaming event architectures who are constantly thinking about sex and therefore to build a pipeline that biases against heterosexual white men. A company that did this, intentionally or not, is at a disadvantage when hiring because they have removed from the applicant pool people for the wrong reasons.

A company that instead was blind to that bias (or actively worked against it) would therefore have a wider pool to select from.

Even 1 counter example is often enough to change the biases for everyone who encounters them. So the company that hired 'yummyfajitas' and realized either A) he is not hyper sexual or B) he is but it doesn't impact his ability to perform the task is more likely to detach the wrong biases from their hiring pipeline and this has a multiplying effect.

Substitute "women aren't as good at math", "older people learn technologies slower", "black guys don't research as well" or whatever other bias you want.

Also, you know, sometimes we should do things because they are the right thing to do.

I'm not sure how your post relates to mine.

I'm hiring a data team. Based on the applicant pool it'll probably be me and 3 Punjabi males assuming I hire purely based on ability [1]. My claim is that I'll get no marginal value out of hiring a Maharashtrian, an African or a westerner over an equally qualified Punjabi. I provide no special western perspective on Kafka.

I also don't know why it would be the "right thing to do" to hire a Maharashtrian relative over a Punjabi - but that might be because I don't believe in group rights. If you do, I'd love to know how you choose which groups are relevant - there are, after all, 2^{6 billion} subgroups of humanity.

[1] I take pains to do exactly that - I skip resumes and look at github, follow scripted interviews with objective criteria, etc.

You asked for how a diversity of thinking improves a company. A specific example of that is a more diverse workforce will be more inclusive at the funnel end of the hiring pipeline, making your applicant pool better. It doesn't matter that you provide no western perspective on Kafka. What matters is that your western perspective provides no negative impact to your ability to work on Kafka problems.

If there were a systematic bias against westerners that meant they were unlikely to apply for, get callbacks for, or be able to work in your environment with Kafka, actively removing those impediments is an opportunity. The larger the population being biased against and the more acute the need for applicants is, the larger the opportunity.

Framing this as a "hire one person over another" or as a "rights" issue is incorrect. Many of the systematic biases can be corrected for in ways that either don't cost the unbiased set anything, or provide advantages to that set as well. Further, this is an issue of courtesy and empathy, not rights. No one has the right to my courtesy or empathy, but providing it broadly is the right thing to do.

Actually I said "I can't think of a single advantage beyond PR". You don't seem to disagree.

A better work environment for more of the employees and a wider applicant pool with more qualified applicants making it through the pipeline doesn't seem to be PR by my definition, but maybe if it is by yours, then I suppose we don't disagree.

By "PR" I mean "affects external perception of the company". Encouraging people to apply falls into that category.

I don't see how the work environment is made better by my presence. I'm not going to be any nicer to minorities than my majority coworkers. And quite honestly, if someone of my race considers the environment better because they have a firangi to talk to, I'm unlikely to get along well with them.

And quite honestly, if someone of my race considers the environment better because they have a firangi to talk to, I'm unlikely to get along well with them.

This sort of stereotype probably has the predictive value of a D20 roll.

Phil's an 11, I spit in his lunch. Nancy is a 19, no problems expected.

Are you saying that PR is not a valid business concern? Investor's and Consumer's perception of a company is as relevant as the products quality. Don't you think that people would be more hesitant to do business with a company labeled as "racist" in the public's opinion?

You've lost the thread. I'm originally responding to this:

...bringing in ideas that are different to what we have now...In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc.

I wasn't responding to this:

...bringing in people who are superficially different but think the same way in order to manipulate the media...

Obviously PR matters and I'm happy to let my company exploit my race for that purpose (though I probably wouldn't have taken the job if I thought that was a significant factor). But that's completely tangential to the original point.

There are all manner of work place environmental factors that are very big deals to some people that are not obvious big deals to others.

For instance, sick child care disproportionally falls on women. So more women (of course not all women) view flexible hours, flexible sick time and flexible work from home options as major benefits. In many instances providing those things is a net improvement for everyone (including the business productivity) but it isn't as obvious in cases that don't experience the problem (like places that don't have as many parents generally or women specifically).

I suppose improving this environmental factor can be viewed as a PR move (which frequently has a pejorative tone, but I assume you are not applying that) but it also can have intrinsic benefits even if it never causes someone to think differently about the company.

In-kind benefits of this nature only improve the workplace for people who strongly desire them - people who don't want them are forced to pay for them anyway.

In fact, heterogeneous preferences w.r.t in-kind benefits are an argument for workplace homogeneity (and heterogeneity across workplaces). Women who want flexible hours can go work for a company providing flexible hours. Dudebro neckbeards can work for a company providing unlimited redbull, videogames and vodka even after normal working hours. If they work at the same company someone's pay is reduced to cover benefits they don't use.

I suspect your statements around this are at the heart of our disagreement.

Your position on this implies that a) we all know our preference around in-kind benefits b) our use of in-kind benefits is static, predetermined, or correlated job moves c) the provision of in kind benefits is zero sum and/or d) in-kind benefit decisions can be optimally designed.

My position is the opposite on all of these cases. There are many in-kind benefits that I didn't realize were great until I received them because someone else wanted them, the utility of these benefits varies over time and is not correlated from employee to employee (and the homogenity required to correlate them would be hugely detrimental in other resource allocation ways), and that the optimal benefit strategy is often emergent rather than designed, and that the more inputs into the system we have the better the emergent behavior is.

Finally, being polite and showing empathy would also follow your rules about zero sum behavior and workplace homogeneity. I'm curious what that implies about your position on general civility and empathetic behavior in the workplace.

I think there are secondary effects. While technical expertise is probably not going to be affected, team dynamics will be affected through diversity in critical thinking and expression. That's not the same as race/gender/etc. Too much conformity within a team causes the team to embrace that common ground rather than embrace differences.

I'm a fairly loud, direct person. I work with other loud and direct people. We added someone to our team who is a bit quieter and quite frankly thoughtful onto the team. The effect wasn't so much that (s)he changed our technical decisions, but that we as a team started to give people apace for less confrontational disagreement. It improved our individual abilities to communicate and approach a problem from multiple angles.

That is why diversity in personality is important. The hypothesis is then that race/gender/etc is correlated with intellectual diversity.

Anecdotal evidence yes, but something I've found valuable.

That's not the same as race/gender/etc.

No, it's not. Which is my point.

If you want to make the argument that racial/gender/etc groups think differently, be my guest - but that also implies that an unbiased hiring process might have disparate impact. E.g., if onion2k's hypothesis that women are more emotional than men is correct, then a hiring process aiming for rationalism might hire fewer women.

that's very minor (albeit quite vocal) part of the job market. Most of developers worldwide work on specific projects, with specific goals, budgeting etc. Those who pay want stuff delivered and routinely frown upon too-creative approaches. Having women/minorities on the team? Of course! If they bring expected skillset on the table, good. If they bring anything else on top of it, it's a nice little addition.

But hiring just for the sake of filling some imaginary quota some confused people have in their heads is a bit ridiculous. Want to change it? Start at the point when young people decide which school to pursue, rest will follow

That's true, but if we change industry as well as changing education then we can get better quicker. It's absolutely not one or the other. It's both.

That confuses skin colour and culture though. The idea that skin colour makes you think differently is essence of racism. We may (or may not) need to break the privileged male echo chamber, but whether you're black or white is completely irrelevant. You want the diversity of social status, sure. To assume someone is of a different social status based on their skin colour is racism.

It also very common, because there is a positive correlation. Its an unfortunate fact that racial profiling is so popular, because it works. You have to address that head-on to make any progress.

I agree. I just don't like when people dress it up as promoting racial equality when they're doing the exact opposite.

I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem.

What is the difference in required skill sets, between what we do now and what we should be doing?

I think this can reasonably be split into two basic tasks: find (and sufficiently define) a problem to solve; and given a problem / set of constraints, find a good solution.

Which task is different between "now" and your ideal, and how does that difference require different skills?

In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to change it, and we can only change it by bringing in ideas that are different to what we have now.

This assumes that we're not already changing it. Also needing different ideas on what things to do, is different from needing different skills on doing those things.

That is best done by people who offer different perspectives on what we're doing at the moment.

Or, by asking or watching those people (all the million-and-one ways that for-profit companies do market research and user research and such).

In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc.

No. It's whoever has problems that need solving. Which has nothing to do with tech, and everything to do with the fact that "improve society" above seems to mean "moral progress".

Probably the best thing that happening in this regard right now, is the push for police to wear cameras. (So shouldn't that mean that the tech for this has been developed with higher-than-normal participation by non-rich-white-techie-dude people?)

No. The echo chamber has nothing to do with who's in it, and everything to do with who has enough money to be the target demographic.

Either raise awareness that other people have money too (or can have money if they buy (on credit) what you're trying to sell), or convince people to work for social good instead of a paycheck.

"The thing that really must change in order to get society making the best tech possible that really impacts lives in a positive way is that we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas."

My problem with your post is that you stereotype white males and claim to want to get rid of stereotypes. You, yourself are concentrating on skin color, gender, and sexual preference when we need to be concentrating on the best person for the job regardless of any of these.

"That is best done by people who offer different perspectives on what we're doing at the moment. In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc"

Why do we need to single out all of these people and claim they are offering something "different"? Shouldn't we be fighting for equality and not special treatment for individual groups of people?

This isn't the first time I've seen this sort of thinking. I feel like many people are not fighting for equality, but for power and special laws/treatments for their specific group.

"In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to change it, and we can only change it by bringing in ideas that are different to what we have now. That is best done by people who offer different perspectives on what we're doing at the moment. In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc."

I disagree with most of this. Yes, to improve there needs to be changes, but these can come from anyone. Even though I'm not gay, I can still support gay rights.

We shouldn't require companies to hire anyone that is not qualified for a position. If there aren't enough qualified people of X group applying, then we need to figure out why and improve it (education, culture, etc).

Yes, we do need more black people in tech. And you get more black people in tech by having black people in tech. Going out to recruit, mentor, and support black tech candidates and workers. Seriously, the latest black YC candidate was a prison messaging service. More power to them but for a lot of blacks in the US the 2 paths that earn the most publicity are sports and criminal activity.

Even when I was a teenager and had a mentor it took me 2 hours by bus in the Miami heat to meet him just 1x per week. Some of my fellow, richer, friends had cars of their own and would drive to meet their mentors or join them for lunch. And it's those small barriers that create the giant hurdle.

At the moment, I'm mentoring my younger siblings, nieces, and nephews who are on their way to college. Being the first in my family to attend university I'm hoping to help them avoid the pitfalls that I encountered when going to university.

What about letting kids choose what they want to do with their lives ? I used to be a music producer and learned everything by myself. I grown up in a white neighbourhood. I was the only emcee around, producing Hip-hop music, influenced by the Beastie Boys. I started coding really young. When I got the internet, I learned a lot about Hip-Hop, I was passionate. My first website was related about my passions, sharing my passion about football, skateboarding, drawing, etc. I wouldn't code if I didn't had a passion. What's the point of coding if it's not useful, if doesn't solve a problem ? You need a point! Let's do fun stuff, stop forcing kids with your mentoring bullshit and who cares if the kid is white and his mentor is Persian, or if he's idol is Bob Marley! There's better ways to work on our communities, families, etc.

Your `you get more black ppl in tech by having black people in tech` sounded exactly like one of those Xzibit memes: a joke!

First, I downvoted your comment for the excessive negativity/abuse in it. You could have made your point just as clear without them.

Second, I'm going to take your comment to point out something I've noticed when talking about sexism/racism. I'm going to call this theory of mine "Calibration". When I hear people say stuff like "What about letting [underrepresented group] choose what they want to do with their lives?", I've come to believe that most are not trolls and they're probably not actually actively racist[1]. It's a difference in calibration. Perhaps you believe by default these kids are at a neutral(zero) level and have the full power of choice right now. But, what I see is that society actually puts them at like a negative 5. You see these efforts as forcing them to go into tech, a +5 if you will. I see it as just bring them up to 0 from the -5 society put them at so they have the same sense of free choice you & I do.

This vid I think is also based on the calibration idea when it comes to "Reverse racism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M . Basically, it talks about the underlying assumption that the current state of things is neutral for everyone so any effort to improve standings for a group is unfair to the groups not getting help. It's like how every year on Google+, when the LifeAtGoogle account posts something like Black Appreciation day during Black history month, someone always asks "When is White appreciation day?". Or when people talk about BlackGirlsCode.com, someone says "I bet everyone would exploded if we had a WhiteMenCode.com event". And of course, from there said comment turns into a multipage thread of madness. I think part of this is because schools(or parents of students) don't teach enough about the negative parts of American history and its lasting effects. So we have a bunch of people saying "Slavery ended years ago, everything is fine now. Stop complaining." Or similar, "Women can vote now and be CEOs of companies. Stop complaining". The assumption being that everything is equal now and the only thing between anyone and their goals is hardwork & discipline. While that is mostly true, some people have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and reach those goals.

_____

1. One exception though, I have no idea what is going on with the HN user yummyfajitas. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8613711

He doesn't fit any model of any logical position I'm familiar with. I'm pretty sure he's __not__ racist/sexist, but he just blows my mind.

To add to your "calibration" framework: I sometimes explain the ethics of affirmative action in control theory terms as a kind of 'bang-bang' response[1]. So yes, things will be inequitable for the other side for a while, but you can't expect to efficiently correct longstanding historical inequities otherwise... Too bad it's this generation's "tag, you are it" moment to pay up for our forefathers' privilege, but that's just the way it is.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang–bang_control

Re your footnote, I don't see how you can hold that belief.

Oh, I could be very wrong.

My own calibration settings for this is reading a bunch of comments on stormfront.org forums. While I dislike yummyfajitas's comments, they don't give me the same feeling I get from stormfront. I don't know what to think of him. Closest thing is perhaps super-insensitive, but I don't think he's oblivious to how people perceive his comments.... I dunno.

Firstly, I upvoted your account because you use logic and don't try to shut down discussion by whining that somebody is being to mean in a comment.

Secondly, this comment hit the nail on the head. Let kids pursue fields they are interested in, regardless of their race or sex. Don't hijack a person's career to serve your moral crusade.

I'm am assuming that you are black, right? I am also black and your post causes me to frown. How does being less wealthy get tangled up in your race?

What your anecdote appears to describe is economic inequality, not race inequality.

I'm transparent

Basically what you're saying is that you're against identity politics. I am happy to see other people with these values.

I live in Ground Zero of identity politics, so I don't get to see people with your opinions often.

Thank you!

Ideally we'd be able to distinguish between identity and ability. However, we're mostly not. A keywords off the top of my head is the halo effect, but there are a lot more. The question is, how do we deal with this imperfection?

I couldn't agree more - fixing gender/racial stereotypes in our society is a separate issue from who needs to be hired in a specific industry - as soon as you combine the issue you end up with some pretty daft solutions.

Diversity is no about what color your skin happens to be. (Color is mostly an American obsession anyway.)

And you've just confirmed in your own self-description that you're not adding all that much diversity regardless of what you look like. Remove the "I'm black" bit (and ok, the afro), and the description matches countless devs.

Diversity is not "bullshit", neither from a social-economic perspective, nor from the perspective of the strength of the teams we are a part of.

Actually I completely agree. It was a subtle way of saying that without getting the usual down votes when you mention that sort of thing on here.

Yes, and if we would all just be nice to each other we wouldn't have wars anymore.

But in the real world, we need to try different things to get talented people, it is not only white men who have important stuff to offer.

What is your first language?

My first language is Portuguese.

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