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Comment by smanuel | Hacker News Reader

> 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'.

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."

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?

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.

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