10 ms·

> free time What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere?

rdtsc 11y ago
> What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere? I think that's what the OP called the "privilege". Those that have it, don't see why others can't do the same. It comes from having a completely different world view and priorities. That's why it is common to hear "how come they don't sit down learn to code and become full stack developers, that would be so easy."
- d23 11y ago
  Yes, I had the privilege of having a basic computer with dialup as a kid. My family moved so I had no friends and was bullied constantly. For this reason, I became obsessed with the computer, learned to program, and ultimately it got me a job. I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. I spent most of my childhood living in a trailer. Plenty of people I know had access to the same thing (most of them actually), they just didn't pursue it. It's frustrating to hear people make assumptions about myself and others in the industry. I had someone talk about how "disgusting" it was that there were so many white males in tech. Of course, she said this to my face, and I'm a white dude. Believe it or not, it didn't feel great. It's as though a bunch of people who had zero interest in tech for the last 20 years suddenly think they should have all of the same skills and opportunities as us that have spent our childhoods buried in it.
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    > I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. You probably have a better paying job and more free time than than most people (and as a nice side effect than people who bullied you probably). The privilege mentality is thinking that you made the decision to go into tech consciously because you knew it was going to be hot in 20 years and will end up with a well paying job. But it sounds like you didn't, just like me, you were poor, and was really passionate about computers. Being bullied (I was too) also had a side effect of isolating you for longer periods of time. Looking back, I'd like to think of myself as having great insight and a keen sense of predicting the future, knowing that computers and internet will be big and I'd have a way to crawl out of poverty. Then I methodically executed that vision over the next 20 years. But, that would be dishonest, because it is not how it happened. Maybe it did for you... In general, yeah, it would be great if more people would start coding and things would be more diverse. But sometimes we make it too simple and we re-write memories and history as to how we started coding and think -- why can't coal miners just start writing single page apps in React.js over a few weekends, why can't this part time middle aged mom from Walmart who was laid off as an HR person just write Android apps and make more money.
    - d23 11y ago
      Maybe we're just misunderstanding what each other means by privilege. > why can't coal miners just start writing single page apps in React.js over a few weekends, why can't this part time middle aged mom from Walmart who was laid off as an HR person just write Android apps and make more money Absolutely, I don't think they can. They don't have the free time, and they're worn out after a long day of work. That's not the same thing as privilege though. > privilege - a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people My point is that we didn't grow up in some special group that gave us more access than others. > The privilege mentality is thinking that you made the decision to go into tech consciously because you knew it was going to be hot in 20 years and will end up with a well paying job. I'm not sure what the "privilege mentality" means (genuinely -- not trying to be salty), but of course I didn't have some master plan to make money in 20 years. I got into computers because they were the most amazing and powerful thing I had ever seen in my life. Does that make me less or more privileged? I guess my point is: if a person wants to say I got lucky by being interested in something that ended up being world-changing, absolutely, and I recognize that. If a person wants to claim my background is privileged and that's what enabled it all and stake claim to what I have as a result -- well, they don't know anything about me, and there's a good chance they're wrong.
      - eropple 11y ago
        The term "privilege" is being used here in the social sense of the word, not the generic sense of the word. Which, to me as somebody who's spent a decent bit of time wrestling with the fact that, yes, I am incredibly privileged, is actually a little irritating--it's jargon but many people try to wedge it in as a normal word, much like (but less egregiously than) how Stallmanites try to co-opt "free". > If a person wants to claim my background is privileged and that's what enabled it all and stake claim to what I have as a result Which literally nobody does. That's the price of using jargon and expecting everybody to already understand you, and it's what drives me batshit. Privilege is not referring to the genesis of your accomplishments. Privilege is referring to the difficulty slider. And very, very few people in tech are at 'normal', to say nothing of 'easy' or 'very easy'. And it is generally considered gauche to roll one's eyes (and while I don't think you necessarily mean to, I kind of get that vibe a little? not maliciously) at somebody who's cranked up to 'holy shit impossible'. I am at 'very easy' on that slider, even though I've had things that (to me) feel really shitty: my mom left town when I was ten, my brain doesn't quite work right all the time, and I am punishingly introverted. But the sum of the things working for me that were an accident of birth--I'm white, I'm male, I was born in America--is so huge by comparison that I have it on easy street. And it doesn't diminish me to acknowledge that. It does behoove me to recognize it and to help people who aren't so very fortunate, though, which is why I get real salty around here when the cryptoracist and outright racist contingents start pontificating at length about "the black mentality" or other garbage thoughts. (Which I am emphatically not saying you are doing, but happens all-too-often around here.) Chew on this: http://danilocampos.com/2013/02/unpacking-my-knapsack-the-privileges-of-a-hispanic-male-in-tech/ http://danilocampos.com/2013/02/unpacking-my-knapsack-the-pr... - Danilo is an HN poster (one of my favorites) and this is a tremendous thing that's worth reading. Because he hits on something that's important, and I wish was more the focus of these discussions than "pfft, you have privilege," when he says: "Any pride I take in that hard work is dwarfed by the anxiety that I don’t yet know how to help others get to the point where they can work as hard as I have." (A lot of what defensive people see as "shut up" when the concept of privilege is invoked is really "think about what you should be grateful for, and extend graciousness to others." But that requires an understanding of the concepts involved, and...argh.)
  - CydeWeys 11y ago
    How old are you? You might be under-estimating how lucky you were to even have access to a personal computer at home at all. See the chart on page 2 here: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf For example, when I first started using computers as a kid, it was at a time when less than one in eight households had computers. That's pretty privileged. > I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. I spent most of my childhood living in a trailer. It's not a spectrum along a single axis. You can be privileged in some areas and not in others.
    - throw2048-AZ43 11y ago
      > You can be privileged in some areas and not in others. Wow, I can totally get behind this statement. Everyone is privileged in some areas. Those stronger than me, those more beautiful or more persuasive or those who can use their charisma to achive things I cannot. I get it, sounds reasonable. Now tell me then: WHY exactly the fact that some non-tech people have mediocre work conditions and I don't should remind me of this?
  - throw2048-AZ43 11y ago
    Yep, that's exactly the point. Somehow in the heads of some people the process of becoming a software engineer looks like this: 1. you were born a white male 2. magic privilege stuff happened to you 3. you got a cushy job with perks you dont deserve 4. now shut up and check your privilege 5. we need less people like you here Nowhere in this chart is tens of thousands of hours spent thinking about numbers while non-techie people went to parties to play and drink.
- angdis 11y ago
  > common to hear "how come they don't sit down learn to code and become full stack developers, that would be so easy." Yep, that reminds me one of Phil Greenspun's smug blog posts from a while back: https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2011/01/26/rethinking-99-weeks-of-unemployment/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2011/01/26/rethinking-99-wee...
- manigandham 11y ago
  There are also people who do have very tough situations and still get things done. My dad did this when he first immigrated to this country working 14 hours a day in a factory for $4/hour while learning computer engineering. There's always a way and all this talk about "privilege" just simplifies the lives and struggles of people into some silly political game. It's just not that black and white.
n-exploit 11y ago
Studying during a commute is a thing, right?
- tamana 11y ago
  It is hard to study while driving across Kentucky.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

rdtsc 11y ago

> What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere? I think that's what the OP called the "privilege". Those that have it, don't see why others can't do the same. It comes from having a completely different world view and priorities. That's why it is common to hear "how come they don't sit down learn to code and become full stack developers, that would be so easy."

d23 11y ago
Yes, I had the privilege of having a basic computer with dialup as a kid. My family moved so I had no friends and was bullied constantly. For this reason, I became obsessed with the computer, learned to program, and ultimately it got me a job. I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. I spent most of my childhood living in a trailer. Plenty of people I know had access to the same thing (most of them actually), they just didn't pursue it. It's frustrating to hear people make assumptions about myself and others in the industry. I had someone talk about how "disgusting" it was that there were so many white males in tech. Of course, she said this to my face, and I'm a white dude. Believe it or not, it didn't feel great. It's as though a bunch of people who had zero interest in tech for the last 20 years suddenly think they should have all of the same skills and opportunities as us that have spent our childhoods buried in it.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  > I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. You probably have a better paying job and more free time than than most people (and as a nice side effect than people who bullied you probably). The privilege mentality is thinking that you made the decision to go into tech consciously because you knew it was going to be hot in 20 years and will end up with a well paying job. But it sounds like you didn't, just like me, you were poor, and was really passionate about computers. Being bullied (I was too) also had a side effect of isolating you for longer periods of time. Looking back, I'd like to think of myself as having great insight and a keen sense of predicting the future, knowing that computers and internet will be big and I'd have a way to crawl out of poverty. Then I methodically executed that vision over the next 20 years. But, that would be dishonest, because it is not how it happened. Maybe it did for you... In general, yeah, it would be great if more people would start coding and things would be more diverse. But sometimes we make it too simple and we re-write memories and history as to how we started coding and think -- why can't coal miners just start writing single page apps in React.js over a few weekends, why can't this part time middle aged mom from Walmart who was laid off as an HR person just write Android apps and make more money.
  - d23 11y ago
    Maybe we're just misunderstanding what each other means by privilege. > why can't coal miners just start writing single page apps in React.js over a few weekends, why can't this part time middle aged mom from Walmart who was laid off as an HR person just write Android apps and make more money Absolutely, I don't think they can. They don't have the free time, and they're worn out after a long day of work. That's not the same thing as privilege though. > privilege - a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people My point is that we didn't grow up in some special group that gave us more access than others. > The privilege mentality is thinking that you made the decision to go into tech consciously because you knew it was going to be hot in 20 years and will end up with a well paying job. I'm not sure what the "privilege mentality" means (genuinely -- not trying to be salty), but of course I didn't have some master plan to make money in 20 years. I got into computers because they were the most amazing and powerful thing I had ever seen in my life. Does that make me less or more privileged? I guess my point is: if a person wants to say I got lucky by being interested in something that ended up being world-changing, absolutely, and I recognize that. If a person wants to claim my background is privileged and that's what enabled it all and stake claim to what I have as a result -- well, they don't know anything about me, and there's a good chance they're wrong.
    - eropple 11y ago
      The term "privilege" is being used here in the social sense of the word, not the generic sense of the word. Which, to me as somebody who's spent a decent bit of time wrestling with the fact that, yes, I am incredibly privileged, is actually a little irritating--it's jargon but many people try to wedge it in as a normal word, much like (but less egregiously than) how Stallmanites try to co-opt "free". > If a person wants to claim my background is privileged and that's what enabled it all and stake claim to what I have as a result Which literally nobody does. That's the price of using jargon and expecting everybody to already understand you, and it's what drives me batshit. Privilege is not referring to the genesis of your accomplishments. Privilege is referring to the difficulty slider. And very, very few people in tech are at 'normal', to say nothing of 'easy' or 'very easy'. And it is generally considered gauche to roll one's eyes (and while I don't think you necessarily mean to, I kind of get that vibe a little? not maliciously) at somebody who's cranked up to 'holy shit impossible'. I am at 'very easy' on that slider, even though I've had things that (to me) feel really shitty: my mom left town when I was ten, my brain doesn't quite work right all the time, and I am punishingly introverted. But the sum of the things working for me that were an accident of birth--I'm white, I'm male, I was born in America--is so huge by comparison that I have it on easy street. And it doesn't diminish me to acknowledge that. It does behoove me to recognize it and to help people who aren't so very fortunate, though, which is why I get real salty around here when the cryptoracist and outright racist contingents start pontificating at length about "the black mentality" or other garbage thoughts. (Which I am emphatically not saying you are doing, but happens all-too-often around here.) Chew on this: http://danilocampos.com/2013/02/unpacking-my-knapsack-the-privileges-of-a-hispanic-male-in-tech/ http://danilocampos.com/2013/02/unpacking-my-knapsack-the-pr... - Danilo is an HN poster (one of my favorites) and this is a tremendous thing that's worth reading. Because he hits on something that's important, and I wish was more the focus of these discussions than "pfft, you have privilege," when he says: "Any pride I take in that hard work is dwarfed by the anxiety that I don’t yet know how to help others get to the point where they can work as hard as I have." (A lot of what defensive people see as "shut up" when the concept of privilege is invoked is really "think about what you should be grateful for, and extend graciousness to others." But that requires an understanding of the concepts involved, and...argh.)
- CydeWeys 11y ago
  How old are you? You might be under-estimating how lucky you were to even have access to a personal computer at home at all. See the chart on page 2 here: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf For example, when I first started using computers as a kid, it was at a time when less than one in eight households had computers. That's pretty privileged. > I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. I spent most of my childhood living in a trailer. It's not a spectrum along a single axis. You can be privileged in some areas and not in others.
  - throw2048-AZ43 11y ago
    > You can be privileged in some areas and not in others. Wow, I can totally get behind this statement. Everyone is privileged in some areas. Those stronger than me, those more beautiful or more persuasive or those who can use their charisma to achive things I cannot. I get it, sounds reasonable. Now tell me then: WHY exactly the fact that some non-tech people have mediocre work conditions and I don't should remind me of this?
- throw2048-AZ43 11y ago
  Yep, that's exactly the point. Somehow in the heads of some people the process of becoming a software engineer looks like this: 1. you were born a white male 2. magic privilege stuff happened to you 3. you got a cushy job with perks you dont deserve 4. now shut up and check your privilege 5. we need less people like you here Nowhere in this chart is tens of thousands of hours spent thinking about numbers while non-techie people went to parties to play and drink.
angdis 11y ago
> common to hear "how come they don't sit down learn to code and become full stack developers, that would be so easy." Yep, that reminds me one of Phil Greenspun's smug blog posts from a while back: https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2011/01/26/rethinking-99-weeks-of-unemployment/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2011/01/26/rethinking-99-wee...
manigandham 11y ago
There are also people who do have very tough situations and still get things done. My dad did this when he first immigrated to this country working 14 hours a day in a factory for $4/hour while learning computer engineering. There's always a way and all this talk about "privilege" just simplifies the lives and struggles of people into some silly political game. It's just not that black and white.

n-exploit 11y ago

Studying during a commute is a thing, right?

tamana 11y ago
It is hard to study while driving across Kentucky.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]