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I think a better response might be to say, depending on how strongly you evaluate the evidence, "Gee, my personal opinion about this might need to be revised or

by p4wnc6 11y ago

I think a better response might be to say, depending on how strongly you evaluate the evidence, "Gee, my personal opinion about this might need to be revised or given less weight in light of broader trends and evidence." For example, bias against black-sounding names is a real thing. It doesn't really matter if you personally have seen it, or if you think you haven't seen it. It's still real and quantifiable. Most of us should continue to be skeptical that statistical analyses about these things must be carried out robustly and stand up to statistical grokking ... but conditional on that, believe the data and not your gut.

1024core 11y ago
> believe the data and not your gut. Without considering where the data came from, under what assumptions was it collected, when was it collected, etc. how can you blindly lay faith in some "data"? I have some data which says N horses died on the streets of San Francisco last year; will you believe it? It just so happens that "last year" was 1895. Doesn't that make the "data" useless? Show me any other major industrial sector where a 17-year-old can start a company and be bought out for $30MM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly Show me where highschool dropouts can make more than Harvard MBAs. Yes, tech has problems with gender or ageism; but skin color is hardly ever an issue. In fact, if it is, it is in the other direction. I had a friend who graduated from a top CS school and couldn't get a faculty position. The Chair at one department actually told him: if you were a woman or minority, I'd hire you right away. BTW: I'm not implying that everything is great. But compared to other sectors, tech is actually a pretty decent place to be if you don't "fit in" into the convention.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I said conditional upon the data passing statistical grokking, then believe the data and not your gut. I should have made this conditionality more clear. I didn't say blindly believe the data or blindly believe your gut. But many people use their anecdotal experiences as justification to deny clearly significant trends because they personally "never observed it." > Show me any other major industrial sector where a 17-year-old can start a company and be bought out for $30MM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly Show me where highschool dropouts can make more than Harvard MBAs. In a lot of ways these are not good things about our field. They represent a lot of the ways that toxic culture and a flight from quality are pervasive in tech. In tech, it's rarely about actually adding value and often much more about extracting rents from marketing and status. Just like it is in tons of other fields. Tech is not like this because tech is more meritocratic. Tech is absolutely not meritocratic. > but skin color is hardly ever an issue. What are you basing this on? As far as I can tell, only your vague assessment of your personal observations. OK. That's not nothing. But because a lot of people present compelling arguments that it is an issue, I'm generally not just going to take some anecdotal reasoning. There are other explanations. Maybe you've been around racial bias and just not noticed it. Or maybe you've been extremely lucky to avoid being near it. Either of those are more plausible that the unlikely case that your anecdotal experience just happens to be more representative than all of the principled studies (which yes, always have flaws, but no that's not a good reason to believe their basic premise is entirely wrong).

by p4wnc6 11y ago

1024core 11y ago

> believe the data and not your gut. Without considering where the data came from, under what assumptions was it collected, when was it collected, etc. how can you blindly lay faith in some "data"? I have some data which says N horses died on the streets of San Francisco last year; will you believe it? It just so happens that "last year" was 1895. Doesn't that make the "data" useless? Show me any other major industrial sector where a 17-year-old can start a company and be bought out for $30MM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly Show me where highschool dropouts can make more than Harvard MBAs. Yes, tech has problems with gender or ageism; but skin color is hardly ever an issue. In fact, if it is, it is in the other direction. I had a friend who graduated from a top CS school and couldn't get a faculty position. The Chair at one department actually told him: if you were a woman or minority, I'd hire you right away. BTW: I'm not implying that everything is great. But compared to other sectors, tech is actually a pretty decent place to be if you don't "fit in" into the convention.

p4wnc6 11y ago
I said conditional upon the data passing statistical grokking, then believe the data and not your gut. I should have made this conditionality more clear. I didn't say blindly believe the data or blindly believe your gut. But many people use their anecdotal experiences as justification to deny clearly significant trends because they personally "never observed it." > Show me any other major industrial sector where a 17-year-old can start a company and be bought out for $30MM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio#Summly Show me where highschool dropouts can make more than Harvard MBAs. In a lot of ways these are not good things about our field. They represent a lot of the ways that toxic culture and a flight from quality are pervasive in tech. In tech, it's rarely about actually adding value and often much more about extracting rents from marketing and status. Just like it is in tons of other fields. Tech is not like this because tech is more meritocratic. Tech is absolutely not meritocratic. > but skin color is hardly ever an issue. What are you basing this on? As far as I can tell, only your vague assessment of your personal observations. OK. That's not nothing. But because a lot of people present compelling arguments that it is an issue, I'm generally not just going to take some anecdotal reasoning. There are other explanations. Maybe you've been around racial bias and just not noticed it. Or maybe you've been extremely lucky to avoid being near it. Either of those are more plausible that the unlikely case that your anecdotal experience just happens to be more representative than all of the principled studies (which yes, always have flaws, but no that's not a good reason to believe their basic premise is entirely wrong).