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More on topic than my other comment: Software is one of the most lucrative industries (by OCC major group, computer and math occupations are third after legal a

by foota 10y ago

More on topic than my other comment: Software is one of the most lucrative industries (by OCC major group, computer and math occupations are third after legal and management. source: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm) to be in (and imo one of the most comfortable). If there is some part of our society or culture that causes any demographic to have less opportunity than they would otherwise in this field then this is not fair. You draw comparisons to several industries which I think is not a reasonable argument, being as they are not as lucrative and imo not as desirable. From another perspective; If we're willing to make an imo very fair assumption that inherent demographics have no affect on scientific ability (inherent meaning being e.g., a woman versus a non-inherent demographic such as e.g., people that don't like math), then a culture that broadly discourages people that would otherwise go into science from doing so will decrease the average ability in the sciences (unless that discouragement affects only those of lower ability than the average for that demographic in which case it would increase the average ability?)

nrjdhsbsid 10y ago
The notion of not having certain demographics in lucrative industries doesn't always hold true though. Women dominate the fields of pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and education. All fairly desirable jobs. Some paying better than software dev. Asians are represented to a much higher degree for their relative population than whites in technology even though they're a minority. Blacks are extremely highly represented for their population percentage in professional sports. Is it fair that these ethnic groups and genders are overrepresented in these fields? You could make the same argument as with software dev that they lack diversity relative to population demographics, and that white males have less opportunity and it's not fair. What I'm saying is that we need to look deeper into what causes these divisions if we really want to do something about it. It's not just as simple as saying "we have too many white devs we need to hire a bunch of wildly different people just because"
- usrusr 10y ago
  > Blacks are extremely highly represented for their population percentage in professional sports. And to further support your point: this is clearly depending on the sport. All careers are determined to a large extent by youth aspirations and it would truly be a terrible stretch of the term "racism" if we blamed young people for choosing idols who are "like them". I guess that the set of kids who dreamt of being like Lance Armstrong wasn't particularly diverse and there certainly are no active gatekeepers to dreaming. The same mechanism is active in every other desirable profession and we need to understand it well so that we can identify and act upon the cases where there is also something else at play.

by foota 10y ago

nrjdhsbsid 10y ago

The notion of not having certain demographics in lucrative industries doesn't always hold true though. Women dominate the fields of pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and education. All fairly desirable jobs. Some paying better than software dev. Asians are represented to a much higher degree for their relative population than whites in technology even though they're a minority. Blacks are extremely highly represented for their population percentage in professional sports. Is it fair that these ethnic groups and genders are overrepresented in these fields? You could make the same argument as with software dev that they lack diversity relative to population demographics, and that white males have less opportunity and it's not fair. What I'm saying is that we need to look deeper into what causes these divisions if we really want to do something about it. It's not just as simple as saying "we have too many white devs we need to hire a bunch of wildly different people just because"

usrusr 10y ago
> Blacks are extremely highly represented for their population percentage in professional sports. And to further support your point: this is clearly depending on the sport. All careers are determined to a large extent by youth aspirations and it would truly be a terrible stretch of the term "racism" if we blamed young people for choosing idols who are "like them". I guess that the set of kids who dreamt of being like Lance Armstrong wasn't particularly diverse and there certainly are no active gatekeepers to dreaming. The same mechanism is active in every other desirable profession and we need to understand it well so that we can identify and act upon the cases where there is also something else at play.