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Well you should apply the same criteria to yourself then and stop discussing the technology industry. If you're going to say that I have to be as knowledgable a

by muninn_ 10y ago

Well you should apply the same criteria to yourself then and stop discussing the technology industry. If you're going to say that I have to be as knowledgable about every other city, country, municipality, or whatever, then you have to be knowledgeable about every university on the planet, every company, every hiring practice, every law, and every social/cultural norm, and that's just to get started. It's impossible to have complete knowledge of any topic, technology or otherwise, so your stringent criteria here for what constitutes the ability to discuss something, politics or economic trends or anything else is stringent enough that you basically can't discuss anything. Anywho What makes 50/50 gender balance "right"? What makes that desirable? The only arguments I'm seeing from anybody revolve around two things: 1. Diversity 2. The population is 50/50 If diversity is the aim, you have to come with some pretty convincing evidence that diversity = 50/50 male/female split. If it's population, then you need to explain why technology has to have this split and not every industry, or at least explain why this is unique to technology.

geofft 10y ago
Er, the critique that you have to understand everything else was your critique, not mine. Anyway, my argument for the 50-50 gender balance being "right" is that it's the null hypothesis. Absent specific data, one should assume that every industry should have a 50-50 balance. This is basically 2, except that my confidence about that statement depends a lot on the existence of data that would disprove the null hypothesis. I have little data about other industries, so while I would say that, yes, every industry should have a 50-50 split, my confidence about such a statement is pretty low for almost all industries; I can easily be convinced that there are physiological or sociological factors that justify a non-50-50-split. I have much more data about tech, so I make the same claim that tech should have a 50-50 split that I make about industry. However, I am much more confident in that statement because I've seen a lot of attempts to reject the null hypothesis that haven't panned out. I would have to see some evidence that's at odds with a lot of existing evidence in order to be convinced of a different split.

by muninn_ 10y ago

geofft 10y ago

Er, the critique that you have to understand everything else was your critique, not mine. Anyway, my argument for the 50-50 gender balance being "right" is that it's the null hypothesis. Absent specific data, one should assume that every industry should have a 50-50 balance. This is basically 2, except that my confidence about that statement depends a lot on the existence of data that would disprove the null hypothesis. I have little data about other industries, so while I would say that, yes, every industry should have a 50-50 split, my confidence about such a statement is pretty low for almost all industries; I can easily be convinced that there are physiological or sociological factors that justify a non-50-50-split. I have much more data about tech, so I make the same claim that tech should have a 50-50 split that I make about industry. However, I am much more confident in that statement because I've seen a lot of attempts to reject the null hypothesis that haven't panned out. I would have to see some evidence that's at odds with a lot of existing evidence in order to be convinced of a different split.