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> There's no force keeping people from contributing, they are just choosing not to. We all naturally have tunnel vision, and apply our experience to everyone e

> There's no force keeping people from contributing, they are just choosing not to. We all naturally have tunnel vision, and apply our experience to everyone else. I can't speak for you, but many people who don't face discrimination naturally don't encounter the obstacles and don't feel negatively toward minorities; they assume that therefore such things don't exist. But something is missing from our perception, because the evidence is overwhelming. Just consider that a black-skinned person in the U.S., for example, would be insane to assume they face no racism and no risks from it. A woman in IT would be willfully ignorant to think there is no sexism and she faces no threat from it. * The historical record is overwhelming, and does not need to be recounted. * Consider that white-skinned males make up ~33% of the U.S. population, yet look at their overwhelming prevalence in tech, business leadership, government, entertainment, and elsewhere - far more than a 1/3 of the people you see are white guys. Probably not coincidentally, it's the group that benefited most from prior centuries of discrimination. If it was a meritocracy, what is the statistical chance that Silicon Valley or the U.S. Senate would turn out to be so overwhelmingly white male? I doubt you believe that their skin color and gender make them superior (and if someone does, then we don't have to argue about where the barriers are); so how else do we explain their overwhelming proportion of success, and the lack of success for so many minorities? * Surveys show that large numbers have prejudicial views of people of other races, religions, nationalities, etc. Look at the widespread support in Western countries for openly discriminatory leaders, openly discriminatory policies, and similar behavior by many citizens. This includes discrimination by religion (e.g., Muslims), race (e.g., blacks), nationality (immigrants), etc. Many people, even some on HN, claim it's ok to discriminate (to be clear, I don't mean the parent comment), but in the next breath argue that discrimination doesn't exist. There's a lot of literature that answers your question, explaining what those barriers are and what they look like from other people's perspectives.

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
What affect does culture and income have on the prevalence of people in tech? Do white people who come from a poor background get into IT more than black people with poor backgrounds? What leads me to believe culture has more of an affect nowadays than race is the fact that Asians have higher average incomes than whites, even though they were also historically subjected to racism.
- webmaven 10y ago
  Are you asking about the effect of the culture of the underrepresented groups keeping them out of tech in general and free software in particular, or about the effect of the culture of overrepresented groups in keeping others out?
  - hackuser 10y ago
    I'll take that as implying that the underrepresented groups are not victims of widespread discrimination. One really must struggle to believe - struggle to ignore what we all see in the world and struggle to disregard all the research. The question I ask is: Why struggle? What is the motivation for denying these groups justice? But to clarify one important point: Most discrimination is ignorance, IMHO, not intentional. People don't see their own cultural bias - e.g., instinctively trusting the person more like what they are already familiar with (which becomes self-fulfilling) - or overlook their advantages, such as the fact that the culture of their college and workplace are so natural to them that they don't even notice that there is a culture, but that it's alien and exclusive for others. They don't imagine what it's like to be the only woman or dark-skinned person in the room, all day every day, for the rest of their lives; never sure if it's going to cost you a promotion, a job, a client, etc.
    - webmaven 10y ago
      > I'll take that as implying that the underrepresented groups are not victims of widespread discrimination. That was not my intent, as I certainly don't beleive that. Rather, I wanted to disambiguate the GP question (which could be taken either way). Perhaps I should have shortened my request for clarification to "which culture and what effect are you asking about?" Anyway, over/under representation happens through many avenues, some through overt and intentional discrimination, and much more through secondary and tertiary effects, many of which reinforce each other through positive feedback loops (not to mention reinforcing the overt and intentional sort as well). eg. once you control for sibling order, parents' educational background and income, etc., it is clear that on average girls get their first computer at a later age than boys by several years. If a computer is supposed to be shared between siblings and it isn't in a common area it will tend to go into the boy's room. and so on. Parents aren't deliberately reinforcing gender stereotypes to reduce their daughters' opportunities to discourage them from using computers, but that's exactly what is happening, and this is entirely a cultural phenomenon. You can in many other cases measure a discouraging effect from within the culture of an underrepresented group, but just because it is worth noting however and whenever a group is complicit in their underrepresentation, it does not magically shift responsibility away from members of an over-represented group to accept changes to their culture to stop discouraging and excluding others, most specifically in this case any beleifs that participation in Free Software is entirely based on merit.
shaftoe 10y ago
I'm tired of the "check your privilege" crowd bringing their guilt mongering into everything. You know what I love about free software? It's ultimately judged on merits. I use software everyday written by all kinds of people, many of whom I would otherwise have little in common with. I don't care about their personal lives, political opinions, or baggage. I care about what they've produced and vice versa. It's the ultimate level playing field. Please keep the social justice fighting out of free software or you'll kill the openness that has built a worldwide ecosystem.
- ufo 10y ago
  I don't understand why trying to make the FOSS community more inclusive would kill its openness.
- vacri 10y ago
  I've seen a lot of hostility online against people with non-european names. The idea that open source contributors are measured solely on merit is something of a fantasy. The canonical example here is contributors with an Indian name - they face a lot of social flak regardless of merit. No, not every project does it, but the ecosystem itself is somewhat unfriendly to such people. > Please keep the social justice fighting out of free software What are you talking about? The FSF birthed this movement, and was functionally based on social justice issues. If you pay any heed at all to the 'four freedoms', that's definitively 'social justice fighting'.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > You know what I love about free software? It's ultimately judged on merits. If you like things judged on their merits, no doubt you are a strong, vocal opponent of any discrimination based on race, nationality, gender, sexuality, or anything else not related to merit.

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago

What affect does culture and income have on the prevalence of people in tech? Do white people who come from a poor background get into IT more than black people with poor backgrounds? What leads me to believe culture has more of an affect nowadays than race is the fact that Asians have higher average incomes than whites, even though they were also historically subjected to racism.

webmaven 10y ago
Are you asking about the effect of the culture of the underrepresented groups keeping them out of tech in general and free software in particular, or about the effect of the culture of overrepresented groups in keeping others out?
- hackuser 10y ago
  I'll take that as implying that the underrepresented groups are not victims of widespread discrimination. One really must struggle to believe - struggle to ignore what we all see in the world and struggle to disregard all the research. The question I ask is: Why struggle? What is the motivation for denying these groups justice? But to clarify one important point: Most discrimination is ignorance, IMHO, not intentional. People don't see their own cultural bias - e.g., instinctively trusting the person more like what they are already familiar with (which becomes self-fulfilling) - or overlook their advantages, such as the fact that the culture of their college and workplace are so natural to them that they don't even notice that there is a culture, but that it's alien and exclusive for others. They don't imagine what it's like to be the only woman or dark-skinned person in the room, all day every day, for the rest of their lives; never sure if it's going to cost you a promotion, a job, a client, etc.
  - webmaven 10y ago
    > I'll take that as implying that the underrepresented groups are not victims of widespread discrimination. That was not my intent, as I certainly don't beleive that. Rather, I wanted to disambiguate the GP question (which could be taken either way). Perhaps I should have shortened my request for clarification to "which culture and what effect are you asking about?" Anyway, over/under representation happens through many avenues, some through overt and intentional discrimination, and much more through secondary and tertiary effects, many of which reinforce each other through positive feedback loops (not to mention reinforcing the overt and intentional sort as well). eg. once you control for sibling order, parents' educational background and income, etc., it is clear that on average girls get their first computer at a later age than boys by several years. If a computer is supposed to be shared between siblings and it isn't in a common area it will tend to go into the boy's room. and so on. Parents aren't deliberately reinforcing gender stereotypes to reduce their daughters' opportunities to discourage them from using computers, but that's exactly what is happening, and this is entirely a cultural phenomenon. You can in many other cases measure a discouraging effect from within the culture of an underrepresented group, but just because it is worth noting however and whenever a group is complicit in their underrepresentation, it does not magically shift responsibility away from members of an over-represented group to accept changes to their culture to stop discouraging and excluding others, most specifically in this case any beleifs that participation in Free Software is entirely based on merit.

shaftoe 10y ago

I'm tired of the "check your privilege" crowd bringing their guilt mongering into everything. You know what I love about free software? It's ultimately judged on merits. I use software everyday written by all kinds of people, many of whom I would otherwise have little in common with. I don't care about their personal lives, political opinions, or baggage. I care about what they've produced and vice versa. It's the ultimate level playing field. Please keep the social justice fighting out of free software or you'll kill the openness that has built a worldwide ecosystem.

ufo 10y ago
I don't understand why trying to make the FOSS community more inclusive would kill its openness.
vacri 10y ago
I've seen a lot of hostility online against people with non-european names. The idea that open source contributors are measured solely on merit is something of a fantasy. The canonical example here is contributors with an Indian name - they face a lot of social flak regardless of merit. No, not every project does it, but the ecosystem itself is somewhat unfriendly to such people. > Please keep the social justice fighting out of free software What are you talking about? The FSF birthed this movement, and was functionally based on social justice issues. If you pay any heed at all to the 'four freedoms', that's definitively 'social justice fighting'.
hackuser 10y ago
> You know what I love about free software? It's ultimately judged on merits. If you like things judged on their merits, no doubt you are a strong, vocal opponent of any discrimination based on race, nationality, gender, sexuality, or anything else not related to merit.