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I used to get teased for being so interested in computers and electronics during grade school, and for staying in at recess to program or read. Being able to i

I used to get teased for being so interested in computers and electronics during grade school, and for staying in at recess to program or read. Being able to ignore social pressures and just be yourself is definitely a benefit of privilege. So it's easy to see how many of the rarest skills and ingenious founder stories are examples of someone going against the grain to do something he or she cares about. When people decry privilege, they seem to think that it's a bad thing, that we should all feel the insecurity, the doubt, and the drive to conform that most people feel. I think the opposite is true, we should strive for all people to feel the empowerment of privilege and the freedom to pursue whatever moves them. As a corollary, it's not a coincidence that the top schools admit the most privileged applicants. Those are the people whose privilege has allowed them to think about what is important to them... not just simply trying to be popular, avoiding getting beaten up by the kids who hate nerds, or avoiding ticking off an abusive parent, etc. Privilege puts a person years ahead when it comes to moral clarity, purpose, curiosity, and self-actualization. Metaphorically, everyone else is in some sort of minimum security prison.

52-6F-62 9y ago
I think you've got a valid point. I would add that genetics plays a part. I grew up the same way, but my family didn't have much money. However my parents were former athletes and ensured my siblings and I took part in a regular physical activity (in one form or another) from a young age. I think that staves off some of the aggression -- if you don't look like they could just give you a knock around regardless of your demeanor. That and I was often told I looked angry or sad while I spent my spare periods or lunches reading. Woops. I think this at least applies to younger ages. edit: wanted to add, I'm sure this changed some time ago. I'm referring to the 90's and early 2000's in particular.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Arete3141 9y ago
There are multiple factors, but basic discouragement, starting from childhood, is a big one. 100 years ago, when writing could make you a decent living, women were constantly discouraged from writing. Here's Virginia Woolf's character Lily in To The Lighthouse, dealing with nagging doubts: "Then why did she mind what he said? Women can’t write, women can’t paint—what did that matter coming from him, since clearly it was not true to him but for some reason helpful to him, and that was why he said it?" At roughly the same time, women were often employed as "computers" -- that is, people who did complex mathematical calculations. It was thought that women were good for this more tedious math, thus leaving men free for the higher math to which they were more eminently suited. So, to review: When writers could support a family, women were discouraged from being writers. When math skill was not connected with a good salary, women were accepted as being good at math. Nowadays, very few writers can make a living, while mathematically-minded coders can. So today's generally accepted wisdom is that girls are naturally good with words (which doesn't pay), while boys are good with math and computers (which does). The fact that women aren't in coding isn't a bug, but a feature. Remember the Eniac? Programming that was brutally hard, and it was all done by women, and there does not seem to have been a particular amount of money or glory in it. Now there's both, and that's why women are discouraged from joining in the lucrative boys' club. Once code starts being written by robots and the average developer can't find a job, then you'll see the field fill up with women.
- greenhatman 9y ago
  Where do you see women being discouraged from programming? Because I see the opposite everywhere.
- cristianpascu 9y ago
  It's not the general wisdom, it's a fact. But not a simple one. There's an experiment (heard of it from an philosopher women talking about women in philosophy) showing that girls perform as good as boys in math, BUT, if asked to color a drawing before the math test, they perform less. Which means, I think, that we don't live in a void of emotions. Men tend to be more aggressive and a hard problem requires aggressiveness. Unfortunately this comes with a shown tendency towards sociopath behaviour, Angular vs React thingy. :) Women, on the other side, go towards sadness and depression and anxiety. Which is hard on coding. Speaking from my own experience, as a white male. All in all is unfortunate. Coding is a tiny thing in developing software, and I personally believe that it's much, much easier to work with women. But when they are surrounded by 90% men teammates, I can imagine that it's hard to be a woman in IT.
- grandalf 9y ago
  Good points. Being female puts a person at a disadvantage in certain ways, and particularly makes it more likely that teachers and parents will believe that the easier path of study is preferable to the one that requires more challenges, particularly in mathematics and science. This does likely have an impact on how many female programmers we see today. Men are disadvantaged in other ways, such as being taught to suppress emotions and to prefer aggression to problem solving. Many men are permanently damaged by this and the effects harm their employability and relationships for their entire lives. I'm not suggesting there is equality/equivalence or that large-scale social biases and patterns don't disproportionately effect some people. Just making the point that there may not be an ideal and we may always be trying to correct for various excesses. One notable excess is the pressure put on working parents, which are asymmetrical and backward for both sexes in many ways.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
noonespecial 9y ago
Enough extra privilege to spend some of it being unpopular. Fascinating angle.
- sanderjd 9y ago
  It is very similar to the concept of political capital.
- smsm42 9y ago
  That looks like a perfectly sealed argument. You're popular - surely it's privilege. You're unpopular - you have so much privilege you can even afford being unpopular! Society loves you - clearly privilege. Society shuns you - you're so privileged you can take on the whole society, clearly you have the whole privilege in the world! If any outcome leads to the same conclusion, it usually means the argument is faulty, or at least redundant.
  - noonespecial 9y ago
    No. The privilege part is that you can be unpopular and still be safe and successful. To the less privileged fitting in just right can be a matter of survival.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      The problem here is that survival while being unpopular is taken as the evidence of existence of privilege. So whether you are popular or not, both is the evidence that you are privileged.
    - lotsoflumens 9y ago
      survival? Have we all been transported to Bartertown?
malandrew 9y ago
Being able to ignore social pressures and just be yourself is definitely a benefit of privilege That's not privilege. That's the benefit of being on the aspie end of the neurotypical<->autistic spectrum. It's a lot easier to ignore (or even be unaware) social pressure and focus on tasks for hours on end when you have less dopamine in your brain than your peers. This whole "everything is a privilege" argument is pure nonsense most of the time it's trotted out.
- cypher303 9y ago
  While you have correctly identified a trait of those who graze the autistic spectrum, you also appear to have discounted the possibility of being able to ignore social pressure otherwise. I think you are kind of proving the point of the person you are responding to. To me it came off as if the comment made you uncomfortable, and you responded in a way that is, in my opinion, short-sighted. I believe what he meant is that often times with privilege, people don’t feel the need to defend a certain viewpoint - because they aren’t negatively affected by it. Disclaimer: I grew up poor as dirt in a house of 7 children, so I’m definitely not speaking from experience as far as being privileged goes. I never graduated college, I just read regular old books. I do have a younger brother who struggles with a slight case of autism though, and he has no interest in computers whatsoever. In fact his life is somewhat in shambles. Also, the term “asperger’s” has been deprecated.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    First off, I didn't use the term asperger's. I used the term aspie. One is the DSM-IV term and the other is a derivative term used by the community of people on that end of the spectrum. I didn't suggest that there are no other possible contributors to being able to ignore social pressure. That's what you read into my comment. What I did do is dismiss the very handwavvy explanation of stating it's caused by "privilege", which is one of the most bullshit masturbatory terms to come out of liberal academia in a long time. It is not specific, measurable or testable. Hypotheses and theories based on it lack all the hallmarks of good science. If one wants to talk about something testable based on criteria like income, zip code, educational attainment of parents, or a variety of other aspects that are specific and measurable, that's great, but "privilege" is not specific nor measurable. “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.” Philip K. Dick The term "privilege" is a weasel word and anyone interested in having an honest intellectual debate should reject it outright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

52-6F-62 9y ago

I think you've got a valid point. I would add that genetics plays a part. I grew up the same way, but my family didn't have much money. However my parents were former athletes and ensured my siblings and I took part in a regular physical activity (in one form or another) from a young age. I think that staves off some of the aggression -- if you don't look like they could just give you a knock around regardless of your demeanor. That and I was often told I looked angry or sad while I spent my spare periods or lunches reading. Woops. I think this at least applies to younger ages. edit: wanted to add, I'm sure this changed some time ago. I'm referring to the 90's and early 2000's in particular.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Arete3141 9y ago

There are multiple factors, but basic discouragement, starting from childhood, is a big one. 100 years ago, when writing could make you a decent living, women were constantly discouraged from writing. Here's Virginia Woolf's character Lily in To The Lighthouse, dealing with nagging doubts: "Then why did she mind what he said? Women can’t write, women can’t paint—what did that matter coming from him, since clearly it was not true to him but for some reason helpful to him, and that was why he said it?" At roughly the same time, women were often employed as "computers" -- that is, people who did complex mathematical calculations. It was thought that women were good for this more tedious math, thus leaving men free for the higher math to which they were more eminently suited. So, to review: When writers could support a family, women were discouraged from being writers. When math skill was not connected with a good salary, women were accepted as being good at math. Nowadays, very few writers can make a living, while mathematically-minded coders can. So today's generally accepted wisdom is that girls are naturally good with words (which doesn't pay), while boys are good with math and computers (which does). The fact that women aren't in coding isn't a bug, but a feature. Remember the Eniac? Programming that was brutally hard, and it was all done by women, and there does not seem to have been a particular amount of money or glory in it. Now there's both, and that's why women are discouraged from joining in the lucrative boys' club. Once code starts being written by robots and the average developer can't find a job, then you'll see the field fill up with women.

greenhatman 9y ago
Where do you see women being discouraged from programming? Because I see the opposite everywhere.
cristianpascu 9y ago
It's not the general wisdom, it's a fact. But not a simple one. There's an experiment (heard of it from an philosopher women talking about women in philosophy) showing that girls perform as good as boys in math, BUT, if asked to color a drawing before the math test, they perform less. Which means, I think, that we don't live in a void of emotions. Men tend to be more aggressive and a hard problem requires aggressiveness. Unfortunately this comes with a shown tendency towards sociopath behaviour, Angular vs React thingy. :) Women, on the other side, go towards sadness and depression and anxiety. Which is hard on coding. Speaking from my own experience, as a white male. All in all is unfortunate. Coding is a tiny thing in developing software, and I personally believe that it's much, much easier to work with women. But when they are surrounded by 90% men teammates, I can imagine that it's hard to be a woman in IT.
grandalf 9y ago
Good points. Being female puts a person at a disadvantage in certain ways, and particularly makes it more likely that teachers and parents will believe that the easier path of study is preferable to the one that requires more challenges, particularly in mathematics and science. This does likely have an impact on how many female programmers we see today. Men are disadvantaged in other ways, such as being taught to suppress emotions and to prefer aggression to problem solving. Many men are permanently damaged by this and the effects harm their employability and relationships for their entire lives. I'm not suggesting there is equality/equivalence or that large-scale social biases and patterns don't disproportionately effect some people. Just making the point that there may not be an ideal and we may always be trying to correct for various excesses. One notable excess is the pressure put on working parents, which are asymmetrical and backward for both sexes in many ways.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

noonespecial 9y ago

Enough extra privilege to spend some of it being unpopular. Fascinating angle.

sanderjd 9y ago
It is very similar to the concept of political capital.
smsm42 9y ago
That looks like a perfectly sealed argument. You're popular - surely it's privilege. You're unpopular - you have so much privilege you can even afford being unpopular! Society loves you - clearly privilege. Society shuns you - you're so privileged you can take on the whole society, clearly you have the whole privilege in the world! If any outcome leads to the same conclusion, it usually means the argument is faulty, or at least redundant.
- noonespecial 9y ago
  No. The privilege part is that you can be unpopular and still be safe and successful. To the less privileged fitting in just right can be a matter of survival.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    The problem here is that survival while being unpopular is taken as the evidence of existence of privilege. So whether you are popular or not, both is the evidence that you are privileged.
  - lotsoflumens 9y ago
    survival? Have we all been transported to Bartertown?

malandrew 9y ago

Being able to ignore social pressures and just be yourself is definitely a benefit of privilege That's not privilege. That's the benefit of being on the aspie end of the neurotypical<->autistic spectrum. It's a lot easier to ignore (or even be unaware) social pressure and focus on tasks for hours on end when you have less dopamine in your brain than your peers. This whole "everything is a privilege" argument is pure nonsense most of the time it's trotted out.

cypher303 9y ago
While you have correctly identified a trait of those who graze the autistic spectrum, you also appear to have discounted the possibility of being able to ignore social pressure otherwise. I think you are kind of proving the point of the person you are responding to. To me it came off as if the comment made you uncomfortable, and you responded in a way that is, in my opinion, short-sighted. I believe what he meant is that often times with privilege, people don’t feel the need to defend a certain viewpoint - because they aren’t negatively affected by it. Disclaimer: I grew up poor as dirt in a house of 7 children, so I’m definitely not speaking from experience as far as being privileged goes. I never graduated college, I just read regular old books. I do have a younger brother who struggles with a slight case of autism though, and he has no interest in computers whatsoever. In fact his life is somewhat in shambles. Also, the term “asperger’s” has been deprecated.
- malandrew 9y ago
  First off, I didn't use the term asperger's. I used the term aspie. One is the DSM-IV term and the other is a derivative term used by the community of people on that end of the spectrum. I didn't suggest that there are no other possible contributors to being able to ignore social pressure. That's what you read into my comment. What I did do is dismiss the very handwavvy explanation of stating it's caused by "privilege", which is one of the most bullshit masturbatory terms to come out of liberal academia in a long time. It is not specific, measurable or testable. Hypotheses and theories based on it lack all the hallmarks of good science. If one wants to talk about something testable based on criteria like income, zip code, educational attainment of parents, or a variety of other aspects that are specific and measurable, that's great, but "privilege" is not specific nor measurable. “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.” Philip K. Dick The term "privilege" is a weasel word and anyone interested in having an honest intellectual debate should reject it outright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word