7 ms·

I definitely agree with this view, and it's perhaps also why I really can't understand choices like these, to cancel an event, because of the genders of the peo

by Tehnix 9y ago

I definitely agree with this view, and it's perhaps also why I really can't understand choices like these, to cancel an event, because of the genders of the people speaking? Why does that even matter? If what another commenter mentioned[0][1], that they did blind-reviews of the papers, then this is actually quite appalling to me and sends the reverse signal that we don't really care about your paper, as long as you fill up our quota. I also deeply believe that this is inherently the wrong way to fix this kind of problem. It's like treating symptoms instead of actually treating the underlying disease. If the papers accepted were all male, then why not ask "why was it only papers from men that were qualified enough?" or "why did only men submit papers for our event?". If the former is true than we need effort into investigating why more women aren't writing these papers (be it quality or just plain quantity), and if the latter then look into the marketing/awareness on the paper submitting process. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480918 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481098 EDIT: Included links to the comments that mentioned the blind-reviews. -- Semi-related: While I haven't seen it, I saw an interview with Jordan Peele about the movie "Get Out". He mentions that he wanted to tackle the fact that while Obama definitely helped the US move to less racist tones, it was never really solved, it is just there hiding under the skin with super-awareness to not be racist, which arguably is not the desired effect - there shouldn't be awareness at all about race period. I feel like this effect is somewhat similar to what is happening here, and the fact that the US is not able to hold any reasonable discussion at all on these topics doesn't make me optimistic on their capability to handle these issues. I feel like PC culture is causing way more harm than good. </rant>

ygaf 9y ago
They've realised now (or maybe still don't realise) a blind review of papers isn't what they wanted.
rayiner 9y ago
PC culture is a frustrated reaction to how fucked up America is with regard to race. Look at the income/health statistics between blacks and whites, or go live in an inner-city. It's mind blowing. It's a problem we created as a society and we're not doing anything to fix it. So we've resorted to counting the number of different color people at coding conferences.
- leereeves 9y ago
  It's a reaction that only makes the problem worse. Imagine the reaction if a group of male organizers had decided too many women were speaking, and you'll understand how other people feel about this decision. When sexism like this is tolerated it only discredits any claim that equality and fairness are the goals.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, but I don't think superficial equality is all that interesting.
    - mst 9y ago
      That's equality of outcome though, which is often terrible. I want a society where everybody gets an even shot, at which point I find it highly unlikely we'd end up at 50/50 - given programming has been both male-majority and female-majority over time I'm damned if I know in which direction it'd fall, but 50/50 usually means "you have forced people to be here who would've been better/happier somewhere else" and my feminism involves the radical notion that women have agency too.
      - selllikesybok 9y ago
        Why is equality of outcome terrible, per se?
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        macspoofing 9y ago
        Because it is ambiguous goal which under any reasonable interpretation has massive consequences and major unintended side-effects. My favorite sport is basketball. What is the 'equality of outcome' in the context of the NBA? Is it that players are evenly distributed across gender lines? Across economic lines? Across national lines? Across racial or ethnic or religious lines? In our society, it would probably be understood that NBA should be proportionally represented by each identity group. So you should see 70% white players, 15% hispanic players, 12% black players, 5% asian players. Is that the right solution? But is the fact that black Americans dominate the league actually a problem? And what the heck are you supposed to do to fix it? The other point is that in a free society, you cannot guarantee equality of outcome because people are going to make personal choices that will be magnified and influenced by whatever sub-culture they are immersed in. Professional basketball in the early days was over-represented by Jews, because it just so happened that interest in the game went viral in that sub-culture. Tech has an over-representation of men because it grew out of a particular nerd sub-culture. There's nothing wrong with doing outreach to get non-traditional sub-groups developing an interest in programming, just like there's nothing wrong with the NBA running clinics in China to get Chinese kids into basketball. But it's not racism that the demographics are the way they are! In a free society you should expect that!

by Tehnix 9y ago

ygaf 9y ago

They've realised now (or maybe still don't realise) a blind review of papers isn't what they wanted.

rayiner 9y ago

PC culture is a frustrated reaction to how fucked up America is with regard to race. Look at the income/health statistics between blacks and whites, or go live in an inner-city. It's mind blowing. It's a problem we created as a society and we're not doing anything to fix it. So we've resorted to counting the number of different color people at coding conferences.

leereeves 9y ago
It's a reaction that only makes the problem worse. Imagine the reaction if a group of male organizers had decided too many women were speaking, and you'll understand how other people feel about this decision. When sexism like this is tolerated it only discredits any claim that equality and fairness are the goals.
- rayiner 9y ago
  There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, but I don't think superficial equality is all that interesting.
  - mst 9y ago
    That's equality of outcome though, which is often terrible. I want a society where everybody gets an even shot, at which point I find it highly unlikely we'd end up at 50/50 - given programming has been both male-majority and female-majority over time I'm damned if I know in which direction it'd fall, but 50/50 usually means "you have forced people to be here who would've been better/happier somewhere else" and my feminism involves the radical notion that women have agency too.
    - selllikesybok 9y ago
      Why is equality of outcome terrible, per se?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - macspoofing 9y ago
        Because it is ambiguous goal which under any reasonable interpretation has massive consequences and major unintended side-effects. My favorite sport is basketball. What is the 'equality of outcome' in the context of the NBA? Is it that players are evenly distributed across gender lines? Across economic lines? Across national lines? Across racial or ethnic or religious lines? In our society, it would probably be understood that NBA should be proportionally represented by each identity group. So you should see 70% white players, 15% hispanic players, 12% black players, 5% asian players. Is that the right solution? But is the fact that black Americans dominate the league actually a problem? And what the heck are you supposed to do to fix it? The other point is that in a free society, you cannot guarantee equality of outcome because people are going to make personal choices that will be magnified and influenced by whatever sub-culture they are immersed in. Professional basketball in the early days was over-represented by Jews, because it just so happened that interest in the game went viral in that sub-culture. Tech has an over-representation of men because it grew out of a particular nerd sub-culture. There's nothing wrong with doing outreach to get non-traditional sub-groups developing an interest in programming, just like there's nothing wrong with the NBA running clinics in China to get Chinese kids into basketball. But it's not racism that the demographics are the way they are! In a free society you should expect that!