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I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to cal

I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful). We've surprisingly quickly moved from periods where it was common to simply refuse to even consider minorities or women in many fields to a time when many people see political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism as a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. I'm glad to see people being very thoughtful about fairness and equality, but I have an honest question: Before quotas and social justice warriors, were you thinking about fairness and equality when the status quo potentially benefited you and excluded others not on their merit but race and gender? I'm asking honestly, not trying to point fingers but I would like to know because this community, while left-leaning on many issues (I think) tends more towards libertarian on issues of race and gender and seems especially defensive when it comes to the tech industry (especially when the term "privilege" is used, it turns downright hostile). If you were active in supporting equality and diversity (by resisting arbitrarily exclusionary practices) when it wasn't popular to do so and now you are seeing the negative aspects of a push for artificial diversity I would like to know that. If you have never even considered diversity issues until recently when seeing hiring practices that could negatively affect you I would like to know that too. Do you believe any specific action needs to be taken to promote diversity or will the problem solve itself, or does the problem even exist at all?

mooseburger 9y ago
When was the tech industry deliberately excluding people based on race and gender? The 50s? 60s? I don't believe any specific action needs to be taken to promote diversity. As far as I can tell, people can work wherever they will, as long as they can pass the interview. >arbitrarily exclusionary practices Please name these.
- taysic 9y ago
  The women who get hired at Google only do so if they pass a stringent interview. So how is this different from what you're saying?
  - mooseburger 9y ago
    It isn't. I just don't think lack of biological diversity is a problem for a corporation.
    - taysic 9y ago
      It's Google that is voluntarily taking on these policies, no? Wouldn't they know their self-interest better?
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  In terms of arbitrary exclusionary practices, I mean simply refusing to hire people based on race, gender, religion etc. This could be based on name or gender on an application or failing that, post-interview and it would be amazingly stupid if the company communicated the reason honestly to the applicant since the 50's. Do you think discrimination just ended immediately after the civil rights act[1]? Personally I don't think peoples mentality changed at all just because certain practices became illegal, it just got less overt. Saying "women aren't cut out for our line of work" became "not a culture fit" or something else. Its not my goal to try to prove discrimination exists and existed, I could search and try to put together a comprehensive list of first-hand stories about discrimination in tech but my guess is that would not be an effective use of my time and that isn't the goal of my post anyways. [1] https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/futurework/conference/staffing/9.7_discrimination.htm https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/fu...
  - mooseburger 9y ago
    Well, it wouldn't be a goal of your post, since you take it as a given that the tech industry employs arbitrary exclusionary practices against women and minorities. Surely, in the 53 years since the Civil Rights Act, someone has already compiled comprehensive evidence of these practices. It shouldn't be too hard to find.
Lon7 9y ago
> Before quotas and social justice warriors, were you thinking about fairness and equality when the status quo potentially benefited you and excluded others not on their merit but race and gender? I was not thinking about that. And when I started being exposed to it, my immediate reaction was like you described: seeing political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism as a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. It took a while, but I now realize how silly that reaction was. I felt somewhat attacked by these 'social justice warriors and quotas'. And my reaction was in self defense to this perceived attack. I spent so much time reading about it on the internet. There were so many smart people applying logic and engineering skills to these social problems. I identified with these people and I agreed with most of it. They made it sound like these are all easy problems to solve and if everyone had read the same scientific studies as them and applied the same logical thinking then we would have a solution. My view wasn't changed until I had much more experience in the real world. All these women that are being talked about as statistics are real people. They're become my friends and coworkers. I've learned to sympathize with them. I've learned that it's not us vs them. We are working together is this. I've learned that political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism are definitely not a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. I think the human aspect of all this is sorely missing on HN. At least it was for me.
- jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
  Just wanna thank you for posting this. Change like the above isn't easy or comfortable.
- m1el 9y ago
  Nothing you said here is a counter argument to either the comment you replied to or the linked post. > All these women that are being talked about as statistics are real people. Nobody denies that. However, once you say that there's not enough "equality" of engineers, you invoke statistics. > I think the human aspect of all this is sorely missing on HN. Think of those poor talented engineers denied a place of work because of "gender quotas"! These engineers have dreams and passions. They aren't just statistics! See how this works? > I've learned that it's not us vs them. Except that's exactly the tactics used by SJWs. > I've learned that political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism are definitely not a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. Reverse sexism is exactly the same problem as sexism.
mcguire 9y ago
Speaking as a bitter cynic, I don't find anything surprising about it. As far as I would expect, the first defense is that they are incompetent for the task. The second is that you cannot do anything about it because that would be the same evil discrimination. (The apparent third, that they don't want to do it, did take me by surprise. Color me impressed.) To address your actual post, I seem to have missed the whole thing. I spent much of my career in Austin as a fairly short term contractor, with the first positions I took having a rough balance. (This was the early '90s.) There was never a question about the women's competence (or interest). I can't speak to any questions of harassment, though; I rarely got close to my coworkers. Only the last contract job was a sausage fest. :-) Then I spent two longer stretches at UT Austin and as a NASA contractor. Both environments were fairly equal, sex wise. On the other hand, my mother worked for a bank for 40 years and never got higher than head teller, in spite of training several men who went on to be her supervisors. And my SO has several stories of being told that women can't major in mathematics.
brightball 9y ago
> especially when the term "privilege" is used, it turns downright hostile Part of the reason that word is such a hot button is that anybody even has to explain why. It simultaneously dismisses a lifetime of effort of people on both sides of the word based solely on racial and gender stereotypes that nobody can personally validate for any single individual.
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  I've tried to have that discussion here and ended up at the point where it seems like its the word itself that causes the problem, but after asking "well what if we just changed the word to be something that evokes the lack of barriers" and the usual response is essentially "fuck you I deserve what I have.", which may be 100% true but straight white men (like me) who think that everyone is on a totally level playing field and we have all the same barriers in life as everyone else I think is nuts. No two people are the same and nobody knows what challenges people have faced (that don't depend on race or gender) but on average it seems pretty clear that being of the majority race and religion and being male avoids a lot of potential problems. I feel like in any particular situation, what I get out of something is a product of what I put into it. I've never felt at any point in my life like I've not been given the benefit of the doubt and I wish that was the case for everyone.
  - zo1 9y ago
    If you ask me, the "fuck you I deserve what I have" is not correct and misrepresents the values you're trying to caricature. If it has to be anything, it would be more: "fuck you, I deserve what I've earned". And if that happens to be an "oppressed" individual that has passed through many barriers and hardships, then they deserve it even more, because they've earned it. That's the other thing that's problematic about reverse-isms. They essentially dismiss the effort and good work oppressed people have done to rise above their circumstances, by telling them that they need handicap-scoring because they're part of some magical grouping. The commonality is rising above circumstance, and that is something that spans across all the "isms" and groups that are currently hot-topics.
asciicircum 9y ago
I'm not long enough in the workforce to have experienced open discrimination, so I don't feel qualified to comment on your overall question, i.e. on how my consideration of equality has changed due to the change in social climate. I still want to reply to your question because your opening sentence reflects my feelings on the topics well: Both sides have good points - the debate is not as black and white as it is portrayed and is valuable to have [1]. > I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful Thanks for this, seriously. I'm happy to see openness to discussion rather than the (perceived) omnipresent downright dismissal of the opposing side :). To still kinda answer your question: I think it's good discrimination has been brought to everyone's attention and that we are working on solutions as a society. I disagree with the diversity-push side on how we should go about it. In a non-perfect world where we don't know the exact amount of discrimination/bias suffered [2], we can't use discrimination in the form of affirmative action or the like to correct for it without potentially discriminating the opposing group rather than just correcting for their privilege. We should help individuals do what they want to do, so I'm all for breaking down any roles or whatever that prevent people from doing that. Forcing our idea of freedom of choice / equality is just not the way to do that. Especially when we forbid questioning it [3]. We should keep striving to become a better, fairer society. I don't know the solution, I just know that this way - no matter how well intentioned - is not it. [1] only if we have an actual debate and try to understand the opposing side rather than dismissing valid points out of offense - both sides mostly do the latter right now as far as i can tell. [2] Could be that e.g. the representation gap is 100% due to discrimination, could be that it's just 10% due to discrimination. The point is we don't know yet. [3] the google manifesto was not scientifically debated and dismissed but attacked as sexist. If an hypothesis is not allowed we are not being scientific. And we really shouldn't turn our back to the scientific method.
alexandercrohde 9y ago
I'm glad that you brought this up, and how you brought it up (as somebody coming from the opposite side). To answer your question, I didn't actively consider diversity in tech a problem before. So I think you have a point that it's good people have brought it up. However, that doesn't mean I always agree with the means of social justice. It is possible to fight for a good cause in a bad way. So there are multiple facets to this issue. I believe in the endgame of social progress while still siding with Dalmore. I think the correct way to refute Dalmores of the world is with research not firings, and people who would have him fired I think are doing the wrong thing, for the right reason. That said, from what I've heard it sounded like google had a fine program in place. I think we're on the right track at a good pace for women in tech. I'd like to see people start talking about minorities in investment banking next, because I'm not hearing it.
canoebuilder 9y ago
The key point of the Damore memo that many would do well to understand, it does not logically follow to say, "I've identified this "gap," therefore this "gap" is bad and it is caused by the big bad mean oppressive bullies, group X." So, is the identified "gap" really that bad? No, not really, not much reason to think it's bad at all in many cases. Second, and most importantly, not only is the purported cause of big bad mean oppressive bullies lacking almost entirely in evidence, but there are actual explanations with mountains of evidence. So what? What's the harm if I believe in one cause over another? People use to do raindances! The harm is that sticking to an explanation of big bad mean oppressive bullies, means that whole classes of people are being not just accused but punished for "crimes" they did not commit. In fact there is no crime at all.
- nodamage 9y ago
  > it does not logically follow to say, "I've identified this "gap," therefore this "gap" is bad and it is caused by the big bad mean oppressive bullies, group X. This is a misrepresentation of the opposing viewpoint. No, the mere existence of a gender gap in an industry is not ipso facto evidence of sexism in that industry. After all, gender ratios in different industries vary widely, some industries have a higher ratio of women and others have a higher ratio of men. There mere existence of an imbalanced gender ratio in an industry, is not, in and of itself, problematic. With that said, if you look at the tech industry, the constant stream of reports* of sexual harassment and sexist treatment from women that actually work in the industry is a pretty big clue that this industry, maybe, just maybe, has a problem with the way it treats women. And if you consider that female participation in the tech industry grew until the mid 80s where it peaked and has been going downhill ever since, it's difficult to conclude that the gender gap merely comes down to men and women having different interests. So, no, the gender gap itself is not the problem. But it might be a symptom: if women feel like they are treated poorly in this industry, they are going to leave. Not because of lack of interest, or biological disposition, but because they do not feel welcome and are driven away due to the treatment they receive. And if that is causing the gender ratio in the industry to be lower than it would otherwise be, then that is problematic. * Notable examples include but are not limited to: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepreneurs-speak-out-sexual-harassment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepre... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-sexual-harassment-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-sexual-hara... https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describe... https://www.recode.net/2016/1/11/11588656/60-percent-of-senior-women-in-tech-say-theyve-been-sexually-harassed https://www.recode.net/2016/1/11/11588656/60-percent-of-seni... http://observer.com/2017/06/justin-caldbeck-binary-capital-sexual-assault-harssment/ http://observer.com/2017/06/justin-caldbeck-binary-capital-s...

mooseburger 9y ago

When was the tech industry deliberately excluding people based on race and gender? The 50s? 60s? I don't believe any specific action needs to be taken to promote diversity. As far as I can tell, people can work wherever they will, as long as they can pass the interview. >arbitrarily exclusionary practices Please name these.

taysic 9y ago
The women who get hired at Google only do so if they pass a stringent interview. So how is this different from what you're saying?
- mooseburger 9y ago
  It isn't. I just don't think lack of biological diversity is a problem for a corporation.
  - taysic 9y ago
    It's Google that is voluntarily taking on these policies, no? Wouldn't they know their self-interest better?
okreallywtf 9y ago
In terms of arbitrary exclusionary practices, I mean simply refusing to hire people based on race, gender, religion etc. This could be based on name or gender on an application or failing that, post-interview and it would be amazingly stupid if the company communicated the reason honestly to the applicant since the 50's. Do you think discrimination just ended immediately after the civil rights act[1]? Personally I don't think peoples mentality changed at all just because certain practices became illegal, it just got less overt. Saying "women aren't cut out for our line of work" became "not a culture fit" or something else. Its not my goal to try to prove discrimination exists and existed, I could search and try to put together a comprehensive list of first-hand stories about discrimination in tech but my guess is that would not be an effective use of my time and that isn't the goal of my post anyways. [1] https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/futurework/conference/staffing/9.7_discrimination.htm https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/fu...
- mooseburger 9y ago
  Well, it wouldn't be a goal of your post, since you take it as a given that the tech industry employs arbitrary exclusionary practices against women and minorities. Surely, in the 53 years since the Civil Rights Act, someone has already compiled comprehensive evidence of these practices. It shouldn't be too hard to find.

Lon7 9y ago

> Before quotas and social justice warriors, were you thinking about fairness and equality when the status quo potentially benefited you and excluded others not on their merit but race and gender? I was not thinking about that. And when I started being exposed to it, my immediate reaction was like you described: seeing political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism as a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. It took a while, but I now realize how silly that reaction was. I felt somewhat attacked by these 'social justice warriors and quotas'. And my reaction was in self defense to this perceived attack. I spent so much time reading about it on the internet. There were so many smart people applying logic and engineering skills to these social problems. I identified with these people and I agreed with most of it. They made it sound like these are all easy problems to solve and if everyone had read the same scientific studies as them and applied the same logical thinking then we would have a solution. My view wasn't changed until I had much more experience in the real world. All these women that are being talked about as statistics are real people. They're become my friends and coworkers. I've learned to sympathize with them. I've learned that it's not us vs them. We are working together is this. I've learned that political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism are definitely not a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. I think the human aspect of all this is sorely missing on HN. At least it was for me.

jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
Just wanna thank you for posting this. Change like the above isn't easy or comfortable.
m1el 9y ago
Nothing you said here is a counter argument to either the comment you replied to or the linked post. > All these women that are being talked about as statistics are real people. Nobody denies that. However, once you say that there's not enough "equality" of engineers, you invoke statistics. > I think the human aspect of all this is sorely missing on HN. Think of those poor talented engineers denied a place of work because of "gender quotas"! These engineers have dreams and passions. They aren't just statistics! See how this works? > I've learned that it's not us vs them. Except that's exactly the tactics used by SJWs. > I've learned that political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism are definitely not a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves. Reverse sexism is exactly the same problem as sexism.

mcguire 9y ago

Speaking as a bitter cynic, I don't find anything surprising about it. As far as I would expect, the first defense is that they are incompetent for the task. The second is that you cannot do anything about it because that would be the same evil discrimination. (The apparent third, that they don't want to do it, did take me by surprise. Color me impressed.) To address your actual post, I seem to have missed the whole thing. I spent much of my career in Austin as a fairly short term contractor, with the first positions I took having a rough balance. (This was the early '90s.) There was never a question about the women's competence (or interest). I can't speak to any questions of harassment, though; I rarely got close to my coworkers. Only the last contract job was a sausage fest. :-) Then I spent two longer stretches at UT Austin and as a NASA contractor. Both environments were fairly equal, sex wise. On the other hand, my mother worked for a bank for 40 years and never got higher than head teller, in spite of training several men who went on to be her supervisors. And my SO has several stories of being told that women can't major in mathematics.

brightball 9y ago

> especially when the term "privilege" is used, it turns downright hostile Part of the reason that word is such a hot button is that anybody even has to explain why. It simultaneously dismisses a lifetime of effort of people on both sides of the word based solely on racial and gender stereotypes that nobody can personally validate for any single individual.

okreallywtf 9y ago
I've tried to have that discussion here and ended up at the point where it seems like its the word itself that causes the problem, but after asking "well what if we just changed the word to be something that evokes the lack of barriers" and the usual response is essentially "fuck you I deserve what I have.", which may be 100% true but straight white men (like me) who think that everyone is on a totally level playing field and we have all the same barriers in life as everyone else I think is nuts. No two people are the same and nobody knows what challenges people have faced (that don't depend on race or gender) but on average it seems pretty clear that being of the majority race and religion and being male avoids a lot of potential problems. I feel like in any particular situation, what I get out of something is a product of what I put into it. I've never felt at any point in my life like I've not been given the benefit of the doubt and I wish that was the case for everyone.
- zo1 9y ago
  If you ask me, the "fuck you I deserve what I have" is not correct and misrepresents the values you're trying to caricature. If it has to be anything, it would be more: "fuck you, I deserve what I've earned". And if that happens to be an "oppressed" individual that has passed through many barriers and hardships, then they deserve it even more, because they've earned it. That's the other thing that's problematic about reverse-isms. They essentially dismiss the effort and good work oppressed people have done to rise above their circumstances, by telling them that they need handicap-scoring because they're part of some magical grouping. The commonality is rising above circumstance, and that is something that spans across all the "isms" and groups that are currently hot-topics.

asciicircum 9y ago

I'm not long enough in the workforce to have experienced open discrimination, so I don't feel qualified to comment on your overall question, i.e. on how my consideration of equality has changed due to the change in social climate. I still want to reply to your question because your opening sentence reflects my feelings on the topics well: Both sides have good points - the debate is not as black and white as it is portrayed and is valuable to have [1]. > I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful Thanks for this, seriously. I'm happy to see openness to discussion rather than the (perceived) omnipresent downright dismissal of the opposing side :). To still kinda answer your question: I think it's good discrimination has been brought to everyone's attention and that we are working on solutions as a society. I disagree with the diversity-push side on how we should go about it. In a non-perfect world where we don't know the exact amount of discrimination/bias suffered [2], we can't use discrimination in the form of affirmative action or the like to correct for it without potentially discriminating the opposing group rather than just correcting for their privilege. We should help individuals do what they want to do, so I'm all for breaking down any roles or whatever that prevent people from doing that. Forcing our idea of freedom of choice / equality is just not the way to do that. Especially when we forbid questioning it [3]. We should keep striving to become a better, fairer society. I don't know the solution, I just know that this way - no matter how well intentioned - is not it. [1] only if we have an actual debate and try to understand the opposing side rather than dismissing valid points out of offense - both sides mostly do the latter right now as far as i can tell. [2] Could be that e.g. the representation gap is 100% due to discrimination, could be that it's just 10% due to discrimination. The point is we don't know yet. [3] the google manifesto was not scientifically debated and dismissed but attacked as sexist. If an hypothesis is not allowed we are not being scientific. And we really shouldn't turn our back to the scientific method.

alexandercrohde 9y ago

I'm glad that you brought this up, and how you brought it up (as somebody coming from the opposite side). To answer your question, I didn't actively consider diversity in tech a problem before. So I think you have a point that it's good people have brought it up. However, that doesn't mean I always agree with the means of social justice. It is possible to fight for a good cause in a bad way. So there are multiple facets to this issue. I believe in the endgame of social progress while still siding with Dalmore. I think the correct way to refute Dalmores of the world is with research not firings, and people who would have him fired I think are doing the wrong thing, for the right reason. That said, from what I've heard it sounded like google had a fine program in place. I think we're on the right track at a good pace for women in tech. I'd like to see people start talking about minorities in investment banking next, because I'm not hearing it.

canoebuilder 9y ago

The key point of the Damore memo that many would do well to understand, it does not logically follow to say, "I've identified this "gap," therefore this "gap" is bad and it is caused by the big bad mean oppressive bullies, group X." So, is the identified "gap" really that bad? No, not really, not much reason to think it's bad at all in many cases. Second, and most importantly, not only is the purported cause of big bad mean oppressive bullies lacking almost entirely in evidence, but there are actual explanations with mountains of evidence. So what? What's the harm if I believe in one cause over another? People use to do raindances! The harm is that sticking to an explanation of big bad mean oppressive bullies, means that whole classes of people are being not just accused but punished for "crimes" they did not commit. In fact there is no crime at all.

nodamage 9y ago
> it does not logically follow to say, "I've identified this "gap," therefore this "gap" is bad and it is caused by the big bad mean oppressive bullies, group X. This is a misrepresentation of the opposing viewpoint. No, the mere existence of a gender gap in an industry is not ipso facto evidence of sexism in that industry. After all, gender ratios in different industries vary widely, some industries have a higher ratio of women and others have a higher ratio of men. There mere existence of an imbalanced gender ratio in an industry, is not, in and of itself, problematic. With that said, if you look at the tech industry, the constant stream of reports* of sexual harassment and sexist treatment from women that actually work in the industry is a pretty big clue that this industry, maybe, just maybe, has a problem with the way it treats women. And if you consider that female participation in the tech industry grew until the mid 80s where it peaked and has been going downhill ever since, it's difficult to conclude that the gender gap merely comes down to men and women having different interests. So, no, the gender gap itself is not the problem. But it might be a symptom: if women feel like they are treated poorly in this industry, they are going to leave. Not because of lack of interest, or biological disposition, but because they do not feel welcome and are driven away due to the treatment they receive. And if that is causing the gender ratio in the industry to be lower than it would otherwise be, then that is problematic. * Notable examples include but are not limited to: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepreneurs-speak-out-sexual-harassment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepre... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-sexual-harassment-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-sexual-hara... https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describe... https://www.recode.net/2016/1/11/11588656/60-percent-of-senior-women-in-tech-say-theyve-been-sexually-harassed https://www.recode.net/2016/1/11/11588656/60-percent-of-seni... http://observer.com/2017/06/justin-caldbeck-binary-capital-sexual-assault-harssment/ http://observer.com/2017/06/justin-caldbeck-binary-capital-s...