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As someone outside of SV (Nevadan living in Boston and practicing medicine), I think this article largely misses the mark. I think it is true that there is a d

As someone outside of SV (Nevadan living in Boston and practicing medicine), I think this article largely misses the mark. I think it is true that there is a diversity problem in SV, just like there is a diversity problem in medicine. It’s a problem, because there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields. But that’s probably the only point that resonates. The criticism of Juicero and Theranos being emblematic of focusing on the wrong problems is not sensible. Companies fail, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes due to dishonest behavior, etc. If Theranos had the tech they claimed to have, it would have been richly rewarded (outshined only by the consumer surplus it would have created). The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV, and then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem as it proceeds to its logical extreme.

gotthemwmds 9y ago
" there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields." Sure there is: racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions. And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone.
- daveguy 9y ago
  Even better when we all recognize that it doesn't take a conscious racist or sexist decision. There are all kinds of ways to rationalize "better culture fit".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jabot 9y ago
  Technically that would not be an a priori reason. IMHO you are right though about discrimination existing.
- 201709User 9y ago
  What about plumbers and garbage collectors gender diversity? Is it "evil patriarchy" or "ugh it's icky"?
  - snerbles 9y ago
    The loud evangelists for social justice are usually seeking power. Blue-collar jobs aren't considered prestigious, so they'll get little more than lip service.
- refurb 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's what the OP was getting at?
- carbocation 9y ago
  Yes, what I mean is that there is no internal feature of the marginalized groups that would predict this, just external forces pushing them out.
- fhhddgjjg 9y ago
  To point out the obvious, that’s definitely not a priori. What do you mean by it?
- wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
  Anecdotes: Claiming racism and sexism will put off anyone in the center who may be convinced that there is a diversity problem. I would prefer the term "subconsciously biased against". It's not so much a concentrated group effort by everyone who hires to keep minorities down, but a subconscious effect caused by the media and constant anti-minority propaganda (only a few decades ago). Even minorities themselves are influenced by this (see: confidence issues). It's not conducive to growth as a society or as individuals when you attack people who may otherwise be convinced to help you. The ones that are just blatantly racist are fair game (imo), though.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    I mostly agree, but the media (and a slew of other industries) are pro-minority, not anti-minority, so if the media are undermining minority confidence, it's not necessarily intuitive. Further, even the implicit bias theory has a lot working against it; chiefly, it is utterly dependant on the principle tool for measuring implicit bias, the IAT, which fails to actually predict bias or even return consistent results (in short, it fails basic psychology tool standards). Implicit or explicit bias may well be the cause of these disparities, but we shouldn't punish skeptics as severely as we have been doing given the dearth of supporting evidence. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-tool-isnt-up-to-the-job.html http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/psychologys-racism-meas...
    - wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
      I can't see why you would be skeptical about bias given studies (not relying on IAT) showing that -- all else being equal -- people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks? The same goes with subtle class cues and identification. If IAT is broken, it's a broken tool. Not every bias test uses it. The idea that the media is pro-minority when we still have the media pissing themselves over kneeling in protest is silly. Also when Fox News is still watched by a significant portion of Americans. Also when the media constantly shows minorities in negative situations (yes, it's reporting, and information, but that creates biases as well). I mean it's easier to internalize a minority doing a violent crime as "terrible" than it is a white male embezzling funds or something. In addition, a few decades ago the story was not the same. The people who grew up then have developed a bias due to the media and the people who are raised by the people who grew up then will also internalize some of it. Discrimination is not something solved in a generation. EDIT: Edited my post a bit because I completely misread your comment.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- graeme 9y ago
  You’re agreeing with the OP while acting angry and using a critical tone. This detracts from discussion. Please interpret remarks charitably.
  - kelukelugames 9y ago
    There is no anger in the tone. People see it is angry and critical because they are upset by the opinion.
- supercanuck 9y ago
  OP used Latin to signal their intelligence, the assumption being they've already considered and ruled out sexism and racism, therefore there must be some other under-developed theory to explain the gap.
  - cn8812 9y ago
    Where "under-developed" means: Not the party line propagated by some useless gender "study" department that has exactly zero clue about technology and the personal sacrifices necessary to be good at it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jrs95 9y ago
  >developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions Some who make this argument (and I'm not necessarily saying you're in this camp) are essentially saying that "nerd culture" is some oppressive sexist force. That's sort of ironic given that it's basically a subculture formed by social rejects. There are of course aspects of workplace culture which do this, but an appreciation of science fiction and dungeons and dragons really shouldn't be on that list.
  - KingMob 9y ago
    It's a bit ironic that SV nerds are dealing with rampant racial/gender issues, while NFL jocks are protesting for racial justice in policing. It's like all those 80's movies flipped the nerd/jock paradigm.
    - jrs95 9y ago
      That's how the media is portraying it of course, but I think if you took a step back and took a look at the general behavior of each group I don't think it would really hold up.
      - KingMob 9y ago
        Heh, true. Though when I take a step back, I find both groups still have a long way to go.
  - Tyrek 9y ago
    Is it truly ironic? Most 'social reject' subcultures trend towards their own styles of conformity and in/out group determination, which can be as harsh or harsher than that of the mainstream. Should it really come as a surprise that nerd culture has taken the same path? Just consider anti-dress code, 'mandatory' code marathons, etc.
    - jrs95 9y ago
      Maybe this sort of thing is more of a problem in SV itdelf, but tech in Columbus OH isn't like this at all. Most accepting group of people I've known.
- deleted 9y ago
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- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  > racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture One need not be white or male to be biased against people of color or women. It's probably easier for us to fall into those patterns, and historical patterns of deliberate oppression were undoubtedly a major factor in establishing those biases as dominant cultural patterns, but anyone can do it with a little extra effort to rationalize how they're "one of the good ones".
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    No, they don't. However, it would be rather silly to not acknowledge that the majority of people making these decisions are white and male.
- Spivak 9y ago
  This view is ridiculously out of touch with reality. What you're describing is borderline cartoonish levels of evil. You make it sound like white males get together with conferences to discuss new ways of oppressing people. The theory that explains this phenomenon needs to address how things still go wrong even when nobody has any dislike or prejudice.
  - eropple 9y ago
    > You make it sound like white males get together with conferences to discuss new ways of oppressing people. Ahem. https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuc... As usual: it's worse than you think.
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      If actually done some reading on white supremacists and from what I can see a great number of them are unemployed or on disability. That ones that are employed are never employed at a high level position. The FBI estimates them to be about 5000 in number. Your claim is effectively several thousand gas station attendants, grocery store shelf stockers and construction laborers control hiring across thousands of tech firms by some unknown mechanism. I seem to recall similar claims being made in Germany in 1939.
    - lucozade 9y ago
      > Of the 70 to 80 people in the lodge I don't think that's quite a quorum of white males. Maybe it clashed with "Up with the Patriarchy" bowling night?
  - stale2002 9y ago
    > You make it sound like white males get together with conferences to discuss new ways of oppressing people. Yeah so... about that. Here is an article about someone infiltrating one such conference in Seattle that was literally full of white male mostly techies who were discussing different ways of doing that. http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck... Yeah, yeah... you'll probably point out that this was a only a couple hundred people, and thats very few when you compare it to the total population of seattle. And I'd mostly agree with that argument. But I just thought it was funny that one such conference just happened.
- arkh 9y ago
  For the rank and file of tech the problem can't be eliminated until more than 20% of the STEM pipeline is comprised of women. This means fighting sexism at the startup level is useless, you better encourage young people to get into science by making it sexy and not for social outcasts. If there is sexism to fight against it is in education with how maths and physics are painted as "for dorks" instead of showing how you do some crazy awesome things. For the management level you have two problems: - people tend to prefer people with technical baggage to handle technical teams. So you're back to the pipeline problem - for the exec level you usually get older people for established companies. So it is a question of time for things to get better: current execs are from 1 or 2 generations past. Once those generations are replaced they'll mechanically have more women, those who are currently in their late 30s and working on their career. You don't have a lot of 20ish men at those positions. For the startup founders you just need an idea, some seed money and time.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Disagree. Fight the problem at every level you encounter it. If startups are begging for more women, universities won’t be able to tolerate students or staff who discourage women from applying and/or finish their degrees.
    - Klockan 9y ago
      > If startups are begging for more women Why would they start doing that? Eliminating sexism just means that you don't have any bias, not that you suddenly see them as the next coming.
      - ben_w 9y ago
        Because they provide a valuable insight that is currently being systematically ignored, which can allow businesses to meaningful engage with and provide useful services to a currently poorly serviced market segment.
        Klockan 9y ago
- ben_w 9y ago
  That’s not a priori, that’s given X, this follows. Had the dominant race been, say, Chinese, had the dominant sex been women, there is no reason to think the sexist and racist people would be behaving any differently than they are now. We still need to stop the racists and sexists. My personal short-term benefit from being in the “right” group comes at the hidden cost of 96.75%* of the world not being treated fairly or given tools that genuinely help them. * 6.25% of humans are “white”, according to wikipedia
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  You can't say "white males" on HN without getting slaughtered. I think a fairer way to phrase this is people with power discriminate. Consciously and unconsciously. Doesn't matter if they are white, non white, male, or female. We just happen to live in a society where most positions of power have been historically held by one group.
  - eropple 9y ago
    > You can't say "white males" on HN without getting slaughtered. I say it pretty often, and I don't get "slaughtered". The commentariat here tends to be kinda gross at times (and, tbh, the proprietors should probably do something about it, but I kinda shrug at that one now) but the votes generally bear out that the crowd, at least, is reasonable.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- jmull 9y ago
  > And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone. How so? Suppose everyone accepts this... then what? What do we do with this information to change things? I don't think racist and sexist white men are the problem. They exist, of course, and are a problem but that's not what's driving Silicon Valley's diversity issue. It's (1) the bias people have for entrusting people they understand and feel understand them and (2) the compounding opportunity gap various groups have. Further, casting the issue this way nearly precludes a solution since it attacks and alienates the people whose help you probably need to change things -- those very white men running so much of SV and so much of everything else. I guess it feels good to rage against the system, but in doing so you end up perpetuating and strengthening it.
wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV, and then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem as it proceeds to its logical extreme. People don't like new people getting money. A story as old as time.
- deleted 9y ago
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xversilov 9y ago
There is no a priori reason that society feels comfortable acknowledging, but for anybody without those hangups, the reasons are actually quite obvious.
- look_lookatme 9y ago
  You are more than welcome to enlighten us.
- jacalata 9y ago
  Do explain.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ivraatiems 9y ago
> The criticism of Juicero and Theranos being emblematic of focusing on the wrong problems is not sensible. Companies fail, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes due to dishonest behavior, etc. If Theranos had the tech they claimed to have, it would have been richly rewarded (outshined only by the consumer surplus it would have created). The problem with Juciero and Theranos isn't that they failed. The problem with them is that Juciero was an immensely dumb idea that was never checked or questioned and thereby wasted tons of money, and Theranos was so unabashedly, obviously mustache-twirlingly evil that if it were used to script an evil corporation for TV, I'd have called it unrealistic (and thereby, it wasted tons of money). They're the worst parts of SV (dumb companies offering things nobody wants at outrageous prices, and obvious evil pretending things are OK because they're 'changing the world' or some other nonsense) exaggerated to near-comical extremes. Silicon Valley's problem is deeper than failing businesses or not enough diversity. It's that the entire enterprise is a bold-faced moneygrab for VCs; ethics, diversity, etc. were never really part of the point, and it's only now that the rest of the world is starting to figure that out. SV's problems are at the core of the reasons for its current existence.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >The problem with them is that Juciero was an immensely dumb idea that was never checked or questioned and thereby wasted tons of money Like bottled water. The idea of people paying 1600x markup for something they got essentially free while creating massive amounts of waste when sports bottles already existed. When bottled water came out, I remember thinking, "that's a friggin' joke." It sure worked out though.
  - ivraatiems 9y ago
    There's a difference between ideas that seem dumb and ideas that are dumb. The problem is that Juciero was in the latter category. We didn't have to pour millions of dollars into it to figure that out; do you think the creators of bottled water spent anywhere near that much, or over-engineered their product half as crazily? Put another way, do you imagine that nobody at Nestle or wherever stood up and said "this is a dumb idea" when bottled water was being devised? And how would you imagine the creators of the idea answered that challenge?
eropple 9y ago
> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV The rise in income inequality is tied pretty directly to pervasive automation. Economic efficiency is not always social progress, especially when coupled with retrograde politics and social policy. We're not having "more leisure" or whatever because of it, we're having people ground to dust in worthless jobs because the computers are doing more and more. To that end, tech (and not just the Valley, but the Valley is a particularly visible and awfully smarmy representation of tech) probably should get more shade thrown at it than it does. > then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem Tech is doing no such thing. Tech is reifying capital, it is not trying to solve the problem on behalf of labor.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- 323454 9y ago
  Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation, the offshoring of jobs that left huge numbers of people out of work and broke while making the owners and investors multiple times wealthier. Automation has played its role in generating inequality at times in history, but the wave we are currently experiencing is not predominantly due to automation: it is instead due to cheap and plentiful foreign labor.
  - eropple 9y ago
    > Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation Which is caused by two major factors: easier shipping, easier communication--both of which the tech sector encourages, facilitates, and pushes forward. And yes, automation is a nontrivial part of wealth inequality's growth, especially over the last ten years rather than twenty--you don't move a secretary's job elsewhere, you destroy it. Capital requires fewer hands than ever before and enables further centralization of that capital--and this is direct fallout of automation making workers superfluous.
    - 9y ago
RodericDay 9y ago
The unwritten story of the Juicero debacle is that high income inequality causes capital to be misallocated towards luxury production. — Matt Bruenig, on a deleted Tweet
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV, and then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem as it proceeds to its logical extreme. The issue here is that many people feel SV's ideas of basic income will absolutely never work in the long-term. Heck, it will never work in this country period. We can't even socialize healthcare in this country, and those who collect unemployment are looked down upon. What makes you think basic income will ever become a reality? What makes you think a major political party wouldn't call those people freeloaders and work ceaselessly to remove those benefits if they are put in place? And what makes you think those millions of people being given subsidized, substandard, meaningless lives won't rise up against a system that has basically sucked as much productivity out of them that they could before abandoning them?
- rtx 9y ago
  America is already the biggest socialist country in the world.

gotthemwmds 9y ago

" there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields." Sure there is: racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions. And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone.

daveguy 9y ago
Even better when we all recognize that it doesn't take a conscious racist or sexist decision. There are all kinds of ways to rationalize "better culture fit".
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jabot 9y ago
Technically that would not be an a priori reason. IMHO you are right though about discrimination existing.
201709User 9y ago
What about plumbers and garbage collectors gender diversity? Is it "evil patriarchy" or "ugh it's icky"?
- snerbles 9y ago
  The loud evangelists for social justice are usually seeking power. Blue-collar jobs aren't considered prestigious, so they'll get little more than lip service.
refurb 9y ago
I'm pretty sure that's what the OP was getting at?
carbocation 9y ago
Yes, what I mean is that there is no internal feature of the marginalized groups that would predict this, just external forces pushing them out.
fhhddgjjg 9y ago
To point out the obvious, that’s definitely not a priori. What do you mean by it?
wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
Anecdotes: Claiming racism and sexism will put off anyone in the center who may be convinced that there is a diversity problem. I would prefer the term "subconsciously biased against". It's not so much a concentrated group effort by everyone who hires to keep minorities down, but a subconscious effect caused by the media and constant anti-minority propaganda (only a few decades ago). Even minorities themselves are influenced by this (see: confidence issues). It's not conducive to growth as a society or as individuals when you attack people who may otherwise be convinced to help you. The ones that are just blatantly racist are fair game (imo), though.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I mostly agree, but the media (and a slew of other industries) are pro-minority, not anti-minority, so if the media are undermining minority confidence, it's not necessarily intuitive. Further, even the implicit bias theory has a lot working against it; chiefly, it is utterly dependant on the principle tool for measuring implicit bias, the IAT, which fails to actually predict bias or even return consistent results (in short, it fails basic psychology tool standards). Implicit or explicit bias may well be the cause of these disparities, but we shouldn't punish skeptics as severely as we have been doing given the dearth of supporting evidence. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-tool-isnt-up-to-the-job.html http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/psychologys-racism-meas...
  - wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
    I can't see why you would be skeptical about bias given studies (not relying on IAT) showing that -- all else being equal -- people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks? The same goes with subtle class cues and identification. If IAT is broken, it's a broken tool. Not every bias test uses it. The idea that the media is pro-minority when we still have the media pissing themselves over kneeling in protest is silly. Also when Fox News is still watched by a significant portion of Americans. Also when the media constantly shows minorities in negative situations (yes, it's reporting, and information, but that creates biases as well). I mean it's easier to internalize a minority doing a violent crime as "terrible" than it is a white male embezzling funds or something. In addition, a few decades ago the story was not the same. The people who grew up then have developed a bias due to the media and the people who are raised by the people who grew up then will also internalize some of it. Discrimination is not something solved in a generation. EDIT: Edited my post a bit because I completely misread your comment.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
graeme 9y ago
You’re agreeing with the OP while acting angry and using a critical tone. This detracts from discussion. Please interpret remarks charitably.
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  There is no anger in the tone. People see it is angry and critical because they are upset by the opinion.
supercanuck 9y ago
OP used Latin to signal their intelligence, the assumption being they've already considered and ruled out sexism and racism, therefore there must be some other under-developed theory to explain the gap.
- cn8812 9y ago
  Where "under-developed" means: Not the party line propagated by some useless gender "study" department that has exactly zero clue about technology and the personal sacrifices necessary to be good at it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jrs95 9y ago
>developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions Some who make this argument (and I'm not necessarily saying you're in this camp) are essentially saying that "nerd culture" is some oppressive sexist force. That's sort of ironic given that it's basically a subculture formed by social rejects. There are of course aspects of workplace culture which do this, but an appreciation of science fiction and dungeons and dragons really shouldn't be on that list.
- KingMob 9y ago
  It's a bit ironic that SV nerds are dealing with rampant racial/gender issues, while NFL jocks are protesting for racial justice in policing. It's like all those 80's movies flipped the nerd/jock paradigm.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    That's how the media is portraying it of course, but I think if you took a step back and took a look at the general behavior of each group I don't think it would really hold up.
    - KingMob 9y ago
      Heh, true. Though when I take a step back, I find both groups still have a long way to go.
- Tyrek 9y ago
  Is it truly ironic? Most 'social reject' subcultures trend towards their own styles of conformity and in/out group determination, which can be as harsh or harsher than that of the mainstream. Should it really come as a surprise that nerd culture has taken the same path? Just consider anti-dress code, 'mandatory' code marathons, etc.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    Maybe this sort of thing is more of a problem in SV itdelf, but tech in Columbus OH isn't like this at all. Most accepting group of people I've known.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
0xcde4c3db 9y ago
> racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture One need not be white or male to be biased against people of color or women. It's probably easier for us to fall into those patterns, and historical patterns of deliberate oppression were undoubtedly a major factor in establishing those biases as dominant cultural patterns, but anyone can do it with a little extra effort to rationalize how they're "one of the good ones".
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  No, they don't. However, it would be rather silly to not acknowledge that the majority of people making these decisions are white and male.
Spivak 9y ago
This view is ridiculously out of touch with reality. What you're describing is borderline cartoonish levels of evil. You make it sound like white males get together with conferences to discuss new ways of oppressing people. The theory that explains this phenomenon needs to address how things still go wrong even when nobody has any dislike or prejudice.
- eropple 9y ago
  > You make it sound like white males get together with conferences to discuss new ways of oppressing people. Ahem. https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuc... As usual: it's worse than you think.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    If actually done some reading on white supremacists and from what I can see a great number of them are unemployed or on disability. That ones that are employed are never employed at a high level position. The FBI estimates them to be about 5000 in number. Your claim is effectively several thousand gas station attendants, grocery store shelf stockers and construction laborers control hiring across thousands of tech firms by some unknown mechanism. I seem to recall similar claims being made in Germany in 1939.
  - lucozade 9y ago
    > Of the 70 to 80 people in the lodge I don't think that's quite a quorum of white males. Maybe it clashed with "Up with the Patriarchy" bowling night?
- stale2002 9y ago
  > You make it sound like white males get together with conferences to discuss new ways of oppressing people. Yeah so... about that. Here is an article about someone infiltrating one such conference in Seattle that was literally full of white male mostly techies who were discussing different ways of doing that. http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck... Yeah, yeah... you'll probably point out that this was a only a couple hundred people, and thats very few when you compare it to the total population of seattle. And I'd mostly agree with that argument. But I just thought it was funny that one such conference just happened.
arkh 9y ago
For the rank and file of tech the problem can't be eliminated until more than 20% of the STEM pipeline is comprised of women. This means fighting sexism at the startup level is useless, you better encourage young people to get into science by making it sexy and not for social outcasts. If there is sexism to fight against it is in education with how maths and physics are painted as "for dorks" instead of showing how you do some crazy awesome things. For the management level you have two problems: - people tend to prefer people with technical baggage to handle technical teams. So you're back to the pipeline problem - for the exec level you usually get older people for established companies. So it is a question of time for things to get better: current execs are from 1 or 2 generations past. Once those generations are replaced they'll mechanically have more women, those who are currently in their late 30s and working on their career. You don't have a lot of 20ish men at those positions. For the startup founders you just need an idea, some seed money and time.
- ben_w 9y ago
  Disagree. Fight the problem at every level you encounter it. If startups are begging for more women, universities won’t be able to tolerate students or staff who discourage women from applying and/or finish their degrees.
  - Klockan 9y ago
    > If startups are begging for more women Why would they start doing that? Eliminating sexism just means that you don't have any bias, not that you suddenly see them as the next coming.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      Because they provide a valuable insight that is currently being systematically ignored, which can allow businesses to meaningful engage with and provide useful services to a currently poorly serviced market segment.
      - Klockan 9y ago
ben_w 9y ago
That’s not a priori, that’s given X, this follows. Had the dominant race been, say, Chinese, had the dominant sex been women, there is no reason to think the sexist and racist people would be behaving any differently than they are now. We still need to stop the racists and sexists. My personal short-term benefit from being in the “right” group comes at the hidden cost of 96.75%* of the world not being treated fairly or given tools that genuinely help them. * 6.25% of humans are “white”, according to wikipedia
kelukelugames 9y ago
You can't say "white males" on HN without getting slaughtered. I think a fairer way to phrase this is people with power discriminate. Consciously and unconsciously. Doesn't matter if they are white, non white, male, or female. We just happen to live in a society where most positions of power have been historically held by one group.
- eropple 9y ago
  > You can't say "white males" on HN without getting slaughtered. I say it pretty often, and I don't get "slaughtered". The commentariat here tends to be kinda gross at times (and, tbh, the proprietors should probably do something about it, but I kinda shrug at that one now) but the votes generally bear out that the crowd, at least, is reasonable.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
jmull 9y ago
> And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone. How so? Suppose everyone accepts this... then what? What do we do with this information to change things? I don't think racist and sexist white men are the problem. They exist, of course, and are a problem but that's not what's driving Silicon Valley's diversity issue. It's (1) the bias people have for entrusting people they understand and feel understand them and (2) the compounding opportunity gap various groups have. Further, casting the issue this way nearly precludes a solution since it attacks and alienates the people whose help you probably need to change things -- those very white men running so much of SV and so much of everything else. I guess it feels good to rage against the system, but in doing so you end up perpetuating and strengthening it.

wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
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xversilov 9y ago

There is no a priori reason that society feels comfortable acknowledging, but for anybody without those hangups, the reasons are actually quite obvious.

look_lookatme 9y ago
You are more than welcome to enlighten us.
jacalata 9y ago
Do explain.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ivraatiems 9y ago

> The criticism of Juicero and Theranos being emblematic of focusing on the wrong problems is not sensible. Companies fail, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes due to dishonest behavior, etc. If Theranos had the tech they claimed to have, it would have been richly rewarded (outshined only by the consumer surplus it would have created). The problem with Juciero and Theranos isn't that they failed. The problem with them is that Juciero was an immensely dumb idea that was never checked or questioned and thereby wasted tons of money, and Theranos was so unabashedly, obviously mustache-twirlingly evil that if it were used to script an evil corporation for TV, I'd have called it unrealistic (and thereby, it wasted tons of money). They're the worst parts of SV (dumb companies offering things nobody wants at outrageous prices, and obvious evil pretending things are OK because they're 'changing the world' or some other nonsense) exaggerated to near-comical extremes. Silicon Valley's problem is deeper than failing businesses or not enough diversity. It's that the entire enterprise is a bold-faced moneygrab for VCs; ethics, diversity, etc. were never really part of the point, and it's only now that the rest of the world is starting to figure that out. SV's problems are at the core of the reasons for its current existence.

Clubber 9y ago
>The problem with them is that Juciero was an immensely dumb idea that was never checked or questioned and thereby wasted tons of money Like bottled water. The idea of people paying 1600x markup for something they got essentially free while creating massive amounts of waste when sports bottles already existed. When bottled water came out, I remember thinking, "that's a friggin' joke." It sure worked out though.
- ivraatiems 9y ago
  There's a difference between ideas that seem dumb and ideas that are dumb. The problem is that Juciero was in the latter category. We didn't have to pour millions of dollars into it to figure that out; do you think the creators of bottled water spent anywhere near that much, or over-engineered their product half as crazily? Put another way, do you imagine that nobody at Nestle or wherever stood up and said "this is a dumb idea" when bottled water was being devised? And how would you imagine the creators of the idea answered that challenge?

eropple 9y ago

> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV The rise in income inequality is tied pretty directly to pervasive automation. Economic efficiency is not always social progress, especially when coupled with retrograde politics and social policy. We're not having "more leisure" or whatever because of it, we're having people ground to dust in worthless jobs because the computers are doing more and more. To that end, tech (and not just the Valley, but the Valley is a particularly visible and awfully smarmy representation of tech) probably should get more shade thrown at it than it does. > then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem Tech is doing no such thing. Tech is reifying capital, it is not trying to solve the problem on behalf of labor.

deleted 9y ago
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323454 9y ago
Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation, the offshoring of jobs that left huge numbers of people out of work and broke while making the owners and investors multiple times wealthier. Automation has played its role in generating inequality at times in history, but the wave we are currently experiencing is not predominantly due to automation: it is instead due to cheap and plentiful foreign labor.
- eropple 9y ago
  > Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation Which is caused by two major factors: easier shipping, easier communication--both of which the tech sector encourages, facilitates, and pushes forward. And yes, automation is a nontrivial part of wealth inequality's growth, especially over the last ten years rather than twenty--you don't move a secretary's job elsewhere, you destroy it. Capital requires fewer hands than ever before and enables further centralization of that capital--and this is direct fallout of automation making workers superfluous.
  - 9y ago

RodericDay 9y ago

The unwritten story of the Juicero debacle is that high income inequality causes capital to be misallocated towards luxury production. — Matt Bruenig, on a deleted Tweet

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV, and then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem as it proceeds to its logical extreme. The issue here is that many people feel SV's ideas of basic income will absolutely never work in the long-term. Heck, it will never work in this country period. We can't even socialize healthcare in this country, and those who collect unemployment are looked down upon. What makes you think basic income will ever become a reality? What makes you think a major political party wouldn't call those people freeloaders and work ceaselessly to remove those benefits if they are put in place? And what makes you think those millions of people being given subsidized, substandard, meaningless lives won't rise up against a system that has basically sucked as much productivity out of them that they could before abandoning them?

rtx 9y ago
America is already the biggest socialist country in the world.