14 ms·

This reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today. It's well known that men generally are stagnating economically, while women are catching up. I

This reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today. It's well known that men generally are stagnating economically, while women are catching up. In many metro areas, single women out earn single men. And so I came across this paper[0], which had some interesting research about that. And what struck me was this: there's an explicit assumption that men have worse socio-emotional skills than women, and that can be used to explain the gap. By itself, I don't take any issue with it. It's true. But if you turned it around and explained the CS gap starting from the assumption that men are disproportionately represented among the upper levels of spatial and mathematical abstraction skills, there'd be an uproar. Petitions would be signed, scalps would be taken. I say that as someone who thinks much of those differences can be explained by childhood socialization. And you're not even allowed to talk about it. I'm hesitant to post this comment, for fear someone might hunt me down and dox me to my employer. (Even now, I ponder if I should be making a throwaway account.) In real life, I had been willing to have conversations about this because I find it an interesting and nuanced topic. But now both sides have taken to treating anyone who doesn't take a stance of complete agreement with their respective ideologies as the Enemy. It's creating a class of people who know just to shut up and withdraw from any discussion about the topic, because there's clearly no good that can come from it, either socially or professionally. Even academics. And I genuinely don't get why anyone would want that. [0] http://www.nber.org/papers/w24274 http://www.nber.org/papers/w24274

psyc 9y ago
Lest we forget, it isn't only charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore who get thrown under a tank for daring to speak 'out of turn' wrt the social justice narrative. Just two hours ago, I happened to re-read the various vicious hit pieces written about Paul Graham several years ago, after he had the gall to speak his mind about representation. These are the times. Everywhere I look online, it's men vs. women, black vs. white. To paraphrase Yudkowsky, "Arguments are soldiers, this is war, and it's life or death." This account began as a throwaway. I used to comment with my real name, in the days before the war broke out. In the days when pg used to comment here regularly. The days when, if someone disagreed with you, they'd tell you so, or why you're wrong, or maybe that you're a dumb-dumb. Now, if you don't follow approved talking points in your social media communiqués, you're in real danger of being pilloried, and - as these things go - you're more likely to be attacked by fellow members of the party. I've identified as left-leaning my entire life, but I've never for a moment feared this sort of personal sabotage from a right-leaning person. This is a pursuit of ideological purity at any cost.
- rayiner 9y ago
  Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.
  - anon12345690 9y ago
    Screed? It was a simple memo, something that he meant for a few people and had shared internally for months before it became so widely misunderstood. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome. Also, Google even agrees with him: https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552 https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552 "Did I read this right? Susan Wojicicki said that women find “geeky male industries” (as opposed to “social industries”) “not very interesting” and Sundar cites research on gender differences."
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      Nothing outright false, but that was the major problem with it. Just because you aren't obviously wrong and you safecheck yourself with facts doesn't mean you are actually correct in your assessment. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome I agree with OP that this difference in interests is probably socialized. Men and women are very obviously socialized differently, not to mention at many places (tech companies especially), the social atmosphere is one that favors men (boys) with keggers and nerf guns. Damore's memo isn't very convincing from that perspective, because if the difference can be explain by 20 years of socialization, it can also be changed, and Damore's argument seemed to be based upon some inherent difference between the sexes and his solutions predicated on that assumption. Then again, not really sure exactly what he was arguing because it was meandering. It's been argued to death at this point, but it genuinely surprises me that people find his poorly sourced memo (or whatever you want to call it) as the centerpiece for this topic. With that as the starting point, no wonder the discussion is garbage. The people who support viewpoints like Damore's should aim higher because it is not helping their case. To give a more complete answer, here's a section from his memo: De-emphasize empathy. I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts. There are multiple claims there. He does refer to a blog post, but reading that, do you have any clue what that blog post may be about or how it applies to his argument?
montyf 9y ago
Agreed. While we still legally have freedom of speech, the real-life ramifications for speaking your mind can be enormous these days. Try being an outspoken Trump supporter in the tech bubble and see what happens. That's why I exclusively engage in internet discourse using pseudonyms like this one. When I was growing up, it was common sense that you don't use your real name on the internet. Now people have surrendered common sense to the social media companies and happily (and ignorantly) identify themselves in their posts, comments, tweets, blogs, etc. Many of them have suffered drastic consequences for doing so.
- ghaff 9y ago
  >When I was growing up, it was common sense that you don't use your real name on the internet. That may have been true in some circles and at some times, but in early (especially pre-Web) Internet days when it was primarily academic along with some early tech companies, true names were definitely the norm. For BBSs and the like, it varied. For hacker sites and the like anonymity/pseudonymity was certainly common but for more mainstream discussion boards, lots of people used their real names. We even had IRL get togethers.
dmichulke 9y ago
FWIW, I often read about these PC-related things in the US (and sometimes Canada). Much less so in Europe, although they start playing catch-up with their new hate speech laws. As a German I can (mostly) speak my mind about men vs women, the only minefield there is IMO (remotely) Nazi-related stuff, e.g., try to criticize Israel foreign policy or mass immigration.
- bitL 9y ago
  Germany is usually roughly 5 years behind US in social trends or tech, so it's coming soon.
  - ahartmetz 9y ago
    I think 5 years is too long especially for tech, and there are things that are and will stay different. Otherwise Germany would be almost exactly like the US now, which it isn't.
    - bitL 9y ago
      I am not so optimistic; Big Data craze started in the US like 8 years ago, whereas in Germany it's in the past 2 years; Machine/Deep Learning is also only fringe, with most "Data Science" positions focused on classical (i.e. not really good) machine learning and Deep Learning is almost non-existent in the market. Only cars are years ahead of US. There is a significant latency in Germany in tech.
    - monksy 9y ago
      For that Germany doesn't really focus on innovation in technology. They tend to like to outsource development to eastern Europe. (That's depressed salaries) Any good developer in Germany is going to silicon valley instead.
      - xyzzyz 9y ago
        No, that's not how it works. Germans outsource labor to eastern Europe, not development. They are hugely innovative, and responsible for lots of advancements in technology, in industrial automation, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, pharmaceutics and more. It's just they are not hugely innovative in JavaScript frameworks, which is what counts for "technology" on HN.
rayiner 9y ago
> starting from the assumption that men are disproportionately represented among the upper levels of spatial and mathematical abstraction skills, there'd be an uproar I’ve mentioned it repeatedly on HN and have never so much as gotten a rise out of anyone. (I should also point out that the SAT folks publish a detailed report on SAT gender differences each year and nobody blinks an eye.) The problem is that it doesn’t explain the disparity in STEM—it cuts against it. Men outrepresent women about 2:1 among perfect SAT Math scores. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this represents a real difference in mathematical ability. Even if programming ability were 100% correlated with mathematical ability, you’d expect a much higher ratio than you see in practice. That is strong evidence that women are kept out of STEM for other reasons. Beyond that (1) the pool of programmers isn’t just people with perfect SAT scores—the representation gap rapidly disappears as you go from top 0.5% to top 5%; (2) professions leverage other competencies too. The same 2:1 difference shows up in the top percentile of the LSAT and MCAT, but those fields are more gender balanced because women applicants tend to have better college GPAs. Anecdotally: I went to a competitive admissions STEM high school, where admissions is gender blind and based heavily on an SAT-like test. The ratio was about 60:40 boys, about what you’d expect from the required testing percentiles. CS was required for all students so it is gender balanced. But APCS was overwhelmingly boys, not because it was full of the best math minds, but I suspect because we’d play DOOM if we got our assignments done early.
- BlackFly 9y ago
  > Men outrepresent women about 2:1 among perfect SAT Math scores. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this represents a real difference in mathematical ability. Even if programming ability were 100% correlated with mathematical ability, you’d expect a much higher ratio than you see in practice. That doesn't follow for reasons explained in the article. Choice of whether to go into sciences over humanities isn't correlated with just science ability in school, it is correlated with relative ability between science and reading. The 2:1 ratio tells you precisely nothing about expected ratios of entrance into science programs until you compare it with the performance ratio on the English portion (assuming here, I don't know anything about SATs) of the SATs.
  - 9y ago
barrkel 9y ago
There's a war on right now, and it's increasingly vicious. Competitive victimhood is how you spot it - a relishing of both a sense of being aggrieved, and rejoicing in public humiliation and punishment of the perceived oppressor. I stay well away from it too. In fact I fear simply writing this comment. On Twitter, I've taken to unfollowing people who repeatedly retweet threads that have turned into piling-on contests built on a shaky foundation - the uncritical joining of a mob to throw stones at the perceived oppressor is especially worrying when a closer examination shows nuances that don't justify mob justice even in an emotional sense.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  Check out Nietzsche's concept of slave morality...the way I see it now is that the various slave moralities are battling it out to see which one will be the dominant one...from that perspective it becomes kind of interesting and entertaining so watch the "Oppression Olympics"...who will win the Gold? Will it be women, or perhaps Black women, or maybe LGBTQLMNOP Iranians...who will win? Stay tuned...sponsored by GirlDevelopIt
snikeris 9y ago
This episode of the Joe Rogan podcast w/ Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein touches on similar issues (among other things) and discusses why it's still important to have discussions like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI
- js8 9y ago
  The one with Steven Pinker is also good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUDAdOdF6Zg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUDAdOdF6Zg
Caveman_Coder 9y ago
It reminds me of the master-slave morality that Nietzsche wrote about. Unable to compete by the current rules of the game (master morality), minorities/women have adopted a new set of rules by which they judge people (slave morality), and that is seen by the weird "Oppression Olympics" we see playing out right now by the "oppressed" groups on the left [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_morality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_morality
hackerbrother 9y ago
I think it is well-known that men as a group have more degrees and education in STEM fields, have higher numbers in STEM careers, and perform better in the subjects according to testing measures. As you say, it is also well-known that we view women as better adjusted socially. And as you say, it can be taboo to make this point. I think when making this point, the important thing to realize or clarify is that it doesn't have to be this way! There is no reason to think that women will necessarily not take to mathematics or that men will necessarily be socially stunted. We can create better environments for children so that both issues can improve. I think part of the taboo about making your point stems from a fear of a biological-determinism argument about math ability. Which may not always be the case.
D3nTe 9y ago
Unfortunately it applies to almost every topic now. It seems like you can't have a nuanced opinion on anything, you're either pro or anti, right or left. In the end the people with an actual opinion and interesting things to say don't talk, and the idiots throwing bullshit around scream louder and louder.
mhb 9y ago
We All Live on Campus Now: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-campus-now.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-...
tessierashpool 9y ago
there’d be an uproar because it’s been extensively debunked and people keep saying it anyway.
- fleetingmoments 9y ago
  No it hasn't.
fhood 9y ago
Implying that women are worse (upbringing related or not) at spatial and mathematical abstraction skills is taboo for the exact same reason that saying the same about black people is. Making these claims simply adds hurdles for an already disadvantaged group. When claims like this get made it acts as subconscious, or even conscious, justification for the biases of some of the readers/listeners. I.e. simply making the claim adds to the problem. I agree that this isn't fair, but worrying about that is selfish. It is perfectly acceptable to attempt to formulate solutions based on these beliefs, but vocalizing the the beliefs rather than the solutions in public is harmful. Regardless, arguments that present this logic feel like a desperate attempt to shunt responsibility to someone else. Women used to be well represented in computer science. This is no longer true, and I suspect that the blame for that lies all over the spectrum.
lgleason 9y ago
Unfortunately, even if you are one of the under-represented people, discourse that does not fit into the narrative is met with open hostility in this new world we live in. A great example of that is what this women experienced https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-clothes-the-dark-underbelly-of-women-who-code-and-google-women-techmakers-723be27a45df https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-cloth...
itsmenotyou 9y ago
I think the idea that people are being silenced from discussing the issue honestly is totally disingenuous. I see far more posts from people on HN about not being able to discuss the issue than I do posts actually trying to discuss the issue. I don't think I've ever seen people shut down for expressing reasonable if contentious opinions, yet somehow everyone has this idea that there can't be a reasonable discussion about it. Yes the discussion may be heated, and some more extreme viewpoints should justifiably be considered beyond the pale, but that doesn't explain the level of paranoia I see around here. The effect of this is to reframe the debate from the actual issue at hand, into a debate about how we discuss it. The way we discuss it does matter, but the level of attention that gets around here feels like bikeshedding.
- scarmig 9y ago
  I know for a fact that I, and several other people, remove ourselves from all in-life discussion of this topic because of fear of economic and social repercussions. Is that not "silencing" (your word) because you think we are irrational and everyone can discuss reasonable points of view without reprisal? Or is it not silencing because we choose to remove ourselves from the conversation?
- psyc 9y ago
  You seem to be saying it's not a big problem on Hacker News. I would agree with that. Most people, including you and I, post pseudonymously here. Many people create throwaway accounts in order to post anything political. Furthermore, social justice people consider Hacker News to be the preeminent example of toxic-masculine tech.
- ybroze 9y ago
  I'm certainly a datapoint for feeling unable to speak about my opinions (n=1).
oh_sigh 9y ago
I wonder if the 'men have worse socio-emotional skills' idea can at least partially explain the male/female divide in CS? Right now we take men as the baseline, and say that women are underrepresented. But what if it is men that are over represented, because for whatever reason they are drawn to computers(more so than women) because of some lacking social skill?
nezzle 9y ago
This isn't about gender, race, political affiliation, or whatever attribute you use to separate people into 'us' and 'them'. This is about bullies and assholes. Bullies and assholes come in every race and creed. The thing about male/female chauvinists is that they're actually the same! A male chauvinist, born as a female, would still be a chauvinist. They have everything in common. They're the same asshole bully. They are the enemy. We need to make a stand against assholes whether they identify with us or not, and stop letting the actions of assholes who identify with us cause us to sit by and tolerate further discrimination and bullying. My 'us' and 'them' is whether you discriminate against people. Freedom from discrimination is a human right. You don't fix discrimination with discrimination - you only perpetuate it. I'm tired of the assholes running everything.

psyc 9y ago

Lest we forget, it isn't only charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore who get thrown under a tank for daring to speak 'out of turn' wrt the social justice narrative. Just two hours ago, I happened to re-read the various vicious hit pieces written about Paul Graham several years ago, after he had the gall to speak his mind about representation. These are the times. Everywhere I look online, it's men vs. women, black vs. white. To paraphrase Yudkowsky, "Arguments are soldiers, this is war, and it's life or death." This account began as a throwaway. I used to comment with my real name, in the days before the war broke out. In the days when pg used to comment here regularly. The days when, if someone disagreed with you, they'd tell you so, or why you're wrong, or maybe that you're a dumb-dumb. Now, if you don't follow approved talking points in your social media communiqués, you're in real danger of being pilloried, and - as these things go - you're more likely to be attacked by fellow members of the party. I've identified as left-leaning my entire life, but I've never for a moment feared this sort of personal sabotage from a right-leaning person. This is a pursuit of ideological purity at any cost.

rayiner 9y ago
Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.
- anon12345690 9y ago
  Screed? It was a simple memo, something that he meant for a few people and had shared internally for months before it became so widely misunderstood. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome. Also, Google even agrees with him: https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552 https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552 "Did I read this right? Susan Wojicicki said that women find “geeky male industries” (as opposed to “social industries”) “not very interesting” and Sundar cites research on gender differences."
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Nothing outright false, but that was the major problem with it. Just because you aren't obviously wrong and you safecheck yourself with facts doesn't mean you are actually correct in your assessment. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome I agree with OP that this difference in interests is probably socialized. Men and women are very obviously socialized differently, not to mention at many places (tech companies especially), the social atmosphere is one that favors men (boys) with keggers and nerf guns. Damore's memo isn't very convincing from that perspective, because if the difference can be explain by 20 years of socialization, it can also be changed, and Damore's argument seemed to be based upon some inherent difference between the sexes and his solutions predicated on that assumption. Then again, not really sure exactly what he was arguing because it was meandering. It's been argued to death at this point, but it genuinely surprises me that people find his poorly sourced memo (or whatever you want to call it) as the centerpiece for this topic. With that as the starting point, no wonder the discussion is garbage. The people who support viewpoints like Damore's should aim higher because it is not helping their case. To give a more complete answer, here's a section from his memo: De-emphasize empathy. I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts. There are multiple claims there. He does refer to a blog post, but reading that, do you have any clue what that blog post may be about or how it applies to his argument?

montyf 9y ago

Agreed. While we still legally have freedom of speech, the real-life ramifications for speaking your mind can be enormous these days. Try being an outspoken Trump supporter in the tech bubble and see what happens. That's why I exclusively engage in internet discourse using pseudonyms like this one. When I was growing up, it was common sense that you don't use your real name on the internet. Now people have surrendered common sense to the social media companies and happily (and ignorantly) identify themselves in their posts, comments, tweets, blogs, etc. Many of them have suffered drastic consequences for doing so.

ghaff 9y ago
>When I was growing up, it was common sense that you don't use your real name on the internet. That may have been true in some circles and at some times, but in early (especially pre-Web) Internet days when it was primarily academic along with some early tech companies, true names were definitely the norm. For BBSs and the like, it varied. For hacker sites and the like anonymity/pseudonymity was certainly common but for more mainstream discussion boards, lots of people used their real names. We even had IRL get togethers.

dmichulke 9y ago

FWIW, I often read about these PC-related things in the US (and sometimes Canada). Much less so in Europe, although they start playing catch-up with their new hate speech laws. As a German I can (mostly) speak my mind about men vs women, the only minefield there is IMO (remotely) Nazi-related stuff, e.g., try to criticize Israel foreign policy or mass immigration.

bitL 9y ago
Germany is usually roughly 5 years behind US in social trends or tech, so it's coming soon.
- ahartmetz 9y ago
  I think 5 years is too long especially for tech, and there are things that are and will stay different. Otherwise Germany would be almost exactly like the US now, which it isn't.
  - bitL 9y ago
    I am not so optimistic; Big Data craze started in the US like 8 years ago, whereas in Germany it's in the past 2 years; Machine/Deep Learning is also only fringe, with most "Data Science" positions focused on classical (i.e. not really good) machine learning and Deep Learning is almost non-existent in the market. Only cars are years ahead of US. There is a significant latency in Germany in tech.
  - monksy 9y ago
    For that Germany doesn't really focus on innovation in technology. They tend to like to outsource development to eastern Europe. (That's depressed salaries) Any good developer in Germany is going to silicon valley instead.
    - xyzzyz 9y ago
      No, that's not how it works. Germans outsource labor to eastern Europe, not development. They are hugely innovative, and responsible for lots of advancements in technology, in industrial automation, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, pharmaceutics and more. It's just they are not hugely innovative in JavaScript frameworks, which is what counts for "technology" on HN.

rayiner 9y ago

> starting from the assumption that men are disproportionately represented among the upper levels of spatial and mathematical abstraction skills, there'd be an uproar I’ve mentioned it repeatedly on HN and have never so much as gotten a rise out of anyone. (I should also point out that the SAT folks publish a detailed report on SAT gender differences each year and nobody blinks an eye.) The problem is that it doesn’t explain the disparity in STEM—it cuts against it. Men outrepresent women about 2:1 among perfect SAT Math scores. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this represents a real difference in mathematical ability. Even if programming ability were 100% correlated with mathematical ability, you’d expect a much higher ratio than you see in practice. That is strong evidence that women are kept out of STEM for other reasons. Beyond that (1) the pool of programmers isn’t just people with perfect SAT scores—the representation gap rapidly disappears as you go from top 0.5% to top 5%; (2) professions leverage other competencies too. The same 2:1 difference shows up in the top percentile of the LSAT and MCAT, but those fields are more gender balanced because women applicants tend to have better college GPAs. Anecdotally: I went to a competitive admissions STEM high school, where admissions is gender blind and based heavily on an SAT-like test. The ratio was about 60:40 boys, about what you’d expect from the required testing percentiles. CS was required for all students so it is gender balanced. But APCS was overwhelmingly boys, not because it was full of the best math minds, but I suspect because we’d play DOOM if we got our assignments done early.

BlackFly 9y ago
> Men outrepresent women about 2:1 among perfect SAT Math scores. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this represents a real difference in mathematical ability. Even if programming ability were 100% correlated with mathematical ability, you’d expect a much higher ratio than you see in practice. That doesn't follow for reasons explained in the article. Choice of whether to go into sciences over humanities isn't correlated with just science ability in school, it is correlated with relative ability between science and reading. The 2:1 ratio tells you precisely nothing about expected ratios of entrance into science programs until you compare it with the performance ratio on the English portion (assuming here, I don't know anything about SATs) of the SATs.
- 9y ago

barrkel 9y ago

There's a war on right now, and it's increasingly vicious. Competitive victimhood is how you spot it - a relishing of both a sense of being aggrieved, and rejoicing in public humiliation and punishment of the perceived oppressor. I stay well away from it too. In fact I fear simply writing this comment. On Twitter, I've taken to unfollowing people who repeatedly retweet threads that have turned into piling-on contests built on a shaky foundation - the uncritical joining of a mob to throw stones at the perceived oppressor is especially worrying when a closer examination shows nuances that don't justify mob justice even in an emotional sense.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
Check out Nietzsche's concept of slave morality...the way I see it now is that the various slave moralities are battling it out to see which one will be the dominant one...from that perspective it becomes kind of interesting and entertaining so watch the "Oppression Olympics"...who will win the Gold? Will it be women, or perhaps Black women, or maybe LGBTQLMNOP Iranians...who will win? Stay tuned...sponsored by GirlDevelopIt

snikeris 9y ago

This episode of the Joe Rogan podcast w/ Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein touches on similar issues (among other things) and discusses why it's still important to have discussions like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI

js8 9y ago
The one with Steven Pinker is also good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUDAdOdF6Zg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUDAdOdF6Zg

Caveman_Coder 9y ago

It reminds me of the master-slave morality that Nietzsche wrote about. Unable to compete by the current rules of the game (master morality), minorities/women have adopted a new set of rules by which they judge people (slave morality), and that is seen by the weird "Oppression Olympics" we see playing out right now by the "oppressed" groups on the left [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_morality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_morality

hackerbrother 9y ago

I think it is well-known that men as a group have more degrees and education in STEM fields, have higher numbers in STEM careers, and perform better in the subjects according to testing measures. As you say, it is also well-known that we view women as better adjusted socially. And as you say, it can be taboo to make this point. I think when making this point, the important thing to realize or clarify is that it doesn't have to be this way! There is no reason to think that women will necessarily not take to mathematics or that men will necessarily be socially stunted. We can create better environments for children so that both issues can improve. I think part of the taboo about making your point stems from a fear of a biological-determinism argument about math ability. Which may not always be the case.

D3nTe 9y ago

Unfortunately it applies to almost every topic now. It seems like you can't have a nuanced opinion on anything, you're either pro or anti, right or left. In the end the people with an actual opinion and interesting things to say don't talk, and the idiots throwing bullshit around scream louder and louder.

mhb 9y ago

We All Live on Campus Now: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-campus-now.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-...

tessierashpool 9y ago

there’d be an uproar because it’s been extensively debunked and people keep saying it anyway.

fleetingmoments 9y ago
No it hasn't.

fhood 9y ago

Implying that women are worse (upbringing related or not) at spatial and mathematical abstraction skills is taboo for the exact same reason that saying the same about black people is. Making these claims simply adds hurdles for an already disadvantaged group. When claims like this get made it acts as subconscious, or even conscious, justification for the biases of some of the readers/listeners. I.e. simply making the claim adds to the problem. I agree that this isn't fair, but worrying about that is selfish. It is perfectly acceptable to attempt to formulate solutions based on these beliefs, but vocalizing the the beliefs rather than the solutions in public is harmful. Regardless, arguments that present this logic feel like a desperate attempt to shunt responsibility to someone else. Women used to be well represented in computer science. This is no longer true, and I suspect that the blame for that lies all over the spectrum.

lgleason 9y ago

Unfortunately, even if you are one of the under-represented people, discourse that does not fit into the narrative is met with open hostility in this new world we live in. A great example of that is what this women experienced https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-clothes-the-dark-underbelly-of-women-who-code-and-google-women-techmakers-723be27a45df https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-cloth...

itsmenotyou 9y ago

I think the idea that people are being silenced from discussing the issue honestly is totally disingenuous. I see far more posts from people on HN about not being able to discuss the issue than I do posts actually trying to discuss the issue. I don't think I've ever seen people shut down for expressing reasonable if contentious opinions, yet somehow everyone has this idea that there can't be a reasonable discussion about it. Yes the discussion may be heated, and some more extreme viewpoints should justifiably be considered beyond the pale, but that doesn't explain the level of paranoia I see around here. The effect of this is to reframe the debate from the actual issue at hand, into a debate about how we discuss it. The way we discuss it does matter, but the level of attention that gets around here feels like bikeshedding.

scarmig 9y ago
I know for a fact that I, and several other people, remove ourselves from all in-life discussion of this topic because of fear of economic and social repercussions. Is that not "silencing" (your word) because you think we are irrational and everyone can discuss reasonable points of view without reprisal? Or is it not silencing because we choose to remove ourselves from the conversation?
psyc 9y ago
You seem to be saying it's not a big problem on Hacker News. I would agree with that. Most people, including you and I, post pseudonymously here. Many people create throwaway accounts in order to post anything political. Furthermore, social justice people consider Hacker News to be the preeminent example of toxic-masculine tech.
ybroze 9y ago
I'm certainly a datapoint for feeling unable to speak about my opinions (n=1).

oh_sigh 9y ago

I wonder if the 'men have worse socio-emotional skills' idea can at least partially explain the male/female divide in CS? Right now we take men as the baseline, and say that women are underrepresented. But what if it is men that are over represented, because for whatever reason they are drawn to computers(more so than women) because of some lacking social skill?

nezzle 9y ago

This isn't about gender, race, political affiliation, or whatever attribute you use to separate people into 'us' and 'them'. This is about bullies and assholes. Bullies and assholes come in every race and creed. The thing about male/female chauvinists is that they're actually the same! A male chauvinist, born as a female, would still be a chauvinist. They have everything in common. They're the same asshole bully. They are the enemy. We need to make a stand against assholes whether they identify with us or not, and stop letting the actions of assholes who identify with us cause us to sit by and tolerate further discrimination and bullying. My 'us' and 'them' is whether you discriminate against people. Freedom from discrimination is a human right. You don't fix discrimination with discrimination - you only perpetuate it. I'm tired of the assholes running everything.