7 ms·

If you don't mind me asking have you experienced any discrimination in tech because of your background or politics? I have friends that served and one of them m

If you don't mind me asking have you experienced any discrimination in tech because of your background or politics? I have friends that served and one of them moved to Dallas from S.V. because the politics there were hostile to vets. Thank you!

ryanmarsh 9y ago
I would say my experience has been the reverse. In Texas you can pretty much assume most folks support the troops and veterans. The only "discrimination" I've received as a vet was in SV. I don't know if you'd call it discrimination though, mainly just people disgusted with me (or horrified?) for fighting in "Bush's war". I had a woman just flat out turn on her heels and walk away from me upon mention of my service (I forget how it was related to the conversation). We were having a professional conversation at a conference. I've gotten looks of disgust from students (I teach various programming classes) when I tie something back to a lesson I learned in the military. Whatever. That stuff doesn't affect me. It's more a reflection on them than it is me.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  I think you and solotronics are in agreement. > one of them moved to Dallas from S.V. [emphasis added]
  - Rhinobird 9y ago
    Where is S.V.?
    - Jtsummers 9y ago
      Silicon Valley. Usually no dots between the letters like that but I was quoting another poster.
    - snerbles 9y ago
      Silicon Valley, located in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay. The Bay Area area is noted for anti-military sentiment, especially given the history of UC Berkeley during the time of the Vietnam War. Naturally, some of this spills over into anti-veteran bigotry.
      - at-fates-hands 9y ago
        Which is curious since a LOT of the technology they develop is done under gigantic government contracts. Apparently few people remember back in the 80's when the biggest SV employer was Lockheed Missiles and Space who developed weapons for the DOD. More recently you can point fingers at the complacency of Facebook, Google and Yahoo who were willing participants in the PRISM scandal.
        dba7dba 9y ago
        I mean internet WAS basically created by DARPA. The irony.
        closeparen 9y ago
        The WWII and Cold War technology arms race (in which Silicon Valley got its start) is intellectually interesting and easily justified by clear existential threats to our civilization, whose emotional content we we weren't around for. US foreign policy since then has been... murkier. I don't think the Bay Area really has a position on soldiers, so much as it opposes the current and previous few wars.
        ethbro 9y ago
        This was posted here, but worth a repost as you might be interested. Most SV VC money, traced back far enough, goes straight to DoD. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
- blackguardx 9y ago
  That is interesting. A lot of my family served in the military, including both my parents. I was under the impression that there was a complete 180 from the Vietnam era where people blamed draftees for serving. I thought there was enthusiastic support for individual soldiers, but overwhelming condemnation for the quagmire we face in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is crazy to me that people had negative reactions to your military experience. I think it points to a certain stratification of society that people would not have family members or friends in the military to help them empathize.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    The broad societal assault on vets is over. But it still happens in some areas and from some subgroups.
chrisseaton 9y ago
I've encountered some hostility when I've said I've been in the Army (I don't volunteer the information out of the blue - people ask me what I did before I did my PhD so I tell them). As the other person said, some people I've met at conferences have ended the conversation with me or told me they think it's immoral. One person at a major Ruby conference casually literally asked me if I enjoyed killing babies. Many people have the craziest ideas of what the military and war is like that have no connection whatsoever to reality. It's scary that civil society understands so little of the military now that it's so small and professional.
- aphextron 9y ago
  >It's scary that civil society understands so little of the military now that it's so small and professional. I'd say overall it's a good thing. It's a very good thing that 99% of people will never be able to remotely comprehend what we went through.
  - guelo 9y ago
    When a lot of more the population served in Vietnam the country turned against the war. Nowadays nobody seems to care that America's longest war continues on.
    - adventured 9y ago
      That's because they're not even remotely comparable things, as you note. Afghanistan is a security operation, not a traditional war. There's no draft, thousands of US soldiers aren't dying in Afghanistan. Even the cost is a modest fraction of the total US military budget. There were 15 US casualties in Afghanistan in 2017, and 14 in 2016. That's not a war. That's a security operation.
      - chrisseaton 9y ago
        > There were 15 US casualties in Afghanistan in 2017, and 14 in 2016. There were 15 US fatalities, not casualties. I'm sure there were many more casualties - many of them life changing injuries.
temptedQuestion 9y ago
It's interesting that Software Engineers here would discuss about the ethics of building mass surveillance software [1] but have no problem with people fighting in foreign lands to advance the interests of capitalism. Why blame Software Engineers for their role in enforcing the interests of the State when veterans get a free pass? Have we really become that hypocritic? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14219384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14219384
- dang 9y ago
  There's no reason to believe you're talking about the same "Software Engineers" in each case, so questions like this are meaningless and boil down to rhetoric. Different subgroups of people comment on different threads.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    Wow, that's a surprising comment to see and on multiple levels.
- solotronics 9y ago
  When you are a soldier you are required to follow your orders, a programmer is totally free to deny any project for personal reasons. The soldier is on some level a policy tool of the state determined by politicians. They can individually disagree but must carry out what the state decides, if the order is illegal they can deny it but the 'big picture' is all set high up.
aphextron 9y ago
I personally don't mention my military service at all on resumes or when interviewing. I have no problem talking about it otherwise, but it's simply too easy to be flagged by someone's bias in the hiring process.
watersb 9y ago
This topic deserves (at least) a top-level "Ask HN".
fapjacks 9y ago
The vast majority of people in the vast majority of companies are as reasonable as one would expect another human being to be. But there are some standout experiences I've had. I mean, this is definitely the exception and not the norm, but I was once told that I'm "not the right kind of diversity" by someone who actually worked in a diversity and inclusion working group. And then some people make some crazy assumptions when I tell them I was in the infantry for many years. I have interestingly been the target of a number of "jokes" about watching Fox News and supporting Trump, even though I'm actually strongly anti-authoritarian to a fault, and I want something like the Nordic model for the United States, and I supported Bernie Sanders in the last election. I just don't talk about politics at work, so people run wild with their assumptions. The hypocrisy runs deeeeep in the urban in-group left, man. I've honestly sometimes had an easier time talking about my time in service at Hippie Hill than I have in some tech companies. Of course this isn't information I'm eager to volunteer, obviously. But the conversation does come up sometimes, unfortunately. And this doesn't even begin to touch on the totally disconnected delusions some people have about what the world is like in a lot of places on this Earth (and throughout history). We are so lucky to live in the time and place we're living in, the majority of people reading this.

ryanmarsh 9y ago

I would say my experience has been the reverse. In Texas you can pretty much assume most folks support the troops and veterans. The only "discrimination" I've received as a vet was in SV. I don't know if you'd call it discrimination though, mainly just people disgusted with me (or horrified?) for fighting in "Bush's war". I had a woman just flat out turn on her heels and walk away from me upon mention of my service (I forget how it was related to the conversation). We were having a professional conversation at a conference. I've gotten looks of disgust from students (I teach various programming classes) when I tie something back to a lesson I learned in the military. Whatever. That stuff doesn't affect me. It's more a reflection on them than it is me.

Jtsummers 9y ago
I think you and solotronics are in agreement. > one of them moved to Dallas from S.V. [emphasis added]
- Rhinobird 9y ago
  Where is S.V.?
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    Silicon Valley. Usually no dots between the letters like that but I was quoting another poster.
  - snerbles 9y ago
    Silicon Valley, located in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay. The Bay Area area is noted for anti-military sentiment, especially given the history of UC Berkeley during the time of the Vietnam War. Naturally, some of this spills over into anti-veteran bigotry.
    - at-fates-hands 9y ago
      Which is curious since a LOT of the technology they develop is done under gigantic government contracts. Apparently few people remember back in the 80's when the biggest SV employer was Lockheed Missiles and Space who developed weapons for the DOD. More recently you can point fingers at the complacency of Facebook, Google and Yahoo who were willing participants in the PRISM scandal.
      - dba7dba 9y ago
        I mean internet WAS basically created by DARPA. The irony.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        The WWII and Cold War technology arms race (in which Silicon Valley got its start) is intellectually interesting and easily justified by clear existential threats to our civilization, whose emotional content we we weren't around for. US foreign policy since then has been... murkier. I don't think the Bay Area really has a position on soldiers, so much as it opposes the current and previous few wars.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        This was posted here, but worth a repost as you might be interested. Most SV VC money, traced back far enough, goes straight to DoD. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
blackguardx 9y ago
That is interesting. A lot of my family served in the military, including both my parents. I was under the impression that there was a complete 180 from the Vietnam era where people blamed draftees for serving. I thought there was enthusiastic support for individual soldiers, but overwhelming condemnation for the quagmire we face in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is crazy to me that people had negative reactions to your military experience. I think it points to a certain stratification of society that people would not have family members or friends in the military to help them empathize.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  The broad societal assault on vets is over. But it still happens in some areas and from some subgroups.

chrisseaton 9y ago

I've encountered some hostility when I've said I've been in the Army (I don't volunteer the information out of the blue - people ask me what I did before I did my PhD so I tell them). As the other person said, some people I've met at conferences have ended the conversation with me or told me they think it's immoral. One person at a major Ruby conference casually literally asked me if I enjoyed killing babies. Many people have the craziest ideas of what the military and war is like that have no connection whatsoever to reality. It's scary that civil society understands so little of the military now that it's so small and professional.

aphextron 9y ago
>It's scary that civil society understands so little of the military now that it's so small and professional. I'd say overall it's a good thing. It's a very good thing that 99% of people will never be able to remotely comprehend what we went through.
- guelo 9y ago
  When a lot of more the population served in Vietnam the country turned against the war. Nowadays nobody seems to care that America's longest war continues on.
  - adventured 9y ago
    That's because they're not even remotely comparable things, as you note. Afghanistan is a security operation, not a traditional war. There's no draft, thousands of US soldiers aren't dying in Afghanistan. Even the cost is a modest fraction of the total US military budget. There were 15 US casualties in Afghanistan in 2017, and 14 in 2016. That's not a war. That's a security operation.
    - chrisseaton 9y ago
      > There were 15 US casualties in Afghanistan in 2017, and 14 in 2016. There were 15 US fatalities, not casualties. I'm sure there were many more casualties - many of them life changing injuries.

temptedQuestion 9y ago

It's interesting that Software Engineers here would discuss about the ethics of building mass surveillance software [1] but have no problem with people fighting in foreign lands to advance the interests of capitalism. Why blame Software Engineers for their role in enforcing the interests of the State when veterans get a free pass? Have we really become that hypocritic? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14219384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14219384

dang 9y ago
There's no reason to believe you're talking about the same "Software Engineers" in each case, so questions like this are meaningless and boil down to rhetoric. Different subgroups of people comment on different threads.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  Wow, that's a surprising comment to see and on multiple levels.
solotronics 9y ago
When you are a soldier you are required to follow your orders, a programmer is totally free to deny any project for personal reasons. The soldier is on some level a policy tool of the state determined by politicians. They can individually disagree but must carry out what the state decides, if the order is illegal they can deny it but the 'big picture' is all set high up.

aphextron 9y ago

I personally don't mention my military service at all on resumes or when interviewing. I have no problem talking about it otherwise, but it's simply too easy to be flagged by someone's bias in the hiring process.

watersb 9y ago

This topic deserves (at least) a top-level "Ask HN".

fapjacks 9y ago

The vast majority of people in the vast majority of companies are as reasonable as one would expect another human being to be. But there are some standout experiences I've had. I mean, this is definitely the exception and not the norm, but I was once told that I'm "not the right kind of diversity" by someone who actually worked in a diversity and inclusion working group. And then some people make some crazy assumptions when I tell them I was in the infantry for many years. I have interestingly been the target of a number of "jokes" about watching Fox News and supporting Trump, even though I'm actually strongly anti-authoritarian to a fault, and I want something like the Nordic model for the United States, and I supported Bernie Sanders in the last election. I just don't talk about politics at work, so people run wild with their assumptions. The hypocrisy runs deeeeep in the urban in-group left, man. I've honestly sometimes had an easier time talking about my time in service at Hippie Hill than I have in some tech companies. Of course this isn't information I'm eager to volunteer, obviously. But the conversation does come up sometimes, unfortunately. And this doesn't even begin to touch on the totally disconnected delusions some people have about what the world is like in a lot of places on this Earth (and throughout history). We are so lucky to live in the time and place we're living in, the majority of people reading this.