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> you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language They wrote "Which one is easy?" when they meant to write "Which one is easiest?"

> you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language They wrote "Which one is easy?" when they meant to write "Which one is easiest?" or perhaps "easier". Given that, I certainly assumed English wasn't their first language. I honestly thought I was improving matters by leading with the possibility that English wasn't their first language, in order to avoid it seeming that non-English speakers were being battered for a mistake. I'm interested you perceived that as impolite or disingenuous; it wasn't the latter, although in retrospect, and given my priors, a semi-literate native English speaker is a distinct possibility. > Are you disappointed because ...people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Yes, this. It seems we just disagree. You may be right that I am overstating the case regarding all gender-specific language being "unacceptable", but on reading this particular example, my immediate reaction, which has not weakened in the ensuing discussion, is that it is entirely inappropriate. Perhaps I'm failing to recognize a nuance or finer distinction whereby I place this example in a different category from certain other examples of he/him. I didn't think it was the subject matter context, although that is worth noting. I.e. that the male-gendered language here hardly helps the undeniably undesirable proportions of men and women in technical roles.

Zababa 5y ago
That may just be my experience online but generally outside of extreme example (in which I wouldn't include the original post), there is usually almost no correlation between the quality of English of one person and English being his first language or not. Again in my online experience, implying that someone isn't a native speaker is generally considered rude. That may just be a difference in our social circles, or me being in the minority though. I think there is a difference between "This is not how you should speak English the language", and "The way you say things doesn't improve or even worsen the current proportions of men and women in tech.". I agree that we disagree on one point: I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. But if there is a ratio that's perfectly representative of the population and discrimination still exists, it isn't fine for me. Outside of our differences in views, you're pushing a certain view of things and certain values, and not everyone might agree with this. A few people probably expressed that by a silent downvote. Some people may also think that you're derailling the conversation. A common response to that is that these kind of issues are really important and are always on topic, but not everyone agrees with this.
- da39a3ee 5y ago
  OK, well we've already derailed it so let's continue :) > I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. I think I can make you see that you don't actually hold that position. Consider the following hypothetical world: (1) From the age of 8, all girls are encouraged (by schools, family, and the rest of the cultural environment) to view their role in life as to have children and to eschew all intellectual activities. Girls who want to pursue academic interests are unhappy but nevertheless follow the societal pressure. (2) From the age of 8, all boys are encouraged that their role in life is to study academic subjects with a view to making the world a better place. Now fast forwards to considering technical roles in the adult workplace in this hypothetical world. There will clearly be a huge disparity in representation of the sexes, and this remains true if we posit zero discrimination. And yet, despite the absence of discrimination, the state of this world is clearly "undesirable": young women are being treated awfully and their ambitions are being utterly thwarted by what's happening when they are young. So in fact, many possible versions of our universe exist in which a highly skewed numerical proportion itself is undesirable, because it indicates that something is wrong. Since we do not know a priori which version of the universe we are in (we are not omniscient; this is an inference problem), we acknowledge that, having eliminated discrimination, numerical proportions far from the biological 50:50 are undesirable in that they are statistically associated with regions of parameter space that describe undesirable societal/cultural processes.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I don't understand. On one hand you said that there is zero discrimination, on the other that "From the age of 8, all girls are encouraged (by schools, family, and the rest of the cultural environment) to view their role in life as to have children and to eschew all intellectual activities. Girls who want to pursue academic interests are unhappy but nevertheless follow the societal pressure.". Those two can't coexist together. "societal pressure" is an example of discrimination. Young women being treated awfully and their ambition being utterly thwarted is discrimination. I'll concede that I only said "in tech", and you could argue that in your hypothetical world the pressure/discrimination is here before tech. So I'll change my position from "If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me." to "If society becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in tech, it's totally fine for me." to account for that. > Since we do not know a priori which version of the universe we are in (we are not omniscient; this is an inference problem), we acknowledge that, having eliminated discrimination, numerical proportions far from the biological 50:50 are undesirable in that they are statistically associated with regions of parameter space that describe undesirable societal/cultural processes. Would you apply the same reasoning to prisons then? I'm genuinly asking here. I often use prisons as an example against people that promote quotas and ratios, since at this point most of them try to explain how this is totally different and has nothing to do with wanting rations close to 50:50 in other domains. So I'm curious about your views on gender equality in prisons.

Zababa 5y ago

That may just be my experience online but generally outside of extreme example (in which I wouldn't include the original post), there is usually almost no correlation between the quality of English of one person and English being his first language or not. Again in my online experience, implying that someone isn't a native speaker is generally considered rude. That may just be a difference in our social circles, or me being in the minority though. I think there is a difference between "This is not how you should speak English the language", and "The way you say things doesn't improve or even worsen the current proportions of men and women in tech.". I agree that we disagree on one point: I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. But if there is a ratio that's perfectly representative of the population and discrimination still exists, it isn't fine for me. Outside of our differences in views, you're pushing a certain view of things and certain values, and not everyone might agree with this. A few people probably expressed that by a silent downvote. Some people may also think that you're derailling the conversation. A common response to that is that these kind of issues are really important and are always on topic, but not everyone agrees with this.

da39a3ee 5y ago
OK, well we've already derailed it so let's continue :) > I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. I think I can make you see that you don't actually hold that position. Consider the following hypothetical world: (1) From the age of 8, all girls are encouraged (by schools, family, and the rest of the cultural environment) to view their role in life as to have children and to eschew all intellectual activities. Girls who want to pursue academic interests are unhappy but nevertheless follow the societal pressure. (2) From the age of 8, all boys are encouraged that their role in life is to study academic subjects with a view to making the world a better place. Now fast forwards to considering technical roles in the adult workplace in this hypothetical world. There will clearly be a huge disparity in representation of the sexes, and this remains true if we posit zero discrimination. And yet, despite the absence of discrimination, the state of this world is clearly "undesirable": young women are being treated awfully and their ambitions are being utterly thwarted by what's happening when they are young. So in fact, many possible versions of our universe exist in which a highly skewed numerical proportion itself is undesirable, because it indicates that something is wrong. Since we do not know a priori which version of the universe we are in (we are not omniscient; this is an inference problem), we acknowledge that, having eliminated discrimination, numerical proportions far from the biological 50:50 are undesirable in that they are statistically associated with regions of parameter space that describe undesirable societal/cultural processes.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I don't understand. On one hand you said that there is zero discrimination, on the other that "From the age of 8, all girls are encouraged (by schools, family, and the rest of the cultural environment) to view their role in life as to have children and to eschew all intellectual activities. Girls who want to pursue academic interests are unhappy but nevertheless follow the societal pressure.". Those two can't coexist together. "societal pressure" is an example of discrimination. Young women being treated awfully and their ambition being utterly thwarted is discrimination. I'll concede that I only said "in tech", and you could argue that in your hypothetical world the pressure/discrimination is here before tech. So I'll change my position from "If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me." to "If society becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in tech, it's totally fine for me." to account for that. > Since we do not know a priori which version of the universe we are in (we are not omniscient; this is an inference problem), we acknowledge that, having eliminated discrimination, numerical proportions far from the biological 50:50 are undesirable in that they are statistically associated with regions of parameter space that describe undesirable societal/cultural processes. Would you apply the same reasoning to prisons then? I'm genuinly asking here. I often use prisons as an example against people that promote quotas and ratios, since at this point most of them try to explain how this is totally different and has nothing to do with wanting rations close to 50:50 in other domains. So I'm curious about your views on gender equality in prisons.