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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 t

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.
- da39a3ee 5y ago
  I think you may be confusing me for someone who believes in 50:50 ratios for their own sake. I do not. > Would you apply the same reasoning to prisons then? In prisons I expect more male inmates for biological reasons: men are on average more inclined to commit imprisonable offenses. Here is the model. It's the same for tech jobs and prisons: 1. A population of 50:50 red and blue things exists. 2. Some of them approach the gates. The ratio of red and blue approaching the gates may not be 50:50 3. Of those that approach the gates, a subset are admitted. The red/blue ratio among those admitted may again differ from those at the gates. So there are two points at which the proportions change. At stage (2) we call this a "pipeline effect". At stage (3) we call this "discrimination". In the case of both prisons and tech jobs, there is a large pipeline effect. Therefore, in neither case do we need to posit discrimination to explain skewed ratios behind the gates. Furthermore, we both agree that discrimination's not desirable. We don't need to consider it further. The difference is that in the prison case, it is right and normal that the ratios approaching the gates should be different, because of human biology. Whereas in the tech case, it is more complex. Perhaps there are some biological differences making males more attracted to tech jobs. But there is also a huge cultural/environmental component: teenage girls are not attracted to tech at the same rates as teenage boys partly because of role models and societal norms. A few years ago it became popular among progressives to repeat the mantra: "Don't blame it on the pipeline: the problem is discrimination". But of course, that was complete nonsense. As usual, left-wing progressives were unable to distinguish between a description of how they want the world to be versus a description of how the world is. There is in fact an enormous "pipeline problem". In tech. But not so much in prisons with respect to sex. (Sure, there are some male groups in society that could probably benefit from some attention.) > "societal pressure" is an example of discrimination. So it looks like we have a terminology disagreement. Could I ask you to consider whether it might make more sense to make a verbal distinction between the pipeline effect (societal pressure) and discrimination?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > The difference is that in the prison case, it is right and normal that the ratios approaching the gates should be different, because of human biology. Whereas in the tech case, it is more complex. Perhaps there are some biological differences making males more attracted to tech jobs. But there is also a huge cultural/environmental component: teenage girls are not attracted to tech at the same rates as teenage boys partly because of role models and societal norms. That sounds right to me. Biological differences will mean that even if in general men and women are close, in extreme cases (ex: prisons), there will be a very large difference between men and women. I also think that "tech" in general is less extreme than prisons, and thus should have a lower difference in ratio than prisons. That assumption may be false though. But outside of tech, that reasoning would also explain for me why men are at top positions in society. It's not discimination or society, it's just that we're biologically different, and men show up at the extremes (prisons and the top). > So there are two points at which the proportions change. At stage (2) we call this a "pipeline effect". At stage (3) we call this "discrimination". > So it looks like we have a terminology disagreement. Could I ask you to consider whether it might make more sense to make a verbal distinction between the pipeline effect (societal pressure) and discrimination? That's a fair distinction. If I understood correctly, your point is that if we only focus on discrimination without changing the culture, we can still have a pipeline problem? I think one of the thing causing confusion is that I was using "discrimination" in the neutral sense, whereas you were using it in the negative sense. For example, wikipedia has "Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between human beings based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they are perceived to belong.", which would be what I call "neutral discrimination". Google has "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, or disability.", which would be what I call "negative discrimination". I agree that making a distinction between neutral discrimination (societal pressure, pipeline effect) and negative discrimination is useful here. So to restate my position, I think focusing on removing pipeline effect and negative discrimination is more important than focusing on having a 50:50 ratio at the end. But I think at this point we agree?

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.

da39a3ee 5y ago
I think you may be confusing me for someone who believes in 50:50 ratios for their own sake. I do not. > Would you apply the same reasoning to prisons then? In prisons I expect more male inmates for biological reasons: men are on average more inclined to commit imprisonable offenses. Here is the model. It's the same for tech jobs and prisons: 1. A population of 50:50 red and blue things exists. 2. Some of them approach the gates. The ratio of red and blue approaching the gates may not be 50:50 3. Of those that approach the gates, a subset are admitted. The red/blue ratio among those admitted may again differ from those at the gates. So there are two points at which the proportions change. At stage (2) we call this a "pipeline effect". At stage (3) we call this "discrimination". In the case of both prisons and tech jobs, there is a large pipeline effect. Therefore, in neither case do we need to posit discrimination to explain skewed ratios behind the gates. Furthermore, we both agree that discrimination's not desirable. We don't need to consider it further. The difference is that in the prison case, it is right and normal that the ratios approaching the gates should be different, because of human biology. Whereas in the tech case, it is more complex. Perhaps there are some biological differences making males more attracted to tech jobs. But there is also a huge cultural/environmental component: teenage girls are not attracted to tech at the same rates as teenage boys partly because of role models and societal norms. A few years ago it became popular among progressives to repeat the mantra: "Don't blame it on the pipeline: the problem is discrimination". But of course, that was complete nonsense. As usual, left-wing progressives were unable to distinguish between a description of how they want the world to be versus a description of how the world is. There is in fact an enormous "pipeline problem". In tech. But not so much in prisons with respect to sex. (Sure, there are some male groups in society that could probably benefit from some attention.) > "societal pressure" is an example of discrimination. So it looks like we have a terminology disagreement. Could I ask you to consider whether it might make more sense to make a verbal distinction between the pipeline effect (societal pressure) and discrimination?
- Zababa 5y ago
  > The difference is that in the prison case, it is right and normal that the ratios approaching the gates should be different, because of human biology. Whereas in the tech case, it is more complex. Perhaps there are some biological differences making males more attracted to tech jobs. But there is also a huge cultural/environmental component: teenage girls are not attracted to tech at the same rates as teenage boys partly because of role models and societal norms. That sounds right to me. Biological differences will mean that even if in general men and women are close, in extreme cases (ex: prisons), there will be a very large difference between men and women. I also think that "tech" in general is less extreme than prisons, and thus should have a lower difference in ratio than prisons. That assumption may be false though. But outside of tech, that reasoning would also explain for me why men are at top positions in society. It's not discimination or society, it's just that we're biologically different, and men show up at the extremes (prisons and the top). > So there are two points at which the proportions change. At stage (2) we call this a "pipeline effect". At stage (3) we call this "discrimination". > So it looks like we have a terminology disagreement. Could I ask you to consider whether it might make more sense to make a verbal distinction between the pipeline effect (societal pressure) and discrimination? That's a fair distinction. If I understood correctly, your point is that if we only focus on discrimination without changing the culture, we can still have a pipeline problem? I think one of the thing causing confusion is that I was using "discrimination" in the neutral sense, whereas you were using it in the negative sense. For example, wikipedia has "Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between human beings based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they are perceived to belong.", which would be what I call "neutral discrimination". Google has "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, or disability.", which would be what I call "negative discrimination". I agree that making a distinction between neutral discrimination (societal pressure, pipeline effect) and negative discrimination is useful here. So to restate my position, I think focusing on removing pipeline effect and negative discrimination is more important than focusing on having a 50:50 ratio at the end. But I think at this point we agree?