3 ms·
Diversity in tech as a wideapread social movement was kicked off about ~7-8 years ago purely as an attempt to force down wages. They (tech CEOs) didn't particul
by pydry 3y ago
Diversity in tech as a wideapread social movement was kicked off about ~7-8 years ago purely as an attempt to force down wages. They (tech CEOs) didn't particularly care about having more girl or black developers. They didnt care about freedom or equality. They just wanted more developers - and lower wages.
In the open source world big tech are trying to use the diversity as a way to cynically get representation for themselves. They hire people who hit their diversity quotas and then use them for open source outreach to get their voices amplified among the progressive minded who actually... write all that open source.
The people who would be pushed as candidates for open source boards (e.g. black people doing dev outreach for Microsoft/Google) are blameless (they need a job!) but they are still being used by rich white men to serve a mostly corporate agenda.
This isnt to say that we dont need more diversity, just that we should recognize when the shallow appearance of diversity is being cynically used as a corporate and political weapon by elites to push a regressive agenda.
This strategy is very similar to the one employed by one of the most racist countries on earth, although theyre more blatant and less implicit about their accusations. The strategy works very well, too - progressive minded people can be easily manipulated through guilt.
- iso1631 3y agoMost people in computing were women originally. Look up who programmed Eniac. Look up who created the early compilers and who programmed univac. Look at who programmed the flight software for Apollo The tech industry was built by women, then had their jobs stolen https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/19/women-built-tech-industry-then-they-were-pushed-out/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/19/women-buil...
- anthk 3y agoYes and no. Coding was a viewed as a "low skilled" job. Everything else, such as design and hard math was done by men. The problem is that today the supposed CS skills are atrocious. Most self called "engineers" would be laughed at the rest of the world. And, if they dared to stay in an actual engineering job in Europe (with civil accountability) without a proper degree, they would end in jail if something really bad happened. Literally.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoIf you end up in jail due to 'civil accountability', you need a better lawyer! Personally, I don't believe such incarceration should be lawful, but it does happen from time to time. Causing harm by writing software can (and in my opinion should) be considered an offence as gross negligence, but that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you hold a degree.
- anthk 3y agoIf you call yourself an engineer, you don't get an actual CS degree and some company hires you, on some hard accident you and your company would end in jail here.
- brookst 3y agoWith apologies for language, thus is GPT-2 level bullshit. Through the 1960's, the majority of computer science jobs were held by women[1]. Your worldview is not compatible with reality.
- yawpitch 3y ago> Your worldview is not compatible with reality. This.
- pydry 3y ago>Through the 1960's, the majority of computer science jobs were held by women[1]. So what? The faux corporate "more diversity in tech" movement started circa 2013, not in 1966. You can even trace when it happened by clustering the awards given to one of the late greats Margaret Hamilton: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_... Three in the 47 years between 1969 and 2016 and 8 since then.