4 ms·

It's just pattern recognition at work. None of the male-led scams have "being male" as a talking point trying to sell the scam, so it's about as notable as a sc

by OroPla 1mo ago

It's just pattern recognition at work. None of the male-led scams have "being male" as a talking point trying to sell the scam, so it's about as notable as a scam founder wearing black shoes. But now "female led" has entered the conversation as something to recognize a scam by. Whenever it comes up again this memory will lit up and make people wary.

catchnear4321 1mo ago
The patterns did not form themselves. It’s rarely “just pattern recognition at work.”
- amiga386 1mo ago
  Scammers/predators/grifters/sociopaths will adopt any disguise and say whatever needs to be said that gets the mark to fall for it. Are priests the pinnacle of trust in your society? You now get a lot of scammers pretending to be (or actually becoming) priests. Are sagely tech leaders announcing the latest new thing on their thought-leadership blogs the way to get investment money? You now have 99% of LinkedIn's membership. Is there a push to reduce qualifications in order to bring in people who don't historically enter your profession? No matter how kind or society-changing you're being, scammers will see that you're doing that, and will abuse that mercilessly. They likewise bilk people who oppose that ideology, and will gladly present themselves as collecting for disadvantaged white boys, before running off with the money. Anything that turns your brain off, whether it's tugging your heartstrings, endorsing your ideology, whatever, scammers are ready to take advantage. You don't have to harden your hearts, but you do have to engage your brain and apply suitable skepticism and scrutiny of their claims.
  - catchnear4321 1mo ago
    Appreciate you taking the time to engage, unlike those that eye rolled and down voted. (They don’t like admitting their participation in pattern formation it would seem.)
  - lelanthran 1mo ago
    > Anything that turns your brain off, whether it's tugging your heartstrings, endorsing your ideology, whatever, scammers are ready to take advantage. TheLastPsychiatrist used a good phrase to describe this: cognitive kill-switch. Anything that stops further examination or exploration of an assertion is a CKS. In Holmes' case, the CKS was "you're just sexist if you don't believe"...
    - catchnear4321 1mo ago
      CKS is an effective CKS if misused.
the_other 1mo ago
> But now "female led" has entered the conversation as something to recognize a scam by. Only by sexists.
pessimizer 1mo ago
> None of the male-led scams have "being male" as a talking point trying to sell the scam If she never mentioned being female I don't remember it. In fact she used to talk in a fake man-voice to sound serious. Other people used the fact that she was a woman to sell the scam because it is still uncommon for a woman to be in that position. There was no possible way for her to avoid it, even by pulling her hair back hard, talking in a goofy deep voice, and dressing like Jobs. edit: my point, if it's not clear, is that the fact that women founders are fewer is why people focused on her being a woman. If that's used to ignore future woman founders, making them rarer, it's a degenerate pattern recognition.
saghm 1mo ago
"female led" is only a selling point if women are underrepresented as founders, so it still circles back to whether or not the industry already had a pattern of sexism that made having a prominent female founder an outlier in the first place. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree, but I think it pretty clearly did.
- OroPla 1mo ago
  Sexism is defined as prejudice or discrimination based on sex. Prejudice means to form an opinion before the facts are in, but if the facts are there and support you, it is not prejudice. Discrimination is fairly broad, but in this case can be summarized as preventing someone to get a job due to who they are as a person. Having established what these words mean, I think it is difficult to entertain the idea that sexism played a role in women being underrepresented as founders in the 2020s. Also, as I have no data on this, I am not sure if the claim of underrepresentation is itself a prejudice or not. How many women try and succeed? How many men try and succeed? I do not expect to have the percentage be vastly different in the last ten years.
  - saghm 1mo ago
    If you don't believe that a system can be set up in a way that discourages certain people from trying, then sure, you can only measure the success of people who try. I don't find it plausible that there are no structural influences on whether people try to participate though. I'm also not sure why you're bringing up "in the 2020s" as a counterargument against the idea that Theranos was not an outlier at the time it operated when it shut down in 2018.
Ar-Curunir 1mo ago
They definitely do, just implicitly. In the past it was more explicitly stated.

by OroPla 1mo ago

catchnear4321 1mo ago

The patterns did not form themselves. It’s rarely “just pattern recognition at work.”

amiga386 1mo ago
Scammers/predators/grifters/sociopaths will adopt any disguise and say whatever needs to be said that gets the mark to fall for it. Are priests the pinnacle of trust in your society? You now get a lot of scammers pretending to be (or actually becoming) priests. Are sagely tech leaders announcing the latest new thing on their thought-leadership blogs the way to get investment money? You now have 99% of LinkedIn's membership. Is there a push to reduce qualifications in order to bring in people who don't historically enter your profession? No matter how kind or society-changing you're being, scammers will see that you're doing that, and will abuse that mercilessly. They likewise bilk people who oppose that ideology, and will gladly present themselves as collecting for disadvantaged white boys, before running off with the money. Anything that turns your brain off, whether it's tugging your heartstrings, endorsing your ideology, whatever, scammers are ready to take advantage. You don't have to harden your hearts, but you do have to engage your brain and apply suitable skepticism and scrutiny of their claims.
- catchnear4321 1mo ago
  Appreciate you taking the time to engage, unlike those that eye rolled and down voted. (They don’t like admitting their participation in pattern formation it would seem.)
- lelanthran 1mo ago
  > Anything that turns your brain off, whether it's tugging your heartstrings, endorsing your ideology, whatever, scammers are ready to take advantage. TheLastPsychiatrist used a good phrase to describe this: cognitive kill-switch. Anything that stops further examination or exploration of an assertion is a CKS. In Holmes' case, the CKS was "you're just sexist if you don't believe"...
  - catchnear4321 1mo ago
    CKS is an effective CKS if misused.

the_other 1mo ago

> But now "female led" has entered the conversation as something to recognize a scam by. Only by sexists.

pessimizer 1mo ago

> None of the male-led scams have "being male" as a talking point trying to sell the scam If she never mentioned being female I don't remember it. In fact she used to talk in a fake man-voice to sound serious. Other people used the fact that she was a woman to sell the scam because it is still uncommon for a woman to be in that position. There was no possible way for her to avoid it, even by pulling her hair back hard, talking in a goofy deep voice, and dressing like Jobs. edit: my point, if it's not clear, is that the fact that women founders are fewer is why people focused on her being a woman. If that's used to ignore future woman founders, making them rarer, it's a degenerate pattern recognition.

saghm 1mo ago

"female led" is only a selling point if women are underrepresented as founders, so it still circles back to whether or not the industry already had a pattern of sexism that made having a prominent female founder an outlier in the first place. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree, but I think it pretty clearly did.

OroPla 1mo ago
Sexism is defined as prejudice or discrimination based on sex. Prejudice means to form an opinion before the facts are in, but if the facts are there and support you, it is not prejudice. Discrimination is fairly broad, but in this case can be summarized as preventing someone to get a job due to who they are as a person. Having established what these words mean, I think it is difficult to entertain the idea that sexism played a role in women being underrepresented as founders in the 2020s. Also, as I have no data on this, I am not sure if the claim of underrepresentation is itself a prejudice or not. How many women try and succeed? How many men try and succeed? I do not expect to have the percentage be vastly different in the last ten years.
- saghm 1mo ago
  If you don't believe that a system can be set up in a way that discourages certain people from trying, then sure, you can only measure the success of people who try. I don't find it plausible that there are no structural influences on whether people try to participate though. I'm also not sure why you're bringing up "in the 2020s" as a counterargument against the idea that Theranos was not an outlier at the time it operated when it shut down in 2018.

Ar-Curunir 1mo ago

They definitely do, just implicitly. In the past it was more explicitly stated.