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> I think women are better programmers because they have less ego and are typically more interested in the gear rather than the pissing contest. People need to

> I think women are better programmers because they have less ego and are typically more interested in the gear rather than the pissing contest. People need to stop writing shit like this. If it's not okay to say that men are better programmers simply because of their gender (it's not), then it's not okay to say it the other way around either.

tsally 17y ago
Exactly. Why not just say that ego tends to prohibit good programmers? Bringing gender into it is hardly necessary, and it actually detracts from the important point about ego.
cellis 17y ago
Then again, Zed Shaw isn't exactly known for being PC.
tjic 17y ago
> If it's not okay to say that men are better programmers simply because of their gender (it's not), then it's not okay to say it the other way around either. God forbid that someone make an argument and try to support it with data, when one person has already decided for all of us what the correct conclusion is. WT* ever happened to debate, intellectual discourse, and the marketplace of ideas? This is one of the things that I find most disgusting about political correctness: that it tries to just wall off huge swaths of POTENTIAL CONCLUSIONS based on an argument that boils down to a misconstrued sense of manners (at best) or political preferences (at worst). Want to say that ethanol is a stupid idea? THE DEBATE IS CLOSED - NO SERIOUS SCIENTIST BELIEVES THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A THREAT OF EXTINCTION. Want to say that women and men have (a) different average heights; (b) different standard deviations in intelligence; (c) different hormone levels; (d) massively different thicknesses in their corpus collosums, and therefore one or the other might on average, make better programmers/accountants/engineers? THE DEBATE IS CLOSED. IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO SPECULATE ON THIS TOPIC. I call bullshit on that. Intellectually honest people respond to facts and arguments with OTHER facts and arguments. Intellectually dishonest people try to shut down debates using social control. WilliamLP writes "People need to stop writing shit like this" That's the phrase of a bully, and/or a censor.
- sofal 17y ago
  I think you have some interesting points. I'm going to play Devil's advocate: An assumption that you make there is that all forms of social control used for discouraging debates/speculation on certain topics are inherently bad or stem from dishonesty. It could be that knowing in advance the emotional, legal, political, or otherwise time-wasting repercussions that a certain type of debate causes justifies avoiding the discussion altogether. None of us go after truth in a completely unbiased manner with no agendas whatsoever, though we may fool ourselves in thinking so. There doesn't seem to be any disagreement about the social rule of not discussing politics or religion in this forum. We don't think of this as a moral rule, but then what are morals?
  - tjic 17y ago
    > It could be that knowing in advance the emotional, legal, political, or otherwise time-wasting repercussions that a certain type of debate causes justifies avoiding the discussion altogether So person A, and B and C are interested in having a debate. Person X "knows" that persons A,B,and C (and some bystanders) would be better off if they don't even speculate or speak on the topic. ...so person X responds "People need to stop writing shit like this" ? My objections: * Why should I accept person X's assertion that he knows - better than I do - what will make me happy, or what will waste my time ? * If person X truly thinks that, he should make a compelling case, put it on up a website, and respond not with "People need to stop writing shit like this", but with "I think that this debate is fruitless and time-wasting - check out this blog post for why". * Even if person X is right, for a large percent of people, trying to shut down speech "for someone's own good" is un-American, and illiberal. If it's done under the color of law it's called "prior restraint". * Even if person X is right given the conditions on the ground, conditions change, and over time his flawless heuristic for when to force people to "to stop writing shit like this" will become more and more disconnected from reality. What's needed is a constant feedback loop that keeps in touch with reality. ...and "ongoing debate" is the name of the ongoing feedback loop.
    - rml 17y ago
      Agreed. As Sophocles famously wrote: "Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial."
petercooper 17y ago
Why? You can say whatever you like if you can back it up with analysis. Not to do so is pointless political correctness. Car insurance companies believe that young male drivers are a bigger risk than older female drivers. They have statistics to back this up. Saying that young, male drivers are worse drivers is not ageist or sexist. This sentence is not judging individuals but a demographic group (i.e. it would be wrong for me to say you are a worse driver than someone else, if I had no proof). The problem with judging programmers in this way is that it's hard to empirically measure results or to even agree what metrics are good or bad.

tsally 17y ago

Exactly. Why not just say that ego tends to prohibit good programmers? Bringing gender into it is hardly necessary, and it actually detracts from the important point about ego.

cellis 17y ago

Then again, Zed Shaw isn't exactly known for being PC.

tjic 17y ago

> If it's not okay to say that men are better programmers simply because of their gender (it's not), then it's not okay to say it the other way around either. God forbid that someone make an argument and try to support it with data, when one person has already decided for all of us what the correct conclusion is. WT* ever happened to debate, intellectual discourse, and the marketplace of ideas? This is one of the things that I find most disgusting about political correctness: that it tries to just wall off huge swaths of POTENTIAL CONCLUSIONS based on an argument that boils down to a misconstrued sense of manners (at best) or political preferences (at worst). Want to say that ethanol is a stupid idea? THE DEBATE IS CLOSED - NO SERIOUS SCIENTIST BELIEVES THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A THREAT OF EXTINCTION. Want to say that women and men have (a) different average heights; (b) different standard deviations in intelligence; (c) different hormone levels; (d) massively different thicknesses in their corpus collosums, and therefore one or the other might on average, make better programmers/accountants/engineers? THE DEBATE IS CLOSED. IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO SPECULATE ON THIS TOPIC. I call bullshit on that. Intellectually honest people respond to facts and arguments with OTHER facts and arguments. Intellectually dishonest people try to shut down debates using social control. WilliamLP writes "People need to stop writing shit like this" That's the phrase of a bully, and/or a censor.

sofal 17y ago
I think you have some interesting points. I'm going to play Devil's advocate: An assumption that you make there is that all forms of social control used for discouraging debates/speculation on certain topics are inherently bad or stem from dishonesty. It could be that knowing in advance the emotional, legal, political, or otherwise time-wasting repercussions that a certain type of debate causes justifies avoiding the discussion altogether. None of us go after truth in a completely unbiased manner with no agendas whatsoever, though we may fool ourselves in thinking so. There doesn't seem to be any disagreement about the social rule of not discussing politics or religion in this forum. We don't think of this as a moral rule, but then what are morals?
- tjic 17y ago
  > It could be that knowing in advance the emotional, legal, political, or otherwise time-wasting repercussions that a certain type of debate causes justifies avoiding the discussion altogether So person A, and B and C are interested in having a debate. Person X "knows" that persons A,B,and C (and some bystanders) would be better off if they don't even speculate or speak on the topic. ...so person X responds "People need to stop writing shit like this" ? My objections: * Why should I accept person X's assertion that he knows - better than I do - what will make me happy, or what will waste my time ? * If person X truly thinks that, he should make a compelling case, put it on up a website, and respond not with "People need to stop writing shit like this", but with "I think that this debate is fruitless and time-wasting - check out this blog post for why". * Even if person X is right, for a large percent of people, trying to shut down speech "for someone's own good" is un-American, and illiberal. If it's done under the color of law it's called "prior restraint". * Even if person X is right given the conditions on the ground, conditions change, and over time his flawless heuristic for when to force people to "to stop writing shit like this" will become more and more disconnected from reality. What's needed is a constant feedback loop that keeps in touch with reality. ...and "ongoing debate" is the name of the ongoing feedback loop.
  - rml 17y ago
    Agreed. As Sophocles famously wrote: "Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial."

petercooper 17y ago

Why? You can say whatever you like if you can back it up with analysis. Not to do so is pointless political correctness. Car insurance companies believe that young male drivers are a bigger risk than older female drivers. They have statistics to back this up. Saying that young, male drivers are worse drivers is not ageist or sexist. This sentence is not judging individuals but a demographic group (i.e. it would be wrong for me to say you are a worse driver than someone else, if I had no proof). The problem with judging programmers in this way is that it's hard to empirically measure results or to even agree what metrics are good or bad.