4 ms·

> Ours is a male-dominated industry – and weaker for it Has this ever actually been shown? I hear it a lot but have never heard any evidence either way. (the l

by elnate 13y ago

> Ours is a male-dominated industry – and weaker for it Has this ever actually been shown? I hear it a lot but have never heard any evidence either way. (the latter part)

Zigurd 13y ago
The evidence from other industries and organizations is pretty compelling. Including women gets you better decision-making overall: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.ht... Given the record of industries that have reformed to include more women, I would not bet on there being very many "naturally male" businesses. Especially not ones that have a lot of sitting and typing involved.
- gametheoretic 13y ago
  If your use of the word 'compelling' is in reference to the contents of that link, well, I just could not disagree more. a) Surveys are shit - they're as far removed from double-blind as you can get, and b) the framing of cause and effect is highly opinionated, e.g.: "Having just one female director on the board cuts the risk of bankruptcy by 20%" -- superior feminine corporate guidance or well-documented feminine avoidance of risk(y companies, e.g. startups, for whom bankruptcy, statistically, is the expectation)?
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    Where has adding women to a previous male bastion caused reduced performance? MDs? Parliamentarians? Senior corporate executives? Men have a tendency to bullshit their way past lack of knowledge. Imagine if we had had ibankers who stopped to think "Maybe CDSs are a bullshit kind of insurance, but with inadequate capital, so the first black swan that poops on a big CDS position is going to blow up the planet."
    - gametheoretic 13y ago
      > Where has adding women to a previous male bastion caused reduced performance? MDs? Parliamentarians? Senior corporate executives? I made no positive claims, only negative ones. >Imagine if we had had ibankers who stopped to think "Maybe CDSs are a bullshit kind of insurance, but with inadequate capital, so the first black swan that poops on a big CDS position is going to blow up the planet." Doing my best to refrain from username-dropping here. If an iterated game rewards some strategy s, then the eventual adoption of strategy s is inevitable. Don't hate the player. >Men have a tendency to bullshit their way past lack of knowledge. I will assume you're referring to Chris Bart and Gregory McQueen here. ;) But seriously, human beings, lacking omniscience, require strategies to work around their blind spots and keep moving forward. When/if we're lucky enough to be cognizant of our own ignorance, we can either notify the others in the room or we can not - both are real options; neither strategy is universally dominant. Obviously, I'm being nice; it is called 'bullshitting'. But if you have a nose for it, then who's to blame for letting it affect you?
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > If an iterated game rewards some strategy s, then the eventual adoption of strategy s is inevitable. Don't hate the player. When the players are also the people that spent considerable effort getting the rules of the game rewritten in a way that end up causing it to reward the strategy (replacing rules that had been put into place precisely to prevent the kind of collapse that happened after the rule change, after another instance of the same type of collapse), I'm not sure the "don't hate the player" argument applies.
        gametheoretic 13y ago
        Try rewriting that sentence without passive voice, see what you find.
      - Zigurd 13y ago
        > But seriously, human beings, lacking omniscience, require strategies to work around their blind spots and keep moving forward. That' a very benign interpretation of what happened, and one that is naive of the nature of financial regulation. Specifically, you can't just rename "insurance" to "derivatives contract that pays out like insurance but with unregulated capital requirements (and please ignore the word 'insurance' - it has consequences)" and expect to get away with it. Regulations are written to apply to everything that behaves like the regulated product. The people writing CDS knew exactly what they were doing. They just assumed they were so smart they would not be left holding the bag. Which is what everyone participating in a fraudulent scheme thinks.
gametheoretic 13y ago
Amen. Furthermore, if diversity in thought is the goal, surely diversity across nationality and even age produces the greater aggregate effect, no? I.e., if the starting point of discussion were only ever how best to increase diversity of thought, one would undoubtedly expect nationality/age to come up more frequently than they do, compared to gender. It's almost as if certain parties are feigning genuine inquiry while merely paying hollow lip service. But what could their motivation possibly be? >Tickets for All Your Base are on sale now, and we look forward to seeing you in October. John, you rascal!
sambeau 13y ago
The evidence is self evident: Women perform equally to men in school/college in related subjects (better than men in the UK). Women make up 51% of the population. ∴ Our industry is ignoring half the talent.
- elnate 13y ago
  You implied that genders are represented equally in all fields of study, but that certainly wasn't true in my education (CS + EE). So assuming a bell curve of talent, your ideal team would have more men than women.
  - sambeau 13y ago
    No. I suggest that genders should be represented equally in all fields of study.

by elnate 13y ago

> Ours is a male-dominated industry – and weaker for it Has this ever actually been shown? I hear it a lot but have never heard any evidence either way. (the latter part)

Zigurd 13y ago

The evidence from other industries and organizations is pretty compelling. Including women gets you better decision-making overall: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.ht... Given the record of industries that have reformed to include more women, I would not bet on there being very many "naturally male" businesses. Especially not ones that have a lot of sitting and typing involved.

gametheoretic 13y ago
If your use of the word 'compelling' is in reference to the contents of that link, well, I just could not disagree more. a) Surveys are shit - they're as far removed from double-blind as you can get, and b) the framing of cause and effect is highly opinionated, e.g.: "Having just one female director on the board cuts the risk of bankruptcy by 20%" -- superior feminine corporate guidance or well-documented feminine avoidance of risk(y companies, e.g. startups, for whom bankruptcy, statistically, is the expectation)?
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Where has adding women to a previous male bastion caused reduced performance? MDs? Parliamentarians? Senior corporate executives? Men have a tendency to bullshit their way past lack of knowledge. Imagine if we had had ibankers who stopped to think "Maybe CDSs are a bullshit kind of insurance, but with inadequate capital, so the first black swan that poops on a big CDS position is going to blow up the planet."
  - gametheoretic 13y ago
    > Where has adding women to a previous male bastion caused reduced performance? MDs? Parliamentarians? Senior corporate executives? I made no positive claims, only negative ones. >Imagine if we had had ibankers who stopped to think "Maybe CDSs are a bullshit kind of insurance, but with inadequate capital, so the first black swan that poops on a big CDS position is going to blow up the planet." Doing my best to refrain from username-dropping here. If an iterated game rewards some strategy s, then the eventual adoption of strategy s is inevitable. Don't hate the player. >Men have a tendency to bullshit their way past lack of knowledge. I will assume you're referring to Chris Bart and Gregory McQueen here. ;) But seriously, human beings, lacking omniscience, require strategies to work around their blind spots and keep moving forward. When/if we're lucky enough to be cognizant of our own ignorance, we can either notify the others in the room or we can not - both are real options; neither strategy is universally dominant. Obviously, I'm being nice; it is called 'bullshitting'. But if you have a nose for it, then who's to blame for letting it affect you?
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > If an iterated game rewards some strategy s, then the eventual adoption of strategy s is inevitable. Don't hate the player. When the players are also the people that spent considerable effort getting the rules of the game rewritten in a way that end up causing it to reward the strategy (replacing rules that had been put into place precisely to prevent the kind of collapse that happened after the rule change, after another instance of the same type of collapse), I'm not sure the "don't hate the player" argument applies.
      - gametheoretic 13y ago
        Try rewriting that sentence without passive voice, see what you find.
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      > But seriously, human beings, lacking omniscience, require strategies to work around their blind spots and keep moving forward. That' a very benign interpretation of what happened, and one that is naive of the nature of financial regulation. Specifically, you can't just rename "insurance" to "derivatives contract that pays out like insurance but with unregulated capital requirements (and please ignore the word 'insurance' - it has consequences)" and expect to get away with it. Regulations are written to apply to everything that behaves like the regulated product. The people writing CDS knew exactly what they were doing. They just assumed they were so smart they would not be left holding the bag. Which is what everyone participating in a fraudulent scheme thinks.

gametheoretic 13y ago

Amen. Furthermore, if diversity in thought is the goal, surely diversity across nationality and even age produces the greater aggregate effect, no? I.e., if the starting point of discussion were only ever how best to increase diversity of thought, one would undoubtedly expect nationality/age to come up more frequently than they do, compared to gender. It's almost as if certain parties are feigning genuine inquiry while merely paying hollow lip service. But what could their motivation possibly be? >Tickets for All Your Base are on sale now, and we look forward to seeing you in October. John, you rascal!

sambeau 13y ago

The evidence is self evident: Women perform equally to men in school/college in related subjects (better than men in the UK). Women make up 51% of the population. ∴ Our industry is ignoring half the talent.

elnate 13y ago
You implied that genders are represented equally in all fields of study, but that certainly wasn't true in my education (CS + EE). So assuming a bell curve of talent, your ideal team would have more men than women.
- sambeau 13y ago
  No. I suggest that genders should be represented equally in all fields of study.