4 ms·

My opinions on this have evolved a lot over the past few years, to the point where my view matches the author's to a surprising (to me) degree. As someone who g

My opinions on this have evolved a lot over the past few years, to the point where my view matches the author's to a surprising (to me) degree. As someone who grew up white, middle class, and male, in America, it was very easy for me to believe that my intelligence (another front on which I was pretty lucky in the birth lottery) and my ambition were the entirety of what led to me having a pretty easy life, thus far. But, over the past several years I've been involved in volunteering and activism in areas outside my comfort zone. In that time, I've met homeless folks who were bright and hard-working, but born into situations that prevented them from getting care for mental illness or from getting an education that would have helped lift them out of poverty. I've met people of color with university credentials that make my formal education look paltry, and who still struggle from paycheck to paycheck. I don't have answers on how to solve the problem, but I do view it as a real problem. Maybe one of the biggest problems of our time. The stratification of haves and have-nots is becoming more severe over time. The most disheartening element of it is how little awareness there is among white, middle and upper class, people about how their position in the world is as much luck of birth as it is their hard work and intelligence. The tech industry is particularly oblivious.

pron 12y ago
I think that coming around to this point of view indeed has to do with life experience (and age). That places like SV have an ageism problem is a self-reinforcing mechanism that causes the opposite values (promoting meritocracy as a good thing) to abound, and serve to further isolate the leaders of technology from large groups in society.
jqm 12y ago
Life is not fair. And that's a fact. But (glass half full) life is more fair than it was 100 years ago. And it was more fair 100 years ago that it was 1000 years ago. And probably, it was more fair 1000 years ago that it was 8000 years ago. We should all do our part to do the right thing. We should support systems that make sense. We should recognize that sometimes ability lies in surprising areas. But we are never going to see life be completely fair. Not in our time. Expecting differently I think will lead to despair, cynicism and disgust. I believe we should do what we can in our time, and recognize how far we have come since we first came down out of the trees....
- pron 12y ago
  Of course. But how come the response to trying to get more women to participate in technical fields so much more defeatist on HN than some absurd, quasi-religious attempts such as cryonic re-animation?
  - jqm 12y ago
    Maybe some of the negativity comes from the idea that people should have to be included in an endeavor regardless of ability? (Of course there are also no shortage of plain old misogynists and bigots.)
    - pron 12y ago
      > Maybe some of the negativity comes from the idea that people should have to be included in an endeavor regardless of ability? Who says that? All "we" are saying is that what some perceive as "ability" is, in fact, a combination of talent with a lot of privilege, luck and encouragement by society (of course, some people beat the odds but those are the exception, not the rule). There is no shortage of talent in any group, and ability should therefore be nurtured by removing some very powerful discouraging factors.
      - jqm 12y ago
        "Who says that?" Oh, there are people who feel that inclusion should take place regardless of ability. And there are people who are paranoid that when others talk of inclusion, this is what they might mean... "There is no shortage of talent in any group..." (we are still talking about specific talent no?) Are you sure about this? Because I'm not so sure that we natively are all exactly equal in all abilities. Automatically assuming because a person is a member of some group they necessarily don't have abilities is where we fall down. Bigotry I think is simply a crude average without room for exception. I'm not arguing that luck and privilege don't play a very important role. Which I agree, is not fair, and steps should be taken to remedy the situation. Also I'm not so sure that those who enter tech actually are "lucky" to be in the field. It could be some people are just perceptive or wise enough to stay out. Sometimes after a few hard days of coding (and the associated mental twerk), I'm positively convinced of it.

pron 12y ago

I think that coming around to this point of view indeed has to do with life experience (and age). That places like SV have an ageism problem is a self-reinforcing mechanism that causes the opposite values (promoting meritocracy as a good thing) to abound, and serve to further isolate the leaders of technology from large groups in society.

jqm 12y ago

Life is not fair. And that's a fact. But (glass half full) life is more fair than it was 100 years ago. And it was more fair 100 years ago that it was 1000 years ago. And probably, it was more fair 1000 years ago that it was 8000 years ago. We should all do our part to do the right thing. We should support systems that make sense. We should recognize that sometimes ability lies in surprising areas. But we are never going to see life be completely fair. Not in our time. Expecting differently I think will lead to despair, cynicism and disgust. I believe we should do what we can in our time, and recognize how far we have come since we first came down out of the trees....

pron 12y ago
Of course. But how come the response to trying to get more women to participate in technical fields so much more defeatist on HN than some absurd, quasi-religious attempts such as cryonic re-animation?
- jqm 12y ago
  Maybe some of the negativity comes from the idea that people should have to be included in an endeavor regardless of ability? (Of course there are also no shortage of plain old misogynists and bigots.)
  - pron 12y ago
    > Maybe some of the negativity comes from the idea that people should have to be included in an endeavor regardless of ability? Who says that? All "we" are saying is that what some perceive as "ability" is, in fact, a combination of talent with a lot of privilege, luck and encouragement by society (of course, some people beat the odds but those are the exception, not the rule). There is no shortage of talent in any group, and ability should therefore be nurtured by removing some very powerful discouraging factors.
    - jqm 12y ago
      "Who says that?" Oh, there are people who feel that inclusion should take place regardless of ability. And there are people who are paranoid that when others talk of inclusion, this is what they might mean... "There is no shortage of talent in any group..." (we are still talking about specific talent no?) Are you sure about this? Because I'm not so sure that we natively are all exactly equal in all abilities. Automatically assuming because a person is a member of some group they necessarily don't have abilities is where we fall down. Bigotry I think is simply a crude average without room for exception. I'm not arguing that luck and privilege don't play a very important role. Which I agree, is not fair, and steps should be taken to remedy the situation. Also I'm not so sure that those who enter tech actually are "lucky" to be in the field. It could be some people are just perceptive or wise enough to stay out. Sometimes after a few hard days of coding (and the associated mental twerk), I'm positively convinced of it.