I think of the goal as developing many more capable software developers. While some of the advocates for getting women into programming are motivated by gender politics, there are clear economic benefits: The more software developers there are, the easier it becomes to automate the drudgery and toil of life.

Developing computer science instruction to woo and develop female students seems like low-hanging fruit with huge potential advantages.

> The more software developers there are, the easier it becomes to automate the drudgery and toil of life.

By "easier", you must mean "cheaper", but I don't believe that at all. There are now more software developers out there than ever before, yet project costs are the highest they have ever been and failure rates remain high.

Software developers are preoccupied with creating problems for themselves, which they then get to bill clueless clients for. The more programmers there are (especially juniors), the worse it will be.

Also, don't assume people actually want automation everywhere. Automation means killing jobs. Managers don't want to fire, they want to hire - it boosts their ego. Employees don't want to get fired, when in doubt, they'll come out against more automation in their day-to-day tasks.

If the economy really needed way more programmers, their wages would go through the roof (across the country, not just in overpriced Silicon Valley) and even otherwise disinclined groups of people would go for it. As it is, the wages are commensurate with the effort required to learn the profession.

I imagine the focus is righting the historic wrongs that lead to women and minorities being underrepresented in well-paying jobs, and not a mindless focus on ever-higher productivity.

What historic wrongs kept these people out of programming?

Last I checked most of programming came from the once persecuted nerd and geeks. Things have changed for sure, but every time I hear this statement with relation to programming I can't help to think about how laffable it is.

For the longest time computers and programming were one of the major places you could go and learn alot and become good at all while being under the cloak of anonymity. Back when this would have made a difference it was almost mandatory to conceal both gender and race because the bandwidth for live streaming video,voice simply was not there. Vast amounts of work and collaboration were done via text interfaces.

This is a narrative I keep seeing with little proof to back it. The lack of the numbers representing a group does not automatically imply discrimination. And if you are going to bring that to the table then you are going to need to show some hard proof that is the defacto reason why any group of people are not represented.

But even if you were right, I am not entirely sure setting merit aside is such a good idea for roles that can mean life or death of others. Do you not want the best heart surgeon working on your heart? Do you not want the best programmer you can get programming robotic arms and the breaking subsystems of the car that is behind you in traffic?

The only sane way to correct historic wrongs is by flooding the lower level education systems with money in poor areas. Programs to help single mothers, access to laptops and the internet. The second you lower the bar you are doing a disservice to society, and to the person you think you are helping.

I would also add here Norway as the prototypical example. Norway is not only a mostly homogenous society with extremely low inequality, but is now considered arguably the most gender equal nation in existence. But the interesting thing is that this does not translate to an equal proportion of people in every single activity -- or even remotely close to it. What they found is that when working to actively push people into careers that would not normally fit gender "stereotypes" there was a small and relatively constant improvement. As soon as that push was relinquished the numbers would trend back towards the pre-push ratios. The point of this is that even when given completely equal opportunity in a completely equal society, different groups trend towards different things.

This whole notion that everything and everybody is identical with most, if not all, differences being the product of some form of ism or discrimination of some sort of another is a very new, very wrong, and very dangerous belief. The only way you're going to achieve identical outcomes is by pushing society towards a dystopia as it would entail either preventing those who want to do x from doing so, or by pushing people who do not want to do x into doing just that.

I can't find the exact article where I read it, but programming used to be considered woman's work, similar to the work of a secretary or someone doing data entry. When big companies like IBM were trying to grow their workforce, they found that the best programmers were antisocial loners, and that woman programmers were more likely to leave the workforce early in order to get married and raise a family. Knowing this, they deliberately started trying to change the public perception of programming to a nerdy guy thing, and it appears they were succesful.

That said, I do agree with you that lowering the bar is the wrong way to go about things, and that outreach programs will be more beneficial. I saw the negative effects of lowering the bar first hand in the military. Physical fitness tests have lower standards for females, but they both compete for the same promotion spots. This led to a lot of females with higher fitness scores than males, and and subsequent faster promotions and resentment from the males. A lot of the females didn't like the lower standards either, because they knew that once they got to a higher rank their subordinates would just assume they only got that high of a rank because they had to meet lower standards and that allowed them to get promoted faster than their peers.

The way I understood that story, programming was initially "women's work" for 2 reasons:

1) Legacy of the word 'computer' being a job title of lots of women sitting at long tables together with slide rules. Men would give orders and they would compute.

2) Designing the machines was originally the high-prestige job. "Just" programming wasn't considered difficult until we actually tried doing it a lot.

I think the stuff about public perception was more about marketing PCs in the 70s and 80s than any illuminati-level labor market manipulation.

My understanding is they filled the need of work being done while the men were off at war.

But again. Just because there were women doing a job that is very different than today's or the last 40 years of programming and now there is not does not indicate that there was actual discrimination that caused woman to leave the industry.

1) Thr job changed dramatically. 2) Aftet the war we had the baby boomers. Women were off making a ton of babies not programming. 3) The entire job market changed for both men and woman away from manufacturing to white collar jobs. This opening the doors for both men and women to have jobs else where.

>When big companies like IBM were trying to grow their workforce, they found that the best programmers were antisocial loners, and that woman programmers were more likely to leave the workforce early in order to get married and raise a family. Knowing this, they deliberately started trying to change the public perception of programming to a nerdy guy thing, and it appears they were succesful.

This is a new one. I know you already said you can't find your source, but if anyone else has one, I would love to see it.

> Last I checked most of programming came from the once persecuted nerd and geeks.

...

> The lack of the numbers representing a group does not automatically imply discrimination.

...

What "historic wrongs" are keeping women or minorities out of the technology field? Honestly curious.

> not a mindless focus on ever-higher productivity.

Ugh. I said, "improve the output and speed of innovation".

Those two things are what will actually help humanity collectively. You're equality of outcome wet dream will do the opposite.

I asked my girlfriend this, and she said a few things:

1) It looked tedious and frustrating to learn.

2) It's filled with a bunch of dudes, which makes her uncomfortable.

3) It doesn't come "naturally" to her so she thinks it'd be frustrating in the long run as well.

So basically, she didn't want to do it for a variety of reasons, and freely decided not to.

How was anyone wronged here?

Depends if you think anyone is wronged by the gender pay gap, and whether (2) is one of the foundations of the gender pay gap.

Our supposedly free choices are mediated by circumstance. Even in this apology (and really, am I supposed to be impressed with hearsay from a single woman?) one of the reasons is "I didn't want to enter a discipline that was overwhelmingly male."

Thanks for your rigorous research.

> What "historic wrongs" are keeping women or minorities out of the technology field? Honestly curious.

Hundreds of years of systemic and societal oppression. Really how do people not get this?

I think people are unconvinced that applying affirmative action to tech hiring addresses or chips away at that much broader problem.

Especially when they're not the ones oppressing anyone. And double-especially if we're hiring people who are unqualified and uninterested in tech just to pad the diversity stats. I'm here to do stuff. I care about broader social issues too, but I go to work to code.

Not trying to strawman or misrepresent you -- just saying that the connection from tech hiring to things that happened before the invention of the transistor isn't necessarily self-evident to everyone.

I asked a very specific question... your progressive buzzwords aren't answers.

Well, the implications are unpleasant for a lot of us

That's actually a false dilemma. Both are compatible goals. The idea is that the more people with these skills, the more innovation can come from it.

On that note, I don't believe "sacrificed quality" can come from an influx of more engineers, junior or not. Rather, a larger base of junior engineers has the opportunity of increasing the capability of existing senior engineers due to the paradigm of mentoring.

Here is an article (posted to Hacker News some time ago) that I often reflect on: https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/who-killed-the-junior-deve...

You get more innovation by having a wider pool of talent to draw from. That likely more than counters reducing the 'quality' of what is at best an introductory course.

It's not about skin color, it's a question of having for example a blind team member causing the team to think about a wider set of issues.

But shouldn't we just hire people based on whatever qualifications we deem an indicator to talent, skill, ethic, etc?

Does being a woman, disabled, ethnic, etc bring meaningful insight to designing a network protocol? Is that a quantifiable thing? I suspect both of these answers are a resounding no.

Lets care what talent and interests people have. Lets give them the education they need to pursue those interests. Creating groups of people by what I consider irrelevant details like what organs they have and then forcing them into certain occupations does not seem likely to make better network protocols. I frankly am always puzzled that people who fight for equality, simultaneously care so much about what's between our legs.

Now, if you think the blind, or women, or w/e are interested in STEM/etc but due to culture they avoid it? Great, that's something we can work with. Lets work on trying to change culture for new generations. Don't force them into STEM, but ensure that children who are interested in STEM can follow it, regardless of gender.

> due to culture they avoid it

And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room.

> Creating groups of people by what I consider irrelevant details > ensure that children who are interested in STEM can follow it, regardless of gender

People massively underestimate the importance of role models and empathy in career decision making. At some point you need to jump start it and use contextual signs to plot future potential.

We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater potential for success.

I'm expecting this line of argument to get me downvotes on HN, but contextual recruitment, and that increasing levels of diversity on all teams being a good thing (even if it means, within a few percentage points, hiring for potential than current expertise), is a fairly uncontroversial thing in the world of recruitment.

> And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room.

That's fair, and I understand that solutions to social problems are complex and hard to quantify. I certainly do not know the solutions.

Yet, if we hire based on skin color, we are by definition not hiring by skill, talent, interests, etc. This also will inherently breed resentment and cause issues, but perhaps that's an accepted cost by your measure.

My concern is that this method of solving the culture issue will cause more problems than solve. Ie, maybe the next generation contains more women who are honestly interested in STEM, and pursue it; Great! But it got there on the backs of, by definition, unqualified women in STEM. That alone has to breed a culture of women not being equal to men in STEM, because we spent the last X years hiring by gender and skin color, rather than purely by merit.

Do you disagree with these sentiments? I feel your solution is a possible solution, but with multiple, possibly worse, downsides.

I do disagree to the extent that the role models for men in STEM are borne out of the same, unfair, cycle. [0]

We can go reductio ad absurdum and go all the way back and say that, for example, men were given the opportunities in STEM 200 years ago not because they were any more qualified, but because they were the ones allowed to go to school, causing an artificial cycle of inspiration and societal expectations around the profession. Do men or women in the sciences today feel guilt or resentment at that?

I'd also argue against framing them as "unqualified women in STEM", as the basis of my argument isn't about, for example, shoehorning a hairdresser into a rocket science career, but just taking into account context when looking at similar candidates.

[0] am intrinsically aware of my own position, being a white male, but I do work in a sector looking at a different form of inequality so have some context as to the issue.

Sidenote, I appreciate your viewpoints to this complex subject and that we're able to discuss it calmly. These things can boil out of control even if you try to be as gentle as possible.

> We can go reductio ad absurdum and go all the way back and say that, for example, men were given the opportunities in STEM 200 years ago not because they were any more qualified, but because they were the ones allowed to go to school, causing an artificial cycle of inspiration and societal expectations around the profession. Do men or women in the sciences today feel guilt or resentment at that?

That's a fair example. Today? Likely not. The 1st generation however? I imagine plenty of women/etc felt resentment towards men for being unfairly chosen in the market. I mean, that's why were discussing this now - right? There's a group of people that some claim are being chosen for unethical reasons.. of sorts.

> I'd also argue against framing them as "unqualified women in STEM", as the basis of my argument isn't about, for example, shoehorning a hairdresser into a rocket science career, but just taking into account context when looking at similar candidates.

Yea, and I'm not trying to straw man here about hairdresser/rocket-science bit. I just mean that, the moment we stop choosing based on criteria that matter to the subject (skill/talent/etc), and instead choose on criteria that matter to a 3rd party subject (skin color/etc), we cause new problems.

We may solve problems, but we also cause problems.

As an easy example; I think this whole conversation would be far less common if everyone, and I do mean everyone, believed that hiring was truly always based on color/gender/etc blind skill, ethic, etc. If we believed that hiring truly had no bias towards white-males, then by forcing "other" people into it would inherently be hiring less qualified individuals. This would be done with goal of spawning a new generation of children who are more attracted to STEM, but my point is, there is a cost now. So I think we'd need to be very sure that we're acknowledging the costs now and if they're worth a perceived gain in the future.

Another HN user[1] had a really interesting viewpoint too, about another country. His/her example really highlighted why I'm even unsure that shoehorning more women into X field is really an effective approach.

Likewise, if we're going to discuss this I think we also need to discuss historically women driven industries, and need to force less women working there and more men working there. Culturally there are a many professions that are heavily dominated by one gender. Yet we're only talking about STEM, for example. As with all of this, lets be equal.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17918184

> Sidenote, I appreciate your viewpoints to this complex subject and that we're able to discuss it calmly. These things can boil out of control even if you try to be as gentle as possible.

Likewise.

> That's a fair example. Today? Likely not. The 1st generation however? I imagine plenty of women/etc felt resentment towards men for being unfairly chosen in the market.

I'd imagine that's true too - however I can't quite understand why we'd know this, and then hold onto the same resentment if the tables are turned more fair now (not even that I'm arguing for it to be anywhere near as explicit as that was, we're talking about tipping factors and increments, not outright discrimination against a group).

> I just mean that, the moment we stop choosing based on criteria that matter to the subject (skill/talent/etc), and instead choose on criteria that matter to a 3rd party subject (skin color/etc)

Again, the argument isn't that we're selecting them based on that 3rd party characteristic though, but using that as a lens to the demonstrated skill/talent. To choose another characteristic - someone who went to an inner city school in a deprived neighbourhood getting a B+ vs someone who went to a private school getting an A-. The former far outperformed their relative expectation, and being within the same ballpark as the latter, would arguably make a better hire. But if we reserved it strictly to looking at "who comes out on top", then the latter could be the only rational choice, even if (given their position) they should have gotten an A+.

> inherently be hiring less qualified individuals

We can argue around this point, but I think it's important to draw it out: hiring someone isn't an absolute. "Qualified" isn't a definitive bar, but a spectrum that can be interpreted in different ways (at least for the vast majority of roles).

> shoehorning more women into X field is really an effective approach

Again, can we move away from implying this is some kind of forcing? We're not dragging underrepresented groups into these roles, but giving them organic opportunities.

I honestly don't buy into the argument around "gender specific" roles - there are enough women who are interested in them already to show that isn't the case. We're literally trying to shift societal expectations - this can't be done in one generation, which is why I respectfully discount an anecdote on that timeframe for this.

We have several hundred years of society deeming that certain roles are for men, and some are for women, and then... men go into male roles and women into female roles. Doesn't mean anything other than we've configured a system and it's behaving as expected, and there's enough exceptions to prove that those societal expectations are worthless, and if they were no longer there, there's the potential for us to be in a much different place (with more, much needed, talent).

> So I think we'd need to be very sure that we're acknowledging the costs now and if they're worth a perceived gain in the future.

I would again like to draw out my point that this isn't about gifting an unsuitable applicant a job over someone who is suitable. There might be costs, but there are also costs to perpetuating the notion that there are some jobs some people aren't supposed to be doing (both explicitly, and implicitly through having no role models doing them).

My closing statement is therefore (based on my point above) - contextual recruitment that gives weight to the performance of underrepresented groups in technology (whilst still ensuring they're technically capable) is a net positive for the company, and the longer term recruitment pipeline.

> To choose another characteristic - someone who went to an inner city school in a deprived neighbourhood getting a B+ vs someone who went to a private school getting an A-. The former far outperformed their relative expectation, and being within the same ballpark as the latter, would arguably make a better hire.

But that is not what you are doing. If it was simply that I am sure people would be more on board. But what you are doing is looking at their skin color and gender. Completely different. Seeing how we are talking about race and gender I can only assume you are suggesting that if somebody of a given race enters the room they must have come from the inner city -- sounds raciest to me.

That being said, I am 100% helping the poor find their way. And guess what? With the exception of gender it still hits most of the race targets that have affirmative action today.

The support for the disadvantaged, and truly underrepresented -- the poor people -- of America is what we should e focusing on. Unilaterally poor people have less access to good education, tools and supplies to learn anything. And the problem self balances! Whoever is poor gets a equally opportunity for help, and when they are not poor they don't get help!

And as I have said many times today, and all the time. You fix these problems at the start of somebodies life, not at the middle. You have to go to poor areas (yes, that means monitory races in a lot of cases) and make sure single parents have extra support and access to computers and tutoring. You need to pour the money in to low income areas and pay teachers a competitive rate to get THE BEST teachers in to those schools. Further more you need classes that teach far beyond the basics. You need basic finances, subsidized savings accounts to teach personal finance. Lessons on delayed gratification.

Nobody likes being left out because of their race or sex. You can't change it, and you are stuck with it. That was the entire point of civil rights movement. The second you start inspecting race or gender for programs you are taking steps backwards. You are causing segregation and passably resent by those who were passed over for not having the right bits, or color. And judging by some of the sentiment of some groups today, resentment and hate is exactly what you are left with when you base decisions on race and sex. I don't expect the rich to get mad because some poor kid got a job, made a company and is now rich. I mean I guess it could be happen, but that would be silly.

2 things here, I think we've argued down a path by using too many examples.

My broader point is around the use of context of performance in recruitment - that is most often done, as you've referenced, from the perspective of parental income over and above anything else.

My points around race and gender are definitely not an insinuation that someone of a particular race is from a specific socioeconomic background or location either.

And again, it's not about giving undue preference to someone solely based on their protected characteristics either - in relation to the original point about how we ensure a diverse culture in an organisation, you don't get there without appreciating the context of the groups, and how they've had to perform to get there, in said organisation.

In the UK it's legal to use positive action with groups that have a record of low participation, and it's justifiable if your goal is to ensure a diverse workforce (which has been shown to improve the bottom line).

I don't mean to just attack your argument, but I don't think "segregation and passably resent by those who were passed over for not having the right bits, or color" fits the points I've been making and feels like reactionary protectionism. If you agree contextual recruitment makes sense (which you have done), then you must appreciate that relative wealth isn't the only barrier stopping different groups entering the profession.

> In the UK it's legal to use positive action with groups that have a record of low participation, and it's justifiable if your goal is to ensure a diverse workforce (which has been shown to improve the bottom line).

I am not sure if you quoted this wrong, but it would suggest that a more diverse workforce is cheaper if the bottom line is what was improved. It would make much more sense to support diversity if the top of line was boosted. Bottom of line efforts are usually employed to squeeze more cash out of the thing -- at least in a healthy company who was already running at decent margens. So it in my eyes it sounds like another tactic to exploit more out of workers. Not a good thing for the workers, awesome for the fat cats.

Beyond that I am not convinced that diversity actually improves a organization over merit. Please don't take it anti diversity its just pro meritocracy.

> fits the points I've been making and feels like reactionary protectionism.

Maybe, but I have seen the impact first hand in many cases. At the end of the day everybody wants special treatment, and when that special treatment can't be hand because of a feature you have no control over it never is a good feeling, unless you already feel yourself in such a superior position to take pity on those who received the special treatment.

As a anecdotal, and maybe this is why I am so passionate about it. I grew up very poor. And my middle school had a program for issuing computers to low income students. The only problem was low income was not the only requirement. Upon request for one you find out the program is not offered to white students. It took me near 5 years to get my first computer that I could use for more than just a few moments in a computer lab. I had to make due with a typewriter and a calculator.

You tell me why that is fair? I remember clearly they had tons of unissued laptops at the time, I walked past the stack in the computer lab every day. Again, tell me how denying somebody a public resource based off their color is fair?

Now take that story and flip the requirement from can't be white to can't be black. If that rubs you wrong in any way then maybe, just maybe you could see how race based initiatives vs wealth based ounces can do more damage than good, because I am sure I am not the only person with such a story.

Beyond that who are we to play god? And decide somebody's worthiness of effort -- based off skin color? History has shown what happened the last time that men did this, and it was not pretty.

> then you must appreciate that relative wealth isn't the only barrier stopping different groups entering the profession.

I can agree, but again, it is not skin color or gender. I think if you look closer subcultures hold groups of people back every day. And again, the fix is education early and often.

I think part of the problem is some people what change NOW, but fail to realize any sort of change is going to take generations, at least any sort of lasting change. People have to go through the paces All of america was not always rich, and much of america is built of very hard work and grit, and only now are we just seeing the fruits of the sacrifices past generations made.

> I am not sure if you quoted this wrong, but it would suggest that a more diverse workforce is cheaper if the bottom line is what was improved.

Not quoting it wrong - it doesn't suggest that inherently, bottom line comes after top line, and thus it makes no judgement on whether it was increased by reducing costs or increasing sales. I meant the latter, but my statement didn't exclude it.

> pro meritocracy

In an ideal world, that's the ideal state. We just need to get there, that's the issue here.

> Maybe, but I have seen the impact first hand in many cases.

You've made an impassioned argument about positive action as a concept there, and I actually work in a marketing space around inequality from a parental income perspective so 100% appreciate the points you raise. I also went to a poor school where my teachers didn't have batteries for the clocks, and could only photocopy the exam marking scheme on one side, meaning the greatest expectation they had for us was a C grade.

I do, however, think we're talking at cross-purposes, and the issues you've raised with the education system (I believe) are different from the points I've been working through about recruitment choices in later employment.

Fairness is different in education (I agree with you that any kind of artificial limit on access to a decent education is a shitshow we should be ashamed of), where quality should be consistent and equitable, versus what it is when making a qualitative decision on a hire. It's not about fairness in the latter situation at all, but identifying greater potential in candidates - whether that's through raw grades or taking into account the context those grades were achieved in (which, is more often than not based on the education they achieved, but not always)

I know, based on the POLAR[0] information about my school, I've been looked at through a Widening Participation/positive action lens. I wouldn't begrudge someone from another underrepresented group to be given that treatment based on another characteristic of theirs.

For example, if there's a lack of men teaching primary/kindergarten in an area, then I'd be ok seeing them to be selected over a female equivalent of similar qualified status as the environment for a male primary teacher is societally harsher.

> I think if you look closer subcultures hold groups of people back every day. And again, the fix is education early and often.

True - but if we wind it all the way to my argument up the thread about role models and success, the educational fix also comes from breaking those subcultures through example.

[0] the UK's access to higher education ranking for UK areas

I am done replying directly to this topic. I feel that we could disagree forever. Thank you for a honest debate on this issue. As I constantly reevaluate my position on any stance I take; I will consider the arguments you made in combination with any future information I gather on this topic.

I should also state that I do see the points you make. I am just not convinced that the solution proposed will have the intended outcome, or not create new problems.

> And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room.

This is not always the case. I attended part of high school at a private school that practiced aggressive affirmative action. The result was that students quickly realized the gulf in academic caliber between most of the recipients of affirmative action and high performing students avoided working with them. Not only did it fail to rectify racist assumptions, it actually reinforced them by creating an environment where these assumptions held true. Affirmative action in the workplace risks playing out the same way.

I'm definitely in favor of affirmative action in the form of more heavily recruiting at women's conferences, historically black universities, etc. but actually hiring candidates based on identity who would otherwise not be extended an offer certainly is a controversial practice - even in highly liberal places like Silicon Valley.

> We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater potential for success.

Honestly, we are even talking about making way for someone of equal, or even higher, raw talent but of a different background. To say otherwise takes the (in my opinion obviously not justified) premise that without any intervention hiring functions as a perfect meritocracy.

I think you're agreeing with me?

I mostly agree but I'm saying you're understating the case by accepting the AA opponent's false premise that AA means accepting objectively worse "diversity hires."

That is where I take issue.

You are wrapping up the measure of raw potential based off gender and skin color. You can't make any assumptions about that based off those two things. You don't know if you are looking at a wealthy black kid, or a poor white kid, you don't know which house hold had a dysfunctional abusive situation based off skin or gender. You can't tell which one was made fun of in school and bullied. You can't even say which one had actually had more exposure to whatever field you are hiring for. You just can't, that is not how it works.

You are being racist and sexist if you make assumptions about a individual based off their skin color or gender. How all the sudden you know somebodies background because you have negative views about what it must have been like to be born a certain color or gender. And don't tell me that you are not doing that, otherwise you would be using some other metric than gender or color to suggest the things you are suggesting. I would be furious if I just got done interviewing with you and you thought I had high raw talent because of my skin color or gender.

I have said many times when this topic comes up. If you really want to make change you have to do so at the beginning of the pipe line, when the kids are young. Support for low income single parent family's (any race). Ensure the environment is well suited for girls to take part in tech activities (e.g. treat everybody the same). I don't buy the "needs roll models" argument at all. Kids / people are either going to like program or not. And if the problems is "there are too many dudes" in tech then maybe we should all stop vilifying the men in tech and create environments where both sexes can learn to calibrate and work together. After reading stuff from vice, and the like no wonder girls/women would be terrified to work with men.

tl;dr Do everybody a favor and stop imagining how disadvantage somebody is based off their skin color, or gender, you really have no clue.

You have misunderstood the point so badly it almost seems willful. The scale is already tipped; AA policies are an attempt to fix that, not to promote mediocrities.

For instance consider this work showing that, given the exact same resume, employers are less likely to call back applicants whose names sound black: https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15...

> The [identical] resumes with white-sounding names spurred 50 percent more callbacks than the ones with black-sounding names.

> After responding to 1,300 ads with more than 5,000 resumes, the researchers found that the job applicants with white names needed to send 10 resumes to get one callback, but the black candidate needed to send 15 for one.

> It didn’t matter whether the employer was a federal contractor or was described as an "equal opportunity employer," as those also discriminated like the others.

> "We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names," their paper states. "These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market."

I have actually read that paper and it is fairly old at this point, and other studies like it more recently have concluded different results.

While your quote mentions class, and asserts that they were not getting signals from class -- one look at the name list chosen for white people will show you how they did not properly control for class. For example they have almost no low class names on the white side. I am sure adding a Bo, Ada, Billy, Bucephelus, Cleatus or Clyde would have for sure changed the callback results on whites.

At the time the study was done I was working at a company that would have never posted a advertisement in a paper, but would have called every single last person both white and black back. The suggestion is that people who posted in papers might have been of a different age group and other means of replying to a job ad such as email at the time may have produced more balanced results.

There is also the issue of the name being disliked and not actually the perceived color of the person. Aversion to unfamiliar ethnic names is entirely different than hating black people. While it is will play out poorly for those with such names it does not guarantee that the same person with a different name would have experienced the same callback rate. This is a phenomena that transcends race. This also is probably a good time to point out assimilation is part of living in a mixed race society. If I recall correctly, the notion of black names started sometime after the 1960s. This happened more so in low-income racially divided areas. It was part of Afrocentrism. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, it can have unintended consequences that are not necessarily racially charged. Meanwhile other immigrants had taken on more traditionally American names, as a result those groups seemed to have done very well in the US (Asians). To keep it short, sometimes it does not pay to be unique.

But none of that matters, because I never claimed there was no discrimination. But I have repeatedly stated how to solve the problem without using more discrimination. That is to pump money and education efforts into low income areas. More aid to single parent families, access to computers (not just access, but actual computers in their names). Classes on personal finance, and dealing with money. Cultivating a notion of delayed gratification. Paid classes for low income parents to learn more about what they can do to make their child successful. Subsidized match savings accounts that are released in full on graduating high school. And 3 free meals at low income schools. I think it would also be interesting to see how to desegregate low income black schools from low income white schools. Don't forget the teachers! Competitive salaries that can support hiring the best of the teachers for these areas.

This is the key because it gives the kids real tools for life that will serve them regardless of how they are treated once they get out of school. A good education also helps with racism in general. If you look the people thinking about these issue and trying things are very educated. If you target poor areas with a relentless education effort both whites and non-whites will be educated, and in return lower the total racial tension, creating a new wave of diversity that will be a lasting one.

> There is also the issue of the name being disliked and not actually the perceived color of the person. Aversion to unfamiliar ethnic names is entirely different than hating black people. While it is will play out poorly for those with such names it does not guarantee that the same person with a different name would have experienced the same callback rate. This is a phenomena that transcends race. This also is probably a good time to point out assimilation is part of living in a mixed race society. If I recall correctly, the notion of black names started sometime after the 1960s. This happened more so in low-income racially divided areas. It was part of Afrocentrism. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, it can have unintended consequences that are not necessarily racially charged. Meanwhile other immigrants had taken on more traditionally American names, as a result those groups seemed to have done very well in the US (Asians). To keep it short, sometimes it does not pay to be unique.

In case you've forgotten, black people were brought to this country against their will and their culture, heritage, and genealogical record was deliberately destroyed. Choosing a black name is a small attempt to reverse that tremendous damage. To turn around and say that if they want to be successful they have to "assimilate" is to me a position that's indefensible. You may also remember that the position of black workers was actually not more equal before the 1960s.

I am also not very reassured to hear that maybe they're merely rejecting people with the wrong class background out of hand.

> But none of that matters, because I never claimed there was no discrimination. But I have repeatedly stated how to solve the problem without using more discrimination. That is to pump money and education efforts into low income areas. More aid to single parent families, access to computers (not just access, but actual computers in their names). Classes on personal finance, and dealing with money. Cultivating a notion of delayed gratification. Paid classes for low income parents to learn more about what they can do to make their child successful. Subsidized match savings accounts that are released in full on graduating high school. And 3 free meals at low income schools. I think it would also be interesting to see how to desegregate low income black schools from low income white schools. Don't forget the teachers! Competitive salaries that can support hiring the best of the teachers for these areas.

All these solutions presume the inferiority of black candidates when we're looking at the reality that identical credentials are less valued from black candidates. The idea that black people are uniquely lacking in "delayed gratification" is also bordering on offensive racist caricature.

It is all well and good to improve the schooling circumstances of black students, but it seems equally important to make it so black candidates do not have to be overwhelmingly superior to even be considered over white ones.

> black people were brought to this country against their will and their culture

This is a nice argument for maybe the first few generations, but all of us, you and me and everybody had no choice where we were born even what color we are. People get shuffled and moved around this earth for all sorts of misfortunate reasons. You also have to deal with the fact that there has been voluntary immigration of blacks since slavery. I was just reading how more sub-Saharan immigrants have came to the US since slavery than the entirety of those shipped here by slave traders. Much of the renewed culture has been attributed to those with a choice and fresh connections to Africa.

> I am also not very reassured to hear that maybe they're merely rejecting people with the wrong class background out of hand.

Nobody said it was good that anybody would do it, but it is entirely different problem that is not racism, and something that is within the power of change. A person can't change his skin color to get a better chance at a job, but a person can change their name. This goes for people of all color born with a name that does not perform as well. A white Harvard grad with the name Butkiss is likely going to have trouble true. The point is discrimination on immutable characteristics is what we are fighting here.

> All these solutions presume the inferiority of black candidates when we're looking at the reality that identical credentials are less valued from black candidates. The idea that black people are uniquely lacking in "delayed gratification" is also bordering on offensive racist caricature.

Please go read my comment again. My solutions are applied to the poor, not by race, that is my entire point. Fix the poor problem and the race issues described in this thread go away. Why? Because we will have more people educated, including whites that may have grown up to be racist or at least had bias tendencies. Affirmative action is like taking pain killers for a curable problem. Educating the masses and raising the bar for all is the actual cure. I feel you have grossly interpret something from my comments that is totally off basis. The ability to display delayed gratification is one of the biggest indicators of future success in life, and it is something that is probably not taught by the parents of the poor, I know it was not in my household. No assumption about the candidates were being made at all, although many have suggested considering a lower marked minority over a higher marked white person. I don't make derogatory generalization about any group identified by a immutable characteristic. The only sensible thing to do when two candidates who are equally qualified for a position is simply flip a coin. This would remove any bias and over time have a more natural result in what you are attempting to achieve.

> It is all well and good to improve the schooling circumstances of black students, but it seems equally important to make it so black candidates do not have to be overwhelmingly superior to even be considered over white ones.

Again, I said poor, not black students, poor. I am not concerned with the candidates. Quite simply if a qualified black candidate does not get the job because of his race then that is discrimination and should be dealt with, there are means to do so already in place. I am 100% on board with everybody having an equal opportunity. If you can show that somebody is selecting one candidate over another based on things like color (especially to underrepresented people), then we should be going after them full force and ensuring they correct their hiring processes. You simply can't create a right with two wrongs. Once you give people the power to discriminate it is hard to go back.

Nobody should ever not get a job because they had the wrong skin color, and when you say chose somebody based off skin color you are ensuring the number of people who don't get a job because of their skin color goes, not down. We should be striving to remove race based decisions from our society not adding them.

If you think everything is dandy if people don't get jobs because their names sound too poor or too ethnic then we just don't share the same basic worldview.

You are being completely dishonest. Don't put words in my mouth. I never said such a thing or implied it.

All I am doing is pointing out the difference between that and selcting somebody based off color.

This is the second time you have resorted to paiting a dishonest view of me instead of attacking my points...

I don't see what the difference is. Even if the intent of binning "Jamal's" resume and keeping "Jake's" isn't overtly racist the effect is obviously discriminatory.

You are right, the result may be the same. But it is important to properly label and address the issues.

This is part of the entire issue as a whole. And partly why I think the there are better solutions to the problem. Intent matters. If you apply a race based solution to a problem that was incorrectly identified as a race based issue it is sure to fail. You could call it discriminatory but the entire selection process is just that. What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not.

In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population.

I also figured out why I have such a hard time with blindly selecting a given race in terms of programming. No pun intended, it creates a race condition. In your scenario if a white person and a black person always submitted their resume, and the black person is always selected then then white person might apply to 100 jobs and get selected, if it so happens that 100 black people also applied with the same qualifications. Because there is no global accounting system per individual this very well can happen, and has happened, and is the exact thing we are trying to solve. Nobody can guarantee there will be a scenario when this white person will submit a resume indefinitely and indefinitely not get selected because of the rule of always selecting a minority over a white person. This is why I suggest adding a bit of randomness to it.

So today we have have broken code, we can fix it, but we should fix it with more correct code, not more broken code.

> What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not.

This presumption of yours is presumably why I'm not making any sense to you. I don't really think it's relevant whether someone is consciously choosing to discriminate on the basis of race or doing so unwittingly. Many -- probably even most -- racist outcomes we see do not require overt, intentional racism. Instead they come from unexamined and subconscious bias in circumstances where the judgement is subjective enough that it's possible for the person making it to fool themselves and others about what they're really doing. That's an improvement over open, unabashed racism, but I don't think we can stop there and say we're delivering anything resembling fairness. Having an aesthetic distaste for cornrows or the name Lakeisha is one of the least subtle examples of this happening.

> In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population.

In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates. What John Dovidio has shown is that in these circumstances people doing the judging have a strong tendency to decide which criteria to weigh most heavily in a way that, in effect, favors the white candidate in any given instance where both candidates are plausible. I don't think you can fix this solely by changing the interviewing process except, maybe, by the kind of extremely rigid and uniform government job interviewing process everyone talks about hating.

> racist outcomes

Its not racist if race was not the driving factor. I think that is the big part of why there is so much push back. On this topic. You appear to be viewing the outcome as raciest, but are not willing to see how other factors may result in the same outcome. You have to understand how the outcomes came about to being to fix it. I agree that there is discrimination and much of it can be caused by subconscious bias. To repeat, assuming the cause based off the outcome is completely incorrect. I do agree that people are and can be doing exactly what you are saying, but it is hard to prove and not what is happening in every case.

It is completely bad logic to assume racism is occurring because the results are what one might expect had it occurred. You MUST understand the dynamics before prescribing a solution.

> In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates.

I had a feeling you might say something like this, but I was hoping you could see past my simple example. When I say same qualifications I mean a range that is acceptable for the position at hand. Lets say we had a scale of 1 to 10 for a marking system. And we have a job that requires between 7 and 9. We would randomly select all candidates matching who were marked between 7 and 9. But you do bring a problem I had thought about and why I hate mucking with the hiring process at all, is the judging system. I think you are suggesting that the judges will rank a group more poorly thus wont fit the bracket and thus wont get the job -- thus we must select the underrepresented person by default. If that is the case, then why have a rank at all, you seem to simply say if underrepresented person applies they must be hired, because the person judging the candidates for rank will give the underrepresented person lower marks, and not get the job. I don't think this is the case but there is a solution to make sure it is that still allows for random selection on equally ranked Canada's. That is simply companies must keep a record of rankings and document their decision's why they chose who they chose for a given job position. These records can be audited at any time.

If you are dead set on the only solution is that a underrepresented person must always be selected over a white person then I think we are done, and I don't think we are going to changes each other's minds. I would be interested in any other solutions you might have. While I have more ideas, I feel that I have already struck out with you and can't put any more effort into this.

I don't agree with your definition of "racism" here. If it's racially discriminatory in effect, by my reckoning, it's racist, even if no actor has racist intent.

In the question of hiring, what I most favor is measures to reward the hiring of a diverse workforce as a countervailing force to structural forces that lead to racist outcomes. I feel this would work better than trying to impose some method of hiring. This is not really that different from Affirmative Action, which of course does not actually prescribe that minority candidates most always be selected.

I'd say if you have two people that are in the same ballpark technically but one is from a disadvantaged background, that one probably showed more grit to get where they are and will be a better producer. So I'm with you there.

But that's still about hiring the best person. What I can't get behind is the idea that making blatant 'diversity hires' is going to fix broader societal problems.

The problem there is people then assume "X && Y == not disadvantaged" because they already have their quota of people with those characteristics, hence discriminating against that student purely based on X and Y.

Again, someone makes a much better TL;DR of my point :)

I'd say though that your second point is actually part of the first, the desire to look for and help those from disadvantaged backgrounds is really just a sourcing strategy to find that "best person".

Quota filling and box ticking isn't good for anyone and that's a BS strategy any way you look at it. But if you're in it for the right reasons and the candidate's in the right ballpark, is capable, and can also serve as a role model to attract more people like them - it's a win-win.

Especially in tech, recruitment pipelines across the board are so screwed if we only limit ourselves to attracting white, middle class, men as the need for knowledge workers booms. Just to fill future jobs we're going to need people from across the spectrum to feel as they though should be heading for those roles.

So you're happy to discriminate against "white, middle class, men" then? I hope you're not under any illusion that this is anything other than racist and sexist.

IMO you don't defeat racism and sexism by deciding to be racist and sexist.

> So you're happy to discriminate against "white, middle class, men" then?

Erm, no.

My points, to avoid confusion:

1) contextual recruitment means you choose the candidate with better potential for success. That's not any more discriminatory than putting a mental weight to a particular university someone studied at, and is the basis for pretty much every "best practice" recruitment process out there.

2) we need white, middle class men, + a load more other people as well. How is that not clear?

>contextual recruitment means you choose the candidate with better potential for success //

Now you're bullshitting, you've just decided that all people who aren't middle-class white males are inferior, and based it solely on those characteristics.

It seems like, in common with many that you hold to an idea of "positive discrimination", that's what your comment attests to at least. That's still discrimination, if you select on race/sex when it's not relevant then that's racism/sexism. Many people, the majority it seems, are fine with that.

We don't need white middle class men at all, we need people [who can perform job roles]. Those people have a sex and colour, for sure, but that's (mostly) entirely irrelevant to their worth/suitability.

You may be surprised, but having a diversity of ideas and backgrounds really could improve a network protocol. Suppose nobody on the team ever dealt with significant packet loss. It’s easy to overlook something like that if you have never dealt with it.

Again it’s not about direct discrimination it’s the benefit of having a wider pool of experience to draw from. You want the wisest possible funnel at the start so you get the guy who working a winter in Antarctica etc not just a group that passes the interview by having similar backgrounds.

> You may be surprised, but having a deversity of ideas really could improve a network protocol.

So why are so many companies that are hiring for racial, gender, sexual orientation etc. diversity, actively promoting a political monoculture? If it were really about diversity of ideas, political diversity would be a good place to start because people with different political alignments are much more likely (in my opinion) to have different ideas than a black and a white person from the same city who are politically aligned.

Because they are doing it poorly?

It's easy to measure a proxy for what you care about rather than what you actually want. That said, promoting diversity of backgrounds could under represent more homogeneous political groups. But, again you don't necessarily care about representing each group equally you care about having the maximum range of input while still functioning as a team.

I think the kind of diversity initiative you are speaking about is fundamentally different from the one the startup industry is aiming for. Diversity metrics are fairly commonplace, as is political homogenisation and suppression of alternative views. This leads me to believe that these companies are not in fact pursuing the kind of diversity (that of ideas/perspectives) that you are championing. They instead seem to be pursuing a kind of demographic equality of outcome where for any % of the populace, that same % should be represented in technology jobs. I find your idea of diversity a lot more defensible than the industry one.

This hasn't been my experience, at least in SF. The so-called political monoculture is heavily reason-driven, inclusive, and expressive.

This might mean that people whose views are exclusive are excluded from evangelizing those views. The reasons for those are better expressed by Karl Popper's essays on the tolerance of intolerance.

So you can't be against gay marriage or sex before marriage, and be for the suppression of expression. But that's a good thing for the reasons that Karl Popper brings up.

that's not the political monoculture I'm pointing out here. I'm strongly for maximising civil liberties, I support the idea that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as they aren't harming others. The monoculture I am pointing towards is the ideological striving for equality of outcome using affirmative action, condemning of people like James Damore who talk about differences between men and women and how that might affect the demographic underrepresentation of women in tech, that kind of thing. From what I understand there's little room for reasonable debate or discussion of these ideas.

How about people who aren't from wealthy coastal suburbs?

That's the monoculture in tech. Tech diversity stats basically mirror those suburbs with the exception of the east asian and south asian groups. (The suburbs are catching up as they raise families).

That's not really true; two people from similar backgrounds and different party affiliations likely have a lot in common in their ways of thinking.

more so than people who are just a different race or gender, from the same background? I doubt it. People from different backgrounds and life experiences would obviously be more likely to have different perspectives, but that's not really what affirmative action hires for - it hires for immutable characteristics like race and gender.

My expectation is the opposite of yours, and in point of fact people of a different race often are not from the same backgrounds since socioeconomic status is highly racialized in this country.

Of course there's going to be a large difference between people of different races' outlook and perspective, especially in the US. My point is that I think people from different political perspectives have much more fundamentally different ideas, beliefs and philosophies. For an explicit example, a progressive might spot gendered language in a UI that could be exclusionary, where a libertarian might spot a community problem that can solved by market or distributed forces/algorithms. Those are kind of on-the-nose examples but they serve to show things that people from different political lines might not even look for.

You know who else might spot gendered, exclusionary language better than colleagues? A woman.

My point was more general around how people with different political viewpoints see the world differently but if you want to focus on that particular example then go ahead I guess.

If you don't like how easily I can shoot holes in your two examples pick better ones

What we call "political diversity" at the moment (specifically, significant representation of outspoken conservatives) and diversity along other axes are often, sadly, at odds.

If being welcoming to all is an important part of your culture, it undermines your efforts to have people on your team who speak out strongly and harshly against diversity policies.

People who choose to keep their opinions to themselves can still thrive, but dissidents and activists have trouble. It was ever thus.

that depends on how far along the political spectrum you are. I'm a classical liberal (free market, free speech, pro-equality of opportunity etc) and I have read enough to believe that my political beliefs would not be welcome at many Silicon Valley companies. The particular politics of the California startup scene are pretty far left, to the point that people who would have been considered left wing less than 20 years ago would be seen as hardline conservative in that space. Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry or Sam Harris would likely have a hard time getting in.

There is fundamentally a difference between criticising diversity policies (aka affirmative action) and being anti-diversity or one of the various -isms.

> People who choose to keep their opinions to themselves can still thrive, but dissidents and activists have trouble. It was ever thus.

from the comment I was replying to:

> You may be surprised, but having a diversity of ideas and backgrounds really could improve a network protocol.

These two positions are contradictory, and that was exactly my point. Retric was suggesting that the political policy of SV is one of promoting diversity of ideas, and I pointed out (and seemingly you agree) that it is actually about enforcing and advancing a singular political belief.

Silicon Valley startups cover a wide range. They are thousands of independent actors covering a huge range of political views. Even if you want to restrict things to well funded startups, Uber and Google for example started as very different places.

So, I am really not talking about SV startups directly when I talk about the benefits of diversity. I am mostly focused on someone injecting a comment in a design meeting that saves the team weeks of work.

Diversity is good for business!

I think you may find these articles interesting.

https://hbr.org/2018/01/how-and-where-diversity-drives-finan...

https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter

Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but I don't argue on these grounds because it's not the reason I think what I think and it would not change my opinion if the research broke the other way.

Then we don't need to social engineer it. Or worse, mandate it. Both of those strategies ALWAYS have negative side effects.

Do businesses always behave perfectly rationally?

Farrrrrrr from it. Humans don't behave perfectly rationally. Humans often behave badly, in fact. I think you'd agree businesses are just humans (as are governments). That means they get all the beautiful and ugly traits we bring to them. That's why a strong legal framework to prevent business/other humans from using coercion against you and I is a great idea! That is what government is for!

So then it doesn't follow that there is no need for intervention simply because it is in businesses' rational interest to promote diversity.

If a more diverse team caused increase output and better results we really should have that as common hiring policy in state and government. Since here in Sweden about 90% of the population work in gender segregated professions, and in particular state and government positions tend to have exceptional high segregation, it would make sense that their hiring policy should reflect a goal for diversity. Many of the professions with 90%+ gender segregation also exist in health care and education which is both areas which many feel need improvement in output and results. I would assume that the benefit of improved diversity increase as gender segregation goes towards 100%.

Odd that they haven't done this already.

And yet the computer industry is the most innovative in history. Computers got faster and cheaper than any other product ever. The speed and price drop led directly to new uses every day.

The ability to write your own software without a factory led to all manner of companies writing software vs just the handful of hardware companies.

Because software is copied for zero overhead, a single blind programmer can write software for millions of people (they have).

Computing has drawn from an incredibly wide range of people in the past. The first generation that got into the field without formal computing degree because no such thing existed have only just retired.