Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why his comments are deemed sexist. Isn't he saying that 13 year old girls aren't as interested in computers as much as 13 year old boys? What am I missing?

This was my take too. I disagree with the opinion piece linked by the op.

My take was that he wanted more girls to be involved at a younger age in tech.

If you look upstream at hiring, If I have 20 candidates and they all graduated from either a bootcamp or a cs degree, then my pool will probably reflect that ratio.

If we want to fix the representation of people in any workforce that has a barrier to entry such as previous training. Like with Engineering and college. You have to get more representation in the engineering programs.

If you want that you have to have more applications to the engineering programs. If you want that you have to de-stigmatize engineering at a young age.

That was my take away from what he said, but maybe I'm projecting.

This comment breaks the site guideline against calling names in arguments. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.

Other comments in this thread are breaking the guidelines as well, but this one stood out.

Correction

Because they go against the narrative the proponents (irony...) of cancel culture want to impose. Why doesn't anyone ask why 13yo girls are not interested in becoming loggers, or police or trash collectors? Why are most 13yo boys not interested in becoming ballerinas?

Sure the proponents of cancel culture try to pretend there is no such thing as human biologically encoded biases: everyone is a supposed blank slate. That's why it seems a bit stupid for people who don't share their views, why try to fix human nature (as if it were possible) when you can just live with it?

Because it isn't true. It is him inventing a cause of a problem by simply ignoring many, many womens' experiences with discrimination in STEM that starts at a young age, which is extensively documented. This is what privilege looks like: "I never experienced it so it doesn't exist."

What isn't true? Do you believe that girls are equally interested in computers compared to boys at 13 years old?

Dude, you're missing the point. Women are actively chased out of tech. This has been going on for decades. Don't you remember a few years ago when half of the guys of 4chan doxxed and threatened to kill dozens of female gamers because those women dared to ask if games could treat women a little more fairly? I mean, its not like this is ancient history.

Can't you take some responsibility and educate yourself rather than asking me to educate you? I'm sure you taught yourself how to program by researching online, why can't you do the same thing to understand how shitty girls and women are treated in tech domains? Unless you just don't care? I don't get it. smh.

No no they aren't; there is an enormous political, academic and corporate movement to get and keep them and they certainly haven't dealt with anywhere near the general BS any nerd deals with growing up or being in tech; 90% of the time it's just complaints identical to yours; - Complete fabrications to appear a victim. - Complaints about things that everyone else deals with but due to equality feeling like oppression, suddenly the treatment equal to others feels oppressive. - Complaints about consequence for doing shitty things.

Re your point about 4chan; provide the story or it's just another fabrication

So he's sexist because you disagree with his argument?

It's not an argument. It's an assumption.

"And completely missing the boat on "right to free speech" != "right to no consequences""

This is the straw-man of all straw-mans.

---> Nobody is disagreeing with this statement.

There's 'no point to miss' because it's not even a point of discussion.

Everyone agrees that 'speech has consequences' and everyone agrees that someone 'calling a Black man the N-word in a derogatory manner' is terrible.

But we are arguing of people can dress up and play characters of another race or identity, or if we can mock people who do bad things by having characters do bad things or if we can literally use bad words while intellectually discussing bad words.

Or how much 'racism' is in the 'out group' using bigotry to attack the 'in group'.

Etc. etc..

The cancel culture arguments are at the margins of hate, not knee-deep.

If someone was doing Vaudevillian Blackface acts to mock black people, there would be 99.99% common agreement that this should be 'cancelled'.

But whether or not my corporation should be putting BLM on their website, that's complicated.

> Who would suspect more wisdom on privilege from proud sexist Paul Graham.

This is a great example of Cancel Culture. You attack someone's character, rather than their argument.

This is the definition of arguing in bad faith.

> Wow, talk about a word-salad to defend privelege.

"I'm on the right side of history, and for other people like me, here is how to navigate this trying persecution".

It's also clear that you can replace the term "orthodox privledge" with "perspective" and the good parts of the article would make complete sense while excluding the rather uncritical parts, since their substance largely hinges on the rhetorical value of this weaponized spin on the term privilege.

What's funny is he has no idea this entire elaboration can be perfectly applied to himself since, again, the whole thing lives-or-dies on the implicit perspective that he, or whatever persecuted idea(s), is on the "right side of history. Like, which perspective is defining orthodox?

I agree that using the word "perspective" is useful as a 101-level concept because perspectives can change radically based on a number of socioeconomic and cultural conditions out of their control. I think privilege is a 201-level concept that should only be deployed after someone internalizes the former statement, you gotta walk before you can run.

> He's learned nothing. Not a self-reflective bone in this man's body.

There's a lot of rhetoric without any actual argument. Unless you are a mind reader, I would suggest refraining from speculating on other people's mental states. Self-reflection is not a trait unique to people who agree with you.

I understand and share your POV, but it's also really easy to abuse.

If you think consequences for saying what you think are okay, it's no different than defending dictatorial goverments, where you just "dissapear" if you say something agains it. Or Galileo being forced to recant his theory that the Earth moves around the Sun.

So where do you draw the line?

> > So where do you draw the line?

> On a case-by-case basis.

Let me guess: "at being wrong"?

But you just wrote:

>And completely missing the boat on "right to free speech" != "right to no consequences".

Calling for the de-platforming, destruction of reputation, and career is a form of oppression.

It's a slippery slope from deplatforming someone to oppression. Might be good for you to read some history on it.

When did privilege become bad? I mean it is a reality we face daily but is it actually "bad" so should be eliminated? Plus there is no one privilege right?

At what point do I owe someone something for being less privileged than me?

I suppose we can put "privilege" in the bucket next to "fake news", along with all the other words co-opted to mean the exact opposite of their original meaning..

If you push "nazi", "sexist" and "racist" aside you should find some room.

And after that reflection what? Just give away your privilege as some sort of sacrifice?

Btw, this might be impossible from the wokies perspective, what is more inherently tied to identity than your own personal skin color. Can't change that, so maybe it just boils down to money.