[0] and I've seen this on dev discords where 20yos goes into all directions trying to apply all configuration of 'lessons of the day' in random ways and high stress. Very different brain activity.

ps: this brings a lot of questions about the psychology of learning.. how much do you learn because of youthful ego, social status desire, peer pressure, elder validations, future anxiety versus joyful and creative ways to see things and discuss ideas.

It lets me quickly learn the basics of things and if I want to dive deep I can revisit things later on.

I'm also naturally diving deeper into topics as I spend more time doing work related to them so all in all, I'm quite happy with how things are going so far.

Racist remarks like this need to stop. Being White or not has nothing to do with learning tech. Available resources (internet, libraries, universities) are available usually for free or small fees for everyone regardless of race (at least in the European case). Most other countries in the world haven’t even a significant White minority, and when they have one, they are not plotting against non-White to hinder their learning of technology (often quite the reverse, in fact).

All this pervasive whinging about "white males" is getting really tiring, like when the Smithsonian described traits like hard work, objective thinking, etc. as aspects of "whiteness"[0]. I mean yeah, if you erroneously associate all of these positive traits that drive success with "whiteness" or "white males", then I can see how you would conclude that "white males" have some sort of unfair advantage.

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rationa...

Have you investigated the source material? Engaged with it by doing the hard work of reading it and thinking about it objectively, which you seem to believe are positive ways to approach knowledge? Or are you reacting emotionally to your perception of a one-pager extracted from a whole body of work? Have you considered that some of the traits you're describing may have alternate combinations of traits that could also result in positive outcomes if they existed as the dominant traits?

These are just a few questions that arise for me from your snippy post. If you engaged with the material linked from that Newsweek article, you might come up with more.

I am not saying they are wrong. But the argument that white (and asian?) males have an inherent cultural advantage that's so outsized that significant differences in hiring/promotion/outreach standards cannot overcome it, is bogus.

Qualifier: Arguments around lack of maternity accomodations and an inherent class divide are completely valid. I am not referring to those.

It's not only racist, but also does not promote outperforming.

You can either sit and complain or try hard to skew the odds that are against you.

Do you think that having the internet, libraries, and universities is the only thing that can make it easier to learn technology? Does having time factor into that? Time to use the internet, time to go to the library, time to study for university. If having time factors into it, would you consider that having money factors into having time? If having money factors into having time, would you consider that race often factors into having money? If you would say that race may factor into having money, would you consider that this may be due to systemic effects? And if you would grant that there may be such systemic effects, do you think these effects may persist to some extent even for those who do manage to learn tech? Obviously there are a lot of links in that chain, and you may disagree with more than one of them, but I'd be interested in which link in the chain breaks---or if you're trying to say something beyond this chain.

I'm interested in the “quite the reverse” note, as well---what are some examples of countries in the world with a white minority where the country in question plots to hinder white peoples' learning of technology?

(mentors, support from authority, sufficient time/financing to be able to use the available resources)

If a professor believes consciously or subconsciously, by looking at you, that you're less likely to succeed, that's a significant barrier that may well be immediately fatal to your interest in a subject.

The frequency with which this kind of thing is said out loud is astonishing. E.g.: https://abc11.com/education/nc-state-professor-suspended-for...

If you've never personally witnessed quiet sexism (against women) and quiet racism (against non-white and in particular black people) in computer science, then I question where you have been.

In an overwhelmingly white European country. Out of the 900 people I went to uni with around a hundred were women and < 10 were not white.

This is a valid argument and true also in my experience.

The counter argument is that "software building" is to media companies (faang) what a press is to an advertising company. Problem-solving is not the relevant value-creating activity. The perceived need is for "creators" and "operators" for the "machine", rather than engineers and problem-solvers.

Screens today are spaces that need to be filled with "cultural content". The technology itself is a public good, and they want willing bodies that don't ask questions to turn the wheels of the "machine".

This is the rationale for ageism, whether valid or not.

Young folks learn rote (they just spent a whole bunch of years at school, doing exactly that), and adapt to it quickly, even if they don't fully understand the context or goals, so they are more likely to follow direction and process; especially if you can gamify the process.

Me, I like to know why, and to "play the tape through to the end." I'm also apt to say stuff like "Are you sure that you want to do that? You know it's likely to give you a race condition, if you use a different device. Might be worth it to consider a different approach.", and whatnot.

That kind of pisses in the punch bowl.

I actually hope one of the outcomes of post-pandemic normalization of remote work is less tacit age discrimination from companies that used to greatly prefer people willing to relocate.

Software building has always been for a purpose, whether scientific, engineering, publishing, trading. The value creators need tools and software is that tool.

Whether individuals are rewarded in the same way or the same amount is not because of FAANG. While large, they are by no means the majority of the economy.

Everyone needs software now. This pandemic shows the value of that, as well as of the research it empowered, the education it enabled, the community it connected.

It needs to be updated every few months to feel fresh, and the time horizon is very short. There needs to be analytics/engineering-work to enable this, but the goal itself is to adapt the user experience such that it maximizes adoption and screen time. What matters is fast iteration, creativity, and "fast plumbing".

The perception is that young people are more enthusiastic about this sort of work. More experienced people would be unnecessarily concerned with code quality, stability, technological trajectories, and so on.

It's always good to see your kind of comments.

If by learning we mean learning _any_ information, then it seems likely the rate of learning would always increase over time since as you gain more knowledge it's more likely that you've done something similar in the past.

If we're strictly talking about learning _new_ information (As in, not closely related to previous knowledge) then I can understand the argument that someone learns slower as they age.

Basically it seems like it comes down to crystalized knowledge and how you count that.

Is it possible to clearly separate the two, or are there universal concepts underpinning every domain?

However it may be that this developed framework can hinder new learning if new skills are fundamentally incompatible with existing framework. There old habits can slow down incorporation or new skills. For example, learning Japanese as an anglophone may be harder than learning Japanese as a Korean speaker. The anglophone would need to actively ignore learned habits to learn Japanese.

When I want to learn something new, I'll set up a project, with a definite ship goal, that uses whatever I am studying.

It may not be perfect, when it ships, but it does ship.

Shipping is also learning. There's absolutely nothing to compare with releasing finished product, and supporting it. I've learned a lot of the "soft" skills necessary to ship and support. These are different from simple algorithms or debugging exercises.

Hear, hear. I didn't really know how to fly until I started teaching people how to do it. I thought I did, but not really. Not deeply.

But really, it's an accretion. That is especially true of the stuff that I need to ship software, which is quite different from what I need to write software.