Secondly, I didn't make any assumption that the utility is all mine. The 1 utilon can be split between both parties in some arbitrary manner, it doesn't change the result.
Third, you are correct that I my constraint may not be #recruiters + #developers = 100. It might be alpha x #recruiters + #developers = 100 for alpha < 1. That doesn't change the optimal course of action - my best bet is always to minimize time I spend with recruiters.
Now if you think my model doesn't work, present a better one. But if you are making a fundamentally moral and non-utilitarian point ("networking with lady developers is intrinsically good no matter how many puppies get killed!!!!!"), make that point and don't waste time on positive claims if the truth of the positive claims is irrelevant anyway.
Also, you seem to wildly misunderstand what an appeal to authority is. An appeal to authority would be "I asked Eliezer Yudkowsky and he said I was right." Writing down a simple mathematical model is not remotely an appeal to authority, that's just careful reasoning.
I am flatly making a non-utilitarian argument for the morality of not making assumptions. That doesn't mean, however, that a rigorous application of utilitarian morality would not come to the same conclusions. I've made good arguments that your utilitarian equation is inadequate, and will arrive at false conclusions. You can think about those shortcomings, or argue that they aren't (as you did with your third point here), or you can write my argument off as mushy do-gooding because it's not "utilitarian".
Ignoring my criticism because it's not intrinsically utilitarian would be utilitarian. It would not, however, be rigorous.
Utilitarianism without rigor breaks down, almost inevitably. See the problem?
Since I presented every step of my argument, and you examined it, it is by definition not an argument by authority. It's simply an argument.
If you want to make a rigorous utilitarian case, do it. Simply pointing out some (non-)problems with the model I presented is not the same thing. All you are doing is arguing that there is more uncertainty than I believed, and then making an unjustified assumption that the uncertainty somehow supports your case.
Also, I didn't "ignore" your moral argument. I specifically asked you to make it - "What morality do you take?"
Beyond that, I do question utilitarian morality, for exactly these reasons. If it were software, it'd be a code smell. It's very easy to turn into justification for all sorts of foul things, and the track record of utilitarian morality is very ugly - like millions of dead ugly. It sure sounds good, especially if you're smart and used to being right on logical issues that don't involve squishy emotions. But it's a dangerous path.
I also have no idea where you get "millions of dead ugly" applied to utilitarianism. I also don't get why you think "squishy emotions" like tribalism, desire to affiliate with high status people, or envy of others will somehow save us.
Maybe if you actually wrote down a model I'd be able to understand what you are trying to claim.
I've already alluded to problems with your model - for example, the idea that equal resources are given to good and bad connections. Another problem is the idea that all benefit equally from connections, when it's obvious that the resource-starved benefit more than the resource-rich. Your model is deliberately starving valuable connections (female engineers). It's also reducing the quality of interactions, adding unnecessary noise to the system in the form of distrust. There are many, many shortcomings with it.
Now, you could just try to keep adjusting your theory to conform to reality, making it increasingly elaborate. Or, you could do the engineer's approach and find a solution that works far better, even if it isn't as pretty.
I already showed a simple extension incorporating this that yields the same result. You are still best served by focusing your attentions on folks who are most likely to not be a recruiter, the delta will simply be lower.
If you want to apply some diminishing marginal returns theory to connections, you'll get a concave optimization problem. You'll still need to multiply the derivatives by 1-P(recruiter), skewing your networking efforts towards men (though not 100% towards men anymore).
The model is, indeed, deliberately starving anyone deemed more likely to be a recruiter. That's the whole point.
Or, you could do the engineer's approach and find a solution that works far better...
You have not even begun to show this.
I strongly suggest you try to cook up any toy model where ignoring base rates helps. I'm dead certain you'll fail (there are theorems), but you'll learn a bit about decision theory in the process.
This improves the position of everybody in the network: those who want to talk with recruiters can do so, recruiters don't have to talk with anybody who would only waste their time and there be no reason to assume that women developers are not since gender would be a strictly inferior signal to the (non-discriminary) badge color.
Putting a pig in a suit doesn't make it a gentleman.
Which gets back to Occam's Razor. Which is more likely... that this was a failure of insufficient rigor, or that it was using utilitarianism and math to appeal to authority? Given that there were multiple violations of rigor, Occam's Razor suggests that this wasn't utilitarian morality at all, but rather mere defensive rhetoric.
Of course, this doesn't imply intent - the author might not realize that his formal-sounding justification was actually rationalization, because of a failure to understand the underlying moral issue. Which is exactly how bias works in most cases.
Someone put it really well recently, in the context of racism and racist police behavior. They said racism isn't waving a Confederate flag around. Racism is looking for excuses every time the police shoot another unarmed black man. People who don't think of themselves as racist or sexist, who actually find those ideas repulsive, are actively racist and sexist all the time! This is because they don't see the bias in their own behavior.
Second, network effects matter. You're not just creating utilons for yourself, you're creating a system that creates utilons. Even within the small and inaccurate world of your invented model, you're not following through to conclusions.
Third, you're making some very arbitrary assumptions, and ignoring other reasonable assumptions. For starters, do you give everyone you network with equal time? If you encounter a recruiter, do you give them the same amount of effort you would give to an engineer, or do you extract yourself and move on to the next person? The expense of equal input is not nearly as high as you're presenting here, assuming you don't "behave irrationally" and give everyone equal time whether it's effective or not.
Pretending that bias and excuses are intellectual rigor by inserting arbitrary, invented numbers into an imaginary equation is just an appeal to authority fallacy.