discolemonade

But then you have to go back to the original question: what is it about maleness and femaleness that makes it possible that in so many societies around the world, the same patterns exist? You can't have culture without brains to create it. And the brains of males and females in different cultures seem to be producing similar patterns.

The male advantage in mathematical and spatial orientation has been replicated in many different countries. So that pretty m uch rules out the cultural explanation.

"Gender inequality is a problem that needs to be avoided"

Why is gender inequality a problem that needs to be avoided? The economy needs tech startups. What difference does it make that the vast majority are started by men? It would be equally good if most tech startups were started by women, but they aren't. Who cares? The "gender inequality is bad" meme seems to be an unquestioned default that most people hold in their heads. The first thing people will always assume is that any uneven statistical distribution of people in a profession will be due to discrimination. But that's usually not the case. Usually, it comes down to a far simpler explanation. There are significant average motivational differences between men and women when it comes to math and the hard sciences that will always ensure a gender imbalance in engineering-related fields. Statistically, it has little to do with ability (except at very elite levels). Far fewer women than men enjoy thinking about and discussing technology. It's a simple fact of the world that's easily observed in the ever day conversations that men and women choose to have. And it will forever ensure a statistical gender imbalance in tech. Most women aren't interested in technology and women (and men) who are in technology, who keep pushing for this fictional perfect male/female balance would do well to show a bit of respect to the majority of the female population that chooses to be interested in other things that females are typically more oriented towards.

These social conditioning arguments are always non-sequiters. At some point you have to ask yourself, what conditions society? Something has to create the condition where people begin to notice that engineering and tech is kind of a male thing and, say, nursing, is kind of a female thing on average. Something must have created that original pattern for people to notice it. It doesn't just come out of the ether. Once the pattern exists, it's probably reinforced, but you can't tell me that with all the effort that goes into getting girls into STEM, the tide wouldn't have been turned by now had the phenomenon been based purely on nurture. Plus, you see this pattern all over the world. And it's always evident that there's bias in this argument because nobody gets upset when somebody points out that most elementary school teachers are women. And that leads me to think that there's a lot of people (of the female variety) who deep down believe that what men do is superior to what women do. And that's sad, because it's entirely untrue.

To understand what really motivates people, it's much better to look at what they do in the real world. Sure, there have always been women getting CS degrees, but how many of them go out and become programmers or tinker with technology, electronics and hardware late at night because they want to? The people who do that have been the engines behind technological advancement and growth throughout human history. And they've been mostly males. Saying that men tend to be more interested in technology than women doesn't mean that women's interest in CS is purely fixed. It just means that there will always be statistically more males tinkering with technology than females. And those statistical disparities will always ensure that the majority of tech-heavy, companies, and inventions will be led by men.

The answer to why there are more female founders in New York than the Valley is easy: Valley startups tend to be a lot more tech-heavy than NYC startups as a whole. And women in general aren't drawn to deep technology. I find it interesting how whenever issues of women and technology come up, everyone gets all pc and pretends not to know what the root of the gender gap is. But then if you ask them to count the number of women they know who are fascinated by technology, mathematics and deep, impersonal abstraction, they can't. Human nature doesn't change just because we pump a few billion dollars into figuring out how to get girls to love STEM. It'll never change. Tech heavy centers like Silicon Valley will always have a preponderence of male entrepreneurs and less tech heavy centers like NYC will always be more appealing to female entrepreneurs. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

There's still an element of stigma around online dating. When you combine that with the fact that nobody wants to admit to others and especially to themselves that they settled, this site is a trainwreck in the making... assuming it isn't some sort of a prank or something. Nobody intentionally goes out looking for ugly people to date.

Great idea. This definitely solves a real problem.

I've found that writing about something forces you to investigate all the possible ideas and nuances around the topic in a way that you may otherwise not do. It's a great way to really understand something. It's trained me to think more logically. That's part of the reason I blog.Plus, it's what got me my current job.

How do universities and startups not matter? They're incubators of knowledge and wealth creation. And regarding multinationals, most of the biggest multinationals are either Japanese, American or European. Places like China and Indonesia do a lot of the manufacturing for them, but most of the wealth still flows back to the countries where the knowledge for that technology is developed. Most of Apple's wealth is concentrated in the U.S because that's where Apple's knowledge creators are based. Same with Nokia or Toyota or any company. The world isn't totally flat despite what Tom Friedman thinks. Pockets of innovation will always exist. I think India is a better example of a developing power with a strong innovation base than China is.

The British Empire lasted over 300 years. America as an Empire has been around for only around 100. The American Empire is like the British Empire squared because of its endless capacity for self-renewal. It's like a starfish that regenerates limbs. One of the things that makes it so dynamic is the great universities and their relationship with business. No Chinese university is even in the top 200 in the world. Of the world's top 20 universities, all but three are American. Of the top 50, all but 11 are in the U.S. And then you think about a concept like the "new economy". It's an American invention. Most of the best startups and the best software are made in America. In just about every measure of soft power, nobody compares.

It's easy to tell. You just need to use what I call the boast test. It works on countries just as well as it does on individual people because countries are made up of the sum character of the people. Basically, it says that the harder someone tries to let others know about their abilities, the less animated they are by a deep sense of purpose. People with real, deep power and deep purpose don't boast. They're calm. But you know they have power. A second rate power like Russia is eager to boast about their military capabilities. China's Olympic spectacle last summer was a classic example of this notion. The only recent power I can think of that had that sense of calm was Great Britain. They just had the right stuff. And they changed the world. Churchill's speeches could have been written by any U.S. president. The EU sort of has it, but it's not willing to back it up with muscle...not necessarily war...but just declaration of purpose in their leaders. Maybe it's because they're secular. I don't know. But they don't really have it. No one does.