"we aren't against diversity"..."they should make their bones, same as we did" sounds like it could come from any all white male institution. The problem is, we as humans prefer to surround ourselves with people just like us, sometimes that means same race, sometimes same religion, or gender, or political views, and often it happens subconsciously, choosing the person closer to our ideal without us even realizing we're penalising the "other" in ways that we don't penalise those like us. This is what diversity is (or should be) fighting against, it really is trying to make it merit based which goes against our survival instincts, even those of the "nerds".
No, and this distinction is essential:
You're welcomed based on what you can do and not on what you are. "white male" is un-meritocratic, is something you "are", and not something you can "make" by talent and effort. "code" is cold, hard, unforgiving ("you can't argue with a root shell"), and meritocratic. She's saying: Nevermind who you "ARE", you're welcomed if you can "PRODUCE" (great code). That's exactly the antithesis of what you're implying with "white male" or "black female" or "$X $Y". The mere fact of using "$X $Y" or $MINORITY should give you a hint of how much this concepts are considered. If something fits in a variable, is waaay less important than the algorithm, it is just content, a parameter, "Lorem ipsum" if you like it.
I understand what was being said. But in my experience many groups say this but in fact don't even come close to actually achieving it. Groups of white males have said this for a long time, "we are merit based, gender or ethnicity aren't considered during selection", but it just wasn't true. Much of the time it is a conscious decision to avoid the qualified diverse candidate, other times it isn't. Just because she or you say you are only choosing based on production doesn't make it so. She, you, or whomever is making the decision must look really hard at their own biases, if you can even see them (they may be obvious to anyone around you but hidden to your self).
> I understand what was being said. But in my experience many groups say this but in fact don't even come close to actually achieving it. Groups of white males have said this for a long time,
...right in front of our very noses at this moment is something very interesting:
me atleast I don't have a clue what gender most nicks here on HN belong to. And I don't care. The same way I don't care about the gender of our UX designer only that she did awesome work.
- well, maybe I actually loved the fact that we had a coding eclipse-wielding mother-of-three on our team.
And before "you" [1] come telling me that this just shows how I'm biased because I'm impressed by a mom coding, -No! I don't think they cannot, but every statistic tells us they don't usually code.
[1]: yeah I saw you coming, you are kind of predictable
That's great. If there were more people like you in positions of power we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.
I'm not implying that anyone of these particular commenters are sexist or bigots, or aren't making decisions solely based on merit. I'm saying that we as a group, be that either widely defined as humans in general or narrowly defined as a certain group of nerds, tend to not notice our biases when we make decisions. We may believe that we are making a choice based on the absolute best merit based criteria, but often we don't realize our choice was highly tinted by learned bias.
I myself try to disregard my learned biases, but often don't realize I failed until after the fact. We need more people who don't care about gender, race, social status, etc when making hiring decisions. Studies have shown that when identifying markers are removed from resumes and job applications, the considered pool of applicants become more diverse. A good start is people who are at least aware of their own biases.
Too often we use statistics to enforce our bias. "Well, moms statistically don't code, so we won't take seriously this mother who does".
Asians got in rather easily though so the effect of workplace biases can't be that hard to overcome. Why did they get accepted? Because they are awesome at tech! If women suddenly became as awesome at tech as Asians then they would get accepted as a group in a heartbeat.
Diversity is a bullshit term. It does not exist in reality. It's an illusion, a joke.
Equality is a bullshit term. It does not exist in reality. It's an illusion, a joke.
See what I did there? You've got to explain why you think it's a bullshit term--because as an ideal, it's a damned sight more useful than whatever else people are pushing.
- Because the criteria of "merit" usually "just happen" to be a description of the people who get to define them and evaluate others.
- Because measuring only at the finishing line while ignoring how far people have had to come is in fact unequal, not equal treatment.
- Because the concept victim-blames those who aren’t allowed/enabled/supported to succeed according to it.
- Because it's a really astounding statistical anomaly that all those "meritocratic" communities "who don't care about gender etc." are in practice ridiculously less diverse than the population in general.
It's actually an ideal. Ideals also don't exist in reality. The difference is that ideals are generally held to be worth striving for in spite of that.
Actually it’s used as a bludgeon to kill all debate, not something to strive towards. The point that’s always made is that something already is this magical and perfect meritocracy with the selection process already working perfectly. The term meritocracy is thrown into the faces of those that question the selection process as a defense of the selection process. Perfectness is just assumed, not something to be strived for. Your statement makes just no sense at all when considering the context in which meritocracy is typically used when defending exclusionary selection processes. It’s downright absurd.
And that’s even ignoring all the grave moral quandaries you get into when you base who can participate on merit – if that is even possible and if you can even coherently define what the hell merit means. Merit is hard to nail down and as such can be easily used as a convenient tool for exclusion.
In light of the long and heated debates about how to best conduct job interviews (nobody knows, really!), often seen right here on HN, this all is especially absurd. It seems that put into a slightly different context (of a job interview) everyone knows that selection processes are frail, complex, complicated things, hard to get right – and even at its best you will make mistakes. Selection processes are fucking hard to get right. Doesn’t everyone know that? How, in that context, can you then turn around and claim that there is no issue because meritocracy. It sounds like a bad joke. A horrible joke, one that kills all debate about selection processes and how we can improve them (or even where selection is necessary and where not and based on what and how and how we should deal with the frailty and difficulty of evaluating human fucking beings.)
Actually the corollary to my point is that there can never be a true meritocracy anywhere on the planet. It's impossible for exactly the reasons you've outlined. It doesn't mean it's not worth striving, but I do agree that anyone who tells you that they've done it has simply quit trying and is rationalizing that fact.
People fuck up all the time. I would never claim that there's no issue because we already have a meritocracy. We don't. We will never have one. Like a lot of ideals it's something worth looking at by comparison, to decide how closely we want to model our actions on it.
So, bad example of interviews: the reason we know they are broken is because the code doesn't work.
Look, the entire hacker thing comes down to: does the code work? If it does, you're fine. If it doesn't, you're not. The computer sure as day doesn't care about the particulars of the person who generated the source code for the hack, so why should we?
Everything else is FUD, spread by people that are fools, well-meaning but not understanding, or both.
Don't try to bring in the baggage of other failed "meritocracies" into this, because we can actually, objectively, test whether or not the code works.
No, if it does work people will tell you that your code just sucks and is really awful and bad and you are terrible and suck at this …
Your perspective here is absurdly reductionist and doesn’t reflect any reality anyone lives in. It’s not that simple, it just is not.
These are the people arguing about fucking spaces vs tabs and you are going to try to honestly tell me that all that matters is whether the code works. Are you serious?! Like, actually, really serious?
I think that those people will acknowledge that the formatting of the code is secondary to its working--once it works, the whitespace is just a matter of making it more presentable.
If you had working code--and it was elegant, and easy to maintain, and fixed a real problem--I find it unlikely that you were put down by people that really grok being a hacker. I'm sorry for your experience there.
And before you point out that that definition allows me to neatly exclude the people that make hackers look bad--well, that's kinda the point. Similarly, I try not to judge all MRAs by the ones that make death threats, nor feminists by those that are rabidly opposed to transwomen.
True, but I've noticed programming like some of the other STEM fields are a lot harder to fake skills than some other fields.
I'm not saying its impossible to fake development skills, just saying its harder than some other fields. I think primarily due to the fact computers are not forgiving, but require pure logic.
> "we aren't against diversity"..."they should make their bones, same as we did" sounds like it could come from any all white male institution.
It could... if you choose to cast it that way. It could also come from any self-selecting group where the selection process is part of the group identity.
Group identity isn't just a matter of waking up one day, declaring yourself a member of $GROUP, and $GROUP being obliged to accept you.
I don't disagree, but quite often $GROUP lies to itself about who and how it accepts those into the $GROUP.
And let's be honest, this isn't a problem if the $GROUP is a bunch of people hanging out in their living room or grabbing a beer once a week, but it does become a problem when the $GROUP is making hiring decisions or when $GROUP decides to harass someone online. Then it is those subconscious selectors that define the group and its members more than the how the $GROUP thinks it defines itself.
>This is what [the forces of D]iversity [are] (or should be) fighting against, it really is trying to make it merit based which goes against our survival instincts, even those of the "nerds".
How exactly do you expect a group to react when you push against its survival instincts?
Feminism is accused of this most often, so I'll use it as an example: some have accused the feminist movement of sexism because it simultaneously claims the sanctity of women-only "safe spaces" while simultaneously fighting against the existence of male-only institutions. I don't want to pass a verdict on that so much as point out that that is what the article is talking about:a safe space for nerds.
Well, I would say that first, the threat feminists are often fighting against is the threat of bodily harm and behavior that leads to bodily harm (1 out of 6 women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape¹). Compare this to the threat that nerds are fighting against today, the threat of having to accept those that they deem unworthy.
Secondly, I'm not arguing nerds shouldn't have a safe space. But that safe space shouldn't be at the expense of diversity in the workplace (hired on merit) or online public spaces (where everyone should be treated with respect regardless of the merit metric). That safe space doesn't preclude nerds from learning basic social skills in order not to harass members of the opposite sex while at work (or really anywhere). Just like nerds shouldn't be harassed at school or work, they shouldn't harass people then hide behind the excuse that they are allowed because they're socially awkward nerds who don't know any better. And I say this as a socially awkward nerd.
>Well, I would say that first, the threat feminists are often fighting against is the threat of bodily harm and behavior that leads to bodily harm
Good ol manspreading, such a threat, very scary.
As to the rape statistics, those numbers are highly inflated and less inflated numbers show that men are almost as likely (if not equally) to face sexual violence (but far less likely to report it and far more likely to have it dismissed) and that men are more likely to face physical violence.
>the threat of having to accept those that they deem unworthy
This is a deceitful caricature of the threat being faced by nerds.
>preclude nerds from learning basic social skills in order not to harass members of the opposite sex
And here the blame is placed on nerds who have tried to isolate themselves because of a large inability to learn such social skills. Some can't learn, others can learn but it is exhausting to imitate the skills for an 8+ hours. Some may even get the basics, but every once in a while they still commit some social transgression they don't understand. So they made safe spaces... which happened to become profitable because some of what they did in those spaces had great business potential. And now they being invaded by profit-chasers and blamed for the social weirdness that they already did the best they could to get remove from others having to experience.
>As to the rape statistics, those numbers are highly inflated and less inflated numbers show that men are almost as likely (if not equally) to face sexual violence (but far less likely to report it and far more likely to have it dismissed) and that men are more likely to face physical violence.
Mind showing evidence that these numbers are highly inflated?
>And now they being invaded by profit-chasers and blamed for the social weirdness that they already did the best they could to get remove from others having to experience.
Yeah, talking about really scary threats here, that is much worse than the threat of rape. This implication that anyone who now enjoys what was only once enjoyed by "nerds" are profit-chasers is a much bigger caricature than self selecting nerds.
If you're under 30 you've spent most of your life in a world surrounded by the internet, computers, and tech. Of course people are going to be attracted to these jobs that used to be the domain of nerds, and some are carpetbaggers, but others, even if they seem too "fashionable" or "social" are just doing what nerds have been doing (and what everyone has been doing) forever, they are following their own interests. It just so happens those interests are now the same as yours.
>Mind showing evidence that these numbers are highly inflated?
For starters, look at recent CDC studies in the last 5 years. Pay extra attention to how most cases of a woman forcing a man to have sex are not classified as rape (which means the summaries about rape are way off). There are other resources that I don't currently have on hand about how they are over inflated, but one recent story was about how over inflated they are on college campuses. Another, especially for attempted rape, is to look into the use of date rape drugs and how rare they actually are used compared to how often women think they have been used.
> But that safe space shouldn't be at the expense of diversity in the workplace (hired on merit)
What's your opinion on affirmative action?
> or online public spaces (where everyone should be treated with respect regardless of the merit metric).
This is bullshit. I have told one person on this site that I hoped that they died in terrible pain and that it took years because I meant it. Their opinion was vile and I would have said it to their face if they had been in front of me when they said it. Social opprobrium is a tool. There are people whose views I find abhorrent, who I hate and detest, personally. For a feminist perspective on this see the below link.
edit: the comment this was a reply to was deleted....
I don't assume you harass people, sexually or otherwise, and never stated that you did. And from my experience, nerds tend to be less "harassy" than the general male population. But just because you want to ignore that sexual harassment is a problem even among the nerd population doesn't mean I will.
affirmative action: I believe is a necessary evil as white society has refused to correct the wrongs of the past. After 400+ years of systemic physical and economic oppression you can't just expect to say "we're now going to treat you as equals" and everything is ok. That is not to say improvements haven't been made but when power structures are designed to suck the economic and physical power from one group of people still today (i.e. Ferguson, MO), then drastic measures are necessary. I'd prefer a merit based system, but a true merit based system should provide equally safe and secure environments for all citizens to thrive.
> or online public spaces (where everyone should be treated with respect regardless of the merit metric).
This is bullshit.
Yeah, I agree. It is more wishful than true. I would say everyone should be treated with respect up and until, but then it is always a question of who is measuring. But it doesn't take much for some real vile shit to bubble up unfortunately. Sometimes it's just the edge cases (usually blamed on a small minority of the group), but often it comes from the middle as well or is representative of the groups mindspace.
(If all that makes sense. It's 5am and I'm still up working so I may just be rambling).
a true merit based system should provide equally safe and secure environments for all citizens to thrive
Incorrect. The best and worst part of a meritocracy is that, if you don't have merit you don't belong.
There is no obligation to "all citizens". Now, the corollary to this is that, if a citizen proves their merit, they must be rewarded for it, because that's the social contract in play.
But, there is no reason that the system has to reward unproven individuals just because of some diversity quota...in fact, that's a really good way of destroying the ecosystem (same point made in article) because it undermines the very philosophy the group is predicated upon.
Yes, true if speaking of a pure meritocracy. I was more imagining something close to our current society but merit based (one where people aren't just discarded for lack of certain merits).
I don't disagree that a system has to reward unproven individuals. My point in most of these comments is that we, no matter how much we say we are choosing based solely on merit or production, most often are not. We are a bundle of overt and hidden biases.
I can't convince you, and it doesn't matter whether you believe me, when I say that it doesn't matter to me about your race or sex or whatever, I am still going to think your cool hack is a cool hack.
That's just how it is. I know not everyone does work this way. But I think it's counterproductive to try to tear down and erase this entire value system. In the worst case it's an imperfectly met ideal, but that's no reason to abandon it.
I will absolutely believe you. I will take your word until your actions show me otherwise.
What value system is being destroyed or abandoned? Surely not one where a person is judged by merit and not by what group they do or don't belong to. At least not by me or anyone I've ever heard about.
Now there are people that are trying to destroy the value system that professes to be based on merit but is in reality based on discrimination, privilege and/or internal groupthink by a narrowly defined group. But if you truly believe in merit above everything else, I would think you would welcome the downfall of these false meritocracies.
Just because it's less than the perfect meritocracy we would like does not mean we wish to tear it all down. As most software engineers learn, perfect is the enemy of better.
Might I suggest you re-read the article? This point is addressed.
