[StavrosK]

> The relative lack of women in the applicant pool is obviously one of the problems that Google and other companies are trying to fix with their various outreach initiatives.

Certainly. We're just debating whether the proposed solutions are doing more good than harm.

> Again, the mere existence of differences between men and women absolutely does not mean that you should expect there to be a difference in the size of the respective applicant pools.

Why is that? Are we sure the distributions of things men and women like are exactly the same? Men and women are different both physically and psychologically, so what is the force that counterbalances the differences and makes the distributions of things each gender likes identical?

[foldr]

>Why is that? Are we sure the distributions of things men and women like are exactly the same? Men and women are different both physically and psychologically, so what is the force that counterbalances the differences and makes the distributions of things each gender likes identical?

Because it is possible for two people to be very different and yet equally interested in and equally good at any particular task. It is obvious that men and women are different in some respects. What is not obvious that men and women differ in such a way that men are going to be better at programming, or more interested in it, than women are.

[StavrosK]

> What is not obvious that men and women differ in such a way that men are going to be better at programming, or more interested in it, than women are.

What is also not obvious is that they don't. Since men and women differ in pretty substantial ways, I think the burden of proof is on people who claim they're both interested in the same things equally.

It's fine if some demographics just aren't interested in some things, if they're free to choose them. It's not fine to say "no! You must be interested in whatever everyone else is interested in, otherwise the notion of equality I have doesn't make sense!"

To summarize, my entire point is that we should make it so each person can freely choose what they want, rather than trying to make the posterior distributions fit the model that we imagine must be the right one. That means no "boys can't play with dolls", no "engineering isn't for women", but also no gender/demographic quotas.

[foldr]

>What is also not obvious is that they don't. Since men and women differ in pretty substantial ways, I think the burden of proof is on people who claim they're both interested in the same things equally.

How convenient that the burden of proof is on people who disagree with you!

I think this is a very odd position to take, given that men and women have far more commonalities than differences. (After all, they are both human.) It doesn't seem sensible to take it as the default position that men and women are going to be differentially interested in any given thing to a significant extent.

>no gender/demographic quotas.

I didn't say anything about quotas, and I don't think anyone in this entire discussion said anything about them either, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

>my entire point is that we should make it so each person can freely choose what they want,

Everyone agrees with this point. But women are not free to choose what they want when they are systematically excluded from some professions.