[morvita]

I, too, dream of a world where I can work with smart people without regard to their race, sexuality, gender, whatever, but it is naive to think that we are already living in that world.

Like it or not, the entire system is stacked against minorities in ways that aren't even obvious or noticeable from a position of privilege. I work as an engineer in an office of 120 people in the East Bay. There are three black people working in the office. One of them is the receptionist. If we assume that there are no racial differences in technical ability, then the demographics of my office should roughly mirror the demographics of the surrounding community. Oakland is 28% black (according to the 2010 census), meaning in a fair, unbiased system we should have roughly 30-35 black people working in the office. I am sure that no hiring manager has set out to exclude black people from their postings, but there are centuries of history and deeply ingrained biases that have led to a severe under-representation of African-Americans in this industry, same with every other minority.

Until we are truly operating on a level playing field, I am 100% in favour of scholarships based on giving under-represented minorities more opportunities. It is not discrimination to exclude white men from these scholarships. It is recognizing the centuries of privilege we have had and saying that we want give other people the opportunities we have be given simply by existing.

[malvosenior]

Also not obvious or noticeable from a position of privilege: many, many white men have no opportunities or privilege and thus are discriminated against for simply being the same race and gender as a very thin slice of upperclass society.

[morvita]

While it is true that many white men come from a background where, for any number of reasons, they are not afforded the same opportunities as, say, a white boy from Cupertino, they are still given opportunities and privilege because they were lucky enough to be born a white man. I know this first-hand because I grew up in a rural farming community in Vermont that was more than 95% white and poverty-stricken. Of course, not everyone in my community went to university, but when I did, no one questioned whether I belonged there because I was still a white man. Now that I have a doctorate and work at a big tech company, no one questions whether I belong here either. The same can not be said for a Hispanic or African American man (or even a white woman) who is in my position.

[modbait]

Unfortunately, an inevitable result of AA-type hiring is that everyone--including the candidates themselves--will wonder whether people hired this way are really up to snuff. You can censor, but you can't stop people from reasoning internally.

[malvosenior]

Were you part of the poverty stricken population? My experience has been poor white people are not accepted by our professional community.

[morvita]

No, my mother was a teacher and my father a manager at the local hospital. So while we weren't rich, we were definitely not poverty stricken either.

I cannot speak much to the experience of poor white people in the tech community, but, at least anecdotally, I know of two other people I went to high school with who also went into tech. One is still in the industry as far as I know and the other left it a few years ago. (For reference, I am in my early 30s)

[monocasa]

I was.

Edit: and I can totally affirm that being a white man from a poor family absolutely afforded me more privilege than being a woman or a minority. I can pass as middle class by losing my accent and picking up a nice suit on the cheap.

[peterashford]

I'm a white guy who was born into a poor, solo parent family situation. I still had privilege due to my colour. Example: no-one ever looked at me and wondered whether I was going to steal something from their shop just on the basis of my skin colour. When I went to school, no-one discouraged me from high-level achievement or assumed that I should do sports based on my colour (and where I come from, this definitely happens to people) I'm a little peeved at people dismissing their privilege just because their life wasn't perfect. That's not what privilege means.

[felipellrocha]

This. The point of these policies is that we might be missing some fucking amazing talent and not know just because of historical reasons.

[cucumberferity]

Is something that happened in 1864 or 1964 going to prevent you from identifying a good engineer in front of you?

[monocasa]

I mean, when an otherwise identical resume with the first name changed from Brad to Tyrone cuts the interview callbacks by 3x, it's hard to argue that these problems have been solved.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

I've also had a boss in tech that refused to hire women engineers. And another boss that lied to the state department to get someone here on asylum (who coincidentally was the hardest worker I've met) sent back, because "Mexicans should go back to where they came from". Spoiler, the guy wasn't even Mexican, just brown.

[morvita]

It does when those events and the decades that followed have prevented minorities from having the opportunities to become a good engineer. This isn't about you and I not recognizing talent in front of us, it's about giving that talent a chance to stand in front of, and ideally next to, us.

[rhapsodic]

>It does when those events and the decades that followed have prevented minorities from having the opportunities to become a good engineer. This isn't about you and I not recognizing talent in front of us, it's about giving that talent a chance to stand in front of, and ideally next to, us.

Oh please. For decades, in the US, there have been programs designed to attract women and minorities to engineering and tech careers. I am of the opinion* that in 2018, women or minorities who are are not in tech, are not in tech because of choices they freely made. Any remnants of discrimination are negligible compared to the advantages that have been heaped upon them.

*I'm sure many disagree with the opinion expressed above, and that's OK. I'm sure many also agree with it. But I would bet that holy hell would break loose if I were to express that opinion in a discussion forum of a FOSS project that has been co-opted by the SJW scolds. And your opinion, which I was responding to, would be permitted.

[chickenfries]

It's an opinion that makes it very hard to work with you, if I were a woman or minority. I wouldn't want you to review my code, wondering if you think I'm competent or if I'm an entitled person benefiting from unfair "advantages that have been heaped upon" me.

[rhapsodic]

>It's an opinion that makes it very hard to work with you, if I were a woman or minority. I wouldn't want you to review my code, wondering if you think I'm competent or if I'm an entitled person benefiting from unfair "advantages that have been heaped upon" me.

So you're assuming because of my opinion, I would not treat you fairly?

Of course! Anyone who deviates from the SJW line is de facto a bad person! There's no need for logic and reasoning when you deal with people like me! Just cast aspersions on my character and signal your virtue to the rest of your tribe!

[lokopodium]

This sounds very much like you're arguing against female engineering outreach programs and diversity hiring.

[Larrikin]

Laws were passed then, that doesn't mean culture changed over night. Someone born around 1964 is right around the age of parents in their prime development years. Did your parents have no effect on your ability to become educated that put you on track to become a developer?

[felipellrocha]

Do events that happened in 1864 or 1964 have no impact on anything today opportunity-wise?

[peterashford]

Whatever the root cause, the predominance of white males (of which I am one) in tech shows that there is a lack of representation of various groups. This ought to be blindingly obvious

[rhapsodic]

> Whatever the root cause, the predominance of white males (of which I am one) in tech shows that there is a lack of representation of various groups. This ought to be blindingly obvious

What I am well and truly fed up with is the implication that it is pernicious behavior on the part of white males that is responsible for this state of affairs. And that's not necessarily relevant to this particular SJW dustup, but in general it is what's implied, when it's not stated explicitly (as it often is).

[peterashford]

I agree that that sometimes happens, and I agree that it is not okay when that happens. However, I really think we need to guard against reasoning along the lines of "sometimes people are overzealous with identity politics therefore lets oppose all attempts at dealing with injustice". The problem with a lot of these debates is the extreme polarisation that often occurs. We need to keep minds open and not stop thinking just because some actors in the debates are jerks

[zimpenfish]

> the implication that it is pernicious behavior on the part of white males that is responsible for this state of affairs.

Historically, it has been, yes. Even today, there are pockets of white males who are virulently against anyone but them having access to their little clubhouses (cf GG for one prime example.)

[rhapsodic]

>Historically, it has been, yes.

Not in the decades I have been observing this industry through my participation in it. In my observation, these past few decades the efforts to increase female and minority employment have far outweighed the rare instances of discrimination I've seen.

> Even today, there are pockets of white males who are virulently against anyone but them having access to their little clubhouses (cf GG for one prime example.)

If they're a "prime example", then why do I have no clue who you're talking about?

[ropeadopepope]

What's not so obvious is why that's a bad thing. Considering the fact that millions (possibly billions at this point) have been spent recruiting non-whites and non-males in tech, there's no lack of equality of opportunity here.

[peterashford]

Monoculture doesn't foster a range of ideas. I work in games where having more women is great - we produce products that work better for more people and I find it balances out company culture

[GiorgioG]

I've worked in companies where that have been predominantly white males and companies that are not - I've noticed ZERO difference in outcomes between the two.

The fact of the matter is there are more white males that pursue computer science than women, minorities, etc. That doesn't make all of us professional white males raging racists/sexists.

90% of nurses are women. Why don't these social justice warriors blow up the social web with that "injustice"?

[sanxiyn]

> If we assume that there are no racial differences in technical ability, then the demographics of my office should roughly mirror the demographics of the surrounding community.

This is a big assumption. It may be true, but you are asserting it without evidence. Demographics of NBA do not mirror demographics of USA.

[sgift]

It's the reasonable default assumption as long as you have no evidence for the opposite (i.e. that white people have racial attributes making them better at tech / non-white people have racial attributes making them worse). Can you provide evidence for the opposite?

[kgabis]

You're the one making the assumption so you should back it up with some evidence (burden of proof).

[ftarlao]

I got your point, but I think that the problem is not "helping" (with scholarships) based on membership with minorities, but helping when there are bad economic or social conditions. This may be correlated with other attributes yes but I think that we must write rules for persons by only considering the factors that effectively prevent them from studying and not the skin color.

[jgtrosh]

If you agree that there are hidden mechanisms that shape the inequality, then claiming that “only considering the factors that effectively prevent studying” is fair would require a great deal of certainty in knowing these factors. I don't know how effective “positive-discrimination” is in practice but to me it seems that its principle is to do what you say but with discriminatory features as a proxy heuristic for these “effective features” (this makes sense if you believe they are sufficiently immesurable IRL).

[zeth___]

You are also assuming that the 4% of the worlds population in the US is representative of the world. Or imperial privilege as those of us who suffer from empire like to call it.

That you push your social issues on us as well as your armies adds insult to injury.

I dream of a day when there are no US troops on non-US soil. A day that I can advocate wealth redistribution without fear of a CIA funded coup. A day where the internet represents all of humanity.

[jochung]

"Centuries of privilege" is the kind of idiocy only a sheltered American suburbanite could come up with.

A century ago millions of young white men were too busy dying in trenches and being gassed to death with mustard gas in a war none of them could vote on.

Children worked on the field, in factories, and in coal mines, like their fathers were expected to.

And yes, women stayed home and took care of the kids because without electricity, plumbing, appliances, refrigeration and cheap groceries, that was actually a laborious full time job, and people were poor. Not to mention that getting through child birth and infant mortality was a blessing for both mother and child.

None of them were given opportunities simply by existing. On the other hand, providing scholarships to specific ethnicities, or creating special women-only pathways to entry, that is exactly that.

What people like Damore have tried to point out is that expecting demographics and sentiment within a field to match the general population, or else the "playing field" is not level, is an unwarranted assumption. It also puts the blame for actually society wide issues on a small group of people who had nothing to do with it.

If you want more black people in tech, start by addressing the way the US school system is stratified entirely by social class. Maybe you'll see a difference, and maybe that IQ gap will shrink. Maybe it won't, and what new "leveling" policies will you want to introduce then? Don't push out or disadvantage others out of misplaced revenge, and don't cite your American tunnel vision as justification.

[dang]

> the kind of idiocy only a sheltered American suburbanite

Regardless of your view on a divisive issue, you can't break the HN guidelines like this when commenting here. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do it again.