[nsxwolf]

I don't get this. Maybe it's because I'm a white male, but it still doesn't make sense to me.

Why is there such a resistance to the idea that there might be differences in what groups of people are interested in at any given time? Not an issue of genetics or competence, but a complicated web of social influences that make people less likely to be interested in one path or the other?

If there are truly unjust and discriminatory barriers, then by all means let's remove them. But if we succeed, and it doesn't change the numbers much, does it matter?

If certain groups really think it's a problem then let them do the work of encouraging their group members (alert, this feels condescending - who says they'll even self-identify with that group) to get into tech.

It's certainly not my fault. I'm a cheerleader for tech careers. The more, the merrier. But if you're not into it, then you're not into it. There's a lot of things I'm not into, either. Whose fault is that? And why should it matter?

[jessedhillon]

The resistance comes from the fact that this idea -- lack of diversity is explained by differences in some fundamental, intrinsic way -- is offered and accepted without serious proof!

[puls]

I think his entire point is to call out that complicated web of social influences as the problem.

[nsxwolf]

But the complicated web is what's called "life". It's infinitely diverse and complex, and if some optimal configuration could be discovered and enforced that would lead to this banal goal of "more members of group X in programming jobs", it could only have untold deleterious effects elsewhere.

The demographic makeup of tech careers may simply be the result of billions of people just doing what it is they do.

[monochromatic]

Why is it a problem?

[MartinCron]

It's only a problem if you care about things like injustice, inefficiency, and wasted potential.

[nsxwolf]

It's only wasted potential if you're sure that a career in technology is superior to any other career or goal in life.

That's certainly not true. I'd be curious to see the reaction of you telling a woman who is satisfied with her life that she's wasted her potential.

[MartinCron]

It's less about individual goals than about the mismatch between talent and opportunity.

There are people out there who could make meaningful contribution to this profession. There is a demand for people who could make a meaningful contribution to this profession. There are artificial barriers, based on gender/race/class/whatever that make it marginally harder for some people to contribute.

A more concrete example: The unemployment rate in my country is very huge, and yet my organization is still having a hard time finding talent. Is it because none of the millions of people looking for work could possibly do what I need done? It seems more likely that the complex system of forces has dissuaded talented people from getting skills in this profession.

[_b8r0]

> There are artificial barriers, based on gender/race/class/whatever that make it marginally harder for some people to contribute.

Can you provide an example of the barriers of which you speak? I find that a lot of the time I'm told about how people with qualities distinct from mine should be cut some slack or given extra incentives to get into industry to correct some sort of imbalance, and that the imbalance is somehow evidence of barriers that we can't see, and that incentivising these groups (and in effect putting barriers up against people like me) is the way forward.

To me, discrimination is discrimination, regardless. I don't take issue with any qualities of anyone - the right person for the job is the right person for the job. Perhaps historically barriers meant that the right person for the job was a white male (bearing in mind societal pressures, the availability of education and options etc.) and the prevalence of white males is a hangover, if so like all hangovers it will die down.

What I do know is that in my profession (technical infosec) there's a hard time finding talent, but that's because your average graduate student won't cut it. So we're stuck in a pool where you have a subset of CS grads, with some security interest and experience, subset of which have a particular mindset and abilities, and in turn a subset of which won't run away at the prospect of learning a staggering amount of information about systems, programs and all kinds of stuff are what you're after. Then on top of that I get told that because there's a skew further up the chain that I should incentivise particular groups to 'correct an imbalance' I have no direct control over.

[prodigal_erik]

Writing correct software is so close to impossible that we would actually be be better off without a large majority of the people who are already charging big money for utter crap. I don't see how we can expect more meaningful contributions from anyone who isn't irrestibly drawn to this Sisyphean work.

[roguecoder]

Or want to hire new college grads for your start up for less than $80,000 a year.

[HalibetLector]

Or a false sense of moral superiority.

[lsd5you]

What is more, the more barriers are removed the harder and more convoluted it gets to explain any such differences.

If we assume there aren't any differences between men and women, but speculate on what the world would look like with significant differences, what would the distributions be like (as compared to today).

On the reason why, I would say the level interest is very tied up with ability in any case. What is more innate ability probably causes interest. I don't think it is a scientific statement to say it is only a social phenomenon (or vica-versa).

[funkah]

I have similar thoughts. But also, it bothers me that the imbalances in tech are considered to be somehow more pathological or worse than the imbalances that exist in all kinds of other professions. We seem to be the only profession flogging ourselves over this issue (I'm sure there are some others, but I doubt there are many).

Are people in nursing worried about the field underperforming as a whole because it has so many women?

[dgabriel]

I'm sort of a broken record in this thread, but every time the question comes up I like to respond. Yes, there is a nursing shortage, and actively recruiting and retaining men is a high priority. Please see: http://www.minoritynurse.com/men-nursing/recruiting-men-nurs...

[nsxwolf]

If we keep going with your excellent point, it's not hard to see a hypothetical argument for aiming to make everyone in the world equally interested in everything.

Proponents of this theory in tech jobs don't seem to understand this. They just see that if the numbers don't add up to a perfectly even split, there's something nefarious going on.

[lindseybieda]

So that's why the percent was higher for CS degrees and then steadily declined, there was interest and now there is less http://rarlindseysmash.com/images/entries/degrees.png. Something is happening here.

[knowtheory]

This is absolutely 100% not true. You may not be familiar with fields like nursing or dietetics but there is an equally imbalanced gender distribution in both those fields that skews the other way.

Both fields are concerned and do talk about ways they can address the imbalance (and act in limited capacities).