Across all cultures (perhaps across all of history), women are more risk averse.
In fact, feminist activists didn't push to get more women into tech until tech was a higher paying, lower risk endeavor.
Only then did it become scandalous that young women were choosing different career paths (but interestingly, the fact that young women are earning more than young men and graduating from college in far greater rates than young men isn't scandalous).
I think this is misleading. Men and women face different risks, and heterodox strategies are not indicative of very much. First, you need to be careful how you infer "risk taking" from "not taking the same bets", because the actual riks taken is a portfolio riks calculation which is blind. Second, you don't have any data to infer anyrthing about the quality of the risk taking they are in fact taking; that is in terms of actual/realize and even provability weighted expected returns. To give one crass example, a women could take a strategy of legal ownership of "high risk realized assets" through marriage. This is a "high-risk strategy", but it is also empirically true that many rich men are married.[1] Of course, the odds of success in this strategy are also not evenly distributed amongst women as a group, either. Another person could look at that and say that marriage to a rich person is a "risk avoidance" strategy...and again, this may or may not be true. Because wealth and genetic fitness need not correlate, and so your frame of reference on the purpose of strategy quickly turns into quite a bit more complex calculation.
[1] Marriage as a legal contract has a financial value; a derivative, with contingent claims on of the underlying (asset) value of couple's cumulative/aggregate incomes.
You and your complexifyin' aren't welcome around here, friend! All that nuance just makes our arguments much harder to make. You'd best take it elsewhere.
You've obviously made a serious study of this and that's why you have such justifiably strong opinions on the matter. Can you do 10 minutes of googling next time and share more? Or maybe 20?! Think of how informed you'd be after 20 minutes!
> If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
There's plenty of room between "justify everything from first principles" and "perform an ad hoc 5-minute search of the web for research that confirms what I already believe." I'd also say, the closer one is to the former, the more justified one is in feeling certain about their beliefs.
> It's pretty difficult to have a serious conversation if you have to fully define and prove every single piece of content in a comment.
That's good, because nobody here is advocating that!
> Common sense is getting to be pretty rare around here.
Well, as they say, "Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen."
What's "common sense," here? That women are more risk-averse? I disagree, at the very least until one defines "risk" and "risk-averse" very precisely. My "common sense" tells me otherwise. Shucks. Ain't that the problem with "common sense?"
I think part of the reason these discussions never get anywhere is because of blatant dishonesty in discussions. You actually think there is no "feminist activist" movement?
I don't, and I never made that claim because it's insane. I object to the idea that "feminist activists" "didn't push to get more women into tech until tech was a higher paying, lower risk endeavor."
There's a claim "women are more risk averse", and another claim "feminist activists exist", both of which are feasibly true, that do not lead to general conclusion that "feminist activists did not push to get more women into tech until it was a higher paying, lower risk endeavor". Which is a broad, unsupported argument, for which the data directly contradicts:
"And who are these "feminist activist" strawmen(straw-women?) you have set up?"
I took that to mean (generally) that the idea that there is such a thing as a legitimate feminist activist is nonsense - that in reality any reference to one is as part of a straw man argument. Not what you were saying?
What I meant was that he was characterizing all feminist activists as wanting or doing X (X being unsupported, anyways), which seems to me to be an unfair generalization and an easy to knock down, stereotypical villain.
I should have clarified in the original post, apologies.
If that happened, I could understand it. If you claim the thread above is summarized by that, you're hallucinating.
I simply said that bias can be invisible and it useful to have formal methods for catching it. I don't see myself as a "feminist activist" by any means.
I think the feminist activists who do sometimes uncritically toss around accusations of bias aren't really helping. But when I notice people reading my nuanced position and hallucinating a feminist rant, it increases my sympathies. It also doesn't speak well of people's abilities to see their biases (I wouldn't claim perfection for myself of course but the argument seems involve the claim that some people have no need for formal methods to correct their biases. I beg to differ, everyone needs that).
> but the argument seems involve the claim that some people have no need for formal methods to correct their biases. I beg to differ, everyone needs that
Demanding that everyone has a formal method to correct biases only provable in statistics, really do go back to the "Prove that you're not a witch" argument a few comments ago. The exact same proof can be found against different color of skin, names and clothes. It can be found in parents who has more than one children. Statistical proven biases exist everywhere.
Yet, a formal method should only really be needed once the bias is found to actually exist on a individual level. Everything else would be insane.
Yet, a formal method should only really be needed once the bias is found to actually exist on a individual level. Everything else would be insane.
Wouldn't a better approach be incorporating formal, rational methods into everyone's individual thought processes from the beginning? In other words, I believe adopting the overt rationality advocated by the likes of http://lesswrong.com/ would almost automatically correct a lot of societal problems caused by bias.
He's concerned about being misconstrued because feminist activists love bullying people with waves of hateful, outrageously uncharitable, deliberately damaging messages at the slightest trigger.
> Will write about female founders, but traveling all day so it will have to wait. Reserve judgment? Prob too much to hope for, alas.
The responses are typical of feminist activists:
1. > pg translated: "Shut up. All I did in the last decade is not what I believe in, I will graciously explain it to you when I see fit"
2. > Obviously not an important enough issue to deal with now.
3. > please DO NOT write about women founders until you have a better fucking grasp on the issue.
4. > oh don't you even try to equate being a douchebag "startup" founder with being a hacker
The privilege topic has been discussed to death.
If someone were to use "privilege" to mean "unearned benefits for individuals in specific contexts", then no one could have a problem with it. We could talk about:
- female privileges in the workplace
- male privileges in the workplace
- white privileges at university
- black privileges at university
- gay privileges at bars
- straight privileges at bars
- American-born privileges regarding medical care
- Canadian-born privileges regarding medical care
- etc.
Instead, third-wave feminists have transformed the notion of "privilege" into a targeted weapon for belittling and denigrating the specific demographics they deem hostile to their goals.
When a "friendly" demographic does well, it's a result of hard work and determination. For example, when young women earn more than young men, or when young women graduate from college at far higher rates than young men, it's a result of hard work and determination.
Another example: Have you ever seen tptacek complain about the Asian tech problem, the Indian tech problem, or the Jewish tech problem? Nope. Those people worked hard! That is why they're wildly overrepresented. No need to scold them. No need to demand flagellation from them.
But men doing well? White men? Oh god, it's just their privilege. We need to fix this, and we'll know the problem isn't fixed as long as there is any disparity.
> It is irrefutable that for generations American society took "affirmative action" to suppress women, to pigeonhole them into an impoverished gender role concerned only with housekeeping and child rearing.
It is irrefutable that for generations American society took "affirmative action" to suppress men, to pigeonhole them into an overworked, hyper-stressed, diseased, prematurely fatal gender role concerned only with selfless providing for and protecting the women and children in their lives.
Feminists look at the 0.1% of men at the top of society throughout history, and willfully ignore the 99.9% of men at the bottom. Those men at the top of society are useful for shoring up sympathy for women; those men at the bottom of society are not.
> Who wants to, as a woman, invest themselves in a career in tech when there is a decent chance your boss will be this guy
What a sophomoric, hand-wavy thing to say. Who wants to, as a man, invest themselves in a career in tech when there is a decent chance your boss will be this guy, who is actually, literally a powerful boss who says bullying things toward men who don't toe the third-wave feminist line:
Plus, the man you're trying to ridicule is correct, as a recent large study shows beyond all reasonable doubt ("Penn Medicine Brain Imaging Study Helps Explain Different Cognitive Strengths in Men and Women"):
When in life do men's and women's brains diverge? Not during their youngest, most plastic years. Nope. During the surge of sex hormones in puberty. It doesn't mean men or worse or women are worse. It just means that like all other intelligent species, humans have different psychological tendencies between sexes.
> The solution to gender inequality issues is to simply hire women. Hire women and promote women.
This is a terrible idea, unless you only care about ensuring that every company has at least one vagina for every penis. History (and the present) shows us that this sort of widespread coddling is guaranteed to help privileged, connected women at the expense of underprivileged, unconnected men.
Hyper-privileged, connected, powerful men like yourself will have no issues finding a job either way. But young men—who are already out-educated and out-earned by young women—are badly affected, especially those without connections. Considering the lack of personal repercussions, it's little surprise that it's trendy for old, rich men to throw young, poor men under the bus. It's par for the course for history, in fact.
> employers tend to treat similar resumes with male versus female names differently.
Why shouldn't they, especially in the world you want?
Why do you feel the need to diminish a counter viewpoint (however misguided it may be) in such a confrontational way? By reducing it to a buzzwordy opponent identity, you've pretty much nullified any chance of constructive discussion there was.
Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe the MensRights folks are the way they are because they felt discriminated against at some point in their life? And now they've found support by being there for each other? Who are you to mock them?
tptacek, you've been in the IT industry long enough, you should know by now that there actually are a considerable amount of men in this field who were made fun of when they younger, who were rejected by their peers and made to feel that no women would ever want them. They've lived their childhood, their adolescence thinking they're nerdy and unattractive, and there was no hope. Try and understand where they might be coming from.
I'm reasonably certain your intentions are good, but please understand that your insensitive demeanor on gender issues threads is more polarizing and inflammatory than anything that's likely to bring people together in any sort of conciliatory way. I implore you to really take a moment and reflect on this. Think about what you can do to really bring people together, rather than pushing them away and antagonizing them.
I did think about it. I thought about it briefly. Then I decided that the idea that men are somehow oppressed by feminism (or, really, by any other kind of force directed solely at men) is fucking ridiculous and unworthy of point-by-point debate.
You show me the startup that carefully considers whether or not to hire 20-something men for fear that they might have children and need to take time off or work less than 60 hours a week. That happens, and I'll carefully consider the notion that men are oppressed in our workforce.
Why is it impossible? Nothing about women oppressing men, doesn't sound as ludicrous than vice-versa? Human capacity for evil is evenly distributed between genders.
Don't forget that there was a thing like matriarchy. I'm pretty sure that oppression on some level occurred even then, but since there was little written evidence, its just hard to prove.
As for hiring someone that might have children, and need to take time off, that part should be handled by the state. If someone leaves, the state pays employer and/or women caring for her 1year child. You are effectively down a one person but they are not to blame for things running their course.
That thing shouldn't come into equation at any point.
It's like homosexual supporter saying that because penguins can be gay that homosexuality is natural. It being socially acceptable has no connection to naturallity, and attempting to pretend so is a disservice to your position.
I think women in a company do have a rather special quality, to smooth some of the misunderstandings and lessen certain conflicts. That plus a unique woman perspective is invaluable when it comes to generating ideas.
> It's like homosexual supporter saying that because penguins can be gay that homosexuality is natural. It being socially acceptable has no connection to naturallity, and attempting to pretend so is a disservice to your position.
That's a bad analogy for you to use, since people who defend that it should be socially unacceptable use the claim that it is "unnatural" to support their position. It therefore is quite appropriate for people who disagree with that position to (among other arguments) point out evidence that contradicts the "unnatural" claim.
I do not understand your dilemma. I never said, don't use penguins as examples to counter people calling homosexuality unnatural. I said don't use penguins as examples to prove it "natural".
My response was to noticed trend that few homosexuals and their supporters use statements like the above to justify their rights and even worse, their right to exist. I was truly shocked! I do understand what it is to live in a conservative environment, and get hammered in that certain group X is bad, and that it shouldn't exist, but at no point should you justify your existence (wtf?! you have every right to exist if you don't invade other people's liberties) with bad examples that are easily countered. It's like watching someone self straw-man themselves.
If my post came across as a generic "men's rights" post, rather than a direct response to the parent, then I didn't do a good enough job of tying it together.
Western culture's hypersensitivity toward women's issues, combined with its blindness toward men's issues, create an environment in which it's socially acceptable (even socially rewarded) to propose draconian measures that further throw young men under the bus that's carrying young women.
We should aim to help people who are suffering in society, rather than aim to help people with vaginas. And we absolutely shouldn't continue obsessing about leveling evening every single predominately male field without doing something to help the young men who are increasingly being left behind.
Everyone is entitled to (and does) ignore externalities that cause discomfort to others.
If Alice performs well at her job, and her company gains a lot of marketshare as a result, she has likely caused discomfort for the employees of her company's competitors. It's frightening to imagine a world in which Alice is forced to stop performing as well because of her competitors' discomfort.
A simpler example: "hapless" is all over this thread, causing discomfort for those who don't want this man thrown in prison. Should "hapless" be forced to stop?
Additionally, everyone is entitled to (and does) ignore public goods that they don't pay for. It's frightening to imagine a world in which we force Alice to pay for her neighbor's renovations, or to pay for a weekly advice newsletter she never signed up for.
People like the man in the article make these value judgments more independently from government policy than most people do. If anything, that is your contention with him, not that he doesn't pay for things he didn't ask for, and not that he sometimes ignores the discomfort caused by his actions.
I think you misread the comment you're replying to.
People are not entitled to ignore all externalities that cause discomfort to others. For example, creating toxic pollution that spreads to people around you and forcing them to pay the cost of cleanup is not OK, but you're suggesting it is? If you were affected by this kind of pollution, would you just shrug and say, "It's OK for them to ignore this externality?"
And the part about not paying for public goods that you use, you seem to have misread as "not using public goods that you don't pay for".
People are upset with the AirBNB guy in the article because he's causing problems for the neighbors, and profiting because he's ignoring regulations. It's profiting off the backs of other people, so he's more like a leecher than any Ayn Randian hero.
e.g. just in new york there's plenty of publicly (or in the case of assisted home performance, ratepayer funded, e.g. a tax on energy bills) funded housing renovation programs.
> If Alice performs well at her job, and her company gains a lot of marketshare as a result, she has likely caused discomfort for the employees of her company's competitors. It's frightening to imagine a world in which Alice is forced to stop performing as well because of her competitors' discomfort.
I think that's the exception rather than the rule. People are expected to act competitively in their job in a way that doesn't extend to other spheres of life.
And not so long ago there was a view that there were limits on that competition; one could outdo one's competitor, but it was unseemly to press them to the point where they were forced to fire people or go bankrupt. Workers who were very successful would charge higher prices or spend less time working so as not to outcompete others too severely; companies that were very successful would license technology cheaply, or found ways to spend their money without expanding too aggressively. In the worst case, if you put a competitor out of business you were expected to acquire them on friendly terms. Many parts of the world still operate like this. It may be less efficient than the ultracapitalist way, but it's by no means "frightening".
believe it or not, some human beings try to go through life creating positive externalities, or avoiding creating negative ones... fools and value-judging tyrants, no doubt.
you're confusing me in your attempt to interfere with my karma whoring (or possibly contribute to it LOL).
if you are aware of the externality you're creating, but continuing with the activity because of even greater positive externalities, and/or exercising your rights consistent with how you would expect others to exercise them, then you're not ignoring the externality, you're taking it into account in your social calculations.
If you were ignoring it, and acting for your own benefit regardless of any externalities to others, that would be antisocial.
In TFA, it sort of seems like he is aware of the negative impact on neighbors and illegalities, but feels inexplicably entitled regardless.
The explanation (and subsequent discussion) in your first link is wonderful.
I love that there are nerds tucked away in random corners of the internet, making themselves happy by working on obscure, challenging problems like these.
That dehumanizing attitude is extremely common in first-world "social justice warrior" circles.
They consciously and deliberately use shaming and bullying tactics to intimidate others into silence. They acknowledge this constantly, especially on Twitter when their bullying victims ask why the "social justice warriors" are being so cruel.
Their answers are typically something like, "We need everyone to know that being a fucking asshole like you will mean everyone will mock and hate you."
These activists are quite literally bullies. It's extremely important that we continue to stand up to them.
I use gender-neutral pronouns unless context dictates otherwise, but I want you to consider something.
If a policy (or lack thereof) is correlated with women feeling excluded or intimidated, it doesn't necessarily mean that the policy (or lack thereof) is a bad thing.
If women tend to feel intimidated by eye contact with men with whom they are in competition, it doesn't mean such eye contact should be banned. If women tend to feel feel excluded if the founding members of an organization or club are all men, it doesn't mean men should be forced to find a woman before founding an organization or club.
This community, like most others, has an unspoken bias against third-wave feminist bullies.
Look what happened to the "Atheism Plus" communities. They have been completely taken over by bigoted "social justice warriors" and their activism.
Completely.
Atheism is almost never discussed. And when it is, it is always discussed in the context of third-wave post-modern feminism. Think I'm lying? Take a look at any Atheism Plus community. Any!
Once a community accepts the tenants of post-modern discourse, it's over.
In fact, feminist activists didn't push to get more women into tech until tech was a higher paying, lower risk endeavor.
Only then did it become scandalous that young women were choosing different career paths (but interestingly, the fact that young women are earning more than young men and graduating from college in far greater rates than young men isn't scandalous).