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Silicon Valley Still Wrestling With Diversity Issues

An anonymous reader writes: As major tech companies come under increased scrutiny over the diversity of their workforces, many of them are focusing solely on the "pipeline" of workers educated in a computer-related field. They're pouring resources into getting kids to code, setting up internships, and even establishing mentoring programs for underrepresented groups. But experts say they're still failing to root out their own internal biases when making hiring decisions. "That bias shows up in recruiting, with companies drawing from the same top universities, where black and Hispanic graduates are still lagging behind other groups. ... The problem is particularly acute at start-ups, where black founders are just 1 percent of venture-invested firms, according to a 2011 survey by CB Insights." The tech companies are under mounting pressure to solve this problem, and the solutions they're pursuing won't show results quickly.

255 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A bunch of SJWs are wrestling with it. Silicon Valley is doing just fine.

    1. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yea, since when did Capitalism and the free market become equated with Affirmative Action?

      I know a lot of companies pay lip service to the unquantifiable "benefits of diversity", but that doesn't mean tech companies are now a social program to artificially inflate minority numbers.

      Especially since nowadays, there are often as many or more minority employees of all sorts of backgrounds (Jewish, all flavors of Asian, just not the "disadvantaged" minorities) than there are "white" (which is bullshit anyways, there are lots of disadvantaged white skinned ethnicities as well, which are conveniently ignored), simply because of what is available on the market and who is most competitive.

      I say, it is 2015, fuck the ideas of race and skin color. People are people, and let us compete on an equal field in that sense. If the poor need help, then let us help them, but don't color the argument.

      This coming from someone who has the ADVANTAGE of being able to self identify as either white or Hispanic on a whim (since most Hispanics have Spanish ancestry, the choice is cultural and left up to the person).

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    2. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by savuporo · · Score: 2

      I run a dev team in SV and I absolutely wrestle with diversity issues every day. We try to maintain diversity of talent, skills, ideas, approaches, tech stacks, work hours and God know what else.

      What we don't really care about is diversity of genitalia, skin colors or funny accents, as this doesn't contribute fuck all to what we want to get done.

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    3. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Interesting

      At lower levels there is a lot of diversity. At upper levels though it becomes very white. Not always, solidly white, but it is a distinct difference.

    4. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by rioki · · Score: 1

      If you look at the graphic you can see they made an effort and then failed miserably at reality. They compared students with employees at companies. For starters that sounds reasonable to not demand they try to reduce required qualifications for minorities.

      But then they fail in two ways, first it appears that their numbers are all recent. They ignore the fact that the racial composition has changed over time and the primary differences you can see are mostly lag in the system. The second issue is that they compare US universities (only US permanent residents) with companies that hire people form outside. Currently we are seeing an influx of Chinese and Indian workers being employed by companies. You can see this that in some cases it's even double in comparison to the student composition. This influx results in a bias that reduces all numbers, including white. It also ignores the fact that many Asian, especially Chinese will study in the US on a student visa (not counted in study) and then start working at a company in the US on a working visa (counted).

    5. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by brunnegd · · Score: 1

      Excellent comments

    6. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Explain?

    7. Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it by LessThanObvious · · Score: 1

      Diversity obsession needs to stop. As a white worker in a 70% Indian team where my coworkers speak Hindi to each other 60% of the time even when discussing projects. I can just say I've had enough talk of this supposed lack of diversity. I've also had black peers, managers, VPs and CEOs. I've had female peers, VPs and CTOs. I've served with technically brilliant people of all kinds and useless incompetents of all kinds. Nobody cares about anything but ability and attitude. The biggest thing slowing any shift in staffing numbers is that we draw mostly from the existing pool because everyone hires people with experience, but that pool is getting thin. Industry will bring in newer people out of necessity and if that pool of qualified candidates is diverse, they will have every chance of being hired if they know how to get in front of hiring managers.

  2. Too many white and Asian males by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How can we hire fewer white and Asian males? Any ideas?

    1. Re: Too many white and Asian males by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Lower your hiring standards.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  3. Is this Jezebel or Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Serious question...

    1. Re:Is this Jezebel or Slashdot? by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

      Serious question...

      What do you have against discussing a problem that affects many tech professionals globally? Should Slashdot only discuss issues that affect Caucasian males?

      --
      Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    2. Re:Is this Jezebel or Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      What do you have against discussing a problem

      The lack of any evidence that said problem actually exists. Start with a survey of what jobs women and men actually prefer doing. That's the first step in empirically proving that sexism exists, but feminists refuse to do such research because it will debunk their anecdotal claims. Norway knows what's up. The most equal countries in the world have greater gender differences, esp. in job selection. What you're calling a "problem" is the fact that women have more freedom to express their choice in job preference. I suppose your "solution" would be less choice, maybe forcing women and men into jobs they do not want? Something akin to Communism? (indeed, here we reveal the true nature of the social justice warrior beast) Behavioural differences between men and women are cross-cultural (meaning: not socialized).

      In short: There is no evidence a problem exists. Should we be hemming and hawing over the alleged existence of a teapot orbiting between here and Mars? Never mind that there is no evidence for its existence, let's waste time discussing the question of who could have put it there? Just because SJW whines about something that allegedly affects women doesn't mean we should engage our gynocentric bias and suddenly declare that correlation is suddenly causation. Hint: The SJW does not want to admit that any "issues facing women" have been addressed, as this means their job is over. For instance, see how SJW "rape culture" hysteria has removed an alarming amount of due process. According to SJWs none of the drastic changes we have made has done anything to cure the problem they claim still exists -- they seek MORE erosion of rights to address their baseless accusations.

      In other words: Once you pay the Danegeld, you will never be rid of the Dane.

      P.S. The wage gap hasn't existed in over half a decade.

    3. Re:Is this Jezebel or Slashdot? by tsotha · · Score: 1

      Why is it a "problem" when tech firms hire from top universities?

    4. Re:Is this Jezebel or Slashdot? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's interesting how many people are in total denial that the issues even exist, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It's kind of obvious why, when you think about it.

      If the tech industry has a diversity problem, then that kind of suggests that the people in tech are part of the problem. Most people don't think of themselves as being sexist or racist, and in fact have extremely negative ideas of what those things are. So when the problem is more subtle and doesn't imply that the people who are part of it are bad people, it's hard to make the argument because people quickly get angry.

      For another example of this, take Anita Sarkeesian's videos about video games. There's an instant -1 flamebait mod - see how angry people are even at the mention of her name? She starts the videos by stating that it is fine to enjoy video games while also critiquing them - in other words playing and enjoying a game with very poor female characters doesn't make you a bad person, and she isn't suggesting that you are. But when you look at people's reactions, it's clear they see it as a personal attack on their character, because they feel guilt by association.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Diversity is not an issue, the ONLY thing they should care is competence.

    1. Re:Huh? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You make a valid point. They also care about the fact that if they hire an incompetent Asian or White guy, they can fire him with no repercussions. However, if they hire an incompetent who is a member of one of the "disadvantaged" groups, firing them is potentially a legal nightmare. It is easier to not hire them in the first place unless they are clearly able to do the job.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    2. Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It is an issue because race doesn't correlate with competence. Therefore if you have one race being under-represented you know that there are many potentially great candidates from that race that you are failing to hire, instead settling for a potentially worse candidate from some other race.

      Companies see it as a way to get the best employees and get ahead in a very competitive market, where the ability to innovate and built strong products is key. They see lack of diversity as a failure to develop and attract a large number of highly skilled employees.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Huh? by fche · · Score: 1

      "It is an issue because race doesn't correlate with competence."

      [citation needed]

    4. Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The bottom line is that even if there is still some debate in this area, the margins are tiny and averaged over populations. Individuals don't seem to be limited by their race, and certainly not to the point where you could say that only a small fraction of non-white people are qualified to compete for tech jobs with white people.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Huh? by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

      Diversity is not an issue, the ONLY thing they should care is competence.

      And what happens when competent minority kids never get the chance to show this because of social issues that exists decades before they were born?

      The situation is clearly not that simple. People have biases.

      Job seekers with black sounding names get interviewed less. Black job seekers with photos get interviewed less.

      The other, however, suggests a black-sounding name remains an impediment to getting a job. After responding to 1,300 classified ads with dummy resumes, the authors found black-sounding names were 50 percent less likely to get a callback than white-sounding names with comparable resumes.

      --
      Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    6. Re:Huh? by chihowa · · Score: 1

      You originally said competence, not intelligence. You're moving the goalposts.

      Competence has a huge training component which is not necessarily tied to intelligence. If the culture of one demographic keeps them from pursuing higher education or attending top schools, they will ultimately be less competent as a demographic. This may translate into a correlation between race and competence and still may not be the result of any racism from outside that demographic.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    7. Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You are missing the point. If the only difference is in opportunities in life for training then not checking to see if those candidates have that training is limiting the pool of good candidates unnecessarily.

      So while what you say may be true in some areas, it only applies to populations and not individuals.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re: Huh? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Donald Trump. Perfect example of incompetence attracting the incompetent.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    9. Re:Huh? by fche · · Score: 1

      Can you rephrase that coherently please? What is an HR person to do about a candidate that had a "difference in opportunities in life for training" from another candidate, and therefore varies in competence?

    10. Re:Huh? by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It is an issue because race doesn't correlate with competence.

      Ah, there is your error: race is, in fact, is highly correlated (both positively and negatively) in many fields. The relationship isn't genetic, it's environmental and historical, but that doesn't make it any less real.

    11. Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's pretty easy to understand, try to wrap your head around it. Even if a population is generally disadvantaged that doesn't mean than an individual can't overcome that and become highly competent. Therefore not properly checking for good candidates in the population potentially excludes the best candidates. That's why companies are trying hard to avoid doing it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Huh? by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Individuals don't seem to be limited by their race

      Correct: your race doesn't limit your potential IQ per se. But that is after correcting for a lot of other historical and environmental variables.

      But Silicon Valley employers don't hire newborn babies drawn at random from the world population, they hire adults drawn from the US population. Within the US population, for historical, cultural, and environmental reasons, race does correlate strongly with competence in particular fields. Nor is this at all unique to the US.

    13. Re:Huh? by fche · · Score: 1

      So now we're completely away from the "race / competence non-correlation", and onto the "judge each person on his/her own merits" bromide. I'm 100% with you there. I also like motherhood and apple pie.

    14. Re:Huh? by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1

      If the only difference is in opportunities in life for training then not checking to see if those candidates have that training is limiting the pool of good candidates unnecessarily.

      As a population, African Americans produce more good basketball players and fewer good computer scientists than the population at large. That is neither surprising nor does it require racism or discrimination as an explanation. In fact, as a population, African Americans also have a lower average IQ even though race does not, by itself, correlate with intelligence in any significant way. There is no contradiction there either. You only see contradictions there because your mental model of correlation and statistics is wrong.

      So while what you say may be true in some areas, it only applies to populations and not individuals.

      Populations is what we are discussing here, namely the difference in racial composition of the workforce of Silicon Valley companies and the graduates of top CS departments. You are trying to use this as evidence for discrimination against individuals when, in fact, it provides no evidence for discrimination.

    15. Re:Huh? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Diversity is not an issue, the ONLY thing they should care is competence.

      Diversity is an issue, and it's an issue many politicians care about.

      Specifically, it's an issue for politicians that Google and Facebook want to influence with their lobbying. Making noise about the issue is an easy way for them to make those politicians happy, to say, "I am on your side."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    16. Re: Huh? by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Incompetent yes. But who has he attracted? He's a sideshow in an election season that hasn't started yet.

    17. Re:Huh? by swillden · · Score: 2

      If they only cared about competence, you would see a closer match to the diversity numbers of the pipeline. But you don't see that, so they probably don't.

      Actually, from the numbers I've seen there is a pretty good match to the diversity numbers of the pipeline. Minority representation in major SV tech companies is pretty close to the representation among university graduates in the relevant fields. I think it's pretty clear that the problem -- and there is a problem -- is in the pipeline, not in the hiring policies.

      A colleague of mine (I work for Google) spent last year teaching at a predominantly-black university (on Google's dime), as part of an initiative to try to address these pipeline problems. That's a good start, but the real problem is the in pre-college pipeline.

      --
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    18. Re:Huh? by fche · · Score: 1

      "Job seekers with black sounding names get interviewed less."

      If a hiring company makes decisions based on unsound heuristics, others that do not make that mistake will outcompete them. The problem is self-correcting in the long run, if it's allowed to be.

    19. Re: Huh? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      id love to be half as incompetent as donald. how much is he worth????

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    20. Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You are mistaken. Poverty and privilege correlate with competence, not race. Depending on the part of the world you are looking at, difference races fit into those two categories.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    21. Re:Huh? by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1

      You are mistaken. Poverty and privilege correlate with competence, not race.

      You're quite right: poverty and "privilege" correlate with competence. The "privilege" of coming from a two parent household with one or both parents working, parents who value education and savings, who are educated themselves, who read to their kids at night, and who aren't in trouble with the law.

      That kind of middle class upbringing, however, also correlates strongly with race: whites and Asians have it much more frequently than African Americans. As a result, job competence and job success in professions like IT also strongly correlate with race at the population level, which explains the biased racial statistics at Silicon Valley companies.

      Perhaps you don't understand what the term "correlate" means? Perhaps you are trying to make an argument about causation?

    22. Re:Huh? by penguinoid · · Score: 1

      Individuals don't seem to be limited by their race

      How about Olympic medal winners?

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    23. Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Outliers in extremely specific disciplines. All races are capable of being very good at sports, world class in fact. If you were building a team you wouldn't exclude all but one race based on the current world champion's ethnicity.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    24. Re:Huh? by KGIII · · Score: 2

      Why is it a problem if it is a cultural predisposition to be interested in things other than the inner workings of technology? Are you insinuating that you "need" to fix some other group's culture? Your goals sound noble but have you really thought them through without an appeal to emotion? What if this group of people is, by enlarge, not interested in your meddling and has no desire to compete in your world? You know what is best after all...

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    25. Re:Huh? by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      If the only difference is in opportunities in life for training...

      Not only is that not the only difference, you ignored the one he specifically mentioned and showcased, which was cultural differences.

      Why did you ignore it? I know why.

      because you would look like a real fucking asshole if you went on about how the solution to the problem of diversity is changing peoples cultural differences.

      No, I take that back... you wouldnt look like a fucking asshole.. you would look like a fucking racist asshole.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    26. Re:Huh? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Are you confusing correlation and causation? Because race certainly correlates with education, and through it transitively with competence. No-one is saying that the race is what causes that correlation, but it's trivial to observe.

    27. Re:Huh? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Nice attempt to turn the problem back on those who are trying to solve it. Your comment is just the updated version of the old diagrams showing that black peoples' brains are too small and too apelike for them to be able to live in a modern world without someone telling them what to do.

      The fact is that there are real issues around access to the sort of education that leads to jobs in technology. And this isn't just a "my world vs their world" issue... automation is moving forward at a rapid and accelerating pace, so anyone who opts to stay away from technology is going to find themselves increasingly unemployable.

      Granted that much of the issue is cultural, it's not driven by any sort of cultural preferences. As one example, black youth culture has embrace the "Thug Life" idea not because they're inherently thuggish, but because it seems like the only route to some sort of power (however illusory, or at least narrowly localized) that doesn't require them to abandon their identity. Going to Stanford and melding into the whitebread world that exists there is an option for the brightest black kids, sure, but many of them (including many of those who've done it) see it as abandoning part of themselves. Not because they don't love education and technology, but because they've left their community and joined another.

      Personally, I don't get this, but that's because the dominant tech culture is, more or less, my "people". As a Mormon I'm somewhat outside of it, but my white male bona fides more than make up for that.

      So, people like my black Googler colleague are trying to address the problem by bringing top-notch tech education and, more importantly, mentoring, to primarily and historically black schools, to try to help find a way to fold tech into their culture rather than requiring them to leave it. And you seriously want to argue that's a bad thing, somehow? You can try to pin this on me, make me some sort of white elitist who knows what "they" should want better than they do, but can you do the same for the members of that community who are the ones doing the work? Heck, I'm not even doing anything but cheerleading.

      I suppose if I were smarter and less moral I'd be happy to exclude "them", and instead focus on making sure my kids are the ones who get those good jobs in the future where so many people are replaced by cheaper and more efficient machines. But I'm not very good at "us vs them"; heck I even think that outsourcing and similar trends that equalize opportunity worldwide are a good thing.

      --
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    28. Re:Huh? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      If everybody makes decisions based on unsound heuristics, there's no competition issues. Even if only some people do, there's a whole lot of things that make one company more successful than another, and marginally better hiring practices are likely in the noise.

      Moreover, the heuristic isn't necessarily unsound. It may be that the average ability of people with different-sounding names with similar resumes does differ, and that a hiring manager has found that giving people with white-sounding names preference over people with black-sounding names works to find the best candidates. It may be that white people's resumes tend to be a better guide to their ability, and this could be true if other companies had given blacks preference for diversity reasons (and I'm speculating wildly here).

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  5. Real bias? by Kim0 · · Score: 2

    Is this the usual screaming about bias without actually measuring any?

  6. Where are they? by gumper23 · · Score: 2

    Where are all of these women/minorities, WITH TECH DEGREES, unable to find jobs?

    I had to get a tech degree before anyone would let me touch their computers, why shouldn't they?

    1. Re:Where are they? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Where are all of these women/minorities, WITH TECH DEGREES, unable to find jobs?

      From TFA:

      But fresh data show that top schools are turning out black and Hispanic graduates with tech degrees at rates significantly higher than they are being hired by leading tech firms.

      So, er, yes, it would appear.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Where are they? by Shados · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are they turning them out at the same level though? Big universities discriminate like crazy, and will let weaker candidates in their pipelines in computer science if they're female or black much more easily. Some of them will do fine, but a lot will only barely squeeze through, because they were not really qualified in the first place.

      Then they'll just fail all the interviews once trying to get jobs.

      If leading tech firms hired at a lower rate after adjusting for universities' lower admission criteria for these people, then sure.

      Google is known for having a poor hiring process, so I'll give you Google. But most tech companies lately, even the big names, don't really have the luxury of being picky when hiring. If someone is even remotely qualified, even if its a female black trans covered in tattoos going to the interview in ripped jeans and a dirty hoodie with their face covered by a hijab, they'll get hired.

      That's IF they are qualified...

    3. Re:Where are they? by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

      even if its a female black trans covered in tattoos going to the interview in ripped jeans and a dirty hoodie with their face covered by a hijab

      On visualizing this, my first thought was, "Just going on looks, this is probably someone who can *actually* see through time." It might even be a competitive advantage in interviews.

    4. Re:Where are they? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Are the leading tech firms hiring in areas where these minorities live? Your stats are not saying that they are not being hired but that they are not being hired by specific companies. Not everyone is going to want to move away from family and friends for a job or to live among a group of people who are of dissimilar ethnicity. Are you suggesting forcefully moving minorities to new locations (even though they may well have jobs and be happy where they are) or are you advocating forcing companies to move their centers of operation to locales where the minorities are at?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  7. Serious breach of ediquette by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fridays are the traditional days for Dice SJW clickbaiting.

    1. Re:Serious breach of ediquette by KGIII · · Score: 1

      You are partially correct. We had a meeting two weeks ago and without you. We have moved SJW to Saturday in order to give more room to SystemD Friday. Sunday is what we have for penciling in a random political argument though it is also free for any anti-Dice articles as well. Copyright Tuesday is still a thing. Bob was supposed to send you a memo and the transcript.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re:Serious breach of ediquette by Bathroom+Humor · · Score: 1

      They've been trying to switch it up, keeping everyone on their toes.
      But I'm sort of OK with these silly hyperbole-ridden articles; As annoying and unnecessary as they are, it does give me an opportunity to see rebuttals and perhaps learn more from the conversations herein. I walk away not only shaking my head, but also knowing better how to think about this issue.

      It does get sort of old after a while though, I agree. I've only been reading /. for a few years now, and these conversations never really evolve much because the facts of the matter stay pretty much the same as time goes on.

    3. Re:Serious breach of ediquette by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      There's no reason why we can't combine these for greater efficiency. Here's a proposal for the story next week: "Does systemd suck because it has too few female developers?".

    4. Re:Serious breach of ediquette by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I like the idea but that leaves the rest of the weekend free...

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    5. Re:Serious breach of ediquette by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Well, we could always just pick some particularly retarded Reddit submission or thread, and talk about how it's dying and how Slashdot is next etc.

  8. welcome to reality by verbatim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That bias shows up in recruiting, with companies drawing from the same top universities, where black and Hispanic graduates are still lagging behind other groups

    Well, that really says everything, doesn't it?

    A lot of tech companies rely on degrees, and most of them have their favorite universities where candidates generally have the skills and personalities that make an easy fit. Employing alums from the same schools has an instant effect on that "fit" part of the job -- they've all had similar experiences and can relate to each other much more readily. This is not unique to tech, but it could be exacerbated by it.

    Once again, it comes back to the pipeline. If you can't get girls, Blacks, Hispanics, and whatever-ics, through the top tier education system, then maybe that's where you need to start. Not with affirmative action, however.

    I will never hire someone because they are black, or are female, or whatever. That doesn't make any sense to me. I hire people that I think are capable of doing the job, because with each additional pair of hands on keyboards below me, adds to the overall expectation on me. I want people who are going to help me win, not someone who got the position because society feels sorry for them (and I don't think any genuine person wants society to feel sorry for them).

    --
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    1. Re:welcome to reality by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The grammar is straightforward. It cannot be made to mean exclusion of blacks or women.

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    2. Re:welcome to reality by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I hire people that I think are capable of doing the job, because with each additional pair of hands on keyboards below me, adds to the overall expectation on me. I want people who are going to help me win, not someone who got the position because society feels sorry for them (and I don't think any genuine person wants society to feel sorry for them).

      Of course, that's the right thing to do. That's not what the issue this. No-one is suggesting you are bad person for doing this, quite the opposite in fact. No need to get angry about it.

      The issue is that some businesses are failing to attract applications from women and minorities because of the way that they manage the process. For example, white guys tend to network with other white guys, that's just how it is, so if a company uses LinkedIn etc. to advertise and look for candidates they are likely to get more white guys and fewer minorities and women. That doesn't make them racist or sexist or bad people, it just means they could do a better job of looking for good candidates. And of course, just to be clear, in the end they select the best one.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  9. Top Universities by Inferno+Vulpix · · Score: 1

    Since when is it the problem of a company hiring top tier workers that the places producing top tier workers have different diversity numbers than the places producing the rest of the workers?

    1. Re: Top Universities by johnsnails · · Score: 1

      It's white and Asian males all the way down.

  10. The wrong end of the problem by amiga3D · · Score: 2

    The problem starts in the homes and schools of this country. If you want more minorities and women in tech then the interest in this field has to be stimulated early in life. There must be support from the homes and schools for learning and experimenting with science and tech. By the time people have reached hiring age that battle is over. If they don't have the interest or skills then they aren't going to be a resource in the tech industry.

  11. Weak Premise by KermodeBear · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Come on, now:

    That bias shows up in recruiting, with companies drawing from the same top universities, where black and Hispanic graduates are still lagging behind other groups.

    If I were running a business, then I would also want to hire people from the top universities. They're probably better educated and prepared. If I want to hire the best people that's where I would go. I don't run the universities, and I don't decide who applies to them. How is this in any way a bias problem from the companies in SV?

    These SJW articles are getting weaker and more desperate by the minute.

    --
    Love sees no species.
    1. Re:Weak Premise by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      These SJW articles are getting weaker and more desperate by the minute.

      FromTFA:

      But fresh data show that top schools are turning out black and Hispanic graduates with tech degrees at rates significantly higher than they are being hired by leading tech firms.

      What's weak about that?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Weak Premise by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

      How about simply hiring the people most qualified to do the job? That would probably be from the top schools but not necessarily. They still have to be able to do the job. History repeats itself particularly when people don't learn from history. Case in point, the early chemical engineering industry in the early 20th century. The guy who, in trying to create quinine artificially, ended up creating the world's first artificial dye was a Brit. But, he was taught by a German. At the time, the Germans were very good at opening universities and technical schools and letting anyone in on merit, never mind their family background. Back then in the UK, the people who went to the top schools got in because their family was wealthy and/or powerful. Because of this, the Germans kicked the Brits' ass in industry.
      What's happening now is the very same thing. Instead of biasing towards the wealthy and well-connected rather than those who are capable, we're biasing towards other social groups instead of the capable. Countries that don't do this are and will be kicking our ass going forward.

    3. Re:Weak Premise by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      If you want the best pool of candidates to select from you need to make the pool as big as possible, not just a small number of universities where you have traditionally got good employees from. Also, from TFA:

      But fresh data show that top schools are turning out black and Hispanic graduates with tech degrees at rates significantly higher than they are being hired by leading tech firms.

      So even when ham-stringing themselves with a smaller pool of candidates they fail to select the best ones on merit alone.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Weak Premise by fche · · Score: 1

      Non sequitur. The TFA/quote says nothing about "best ones" or "merit" in that context.

    5. Re:Weak Premise by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1, Insightful

      These SJW articles are getting weaker and more desperate by the minute.

      FromTFA:

      But fresh data show that top schools are turning out black and Hispanic graduates with tech degrees at rates significantly higher than they are being hired by leading tech firms.

      What's weak about that?

      You know, you have really poor science skills. The production of the resource as measured by the first limited group highlighted above is not exclusively consumed by the second limited group highlighted above, and the consumption of the resource as measured by the second limited group highlighted above is not exclusively constrained to the first limited group above.

      The quoted statement is extremely weak and misleading to the point of dishonesty. It gives the impression that their data suggests that leading tech firms have a skewed and/or biased hiring process while the data itself suggests nothing of the sort.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    6. Re:Weak Premise by Cutting_Crew · · Score: 1

      if thats the only place you are going to go then you might be missing out on a lot of talent because not everyone had the chance to go to or lived near an 'elite' university or didn't have the money to go. Talent/Motivation/Creativity does not come from college. Better Educated? If you are hiring software developers half of the courses in college have absolutely nothing to do with software development. Prepared? Prepared for what? The real world? working in a business? No one can prepare for that unless you get out there and DO IT and get good at it. Nothing in college prepares you for the real world environment if you are just going to classrooms

      We need to get out of the mindset that going to college = smart, intelligent, motivated, talented..etc etc. A piece of paper from any college, elite or not doesn't mean squat.

    7. Re:Weak Premise by Sebastopol · · Score: 1

      What do you mean "best people" and "best universities"?

      Why do you assume the best people come from the best universities?

      Did you come from the "best" university?

      If not, does that mean you're not the "best"? So you don't deserve a job?

      If yes, then no one else but your peers from the "Best" universities deserve to be hired?

      You make a lot of assumptions: a "best" university, everyone else is not the "best", even the idea of "best" ... this makes for a meaningless argument.

      You're arguing that only the "top" people should have jobs, which is utterly laughable, because (a) good look measuring, and (b) that would ultimately mean only one person deserves a job.

      This is a big part of the meritocracy myth that drives inequity. And you buy it hook line and sinker.

      --
      https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    8. Re:Weak Premise by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      These SJW articles are getting weaker and more desperate by the minute.

      FromTFA:

      But fresh data show that top schools are turning out black and Hispanic graduates with tech degrees at rates significantly higher than they are being hired by leading tech firms.

      What's weak about that?

      It's weak because it assumes, rather than demonstrates, why.

      It's entirely possible that universities have a slightly different set of incentives for what they do, and they may have cranked up their numbers of protected class graduates without cranking up the quality. Companies, OTOH, have stronger incentives to find people who can actually do the job.

    9. Re:Weak Premise by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      "Your reply sounds angry." No it doesn't.

    10. Re:Weak Premise by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Companies, OTOH, have stronger incentives to find people who can actually do the job.

      I've worked with companies across the spectrum from tiny to vast. The idea that companies do sensible, rational things is completely at odds with my experience. Small companies are driven by the eccentricities of the owner and large companies are a loose confederation of factions, usually involved in a three way war of passive aggression such as between legal, techincal and purchasing.

      Companies consist of man, many irrational people each with their own personal agenda. There is no hope of a globally optimal solution.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    11. Re:Weak Premise by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      OK so do you agree that the hiring of freshly minted "resources" i.e. people with new degrees by the leading companies isn't matching the mix of people graduating?

      You have a serious reading comprehension problem: I've already made my position clear above. Let me change your assertion to one I agree with: "people with new degrees by the leading companies isn't matching the mix of people graduating from certain schools".

      Are you seriously saying that you cannot tell the difference between:
      "people with new degrees by the leading companies isn't matching the mix of people graduating"
      and
      "people with new degrees by the leading companies isn't matching the mix of people graduating from certain schools"?

      The article and yourself makes it seem as if there is a mismatch in general. The data does not support this assertion.

      Note of course that these are companies also complaining of a shortage.

      Of course they are - the only reason that this whole (for the last two years at least, anyway) SJW controversy was manufactured and marketed is to provide a downward force on salaries in tech/CS. There is no shortage at the right price. I fully expect more "studies" to come out that have even less data than the data in this article. If the studies were at all honest they'd at least acknowledge that eastern races are disproportionately represented in CS, far above any other demographic.

      TBH I'm no longer appalled by the brazen intellectual dishonesty of the social sciences; the multitude of non-science studies that are being paraded as science have desensitized me to caring about their cause.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    12. Re:Weak Premise by KGIII · · Score: 1

      So you were building a straw man? How'd that work out for ya?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    13. Re:Weak Premise by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Do you even know what a straw man is? Talking the piss out of someone isn't a straw man. It's not ad-hom either. It's just "taking the piss".

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    14. Re:Weak Premise by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The top tech firms disporoprtionately hire from the top schools. And we're not talking one or two here, we're taking the top 120 as the top schools. Or are you denying that Facebook take more people from MIT than the farming college of eastern new Mexico?

      And despite that, their hiring demographics do not match the student demographics.

      Of course they are - the only reason that this whole (for the last two years at least, anyway) SJW controversy was manufactured and marketed is to provide a downward force on salaries in tech/CS.

      Ad this is why I've come to the conclusion that anyone using the term "SJW" without irony is essentially a swivel-eyed loon.

      You're apparently now saying that SJWs want---and are aiming for---lowered slaries in tech. They're also responsible (+2 insightful) dystopia in Sci-Fi. Seriously is there anything the SJW haven't done? Since people such as you essentially assign everything you don't like to "SJW" it has become a meaningless catch-all "stuff I don't like" from a random bunch of people on the internet.

      If the studies were at all honest they'd at least acknowledge that eastern races are disproportionately represented in CS, far above any other demographic.

      By "eastern races", you actually mean realtively recent (100 years?) immigrants from certain eastern countries, I presume. But I've not seen anyone deny it. Or are you demanding that authors of studies go out of their way to cover your pet talking points every single time?

      the multitude of non-science studies that are being paraded as science have desensitized me to caring about their cause.

      So in other words, a bunch of people otherwise unrelated ot the problem (social sciences aren't STEM) have made you not care about a problem, not by reasoning or logic, but by posting a lot of articles you go out of your way to read. Interesting that you are influenced so easily.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    15. Re:Weak Premise by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Except that businesses aren't necessarily looking for the best candidates. If a business finds that hiring from certain universities has worked reasonably well for them, they might favor people with degrees from those universities, and in fact looking at a wider pool might cost more than it gains. A lot of business is about being good enough, rather than being the best. (Businesses are often superior in certain areas, and just get by in others. I worked once for a small business with a very good product, beating out companies like Siemens, and as far as I could tell we weren't any better at other stuff than anybody else.)

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  12. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The problem is particularly acute at start-ups, where black founders are just 1 percent of venture-invested firms, according to a 2011 survey by CB Insights."

    1. 2011. Four year old data. Really?

    2. Wow! VCs aren't rushing to load a crapton of money onto failboats just because SJWs have their underpants in a knot. This is a problem how, exactly?

  13. I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nursing is 99 percent female.
    It is that way because females can't doctor.

    There is no comparable field for coder.
    Either you are male, or you don't code.

    It is as God made us.
    Embrace it.
    Be a nurse, or K-12 teacher, or if you are tough chick, cop, jailer, or the if you are pretty, prostitute.

    1. Re: I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Troll is obvious troll. Please report to the nearest hospital for a sex change so you can be less of a prick.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re:I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      It is that way because females can't doctor.

      Well this is slashdot moderation reaching a new low.

      It seems like the people with mod points are so obsessed with the fear of "SJW" whatever the hell they are they they've lost the ability to read or reason.

      Either you are male, or you don't code.
      It is as God made us.

      Seriously guys? +2 insightful? How about -1 blatant troll?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re: I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Troll is obvious troll. Please report to the nearest hospital for a sex change so you can be less of a prick.

      I don't see how having a sex change would make a dickhead less of a dickhead. Then again, I believe in equal opportunity insults.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re: I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      They would have one dickhead less :-)

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    5. Re: I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Someday, in the future, someone is going to use that quote to suggest that the GLBT community is advocating forced gender reassignment surgery. I only wish I were joking.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re: I don't see anyone shitting over nursing by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      They would have one dickhead less :-)

      That is true, but it appears there is a wide gulf between owning a dick head and being a dickhead.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  14. Serious lack of white midgets in NBA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They've got a serious diversity issue.

    1. Re: Serious lack of white midgets in NBA! by johnsnails · · Score: 1

      They probably shop at the same top universities for them too or how ever college ball works in The States

    2. Re:Serious lack of white midgets in NBA! by antdude · · Score: 1

      Yep. Also, no NBA players with disabilities!

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    3. Re:Serious lack of white midgets in NBA! by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Yep. Also, no NBA players with disabilities!

      ..and why isnt that basketball hoop handicap accessible?

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:Serious lack of white midgets in NBA! by antdude · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Not even DNBA! :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    5. Re:Serious lack of white midgets in NBA! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Not everyone can become a professional sportsman, whereas anyone can work in tech.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  15. SJW sunday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just shut up with that bullshit allready

  16. eDiversity by Rei · · Score: 4, Funny

    About Us:

    eDiversity was founded in 2015 by Ayotunde Okonjo, a self-taught Pakistani refugee of African descent. Spending her teenage years in Ecuador facing discrimination as a lesbian of colour, Ayotunde overcame the challenges of her muscular dystrophy and moved to Silicon Valley where she met Kiri Chey, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide and Heba Mohammad, a Yemen-born teacher of the Chemehuevi Uto-Aztecan language, and together their shared interest of underground Soviet-era outsider art and Haitian folk dancing brought them together to form eDiversity.

    At eDiversity, we utilize crowdsourced design and 3d printing to provide innovative solutions to underprivileged children as a solution to the global energy crisis. In addition to our LEED platinum-certified central office, we operate five international branches in Kiribati, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and the South Sandwich Islands, the latter of which also qualifies as an internationally recognized penguin reserve.

    We seek $5,5m in seed funding for 2.5% of the company.

    --
    "You see, Government is a system that is based on weapons." -- Timster
    1. Re:eDiversity by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Are you ISO 9000 certified?

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    2. Re: eDiversity by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Yet another internet scam. This is not the 90s, so please GTFO and DIAF.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  17. This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Based on my calculations, this Social Justice fad ought to be over pretty soon.

    It's following the same trajectory as other online fads, like Ruby on Rails and NoSQL, have followed.

    Ruby on Rails first became available late 2005, but it wasn't until 2006 that it really started picking up steam. It was between 2006 and 2011 when was really hyped, and it has been totally downhill since then. As of 2015, Ruby on Rails is generally laughed at, as are the people who advocated for it. Many of them have jumped ship to other hyped projects, namely Rust. So Ruby on Rails lasted about 5 years before faltering.

    NoSQL followed the exact same trajectory. Cassandra was released in 2008, and Redis and MongoDB was released in 2009, and by 2014 was widely considered a bad idea. Just like Ruby on Rails, it had a 5 year lifespan.

    The online Social Justice fad is following the same trajectory as those fads did, too. It really picked up steam during mid 2009, when the whole GoGaRuCo presentation affair. It combined a Ruby conference, with a NoSQL presentation, and alleged sexism. Unlike the others, it has gone more mainstream with KONY 2012 and various other "controversies", which I think will lengthen its lifespan somewhat. But we're still nearing the end of what appears to be its 5 to 7 year lifespan.

    Social Justice is now at the point where it's being used by the market departments of various web sites and organizations to garner attention (see Slashdot and Reddit as examples of this). These are usually the last people to pick up on a fad, and are among the last to benefit from it before the fad falls flat on its face.

    So it looks more and more likely that this Social Justice fad will soon go the way of the Ruby on Rails and NoSQL fads. It'll become a relic of a past when sensibility was temporarily lost.

    1. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      "Social Justice" is a leftist program of long standing that will not go away. It is one of the primary frauds they push. For just a hint to its age, listen to Three Dog Night's Easy to be Hard (1969).

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    2. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Based on my calculations, this Social Justice fad ought to be over pretty soon.

      It's going on a century now, so you might want to take another look at your calculations.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Based upon my calculations, this Silicon Valley fad ought to be over pretty soon.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Social Justice" is a leftist program of long standing that will not go away.

      The wider campaign for "social justice" is not a fad and is not going away, mainly because there really is a lack of social justice in the world. But the particular fad of "gender discrimination in tech" is dying. When the issue first came up, there was intelligent debate, and reasonable people argued on both sides of the issue. No more. It has become clear that the tech companies have little control over the composition of the tech labor pool, or the tech education pipeline. Many of the SJWs' pet projects, like steering more young girls into tech, have failed. There is now a strong backlash, and articles like this one are mostly subjected to contemptuous ridicule, with only a few trolls pretending to agree with the SJWs.

    4. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Comparing early advocates for social change and progressive policies with the current group typically associated with "Social Justice" is a bit like saying that African Americans should still be voting Republican.

      Do you really think that all the slacktivists that participated in KONY 2012 and other campaigns, which accomplished little beyond allowing the participants to pat themselves on the back about how great and progressive they were, are comparable to individuals who devoted their lives to helping others and pushing for equality?

      There are still plenty of individuals who are fighting for change, and facing far more adversity than I think most of us could handle. I can't imagine many here not being supportive of such people. But then you have the modern American Social Justice movement that is more concerned with self-promotion and using problems as a vehicle for their own ends rather than solving any problems. That's who the people here are complaining about. Letting those people attach themselves to the social justice movement and then defending them when they make an awful mess of things does not help achieve social justice.

      Condemning the charlatans is not the same as condemning the entire movement or its past history.

    5. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Comparing early advocates for social change and progressive policies with the current group typically associated with "Social Justice" is a bit like saying that African Americans should still be voting Republican. ...

      Maybe they should be given that 50 years of lockstep voting for Democrats has gotten them nothing but being taken for granted by the Democratic Party.

      And just who do you think is getting put out of work by Obama's influx of illegal immigrants?

    6. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by cavreader · · Score: 1

      Distribution of wealth only guarantees every one will be equally poor.

    7. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1, Funny

      Based on my calculations, this Social Justice fad ought to be over pretty soon.

      It's going on a century now, so you might want to take another look at your calculations.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Based upon my calculations, this Silicon Valley fad ought to be over pretty soon.

      Did you seriously just compare a well respected egalitarian who fought for equal rights to people like yourself who rant on about MRA conspiracy theories? Really, stick to the conspiracy theories: the rest of the world ignored the flat earth society, the 911-truthers and the moon-landing-is-a-hoax theorists - we'll ignore you too while we continue using you truthers for entertainment.

      "Crying man-babies" :-) You gotta love what some of you nutters come up with :-) I expect you were also complaining that the Obama birth certificate was a fake, right?

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    8. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The fact that there did used to be a lot more overt injustice is making a lot of people angry and resentful of any suggesting that there still might be a problem. This observation explains about 75% of Slashdot posts on the subject.

      I don't think there's anyone who would claim that everything is perfect and I think the resentfulness is coming from having the same story pushed again and again. It would be one thing to argue that women and minorities in Silicon Valley are being paid less, but it's another to argue that not having a workforce that's exactly equal to the general population shows a lack of diversity. It would be rather silly to accuse the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL of struggling with diversity, and yet all of those have as much of an aberration as the tech field.

      Also, you have to consider that from a man's perspective, merely being labeled a sexist at all, whether or not it is true is possibly career ending. Look at the recent shit-show controversy surrounding Tim Hunt or Matt Taylor for good examples of how out of hand it has gotten. The people who took offense and sounded their outrage are the reason there's such a backlash and why people don't even want to broach the subject. Most people aren't going to blow it up into a big deal, much like most people won't abuse you in a relationship, or most people aren't going to mug or assault you on the street, but it really only takes one to completely turn your life upside down.

      When you have that kind of atmosphere, it's not conducive to debate at all. Even if you and I are both reasonable, it doesn't stop some third party from driving by and make accusations because what someone said doesn't jibe with their beliefs. There are some who would call me a racist and others who would like you as some kind of feminazi for yours just for daring to take sides.

      So there is a massive push back against efforts to get diversity in tech, because if tech is doing badly then people in tech must be bad people, right? And I'm not a bad person, so the claim that there is a problem must be wrong.

      I think a lot of the push back occurs because the solutions presented by the people who tend to take on these causes are unlikely to work. First they rest on the notion that a deviation from some magical number suggests that there is a problem rather than looking at whether qualified minorities are being treated worse. Here's a relevant quote from Thomas Sowell:

      The idea that large statistical disparities between groups are unusual—and therefore suspicious—is commonplace, but only among those who have not bothered to study the history of racial, ethnic, and other groups in countries around the world. Among leading scholars who have in fact devoted years of research to such matters, a radically different picture emerges. Donald L. Horowitz of Duke University, at the end of a massive and masterful international study of ethnic groups—a study highly praised in scholarly journals—examined the idea of a society where groups are “proportionately represented” at different levels and in different sectors. He concluded that “few, if any, societies have ever approximated this description.”

      However, the new wave of social justice sees this as a violation of a core tenet of their faith and therefore anyone who believes such a thing must be a racist. But let's assume that their belief is actually correct for the sake of argument. The article would still suck as it tends to suggest a top-down solution, in that a diversity problem in tech can be solved by simply hiring more minorities. Even if hiring standards are lowered to give preference to minorities, there simply aren't enough available candidates. Worse yet, it's likely to create even more racism/sexism/etc. as you can't expect your workforce to respect someone who was only hired to fill some kind of quota and honestly I can't say I would feel all that comfortable working

    9. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Then what do the numbers need to be? You can't claim to have a diversity problem where there aren't enough members of group X without stating what the numbers should be. Furthermore, what justification do you have for your numbers and why are they more correct than assuming approximately equal distribution or the ratio that currently exists?

      You also commit the same fallacy (along with ad hominem) that you accuse me of by claiming that I'm a member of group X when I'm not. There's another reason the Slashdot crowd is getting sick of these articles. You're basically doing the same thing as people who dismiss women based on their sex in that your focusing on a perceived attribute and ignoring all else.

    10. Re: This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      Ok, then what numbers represent equality? Clearly theres some sort of goal in mind. How do we know when we've achieved it?

    11. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I just saw Three Dog Night a few years ago at a very tiny venue. I ended up at the same restaurant that they went to after the show and shared some weed with a band member (I will avoid saying which one or which instrument they played for privacy sake). It was a strange year. Anyhow, they were still a really tight band. I hadn't seen them since the late '70s.

      I have no real point but I do have a question...

      Why is it that this article just showed up now - in fact all the articles are from early this morning (about 12 hours ago) but this one just appeared a few minutes ago. It even automatically refreshes the home page and I open articles in new tabs so that behavior is not altered. Nothing on my system would cause this behavior. Unfortunately I did not double check on a different computer but I will out of morbid curiosity.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    12. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by KGIII · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Mostly other white people in my area. Of course my area is stocked right full of illegal immigrants but they are white, and Canadian, so nobody cares. The only time we have any non-white illegal immigrants (and I am only told they are illegal, I am not so crass as to go checking IDs) is during the blueberry and apple harvests. The potato harvest is still done by white kids (and poor adults) who even get two weeks off from school to do so if they are "up in the county." There is some negative consequences.

      The kids used to do the blueberry picking (called raking - it is done with a rake like a cranberry rake but finer toothed and is back-breaking labor) and would earn their back to school money with it or whatnot. Now they are not even hired or considered for it. The apple harvest was guys getting ready for winter and the money was used to supplement other income (welfare maybe?) as winter beer money. The harvesters of both are Jamaican more often than not or so I am told. I have not been nosy enough to go out and ask - it is not my concern as I have other things to be concerned about. They certainly live in conditions I would not tolerate at wages I would not accept and doing work harder than I am willing to do unless I am forced to do so or am doing so as a hobby. You could say the locals were treated better and paid better when they did the jobs though I believe wage rates have gone up in those fields but not enough to matter.

      For the most part, though, the illegals in my area are working in the woods or driving pulp trucks that pick up the fruits of the labor from those who do work in the woods. They do not seem to be working at the mills (the few that are left) or construction or anything like that. Those jobs seem to be filled by legal residents from my casual inquiries and observations. They are mostly 'illegal' in the sense that they have long since overstayed their work visas. ICE does not seem inclined to do much about it and I dare say that they contribute to the economy and do not work for any less than the locals do. In the case of the fruit harvesters they come in with their own campers and have all the equipment to do the job already with them as well as the expertise in handling the fruit to minimize spoilage. Locals/owners deal with the crops the rest of the year and now do not need to maintain the equipment and seek employees as they arrive in a caravan ready to work and they usually get it done in a very speedy fashion.

      I do not have an objective (or subjective, really) statement on this beyond sharing the state of affairs as they seem to exist. I do not opine in either direction except to say that I think people who wish to use the services of this nation should be here legally and contribute to the nation's interests as much as they are able. I am not a part of their society and do not understand their ethics because of this which makes me a poor judge as to how we can resolve this amicably. For what it is worth, it works well enough that people are not killing each other about it in my neck of the woods and we actually have quite a few people who are here illegally for such a small state. Nobody notices and I suspect that is due to the color of their skin or the handiness of having them around for a short spell during harvest season.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    13. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by brantondaveperson · · Score: 2

      Or equally rich, depending on which side of the social divide you started from.

    14. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by iriecolorado · · Score: 1

      Comparing early advocates for social change and progressive policies with the current group typically associated with "Social Justice" is a bit like saying that African Americans should still be voting Republican.

      How has 50 years of voting exclusively for Democratic candidates been working out for the African American community?

    15. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Then what do the numbers need to be?

      It's got nothing to do with numbers. The only time they are useful is for comparisons over time, to show if the number of women and minorities is rising or falling. For example, the proportion of women used to be higher, but it's been declining for 15 years now.

      What is important is that people who want to study and work in tech are given the opportunity to get the qualifications they need and get a job. Note I said the opportunity, I'm not talking about lowering standards or handing out jobs. There are studies that ask if more women and minorities want these opportunities, and they tell us that they do but are facing gender and racial issues that make it more difficult for them.

      Numbers are a red herring. Sadly some people, like you, use them to dismiss the argument because you are angry and think people are making you out to be a bad person, which is not the case.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re: This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The goal is to offer all children the chance to study CS, without gender or race related barriers in their way. The goal is to stem the complaints about those things by fixing the problems. Numbers are basically irrelevant.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    17. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by umghhh · · Score: 1

      Why is the flamebait given here while GP is getting 3interesting? I disagree with the 'vagina is always right' promoted by nazifems but even more with /.ers throwing verbal abuse with verbiage closely related to randtardism and nazi-feminism i.e. as GP did.
      Feminazis are evil and are also counterproductive. So are randtards and right wing bigots. You could for instance solve part oft he problems inherent to the IT industry by enforcing simple labour rules of pay per hour spent and limits for overtime per year - but that would be communist tactics meant at destruction of capitalism or even universe as we know it. Similarly you could resolve big part of discrimination against blacks in US by working against poverty and exclusion that it causes (access to education and health care for instance). But that too would be a communist agenda at work. It is really tiring indeed to have the 'too few vaginas or whatever in X' articles but it is also tiring to have meaningless rants by bigots against anything that does not fit into their little minds.

    18. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Forgefather · · Score: 1

      It's got nothing to do with numbers. The only time they are useful is for comparisons over time, to show if the number of women and minorities is rising or falling. For example, the proportion of women used to be higher, but it's been declining for 15 years now.

      Its got nothing to do with the numbers huh? Then whats with the numbers that you just quoted? If the numbers don't matter then the numbers that you just quoted also don't matter, Unless of course the numbers only matter when they agree with your chose stance? Lets have a fact based, data driven argument like adults here, please.

      Of course if the numbers do matter then I can point out that correlation does not indicate causation, and the decline in women in coding could just as easily be because when coding was first becoming a profession it was one of the few legitimate and rewarding careers that were available to women. Further there is ample evidence to suggest that women prefer to be employed in positions that are socially beneficial, and supporting an enterprise java application my not be what excites that demographic.

      --
      "There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
    19. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Forgefather · · Score: 2

      Comparing early advocates for social change and progressive policies with the current group typically associated with "Social Justice" is a bit like saying that African Americans should still be voting Republican.

      How has 50 years of voting exclusively for Democratic candidates been working out for the African American community?

      In fairness how well has voting for any party been working for anyone in the last 50 years?

      --
      "There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
    20. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      It's got nothing to do with numbers? Then what is driving this movement? Do you just feel women are underrepresented in the IT workforce? How the hell do we fix that?

      If you can't make a quantifiable argument for the basis of your opinion, it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand and, frankly, deters people from having a real discussion.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    21. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by cavreader · · Score: 1

      It's all about scale. Comparing small Nordic countries to the US is foolish.

    22. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      Bad idea? I don't think MongoDB got the message.

      Note that I've never used it personally, but I don't think there's any consensus that it's a bad idea. It's like any other tool though -- there are appropriate and inappropriate uses.

    23. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      There's probably some truth to that, but it's not the whole story. Much of the speculation regarding sexism in Silicon Valley has been inferred by working backwards from the numbers instead of asking women about their views of working in tech. There are many professions that have a dearth of one gender or the other, but I don't think anyone believes that there is a conspiracy to keep men out of, say, interior design or nursing. When it comes to those, it's "obviously" preference, but when it comes to tech, somehow there's a conspiracy, or entrenched inertia, and it's a problem. That's poor logic. Show me that women are being discouraged in the numbers required to prevent parity, and then I'll start listening. Until then, the most obvious reason for the disparity is self-selection, especially in an industry with such a low barrier to entry (see: India). If an impoverished Indian can learn programming and gain employment on another continent, despite overt hostility (see any H1B article here, for example), then women can achieve parity in tech if they want it.

      But all of the available evidence seems to be that they don't want it. We don't seem women protesting in numbers, as we would for social issues that actually strike a chord. We see some very vocal individuals who may or may not actually be women, but that's about it.

    24. Re: This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      What gender and race barriers are in the way?

    25. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, denying something like equal opportunity means we're all poorer.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    26. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The problem is that "SJW" has become a replacement for thinking, much like "Marxist" or "fascist". If you don't like an idea for irrational reasons, you come up with a way to link it with social justice or socialism or corporatism or whatever, blindly lob your chosen noun or adjective into the fray, and claim victory. There always have been people genuinely working for social justice, and people who are trying to use a superficial stance on social justice for self-promotion, and people who deliberately confuse them when convenient.

      By now, it's quite obvious that big software companies are not practicing discrimination against women in programming, but there is still reason to think that there are barriers against girls getting into computers. Finding and eliminating some of those barriers would be a good thing.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    27. Re: This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The problem is that there are darn few explicit barriers, but there's still implicit ones. That's hard to correct.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    28. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      "Crying man-babies" :-) You gotta love what some of you nutters come up with

      Hey, it's been weeks and you're still crying.

      Laughing at you is not crying :-) It's been months actually, and we're still laughing at the conspiracy theorists.

      You simpering beta. You should be ashamed of yourself.

      Did you seriously just compare a well respected egalitarian who fought for equal rights to people like yourself who rant on about MRA conspiracy theories?

      "MRA" is the punchline to a joke, not a conspiracy. There's not enough brain-power in the entire Men's Rights Movement to hatch a conspiracy.

      You are the one who see's MRAs everywhere you look, hence it is *your* conspiracy. You are convinced that anyone with an egalitarian outlook is an MRA agent.

      What? Did an MRA come to your house and kick your puppies, impregnate your cats and spoil the milk in your refrigerator? Did you get sand kicked in your face at the beach by some MRAs? (I know - they can be quite cruel, right?)

      Wait! Lemme guess - I MUST BE ONE TOO!!!!eleventy!!! Only *you* know the truth about the moon-landing^H^H^H^H^H 9-11explosions^H^H^H^H^H Patriarchy!

      Face it - you people who come with things like 9-11 conspiracies and patriarchy and creationism get laughed at, not feared :-)

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    29. Re: This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      Anything specific? Or is it just themes put forward by people who see inustice everywhere they look? Are they looking for ways to improve gender equality in professions like nursing and teaching?

    30. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      The'v tried that in a few countries. Most everyone ends up poor, except the few who get to allocate the resources, they end up fantastically rich.

    31. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      Black Americans stand alone as a racial demographic that votes overwhelmingly one way. It's a legitimate question that deserves an answer.

    32. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by brantondaveperson · · Score: 1

      Guess they didn't quite get the point of "redistribute equally" then, eh?

    33. Re: This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I'm really not qualified to comment on the implicit barriers, but I've been told of them. BTW, there are quite a few people trying to get more male nurses. I don't offhand know about teachers.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    34. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      They never do. That's the point.

    35. Re:This Social Justice fad ought to be over soon. by RyoShin · · Score: 1

      While the reasonable forces behind increased gender parity in tech/gaming are dwindling, I don't think "Social Justice Warriors" are going to go away anytime soon. But, as you say, there is actual social injustice in America and the world over. Those who actually work towards equality will unfortunately get lumped in with that label.

      I would like to propose a new term for such a group, those who use "social justice" as a battering ram to force others into submission, get attention, or otherwise cause unnecessary problems: Totalitarian Imperative for Equality (or TIE, for short.)

  18. Silicon Valley is not the industry either by MikeRT · · Score: 2

    You know what subset does a pretty decent job of focusing on diversity and lower credentials to get people in? Government contracting, and it's part of the same industry as Silicon Valley. You know what is also part of the same industry as Silicon Valley and whose big firms have wretched reputations for their quality vice Silicon Valley big firms? Government contracting.

    What SJWs want to believe is that every group is perfectly equal or close to it, and we're just a few policies away from achieving the magic of diversity. That's bullshit and ignores the lived experience of every family that has worked its way up from the low end of the lower class into the middle class.

    1. Re:Silicon Valley is not the industry either by Octorian · · Score: 1

      Having previously worked in that industry, you could also say that gov't contracting provides a picture of what a tech company would look like if you kicked out all the H-1Bs. Having a general "US Citizen" requirement on an industry commonly populated by anything but, tends to shift things a lot.

      Another thing that industry shows, is what things would look like if you removed the "specific known-to-the-west-cost top schools" bias that seems to be commonplace.

      Sure, the average level of ability is far lower than what Silicon Valley is accustomed to. But on the other hand, the few high performers tend not to be limited to the groups that Silicon Valley seems to limit their hiring to.

    2. Re:Silicon Valley is not the industry either by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You sound angry. You should understand that this isn't a personal attack on you. No-one is saying you are a bad person, even if you are part of the system that has a problem. You think they are wrong because if they were right it would mean you have to look at yourself, and maybe even conclude that you are part of the problem. Relax, no-one is saying you are a bad person, just that there is a problem that needs addressing.

      It's interesting that you claim "SJWs", that ill-defined group, think that every group is nearly perfectly equal. Actually, one of the most common micro-aggressions that people labelled as SJWs mention is not acknowledging differences and inequalities. If you check any introductory material on micro-aggressions, the the alleged favourite club that SJWs use to batter people, you will find it mentions this.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  19. This is a direct consequence of Afirmative Action by trout007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you set up a system where you can be sued for firing people if they belong to a certain group why be surprised when they are not hired in the first place? Let's say women from a particular college were likely to accuse you of rape if you broke up. How many dates would they get?

    The same thing here. You need to be 100% sure you are picking the perfect protected employee because it will cost you plenty to fire them. Nobody is going to give someone a chance to prove themselves because it's too risky.

    Get rid of these stupid laws and you could easily hire 100 kids out of less well known schools and keep the 5 or 10 best.

    --
    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
  20. So many begged questions in that summary.. by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What's even funnier it's that the dolts pitching this agenda have no idea how little actual impact they're having; I founded my company with my wife listed as primary, so it's a "woman-owned business". I know not one but TWO business (one of them sizable) in which the founders were a couple of white guys and a black friend - the white guys put up the money and actually run the business, the black guy lets them use his identity as principal to make it a "minority" business.

    My guess is that a significant portion of the "progress" made toward this utopian diversity goal is bullshit, and many if not most of these businesses are really funded and/or run by white men.

    --
    -Styopa
  21. What's the point of this? by swb · · Score: 1

    It sure seems like it's a not entirely nuanced attempt to claim that Silicon Valley is struggling to suppress its desire to be willfully racist, conspiring with venture capitalists to ensure that black entrepeneurs are deliberately kept ot of Silicon Vallley and relying on discriminatory, elite colleges to make sure their "pipelines" are kept full of priviledged white people. Really?

    I also can't help but ponder the contradiction in the institutional bias narratives. On one hand, institutional bias has kept the vast majority of blacks segregated, in desperate poverty, grossly uneducated and running through a revolving door of police harassment, arrest, and prison.

    Yet in spite of this narrative (which I think is probably more true than false), the black community is still creating legions of talented professionals and entrepeneurs, so many that only discrimination can account for their inability to be represented proportional to their overall population among the ranks of Silicon Valley or corporate America as a whole.

    Which is it? Either the black community is so healthy and well served that it's capable of producing all these entrepeneurs, IT experts, and other sundry well-educated professionals for corporate America to discriminate against. Or, the black community is shattered and oppressed by a system that can't give them a secondary school education and wants to keep them imprisoned. It can't be both.

    1. Re:What's the point of this? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I also can't help but ponder the contradiction in the institutional bias narratives.

      The reason you're haing trouble with it is you seem to see things only as extreme dichotomies.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  22. Re:Too many white and Asian males by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Simple. Just establish that you are bigoted against white and asian males, and that you won't hire any more. Lower your work standards to accommodate whichever demographics you prefer to work with, then sit back and watch your stock values plummet.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  23. Silly Con valley is segregrated by faway · · Score: 1

    I have interviewed widely in the Valley and I can tell you the main problem is segregation. People are only hiring people who look like them.

    As a result, you have companies that are 90% Indian, 90% Asian, 90% Russian, 90% Canadian.

    None of them are 90% white Americans any more in Silly Con Valley.

  24. This has nothing to do with GENES, of course... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Because blacks are just as intelligent as whites - I mean, look at Africa, and everything blacks have invented.

    Oh, wait...

  25. Re:This is a direct consequence of Afirmative Acti by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    Hiring 100 people and then firing 95 of them is hard on those fired, financially and emotionally. It gives your company a bad reputation and invites a class action lawsuit based on dealing in bad faith. Expect to pay for lost wages, moving expenses, damage to reputation.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  26. Re:When everything is about race nothing's about r by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

    Type 1: If you try to hire the best candidates, it means you're not maintaing your diversity/sex percentages, so you're racist/sexist.
    Type 2: If you try to maintain diversity/sex percentages, it means you won't hire some people because of their race/sex, so you're racist/sexist.

    Both types are stupid and racist, but at least with the first one you're hiring the best candidates!

  27. the "disparate impact racket" by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1

    I suggest reading someone who actually knows about this stuff, Thomas Sowell, on The Disparate Impact Racket.

    To explain the Silicon Valley statistics with white racism, you'd have to conclude that white hiring committees discriminate against both African Americans and other whites in favor of Asians, a ridiculous proposition.

  28. Quiz to check your implicit bias by Edgester · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One of the big problems with discrimination is that many people have an implicit (unconscious) bias but little explicit (conscious) bias. This results in everyone saying they are color-blind, but acting differently. I challenge the Slashdot readers to gauge their own implicit bias by taking the implicit bias test at http://www.lookdifferent.org/w... . I found my own results to be surprising, and I suspect that yours may be surprising as well.

    1. Re:Quiz to check your implicit bias by bluegutang · · Score: 1

      This test has two main parts. First it asks you to sort between "white people and positive words" vs "black people and negative words". Then you sort between "white people and negative words" and "black people and positive words". Since you probably do the first task faster, it says you are the biased towards seeing white people as positive and black people as negative.

      The problem is that just doing the test affects your judgment. When you do the first half, it trains you to build up an association between white people and positive words. Then you have to switch all of a sudden, and you are force to unlearn that association and learn a different association. Of course that is mentally confusing and you don't do as well. But that says nothing about whether you had any biases before you started taking the test.

    2. Re:Quiz to check your implicit bias by rbarreira · · Score: 1

      I think it was the other way around for me, maybe it's randomizing the order for each instance of the test.

      --

      The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  29. What we are wresting with is... by erp_consultant · · Score: 2

    idiots that suggest there is a "diversity problem" in the first place. All this does is exclude better qualified candidates by lowering the entry standards by requiring a certain percentage of this or that group.

    Here is a radical notion....if you want a job go out and fucking earn it. Go to school and get a degree so you can show potential employers that you have the skills necessary to perform the work. Get someone to proof read you resume so that it isn't full of spelling and grammatical errors. Show up at an interview dressed professionally. Ease up on the neck tattoos and body piercings. Show the interviewed that you want the job not that you are entitled to it.

    Realize that in Corporate America if you want to get ahead you have to fit in. Fitting in has nothing to do with skin color or gender. It has everything to do with looking and acting like the bosses do. If that's not your thing then work for a small company. If that's not your thing either then work as a contractor or start your own business.

    1. Re:What we are wresting with is... by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

      No one has said anything about lowering standards. Blacks and Hispanics make up 11% of graduates from TOP CS/CE programs in the US.

      --
      Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    2. Re:What we are wresting with is... by erp_consultant · · Score: 1

      If we are talking about having a certain percentage of blacks or hispanics or woman as a quota then, yes, we are talking about lowering standards. Because it, by definition, will exclude candidates that would otherwise be accepted. It means that you have to look further down the quality rankings to find someone that fills a given quota.

      It is also discrimination against while males. But that conveniently seems to be missing from the conversation.

    3. Re:What we are wresting with is... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      You know, I have trouble looking like my boss. He's from India and I'm from Minnesota. This turns out not to be a problem in my case, but it's real common for people to feel more comfortable among people who look like them. That can be a problem.

      Acting like the boss can be a problem if, after every Friday, the guys go out to a bar and get semi-smashed. There are several reasons why a given person may not want to drink anything alcoholic.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    4. Re:What we are wresting with is... by erp_consultant · · Score: 1

      You can look like your boss without having the same skin color. You can dress similarly for example.

      Alcohol can be a problem if you don't partake. I don't drink either and it causes me to avoid social situations where I know that everyone is going to get smashed. If that's what it takes to get ahead then i guess I just won't get ahead. I prefer to be judged on what I do from 9-5 not 6 til closing.

  30. Re:Too many white and Asian males by tomhath · · Score: 1

    Maybe we could convince some of the to identify as black females. Really the only problem is which box is checked on a questionnaire somewhere.

  31. FUD by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 2, Informative

    However, if they hire an incompetent who is a member of one of the "disadvantaged" groups, firing them is potentially a legal nightmare.

    This is patently untrue. The Blacks and Hispanics combined make 3% of the tech workforce, but do make over 30% of the remainder. If it were that much of a chore to fire minorities wouldn't the issue present itself in lower paying jobs as well?

    There is no evidence to support that it is hard to fire minority employees. Please do not make things up.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re: FUD by engineerErrant · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is patently *absolutely* true. I, my wife, and my friends have all directly observed this happening, right out in the open. It doesn't happen with all "disadvantaged" employees, but with problem employees who use their political status as a weapon and veiled lawsuit threat against HR.

      To be crystal-clear, I and others close to me have explicitly heard sentences of the form "we can't fire him/her; it's not worth the lawsuit," spoken aloud, by decision-makers, clearly as a matter of policy and not as an off-hand crack, more times than can be considered a fluke.

      These "poison pill" employees are a minority among minorities, but they definitely exist, and they ruin things for everyone.

    2. Re:FUD by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      There is no evidence to support that it is hard to fire minority employees.

      Except of course for the fact that if you fire someone who belongs to a "disadvantaged" group (not just minorities), in most states they can bring you before a Human Relations Committee which will require you to prove that you did not fire them because they belonged to that group. They do not have to present any evidence that that was the reason they were fired.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    3. Re:FUD by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      I worked at a place where we needed to fire someone because they were misusing company resources.They had been verbally warned about it, repeated the action, and their manager was in the process of writing them up for it when they did it again. At which point they were fired. They went to the state Human Relations Committee and claimed they were fired because they were pregnant. The only evidence they were required to present was the fact that they were pregnant. When the company could not produce documentation of written warnings the company was ordered to pay the person two years salary in compensation. The person in question was not a minority, but she was a member of a "disadvantaged" group.
      I have heard similar stories regarding persons from other "disadvantaged" groups at other companies, where the company found it less expensive to pay the penalty than challenge the process in the courts.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    4. Re:FUD by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      Oh, the point is that the employers are not "afraid to fire" these hypothetical incompetent workers, because they never hired them in the first place. Nor did they hire competent workers who were also members of the protected class.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    5. Re: FUD by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      If this were the case then surely there would be even more lawsuits coming from white males. Every time a black person or a woman got a promotion there would be a lawsuit from a white guy who felt he lost out and was discriminated against for not being black or female. Every time one of them got fired there would be a lawsuit claiming that a black or female employee used their privilege to avoid being sacked and forced the company to get rid of the white guy instead. Every time a white guy got a bad performance review there would be a lawsuit claiming that they were hampered by having an incompetent black or female person forced onto their team to meet some quota.

      If it were the case the people who campaign for minority and women's equality would be fighting it. It's hardly without precedent, feminists have been critical of women who support the patriarchy for decades, and black people have been critical of those who take part in blacksploitation films and the like. Yet this does not seem to be a major issue. Perhaps you should make it one, if you feel it is important.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re: FUD by engineerErrant · · Score: 1

      No, that doesn't follow. This "toxic employee" thing isn't a big enough problem for anyone to torch their hard-won career by mounting a discrimination lawsuit that's doomed to fail anyway. I clearly said this does not apply to most minority employees, and was merely making the point that such bad behavior *exists,* not that it's prevalent.

    7. Re: FUD by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      My employer had an interesting solution about how to get rid of one particular problem employee that was "protected." They promoted him to a position that he couldnt possibly do even passably well. Then they waited for the first big fuckup. Then they fired him.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    8. Re:FUD by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      When the company could not produce documentation of written warnings the company was ordered to pay the person two years salary in compensation.

      If a company can't follow basic HR procedures, it's hard to feel any sympathy for them.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    9. Re:FUD by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      Sometimes, an employees behavior is so blatantly against rules that you cannot wait for proper procedures to act. In this case, they were denied unemployment because of their behavior. Yet, they won in front of the Human Relations Commission.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    10. Re:FUD by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Having almost certainly been a victim of illegal race discrimination, it sure didn't look to me like the government was on my side. That's my anecdotal evidence.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    11. Re:FUD by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      I did not say the government was on the side of the "disadvantaged". I said that the government makes life difficult for businesses when they hire the "disadvantaged". (I use quotes because the groups in question may or may not actually be disadvantaged. That fact does not actually enter into the government's calculations). The fact of the matter is that the government is never on an individual's side (it may under some circumstances be on a particular group's side, but that is rare). As a general rule, individuals get chewed up a destroyed when the government is involved.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    12. Re:FUD by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Duh. AGE discrimination, not race discrimination. Sorry about that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    13. Re:FUD by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It makes life more difficult for businesses, but that's because businesses were making life more difficult for the disadvantaged. Government is a very blunt instrument.

      Government quite often helps individuals, offering various services to citizens and residents that are very helpful. The US suffers from a lot of paranoid distrust of government, which is unwarranted, and doesn't help government get better.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    14. Re:FUD by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      In the U.S., the origin of most problems for the "disadvantaged" was government regulation...Remember Rosa Parks...that was because of a law, not because the business wanted to discriminate. Remember "whites only" water fountains, laws as well. Segregation in the U.S. was mandated by law for a long time. So the government "aid" to blacks was to "solve" problems created by the government.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  32. Re:Too many white and Asian males by fche · · Score: 1

    ... and don't you go and question their courage in transgender transracial transidentity.

  33. Federal fraud by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

    the black guy lets them use his identity as principal to make it a "minority" business.

    That's explicitly illegal and considered a major fraud ( depending on the contract ).

    A minority business by law has to be majority owned and managed by the minority group it claims be.

    You, your wife and the rest of your associates can all do time for this.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re:Federal fraud by Sebastopol · · Score: 1

      I like and agree with your posts, thanks for carrying water on this one.

      --
      https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    2. Re:Federal fraud by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

      It certainly sounds fraudulent, misrepresenting one's identity like that. Unrelated question -- didn't you die in like, 1822? :-)

  34. Blacks make 4% of CS grads from top colleges... by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1
    ...but make up 1% of most top SV hires.

    Tech jobs: Minorities have degrees, but don't get hired

    I don't understand why so many are not willing to even consider that there is some bias against minorities in tech hiring.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re:Blacks make 4% of CS grads from top colleges... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...but make up 1% of most top SV hires.

      Tech jobs: Minorities have degrees, but don't get hired

      This article is comparing graduation rates today with a labor pool hired over the last 30 years. The fair comparison would be to look at only new hires directly from universities. But the author is likely more interested in pushing an agenda than in presenting the facts.

    2. Re:Blacks make 4% of CS grads from top colleges... by KGIII · · Score: 2

      That is a nice statistic you've got there. It would be a shame if someone were to actually think about it.

      As a (partially) black man, I do not need your help. Affirmative action is telling me that I am unable to do it on my own and must get help from the white man. I do not need your help. I can succeed based on my own merits or I can fail for my lack of them. My race is not, and should not, be considered - at all. That is equality. That is what I faced when I worked and I was quite successful, thank you.

      I was there during the civil rights movement. I was young but I was there and I was impacted by it. I was almost 11 when MLK was assassinated. You know what we wanted then? Equality. We did not want extra rights. We did not want affirmative action. (Those came later by people who co-opted the movement to further their agenda of reparation and shame.)

      Go ahead, call me an Uncle Tom... Find any excuse to ignore your own flawed logic. By your own statistic that means a high percentage of black graduates are doing well. Culture matters and I know of only three black people whom I am close with (not employees, school-mates, etc but family and close friends) who are actually technically inclined. This does not make the rest idiots. They just are not interested in using technology as anything other than a consumer. This seems to be the case with most normal people. Maybe it is white males who are mentally ill enough to subject themselves to the rigor that is code? That does not fit your narrative so I expect it to be ignored. So, yeah, go ahead and call me an Uncle Tom, it will make you feel better and allow you to keep your biases.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    3. Re:Blacks make 4% of CS grads from top colleges... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      So... I scrolled down and saw some of your other posts. I really hope your username is ironic. You damned sure better be white 'cause ain't no niggaz I know that dumb.

      Yes, I suspect I have worked my way up from Uncle Tom to House Nigger by your views by now. Really, you can stop. We do not need your help. In fact, you are not helping. I am sure you mean well but, trust me on this, you are not helping. We have equality - we really do. We fritter it away and have cultural issues (perhaps) but this is not based on inequality. We do not need your help with that either. Right now there are old people trying to cross the street. Perhaps you can lend them a hand?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    4. Re:Blacks make 4% of CS grads from top colleges... by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

      No one's trying to mislead you. The percentages stay the same for new hires. Many SV firms release their new hire data every year and blacks make 1% and hispanics roughly 2-3%. Source: Annual Diversity Reports from Yahoo/Google/Microsoft/Facebook. These reports are not too hard to find if you really care to look.

      --
      Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    5. Re:Blacks make 4% of CS grads from top colleges... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      There's still a good deal of racial inequality in the US, and I haven't seen any decent evidence that there's such a large difference in ability. If you bother to look, you'll see that, as a general rule, black children don't have the opportunities that white children do.

      We've got a real race problem. It's very complicated, so it's very hard to do something useful about it. Affirmative action was reasonable back in the 60s, but I think it lost its usefulness quite some time ago. Like all government rules, it's an extremely blunt instrument, and since it uses race essentially as a proxy for socioeconomic class and culture, it's partly aimed at the wrong people.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  35. Re:Too many white and Asian males by alvinrod · · Score: 2

    Actually, it would mostly just be Asian (Indian) employees that would need to be cut. If you look at the published diversity figures that some companies have put out, many (Here are figures released by Google and Microsoft) of the biggest don't even have as many white people as you would expect if the hiring perfectly followed the country's (we'll ignore local differences for convenience) racial demographics.

    However, I don't think that the people who push that point of view would agree that in order to improve diversity it's necessary to hire more white people and lay off a lot of minorities, who are from a smaller minority group than Latinos/Blacks, especially when you break apart the Asian category as Indians would be even more vastly over-represented.

    Or we could just realize that would be silly and that diversity is more than just a skin color. If you want a good team, you want people with different perspectives on life, and while race and culture can play into that, they're hardly limiting factors. Someone who grew up in a remote rural setting, has a special needs child, or grew up living under a totalitarian regime can probably offer a lot more insight into how a product can be used or adapted to suit the needs of different target markets than some individual whose main difference is that of pigmentation.

  36. Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

    Why do you assume that the only way to diversify a hiring pool is to lower standards? Hasn't it occurred to you that there are other things that can be done to change this?

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not so much an ASSumption, as it is an observation. Corporations tend to hire the most qualified people. Corporations, as opposed to small businesses, simply cannot afford to show prejudice for one demographic over another. Who are corporations hiring? Let us get this straight now - they are hiring the MOST QUALIFIED PEOPLE, who also happen to mostly be WHITE AND ASIAN MALES.

      By necessity, making your labor poll more inclusive means lowering standards.

      BTW - it has already been pointed out that the Asian males are significantly over represented in Sillycone Valley, whereas white males are closer to "normal". That's probably a result of "No Retard Left Behind" and the Core curriculum. Our schools are being dumbed down, so fewer white males are able to excel.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      ASSumption

      huh?

      What's with the random capitalisation? Areyou trying to make some point?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      It isn't "random". Everyone who has had a real education prior to the late '80's has heard a teacher say, "Never assume, because it makes an ASS out of U and ME. The odd capitalization restates that saying, for those who are "in the know".

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    4. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Everyone who has had a real education prior to the late '80's has heard a teacher say, "Never assume, because it makes an ASS out of U and ME.

      Good grief, what a colossally stupid thing to say! The logical consequences of literally making no assumptions are hilarious, and utterly bonkers.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Whatever. It's equally possible that those teachers know more than you do. I know for certain that I see people making asses of themselves by making assumptions.

      You seem to ASSume that all women and all minorities are at least as qualified as any white or asian male. I have clearly stated that those women and minorities who possess superior qualifications, should be given the job that meets their qualifications. Those who don't qualify don't get a job.

      There seems to be another ASSumption amond US-style liberals. If a white male walks into a company, and puts in an application, he's going to get the job. He's a white male, he gets the job, end of story.

      And, naturally, if that were true, then there would be no unemployed white males, right?

      http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsrace...

      The most relevant bit that I get from that PDF is, education, education, education. If you bother to get an education, you can probably find a job. If you don't bother to finish high school, times are going to be tough.

      And, the demographic that is held down the most is - black teens. When you get out of the teen years, demographics don't play nearly as great a role in your job, as education does.

      Imagine that. Education really does pay off!

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    6. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Whatever. It's equally possible that those teachers know more than you do.

      I have decided to not assume that you mean what you say, so in other words, I'm glad you agree with me.

      Not making assumptions is absurd and literally impossible. If you don't assume anything, you cannot assume that I'm speaking in English rather than some other language which looks awfully similar but means something completely different.

      Obviously, I'm engaging in reductio ad absurdum.

      Maybe if I was in front of you, I could slap you in the face with a wet fish because it would be wrong of me to assume that you didn't want me to. Plus slapping someone in the face with a wet fish is funny if the Pythons do it. I shouldn't assume that it won't be funny if I do it too.

      Going away from sillyness, mathematically speaking, it is literally impossible to make inferences without making assumptions. See for example that nice book published by Mackay on inference and machine learning that's a google search away (free online).

      You seem to ASSume that all women and all minorities are at least as qualified as any white or asian male.

      I have no idea where you got that idea. Making funny assumptons I guess. Ironic? Can you even assume that I mean the same thingd as you when I say ironic?

      There seems to be another ASSumption amond US-style liberals ...? US style liberals? wot?

      And, naturally, if that were true, then there would be no unemployed white males, right?

      So what you are asking is that if some absurdly simplistic thing actually happened then it would lead to bizarre consequences? No shit!

      Imagine that. Education really does pay off!

      Yes? Whoever claimed it didn't. I believe TFA is claiming that it pays off a little bit less for minorities, not that it does not pay off at all.

      But hey, why ASSume that the article is even written in English? It copuld equally well be written in a specially constructed language where the nouns and verbs all are derives from English ones but mean something different. If you don't accept that as a possibility then you are making assumptions.

      Apparently I can't let this one go but I won't assume that you find it tedious.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    7. Re: Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Corporations don 't hire the most talented people. If Chrysler had promoted ed Lutz instead of hiring the other end, Daimler would have not been able to buy and then abandoned it. You wouldn't see so many revolving door ceos who are paid to leave after screwing up (reddit, anyone? Balmer? The dufus who oversaw Apple's near death experience? ) You'd have the same results hiring qualified people at random.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    8. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Yes and he made it quite well.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    9. Re:Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      What it means is that making the working population more diverse without losing quality requires changing the labor pool. In other words, criticizing the companies involved for not having a more diverse work force is wrong, and that the problem is a lot more complicated than it looks.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    10. Re: Diversity does not imply "lowered standards" by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      I thought I responded to you, Barbara - somehow I screwed that up.

      Anyway - the upper echelons of management who rub elbows with the board of directors are not part of the "workforce". The denizens of the "corporate world" are pretty much chosen at random. Factors including the wealth to attend the top Ivy League colleges, combined with age, combined with random attractions at college, combined with which network meshes with other networks - in short we have a "good old boys" club at the top.

      And, yes, you're perfectly right - they get REWARDED for being total screwups. It's a private party, you and I are not invited. People like us aren't even permitted in to clean up the scraps after they party - they have paid henchmen to clean up after them. (read "henchmen" to mean "lawyers")

      Being female, or black, or Asian, or any other demographic has just about nothing to do with becoming a member of this class of people. You're born into it, or you learn to perform bizzare, unnatural sex acts very early in life, or you're just not included.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  37. Re: Nothing will ever be enough by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Nah, they will just continue to follow Gloria Steinem by attacking transsexual women with her exclusionary woman-born-woman nonsense. SJW is yet another cult, and all cults need to have a hate target to blame and make them feel special.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  38. Re: Too many white and Asian males by chipschap · · Score: 2

    Get some better HR people.

    Good luck with that!

  39. Proof?... by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

    Are they turning them out at the same level though? Big universities discriminate like crazy, and will let weaker candidates in their pipelines in computer science if they're female or black much more easily. Some of them will do fine, but a lot will only barely squeeze through, because they were not really qualified in the first place.

    Do you have any proof to back that up? Citations? Recent published accounts? Or are we suppose to believe your racist banter as is.

    Many of us went to top universities. Did you notice a conspiracy by professors to give minority students passing grades? Even anecdotal evidence would be something. It's like you're not evening trying.

    But last year, 4.5% of all new recipients of bachelor's degrees in computer science or computer engineering from prestigious research universities were African American, and 6.5% were Hispanic, according to data from the Computing Research Association.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/12/silicon-valley-diversity-tech-hiring-computer-science-graduates-african-american-hispanic/14684211/

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re:Proof?... by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 4, Informative

      Do you have any proof to back that up? Citations? Recent published accounts?

      Have you been living under a rock? There have been SCOTUS cases about this. Yes, colleges and universities lower their standards for African Americans and have stricter requirements for Asian Americans. And the African Americans that are admitted are served poorly by this kind of affirmative action: they do worse than if they had gone to lesser institutions and (apparently) don't get hired at the same rates afterwards either.

      http://priceonomics.com/post/4...

      Or are we suppose to believe your racist banter as is.

      Why don't you tone down your own racist banter and get some facts?

  40. Re: Too many white and Asian males by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You don't need to take their word for it. It's an objective measure with well-documented statistics. The truth is the ultimate argument. Sorry for your narrative.

  41. Supply side and demand side issues by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

    Blacks and hispanics make 4.5 and 6.5% of the CS graduates from TOP US universities. But they make 1 and 2% of employees. So it's really not just a supply-side issues as you mention. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/12/silicon-valley-diversity-tech-hiring-computer-science-graduates-african-american-hispanic/14684211/

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re: Supply side and demand side issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Enough of your lies. What do current graduation rates have to do with entrenched employment rates you flimflam artist?

    2. Re:Supply side and demand side issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Just having a CS degree is not the end of the story. I got my degrees from a couple of fairly well respected universities and I would never have hired about 2/3 of my graduating class. Generally, their "in major" GPA and roles in projects were pretty good (albeit not perfect) indicators of their skills. It was very rare for someone who really "got it" to have an in major GPA below 3.5 or so.

      In some universities today, there are specific initiatives to "mentor" minority students. Some of those students survive with that "mentoring" who would have dropped out or switched majors to something else. Some of these programs specifically are kept quiet to avoid embarrassing the participants. In some cases professors are asked to identify students who need help and then those students are approached by the program -- there are no campus wide flyers/tweets/facebook postings about these programs. Such programs will tend to result in minority graduates being, on the average, less qualified.

      I've seen quite a few people who were poor performers drop out of the development/IT field to do something else -- it was just too stressful to always be the idiot in the room or they got tired of being in the first wave of "workforce adjustments to better correlate business needs with skills". It's rare for these people to return to the development/IT field later. If minority students are graduating towards the bottom of their class as compared to other students, in the real world workplace they will likely end up moving to other fields more often than their counterparts diminishing the number of minorities in the candidate lists among experienced people.

      So, at a minimum, we need to see the in major GPA distributions by race/gender (although, a few schools have eliminated grades from time to time so I don't know how to slot students from these schools - some of which I would never see a candidate from anyway) as well as how many of those were aided with "mentoring" programs so needed help to get those grades (and will probably need "help" to be adequate performers in your workplace as well).

    3. Re:Supply side and demand side issues by KGIII · · Score: 1

      The statistic you cite covers only a limited geographical area. Do you have a more encompassing, and thus more accurate, statistic to back up your assertion? The two figures you cite have absolutely nothing to do with one another. What is the rate of minorities that live in that area, that go into an applicable field, and are then hired in that region? That is a meaningful statistic. Hand-waving with nonsense does not a good argument make and is not helpful to anyone. Dishonesty is not an acceptable platform to hold when attempting to claim an argument from a higher moral ground.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  42. Statistics are not that hard to find... by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

    But last year, 4.5% of all new recipients of bachelor's degrees in computer science or computer engineering from prestigious research universities were African American, and 6.5% were Hispanic, according to data from the Computing Research Association.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/12/silicon-valley-diversity-tech-hiring-computer-science-graduates-african-american-hispanic/14684211/

    If you want measurements you don't have to go very far.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re:Statistics are not that hard to find... by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1

      That's not evidence of bias, it's evidence of unequal outcomes. Unequal outcomes have lots of causes other than bias.

    2. Re:Statistics are not that hard to find... by rbarreira · · Score: 1

      On average, just 2% of technology workers at seven Silicon Valley companies that have released staffing numbers are black; 3% are Hispanic.

      But last year, 4.5% of all new recipients of bachelor's degrees in computer science or computer engineering from prestigious research universities were African American, and 6.5% were Hispanic, according to data from the Computing Research Association.

      Comparing one-year graduation numbers to total staff numbers seems like a fallacy.

      --

      The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  43. Assumption minorities are not top school graduates by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1

    There is a running and incorrect assumption ( bias ) in Slashdot discussions that minorities are not graduating from top US universities. This isn't true, as Blacks make up 4.5% of top university graduates, and hispanics make 6.5%. A combined 11% of CS/CE graduates from top US schools. But they end up with 3% of the jobs in many of the top firms.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
  44. No, it doesn't mean they're under-represented by MikeRT · · Score: 1

    It is an issue because race doesn't correlate with competence. Therefore if you have one race being under-represented you know that there are many potentially great candidates from that race that you are failing to hire, instead settling for a potentially worse candidate from some other race.

    If a race is under-represented, it could also mean that there simply aren't as many candidates period of those groups. So you have two main choices. You can believe that these companies are racist or biased and lying about their demand for this type of person, or you could believe that the market has spoken and it can't find enough of these people to meet the demand that is constantly being stated by reputable employers. Take your pick, but mine is on the latter since it follows the money on more levels than the former.

    By your logic, white and asian people must be committing a ton of violent felonies because they're under-represented on crime stats. Either that or many of the hispanics and blacks that get convicted really are victims of racism and bias. It couldn't possibly be that some groups commit more crimes of a certain type or some groups tend to field more qualified candidates for different lines of work. Shit, by your logic I could argue that professional sports are racist because the disproportionate share of blacks in those lines of work must be a sign of bias, despite my lying eyes telling me that the ones I'm seeing are damn good athletes who could wipe the floor with most white and asian athletes.

  45. such a complete load of bullshit by slashmydots · · Score: 2

    Gigantic successful companies would crash and burn if they constantly hire the under qualified, under performing, incompetent white guy over the much more skilled minority who is better at doing his job. It's the same with video game makers. If you hire whoever you want regardless of skill, you get Dai Katana. If you hire the best workers in the world regardless of color or background, you get Skyrim. The fact that these companies are successful means they aren't hiring in a racist manner. What it DOES mean is that more white males are getting into computer science so there's a higher percentage of them that are absolutely amazing at their jobs.

    You know why most basketball players are black? Is it racist hiring practices? No! The best players are black and they hire the best players. The source of the issue is that it became part of black culture to aspire to be a great basketball player so there's a higher volume of black people trying to get good at it which results in a larger pool to choose from with better players at the very top end. The same goes for programming. Go to an inner city school and ask any black person if doing well in school and aspiring to get a great eduction is considered "acting white" and would be frowned upon by the person's peers. The answer is yes and, it's mostly BET's fault, and it's why Facebook isn't filled with black programmers.

    1. Re:such a complete load of bullshit by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

      If you hire the best workers in the world regardless of color or background, you get Skyrim.

      Do you have some references for this? I'd like the background story on the hiring practices that produced something like Skyrim.

  46. What about other professions??? by Cutting_Crew · · Score: 2

    NO ONE is complaining about lack of women in plumbing and brick laying and no one is complaining about lack of men in nursing, home health care, etc etc. So obviously this is a 'tug at the hearts strings' of politics...,..and for no other reason.

    1. Re:What about other professions??? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      no one is complaining about lack of men in nursing,

      Liar.

      The truth is a google search away (e.g. men in nursing). Please don't listen to this troll spreading blatant falsehoods.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  47. Re: Too many white and Asian males by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Get some better HR people.

    Good luck with that!

    Only dysfunctional organizations allow HR people to make hiring decisions. HR's job is to do the paperwork, not decide who to hire. Hiring smart people with a track record of accomplishments is a core competency of any successful company. If you have some HR admin drone reading engineer resumes, you are going to fail.

    When I hire someone, I go to HR to get the position and salary range approved. Then I write the ad, I read the resumes, I do the interviews, I make the offer, I negotiate the salary, and at the end of that process, I go to HR and tell them "I just hired this engineer, so put her info into payroll." If your company does it significantly different, you have a problem.

  48. People must take personal responsibility by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This diversity junk is a disease. Its a mental disorder. People must take personal responsibility if they want something and they refuse to do so they have no one to blame but themselves. To say we should punish people who did work to reward people who refuse to take initiative and make the equal effort is insane and it punishes those who honestly worked for what they have. There is nothing, nothing at all that prevents people of any race, or gender, from going into IT job fields. As long as they are citizens of the country, I am all for anyone who wants to doing this. The fact is, they should have the same access to educational opportunities as everyone else. If you give anyone preferential treatment, you are creating a system of discrimination that provides a benefit to one group and not another. In fact, that seems to be what they are doing. The Bottom line, is if this group or that group is not taking advantage of the educational opportunities that is available to everyone equally, then thats their own fault and their own problem. If we are going to give these people MORE opportunities than other groups what you are doing is creating a new form of discrimination. Basically, the rule should be everyone should have access to the same educational, prepatory, and employment opportunities, regardless of their race. If people of a certain race refuse to make use of these opportunities, thats their own problem, they have to take responsibility for themselves and their actions and no one else is to blame if they refuse to do so. If we start shovelling more money at people who through their own choice refuse to take advantage of the same opportunities available to everyone else, you are punishing everyone else who WORKED and made the effort to achieve, you are punishing people for no fault of their own, people who honestly worked to achieve what they have, not having a benefit that was not available to anyone else, essentially what we are doing is rewarding mediocrity and sloth. This diversity for the sake of diversity and punish people who actually work for their achievement to reward those who refuse to take initiative has got to stop

    1. Re:People must take personal responsibility by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In other words, you didn't face racial discrimination of any sort in getting educated and hired, so anybody can do just like you did with the same results. You went to a good high school, so high schools in predominantly black areas must also be good.

      Every time somebody tells me to check my privilege, it turns out that it still works. I don't feel qualified to talk about barriers faced by people of other racial, economic, or cultural backgrounds.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  49. Re:This is true by twistedcubic · · Score: 1

    This sounds like bullshit. I could easily say, "I work with numerous white guys all day, and all of them are racist", even though I don't know the first thing about any of them.

  50. file under by siphonophore · · Score: 1

    r/shitpost

    --
    Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
    -Scott Adams
  51. Re:This is true by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    maybe you should get to know your co workers better

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  52. Re:Too many white and Asian males by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

    A better way to understand this would be to look at the demographics of a world college.

    Out of 10 applicants

    6 would be from Asia
    1 would be from Africa
    1 would be from Europe
    1 would be from North America
    1 would be from South America
    Australia wouldn't even register on the scale.

    You see so many Indians and Chinese in tech because they have universities that teach tech and their are so damn many of them by world population.

  53. Re:This is a direct consequence of Afirmative Acti by trout007 · · Score: 1

    So it's better they aren't hired at all?

    --
    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
  54. Re:Racism is rampant. by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

    Because it's not racist. 60% of the world population is from Asia.

  55. Re: Too many white and Asian males by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    I work for a huge corp and HR does everything regarding hiring. You just put in a request for a developer with a,b,c skills and later you get invited to 2nd interviews with HR present. (the first interview is HR only)

    Can you please post your employer's stock symbol, so I can short their stock?

  56. Re: "SJW" by gmhowell · · Score: 1

    Shut up, Toby.

    His name is Kunte Kinte.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  57. Re:Too many white and Asian males by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Go w/ black transgender lesbians. That way, you can satisfy as many of your AA hires w/ the fewest #bodies needed, and not have to bruise the bottom line. Give them adequate job satisfaction, so that your numbers there stay constant

  58. Still?! by AdamStarks · · Score: 1

    You mean the demographics haven't undergone a drastic and fundamental shift since the last SV Diversity article from like a month ago?

    All those kids we started teaching coding to in the last couple years haven't gone to college yet? Those colleges haven't produced a diverse enough stream of students within the last 6 months? Those students haven't all gotten the 3-5 years of experience to work at Google, Facebook, Apple, etc all within the last several weeks?

    Alrighty, you priviliged micro-aggressive misogynistic cis-gendered white males. You've got 3 more weeks to fix all this, or else we'll post another article complaining that the problem still exists >:-(

  59. Women don't want the work by XopherMV · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A bunch of SJWs are wrestling with it. Silicon Valley is doing just fine.

    When women wanted to become doctors, they fought their way into med school, fought to earn a proper education, fought for credentials, and fought for equal standing amongst male doctors. When women wanted to become lawyers, they similarly fought their way through the system. Same goes for every other job women wanted to do. Women fought their way to get the jobs they wanted. Some of those fights took decades.

    In tech, jobs require less qualifications than working as a doctor or lawyer. You don't need to spend years getting a masters, PhD, or going through a post-doc program. The pay for high-end IT workers can reach the same amount as the pay for low-end doctors or lawyers. The work environment in IT is often better than what doctors or lawyers encounter. Yet, tech companies can't give away the jobs to US women.

    Why? Answer that question and you get to the root of the problem.

    Women like to help. They'll help people, animals, forests, the environment, etc. But in general, they're not interested in working with machines. Machines don't need help. They don't care about making the next hipster app. They could care less about the coolest new programming language. They don't give a shit about all the things that cause religious wars in the tech community.

    Most women don't want tech jobs because they find the work meaningless. Having done a great deal of the work myself, I'd also throw in soul-crushing. I've spent years developing apps for companies that ultimately went bankrupt. The product of my years of work? Gone. Thrown away. Has my work actually helped anyone? Hard to say. Probably not. Definitely not directly. Not in any meaningful sense. Say, I spend 3 months improving the performance of an app. Then users login half a second shorter. Big whoop. Do users even notice? Do they care? No, probably not. Does it really improve their lives? Definitely not.

    When tech companies start doing truly meaningful work, then women will beat down their doors. Until then, all this effort to attract women won't matter.

    1. Re:Women don't want the work by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Having done a great deal of the work myself, I'd also throw in soul-crushing. I've spent years developing apps for companies that ultimately went bankrupt. The product of my years of work? Gone. Thrown away. Has my work actually helped anyone? Hard to say. Probably not. Definitely not directly. Not in any meaningful sense.

      I'd like to second this sentiment. Very little of the work I've done has actually been at all meaningful. There was one job where I did some work on a product which is used in many retail stores, so it's pretty cool when I go to one of those stores and see that product in use there, running my software (presumably, I don't work there any more so I don't know if they changed it). But that job didn't last that long. There's a couple other jobs where the thing I worked on was used for a while. But there was a lot of stuff that just ended up getting shit-canned.

    2. Re:Women don't want the work by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Women like to help. They'll help people, animals, forests, the environment, etc. But in general, they're not interested in working with machines.

      It's like a time warp back to the 1950s.

      Actually, in the 1950s a lot of the early pioneers were women. The proportion of women in computing was growing right up until the mid 80s, when suddenly it levelled off, and around 2000 started to decline. You need to explain why suddenly women became less "interested" in computing, when clearly it was more attractive to them before.

      Generalizing about women in the way you do is unbelievably sexist. It really is a 1950s attitude. The whole point of women's lib in the 60s was to get away from those stereotypes, but apparently some people didn't get the memo.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Women don't want the work by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Women like to help. They'll help people, animals, forests, the environment, etc. But in general, they're not interested in working with machines.

      And you wonder why women don't want to work in engineering? Hint: it's people like you.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    4. Re:Women don't want the work by Kartu · · Score: 1

      So. Women dislike guys like XopherMV. That's why they are underrepresented in tech jobs. OK, got you.

      Also, we see that girls outperform boys (on average) on most subject, with math being one huge glaring exception, where boys manage to be of the top, most of the bottom (as usual) but also noticeably better on average.

      What should we attribute that to? Is that social injustice again, somehow affecting only certain subjects? Is it some negative influence by XopherMV and the likes? Or maybe we can finally accept that different genders perform differently ON AVERAGE so diversity issues might actually NOT result from some kind of discrimination?

      So that people should be hired based on merit alone, fuck eye color/race/gender/whatever and if numbers are skewed it doesn't necessarily mean, there is discrimination?

    5. Re:Women don't want the work by XopherMV · · Score: 1

      Yes, women dominated a lot of traditionally male-oriented fields in the 1940s because the men left for WW2. That's why the early pioneers were women.

  60. Re: This has nothing to do with GENES, of course. by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Yes they were. The Arabs arrived later.

  61. the other 1% by swell · · Score: 1

    "...particularly acute at start-ups, where black founders are just 1 percent ..."

    Of course we need legislation to assure that 10% of founders are black. Yes, 50% female, and what about me- 10% left handed. Every day we see founders doing well, getting rich with their IPOs and starting spaceship companies. Perhaps the law should say that no white male with a great business idea should be allowed to go forward until a certain number of minorities have had their chance. No doubt there are many minorities waiting patiently to bring their great idea forward, but they are held back by ... by ... well unfairness of course.

    Geez, just dripping with sarcasm. Now I need to understand why there is such an imbalance in basketball, pop music, healthcare and child care. It seems to me that certain ethnic/gender groups are under represented. In my accounting classes, only one percent of my mates were left handed- a sure sign of unfairness!

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  62. Re:"SJW" by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    "SJW" is code word for "I think you're all stupid and wish to derail the conversation".

  63. Re: Too many white and Asian males by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Shorts are short term really. Problems like this fester and take a while before they impact stock prices. Invest in their competition as a long-term investment and you may well do better. Unless, of course, you manage to get lucky and short at just the right time but that is unlikely. Investing in the competition is a much more likely to be successful strategy.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  64. Re:Racism is rampant. by KGIII · · Score: 1

    60% of the world's population does not live in America and this conversation is about America. You might have a point if the American populace was constructed with 60% Asians but it is not and you do not.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  65. Re: This has nothing to do with GENES, of course.. by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Current Egyptology is beginning to lean towards the pyramids having been created by what we know as Nubians. If they are correct then even the pharaohs were black. One of the more important pieces of evidence is that the facial structure of hieroglyphs, statues, and even the sphinx are likely ethnically black given the implied bone structures and other facial features. Those inventions have lasted longer than pretty much any other man-made thing on the planet. Additionally, we might also consider that all humans began life in Africa and were black so every single invention was made by black people although some of them have lost their melanin or developed other regional traits.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  66. Re:NO! by KGIII · · Score: 1

    I do not know... This nigger can spell 'less' and knows that it should not be 'less' but should be 'fewer.' So, there is that...

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  67. Re: Too many white and Asian males by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    Only dysfunctional organizations allow HR people to make hiring decisions.

    Well then, most corporations these days are dysfunctional. At most places I've seen, HR is the one posting ads, recruiting candidates, checking qualifications, etc. They "pre-screen" candidates before passing them to the hiring manager. This of course means the hiring manager has to wade through a bunch of unqualified people because HR is incompetent at checking qualifications for technical people. But that's just how it is in most companies, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

  68. Re:"SJW" by tsotha · · Score: 1

    Nobody cares if you "discuss" social issues. It's the use of the government (or the mob) to curtail other peoples' freedom of association that gets you the appellation.

  69. Re:Too many white and **Asian** males - TRUE!! by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

    What you say is true, regarding H1B. I've said as much myself - the whole H1B program is fraudulent. But, we aren't discussing that program here, or at best, H1B is peripheral to the discussion.

    This whole discussion centers on an imagined hiring preference for white males and asian males, and the exclusion of supposedly qualified females and minority workers. Maybe I should point out that "asian males" includes Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other people of Asian descent - Indians are merely the second largest subset of Asians.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  70. the best by prof_robinson · · Score: 1

    This is awesome. Because as we all know, the secret to developing any great technology starts with an even distribution of melanin and genitalia.

  71. The root of the problem. by Any+Web+Loco · · Score: 1
    The root of the problem isn't what you seem to think it is. The root of the problem is that guys like you continue to push bullshit like

    Women like to help. They'll help people, animals, forests, the environment, etc. But in general, they're not interested in working with machines.

    Women, it was once believed, didn't have the constitution to be doctors. Women, it was once held true, didn't possess the analytical minds required for a career in the law.

    Women could do without your sexist arse telling them what they are and aren't, and what they can and can't do.

    1. Re:The root of the problem. by Forgefather · · Score: 1

      There was a story on /. a while ago about a university that managed to achieve full gender parity by refocusing all of their CS curriculum around social issues. Sorry I don't have time to find the link, but trying to query anything related to gender and CS gives and unbelievable amount of crap.

      --
      "There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
    2. Re:The root of the problem. by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      Saying women and men think the same is ignorant. Saying someone pointing out that difference is sexist is even more ignorant. Sexism is the derogatory treatment of women or men based on gender. I've never heard anyone say that helping others is a bad trait to have.

      The problem you seem to have is with generalizations. Unfortunately, the human brain is incapable of not generalizing. Its the way we make sense of the world. So by your definition of sexism and racism (that the mere though that someone is different based on skin color or sex is racist or sexist), you are both racist and sexist and don't even know it. For you, me pointing out that a black man is different than a white man because of genetic mutation that increases melatonin in the skin, would be racist. To me, its just an interesting bit of science.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    3. Re:The root of the problem. by XopherMV · · Score: 3, Informative

      The root of the problem isn't what you seem to think it is. The root of the problem is that guys like you continue to push bullshit like

      Women like to help. They'll help people, animals, forests, the environment, etc. But in general, they're not interested in working with machines.

      Women, it was once believed, didn't have the constitution to be doctors. Women, it was once held true, didn't possess the analytical minds required for a career in the law. Women could do without your sexist arse telling them what they are and aren't, and what they can and can't do.

      Gender studies promotes the idea that men and women are exactly the same except for our genitalia. This assertion or hypothesis hasn't been shown true by actual science conducted by biologists. In fact, studies by actual biologists show the opposite. The brain controls hormone levels. The amount of testosterone in the bloodstream effects whether a child is interested in traditionally male-oriented or female-oriented toys. This is has been shown true for children as young as one day old. That's before a child has any chance of getting corrupted by societal influences.

      Further, studies across 53 societies show that as cultures grow more egalitarian and allow men and women to do whatever job they like, we actually see more men doing traditionally male jobs and more women doing traditionally female jobs. It's only in less equal societies where men and women face unequal choices of work where we see men and women doing largely the same kinds of work. Were the differences in preference of job only a difference in culture, then we should also see different results in different cultures. That isn't the case. When given the choice, men almost always prefer traditionally male jobs and women traditionally female jobs. That suggests a biological difference between the preferences of men and women for the kind of work they prefer to do.

      Here's a good video on these facts. Although, whoever posted the video to Youtube definitely should have chosen a better title. I suggest watching the whole thing.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    4. Re:The root of the problem. by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      My niece is an MD doing her placement in DC. My other niece works for Disney.com . My former roommate is now a software engineering intern in Mountain View.

      Women can do it. The question is why are male hiring managers and execs so afraid of hiring them?

      There's no reason to be afraid. They don't bite.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    5. Re:The root of the problem. by Any+Web+Loco · · Score: 1

      Straw man. I have no problem with generalisations. I have a problem with unsubstantiated generalisations that are used to justify things unjustifiably. In this case, women are helpers by nature and don't like machines (sic) therefore this is why they're under-represented in STEM. It's just a crock from start to finish.

    6. Re:The root of the problem. by Any+Web+Loco · · Score: 1

      What's this got to do with women's interest in STEM?

    7. Re:The root of the problem. by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      I'm the straw man? The original post discussed an underwhelming involvement of women in this outrage over diversity in tech jobs. Its coming from politicians and CEO's and people not actually looking for tech jobs. This whole shortage of women in technology is a straw man and your argument that the numbers behind it don't matter is even more useless.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    8. Re:The root of the problem. by XopherMV · · Score: 1

      What's this got to do with women's interest in STEM?

      Pay attention. Women aren't interested in engineering work in modern, egalitarian societies. They'd rather take other options such as teaching or nursing or other professions where they can help care for kids, adults, animals, plants, the environment, etc. When women have options, they move away from topics like engineering which they generally find boring. You see that in multiple cultures across the world. In fact, it's such a universal preference that researchers attribute the cause at least partially due to a biological difference between the sexes.

      To get women to accept jobs in engineering, you'd need to take away their other options. You need to make society less equal. That's why we see so many female engineers from places like India. Women from countries like that don't have the same options as women in the US. They study engineering because they don't feel they have any other viable options.

    9. Re:The root of the problem. by XopherMV · · Score: 1

      My other niece works for Disney.com . My former roommate is now a software engineering intern in Mountain View.

      Women can do it. The question is why are male hiring managers and execs so afraid of hiring them?

      There's no reason to be afraid. They don't bite.

      What world are you living in? Women working in technology are so rare that tech companies bend over backwards to find and hire qualified women. In fact, given the choice of an equally qualified man or woman, tech companies will damn near always choose the woman.

      Of course women can do the work. The argument is that they generally don't want to do the work. There's about a million other jobs that women find more interesting. Hence, discussions like this talking about the lack of women in technology.

  72. Re:Too many white and Asian males by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    You are confusing two separate issues. The H1B visa issue needs to be dealt with separately, and actually one of the arguments for helping more female and minority candidates develop and get tech jobs is to reduce the alleged skill shortage that is driving companies to hire H1Bs.

    So yeah, the people arguing for improved diversity absolutely would argue for fewer Indians, because with more skilled workers available there would be less need for H1Bs.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  73. It all comes down to Actions not Words by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    There are a lot of intelligent women they could hire, but they tend to hire men who they know, who belong to their frats or went to Stanford.

    Many of my colleagues teach at Stanford.

    The problem for Silicon Valley is that the world has changed, but they haven't. Kind of like the Deep South.

    Just Do It. Hire women as interns at a 50 percent rate. Hire Hispanics and African Americans at least at the level they exist in the general population.

    There are many highly able hires out there.

    I know, I've been taking classes with them, as I go for my own PhD.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  74. Re:"SJW" by Stolovaya · · Score: 1

    Social activism vs. social justice warriors. Learn the difference.

  75. Diversity by brunnegd · · Score: 1

    So what. Hire the best. Nothing wrong with pouring money into scholarships to encourage career decisions, but only hire the best.

  76. Re:This is a direct consequence of Afirmative Acti by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Sure can be. It can cut off a search for a better job. If the new employee relocates, it can leave said employee stuck in a place with worse prospects.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  77. Re: Too many white and Asian males by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

    Chicago has taken to promoting certain races over others in order to make their diversity numbers look "better".

    "The Latino firefighters had each waived race-based promotions twice as a matter of personal pride and a surefire way to avoid serving under the stigma that they didn’t deserve the promotion on their own merit.

    But when they got the third promotion offer, Cmdr. Monica Porter made it clear that if they turned it down again there wouldn’t be a next time, the firefighters, who all asked to remain anonymous, told DNAinfo.com."

    http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago...