So, here's the thing these "just hire more women" morons don't seem to get: we do need more women in tech, but only if they want to be there. One company (or even many companies) hiring a disproportionate number of women, though, won't do that. Sure, it means there are more woman at that company, but there aren't more women in tech overall.
If the makeup of the candidate pool is 90% men and 10% women, and we all get jobs, the makeup of the tech industry is still 90% men and 10% women. Even if some companies hire more women! The reason for this is simple (as in elementary school level) mathematics, so it is surprising to me that anyone qualified to work in the tech industry doesn't understand it. If we, those interested in (and qualified for) tech jobs represent a 9:1 ratio of male to female candidates, are hired at that same ratio by tech companies, and we all get hired, the industry represents that same 9:1 ratio. Now, if one company, say Google, hires additional women, those aren't new female candidates, those are women leaving positions at other companies; Google's ratio approaches 8:2 while other companies' ratios approach 10:0. The industry is still 9:1, we all still have jobs, but now some companies look like they're turning away qualified female applicants. The reality is that those female applicants simply don't exist, they've been hired up by "look at us, we're bringing more women into the industry" firms like Google. And it should be reasonable to assume anyone who's qualified has a job; after all, we're constantly having a supposed shortage of tech workers crammed down our throats, aren't we?
But that doesn't bring more women into the industry.
I wish it did, as women often do (for a multitude of reasons we still don't fully understand, largely because it's not a "politically correct" subject to study) process things differently than men, and that's a good thing! I should say it's a very good thing! A man and a woman of equal competence won't always reach the same conclusions and, statistically speaking, a woman who reached her conclusion through different logic than a man will have reached a better, more complete, more correct conclusion about half the time. When the man and women, given the same task, reach the same conclusion, the woman will, statistically speaking, have reached it in fewer steps about half the time.
We need that, it improves the efficiency of our processes and our work product; but only if we listen to each other and actually make use of women's ideas the statistical 50% of the time that they're actually better than our own. Adjusting for margin of error, and the actual abilities and experience of the individual men and women involved, of course.
But, simply hiring more women doesn't solve the problem if there aren't more women to hire! The best the industry, as a whole, can do is to hire the most qualified applicants regardless of gender and, when qualifications match, only consider gender as a means to pull your company's gender makeup closer to the gender makeup of your pool of applicants. That's what we should strive for; when we can point to the 9:1 makeup of the applicant pool and legitimately point to a 9:1 makeup of the industry as a whole, then we can really say "look, we do hire women; we hire any qualified woman who's interested in the field". Then, maybe, more women will be interested in investing the time it takes to become a hire-able candidate for a tech job. Then, and only then, will we see more women in tech.
So, can we please stop playing stupid gender-based games with hiring, go back to making gender a non-issue (or at least, not the huge issue that it has become, I don't think it was ever really a non-issue), and do something that might actually attract women to the field? Women aren't trophies*, they don't want to be held up** and put on display*** so as to say "look at how much better of a company we are because we hire more women than e
It is hardly a "fact" that women are inferior to men in programming or whatever he was on about.
It's hardly a fact that he was on about that, either. It is, however, a fact that fewer women are interested in programming, regardless of how good they are at it.
Even if we assume women are just as good at programming as men, and I haven't seen anyone sincerely argue otherwise, there's nothing wrong with the industry being 90% male if the body of interested and qualified candidates is also 90% male. Just like nursing, a 90% female profession; it's not that way because women make better nurses, it's that way because 90% of the body of interested and qualified candidates is female.
And that's damn well how it should be! I wouldn't want 56% of qualified female nurses turned away to make room for potentially less qualified males just because society thinks they should be hired at a 1:1 ratio! If, after throwing out unqualified applicants, the remaining pool of candidates is 90% female, I expect 90% of people hired to be female. Likewise in the other direction, as well.
That's how you hire the most qualified candidates.
how would you have felt about contining to work alongside Mr. Damore, knowing now that he likely felt you had got your job through what he viewed as prejudiced and unfair hiring practices?
Honestly? It would depend on whether or not he was right. Google's workforce is 19% female; are 19% of qualified applicants for jobs at Google female? If that number is lower, the hiring process is biased against males and he is right; if it is higher, it is biased against females and he is wrong. If the numbers match up, there is no bias and he is also wrong.
So, if he is right, I would certainly not take offense. But, then, I'd know I got the job based on merits, because I'm damn good at what I do. Good enough to not work for an echo chamber like Google, who asks you to discuss these topics openly, then fires you when you do.
Now it's on Google to prove a lack of bias in their hiring practices. They can do this by showing us the ratio of male to female applicants adequately qualified for the positions they're applying for. If that ratio isn't damn close to 81:19, they've got come explaining to do, regardless of which way it swings.
He seemed pretty clued in to me and offended, at most, 19% of the company.
Before you go off and say that should be 50%, show me how many qualified male and female applicants Google has had. Having experience hiring for tech positions, I can posit that, even if you include unqualified female candidates (and still discard unqualified male candidates), the number of female applicants will have been less than 19% of the total. That means they're turning away qualified male applicants at a rate far higher than they're turning away female applicants regardless of qualification.
If that doesn't represent a problem to you, we should all hope you're never in a position of power within any organization.
The ideal gender makeup of a given company is equal to the ratio of qualified male applicants to qualified female applicants. In a company that has, say, 10 employees and a ratio of 9:1 male to female qualified applicants, the ideal is 9 male employees and 1 female. That is, 90% of qualified applicants were male, 90% of hired applicants should, ideally, be male. Now, if the ratio of applicants were flipped, 1:9, the ideal would be to hire 9 women and 1 man to fill the 10 positions.
If you're in either scenario and you find yourself striving to hire men and women at a 1:1 ratio, you're part of the problem. In my company, that ratio is 1:0 because there have been 0 female applicants; in order to achieve a 1:1 ratio of men to women I'd have to only consider applications from women for at least my next two hires. That would be just as illegal as it is immoral and unethical, so I won't do that.
But, back to your point, no, he did not offend half the company. A very small percentage of the company's 81% male population and at most half of their 19% female population will have been offended by this. I'd be amazed to learn that the total exceeds 15%, a far cry from half.
And US diplomats go around the world trying to work issues out to prevent war. Now, I don't agree with invading everyone who doesn't see things our way, but you're complaining that attacks on the people we put out there to help up see eye-to-eye with other nations so we're not inclined to invade them is news?
Huh. What's the point of your comment, again?
Are you implying that, because we're so quick to go to war, we should just start right on with the invasion and bombings and not make any attempt at diplomacy?
Would that be better for you?
Because, when our diplomats start being harmed on foreign soil, that quickly becomes the only option. That's why this is news; and quite important news, at that. My only hope is that we take a moment to step back and figure out who actually did this before we start dropping bombs (again, because I know we will, not because I think we should), because there's no way in hell Cuba has that technology.
His argument was less "there aren't an equal number of qualifies male and female engineers" and more "there aren't an equal number of males and females interested in becoming qualified engineers" and he's absolutely right in that regard.
The workplace should reflect the pool of interested qualified candidates. If the M:F ratio of qualified candidates is 1:1, but the M:F ratio of interested qualified candidates is 9:1, there is nothing at all wrong with a 90% male workforce in that position; after all, only 10% of qualified females were even interested in the job to begin with.
Using the same numbers as above, let's assume 10 positions are available, and 100 well qualified applications are received, 90 from men and 10 from women, representing the 9:1 ratio I pulled out of my ass above. That I pulled the ratio out of my ass is irrelevant to my point, as the actual ratio will differ from one job to the next.
Do we fill 5 positions with male applicants and 5 with female applicants? No. Why? Because that means turning away over 94% of qualified male applicants, but only 50% of qualified female applicants. Instead, the correct response is to gather up all of those applications and hire whoever is the best cultural fit for your company. Of course, you can't prove that you did that, so the next best option is to sort those applications by gender, count them, and hire based on that ratio -- 90:10 -> 9:1 -> 9 men, 1 woman. Then, you're turning men and women away at an equal rate; you've hired 10% of the qualified men who applies and 10% of the qualified women who applied.
That's fair. If you think it's not, flip it around and assume 90 women apply and only 10 men apply. For those to positions, 9 women and only 1 man should be hired.
Yes, it's fair. If you still wish to argue, consider a 50% chance of having a male nurse and an 80% chance that, if you do, he'll be an underqualified position-filler in the name of "equality", because there weren't enough qualified men interested in the job but society said the hospital had to hire more ale nurses! That's not "equal" at all!!
For the sake of your own health, please, let the workplace mirror the pool of interested qualified candidates!
I didn't mean to imply that you were arguing that; I was merely providing a counterexample to show you how ludicrous your appeal to authority is. And that's exactly what assigning relevance to whether or not an idea is "mainstream" is: an appeal to authority.
And at Uber it well may be. Personally, my company has no female employees (unless you count my wife, who's an owner and not an employee) because we've had no female applicants. It was the same for my last employer, as well, until we had a qualified female applicant and hired her.
Let's say this is because women are poor negotiators.
Why? Why denigrate women with the assumptions you make in order to tear down an argument you simply don't like? Do you not see how that assumption is more damaging to women than the argument you're trying to tear down?
Why not just acknowledge that men and women are biologically, mentally, and emotionally wired differently? Why not hold that up as a positive? So what if women are, on the whole, worse engineers than men (if we choose to follow that belief) if men are, on the whole, worse caregivers than women? We need both, and some men turn out to be excellent caregivers while some women turn out to be excellent engineers, simply out of sheer force of will to form those talents. That's how the cream rises and society betters itself, rather than stirring the pot and pushing the cream back down in favor of common milk.
Put another way, how would you feel if your child, injured in the collapse of a building designed by a less qualified female engineer (hired because we need more women in STEM), died while under the care of a less qualified male nurse (hired because we need more male nurses)?
Let's not fuck with it. Really. Then, the female engineer who designs the building will be doing so because she's truly qualified, and when your kid trips and fall in front of the building (because it didn't collapse, because the female engineer who designed it was actually qualified), the male nurse who looks after him during his recovery will also be qualified.
Or, put another way, that's not to say that women can't be qualified engineers or that men can't be qualified nurses; just that it's best that we don't force the issue lest we push unqualified people into those (and other) positions in the name of "equality".
All else being equal, I want qualified people designing buildings, bridges, roads, software, and the products I buy, and I want qualified people providing the care and services I require. What I don't want is people doing jobs they've only qualified for because there were no better-qualified applicants in their age/gender/race/religion/orientation demographic and the company had to hire someone who fit that description.
The common argument, of course, is that by not legislating "equality" we open the door to abuse. Sadly, this is true, but it's a problem that is not without a solution. If you're being discriminated against by one employer, go work for another; take your talents and walk out the door, that dickish company doesn't deserve you in the first place. If you're truly qualified for the job, someone who is interested in running a successful business will take notice and hire you.
As an example, my most recent round of hiring was met with a flood of resumes into my inbox. Zero were from women, so I did not hire a woman; that was the only reason. Out of dozens of resumes, only three managed to follow a simple set of clearly stated requirements (and, as I was hiring a developer, requirements are important) to submit their resume in a manner in which I would actually consider it. Those requirements included which file format to use, a string to put in the subject of the email, and a simple question to answer. Out of dozens of applicants, three managed to do this.
Of those three, one submitted a resume full of bullshit and didn't get a call back. One other couldn't be bothered to shower before his interview and my office still smelled of him the next day, so he did not get a call back. Luckily, I did have one applicant who proved to be both qualified for the work and the workplace. Yes, this applicant was a White male; no, that did not factor into his qualifications. In all honesty, on paper it was a toss up between the Pakistani fellow who didn't shower and the White guy who did, so it came down to workplace comfort. In order to not subject my employees to the discomfort of workin
I've left alone most of what you're posted on this topic because, for the most part, I think you're right. However, I can't leave this one be:
What I'm saying about the experts they selected is that they don't represent the mainstream view, and it's misleading to omit that information.
There was a time when the mainstream view was that the earth was flat and the sun orbited around it. Being mainstream did not make those claims "right" and it would be just as misleading to point out that those beliefs were once mainstream in an attempt to support them as "right" as it is to point out that the experts selected here don't represent the mainstream view as a way to claim they're somehow "wrong".
A handful of experts challenged the mainstream view on the shape of the earth and which celestial bodies orbit which, were called out as "wrong" as you're doing here, and were later proven "right".
That's not to say these experts are right, either; but one should be just as wary of a majority as they are of a minority.
Imagine a headline reading "experts agree climate change is not happening".
I'm not sure how valid that is; nobody who actually earned their credentials will claim it's not happening, though there is plenty of debate over why it is happening, whether we can do anything about it and, if we can, whether or not we should. Nobody seriously doubts that climate change is happening.
Just like nobody seriously doubts that there are fewer women than men in tech, but here we are debating why, whether or not we can do anything about it and, if we can, whether or not we should.
You were on the verge of a strong argument there, but you fell short; possibly because your position wasn't as solid as you believed, or possibly because you momentarily lost sight of the target. I'm leaning toward the latter, since most everything else you've said in this discussion has been on point.
First of all, you have no clue how old thechemic's kids are. Second, what gives you that impression? Third, I got along with adults better than I got along with other kids when I was growing up and, well, when I look around at the life I've built for myself and the company I built that puts food on multiple peoples' tables and helps other companies continue to do the same, I don't think that was entirely a bad thing. I'm generally a happy person and have no problem associating with people regardless of age; though I am selective, but then I believe that's one of the keys to my happiness.
If his definition of "social interaction that would be suitable for their age" lead to his kids being able to actually interact socially, I'd say you're wrong.
I'm sure it happens in some places. Guess I've just never lived anywhere that sucks that bad. I average two deliveries a day (hey, I'm running a business from my home) and I'm only home for less than half of them because they tend to come after 5; can't say I've ever had one walk away.
You mean UPS doesn't leave stuff at your door? Huh, well that sucks, they've done that for me everywhere I've ever lived, and I've lived all around the country and in urban, suburban, and rural areas.
Often times, especially with stores that are more than a handful of minutes from me, it's two or more days from the time I decide I need something until I can find time to get there to buy it. Once I get the item home, it's another two or more days before I'll find time to get back there if I need to return or exchange an item.
Suddenly, when viewed from that perspective, waiting two days for shipping isn't a big deal. When viewed from the perspective of not having to deal with traffic, burn gas (or use electricity), wait in line, load/unload the item into and out of my car, hell I'm on the 3rd floor with no elevator and a bad back, I'd much rather have UPS bring it up the stairs and, if necessary, carry it down... Well, since I won't be able to get to Best Buy until Saturday and have to carry that 28lb printer in its huge box up the stais myself if I buy from them, I'll order it from Amazon, have it Friday, and let the UPS guy bring it up the stairs.
And if it arrives damaged, he can bring the replacement up for me and carry the return right down the stairs.
I've even paid a couple bucks more on Amazon to cover the savings in time, effort, and gas. Not to mention pain and suffering (re: bad back).
You can spent that hour of your time ensuring that no harm comes to your new purchase between the store and your home, but that's no guarantee that the contents of the undamaged package are functional. You'll still have returns for defective products.
Or you just turn it all off via script as part of the install process; then you're at the same point you'd be at with a fresh Linux install. From there, regardless of platform, you still have to figure out what needs turned on.
Look again, they're given a lot of explicit restrictions and a handful of explicit permissions. In Google's case those are limited to:
Allow:/psettings/guest-controls*
Allow:/psettings/guest-email-unsubscribe*
Allow:/psettings/sms-unsubscribe*
Allow:/psettings/guest-controls/retargeting-opt-out*
Allow:/settings/loid-email-unsubscribe-router*
Allow:/settings/loid-email-unsubscribe*
Allow:/help/
For reference, the first 6 are pages where one can unsubscribe from various forms of marketing and the last is LinkedIn's support section. Anything else Google indexes (and they have indexed a LOT of LinkedIn's content) is without explicit permission, possible even contrary to the 45 explicit restrictions they've been given. For example, I found this in Google's index, and/profile/ is listed as a Disallow rule.
Most of the search engines listed in that robots.txt have the same set of rules as Google. The only obvious exception is deepcrawl, which also has the following Allow rules:
# Profinder only for deepcrawl
Allow:/profinder*
Allow:/profinder/*
But Google is doing something of which LinkedIn approves and has given Google permission to do.
Have they, though? Or have they simply not asked them to stop?
I understand that people who have never created anything of value or who believe strongly in socialism have no concept of ownership of property
Lovely assumption, but incorrect. I, in fact, have created quite a bit of value in this world. Just as a small sample, my clients value me enough to keep me employed long-term and my employees value the income and stability I provide them. So, then, you must think I'm a socialist? Why is that? Wait, no, you can't possibly think I have no concept of ownership of property when I've stated that LinkedIn has ownership of the data they've collected. Speaking of trying to follow along... So, then, I'm left wondering why you wrote this, as it certainly does not apply here.
If you posted such wisdom elsewhere, why not post it here?
Because I did post it here, in this very thread. It's not my fault you've chosen not to read the thread in its entirety before replying to me, nor is it my responsibility to repeat everything I've ever posted here to every dumbass who can't scroll a page to find it himself.
Sorry, I reserve that level of service for my paying clients, not random armchair quarterbacks who claim to be lawyers yet can't do a simple review of what's already on the page they're looking at before replying.
Personally, I hope LinkedIn goes the copyright route on this, just so I can rub your nose in it when they win. They're not going to get anywhere with CFAA.
Slashdot Mirror
Hard to tell the difference between typo and intent with all the thoughtless trolls on this site lately, my apologies.
So, here's the thing these "just hire more women" morons don't seem to get: we do need more women in tech, but only if they want to be there. One company (or even many companies) hiring a disproportionate number of women, though, won't do that. Sure, it means there are more woman at that company, but there aren't more women in tech overall.
If the makeup of the candidate pool is 90% men and 10% women, and we all get jobs, the makeup of the tech industry is still 90% men and 10% women. Even if some companies hire more women! The reason for this is simple (as in elementary school level) mathematics, so it is surprising to me that anyone qualified to work in the tech industry doesn't understand it. If we, those interested in (and qualified for) tech jobs represent a 9:1 ratio of male to female candidates, are hired at that same ratio by tech companies, and we all get hired, the industry represents that same 9:1 ratio. Now, if one company, say Google, hires additional women, those aren't new female candidates, those are women leaving positions at other companies; Google's ratio approaches 8:2 while other companies' ratios approach 10:0. The industry is still 9:1, we all still have jobs, but now some companies look like they're turning away qualified female applicants. The reality is that those female applicants simply don't exist, they've been hired up by "look at us, we're bringing more women into the industry" firms like Google. And it should be reasonable to assume anyone who's qualified has a job; after all, we're constantly having a supposed shortage of tech workers crammed down our throats, aren't we?
But that doesn't bring more women into the industry.
I wish it did, as women often do (for a multitude of reasons we still don't fully understand, largely because it's not a "politically correct" subject to study) process things differently than men, and that's a good thing! I should say it's a very good thing! A man and a woman of equal competence won't always reach the same conclusions and, statistically speaking, a woman who reached her conclusion through different logic than a man will have reached a better, more complete, more correct conclusion about half the time. When the man and women, given the same task, reach the same conclusion, the woman will, statistically speaking, have reached it in fewer steps about half the time.
We need that, it improves the efficiency of our processes and our work product; but only if we listen to each other and actually make use of women's ideas the statistical 50% of the time that they're actually better than our own. Adjusting for margin of error, and the actual abilities and experience of the individual men and women involved, of course.
But, simply hiring more women doesn't solve the problem if there aren't more women to hire! The best the industry, as a whole, can do is to hire the most qualified applicants regardless of gender and, when qualifications match, only consider gender as a means to pull your company's gender makeup closer to the gender makeup of your pool of applicants. That's what we should strive for; when we can point to the 9:1 makeup of the applicant pool and legitimately point to a 9:1 makeup of the industry as a whole, then we can really say "look, we do hire women; we hire any qualified woman who's interested in the field". Then, maybe, more women will be interested in investing the time it takes to become a hire-able candidate for a tech job. Then, and only then, will we see more women in tech.
So, can we please stop playing stupid gender-based games with hiring, go back to making gender a non-issue (or at least, not the huge issue that it has become, I don't think it was ever really a non-issue), and do something that might actually attract women to the field? Women aren't trophies*, they don't want to be held up** and put on display*** so as to say "look at how much better of a company we are because we hire more women than e
It is hardly a "fact" that women are inferior to men in programming or whatever he was on about.
It's hardly a fact that he was on about that, either. It is, however, a fact that fewer women are interested in programming, regardless of how good they are at it.
Even if we assume women are just as good at programming as men, and I haven't seen anyone sincerely argue otherwise, there's nothing wrong with the industry being 90% male if the body of interested and qualified candidates is also 90% male. Just like nursing, a 90% female profession; it's not that way because women make better nurses, it's that way because 90% of the body of interested and qualified candidates is female.
And that's damn well how it should be! I wouldn't want 56% of qualified female nurses turned away to make room for potentially less qualified males just because society thinks they should be hired at a 1:1 ratio! If, after throwing out unqualified applicants, the remaining pool of candidates is 90% female, I expect 90% of people hired to be female. Likewise in the other direction, as well.
That's how you hire the most qualified candidates.
how would you have felt about contining to work alongside Mr. Damore, knowing now that he likely felt you had got your job through what he viewed as prejudiced and unfair hiring practices?
Honestly? It would depend on whether or not he was right. Google's workforce is 19% female; are 19% of qualified applicants for jobs at Google female? If that number is lower, the hiring process is biased against males and he is right; if it is higher, it is biased against females and he is wrong. If the numbers match up, there is no bias and he is also wrong.
So, if he is right, I would certainly not take offense. But, then, I'd know I got the job based on merits, because I'm damn good at what I do. Good enough to not work for an echo chamber like Google, who asks you to discuss these topics openly, then fires you when you do.
Now it's on Google to prove a lack of bias in their hiring practices. They can do this by showing us the ratio of male to female applicants adequately qualified for the positions they're applying for. If that ratio isn't damn close to 81:19, they've got come explaining to do, regardless of which way it swings.
He seemed pretty clued in to me and offended, at most, 19% of the company.
Before you go off and say that should be 50%, show me how many qualified male and female applicants Google has had. Having experience hiring for tech positions, I can posit that, even if you include unqualified female candidates (and still discard unqualified male candidates), the number of female applicants will have been less than 19% of the total. That means they're turning away qualified male applicants at a rate far higher than they're turning away female applicants regardless of qualification.
If that doesn't represent a problem to you, we should all hope you're never in a position of power within any organization.
The ideal gender makeup of a given company is equal to the ratio of qualified male applicants to qualified female applicants. In a company that has, say, 10 employees and a ratio of 9:1 male to female qualified applicants, the ideal is 9 male employees and 1 female. That is, 90% of qualified applicants were male, 90% of hired applicants should, ideally, be male. Now, if the ratio of applicants were flipped, 1:9, the ideal would be to hire 9 women and 1 man to fill the 10 positions.
If you're in either scenario and you find yourself striving to hire men and women at a 1:1 ratio, you're part of the problem. In my company, that ratio is 1:0 because there have been 0 female applicants; in order to achieve a 1:1 ratio of men to women I'd have to only consider applications from women for at least my next two hires. That would be just as illegal as it is immoral and unethical, so I won't do that.
But, back to your point, no, he did not offend half the company. A very small percentage of the company's 81% male population and at most half of their 19% female population will have been offended by this. I'd be amazed to learn that the total exceeds 15%, a far cry from half.
working 8 hours per day, 330 days per year
Where are you going to find 650 people willing to have only one day off every 1.5 weeks? Even for $37.88/hr, that's a bit of an ask, doncha think?
And US diplomats go around the world trying to work issues out to prevent war. Now, I don't agree with invading everyone who doesn't see things our way, but you're complaining that attacks on the people we put out there to help up see eye-to-eye with other nations so we're not inclined to invade them is news?
Huh. What's the point of your comment, again?
Are you implying that, because we're so quick to go to war, we should just start right on with the invasion and bombings and not make any attempt at diplomacy?
Would that be better for you?
Because, when our diplomats start being harmed on foreign soil, that quickly becomes the only option. That's why this is news; and quite important news, at that. My only hope is that we take a moment to step back and figure out who actually did this before we start dropping bombs (again, because I know we will, not because I think we should), because there's no way in hell Cuba has that technology.
His argument was less "there aren't an equal number of qualifies male and female engineers" and more "there aren't an equal number of males and females interested in becoming qualified engineers" and he's absolutely right in that regard.
The workplace should reflect the pool of interested qualified candidates. If the M:F ratio of qualified candidates is 1:1, but the M:F ratio of interested qualified candidates is 9:1, there is nothing at all wrong with a 90% male workforce in that position; after all, only 10% of qualified females were even interested in the job to begin with.
Using the same numbers as above, let's assume 10 positions are available, and 100 well qualified applications are received, 90 from men and 10 from women, representing the 9:1 ratio I pulled out of my ass above. That I pulled the ratio out of my ass is irrelevant to my point, as the actual ratio will differ from one job to the next.
Do we fill 5 positions with male applicants and 5 with female applicants? No. Why? Because that means turning away over 94% of qualified male applicants, but only 50% of qualified female applicants. Instead, the correct response is to gather up all of those applications and hire whoever is the best cultural fit for your company. Of course, you can't prove that you did that, so the next best option is to sort those applications by gender, count them, and hire based on that ratio -- 90:10 -> 9:1 -> 9 men, 1 woman. Then, you're turning men and women away at an equal rate; you've hired 10% of the qualified men who applies and 10% of the qualified women who applied.
That's fair. If you think it's not, flip it around and assume 90 women apply and only 10 men apply. For those to positions, 9 women and only 1 man should be hired.
Yes, it's fair. If you still wish to argue, consider a 50% chance of having a male nurse and an 80% chance that, if you do, he'll be an underqualified position-filler in the name of "equality", because there weren't enough qualified men interested in the job but society said the hospital had to hire more ale nurses! That's not "equal" at all!!
For the sake of your own health, please, let the workplace mirror the pool of interested qualified candidates!
I didn't mean to imply that you were arguing that; I was merely providing a counterexample to show you how ludicrous your appeal to authority is. And that's exactly what assigning relevance to whether or not an idea is "mainstream" is: an appeal to authority.
Indeed. My point was that whether or not the views are mainstream is irrelevant and they should, regardless, be assessed for correctness.
And at Uber it well may be. Personally, my company has no female employees (unless you count my wife, who's an owner and not an employee) because we've had no female applicants. It was the same for my last employer, as well, until we had a qualified female applicant and hired her.
Let's say this is because women are poor negotiators.
Why? Why denigrate women with the assumptions you make in order to tear down an argument you simply don't like? Do you not see how that assumption is more damaging to women than the argument you're trying to tear down?
Why not just acknowledge that men and women are biologically, mentally, and emotionally wired differently? Why not hold that up as a positive? So what if women are, on the whole, worse engineers than men (if we choose to follow that belief) if men are, on the whole, worse caregivers than women? We need both, and some men turn out to be excellent caregivers while some women turn out to be excellent engineers, simply out of sheer force of will to form those talents. That's how the cream rises and society betters itself, rather than stirring the pot and pushing the cream back down in favor of common milk.
Put another way, how would you feel if your child, injured in the collapse of a building designed by a less qualified female engineer (hired because we need more women in STEM), died while under the care of a less qualified male nurse (hired because we need more male nurses)?
Let's not fuck with it. Really. Then, the female engineer who designs the building will be doing so because she's truly qualified, and when your kid trips and fall in front of the building (because it didn't collapse, because the female engineer who designed it was actually qualified), the male nurse who looks after him during his recovery will also be qualified.
Or, put another way, that's not to say that women can't be qualified engineers or that men can't be qualified nurses; just that it's best that we don't force the issue lest we push unqualified people into those (and other) positions in the name of "equality".
All else being equal, I want qualified people designing buildings, bridges, roads, software, and the products I buy, and I want qualified people providing the care and services I require. What I don't want is people doing jobs they've only qualified for because there were no better-qualified applicants in their age/gender/race/religion/orientation demographic and the company had to hire someone who fit that description.
The common argument, of course, is that by not legislating "equality" we open the door to abuse. Sadly, this is true, but it's a problem that is not without a solution. If you're being discriminated against by one employer, go work for another; take your talents and walk out the door, that dickish company doesn't deserve you in the first place. If you're truly qualified for the job, someone who is interested in running a successful business will take notice and hire you.
As an example, my most recent round of hiring was met with a flood of resumes into my inbox. Zero were from women, so I did not hire a woman; that was the only reason. Out of dozens of resumes, only three managed to follow a simple set of clearly stated requirements (and, as I was hiring a developer, requirements are important) to submit their resume in a manner in which I would actually consider it. Those requirements included which file format to use, a string to put in the subject of the email, and a simple question to answer. Out of dozens of applicants, three managed to do this.
Of those three, one submitted a resume full of bullshit and didn't get a call back. One other couldn't be bothered to shower before his interview and my office still smelled of him the next day, so he did not get a call back. Luckily, I did have one applicant who proved to be both qualified for the work and the workplace. Yes, this applicant was a White male; no, that did not factor into his qualifications. In all honesty, on paper it was a toss up between the Pakistani fellow who didn't shower and the White guy who did, so it came down to workplace comfort. In order to not subject my employees to the discomfort of workin
a prejudice masquerading as a political view
Isn't that what political views are, though?
Step back and think before you answer. Then don't answer, it was hypothetical.
What I'm saying about the experts they selected is that they don't represent the mainstream view, and it's misleading to omit that information.
There was a time when the mainstream view was that the earth was flat and the sun orbited around it. Being mainstream did not make those claims "right" and it would be just as misleading to point out that those beliefs were once mainstream in an attempt to support them as "right" as it is to point out that the experts selected here don't represent the mainstream view as a way to claim they're somehow "wrong".
A handful of experts challenged the mainstream view on the shape of the earth and which celestial bodies orbit which, were called out as "wrong" as you're doing here, and were later proven "right".
That's not to say these experts are right, either; but one should be just as wary of a majority as they are of a minority.
Imagine a headline reading "experts agree climate change is not happening".
I'm not sure how valid that is; nobody who actually earned their credentials will claim it's not happening, though there is plenty of debate over why it is happening, whether we can do anything about it and, if we can, whether or not we should. Nobody seriously doubts that climate change is happening.
Just like nobody seriously doubts that there are fewer women than men in tech, but here we are debating why, whether or not we can do anything about it and, if we can, whether or not we should.
You were on the verge of a strong argument there, but you fell short; possibly because your position wasn't as solid as you believed, or possibly because you momentarily lost sight of the target. I'm leaning toward the latter, since most everything else you've said in this discussion has been on point.
I don't think they realize it's missing.
First of all, you have no clue how old thechemic's kids are. Second, what gives you that impression? Third, I got along with adults better than I got along with other kids when I was growing up and, well, when I look around at the life I've built for myself and the company I built that puts food on multiple peoples' tables and helps other companies continue to do the same, I don't think that was entirely a bad thing. I'm generally a happy person and have no problem associating with people regardless of age; though I am selective, but then I believe that's one of the keys to my happiness.
TL;DR: Even if you're right, so fucking what?
If his definition of "social interaction that would be suitable for their age" lead to his kids being able to actually interact socially, I'd say you're wrong.
I'm sure it happens in some places. Guess I've just never lived anywhere that sucks that bad. I average two deliveries a day (hey, I'm running a business from my home) and I'm only home for less than half of them because they tend to come after 5; can't say I've ever had one walk away.
You mean UPS doesn't leave stuff at your door? Huh, well that sucks, they've done that for me everywhere I've ever lived, and I've lived all around the country and in urban, suburban, and rural areas.
Often times, especially with stores that are more than a handful of minutes from me, it's two or more days from the time I decide I need something until I can find time to get there to buy it. Once I get the item home, it's another two or more days before I'll find time to get back there if I need to return or exchange an item.
Suddenly, when viewed from that perspective, waiting two days for shipping isn't a big deal. When viewed from the perspective of not having to deal with traffic, burn gas (or use electricity), wait in line, load/unload the item into and out of my car, hell I'm on the 3rd floor with no elevator and a bad back, I'd much rather have UPS bring it up the stairs and, if necessary, carry it down... Well, since I won't be able to get to Best Buy until Saturday and have to carry that 28lb printer in its huge box up the stais myself if I buy from them, I'll order it from Amazon, have it Friday, and let the UPS guy bring it up the stairs.
And if it arrives damaged, he can bring the replacement up for me and carry the return right down the stairs.
I've even paid a couple bucks more on Amazon to cover the savings in time, effort, and gas. Not to mention pain and suffering (re: bad back).
You can spent that hour of your time ensuring that no harm comes to your new purchase between the store and your home, but that's no guarantee that the contents of the undamaged package are functional. You'll still have returns for defective products.
And that attitude is why hospitals are easy targets for ransomware. Enjoy your infection while I treat my own.
Or you just turn it all off via script as part of the install process; then you're at the same point you'd be at with a fresh Linux install. From there, regardless of platform, you still have to figure out what needs turned on.
Look again, they're given a lot of explicit restrictions and a handful of explicit permissions. In Google's case those are limited to: /psettings/guest-controls* /psettings/guest-email-unsubscribe* /psettings/sms-unsubscribe* /psettings/guest-controls/retargeting-opt-out* /settings/loid-email-unsubscribe-router* /settings/loid-email-unsubscribe* /help/
/profile/ is listed as a Disallow rule.
/profinder* /profinder/*
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
For reference, the first 6 are pages where one can unsubscribe from various forms of marketing and the last is LinkedIn's support section. Anything else Google indexes (and they have indexed a LOT of LinkedIn's content) is without explicit permission, possible even contrary to the 45 explicit restrictions they've been given. For example, I found this in Google's index, and
Most of the search engines listed in that robots.txt have the same set of rules as Google. The only obvious exception is deepcrawl, which also has the following Allow rules:
# Profinder only for deepcrawl
Allow:
Allow:
But Google is doing something of which LinkedIn approves and has given Google permission to do.
Have they, though? Or have they simply not asked them to stop?
I understand that people who have never created anything of value or who believe strongly in socialism have no concept of ownership of property
Lovely assumption, but incorrect. I, in fact, have created quite a bit of value in this world. Just as a small sample, my clients value me enough to keep me employed long-term and my employees value the income and stability I provide them. So, then, you must think I'm a socialist? Why is that? Wait, no, you can't possibly think I have no concept of ownership of property when I've stated that LinkedIn has ownership of the data they've collected. Speaking of trying to follow along... So, then, I'm left wondering why you wrote this, as it certainly does not apply here.
You haven't rebutted what I have said.
You haven't read what I have written.
If you posted such wisdom elsewhere, why not post it here?
Because I did post it here, in this very thread. It's not my fault you've chosen not to read the thread in its entirety before replying to me, nor is it my responsibility to repeat everything I've ever posted here to every dumbass who can't scroll a page to find it himself.
Sorry, I reserve that level of service for my paying clients, not random armchair quarterbacks who claim to be lawyers yet can't do a simple review of what's already on the page they're looking at before replying.
Personally, I hope LinkedIn goes the copyright route on this, just so I can rub your nose in it when they win. They're not going to get anywhere with CFAA.