74
irene
4y

HR made a day long inclusiveness meeting. About why there are so few women in the department. Basically the conclusion the HR rep was looking for was “toxic masculinity” and it was super uncomfortable.

The engineering teams couldn’t actually participate much because most of them worked on teams without any women and have absolutely nothing to do with hiring. The male engineers were trying to play along and give the right answers. We had to do flip charts and beak into teams and etc.

The HR kept singling out the same three women in engineering and telling the men to “shut up and listen to them”. The female engineers were like, “i don’t know. I don’t have much to say about it.” The HR rep continued to drill those three women to the point that it was uncomfortable.

The engineering hiring manager lost it before noon. He went to his desk and grabbed a stack of resumes. “You gave me a stack of 60 resumes. Looking at names only four applicants are female. Those applicants don’t have education or experience for engineering. If you want more female engineers in the office you have to put qualified applicants into the stack. Forcing these three engineers to talk in front of our department over and over and saying the men have to shut up is not making the workplace less toxic.” Then he told the three engineers, “This meeting is now optional for you three and you are welcome to do anything you want with your time.”

After lunch, all the female engineers went back to their desk and worked. The HR continued to shame the men in an angrier tone for the rest of the day telling everyone “how men can be” from personal experience because they were the ones now representing all women.

Eight bloody hours of that.

Comments
  • 19
    It is shit like this that continues to refine my conservative views. I am all for inclusion, but drawing inaccurate conclusions as to why things are the way they are is revolting. I see this shit playing out over and over in the media. It also creates division, which is the opposite of the goal. If you wonder why people refuse to meet you half way on your views, it is because of shit like this.
  • 20
    @Demolishun I think that any systemic bias policy is a terrible idea; regardless of how well meaning it was.

    I was listening to the 99% Invisible podcast. It was briefly mentioned that making a stairwell in a building nicer goes a long way to encouraging people to take the stairs. Making the elevator run slower is also something that is done but it seems hostile for people that use it for accessibility.

    Empowering people to make good decisions is very important. Making policy that diminishes empowerment based on ideologies seems like a really bad idea. We used to call that authoritarian oppression.
  • 10
    @irene what makes that meeting mandatory? What would happen if you went to your desk too?
  • 20
    ....and people think I'm over reacting when I say HRs primary job purpose is to justify their jobs.
  • 9
    @halfflat That "bias" is called "freedom of career choice", and also women have it, you know.
  • 3
    @aviophile At that particular company each employee had to get a certain number of training credits. If you get to a performance review and you are missing credits you make yourself ineligible for wage adjustment.
  • 8
    @irene I guess I'd have pestered that HR asshole with "that's sexist" for every single mention of SJW BS like "toxic masculinity".
  • 12
    @halfflat I think the reason why a lot of the female candidates I see are strong is because those candidates actually want to be in the industry. A candidate is already anomalous and clearly outside of the standard distribution.

    Same happens in female dominated industries. Male nurses are usually better on average because it took dedication.

    It is basically like waving a flag that says “I am an outlier in your data.”
  • 5
    @Fast-Nop I see this bias at local computer programming meetups. 95% of the people who show are men. Of the women who show, only a few actually programmed computers. Some were not even interested in programming computers. I was never sure why they were there? Pick up nerds? I always engaged with them and went out of my way to listen to them and make them feel welcome. Most of the time we never see them again. This year has been weird because of pandemic. Only had meetup for a little while since the fall. So I expect less people then.
  • 12
    @Demolishun It's because the underlying assumption that men and women are the same is already wrong. Simple as that.

    Equality doesn't mean that there should be 50% women everywhere, which btw. nobody is even arguing for in jobs like waste disposal.

    It's that the women who want to be e.g. in tech can do so (which has long been reached outside third world countries), even if it's just 10%. So what, that's freedom.
  • 3
    @Fast-Nop I don't think that we have reached a natural split in my country. Back in the 1980's in Canada we had a big push for "women should do the job they want". It actually resulted in a decline of women enrolling in computer science education overall.

    our cultural expectation shifted on women shifted and many women which would have gone into stem jobs thought they should do things like "open a flower shop". So while it was good overall to get women out of crappy manufacturing jobs it actually shifted the balance. I look at the contraction of women in CS and can see by the numbers that some women are not considering CS as a career. It left their evoked set of options. I think the battleground is that we need to make the industry less gender stigmatized but it kind of isn't up to the people in the industry to handle that.
  • 2
    @halfflat I don't need the OECD to see how it's going in IT and also in OSS projects. Really not. Just as I don't need the OECD to see how it's going in kindergardens and nursing.
  • 4
    Btw., it's pretty interesting to talk with F->M transgenders who have done the full way including hormone treatment and everything. They have the experience to actually compare what it's like, and the difference is clear. No wonder it is noticeable statistically.

    However, it isn't like suddenly being alien or something, it's more like shifting a bell curve - which means that of course there's overlap to be expected.
  • 4
    @halfflat I've raised four girls. I can tell you from experience hard sciences dont interest girl for the most part. As hard as I tried. The extent of the love for science was "I love anything to do with robots", and one who has a summer obsession with programming but ultimately went back to programming.

    And keep on mind, my one true competence, is teaching.

    I hear, in the future, we may define our requirements and AI will translate that to code or some other output (like what is done with GPT - *how* ypu write the prompts signficantly imoact output). I suspect a lot more women will become at least software engineers at that point.
    Women are much better at managing ambigous requirements, and juggling priorities and tasks and I think that might turn into a huge boon once we're at the stage that hard science is about *directing* machines/requirements instead of working directly.
  • 3
    @Wisecrack Maybe if AI actually becomes efficient enough to use for general tasks. With Moore’s law coming to an end we have diminishing returns on compute. Which is why we don’t have AI building an email client.
  • 1
    @irene moores law as a *reliable* heuristic is coming to an end, but that isnt the same thing as it coming to an end entirely.

    We still have
    1. specialty hardware development for accelerating solutions to specific problems

    2. quantum, which, despite the "its right around the corner " (for the last thirty years) is finally making progress.

    3. develoments in the math and algorithms themselves

    4. model theoretic developments in understanding cognition.

    5. unknown unknowns

    ai winter may be coming, but if it is (and I dont think it is), it's gonna be a very warm winter conpared to the last.

    If you don't believe me, go spend some time with say, GPT. It writes writes *convincing* text. It is at the point that im fairly certain the military variations (which certainly exist) are likely *already* impersonating people and writing propaganda online.
  • 1
    @halfflat "another country, with a different history", how so?

    I don't think I understand what you're trying to say.
  • 2
    @Wisecrack Don't you know? The USA is evil and was founded on slavery and suppression of women. It is a total lie, but some people believe this shit. If you want to learn what some people believe look to the 1619 project. Revisionist history that is used as justification for destroying the USA.
  • 2
    @Demolishun 1619 gets some things right. A lot of countries have historically committed all sorts of atrocities.

    Theres a lot here we probably don't agree on, but I'll still wish you Happy Holidays and feel free to try and change my mind at

    wisecrackdoesathing@protonmail.com
  • 2
    @halfflat If you'd be willing to write 1-2 sourced pages on this, I would legit love to read it.

    A lot of people say "change my mind" as tongue in cheek. I fully mean it, and if the data is as you say, I want to see it, because now you have me on the hook and I gotta know.

    Lot to ask with how busy everyone tends to be, but seriously. Email me at

    wisecrackdoesathing@protonmail.com
  • 1
    @halfflat I’m pretty sure that there is only historical and cultural arguments for the midwife profession being dominated by women.
  • 2
    @irene yeah opposed to what we could expect, when given equality of chances as much as possible, men and women are inclined towards their traditional gender occupations. At least in a good majority of cases. This is what I have seen in a few articles and studies, but I don't want to misinterpret it. Is that a natural inclination or caused by society, I have no idea.

    Otherwise, forcing a biased definition of equality is not really natural, fair and efficient either. We should just accept most women and most men will be attracted to some specific fields.
  • 1
    @PepeTheFrog Culture dictates a lot but not everything. One could spend a lot of time fighting without knowing if the fight is with culture or human tendencies manifested in culture.

    I was beside a pyramid in Central America at a pit used for child sacrifice. I was perplexed at how anyone could sacrifice their children. But then it eventually made sense that humans could think that “the bigger the price, the bigger the potential payout.” Child sacrifice is how that culture expressed the idea. Every culture has manifestations of consistent human patterns. You can upset the manifestation of a human pattern but not the pattern itself.
  • 0
    @halfflat good on you for following through.

    Theres something being overlooked here though:

    The koreans are genetically not icelanders, and icelanders are genetically not koreans. That'd be an interesting study.
  • 3
    On top of that, the comparison ignores a couple of other factors. For example, female percentage in male domains is higher when the economy is bad and women can't choose as they would like.

    That's why Turkey as well as e.g. the Iran have more female devs - out of necessity. Sweden has fewer because the can choose. Make our economy bad plus no welfare system, and you'll see different female choices.

    That's nothing new - the post-WW2 USSR even had a lot of female construction workers. Yes, women can do that, too, but avoid that if possible. The issue the USSR had was many dead men and most infrastructure destroyed because WW2 hit the USSR hardest.

    As for Korea - yeah no wonder if you know what a Korean work day looks like. It's not like you get to the top without a whole lot of endless hour days, and most who try don't get to the top anyway.
  • 3
    @halfflat If you drop the assumption of f<->m identity, you get to preferred vs. necessary choices. It's quite interesting that an overtly pro-feminist society like Sweden has a larger gap than Turkey, not a smaller one.

    However, the other extreme, i.e. close to 0% women in tech, would indeed suggest barriers being there because you'll always have some who want to go into tech (as evidenced on this very platform), and removing such barriers augments overall freedom. But we had that free state of affairs already 20 years ago, at least in Western countries.
  • 3
    @halfflat Then how do you explain Turkey vs. Sweden? I mean, the role of a woman in Sweden is clearly way more free than in Turkey or the Iran.

    Besides, the behavioural debate how much is environmental influence and how much biologically determined isn't new, but arguing that everything is environmental influence has never had alignment with reality. I think it's a mix of both.
  • 2
    @halfflat Nice try to evade the question. Again, how do you explain Sweden vs. Turkey or the Iran? As per your position, it should be the other way around, which it isn't.
  • 4
    @halfflat That's economic necessities, not cultural factors. And if you use that to demonstrate that women are more free in Turkey than in Sweden, check your logic. I know in which country I'd prefer to live as woman.
  • 2
    @halfflat Ah. So suddenly it's not gender blabla, it's the economy that limits the choices. Actionable conclusion? Let's introduce poverty to narrow down choices in the name of equality.

    Or maybe like in South-Korea, let's introduce super hard performance drill on children regardless of gender. And high suicide rates as result.
  • 2
    @halfflat "well respected organizations" yes but thats just argument from authority.

    I *would* like to see your thoughts on the differencr between turkey and sweden because it is an interesting case study.

    FastNops correct to bring it up because exceptions often prove the rule in one way or another.
  • 2
    @halfflat The point isn't the data. It's that they don't mean what you think they do. You failed repeatedly to explain how an overtly pro-feminist society like Sweden would put MORE barriers to women in tech than say the Iran.
  • 1
    This is a “ceteris paribus” problem and relates to economics. The problem with a study is that study design requires selectively omitting factors to try to create general rules about a behaviour.

    One of you is pointing to the study and trusting the numbers.

    One of you is pointing to an outlier that doesn’t fit the data. Which addresses a problem with the study design.

    Neither of you can know if you are correct because a study tries to remove outliers (ceteris paribus) to show general ideas. General trends only work when applied generally. The data points are people and are entirely specific so have limited specific applications.

    As petrol prices go down at the pump everyone buys more petrol. (True) Unless they don’t own a car. (True) Maybe they buy a tiny bit if they own a chainsaw. (True)

    We seem to all agree gender is not the only factor or even the most significant one. Which leaves us without insight into which factors are most significant.
    @halfflat @Fast-Nop
  • 3
    @halfflat So you chose to ignore my argument three times. Good. Then believe that Sweden is less free for women than fucking Turkey.

    And Sweden isn't even an outlier. So is Norway. So is basically every country where women have freedom of choice both on cultural grounds and economic ones. Because they don't care as much for tech.

    You know what? Try putting women in forced reeducation camps until they confess they're devs. After all, that's the usual next step when leftist nonsense ideas fail in reality.

    Liberate people, but don't ever let them decide.
  • 3
    @halfflat Because I do. It's you who's refusing to even acknowledge that your argumentation has some serious problems. That's because you don't have arguments and try to handwave.
  • 1
    @halfflat It would never cross your mind that women are quite capable of deciding on their own what to do with their lives - and just don't decide like you think they should. Well, that's called "freedom".
  • 3
    @halfflat Surreal? Let me tell you what's surreal: assuming that women are less free in Sweden than in Turkey.
  • 1
    @halfflat Because you got out numbers to prove your point. Unfortunately, it showed the opposite. Therefore, your argument line is refuted through your own data. That's what happens when you post data without understanding what they mean.
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop That data seems to show what I have observed at meetups. Meetups are a completely voluntary action. The interesting metric was playing games. It showed that 1/3 of the women never plays games. That to me is a general lack of interest in computers. It does not surprise me that this lack of interest would carry over to programming.
  • 3
    @Demolishun Well, I don't either, which is why my desktop doesn't even have a graphics card. ^^ Ok, chess, backgammon, skat, that's there.

    I did play a lot of games back then on my Atari ST in the 90s. Later it was Doom, Duke Nukem, and also Fear, but I lost interest in gaming.
  • 4
    @Fast-Nop I lost interest in FPS. Gained interest in building games. I solve similar problems in building games as I do at work. Especially modded minecraft. Except in minecraft I don't need a clearance to build nukes.
  • 2
    From intense gender equality debate to minecraft at breakneck speeds. Only the nerds can achieve a 90 degree angle at such speeds. :D
  • 1
    @halfflat "well respected organizations" is by definition an argument from authority. We're better than that.

    Unfortunately the truth is always a fairly high bar.

    I actually do recommend going out and doing your own surveys and there really should be more data campaigns run by volunteers simply because it's not a function that should be in the hands of any one institution or group. Call it "data democracy" if you will.
  • 1
    @halfflat "And you are obliged to do so, if you want to make it, because of the deleterious consequences of this class of argument"

    The resort to labelling angels of argumentation as verboten is an admission of failure to make your case.

    I was really hoping to see you address the turkey/sweden situation.
  • 1
    "If differences in employment by gender were due to intrinsic factors alone, we would not see large differences between countries."

    Thats assuming people from widely different demographics are instrinsically the same. I think your argument assumes the conclusion.

    It's begging the question.

    Were it not, there would be no need to make the assertion that intrinsic factors alone are insufficient. Rather you could show

    it without counter-example. The fact that we see large differences between some countries, when economic factors are accounted for, and counter examples are present, in fact argues the opposite. There *are* intrinsic factors. Sweden is not Turkey, because Turks are not Swedes.
  • 1
    On the otherhand lets examine the opposite possible case here. If differences in employment by gender are *not* due to intrinsic factors alone, we *would* see large differences between countries.

    And because only a single piece of counter-availing evidence is necessary to refute a hypothesis, we can then say your premise

    is debunked, ipso facto because Sweden is not Turkey. QED.
  • 2
    @Wisecrack The issue isn't that Turkey and Sweden have different gender splits. That would be perfectly in line with @halfflat's take if it were the other way around - more women in tech in Sweden, fewer in Turkey.
  • 2
    @Wisecrack I'm not entirely sure about Sweden, but Norway is pretty similar in many ways, including women's equality, and the situation with the gender split also.

    One interesting point about Norway is that the relative pay difference between professions is lower than average. Low wage jobs are paid better while high paid jobs are paid worse. This also makes Norway unattractive for highly skilled people with regard to income (the reasons are usually the nature and the laid-back work ethics).

    What's also insanely high in Norway is the public sector, and hence the taxes. It's not entirely in joke that Norway is called half-socialist.

    Both combined means that you have a lot of economically viable options to make a living. The consequence is that women prefer domains like medical or health while men dominate the tech sector.
  • 1
    @halfflat why would you claim hes supporting poverty, inequality, and slavery?

    You've come at this out of the blue, with a lot of comments that border on political labels, innuendo, and naked insinuations of the other half of the debate and their motives or 'agenda'.

    You strike me as a hostile individual who entered into this debate with a predetermined conclusion and bad faith, working on the belief that if you ignore exceptions raised the foregone conclusion is others, on penalty of being labelled, must agree with you, or you become hostile.

    Irene is correct, the problem here is argument between generality versus exceptions.
  • 1
    @halfflat

    "There could well be another much less obvious intrinsic correlation"

    Thats debating evidence that doesn't exist, which is just moving the goalposts here.
  • 1
    "No, it doesn't. I am confused by your statement. We have a property of a person, call it gender, which does not predict observed values very well when we look at people in different countries."

    We're not debating that gender is the variable of contention.

    What we're debating is your conclusion about some notion of fundamental unfairness as a possible variable, when there are other

    variables that are actually established right here in this discussion.

    But for some reason, you don't want to explore those other variables.
  • 1
    @halfflat

    Nah, that cards been played before. It's been played. No ones buying that nonsense. I don't believe for a second that we have to tiptoe around open and free debate because of some magical panic inducing woo about "muh evil danger words"

    Own it. It was a bad faith insinuation on your part and you know it. Listen if you want to use what amounts to a *slur* to try and dominate or shut down debate because you can't handle people disagreeing with you thats on you.

    But frankly what your saying is nonsense.
  • 1
    @halfflat And there it is.

    The "everyone who disagrees with me is racist!"

    totalitarianism of you lunatics.

    People like you were responsible for the death of my grandfather in the holocaust. People who couldn't accept the evidence in front of them, who insisted their way, and their belief was the only way. People who labelled others "enemy" and "other".

    Well guess what, we're not gonna wear your yellow star this time buddy. Take your nonsense elsewhere.

    By the way, I'm not calling you a nazi. I'm just saying people who use your argumentation tactics and political discourse historically supported or were, nazis.
  • 1
    @halfflat You sure sound like the victorians, who also liked to talk down to minorities who disagreed with them.

    You're looking for racists.

    Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror?
  • 1
    @halfflat

    "Christ almighty. I wasn't hunting racists, but you know, you're sure starting to sound like one."

    Just like a fascist to say while talking down to us minorities.

    It's hard to be racist when you have a history of slavery in your family, religious persecution, half your family is biracial, coming from black, latino, and sephardic backgrounds. Here I am doxxing myself.

    But you on the otherhand 100% talk down to us minorities and women as if we're are all waifs lost in the woods in need of saving thanks to your colonialist white savior complex.

    You're a vile person and a bigot disguising your repellent bigotry in virtue signalling. You're what they call a bad faith ally.

    Who needs enemies, with friends like these.

    "Racism is the ultimate sloppy essentialist argument"

    Then why keep bringing it up?

    Your world revolves around skin color, and gender, doesn't it? I'm right, aren't I. Of course I am. What a small lonely world that is.
  • 1
    @halfflat "essentialist theories explaining gender differences in employment are not consistent with the data"

    Sweden vs. Turkey again. I'll hammer that into your thick skull as often as you ask for it. YOUR theories are not consistent with the data.
  • 1
    @halfflat No such dice. You'll read this point again and again. Each time you bring up your ideology bullshit, you will be confronted with facts.

    Unless of course you come up with something that doesn't amount to the ridiculous claim that women in Sweden are more oppressed than women in Turkey.
  • 2
    @halfflat They do exist. I have offered explanations why, and moreover, why in the observed direction.

    The latter point is the one where you've failed to offer anything because the direction is what directly contradicts your basic assumptions.
  • 1
    @halfflat Nah, you're not trying to engage in anything but more nonsense.

    You came in here, thinking you know whats what, gonna tell people, in no uncertain terms, that you're right, believing you're entitled to other peoples agreements, and then sling around slurs without even knowing who you're talking down to, making insinuations, and handwaving them away as if you didn't just imply a whole bunch of vile shit about the people who disagreed with you.

    No, no, no. You're not getting off that easy. Now that you want to walk it all back and play nice.

    Now you've gone and done it.

    I'm about fed up with you and bullshit totalitarian pandering.

    Heres the whole rant.

    https://hastebin.com/dugojimafa.cof...
  • 1
    @halfflat Of course you are. I've never said that the intrinsic m/f differences are the ONLY factor at play. I did make the point of economic pressure more than once.

    However, what Sweden proves is that if you also lift economic pressure as influence, then you get a high gender split even in a pro-feminist society.

    That's because free choice needs two degrees of freedom: freedom from role expectations, and freedom from economic pressure.

    If the latter is missing, people cannot decide like they would like to because they'd fail to make a living. That would limit freedom of choice to the rich, which are never the majority in any society and hence cannot dominate population wide stats.
  • 2
    @halfflat Of course there are intrinsic differences, that's the reason why you see that gender split in a society like Sweden where the freedom exists on both terms, socially AND economically.

    You ALSO see that of course in an "old-school" society where already the role expectations force that, but then you won't observe like 20% women in IT, so these constellations are pretty easy to discern.

    Because the intrinsic differences aren't clear-cut black and white logic, they're rather different maximum points on overlapping bell curves. Statistical arguments don't extend to each and every invidivual case.
  • 1
    @halfflat "Wow. I would like to point out that you equated me with those responsible for the Holocaust."

    I didn't equate you to them at all! I was merely making an observation that historically how you argue is how they argued, that it supports that kind of rhetoric.

    The hypocrisy grinds your gears?

    Then imagine how your bigotry grinds my gears and alienates others.

    You should go back to your synagogue, it's obvious you never read about tikkum olam.
  • 1
    @halfflat "people like you."

    There were a lot of collaborators. Which isn't the same as saying YOU are the same as them, just historically, your style of argument is.

    I figured you'd understand the difference, seeing as it's your very own argument turned around on you.
  • 1
    @halfflat What you consistently fail to acknowledge is that Sweden has MORE of a split than Turkey although Sweden is way MORE feminist and MORE free.

    You try to evade that because you can't explain that with your assumptions. I can, therefore my explanation matches up better with real world data.
  • 1
    @halfflat

    "and what bigotry, exactly? I honestly don't see where that came from. How is it racist to point out a class of shitty arguments are used to justify racism?"

    Because, the manner in which you do it. You practically spit in the face of others.

    Listen you have some unconscious bias you need to work through. That or you are where I was four years ago. The solution was reading about tikkum olam and connecting with my religion and synagogue again. I used to argue in a hostile close minded way just like you! Always assuming the worst about other people, especially if we disagreed.

    Get out, get involved in your community, and realize hostility is not the way to convince people. The truth is you can't win them all or convince everyone, you just can't.

    If you're not part of a synagogue, or you're another religion, still, get involved, and regardless of your belief, go read about tikkum olam.

    This angry labeling of everyone who disagrees only hurts your soul.
  • 2
    @halfflat I have offered an explanation why the difference is in that direction. You havn't, and instead are just handwaving at some nebulous things which of course you never detail.

    That's not how arguments work. What does work that way is presenting ideology and auto-immunising it to any form of criticism.

    Taking your approach, I could easily defend ANY theory regardless of what it says and regardless of what the obervations are.

    Using your methodology, I could as well establish that the moon is a hoax invented as cover-up for a secret US Navy weapon that is the actual cause of the tides, and that the moon landing was a second layer of cover-up just to make sure nobody will ask questions about the first layer of cover-up (the moon itself).
  • 2
    @halfflat And that structural bullshit ties in directly to what @Wisecrack mentioned. Because the stuff with the alleged world-wide Jewish conspiracy back then just begged the question how, even from within that ideology, the Jews living in already impoverished ghettos in Eastern Europe could be one of the main targets - it's not like their situation looked anything like a shot at world dominance, after all.

    That was papered over with even more stuff that had no root in observable reality just to make the bullshit look ever more complex with the goal of "winning" the argument through confusion.
  • 2
    @halfflat Here's the thing - you are just handwaving buzzwords. The issue isn't that you might have many arguments. The issue that you havn't presented any.
  • 2
    @Fast-Nop if only I had more than one upvote to give.
  • 1
    @halfflat An interesting point is that I could use your words to justify the opposite of your position (loosely quoted for brevity):

    There has never been any suppression of women because hey, things are more complex than that, and you can't just choose a model, oh and don't forget Bayes.

    That's the litmus test that this handwaving doesn't actually mean anything. It's just empty words devoid of content.

    That's how you identify structural bullshit.
  • 1
    @halfflat Logical fallacy: A->B does not implicate B->A.

    That you can see inequality with supression (that's the point of suppression in the first place) does not mean that the presence of inequality must be due to suppression.

    Elementary propositional logic. First semester math stuff in MINT.
  • 1
    @halfflat Talk to f-m transgenders who have experienced how it is to have the male testosterone level - they are in the rare position to compare.

    Actually, even leftists admit to that, but only where the effects disfavour men. Then it's suddenly called "toxic masculinity". ^^
  • 1
    @halfflat More vague handwaving doesn't make a point. I have demonstrated how I can use that handwaving for claiming the exact opposite. Your handwaving doesn't mean anything.
  • 2
    @halfflat

    your giant ball of bullshit and victim-ology continues to expand. At this rate spock estimates it'll turn into a blackhole!

    Captain says, set warp drive to: get the fuck out of here!
  • 2
    @halfflat You failed again to understand the point. It's not "just words". It that the same words can be used for justifying your position as well as the opposite, or anything else. That's why they don't mean anything. That's what unmasks them as vague generalities without content.
  • 2
    @Fast-Nop he'd fit right in at a baptist church. all raving, no substance. Whats hilarious is he doesnt realize a lot of us would or do sympathize with his views, only hes a loud mouth and an asshole about it.

    I wonder if he even realizes he pushes people away from believing or listening to him?
  • 2
    reduction to absurdity.

    Aw look, he thinks his fingerpainting is a real argument!

    There there. We know you struggle with forming your letters.
  • 1
    @halfflat You're resorting to beating strawmen. I didn't claim that biological disposition was the ONLY factor. I said that several times over.

    Either you are too damn stupid to get that because you're entrenched in your binary logic fallacy of either-or, or you are so out of arguments that you put up strawmen.
  • 1
    @halfflat why, because im a minority?

    I bet you cant even calculate a fucking standard deviation by hand.
  • 2
    @halfflat I said that women in Sweden are way more free than in Turkey because Sweden is an overtly pro-feminist society while Turkey isn't.

    As per your logic, we should see more women in IT in Sweden than in Turkey, but we don't. Your logic simply doesn't line up with reality.

    Either these nebulous "other factors" (but not genetics, nonono, you don't even want to think that) are so much more dominant than anything else, in which case "oppression" becomes a non-issue anyway.

    Or it's genetics when combined with free choice. And yes, the choice in Sweden IS free compared to what it's in Turkey.
  • 2
    @halfflat "im not even saying xyz is bad."

    Don't kid yourself. Everyone of your type eventually elides into a giant victim hierarchy of woe-is-me bullshit. On behalf of my sister whos standing right here, unless you're a Women, you need to check your male white knight misogyny at the door.

    No ones fooled by your "im just neutrally laying out the facts!" bullshit.
  • 3
    @halfflat Well, if feminism doesn't help the cause, as you admit, then we can drop it. That's a fine conclusion - only that it took you really long to arrive at.

    Then maybe women can choose on their own what to do with their lives without people like you turning their decisions into a problem.
  • 1
    @halfflat oh you think misogyny is funny do you? you think alienating people from the message of diversity is funny? lololol right?

    I gave you the benefit of the doubt at first. But I was right, you *are* a vile person.

    I hope you get help for your warped world view.
  • 1
    @halfflat and hitler was a vegetarian. so what.
  • 2
    @halfflat long before he ever seriously questioned your conclusions, you'd already insinuated he had an agenda, and worse labels.

    that cards done, played out. you're playing a dumb, politically oriented game and have argued in bad faith from the beginning, and everyone can see it.

    frankly you're a coward that comes into online spaces where you're unwanted and stirs the shit, a coward that wouldnt say half the shit you do if this were face to face.

    if you disagree and wanna give me a piece of your mind, you can come to cleveland ohio, west side of highway 90, prospect ave east. rest of the addreaa ill give you when you get here. Bet you bring an entire crowd of your lunatic idealogue friends too.

    bet you wont back up your words.

    thats what I thought, coward.
  • 2
    @halfflat Ah, next try. So the vague generalities failed, the strawman failed, now you're resorting to attacking the man and insinuating an "agenda".

    Next logical fallacy: even if that were true, having an agenda in itself would not invalidate one's claims. They would still need to be refuted, which you are unable to do in the first place.

    Dunno, maybe such cheap skate rhetorics can impress anyone who's new to the internet, but with decades of experience, I remain unimpressed.

    What you are experiencing is just how helpless you are once you meet anything outside your bubble because you have never had to deal with arguments in your echo chamber. That made you comfortable, but weak.
  • 2
    And just for the record: if these nebulous "other factors" were so important that they completely dominate even in a pro-feminist society, they would be well known for sure.
  • 2
    @halfflat Ah. So Sweden has way more gendered toys than a pretty traditional society like Turkey? Once more, your logic doesn't check out.

    The "factor" is of course well know, it's that men and women, on average, are not alike. It's just that your ideology doesn't allow that factor, that's why you come up with ever more ridiculous patches.

    That's a bit like when they tried to save the geocentric world view by introducing small epicycles on top of the main cycles of the planets (deferents).
  • 2
    @halfflat Of course not, because NOTHING you said can explain that the disparity is greater in a pro-feminist society like Sweden than in a pretty traditional one like Turkey.

    Again, it's all desperate handwaving on your side. You don't even have arguments, you're just bullshitting around.

    You know what's the funniest aspect to it? That you presented the data yourself without even remotely understanding what they mean. Undermining one's own position through sheer stupidity, now that's a feat.
  • 2
    @halfflat why are you still arguing like a holocaust promoter?

    denying the facts, handwaving, and oversimplifying, historically were used by very bad people to hurt lots of innocent people.

    Get help, friend.
  • 2
    @halfflat Nope. Letting people decide on their own what they do with their lives, within what's reasonably acceptable as non-criminal behaviour, hasn't hurt people.

    Quite the other way around, such societies have been a safe haven for refugees from any sort of utopia.

    Note that this of course includes to accept people e.g. in IT if they want to be there and measure up to the same standards as everyone else there - no lower, no higher. Regardless of sex.

    But it also includes accepting that people who don't want to be there won't be.
  • 3
    As an observation. I see a trend in logic from certain perspectives that is summed up like this:

    "If you don't agree with me you are dangerous."

    I have been accused of this before because I interpreted the data differently than other people. I see this dynamic playing out here as well. This kind of rhetoric shuts down any productive conversation you could possibly have with another person. I see this playing out in the media as well. Now the media is taking this a step further saying they will hunt down, cancel, and eliminate anyone from society that disagrees with them. This is very prevalent is so called "learning" environments like colleges and universities. This is not healthy for a free society.
  • 1
    @halfflat

    1. call racism/misogyny/etc when not winning, and then backtrack

    2. literally the first to call other illiterate for disagreeing with.

    3. literally the first to assume others had an agenda.

    4. literally the first to throw labels around

    5. literally the first to ignore arguments out of hand.

    and then as a bonus on top of this shitwaffle you call an argument, you turned arouns and accused others of what gou are doing.

    you're literally a retard. do you wear a safety helmet while you make your worthless shitposts on the internet while whining like an entitled child that people on the internet dont agree with you?

    You do, don't you? Of course you do.

    I wouldnt trust you with a pair of safety scissors. Why should anyone trust you to debate science?

    Go away troll. Your mind ghetto of totalitarian tard rage is an open sewer of brainrot and doublethink.

    pray to your measly god, group approval, and follow your leader, marx, right off a fucking bridge.

    no one will miss you.
  • 2
    @halfflat Ok this one is cute. Your comment is like “That numbered list is so wrong I’m literally going to do point number 5 right now.”
  • 1
    @halfflat I doubt you got to number five, because you're lazy and illiterate.

    I suspect the only thing you've ever read is fucking burger king menus, and the communist manifesto. And I doubt you were able to finish either.

    But hey you can always go to the library and pick up *fucking* dr seuss books. Those are full of pictures and small words suitable for small minds like yourself.

    It's pretty bad when you get schooled by someone whos on your side, and all because you're an unlikeable cunt who argues like one of those unbearable short guys who make up for it by acting like giant assholes.
  • 2
    @halfflat

    "because the consequences of being wrong have so often been disastrous."

    A good example of this is in "Planet of the Humans". In the quest to destroy the evil fossil fuel usage the Obama administration put in disastrous policy to burn rainforests, increased use of fossil fuels, and fossil fuels used to subsidize "green" tech like solar and wind farms. There is still a huge move to burn renewables and the result is terrible. If you haven't watched that documentary it is really good and politically neutral.
  • 2
    @Demolishun frankly I dont believe pretty much any of what you wrote. The bigger issue is obama drone striked wedding parties and muslim families.
    I still carry the horror of knowing that I voted for him and he ended up doing that. It never leaves me.
  • 2
    @wisecrack Chill. Hafflat is not going to suddenly going to address the limit of applicability for the study. I recommend minimizing your therapeutic rage posting. It isn't constructive.

    There is some interesting things to be gleaned from the numbers but because of the obvious outliers they clearly can't be applied with broad stokes.

    Study says coffee is good for you. Study says coffee is bad for you. We know that the real problem is making conclusions on correlative evidence. Sometimes it takes a bit to figure out how the evidence conflicts or even if you will accept the evidence.
  • 1
    @Wisecrack Then watch the documentary by Michael Moore. I cannot stand the guy, but the documentary was really good.
  • 0
    @halfflat Im not gonna lie. I rather enjoyed green eggs and ham.

    And no you cant check it out because I haven't returned it and dont plan on it. Its mine now.

    Also if you give a mouse a cookie. You can't have that one either.
  • 1
    @halfflat @wisecrack You guys are idiots. The Sneeches and Other Stories was the masterpiece. You guys have your head shoved up mainstream Seuss so hard you can taste lunch from yesterday. Just parroting the old Seuss party line.

    What next? You are going to tell me that the new Seuss movies hold a candle to the retro stuff? Morons.
  • 1
    Btw., real world stuff with one of my female coworkers who is project engineer in a complex project that I've been assigned to for coding. She can code a little, but doesn't like it. That's OK.

    So, male hierarchy? Nope, because while I can go into the code, I'm pretty lost on the bigger picture, but that's what she knows in and out. I can come up with solutions, but she can tell right away whether that would fuck up something else.

    It's like a team where one is near-sighted and the other is long-sighted, and neither has glasses.

    That's a winning team, but only if you team up to get shit done instead of engaging in male/female bullshit games.
  • 0
    @halfflat I forgot about that one. Okay, okay, you can keep Fox in socks.
  • 2
    1. engineering hiring manager is a hero, that's how you stand up to that shit, except he (and all of you) shouldn't have played along for even a minute

    2. also he should have made the meeting optional for everyone.

    still, great guy.
  • 1
    @halfflat that intrinsic difference is NOT (necessarily) in skill/ability, but IN INTERESTS.

    in general, men are more interested in things, women are more interested in people.
  • 2
    @irene oh, so when there's a push for women getting the job they want, and it results in them going less into jobs they don't want... that's bad or unexpected or something?

    scandinavian countries - the more equal a society is, the more the practical differences between men and women grow.
  • 1
    @Wisecrack we are also starting to have neuromorphic hardware
  • 1
    @irene culture dictates a lot but not everything.

    BUT: you are ignoring that culture is based on biology in the first place. it emerges as systemization and formulation of natural biological and psychological tendencies and predispositions of the species.
  • 2
    @halfflat hah, "i don't understand your agenda", says the person with agenda when facing facts.
  • 2
    @Wisecrack @Fast-Nop i just wanted to say: i appreciate a lot how much energy, time and nerves you put into arguing with that asshat.

    and i respect how long were you able to respond to him mostly calmly and rationally, in the face of his ideological nonsense.

    all i had to do was just read it, and even then i got impatient and angry about halfway through.

    thank you guys, for doing your part in defending humanity against (t)his nonsense.

    <3
  • 1
    @halfflat good.
    it took you this long, but finally you managed to write at least one thing that makes sense and is true.
  • 2
    @Midnight-shcode I’m not saying that it is bad or good. I think it is important that we acknowledge that equal opportunities doesn’t result in equal outcomes. If we don’t understand that we will make a lot of oppressive mistakes.
  • 1
    @irene i agree.
    that's why it's aggravating that the left/SJW/feminism actively refuses to acknowledge this absolutely obvious and irrefutable (and on top of that, utterly logical) fact, precisely so that they can (continue to) make a lot of oppressive (what they don't see as) mistakes.
  • 1
    My secret?

    You can’t call me a racist/sexist/bigot because I hate fucking everybody equally.

    Except Christians. Christians are the fucking worst.
  • 1
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi Seems like people could still call you a bigot if you hate everyone. Because intolerance towards others is what bigotry is.
  • 0
    @irene No. It's not. A bigot is someone who dogmatically antagonizes others based on their association or demographic.

    If you hate everyone equally, you are expressly not a bigot.
  • 1
    @junon Bigot - NOUN a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race
    Collins English Dictionary.
  • 1
    @irene Oxford disagrees

    a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
  • 1
    @junon Basically intolerant to those who aren’t like them. In a highly individualistic society that can be everyone else.
  • 1
    @irene No, that's not what it says. And not what it means. You can't tack on additional interpretation to words and imply that's how everyone must also interpret it, just to prove some arbitrary point. Language and communication do not work that way.
  • 1
    @halfflat when you say OECD data what I'm assuming you mean is their distribution spreads on gender in the workplace, which are not necessarily accurate as they only depict snapshots.

    A better indication of whether or not cultural barriers which prevent women from entering certain fields exist is to look at countries which are actively "remediating" those barriers, like Sweden and other Nordic countries. What you see over the last 20 years is that as states get more egalitarian in a social sense (social programs are created to produce more women in certain fields, as well as government interference in the form of regulation and requirements), the gender gap actually widens.

    This is in opposition to the premise that the reason we dont have more women in hard sciences is because they live in a society that discourages them from it.

    In conclusion, trends always tell a better story than snapshots, so give some of those a shot.
  • 1
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi you dropped your fedora, bub
  • 0
    @arcsector Lay some more of that enlightened sexism on me, homey.
  • 1
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi great rebuttal, love it when people attack me and not the argument. Always the same with you Atheists, not thinking things through and thinking you've got it all figured out due to ignorance on the subject matter.
  • 0
    Ooh, some light bigotry too!

    I’m titillated. You are truly gods chosen master race.

    Tee-hee.
  • 1
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi Very nice; putting words in my mouth and responding to something i didn't say. Pinnacle of debate and conversation. Remind me again how unbothered you are that you feel you have to keep responding
  • 2
    This post’s comments keep getting worse. I may as well quote some Bible.

    “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.” Proverbs 17:28
  • 0
    @irene oh good, a passage from the most widely translated and published book in human history suggesting people be silent.

    I’m afraid without the fear of eternal damnation as punishment from some god entity for my daring speak sacrilege... this strikes me as hypocrisy.
  • 2
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi If i need to make it more obvious. I was trying to say “Shut up because you look like idiots.” In a way that seemed funny.

    This comment section seems less civil every time I look. Last I checked identity politics is still politics; politics is against devrant’s rules.
  • 0
    @irene I was talking religion. Not identity politics.

    Not my fault they’re the same thing for a large sect of the population.

    And I was doing so in response to your Bible quote...

    So...
  • 1
    @irene Heh! Translation: Shut the fuck up if you don't know shit. I really wish I had internalized that when I was young. I said a lot of stupid shit. Still say a lot of stupid shit. <sigh>
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