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Comment by ixtli | Hacker News Reader

I believe the salient point that "the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do" is a direct effect of lack of diversity in our field. Homogenous, largely white, largely male, largely safe people are not going to detect the problems the author appears to be implying are going untreated.

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Rather than just "believing," can you please provide evidence that "white, male and safe" people do not detect and put their energy into treating the kinds of problems you're alluding to? (In fact I must have missed the specific untreated problems that you and the author mention).

I fail to see how skin color, gender and "safeness," whatever the hell that is, implies someone has a "reduced" ability to detect and solve important problems. If you actually look for it, you will find many examples of people with the superficial characteristics you describe, and find that not only are they an extremely "diverse" group of people -- in the characteristics that truly matter -- but that they are doing precisely the kind of work that I think you speak of.

Why stop at people in "our field"? What about all of the people who possess the superficial characteristics you mention, but who also share an extraordinary amount of "diversity" and have had extraordinary success in treating important problems -- outside of "our field"? Doctors, scientists, engineers ... all over the world ... truly seek to make the world a better place.

Frankly I'm sick of the notion that "white, male and safe" implies a lack of diversity and a lack of ability or desire to detect ... whatever problems you have.

Ah, I should have specified software engineering. However as an example, there have been a good amount of studies that show that problem solving (detection and solution generation) are enabled by diversity† Combined with this, many studies of the demographics in software engineering show that it lacks gender and racial diversity†† I certainly should have been more clear about what I was implying. I used white and male because those are the two majorities in America which was also something I should have specified at the outset. Evidence of a personal bias that comes from being American, I suppose.

† https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

†† http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm (search 'Software developers, applications and systems software')

Please don't use racist language on HN.

Sorry, I'm unclear how what I said was racist :/

Edit: To be clear I used those examples because they are the majority in America (which I should have been more clear about) in an effort to point out that the majority often does not pay as close attention to the problems that arise from being in a minority.

>Homogenous, largely white, largely male, largely safe people are not going to detect the problems the author appears to be implying are going untreated.

What you said was both racist and sexist. You're saying that a group of people (based on race and sex) are "not going to ..." do something. Speaking in generalizations using these classifications is generally regarded by most folks as racist/sexist.

It can be tricky though. You might be right, but you'll still be called out for it. For example, the peoples of eastern asia are statistically less tall than their counterparts in western europe. Nevertheless, "asians are shorter than europeans", is still a racist statement.

Unless you can see, as well as explain, how the generalizations you're making benefit the conversation, it's probably best to avoid making those types of statements in the first place.

Racism itself might be "wrong", but that doesn't mean you can't be racist and still be "right" in your assertions. That's the tricky part.

No. There is nothing "racist" in that comment. That comment exhibits "prejudice". Prejudice may co-exist with discriminatory actions ("bigotry") or become institutionalized ("racism") but making comments about an ethnic group is not by itself racist.

"Racism" (note the -ism to denote a system) requires a social, political and/or economic system by which a dominant group retains power over other groups. By that widely-held definition, it's literally impossible for a non-member of the dominant group to exhibit racism.

Thanks. This is what I was going to try to explain but was too tired to bother. Also, as a member of the white male american engineer group, I will 100% cop to this sort of prejudice when dealing with generalizations as in the parent article.

Sorry, but you can't plead guilty on behalf of other people you don't even know. If you state that you are prejudiced, that's not evidence that other people with a similar skin color are prejudiced; it's only evidence that you, personally, are prejudiced.

I don't think you're responding to what I actually said. Perhaps it was poorly worded but what I intended to say was twofold: I am a member of the group (the privileged class in america) and that I exhibited prejudice. I made no further claims.

No, that's not the "widely-held definition," no matter you wish it was; it's not the dictionary definition, it's not the Wikipedia definition, it's not what most people are thinking when they hear that word. Rather, it's a definition carefully crafted by groups that want to express without consequence and write into law racist policies while claiming that they are anti-racists.

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