micahbright (u/micahbright)

micahbright commented on John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005) whatever.scalzi.com/2005/... · Posted by u/brudgers

fweespeech · 9 years ago

We are all in this world together and some of us do make those contributions.

You are just angry we want you to contribute at all and I feel bad for you. It must hurt going through life thinking no one cares if you suffer or die.

micahbright · 9 years ago

I'm angry you want to force me to contribute - you douche. I've been contributing to the poor my whole life

micahbright commented on John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005) whatever.scalzi.com/2005/... · Posted by u/brudgers

peterburkimsher · 9 years ago

"Basic income" would go a long way.

People will try to work to make their lives better, whether they're "poor" and "rich". Not needing to worry about food and shelter would make life much easier.

And I mean "basic income" for everybody. Not just citizens. Even immigrants. "For the widow, the orphan, the foreigner." - Deuteronomy 10:18, Zechariah 7:10, Matthew 25:31-46

micahbright · 9 years ago

I like how you turn a voluntary charitable contribution into forcing other people to pay. If you aren't poor, you should already be making contributions to the poor since you have such high moral standards.

micahbright commented on The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat bloomberg.com/news/featur... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross

cptskippy · 9 years ago

Advantages? Such as not being able to purchase clothes or shoes anywhere except online? Seriously try to find a pair of 34x36 pants or 16 shoes. You can't anymore. In the 90s a store might have carried a pair of shoes, today they carry none because you can order online. Size Large shirts are too short and XL are too fat. So I need large tall which no one carries in stock. Literally every purchase I make is sight unseen.

Then there's the not really fitting in half the cars out there. Or amusement park rides. Or bowling shoes. Or safety equipment. Or saddles for horses.

You might complain that you can't reach things on the top shelf, try having to bend over for everything. Even to use countertops or bathrooms.

How about furniture always being short and forcing your knees to be elevated above your hips when you sit all of the time.

And beds... always too short. Want to stretch out? Only if it's a king and you lay diagonally.

Being tall is perpetual discomfort because this world is made for people of average height.

micahbright · 9 years ago

>Only if it's a king and you lay diagonally. Try a California King

micahbright commented on Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo blog.ycombinator.com/ask-... · Posted by u/cbcowans

throwawaygmemo · 9 years ago

These comments are largely directed at a straw-man, and in many cases actually agree with the memo, when they think they disagree.

"I disagree with...his arguments pointing to biological factors as a primary reason that there aren’t more female software engineers"

- straw-man - he argues that biology may in part explain the lack of 50/50 representation. from the TLDR: "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women (and not “socially constructed oppression”) may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership"

"I disagree completely and utterly that the (yes, real) average differences between men and women map to being better or worse at certain jobs. Interest in certain jobs, certainly."

- you actually agree with the memo. From the memo: "Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men...These...differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas"

"It seemed like he cherry-picked research that agreed with his views and didn’t seek dissenting research or opinions before sending the document to internal Google groups."

- The purpose of posting this memo was to seek dissenting research and other opinions.

"differences are so significant as to suggest that men or women are better or worse on average at any job that relies on mental work."

- straw man. men or women being "better" is not the concern of the memo.

"his skepticism of his own views deserves a much more prominent placement in the text than a footnote – had he led with this and made it clear he wasn’t sure whether he was correct and simply wanted to start a discussion (as he subsequently stated in a YouTube interview), he likely would not have been blasted the same way."

- the first "background" paragraph literally is this.

"Google has stated many times that its efforts involve focusing more resources on searching for candidates in minority groups rather than lowering the bar for these groups. Such misrepresentation is harmful to those of us at Google who have to overcome the bias that we were hired based other factors beside our skills."

- the author is also concerned with harm to female employees in the form of increased tension resulting from hiring practices that are perceived as lowering the bar. Google obviously would not do this intentionally, but the author felt the practices "effectively" lowered the bar.

micahbright · 9 years ago

"It seemed like he cherry-picked research that agreed with his views and didn’t seek dissenting research or opinions before sending the document to internal Google groups." - The purpose of posting this memo was to seek dissenting research and other opinions.

Pure gold. This is exactly what I was thinking when I read that.

micahbright commented on Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo blog.ycombinator.com/ask-... · Posted by u/cbcowans

dguaraglia · 9 years ago

I'll just refer to the women in the article:

> Assuming that it’s true that women on average are more likely to have trait X, why should any woman have to overcome the additional barrier of proving that she’s not like other women, or that if she IS like other women, that the trait has no bearing on her job performance?

micahbright · 9 years ago

I'm sure you can come up with a better argument. Assuming men are sexist and that you have to prove yourself to them is plainly hypocritical.

micahbright commented on Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo blog.ycombinator.com/ask-... · Posted by u/cbcowans

studentrob · 9 years ago

> the author said women are less suited to being good engineers... Where was that stated?

DAMORE: "I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership."

EDIT: also https://youtu.be/TN1vEfqHGro?t=30m13s

micahbright · 9 years ago

Fact: women and men have varying distributions in abilities and traits - due to biology

Fact: women and men aren't distributed equally in tech and leadership.

And your conclusion is that anyone who presents these facts and says that maybe one causes the other means that women are "less suited" for engineering?

There is no logical basis for this. He didn't say what you are attributing to him.

micahbright commented on Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo blog.ycombinator.com/ask-... · Posted by u/cbcowans

humanrebar · 9 years ago

One of the women said:

> I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.”

She goes on to say that people will likely misapply the ideas and judge her. It seems a lot of detractors think Damore should have known better and he takes responsibility for how his ideas affect people.

Another says:

> I don’t really see how it’s useful to have a discussion of general group traits in a work setting. Assuming that it’s true that women on average are more likely to have trait X, why should any woman have to overcome the additional barrier of proving that she’s not like other women, or that if she IS like other women, that the trait has no bearing on her job performance?

Again, she's not really disagreeing with Damore in this snippet. She's saying the ideas themselves are counterproductive and shouldn't be discussed.

micahbright · 9 years ago

> why should any woman have to overcome the additional barrier of proving that she’s not like other women.

Well, she only has to prove it to men that she assumes are sexist or incapable of understanding population distributions. I mean, really? Let's fight sexism with sexism.

micahbright commented on Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo blog.ycombinator.com/ask-... · Posted by u/cbcowans

intopieces · 9 years ago

>Of course it's possible that the truth is in between.

In this case, isn't the finding the truth pretty straightforward? Pull the performance reviews of the second chance hires. Check to see if there's a clear correlation in review and find a pattern.

Are we assuming that Google, which specializes in using data, does not bother to mine its own data with regards to its hiring practices?

micahbright · 9 years ago

Furthermore, simply look for interviewers who tend to reject women and minorities more often. Remove them from the interviewer pool.