"Economic privilege"... Interesting, that having a job is a "special" advantage. Of course whatever I don't have and you have, it might be subject to be an advantage. Although not a "special" one.

Google increasing diversity giving money "only" for girls like it was shown some days ago? Bigotry for diversity. Still I cannot understand why someone will try to mimic demographics. In the very moment you hire someone for "diversity" reasons, you're teaching them exactly the opposite of improving themselves: they just need to be a minority to be hired. Google could have helped with studies to learn more about why women choose the degrees they choose, and men choose the degrees they choose, and act on those results. Even use existing studies... But no: just pushing a % up to mimic demographics.

Is interesting that the "famous" people you talk about are college dropouts. Don't know if it could be related to the special advantage. Even for those whose parents had difficulties to pay for college: college debt as a special advantage. There is a book about these people: Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell). Their privilege in the book? be born at the right time and have the opportunity to take a decision no one else had taken before.

This also links with your "head start". (Stolen from Gladwell book) Young children that are months older are smarter, they have a "head start". Being smarter, stronger, faster gives them preferential treatment in schools/teams/etc and that makes them even better. They're privileged because they were born months before the rest.

Numbers and statistics are numbers and statistics. The most common misuse is to think that correlations are causations. It is called the "texas sharpshooter" or affirming the consequent. Begging the question is about the circular argument of privilege and being privileged for not recognizing privilege.

As a summary:
- There is advantage, and there is special advantage.
- I don't know why on earth would anyone believe that creating special advantages: bigoted/dogmatist/prejudiced/intolerant hiring practices and education; would be the best way to increase equality and contribute towards an egalitarian society. But I guess we will discover it together (perhaps soon)

Making 32$K per year is not a special advantage.

For sure someone eating every day and having a roof over his head is in a much better position from someone who don't have food or housing. But it is not a special advantage.

Worst, instead of teaching people how to be able to make 32$K a year, we attack those who do in order to make them feel "bad" for getting there.

It is a "let's feel all bad! What, are you doing something that makes you get out of the bad feelings pool? Privileged!!!! And you deny your privilege".

I don't know much about the average slahdotter geek. But if he did something right to get where he is... I might learn it too, instead of claiming he is privileged. (Shifting the burden doesn't help)

IMHO you have fallacy there: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...

Is it a problem in the first place? Why country demographics should be mirrored in a company?

"should" might not be the right word. Although affirmative action means "push for it". Are we entering in an era where it is not important what you decide to do but how many individuals with some of your characteristics are in the country you live in order to find a job?

Are you creating other problems? Because quotas have been introduced in other countries (management quotas)" and the effects measured:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...
"the average effect of gender diversity on firm performance is negative [my emphasis]. This negative effect is driven by companies with fewer takeover defences. Our results suggest that mandating gender quotas for directors can reduce firm value for well-governed firms."

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...
"The quota led to younger and less experienced boards, increases in leverage and acquisitions, and deterioration in operating performance, consistent with less capable boards "

It is good that quotas happened. We now have studies showing their effects.

Also quotas go against many management principles, if mirroring demographics is a problem:
- Don’t push growth; remove the factors limiting growth.
- An underlying problem generates symptoms that demand attention. But the underlying problem is difficult for people to address, either because it is obscure or costly to confront. So people “shift the burden” of their problem to other solutions—well-intentioned, easy fixes which seem extremely efficient. (
- The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.
- The cure can be worse than the disease. (poor company performance after adding inadequate candidates).
- Faster is slower. (Fixed the percentages right away, didn't fix the root cause and now it is hidden and nobody cares)
- Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space. (The people being hired right now were trained and decided their careers many years ago).
- Living systems have integrity. Their character depends on the whole. The same is true for organizations. (It is not just balance genders in management, it affects many other things in a company).
- There is no blame. (Blame priviledge: male, white... whatever that allows you to shift the blame instead of improving to meet the requirements of the job)

Could you care to explain what is that "generally hostile" attitude?

Is too much to ask for men to not rape? --- This is ok

Is too much to ask blacks not to commit crimes? --- but this is pure racism

I'd say the first is pure bigotry.

Rapists rape (male and female), not men. Abusers (male and female) abuse. You better focus on finding them or at least be ready for them. The Kennesaw State University has rape aggression defense classes for women AND men.

Since there is another nice study saying that 50% college males were sexually abused. It seems it is not a "gender" problem, but someone has to explain to those abusers how things work.

Don't worry, Media only sells if women are the victim. You will never see an Ad with a male so you won't need to "violin".

- 98% of crime convicts eat bread.
- 100% of crime convicts drink water.

But it was funny to see how someone could introduce rape in a gender discussion. Like somehow that money is given to the girls because... rape! Now rape is important in the conversation. It proves something. What exactly?

Talking about "Federal", the FBI doesn't consider "made to penetrate" rape. Also in the CDC’s national survey of sexual violence, for example, “made to penetrate” is not included as a form of rape. Nice skewed statistics. There were some "crazy" people trying to get the real stats in that CDC report adding the "made to penetrate": "1.267 million male victims versus 1.270 million female victims".

Nice talk about rape stats.

Now what worries me a lot is that because there are rapists who are men, men shouldn't receive help to learn to code? You have some criminals, and because they're men, then every men should be denied something because.... perhaps you're implying that all men are rapists or something like that? It is not very clear.

It is happening. This 50 million US dollars is an example of affirmative action. Quotas in management in some countries in Europe is another example.

Are quotas a bad idea? Upper management being hired not because their characteristics but because... hey I need to fill my quota so, join us.

Only women receive societal pressure? What pressure are we talking about? It would be nice to know what you have in mind when you talk about "something" that "applies pressure" on women not to go to CS (or learn coding skills).

And that something then creates "men's education"?

Taking into account that this help is only for girls/women. How does this sound:

What's wrong with funding for programs that teach only WHITE people how to code? Do you read what you write before you press submit?

But it is a nice move in the politically correct world of diversity and social justice.

The program, as it is explained int the link, it is about support for women's programs.

So it is not to find out why. They don't care about the why. But they care a lot in their politically correct speech.

A big push is two web sites when we're talking about 50 million dollars? Who is moving the goal post?

For sure "big" can be understood in many ways, but we're commenting in a post about 50 million US dollars.

Unions are made from employees. I'd like to see a worker's union in the SF bubble.

Sorry, I forgot to add an example to my previous comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

In socialism you get paid by your work. The difference with capitalism is that there is no big investor owning the company, doing what he wants and (the most important part) living from your work.

A cooperative is the best example of people working in those conditions.