More female programmers

From Recycled Knowledge

by John Cowan

Hilarious pair of comments:

hotaru said...

> We can't afford to constrain ourselves on what size or shape or color the bodies are that house those brains.

you say this, but you think we should prefer female programmers over male programmers?

jcowan said...

That comment is both accusatory and inaccurate (I think and say no such thing). I can take accusation or inaccuracy, but the combination is poison.

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Not enough is said about the time spent unlearning bad habits in computer science training.

More female programmers: "

I tried to post this comment to a public site, but failed repeatedly. The topic of the original post isn't relevant to my comment, which was in response to a comment that read, in its entirety:

Why would we would want more female programmers?

My answer:

The world needs more effectively mobilized brains. We can't afford to constrain ourselves on what size or shape or color the bodies are that house those brains. Also, diversity is good in itself: it improves flexible response, and it's silly to throw away a cheap source of diversity.

A major U.S. university with a strong CS program (I am contractually prevented from naming it) that had female CS undergraduate admissions in the single digits year after year was able to raise their admission to the same rate as other engineering programs by changing just one thing: they no longer gave people who already had programming experience preferential admission. There have been no changes in the overall performance of the student body in the years since.

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Python News: PSF adopts Diversity Statement

What do I think about diversity statements? The Python Software Foundation has published and endorsed one:

The Python Software Foundation and the global Python community welcome and encourage participation by everyone. Our community is based on mutual respect, tolerance, and encouragement, and we are working to help each other live up to these principles. We want our community to be more diverse: whoever you are, and whatever your background, we welcome you.

Also see: For additional resources on efforts to promote diversity within the Python community, please see the main diversity page.

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Diversity/multiculturalism is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I am for diversity/multiculturalism, now, in western culture, because there are too few natural experiments in effective living. More natural experiments by different cultural, national, religious, social-sexual groups lead to better outcomes.

Society would give more people happiness, fulfilment, health, reproductive opportunities in the absence of pain and anxiety if more people copied the best of other cultural, national, religious, social-sexual groups.

I take exception to the use of the word "tolerance". To tolerate one thing, you must be intolerant of forces in opposition to that thing. "Tolerance", taken by itself, is meaningless, unless the form of the corresponding intolerance is unspecified.

As a human, I have a built in bias against other cultural, nationalreligious, social-sexual groups. I strive to rise above these biases, and act accordingly. I am intolerant of those who would act against other cultural, religious, social-sexual groups, for their own benefit or comfort. I also take exception to the use of the word "diverse". There are some forms of diversity I value, and other I do not. I would not appreciate diversity that welcomes motivated stupidity, motivated sloth, motivated controversy, and motivated egoistic criticism and . I feel strongly that those who practice motivated stupidity, motivated sloth, motivated controversy, and motivated egoistic criticism should feel unwelcome. ("motivated is important here, I don't mean those who do so out of understandable ignorance, or who are incapable of constructive communication because of situational stress.)

The diversity I value are, again, cultural, national, religious, and social-sexual, for the reasons stated above. Not that anyone should care, I just wanted the exercise of making my thoughts more precise.

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I have a terrible temper, and act like a lout, many times. I hate communities that rate politeness over technical correctness, but I cannot defend my loutish stupidity. I don't mind getting called out - I deserve it.

Python News: PSF adopts Diversity Statement: "

On October 12, 2009, the board of the Python Software Foundation voted to adopt a Diversity Statement.

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Diversity in Five-Factor Personality, and Five-Factor Morality

A response to Econlog Arnold Kling posting on the Five-Factor Personality Model:

I found _Personality in Adulthood, Second Edition: A Five-Factor Theory Perspective_ by McCrae and Costa to be quite readable.

I feel pretty confident that each and every human society is "tuned" for specific ratios of the five factors, and, moreover, different tuned ratios for the "vital few"/"in-group" and the "out-group". And considering Jonathan Haidt's five fundamental moral values (liberals valuing care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect, and purity, in contrast to conservatives, etc.) - I feel there is a specific ratio, in each human society, for the ranking of the five fundamental moral values, again with different ratios for the "in-group" and "out-group". In all cases, more diversity is tolerated in the "out-group", as the "in-group" have to maintain a rough consensus at all times.

A lot of "energy" is exerted maintaining genotype and social diversity in the machinery of mating pair of humans, and in the machinery of larger various human groups. It would be peculiar if this diversity was not beneficial. I think, even more than diversity, a specific tuned ratio gives the maximum benefit over a set for historical conditions, and a history of conditions changing.

I think to any company's employees: any extreme of one of the five personality factors or any extreme of one of five fundamental moral values could quickly lead to a failure mode that could put the future of the company at risk, if expressed in even a single employee handling a critical task, without any meaningful oversight. It doesn't take much imagination to make a "just-so" story for a colossal failure from an extreme in any of the ten (especially if you are trying to run a profitable business, not a kumbaya therapy group, or a frat house, or a mating pair hothouse). So a diversity would keep the whole enterprise on an even keel, to my thinking.

And the sickest organizations are the ones where politics only allows one exact personality and morality type to exist in the higher ups.

(Aside: I am interested in the mechanisms and usages of human diversity, but not aware of any book title specifically on this subject)