everyone agrees that such overt
exclusion, if it exists, is racist
or sexist.
I certainly do not agree with this. Your opponents simply deny that the compiler has the ability to exclude or be sexist or racist. The argument that the compiler or test suite discriminates on anything but merit is for you to make. Good luck.
you can't shut down the argument
by claiming that it's somehow racist/
sexist against white men.
On the contrary, this is an extremely good counterargument, and the reason you try to re-frame it away is precisely because you know it is a good counterargument. Dare we speak of "ptacekian fragility"? There is another re-frame that you maliciously use: you talk about white men, when you should really be talking about white and asian men. The spectacular success of asian men (and -- to a lesser degree -- asian women) in SV (and any profession that needs high degrees of education) absolutely, brutally burns to the crips any claim that there is racism/sexism at play. And you know it -- hence the ongoing reframes.
No, it absolutely does not. The definition of "whiteness" has changed dramatically over the 20th century to accommodate and include the successes of formerly disfavored minorities while maintaining the lower status of latinos and, most especially, African Americans. Italians, Greeks, and the Irish also used not to be "white".
It is, if you stop to think about it, a little silly to argue that the success of Asians means there's no meaningful disadvantages to being African American.
It's also silly to argue that since white and Asian men are overrepresented in tech, that somehow means that impoverished white boys in Appalachia, Khazakstan, or Lithuania get labelled "privileged" and "not diverse".
Honestly, the failure to address that concern is one of the big reasons why nationalist and populist arguments are so persuasive.
> Italians, Greeks, and the Irish also used not to be "white".
Are you thinking of the term "WASP" in place of "white"?
Italians and Greeks are 'W' but not 'ASP', and Irish are 'WAS' but not 'P' — but I think all three would be considered 'white' by people all around the world and I don't think that has changed.
Perhaps where you live where's a different capital 'W' version of 'White' (contrasted to 'white'), but that's not how most of the world looks at these groups. Do you think the people living Italy, Greece, and Ireland believe they are excluded from being 'white'?
"facts" doesn't mean hurling incendiary claims like yours around without linking to proof. You deserve every one of the downvotes you're going to get, least of all because you don't cite anything.
The discussion is not about racial differences in intelligence, but since race was brought up as it being discriminated against by people like me (white, male) for being the reason of their weak performance, I post this as a possible alternate explanation. Up to you to dig deeper if you think it's a good enough hypothesis.
Maybe we should change the meaning of tptacek to Osama bin Laden -- and argue that you are dead?
Yes, the meaning of "whiteness" has evolved -- for sinister political reasons: equating "whiteness" with "successful" serves no useful purpose, other than covering up inconvenient facts like immigrants/Asians doing extremely well, which doesn't fit the left's convenient narratives. Twisting the meaning of "whiteness" really is an incendiary political mobilisation strategy, and you know it. It is a well-worn strategy of political mobilisation going back -- like almost everything on the contemporary political left -- to Lenin. I recommend you reflect on this moral failure of yours: Why not use something like "successful" instead of "white" from now on, otherwise you will continue to be part of the problem. In order to solve a problem, one needs a clear understanding of what causes the problem in the first place.
meaningful disadvantages to
being African American.
Yes, so? The success of Asian in SV (many of them immigrants from poor countries) shows clearly that the convenient narrative "blame whitey" is not helpful. If you want to help, why not start with a correct analysis of the problem's root-cause?
> Your opponents simply deny that the compiler has the ability to exclude or be sexist or racist. The argument that the compiler or test suite discriminates on anything but merit is for you to make. Good luck.
That's not really how enlightened discussions work. If you have the opinion that the "compiler doesn't care" and that it's somehow related diversity you have to make an argument to the fact. You can't just say that "it doesn't care" and have it be your opponents job to make an argument that disproves your opinion. At least not if your expect to base your opinions on merit.
The notion that compiler reflect the background and culture of those creating and using it isn't exactly far fetched. Of course something like a hobbyist background (historically only available to certain groups of people) is far more important in certain types of language and that the demographics of people differ between languages.
But that not even the point. What you value in the code you're writing is as much, if not more of a factor, in projects. So it doesn't necessarily matter if the compiler is unbiased since what's good code is going to be judged by people.
Why don't you make an actual argument instead of ignoring what I wrote and countering with opinion based snark?
Edit: While it might seem confrontational, it's a serious question. This very short discussion is a great example how it's not a meritocracy at all. You get to make whatever insulting opinion you want without backing it up and if someone even slightly dare to talk back it's downvoted. Because people agree with you opinions even though they can't really state why.
The experience of a few people, which you haven't even stated but just used their names for your own cause, doesn't really talk to that of the majority of people. Nor does it explain how the culture of those creating a language wouldn't go into it. This is exactly the problem with opinion based discussion, you never have to answer anyone. So if your believe in merit in any way just answer the original question.
How does the experience of these people make it far fetched that compilers reflect the culture people making or using them?
It's a straight forward question and you've already stated that you hold this opinion, so it shouldn't be hard to give an answer to it.
