Google Conducted Hollywood 'Interventions' To Change Look of Computer Scientists (usatoday.com) 644
theodp writes: Most TV computer scientists are still white men," USA Today reports. "Google wants to change that. Google is calling on Hollywood to give equal screen time to women and minorities after a new study the internet giant funded found that most computer scientists on television shows and in the movies are played by white men. The problem with the hackneyed stereotype of the socially inept, hoodie-clad white male coder? It does not inspire underrepresented groups to pursue careers in computer science, says Daraiha Greene, Google CS in Media program manager, multicultural strategy." According to a Google-funded study conducted by Prof. Stacy L. Smith and the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Google's Computer Science in Media team conducted "CS interventions" with "like-minded people" to create "Google influenced storytelling." The executive summary for a USC study entitled Cracking the Code: The Prevalence and Nature of Computer Science Depictions in Media notes that "Google influenced" TV programs include HBO's Silicon Valley and AMC's Halt and Catch Fire. The USC researchers also note that "non-tech focused programs may offer prime opportunities to showcase CS in unique and counter-stereotypical ways. As the Google Team moves forward in its work with series such as Empire, Girl Meets World, Gortimer Gibbons Life on Normal Street, or The Amazing Adventures of Gumball, it appears the Team is seizing these opportunities to integrate CS into storytelling without a primary tech focus." The study adds, "In the case of certain series, we provided on-going advisement. The Fosters, Miles from Tomorrowland, Halt and Catch Fire, Ready, Jet, Go, The Powerpuff Girls and Odd Squad are examples of this. In addition to our continuing interactions, we engaged in extensive PR and marketing support including social media outreach, events and press."
Google's TV interventions have even spilled over into public education -- one of Google-sponsored Code.org's signature Hour of Code tutorials last December was Gumball's Coding Adventure, inspired by the Google-advised Cartoon Network series, The Amazing Adventures of Gumball. "We need more students around the world pursuing an education in CS, particularly girls and minorities, who have historically been underrepresented in the field," explains a Google CS First presentation for educators on the search giant's Hour of Code partnership with Cartoon Network. "Based on our research, one of the reasons girls and underrepresented minorities are not pursuing computer science is because of the negative perception of computer scientists and the relevance of the field beyond coding." According to a 2015 USC report, President Obama was kept abreast of efforts to challenge media's stereotypical portrayals of women; White House Visitor Records show that USC's Smith, the Google-funded study's lead author, and Google CS Education in Media Program Manager Julie Ann Crommett (now at Disney) were among those present when the White House Council on Women and Girls met earlier that year with representatives of the nation's leading toy makers, media giants, retailers, educators, scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Education, and philanthropists.
Google's TV interventions have even spilled over into public education -- one of Google-sponsored Code.org's signature Hour of Code tutorials last December was Gumball's Coding Adventure, inspired by the Google-advised Cartoon Network series, The Amazing Adventures of Gumball. "We need more students around the world pursuing an education in CS, particularly girls and minorities, who have historically been underrepresented in the field," explains a Google CS First presentation for educators on the search giant's Hour of Code partnership with Cartoon Network. "Based on our research, one of the reasons girls and underrepresented minorities are not pursuing computer science is because of the negative perception of computer scientists and the relevance of the field beyond coding." According to a 2015 USC report, President Obama was kept abreast of efforts to challenge media's stereotypical portrayals of women; White House Visitor Records show that USC's Smith, the Google-funded study's lead author, and Google CS Education in Media Program Manager Julie Ann Crommett (now at Disney) were among those present when the White House Council on Women and Girls met earlier that year with representatives of the nation's leading toy makers, media giants, retailers, educators, scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Education, and philanthropists.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
" The problem with the hackneyed stereotype of the socially inept, hoodie-clad white male coder? It does not inspire underrepresented groups to pursue careers in computer science.."
So it's not INACCURATE, just uninspiring.
Because *everything* needs to be about achieving purported social justice agendas?
Re: Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact it is inaccurate was probably considered to obvious to mention explicitly. While those types of developers do exist, they are not the norm. But they are the norm in Hollywood, which is what Google has been trying to fix.
Re: Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
I saw a video a few weeks back that made a lot of sense: women are more risk averse than men.
So the solution is for Google to stop going after the best of the best. Cut everyone's salary by 10, and hire 10 times more people with no expectations that any of them will be more than middling. Rather than keep all the jobs in high risk high reward silicon valley, set up low cost work sites in every major city, McDonald's style.
So, what have we accomplished here?
1. You don't need to risk moving to California.
2. You don't need to risk getting a degree you might not like.
3. You don't need to risk applying for a top job where you have to take all sorts of crazy tests to prove you're the best of the best of the best.
You have a career at Google as a normal, boring, low risk low reward career. You can apply for it out of high school and have a good chance of getting one of the many Google jobs in every city.
How far is Google willing to get more women in tech? Are they willing to do this?
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I'm curious, what makes you accuse him of being a "misogynistic asshole"?
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
And by "fixing" you mean replacing an inaccurate stereotype with social-justice propaganda that is even more removed from reality?
Re: Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like it. Google used to at least try to follow "Do no evil" but seems to have completely thrown that away in the last year.
Power corrupts (Score:5, Insightful)
Power corrupts.
Back when Google behaved well - text ads, "do no evil", non-commercial search result ranking - they were new, and essentially powerless.
However, Google acquired considerable power consequent to its abandonment of those good behaviors. Corruption breeds more corruption; corruption also breeds power.
It's no surprise that they have now decided to impose social engineering on the population at large. The only remaining question is if the current trend in their behavior will be impacted by any challengers. Doesn't really look like it.
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And it's not the new definition of 'social engineering' (scamming people for password access) this time, it's the actual meaning of social engineering.
"All your attention are belong to us [the google]" (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does it seem like the "news" is dominated by "fake" or "stupid" in various ways? Oh yeah. I seem to have forgotten where the fish started rotting...
The "Don't be evil" fantasy at the google died long ago. I'm pretty sure you just didn't notice until "the last year", and the minor question is "What blinded you?" Maybe your dreams of getting hired by the google died?
The google's primary motto has become "All your attention are belong to us so we can sell more advertising as we [the google] seek perfection defined by infinite profit." This is actually tightly linked to the evolution of the google's mission statement. Turned out that all of the world's information was too overwhelming and the metric of utility was too unclear. They fixed that by focusing on making the advertisers' ads the highest priority information and using profit as the primary metric of utility. Which finally leads us to the religious part of it:
"There is no gawd but profit, and Apple, Gilead, Google, Exxon, and some giant gamblers are profit's prophets."
That's based on Fortune's ranking, and I'm grouping banks, speculators, and money changers as "gamblers". Other sources define "profits" slightly differently and come up with different lists. I just saw one with Exxon higher up and Samsung included. Plus the prophets change over time.
I've come to believe that a problem without a solution is meaningless. Since I can prove that the so-called "problem" of "more profit" has no solution, I reject it. The proof is simple. There are infinite numbers, therefore there is no maximum profit. If you want a more technical proof, you can use any of the infinite set proofs. Personally I like the infinite prime numbers.
I think it would be better if our economic system were organized around two different principles: (1) Increasing freedom, and (2) Improving the use of our limited time. As a result of practicing those principles, I don't have the money to bribe the cheapest politicians to rig the rules of the game in favor of larger profits. In contrast, the google has become a YUGE lobbyist.
You don't want to get me started on fake individuals. Suffice it to say that corporations are NOT human beings.
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, you know, something more accurate?
Add in a bunch of different Asian ethnicities, a smattering of other races, a few women who are actually competent and opinionated enough to hold their own, rather than just being eye-candy. And the lot of them spread across the social-competency spectrum from the smart-dressing player to the morbidly obese cheeto-powered coder., instead of predominantly representing the least-attractive stereotypes.
Seriously - why would you favor the current grossly inaccurate and frankly insulting representation of computer geekdom unless you aspire to be a member of the unhealthy albino sausage-party that is Hollywood's representation?
And as a corollary, why would any teenager who *doesn't* want to be part of that distasteful stereotype even consider that as a career track unless they're already fascinated by computers to begin with? These are just kids we're talking about, mostly extremely image-conscious, and expected to choose a career path based on media portrayal and far too little solid information.
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, you know, something more accurate?
Add in a bunch of different Asian ethnicities, a smattering of other races, a few women who are actually competent and opinionated enough to hold their own, rather than just being eye-candy. And the lot of them spread across the social-competency spectrum from the smart-dressing player to the morbidly obese cheeto-powered coder., instead of predominantly representing the least-attractive stereotypes.
...and end up with movies nobody would watch.
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Do you really fail to understand the difference between "cliche" and "entertainment"?
I care about character development, storyline and the universe inside which the movie is built, rather than how actors look like or the percentage of *this* or *that* skin color in the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed "12 Angry Men" (the 1957 version) without asking myself for a second "why is the whole jury white?" - because frankly it did not matter. I've also watched (and enjoyed) "all-black" movies without as much as a shado
Re: Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you really fail to understand the difference between "cliche" and "entertainment"?
I care about character development, storyline and the universe inside which the movie is built, rather than how actors look like or the percentage of *this* or *that* skin color in the movie.
In fact, there is a reason for stereotypes. That's to not distract viewers from what the filmmakers really want to show in their movie.
For example the scenario calls for some computer stuff, so they need a computer guy. The computer guy is that not important to the story, and his race and gender even less so. So what they do is tap in the expectations of the public : a computer guy should be a nerdy white male. If they diverge from the stereotype, people will notice that and the character will draw attention, but it is not what they want, they don't want you to think "hey, a black girl is playing the hacker, interesting", when that hacker is totally secondary to the story.
What made me realize that is the comment of a sound director about dubbing screeching tires sounds for a car driving on gravel. He said that, yes, he knows it is wrong, but it is a short scene, and most people probably don't even notice the gravel. So as the car accelerates, if it makes the proper sound, spectators will think "what is this sound? oh yes, gravel" for a second, and this is not what you want from a breathtaking action scene. He also said that he has to adapt. It it is clearly shown that the car is on gravel, that the gravel is important or that spectators become too knowledgeable of this particular trope, he will use the correct sound because doing otherwise would be the distraction.
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, as a scrawny gay teenage geek, I aspired to be a member of the "unhealthy albino sausage-party", because those were the people who wouldn't beat me up and actually tolerate them. The teenagers with "no solid information" about computers were the ones doing the beating because in their "extremely image conscious" world, there was no room for scrawny gay geeks like me. Unfortunately, self-righteous bigots like you will destroy this niche for people like me just like you have destroyed the gay and minority neighborhoods people like me used to live in.
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These are just kids we're talking about, mostly extremely image-conscious, and expected to choose a career path based on media portrayal and far too little solid information.
This image conscious attitude should not be coddled, especially if the goal is a career in a STEM field. The truth cares not for self image or the perception of others. If the media is what's responsible for reenforcing the assumption that competency is measured by social conformance and dress codes (or socjus garbage), then that is the problem to deal with, not adding more distortions to the pile just to make the field more appealing to people who care more about those things than the truth. Such people
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Wait? You've been working at least a decade, so you must have worked with hundreds of men. And you've found four examples? And still haven't been able to demonstrate that they have any inadequacies?
Fucking hell, ring the universities! We need to produce a paper on this now!
Incidentally, what the fuck is with bullying men that don't share your perspective on what's important with life? You appear to be horrified that some men aren't giving three quarters of their income to a woman, and apparently they're the
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Nah.
I'm pretty much a "guy in his 30s whose social life is limited to playing video games with other guys". Of course it's a bit more complex than that, and like any human being, I personally I feel that I have a vast array of interests, an eye for art, and complex inner world, but I'm simply not delusional enough to assume that a random woman would see me as anything else than a perfect representation of that stereotype.
That kind of rants prey on the insecurities of people here, as evidenced by the number
Re: Well... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I'd be pretty happy if Hollywood ever depicted computer science, programming, or hacking in a remotely realistic manner. I honestly don't care all that much what gender or skin color the programmer is. I just want to see less of this, please. [youtube.com]
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any profession that Hollywood portrays even remotely accurately?
Re: Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Vampire hunter, starship captain, post-apocalyptic tribal warrior, superhero sidekick, etc., etc. How many examples do you need?
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Stories about Hollywood, perhaps?
The Smoak Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
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The stereotype of the socially inept "brogrammer" is VERY accurate. And it's what companies like Google and Facebook want - self-isolating male drones who can expend all their energies on work because they have no home life outside of video games, no social life outside of their bro-mates, no significant other, no kids, can be easily replaced with other drones, moved at a moment's notice because they have no ties in the larger community, and don't have much in the way of other options because interview ter
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For an alternative view, go look at some Bollywood films.
Re: Well... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because *everything* needs to be about achieving purported social justice agendas?
Phonies, all of them. They want to feel like they're changing the world, but without leaving the comfortable 6-digit salary and fancy coffee shops ecosystem. You don't see those people signing up to go fight ISIS or even flying to Texas to help people in need. They tweet and facebook that's the extent of their courage and commitment to social justice.
Fuck those imbeciles. Fuck Google. They're the canary letting us know that society is seriously sick.
Re: Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
You are witnessing the decadent end of the west.
The MOST priveleged people in the richest country on earth claiming to be victims.
Social Justice and their form of post modernism is poison for the west. In future historians will say "they just gave up"
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The MOST priveleged people in the richest country on earth claiming to be victims.
Well when you have everything, you need something to feel special. Of course their bullshit hurts everyone else like that 40 year old guy who lives with his parents, never mind he broke his back ~20 years ago, can't hold down a job and is still fighting workmans comp. Those special people need monies for a sex-change instead! Oh and safe spaces because someone telling them to shut the fuck up hurts their feelings.
Social Justice and their form of post modernism is poison for the west. In future historians will say "they just gave up"
It is, but people aren't going to go down without a fight over it either. And the socjus mo
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Historians will say mission accomplished [ibiblio.org].
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Fuck those imbeciles. Fuck Google. They're the canary letting us know that society is seriously sick.
Google is more like the vet, holding the dead canary. You should have noticed when it was sick, not waited until it was dead and then waited for google to come around and notice there were flies on it.
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You should have noticed when it was sick, not waited until it was dead and then waited for google to come around and notice there were flies on it.
"When I bought it 'alf an hour ago Google assured me that its total lack of movement was due to its being tired and shagged out after a long squawk."
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
These phonies are nothing new either. Read Tom Wolfe's Radical Chic.
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What are you doing to fix this sick society you are so worried about? Ranting about Google on Slashdot?
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Because *everything* needs to be about achieving purported social justice agendas?
Have you ever watched a television program? Every episode of every cartoon or sitcom comes with a message. Those messages are often intended to advance cultural development, although they usually are fairly trite and boil down to the golden rule.
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Have you ever watched a television program?
You say that but weve had people here whinging that "Star Trek" of all things has got invaded by "teh SJW". I can only conclude they've never watched ToS.
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If you believe that you're just another oblivious moron. The purpose of every sitcom - every TV show, every movie, every "free" search engine lookup or social media account - is to MAKE MONEY.
I know you feel amazingly triumphant here, because you think you're teaching me something, but no. You're just failing spectacularly. Money is spent making television for one purpose, to make money. But the creative people who are creating the content have other, additional goals.
If they could make money selling their grandmother's blood, they'd do it, and take a deposit on the bottle. If soylent green was profitable, they'd be pushing it and how wonderful it is to end your life early.
Blah blah blah yackety yackety yack. You're so fucking amazing, woo hoo. I know all of that shit, and have known it since I was a teenager. That's beside the point. It doesn't matter why they put a message into the content. Is it b
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I specifically did NOT mention the people who may be working on any particular sitcom, whose motives may vary. The purpose of the sitcom itself is to make money, as I said. And you can be sure that not everyone who works on a sitcom really gives a shit about changing society for the better via a sitcom - it's first and foremost a job.
And you're wrong - movies without morals sell. Or have you forgotten about pr0n? Snuff films? Pretty much any movie that glorifies violence? In the last case, it's the killing
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Yes. The social justice religion requires daily devotions. If any part of life is outside the cult leaders' influence, they see that as a threat.
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Someday perhaps you will realize that the life you spent being mean to people and hating people because they're not like you was a sad, wasted life.
Also, I don't know those references. I guess they're from some TV show?
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Re: Well... (Score:3)
I was going to speak in support of the GP post, but then there are assholes like you.
You do realize you hurt your own movement, right?
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False flag [wikipedia.org]. See also fake hate crimes [fakehatecrimes.org].
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Just look at Hedy Lamarr. She wasn't just an A-list actress - she also invented and patented, among other things, spread-spectrum communications - in 1941.
Just look at Hedy Lamarr. She wasn't just an A-list actress - she also co- invented and patented, among other things, a specific, mechanical way of doing spread-spectrum communications - a technology that was used during WWI, was published about in 1908, had been experimented on before that .
So you're willing to exaggerate her accomplishment, hide the man who did the work with her, and imp
Re: Well... (Score:3)
Rich whites do - I doubt a trailer park dwelling son of a single mother on welfare would have been treated the same. I wish you social justice types would stop making assumptions about people based on their physical characteristics. All you do is alienate lots of people who've never done anything wrong.
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The different incarceration rates based on gender correlate to testosterone.
Completely true, and if you're a bully you'll want to mock them for it (e.g. men think with their dicks).
On the other hand, pointing out the other things that correlate with testosterone levels, like willingness to take risks or mechanical aptitude, is wrong-think. Men and women must identical ... except when women are better.
And given that men have much higher levels of testosterone, this would explain the higher male prison population.
It explains part of it, but not all of it. Even when you only look at non-violent, first-time offenders men get longer sentences and higher fines for the same crimes than women do.
Consider that both chemical and surgical castration [nih.gov] reduce the rate of repeat pedophile offenders from 50% to between 2% and 5%. Testosterone clearly plays a role.
Ok
Yeah hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
At least make it consistent with reality and either put in a Chinese undergrad or underpaid Indian dude.
Re:Yeah hollywood (Score:5, Interesting)
At least make it consistent with reality
The whole purpose of this is NOT to be consistent with reality, and NOT show things as they really are. The goal is to create an illusionist Utopia la-la land where everyone rides winged unicorns, where minorities ARE the majority, all races just absolutely love each other, Muslim terrorists drop the van keys and mount flowers on their machetes and swords, etc.
Hmmm . . . so they call this practice "Intervention" . . . I'd call it censorship++. This is stuff the former East German Stasi Secret Police used to do with televisions programs there. The scripts were inspected and "re-written be conform with Socialist Ideology.
TV shows that are reality-space-time-Schrödinger's-Cat-In-Your-Laptop-warped crazy propaganda tend to be unintentionally funny.
Re:Yeah hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole purpose of this is NOT to be consistent with reality, and NOT show things as they really are. The goal is to create an illusionist Utopia la-la land....
And why is that a bad thing, when we're specifically talking about films here, and not documentaries? Films are already not reality, unless you currently have problems with giant robots stomping through your town.
Not only is there no harm in showing a happier version of reality in film, it might actually do some good, as we know that films can be influential. I'm really confused by why you are so angry about this. Every film should be a documentary on your gritty white suburban life?
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I'm really confused by why you are so angry about this.
I'm not angry about it . . . I just don't like forced censorship. I like free speech.
Every film should be a documentary on your gritty white suburban life?
No, all filmmakers should be able to choose for themselves if they make cheesy Disney Star Wars sugar-festival film, or boring reality Kardashian infotainment, or The Heart Healthy Good 'Ole Zombie Deep Fried Turkey cook show, or a THX-1138.
A private company with too much money and promoting their own agenda, no matter how noble, by forcibly manipulating content providers . . . ?
No, thanks. Read up on what "Totalitarian
Re:Yeah hollywood (Score:4, Informative)
Have you been forced by google to change your film script?
These guys were forced by Google to delete a post. [pjmedia.com]
Want to see the post so you can applaud Google for taking a correct moral stand? Well, you can't. It's gone. Google abused their market control in web advertising and had it censored.
You may read only what Google allows you to read. You didn't want to decide for yourself anyway, did you?
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Sure they can. All they have to do is threaten to cut off everyone who does business with you or links to you. Your associates probably like being in business more than they like you. If one of them doesn't, well let's see if their associates like being in business.
I see how you've founded a slippery slope, greased it up, taken a good run up and taken an epic slide right to the bottom. Was it fun? It sounds fun.
You are of course being deeply dishonest. Instead of starting with your point, you start with a p
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So your argument is that Google's actions are not within the precise, technical definition of the word "censorship". Agreed. They have the same effect though, which is why I used the words "effectively censor", meaning to take an action that has the effect of censoring.
Translation: not paying money is muh censorship!1one
Google is not delisting their page. Google is not harming their position in the rankings. Google still won't do either of those if they fine an alternative advertising network. Google is cer
Re:Yeah hollywood (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you been forced by google to change your film script?
I don't write film scripts. However, maybe I do like to have a choice to listen to what others have to say . . . ? Is Google limiting that choice based on what they think they would like people to listen to . . . ?
That sounds like the stuff what countries like China, India, Saudi Arabia, et al do with the Internet: Limit the voices of anything that the government doesn't like.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Encouraging diversity is good idea, in my opinion. Using censorship to do it by a private organization is not good social hygiene, and a wee bit dangerous, methinks. Maybe some folks with lots of money will start using censorship to promote other agendas, that are not so altruistic . . . ?
"Hi, I'm Dave, your new, ideal TV friend! I buy all my food and things online from Amazon! All my closest friends use Facebook all the time! You'll want to be like me, and also by from Amazon and use Facebook!"
Sound silly? Take a look at some old former East German TV shows and films from the late 80's trying to promote their illusion of Socialist Ideals. They are hilarious. When push comes to shove, the former East Germany was just another totalitarian state: a small group of rich and powerful decided what they thought was best for everyone, and force fed their dogma to everyone. Sure you were free to leave whenever you want, but they shot at you a bit while you were on your way out the door. The top politicians in the former East Germany even had their own gated community, with stores stuffed with Western luxury goods. Kinda sorta sounds like the Google folks running this show living in Silicon Valley . . . um, do they live in diverse communities . . . or gated ones . . . ?
Maybe instead of trying to force others to promote diversity, they could maybe do something about it themselves . . . ? Oh, the housing prices there will ensure that Google executives will have neighbors with the "right kind" of diversity.
Newer documentaries with interviews of artists who struggled under censorship of the old Communists are less amusing.
Re:Yeah hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds like the stuff what countries like China, India, Saudi Arabia, et al do with the Internet: Limit the voices of anything that the government doesn't like.
Except it's nothing like it. Do that in China or Saudi Arabia and get beaten, jailed and/or disappeared. Do it in front of google and they might write a strongly worded letter or stop paying you money!
So equivalent.
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Have you seen Silicon Valley? It has both those characters.
rappers (Score:5, Insightful)
i dont see many white males represented in rap videos. i guess that is the reason that there is a under representation of white males in rap. we should start a change.org petition demanding that white males be equally represented in rap videos in order to grow the number of white males in rap
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Yeah, besides Eminem who was arguably the world's most successful/well-kown rapper for years, B-Real (Cypress Hill) who keeps kicking on, the Beastie Boys, dudes from the Kottonmouth Kings... They're in the minority, but there's definitely been a steady stream of successful white rappers.
Re:rappers (Score:5, Insightful)
They are in the minority? Given that whites outnumber blacks about 5:1, shouldn't we expect - nay, DEMAND - that rap stars also have the same racial background proportions? For every black rapper, we need 5 white rappers. For every black basketball player, we need 5 white basketball players.
And don't even get me started on gender and teachers and nurses - or even college students! Right now, there is a massive imbalance in gender in college, with women making up about 64% of all undergrads, but just 50% of the population, meaning we need to kick many of them out and replace them with men! And fat people, we need MORE representation of fat people EVERYWHERE, given they are the majority of US population. Models, TV/film actors, CEOs, soldiers, etc.
We need to make sure that each demographic is proportionately represented in any aspect of society. After all, white male lives matter. We need equal rights for all, and we must use the SJW metric of equality - that every race, gender, religion is equally represented in all aspects of life, according to their prevalence in society as a whole! Until we have 100% strictly-quota-aligned employment in society, then society is inherently evil and must be torn down. Right?
Link to White House Visitor Records (Score:2)
See: Before Barbie's Brainy Makeover, Mattel Execs Met With White House, Google [slashdot.org]
Will this effort target the "other direction" too? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to a 2015 USC report, President Obama was kept abreast of efforts to challenge media's stereotypical portrayals of women...
This news piece [usatoday.com] talks of the absence of male teachers.
I'd like to have an effort targeted to this imbalance too. Google, anyone?
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Why not you?
Re:Will this effort target the "other direction" t (Score:4, Insightful)
Same reason feminists love to talk about how more other women should be coders but don't want to be coders themselves.
Re:Will this effort target the "other direction" t (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually tried. Apparently I wasn't 'passionate' enough about teaching. The gatekeepers want it to be a vocation rather than just a job.
As to why other guys don't, it's a thankless low paid job and just an accusation of sexual impropriety can run you out of the profession.
The worst that women have to deal with in IT is variable hygiene standards and some non-PC jokes. (Okay, they have to deal with a bunch of other stuff as well, but they aren't IT specific).
Doomed To Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
An experiment has been conducted many times where they throw a load of female toys (typically dolls) and male toys (typically trucks) around a monkey enclosure. Every time it is conducted, the female monkeys play with the dolls and the male monkey's play with the trucks. Here's a video of the experiment being carried out on BBC's Horizon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9xXyw2f7g
The simple fact is, men and women are different and therefore have different interests. The reason women are under-represented in computer science is because most women aren't interested in the subject. It's the same reason men are under-represented in child care - most men have no interest in looking after young children.
What Google are doing is fascist style propaganda that ignores the truth and pushes the party narrative. They then severely punish anyone who questions the narrative.
Google is true evil.
Re: (Score:2)
Google is true evil.
In this case Google is acting just as every large corporate will: they want to avoid being attacked by vocal groups as they think that that will, eventually, lead to a reduction in profits. So when some group succeeds in getting enough people to accept their meme, the corporate will want to be seen as supporting it - no matter how wacky it is & no matter what those at the top really think about it.
Some of the more savvy & well organised groups get their supporters into positions of influence, in gov
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Then they started playing a game and kept score. Suddenly the boys were focused and accurate, while the girls stood around talking to each other and missed shots. One of them even got hit
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The point here is that people take cues from other people, especially children looking to adults for guidance. In the programme they actually tried giving older children (age 7) toys meant for the opposite gender, and again they enjoyed playing with them.
One striking observation was that girls seemed to have less ability than boys when it came to working with construction toys and spacial puzzles. Boys tended to have trouble expressing emotions other than anger, lacking the vocabulary. Both of those things
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And yet the differences are stark.
We deny biological differences at our own peril. Even if your goal is to have more women in tech (a goal I don't personally understand but whatever), you're not going to get anywhere without considering all the FACTS (which was James Damore's whole point).
Female employee diversity at Google from 2013 to 2016 was completely flat. Their diversity project was an abject failure. Obviously, there was no glass ceiling. Women just have better things to do that sit on their ass all
Did I miss the memo? (Score:2)
It does not inspire underrepresented groups to pursue careers in computer science,
Is there a rule that says a person will only be "inspired" by someone who is the same gender that they are and / or has the same colour skin? And if so, why not require them to be the same height, or eye-colour, too.
I find it difficult to accept that women only study physics because they have been "inspired" by a female physicist, or that men would need to have a shining example of a male nurse to "inspire" them into the profession.
And if it is that way, where does that leave all the major religions an
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a rule that says a person will only be "inspired" by someone who is the same gender that they are and / or has the same colour skin? And if so, why not require them to be the same height, or eye-colour, too.
I think only to the extent that a person believes that people who are not the same gender, ethnicity, culture, etc. as themselves are an other and in that way a little less human if they're being perfectly honest with themselves. It's the kind of naive thought one might have as a small child, but that should be dismissed even before puberty. '
I think that's what disgusts me most about the people so in favor of forced representation in media, etc. They essentially treat groups of people like idiot childre
Underrepresented minorities? Like who? (Score:3)
What minorities are you talking about? Indians and other Asians?
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Hey Elon! (Score:2)
Definitely the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
"The problem with the hackneyed stereotype of the socially inept, hoodie-clad white male coder? It does not inspire underrepresented groups to pursue careers in computer science..."
Yeah, because Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Bacon, Newton, Leibniz, and all the groundbreaking mathematicians, scientists and technologists up through Einstein, Turing, Feynman and Berners-Lee took up science and technology because they were inspired by someone they saw on TV.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the opposite, actually. They didn't have it reinforced to them day in and day out that only someone who didn't look like them was fit to do something. What they could aspire to was more of a blank canvas, because there wasn't an established trope of only X can do Y. Movies tend to create and perpetuate these tropes. For people who don't look like a 20-something awkward white kid in a hoodie or a lumbering neckbeard with cheeto fingers and a stained t-shirt, the computer-whiz position doesn't seem to in
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Yeah, because Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Bacon, Newton, Leibniz, and all the groundbreaking mathematicians, scientists and technologists up through Einstein, Turing, Feynman and Berners-Lee took up science and technology because they were inspired by someone they saw on TV.
What they could aspire to was more of a blank canvas, because there wasn't an established trope of only X can do Y.
You really want to say that life decades and/or centuries ago was open and filled with opportunities for regular people? Really?
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You really want to say that life decades and/or centuries ago was open and filled with opportunities for regular people? Really?
Yes these people really believe that.
...and nothing has changed, but these people wont accept that either. They think that they can force people to do things that do not interest them, and that good outcomes will be the result.
They cant comprehend that what the majority of famous people from history had was the free time necessary to spend a lot of time doing the things that interested them.
Its been proven time and again that social constructionism has bad outcomes.
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This is the dumbest post of the day.
The reason there are fewer female geniuses is largely biology. Women are nature's safe bet, while men are the wildcard. Men fill the prisons and somehow I don't hear feminists wining about that!
Also, men have more compartmentalized brains and deal wit stress better (on the whole). This lends itself to a narrow focus on logical problems for extended periods of time.
We also live shorter and less socially active lives. It's not like a career in math or science is the ultimat
Who cares? (Score:2)
"Calling on" Hollywood to tweak the outrageous lies and misrepresentations it churns out may not be as important as it sounds. Garbage is garbage, no matter what colour you paint it.
And....., (Score:2)
I just went DuckDuckGo
Fuck off google (Score:2, Insightful)
You know who else wasn't inspired by stereotypical white nerds wearing hoodies to go into tech?
Me, a fucking white male. I went into tech because I enjoy it, not because of socially retarded idiots on tv.
What a weird mishmashed write-up (Score:5, Insightful)
This line seems to be taken from a document about the movie Hidden Figures [nyc.gov].
That "Made with Code" project seems particularly absurd. They're trying to trick girls into learning how to program by making it about clothes and fashion. Feminism seems more intent on reinforcing stereotypes than those they accuse of misogyny.
Sure (Score:2)
I mean how many hot bi-sexual women hackers are there? They seem to be very over represented in Hollywoo.
They don't really want the truth about wage slaves in foreign countries working for a small percentage of what they would receive if they were employees instead of contractors.
Or the greed of the companies the "computer scientists" work for, where people have to make the choice of following their beliefs, or aligning with corporate policies of data mining, information sharing and tracking.
They also don't
What? Hollywood gets it wrong??? (Score:2)
Hoodie-clad? (Score:3)
This [ytimg.com] is the Hollywood image of coders that I grew up with.
Screw it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
NCIS has prominently featured a female hacker for more than a decade now. A female hacker who possesses all the same superpowers as every male hacker: she can get through any encryption in as much under 44 minutes as is required to advance the plot.
Warehouse 13 prominently featured a female hacker for very nearly the entirety of its 5 year run, beginning 8 years ago. She didn't exhibit her hacking superpowers nearly as frequently as Abby in NCIS, but Allison Scagliotti made up for it by being improbably beautiful.
Leverage prominently featured a black male hacker for the entirety of its 4 year run, beginning 9 years ago. He too had all the requisite hacking superpowers Hollywood insists on depicting.
Hell, we can go all the way back to Hackers, in 1995, to find a very young Angelina Jolie playing yet another improbably beautiful female hacker. We don't know if she had hacking superpowers because real computers didn't actually appear in that movie, but I'm sure if there were any, she would have.
Other examples are plentiful. In short, Hollywood has been injecting minorities and women into a predominantly white male role for more than a generation, predating even the existence of Google. It doesn't matter. In the face of persistent, even pervasive propaganda for an entire generation, the number of women getting CS degrees has gone down, not up. It's almost as if people object to fake role models routinely doing the impossible, especially when they know damn well that the job is simultaneously boring (to their minds) and insanely complicated, and nothing like what's depicted on TV, because guess what, everybody can use a computer, and nearly everybody has, at least a little, so they know the reality is far different.
Bullshit propaganda is bullshit, and also a demonstrated failure. But you just keep on keepin' on, Google. I'm sure it'll start working. Aaaaany minute now...
(Actually, white males should probably be thanking Google for these efforts. After 25 years of anti-correlation, their propaganda seems to have had the affect of reinforcing their dominance of the field. Want a fake hacker? Hire a pretty girl or a black man. Want your computer fixed? Hire a white man.)
Google Diversity: now with Cultural Marxism (Score:4, Insightful)
You know when I hear people like Paul Joseph Watson and Infowars as a whole rail about cultural Marxism I mostly just chuckle at it for the comedy that it mostly is. But every so often assholes in the tech industry prove the other crazies correct by their very actions. People at Google are so damn obsessed with diversity of skin ton and genital shape that it's starting to ignore the very concept of Google as a money making company in favor of being a vehicle for social change.
Jesus, Google couldn't get the right mix or woman and the 'correct' kind of racial minority in positions of power by hiring them... so they got people in the media to PRETEND that it's that way?? Actually I aint even mad. I'm just flat out amused at how pathetic both Hollywood and Google is in in this. They want to make sure people doing FAKE HACKING and IT work while say shit like 'I'm rerouting through the firewall with encryption!' Oh man, that's just comedy gold.
Uh.... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem I have with this statement is that it seems equivalent to saying that "girls and underrepresented minorities" are somehow more likely to care what other people think about them if they otherwise did try to pursue a field that they believed was interesting, to such a degree that they will not try to pursue such a field in the first place if they feel that they may be negatively perceived because of it. Of course, one may argue that they are more likely to care about it because of all the other discrimination against them, and I do not wish to be dismissive of such unjust discrimination, but in the end, it still amounts to them caring more about what other people think.
Which, to be blunt... and I hate to sound insensitive here, is really their own effing problem. If the only real thing stopping you from pursuing a field, regardless of what it is, is the fear of what other people are going to think of you if you did, then I'm pretty darn sure that you probably wouldn't be a good fit for that field in the first place.
Find something that you love to do enough that it won't matter what other people are going to think, or else you will never be happy. That much is going to be true for both men and women, and people of all races and demographics.
2001 A Space Odyssey, and Westworld (Yul Brenner) (Score:3)
Turner classic movies had two sci-fi classics yesterday: 2001 A Space Odyssey, and Westworld (with Yul Brenner). Re-watched both.
Odyssey was 1968 and Kubrick. Westworld was 1973 and Michael Crichton.
It bothers me now, to see that Odyssey had _zero_ diversity. I was critically looking for anyone, even background cast that just walks past the camera, or is in a shot.
Westworld had diversity. Both as scientific types in the underground control center, as well as being visitors to the leisure worlds.
More "Women are the primary victims of war" (Score:4, Funny)
Funny how no one cared about the stereotypes men would face for being so nerdy/geeky/whatever when computers weren't as profitable or such a big part of society.
Re: But, but, but don't cast minorities as villian (Score:2)
I thought this was more of the "accent of evil" effect. Both incarnations (inkhanations?) of Khan have a British accent.
They picked a famous actor with a British accent. Most of them are white.
Re: But, but, but don't cast minorities as villia (Score:2)
Tho I suppose with a name like Khan, yeah, the character should not be white.
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My older sister went from being able to change an alternator (never what you'd call a 'competent wrench') to not being able to change a tire.
What happened in the interim? She learned to bounce her tits at her boyfriends and have them do the work.
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Late. I started younger and had to walk, uphill, against the wind (both ways), in the snow, to the datacenter at the local university.