rustynails77

This is an amazing discussion and it really needs to occur. What scares me is how much this conversation is being ruled by an angry emotive mob, at the expense of democracy and free speech. There is almost no fact in any of these comments.

Why MUST we have 50% of male and female in any industry? Have you noticed how almost every media outlet ignores female dominated industries (such as veterinary science) [0], where over 85% of vets in the western world are female? The strongest argument in this thread appears to be that there must be equal numbers for equality, but it's only EVER applied to male dominated industries (Google it if you doubt me). However, not only is this argument unjustified, it's continually selectively applied by most mainstream media outlets, again and again. There is no challenge or balance to any of these arguments from the mainstream media.

I am disappointed that Google sacked this engineer. To understand this mindset, you really need to watch this video on Yale. People being shut down from talking because they're male or white [1] or because angry mobs don't like what they have to say. People in this thread talk about sexism and yet they struggle to provide any evidence (while I can point at truck loads of evidence of misandry, eg. domestic violence, veterinary science, etc). This Yale video talks about this exact problem i'm describing. We have a society where you are no longer allowed to express selective views (even with evidence). Google have confirmed this with their dismissal of this engineer. What we've become concerns me deeply.

To all of the people who have stood up for free speech (and you're in the clear minority in this thread), I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you want to be able to sort out the media that's worth listening to, watch reporting on this topic closely over the next few days. Look for extreme prejudice and emotive language from the media. To quote an excellent quote from the Yale video, "these are moves of power, not reason" (3 minutes in, [1]).

So where are the rational arguments? What about the percentage of female university graduates with relevant skills? What about Dr Simon Baran Cohen's findings on very young children and trends to their thinking patterns? Where are the facts? Why are most people side-stepping facts?

Now please re-read this entire thread and ask yourself about freedom of speech. Ask yourself about democracy. Ask yourself about how many people have presented facts. There is something seriously wrong. You should be deeply concerned about the lack of debate, the lack of evidence, the number of emotive arguments and the message Google has sent to anyone who doesn't toe the politically correct line.

[0] http://career-advice.careerone.com.au/career-development/pro... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK4MBzp5YwM

While everyone discriminates, I think the older generation is more in touch with egalitarianism than your generation. I'll give you a few examples,

Today, people refuse to acknowledge that domestic violence has male victims. This has NEVER happened in history. It's a modern phenomenon to reject victims based on gender. Perform a Google search for the entire year of 2015. You will not find one single picture of a male victim of domestic violence. Yet, ABS puts the figure at about 30% of victims as being male. Some Australian politicians have tried to legislate DV based on gender!

My local magazine has pictures of only girls on the front cover almost every issue. 50 years ago, you would almost always have a girl standing next to a boy.

We refuse to talk about suicide rates (80% male) or homelessness (75%+ male). In fact, most Australian media will only talk about homelessness of women. http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/2049.0Mai...

http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/...

A government organisation in Australia called 1800respect bombarded the TV with ads saying that the root cause of domestic violence was young boys "it's a boy thing" was the catch cry. They purposely targeted the demographic with the highest suicide rates who are most vulnerable to criticism.

Or Hillary Clinton's exit speech. What about this gem that not one media outlet commented on. Hillary's message of exclusion was clear. If you're a young boy you are not even worth mentioning.

"And to all of the little __girls__ who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams." http://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13570328/hillary-clinton-conces...

These are all legacies that have been created within the last decade. Never in history have we played such nasty gender games. It is the older people that are banging the drums saying "what the hell is going on?", not the younger generation. I am yet to hear younger people chime in to the conversation. I've had some doozy arguments with younger people who talk about revenge (to which I say "for what?") or "no, that's OK, that's equality".

Now, you could argue that it's not the younger generation that's controlling the media. However, there are a lot of young people on Facebook and Snapchat. Where's the outrage at the extreme prejudice we see today from the younger people? It's just not there.

What may surprise you is that I don't support a men's movement because of how toxic feminism is as a gender based movement. What I reject is the extreme gender prejudice that is so popular today. Almost every media in the western world is in the collusion and there appears to be no bar too low they will stoop to.

When I see young kids in droves calling out The Verge, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, BBC News, Fores, Vox, Vulture, Beast and all of the other prejudiced media outlets, I will know that you are right. Until then, I will assume the majority of people who give two hoots about egalitarianism are the older generation of men and women.

Let's look at it another way. Ban all hate groups, or don't ban any of them. However, don't pick and choose.

I don't agree with Neo Nazis. I hold Neo Nazis with the same contempt that I hold feminists. Why not apply the policy for all hate groups?

For example, in Australia we refuse to acknowledge the approximately 25% of violence and abuse by females within the household. The worst case statistic is NSW ("Twice as many female victims (19,488) as male victims (9,261) in New South Wales."). Not one of these victims is given a voice! http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/...

Also check http://www.oneinthree.com.au/

You will see that men who are victims of domestic violence are turned away from support groups. This doesn't surprise me as there is an aggressive campaign to ignore male victims from media, government and community support groups.

I conducted a Google search from 2015 to determine that 100% of references in the Australian media stated that domestic violence was a "male only" behaviour and the only victims represented were female. I checked over 2000 references! In other words, 2000 of 2000 references represented one gender with relation to violence.

If you listen to Cassie Jaye (the feminist who created the documentary The Red Pill), she says that feminists in media refuse to acknowledge male victims because it will take money away from female victims. In other words, if you are a boy or a man who is beaten or abused, feminists insist males get no representation or support. It's almost a complete media kibosh throughout the western world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itSTzV29bS0

So, why is Twitter not banning prominent feminists? or, why isn't Twitter banning all media outlets who support such hateful messages that insist that some victims of violence should be ignored? This is a fundamental breach of human rights! You can't get much worse!

Check media references for an absence of any of the following, 80% of suicide victims are male 25% of domestic violence is by a female 90% of incarceration is male

You will also notice that Cassie Jaye said she was suppressed by feminists. Cassie also said that she was advised by feminists not to represent any issues that impact men. This would explain the media suppression across all western countries.

If you're going to ban a hate group, why not include feminism. It's certainly one of the biggest and most active groups today and actively violates human rights. I've given plenty of pointers in this single post alone to build evidence.

There is almost universal silence from the overwhelming majority of feminists on this topic. It's a sad indictement of the overwhelming majority of the feminist movement. Check media, documentaries from 2016, support groups, even discussion forums. The message is consistent and it consistently breaches human rights.

So, should Twitter ban hate groups? If you really must silence hate groups, then ban them all. And like you, I dislike spending so much of my time fighting hate groups like feminism because there is no impartiality on the topic. How extreme do you need to get before people will speak up?

That's not the half of it. This author deserves no respect based on that article.

She is typical of "me me me" and the continual flow of sexism we see from Australian journalists. The last few decades in Australian media have been a dark spot. This author is sexist, arrogant and takes pride in yanking a strange girl's hair (which is tantamount to assault).

"In two strides I was behind the schoolgirl. I reached up, seized her ponytail at the roots and gave it a sharp downward yank."

"My only regret is that I couldn’t see the Asian woman’s face at the moment the schoolgirl’s head jerked back and her insolent grin turned into a rictus."

The society where "elders" were regarded as wells of wisdom probably never existed.

Historically, the Greeks (as one example) respected the opinions of wise elders,

"Monarchies in ancient Greece were not absolute because there was usually a council of older citizens (the senate, or in Macedonia the congress) who gave advice to the King."

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece

From my own experience, I always sought adults that I felt I could learn from. Even as a kid, I remember thinking some older people gave bad advice and some showed great insight and used this to focus my attention. My own kids seem to echo similar sentiments to my own at the same age.

Pulling apart appliances is a great idea. I've had that in the back of my mind but pushed it back for too long. Thanks for the reminder.

This article reflects some of my own views. I moderate my kids' access time to electronic games very tightly. We have frequent group discussions on things we've seen, done, learned, etc. The conversations are really amazing and are a good lead-in to bedtime.

It shouldn't surprise me, but I often hear more intelligent conversation from my kids than I do from most media sources. In fact, we sometimes analyse places like The Verge for their prejudice as an exercise in critical thinking around flawed arguments and fallacies. We look at youtube for history, engineering and biology videos. We've developed board games, Rube Goldberg machines, flying craft, gone on bike hikes, looked at water safety...

If you live in the suburbs and you look in your local area, there are many free educational community activities too. We've looked at construction, robotics, software and sports activities to name a few.

We even make up our own learning activities. Eg. we went shopping together and discussed food priorities, food costs for equivalent items, set a budget, discussed buying local v/s imported food, etc.

There are learning opportunities all around. I feel that education on computers is over-rated and critical thinking outside of a computer is underrated. It just takes a lot of time and energy. I usually put in a weekend of planning about a month before school holidays.

I don't discount this theory, i've wondered it myself a few times in recent years. However, i'm not sure of the data to back that theory. The article itself says that the job situation has improved in the US. The question is around the opportunities that open and close based on having a degree (eg. over qualification vs under qualification vs expectation).

It also mentions that the data is from 0.1% of students. While that's still a fair number, there's room for error.

No one should get away with abusing anyone else. Yet, this term (domestic violence) has been coined as a man's thing. It also neglects mental abuse that are very destructive. If you search Google, you'll find plenty of links re-enforcing this view (eg. men need to be told to stop doing it, we need raise money for women who are impacted, etc).

There is no doubt that there's an agenda behind this particular term. Unless there's a very good reason, nothing should be attributed to one gender, yet, it happens all the time.

I did manage to find this link about the incidents with Bill Murray in question. I suggest you read these articles as they paint somewhat of a different picture.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124968/news?year=2008

Here is one quote "The police report continues, 'I then had the complainant meet me at the police station to talk with the juveniles. They informed me that their mother had been drinking heavily and had (become) physical with them.'"

The mother in question was Bill Murray's wife.

I will never change my perspective about Facebook. They sell data to the highest bidder and almost certainly use that data to exploit Facebook users.

(this contradicts my positive post about respecting Mark for posting the letter).

It's similar to Standard Oil. Rockefeller screwed over many businesses and jacked up the price of fuel to great detriment of society (at least in some ways). Then, he donates the money to help society.

There are at least two sides to this. Mark is speaking openly and stating his view to set an example to others. I applaud that. There may be better ways to achieve this, but I feel this personal approach is a very positive gesture.

On the other hand, you have the Leonardo Di Caprios of the world who are very philanthropic and try to make the world a better place without open letters like this.

I personally am not offended by Mark's approach (and I'm not a fan of Zuck). I'd rather see someone express benevolent intentions than just about any other alternative (including silence, or prejudice/hostility/etc that seems so common today).

Most of these things can be achieved, but I really don't understand what most people expect from equality. For example, does equality mean that if I sit on my ass and do nothing, I get the same as the person next to me who works their butt off? Or does it mean that I get a fixed amount based on the effort I put in? How is that effort measured?

When people talk about equality, I'm not sure if they mean equal opportunity or equity or utopia (knowing that utopia depends on a slave class). Maybe it means something else.

The reality is that humanity has empathy and greed (noting they are not opposites). I can not imagine that I will ever see every person equally.

At 5, one of my kids loved to flirt with the girls. My other son played with a girl who was a tomboy because they liked rough and tumble and both gave as good as they got.

There are so many ways that young kids can identify strong characteristics, even at 5 years old. I can't guarantee they won't change (although my kids haven't changed as far as I can recall).

The first incident I remember (while not gender related) was my son when he was 6 months old. He HATED scratchy fabric from the scarf from a bear. We had to cut the scarf and the tag off this bear. Over a decade later, he still has that same fussiness with fabrics. This tells me that some preferences are there from a very young age.

I could very well imagine some kids feeling at odds with their birth gender from a very young age.

I used to be a leader in the scouts. Before I joined, our scouting group tore itself apart because the previous leader felt that girls should be in girl scouts rather than boy scouts.

When he finally relented, the mothers moved in and asked that activities be 'toned down'. When he refused, the complaints came in thick and fast. The leader was removed and the group collapsed. Nobody stepped up to fill the void.

After I joined, we spent 6 months playing skipping rope games until I asked what the hell we were doing as a group to grow our kids. I joined the Scouts to learn leadership and survival skills for my kids. That's when I got the back story from our group leader (a very capable woman who had also suffered in the skirmish and was afraid to rock the PC boat).

The first change I initiated was to split the group activities into 'soft' activities and 'hard core' activities. Those that wanted to play skipping rope games could. Those that wanted to learn bush survival skills could.

Interestingly, everyone dropped the skipping rope games and we actually started to function as a productive and capable scout group. We quadrupled our numbers in 12 months to the point we could no longer cope without additional leadership because our sixers weren't experienced enough to take up the slack.

I don't have daughters, so I never got involved with girl scouts. While headlines like this raise all sorts of questions about girl scouts in the 21st century, I have no idea about them.

with insufficient PC-ness

As far as I can see, PC just replaces one form of prejudice with another - I would never encourage PC from anyone. However, tolerance of the tolerant and equal respect regardless of differences (which is NOT PC) is something I promote. Simply call him racist - pure and simple. Segregating one ethnicity/religion/gender is nothing short of prejudice (eg. the woman that runs she++ falls in the same boat ... she believes genders should be treated differently, that's PC and sexist. Read her comments on Forbes - she constantly draws lines between genders with stereotypes).

it was the barbarians who ultimately sacked Rome and not a civil war that did them in.

I would view the collapse of Rome through corruption/apathy and barbarian attacks. If Rome had the finances to support an army, the hordes would have been far less of an issue. You can read more about it here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...

I think someone else said it in this thread. You either make it work, or you will be replaced by someone that can.

So... the engineers comply.

I once had an engineer come to me saying that he was being victimised by other engineers about a technical solution. I took my most trusted engineer and asked him to independently review the code. He came back and said the code was crap and needed to be rolled back. We rolled it back, a code walkthrough was performed on this code and we went into testing. When that function failed, I approached my most trusted engineer. My translation of what he said it "I didn't like the guy"... So, I've learned that even great engineers can be compromised, despite many claims I see on the Internet.

Regarding Porsche's knowledge, I agree with another poster in this thread who said that Porsche may have tested the unit in the conditions that didn't show the emission problems. Without further information, i'd give Porsche the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not a fan of Satya, but you are trying to start a flame war. This is what Satya is on record saying

"I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved, Maria’s advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask."

He also said "[I] Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias"

So you've made a conclusion because he said something that was wrong and silly. I would go as far so say that it's a big leap of faith that you've drawn, or that you're trying to be inflammatory on purpose.

Now it would be more accurate to say that Microsoft is seeing how much money Facebook and Google make from knowing people's secrets.

This thread is very interesting and I deeply appreciate the comments people are making, including FoS, fear to comment on FoS, etc.

I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate. For example, HN strongly discourages attacking another member personally (eg. calling someone else idiot). I consider this a reasonable limit on freedom of speech, but concepts and opinions should be fully open for discussion (eg. pro/anti evolution etc). If the discussions are respectful, then anything should be allowed.

I believe Political Correctness has done more harm than it does good. It has created an unhealthy focus on skin colour, reproductive organs, etc to the point of lunacy. Many people struggle to look past superficial features and seem to lost the ability to make reasoned judgements. Any criticism of a woman gets you labelled a misogynist, regardless of how incapable she is. This continues to undermine the credibility of women that are truly capable in their own right. I'm currently managing a team of women. They all got there on their own merit. I would not hire a woman for the sake of political correctness or because I was bullied by a feminist journalist (as is quite common these days). The women in my team were not selected based on their gender - they were selected based on their talents and attitudes. They were available and capable.

This whole Ellen Pao incident made me think about the validity of comments on sexism and racism that are floating around the net. Compare the attitudes towards the criticisms of Steve Ballmer vs Ellen Pao. One of these individuals contributed to the significant growth of Microsoft, the other didn't manage to achieve much that stands out. Both developed a bad reputation as leaders. Yet, one of these people is being defended and the other is not. The major difference (other than Ballmer's financial track record for Microsoft) is their genders. Political Correctness has driven the need to blindly defend women, no matter how incompetent they may be. The hope is that this behaviour will help "women's rights". I view it as doing the exact opposite ... "jobs for the girls".

It saddens me that we seem to be more sexist, less tolerant and more willing to defend incompetence an an attempt to promote rights for selected members of society.

On a side note, I dislike the term "women's rights". Is it so hard to represent "people's rights"? I believe one of these reflects a destructive, prejudiced mindset and creates a bad attitude of entitlement and encourages sexism. If society said we'd defend the rights of everyone equally based on merit, the world would be a much better place.

I also believe that Lions that rest near gazelles is a different scenario. If the Lion becomes hungry, it will almost certainly chase the gazelle in the right circumstances. The article made it clear that the wolves are not attacking these primates.

Also, according to the following website, sharks to eat fish. However, it's logical to assume that like the lion, they won't always eat fish if they are full or there is no return of benefit, http://www.sharks-world.com/what_do_sharks_eat/

This one is fascinating because logically, you'd assume the wolves would attack the primates at any opportunity. It will be fascinating to see if the relationship evolves into one where the wolves defend the primates. Another poster posted the dog taming article. Maybe, just maybe, this group of primates may domesticate these wolves with time.

Or my personal favourite of nature v/s nurture, the domestication of the Russian Silver Fox, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

Speaking of interviews, there's an interesting event in Australia at the moment. A program on the ABC called Q&A invited a person suspected of terrorism onto the program. That in itself isn't fascinating (at least to me).

The Australian Prime Minister has threatened one of the countries News Sources (ie. the ABC who aired the show), this includes a change of leadership of ABC - and as the ABC is government funded, almost certainly funding cuts. The government has clearly threatened a media outlet - not for being prejudiced, but for allowing a view to be expressed.

It's fascinating people think an interview between Stalin and Wells is a W-T-F. What better way to understand differing views than to sit down and talk. I really don't understand the notion that suppressing an argument will make it go away. It reminds me of security through obfuscation.

That's a really insightful post. It's difficult to determine what is acceptable and what is not. I often find myself at odds, particularly around political correctness - where there seems to be a free pass for some people to be prejudiced without accountability.

The question I ask myself is whether or not they should be banned. I usually come to the conclusion that rebuttal is better than banning.

However, i'm also a fan of Karl Popper's don't tolerate the intolerant.

An example of the Intolerant, https://feministrag.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/remembering-the...

Your comment is excellent and the truth. By selling a person's secrets, you control them. Spending habits, political beliefs, sexual preferences, gambling/drinking problems. You are owned when you reveal this data.

Facebook track people through IP addresses, Facebook logos, partnerships, etc. So they know what you say, what you look at, when, who you talk to etc.

If the wrong people get that data (including espionage, change of management etc), it could get VERY ugly.

It's irrelevant if you worked on the team. Facebook is a profiling tool. Its users have traded their privacy for convenience. Please tell me that Facebook doesn't track people using the Facebook banners/IP address combinations... or better yet, tell me that Facebook isn't the ONLY one that does it as a justification for selling people's personal data.

Facebook is only worth 100bn because it sells peoples' personal information.

Am I jaded? Not at all. I am a realist. Facebook is primarily a monitoring tool that monetises itself on selling people's personal information.

I was reading a summary of Macbeth with my kids this morning and came across several "lost in translations" from English to English - mainly through changes in pronunciation and meaning of words changing over time. For example, the words "fear" and "fair" would have almost sounded identical in early 1600 leading to a play on words of the two themes in Macbeth.

I also came across this interesting article on Kurosawa's interpretation of Macbeth, http://www.academia.edu/3306558/Lost_in_Translation_Reconsid...

I suspect there is a lot lost in translation, which can be challenging when reading old texts.

" a lot of pontificating and observation and doesn't really interest modern readers"

Can you be clear about what DOES interest modern readers if it's not to understand human nature and the world around us? Or are you second guessing because of the prevalence of Twitter and Facebook?

If you're interested, look up Mary Beard. She is extremely knowledgeable on ancient Rome without the sexist attitude. I've spoken to her a few times, she's a lovely woman who I hold in high regard. Mary did a wonderful series on BCC called "Meet The Romans". A very insightful review. Go Mary!!

Ars has largely lost its way over the last year. There's been a strategic change behind the scenes from their management. Their articles (which used to be excellent, and a few still are) are now usually tabloid fodder. The previous focus on SHTEAM (science, history, technology, engineering arts and mathematics) is all but gone - instead, replaced with more and more click-bait and trashy headlines.

To give you one example of the rubbish Ars now focusses on, http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2015/01/report-ghostbu...

If there's something meaningful in this article, it's lost on me.

Or the stream of articles of how someone recorded someone else doing something. 18 months ago, Ars was only interested in history, engineering and the arts. Now it's mostly tabloid.

I am not a professional psychologist or therapist. My son has been diagnosed as an Aspergers - which is in the DSM. I know it's a term that's no longer recognised, but Aspergers describes a specific set of behaviours associated with Higher Functioning Autism (HFA). I have had a number of guesses confirmed about Aspergers kids by asking their parents and then sharing knowledge.

What's interesting for me is that quite a few people in IT that I have worked with have symptoms that are very Aspergers like. It can come down to an individual's interpretation as to whether or not their condition is a mental disorder. Most of these IT people that are Aspergers like would almost certainly reject the notion of them being Aspergers, even if you explained the behaviours.

The consensus is that we are all on the spectrum - it's just the degree that our symptoms are prevalent. For example, sleep deprivation can trigger similar symptoms, so can over-stimulation. For example, have someone yell in your ear for 5 minutes and you will exhibit some of the physical behaviours that autistic children do.

Thank you for sharing your story. I always really appreciate hearing about people's insights into behaviour, esp their own.

Earlier today, I read five different sources on MPD/DID. The general consensus from authoritative sources is that the causes of MPD are unknown. There are theories (and oppositions to those theories) about developmental trauma. I didn't find any linkage to gender or intelligence. Gender and particularly intelligence would surprise me if they were confirmed traits that influenced DID/MPD. If you have an authoritative source that isn't under question, I'd appreciate if you can share it. It's always good to have your views challenged. See the following link for some of the controversy and general discussion. In this instance, Wikipedia summed up other sources I found quite well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder#...

If you don't standardise testing for students, you can't benchmark them. If you look at the relative performance of different countries, the US is WAY down the list of performers - and the relative scores of the US are significantly behind. Start with this link for reference, http://www.businessinsider.com.au/pisa-rankings-2013-12

On reading and my own indepth observations, I've come across the same themes, - teachers must be respected as professionals - teachers must challenge themselves, constantly looking for better approaches to education - principals must actively support the development and training of teachers to help them grow - parents must support the teachers by re-enforcing the importance of education - parents and teachers MUST treat the students as young adults rather than treating them as children ... I can't emphasise this enough.

Based on my own experiences, one school we were at had terrible teachers and an average principal ... and terrible results. The other school was progressive and built confidence into everything the students did (eg. a school fair fund-raiser was completely organised and run by ALL of the primary school students). I now live in an area with one of the highest academic performance relative to the wealth of the families, Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA). The attitude of parents, teachers and students is staggeringly different to the previous school we were at. It's no surprise that it's one of the best performing schools in Australia. You'll also notice that Australia is one of the better performing countries in the world. If you assume the problem is the teachers, or the parents, you're off the mark. You need ALL of them to work together.