Outreachy Summer 2019 Applications Open With Expanded Eligibility

[andyprough]

non-Asian minorities in tech fields are hard to come by

Asians represent less than 6% of the population in the US. Attempting to shut them out of opportunities because they are "over-represented minorities" is harmful. We should not be promoting this idea of shutting Asians out of tech opportunities, like some of the big tech companies have or like Harvard has.

[schmidtbag]

Asians represent less than 6% of the population in the US. Attempting to shut them out of opportunities because they are "over-represented minorities" is harmful. We should not be promoting this idea of shutting Asians out of tech opportunities, like some of the big tech companies have or like Harvard has.

Never said anything about the US population, nor shutting them out. I was talking about a global scale under-representation, of which, Asians are doing just fine. And even then, the Asian population within the US is doing modestly well in tech fields (at least relative to everyone else Outreachy reaches out to).

[andyprough]

Never said anything about the US population, nor shutting them out. I was talking about a global scale under-representation, of which, Asians are doing just fine. And even then, the Asian population within the US is doing modestly well in tech fields (at least relative to everyone else Outreachy reaches out to).

Asians are very small minorities in every advanced western country, which is where the majority of high-paying tech jobs exist. Attempting to reduce their participation rate because they "are doing just fine" or are "doing modestly well" is harmful to them. If Asians are more willing to put in the work and develop the skills required, they should be applauded, not cut off from opportunities. Don't parrot Google's and Harvard's talking points, which are frankly racist.

[Britoid]

Imho these kind of things are trying to treat a symptom and not the cause.

[torsionbar28]

Well... free internships aren't all that appealing.

Ah ha, so that's how all this "open source" stuff works. I had no idea all these FOSS devs around the world were all getting *paid* for the code they write. That Richard Stallman must be a bazillionaire by now, woah!

[dwagner]

[schmidtbag]

Asians are very small minorities in every advanced western country, which is where the majority of high-paying tech jobs exist. Attempting to reduce their participation rate because they "are doing just fine" or are "doing modestly well" is harmful to them. If Asians are more willing to put in the work and develop the skills required, they should be applauded, not cut off from opportunities. Don't parrot Google's and Harvard's talking points, which are frankly racist.

Where did I say I want to reduce their participation? Where did I say Asians shouldn't be applauded for their hard work? Where did I say they should be cut from opportunities?
Don't twist my words where I never implied such things. Also, America isn't the only country so stop acting like its the only place that counts.

Ah ha, so that's how all this "open source" stuff works. I had no idea all these FOSS devs around the world were all getting *paid* for the code they write. That Richard Stallman must be a bazillionaire by now, woah!

You do realize this is largely targeted toward students, right? Y'know, people under considerable debt, and still living at home? Ask the average college student/graduate if they're willing to work for free and the vast majority will tell you "no".
Also, a lot of FOSS devs, including Stallman (and other big people like Linus), are/were still paid. So... bad example.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

However, women, trans-people, and non-Asian minorities in tech fields are hard to come by, and regardless of what you would do, they are often (not always...) discriminated against. Why? Because there's not enough representation to show their capabilities, and bigotry is still rampant in the world.

I'm sorry, but I don't see that discrimination you are talking about where I work and we still only have a couple of women. You can spend whatever amount of effort you like on incentivizing more women to work in IT or engineering jobs, it will not help as the real "issue" isn't discrimination but simple lack of interest. There have been studies ( http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-conte...-interests.pdf ) that show that there is a difference between interests between genders, which souldn't actually surprise anyone.

[schmidtbag]

I'm sorry, but I don't see that discrimination you are talking about where I work and we still only have a couple of women. You can spend whatever amount of effort you like on incentivizing more women to work in IT or engineering jobs, it will not help as the real "issue" isn't discrimination but simple lack of interest. There have been studies ( http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-conte...-interests.pdf ) that show that there is a difference between interests between genders, which souldn't actually surprise anyone.

That goes back to my climate change denier example. The equivalent of what you said is "it's snowing where I am so surely it's not a real problem".
Yes, lack of interest is a MAJOR contributor. But, that lack of interest is also deliberately encouraged by many (but of course, not everyone).

There is no singular reason for women being uncommon in tech fields and there doesn't have to be a singular reason. Not everything is so black and white. Some of the known reasons are problems, some of them aren't. Discrimination, although declining, does still exist, and it is a problem. The general lack of interest is arguably more wide-spread, and is not necessarily a problem.

[pininety]

I understand the arguments toward this being shut down due to it being a form of discrimination, however, a lot of these groups are quite literally under-represented.

First question, why wouldn't the program only target the groups who are underrepresented? You just said yourself "a lot of these groups" which implies they also give preferential treatment to groups which are nor underrepresented which very much does not seem to make a lot of sense.

However, women, trans-people, and non-Asian minorities in tech fields are hard to come by, and regardless of what you would do, they are often (not always...) discriminated against.

See, here we have the main problem I have with this program. While I agree that woman are underrepresented in tech for what ever reason (and depending on your argumentation having a program for that might be good), trans people are not. While they are hard to come by, that is not because they are underrepresented but because they are rare in general.
Something between 0.2% and 0.6% of the people in the US are trans while 2-3% of tech employees report being trans. They are over represented in tech by a mayor factor.
So if the goal of the program is to help underrepresented groups, trans people would not be part of it. Yet they are for some reason (and cynical as I am I would argue that is due to PR).