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Good_Burning_Plastic comments on Open Thread - Aug 24 - Aug 30 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: Elo 24 August 2015 08:14AM

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Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 26 August 2015 04:05:58PM 0 points [-]

Related:

  1. most people want to socialize with the opposite sex, and are unhappy (and hence unproductive) if they can’t;
  2. the conscious reasons for wanting to socialize with the opposite sex often have nothing to do with “fluid exchange” (to use the John Nash character’s phrase from A Beautiful Mind),
  3. let he (or she) who is without subconscious Darwinian motivations cast the first stone,
  4. human beings didn’t evolve to live their lives in an 85%-male environment,
  5. by the Pigeonhole Principle, not every straight male will be as lucky as I was to find a girlfriend in the remaining 15%, and
  6. computer science departments could attract and retain better people of both sexes if they felt less like monasteries or pirate ships.

-- Scott Aaronson

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 29 August 2015 07:31:48PM 4 points [-]

computer science departments could attract and retain better people of both sexes if they felt less like monasteries or pirate ships.

I could cite numerous examples suggesting otherwise, NASA during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era being the most famous.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 30 August 2015 08:30:06PM 0 points [-]

Details?

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 31 August 2015 01:03:28AM 3 points [-]

Well mission control and the astronaut core were all male. Didn't seem to interfere with their ability to attract and retain top talent.

Comment author: Lumifer 26 August 2015 04:33:06PM 1 point [-]

Never saw a CS department that looked like a monastery. As to pirate ships, well... :-D