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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: Username 24 August 2015 04:26:33PM 5 points [-]

Heh. Qualify this under "crazy ideas". Chinese tech companies are motivating programmers by hiring cheerleaders. It would be interesting to know if this increases productivity. Do cheerleaders help improve results sports teams?

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

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