Why is the small number of women in science a problem? To call this fact a problem good evidence is needed.*
Usually when this is called a problem it is done along with making the implicit or explicit suggestion that men in scientific fields are sexist and somehow discriminate against women. But I, like most men in science, would severely reprimand anyone who treats women unfairly. Therefore I find it extremely unwarranted and unfair that feminists think it is OK to accuse us of sexism without evidence. And I find it saddening that not more men have the courage to speak up against these accusations.
I'm sure there have been cases of discrimination against women in science, but this in no way proves that it's widespread, or that it's affecting the number of women in science.
[* The logic goes that since men and women are identical, there should be just as many women in science as there are men. But this conclusion is unwarranted because the premise is unsupported by evidence.]
It's ironic that many authors resort to using the blatantly sexist 'she' to avoid being called sexist.
I would love to see any evidence that the usage of 'he' somehow harms females, and I would support any evidence-supported solution that is suggested (for one thing, I wouldn't want it to harm my wife and daughters), but so far this whole issue seems to be completely locked in the realm of hypothesis, and it's without the feeblest suggestion of evidence.
For the claim that 'there is too few qualified people in the US' to be a scientific claim, it needs to be falsifiable. In other words, what evidence do you need to see, in the future, to convince you that yes, now there are enough qualified people? What data-points will you use?
My entire problem is that all of the data-points I've seen used so far are extremely questionable, and there doesn't seem to be enough people questioning them.
The fact that US students have dismal scientific knowledge to a naive person suggests, but in reality in no way proves, that the US has, or will one day have, a shortage of scientifically qualified people.
I hope there are enough intelligent people who are uncomfortable about making the leap of faith from 'US students have bad science grades' to 'the US will experience a shortage of scientifically-qualified people'.
Any redesign of the education system needs to be grounded in science, not fashionable rhetoric.
While it seems intuitive that a more scientifically 'literate' population is 'better', is 'scientific illiteracy' really a problem?
To me it would be a problem if there were lots of openings for jobs that require scientific skills without there being anyone to fulfill it. As things stand, to me it seems that there are tens, if not hundreds, of qualified people for every possible job opening, whether in academia, government, or the private sector.
To me things haven't really changed. The non-techy users never made good use of the freedoms of the PC-era, so to them their environment was just as restricted as the Kindle or iPad environment.
As for the geeks, things haven't changed either. We find ways to open up the devices and get the freedoms we want.
It seems because of the fact that American Jews are much better organized, and better focused on their interests, than any other group. They're probably the most politically active group in the US.
I don't see anything wrong with the Jewish people looking out for their interests, but as a scientifically-minded person I'm more interested in objective analyses of the situation (as in the mentioned book) than vague anecdotes like 'lots of people think that Israel is right'.
If American Jews are an order of magnitude more politically active than other groups, we shouldn't be ashamed to admit it. It's an interesting sociological phenomenon that needs to be studied.
There is a book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (by two political scientists), that argues the Jewish/Israeli lobby is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, in the US.
From Amazon:
"Mearsheimer and Walt, political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard, respectively, survey a wide coalition of pro-Israel groups and individuals, including American Jewish organizations and political donors, Christian fundamentalists, neo-con officials in the executive branch, media pundits who smear critics of Israel as anti-Semites and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, which they characterize as having an almost unchallenged hold on Congress. This lobby, they contend, has pressured the U.S. government into Middle East policies that are strategically and morally unjustifiable: lavish financial subsidies for Israel despite its occupation of Palestinian territories; needless American confrontations with Israel's foes Syria and Iran; uncritical support of Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon, which violated the laws of war; and the Iraq war, which almost certainly would not have occurred had [the Israel lobby] been absent. The authors disavow conspiracy mongering, noting that the lobby's activities constitute legitimate, if misguided, interest-group politics, as American as apple pie. Considering the authors' academic credentials and the careful reasoning and meticulous documentation with which they support their claims, the book is bound to rekindle the controversy."
Thinking of this from supply and demand theory, programmers only build programs that have a market, and there doesn't seem to be a market for such a tool (there isn't a large group of people vocally demanding it).
I'd guess that there is a market for it, but like the market for the iPhone before Steve Jobs, nobody powerful enough has discovered it yet.
Wouldn't the perfect cloud platform be one that charges based on disk IO, disk space used, network IO, RAM space used, (Ram IO?,) and CPU used? Maybe there are other metrics I'm ignoring.
After getting used to Chrome's silent updates, I started to find it breathtakingly ridiculous the way Firefox kept interrupting its startup asking about updates. When I start Firefox, it is because I want to go to a website. Giving attention to updates is not what I want to do.
@Steko: I saw a supposedly new, and saddening, photo of Steve Jobs in which he looks emaciated. Maybe it is the way he is dressed that makes him look so much worse than what we are used to.
What made Microsoft evil: They used to go into acquisition talks with small companies without planning to buy them. They'd learn about their technology and duplicate it themselves.
Another example of evil is cell phone carriers giving users high internet speeds but putting ridiculous caps on them. Or Apple banning apps from the app store then copying their functionality into their own software.
I don't know if Google has done or does anything like that, and that is why people tend to think they're 'better' than other companies.
Therefore by evil what is meant is the company using slimy underhanded tactics on competitors or customers (such companies usually use them on both). Maybe it can be expressed in one word: Cheating. Does the company cheat customers, partners, etc?
Building on Donald Knuth's definition of an artist (someone who does work that cannot yet be automated, such as a programmer), it seems like today the most efficient economy is one that automates everything that can be automated, so that all of its population work as artists.
The argument that automation destroys jobs assumes that at least part of the population does not have the propensity to be artists. This is the crucial point that this whole debate rests on.
In other words, are there people who are so un-creative that everything they could produce can be automated? If there are, then such people will lose jobs due to automation and will not gain back any alternative jobs.
I think on a site like HN the debate is skewed because most of us are high IQ people who, so far, don't have any trouble competing with robots. If there were robots who could do everything I can do and do it cheaper than I, why would anybody hire me?
Wouldn't creating a patent alliance render the evils of this system ineffective? Members of the alliance would work together to acquire patents, and these patents will be used as patent lawsuit deterrents. Any non-member company who sues a member of the alliance will have to face a dozen lawsuits from other alliance members. (Alliance members should sign a legal agreement not to sue other members on patent-based issues.)
Of course for this to be effective a huge number of patents is needed, but there are probably a lot of big companies willing to give big bucks to avoid the patent menace, and they can raise enough money to acquire a huge number of patents. Plus each company will come with its own patents.
I guess others have already thought of this and found it impractical, which makes me wonder why it is so.
Usually when this is called a problem it is done along with making the implicit or explicit suggestion that men in scientific fields are sexist and somehow discriminate against women. But I, like most men in science, would severely reprimand anyone who treats women unfairly. Therefore I find it extremely unwarranted and unfair that feminists think it is OK to accuse us of sexism without evidence. And I find it saddening that not more men have the courage to speak up against these accusations.
I'm sure there have been cases of discrimination against women in science, but this in no way proves that it's widespread, or that it's affecting the number of women in science.
[* The logic goes that since men and women are identical, there should be just as many women in science as there are men. But this conclusion is unwarranted because the premise is unsupported by evidence.]