Intel Takes Lead In SV Diversity Push (What Will Happen To CPU Design)

[Burpo]

Why is this in CPU & Overclocking? :\

 

[turtile]

I think a lot of the problems with diversity is cultural. In the horticulture field, it's over 98% Caucasian with over 70% male. Most of the women deal in the field deal with more art/displays/sales than men.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

INTEL:
Our new cpus, are made from conflict free zone materials, using the full employee population diversity, available.

This has not impacted on the quality of our products, even slightly.

Errata:
We had to remove maths qualifications requirements, to avoid bias, so the floating point unit no longer works correctly.
Please remember to rub the cpu pins with iron wool, every day, as the new conflict zone free material, corrodes very quickly.
One of the new religions insisted on NOT wearing bunny suits, so we had to go back to not using a clean room. So we have gone back to the PMOS 4 bit 4004, at 110KHz, which did not use a clean room.
The big percentage increase in diversity, caused a rule change, meaning that the Sign EXtend instruction (SEX proof) has had to be deleted. Don't worry, all versions of DOS and earlier software, don't use it. Just don't try to use windows.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I have to wonder if such a program could cause problems though. Not in they Hiring the wrong people, but the culture becomes pre-occupied on non-essential issues. I suppose it may not affect anything if the HR department is separated enough from the Tech side so as to not change much on the Tech side, but if Management in all departments becomes focused on this policy I could imagine important issues falling between the cracks.

Being based in South Africa, I used to work for a company where affirmative action strongly influenced hiring decisions. It was the worst company I have ever worked for with the least effective teams. Nobody performed well, and those that could perform better, were dragged down by those around them. Productivity suffered massively.

The problem is that your hiring decisions must meet what is effectively an arbitrary measure. It is no longer about what is best for the business, it becomes about satisfying that quota. Yes, you would think that managers would try to find one person that satisfies both measures, but the reality is that seldom happens. Managers will be looking to keep their asses out the fire, and the easiest way to do that is to hire people to satisfy this policy so that they retain their bonuses. You might end up with more dead weight than you would without the policy.

Now, be aware that I am not saying that women are more likely to be dead weight. I am saying that a candidate hired primarily because of their gender and not their ability is more likely to be dead weight. The pool of qualified female candidates is small, and thus, the best ones will get their pick of the jobs. The other candidates, the not so good female candidates, will still get hired because Intel has no other choice. Oh sure, they might have the right degree from the right university, but that doesn't mean they are the best fit for the job.

It does depend on what Intel sets the quota at. If they look realistically at the number of qualified female engineers, I would bet the number is quite small. Setting the quota too high is just setting themselves up for failure. So, the overall impact on the workforce might be quite low, simply because not many women want to enter engineering.

Someone pointed out that women face obstacles in studying something like engineering. I can't speak for whether their classmates would discriminate against them in such classes, but it is common knowledge that women have the best access to education today. There are colleges specifically for women, for instance. Many bursaries are female only. In fact, as far as I can recall, there are now more female college graduates than male college graduates. Personally, I think the reason there are less female engineers is that they don't find it all that interesting.

 

[Daedalus685]

Let's try not to thrown around loaded and widely misused terms. Misogyny is the actual hatred of women. While there was certainly some ignorance and, yes, sexism in those comments, I can find no evidence of actual hatred in them.

Example of a misogynistic quote: "Women are witches who should be stoned" in a context of malice.
Example of a sexist quote: much of what blastman said.

By throwing around the words misogyny and misogynistic willy nilly one makes an actual mockery of actual real misogyny and/or actually devalues the meaning and impact of the accusation.

Its a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but it seems that people continuously throw around the words misogyny and misandry willy nilly in just about any discussion involving gender. Its at best unhelpful and at worse entirely counter productive.

You are correct. It was a bit of a stretch and certainly an emotional response, not a rational one.

Though I think that in this day and age believing that tripe requires irrational hatred or dislike it is not necessarily evidence of the hatred or dislike.

 

[Valantar]

Let's try not to thrown around loaded and widely misused terms. Misogyny is the actual hatred of women. While there was certainly some ignorance and, yes, sexism in those comments, I can find no evidence of actual hatred in them.

That's an overly literal translation of the word, which isn't necessarily correct.

Dictionary.com:
Misogyny:
noun
1. hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women, or prejudice against women.

A systematic prejudice against women, such as the one displayed by Blastman, can absolutely be labelled as misogyny. He is, after all, spouting a mix of willful ignorance and lack of historical understanding, ignoring all relevant social influences in favour of a completely unsubstantiated biologism, all the while using conspiracy-theorist language like "the modern Marxist-feminist nonsense of gender equality."

I would say the quote

Intellectual equality between the sexes is nonsense.

falls squarely into "unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group" (Prejudice, Dictionary.com).

And, Blastman, your argumentation simply falls flat on its face. In no particular order:

1) The number of patents filed by a person is in no way a good indication of their actual influence on scientific development. Edison, for example, was granted patents on numerous "inventions" that others had made several years before him. Marie Curie, for example, refused to patent her discoveries, instead wanting her discoveries to benefit science and humanity at large. A large number of patents per individual is a better indicator of personal greed than of scientific merit.

2) Discounting the fact that women have - until very recently - not had even remotely the same access to higher education as men shows that you have no interest in actually finding any sort of truth in these matters. Likewise, discounting the societal bias women encounter through it been taken for granted that any woman, no matter her intellectual capabilities or occupation, should be the main caretaker of her (extended) family, shows the same. No male physicist/mathematician/whatever up until recent decades would have been expected to go home and care full-time for a child/parent that had fallen ill, while this expectation has been prevalent for women in all western cultures. Thus women have had to put their careers on hold for the sake of others, if not end them permanently, while men have never had to do the same.

3) Cognitive abilities, such as "dealing with abstract information," develop at least until the late teens (although recent research suggests that the brain doesn't stop developing until the late twenties). How does it develop? Through stimulation. In other words, practice. Thus, the fact that girls from an early age are consistently discouraged from taking an interest in STEM fields, while the opposite is true for boys, clearly lays the groundwork for different cognitive abilities twenty years later. Pinning this on biological differences is ignorant at best, not to mention unscientific.

4) IQ is not a perfect measure of intelligence, not by a long shot. This is quite widely accepted.

5) Men are also taught from a very early age to be loud, strong, competitive, to stand up for themselves, to strive to be the best at what they do. Women, on the other hand, are taught to be meek, quiet, to adapt socially, not make a fuss, and to "do their best, but it's okay if you're not as good as the boys." Given this, I would be utterly shocked if competitions in STEM fields weren't dominated by men.

6) Your example of the car subculture is just silly. If you're not able to see how this is a social construct, then you truly lack the means to understand how society works. Sorry about that. I would sincerely like to see you try to enter a subculture (that you feel passionately for) where you are constantly barraged with harassment, inappropriate comments or physical contact, comments about not belonging, not being qualified/talented/good enough, not being the right gender, being another sexual orientation, and so on - which is (just part of) what women with an interest in cars have to put up with. I'd like to see how long you'd last under similar conditions.

 

[Valantar]

INTEL:
Our new cpus, are made from conflict free zone materials, using the full employee population diversity, available.

This has not impacted on the quality of our products, even slightly.

Errata:
We had to remove maths qualifications requirements, to avoid bias, so the floating point unit no longer works correctly.
Please remember to rub the cpu pins with iron wool, every day, as the new conflict zone free material, corrodes very quickly.
One of the new religions insisted on NOT wearing bunny suits, so we had to go back to not using a clean room. So we have gone back to the PMOS 4 bit 4004, at 110KHz, which did not use a clean room.
The big percentage increase in female employees, mean that the Sign EXtend instruction (SEX proof) has had to be deleted. Don't worry, all versions of DOS and earlier software, don't use it. Just don't try to use windows.

Intel:
Due to the recent backlash against promoting equal opportunities in our company, we've decided that this was an ill-informed policy. Our engieneering team will therefore from now on promote hiring primarily men, regardless of qualifications, relying instead on their innate engieneering ability. All female engieneers will be transferred to secretarial positions. As conflict-free minerals also turned out to be controversial, we have instead begun cleaning our substrates with a compound made from highly processed endangered plant and animal species as well as the blood and tears of poor people of colour.

This has not impacted on the quality of our products, even slightly.

Errata:
We had to scale back to a 10mm production process, as those dainty 14nm processes weren't made for burly man-hands. Our CPUs will from now on be carved by hand.
TDP of our next generation of products is expected to increase by two orders of magnitude, because MOAR POWAH, right guys? To compensate, they will optionally ship alongside a diesel generator (painted-on flames or pin-striping optional).
As knowledge is for pussies, our new CPUs replace their maths units with our newly patented GutFeeling GuessTimation Engine(TM).
Communication with other components is now optional for the CPU, as this is more of a female thing.
The CPU from now on expects to be in a supremely priviliged position in the system architecture, providing data and calculations for other components only when it feels that it gains from it personally. Also, user input may be ignored for the same reasons.
Due to the poor cleaning ability of our new compound, CPUs must be thoroughly cleaned and rinsed before use.
Lastly, productivity is expected to decline by 50-90% due to a combination of engieneers being poor secretaries and most of them leaving for other companies.

I don't think I quite achieved your level of ignorant, sexist quasi-humour, but I do hope I came close.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Sometimes these jokes accidently end up in real data books, such as this one

Signetics RAM chip.

 

[Daedalus685]

Sometimes these jokes accidently end up in real data books, such as this one

Signetics RAM chip.

The write-only-memory joke was 30 years old when I was in school. I'm glad it is still shown around and laughed at today. Good times.

 

[Valantar]

Sometimes these jokes accidently end up in real data books, such as this one

Signetics RAM chip.

The difference between saying "you have a dirty mind" and saying that the abbreviation SEX can't be used around women (which I interpret to be based on the silly, sexist idea that women don't want/like sex, or aren't comfortable with it (again not to be mistaken for women not being comfortable with unwanted and unwarranted sexual attention (yes, I do enjoy a good parenthesis))) is that while the first makes fun of the reader in a general, unbiased way, the other makes fun of others, in this case women, based on ignorance. I.e. sexism.

 

[mrmt]

The downside to diversity initiatives is not in the changes made to the selection (hiring) process but rather it is the changes that are effected in the firing process.

Not only that, but leadership selection also becomes a problem once the diversity advocates come in.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

The difference between saying "you have a dirty mind" and saying that the abbreviation SEX can't be used around women (which I interpret to be based on the silly, sexist idea that women don't want/like sex, or aren't comfortable with it (again not to be mistaken for women not being comfortable with unwanted and unwarranted sexual attention (yes, I do enjoy a good parenthesis))) is that while the first makes fun of the reader in a general, unbiased way, the other makes fun of others, in this case women, based on ignorance. I.e. sexism.

I (predominantly, it may have flashed my mind, but I thought it would be acceptable) did not realize/notice that I was making a sexist joke. It was not intended to cause offence to anyone. I'm NOT very good at recognizing stuff like that.

The "conflict zone" materials, or "blood money" which similar stuff is sometimes referred to (e.g. Diamonds in some conflict zones), is actually a serious problem, if you study its details, and a very worthwhile cause for Intel to meet.

My 'joke' was intended as a 'joke'. Sorry if it has caused offence.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

The write-only-memory joke was 30 years old when I was in school. I'm glad it is still shown around and laughed at today. Good times.

From 1972, I think.

The really funny bit about it, is the story of how it accidentally got published for real, as (part of) their official data book.

 

[Valantar]

I did not realize/notice that I was making a sexist joke. It was not intended to cause offence to anyone. I'm NOT very good at recognizing stuff like that.

The "conflict zone" materials, or "blood money" which similar stuff is sometimes referred to (e.g. Diamonds in some conflict zones), is actually a serious problem, if you study its details, and a very worthwhile cause for Intel to meet.

My 'joke' was intended as a 'joke'. Sorry if it has caused offence.

That's okay, I respect that you have the integrity to realize when you've made a mistake (although I might have been a bit harsh too - I got pretty pissed off after reading Blastman's rant. Sorry about that.). A good general guideline is to not make jokes based on generalizations about less priviliged groups, unless you're either part of that group yourself (although that's still kind of stupid, given that it propagates prejudice) or it's directed towards someone of that group who you know is in on the joke. Other than that, stick to making fun of people those who have less problems than the average

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

That's okay, I respect that you have the integrity to realize when you've made a mistake (although I might have been a bit harsh too - I got pretty pissed off after reading Blastman's rant. Sorry about that.). A good general guideline is to not make jokes based on generalizations about less priviliged groups, unless you're either part of that group yourself (although that's still kind of stupid, given that it propagates prejudice) or it's directed towards someone of that group who you know is in on the joke. Other than that, stick to making fun of people those who have less problems than the average

That's fine!

During the Second World War, my understanding is that women had to take on a huge number of roles (especially in some countries, such as the UK), because a large number of the men, were away, fighting.
Even going as far as complicated (no modern electronic/computer aids, then) airplane flying in difficult war time situations.

The results were very good (I am led to believe), with the Women handling it with flying colours. Which implies that there is no fundamental reason (necessarily), why minorities can't step up to the mark, and do different things.

Cobol was invented by a women

I think that women often help (behind the scenes), and tend to keep quiet about their achievements. Which may partially explain some of the apparent discrepancies.

 

[xthetenth]

The two of those jokes actually make a pretty good point together. Nobody considers the stuff in the second one to be serious reasons why men shouldn't be in tech, but people do tend to take the sort of stereotype in the first seriously or at least use that sort of stereotype to create just so explanations for things and not have to acknowledge that the current state of things isn't a clean control group and measurements of people's abilities are measurements of the people and everything they did up to that point, and that means that cultural influences are in full effect.

 

[NTMBK]

Can we get this moved to Politics and News already?

 

[III-V]

Can we get this moved to Politics and News already?

This subforum doesn't have active moderation.

 

[know of fence]

Even with an avid interest in both genetics and statistics, it never occurred to me until finally Dr. Helena Cronin spelled out the obvious in very simple terms on The Guardian - Science Weekly podcast. This is likely to be a big revelation for most people since we are all exposed to the existing ideological prejudices leaning one way or another, thusly presuming to know and ignoring the obvious.

You can listen to it here it's at the very beginning of the programme, http://www.theguardian.com/science/...ence-weekly-podcast-genetics-gender-sexuality

Spoiler

Given two Normal Distributions with of same average, the distribution with the higher variance is bound to dominate the extremes, both math and special-ed classes. Males are more varied, women are more average when it comes to most traits and attributes.

 

[Burpo]

This subforum doesn't have active moderation.

It really should. It's the busiest..

Can we get this moved to Politics and News already?

This thread really should be moved.

 

[Stuka87]

Silicon Valley has never been a terribly diverse place. But now it's owning up to the problem.

Has the writer of this never been to Silicon Valley? It arguably has more diversity than any other place in the state. Its the only place where I have worked with a team that contains people from a dozen different countries. And both male and female.

 

[Subyman]

I think the problem is naturally fixing itself without companies meddling in quotas. I recently graduated out of a nuclear engineering graduate program and the make up of female to male in my graduate class was roughly 40% female, 60% male. The undergraduate class was nearly the same percentage with a wide range of ethnicities. As a more diverse work force is educated, the problem will go away. I'd say give it another 10 years and we shouldn't be talking about this stuff anymore.

I discussed the great diversity with the department head and he said it wasn't a diversity initiative on their part, but a huge increase in female and ethnic applicants. As a culture, we are expanding our young girls' vision of what their future can be and it is paying off.

 

[III-V]

I think the problem is naturally fixing itself without companies meddling in quotas. I recently graduated out of a nuclear engineering graduate program and the make up of female to male in my graduate class was roughly 40% female, 60% male. The undergraduate class was nearly the same percentage with a wide range of ethnicities. As a more diverse work force is educated, the problem will go away. I'd say give it another 10 years and we shouldn't be talking about this stuff anymore.

I discussed the great diversity with the department head and he said it wasn't a diversity initiative on their part, but a huge increase in female and ethnic applicants. As a culture, we are expanding our young girls' vision of what their future can be and it is paying off.

Yep. Computer science classes at my university have quite a lot more women in them now than they did even just 3 years ago.

 

[artivix]

The Norway example of mandating diversity on corporate boards gave rise to the result that a number of the same women are now serving simultaneously on 10, 20, 30, ..., 70, 80 and yes 90 boards of directors!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...inesswomen-and-the-boardroom-bias-debate.html

So achieving diversity by statistics gymnastics is not the same as the original intent of thesis where diversity is said to be necessary for improving products, services and corporate performance.

As previous commenters have indicated, because of a natural limited applicant pool there is the real possibility where the diversity mandate become counter productive to a company. Free market economists like Thomas Sowell at Stanford/Hoover Institute have authored many articles covering this area of interest.

What is glaring and hypocritical is that usually the same people that want to mandate diversity are the same people who oppose measures that would enlarge the pool of applicants. An example is where tech leaders who are usually libertarian or Democratic (such as late Steve Jobs) promoted measures that would remove influence of teachers unions on education, but are opposed by virtually the entire Democratic power structure.

Is it any wonder that California the home of Silicon Valley had one of the best education systems, is now said to have one of the worst K-12 education systems?

With Intel already facing increasing tick tocks of their CPU chips with diminishing improvement relative to cost, there is an increasing likelihood that the company is most likely going to face a Salvador Dali like clock meltdown because they eventually have to deal in reality...

 

[PPB]

I dont know why people get so upset at statements like "intellectual equallity between sexes is nonsense" when it has been known that men excel in serialized, monotasks, and women excel at multitasking. Think of it as a cpu vs gpu thing (latency vs throughput)