> Perhaps the average man is less risk-averse than the average woman and therefore is more likely to enter a risky business venture.
I think the general assumption for women promoting these types of events is that while this statement may be true, it's not because of an inherent difference in women and men. The difference is due to social and cultural conditioning, not because of any biological difference.
> I think the general assumption for women promoting these types of events is that while this statement may be true, it's not because of an inherent difference in women and men
I am not sure I agree with this either, but like in my parent post I don't have any real evidence - this is an exercise in handwaving :)
Kaitai's comments elsewhere on this page are how I think about it - what she says makes a lot of sense to me and is a great case for why these types of events should exist. Suppose I am in some sort of bucket that is underrepresented/discriminated against/etc. My thought process would be
* The problem I am facing is too big to be fixed in a reasonable amount of time/effort (e.g. years, maybe decades of social change)
* There are no experts who have solved the problem so I cannot get advice from them
* However, there are others like me who face the same problem and with whom I share common ground - maybe I can learn strategies from them and they can learn from me as well
I'm pretty sure most men seek advice from their peer group and/or founders they know. Because there are fewer female founders, there are probably fewer dispersed among the peer groups.
Here's a simple example that most of us can probably relate to. I often read the Danish news outlets for coverage on "big" international stories. I read them a lot during the last Iraq war.
The example: when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, and US media were saying that the "alleged photos might not be possible to obtain" I saw them a full 3 days early on Danish media before I could find them anywhere on US news.
[EDIT: My UCSC roots will really show here - check out "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky for one perspective. And yes, it's Chomsky, so YMMV.]
It's interesting to consider that tax rates historically have been all over the place. In the United States, for example, the tax rate has been as high as 91% for the top bracket.
I'm not sure I understand the point about reuse and decoupling being opposing forces.
A simplistic example that comes to mind is a calculator module with a well-defined interface (interface in the Java sense of the term). Maybe there are a few different implementations of the interface available in the codebase.
Both implementations are reusable in the sense that I can plug one implementation in many places wherever the interface is supported. When I need something else, I plug in a different implementation. The module that has a dependency on the calculator module should be none the wiser since all it does is call out to a certain interface.
Am I missing something here? Maybe I didn't understand the OP's point well enough.
What you're talking about is decoupling interface from implementation. This is good (well, it's good if there is a genuine need for more than one implementation, otherwise it's just decoupling for the sake of decoupling which is a form of waste. Remember YAGNI)
My understanding of reuse is when the same peace of code is used in different areas of the project. This could be different classes, different packages, different modules, etc. Now the more the code is reused, the more tight coupling between the two pieces of code i.e. change to the interface of the reused code 'could' mean change(s) to each and every place the reused code is being called.
Secondly, if you put reuse high up in the design requirement, what you sometimes end up with are very generic interfaces/classes that can be reused in lots of places as opposed to very specific interfaces/classes or unnecessary inheritence trees required to change the base class behaviour in those places where the required behaviour is 'slightly different'.
Lastly, not so long ago, DI containers did not support package private visibility. This means all injection (constructor, setter, etc.) required public visibility. This lead to a lot of developers also 'reusing' code even in places where they shouldn't just because they could i.e. it's right there!
I've always considered myself "on the Blue team" but the past year has really pissed me off. NSA, Healthcare.gov, drone strikes, and the President trying everything he can muster to go to war with Syria. I walked into our Business Developer's office one day and I said enough was enough. I could not in good conscience do work for the Democratic Party because of these issues.
I really doubt any of this would have been different if we'd had a Republican for President. Granted, healthcare.gov wouldn't have happened, but I doubt any of the other items would have looked any different. All US presidents have done things that I consider unethical or illegal. So to castigate one party vs. the other seems shortsighted.
Unless, of course, he has a huge contract offer from the GOP. Then it makes sense. In politics, money is the great decider.
I think you are missing the point, he did not say he went to the blue team. He said he doesn't want to work for the side that supports drone strikes, etc..., not that he has switched camps.
Correct, I actually worked at the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC for a year as a software dev. He may be right that a Republican President would have made similar decisions but that is not what happened. This was a personal choice as I have become disillusioned with the party. Also, this has pushed me further to the left, not to the right.
Heh...as a Danish person, I think part of that distinction also is that Denmark has a really bad service culture compared to the US. It does seem to be changing. But I feel like Danes are a pretty proud (and/or headstrong) folk with very strong (and sometimes misguided, see Janteloven) notions around class and equality.
I feel like many Danes who work in the service sector project this attitude that they're really above the work and that the customers are a complete imposition on their time and energy. That's why I'm always so impressed when I get a really nice waiter in CPH or just shopping at a grocery store like Irma.
I think you're right about the high-end places -- I've only been to one fancy place one (cause, yikes! the prices) and they did act very differently because it was so expensive. But by and large, yes, I agree, they tend to see it more as a "job" than "service."
You're not to think you are anything special.
You're not to think you are as good as us.
You're not to think you are smarter than us.
You're not to convince yourself that you are better than
us.
You're not to think you know more than us.
You're not to think you are better than us.
You're not to think you are good at anything.
You're not to laugh at us.
You're not to think anyone cares about you.
You're not to think you can teach us anything.*
Wow. Just wow. Needless to say, a lot of American go-getters and super-achievers would find that bitterly stultifying.
They don't even seem that strange as an American. It's just (a parody of) typical conservative Protestant small-town mentality. Much of Scandinavia at the time was made up of religious, Protestant small towns, with most of the population engaged in farming or fishing (and the novel in question was set in such a town). People in small-town and rural America don't like big-city, degree-and-money-having people who "think they're better", either. Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel Main Street, about small-town American attitudes, has some loose parallels.
I think the same is true even today in the US. Some of the people who're lionized in Palo Alto or NYC would be shunned in much of the "heartland", if they flaunted their wealth or education and came across as thinking they were a "super-achiever". You're allowed to be rich, but you're expected to act somewhat humble and "down-to-earth" about it and not see yourself as better than other kinds of people (especially farmers, who have their own mythos). Warren Buffet, a lifelong midwesterner, is an example of being rich but still sort of pulling that off.
Hope you understand that this is not an actual law, but a piece of satire describing social norms in a smaller provincial town in the beginning of the twentieth century. This was a very different and much more traditional and hierarchical society, and the attitudes bitops describe more stem from the reaction against these norms which happened in the 60ies and 70ies.
Totally agree! Interesting though that Denmark has better social mobility than the US, even though Denmark has historical attitudes like the Law of Jante, while the US have "The American Dream."
It could just be because I tend to find American customers really over-bearing and unreasonable (the "customer is always right" thing makes some people feel entitled to be jerks towards staff), but to me the Danish non-service feels refreshing, though I've definitely heard other people describe it as "bad service". I don't feel it's particularly bad service myself; stuff generally gets done fine, and it's not like I'm waiting hours for my food or they're dumping things on me or anything. They treat me the same way I'd treat someone at work at my own job: well and professionally, but not as if I'm their servant and must please them at all costs.
If the laws pass that require servants to be paid more, some servants will be lucky enough to make more money as a result, others will starve to death because they will go from making $64/month to nothing at all.
In a way, this sort of proves that not having a servant IS an option in India. If laws pass that push people not to hire help they can't afford, they will stop hiring. I know that's not the point you're trying to make, but it's worth considering.
That said, I'm curious: why you do you think people in India won't go without hired help? Is it a cultural/historical thing? Or something else? (I ask this not knowing your background).
yes it is very much a cultural thing (see my longer comment) & often just makes economic sense. The argument that they are underpaid is relatively flawed. Servants in cities make much more than they would make if they stayed in their towns or villages an did nothing / worked on someone elses farm. If there is a minimum wage in all sectors with unorganized labour (construction, farming etc) - then yes - these people will be tempted to move there. But really - if you're making 10x cleaning a few houses a day - which is in no way risky / life threatening - why would you go work on a construction site or spend your days on a farm in 30+degrees C of heat?
If they're making 10x as much as a farm worker, including benefits, then doesn't that mean they're already making a living wage? A minimum wage probably wouldn't affect them significantly in that case.
But is the article wrong then? Why would someone with 10x the income of a farm worker villager live in a shanty town without water?
because that's living in big cities unfortunately. Taking Bombay as an example - where in some areas the cost per square foot of an apartment is easily as high as 1600 USD (100000 INR) - even a shanty is a luxury for many. Also you have to realize - a village in india != a village in the developed world. Likely his shanty has tv, water for a few hours a day that fill up an overhead tank and has a doctor nearby - all or some of which may not be true in his village.
What is life in the village like? I'll admit my first reaction upon reading this is to think "that doesn't sound very pleasant" but maybe it's a lot better relative to where this person came from. Why are people moving to the city?
I think what you may not be considering here is that there's a broader point being made about what constitutes a "living wage." Of course it's better to get some money rather than nothing. But if the money is below the minimum wage and/or below a living wage, it forces the "servant" to either live close to poverty or work multiple jobs.
Also, what's being touched on is a notion of entitlement. For instance, I hire somebody to periodically come and clean my house every few weeks. I pay well, way above what they asked for - both because they do a good job and because I know it's a hard way to make a living. When I made less money, I cleaned my house myself, and I never felt a sense of entitlement or right to that help.
If I offer Joe a job at $2.00 an hour, which is less than the minimum wage, and Joe wants to accept the job, then I have forced Joe to live close to poverty or to work multiple jobs?
The offer is voluntary. Joe can either accept it or refuse it.
Why doesn't Joe get to say whether he's willing to accept the job or not? I'd say that the government is the entity introducing the use of force into what was otherwise a voluntary situation.
The offer is voluntary. Joe can either accept it or refuse it.
I feel like this point is really kind of secondary to the discussion, or at least, it seems like there's an assumption in here that I don't share. For some reason, I feel like maybe there's an assumption that Joe has other options? Maybe I'm missing something.
I think the general assumption for women promoting these types of events is that while this statement may be true, it's not because of an inherent difference in women and men. The difference is due to social and cultural conditioning, not because of any biological difference.