[Linkspam] Monday, October 31 🎃

A post about whether you would go back in time and kill baby Hitler, by Jim Henley (2016-10-28). I just want to quote this entire post because it's so good. "You never. Need. To murder. A baby!" (I want to think more about the extent to which violence permeates the culture we live in so that this is a thing that needs to be said.)

Why would Facebook fire Peter Thiel?, by Paul Biggar (2016-10-26). This needs to be said, and maybe because it's a white man saying it, some of the people who need to listen will listen: 'Look at the words they use — “scared for the lives”, “hate and violence”, “his attacks”, “existential threat” — and contrast them to Altman’s and Zuckerberg’s: “because they support Trump”, “support of a political candidate”. Altman and Zuckerberg are talking about mere political support. The others are talking about fearing for their lives.' (I disagree with Biggar about one thing: the idea that people who aren't like him deserve to be safe is political; for most of us, whether we deserve to be safe is a highly politicized question. Nonetheless, the distinction between being unsafe and being disagreed with is important.)

Why I'm Done Talking About Diversity Or, Why We Should Try an All-White Diversity Panel, by Marlon James (2016-10-20). So many good points here. I think this relates to what I wrote about in "Opinions Are Abundant and Low-Value, too, in that we can only be fooled into thinking "diversity of opinion" is a useful goal if we think of diversity as a goal rather than an incidental outcome.

"Well for one, saying these isms are dividing us is implying that we are equally to blame for the division. What is happening is one group using social, economic and political policies to separate themselves from others, not always deliberately. It’s not for the black person to be more open-minded. It’s for the white person to be less racist."

"Diversity can’t accomplish anything because diversity shouldn’t have been a goal in the first place."

"The point I will raise at a diversity panel this year, will be the same point I raised ten years ago, which again reinforces the question of what purpose these panels serve."

Developer hiring and the market for lemons, by Dan Luu. So many good points here -- Luu examines and eviscerates, in detail, why the belief that engineering managers accurately assess talent -- and therefore, the belief that "all good developers already have jobs" -- is completely wrong. It follows pretty easily from the points Luu makes that prejudice against people who change jobs frequently is illogical unless you blame people for having been in a bad working environment.

Some things that might help you make better software, by David R. MacIver (2016-10-27). This is not just a random bag of ideas -- I think that the points about testing and documentation are deeply related to the points about culture, working from home, and working hours. I'm working on a blog post in which I elaborate just that, but in the meantime, this is a really great list of things you should know about doing software right, written from a holistic standpoint.

Academia, Love Me Back, by Tiffany Martinez (2016-10-27). 'On the second page the professor circled the word “hence” and wrote in between the typed lines “This is not your word.” The word “not” was underlined. Twice. My professor assumed someone like me would never use language like that. As I stood in the front of the class while a professor challenged my intelligence I could just imagine them reading my paper in their home thinking could someone like her write something like this?'

[CW: white men with guns; description of murder] I Went Undercover With a Border Militia. Here's What I Saw, by Shane Bauer for Mother Jones (2016-10). There's a lot here. An incidental point that jumped out at me was: "there is an added concern among law enforcement that going after a group simply for training 'could backfire and make them feel persecuted or victimized.'" So much for the war on terror... oh wait, we only care about terrorists feeling persecuted or victimized if those terrorists happen to be white.

The pyramid at the end of the world, by Elmo Keep for Fusion (2016-10-28). What a weird, beautiful article about a weird, beautiful monument to how close we continue to come to nuclear annihilation. I don't know if it was written specifically about this place, but the song "Nightshift Watchman" by David Wilcox came to mind. "If I do my job, my job is over..."

Debunking Patient Zero, by Azeen Ghorayshi for Buzzfeed (2016-10-26). As several of my friends pointed out this is not news, but it should still be disseminated. '“There was so much anxiety and fear about HIV and origins of HIV that it led to blame — blame along people’s beliefs, blame along people’s prejudices,” Richard Elion, an HIV researcher at George Washington University, told BuzzFeed News. “People want to believe that bad things in the world happen because of bad people. But biology doesn’t work that way.”'

The Racist and Sexist History of Keeping Birth Control Side Effects Secret, by Bethy Squires for Vice (2016-10-17).

When tech firms judge on skills alone, women land more job interviews, by Erin Carson for Cnet (2016-08-27). Not news either, but it's always good to have more evidence.

The Accidental City, by Helena Fitzgerald (2016-10-27). If you're at all sentimental about New York City, subways, or the New York subway system, you'll enjoy this.