Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 3:48 AM, Tim Chase  wrote:
> On ⅯⅯⅩⅥ-Ⅴ-Ⅷ Ⅹ:ⅩⅩⅤ, Christopher Reimer wrote:
>>> Closing line: "In America today, the only thing more terrifying
>>> than foreigners is...math."
>>> Wonder how close to terrorists pythonists are
>>
>> I wonder how many Americans are aware that they use Hindu-Arabic
>> numerals in daily transactions?
>
> There must be Ⅽ good reasons not to succumb to those "terrorist"
> numerals.  I can name Ⅰ or Ⅱ other numeric systems that are just as
> useful. ;-)

Hands up those of you who are fluent in Latin. *looks around* Hmm, a
couple! More than I thought.

Hands up those of you who've written Python scripts. Yep, good, good,
now I know you're all awake, at least.

Now, hands up those who've used Latin script.

Hmm, curious.

ChrisA
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Christopher Reimer]

On 5/8/2016 9:27 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

On Sun, 8 May 2016 08:22 pm, beliav...@aol.com wrote:


There are
far more female than male teachers. I don't attribute it to anti-male
suppression but to greater female interest in working with children.

Of course there is suppression of male teachers, particularly but not only
for very young children.


A college instructor encouraged me to become a teacher,  especially as 
boys from single mom families needed a daily role model. I looked into 
it and took some preparatory childhood classes. When the local 
university had a presentation for their teacher program, I went, saw how 
sausage got made, and ran like hell.


Thank you,

Chris R.

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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Tim Chase]

On ⅯⅯⅩⅥ-Ⅴ-Ⅷ Ⅹ:ⅩⅩⅤ, Christopher Reimer wrote:
>> Closing line: "In America today, the only thing more terrifying
>> than foreigners is...math."
>> Wonder how close to terrorists pythonists are
> 
> I wonder how many Americans are aware that they use Hindu-Arabic 
> numerals in daily transactions?

There must be Ⅽ good reasons not to succumb to those "terrorist"
numerals.  I can name Ⅰ or Ⅱ other numeric systems that are just as
useful. ;-)

-tkc






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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Christopher Reimer]

On 5/8/2016 8:09 AM, Rustom Mody wrote:

See:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/

Closing line: "In America today, the only thing more terrifying than foreigners 
is...math."


Wonder how close to terrorists pythonists are


I wonder how many Americans are aware that they use Hindu-Arabic 
numerals in daily transactions?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system

Thank you,

Chris R.
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Christopher Reimer]

On 5/7/2016 11:58 PM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

Chris Angelico :


So the question is: Do we care about country equality or individual
equality? You can't have both.

That's why there's been a long-standing initiative to split California
into multiple states:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Californias>

Each state gets two senate seats, and California, being the most
populous state, suffers.


The Six Californias is a proposal to divide up the 54 electoral votes 
that California has in presidential elections, which is a solidly blue 
state for the Democrats. Half the population lives in the Los Angeles, 
San Francisco and Sacramento regions. Put these three regions into 
separate states, the other three regions will become solidly red states 
for the Republicans and tilt the presidential elections in their favor. 
The proposal is a solution for the underlying problem that the 
California Republican Party has more in common with the endangered 
spotted owl than one-tenth of the US population. It's easier to redraw 
the lines than compete for votes.


Thank you,

Chris R.
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 8 May 2016 08:22 pm, beliav...@aol.com wrote:

> There are
> far more female than male teachers. I don't attribute it to anti-male
> suppression but to greater female interest in working with children.

Of course there is suppression of male teachers, particularly but not only
for very young children.

http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/false-accusations-growing-fear-classroom

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/men-too-scared-to-teach-for-fear-of-being-falsely-accused-of-childsex-offences/story-fni6uo1m-1226913910688

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/Story?id=6070282=1

Quote:

"I know they're thinking, 'He must be a predator or something. He 
must be some type of pedophile. Why is he in here? He should be 
working for the city, dumping trash, a janitor or something of 
that nature,'" Maiden said.

Not only do parents' gender bias drive men out of teaching, but that same
gender bias influences the choices men make themselves:

- fear of false accusations of being a sexual predator;
- fear of having your sexuality questioned ("looking after kids 
  is women's work");
- low status and pay.

Most men are extremely status-conscious (if often unconsciously) and then
recognise the status (and pay!) of teachers is low:

University lecturers have medium status;
University tutors have less;
High school teachers less again;
Primary school teachers even less;
And pre-school teachers have practical no status.

Basically, the younger the child, the lower the status and the pay.

So most men simply don't even consider it as a job.

Funny the lies we, as a society, tell ourselves. As they say, don't listen
to what people *say* they value, look at what they spend their money on.
Our society says that we value our young kids beyond all price, but we
entrust them into the hands of underpaid, overworked pre-school teachers
who are practically considered drudges. Meanwhile we pay millions of
dollars to over-muscled and under-socialised man-children to chase after a
ball for a few minutes a week.


> In our public middle school (grades 6-8, ages 11-13) there is a
> programming club that is open to girls. My son is shut out because of his
> sex. That is just as wrong as excluding him because of his skin color. I
> oppose such discrimination.

Unless there is a separate programming club for boys, or mixed boys and
girls, so would I. But the mere existence of a girls-only programming club
is not in and of itself discriminatory.

I don't know about programming, but in terms of general schooling:

- on average, boys do better in mixed sex classes than in same sex classes;

- but for girls it is the other way around.


Since boys don't suffer any loss from mixed sex classes, but girls do, it is
common sense to offer girls a same sex option to let them catch up.

Relevant:

http://www.robeastaway.com/blog/boys-versus-girls



-- 
Steven

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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Rustom Mody]

On Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 5:38:18 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Sun, 8 May 2016 01:57 am, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> 
> > A functional, enlightened, prosperous democracy is a very recent
> > historical anomaly. You don't want to jeopardize it naïvely.
> 
> Perhaps by implementing per-country limits on immigration?
> 
> *wink*

See:   
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/

Closing line: "In America today, the only thing more terrifying than foreigners 
is...math."


Wonder how close to terrorists pythonists are
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 8 May 2016 01:57 am, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> A functional, enlightened, prosperous democracy is a very recent
> historical anomaly. You don't want to jeopardize it naïvely.

Perhaps by implementing per-country limits on immigration?

*wink*


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Steven

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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[beliavsky--- via Python-list]

On Saturday, May 7, 2016 at 4:02:32 AM UTC-4, Stephen Hansen wrote:
> On Fri, May 6, 2016, at 11:43 PM, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> > Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > > Who is setting and enforcing this quota, and given that only about 1 in 20
> > > Python programmers is a woman, do you think men are seriously missing out
> > > on any opportunities?
> > 
> > Suppose there are 100 people wanting to ask questions, and
> > there is only time to answer 10 questions. If the 1 in 20
> > ratio holds, then 5 of those people are women and the other
> > 95 are men.
> > 
> > Alternating between men and women means that all of the
> > women get their questions answered, and only 5/95 of the
> > men. So in this example, if you're a woman you have a 100%
> > chance of getting answered, and if you're a man you only
> > have a 5.26% chance.
> > 
> > Whether you think this is a good strategy or not,
> > beliavsky is right that it's not "equal".
> 
> This is a pedantically and nonsensical definition of "equal", that
> ignores the many, many reasons why there are 1 in 20 women in that
> conference. Its looking at the end effect and ignoring everything that
> leads up to it, and deciding its instead special rights -- this is the
> great argument against minorities getting a voice, that their requests
> for equal *opportunity* are instead *special rights* that diminish the
> established majority's entrenched power. 
> 
> Those women are dealing with suppression, discrimination and dismissal
> on multiple levels that leave them in a disenfranchised position. 

The sex disparity in Python and in tech in general could be due in part to 
discrimination, but it could also be due to different male and female interests 
and (gasp) aptitudes on average. Are Asian-Americans over-represented in tech 
because whites have been suppressed? There are far more female than male 
teachers. I don't attribute it to anti-male suppression but to greater female 
interest in working with children.

In our public middle school (grades 6-8, ages 11-13) there is a programming 
club that is open to girls. My son is shut out because of his sex. That is just 
as wrong as excluding him because of his skin color. I oppose such 
discrimination.
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sunday 08 May 2016 13:40, Random832 wrote:

> On Sat, May 7, 2016, at 22:43, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> > If not for the quotas, a citizen of some other country would have an
>> > equal chance to get a green card as a citizen of India or China.
>> 
>> If you have a big hat with 5,000,000 tickets marked "Indian", and 500
>> tickets marked "Finish", and you stick your hand in the hat and rummage
>> around and pick a random ticket, do you really think that you have an
>> equal
>> chance of selecting an Indian ticket and a Finish ticket?
> 
> But that's not what it is. You would have, say, 1,000 tickets labeled
> "green card" and 100,000 tickets labeled "no green card", and  (say)
> 12,000 Indian people and 50 Finnish people each get their turn drawing
> from that same bucket. In your version, the Finnish people draw from a
> bucket with 500 green card tickets and no "no green card" cards, and the
> Indian people draw from a bucket with 500 green card tickets and 11,500
> "no green card" tickets.


That's not how the green card works.

The US immigration system is pretty messed up in many ways, being the overly 
complex and confusing product of many competing and contradictory 
requirements[1], but there's nothing even vaguely analogous to being 
randomly denied entry by pure chance. There's no such thing as "No Green 
Card" tickets that you can draw -- in principle at least, if you are refused 
entry, it is because you do not meet the requirements for a visa. (E.g. you 
have AIDS, are a known trafficker or smuggler, a member of the Communist 
Party in certain countries, have lied to the immigration officer, have 
publicly called for the violent overthrow of the US government, or are 
unable to provide sufficient evidence that you will go back home when your 
visa expires.)

Aside: immigration officials have great power in deciding who meets the 
requirement for a visa, and the US government and courts are unable to over-
rule them except in a matter of the interpretation of the law. With one 
exception: the rules for banning terrorists can be over-ruled by the 
Attorney-General and the Secretary of State. In other words, of all the 
things which a person might do to render themselves ineligible for a visa 
into the USA, there is no higher power able to over-ride the immigration 
official, *except* that if you fail the "No Terrorists Allowed" rule, the A-
G and Sec of State, acting together, can choose to grant you an exemption.

Go figure.

(The intent, I presume, is that if somebody like General Pinochet of Chile 
is found guilty of crimes against humanity by the European courts, which 
would count as terrorism, the US could still grant him a visa.)



[1] Some businesses want easy immigration, so they can drive down the cost 
of skilled or unskilled labour; some people want to prohibit work visas, to 
keep wages high; some want to allow people of diverse nationalities into the 
melting pot, while others want to keep the national character as it is 
without being overrun by large numbers of foreigners with strange or 
terrible customs and practices like sati, female genital mutilation[2], or 
effective social safety nets.


[2] Apparently *male* genital mutilation is perfectly acceptable.


-- 
Steve

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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Random832 :
> But that's not what it is. You would have, say, 1,000 tickets labeled
> "green card" and 100,000 tickets labeled "no green card", and (say)
> 12,000 Indian people and 50 Finnish people each get their turn drawing
> from that same bucket. In your version, the Finnish people draw from a
> bucket with 500 green card tickets and no "no green card" cards, and
> the Indian people draw from a bucket with 500 green card tickets and
> 11,500 "no green card" tickets.

Or:

   In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to
   sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

   https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France>


Marko
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Chris Angelico :

> So the question is: Do we care about country equality or individual
> equality? You can't have both.

That's why there's been a long-standing initiative to split California
into multiple states:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Californias>

Each state gets two senate seats, and California, being the most
populous state, suffers.

The biggest analogous outrage in the world, though, is that of the
International Football Association Board (IFAB), where the [English]
Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football
Association of Wales and the [Northern] Irish Football Association each
have a vote while the ROW (aka FIFA) has four votes.


Marko
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Random832]

On Sat, May 7, 2016, at 22:43, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > If not for the quotas, a citizen of some other country would have an
> > equal chance to get a green card as a citizen of India or China. 
> 
> If you have a big hat with 5,000,000 tickets marked "Indian", and 500
> tickets marked "Finish", and you stick your hand in the hat and rummage
> around and pick a random ticket, do you really think that you have an
> equal
> chance of selecting an Indian ticket and a Finish ticket?

But that's not what it is. You would have, say, 1,000 tickets labeled
"green card" and 100,000 tickets labeled "no green card", and  (say)
12,000 Indian people and 50 Finnish people each get their turn drawing
from that same bucket. In your version, the Finnish people draw from a
bucket with 500 green card tickets and no "no green card" cards, and the
Indian people draw from a bucket with 500 green card tickets and 11,500
"no green card" tickets.
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 12:43 PM, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:
> On Sun, 8 May 2016 04:40 am, Random832 wrote:
>
>> On Sat, May 7, 2016, at 11:16, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> > Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
>>> > the whole objective of the country limits.
>>>
>>> The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective may
>>> be
>>> to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China can get
>>> green cards too?
>>
>> If not for the quotas, a citizen of some other country would have an
>> equal chance to get a green card as a citizen of India or China.
>
> If you have a big hat with 5,000,000 tickets marked "Indian", and 500
> tickets marked "Finish", and you stick your hand in the hat and rummage
> around and pick a random ticket, do you really think that you have an equal
> chance of selecting an Indian ticket and a Finish ticket?

So the question is: Do we care about country equality or individual
equality? You can't have both. As soon as you divide a population up
into unequal parts, you have to figure out what you actually mean by
"equality". For instance, should the states in a country have equal
representation in federal government, or should their sway be affected
by the number of people in each state? In a Wikipedia article, how
much space should be given to a narrowly-held view compared to a
widely-held one? In a summary of a thousand people's comments, how
many favorable ones and how many unfavorable ones should be quoted? In
an extreme case of the latter, suppose you have room to post ten
comments, and of the thousand, only four were against. Do you post all
four, and restrict the other side to four to be "fair", or do you post
one of them against nine "yea" comments, or do you pick randomly from
the entire pool of questions (which would give you a 4% chance of
drawing even a single negative comment)? Which is "fairest"?

If two people both want to enter the country, it's *obviously* right
that they should have equal chance as individuals. And it's equally
obvious that it's not fair to let one highly populous country push out
every other country. Somewhere in there you need math and decisions.

ChrisA
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 8 May 2016 04:40 am, Random832 wrote:

> On Sat, May 7, 2016, at 11:16, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> > Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
>> > the whole objective of the country limits.
>> 
>> The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective may
>> be
>> to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China can get
>> green cards too?
> 
> If not for the quotas, a citizen of some other country would have an
> equal chance to get a green card as a citizen of India or China. 

If you have a big hat with 5,000,000 tickets marked "Indian", and 500
tickets marked "Finish", and you stick your hand in the hat and rummage
around and pick a random ticket, do you really think that you have an equal
chance of selecting an Indian ticket and a Finish ticket?


> This is 
> a much simpler question than Python convention attendees, since there
> are *in fact* more Indian or Chinese people in actual existence than
> citizens of any given other country, which can't be blamed on any form
> of discrimination.
> 
>> Perhaps the country limits are also in place, at least in part, to manage
>> the rate at which new immigrants arrive in the country?
> 
> That's immaterial, we're not talking about a limit on the total number
> of visas.

How is it immaterial? Regardless of the limit on the total number of visas,
per country limits put an upper limit how quickly new immigrants from any
one specific country can arrive.



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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Random832]

On Sat, May 7, 2016, at 11:16, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
> > the whole objective of the country limits.
> 
> The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective may
> be
> to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China can get
> green cards too?

If not for the quotas, a citizen of some other country would have an
equal chance to get a green card as a citizen of India or China. This is
a much simpler question than Python convention attendees, since there
are *in fact* more Indian or Chinese people in actual existence than
citizens of any given other country, which can't be blamed on any form
of discrimination.

> Perhaps the country limits are also in place, at least in part, to manage
> the rate at which new immigrants arrive in the country?

That's immaterial, we're not talking about a limit on the total number
of visas.
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Chris Angelico :

> But immigration laws are a pretty terrible mess the world over, from
> what I've seen, and I wish countries could drop the whole "but we have
> to protect ourselves from foreigners" thing. At some point, those
> "foreigners" become "citizens", and just as worthy of your protection
> as those who were born here - why fight them off for a while before
> you welcome them?

There's a strong racist undercurrent there for sure, but it's not the
whole story. You need to put some impedance to uncontrolled immigration.

A functional, enlightened, prosperous democracy is a very recent
historical anomaly. You don't want to jeopardize it naïvely.


Marko
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Steven D'Aprano :

> On Sat, 7 May 2016 06:50 pm, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
>> the whole objective of the country limits.
>
> The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective
> may be to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China
> can get green cards too? Given that there are only a limited number of
> green cards available overall, without per country limits it is
> conceivable that they would all go to people from one or two
> countries.

And? If 40% of the humanity happens to live in China and India, they
should have a 40% chance at getting in if you were targeting some kind
of ethnic fairness.

However, the whole ethnic consideration is silly at best, cruel at
worst. You should only look at human beings as individuals.

> Perhaps the country limits are also in place, at least in part, to
> manage the rate at which new immigrants arrive in the country?

No, there's a separate annual total maximum.

> It's not that country limits act as a permanent barrier to getting a green
> card. It's a per year limit, and there is a first-come, first-served queue
> system in place. If an applicant is otherwise eligible for a green card,
> the country limit will only delay, not prevent, them from getting a green
> card.

If you do the math, the wait times grow without bounds. In the end, they
may grow longer than your lifetime.

>> How this relates to Python? Well, I bet thousands of Asian Python coders
>> in the United States are under the threat of deportation because of
>> country limits.
>
> I'm not sure why you think that "H1B holders" are at threat of
> deportation. So long as they meet the conditions of the work visa,
> they are entirely entitled to stay and work in the country.

An H1B is only good for 6 years max. From then on, you'll be out of
status. You might still get some kind of provision to stay while you
wait for your paperwork to be processed, but as far as I know, you are
not allowed to exit the United States while you wait.

I was an H1B holder. Because of an amusing bureaucratic adventure (the
INS lost my paperwork and would only lift a finger after a court found
the United States in contempt), I ran out of status and was subject to
deportation for a couple of years. Luckily, I was part of a special
legal provision that allowed you to get a green card as long as you had
started the process before a particular date. One of the final steps in
the process was to file the actual green card application. One of the
questions on the application form was: "Are you in the country legally?"
I answered, "No," and the form instructed me to add $1,000 to the
application fee.

My process took five years.

> There are good arguments for removing the H1B programme. It's used to
> flood the market with relatively cheap labour made up of people who
> are less likely to unionise and more likely to put up with bad
> treatment, and drive wages down for others in the same field. But the
> inequities of the H1B programme are not caused by the existence of
> country limits.

I don't think I ever ran into that phenomenon. It's of course difficult
to measure based on individual experiences alone.

What I can tell from the current labor market in Finland is that it is
very difficult to find any*body*, let alone any native, who'd *apply*
for decent, run-of-the-mill software development jobs. And Finland is in
a slump, with constant news of IT layoffs, especially considering the
ongoing Nokia/Microsoft implosion. It's really weird.

I have never run into a situation where the employer has decided to hire
a software developer based on a salary bidding competition. What
companies are doing is they are outsourcing whole projects or products
to, say, Latvian or Russian companies, but that has little to do with
guest worker policies.


Marko
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 1:16 AM, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:
>
> Obviously this system is a conspiracy to benefit citizens of Andorra
> (population 85 thousand), Marshall Islands (pop. 70 thousand),
> Liechtenstein (pop. 37 thousand), Nauru (pop. 9 thousand) and the Vatican
> City (pop. 842).

The Vatican City is always standing by to mess with your statistics.
Never mind about its pop. density - it has the highest pope density in
the world, peaking at roughly 2 per square kilometer.

The way I'd read the 7% maximum is a requirement on immigration to
accept people from a variety of origin countries - at least fifteen
unique countries per year, assuming the maximum number of green cards
is issued. But immigration laws are a pretty terrible mess the world
over, from what I've seen, and I wish countries could drop the whole
"but we have to protect ourselves from foreigners" thing. At some
point, those "foreigners" become "citizens", and just as worthy of
your protection as those who were born here - why fight them off for a
while before you welcome them?

ChrisA
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 7 May 2016 06:50 pm, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> The United States has an "egalitarian" quota system that seeks to
> promote diversity. By law, at most 7% of green cards can be awarded to
> citizens of any individual country. So, by this fair principle, in any
> given year, at most 7% of the green cards can go to citizens of Finland
> (pop. 5 million) and at most 7% of the green cards can go to citizens of
> India (pop. 1 billion).
> 
>https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary/country-limit>

Obviously this system is a conspiracy to benefit citizens of Andorra
(population 85 thousand), Marshall Islands (pop. 70 thousand),
Liechtenstein (pop. 37 thousand), Nauru (pop. 9 thousand) and the Vatican
City (pop. 842).


> Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
> the whole objective of the country limits.

The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective may be
to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China can get
green cards too? Given that there are only a limited number of green cards
available overall, without per country limits it is conceivable that they
would all go to people from one or two countries.

Perhaps the country limits are also in place, at least in part, to manage
the rate at which new immigrants arrive in the country?

It's not that country limits act as a permanent barrier to getting a green
card. It's a per year limit, and there is a first-come, first-served queue
system in place. If an applicant is otherwise eligible for a green card,
the country limit will only delay, not prevent, them from getting a green
card.

E.g. if there are (let's say) a maximum of 1000 green cards available for
people from Nauru, and the entire population applies in 2016. Let's assume
that they are all eligible under one clause or another (e.g. family ties,
employment, refugee status, national interest, etc.). Then the first 1000
applicants will be granted a green card in the first year, followed by the
next 1000 the following year, and so on. New applicants go to the back of
the queue.

Meanwhile, this unexpected flood of immigrants from Nauru have no effect on
the chances of Pope Francis being granted a green card, what with the
Vatican having its own country limit of 1000 as well.


> The US used to have more explicitly worded immigration laws:
> 
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Exclusion_Act>

Yes, many countries had, and still have, overtly racist immigration laws.
You should try immigrating into Japan, or Saudi Arabia, and getting
citizenship.


> How this relates to Python? Well, I bet thousands of Asian Python coders
> in the United States are under the threat of deportation because of
> country limits.

I'm not sure why you think that "H1B holders" are at threat of deportation.
So long as they meet the conditions of the work visa, they are entirely
entitled to stay and work in the country.

There are good arguments for removing the H1B programme. It's used to flood
the market with relatively cheap labour made up of people who are less
likely to unionise and more likely to put up with bad treatment, and drive
wages down for others in the same field. But the inequities of the H1B
programme are not caused by the existence of country limits.




-- 
Steven

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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Gregory Ewing]

Stephen Hansen wrote:

On Fri, May 6, 2016, at 11:43 PM, Gregory Ewing wrote:


Whether you think this is a good strategy or not,
beliavsky is right that it's not "equal".


This is a pedantically and nonsensical definition of "equal", that
ignores the many, many reasons why there are 1 in 20 women in that
conference.


You seem to be saying that if we did take all that into
account, and did the arithmetic accordingly, we would
conclude that Guido was, after all, treating the men and
the women equally.

But that doesn't follow. If it's really the case that for
every woman at the conference there were another 19 that
wanted to go but were prevented simply because they are
women, then treating the women who did happen to make it
to the conference preferentially does nothing to help the
ones who didn't.

I suppose on purely arithmetic grounds you could say that
out of the total population of potential attendees, men
and women ended up with an equal chance of getting a
question answered at the conference. But that assumes the
goal of getting a question answered is the only one that
matters. Missing out on the conference altogether is
surely a much bigger injustice!

So Guido's affirmative action can at best redress only
a small part of the balance. But depending on the
circumstances, it could actually make it *worse*.

Suppose for some bizarre reason the women who made it
to the conference did so because they had red hair. (Maybe
the guy taking the conference bookings had a thing for
redheads, I don't know.) Now we have the situation where
every red-haired female python enthusiast is guaranteed
to get their question answered, simply because of the
colour of their hair. All the non-red-haired female
python enthusiasts might not be very happy about that.

Now admittedly that's a pretty far-fetched scenario, but
without knowing all the reasons for those 19 out of 20
women being barred from the conference, we can't *know*
that there isn't something equally spurious happening.


Correcting for inequalities can not, itself, be a purely "equal" task
done in pure blindness of the contextual reality of what is going on in
the world.


I don't think I disagree with that.

I tend toward the view that it's not possible to fix
those kinds of inequalities by concatenating them with
further inequalities. They can only truly be addressed
by removing whatever barriers are responsible in the
first place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Guido shouldn't have
done what he did. But I don't think it makes sense to talk
about it in terms of equality, except in a very narrow
mathematical way, and then only by making some very
handwavey assumptions about the numbers involved.

--
Greg
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Gregory Ewing :

> Suppose there are 100 people wanting to ask questions, and there is
> only time to answer 10 questions. If the 1 in 20 ratio holds, then 5
> of those people are women and the other 95 are men.
>
> Alternating between men and women means that all of the women get
> their questions answered, and only 5/95 of the men. So in this
> example, if you're a woman you have a 100% chance of getting answered,
> and if you're a man you only have a 5.26% chance.

The United States has an "egalitarian" quota system that seeks to
promote diversity. By law, at most 7% of green cards can be awarded to
citizens of any individual country. So, by this fair principle, in any
given year, at most 7% of the green cards can go to citizens of Finland
(pop. 5 million) and at most 7% of the green cards can go to citizens of
India (pop. 1 billion).

   https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary/country-limit>

Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
the whole objective of the country limits.

The US used to have more explicitly worded immigration laws:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act>
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Exclusion_Act>


How this relates to Python? Well, I bet thousands of Asian Python coders
in the United States are under the threat of deportation because of
country limits.

See also:

   http://www.petition2congress.com/14376/eliminate-per-country-limi
   t-in-employment-based-green-card>


Marko
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Stephen Hansen]

On Fri, May 6, 2016, at 11:43 PM, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > Who is setting and enforcing this quota, and given that only about 1 in 20
> > Python programmers is a woman, do you think men are seriously missing out
> > on any opportunities?
> 
> Suppose there are 100 people wanting to ask questions, and
> there is only time to answer 10 questions. If the 1 in 20
> ratio holds, then 5 of those people are women and the other
> 95 are men.
> 
> Alternating between men and women means that all of the
> women get their questions answered, and only 5/95 of the
> men. So in this example, if you're a woman you have a 100%
> chance of getting answered, and if you're a man you only
> have a 5.26% chance.
> 
> Whether you think this is a good strategy or not,
> beliavsky is right that it's not "equal".

This is a pedantically and nonsensical definition of "equal", that
ignores the many, many reasons why there are 1 in 20 women in that
conference. Its looking at the end effect and ignoring everything that
leads up to it, and deciding its instead special rights -- this is the
great argument against minorities getting a voice, that their requests
for equal *opportunity* are instead *special rights* that diminish the
established majority's entrenched power. 

Those women are dealing with suppression, discrimination and dismissal
on multiple levels that leave them in a disenfranchised position. 

Recognizing those faults and taking corrective action is fundamentally
an act in the name of equality. 

Correcting for inequalities can not, itself, be a purely "equal" task
done in pure blindness of the contextual reality of what is going on in
the world. 

-- 
Stephen Hansen
  m e @ i x o k a i . i o
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Rustom Mody]

On Saturday, May 7, 2016 at 12:13:59 PM UTC+5:30, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > Who is setting and enforcing this quota, and given that only about 1 in 20
> > Python programmers is a woman, do you think men are seriously missing out
> > on any opportunities?
> 
> Suppose there are 100 people wanting to ask questions, and
> there is only time to answer 10 questions. If the 1 in 20
> ratio holds, then 5 of those people are women and the other
> 95 are men.
> 
> Alternating between men and women means that all of the
> women get their questions answered, and only 5/95 of the
> men. So in this example, if you're a woman you have a 100%
> chance of getting answered, and if you're a man you only
> have a 5.26% chance.
> 
> Whether you think this is a good strategy or not,
> beliavsky is right that it's not "equal".

Usually I steer away from these (type of) discussions.
However... Trump  seems to be winning
And with that there are these kind of discussions...
Here's a short snippet of an exchange I had with an ex-student of mine:
-
Student: This may be a pretty controversial statement. But if I'd have voting
rights in this country I'd have voted for Trump.

You are at-least getting what you are seeing. Everyone else is trying to be
politically correct where as this guy doesn't give rat's a** about it.

My response: Political correctness is incorrect doesn't mean
Political incorrectness is correct  :-)
---

On the question of quotas:
Any corrective system that seeks to redress an inquity must BY-DESIGN
asymptotically self-destruct.
Else we have a problem being 'cured' with a remedy-worse-than-the-evil.
IOW: A world of A-oppresses-B is not improved by one of B-oppresses-A.

As examples of asymptotic self-destruction:
1. Say there is a quota for education for some kind of minority.
Should it be the same from kindergarten to MDs in neuro-surgery?
If yes would you go to such a quota-MD when the need arises?

2. Likewise say a quota of say X% seats reserved is put in place.
Should this X remain untouched for 5? 10? 20? 50? 100? years

As for Guido's Q/A practices: I find it good that he does as he does...
As long as it does not become a habit!!
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Gregory Ewing]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

Who is setting and enforcing this quota, and given that only about 1 in 20
Python programmers is a woman, do you think men are seriously missing out
on any opportunities?


Suppose there are 100 people wanting to ask questions, and
there is only time to answer 10 questions. If the 1 in 20
ratio holds, then 5 of those people are women and the other
95 are men.

Alternating between men and women means that all of the
women get their questions answered, and only 5/95 of the
men. So in this example, if you're a woman you have a 100%
chance of getting answered, and if you're a man you only
have a 5.26% chance.

Whether you think this is a good strategy or not,
beliavsky is right that it's not "equal".

--
Greg
--
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[John Wong]

On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Chris Angelico  wrote:
>
>
> In the case of PyCon questions, I fully agree with it; there were
> enough women present that it wasn't a ridiculous suggestion, and it
> encourages people to speak up who might otherwise have kept quiet. But
> just because that worked well, it doesn't mean we should automatically
> enact quotas everywhere, as some sort of "gender/race/culture
> imbalance panacea", because it isn't.
>

I think it is a good call to ask if non-male attendees would be interested
in asking question. I didn't attend those PyCons so I don't know how many
male and female attendees lined up awaiting to ask Guido questions. If
there were 25 male and 1 female standing in the line, while I do admire
Guido (or just about anybody) encouraging more non-male to speak, is it
worth asking whether we place pressure on the females attendees if were to
say "hey look, we got a lot of male attendees asking, please more female
attendees." I totally understand there is a long history of females being
treated as inferior (even in America here!), but too much encouragement or
too eager to seek more females speaking is almost like saying females are
shy and can't speak up without the presence of a heroic voice.

I am a male and I am Asian so I am usually regarded as majority in the tech
world so I don't always feel underrepresented and can be biased here.
Recently I went to some company's website and on the career page I found a
banner photo full of white males and maybe 3-4 females in the pictures,
holding beers having a great smile posing for a group picture. It could be
really genuine, but I felt so uncomfortable immediately because (1) the
ratio of male:female is so out balanced, (2) I felt the company was selling
the "equal opportunity" sloan too hard. What I am saying is don't try so
hard, people will apply job if they want the job, regardless of gender and
ethnicity. Similarly, if females attendees want to ask questions, they
will. We shouldn't broadcast every single time "we gotta have more females
speaking, or more underrepresented people speaking."

When I am hanging out with my friends, whether they are male or female, I
don't really think of he/she. I think of them as friends, as human being,
no need to differentiate whether they are Mexican or Black or Asian. Just
human being. Sexual assault laws in some countries are pretty stupid in the
sense that female sexual assault offender would receive light punishment
compared to female offender. While social and history would justify such
law (because again, males historically dominated women), we still treat
people inferior by gender and ethnicity.

I don't know, this is a sensitive issue. People are either coerced to
believe in one kind of response, or perceive as anti-X if given a different
kind of response.

Thanks.
John
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 1:33 PM, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:
> On Sat, 7 May 2016 06:35 am, beliav...@aol.com wrote:
>
>> This not "equal opportunity". It is a quota system.
>
> I must ask, what do you think the phrase "quota system" means?
>
> Who is setting and enforcing this quota, and given that only about 1 in 20
> Python programmers is a woman, do you think men are seriously missing out
> on any opportunities?
>

The problem with quotas isn't "women don't deserve to be heard"
(because they most assuredly do!), but that a restriction can
sometimes force awkwardnesses that weren't there to start with. It's
unlikely to be an issue at PyCon, but the same problem has come up in
other contexts. A great summary comes from the TV show "Yes, Minister"
[1], in which the eponymous Minster wishes to promote a woman, and
aiming for 25% women in senior positions (a quota, exactly on par with
"alternating questions from men and women"). In that case, the
"quota-promoted" woman objected, specifically because she didn't want
to be part of some 25%, she wanted to go somewhere that would respect
her for her accomplishments.

So it's possible to disagree with the quota system without disagreeing
with the goal it's trying to accomplish (or, conversely, without
agreeing with the imbalance that it's trying to address). It's a
sensitive matter that has to be handled carefully.

In the case of PyCon questions, I fully agree with it; there were
enough women present that it wasn't a ridiculous suggestion, and it
encourages people to speak up who might otherwise have kept quiet. But
just because that worked well, it doesn't mean we should automatically
enact quotas everywhere, as some sort of "gender/race/culture
imbalance panacea", because it isn't.

ChrisA

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Opportunities_(Yes_Minister)
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 7 May 2016 06:35 am, beliav...@aol.com wrote:

> This not "equal opportunity". It is a quota system.

I must ask, what do you think the phrase "quota system" means?

Who is setting and enforcing this quota, and given that only about 1 in 20
Python programmers is a woman, do you think men are seriously missing out
on any opportunities?


> It's my 
> impression that in the U.S., Asians are over-represented among programmers
> relative to their share of the population and that whites and especially
> blacks are under-represented. Should we impose racial quotas on questions
> at conferences and call that "equal opportunity" as well?

I don't know. Are there systematic social forces that discourage whites or
blacks from taking up programming?

With an AOL email address, you're probably in the USA, and with an email
username like "beliavsky" I'm guessing you're probably Chinese. Nah just
kidding, you're probably of Eastern European or Russian ancestry, and
probably very white indeed.

- Do you feel systematically excluded and biased against because of your
skin colour?

- Do white-fellas like yourself find yourself repeatedly missing out on
opportunities because employers and managers bypass you as soon as they
realise you are white?

- When you do manage to find a job, do you feel that employers and managers
consistently hold you to a higher standard than your Asian colleagues,
expecting you to work twice as hard to get half the recognition?

- Do you get patronised by your colleagues because you're just a whitey?

- Do you find that there is a systematic and repeating assumption that
white-fellas like you can't program? Do people review your code with "It's
not bad, for a whitey"?

- Do you find that even when you are on an hourly rate, not a salary, you
consistently get offered lower pay for the same work as your Asian
colleagues?

- During staff meetings and conferences, do you find that your Asian
colleagues form cliques that exclude you, preventing you from establishing
the sort of networks that a professional needs?


If you can answer "Yes" to four or more of those questions, then perhaps
there is a case for something to combat the overwhelming anti-white racism
that you're suffering from.


-- 
Steven

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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[alex wright]

It seems like it would be equal opportunity between sexes.  1:1 opportunity
to ask based on apparent sex.  It is not equal representation necessarily.
On May 6, 2016 5:53 PM, "beliavsky--- via Python-list" <
python-list@python.org> wrote:

> On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 5:07:28 PM UTC-4, Ethan Furman wrote:
> > On 05/06/2016 01:35 PM, beliavsky--- via Python-list wrote:
> >
> > > Most of [Guido's] keynote at that conference was answering questions
> from
> >  > the people who had attended. And he actually said, "Let's alternate
> > between
> >  > men and women asking questions."On the second day of the conference,
> > he was
> >  > wearing a shirt from PyLadies, another nonprofit like Django Girls
> > that helps
> >  > women learn how to program on Python.
> > >
> > > *
> > >
> > > This not "equal opportunity". It is a quota system.
> >
> > It's a corrective action, a way of getting men accustomed to listening
> > to women and hearing good ideas and questions from them, and a way to
> > accustom women to speaking in (currently) male dominated groups.
>
> It's silly to say that just because a group is over-represented that it
> "dominates". If a conference has more Asians than whites does that
> necessarily make it Asian-dominated?
>
> > And it is far more equal opportunity than having 25 males ask questions
> > and only one or two females.
>
> Not if there are 25 males with questions and only one or two females with
> questions. Among the people who have questions, you could choose randomly.
> You and Terry Reedy misuse the term "equal opportunity".
> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[beliavsky--- via Python-list]

On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 5:07:28 PM UTC-4, Ethan Furman wrote:
> On 05/06/2016 01:35 PM, beliavsky--- via Python-list wrote:
> 
> > Most of [Guido's] keynote at that conference was answering questions from
>  > the people who had attended. And he actually said, "Let's alternate 
> between
>  > men and women asking questions."On the second day of the conference, 
> he was
>  > wearing a shirt from PyLadies, another nonprofit like Django Girls 
> that helps
>  > women learn how to program on Python.
> >
> > *
> >
> > This not "equal opportunity". It is a quota system.
> 
> It's a corrective action, a way of getting men accustomed to listening 
> to women and hearing good ideas and questions from them, and a way to 
> accustom women to speaking in (currently) male dominated groups.

It's silly to say that just because a group is over-represented that it 
"dominates". If a conference has more Asians than whites does that necessarily 
make it Asian-dominated?
 
> And it is far more equal opportunity than having 25 males ask questions 
> and only one or two females.

Not if there are 25 males with questions and only one or two females with 
questions. Among the people who have questions, you could choose randomly. You 
and Terry Reedy misuse the term "equal opportunity".
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Ethan Furman]

On 05/06/2016 01:35 PM, beliavsky--- via Python-list wrote:


Most of [Guido's] keynote at that conference was answering questions from
> the people who had attended. And he actually said, "Let's alternate 
between
> men and women asking questions."On the second day of the conference, 
he was
> wearing a shirt from PyLadies, another nonprofit like Django Girls 
that helps

> women learn how to program on Python.


*

This not "equal opportunity". It is a quota system.


It's a corrective action, a way of getting men accustomed to listening 
to women and hearing good ideas and questions from them, and a way to 
accustom women to speaking in (currently) male dominated groups.


And it is far more equal opportunity than having 25 males ask questions 
and only one or two females.


--
~Ethan~
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Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[beliavsky--- via Python-list]

On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 3:00:01 PM UTC-4, Terry Reedy wrote:
> https://motherboard.vice.com/blog/python-is-an-equal-opportunity-programming-language
> 
> from an 'Intel(R) Software Evangelist'
> -- 
> Terry Jan Reedy

>From the link:

MB: What is it about Python that makes it friendly to women? Is it something 
about the actual language itself? Or is it more of a subcultural thing within 
the community?

DS: One thing that I think causes this is the founder of the Python project, a 
guy named Guido van Rossum. He's referred to as the "BDFL"--the Benevolent 
Dictator for Life. The way to think of him is like Linus Torvalds of Linux.

Most of his keynote at that conference was answering questions from the people 
who had attended. And he actually said, "Let's alternate between men and women 
asking questions."On the second day of the conference, he was wearing a shirt 
from PyLadies, another nonprofit like Django Girls that helps women learn how 
to program on Python.

*

This not "equal opportunity". It is a quota system. It's my 
impression that in the U.S., Asians are over-represented among programmers
relative to their share of the population and that whites and especially blacks 
are under-represented. Should we impose racial quotas on questions
at conferences and call that "equal opportunity" as well?
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