I do understand that as far as the social aspect goes, still I think that a white computer geek has much more in common with an Asian or black computer geek than with - say - an average white truck driver, and obviously the same applies to the other geeks as well. Basically once we control for the cultural aspect (which is correlated with ethnicity, but we controlled this out already), I don't think ethnicity by itself should matter much
In the U.S., a black software engineer is more likely to be able to design technology that helps keep people safe from police regardless of geekery and socioeconomic status.
Just a supposition, but from an American (I'm white). I don't think it's a stretch to say that people who have experienced e.g. anti-black racism will be better able to make technology that addresses it.
Willing? Or able? You're saying it makes a difference in the ability itself. In either case this argument - well, it's not even much of an argument, merely a belief - is so absurd to me that frankly I can't believe you're serious, no offence.
Care to share any examples of what technologies is, in turn, a white software engineer more likely to be able to design? Or does this philosophy only work one way : )
Is designing medical software better left to be implemented by software engineers who themselves eg. battled cancer?
1. Able. Not that skin color itself affects any sort of intellectual ability, but race--including, importantly, the experiences people have because of their skin color--definitely impacts who you are and what you are good at.
2. White software engineers are better at designing racist software (mostly joking). Another half joke: white people are better at designing technology that gets taken seriously by the government and the public (i.e. their technology will be taken more seriously because they are white, not any special ability there). But seriously, white engineers would probably be better at designing technology for teaching other white people about race.
3. Yes, there are absolutely some parts of designing medical software that engineers who have battled cancer would be better at. Imagine you are making one of those medical devices that sits next to a cancer patient's bed post-chemo and shows a bunch of numbers. Now if you fought cancer, you've probably had lots of experience lying in that bed next to those screens, and you could have a much better intuition about how those screens should look and how they should present their visualizations in ways that make a patient more confident. Or imagine the software engineer wants to, you know, talk with some patients or doctors to understand what to make: the engineer who battled cancer will probably be much better understanding what the patients (and doctors) want.
I don't know the race of any software engineers I haven't met. Which is almost all of them. How could govt and the public know either? It seems strange to imagine it could matter.
Well, there are the famous ones. I'd bet facebook would have been treated differently if Mark Zuckerberg were black. You also probably automatically make guesses about people's race online. Race is a bit trickier, but it's not too hard to guess gender online (usernames, and things like this thing I just found on google: http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php#Analyze)
