Best Of

A fictitious tv programme:

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1906697638306554207

@Keir_Starmer
As a father, watching Adolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard.

We all need to be having these conversations more.

I've backed Netflix's plan to show the series for free in schools across the country, so as many young people as possible can see it.

It is based on the true case of Hassan Sentamu who killed a girl under similar circumstances. The writers have since denied that but a very god friend of mine in the industry has said that it was the case they drew almost all of their inspiration from. Other than the race of the lead character, of course.

Because white (or even Indian...) boys never kill anyone?

Don't put words in my mouth. I just find it odd that they basically copied this particular case, all except the race and religion of the actual guilty party. It's almost as though the writers have an agenda. But I guess they can fall back on the "inspired by" and simpletons will believe them.

The creators have specifically said that they chose a white boy and a “non problematic” Everyman family specifically to get the message across that this could be anyone’s child - it’s not just young black boys and boys from broken homes with absent fathers.

Haven’t watched it so I don’t know if that works or not but it was a fair point by them to try and have maximum effect - they are unapologetic about the series having an agenda - stopping young boys being radicalised/marginalised and turning to violence.

But if you look at the actual crime metrics it is boys from problem families and single parent families that are responsible for a huge part of this kind of crime and hatred.

Society has rapidly gone from telling boys that they're great and can achieve anything to telling them that they're usless, that girls are better, that they're all hyperactive and need to be medicated. It's no surprise that internet personalities that tell them that they're not any of those things and that being masculine isn't bad are all getting lots of airtime with young boys and teenagers. We have feminised society to such an extend that boys are rebelling against that, even girls are beginning to do so (see Gen Z women coming out for Trump).

Maybe what we need to ask ourselves is why boys are finding solace in these parts of the internet and what we, as a society, have done to drive them into the arms of men who clearly hate women? I guess that's too much work and instead we'll try and ban Andrew Tate and play whack-a-mole with all of the people who pop up to replace him.

I look at my industry as an example, we have about a dozen "women in tech" programmes that I've been to which is great for women but there's loads of men who graduate and have relevant skills that are struggling too. Women now achieve higher levels of education, have higher employment in their early 20s and have higher overall wages in the early years of their careers. We've done well to help women into the workplace but at the same time we're still pushing on that accelerator despite all of the evidence that women have now caught up and over taken men in the workplace for the younger generations. We're creating a new issue and it's going to have horrible consequences 10 years from now.

Which company do you work for? If not wanting to give a name, give a sector.

At your level/grade, what percentage of women are there? Have they 'caught up', or are they still behind in terms of numbers?

Ah I'm currently unemployed, but I work in the tech sector, specifically within data science.

It's not my grade that matters for men in the late teens and early 20s, no one is becoming a VP of Data or CDO at that age. I'm talking about all of the graduate programmes and job fairs that specifically help women into the workplace, they've been hugely successful. I literally opened a programme for it at one of my previous workplaces when I was in investment management so we could increase the number of female grads in our intake we went from 90/10 to around 70/30 by the time I left. Though as I did so I recommended that the company freeze or close the programme because any further than that and they really would be taking substandard female candidates over vastly better qualified male ones. Even at 70/30 there was a lot of favouritism towards the women in the process, they got to skip a panel interview and got a 1 on 1 interview instead, they got a much lower pressure home task rather than the live case study the male candidates had to do and we had a lower entry bar on the aptitude test all candidates had to sit to enter into the process.

I've literally been there and done it, I've walked the walk on helping women into male dominated work places. I'm suggesting that it's probably time to take stock and look at where we are and maybe not push down on the accelerator for it. I don't see how it's controversial.

The Alan Turing Institute says women make up 22% of AI and data professionals. So, I'd suggest a bit of a way to go...

You go an speak to 100 girls aged 13-16 and find me more than 22 who give any fucks about computing, maths or software engineering/coding. That's the issue, girls don't give any fucks about it and it's difficult to then recruit from a smaller pool without excluding better qualified male candidates.

Girls in single sex schools typically take further maths/science/computer science at much higher rates than in mixed schools.

So a decent amount of the gap is caused by our education system (and girls preferring to be in classes with lots of other girls) rather than innate desire.

I looked up the numbers, and a girl who (who goes on to take A Levels) and who goes to a single sex schools is 2.5x more likely to take Physics A-Level than one who takes A Levels at a coed school.

oh

@carlquintanilla.bsky.social‬

* CHINESE STATE MEDIA: CHINA, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA REACH A CONSENSUS THAT THREE SIDES WILL JOINTLY RESPOND TO THE U.S. TARIFFS

@reuters.com

The ability of the US to unite former adversaries is quite remarkable.

BTW - the Niall Ferguson piece on China and Trump should concern everyone (and will particularly concern @MaxPB) - https://niallferguson.substack.com/p/does-donald-trump-know-what-hes-doing

@Acyn

Trump: We’re respected as a country again. I was with some very important people and they said that they’ve never seen a turnaround of a country as fast as this

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1906545298983551093

He is such a moron, bats in the belfry. He has to be at the kidding no-one can be that stupid.

A fictitious tv programme:

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1906697638306554207

@Keir_Starmer
As a father, watching Adolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard.

We all need to be having these conversations more.

I've backed Netflix's plan to show the series for free in schools across the country, so as many young people as possible can see it.

It is based on the true case of Hassan Sentamu who killed a girl under similar circumstances. The writers have since denied that but a very god friend of mine in the industry has said that it was the case they drew almost all of their inspiration from. Other than the race of the lead character, of course.

Because white (or even Indian...) boys never kill anyone?

Don't put words in my mouth. I just find it odd that they basically copied this particular case, all except the race and religion of the actual guilty party. It's almost as though the writers have an agenda. But I guess they can fall back on the "inspired by" and simpletons will believe them.

The creators have specifically said that they chose a white boy and a “non problematic” Everyman family specifically to get the message across that this could be anyone’s child - it’s not just young black boys and boys from broken homes with absent fathers.

Haven’t watched it so I don’t know if that works or not but it was a fair point by them to try and have maximum effect - they are unapologetic about the series having an agenda - stopping young boys being radicalised/marginalised and turning to violence.

But if you look at the actual crime metrics it is boys from problem families and single parent families that are responsible for a huge part of this kind of crime and hatred.

Society has rapidly gone from telling boys that they're great and can achieve anything to telling them that they're usless, that girls are better, that they're all hyperactive and need to be medicated. It's no surprise that internet personalities that tell them that they're not any of those things and that being masculine isn't bad are all getting lots of airtime with young boys and teenagers. We have feminised society to such an extend that boys are rebelling against that, even girls are beginning to do so (see Gen Z women coming out for Trump).

Maybe what we need to ask ourselves is why boys are finding solace in these parts of the internet and what we, as a society, have done to drive them into the arms of men who clearly hate women? I guess that's too much work and instead we'll try and ban Andrew Tate and play whack-a-mole with all of the people who pop up to replace him.

I look at my industry as an example, we have about a dozen "women in tech" programmes that I've been to which is great for women but there's loads of men who graduate and have relevant skills that are struggling too. Women now achieve higher levels of education, have higher employment in their early 20s and have higher overall wages in the early years of their careers. We've done well to help women into the workplace but at the same time we're still pushing on that accelerator despite all of the evidence that women have now caught up and over taken men in the workplace for the younger generations. We're creating a new issue and it's going to have horrible consequences 10 years from now.

Which company do you work for? If not wanting to give a name, give a sector.

At your level/grade, what percentage of women are there? Have they 'caught up', or are they still behind in terms of numbers?

Ah I'm currently unemployed, but I work in the tech sector, specifically within data science.

It's not my grade that matters for men in the late teens and early 20s, no one is becoming a VP of Data or CDO at that age. I'm talking about all of the graduate programmes and job fairs that specifically help women into the workplace, they've been hugely successful. I literally opened a programme for it at one of my previous workplaces when I was in investment management so we could increase the number of female grads in our intake we went from 90/10 to around 70/30 by the time I left. Though as I did so I recommended that the company freeze or close the programme because any further than that and they really would be taking substandard female candidates over vastly better qualified male ones. Even at 70/30 there was a lot of favouritism towards the women in the process, they got to skip a panel interview and got a 1 on 1 interview instead, they got a much lower pressure home task rather than the live case study the male candidates had to do and we had a lower entry bar on the aptitude test all candidates had to sit to enter into the process.

I've literally been there and done it, I've walked the walk on helping women into male dominated work places. I'm suggesting that it's probably time to take stock and look at where we are and maybe not push down on the accelerator for it. I don't see how it's controversial.

The Alan Turing Institute says women make up 22% of AI and data professionals. So, I'd suggest a bit of a way to go...

You go an speak to 100 girls aged 13-16 and find me more than 22 who give any fucks about computing, maths or software engineering/coding. That's the issue, girls don't give any fucks about it and it's difficult to then recruit from a smaller pool without excluding better qualified male candidates.

I don't know the rights and wrongs of this, but a statement along those lines is not, in itself, strong evidence. Teenage girls see fewer techie geeks among their peers, among female role models, such as mothers, aunts etc. I'm not disputing that there are innate differences and it may be that 50-50 is not the correct ratio to aim for, but a lack of interest in a field in teenage years, while limiting recruits post-university, doesn't mean it always has to be so.

It would have been fascinating to see any discussions around the lack of female doctors 80 years ago and whether there was a similar assumption that there were innate differences that explained and justified that.

The lack of male primary teachers - as recently posted - is of course an interesting counter-example, particularly given the difference with secondary school. Possibly also largely cultural - as young kids we don't see many male teachers which probably has an effect - or maybe innate. Hard to tell definitively.

But why was there a lack of female doctors 80 years ago? Society was very different back then.

What we're now talking about is, why don't more girls want to be techy geeks (for want of a better phrase)?

I see the same stuff in the rail industry (of which I am on the fringes). Network Rail talk a lot about improving representation of women in their workforce. But when did you last see a female trackworker?

I think push to homogenize the sexes is dumb and counterproductive. For sure, let's make sure any woman (or man) feels that they can have a career in a field dominated by opposite sex. But trying to engineer society so that everything is 50:50 is plain stupid.

Yes, but my point was, were people back then saying that there were few female doctors because women weren't (and never would be) very sciencey/technical and the body stuff is maybe just a bit too icky for them. If they were, then they've been shown to be wrong.

We have a society in which fewer girls are interested in tech. That may be partly innate or it may be partly societal norms or it may be a combination of the two. I don't think we really know as yet.

Mrs J's sister is a few years older than her. When her sister was at uni, her sister would take her to the lab, where Mrs J would sit in a seat and do the boring measurements. This got Mrs J fascinated by tech. To this day, she loves being in a lab. Sadly, her current role involves less of this.

The story has also thoroughly persuaded me that positive role models (1) are vital in life; not just in tech, but life generally.

Incidentally, (*) in Turkey roles are much more defined than they are in the UK. There are more women in engineering in Turkey, per capita, than in the UK, because it is not a 'traditional' role. (23% cf 16.5%). Like Ada Lovelace, it is easier to fit yourself into a non-traditional role.

So think about that: Muslim Turkey has more women in engineering than the UK.

(*) A big caveat on comparing like-with-like...
(1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtZtgqUotow

A fictitious tv programme:

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1906697638306554207

@Keir_Starmer
As a father, watching Adolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard.

We all need to be having these conversations more.

I've backed Netflix's plan to show the series for free in schools across the country, so as many young people as possible can see it.

It is based on the true case of Hassan Sentamu who killed a girl under similar circumstances. The writers have since denied that but a very god friend of mine in the industry has said that it was the case they drew almost all of their inspiration from. Other than the race of the lead character, of course.

Because white (or even Indian...) boys never kill anyone?

Don't put words in my mouth. I just find it odd that they basically copied this particular case, all except the race and religion of the actual guilty party. It's almost as though the writers have an agenda. But I guess they can fall back on the "inspired by" and simpletons will believe them.

The creators have specifically said that they chose a white boy and a “non problematic” Everyman family specifically to get the message across that this could be anyone’s child - it’s not just young black boys and boys from broken homes with absent fathers.

Haven’t watched it so I don’t know if that works or not but it was a fair point by them to try and have maximum effect - they are unapologetic about the series having an agenda - stopping young boys being radicalised/marginalised and turning to violence.

But if you look at the actual crime metrics it is boys from problem families and single parent families that are responsible for a huge part of this kind of crime and hatred.

Society has rapidly gone from telling boys that they're great and can achieve anything to telling them that they're usless, that girls are better, that they're all hyperactive and need to be medicated. It's no surprise that internet personalities that tell them that they're not any of those things and that being masculine isn't bad are all getting lots of airtime with young boys and teenagers. We have feminised society to such an extend that boys are rebelling against that, even girls are beginning to do so (see Gen Z women coming out for Trump).

Maybe what we need to ask ourselves is why boys are finding solace in these parts of the internet and what we, as a society, have done to drive them into the arms of men who clearly hate women? I guess that's too much work and instead we'll try and ban Andrew Tate and play whack-a-mole with all of the people who pop up to replace him.

I look at my industry as an example, we have about a dozen "women in tech" programmes that I've been to which is great for women but there's loads of men who graduate and have relevant skills that are struggling too. Women now achieve higher levels of education, have higher employment in their early 20s and have higher overall wages in the early years of their careers. We've done well to help women into the workplace but at the same time we're still pushing on that accelerator despite all of the evidence that women have now caught up and over taken men in the workplace for the younger generations. We're creating a new issue and it's going to have horrible consequences 10 years from now.

Which company do you work for? If not wanting to give a name, give a sector.

At your level/grade, what percentage of women are there? Have they 'caught up', or are they still behind in terms of numbers?

Ah I'm currently unemployed, but I work in the tech sector, specifically within data science.

It's not my grade that matters for men in the late teens and early 20s, no one is becoming a VP of Data or CDO at that age. I'm talking about all of the graduate programmes and job fairs that specifically help women into the workplace, they've been hugely successful. I literally opened a programme for it at one of my previous workplaces when I was in investment management so we could increase the number of female grads in our intake we went from 90/10 to around 70/30 by the time I left. Though as I did so I recommended that the company freeze or close the programme because any further than that and they really would be taking substandard female candidates over vastly better qualified male ones. Even at 70/30 there was a lot of favouritism towards the women in the process, they got to skip a panel interview and got a 1 on 1 interview instead, they got a much lower pressure home task rather than the live case study the male candidates had to do and we had a lower entry bar on the aptitude test all candidates had to sit to enter into the process.

I've literally been there and done it, I've walked the walk on helping women into male dominated work places. I'm suggesting that it's probably time to take stock and look at where we are and maybe not push down on the accelerator for it. I don't see how it's controversial.

The Alan Turing Institute says women make up 22% of AI and data professionals. So, I'd suggest a bit of a way to go...

You go an speak to 100 girls aged 13-16 and find me more than 22 who give any fucks about computing, maths or software engineering/coding. That's the issue, girls don't give any fucks about it and it's difficult to then recruit from a smaller pool without excluding better qualified male candidates.

Girls in single sex schools typically take further maths/science/computer science at much higher rates than in mixed schools.

So a decent amount of the gap is caused by our education system (and girls preferring to be in classes with lots of other girls) rather than innate desire.

A fictitious tv programme:

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1906697638306554207

@Keir_Starmer
As a father, watching Adolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard.

We all need to be having these conversations more.

I've backed Netflix's plan to show the series for free in schools across the country, so as many young people as possible can see it.

It is based on the true case of Hassan Sentamu who killed a girl under similar circumstances. The writers have since denied that but a very god friend of mine in the industry has said that it was the case they drew almost all of their inspiration from. Other than the race of the lead character, of course.

Because white (or even Indian...) boys never kill anyone?

Don't put words in my mouth. I just find it odd that they basically copied this particular case, all except the race and religion of the actual guilty party. It's almost as though the writers have an agenda. But I guess they can fall back on the "inspired by" and simpletons will believe them.

The creators have specifically said that they chose a white boy and a “non problematic” Everyman family specifically to get the message across that this could be anyone’s child - it’s not just young black boys and boys from broken homes with absent fathers.

Haven’t watched it so I don’t know if that works or not but it was a fair point by them to try and have maximum effect - they are unapologetic about the series having an agenda - stopping young boys being radicalised/marginalised and turning to violence.

But if you look at the actual crime metrics it is boys from problem families and single parent families that are responsible for a huge part of this kind of crime and hatred.

Society has rapidly gone from telling boys that they're great and can achieve anything to telling them that they're usless, that girls are better, that they're all hyperactive and need to be medicated. It's no surprise that internet personalities that tell them that they're not any of those things and that being masculine isn't bad are all getting lots of airtime with young boys and teenagers. We have feminised society to such an extend that boys are rebelling against that, even girls are beginning to do so (see Gen Z women coming out for Trump).

Maybe what we need to ask ourselves is why boys are finding solace in these parts of the internet and what we, as a society, have done to drive them into the arms of men who clearly hate women? I guess that's too much work and instead we'll try and ban Andrew Tate and play whack-a-mole with all of the people who pop up to replace him.

I look at my industry as an example, we have about a dozen "women in tech" programmes that I've been to which is great for women but there's loads of men who graduate and have relevant skills that are struggling too. Women now achieve higher levels of education, have higher employment in their early 20s and have higher overall wages in the early years of their careers. We've done well to help women into the workplace but at the same time we're still pushing on that accelerator despite all of the evidence that women have now caught up and over taken men in the workplace for the younger generations. We're creating a new issue and it's going to have horrible consequences 10 years from now.