[jochung]

"Centuries of privilege" is the kind of idiocy only a sheltered American suburbanite could come up with.

A century ago millions of young white men were too busy dying in trenches and being gassed to death with mustard gas in a war none of them could vote on.

Children worked on the field, in factories, and in coal mines, like their fathers were expected to.

And yes, women stayed home and took care of the kids because without electricity, plumbing, appliances, refrigeration and cheap groceries, that was actually a laborious full time job, and people were poor. Not to mention that getting through child birth and infant mortality was a blessing for both mother and child.

None of them were given opportunities simply by existing. On the other hand, providing scholarships to specific ethnicities, or creating special women-only pathways to entry, that is exactly that.

What people like Damore have tried to point out is that expecting demographics and sentiment within a field to match the general population, or else the "playing field" is not level, is an unwarranted assumption. It also puts the blame for actually society wide issues on a small group of people who had nothing to do with it.

If you want more black people in tech, start by addressing the way the US school system is stratified entirely by social class. Maybe you'll see a difference, and maybe that IQ gap will shrink. Maybe it won't, and what new "leveling" policies will you want to introduce then? Don't push out or disadvantage others out of misplaced revenge, and don't cite your American tunnel vision as justification.

[dang]

> the kind of idiocy only a sheltered American suburbanite

Regardless of your view on a divisive issue, you can't break the HN guidelines like this when commenting here. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do it again.