Scott Adams's Blog, page 297

The Uncanny Valley Hypothesis Applied to Negotiating Strategy

According to studies, men who negotiate for more money are not penalized for doing so, whereas women are heavily penalized for negotiating, even by other women.

So it is no surprise that men negotiate for raises more often than do women. The problem is exacerbated every time one changes jobs and has another opportunity to negotiate.

And even small differences in pay create a wealth compounding effect that makes a huge impact over a lifetime.

So what is up with women not negotiating???

There are two popular hypotheses on why women are less inclined to negotiate. 

1. Shyness

2. Negotiating is genuinely riskier for women.

Today I offer a new hypothesis on why women might be penalized for negotiating when men are not:

Women who negotiate in the style of men have an Uncanny Valley problem.

The Uncanny Valley concept comes from the field of robotics. The idea is that a robot that looks like a proper metal-and-plastic robot can be cute, but if you make an artificial creature that is a-a-a-almost exactly like a human, yet slightly different, the effect is horrifying. That’s why horror movies use zombies and ghosts more often than proper monsters. Nothing is more scary than a creature that is almost human but not quite.

When men negotiate the way society expects men to negotiate, the picture is entirely compatible with expectations. But when a woman negotiates in an assertive style we associate with men (to pick one example), I hypothesize that it causes an Uncanny Valley problem that is slightly repulsive to observers on some level. And one can imagine that impression carrying over after the negotiations are done.

If my hypothesis is correct, the “negotiating gap” will be tricky to solve because classic negotiating tactics are viewed as male-centric behaviors. So the question is whether there is an effective negotiating tactic for women that avoids stereotypes, avoids using sexuality, and avoids looking like stereotypical male behavior? Let me take a stab at that question.

For starters, I assume that a man who uses the wrong approach to negotiate also suffers a penalty. And it is easy to imagine that the man’s penalty for bad negotiating is less than a woman’s because society expects men to be aggressive jerks now and then. But since both men and women have the option to use good negotiating methods, once they understand them, let’s focus today on good form.

In my experience, good negotiators say some version of “This is what I can do for you.

This is what I am worth. I have options that are better than your offer.” There might be some negotiating back-and-forth, but the basic set-up is the same. When someone makes a claim of market value, I focus on the accuracy of the claim, and that seems like an objective process albeit with imperfect information. If the guy in front of me is asking for more than I want to pay, it seems like the market’s fault, not his. Why would I have a bad attitude about someone asking for their market value?

In my personal experience, when women negotiate for pay their tactics often involve appeals to fairness, as in “Other people doing this job earn this amount, so I should too.” Speaking from my ivory tower in the halls of white, male privilege, I can tell you that any appeal to “fairness” is received as fighting words no matter the context. You might get a raise using those words, but I won’t ever trust you again. I will expect you to be looking for more “unfairness” everywhere, which will be a pain in my ass. And it feels manipulative. My first choice is to tell you the job is no longer available. And I would certainly feel the same if a man appealed to fairness. No, scratch that — I would judge a man more harshly for invoking “fairness” because it would seem, well, unmanly.

On the other hand, a simple claim of your market value, along with a direct or indirect suggestion that you have attractive alternatives puts me in a competitive frame of mind. But now I am competing with strangers to be the lucky one to hire you. I am not competing with you personally over some ill-defined concept of fairness.

See the difference? A good negotiator makes you fight with the invisible third-party of market forces. A bad negotiator makes the negotiations seem like a personal contest. My hypothesis is that women can get better negotiating results, without a lasting stigma, by using neutral language and appeals to third-party market forces. Men would get better results doing the same, but the penalty for being a jerk in negotiations is probably lower for men because it seems in character.

To be clear, I am not suggesting my observations on how men and women negotiate are universal. I am limiting my scope today to proposing a reasonable-sounding hypothesis worth testing. My background in hypnosis tells me that training both men and women to negotiate in language that is not “fighting words” is one of several ways society can chip away at the gender pay gap. This idea has the advantage of having no structural barriers to implementation. 

Is the hypothesis worth testing?

Scott

In other news, this company is building a user interface to reprogram your brain to improve your mood. We need a name for the trend of computers programming humans because a lot more of that is coming. I don’t think society realizes how big a deal this is because it is the beginning of the end of the myth of “free will.” Once we can push a button and electrically rewire our minds and our moods, the notion of free will becomes too absurd to maintain.

@ScottAdamsSays (my dangerous tweets)

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@Dilbert_Daily (Dilbert-related tweets)

My book on success: “Best book I’ve read in years” - 5-star review on Amazon.com, Andrew Chowning.

Engineering a Viral Result

I recently engineered a Robots Read News comic for maximum viral potential, using what I have learned on that topic, and succeeded. It was my most popular tweet. Can I repeat that success with the same formula? That is not clear. But I will share what I learned about creating viral content for Twitter so you judge for yourself.

Lesson 1:

To achieve a viral outcome, each creator needs a different approach, because the messenger is part of the message. I could say something brilliant on the topic of automotive repair but because I do not match that message, it would go nowhere. So the message has to be compatible with the messenger. In my case that usually means sticking to comics and making observations about human nature.

Lesson 2: 

On Twitter, the standard for success is the “retweet.” When people forward your content to their followers they are, in a sense, endorsing it. People will only endorse content that matches their brand ambitions.

I have learned through trial and error that folks will not retweet content that targets one person or group. The exceptions are activists, but generally their numbers are limited. For a strong viral effect you need content with nearly universal appeal. Hate tweets are divisive by nature.

Being “nice” is a challenge for a humorist because humor generally has a target. I can game the system by making the target “everyone” or “idiots” because none of that seems  terribly personal, and everyone agrees that people can be dumb sometimes. 

Lesson 3:

The content has to have a minimum level of quality, but it does not need to be amazing. In the case of humor, it has to make people laugh. But you need not be in the top 2% of hilarity to generate a viral response. You just need to be a safe, guaranteed, harmless laugh that people feel good about retweeting.

In the comic at the bottom of the post I combined three of the six dimensions of humor (mean, bizarre, and clever). A three-dimensional comic is generally a winner if executed with commercial-quality writing and timing. 

Lesson 4:

Freshness matters. A lot of humorists and writers are covering the same topics. Finding a fresh topic is hard but necessary because people will not retweet content that feels stale. The trick is to come up with a topic that is on people’s minds but for whatever reason few people have discussed.

In the comic below I picked the topic of ancient construction mysteries. The History channel is running lots of shows about aliens and pyramids and whatnot. I figured the topic was likely to be on the minds of most channel-surfers, but because it is not headline news, it was a relatively fresh topic.

Lesson 5:

In order for content to go viral it needs to appeal to a big, general audience. But your Twitter following might be a narrow audience. To break out of the narrow audience to the full audience you want content that appeals to your narrow audience without offending your wider audience. Many of my readers have engineering mindsets, so a comic with a whimsical view of how the ancients did engineering was likely to click with my core followers without being too narrow for the general public.

If your company firewall is blocking the comic image here, you can view it on Twitter here.

Scott

————

In other news, soon you might be able to 3D print your own robot friend and give it a personality suited to your situation. That’s my interpretation of this technology anyway.

At the same time that humans are printing and programming robots, machines will be rewiring human minds (essentially programming humans) to solve all kinds of brain problems if this company is successful. The future is humans and robots programming EACH OTHER.

@ScottAdamsSays (my dangerous tweets)

Dilbert on Facebook  

@Dilbert_Daily (Dilbert-related tweets)

My book on success: “Best book I’ve read in years” - 5-star review on Amazon.com, Andrew Chowning.

Who is More Anti-Science?

Against all odds, it appears my post last week on gender bias in the workplace has been accepted as “balanced” by both the feminist side and the Red Pill guys on Reddit. I am confident no one saw that coming. 

[I scrubbed more bias out of it over the weekend based on critiques. Updates at the end of the piece.]

That was the first test of a “system” for curating debates with an eye toward removing bias. The key to making it work seems to be a willingness to include both sides, and to update as new information arrives. And it has to be done in public so folks see the work. 

Can the system work again? Let’s test it. I will intentionally pick one of the most politicized (and absurd) debates, run it through our system, and see if it can wring most of the bias out.

The question is whether Republicans or Democrats are more “anti-science.” Obviously there are plenty of pro-science folks in both parties. So we will be dealing with comical stereotypes.

So why bother?

I think the debate on a national level is a distraction. Perhaps we can take it off the table so the country can focus on something useful. If you think the other party is the “anti-science” party, why would you ever take them seriously? So while the debate is somewhat absurd, it has a big impact on the real world.

I will start the system by priming it with a first draft verdict. Submit your links and comments to refine this “living” debate. I will update as needed.

Here is the starting point of my anti-science balance sheet for Republicans and Democrats. And remember we are only dealing with comical stereotypes. There is no claim that any individual fits what follows.

For this first draft, I see the anti-science topics sorted this way.

Republicans (stereotype)

Deny evolution
Mostly religious
Laffer Curve (supply-side economics)
Climate change not caused by people

Democrats (stereotype)

Believe a gender pay gap of 25% comparing same jobs
Mostly religious
Anti-vax
Climate change alarmism (as opposed to denying)

Claim 1: One political party in the United States is the “anti-science” party.

Verdict: False. Comparing stereotype-to-stereotype, I judge the major political parties to be roughly equal in their selective ignoring of data and science.

Claim 2: While the raw number of anti-science topics might be equal on both sides, one side has much worse (more dangerous) views.

Verdict: False. It is not clear which side has more dangerous views.

Different views on evolution are mostly benign in the sense that no one ever died because of being wrong about punctuated equilibrium. The larger risk here is that ignoring science on any topic is a bad idea for civilization. But there is no objective standard for predicting how bad that really is in the complicated real world. We have only speculation.

The anti-vax movement could, in one imagined outcome, kill millions of people. But I think a few small outbreaks would be enough to keep things contained. I judge the anti-vax movement to be a huge potential problem, but in all likelihood one that will be controlled.

A misunderstanding about gender pay parity could lead to lots of unproductive and unfair results. But compared to the other threats that are more life-and-death they are a different class. 

Supply-side economics done wrong could ruin the economy of an entire nation and sentence millions of poor people to death by hardship. But in 2015 the risk of supply-side economics becoming the policy of the United States is low. 

For new readers, I remind you that I am pro-religion, because I see it providing more good than bad, and doing so by a large margin. But religion is, by design, outside the realm of science. Since both parties are religious by majority, I only include religion on my list for completeness. I judge them a tie on that dimension.

That brings us to climate change as the tie-breaker for the anti-science verdict. And here I break the question into two parts that are often conflated:

Climate Change Claim 1: Human activity plus natural factors are changing the climate in ways that could be calamitous.

Verdict: True. The overwhelming majority of credible scientists agree.

Climate Change Claim 2: The coming changes to our climate will most-likely cause enormous net economic loss.

Verdict: False. Climate change will likely cause a huge gross expense, but no one can predict the net effect after accidental benefits are counted. And no one can predict what technologies or systems humans will invent to respond.

Common sense says that economic disruption on a global scale has to be bad for economies. But if you layer some simple economic concepts on top of that common sense it becomes less clear.

For example, disruption by climate change could mean that valuable land becomes less valuable. And since rich people own all the good land, this ends up being a reduction of income inequality. 

[I will stipulate here that I do not understand, from a strictly economic viewpoint, why income inequality is considered a problem. But smart people seem to agree that it is, and I find that hard to ignore.]

Who would pay the price for most of the economic disruption from climate change? Probably the top 1%, simply because they have most of the money and the most to lose. If you want to relocate your production facilities, your farms, and your mansions, you need to hire a lot of folks to get it done. It is easy to imagine climate change becoming a boon to employment.

And consider the technological advances that any huge disruption causes. Climate change is likely to inspire faster advances in green energy, self-driving cars, battery storage, desalinization, and more. So while the risk of climate change seems truly enormous, the technological advances it spawns might be even more important. How would we know?

My prediction is that humans will develop climate engineering technology to directly control the atmosphere. Some ideas along those lines have already been proposed and they don’t look crazy. Once we learn how to control our atmosphere we are more protected against future climate challenges we don’t see coming (volcanoes, meteors, etc.). We might even find ways to micro-control rainfall and terraform new planets. The upside potential is mind-boggling. There is of course a risk that the planet does not survive long enough for these rescue technologies to mature.

One must also consider what I call the Adams Rule of Slow-Moving Disasters. That rule says that while the risk of climate change appears very real, humans are clever at side-stepping disasters when they see them coming with so much warning. (The sudden catastrophes are the ones that gettcha.) So if I had to bet my own money on how climate change ends, I put my money on a happy ending. (But only if everyone else believes the risk is enormous so they keep developing solutions.)

Once again we see a situation in which the truth might be the biggest threat to human survival. If people believed, as I do, that humans are great at last-minute saves, we might get complacent. And complacency would be a death sentence.

Claim 3: It important that people be educated about climate change and the risk it poses.

Verdict: False. If people were educated they would likely put too much faith in humanity’s ability to sidestep the coming danger. And if folks believed the net effect is unpredictable, versus definitely terrible, that too could cause complacency. 

Given that climate change could end humanity if not addressed in an aggressive fashion, the smartest approach is whatever has the greatest chance of working. And that probably means keeping the climate-change alarm on full-blare, at the cost of being 100% forthcoming, until we are clear of the problem.

Now you have a draft verdict to improve. I will be monitoring and making adjustments accordingly.

Update 1: This link suggests that the more folks understand about science the more they DISAGREE on what science is saying. That supports my verdict that additional science education would not make the world safer on the topic of climate change.

Scott Adams

In other news, Tesla’s cars can become self-driving with nothing but a software update. Elon Musk predicts human drivers will become illegal because they are too dangerous. If you have a kid under ten, will that child ever drive an automobile? I think maybe no.

@ScottAdamsSays (my dangerous tweets)

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@Dilbert_Daily (Dilbert-related tweets)

My book on success: “Best book I’ve read in years” - 5-star review on Amazon.com, Andrew Chowning.

MetaFilter’s Finest Moment

My Verdict on Gender Bias in the Workplace

Background: In a recent post I expressed confusion and ignorance about gender bias in the workplace. I asked how it could be true that studies consistently show bias against woman while studies on pay gap do not reflect that bias (according to strangers on the the Internet). Clearly someone is wrong. But who? I had no idea.

So I declared a link war to get to the bottom of things. You sent me your links, and I will declare my verdict(s) today.

But this will not be a closed verdict. This post will stay alive, and I will update it as necessary based on new information. So consider this a draft opinion that can improve over time if we let it. I use science as my model here. We will crawl toward the truth without ever knowing if we are all the way there.

For your reading convenience, I will put this discussion in the form of claims that I judge to be true or not. And I will try to call out my bias in this process as I see it. Feel free to shine a spotlight on anything I miss.

Thanks to all of you for submitting links. And special thanks to Drowlord101 for compiling them by categories. His full list is at the end of this post.

My system for evaluating claims of truth involves looking for consistency. Ideally, all scientific studies would point in the same direction. That seems to be the case on this topic. While folks interpret the results in different ways, the data itself seems consistent.

The other consistency I look for is with my own experience, with common sense, and with the claims and reports of others. Unfortunately, none of those sources of wisdom are reliable. And scientific studies have their own problems. So for me, as a minimum standard, something has to make sense on two dimensions. In other words, if the science matches my experience, or the experience of women, or common sense, I give it more weight than if any of those things are in conflict.

So let’s get to it.

Claim 1: Bias against women exists, and it has an impact on how people act in the real world.

Verdict: True. Multiple studies support this claim. Common sense supports this claim. Personal experience supports this claim. And reports of women support this claim. Confidence level: 100%. (And the same could be said about bias against men.)

Claim 2: Women (as a group) earn about three-quarters of what men (as a group) earn in the United States.

Verdict: True. All studies show a pay gap in that range. And common sense agrees that if women enter careers with lower pay, the average pay of women will be lower. Confidence: 100%

Claim 3: Women who have equal experience as men are paid about three-quarters of what men earn.

Verdict: False. No one who is informed on this topic, including feminists, claim that women of equal talent and experience are paid about three-quarters of what men make, at least in the United States. The pay gap in this particular type of study is only telling us that women choose careers with lower pay. No attempt has been made to isolate how much of the gap, if any, is based on bias. Confidence: 100%

Claim 4: Studies that adjust for equal experience on the same job show a gender pay gap in the 5-10% range. If gender bias exists, it would be in that number, and it would be a big deal.

Verdict: True. Studies that control for job type and experience still show a substantial and troubling difference in pay by gender. If the pay gap is based on bias, the evidence could be hidden in that number. And it would be a big deal.

Claim 5: The existence of a pay gap by gender is so persistent across studies that an intelligent person must conclude bias is a big part of the story. 

Verdict: False. The well-informed on all sides of the topic agree that there are too many uncontrolled variables in the studies to isolate for gender bias in pay gaps. Here are some uncontrolled variables that easily come to my mind:

1. We know tall men earn more than short men. And we know women are generally shorter than men. How much height bias is in the pay difference for women?

2. On average, men and women are different creatures. and they employ different strategies in life, especially when it comes to risk. If male strategies (on average) are more suited to workplace competition, you would expect to see that reflected in pay.

3. What is the impact of desire on success? If society has primed young women to seek balance, and primed young men to seek business success, we would expect different outcomes by gender based on social priming. Some say this is a problem, but it is not a gender bias in the workplace problem. Under this line of thinking, the problem starts in childhood. (More on this later.)

4. Do women and men have the same ego flexibility on average? If you tell me I need to dress like a clown to get a raise, I will immediately go shopping for a clown suit. Other folks might prefer lower pay to avoid the humiliation of the clown suit. Given the way men and women are socialized differently, one can easily imagine a difference in ego flexibility. Does it matter?

5. If men take larger risks, we would expect to see more failures and more big successes too. When you fail, and stay in the same field, your pay generally does not go to zero. But if you succeed big, your pay has a nearly unlimited upside. So I wonder if the few men who succeed by luck, because of greater risk-taking, are skewing the average.

6. Some have hypothesized that evolution makes us act in ways that support our reproductive instincts and everything else is just rationalization. According to this way of thinking, men pursue success to increase their sexual options. For women, business success is unrelated to their ability to get sex. All other things being equal, will the person with the greatest sexual incentive perform better?

7. The hobby-geek hypothesis says men are more likely than women to spend their personal time learning relevant skills. In the stereotyped example, women learn what they need to know to perform the job whereas men have a natural interest in technology and geeky topics that continues into their leisure time. The implication is that even with equal time on the job, the average man is picking up more skills, and eventually it translates into a pay difference.

There you have seven high-potential explanations for a gender pay gap that do no rely on gender bias. Anyone with knowledge on this topic can probably come up with more high-potential explanations for the gender pay gap. I make no claim that any of these explanations are valid. My only point is that they are not studied. And that leads to my most interesting verdict…

Claim 6: Studies show that women with equal experience to men, in the same jobs, are paid less because of gender bias.

Verdict: False. No well-informed feminist makes this claim because the studies have not controlled for the variables necessary to reach an informed opinion. As far as I can tell, the reason no useful studies on this topic exist is because it would be impossible to control all the relevant variables to isolate bias.

Claim 7: The lack of scientific evidence for gender bias in pay levels is evidence it does not exist.

Verdict: False. You can not prove a negative. The lack of useful data is not proof that gender bias has no impact on pay levels. Evaluating this verdict in terms of consistency, I have never personally witnessed a case of an underpaid woman that I recognized as such. Nor have I heard of any such case in recent years. So on every level in which data could be forthcoming on this topic, I see none.

But my lack of seeing something is not evidence that it does not exist. Bias would give me the same subjective experience. 

Keep in mind that controlled experiments outside the workplace consistently show evidence of gender bias. Teachers give better grades on math tests when there is a male name on the test. Men get more job interviews for the same resume as a woman. And female musicians are less likely to be hired when the person doing the hiring knows the gender, as opposed to simply listening to the performance. How the hell could all of that bias NOT translate into the workplace, you might ask.

But we also know that managers in the modern workplace are trained to be on alert for bias and to seek the best employees. And we know managers get kudos and professional respect when they accomplish diversity. How could you measure that counter-force?

So while gender bias clearly displays itself in controlled studies, the workplace is messier, nearly impossible to measure, and has counter-forces against gender bias that are generally ignored in studies. There is no real way to isolate all of the variables.

Claim 8: Gender bias is a bigger problem for women than it is for men because we live in a patriarchy.

Verdict: Half true. A well-educated white alpha male experiences little or no gender “problems” in his life. And when you are winning a game, you always think the rules are fair. If you are lucky enough to be in this rare group, and I am, gender bias is not on your list of biggest personal problems.

Some of you know my back story, and you know my careers in banking and telecommunications ended when my boss for each job told me in clear language that I could not be promoted because I was a white male. Both companies were under public pressure to bring diversity to the ranks of management, so they put a brake on promoting white males for several years. Now put my experience in perspective: I lost two promising careers to gender discrimination and I STILL don’t rank it as a problem in my life because of my educated white male advantage. All I had to do was pivot from a place with disadvantages to a place where I had none. I recall being incensed by the inconvenience of changing careers, but I never felt as though my career options were limited in a meaningful way.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of men in the United States are not in my situation. Most men are competing on a more equal playing field with everyone else in the world. For that group, the white male advantage is not working its full magic, and the sensitivity to any small advantage for women would be, one assumes, greater.

The topic of gender “advantage” led me to some interesting lists of the many ways it sucks to be male. I found every item on the lists to be true, such as the fact that men experience a lot of violence in their lives. Interestingly, none of the disadvantages of being a man actually register with me in my real life as “problems.” As a man, I have a higher risk for all sorts of danger, but that danger matches my personal preferences. If my female friend and I come upon a fight that needs to be broken up, I have a strong preference for being the one that takes on that risk. I don’t know how much is biology and how much is social programming, but if I am getting what I prefer, can I call it a problem? 

In summary, there are plenty of disadvantages of being male, female, or any variation on the spectrum. But those “disadvantages” might not seem so bad to the people experiencing them. For example, I would never want the disadvantage of having a baby-making body, with all the maintenance and risk involved. But if a magic genie gave all women a chance to become men, I suspect few would take the option. People tend to be happy with their situation even if observers feel they should not be.

The problem, some say, is that women might be making personal choices early in life that limit their access to money, power, and influence as adults. And those “choices” might be the result of societal programming as opposed to rational decision-making. Is this a problem that needs to be fixed? 

By one filter, folks are just making decisions based on preferences and there is no problem whatsoever. By another filter, all kids are incompetent decision-makers, so if society is steering half of them wrong, that is an enormous drag on civilization. So yes, it might be a very, very big deal.

But now we get to the interesting part.

Feminism works because it raises awareness of our biases and our choices. And it acts as a club when needed. Thanks to the good work of feminists and their allies, the gender pay gap has reached a point where bias is hard to tease out of the data. I worry that if you removed the social force of feminist activism society might slide backwards on gender bias.

The interesting part of the story is that the most effective tool feminists have is a misinterpretation of the study data. Feminist activists have convinced the under-informed public (including me until this week) that the gender pay gap is clearly demonstrated by studies. The result is that men are keenly aware they are being watched on this topic, and when you watch people they act more responsibly. So the bad interpretation of the data probably gets us to a better world. Who would act differently if they thought the studies said this: “There is a gender pay gap, and there are lots of potential explanations for it, but we haven’t isolated all the variables.” That would inspire no one to act differently.

So there is a rational argument for the continued misinterpretation of the gender pay gap data because it seems a useful counter-weight against a tendency for male bias. To put it another way, if you need all that advocacy and pressure just to get within spitting distance of male pay levels, the pressure must have been working against some other force. And the best candidate for that opposing force is gender bias. (Clearly this is speculation.)

On the other hand, my background in hypnosis and my hobby-level knowledge on the science of influence tells me this might be the time for gender activists to switch tactics. When women did not have the right to vote, society needed a sledgehammer to fix the problem. Now that women are succeeding in all fields, perhaps a scalpel is in order for tweaking the last mile.

Feminism currently sends this message to young girls: The world is full of gender bias and male privilege. If you are born a woman, you are a second-class citizen. Adult women are failing to achieve equal pay with men.

Compare that to a message that is just as consistent with the available data but to me sounds more positive: Despite thousands of years of gender bias, women are succeeding in every field that interests them. The gender pay gap has shrunk to the point where we can not identify gender bias as a cause. You are all winners. And all paths are open.

Feminists, I think it is time to take a bow. You won. And the world is a far better place for your efforts. I think I can speak for all men who have mothers, sisters, female friends, female spouses, and female lovers when I say, “Thank you.”

But I also say maybe it is time to stop fighting the last war and adjust your strategy to reflect the reality in 2015.

As an employer, if you tell me women are underpaid everywhere else, I start to wonder about the competitiveness of women. Can all of those other employers be wrong? But if you tell me the opposite — that women are paid about the same when they do the same work — I view women and men as equal commodities. In other words, trying to fix the remaining bias problem with politics might be the only thing that prevents market forces from fixing the situation on its own. That is speculation, but it feels reasonable enough to be worthy of testing, assuming such studies are possible.

I made a lot of references to studies without linking to them. You can find most of those links in Drowlord101s list below. But if anything I said is not backed by data, let me know and I will adjust.

And remember this is a living debate. My assumption is that it will change over time.

A final note on my personal biases: I did not expect my verdict to go this way. I thought there would be studies supporting opposite sides of the issue and it would be impossible to sort them out. My blind spot was assuming feminists were on the same page. It turns out that well-informed people of all types are on the same page with this topic and the under-informed are on another page. 

Now you are part of the well-informed.

But let’s not call this truth. Let’s call it a first draft. It is your turn to fix what I got wrong.

Scott Adams

@ScottAdamsSays

My book on success: “Best book I’ve read in years” - 5-star review on Amazon.com, Andrew Chowning.

The Drowlord101 Link List (comments are his)

Research
http://ftp.iza.org/dp8603.pdf
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~dc…
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa…
http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-dat…
http://www.collegeatlas.org/to…
http://www.consad.com/content/…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu…
https://web.stanford.edu/group…
https://www.census.gov/compend…
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Pub…
https://www.destatis.de/EN/Fac…
http://www.randalolson.com/201…

Reputable News Sites
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/ar…
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/th…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1012628…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka…
http://www.jec.senate.gov/publ…
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s… (gender bias & business loans)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Disreputable News Sites
http://madamenoire.com/518309/…
http://www.aauw.org/files/2013…
http://www.amwa-doc.org/news/g…
http://www.consad.com/content/…
http://www.economistsdoitwithm…
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/…
http://www.iwpr.org/initiative…
http://www.newrepublic.com/art…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a…

Blogs About the Subject
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1…
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/…
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/…
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/…
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015…
http://www.niceman.org/notify-…
https://danielmiessler.com/blo…

Tangents (e.g. not directly related to pay gap)
http://en.chessbase.com/post/e…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A…
http://ftp.iza.org/dp5973.pdf (girls favored in gradeschool)
http://louadlergroup.com/a-7-s…
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa… (gender disparity in criminal cases)
http://psych.fullerton.edu/rli… (gender issues bibliography?)
http://realsexism.com/ (men angry about stuff)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/educ… (girls favored in gradeschool)
http://www.pnas.org/content/10… (men favored in science at college)
http://www.pnas.org/content/11… (men favored in science at college)
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/1… (women overshare)
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan…
http://yourbusiness.azcentral…. (gender conflict in workplace)
https://educationrealist.wordp… (gap in gre scores)

Completely Off Topic
http://content.time.com/time/n…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L…
http://rhrealitycheck.org/arti…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/t…
http://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert… (bibliography of women violence against male partners)
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/c… (work-related injuries - mostly men)
http://www.catalyst.org/knowle… (buying power — which gender spends the money)
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe… (rape)
http://www.census.gov/prod/200… (custody and child support)
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.co…
http://www.elsevier.com/ (do your own research here!)
http://www.employersdirect-uk….
http://www.gallup.com/poll/162… (abortion)
http://www.dailymotion.com/vid…
http://www.mercatornet.com/art… (abortion)
http://www.nydailynews.com/new… (child support)
http://www.popsci.com/science/… (rape)
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/…
http://www.theguardian.com/com…
https://docs.google.com/docume… (I couldn’t view it)
https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/b… (benevolent sexism)

My Best Tweets

I have been testing jokes and content over on Twitter at @ScottAdamsSays. I pulled together the most popular ones so you can see what types of content people respond to the best, at least from me. Is there a pattern?

Also, most of the Robots Read News experimental comics will appear there as well in case your corporate firewall is blocking this blog.

My Best Tweets (according to Twitter users)

Political

If you belong to an organized political group, don’t expect people to take your opinions seriously. No one cares when a sheep burps.

While no one was paying attention, weather reports became accurate and the news became fiction. Did not see that coming.

Relationships

What is the protocol when you discover that your soul mate has an identical twin? 

 Study says husbands who do more household chores get more sex. Fails to mention that having more sex creates more cleaning chores. No win.

Tip for gentlemen: If a woman offers herself to you, maintain a straight face and say “What’s in it for me?”

Guys: If you ask a woman on a date and she says “possibly,” act optimistic and immediately make other plans.

I stopped shaving because I read that women are attracted to beard stubble. Not sure if women like all forms of laziness or just that one.

Stop calling unmarried people “single” as if they are incomplete. I prefer spouse-free. It is not a coincidence we are the new majority.

Autocorrect: A technology used by artificial intelligence to cock-block humans.

Getting married because you are in love is sort of like drowning yourself because you like beverages.

Is it rude to interrupt someone who is texting and start a conversation?

Arguing with Idiots

I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun. 

The presence of the word “deserve” is a sure sign a conversation won’t go well.

Tip: If you are in a conversation with someone who unexpectedly asks “Why are you attacking me?” … run away. Don’t even explain. 

World’s shortest IQ test: “What percentage of your reality do you understand?” Grading: The higher the percentage the lower the IQ.

If you can’t construct a coherent argument for the other side, you probably don’t understand your own opinion.

If you think God wants people to suffer in the last month of their illness, that’s a mental problem not a religious point of view.

Dumbest 1-star review for God’s Debris says it is only good for people who have not taken a college philosophy 101 class. So… 99% of world?

Business, Leadership, Workplace

If at first you fail, try telling your boss you changed your objective.

Leadership is a great thing to do to others and a terrible thing to have happen to you.

I knew a guy with passion to be a pro golfer and the brain to be a great accountant. He followed his passion. He’s homeless now. 

Salesman: These mattresses are hand-made! Me: Can you show me the good ones made by robots?

Bank said by phone it takes ten days to issue new credit card. I said it is 2015 where I am and asked what decade I had called.

My grandfather used to give me a quarter whenever I visited him on the farm. It taught me a valuable lesson about being underpaid.

Screw the early bird that gets the worm. The real winners are the early worms that do their worming and leave before the shit goes down.

Joke Wisdom

As Mark Twain said to his dentist, man is the only animal that brushes. Or needs to. 

Time is money. Money is power. Power corrupts. So don’t give anyone your time because it will corrupt them.

Why can’t we all just get along? I blame you. 

I tell people that money can’t buy happiness just to reduce the odds of being robbed. 

Be modest in all things. Because feeling good about yourself is ridiculous. Stop being competent where innocent people can see it. 

Which category did you think was my best?

Scott - @scottadamssays

In other news, machines can now reprogram human brains using electricity. (Let that sink in for a minute.) A company named Cortera might be able to “reprogram” depression right out of your physical brain. I would call this technology mind-blowing, especially if the amperage is too high.

And all of the excitement about 3D printers won’t amount to much unless someone makes one that prints a hundred times faster. But it looks as if that might be around the corner. Check out this game-changer.

My book on success: “I feel the best I have ever felt after reading a book.” -  Puget Sound Paralegal  (Amazon 5-star review Feb 20, 2015)

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right (You need way more wrongs than two)

Can a system convert bad thinking into good?

Have you seen the experiments in which strangers try to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar? The individual guesses are terrible, but when you take the average of those terrible guesses you end up with an estimate that is surprisingly accurate. Apparently that test can be repeated in a variety of ways.

And how about democratic governments? Individually, most people are under-informed and irrational. But somehow, when you add all that irrationality together, and unwisely add voting, we have stable governments that do surprisingly well.

Capitalism is another example of individual failures that gets transformed into value. Most small businesses fail. Most people don’t get the job they want, at least not on the first try. Most patents are useless, most products are unsold, and half of corporate America is in “Wally” mode. Still, the economy steams ahead as if everyone is doing all the right things. It turns out that “trying” is enough to support an economy because while we are mostly failing we are also getting paid. That is a good system.

How about investing? You could not sell stocks without buyers who believe they have magical powers to predict the future. Every study tells us that buying and selling individual stocks is as scientific as following horoscopes. But if there were no people who believed in their own magical abilities, the financial markets could not function. 

How about nature? Evolution is a dumb process that involves billions and billions of creatures operating in random, selfish, and stupid ways. But put it all together, wait millions of years, and you have the iPhone 6+.

Consider religion. If we assume you picked the right belief system (lucky!) and everyone that disagrees with it is wrong, that means about 80% of your fellow citizens are walking around in a total fantasy. But religion still works in the sense that people find earthly value in it.

And why the hell does Wikipedia work? The concept, as I understand it, is that any idiot can edit the “facts” on Wikipedia. What could go wrong, right? But somehow it does work. I guess the bad players get bored and go away while the serious folks stay around to correct stuff.

Even science, our keeper of truth, is mostly about tests and trials that don’t work out. You only need a small percentage of scientific successes to propel civilization forward.

This gets me back to the issue of the gender pay gap, and the larger question of whether any of us can be objective and rational on that question. How can millions of irrational people come up with a rational opinion? Can a system fix this sort of problem the way systems have fixed similar situations?

I think the answer is yes. And that is part of the experiment you will see play out on this blog.

My guess is that you need the following elements in your system to convert irrational opinions into rational opinions:

1. A curator willing to TRY to be objective. (No one can be 100%)

2. Lots of participants, so all voices get heard.

3. A “living” debate, with no end, in which the weak elements of both pro and con arguments evolve and strengthen over time. 

4. A comment system that allows people to respond to specific claims with links and counterpoints.

We now have all of that on this blog. My objectivity as curator is worthy of skepticism, so I try to compensate by listing my biases as I understand them. And in the end, my incentive is to do the best job of being objective, not to be on a winning side. Luckily for me, I am no longer in the traditional workplace, so I have some distance from the issue.

In a few days, when I think I have most of your comments and links for the issue of gender discrimination in the workplace, I will post my preliminary verdict. If my verdict ignores any important data or logic, I expect readers to fill me in. Then I will adjust the verdict as needed. And like the Supreme Court, I will explain in detail why I chose my verdict. 

And now I would like to ask any readers who are following this process to alert me to studies that support the existence of a gender pay gap. I haven’t done a deep dive on the links folks have already suggested on my prior post, but I saw one video of a well-informed feminist saying no credible data on the pay gap exists. And I haven’t noticed any links suggesting such a study. But keep in mind that science says I might be blind to them. That is why I ask for external eyes.

Did anyone submit — or see anyone else submit — a link to a study showing a gender pay gap once you control the relevant variables? I want to make sure I don’t miss it. And this experiment will fall apart if the argument only has data on one side.

Did I miss it?

Scott

In other cool news, soon you will be able to 3D print your own ion engine of the type that powers satellites. The trick is that ion engines have very little power, but that is all you need once you are in space. In prior posts I predicted that rich hobbyists will build rockets to spread Earth’s DNA samples to far-off planets. The cheap ion engine is the key to making it economical. Imagine sending a big rocket into space (a shared expense) filled with thousands of ion-powered rockets the size of your smartphone. Once in space, each small rocket takes off and searches for an Earth-like planet before opening its little parachute and landing to seed it. 

Earth was probably seeded in that fashion. Unless we are just a software simulation. We will never know, but probability-wise, those are you top choices.

@ScottAdamsSays (my dangerous tweets)

My book on success: “I feel the best I have ever felt after reading a book.” -  Puget Sound Paralegal  (Amazon 5-star review Feb 20, 2015)

Robots Read News 15-20

While I wait for the link war to rage (see prior post), here are some new experimental comics. The Putin comics at the end are the best but he reappeared today and rudely ruined a promising humor set-up.

In other news, a Berkeley-related start-up, Androgyny, is designing men’s clothing for women who prefer the menswear look but need it to fit a body that has boobs and whatnot. It might seem like a small market, but I’ll bet they quickly become known to 100% of the people who like the look. Don’t bet against this one.

And Mitsubishi just tested a system for transmitting energy generated in space to the Earth. What???? The goal is to capture solar power in space, where it is unfettered by atmosphere, and beam the power to the surface of Earth. That’s a game-changer waiting to happen.

Scott

Dilbert on Facebook
@ScottAdamsSays (my dangerous tweets)
@Dilbert_Daily (Dilbert-related tweets)
My book on success: “I feel the best I have ever felt after reading a book.” -  Puget Sound Paralegal  (Amazon 5-star review Feb 20, 2015)

Science Fails Again (to communicate) on Gender Issues

As a clarification, I have little interest in the politics of gender discrimination in the workplace. But the psychology of it fascinates me like few things have. 

I doubt I have seen worse arguments on both sides of an issue. Most people identify as either a man or a woman, so the “my team” problem overwhelms our rational capacity. No one, including me, can come anywhere near objectivity on this issue. So how do you make rational decisions on a topic in which no human has even the slightest potential to be rational?

I like the challenge. And few people would be reckless enough to go where I plan to go on this. 

Every time I see an article on the Internet about gender issues in the workplace, I see these two opposing comments:

1. There are many studies that show gender bias. For example, teachers give better grades on math tests to male students, but the difference vanishes when the tests have no name on them. Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, has lots of references to similar study results, or so I hear. And Vivian Giang got some of you riled up with examples here. 

2. Another set of folks (all men) invariably point me to studies that suggest there is no pay difference between men and women once you adjust for experience and time on the job. And I hear there are studies saying there is no difference for younger women just entering the workplace.

How can both views be true?

So I declare a link war. 

I appoint myself the judge in this contest. Give me links to studies that support your point of view. I will assess those studies and pick a winner. Or I might declare that the studies are not clear when viewed in total. I will ask any interested parties (including Vivian Giang) to comment on the reliability and usefulness of the studies.

I have no idea how this will turn out. But I think you need to know my starting bias to assess my judging skills.

Keep in mind that the POINT of this is my ignorance. And my bias. I put it on full display for you because I think that is helpful on this issue. If you don’t know what others are thinking, you can not hope to communicate effectively. So as a public service, I present my biased, ignorant, male perspective. But I am open to revising my opinion based on data. Would you ask any more of me?

Here is my starting bias:

1. Gender discrimination in the workplace is a big problem, according to some types of studies and countless first-hand accounts. With so much smoke, I assume there is fire. 

2. The problem of gender discrimination is curiously invisible to men, and that includes me. All I see is a confused ball of incomplete thinking on all sides. But that tells us nothing about how big the problem is. Cognitive dissonance is a reasonable hypothesis for why lots of folks fail to see the obvious. I see no reason to exclude myself from the ranks of the deluded. 

3. My working hypothesis is that studies showing gender bias in controlled tests don’t translate into the workplace as pay differentials — at least in this country — because educated adults are on the alert for gender bias. So we use our reason to compensate for the bias, if for no other reason than to avoid lawsuits. Any time I am involved in hiring, the risk of unintentional bias is always top of mind. And since men have a biological impulse to be successful and powerful to attract quality mates, hiring the right employees (and avoiding lawsuits) is in our best interest. 

4. Some men are bullies and assholes. And most men are assholes at least some of the time. When men are bullies and assholes to each other, we interpret it as exactly that. But if I observe those same bullies and assholes mistreating a woman, I interpret it as sexism. I assume others see it the same way.

5. I have also blogged that I think women should have a few superior rights to men because they handle the vital function of reproduction. In general, society grants extra rights to folks who take on extra responsibility. That’s why cops can speed, soldiers can kill, and so on. One example of extra rights in this context is that I think only women should have a vote on abortion laws. 

Things get thornier when you are talking about a workplace with pregnant women, potentially pregnant women, and moms. Big companies can absorb some extra friction for the larger benefit of society, but small ones do not have that option. If you own a small business, you don’t want to have two of your three employees out on maternity leave at the same time, to pick a worst-case scenario. A rational small business owner will discriminate in that case and hope to get away with it. And a rational victim of discrimination in that case will sue. That part of the story seems clear to everyone. And I have not heard a proposed solution. But if a proposed solution provided superior rights for women without hurting small businesses, I can imagine that working for me.

6. The other day a good friend who works as a massage therapist was describing a time in her past she was a victim of gender discrimination. The story sounded convincing to me. Then I asked if she knew I would not have considered her as my massage therapist if she were a man. 

Cricket noises.

Personally, I have willfully discriminated by gender in my business dealings at least … oh, a hundred times. And every time it was in favor of women, simply because I prefer the energy. I spend way too much time with men because of shared interests. I need balance in my life, so I bend the rules to get it. I have never considered using a male real estate broker, for example. I get the same service from a woman and it is a great break from the dude-centric rest of my life.

My larger point today is that any discussion of gender in the workplace is like two blind people standing on an elephant and arguing whether the elephant is a sandwich or a bar of soap. Both are 100% wrong. That includes me. 

Evolution did not give us brains that can comprehend our reality. All we have is the type of brains that did not get our ancestors killed. So our brains create delusions of reality and we try to force reason onto them. That’s why men and women are looking at the same elephant but one sees a bar of soap and the other sees a sandwich. 

Is it possible to get to a clearer view of this topic? THAT is the interesting part to me. This is in the category of things that cannot be communicated, which is a big interest of mine.

Part of the problem is that anyone dumb enough to engage in this topic becomes a target for the angry villagers with pitchforks. The only reason I can be this reckless is that I already made all the money I will ever need and I feel as if getting some clarity on this topic would be a public good. And seriously, who else would even try to be objective on this topic in public? This is a suicide mission. 

And if you think any of this is good for traffic to my site, you would be wrong. There will be a two-day traffic bump followed by 5% of regular readers swearing off this site for good. That is the usual pattern for a hot topic here.

Ladies and gentlemen, please provide your links and your insights on gender bias and discrimination in the workplace. I will compile them in summary form and give my verdict. 

Long-winded comments will be ignored unless the first sentence or two are awesome.

Let’s do this.

Scott

@scottadamssays

In other news, a start-up called EnChroma figured out how to make glasses that correct color blindness. As a bonus, the glasses also make colors pop for everyone else too. Will spectacles start replacing contacts and laser eye surgery because the color you see with these glasses is so much better? Could happen.

And what about a finger-attached device for the blind that reads aloud what they point to on a page? This is a good year for people with vision problems. 

Military Almost Done Building Flying Dragons

Did you hear that the U.S. military is developing flying dragons that shoot laser beams from their eyes? They don’t say that directly, but you can see the parts coming together.

A drone is about halfway to being a flying dragon already. And recently the military tested a laser weapon that destroyed a truck at a distance. It is only a matter of time before the military miniaturizes laser weapons and puts them on drones.

I think the first generation of laser drones will look boring, like today. But eventually someone will say, “Let’s make the drones look like flying dragons that shoot laser beams out of their eyes!” Someone else will point out that a flying dragon will not be as aerodynamic as a normal drone. But that is a small price to pay for the coolness of it all. Just think of the bragging rights.

North Korea: “We have developed long range missiles with nuclear warheads. Death to the Americans!”

U.S.: “We have ten-thousand flying dragons that feel no pain and shoot lasers from their eyes. They are permanently circling your country looking for anything that leaves the ground. On the plus side, just point to your hibachi and we’ll light it for you from the sky. Oh, and our satellites are seeing an irregular mole on your back. You should see someone about that.”

In the long run, I expect we will develop a robot army, including drones, to create a virtual fence around ISIS-held territory. The robots would kill anything with a heat signature that came within a mile of the border. And the drones might be able to jam all communications in the area too. I would be amazed if the military is not working toward that containment strategy. The dragon part is a bit less likely.

But as someone said in the comments, waiting for ISIS to self-destruct is a good option too. As the movement succeeds, it attracts people who have slightly different views until the whole thing becomes like the American Congress that can’t get anything done. Good luck with that, ISIS.

——————

My post today was boring, but luckily my blogging partners did better.

Vivian Giang explains why men are better than women when it comes to the workplace. (Expect a twist.) I buy every part of her post, as it is based on studies and the obvious. But in an upcoming post I plan to have a link war to figure out how everything Vivian describes can be true at the same time other studies show no pay differential after you adjust for experience. I believe both assertions even though they are in direct conflict. What is up with that?

In other news, a company created a frickin’ car with 3D printers. What????

And a Berkeley-related start-up has an app that could alleviate a lot of poverty. How do you ignore that?

Scott Adams

@scottadamssays