Mammalian brains are hard-wired to notice reproductively relevant physical features first. Retraining your brain to notice anything else is fighting against the thousands of generations of sexual selection that occurred before civilization was even invented. The major problem is that there are no outward physical signs of outstanding competence in your niche of economic specialization, so no effective competition to displace "Wow, that body looks like it would be great for assuring the survival and prosperity of my potential offspring."

You cannot wish it away. You can't guilt people into not doing it. It will simply continue as long as our brains are still subjected to the mind-altering chemicals that testicles and ovaries typically produce. You are not a bad person for thinking such things.

But, of course, now that civilization has been invented, and we have developed values beyond simple babymaking, it would be inappropriate to speak or act until well after you have engaged the areas of the brain responsible for either rationality or empathy for at least a few seconds first, and possibly both. The proportion of people who actually think before speaking or doing is still depressingly low, and that is why we see stories like this.

Expensive tailored suit, fist-bitingly expensive wristwatch, huge house in an expensive area, very new luxury car... I could go on and on.

Besides that, your house, car, and clothing does not leave an indelible and unfalsifiable mark on your outward appearance. Expensive decorations can be faked, borrowed, or stolen. Even if the balance of your bank account appeared as a birthmark across your forehead, ownership of resources is not always a sign of competence. Wealth can be inherited or acquired by chance.

Now, the first thought in your head when seeing someone might be "she's got huge... tracts of land!" But that will probably be because you live in a swamp.

Yeah. Right. Because there is no such thing as credit.

People that display expensive things don't project outstanding competence. They project just that they value displaying expensive things.

And that's usually something (I just speak from my experience) that inversely correlates with thoughtfulness and competence.

There's a couple things that probably rate a down vote in some people's minds:

- "I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best CEO, lawyer, window cleaner, bus driver, mercenary or whoever. I have no idea and I don't really care what it means to be brilliant and accomplished at those jobs. It might be horrible. It's just too alien for me."

This honestly is kind of a weird stance to take. You don't think about anyone in any way other than aesthetics (look and voice) if their life experience doesn't completely match your own?

- "I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain."

This is:

a. Pretty insulting to anyone who has gone into management, which is, believe it or not, sometimes something that does involve your brain.

b. Especially problematic as writing off management, HR and other "soft" fields as not as important as engineering is a common way to sideline the women who do make it into tech companies, as they are somewhat more common in those areas.

This is a blatant twisting of his words. Women are even less represented in tech management than they are in other tech roles, and throwing in a few roles that he didn't mention at all doesn't change the fact that the one role he _was_ talking about (management) contradicts your narrative 100%.

And hell, even if you don't want to consider that, it's not a blatant twisting of his words. She's the CEO of Yahoo. That's not a "waste of a good brain".

How can you be sure? What a CEO of Yahoo can do? Hire some people, fire some people? Pick some project to develop and some to abandon? You could say that this has some value but you can't predict which project will turn out worthwhile. "Predictions are hard especially about the future." What's sure that there is one smart person less actually working on those projects.

You are twisting his words because you have no legitimate argument.

Thank you.

> This honestly is kind of a weird stance to take.

Not so much of a stance. I'm just describing the way I feel.

> You don't think about anyone in any way other than aesthetics (look and voice) if their life experience doesn't completely match your own?

When I look at people and hear them say something that does not convey information relevant to me that's exactly what I'm thinking. How they look and sound. I never heard any of the mentioned actors saying anything relevant to me although in more private conversation I don't doubt they say things that would make me also think about what they said.

I'm just saying that I don't think of people as accomplished or brilliant in disciplines I have no idea of. I know they are by proxy of recognition of their peers. For example I know Brian Cranston is accomplished because Antony Hopkins sent him a congratulatory letter by his own initiative. But knowing something and thinking/feeling/believing in something is not exactly the same.

> - "I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain." > This is: > a. Pretty insulting to anyone who has gone into management, which is, believe it or not, sometimes something that does involve your brain.

Please note I didn't say "waste of a good brain". I don't think that management is brainless activity. I just think that best thing a men can do is to develop technology. Because it triggers advances in all the other aspects, most importantly in science, but also medicine, social interactions, wealth and everything worthwhile. So if you take a bright person who has a chance to push technology further and give him/her the task of dealing with politics instead then it's a loss in my book.

> Especially problematic as writing off management, HR and other "soft" fields as not as important as engineering is a common way to sideline the women who do make it into tech companies, as they are somewhat more common in those areas.

Bright engineer such as for example Bram Cohen can singlehandedly push technology further. I value very highly awesome project managers as they can join engineers together and direct the technological effort but anyone above this level is just not doing anything that counts for me as advancement of civilization. Similarly sideshows as HR, Legal, Accounting, Sales and such. You don't make progress but shoveling what you already have back and forth and consuming a little bit every time you do it.

If women tend to keep away from engineering that's just bad and I don't really want to comfort myself with the 'at least they are close to engineering'. I'd rather see them hack on technology because in my opinion that's the best use of any persons time.