Quote from: silverfuture on February 23, 2015, 05:39:44 PM

Quote from: JorgeStolfi on February 23, 2015, 05:01:30 PM

Quote from: billyjoeallen on February 23, 2015, 04:28:32 PM

Quote from: JorgeStolfi on February 23, 2015, 04:17:41 PM

I believe that it is not a coincidence that there are so few women who are "into" bitcoin. Grin

bitcoin or computer science or engineering or any of the stuff that separates us from primitive subsistence-level savages.

When the first computer science courses opened in Brazil, women were often more that half of the students, and the brightest students were often women. Over the years the proportion has dropped to the same level as in electrical and civil engineering, that is 5--10% or maybe less.

We had endless debates about why women don't apply to computer science anymore, with no conclusions. It is not because computer science is "difficult". It is actually one of the professions where even dumb people can succeed. There are plenty of women in medicine, chemistry, mathematics -- where you really need a functioning brain to work. I taught intro computing to chemical engineering freshmen last semester, and to my surprise the class was again half women, and again some of the best students were women.

It must be some subtle thing in the popular image of the computer professional. Perhaps the idea that he is an antisocial nerd who hardly leaves his mom's basement --- a way of life which may appeal to many adolescent men, but not to adolescent women.

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women [ ... ] living in houses they didn't build, talking on phones they didn't invent, typing on computers they didn't program, driving cars they didn't design, going to stores they don't manage to spend money they didn't earn.

And you still think that men are more intelligent than women? Cheesy

You can't even divide it up between genders like that, and I think BJA is a little off base there. We all have a relatively wide range of biological individuality (Except for maybe the Winkelvii

) Women tend toward different types of intelligence and other qualities than men as a group for whatever reason and we seem better off as a network for it. Women seem to tend toward social, emotional, and creative intelligence and men tend toward logical, rational, and physical intelligence but those are only tendencies and, again, wide ranges can be expected in any population. Intelligence is a tough quantitative analysis to make and the tools are still crude at best.

It is an often repeated myth to say that all bitcoiners are men, white, etc. etc. It's a pretty diverse group but of course the bell curve does lean heavily to the white male geek stereotype to the delight of naysayers who use that as some sort of racist, sexist argument against bitcoin tech. I reject that thinking and think some people should just get a life and go do something productive instead.

Case in point, it was only a small, hardcore group of men who were the initial enthusiasts for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. They were so hardcore, they would go train and fight for next to nothing in pay, fans would travel for miles to see the shows, etc. UFC almost was shut down and experienced many times when either regulatory bodies or (John McCain) politiciansa called for bans. There were less women in support of it than there is for bitcoin and most opposed it as violence. Cooler heads prevailed though and now we are at a point of mass adoption where Rhonda Rousey is one of the biggest stars and draws of the show. She beautiful, intelligent, and tough as fucking nails. A good role model for empowering women IMO.

UFC is the fastest growing sport in the world now and that type of event only happened in Brazil a little over 20 years ago when I first found out about it and started watching and training MMA. Bitcoin shows many of the same developments as the UFC in its early adoption on the way to mainstreaming.

I know you are likely busy Jorge but didn't get any comment yet. I enjoy reading your posts and you do have some insights worth more than a cursory glance. Could you see the parallels between the adoption of the UFC to mainstream and the mass adoption of our favorite "coin"? Maybe you have been looking at this thing more from a computer science aspect and missing out on the social phenomena?