Notices by Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social)

So corner coffee and donuts on the sidewalk inviting all the neighbors (and anyone else passing by) was so successful now we're talking about making it a regular thing

Neighbor family across the street all waved at us the other day 🥹

The gay agenda (organize, support community, feed people) in motion

I had two PhD social scientists and a dream and was running projects with chewing gum and duct tape and we got more than 5000 people to talk to us about the threat and fear they felt with AI and what helped them value learning despite it

You all *sneeze* and spend what that study cost

You literally do not have to do this study sample --> population estimate --> squashing my org's situation against it thing. You literally have access to your own population you can get a sample from

It's weird to see engineering leaders leading thousands of people acting like their hands are tied by the conclusions of like, one survey at Microsoft with a hundred people in it. YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SAMPLE POOL

@earth2marsh @b0rk very connected (Dweck was my academic 'grandparent' in that I worked with one of her former students). Growth mindset (I can grow and change) is a distinct but related belief from field specific beliefs about brilliance (brilliance is required to succeed here), fixed mindset and brilliance trap thinking can reinforce each other.

https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/115974616096050919

@b0rk @earth2marsh

Cheatsheet to ways we frame these beliefs (which correlate & form a coherent network of how we think about 'ability'):

- Growth/fixed mindset: is intellectual ability malleable?

- Universal/nonuniversal metatheory: does everyone have the potential for high aptitude?

- Brilliance: are high levels [of ability] necessary for success in a given field?

- Essentialism: is intellectual ability innately determined?

- Stable/Responsive : Is ability responsive to intervention?

@inthehands strategies for handling this and recovering from receiving the anger about it is the main thing I talk about when women reach out to me about their experiences in leadership

@inthehands one specific thing that triggers majoritized folks in power so deeply is people without the fear that they have

@inthehands one thousand percent agree as a psychologist who has had the opportunity to up close and personal see a lot of CEO thinking, behaviors, and their relationships

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115957106317973695

I called all mine this morning as we were running around getting donuts together lol

They want us gaslit and locked in silence and isolated and fuck that

Literally nothing feels like enough but we are finding what tiny ways to connect and be in person with neighbors and say do you see what's happening, what can we do here and now

Put a note in your neighbor's mailbox with your phone number to text if they are in trouble

We are putting out coffee and donuts tomorrow and sitting outside

You can't help people if you don't know people

If you are feeling as helpless and no words are enough enraged as we are, get together with neighbors. We are doing that today and tomorrow and the next day

As a pretty socially anxious person myself I can also say, you feel like you are going to say it wrong and do it wrong. So say it wrong and do it wrong anyway but the important thing is to do something.

I think some people have a problem reasoning with numbers. When a field is 80-90% male and we can compare its segregation to other similar fields it is now demonstrated that something is going on with gender and a field. Well explored and documented across the literature. This is not something I need to prove and I'm not going to waste my time defending this position when I could instead be spending my time working on the next steps around what helps shift this kind of problem.

Obviously scicomm doesn't always work and when you are trying to speak succinctly online it won't always work but I do find it very shocking how OFTEN I am told, by men in software, that my talking about gender effects and how they operate in technical cultures is CAUSING the problems in technical cultures. It is not. My thoughts on that:

https://bsky.app/profile/grimalkina.bsky.social/post/3mcxins3qok26

If it hurts in a personal way when you hear this that is a sign that you are a human being, don't outsource that hurt onto me. It hurts me too. We share in that hurt because we are letting our minds be present to and open to the existence of pain and unfairness in the world. This could be a reason for us to understand each other, not a reason to reject the conversation. If it hurts when you hear this you can interpret that as a signal that you do want a better world.

"You see, it's about making sure we restrict working in technology to the people who were born with the innate gift of CRAFT, you can't understand" - software people chirping at me while I'm trying to log into a website generated by their Craft that has two different log-in pages for separate issues

@whitequark sending you so much protective wishes and energy