Yup. Did I mention the conversation I had with my fine Australian team leader, a couple of years ago, when we shoulder-surfed our Director's lunchtime reading?
A bit of background: she was over from the New York office, and everything that you'd expect a lady banker from New Jersey to be: focused, workaholic, direct - no the word is abrasive, loud, and very, very smart indeed.
Every day, she set aside half an hour for Daily Bible Readings from the Southern Baptist Convention.
"Roight Nile...", Said The Ozzie: "That thing you're working on for the Correlation traders is not an 'Evolutionary algorithm', it's an 'Iterating optimiser'. And I'm from Coonaburra."
"Coonaburra", Said yours truly... "That's a suburb of Darw-"
"No. Coonaburra. Which is Coonaburra, full stop."
Lucky there were no openly gay members of the team. Although, in an investment bank, I don't think there's anyone who places their religious convictions ahead of the goal of making money. Actually, I remain unconvinced that there are any Evangelicals (and Southern Baptists in particular) who matter who would actually put principles ahead of profit. They are all happy enough to invest in armaments and warfare, and the touchstone issue for openly evangelical politicians isn't abortion evolution, or homosexuality (there's always something in their voting record you can catch them out on there): they always, without exception, vote against environmental legislation.
Poke an evangelised 'educated professional' on their environmental attitudes, see if you can get support for science and evidence-based policy out of them. It's a gateway to the sort of critical thinking about moral issues that will eventually undermine their attachment to religious dogma. At the very least, you have a way of discrediting their political leaders.
no subject
Yup. Did I mention the conversation I had with my fine Australian team leader, a couple of years ago, when we shoulder-surfed our Director's lunchtime reading?
A bit of background: she was over from the New York office, and everything that you'd expect a lady banker from New Jersey to be: focused, workaholic, direct - no the word is abrasive, loud, and very, very smart indeed.
Every day, she set aside half an hour for Daily Bible Readings from the Southern Baptist Convention.
"Roight Nile...", Said The Ozzie: "That thing you're working on for the Correlation traders is not an 'Evolutionary algorithm', it's an 'Iterating optimiser'. And I'm from Coonaburra."
"Coonaburra", Said yours truly... "That's a suburb of Darw-"
"No. Coonaburra. Which is Coonaburra, full stop."
Lucky there were no openly gay members of the team. Although, in an investment bank, I don't think there's anyone who places their religious convictions ahead of the goal of making money. Actually, I remain unconvinced that there are any Evangelicals (and Southern Baptists in particular) who matter who would actually put principles ahead of profit. They are all happy enough to invest in armaments and warfare, and the touchstone issue for openly evangelical politicians isn't abortion evolution, or homosexuality (there's always something in their voting record you can catch them out on there): they always, without exception, vote against environmental legislation.
Poke an evangelised 'educated professional' on their environmental attitudes, see if you can get support for science and evidence-based policy out of them. It's a gateway to the sort of critical thinking about moral issues that will eventually undermine their attachment to religious dogma. At the very least, you have a way of discrediting their political leaders.