7 ms·

Is Silicon Valley Discriminating Against Men and Asians?

58 points by teklaperry 10y ago

jimmywanger 10y ago
FTA: > We know Silicon Valley has a diversity problem. That's just making an assumption. Based on undergraduate enrollment rates in computer science and other technical degrees, the probability distribution based on ethnicity and gender seem very plausible. Also FTA, > Are lawsuits like these a good thing, or are they going to stall efforts to move towards more diversity in Silicon Valley? Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing?
- yellowapple 10y ago
  > Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing? For the same reason why genetic bottlenecks are a bad thing.
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    > For the same reason why genetic bottlenecks are a bad thing. That is a false analogy. They're segregating based on race and gender, not class or socioeconomic status. Does it really matter what color your skin is, if you have a MBA from MIT? How does that improve the cultural bottleneck?
    - yellowapple 10y ago
      "They're segregating based on race and gender, not class or socioeconomic status" Socioeconomic factors are the more ideal consideration on paper, but in practice it doesn't matter, since that status tends to be influenced very heavily by racial/ethnic factors. Hopefully this'll change someday and we'll all live in a Star Trek utopia. Today is by absolutely no means that day. "Does it really matter what color your skin is, if you have a MBA from MIT? How does that improve the cultural bottleneck?" Wait, so just happening to have a degree from a prestigious college suddenly makes someone immune to the effects of racism? What a wonderful thought.
  - pitaj 10y ago
    But this is forced diversity on the demand end, instead of genuine diversity on the supply end. I agree that diversity is a good thing, but hear me out. What if women are generally genetically predisposed to disliking computer science? I'm not saying they are, but just take it as a given for a moment. Would attempting to increase the diversity in certain places be a good thing to do then? I think it would probably be harmful. It's unfortunate that we may never know why there are so few women in CS and similar fields. When I saw the 31% stat for women in Silicon Valley, I was surprised, as that seems much higher than I though the general rates were. Maybe that includes managers and stuff? Believe me, I'd love to see more diversity, but I think forcing it could be dangerous.
    - yellowapple 10y ago
      "Would attempting to increase the diversity in certain places be a good thing to do then?" If I'm genetically predisposed to not want to eat my vegetables, does that mean I shouldn't be encouraged to eat my vegetables? Does that also mean that a group of people who are genetically predisposed to want to eat their vegetables shouldn't encourage me to try gardening and possibly even join their vegetable cooking club? Should they not themselves be encouraged to invite me to said vegetable cooking club simply because I'm genetically predisposed to having a tendency to decline such a proposition? "Maybe that includes managers and stuff?" More likely customer support, clerical, sales, and other such supporting roles, but yes. That figure is almost certainly not limited strictly or even loosely to technical positions.
      - RandomOpinion 10y ago
        >If I'm genetically predisposed to not want to eat my vegetables, does that mean I shouldn't be encouraged to eat my vegetables? C. S. Lewis said it better than I possibly ever could: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." Even as a liberal, I find the "It's for their own good" argument frequently advanced by modern authoritarian liberals to be insufferably arrogant. We're all adults here and we deserve the opportunity to chart our own course in life, whether for good or for ill.
  - throwow3439 10y ago
    > For the same reason why genetic bottlenecks are a bad thing. What is that "genetic bottleneck" ? it's a pretty racist expression if you ask me , it sounds like it leads to "degeneration" or something like that, it really sounds like nazi rhetoric but reversed, instead of the "purity of the race" that must be preserved, it is now mandatory to diversify "white people's genes" to avoid genetic defects ? You take a Slovenian and an Irish, they are both "white" , does that constitute a "genetic bottleneck" because of a superficial trait ( color of the skin ) ? I mean only racialists speak about genetics when it comes to race. Just because now a specific racial narrative is pushed by the left doesn't make racialism less obnoxious. And white women despite being women are still white , does it also constitute a "genetic bottleneck" too ? people pushing for all that should take a step back and think about what they say, for a second. "Diversity" AKA affirmative action AKA "positive discrimination" isn't inherently good or bad, from a productivity or a financial perspective for businesses that engage into all these diversity policies. If they see value in it, good for them, now let's see if they perform better on the long run just because they replaced a good white candidate with an average non white one. I'm not american, but I'm puzzled by all this which mostly looks like feelgood PR, seen from abroad, especially at a time US finds more and more difficult to hide its racial tensions to the rest of the world.
    - yellowapple 10y ago
      The point wasn't to take genetics literally. The point was that - much like how a homogeneous genetic population will tend to amplify its defects compared to a heterogeneous one - so will a homogeneous ideological population. The diversity is what brings in new ideas and viewpoints. The very idea of the American "melting pot" is rooted in this philosophy; immigrants both adapt to existing customs and introduce new ones, thus making the America as a whole (lots of us Americans seem to forget this, including at least one of our presidential candidates, but such is life). This can be and has been applied on smaller scales to various organizations with much success. This isn't only about race or only about gender or only about sexual orientation or only about political affiliation or only about socioeconomic class; it's about all of these things influencing an individual's background in a way that is different from the group as a whole.
  - BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago
    Great, I'll tell my Peul friend that he's a genetic bottleneck for wanting to marry a Peul girl
- gozur88 10y ago
  >Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing? Nobody's ever been able to show that it is. It's just ideological canon for people pushing quotas.
  - drewrv 10y ago
    For businesses it's been shown repeatedly to be a good thing. http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-... http://www.forbes.com/sites/ruchikatulshyan/2015/01/30/racially-diverse-companies-outperform-industry-norms-by-30/#2c12dd675742 http://www.forbes.com/sites/ruchikatulshyan/2015/01/30/racia... https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
    - jimmywanger 10y ago
      Your sources are misleading at best. From the first article: > We know intuitively that diversity matters. I know nothing of the sort. And that is the lead sentence, which implies the conclusion is already made. > Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Isn't that somewhat expected? Anybody in any quartile for something has a 50% chance of being above national industry medians. If anything, this would cause people to believe that diverse companies underperform. From the second article: > Of 366 public companies analyzed, those in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above national industry medians. Seems like a regurgitation of the first article, and she presents absolutely nothing to back up those claims. The article quickly devolves into a list of todo items for your company. From the third article: > By correlating diversity in leadership with market outcomes as reported by respondents, we learned that companies with 2-D diversity out-innovate and out-perform others. Employees at these companies are 45% likelier to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year. Isn't there a 50% chance that your firm's market share that your market share will grow over the last year? What other variables are you controlling for? And we all know how accurate self reporting is.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  There's no empirical proof that diversity is a good thing. Historically people seemed to do fine without any diversity. E.g. most of modern science and technology was discovered/invented by white men. Lack of diversity didn't become a handicap for them. Disclaimer: I'm a non-white male.
  - robotresearcher 10y ago
    > Lack of diversity didn't become a handicap for them. How about the opportunity cost of not using the women and non-white people?
  - solipsism 10y ago
    most of modern science and technology was discovered/invented by white men. Lack of diversity didn't become a handicap for them I believe there are probably good arguments for diversity being overvalued. That is not one of them. That would flunk you out of Logic 101.
    - ken47 10y ago
      I'm not sure why this is down voted. Just because X historically achieved A doesn't imply that achievement(X+Y) <= A, so you can't deduce the absence of a handicap from that.
  - rwmj 10y ago
    "Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers" http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full By the way, the paper is a lot of words and math to explain that homogeneous groups can fall into local minima, whereas diverse groups can find better minima. I don't necessarily claim it disproves what you say, but it is at least a paper on the subject.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing? The elite believe that if they reflect the demographics of the general population, the masses will have even less right to get mad about the separation into an elite and an exploited proletariat.
autognosis 10y ago
IMO, the idea that anyone could know the optimal level of diversity where human choice is concerned is full of hubris. Also, "discrimination" is inseparable from choice. That there are laws regulating these things is destructive and arrogant. It turns everyone into racists/sexists/whatever.
- solipsism 10y ago
  the idea that anyone could know the optimal level of diversity where human choice is concerned is full of hubris. It's completely subjective (how you define "optimal"), so why would it require hubris to have an opinion?
  - prasadjoglekar 10y ago
    If it's only an opinion about diversity at the dinner table, then it's not hubris. But if the search for an optimal mix comes from a govt. or quasi-govt. institution then it's no longer an opinion, is it?
xacaxulu 10y ago
Asians have been shown repeatedly to be penalized in college admissions (http://observer.com/2015/06/asian-americans-are-indeed-getting-screwed-by-harvard-but-not-how-they-think/ http://observer.com/2015/06/asian-americans-are-indeed-getti...) and in some cases are given handicaps in SAT/ACT scores. Asians have been shown to be the highest earnings among minority groups in America, and perhaps there's a concerted effort by other groups to redistribute the wealth in a way that favors them over Asians. http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2015/05/08/this-us-ethnic-group-makes-the-most-money/ http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2015/05/08/this-u... Men are certainly the beneficiaries of the least amount of "Learn to code" largesse, STEM hiring initiatives, quotas for board members (especially before going public), etc. There are numerous social, governmental and academic programs targeted towards women so while we can't say men are discriminated against, we can say the aid programs that are available for women are nonexistent for men.
ignasl 10y ago
People always wants to better their lives. No one is pushing for diversity for coal mining jobs. It's just that Silicon Valley is this hot place where you can make a lot of money so everyone just wants a piece of that. And that includes the most entitled, spoiled and loud peace of shits who instead of thinking how to provide value are pushing for affirmative action. It's not hackers' and geeks' only world anymore. Leeches are here.
woah 10y ago
According to the diversity reports from linkedin, Facebook, and Google, Asian-Americans are greatly overrepresented in the tech industry. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's something like 30-40% vs under 10% in the general population. I don't really know, it may be because Asian American parents are more likely to encourage their children to go into technical careers. Still, a purely numerical statistic is nothing to allege discrimination over, no matter which groups are involved.
scarmig 10y ago
As far as Palantir discriminating against Asian Americans goes, my understanding is that most of their "engineering" positions aren't really that technical--they tend to be customer facing. Old timers in government don't really like Asians, and so it "makes sense" to not have them represent the company. (Descriptive of what's happening here, not prescriptive--even if that hypothesis is true, I'm the type to say screw it, hire on capabilities and work ethic.) There's also the tendency for Asians to be conveniently bucketed into the "white" bucket, which makes them easier targets and also is a reason this lawsuit won't go viral on social media.
- vinay427 10y ago
  > Old timers in government don't really like Asians Sorry, but I don't believe it's appropriate to make generalizations like this without any evidence. We don't need more blind divisiveness in this (or any) country.

58 points by teklaperry 10y ago

FTA: > We know Silicon Valley has a diversity problem. That's just making an assumption. Based on undergraduate enrollment rates in computer science and other technical degrees, the probability distribution based on ethnicity and gender seem very plausible. Also FTA, > Are lawsuits like these a good thing, or are they going to stall efforts to move towards more diversity in Silicon Valley? Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing?

yellowapple 10y ago
> Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing? For the same reason why genetic bottlenecks are a bad thing.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > For the same reason why genetic bottlenecks are a bad thing. That is a false analogy. They're segregating based on race and gender, not class or socioeconomic status. Does it really matter what color your skin is, if you have a MBA from MIT? How does that improve the cultural bottleneck?
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    "They're segregating based on race and gender, not class or socioeconomic status" Socioeconomic factors are the more ideal consideration on paper, but in practice it doesn't matter, since that status tends to be influenced very heavily by racial/ethnic factors. Hopefully this'll change someday and we'll all live in a Star Trek utopia. Today is by absolutely no means that day. "Does it really matter what color your skin is, if you have a MBA from MIT? How does that improve the cultural bottleneck?" Wait, so just happening to have a degree from a prestigious college suddenly makes someone immune to the effects of racism? What a wonderful thought.
- pitaj 10y ago
  But this is forced diversity on the demand end, instead of genuine diversity on the supply end. I agree that diversity is a good thing, but hear me out. What if women are generally genetically predisposed to disliking computer science? I'm not saying they are, but just take it as a given for a moment. Would attempting to increase the diversity in certain places be a good thing to do then? I think it would probably be harmful. It's unfortunate that we may never know why there are so few women in CS and similar fields. When I saw the 31% stat for women in Silicon Valley, I was surprised, as that seems much higher than I though the general rates were. Maybe that includes managers and stuff? Believe me, I'd love to see more diversity, but I think forcing it could be dangerous.
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    "Would attempting to increase the diversity in certain places be a good thing to do then?" If I'm genetically predisposed to not want to eat my vegetables, does that mean I shouldn't be encouraged to eat my vegetables? Does that also mean that a group of people who are genetically predisposed to want to eat their vegetables shouldn't encourage me to try gardening and possibly even join their vegetable cooking club? Should they not themselves be encouraged to invite me to said vegetable cooking club simply because I'm genetically predisposed to having a tendency to decline such a proposition? "Maybe that includes managers and stuff?" More likely customer support, clerical, sales, and other such supporting roles, but yes. That figure is almost certainly not limited strictly or even loosely to technical positions.
    - RandomOpinion 10y ago
      >If I'm genetically predisposed to not want to eat my vegetables, does that mean I shouldn't be encouraged to eat my vegetables? C. S. Lewis said it better than I possibly ever could: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." Even as a liberal, I find the "It's for their own good" argument frequently advanced by modern authoritarian liberals to be insufferably arrogant. We're all adults here and we deserve the opportunity to chart our own course in life, whether for good or for ill.
- throwow3439 10y ago
  > For the same reason why genetic bottlenecks are a bad thing. What is that "genetic bottleneck" ? it's a pretty racist expression if you ask me , it sounds like it leads to "degeneration" or something like that, it really sounds like nazi rhetoric but reversed, instead of the "purity of the race" that must be preserved, it is now mandatory to diversify "white people's genes" to avoid genetic defects ? You take a Slovenian and an Irish, they are both "white" , does that constitute a "genetic bottleneck" because of a superficial trait ( color of the skin ) ? I mean only racialists speak about genetics when it comes to race. Just because now a specific racial narrative is pushed by the left doesn't make racialism less obnoxious. And white women despite being women are still white , does it also constitute a "genetic bottleneck" too ? people pushing for all that should take a step back and think about what they say, for a second. "Diversity" AKA affirmative action AKA "positive discrimination" isn't inherently good or bad, from a productivity or a financial perspective for businesses that engage into all these diversity policies. If they see value in it, good for them, now let's see if they perform better on the long run just because they replaced a good white candidate with an average non white one. I'm not american, but I'm puzzled by all this which mostly looks like feelgood PR, seen from abroad, especially at a time US finds more and more difficult to hide its racial tensions to the rest of the world.
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    The point wasn't to take genetics literally. The point was that - much like how a homogeneous genetic population will tend to amplify its defects compared to a heterogeneous one - so will a homogeneous ideological population. The diversity is what brings in new ideas and viewpoints. The very idea of the American "melting pot" is rooted in this philosophy; immigrants both adapt to existing customs and introduce new ones, thus making the America as a whole (lots of us Americans seem to forget this, including at least one of our presidential candidates, but such is life). This can be and has been applied on smaller scales to various organizations with much success. This isn't only about race or only about gender or only about sexual orientation or only about political affiliation or only about socioeconomic class; it's about all of these things influencing an individual's background in a way that is different from the group as a whole.
- BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago
  Great, I'll tell my Peul friend that he's a genetic bottleneck for wanting to marry a Peul girl
gozur88 10y ago
>Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing? Nobody's ever been able to show that it is. It's just ideological canon for people pushing quotas.
- drewrv 10y ago
  For businesses it's been shown repeatedly to be a good thing. http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-... http://www.forbes.com/sites/ruchikatulshyan/2015/01/30/racially-diverse-companies-outperform-industry-norms-by-30/#2c12dd675742 http://www.forbes.com/sites/ruchikatulshyan/2015/01/30/racia... https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    Your sources are misleading at best. From the first article: > We know intuitively that diversity matters. I know nothing of the sort. And that is the lead sentence, which implies the conclusion is already made. > Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Isn't that somewhat expected? Anybody in any quartile for something has a 50% chance of being above national industry medians. If anything, this would cause people to believe that diverse companies underperform. From the second article: > Of 366 public companies analyzed, those in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above national industry medians. Seems like a regurgitation of the first article, and she presents absolutely nothing to back up those claims. The article quickly devolves into a list of todo items for your company. From the third article: > By correlating diversity in leadership with market outcomes as reported by respondents, we learned that companies with 2-D diversity out-innovate and out-perform others. Employees at these companies are 45% likelier to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year. Isn't there a 50% chance that your firm's market share that your market share will grow over the last year? What other variables are you controlling for? And we all know how accurate self reporting is.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
There's no empirical proof that diversity is a good thing. Historically people seemed to do fine without any diversity. E.g. most of modern science and technology was discovered/invented by white men. Lack of diversity didn't become a handicap for them. Disclaimer: I'm a non-white male.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  > Lack of diversity didn't become a handicap for them. How about the opportunity cost of not using the women and non-white people?
- solipsism 10y ago
  most of modern science and technology was discovered/invented by white men. Lack of diversity didn't become a handicap for them I believe there are probably good arguments for diversity being overvalued. That is not one of them. That would flunk you out of Logic 101.
  - ken47 10y ago
    I'm not sure why this is down voted. Just because X historically achieved A doesn't imply that achievement(X+Y) <= A, so you can't deduce the absence of a handicap from that.
- rwmj 10y ago
  "Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers" http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full By the way, the paper is a lot of words and math to explain that homogeneous groups can fall into local minima, whereas diverse groups can find better minima. I don't necessarily claim it disproves what you say, but it is at least a paper on the subject.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Why are we trying to move towards more diversity? Why is that inherently a good thing? The elite believe that if they reflect the demographics of the general population, the masses will have even less right to get mad about the separation into an elite and an exploited proletariat.

autognosis 10y ago

IMO, the idea that anyone could know the optimal level of diversity where human choice is concerned is full of hubris. Also, "discrimination" is inseparable from choice. That there are laws regulating these things is destructive and arrogant. It turns everyone into racists/sexists/whatever.

solipsism 10y ago
the idea that anyone could know the optimal level of diversity where human choice is concerned is full of hubris. It's completely subjective (how you define "optimal"), so why would it require hubris to have an opinion?
- prasadjoglekar 10y ago
  If it's only an opinion about diversity at the dinner table, then it's not hubris. But if the search for an optimal mix comes from a govt. or quasi-govt. institution then it's no longer an opinion, is it?

xacaxulu 10y ago

Asians have been shown repeatedly to be penalized in college admissions (http://observer.com/2015/06/asian-americans-are-indeed-getting-screwed-by-harvard-but-not-how-they-think/ http://observer.com/2015/06/asian-americans-are-indeed-getti...) and in some cases are given handicaps in SAT/ACT scores. Asians have been shown to be the highest earnings among minority groups in America, and perhaps there's a concerted effort by other groups to redistribute the wealth in a way that favors them over Asians. http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2015/05/08/this-us-ethnic-group-makes-the-most-money/ http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2015/05/08/this-u... Men are certainly the beneficiaries of the least amount of "Learn to code" largesse, STEM hiring initiatives, quotas for board members (especially before going public), etc. There are numerous social, governmental and academic programs targeted towards women so while we can't say men are discriminated against, we can say the aid programs that are available for women are nonexistent for men.

ignasl 10y ago

People always wants to better their lives. No one is pushing for diversity for coal mining jobs. It's just that Silicon Valley is this hot place where you can make a lot of money so everyone just wants a piece of that. And that includes the most entitled, spoiled and loud peace of shits who instead of thinking how to provide value are pushing for affirmative action. It's not hackers' and geeks' only world anymore. Leeches are here.

woah 10y ago

According to the diversity reports from linkedin, Facebook, and Google, Asian-Americans are greatly overrepresented in the tech industry. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's something like 30-40% vs under 10% in the general population. I don't really know, it may be because Asian American parents are more likely to encourage their children to go into technical careers. Still, a purely numerical statistic is nothing to allege discrimination over, no matter which groups are involved.

scarmig 10y ago

As far as Palantir discriminating against Asian Americans goes, my understanding is that most of their "engineering" positions aren't really that technical--they tend to be customer facing. Old timers in government don't really like Asians, and so it "makes sense" to not have them represent the company. (Descriptive of what's happening here, not prescriptive--even if that hypothesis is true, I'm the type to say screw it, hire on capabilities and work ethic.) There's also the tendency for Asians to be conveniently bucketed into the "white" bucket, which makes them easier targets and also is a reason this lawsuit won't go viral on social media.

vinay427 10y ago
> Old timers in government don't really like Asians Sorry, but I don't believe it's appropriate to make generalizations like this without any evidence. We don't need more blind divisiveness in this (or any) country.