3 ms·

I see this a lot and I just don't understand it. Everyone in this problem seems desperate to point the finger to someone else. And it's not just sex, it's race

I see this a lot and I just don't understand it. Everyone in this problem seems desperate to point the finger to someone else. And it's not just sex, it's race too. Having problems hiring black tech workers? It's the college's fault. Having problems graduating black students with BSs in STEM? It's the high school's fault. Having problems graduating black students from high school? Really it's the fault of the community or family that raised them. Having problems fixing the community's culture? Really it's the fault of poverty. Having problems fixing poverty? Really it's the fact that no good jobs will hire us. This isn't a pipe that just spits kids out when they're about to be hired, every single person in that pipeline is desperate to pretend that it's someone further down the line's problem, except once you go far enough down the pipe you end up back where you started. It's not a linear pipe spitting individual kids out that we just can't do anything about. It's a cycle and wherever it is that we exist in that cycle, be it elementary education or hiring Senior Devs at a FAANG, we have a responsibility to step in and do something about it. Enough passing the buck.

supreme_sublime 8y ago
>Having problems fixing poverty? Really it's the fact that no good jobs will hire us. There are only 3 things you need to do in order to not be permanently poor in the US - 1. Graduate High School 2. Don't have kids before you're married 3. Get a job, it doesn't have to be a "good" job. Specifically with black America, it is very obvious that the vast amount of fatherless children is a huge problem. Single motherhood is associated (if not causally linked) with many very negative outcomes. This is a problem of culture and a lack of personal responsibility. Society does not make black Americans have kids disproportionately out of wedlock. Though it could be argued that the welfare programs enacted in the 60's have encouraged this behavior.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  The Success Sequence is bunk, here's some reading on it[1] but the basic idea is that in those three points you laid out number 3 does basically all the explanatory work, number one does a little work and number 2 does almost nothing. >This is a problem of culture and a lack of personal responsibility. Okay then where does that culture problem come from? Does it just emerge from the ether to grab black people and wipe away their "personal responsibility"? No, that culture emerges from the same society you're desperate to exonerate. There are many factors that influence that culture and systemic poverty is a huge one. You want to fix poverty in black America? Great, then hire them. [1] http://www.demos.org/blog/8/5/15/economic-institutions-should-keep-americans-out-poverty-not-norms http://www.demos.org/blog/8/5/15/economic-institutions-shoul... http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-extremely-misleading-and-impossible-code http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-extremely... http://mattbruenig.com/2017/07/31/the-success-sequence-is-about-cultural-beefs-not-poverty/ http://mattbruenig.com/2017/07/31/the-success-sequence-is-ab...
  - supreme_sublime 8y ago
    >The Success Sequence is bunk, here's some reading on it[1] but the basic idea is that in those three points you laid out number 3 does basically all the explanatory work, number one does a little work and number 2 does almost nothing. Interesting, though as the comment on one of those articles mentions, I wonder what would have happened if he had started with not having children out of wedlock, how much of a difference would adding in having a job and graduating high school made? Though he does go on to talk about how getting the number of people who are childless or married when they have children, is difficult. >Okay then where does that culture problem come from? Does it just emerge from the ether to grab black people and wipe away their "personal responsibility"? That's a good question. The Brookings Institute seems to think it is a result of women's sexual liberation and the unrestricted use of contraception. https://www.brookings.edu/research/an-analysis-of-out-of-wedlock-births-in-the-united-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/an-analysis-of-out-of-wed...
  - neoburkian 8y ago
    So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? I'm sure Bruenig is right when when he says that the ability to stay out of poverty is mostly determined by the ability to hold a job. But thats basically a tautology. Did AEI shoe-horn in their pet theories into the analysis? Sure. On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that holding a job is casually independent from the sets of behavioral traits that lead people into failing high school and becoming teen parents? > that culture emerges from the same society you're desperate to exonerate Accusations of motivated reasoning cut both ways. He could say that you seem just as desperate to implicate society as he is to exonerate it.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
      >So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? The conclusion is that it has little impact on your ability to not be "permanently poor" as the prior commenter stated. >On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that holding a job is casually independent from the sets of behavioral traits that lead people into failing high school and becoming teen parents? Saying "these things aren't independent" and saying "these things have a strong causal connection and here's the direction" are worlds apart so let's not treat the former as our motte and the latter as our bailey. >Accusations of motivated reasoning cut both ways. He could say that you seem just as desperate to implicate society as he is to exonerate it. Motivated reasoning requires a motivation, eg motivated reasoning would be '... that you're desperate to exonerate because you're racist.' But I never did that. And I don't mind the accusation that I'm implicating society here, I am.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sctb 8y ago
  We've asked you several times to stop using Hacker News for ideological purposes and you haven't, so we've banned the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post according to the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
java_script 8y ago
It’s just a regressive position on diversity masquerading as being a reasonable progressive one. Take something that’s easier to fix from a centralized location, and instead argue for individual responsibility. Like how instead of complaining about oil companies destroying the environment and corrupting our political system, we should all just recycle and buy Teslas, like a buncha radicals or something :) I think sure, do what you can at an individual level if you want but that’s so much less important. You’re not gonna change the household conversations happening in millions of houses, and telegraphing what YOU are doing for your daughters in Silicon Valley is more narcissistic than political.
kolbe 8y ago
Presuming your pipeline is accurate (dubious, but I'll presume), what "do something about it" is there to be done by the top two steps? It's a disservice to everyone if you hire workers who are unqualified over qualified ones. It a disservice to students to admit them if they are not ready to compete. Being successful either as a person or a corporation is hard, and there's no real way to handicap it and expect the handicapped demographic to succeed. And if we want to use the past 30 years as an experiment for this, the most academically assisted demographic in America has been black through affirmative action, and they've shown little progress towards matching median US income, whereas Asians have been the most prejudiced against, and they're now far above. Plans like yours, to smooth outcomes based on racial divides, rather than industry or academic standards, are nice things to talk about in politics to make you sound good, but they appear to be destructive to the very people you purport to want to help.
- zaccus 8y ago
  Whoa whoa whoa back up. >the most assisted demographic in America has been black source? >and they've shown little to no progress source? >whereas Asians have been the most prejudiced against source? >and they've shown the most source? And that doesn't even begin to address the issue of comparing Asians, who had the resources to immigrate here, with black Americans, who were brought here as slaves and had restricted civil rights until 1964.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
It is the supply pipeline. It takes 20+ years for the easy path to grow a competent software developer. If the supply stalls in primary school, you don’t recover from that. Looking at the end of the pipe isn’t that useful. Even the hard path (someone going into it starting at college) takes 4+ years. All FAANG is doing right now is concentrating a limited supply, making diversity worse in the rest of the industry. They aren’t magically creating new supply via aggressive hiring practices.

supreme_sublime 8y ago

>Having problems fixing poverty? Really it's the fact that no good jobs will hire us. There are only 3 things you need to do in order to not be permanently poor in the US - 1. Graduate High School 2. Don't have kids before you're married 3. Get a job, it doesn't have to be a "good" job. Specifically with black America, it is very obvious that the vast amount of fatherless children is a huge problem. Single motherhood is associated (if not causally linked) with many very negative outcomes. This is a problem of culture and a lack of personal responsibility. Society does not make black Americans have kids disproportionately out of wedlock. Though it could be argued that the welfare programs enacted in the 60's have encouraged this behavior.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
The Success Sequence is bunk, here's some reading on it[1] but the basic idea is that in those three points you laid out number 3 does basically all the explanatory work, number one does a little work and number 2 does almost nothing. >This is a problem of culture and a lack of personal responsibility. Okay then where does that culture problem come from? Does it just emerge from the ether to grab black people and wipe away their "personal responsibility"? No, that culture emerges from the same society you're desperate to exonerate. There are many factors that influence that culture and systemic poverty is a huge one. You want to fix poverty in black America? Great, then hire them. [1] http://www.demos.org/blog/8/5/15/economic-institutions-should-keep-americans-out-poverty-not-norms http://www.demos.org/blog/8/5/15/economic-institutions-shoul... http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-extremely-misleading-and-impossible-code http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-extremely... http://mattbruenig.com/2017/07/31/the-success-sequence-is-about-cultural-beefs-not-poverty/ http://mattbruenig.com/2017/07/31/the-success-sequence-is-ab...
- supreme_sublime 8y ago
  >The Success Sequence is bunk, here's some reading on it[1] but the basic idea is that in those three points you laid out number 3 does basically all the explanatory work, number one does a little work and number 2 does almost nothing. Interesting, though as the comment on one of those articles mentions, I wonder what would have happened if he had started with not having children out of wedlock, how much of a difference would adding in having a job and graduating high school made? Though he does go on to talk about how getting the number of people who are childless or married when they have children, is difficult. >Okay then where does that culture problem come from? Does it just emerge from the ether to grab black people and wipe away their "personal responsibility"? That's a good question. The Brookings Institute seems to think it is a result of women's sexual liberation and the unrestricted use of contraception. https://www.brookings.edu/research/an-analysis-of-out-of-wedlock-births-in-the-united-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/an-analysis-of-out-of-wed...
- neoburkian 8y ago
  So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? I'm sure Bruenig is right when when he says that the ability to stay out of poverty is mostly determined by the ability to hold a job. But thats basically a tautology. Did AEI shoe-horn in their pet theories into the analysis? Sure. On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that holding a job is casually independent from the sets of behavioral traits that lead people into failing high school and becoming teen parents? > that culture emerges from the same society you're desperate to exonerate Accusations of motivated reasoning cut both ways. He could say that you seem just as desperate to implicate society as he is to exonerate it.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    >So the conclusion here is that failing to graduate high school and becoming a teen parent has little impact on life outcomes? The conclusion is that it has little impact on your ability to not be "permanently poor" as the prior commenter stated. >On the other hand, does Bruenig (or anyone) believe that holding a job is casually independent from the sets of behavioral traits that lead people into failing high school and becoming teen parents? Saying "these things aren't independent" and saying "these things have a strong causal connection and here's the direction" are worlds apart so let's not treat the former as our motte and the latter as our bailey. >Accusations of motivated reasoning cut both ways. He could say that you seem just as desperate to implicate society as he is to exonerate it. Motivated reasoning requires a motivation, eg motivated reasoning would be '... that you're desperate to exonerate because you're racist.' But I never did that. And I don't mind the accusation that I'm implicating society here, I am.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sctb 8y ago
We've asked you several times to stop using Hacker News for ideological purposes and you haven't, so we've banned the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post according to the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

java_script 8y ago

It’s just a regressive position on diversity masquerading as being a reasonable progressive one. Take something that’s easier to fix from a centralized location, and instead argue for individual responsibility. Like how instead of complaining about oil companies destroying the environment and corrupting our political system, we should all just recycle and buy Teslas, like a buncha radicals or something :) I think sure, do what you can at an individual level if you want but that’s so much less important. You’re not gonna change the household conversations happening in millions of houses, and telegraphing what YOU are doing for your daughters in Silicon Valley is more narcissistic than political.

kolbe 8y ago

Presuming your pipeline is accurate (dubious, but I'll presume), what "do something about it" is there to be done by the top two steps? It's a disservice to everyone if you hire workers who are unqualified over qualified ones. It a disservice to students to admit them if they are not ready to compete. Being successful either as a person or a corporation is hard, and there's no real way to handicap it and expect the handicapped demographic to succeed. And if we want to use the past 30 years as an experiment for this, the most academically assisted demographic in America has been black through affirmative action, and they've shown little progress towards matching median US income, whereas Asians have been the most prejudiced against, and they're now far above. Plans like yours, to smooth outcomes based on racial divides, rather than industry or academic standards, are nice things to talk about in politics to make you sound good, but they appear to be destructive to the very people you purport to want to help.

zaccus 8y ago
Whoa whoa whoa back up. >the most assisted demographic in America has been black source? >and they've shown little to no progress source? >whereas Asians have been the most prejudiced against source? >and they've shown the most source? And that doesn't even begin to address the issue of comparing Asians, who had the resources to immigrate here, with black Americans, who were brought here as slaves and had restricted civil rights until 1964.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

It is the supply pipeline. It takes 20+ years for the easy path to grow a competent software developer. If the supply stalls in primary school, you don’t recover from that. Looking at the end of the pipe isn’t that useful. Even the hard path (someone going into it starting at college) takes 4+ years. All FAANG is doing right now is concentrating a limited supply, making diversity worse in the rest of the industry. They aren’t magically creating new supply via aggressive hiring practices.