4 ms·

You are being completely dishonest. Don't put words in my mouth. I never said such a thing or implied it. All I am doing is pointing out the difference between

You are being completely dishonest. Don't put words in my mouth. I never said such a thing or implied it. All I am doing is pointing out the difference between that and selcting somebody based off color. This is the second time you have resorted to paiting a dishonest view of me instead of attacking my points...

emodendroket 8y ago
I don't see what the difference is. Even if the intent of binning "Jamal's" resume and keeping "Jake's" isn't overtly racist the effect is obviously discriminatory.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  You are right, the result may be the same. But it is important to properly label and address the issues. This is part of the entire issue as a whole. And partly why I think the there are better solutions to the problem. Intent matters. If you apply a race based solution to a problem that was incorrectly identified as a race based issue it is sure to fail. You could call it discriminatory but the entire selection process is just that. What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not. In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population. I also figured out why I have such a hard time with blindly selecting a given race in terms of programming. No pun intended, it creates a race condition. In your scenario if a white person and a black person always submitted their resume, and the black person is always selected then then white person might apply to 100 jobs and get selected, if it so happens that 100 black people also applied with the same qualifications. Because there is no global accounting system per individual this very well can happen, and has happened, and is the exact thing we are trying to solve. Nobody can guarantee there will be a scenario when this white person will submit a resume indefinitely and indefinitely not get selected because of the rule of always selecting a minority over a white person. This is why I suggest adding a bit of randomness to it. So today we have have broken code, we can fix it, but we should fix it with more correct code, not more broken code.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    > What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not. This presumption of yours is presumably why I'm not making any sense to you. I don't really think it's relevant whether someone is consciously choosing to discriminate on the basis of race or doing so unwittingly. Many -- probably even most -- racist outcomes we see do not require overt, intentional racism. Instead they come from unexamined and subconscious bias in circumstances where the judgement is subjective enough that it's possible for the person making it to fool themselves and others about what they're really doing. That's an improvement over open, unabashed racism, but I don't think we can stop there and say we're delivering anything resembling fairness. Having an aesthetic distaste for cornrows or the name Lakeisha is one of the least subtle examples of this happening. > In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population. In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates. What John Dovidio has shown is that in these circumstances people doing the judging have a strong tendency to decide which criteria to weigh most heavily in a way that, in effect, favors the white candidate in any given instance where both candidates are plausible. I don't think you can fix this solely by changing the interviewing process except, maybe, by the kind of extremely rigid and uniform government job interviewing process everyone talks about hating.
    - mbrumlow 8y ago
      > racist outcomes Its not racist if race was not the driving factor. I think that is the big part of why there is so much push back. On this topic. You appear to be viewing the outcome as raciest, but are not willing to see how other factors may result in the same outcome. You have to understand how the outcomes came about to being to fix it. I agree that there is discrimination and much of it can be caused by subconscious bias. To repeat, assuming the cause based off the outcome is completely incorrect. I do agree that people are and can be doing exactly what you are saying, but it is hard to prove and not what is happening in every case. It is completely bad logic to assume racism is occurring because the results are what one might expect had it occurred. You MUST understand the dynamics before prescribing a solution. > In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates. I had a feeling you might say something like this, but I was hoping you could see past my simple example. When I say same qualifications I mean a range that is acceptable for the position at hand. Lets say we had a scale of 1 to 10 for a marking system. And we have a job that requires between 7 and 9. We would randomly select all candidates matching who were marked between 7 and 9. But you do bring a problem I had thought about and why I hate mucking with the hiring process at all, is the judging system. I think you are suggesting that the judges will rank a group more poorly thus wont fit the bracket and thus wont get the job -- thus we must select the underrepresented person by default. If that is the case, then why have a rank at all, you seem to simply say if underrepresented person applies they must be hired, because the person judging the candidates for rank will give the underrepresented person lower marks, and not get the job. I don't think this is the case but there is a solution to make sure it is that still allows for random selection on equally ranked Canada's. That is simply companies must keep a record of rankings and document their decision's why they chose who they chose for a given job position. These records can be audited at any time. If you are dead set on the only solution is that a underrepresented person must always be selected over a white person then I think we are done, and I don't think we are going to changes each other's minds. I would be interested in any other solutions you might have. While I have more ideas, I feel that I have already struck out with you and can't put any more effort into this.

emodendroket 8y ago

I don't see what the difference is. Even if the intent of binning "Jamal's" resume and keeping "Jake's" isn't overtly racist the effect is obviously discriminatory.

mbrumlow 8y ago
You are right, the result may be the same. But it is important to properly label and address the issues. This is part of the entire issue as a whole. And partly why I think the there are better solutions to the problem. Intent matters. If you apply a race based solution to a problem that was incorrectly identified as a race based issue it is sure to fail. You could call it discriminatory but the entire selection process is just that. What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not. In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population. I also figured out why I have such a hard time with blindly selecting a given race in terms of programming. No pun intended, it creates a race condition. In your scenario if a white person and a black person always submitted their resume, and the black person is always selected then then white person might apply to 100 jobs and get selected, if it so happens that 100 black people also applied with the same qualifications. Because there is no global accounting system per individual this very well can happen, and has happened, and is the exact thing we are trying to solve. Nobody can guarantee there will be a scenario when this white person will submit a resume indefinitely and indefinitely not get selected because of the rule of always selecting a minority over a white person. This is why I suggest adding a bit of randomness to it. So today we have have broken code, we can fix it, but we should fix it with more correct code, not more broken code.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  > What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not. This presumption of yours is presumably why I'm not making any sense to you. I don't really think it's relevant whether someone is consciously choosing to discriminate on the basis of race or doing so unwittingly. Many -- probably even most -- racist outcomes we see do not require overt, intentional racism. Instead they come from unexamined and subconscious bias in circumstances where the judgement is subjective enough that it's possible for the person making it to fool themselves and others about what they're really doing. That's an improvement over open, unabashed racism, but I don't think we can stop there and say we're delivering anything resembling fairness. Having an aesthetic distaste for cornrows or the name Lakeisha is one of the least subtle examples of this happening. > In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population. In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates. What John Dovidio has shown is that in these circumstances people doing the judging have a strong tendency to decide which criteria to weigh most heavily in a way that, in effect, favors the white candidate in any given instance where both candidates are plausible. I don't think you can fix this solely by changing the interviewing process except, maybe, by the kind of extremely rigid and uniform government job interviewing process everyone talks about hating.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    > racist outcomes Its not racist if race was not the driving factor. I think that is the big part of why there is so much push back. On this topic. You appear to be viewing the outcome as raciest, but are not willing to see how other factors may result in the same outcome. You have to understand how the outcomes came about to being to fix it. I agree that there is discrimination and much of it can be caused by subconscious bias. To repeat, assuming the cause based off the outcome is completely incorrect. I do agree that people are and can be doing exactly what you are saying, but it is hard to prove and not what is happening in every case. It is completely bad logic to assume racism is occurring because the results are what one might expect had it occurred. You MUST understand the dynamics before prescribing a solution. > In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates. I had a feeling you might say something like this, but I was hoping you could see past my simple example. When I say same qualifications I mean a range that is acceptable for the position at hand. Lets say we had a scale of 1 to 10 for a marking system. And we have a job that requires between 7 and 9. We would randomly select all candidates matching who were marked between 7 and 9. But you do bring a problem I had thought about and why I hate mucking with the hiring process at all, is the judging system. I think you are suggesting that the judges will rank a group more poorly thus wont fit the bracket and thus wont get the job -- thus we must select the underrepresented person by default. If that is the case, then why have a rank at all, you seem to simply say if underrepresented person applies they must be hired, because the person judging the candidates for rank will give the underrepresented person lower marks, and not get the job. I don't think this is the case but there is a solution to make sure it is that still allows for random selection on equally ranked Canada's. That is simply companies must keep a record of rankings and document their decision's why they chose who they chose for a given job position. These records can be audited at any time. If you are dead set on the only solution is that a underrepresented person must always be selected over a white person then I think we are done, and I don't think we are going to changes each other's minds. I would be interested in any other solutions you might have. While I have more ideas, I feel that I have already struck out with you and can't put any more effort into this.