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For the millionth time. The distribution of populations not lining up with the general population distributions is not indicative of discrimination. Not to ment

For the millionth time. The distribution of populations not lining up with the general population distributions is not indicative of discrimination. Not to mention that the "anti-brown people" narrative absolutely dissolves in the face of the massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians. To say that Silicon Valley has a "race problem" and only include the employment statistics as they relate to the population at large is just pure insanity. What about the racial distribution of the hiring pool? It's less diverse by their own standards than the distributions in companies. What about the racial distribution of college graduates in engineering? Then what about mapping the racial distribution of the college graduates onto interview success rates, where the biased distribution of the graduates as produced by the universities' affirmative action policies must necessarily align with a similar policy at the company if their own filtering criteria is to produce the same results? The thing that I find the most interesting about all of this is that there isn't an overt attempt to actually remove purported discrimination from the hiring process. Suggestions to anonymize the interview process typically produce results that are even less representative of their desired distribution, because almost every company is actively discriminating in favor of women and "marginalized communities." If their accusations were actually on the basis of correcting bias/discrimination, this is the sort of strategy you'd see advocated, but it's not. They want arbitrary quotas that are, given the available pool of candidates to even consider, mathematically impossible to attain.

sjg007 8y ago
The article cites data from the government on percentages of black, hispanic, and women in tech in Silicon Valley vs those same populations in tech nationwide. You would expect the percentages to be statistically equal.
- crististm 8y ago
  You can also make any lie you want with statistics.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    You can also use that argument to wave away any statistics you don't like the ramifications of.
    - crististm 8y ago
      Yes, but does this make my argument false?
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        It makes your argument specious, barring any supporting criticisms of the statistics in question.
      - gotocake 8y ago
        It isn’t an argument, it’s a restated aphorism devoid of context. I think I’m not alone in wondering if you actually have an argument to make, one this involves making specific claims about the statistics I’m question and the methods by which you claim they’re lying.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    That’s not even an argument, but I’d certainly be willing to see your analysis of these particular statistics and why you think they’re fraudulent.
- bluedevil2k 8y ago
  No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating around, etc.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    Are you saying the top X% is racially skewed? Because all things being equal, if the only difference between the two groups is color of their skin, I'd say that was a textbook definition of racial bias.
    - strken 8y ago
      The question isn't whether there's racial bias anywhere in the pipeline from conception to employment, because there clearly is. It's whether there's racial bias in the SV companies themselves, or whether it happens exclusively in earlier stages.
      - jonathankoren 8y ago
        He's explicitly rejecting the notion that the already skewed nationwide tech population is relevant. One would think, that if I was a large company recruiting nationwide, with brand name that's a resume magnet, I would be drawing from the skewed nationwide tech population, because that's what's entering the pipeline. If controlling for geographic factors, that's not what's coming out, something looks amiss. He explicitly is saying that "talent" is determining factor. That seems odd, since that would be conditionally independent.
    - zepto 8y ago
      All things are not equal. Black Americans as a group are poorer than other racial groups save perhaps native Americans, and have worse educational outcomes on average. Is this the result of institutional racism? I’d say so, but it also can be a cause or underrepresentation in higher skilled employment, even if the employers are not biased in their selection processes.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  Is the distribution of minorities static across the entire country? If you want to promote change you need to earn people's trust, skewing statistics to support your cause does not help that. I am on the side of removing discrimination, unfair wage practices, etc., but the diversity industry (speakers, journalists, special interest groups) often shoot themselves in the foot by making loud, bold, claims, based on gamed statistics...
- dgellow 8y ago
  > You would expect the percentages to be statistically equal. Serious question: why? Why would you expect that? I’m seriously interested by a response to that, that would give way more weight to this affirmation.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
  No, you wouldn't, at least when it comes to the racial composition. SV (and surrounding area) has a very different demographic makeup than e.g. NY or Chicago or Houston. I'm not saying this explains all the differences between SV and nationwide, but it surely accounts for some. PS: E.g. google tells me that the Santa Clara population is 2.5% black, while it's 12.6% nationwide (2010 census). The article now says nationwide the tech industry is 14.5% black; 14.5 / 12.6 = 1.15, 2.5 * 1.15 = 2.9; So adjusted for demographics I'd expect the SV number to be 2.9% black employees in tech after adjusting for demographics of the area, compared to the 2.6% the article states. However, it might be that the low black population in that area is highly correlated to the hiring practices of the tech companies in that area, or it may not be.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  Except when looking at the EEOC report, the numbers they are comparing are percentages of black, hispanic, and women working in tech in Silicon Valley vs. the percentages of those same groups working in all industries (not just tech) in the US. In reality, the tech-tech participation comparison between SV and the US is closer than the article makes it seem. Look at the chart "INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION BY GENDER SEX AND RACE GROUP - HIGH TECH VS. ALL PRIVATE INDUSTRIES" in the EEOC report [1], and then compare to the numbers listed on the graphs for SV. The proper corresponding stats for representation in tech between SV and US would be: Black: 2.6% SV vs. 7.4% US Hispanic: 6.4% SV vs. 8.0% US Women: 32.3% SV vs. 35.7% US So one could still point to the differences above for looking at the group disparities, but the article's statistics are comparing apples to oranges. Not to mention location demographics and other factors attribute to differences between SV as a data point vs. the aggregate data for the US. The pick-and-choose implementation of statistics is looking through a narrow lens. [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/ https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/
  - sjg007 8y ago
    The Bloomberg article is either intentionally misleading on where they pulled their stats from OR they used a different table. Regardless the stats don't match the chart you referenced so I am guessing it is a different source. I don't find a straight map for your numbers either.. can you clarify how you got those numbers?
    - siruncledrew 8y ago
      The US numbers I pulled directly from a table in the EEOC report. The EEOC report says the data is from 2014, and the article's charts cite "Latest comparable data as of 2014", so I am not sure why there are minor discrepancies in the article's US numbers unless they didn't use 2014 data.
      - sjg007 8y ago
        Which table? Thanks.
narrator 8y ago
The operational principle of political correctness is we imagine a way we would like the world to be and then we act like it's that way. When people dispute with empirical data that is not that way, they are destroying the magical thinking that will make it that way. They are a heretic that must be persecuted. So people hide that the empirical reality and the imagined perfect world are not matching up. This is much like Soviet plant managers would lie about their production numbers to avoid getting sent to Siberia because the politically correct idea in those days was that communist production was at least equal or better than capitalist production. Similarly, in order to give praise to the imagined perfect world, we offer up a regular sacrifice to the imagined perfect world in the form of a persecution of non-believers, some would even call them saboteurs of the imagined world when they point out its lack of empirical observability, even though after the persecution the empirical dissonance remains and doesn't go away.
vinceiiikensin 8y ago
I once went on an interview to Uber in Palo Alto. At lunchtime, when we went to the cafeteria, I saw most of the 200+ workers were either Chinese or Indian, sitting in their prospective table. Same with LinkedIn and workday in Santa Clara. I don’t see any racisms in Silicon Valley
- deogeo 8y ago
  If most were either Chinese or Indian, then they were greatly over-represented compared to US demographics. If you replace Chinese with white, it'd be taken as a sign of racism and privilege. So why isn't it racism in this case?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I remember a while ago there was an article about a company that openly promotes women and discriminates against males. The article was in a positive light. It seems that only whites are guilty of racism and and only males are guilty of gender discrimination.
    - colpabar 8y ago
      More and more people are adopting new definitions for racism and sexism -- "prejudice (against a certain race/sex) plus power." Combined with the concept of white male privilege, these new definitions imply that only whites can be racist, and only males can be sexist.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Approximately 1/3 of the world population is either Chinese or Indian. Probably even more if you consider only countries with a certain minimum level of economic development.
    - deogeo 8y ago
dontreact 8y ago
To me the issue is not discrimination but rather representation. I will give you a concrete example. Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there, yet we had data/deals with US, Europe and Asia. As a result our algorithms will likely not help Latin America and Latino Americans as much. This then perpetuates marginalization because it could lead to worse health outcomes for Latinos. Why the dimension of race and not other dimensions? It is a real dimension with cultural and medical significance. Cancer presents differently for different races for example. When you have large pseudo monopolies it is important to have diverse groups of people running them to avoid effects like this that can make marginalization worse. Another classic example is voice recognition and accents. By not having more Spanish speakers at a company, if your company makes a voice recognition product it is easy to have blind spots. Your product may fail for those with an accent, and you won’t notice or think to measure along those dimensions. I agree, however, that strictly proportional representation is not important. However promoting diversity is important and when you have numbers like 3 or 7 percent it’s easy to end up with large, important sub teams with no representation for historically marginalized subgroups. And this can lead to worse products, especially when looked at from the point of view of marginalized subgroups. The main point of the article is that it is pretty sketchy to be hiding these numbers
- ralusek 8y ago
  The example you gave is a diversity of skills, and that diversity of skills was actually a requirement for your business. If the inclusion of individuals possessing those additional skills (ability to speak Spanish, ability to network effectively in a given foreign country/culture) happens to map on to a racial or ethnic diversity, great, but that's not what's being advocated for here. This also brings up an interesting point of contention. The diversity dance has 2 arguments at odds with themselves. Claim 1: All populations of people are inherently equivalent and should therefore have proportional representations in all things. Claim 2: Diversity is a boon because populations are inherently unique and provide a unique set of characteristics to the table. Pick one. You cannot make both of those claims simultaneously. You are advocating in favor of Claim 2, which is fine, but what if the position in question doesn't actually benefit from a diverse set of skills? What if it's a low level circuit designer that tends to favor a particular skillset and personality type? Is it not possible that attributes more commonly represented in a certain population might be overrepresented in sectors that require those characteristics? In contrast, if you advocate instead for Claim 1, then there should be no discernible advantage to diverse hiring, it's just that a failure to do so would be indicative of bias.
_iyig 8y ago
Agreed. The general population argument also has troubling implications. For example, why don't we talk about the lack of representation in tech by whites? After all, they're 3/4 of the U.S. population. At Google, this means they're already underrepresented at 53.1% of all employees in 2018. That number does not separately identify whites as non-Hispanic, or more significantly (and most troubling to anyone who's seriously examined the implications of this type of argument), non-Semitic.
jameane 8y ago
There are a few things at work - Silicon Valley companies do not necessarily match the local demographics either. And even if you look at county wide stats, it doesn't account for displacement to neighboring counties. And these neighboring counties also represent the "silicon valley" workforce. There are roughly half as many black people in the "Bay Area" compared to 20 years ago. But the black population increased in neighboring counties significantly. While Asians are "over-represented" in tech, they are under represented in leadership and senior roles - compared to their representation in the lower ranks. While there are a lot of technical roles at tech companies, the results aren't any different for those non-technical roles either. And let's not even discuss how hiring and recruiting practices lead to a very limited pool. If most black engineers come from HBCUs and tech companies never recruit at HBCUs - well they are missing out on a large pool. If most hires come from internal referrals and the average person doesn't have a diverse friend pool - it keeps the status quo. So diversity is broken on multiple levels, and it is easy to hide. 1. tech workers don't match the percentages in the larger regional job force 2. non-white people are not represented in leadership, not even commiserate to their ratios in the larger tech workforce 3. There are a lot of non-engineering jobs that should have more diverse pools (sales, marketing, administration, etc) and these roles still have the race problem. 4. Recruiting and hiring processes reinforce the status quo on "diversity" Something is broken, but we spend a lot of time trying to obscure that fact.
jonathankoren 8y ago
> Suggestions to anonymize the interview process typically produce results that are even less representative of their desired distribution, because almost every company is actively discriminating in favor of women and "marginalized communities." Two citations needed. I've been on hiring committees for years, at both very large, and very small companies. I've hired and rejected both men and women. I've never seen a "diversity hire" done. Also, you are the first person I've seen say that blind interviews decrease diversity. In fact, the study that gets cited the most involving orchestras showed the exact opposite. [0] I would love to read where you got your information. Thanks. [0] http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind%E2%80%9D-auditions-female-musicians http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact...
- ralusek 8y ago
  If we're doing anecdotal, I have been in many hiring processes and have been told to favor diversity. If you want the most recent one from memory: https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-hiring-for-some-positions-excluded-white-and-asian-males-lawsuit-says-1519948013 https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-hiring-for-some-positio... https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi... http://fortune.com/2018/09/25/brainstorm-reinvent-mellody-hobson/ http://fortune.com/2018/09/25/brainstorm-reinvent-mellody-ho... Blind/anonymized hiring (which I am in favor of and would love to see advocated) has examples going in either direction. The orchestra one you referenced is the go to example of it doing its job well, but if it generally produced the results they were looking for, it would be a noncontroversial strategy being pushed, which it is not. http://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/projects/going-blind-see-more-clearly-unconscious-bias-australian-public-service-aps-shortlisting http://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/projects/going-blind-...
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    All you need for a political controversy is for a group to perceive themselves as losers. The merits, are completely immaterial to whether a controversy exists or not. Some guy gets passed over for promotion, and he looks for a scapegoat, suddenly there's a controversy. As far as a lawsuit being filed, I'll reserve judgement until the case plays out, thanks.
longerthoughts 8y ago
>massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians As indicated in the article, there's evidence [0] that there is profound underrepresentation at the leadership level relative to junior representation. [0] https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ascendleadership.org/resource/resmgr/research/TheIllusionofAsianSuccess.pdf https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ascendleadership.org/resource/...
- ralusek 8y ago
  Yes, but again, the assumption is racial discrimination. That is the de facto assumption for every possible case. What about language, or culture, confidence, etc? If you are a foreigner to a country, of which many Asians are either first or second generation, you might be comfortable performing culturally agnostic technical feats, but not at all confident taking a leadership role. Or if we want to entertain that there is discrimination at play, how does cultural discrimination map on to racism. You discriminate culturally when choosing who to be friends with. If you like bros, hipsters, nerds, outdoorsie types, etc, you're making a cultural discrimination. If there is a degree of correlation between culture and race/ethnicity, which there is, then how might that come into play regarding the roles people assume in an organization? The presumption of racial discrimination in a vacuum is a refusal to content with any level of nuance or complexity.
  - longerthoughts 8y ago
    You're dismissing my point and deflecting with something that I neither referenced nor disputed. You made this claim: >the "anti-brown people" narrative absolutely dissolves in the face of the massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians. Nothing you have said constitutes absolute dissolution of this narrative. The one measurable claim you made was overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians, which holds no water in light of drastic underrepresentation at the senior level. After I pointed that out, you responded with why you believe that discrepancy could be justified. How does that constitute irrefutable evidence that the narrative is misguided?
- username90 8y ago
  Does that take into account that China graduates 7 times as many people today as 20 years ago? It makes sense that there are few Asians in leadership positions simply because they barely have any educated people with lots of experience. https://assets.weforum.org/editor/PSSvl1XRKP4L2tFL2PNtPufC-vkFfy8j6lbozV_pisg.JPG https://assets.weforum.org/editor/PSSvl1XRKP4L2tFL2PNtPufC-v...
philwelch 8y ago
Your more general point is argued a little more strongly than I would argue it, but there is a stronger and more limited point against demographic comparisons between tech industry workers and the US population as a whole. That argument is that tech industry workers are hired from a global pool, not a national pool. If the Bay Area tech sector hires 200 Czech engineers in a given month, they increase the number of Czech engineers in the Bay Area tech industry by 200, and they also increase the population of Czech people in the United States by 200. Same numerator, but a different denominator. Purely by mathematical necessity, this directly causes demographic disparities.
Balgair 8y ago
My beliefs aside [0], you do bring up a good point. I can't find the HN thread, but there was a good TEDx presentation on it as well: Given two curves on the same graph, you are not guaranteed to be able to min/max them simultaneously. For example: say you are a mortgage broker at a bank and you have to give out mortgages to people in your community. Obviously, the people in your community are diverse. There are men, women, white people, black people, homosexuals, heterosexuals, etc. all wanting mortgages. Say you have some historical data that you know to be accurate, namely the credit score of successful applicants, the associated foreclosure rate, and some demographic data like race and sex. Also say that you want the bank to remain solvent and competitive, handing out loans to the best applicants and also garnering a reputation for being a 'fair' community bank that people will actually be able to get loans from. Now, the question is, what is the cutoff for credit-scores that will cause an applicant to not get a mortgage [1]? Say, on the y-axis is the foreclosure rate, and on the x-axis is an applicant's credit score. You have some curves for white women, black women, white men, black men, and many other permutations of the human rainbow. These curves are all different from each other. Now, if you set an arbitrary cut-off score, you may be setting a score that says that white people are less likely to get a mortgage than black people. That's obviously disenfranchising white people in your community, and you should change the cut-off to be more equitable to the people around you. However, now that you have changed the cut-off for approval of a mortgage to be racial equitable, you have now made it such that men are less likely to get a mortgage than women are. This is also not good, and you should change the cut-off again to be fair to all sexes and genders. However, now you are back to being unfair to white people, again. Given the data you have, you are in a situation where, no matter what you do, you are discriminatory. In fact, I'd say that this is the most likely situation to be in. That all the curves and graphs would align just so and that you could be non-discriminatory under ALL scenarios is extremely unlikely. Honestly, you do have to pick and choose who you will not discriminate against. This may seem disheartening, and, yeah, it is [2]. However, that does not mean that we shouldn't try to change things. If anything, understanding that you will very likely be discriminatory no-matter-what, is helpful. You now have a better view of what you can change and how that may affect things. You can choose where to set your parameters with better clarity towards your fellow humans. Maybe you oscillate between gender-parity and height-parity. Maybe you choose to focus on income-inequality for 5 years and then switch to racial-inequality for a focus. Whatever your thesis is on how to gain better equity in your community, maybe you now have a better understanding of the mechanics of the system and you can better affect it positively. [0] In talking privately to friends that are also considered 'minorities', discrimination is occurring and is systemic. Though this is personal anecdata. [1] I'm trying to simplify this as much as possible. Obviously, real applications are VERY nuanced and complicated. [2] Unless you are a journalist. Then, well, this means you will always have a lot to write about!

sjg007 8y ago

The article cites data from the government on percentages of black, hispanic, and women in tech in Silicon Valley vs those same populations in tech nationwide. You would expect the percentages to be statistically equal.

crististm 8y ago
You can also make any lie you want with statistics.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  You can also use that argument to wave away any statistics you don't like the ramifications of.
  - crististm 8y ago
    Yes, but does this make my argument false?
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      It makes your argument specious, barring any supporting criticisms of the statistics in question.
    - gotocake 8y ago
      It isn’t an argument, it’s a restated aphorism devoid of context. I think I’m not alone in wondering if you actually have an argument to make, one this involves making specific claims about the statistics I’m question and the methods by which you claim they’re lying.
- gotocake 8y ago
  That’s not even an argument, but I’d certainly be willing to see your analysis of these particular statistics and why you think they’re fraudulent.
bluedevil2k 8y ago
No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating around, etc.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Are you saying the top X% is racially skewed? Because all things being equal, if the only difference between the two groups is color of their skin, I'd say that was a textbook definition of racial bias.
  - strken 8y ago
    The question isn't whether there's racial bias anywhere in the pipeline from conception to employment, because there clearly is. It's whether there's racial bias in the SV companies themselves, or whether it happens exclusively in earlier stages.
    - jonathankoren 8y ago
      He's explicitly rejecting the notion that the already skewed nationwide tech population is relevant. One would think, that if I was a large company recruiting nationwide, with brand name that's a resume magnet, I would be drawing from the skewed nationwide tech population, because that's what's entering the pipeline. If controlling for geographic factors, that's not what's coming out, something looks amiss. He explicitly is saying that "talent" is determining factor. That seems odd, since that would be conditionally independent.
  - zepto 8y ago
    All things are not equal. Black Americans as a group are poorer than other racial groups save perhaps native Americans, and have worse educational outcomes on average. Is this the result of institutional racism? I’d say so, but it also can be a cause or underrepresentation in higher skilled employment, even if the employers are not biased in their selection processes.
ben_jones 8y ago
Is the distribution of minorities static across the entire country? If you want to promote change you need to earn people's trust, skewing statistics to support your cause does not help that. I am on the side of removing discrimination, unfair wage practices, etc., but the diversity industry (speakers, journalists, special interest groups) often shoot themselves in the foot by making loud, bold, claims, based on gamed statistics...
dgellow 8y ago
> You would expect the percentages to be statistically equal. Serious question: why? Why would you expect that? I’m seriously interested by a response to that, that would give way more weight to this affirmation.
rndgermandude 8y ago
No, you wouldn't, at least when it comes to the racial composition. SV (and surrounding area) has a very different demographic makeup than e.g. NY or Chicago or Houston. I'm not saying this explains all the differences between SV and nationwide, but it surely accounts for some. PS: E.g. google tells me that the Santa Clara population is 2.5% black, while it's 12.6% nationwide (2010 census). The article now says nationwide the tech industry is 14.5% black; 14.5 / 12.6 = 1.15, 2.5 * 1.15 = 2.9; So adjusted for demographics I'd expect the SV number to be 2.9% black employees in tech after adjusting for demographics of the area, compared to the 2.6% the article states. However, it might be that the low black population in that area is highly correlated to the hiring practices of the tech companies in that area, or it may not be.
siruncledrew 8y ago
Except when looking at the EEOC report, the numbers they are comparing are percentages of black, hispanic, and women working in tech in Silicon Valley vs. the percentages of those same groups working in all industries (not just tech) in the US. In reality, the tech-tech participation comparison between SV and the US is closer than the article makes it seem. Look at the chart "INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION BY GENDER SEX AND RACE GROUP - HIGH TECH VS. ALL PRIVATE INDUSTRIES" in the EEOC report [1], and then compare to the numbers listed on the graphs for SV. The proper corresponding stats for representation in tech between SV and US would be: Black: 2.6% SV vs. 7.4% US Hispanic: 6.4% SV vs. 8.0% US Women: 32.3% SV vs. 35.7% US So one could still point to the differences above for looking at the group disparities, but the article's statistics are comparing apples to oranges. Not to mention location demographics and other factors attribute to differences between SV as a data point vs. the aggregate data for the US. The pick-and-choose implementation of statistics is looking through a narrow lens. [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/ https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/
- sjg007 8y ago
  The Bloomberg article is either intentionally misleading on where they pulled their stats from OR they used a different table. Regardless the stats don't match the chart you referenced so I am guessing it is a different source. I don't find a straight map for your numbers either.. can you clarify how you got those numbers?
  - siruncledrew 8y ago
    The US numbers I pulled directly from a table in the EEOC report. The EEOC report says the data is from 2014, and the article's charts cite "Latest comparable data as of 2014", so I am not sure why there are minor discrepancies in the article's US numbers unless they didn't use 2014 data.
    - sjg007 8y ago
      Which table? Thanks.

narrator 8y ago

The operational principle of political correctness is we imagine a way we would like the world to be and then we act like it's that way. When people dispute with empirical data that is not that way, they are destroying the magical thinking that will make it that way. They are a heretic that must be persecuted. So people hide that the empirical reality and the imagined perfect world are not matching up. This is much like Soviet plant managers would lie about their production numbers to avoid getting sent to Siberia because the politically correct idea in those days was that communist production was at least equal or better than capitalist production. Similarly, in order to give praise to the imagined perfect world, we offer up a regular sacrifice to the imagined perfect world in the form of a persecution of non-believers, some would even call them saboteurs of the imagined world when they point out its lack of empirical observability, even though after the persecution the empirical dissonance remains and doesn't go away.

vinceiiikensin 8y ago

I once went on an interview to Uber in Palo Alto. At lunchtime, when we went to the cafeteria, I saw most of the 200+ workers were either Chinese or Indian, sitting in their prospective table. Same with LinkedIn and workday in Santa Clara. I don’t see any racisms in Silicon Valley

deogeo 8y ago
If most were either Chinese or Indian, then they were greatly over-represented compared to US demographics. If you replace Chinese with white, it'd be taken as a sign of racism and privilege. So why isn't it racism in this case?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I remember a while ago there was an article about a company that openly promotes women and discriminates against males. The article was in a positive light. It seems that only whites are guilty of racism and and only males are guilty of gender discrimination.
  - colpabar 8y ago
    More and more people are adopting new definitions for racism and sexism -- "prejudice (against a certain race/sex) plus power." Combined with the concept of white male privilege, these new definitions imply that only whites can be racist, and only males can be sexist.
- philwelch 8y ago
  Approximately 1/3 of the world population is either Chinese or Indian. Probably even more if you consider only countries with a certain minimum level of economic development.
  - deogeo 8y ago

dontreact 8y ago

To me the issue is not discrimination but rather representation. I will give you a concrete example. Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there, yet we had data/deals with US, Europe and Asia. As a result our algorithms will likely not help Latin America and Latino Americans as much. This then perpetuates marginalization because it could lead to worse health outcomes for Latinos. Why the dimension of race and not other dimensions? It is a real dimension with cultural and medical significance. Cancer presents differently for different races for example. When you have large pseudo monopolies it is important to have diverse groups of people running them to avoid effects like this that can make marginalization worse. Another classic example is voice recognition and accents. By not having more Spanish speakers at a company, if your company makes a voice recognition product it is easy to have blind spots. Your product may fail for those with an accent, and you won’t notice or think to measure along those dimensions. I agree, however, that strictly proportional representation is not important. However promoting diversity is important and when you have numbers like 3 or 7 percent it’s easy to end up with large, important sub teams with no representation for historically marginalized subgroups. And this can lead to worse products, especially when looked at from the point of view of marginalized subgroups. The main point of the article is that it is pretty sketchy to be hiding these numbers

ralusek 8y ago
The example you gave is a diversity of skills, and that diversity of skills was actually a requirement for your business. If the inclusion of individuals possessing those additional skills (ability to speak Spanish, ability to network effectively in a given foreign country/culture) happens to map on to a racial or ethnic diversity, great, but that's not what's being advocated for here. This also brings up an interesting point of contention. The diversity dance has 2 arguments at odds with themselves. Claim 1: All populations of people are inherently equivalent and should therefore have proportional representations in all things. Claim 2: Diversity is a boon because populations are inherently unique and provide a unique set of characteristics to the table. Pick one. You cannot make both of those claims simultaneously. You are advocating in favor of Claim 2, which is fine, but what if the position in question doesn't actually benefit from a diverse set of skills? What if it's a low level circuit designer that tends to favor a particular skillset and personality type? Is it not possible that attributes more commonly represented in a certain population might be overrepresented in sectors that require those characteristics? In contrast, if you advocate instead for Claim 1, then there should be no discernible advantage to diverse hiring, it's just that a failure to do so would be indicative of bias.

_iyig 8y ago

Agreed. The general population argument also has troubling implications. For example, why don't we talk about the lack of representation in tech by whites? After all, they're 3/4 of the U.S. population. At Google, this means they're already underrepresented at 53.1% of all employees in 2018. That number does not separately identify whites as non-Hispanic, or more significantly (and most troubling to anyone who's seriously examined the implications of this type of argument), non-Semitic.

jameane 8y ago

There are a few things at work - Silicon Valley companies do not necessarily match the local demographics either. And even if you look at county wide stats, it doesn't account for displacement to neighboring counties. And these neighboring counties also represent the "silicon valley" workforce. There are roughly half as many black people in the "Bay Area" compared to 20 years ago. But the black population increased in neighboring counties significantly. While Asians are "over-represented" in tech, they are under represented in leadership and senior roles - compared to their representation in the lower ranks. While there are a lot of technical roles at tech companies, the results aren't any different for those non-technical roles either. And let's not even discuss how hiring and recruiting practices lead to a very limited pool. If most black engineers come from HBCUs and tech companies never recruit at HBCUs - well they are missing out on a large pool. If most hires come from internal referrals and the average person doesn't have a diverse friend pool - it keeps the status quo. So diversity is broken on multiple levels, and it is easy to hide. 1. tech workers don't match the percentages in the larger regional job force 2. non-white people are not represented in leadership, not even commiserate to their ratios in the larger tech workforce 3. There are a lot of non-engineering jobs that should have more diverse pools (sales, marketing, administration, etc) and these roles still have the race problem. 4. Recruiting and hiring processes reinforce the status quo on "diversity" Something is broken, but we spend a lot of time trying to obscure that fact.

jonathankoren 8y ago

> Suggestions to anonymize the interview process typically produce results that are even less representative of their desired distribution, because almost every company is actively discriminating in favor of women and "marginalized communities." Two citations needed. I've been on hiring committees for years, at both very large, and very small companies. I've hired and rejected both men and women. I've never seen a "diversity hire" done. Also, you are the first person I've seen say that blind interviews decrease diversity. In fact, the study that gets cited the most involving orchestras showed the exact opposite. [0] I would love to read where you got your information. Thanks. [0] http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind%E2%80%9D-auditions-female-musicians http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact...

ralusek 8y ago
If we're doing anecdotal, I have been in many hiring processes and have been told to favor diversity. If you want the most recent one from memory: https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-hiring-for-some-positions-excluded-white-and-asian-males-lawsuit-says-1519948013 https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-hiring-for-some-positio... https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi... http://fortune.com/2018/09/25/brainstorm-reinvent-mellody-hobson/ http://fortune.com/2018/09/25/brainstorm-reinvent-mellody-ho... Blind/anonymized hiring (which I am in favor of and would love to see advocated) has examples going in either direction. The orchestra one you referenced is the go to example of it doing its job well, but if it generally produced the results they were looking for, it would be a noncontroversial strategy being pushed, which it is not. http://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/projects/going-blind-see-more-clearly-unconscious-bias-australian-public-service-aps-shortlisting http://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/projects/going-blind-...
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  All you need for a political controversy is for a group to perceive themselves as losers. The merits, are completely immaterial to whether a controversy exists or not. Some guy gets passed over for promotion, and he looks for a scapegoat, suddenly there's a controversy. As far as a lawsuit being filed, I'll reserve judgement until the case plays out, thanks.

longerthoughts 8y ago

>massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians As indicated in the article, there's evidence [0] that there is profound underrepresentation at the leadership level relative to junior representation. [0] https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ascendleadership.org/resource/resmgr/research/TheIllusionofAsianSuccess.pdf https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ascendleadership.org/resource/...

ralusek 8y ago
Yes, but again, the assumption is racial discrimination. That is the de facto assumption for every possible case. What about language, or culture, confidence, etc? If you are a foreigner to a country, of which many Asians are either first or second generation, you might be comfortable performing culturally agnostic technical feats, but not at all confident taking a leadership role. Or if we want to entertain that there is discrimination at play, how does cultural discrimination map on to racism. You discriminate culturally when choosing who to be friends with. If you like bros, hipsters, nerds, outdoorsie types, etc, you're making a cultural discrimination. If there is a degree of correlation between culture and race/ethnicity, which there is, then how might that come into play regarding the roles people assume in an organization? The presumption of racial discrimination in a vacuum is a refusal to content with any level of nuance or complexity.
- longerthoughts 8y ago
  You're dismissing my point and deflecting with something that I neither referenced nor disputed. You made this claim: >the "anti-brown people" narrative absolutely dissolves in the face of the massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians. Nothing you have said constitutes absolute dissolution of this narrative. The one measurable claim you made was overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians, which holds no water in light of drastic underrepresentation at the senior level. After I pointed that out, you responded with why you believe that discrepancy could be justified. How does that constitute irrefutable evidence that the narrative is misguided?
username90 8y ago
Does that take into account that China graduates 7 times as many people today as 20 years ago? It makes sense that there are few Asians in leadership positions simply because they barely have any educated people with lots of experience. https://assets.weforum.org/editor/PSSvl1XRKP4L2tFL2PNtPufC-vkFfy8j6lbozV_pisg.JPG https://assets.weforum.org/editor/PSSvl1XRKP4L2tFL2PNtPufC-v...

philwelch 8y ago

Your more general point is argued a little more strongly than I would argue it, but there is a stronger and more limited point against demographic comparisons between tech industry workers and the US population as a whole. That argument is that tech industry workers are hired from a global pool, not a national pool. If the Bay Area tech sector hires 200 Czech engineers in a given month, they increase the number of Czech engineers in the Bay Area tech industry by 200, and they also increase the population of Czech people in the United States by 200. Same numerator, but a different denominator. Purely by mathematical necessity, this directly causes demographic disparities.

Balgair 8y ago

My beliefs aside [0], you do bring up a good point. I can't find the HN thread, but there was a good TEDx presentation on it as well: Given two curves on the same graph, you are not guaranteed to be able to min/max them simultaneously. For example: say you are a mortgage broker at a bank and you have to give out mortgages to people in your community. Obviously, the people in your community are diverse. There are men, women, white people, black people, homosexuals, heterosexuals, etc. all wanting mortgages. Say you have some historical data that you know to be accurate, namely the credit score of successful applicants, the associated foreclosure rate, and some demographic data like race and sex. Also say that you want the bank to remain solvent and competitive, handing out loans to the best applicants and also garnering a reputation for being a 'fair' community bank that people will actually be able to get loans from. Now, the question is, what is the cutoff for credit-scores that will cause an applicant to not get a mortgage [1]? Say, on the y-axis is the foreclosure rate, and on the x-axis is an applicant's credit score. You have some curves for white women, black women, white men, black men, and many other permutations of the human rainbow. These curves are all different from each other. Now, if you set an arbitrary cut-off score, you may be setting a score that says that white people are less likely to get a mortgage than black people. That's obviously disenfranchising white people in your community, and you should change the cut-off to be more equitable to the people around you. However, now that you have changed the cut-off for approval of a mortgage to be racial equitable, you have now made it such that men are less likely to get a mortgage than women are. This is also not good, and you should change the cut-off again to be fair to all sexes and genders. However, now you are back to being unfair to white people, again. Given the data you have, you are in a situation where, no matter what you do, you are discriminatory. In fact, I'd say that this is the most likely situation to be in. That all the curves and graphs would align just so and that you could be non-discriminatory under ALL scenarios is extremely unlikely. Honestly, you do have to pick and choose who you will not discriminate against. This may seem disheartening, and, yeah, it is [2]. However, that does not mean that we shouldn't try to change things. If anything, understanding that you will very likely be discriminatory no-matter-what, is helpful. You now have a better view of what you can change and how that may affect things. You can choose where to set your parameters with better clarity towards your fellow humans. Maybe you oscillate between gender-parity and height-parity. Maybe you choose to focus on income-inequality for 5 years and then switch to racial-inequality for a focus. Whatever your thesis is on how to gain better equity in your community, maybe you now have a better understanding of the mechanics of the system and you can better affect it positively. [0] In talking privately to friends that are also considered 'minorities', discrimination is occurring and is systemic. Though this is personal anecdata. [1] I'm trying to simplify this as much as possible. Obviously, real applications are VERY nuanced and complicated. [2] Unless you are a journalist. Then, well, this means you will always have a lot to write about!