8 ms·

You're fetishizing "demographics". It's unfortunately that people don't get their fair chance period. That at times this is evidenced by things that are more v

You're fetishizing "demographics". It's unfortunately that people don't get their fair chance period. That at times this is evidenced by things that are more visible (black versus white, female versus male) rather than more invisible (extroverted rather than introverted, smiling versus shifty-doesn't-look-you-in-the-eyes) is both unfortunate (there should be no racism!) but also symptomatic of which things we care about and which things we don't. People discriminated for reasons we don't care about (introverted, can't make eye contact) are at the bottom of the pyramid then. We've decided they don't have "demographics" and don't matter.

rootusrootus 8y ago
You're probably getting downvoted for the first line in your comment, but I think you're making an excellent point here.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  HN has changed a lot since ~mid December.
CydeWeys 8y ago
Of key importance here is that race, gender, etc. are federally protected classes, while introversion is not. Thus, businesses have way more incentives to curtail discrimination against the former than the latter.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  Well, there's this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...
- andrewflnr 8y ago
  I know you probably didn't mean to imply otherwise, but it's worth saying out loud: that it's not illegal to discriminate against people with poor social skills does not at all make it ok. The context was ethics, not law, as I read it.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    Software development is a team activity, thus social skills are important. I don't know if companies are "discriminating" in this area so much as they are simply trying to find people with the right skills for the job.
    - belorn 8y ago
      There is several contradicting data points for what is an optimal hiring strategy for a company. We have the old strategy of making members of a team feel like then are kin, a.k.a band of brothers. The military use/used this a lot and the underlying biological theory is that people will sacrifice self-interest for individuals which is perceived as kin, or as the quote goes a person will sacrifice themselves for either two siblings or eight cousins. The opposite strategy is diversity with the ability for better adaptation. A team with multiple perspectives is said to better anticipate the need of a diverse customer base. A third strategy is to look at specific risk. If for example theft by employees are a high risk issue then rejecting applicants with correlating traits with high risk for theft would be beneficial, which would be low social economic status, but those correlate to race and ethnic class. If we look at the issue from the perspective of what benefit a company the most we end up in many cases with massive discrimination. Thus for social reasons we address the issue as an ethical question.
  - intertextuality 8y ago
    It isn't illegal, but I wouldn't want to work with someone who has poor social skills. Programming within a team and business is a highly social activity. I would much rather work with someone who can read a room than one who is smart at programming but is completely dense socially or can't communicate well at all.
    - thanatropism 8y ago
      There's a lot to unpack there, but people in the autism spectrum who can't look at you in the eyes are not necessarily bad at workplace communication (they may fail to realize workplace flirting, but that's a plus, not a minus). Then there's the whole "benefits of diversity stuff". My team currently has too many generalists/big picture/would-do-well-as-ethnologists-if-not-math-oriented thinkers. Narrower, more focused cognitive styles would do us some good. But how do you even detect if big picture thinkers and hyperfocused specialists are getting fair chances? The whole interviewing process is stacked against people who can't demonstrate a "wide personality", even for non-leadership roles.
mrkurt 8y ago
Demographic is a broad enough word to encompass both race and personality.
jayd16 8y ago
Communication skills are actually part of the job description. This analogy falls apart in light of that.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  You assume too much. People who can't look you in the eyes might be sufficiently adept at workplace technical communication. It's a skill that can be learned. Maybe someone is less able to read moods like sadness because someone's cat's gone missing. But a colleague can always help with that. "Reasonable accommodations" is enshrined in disability law in every modern "welfare state" society. I'll give you that someone with such limitations may not be the best leadership material. But then, people in wheelchairs are not the best astronaut material. And that's okay. But in an ethical framework where discrimination is to be frowned upon, we need to give everyone the opportunity to live to their fullest potential. This is after all the promise of "diversity": those who are different may have something different to add.
  - jayd16 8y ago
    You're judged on all the skills you have and show you could learn. This is the same for verbal and technical. It's really not equivalent to judging someone's skin color at all.
dfabulich 8y ago
This is whataboutism. We have data showing that referrals disproportionately benefit white men [1]. But what about introverts, you say? Don't we care about them? Sure? But what about introverts? Nothing about their unfair treatment entails that adopting a policy that disproportionately benefits white men is good for introverts or diversity. [1] https://www.payscale.com/data/job-referrals https://www.payscale.com/data/job-referrals A survey of 53,000 employees. > Referrals benefit white men more than any other demographic group. Our research shows that, holding all else constant, female and minority applicants are much less likely to receive referrals than their white male counterparts: white women are 12 percent less likely; men of color are 26 percent less likely and women of color are 35 percent less likely to receive a referral.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  You can't dismiss claims that the structural problem is wider/you fail to see the forest for the trees with "whataboutism". Whataboutism is a magic trick -- look at the hand doing crazy stuff with a bowling pin while the other retrieves a card from the sleeve. At any rate, it's ironic that you would try to disrupt a plea for those that are underprivileged for invisible or overlooked reasons with "what about black women". Yeah man, we know about black women - it's a core theme of progressive culture. The data that looks at gender and race disparities will only give evidence about gender and race disparities. This is the proverbial drunkard looking for his keys near the lamppost because, well, you can't see elsewhere. If there's an ethical program to fix discrimination - specially discrimination that happens as a systemic, involuntary kind like what the OP proposes, we have to look at discrimination itself. --- A great success case is making orchestral auditions take place behind a curtain. If I remember the data correctly that vastly improved the participation of women, including in protagonist roles. But it's also an inclusive policy for the elderly, autistics, unattractive people (specially people with very awkward deformities like face muscle overgrowth), etc. People in that situation are judged for the music they make. ("But the mentally ill will need more time off." And women get pregnant. We have to give people the opportunity to prove themselves.) -- Bonus "SJW" literature: https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/ https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/

rootusrootus 8y ago

You're probably getting downvoted for the first line in your comment, but I think you're making an excellent point here.

thanatropism 8y ago
HN has changed a lot since ~mid December.

CydeWeys 8y ago

Of key importance here is that race, gender, etc. are federally protected classes, while introversion is not. Thus, businesses have way more incentives to curtail discrimination against the former than the latter.

thanatropism 8y ago
Well, there's this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...
andrewflnr 8y ago
I know you probably didn't mean to imply otherwise, but it's worth saying out loud: that it's not illegal to discriminate against people with poor social skills does not at all make it ok. The context was ethics, not law, as I read it.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Software development is a team activity, thus social skills are important. I don't know if companies are "discriminating" in this area so much as they are simply trying to find people with the right skills for the job.
  - belorn 8y ago
    There is several contradicting data points for what is an optimal hiring strategy for a company. We have the old strategy of making members of a team feel like then are kin, a.k.a band of brothers. The military use/used this a lot and the underlying biological theory is that people will sacrifice self-interest for individuals which is perceived as kin, or as the quote goes a person will sacrifice themselves for either two siblings or eight cousins. The opposite strategy is diversity with the ability for better adaptation. A team with multiple perspectives is said to better anticipate the need of a diverse customer base. A third strategy is to look at specific risk. If for example theft by employees are a high risk issue then rejecting applicants with correlating traits with high risk for theft would be beneficial, which would be low social economic status, but those correlate to race and ethnic class. If we look at the issue from the perspective of what benefit a company the most we end up in many cases with massive discrimination. Thus for social reasons we address the issue as an ethical question.
- intertextuality 8y ago
  It isn't illegal, but I wouldn't want to work with someone who has poor social skills. Programming within a team and business is a highly social activity. I would much rather work with someone who can read a room than one who is smart at programming but is completely dense socially or can't communicate well at all.
  - thanatropism 8y ago
    There's a lot to unpack there, but people in the autism spectrum who can't look at you in the eyes are not necessarily bad at workplace communication (they may fail to realize workplace flirting, but that's a plus, not a minus). Then there's the whole "benefits of diversity stuff". My team currently has too many generalists/big picture/would-do-well-as-ethnologists-if-not-math-oriented thinkers. Narrower, more focused cognitive styles would do us some good. But how do you even detect if big picture thinkers and hyperfocused specialists are getting fair chances? The whole interviewing process is stacked against people who can't demonstrate a "wide personality", even for non-leadership roles.

mrkurt 8y ago

Demographic is a broad enough word to encompass both race and personality.

jayd16 8y ago

Communication skills are actually part of the job description. This analogy falls apart in light of that.

thanatropism 8y ago
You assume too much. People who can't look you in the eyes might be sufficiently adept at workplace technical communication. It's a skill that can be learned. Maybe someone is less able to read moods like sadness because someone's cat's gone missing. But a colleague can always help with that. "Reasonable accommodations" is enshrined in disability law in every modern "welfare state" society. I'll give you that someone with such limitations may not be the best leadership material. But then, people in wheelchairs are not the best astronaut material. And that's okay. But in an ethical framework where discrimination is to be frowned upon, we need to give everyone the opportunity to live to their fullest potential. This is after all the promise of "diversity": those who are different may have something different to add.
- jayd16 8y ago
  You're judged on all the skills you have and show you could learn. This is the same for verbal and technical. It's really not equivalent to judging someone's skin color at all.

dfabulich 8y ago

This is whataboutism. We have data showing that referrals disproportionately benefit white men [1]. But what about introverts, you say? Don't we care about them? Sure? But what about introverts? Nothing about their unfair treatment entails that adopting a policy that disproportionately benefits white men is good for introverts or diversity. [1] https://www.payscale.com/data/job-referrals https://www.payscale.com/data/job-referrals A survey of 53,000 employees. > Referrals benefit white men more than any other demographic group. Our research shows that, holding all else constant, female and minority applicants are much less likely to receive referrals than their white male counterparts: white women are 12 percent less likely; men of color are 26 percent less likely and women of color are 35 percent less likely to receive a referral.

thanatropism 8y ago
You can't dismiss claims that the structural problem is wider/you fail to see the forest for the trees with "whataboutism". Whataboutism is a magic trick -- look at the hand doing crazy stuff with a bowling pin while the other retrieves a card from the sleeve. At any rate, it's ironic that you would try to disrupt a plea for those that are underprivileged for invisible or overlooked reasons with "what about black women". Yeah man, we know about black women - it's a core theme of progressive culture. The data that looks at gender and race disparities will only give evidence about gender and race disparities. This is the proverbial drunkard looking for his keys near the lamppost because, well, you can't see elsewhere. If there's an ethical program to fix discrimination - specially discrimination that happens as a systemic, involuntary kind like what the OP proposes, we have to look at discrimination itself. --- A great success case is making orchestral auditions take place behind a curtain. If I remember the data correctly that vastly improved the participation of women, including in protagonist roles. But it's also an inclusive policy for the elderly, autistics, unattractive people (specially people with very awkward deformities like face muscle overgrowth), etc. People in that situation are judged for the music they make. ("But the mentally ill will need more time off." And women get pregnant. We have to give people the opportunity to prove themselves.) -- Bonus "SJW" literature: https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/ https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/