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It does not work that way (logically). Listing a 100 weak, baseless arguments is a debating tactic to confuse your opponents, not allowing them to address and d

by 2-tpg 6y ago

It does not work that way (logically). Listing a 100 weak, baseless arguments is a debating tactic to confuse your opponents, not allowing them to address and debunk specifics (and if they still manage: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"). It also creates the appearance of smoke. More likely: There is a activist political trend now, that has picked up a lot of steam. In that political view, society is racist, and whites at best profit from this, at worst contribute to this. Anything bad happening to a person of color is then used to accuse the racist system, or even individuals, of a heinous act, to force their hands to adopt your view, or deplatform them and their criticism as an obstacle to growth of your movement, for personal gain, as revenge for inequality, or as a coping mechanism. Far easier to argue/reason/imagine that, than that Coinbase makes WFH exceptions due to skin color, or that black employee are correctly assessing skills and experience of co-workers and correctly identifying racism on skin color, when passed over for a promotion. And if you don't believe that racism is really a driver at Coinbase, the correct course seems to be to attack these allegations for what its actually doing, not to support it by falling victim to this poor-argument overload and resigning because it is too hard, or too sensitive, or too taboo, to call out this damaging and horrific behavior.

slg 6y ago
>It does not work that way (logically). Maybe it doesn't work like that in high school debate clubs, but it works like that in the law. Look up concepts like circumstantial evidence and disparate impact. We can infer someone is guilty of a crime from a collection of evidence suggesting they are guilty even without direct evidence. We can also punish someone for discrimination simply for exhibiting a pattern of discrimination regardless of intent to discriminate.
- 2-tpg 6y ago
  Take it to court then. Collect circumstantial evidence and allow for an objective ruling on discrimination and racism in the workplace. If the circumstantial he-said she-said is of any substance, you can prove your guilt. Don't do trial by (social) media. Especially when your accusations are incredibly heavy and damaging. Don't play judge when you are not capable of objectively looking at all the presented evidence. Coinbase presented their side of the story: nothing went to court. No investigation found anything of substance. If the circumstantial evidence was so strong to hold up in court, why didn't it? For the law, intent is of utmost importance. For (social) media, just "circumstantial evidence" of exhibiting patterns of discrimination is enough to act. It is not enough to act, if you are a decent person.
  - slg 6y ago
    From the article: >Ms. Sawyerr said she had talked with four other Black employees about bringing a discrimination lawsuit against Coinbase, but the others backed out after being offered hefty severance payments in exchange for confidentiality agreements. It never went to court because almost everyone involved was incentivized for it to not end up in court. Going to court is often a difficult, expensive, and likely damaging path to pursue for victims of a variety of crimes. The lack of a court case has nothing to do with the amount of evidence or the truthfulness of the accusations here. >For the law, intent is of utmost importance. For (social) media, just "circumstantial evidence" of exhibiting patterns of discrimination is enough to act. It is not enough to act, if you are a decent person. Once again, you are factually wrong with this comment. People can be thrown in jail based purely on an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence and companies can be punished for discriminatory behavior even if there is documented proof that there was no intent to discriminate.
    - 2-tpg 6y ago
      > Ms. Sawyerr said ... Of course she said that. Big bad company silenced her co-suiters with money, after their spy devision learned that she was bringing suit. Now she has no recourse to go court herself, she absolutely needed those four other employees. > The lack of a court case has nothing to do with the amount of evidence or the truthfulness of the accusations here. It allows me to disqualify it as hearsay, and it allows you to think they offered severance payments, with the purpose to keep legit actual racism out of the courts. Intent is of utmost importance for the law. Every lawyer and judge will agree to that. Punishment is increased for bad willful intent.
      - slg 6y ago
        I give up. Clearly there is no point to this discussion anymore if you are going to dismiss any possible reporting as hearsay if it isn't argued in court. So I will simply leave this from the American Bar Association.[1] > In contrast, a disparate-impact claim does not require proof of an intention to discriminate. Instead, showing that a facially neutral employment practice has a disproportionately adverse impact on a protected group states a prima facie case of unlawful disparate-impact discrimination. What do you know, intent isn't needed for a valid case of discrimination. [1] - https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp_solo/2011/september/disparate_impact_claims_adea/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp_so...
- thu2111 6y ago
  We can also punish someone for discrimination simply for exhibiting a pattern of discrimination regardless of intent to discriminate. No. That's totalitarian and evil. If someone is not intending to discriminate, then they are not guilty of anything and should not be "punished". It's not even slightly reasonable to expect every possible way of slicing a group of people to be reflective of the average gender/race data of the overall population because people are different: that's the entire argument for diversity to begin with. That's the basic position that is alienating so many hundreds of millions of people and convincing them this kind of activism is toxic. It's why Trump won the first time and did much better than predicted the second. It's why this thread is full of people that think the NYT is being manipulative and deceptive. You may not punish people simply for not having enough black/women employees if they haven't actually done anything to discrimate: end of story.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Please respond to the actual comment made, not something you made up. No where did GP suggest that if every way you slice a group based on gender and race data isn't perfect they'll get in trouble. They stated that discrimination, even if done without intent, is still discrimination. Please respond to that statement.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      And how do you define discrimination if intent doesn't matter? If decisions don't matter then the only way to define discrimination is via observed results: if you have no black employees, it must be discrimination, even if nobody ever actually discriminated in an objective way. Which means you'd be punished for not matching some theoretical demographics. The whole notion is ridiculous. The fact that California takes this stuff so seriously just makes it look like it's throwing away its tech lead, as viewed from afar.
      - slg 6y ago
        You seem to be acting as this is some new extreme leftist view of discrimination. This comes from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You can find all the details and definitions here[1]. [1] - https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964 https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-196...

by 2-tpg 6y ago

slg 6y ago

>It does not work that way (logically). Maybe it doesn't work like that in high school debate clubs, but it works like that in the law. Look up concepts like circumstantial evidence and disparate impact. We can infer someone is guilty of a crime from a collection of evidence suggesting they are guilty even without direct evidence. We can also punish someone for discrimination simply for exhibiting a pattern of discrimination regardless of intent to discriminate.

2-tpg 6y ago
Take it to court then. Collect circumstantial evidence and allow for an objective ruling on discrimination and racism in the workplace. If the circumstantial he-said she-said is of any substance, you can prove your guilt. Don't do trial by (social) media. Especially when your accusations are incredibly heavy and damaging. Don't play judge when you are not capable of objectively looking at all the presented evidence. Coinbase presented their side of the story: nothing went to court. No investigation found anything of substance. If the circumstantial evidence was so strong to hold up in court, why didn't it? For the law, intent is of utmost importance. For (social) media, just "circumstantial evidence" of exhibiting patterns of discrimination is enough to act. It is not enough to act, if you are a decent person.
- slg 6y ago
  From the article: >Ms. Sawyerr said she had talked with four other Black employees about bringing a discrimination lawsuit against Coinbase, but the others backed out after being offered hefty severance payments in exchange for confidentiality agreements. It never went to court because almost everyone involved was incentivized for it to not end up in court. Going to court is often a difficult, expensive, and likely damaging path to pursue for victims of a variety of crimes. The lack of a court case has nothing to do with the amount of evidence or the truthfulness of the accusations here. >For the law, intent is of utmost importance. For (social) media, just "circumstantial evidence" of exhibiting patterns of discrimination is enough to act. It is not enough to act, if you are a decent person. Once again, you are factually wrong with this comment. People can be thrown in jail based purely on an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence and companies can be punished for discriminatory behavior even if there is documented proof that there was no intent to discriminate.
  - 2-tpg 6y ago
    > Ms. Sawyerr said ... Of course she said that. Big bad company silenced her co-suiters with money, after their spy devision learned that she was bringing suit. Now she has no recourse to go court herself, she absolutely needed those four other employees. > The lack of a court case has nothing to do with the amount of evidence or the truthfulness of the accusations here. It allows me to disqualify it as hearsay, and it allows you to think they offered severance payments, with the purpose to keep legit actual racism out of the courts. Intent is of utmost importance for the law. Every lawyer and judge will agree to that. Punishment is increased for bad willful intent.
    - slg 6y ago
      I give up. Clearly there is no point to this discussion anymore if you are going to dismiss any possible reporting as hearsay if it isn't argued in court. So I will simply leave this from the American Bar Association.[1] > In contrast, a disparate-impact claim does not require proof of an intention to discriminate. Instead, showing that a facially neutral employment practice has a disproportionately adverse impact on a protected group states a prima facie case of unlawful disparate-impact discrimination. What do you know, intent isn't needed for a valid case of discrimination. [1] - https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp_solo/2011/september/disparate_impact_claims_adea/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp_so...
thu2111 6y ago
We can also punish someone for discrimination simply for exhibiting a pattern of discrimination regardless of intent to discriminate. No. That's totalitarian and evil. If someone is not intending to discriminate, then they are not guilty of anything and should not be "punished". It's not even slightly reasonable to expect every possible way of slicing a group of people to be reflective of the average gender/race data of the overall population because people are different: that's the entire argument for diversity to begin with. That's the basic position that is alienating so many hundreds of millions of people and convincing them this kind of activism is toxic. It's why Trump won the first time and did much better than predicted the second. It's why this thread is full of people that think the NYT is being manipulative and deceptive. You may not punish people simply for not having enough black/women employees if they haven't actually done anything to discrimate: end of story.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  Please respond to the actual comment made, not something you made up. No where did GP suggest that if every way you slice a group based on gender and race data isn't perfect they'll get in trouble. They stated that discrimination, even if done without intent, is still discrimination. Please respond to that statement.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    And how do you define discrimination if intent doesn't matter? If decisions don't matter then the only way to define discrimination is via observed results: if you have no black employees, it must be discrimination, even if nobody ever actually discriminated in an objective way. Which means you'd be punished for not matching some theoretical demographics. The whole notion is ridiculous. The fact that California takes this stuff so seriously just makes it look like it's throwing away its tech lead, as viewed from afar.
    - slg 6y ago
      You seem to be acting as this is some new extreme leftist view of discrimination. This comes from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You can find all the details and definitions here[1]. [1] - https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964 https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-196...