4 ms·

> Is it time to talk about the gap between Blacks and Asians instead? The problem isn't so much what value you put on the groups, as the gap itself. Think of

> Is it time to talk about the gap between Blacks and Asians instead? The problem isn't so much what value you put on the groups, as the gap itself. Think of it more generically: gap<Race, Salary> Anytime you'd see a big gap, it would be cause for concern, because we value that similar work should provide similar compensation no matter your race. And if you see that the gap is caused by the distribution of the type of work, for example, raceX is more likely to do work that pays more than raceZ. Well that's also an issue, because we value equal opportunity between races, and the assumption is if opportunity was truly equal, the data should not show a big gap in the choices of work made between races, especially for highly paid professions. At least it shouldn't show that without a clear explanation as to why that might be, which we don't have today. I understand 100% where you come from with that comment, it can get annoying to feel personally blamed for inequality, where the real blame could be historical, or accidental, but I'd only say to try and be the better man, and get past that, because focusing on the "blame" both as a recipient or activist wanting to lash it out is counterproductive, keep the focus on the issue and discussions of solutions I think is the healthy path forward for everyone. And you're right, articles like this one could also try harder at that.

mathverse 5y ago
Whites not born in rich anglo countries are still perceived as privileged despite a lot of them growing up in much harder conditions than your average black person in tech.
- ctvo 5y ago
  Citation required.
  - mathverse 5y ago
    Citation for what? That I cant apply for diversity internships despite growing up in a family with 10k/pa budget? And no...this is not shitloads of money where I am coming from.
    - ctvo 5y ago
      > despite a lot of them growing up in much harder conditions than your average black person in tech. How would you know? And how do you measure it? It was harder to grow up in Kiev because you were in worse poverty than blacks in the US. Possibly. Were you also discriminated against in Kiev? Was your family broken, and your community broken? Did you have a failing school system relative to others in your community? It goes on. The point is there are many systems that make up "black in America" that doesn't translate to only family income. Citation required.
      - mathverse 5y ago
        >How would you know? And how do you measure it? I measure it by the number of opportunities one has or had in the past.Your practical education happens later because you did not have access to computers in any form. You can't travel not only because of your passport but also because you simply cannot afford it.One cannot simply just go from Ukraine to a richer country in Europe like you can in the US. It's simply the lack of available opportunities that hinders any progress.Even for world class engineers like Michal Zalewski that was the case: http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-journeys.html http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-journeys.html >It was harder to grow up in Kiev because you were in worse poverty than blacks in the US. Possibly. Were you also discriminated against in Kiev? Was your family broken, and your community broken? Did you have a failing school system relative to others in your community? You were always discriminated in Eastern Europe because of your lack of connections and corruption.Inept people have always had an upper hand here. I dont know what you mean by "family broken".Many EE families were broken.I come from such family.After the fall of iron curtain i grew up in relative poverty where my mother had no job and she was constantly harassed by her drug addicted partner.My father dumped us long time ago and simply did not care. What do you consider a broken community? You mean one where mafia runs free and where you cant go to the police because they are corrupt? Yes those were the times of 90s. >The point is there are many systems that make up "black in America" that doesn't translate to only family income. I think you dont understand the reality here.Being "already" in America makes you incredibly privileged.I remember EE STEM PHD engineers earning better wages frying chicken in the US than doing what they have actually studied for back home. I am glad americans are finally acknowledging this phenomenon (BBT scene with russian janitor/physicist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZd8sDquNYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZd8sDquNYw) but since this is not their problem it is overshadowed by your racial wars. It still makes me angry and sad though...
jjcon 5y ago
> if opportunity was truly equal, the data should not show a big gap in the choices of work made between races I can understand that would be the case wrt race but what about different cultures?
- didibus 5y ago
  I want to preface that it's a very strong claim to say that the true and accurate cause would be culture, and claiming the possibility isn't good enough, you'd need to strongly demonstrate evidence that this is the real contributing factor. Having said that, Culture could be an explanation, but it would still be a problem, because children should have equal opportunity, and if it were true that culture can affect your opportunities, then it wouldn't be fair to have some children born into a culture that diminishes their opportunity. That's why we have a lot of laws already related to restricting certain ways you can raise your kids, like mandatory school, bans on corporal punishments, requirements to meet their basic needs, etc. Beyond that, there are questions around culture as well, such as, would it be culture on its own? Or culture within a particular environment that might favor against certain cultures? And this might not even be in an actively and conscious discriminatory fashion. It could be as an accidental effect of compounding factors. For example, imagine that a particular market buying power is dominated by mostly people of culture A, they have the money, but as someone of culture B, you might not be able to understand or relate to that market and thus fail to appeal to them, meaning your business will be less successful as an effect of that. Another big question around culture would be historical, for example, if you include in culture say a tendency to be illiterate, or a lack of insistence on intellectualism or education or reading, etc. It is possible the historical context influenced such a culture and did so unfairly. My point basically is that first I think it's very early to really advance that the cause could be cultural and there are many other possibilities just as likely if not more. And even if culture is a factor, it's not a justification, and we should still strive to address the unequal opportunities it creates.
  - jjcon 5y ago
    > claiming the possibility isn't good enough, you'd need to strongly demonstrate evidence This is true for anyone making any claim here, including the claim that it is race alone (which i am pointing out is unaccounted for in op post) > it wouldn't be fair to have some children born into a culture that diminishes their opportunity I wholeheartedly disagree. It depends on what a culture values and monetary outcomes isnt everything. As an example, American culture is very different from my own (based in EU though ive lived and am frequently in the US). Our culture is generally less work centric, which may look like worse outcomes on paper, but there are so many things that cant be or aren't measured.
notshift 5y ago
The variance of personality between individuals is around 40-60% genetic in origin (i.e. genes have a huge impact on personality). Given this, if you believe personality has any impact on career selection at all, a differing distribution of career selection between sexes and races would be an expected outcome, no discrimination or bias necessary.
- didibus 5y ago
  > if you believe That's the problem, that's why I said unless we have a very good explanation. It's easy to fit some model over any data to explain it, but that doesn't make it a very good explanation. So what we would need is very strong evidence that the surprising data we see is the result of some inherent cause, and not that of a sub-optimal system. Until then, the possibility that the system is sub-optimal remains, and the data continues to be surprising.
  - notshift 5y ago
    Do you think personality wouldn't have an effect on job selection?
    - didibus 5y ago
      Just so we're on the same page, me and the article is talking about an observed pay gap between people employed in the US for the SAME tech job roles. I think you're debating something tangential.
      - notshift 5y ago
        I was addressing your comment on equality of outcome: And if you see that the gap is caused by the distribution of the type of work, for example, raceX is more likely to do work that pays more than raceZ. Well that's also an issue, because we value equal opportunity between races, and the assumption is if opportunity was truly equal, the data should not show a big gap in the choices of work made between races

mathverse 5y ago

Whites not born in rich anglo countries are still perceived as privileged despite a lot of them growing up in much harder conditions than your average black person in tech.

ctvo 5y ago
Citation required.
- mathverse 5y ago
  Citation for what? That I cant apply for diversity internships despite growing up in a family with 10k/pa budget? And no...this is not shitloads of money where I am coming from.
  - ctvo 5y ago
    > despite a lot of them growing up in much harder conditions than your average black person in tech. How would you know? And how do you measure it? It was harder to grow up in Kiev because you were in worse poverty than blacks in the US. Possibly. Were you also discriminated against in Kiev? Was your family broken, and your community broken? Did you have a failing school system relative to others in your community? It goes on. The point is there are many systems that make up "black in America" that doesn't translate to only family income. Citation required.
    - mathverse 5y ago
      >How would you know? And how do you measure it? I measure it by the number of opportunities one has or had in the past.Your practical education happens later because you did not have access to computers in any form. You can't travel not only because of your passport but also because you simply cannot afford it.One cannot simply just go from Ukraine to a richer country in Europe like you can in the US. It's simply the lack of available opportunities that hinders any progress.Even for world class engineers like Michal Zalewski that was the case: http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-journeys.html http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-journeys.html >It was harder to grow up in Kiev because you were in worse poverty than blacks in the US. Possibly. Were you also discriminated against in Kiev? Was your family broken, and your community broken? Did you have a failing school system relative to others in your community? You were always discriminated in Eastern Europe because of your lack of connections and corruption.Inept people have always had an upper hand here. I dont know what you mean by "family broken".Many EE families were broken.I come from such family.After the fall of iron curtain i grew up in relative poverty where my mother had no job and she was constantly harassed by her drug addicted partner.My father dumped us long time ago and simply did not care. What do you consider a broken community? You mean one where mafia runs free and where you cant go to the police because they are corrupt? Yes those were the times of 90s. >The point is there are many systems that make up "black in America" that doesn't translate to only family income. I think you dont understand the reality here.Being "already" in America makes you incredibly privileged.I remember EE STEM PHD engineers earning better wages frying chicken in the US than doing what they have actually studied for back home. I am glad americans are finally acknowledging this phenomenon (BBT scene with russian janitor/physicist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZd8sDquNYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZd8sDquNYw) but since this is not their problem it is overshadowed by your racial wars. It still makes me angry and sad though...

jjcon 5y ago

> if opportunity was truly equal, the data should not show a big gap in the choices of work made between races I can understand that would be the case wrt race but what about different cultures?

didibus 5y ago
I want to preface that it's a very strong claim to say that the true and accurate cause would be culture, and claiming the possibility isn't good enough, you'd need to strongly demonstrate evidence that this is the real contributing factor. Having said that, Culture could be an explanation, but it would still be a problem, because children should have equal opportunity, and if it were true that culture can affect your opportunities, then it wouldn't be fair to have some children born into a culture that diminishes their opportunity. That's why we have a lot of laws already related to restricting certain ways you can raise your kids, like mandatory school, bans on corporal punishments, requirements to meet their basic needs, etc. Beyond that, there are questions around culture as well, such as, would it be culture on its own? Or culture within a particular environment that might favor against certain cultures? And this might not even be in an actively and conscious discriminatory fashion. It could be as an accidental effect of compounding factors. For example, imagine that a particular market buying power is dominated by mostly people of culture A, they have the money, but as someone of culture B, you might not be able to understand or relate to that market and thus fail to appeal to them, meaning your business will be less successful as an effect of that. Another big question around culture would be historical, for example, if you include in culture say a tendency to be illiterate, or a lack of insistence on intellectualism or education or reading, etc. It is possible the historical context influenced such a culture and did so unfairly. My point basically is that first I think it's very early to really advance that the cause could be cultural and there are many other possibilities just as likely if not more. And even if culture is a factor, it's not a justification, and we should still strive to address the unequal opportunities it creates.
- jjcon 5y ago
  > claiming the possibility isn't good enough, you'd need to strongly demonstrate evidence This is true for anyone making any claim here, including the claim that it is race alone (which i am pointing out is unaccounted for in op post) > it wouldn't be fair to have some children born into a culture that diminishes their opportunity I wholeheartedly disagree. It depends on what a culture values and monetary outcomes isnt everything. As an example, American culture is very different from my own (based in EU though ive lived and am frequently in the US). Our culture is generally less work centric, which may look like worse outcomes on paper, but there are so many things that cant be or aren't measured.

notshift 5y ago

The variance of personality between individuals is around 40-60% genetic in origin (i.e. genes have a huge impact on personality). Given this, if you believe personality has any impact on career selection at all, a differing distribution of career selection between sexes and races would be an expected outcome, no discrimination or bias necessary.

didibus 5y ago
> if you believe That's the problem, that's why I said unless we have a very good explanation. It's easy to fit some model over any data to explain it, but that doesn't make it a very good explanation. So what we would need is very strong evidence that the surprising data we see is the result of some inherent cause, and not that of a sub-optimal system. Until then, the possibility that the system is sub-optimal remains, and the data continues to be surprising.
- notshift 5y ago
  Do you think personality wouldn't have an effect on job selection?
  - didibus 5y ago
    Just so we're on the same page, me and the article is talking about an observed pay gap between people employed in the US for the SAME tech job roles. I think you're debating something tangential.
    - notshift 5y ago
      I was addressing your comment on equality of outcome: And if you see that the gap is caused by the distribution of the type of work, for example, raceX is more likely to do work that pays more than raceZ. Well that's also an issue, because we value equal opportunity between races, and the assumption is if opportunity was truly equal, the data should not show a big gap in the choices of work made between races