4 ms·

Please explain how a black software engineer is at a disadvantage asking his or her co-workers for referral money relative to a white counterpart.

Misdicorl 5y ago
I think the argument would go something like this Context 1) Black person more likely to have a higher percentage of friends/close co-workers who are also black Context 2) Black persons are often coming from disadvantaged backgrounds Conclusion) Black person's network is less able to gamble on their future success as they may be paying off significant personal or familial debt
- jlawson 5y ago
  There's no fundamental difference between this and any other area of life where a wealthy network aids in success. Which is pretty much all of them. Your standard seems to be that we eliminate the differential effects of wealthy relationships on success. You don't really seem to be registering how deep we need to cut and how many fundamental social structures we need to destroy to even attempt to make this happen. The entire educational system, entire economy and all extant hiring practices everywhere, all social practices based around economic status. Fundamentally the issue is that you've redefined racism from discriminatory acts to differential outcomes. It's a path to insanity and evil.
  - bccdee 5y ago
    > There's no fundamental difference between this and any other area of life where a wealthy network aids in success. Which is pretty much all of them. I can think of one rather prominent example where having a wealthy network doesn't help nearly as much as it does when you're "skipping the interview." Job interviews. The thing that this product is trying to replace. Also, you've stumbled past the is/ought distinction. Yes, it's true that being wealthy is an advantage in many areas of society. But that's very obviously a bad thing. Not only does it shut out potentially productive members of society and elevate wealthier incompetents, it fucks over vulnerable people and helps the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. I see no good reason to engage in apologia for systems that favour the wealthy. "Oh but we would need to change lots of things to fix those systems" yeah we do need to change lots of things. Don't cry to me about how improving things is hard. If you have nothing constructive to contribute, at least don't pointlessly denigrate the idea of improving our society.
    - jlawson 5y ago
      I didn't say anything 'ought' to be anything, so no stumbling occurred. I said that a double standard is being applied. The payment-for-interview concept is being rejected because it links relationships and outcomes. However, nearly everything in society links relationships to outcomes. It makes no sense to say that this one thing is stupid-evil because of that, and not comment at all on all the other things that work the same way. If you want to set your standard that "society should not allow anything that links relationships to outcomes" then do that honestly across the board. And acknowledge how much you need to destroy. If you don't want to acknowledge that, then this argument makes no sense to apply only here. It's an isolated demand for fairness. And it was never about how "improving things is hard". This isn't like studying for a test where you "just try harder" to get a better outcome. It's an engineering problem with tradeoffs - to gain one thing you must sacrifice others. Changing society means sacrificing things - you need to acknowledge how much you want to sacrifice to serve your utopian ideals. And I can point out how dangerous and naive that makes you, just like all your utopian forebears dreaming of a socialist heaven.
      - Misdicorl 5y ago
        Have you ever inherited an ungodly mess of a code base? Did you say "terrible code is just the way things are"? Or did you apply new standards to new code while slooooowly fixing the old code?
      - Misdicorl 5y ago
        It also seems to me that you are arguing with a straw man you have constructed. Literally nobody in this entire thread had defended the status quo. Your standards seem to require people to be actively tearing down society due to it's injustices before they're allowed to offer a critique of an old problem in a new format
afavour 5y ago
Because racism… exists? And a black engineer is much more likely to have a coworker hold a negative opinion of them and thus be less likely to give them referral money?
- prepend 5y ago
  I’m not sure how prevalent racism is among software companies but I’d guess that a competent person suffering from racism would still raise more than an incompetent suffering less from racism. Of course it’s still a stupid idea independent of any potential racial aspects. I mean, I guess Amway is racist too because of systemic racism, but that’s not why it sucks.
  - Misdicorl 5y ago
    Something like 40+% of America seems perfectly content to vote for steaming piles of racist garbage. The average makeup of software companies (white, male) overlaps heavily with that 40% demographic (and yes, does not overlap in other demographics). I think it's a safe assumption that software companies are in a similar ballpark. Yes yes. Being ok voting for explicit, horrific, racist people for purportedly different and important goals does not make you an actual racist. Not in your book, anyway. I'm at least as tired ignoring this statement as you are trying to believe it. Apologies. You here read in the general sense, not the parent post
    - prepend 5y ago
      > Something like 40+% of America seems perfectly content to vote for steaming piles of racist garbage. Yes, and? This doesn’t mean 40% of America is racist. People can’t line item features out of people and they vote for the sum of all parts. If I had to choose between a racist plumber who was competent and a non-racist, incompetent; I will likely choose the racist plumber. I don’t think I’m racist. But this now means that I support systemic racism in some way. But then we all do, including victims even. So I think the important factor is whether people choose the best option given all factors. Since everything is mixed together it’s hard to tell someone’s intent is racist or non-racist. Or to tell us racism has a significant effect on a particular item. When we spend time calling out many random things (like this dumb product potentially being extra dumb because it might increase systemic racism) I think it detracts from the actual work of increasing human equality.

Misdicorl 5y ago

I think the argument would go something like this Context 1) Black person more likely to have a higher percentage of friends/close co-workers who are also black Context 2) Black persons are often coming from disadvantaged backgrounds Conclusion) Black person's network is less able to gamble on their future success as they may be paying off significant personal or familial debt

jlawson 5y ago
There's no fundamental difference between this and any other area of life where a wealthy network aids in success. Which is pretty much all of them. Your standard seems to be that we eliminate the differential effects of wealthy relationships on success. You don't really seem to be registering how deep we need to cut and how many fundamental social structures we need to destroy to even attempt to make this happen. The entire educational system, entire economy and all extant hiring practices everywhere, all social practices based around economic status. Fundamentally the issue is that you've redefined racism from discriminatory acts to differential outcomes. It's a path to insanity and evil.
- bccdee 5y ago
  > There's no fundamental difference between this and any other area of life where a wealthy network aids in success. Which is pretty much all of them. I can think of one rather prominent example where having a wealthy network doesn't help nearly as much as it does when you're "skipping the interview." Job interviews. The thing that this product is trying to replace. Also, you've stumbled past the is/ought distinction. Yes, it's true that being wealthy is an advantage in many areas of society. But that's very obviously a bad thing. Not only does it shut out potentially productive members of society and elevate wealthier incompetents, it fucks over vulnerable people and helps the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. I see no good reason to engage in apologia for systems that favour the wealthy. "Oh but we would need to change lots of things to fix those systems" yeah we do need to change lots of things. Don't cry to me about how improving things is hard. If you have nothing constructive to contribute, at least don't pointlessly denigrate the idea of improving our society.
  - jlawson 5y ago
    I didn't say anything 'ought' to be anything, so no stumbling occurred. I said that a double standard is being applied. The payment-for-interview concept is being rejected because it links relationships and outcomes. However, nearly everything in society links relationships to outcomes. It makes no sense to say that this one thing is stupid-evil because of that, and not comment at all on all the other things that work the same way. If you want to set your standard that "society should not allow anything that links relationships to outcomes" then do that honestly across the board. And acknowledge how much you need to destroy. If you don't want to acknowledge that, then this argument makes no sense to apply only here. It's an isolated demand for fairness. And it was never about how "improving things is hard". This isn't like studying for a test where you "just try harder" to get a better outcome. It's an engineering problem with tradeoffs - to gain one thing you must sacrifice others. Changing society means sacrificing things - you need to acknowledge how much you want to sacrifice to serve your utopian ideals. And I can point out how dangerous and naive that makes you, just like all your utopian forebears dreaming of a socialist heaven.
    - Misdicorl 5y ago
      Have you ever inherited an ungodly mess of a code base? Did you say "terrible code is just the way things are"? Or did you apply new standards to new code while slooooowly fixing the old code?
    - Misdicorl 5y ago
      It also seems to me that you are arguing with a straw man you have constructed. Literally nobody in this entire thread had defended the status quo. Your standards seem to require people to be actively tearing down society due to it's injustices before they're allowed to offer a critique of an old problem in a new format

afavour 5y ago

Because racism… exists? And a black engineer is much more likely to have a coworker hold a negative opinion of them and thus be less likely to give them referral money?

prepend 5y ago
I’m not sure how prevalent racism is among software companies but I’d guess that a competent person suffering from racism would still raise more than an incompetent suffering less from racism. Of course it’s still a stupid idea independent of any potential racial aspects. I mean, I guess Amway is racist too because of systemic racism, but that’s not why it sucks.
- Misdicorl 5y ago
  Something like 40+% of America seems perfectly content to vote for steaming piles of racist garbage. The average makeup of software companies (white, male) overlaps heavily with that 40% demographic (and yes, does not overlap in other demographics). I think it's a safe assumption that software companies are in a similar ballpark. Yes yes. Being ok voting for explicit, horrific, racist people for purportedly different and important goals does not make you an actual racist. Not in your book, anyway. I'm at least as tired ignoring this statement as you are trying to believe it. Apologies. You here read in the general sense, not the parent post
  - prepend 5y ago
    > Something like 40+% of America seems perfectly content to vote for steaming piles of racist garbage. Yes, and? This doesn’t mean 40% of America is racist. People can’t line item features out of people and they vote for the sum of all parts. If I had to choose between a racist plumber who was competent and a non-racist, incompetent; I will likely choose the racist plumber. I don’t think I’m racist. But this now means that I support systemic racism in some way. But then we all do, including victims even. So I think the important factor is whether people choose the best option given all factors. Since everything is mixed together it’s hard to tell someone’s intent is racist or non-racist. Or to tell us racism has a significant effect on a particular item. When we spend time calling out many random things (like this dumb product potentially being extra dumb because it might increase systemic racism) I think it detracts from the actual work of increasing human equality.