4 ms·

well I for one can't see how this might go wrong... \s but in all seriousness, when you make optimize for the metric, the metrics will cease to reflect reality

well I for one can't see how this might go wrong... \s but in all seriousness, when you make optimize for the metric, the metrics will cease to reflect reality. I can see this easily being used for to prevent people from negotiating as individuals because this will allow companies to blanket drop all salaries in the guise of "being fair."

esperent 4y ago
> this will allow companies to blanket drop all salaries in the guise of "being fair." That's an argument for unions, not an argument against this law.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  No, it is an argument against bad policy. The law makes sure different ethnicities immediately become competitors. They are because the metric demands it. Hard for someone in public service to understand, I guess. Also an old trick of toxic middle management. How do you keep people below you from eating you alive? Treat some of them better than others. They will focus on conflicts among each other instead of holding you accountable. Wake me up when this increases the compensation of anyone.
- jshzglr 4y ago
  It definitely applies to this law. Would you want to be CEO of a company that has a public salary discrepancy between races, especially in this batshit political climate.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Maybe they could just raise the pay of all the employees with lower salaries. An extremely simple solution!!! This has the added benefit of improving the material conditions of all those employees too!
    - mrtweetyhack 4y ago
  - esperent 4y ago
    Would you really want to be the CEO of a company that pays some people less because of their race or gender?
    - jfim 4y ago
      There are other reasons why people would be paid less, other than race and gender, but when aggregated might appear to show bias. Imagine that there is a company that is entirely fair and pays people solely based on their seniority at that company. Currently, that company only has employees of race/gender combination A, with various tenures. If a new employee of race/gender combination B joins the company, the employer will look as if they're underpaying race/gender combination B, even though race/gender combination A and B would be paid the same, given the same seniority. Because the aggregation discards useful information that would explain the disparity, it can induce in error. There are also other effects such as Simpson's paradox [0] that show disparity when data is aggregated, but has a different effect direction when analyzed in more detail. Reporting this information is an improvement over no reporting, but I'm not particularly optimistic that it will always be looked at with the proper statistical background to interpret it correctly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox

esperent 4y ago

> this will allow companies to blanket drop all salaries in the guise of "being fair." That's an argument for unions, not an argument against this law.

raxxorraxor 4y ago
No, it is an argument against bad policy. The law makes sure different ethnicities immediately become competitors. They are because the metric demands it. Hard for someone in public service to understand, I guess. Also an old trick of toxic middle management. How do you keep people below you from eating you alive? Treat some of them better than others. They will focus on conflicts among each other instead of holding you accountable. Wake me up when this increases the compensation of anyone.
jshzglr 4y ago
It definitely applies to this law. Would you want to be CEO of a company that has a public salary discrepancy between races, especially in this batshit political climate.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Maybe they could just raise the pay of all the employees with lower salaries. An extremely simple solution!!! This has the added benefit of improving the material conditions of all those employees too!
  - mrtweetyhack 4y ago
- esperent 4y ago
  Would you really want to be the CEO of a company that pays some people less because of their race or gender?
  - jfim 4y ago
    There are other reasons why people would be paid less, other than race and gender, but when aggregated might appear to show bias. Imagine that there is a company that is entirely fair and pays people solely based on their seniority at that company. Currently, that company only has employees of race/gender combination A, with various tenures. If a new employee of race/gender combination B joins the company, the employer will look as if they're underpaying race/gender combination B, even though race/gender combination A and B would be paid the same, given the same seniority. Because the aggregation discards useful information that would explain the disparity, it can induce in error. There are also other effects such as Simpson's paradox [0] that show disparity when data is aggregated, but has a different effect direction when analyzed in more detail. Reporting this information is an improvement over no reporting, but I'm not particularly optimistic that it will always be looked at with the proper statistical background to interpret it correctly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox