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There's an implication here that 7% of the tech workforce being Black is an obvious indication of disparate treatment. Taking programmers as an example, the cla
by 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
There's an implication here that 7% of the tech workforce being Black is an obvious indication of disparate treatment. Taking programmers as an example, the claim is that the industry is actively discriminating against Black workers for a 1:2 ratio, while at the same time fetishizing Asian employees by having them over-represented 4:1. Whites are also underrepresented. Is anybody investigating that?
I'd be perfectly happy to support their cause if they provided evidence of discrimination to back their claims, but these accusations come off as sensationalist, statistically innumerate and lazy.
Some U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers for reference: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm
- jasonjei 4y agoOn the flip side, aren’t Asians underrepresented in the NBA?
- teej 4y agoA professional sports organization that employs ~500 players total is irrelevant to corporate hiring practices.
- ergocoder 4y agoWhy not? An organization/team of 500 people should be expected to be diverse, especially in a desirable career path.
- ericmay 4y agoBecause the implication here is that the reason that diversity metrics are what they are is because of innate genetic talent for working at tech company which is nonsense. Relating that to the NBA wouldn’t make sense whatsoever.
- ohCh6zos 4y agoWhy would exclusive spots for top tier talent in an industry not include a genetic component when exclusive spots for top tier talent in a sport clearly does?
- boppo1 4y agoBecause we all know that human intelligence is practically undetermined by genetic factors vs social and economic factors.
- ohCh6zos 4y agoStudies done with adopted children appear to show that slightly less than 50% of intelligence is heritable[1]. That means that a good deal of it isn't, but to say practically undetermined seems like an exaggeration? [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289621000635 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
- ohCh6zos 4y agoI'm replying to myself because re-reading this comment is sounds a little callus. While I am implying that we can't say for sure what fair looks like given human variation, we also can't say that the current distribution is fair the way basketball appears to be.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoImplying physical attributes are genetically linked but brain/intelligence attributes are definitely not.
- ericmay 4y agoWhat I'm implying is that the magnitude of the variations have less of an impact in the tech industry than they do in the NBA.
- deleted 4y ago
- Ztynovovk 4y ago[dead]
- makeitdouble 4y agoIf you really push this through that’s a valid point. What makes it so that Asians are underrepresented, and would the games be more interesting if these causes were addressed ?
- chongli 4y agoI thought this would be obvious. Look at the representation of Asians in STEM programs versus athletic programs. There’s the stereotype that Asian parents are hyper-focused on their kids’ academics (tiger mom) and not on athletics but just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it’s false.
- spoiler 4y ago> but just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it’s false. I always thought stereotypes arise because they're commonly observed behaviours within a social group?
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoStereotypes don't form out of the ether. We don't have preconceptions about the Inuit being incredible basketball players because there's no reason why we would think that.
- makeitdouble 4y agoThe main issue is the longevity of stereotypes vs how fast reality evolves. Many inuits left their land and moved to cities. A second generation inuit living in Toronto has no reason to be better or worse than anyone else at basketball.
- root_axis 4y agoNot just the NBA, they're underrepresented in every major U.S. sports league.
- bentobean 4y agoSo are the deaf, the blind, and the height impaired.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoAre not African Americans under represented in ping pong?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Macha 4y agoWe occasionally get US HR people come over here, talking to a team of 4-10 people, point out there's no black people in it and use that as an example of the lack of diversity. The problem is that black people are ~1% of local population, so a team without black people is much less surprising than in the US or London.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoBecause they don't understand the Bayes theorem.
- MacsHeadroom 4y ago>The problem is that black people are ~1% of local population, so a team without black people is much less surprising than in the US or London. College educated San Franciscans are close to ~1% black as well.
- tkgally 4y agoWhere is “over here”?
- woooooo 4y agoGotta hand it to the article author, though, the article practically writes itself and is guaranteed high engagement via hate-reading.
- Dalewyn 4y agoSo journalism in a nutshell?
- Throwaway218902 4y agoI think that the focus on "percentage of workforce" as a proxy for "amount of discrimination" is a bad idea. Frankly, I don't know how discrimination in the workplace ought to be measured. I know that every single woman I know that works in tech has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. At a company where I worked, male employees started telling female employees that they shouldn't be wearing pants to work and should be instead be wearing dresses and skirts. Certainly, these experiences are anecdotal, but I've seen enough anecdotes personally (in addition to reading articles about discrimination at Uber and Blizzard) to suggest that discrimination is a non-negligible problem. I'd definitely be in favor of accurately measuring discrimination since, at the moment, all I know is that it happens to _some_ people, but I have no clue how big that group is. I doubt that tech companies have any motivation to actually try to measure this accurately. A lot of the "pro-diversity" actions that tech companies have taken seem to be aimed to placate (sometimes misguided) employees worried about diversity issues, rather than trying to actually solve any actual problems.
- boppo1 4y agoHow do you accurately measure discrimination?
- paulryanrogers 4y agoAt large enough companies the aggregate ratios give a rough picture. One could also compare discrimination complaint rates to ratio of protected classes.
- boppo1 4y ago>At large enough companies the aggregate ratios give a rough picture. Could we apply this to entire fields? Does the fact that nursing is 84% female roughly indicate discrimination against men in the profession?
- paulryanrogers 4y agoWorth investigating
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]