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"Ageism" itself is something of a strange concept. Often, what is described as discrimination just seems to be a sane collection of valid trends: - Older peop

"Ageism" itself is something of a strange concept. Often, what is described as discrimination just seems to be a sane collection of valid trends: - Older people are less willing to work longer hours. - Older people are more aware of their rights as an employee. - Older people may struggle to pick up new skillsets. While it would be bad to find myself unemployable due to these factors, I find it hard to argue that they're not generally true. Obviously these are trends, and not things which are always true. Some of them aren't even discrimination against older folks. eg; it's easier to take advantage of younger workers. That's more of an indictment of corporate culture than the older folks themselves. In other words, it's discriminatory hiring, but not discrimination against the group of people who are older. A common retort here is that an older person might not necessarily fall prey to these issues, even if they can be true in a general sense. I'm not sure what to do there. People don't seem to know what to think about stereotypes. Some stereotypes are true. Some stereotypes are bigoted falsehoods. Even if you're most interested in fairness, how can you know ahead of time whether you've encountered an outlier. Or, how can you know when your stereotype should not actually inform your decision? The social justice crowd provides no answers here: they claim that all stereotypes are as malicious as they are false, and this causes cognitive dissonance when you can tell for sure that some of them are true. Further, "Ageism" is one of the only isms which can turn back on itself eventually. If I'm racist against black people, there's no chance that I become black later in life and become the target of the ire I've helped foster. However if I discriminate against the older generation when I'm in my 20s, I will eventually become the older generation myself. It doesn't necessarily work out this way in practice, but I would think I'd want to make things _better_ for the older generation, even if that requires unfairness, as I will eventually become older and reap the benefits.

slg 3y ago
>Or, how can you know when your stereotype should not actually inform your decision? The social justice crowd provides no answers here: they claim that all stereotypes are as malicious as they are false, and this causes cognitive dissonance when you can tell for sure that some of them are true. Maybe just me, but if you are talking about enacting policies that negatively impact a protected group, I think the burden of proof should be on the people doing the discriminating rather than the group that says don't discriminate. Can you show that given two otherwise identical candidates, the older candidate would perform worse on the job? If not, then why are you so confident in these stereotypes?
- everdrive 3y ago
  For me personally? I would try not to discriminate, and just evaluate the individual's skillsets as they fit the job. I have a lot of confidence in my ability to do this, but I suspect that's sort of the point: there's a range of ability when it comes to assessing candidates, and generally speaking no one believes they're terrible at it; they believe they're doing a good job, and of course, many are not. WRT the "older candidate stereotype," I think that's a bit more of a grey area. Are people in their late 30s and 40s being passed over? There's not really any mental decline at those ages, and I would suspect that the other issues discussed (ie, we can pay a younger candidate less) are the true issue. For sure, mental decline is a real thing, but it varies quite a bit in people. If someone were in their 50s and 60s, I would definitely be alert to the possibility of decline and outdated skillsets, but I would also be attentive to the fact that this is not necessarily the case. Does this make me bigoted? I'm not sure, and I think this is where the grey area lies. It's certainly not unusual for someone in their 60s to have lost a step compared to when they were in their 30s. It's hard for me to imagine that the stereotype should carry _no_ weight in that case. The ideal would _always_ be to evaluate the person on an individual basis. And from a personal perspective, this is always what I would strive to do. (ie, I was talking about stereotypes in the general sense, not necessarily as they applied to me.) But people take mental shortcuts. Somewhere out there is a case where the 31 year old was the correct hire over the 62 year old, with age being one of the major factors. Is this stereotype overly-relied on? Is it just a stand-in for bad business practices? (ie, we can pay younger people less) I'm sure that's true sometime. Realistically, people will be making mental shortcuts as they navigate the world. There seems to be no escaping this as a general fact. People often misjudge me, but this is seldom due to any protected group status. The idea behind the "protected groups" is that there has been pernicious, malicious, and egregious negative judgement aimed at these individuals. I personally find that racism or sexism feel qualitatively different than something like ageism. The real trick, at least in my mind, seems to be to be able to see the individual in front of you rather than the group. It's just that there are two problems with this: - People are not always very good at seeing the individual rather than the group. - Seeing the individual rather than the group will not necessarily move representation numbers if stereotypes are based on fact. (as an easy example, there are not very many people in their 60s playing professional football. You don't need to be "bigoted" against older people to arrive at this scenario. You could arrive here with purely objective fitness tests.) And crucially, many people see "incorrect" representation numbers as proof of bigotry.
dfxm12 3y ago
That's more of an indictment of corporate culture Like you say, these are common issues that affect workers, regardless of age. It always boils down to some form of those to have vs those don't. Those who have fear a united front, in this case, the corporation fears a united workforce, so they will distract the employees by trying to get them to fight amongst themselves. "Oh you're younger colleagues accept less pay for more work, blame them, not me".
BadCookie 3y ago
I suspect that the ageism effect in tech looks more like this: Programmer A has 10 years of experience with $various_old_tech and only 1 year of experience with $hot_new_tech. (S)he has a target salary of $150k. Programmer B has 2.5 years of experience with $hot_new_tech and has a target salary of $120k. Which will the hiring manager choose? Keyword-driven recruitment suggests that they will pick programmer B *possibly even regardless of salary expectations*. At least, it's easy to conclude this if you take the "requirements" section of most job postings literally. But the most likely person to get the job is actually whichever programmer has acquaintances at the company that is hiring … which I am starting to view as a weak form of nepotism, with all of the criticism that word implies.
CharlesW 3y ago
A good way to test if you're ageist is to replace "older" with "black" or "female" and re-read what you wrote (assuming you're not racist or sexist).
- kagakuninja 3y ago
  I'm an older developer (60), and no longer have an amazing memory like when I was young. It absolutely slows me down and makes it harder to learn new things. That said, I am the top performer on my current team of younger devs, in part because of my depth of experience.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- everdrive 3y ago
  This would assume that racism is totally equivalent to ageism, and I just can't imagine a world where this is true. Generally speaking, cultures have revered the older generations. It's only the recent rapid innovations in technology which have reversed this ancient trend. And crucially, it's reversed it because accumulated wisdom is negatively impacted by an ever-changing landscape. (it's not rendered useless, of course.) On the other hand racism and sexism have been around since time immemorial. Dr. King himself did not believe it was possible to erase racism from the world completely, and I think he was wise to believe that. Ageism by contrast is a very different, and modern problem.
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    > This would assume that racism is totally equivalent to ageism… No, it just assumes that ageism, racism, and sexism are all forms of bigotry. > Ageism by contrast is a very different, and modern problem. Even though attitudes toward different age groups have varied across cultures and time periods, it's not "a modern problem". For example, the U.S.'s Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) became law in 1967, but ageism goes back centuries.
nitwit005 3y ago
> Older people are more aware of their rights as an employee. Love that you highlight that as a mark against them. > I'd want to make things _better_ for the older generation, even if that requires unfairness Making things better for the elderly requires being unfair to them. Sure.
- everdrive 3y ago
  I'm sorry this is the impression I gave. I'm discussing what I believe to be the general perception of people who do hiring. I wasn't representing what I believe is morally correct.
iamthepieman 3y ago
Ableism is another one that can turn back on you. You can get in an accident, go blind, get a debilitating illness etc. its also one where it's even more obvious that the person with the disability can't perform in the exact ways an abled person can. Blind developer requires special work environment, takes longer to have a screen reader read things to them etc. but we generally agree that we should not discriminate against disabled people as much as possible. Probably can't have a blind referee at a sports event or a wheelchair bound construction worker. But they can fill many other roles very well even if their bathroom breaks take 10 minutes longer or they can't do an over the shoulder debugging session at your desk. The real benefits of non-discriminatory practices is in diversity. Not HR sanctioned diversity but diversity of life as in nature. Monocultures of all types are fragile.
- everdrive 3y ago
  This is a great point, I hadn't considered ableism. All of us could fall prey to an accident, but of course still need to work.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thomastjeffery 3y ago
Prejudice harms everyone involved, including those who perpetrate it, and those whom a prejudice claims are naturally "better" than their peers. We grow as people by thinking critically about our prejudices. We become more accurate in our expectations, more empathetic in our interactions with others, and better equipped to think critically about other subjects. The benefits of accessibility are not limited to people with disabilities. A wheelchair ramp doesn't cease to be a ramp when someone walks on it. Disabilities aren't limited to where you expect them, either: most people get worse vision with age, but a significant number of younger adults have a vision disability.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
> Older people may struggle to pick up new skillsets. bologna, older people have seen the cycle enough times and have a nose for what to avoid. That's not the same as struggling to pick up new skillsets. I've tried my damndest to avoid react, yet I recently delivered a contract in it. Probably 8 hours of what I billed was learning react and redux and most of THAT was picking up how they were implementing it. The actual learning react/redux was probably under 2 hours.

slg 3y ago

>Or, how can you know when your stereotype should not actually inform your decision? The social justice crowd provides no answers here: they claim that all stereotypes are as malicious as they are false, and this causes cognitive dissonance when you can tell for sure that some of them are true. Maybe just me, but if you are talking about enacting policies that negatively impact a protected group, I think the burden of proof should be on the people doing the discriminating rather than the group that says don't discriminate. Can you show that given two otherwise identical candidates, the older candidate would perform worse on the job? If not, then why are you so confident in these stereotypes?

everdrive 3y ago
For me personally? I would try not to discriminate, and just evaluate the individual's skillsets as they fit the job. I have a lot of confidence in my ability to do this, but I suspect that's sort of the point: there's a range of ability when it comes to assessing candidates, and generally speaking no one believes they're terrible at it; they believe they're doing a good job, and of course, many are not. WRT the "older candidate stereotype," I think that's a bit more of a grey area. Are people in their late 30s and 40s being passed over? There's not really any mental decline at those ages, and I would suspect that the other issues discussed (ie, we can pay a younger candidate less) are the true issue. For sure, mental decline is a real thing, but it varies quite a bit in people. If someone were in their 50s and 60s, I would definitely be alert to the possibility of decline and outdated skillsets, but I would also be attentive to the fact that this is not necessarily the case. Does this make me bigoted? I'm not sure, and I think this is where the grey area lies. It's certainly not unusual for someone in their 60s to have lost a step compared to when they were in their 30s. It's hard for me to imagine that the stereotype should carry _no_ weight in that case. The ideal would _always_ be to evaluate the person on an individual basis. And from a personal perspective, this is always what I would strive to do. (ie, I was talking about stereotypes in the general sense, not necessarily as they applied to me.) But people take mental shortcuts. Somewhere out there is a case where the 31 year old was the correct hire over the 62 year old, with age being one of the major factors. Is this stereotype overly-relied on? Is it just a stand-in for bad business practices? (ie, we can pay younger people less) I'm sure that's true sometime. Realistically, people will be making mental shortcuts as they navigate the world. There seems to be no escaping this as a general fact. People often misjudge me, but this is seldom due to any protected group status. The idea behind the "protected groups" is that there has been pernicious, malicious, and egregious negative judgement aimed at these individuals. I personally find that racism or sexism feel qualitatively different than something like ageism. The real trick, at least in my mind, seems to be to be able to see the individual in front of you rather than the group. It's just that there are two problems with this: - People are not always very good at seeing the individual rather than the group. - Seeing the individual rather than the group will not necessarily move representation numbers if stereotypes are based on fact. (as an easy example, there are not very many people in their 60s playing professional football. You don't need to be "bigoted" against older people to arrive at this scenario. You could arrive here with purely objective fitness tests.) And crucially, many people see "incorrect" representation numbers as proof of bigotry.

dfxm12 3y ago

That's more of an indictment of corporate culture Like you say, these are common issues that affect workers, regardless of age. It always boils down to some form of those to have vs those don't. Those who have fear a united front, in this case, the corporation fears a united workforce, so they will distract the employees by trying to get them to fight amongst themselves. "Oh you're younger colleagues accept less pay for more work, blame them, not me".

BadCookie 3y ago

I suspect that the ageism effect in tech looks more like this: Programmer A has 10 years of experience with $various_old_tech and only 1 year of experience with $hot_new_tech. (S)he has a target salary of $150k. Programmer B has 2.5 years of experience with $hot_new_tech and has a target salary of $120k. Which will the hiring manager choose? Keyword-driven recruitment suggests that they will pick programmer B *possibly even regardless of salary expectations*. At least, it's easy to conclude this if you take the "requirements" section of most job postings literally. But the most likely person to get the job is actually whichever programmer has acquaintances at the company that is hiring … which I am starting to view as a weak form of nepotism, with all of the criticism that word implies.

CharlesW 3y ago

A good way to test if you're ageist is to replace "older" with "black" or "female" and re-read what you wrote (assuming you're not racist or sexist).

kagakuninja 3y ago
I'm an older developer (60), and no longer have an amazing memory like when I was young. It absolutely slows me down and makes it harder to learn new things. That said, I am the top performer on my current team of younger devs, in part because of my depth of experience.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
everdrive 3y ago
This would assume that racism is totally equivalent to ageism, and I just can't imagine a world where this is true. Generally speaking, cultures have revered the older generations. It's only the recent rapid innovations in technology which have reversed this ancient trend. And crucially, it's reversed it because accumulated wisdom is negatively impacted by an ever-changing landscape. (it's not rendered useless, of course.) On the other hand racism and sexism have been around since time immemorial. Dr. King himself did not believe it was possible to erase racism from the world completely, and I think he was wise to believe that. Ageism by contrast is a very different, and modern problem.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > This would assume that racism is totally equivalent to ageism… No, it just assumes that ageism, racism, and sexism are all forms of bigotry. > Ageism by contrast is a very different, and modern problem. Even though attitudes toward different age groups have varied across cultures and time periods, it's not "a modern problem". For example, the U.S.'s Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) became law in 1967, but ageism goes back centuries.

nitwit005 3y ago

> Older people are more aware of their rights as an employee. Love that you highlight that as a mark against them. > I'd want to make things _better_ for the older generation, even if that requires unfairness Making things better for the elderly requires being unfair to them. Sure.

everdrive 3y ago
I'm sorry this is the impression I gave. I'm discussing what I believe to be the general perception of people who do hiring. I wasn't representing what I believe is morally correct.

iamthepieman 3y ago

Ableism is another one that can turn back on you. You can get in an accident, go blind, get a debilitating illness etc. its also one where it's even more obvious that the person with the disability can't perform in the exact ways an abled person can. Blind developer requires special work environment, takes longer to have a screen reader read things to them etc. but we generally agree that we should not discriminate against disabled people as much as possible. Probably can't have a blind referee at a sports event or a wheelchair bound construction worker. But they can fill many other roles very well even if their bathroom breaks take 10 minutes longer or they can't do an over the shoulder debugging session at your desk. The real benefits of non-discriminatory practices is in diversity. Not HR sanctioned diversity but diversity of life as in nature. Monocultures of all types are fragile.

everdrive 3y ago
This is a great point, I hadn't considered ableism. All of us could fall prey to an accident, but of course still need to work.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

thomastjeffery 3y ago

Prejudice harms everyone involved, including those who perpetrate it, and those whom a prejudice claims are naturally "better" than their peers. We grow as people by thinking critically about our prejudices. We become more accurate in our expectations, more empathetic in our interactions with others, and better equipped to think critically about other subjects. The benefits of accessibility are not limited to people with disabilities. A wheelchair ramp doesn't cease to be a ramp when someone walks on it. Disabilities aren't limited to where you expect them, either: most people get worse vision with age, but a significant number of younger adults have a vision disability.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

> Older people may struggle to pick up new skillsets. bologna, older people have seen the cycle enough times and have a nose for what to avoid. That's not the same as struggling to pick up new skillsets. I've tried my damndest to avoid react, yet I recently delivered a contract in it. Probably 8 hours of what I billed was learning react and redux and most of THAT was picking up how they were implementing it. The actual learning react/redux was probably under 2 hours.