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Well I don't really care what you think or agree with and I'm quite happy to see Meta reprimanded. Since all you offered were your feelings, there isn't anythi

Well I don't really care what you think or agree with and I'm quite happy to see Meta reprimanded. Since all you offered were your feelings, there isn't anything of substance to follow up on beyond that.

inglor_cz 1y ago
Are the anti-discrimination laws based on anything else than feelings of their proponents with regard to what is wrong and what is right? If this sort of discrimination was economically ineffective, you would see the market itself slowly adjusting towards a more efficient equilibrium, even without explicit laws.
- vlovich123 1y ago
  Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it.
  - seneca 1y ago
    > Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it. It absolutely is in this case. The whole reason to target ads is to make the people who receive them more likely to engage with them. For instance, including men, elderly people, and children in the target demographic for a preschool teacher job advertisement would make that advertisement significantly less efficient, which is why it's not done. Forcing companies to disallow targeting of ads because some people are offended by the population's job preferences is absurd.
    - vlovich123 1y ago
      It took a long time for doctors to become more balanced despite it not necessarily being economically efficient. There’s inertia where people don’t like changing the status quo. I don’t know if solving the ad targeting changes anything given that the bias is on the advertiser side, but it could conceivably change the candidate pool that is being selected from.
      - inglor_cz 1y ago
        This is basically just a consequence of people being a long-lived species. The question is whether the side effects of artificially speeding up the process won't negate the original intent. Also, the very fundament may be wrong. The authors of anti-discrimination statutes seem to be awfully certain of things such as "men can take care of babies in nurseries equally well as women can". We do not know if this is, in fact, statistically true. It is more of an egalitarian article of faith.
        vlovich123 1y ago
        There was discrimination for very very long periods of times. For example, Jews weren’t allowed to hold many professions for a very long time in Europe. Black people in America were slaves and continue to feel the effects of discrimination today. It still exists in other cultures today. The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find. Economic efficiency takes advantage of societal changes and removal of discrimination. Not the other way around.
        inglor_cz 1y ago
        "The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find." We should distinguish between formal legal disabilities ("Jews are prohibited from X by law") from informal discrimination that is the target of modern anti-discrimination law ("Sean Murphy does not want to employ any goddamn Englishmen"). Emancipation has a reasonably good, though not perfect, record. Anti-discrimination is a much newer idea which is much less proven in practice, though for plenty of people, it sounds convincing on paper. If you look at the European Jews specifically, upon formal emancipation, they were able to establish themselves very quickly, both in business and the academia. In fact much of the subsequent 20th century anti-Semitism was borne out of jealousy of their success. You won't find many aftereffects of the long-lived Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese Internment Camps on the current well-being of Asian Americans either. As for women, they are now outnumbering men in higher education by a considerable margin and, in the young cohorts, outearn them. By the logic of affirmative actions, there should be one for men probably... It is true that not every group in the world was able to catch up once their shackles were released, but plenty of them actually were, and there was nothing magical about it. Notably, the one exceptional group that mostly didn't catch up - American blacks - seems to be struggling even with all sorts of formal crutches constructed with the intent to help them. For example, the diversity programs at Harvard et al. seem to be mostly exploited by recent immigrants from Africa instead of generational American blacks.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    "Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency" I don't think we know this, it is more of a fervent wish.
- standardUser 1y ago
  Anti-discrimination laws exist because of the exceptionally well-documented tendency of people in positions of power to judge people based on their gender, sexuality, creed or the color of their skin.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    I don't doubt that there are people who operate on a "well, I am a Muslim so I want Muslim employees" scheme or similar ones (woman, black, young), but I do believe that this should be covered by freedom of association. I do understand that you think otherwise, I have met many people who see things differently.
    - tokai 1y ago
      Freedom of association has nothing to do with companies and employers. You misunderstand what it is completely if you believe so.
      - inglor_cz 1y ago
        There is nothing to "misunderstand" here, this is not algebra but law, and law often erects artificial and arbitrary barriers in the middle of things, in order to further some specific interests or agenda. The closest analogy I can find is the concept that commercial speech deserves less protection than private speech. It is a matter of opinion and prevailing mores. In my opinion, becoming an employee is a voluntary decision (unlike, say, being drafted into a war), and should be treated the same as becoming a trade union member or a volunteer in a church organization.
- onraglanroad 1y ago
  They're based on the notion that gender discrimination is outdated. It's certainly a particular ideology but I think it's a worthwhile one. I don't judge things by economic effectiveness; slavery was economically effective at one time but it was still wrong.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    "I don't judge things by economic effectiveness;" Fair enough. I have seen attempts to justify anti-discrimination laws by very shaky economic research too often. A moral stand is, as you say, independent of the economic ramifications, but as far as "outdated" things go, they may come back to fashion again. Given the current wild political swings between the left and the right, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some Western countries abolished or watered down their anti-discrimination statutes in the next decade or so.

inglor_cz 1y ago

Are the anti-discrimination laws based on anything else than feelings of their proponents with regard to what is wrong and what is right? If this sort of discrimination was economically ineffective, you would see the market itself slowly adjusting towards a more efficient equilibrium, even without explicit laws.

vlovich123 1y ago
Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it.
- seneca 1y ago
  > Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it. It absolutely is in this case. The whole reason to target ads is to make the people who receive them more likely to engage with them. For instance, including men, elderly people, and children in the target demographic for a preschool teacher job advertisement would make that advertisement significantly less efficient, which is why it's not done. Forcing companies to disallow targeting of ads because some people are offended by the population's job preferences is absurd.
  - vlovich123 1y ago
    It took a long time for doctors to become more balanced despite it not necessarily being economically efficient. There’s inertia where people don’t like changing the status quo. I don’t know if solving the ad targeting changes anything given that the bias is on the advertiser side, but it could conceivably change the candidate pool that is being selected from.
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      This is basically just a consequence of people being a long-lived species. The question is whether the side effects of artificially speeding up the process won't negate the original intent. Also, the very fundament may be wrong. The authors of anti-discrimination statutes seem to be awfully certain of things such as "men can take care of babies in nurseries equally well as women can". We do not know if this is, in fact, statistically true. It is more of an egalitarian article of faith.
      - vlovich123 1y ago
        There was discrimination for very very long periods of times. For example, Jews weren’t allowed to hold many professions for a very long time in Europe. Black people in America were slaves and continue to feel the effects of discrimination today. It still exists in other cultures today. The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find. Economic efficiency takes advantage of societal changes and removal of discrimination. Not the other way around.
        inglor_cz 1y ago
        "The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find." We should distinguish between formal legal disabilities ("Jews are prohibited from X by law") from informal discrimination that is the target of modern anti-discrimination law ("Sean Murphy does not want to employ any goddamn Englishmen"). Emancipation has a reasonably good, though not perfect, record. Anti-discrimination is a much newer idea which is much less proven in practice, though for plenty of people, it sounds convincing on paper. If you look at the European Jews specifically, upon formal emancipation, they were able to establish themselves very quickly, both in business and the academia. In fact much of the subsequent 20th century anti-Semitism was borne out of jealousy of their success. You won't find many aftereffects of the long-lived Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese Internment Camps on the current well-being of Asian Americans either. As for women, they are now outnumbering men in higher education by a considerable margin and, in the young cohorts, outearn them. By the logic of affirmative actions, there should be one for men probably... It is true that not every group in the world was able to catch up once their shackles were released, but plenty of them actually were, and there was nothing magical about it. Notably, the one exceptional group that mostly didn't catch up - American blacks - seems to be struggling even with all sorts of formal crutches constructed with the intent to help them. For example, the diversity programs at Harvard et al. seem to be mostly exploited by recent immigrants from Africa instead of generational American blacks.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  "Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency" I don't think we know this, it is more of a fervent wish.
standardUser 1y ago
Anti-discrimination laws exist because of the exceptionally well-documented tendency of people in positions of power to judge people based on their gender, sexuality, creed or the color of their skin.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  I don't doubt that there are people who operate on a "well, I am a Muslim so I want Muslim employees" scheme or similar ones (woman, black, young), but I do believe that this should be covered by freedom of association. I do understand that you think otherwise, I have met many people who see things differently.
  - tokai 1y ago
    Freedom of association has nothing to do with companies and employers. You misunderstand what it is completely if you believe so.
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      There is nothing to "misunderstand" here, this is not algebra but law, and law often erects artificial and arbitrary barriers in the middle of things, in order to further some specific interests or agenda. The closest analogy I can find is the concept that commercial speech deserves less protection than private speech. It is a matter of opinion and prevailing mores. In my opinion, becoming an employee is a voluntary decision (unlike, say, being drafted into a war), and should be treated the same as becoming a trade union member or a volunteer in a church organization.
onraglanroad 1y ago
They're based on the notion that gender discrimination is outdated. It's certainly a particular ideology but I think it's a worthwhile one. I don't judge things by economic effectiveness; slavery was economically effective at one time but it was still wrong.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  "I don't judge things by economic effectiveness;" Fair enough. I have seen attempts to justify anti-discrimination laws by very shaky economic research too often. A moral stand is, as you say, independent of the economic ramifications, but as far as "outdated" things go, they may come back to fashion again. Given the current wild political swings between the left and the right, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some Western countries abolished or watered down their anti-discrimination statutes in the next decade or so.