6 ms·

Which of our business practices company policies are going to be discriminatory, detrimental, outdated, and headline worthy in 60 years? I realize IBM's policy

by mutagen 14y ago

Which of our business practices company policies are going to be discriminatory, detrimental, outdated, and headline worthy in 60 years? I realize IBM's policy had its roots in a post war era but even the memo 'temporarily' rescinding the policy reads wrong. Immigration policies? They're really a governmental issue that has become heavily politicized but they seem to me to be ripe for change. Intellectual property? Will there be progress made or will we still be arguing about copyright length, patent trolls, and trademark infringement? IP issues don't seem to be in the same category of basic human equality, though at times they reach that point (drug medication?) Universal healthcare? Work/Life balance?

pinko 14y ago
Parental leave, and childcare more generally. In a society with privatized child-rearing where increasingly both parents work, the childcare issues are just brutal. For parents and children.
- hermannj314 14y ago
  I personally struggle with the idea of offering benefits based on your family status. I realize this is not a protected class and probably isn't because it is a very common form of discrimination. People with children generally receive preferential treatment and additional benefits than their single/child-free coworkers. To me, the future should be free of workplaces offering parental leave and children benefits as it discriminates against those that 1) don't want children or 2) can't have them.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - meej 14y ago
    How do you feel about the idea of universal child care?
    - hermannj314 14y ago
      I figure as long as we have no major criticism with public school, we shouldn't have too much of a problem extending it all the way to the cradle.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    It's not "discrimination" any more than having bathrooms is discrimination against people who have a catheter and urine bag, having a company parking lot is discrimination against people who don't have cars, having retirements benefits are discrimination against people who drop dead at 64, or having birth control covered by insurance is discrimination against the forever alone. Under 20% of women are still childless by 40-44 (i.e. the practical end of their child-bearing years), and that number seems to have peaked. That means 80% of women (and presumably men assuming things are at least somewhat symmetric) will have children at some point. It's a basic biological function that is relevant to the large majority of the population at some point in their lives that society has unsurprisingly found a way to accommodate. Not to mention that having and raising children generates a large positive externality. You benefit in the present from the assumption that people will continue to have children in the future. E.g. investment into Silicon Valley is modulated on their being tons of 18-25 year olds to watch advertising 10, 20, 30 years from now. Raising an educating a future taxpayer is literally an investment in the country and in all the businesses that will still be around 10, 20, 30 years from now and need young workers.
    - zacharypinter 14y ago
      "... having a company parking lot is discrimination against people who don't have cars ..." Interesting comparison. It's not unusual for companies to offer a cash alternative for employees who don't use the company parking lot. Maybe child care will end up something like that. For example: providing a cash bonus or complementary gym membership if the employee doesn't make use of the company daycare program.
  - evilduck 14y ago
    And offering medical leave discriminates against the healthy people.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    Perhaps ideally it would be just a general sabbatical period. Those who have children can use that time to fill the traditional maternity/paternity time and those who cannot/will not have children can use that time to do whatever they please.
  - rmc 14y ago
    I realize this is not a protected class FYI, family & marital status is a "protected class" in the EU. (Though we don't use that 'protected class' terminology).
- PeterisP 14y ago
  This feels like something that (together with healthcare) should be decoupled from the employer as much as possible. It may be reasonable to handle childcare and healthcare individually with privatised services. It may be reasonable to have them handled centrally for almost everyone by the government, as in Scandinavia. But having to rely on your relations with employer for these issues is just begging to be abused, and often is - where the employees are sufficiently vulnerable, they get abused even more by this.
  - orangecat 14y ago
    Completely agreed. Mandating that employers pay parents not to work is hugely problematic; for starters, it creates an economically rational incentive to avoid hiring women of childbearing age. If society believes that having children and taking time off to raise them should be encouraged, then society should pay for it, not individual businesses.
    - henrikschroder 14y ago
      Meanwhile, in Sweden, parental leave is shared by both parents. Out of the 16 months total, each parent is guaranteed two months, and the couple can divide the remaining 12 months as they wish. Many still give the woman all of it, but there's a growing trend to split it equally. Among my peers - university educated upper middle class - everyone splits it equally. And, when parental leave is mostly split equally, you remove the basis for discrimination against women in this area.
      - rmc 14y ago
        By requiring that the male parent take part of the parental leave, it encourages men to get more involved with their children and family life and being a father. Which is a good thing IMO. (This is presuming there is exactly one man in the relationship, there could be 0, 1 or 2)
        yummyfajitas 14y ago
rmc 14y ago
Probably any company that supports "traditional marriage", ie excludes same sex couples.
bvcqw 14y ago
Profit sharing
- nfg 14y ago
  You think profit sharing will seem conceptually outrageous in the future? Or the opposite?
  - bvcqw 14y ago
    The lack of profit sharing will seem outrageous in the future :)
yesimahuman 14y ago
Discrimination based on employment status (for example, discriminating against people who aren't employed when applying for a new job). A few states have laws making it illegal already.
bcoates 14y ago
I suspect that CAPTCHA will be viewed as a symptom of a mindset of bigoted superstition, and treated with the same disdain as witch hunts and cargo cults.
- CaveTech 14y ago
  Comical statement, but CAPTCHA's were indeed created because of need (bots exist, and aren't make believe!).
  - Apocryphon 14y ago
    The only way CAPTCHA's will be considered bigoted is when the AI spammers use become sentient and take umbrage against being discriminated against for not being human.
_delirium 14y ago
Mandatory urine testing seems vaguely creepy/invasive already, at least outside a narrow range of machine-operator type jobs. If you're working as a clerk or programmer or something, imo a company should limit itself to judging whether your work product meets its criteria. If it doesn't, they can lay you off, and it hardly matters whether the reason is that you're a pothead, just lazy, bad at your job, actively trying to screw with the company, or some other reason. Delving into your bodily fluids to try to determine if you're a good employee is weird.
- intractable 14y ago
  > Mandatory urine testing I don't think these are the "IP issues" to which he was referring.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pitarou 14y ago
    You are shameless.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  Actually, drug testing is a good measure of impulsivity and distractibility. If a person cannot manage to pass a drug test, they lack self control and are likely to do things like bitch out customers and break expensive equipment. The self control aspect of drug tests are probably a pretty good proxy for IQ—ADHD is correlated with a substantial 10 point drop in IQ. You could just as well test for salt consumption as cocaine. The point is to check whether the applicant can hold their shit together for a few days for something as important as a job.
  - barrkel 14y ago
    Drug testing is also a good measure of how big-brotherish a company is, and whether it's worth working for. This swings both ways.
jaggederest 14y ago
In office workers vs remote workers - but I have a dog in that hunt.
columbo 14y ago
> Which of our business practices company policies are going to be discriminatory, detrimental, outdated, and headline worthy in 60 years? If the next 60 years are anything like the last 60 years then holy crap the changes will be huge. * outdated Offices. There will still be buildings in 60 years but office parks and sprawl in general will be gone. * detrimental 40+ hour work weeks, screens, sitting, just about any physical job today. I'd like to think with the increase of technology the number of actual hours people work will drop considerably * discriminatory - Requiring someone to physically appear or give any indication of race/gender/age during an interview. I could see this becoming the norm in 60 years where you interview people wearing suits like in a scanner darkly. - General acceptance of the gradient between gay and straight. * headline worthy "US Presidential candidates Toshiko Abe, Jennifer Summers, Linda Powell Jr and Frank Lancaster to debate the digital constructs of Douglas Adams, Anthony Burgess, Jon Stewart and Mr Rogers. Moderated by George Carlin's head in jar." ... gotta have hope!
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  >>detrimental 40+ hour work weeks, screens, sitting, just about any physical job today. I'd like to think with the increase of technology the number of actual hours people work will drop considerably This hasn't been the case in the past 60 years. What makes you think it will be the case in the next 60?
  - columbo 14y ago
    The trend over the last 100 years has been that as we increase our productivity we increase our wants. More stuff, more work. Bigger houses, more food, more cars, more stuff. I imagine this will start to flatline, and increasing demand isn't going to be sustainable enough to fully employ even half the workforce. I could be wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_in_working_hours http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_i...
- illuminate 14y ago
  "gotta have hope" Ehhhhh, I wouldn't hope for "digital recreations" based on someone's subjective impression of a person :p Some of the rest sounds nice, though!

by mutagen 14y ago

pinko 14y ago

Parental leave, and childcare more generally. In a society with privatized child-rearing where increasingly both parents work, the childcare issues are just brutal. For parents and children.

hermannj314 14y ago
I personally struggle with the idea of offering benefits based on your family status. I realize this is not a protected class and probably isn't because it is a very common form of discrimination. People with children generally receive preferential treatment and additional benefits than their single/child-free coworkers. To me, the future should be free of workplaces offering parental leave and children benefits as it discriminates against those that 1) don't want children or 2) can't have them.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- meej 14y ago
  How do you feel about the idea of universal child care?
  - hermannj314 14y ago
    I figure as long as we have no major criticism with public school, we shouldn't have too much of a problem extending it all the way to the cradle.
- rayiner 14y ago
  It's not "discrimination" any more than having bathrooms is discrimination against people who have a catheter and urine bag, having a company parking lot is discrimination against people who don't have cars, having retirements benefits are discrimination against people who drop dead at 64, or having birth control covered by insurance is discrimination against the forever alone. Under 20% of women are still childless by 40-44 (i.e. the practical end of their child-bearing years), and that number seems to have peaked. That means 80% of women (and presumably men assuming things are at least somewhat symmetric) will have children at some point. It's a basic biological function that is relevant to the large majority of the population at some point in their lives that society has unsurprisingly found a way to accommodate. Not to mention that having and raising children generates a large positive externality. You benefit in the present from the assumption that people will continue to have children in the future. E.g. investment into Silicon Valley is modulated on their being tons of 18-25 year olds to watch advertising 10, 20, 30 years from now. Raising an educating a future taxpayer is literally an investment in the country and in all the businesses that will still be around 10, 20, 30 years from now and need young workers.
  - zacharypinter 14y ago
    "... having a company parking lot is discrimination against people who don't have cars ..." Interesting comparison. It's not unusual for companies to offer a cash alternative for employees who don't use the company parking lot. Maybe child care will end up something like that. For example: providing a cash bonus or complementary gym membership if the employee doesn't make use of the company daycare program.
- evilduck 14y ago
  And offering medical leave discriminates against the healthy people.
- randomdata 14y ago
  Perhaps ideally it would be just a general sabbatical period. Those who have children can use that time to fill the traditional maternity/paternity time and those who cannot/will not have children can use that time to do whatever they please.
- rmc 14y ago
  I realize this is not a protected class FYI, family & marital status is a "protected class" in the EU. (Though we don't use that 'protected class' terminology).
PeterisP 14y ago
This feels like something that (together with healthcare) should be decoupled from the employer as much as possible. It may be reasonable to handle childcare and healthcare individually with privatised services. It may be reasonable to have them handled centrally for almost everyone by the government, as in Scandinavia. But having to rely on your relations with employer for these issues is just begging to be abused, and often is - where the employees are sufficiently vulnerable, they get abused even more by this.
- orangecat 14y ago
  Completely agreed. Mandating that employers pay parents not to work is hugely problematic; for starters, it creates an economically rational incentive to avoid hiring women of childbearing age. If society believes that having children and taking time off to raise them should be encouraged, then society should pay for it, not individual businesses.
  - henrikschroder 14y ago
    Meanwhile, in Sweden, parental leave is shared by both parents. Out of the 16 months total, each parent is guaranteed two months, and the couple can divide the remaining 12 months as they wish. Many still give the woman all of it, but there's a growing trend to split it equally. Among my peers - university educated upper middle class - everyone splits it equally. And, when parental leave is mostly split equally, you remove the basis for discrimination against women in this area.
    - rmc 14y ago
      By requiring that the male parent take part of the parental leave, it encourages men to get more involved with their children and family life and being a father. Which is a good thing IMO. (This is presuming there is exactly one man in the relationship, there could be 0, 1 or 2)
      - yummyfajitas 14y ago

rmc 14y ago

Probably any company that supports "traditional marriage", ie excludes same sex couples.

bvcqw 14y ago

Profit sharing

nfg 14y ago
You think profit sharing will seem conceptually outrageous in the future? Or the opposite?
- bvcqw 14y ago
  The lack of profit sharing will seem outrageous in the future :)

yesimahuman 14y ago

Discrimination based on employment status (for example, discriminating against people who aren't employed when applying for a new job). A few states have laws making it illegal already.

bcoates 14y ago

I suspect that CAPTCHA will be viewed as a symptom of a mindset of bigoted superstition, and treated with the same disdain as witch hunts and cargo cults.

CaveTech 14y ago
Comical statement, but CAPTCHA's were indeed created because of need (bots exist, and aren't make believe!).
- Apocryphon 14y ago
  The only way CAPTCHA's will be considered bigoted is when the AI spammers use become sentient and take umbrage against being discriminated against for not being human.

_delirium 14y ago

Mandatory urine testing seems vaguely creepy/invasive already, at least outside a narrow range of machine-operator type jobs. If you're working as a clerk or programmer or something, imo a company should limit itself to judging whether your work product meets its criteria. If it doesn't, they can lay you off, and it hardly matters whether the reason is that you're a pothead, just lazy, bad at your job, actively trying to screw with the company, or some other reason. Delving into your bodily fluids to try to determine if you're a good employee is weird.

intractable 14y ago
> Mandatory urine testing I don't think these are the "IP issues" to which he was referring.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Pitarou 14y ago
  You are shameless.
Daniel_Newby 14y ago
Actually, drug testing is a good measure of impulsivity and distractibility. If a person cannot manage to pass a drug test, they lack self control and are likely to do things like bitch out customers and break expensive equipment. The self control aspect of drug tests are probably a pretty good proxy for IQ—ADHD is correlated with a substantial 10 point drop in IQ. You could just as well test for salt consumption as cocaine. The point is to check whether the applicant can hold their shit together for a few days for something as important as a job.
- barrkel 14y ago
  Drug testing is also a good measure of how big-brotherish a company is, and whether it's worth working for. This swings both ways.

jaggederest 14y ago

In office workers vs remote workers - but I have a dog in that hunt.

columbo 14y ago

> Which of our business practices company policies are going to be discriminatory, detrimental, outdated, and headline worthy in 60 years? If the next 60 years are anything like the last 60 years then holy crap the changes will be huge. * outdated Offices. There will still be buildings in 60 years but office parks and sprawl in general will be gone. * detrimental 40+ hour work weeks, screens, sitting, just about any physical job today. I'd like to think with the increase of technology the number of actual hours people work will drop considerably * discriminatory - Requiring someone to physically appear or give any indication of race/gender/age during an interview. I could see this becoming the norm in 60 years where you interview people wearing suits like in a scanner darkly. - General acceptance of the gradient between gay and straight. * headline worthy "US Presidential candidates Toshiko Abe, Jennifer Summers, Linda Powell Jr and Frank Lancaster to debate the digital constructs of Douglas Adams, Anthony Burgess, Jon Stewart and Mr Rogers. Moderated by George Carlin's head in jar." ... gotta have hope!

enraged_camel 14y ago
>>detrimental 40+ hour work weeks, screens, sitting, just about any physical job today. I'd like to think with the increase of technology the number of actual hours people work will drop considerably This hasn't been the case in the past 60 years. What makes you think it will be the case in the next 60?
- columbo 14y ago
  The trend over the last 100 years has been that as we increase our productivity we increase our wants. More stuff, more work. Bigger houses, more food, more cars, more stuff. I imagine this will start to flatline, and increasing demand isn't going to be sustainable enough to fully employ even half the workforce. I could be wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_in_working_hours http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_i...
illuminate 14y ago
"gotta have hope" Ehhhhh, I wouldn't hope for "digital recreations" based on someone's subjective impression of a person :p Some of the rest sounds nice, though!