7 ms·

So discrimination against employees is okay if you don't like the employer?

RyanZAG 13y ago
Certainly, yes. Is it not ok to discriminate against someone who has joined a terrorist group and is actively helping them? Is an army medic not rightly discriminated against by the other side if the medic's side loses the war? Discrimination is bad when it's about 'who someone is', never when it's about 'what someone does'. Providing work and support in exchange for money is very much 'what someone does'.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  So from your two examples, discrimination on the basis of one's employer is okay if the employer is not recognized as legitimate by the state, taxes are not remitted, etc. How do you decide if it's okay or not to discriminate against employees when the employer in question is legal? You say it's never bad. How do you know that? Is it okay for the IRS to discriminate on the basis of one's employer? What about other arms of the government?
  - mcantelon 13y ago
    >How do you decide if it's okay or not to discriminate against employees when the employer in question is legal? What is legal and what is ethical are not necessarily the same thing, hence laws changing to make slavery illegal, etc. Ethical considerations often result in the changing of laws.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      So ethical things can be illegal, unethical things can be legal. Would discrimination against the employees of a legal employer in one's own state (country) ever be unethical?
      - mcantelon 13y ago
        >Would discrimination against the employees of a legal employer in one's own state (country) ever be unethical? Of course. Feel free to skip the leading questions and make whatever point you're working towards.
        rfnslyr 13y ago
        He needs to stop playing devils advocate. It's painfully obvious you are right. Why on earth would you want someone to leech information from a hacking convention to be used against those very same people? Fuck that. Ban whoever you need to ban.
        foobarbazqux 13y ago
        I'm trying to understand how your mind works, I'm not making a specific point or leading you in a certain direction. It doesn't help when you don't answer questions directly, it looks like you're trying to avoid answering them - this could have been less painful. For my part I could have been less obtuse and aggressive. I believe that discriminating against someone on the basis of their legal employment is unethical and you don't, so I'm trying to determine when it's okay and when it's not okay. What I've learned is that some people (including you) believe that sometimes it's okay to discriminate against people on the basis of their legal employment and sometimes it's not, and that it's up to whether the employment in question goes against your own personal ethical standards. I'm not condemning this discrimination, only noting that it goes against my own personal ethics. People need jobs to survive, and even Snowden spent more of his life as a bad guy than as a hero. I'm fine with discriminating against work, but not against workers. If you want to explore the issue in more depth, fine - maybe there are more nuances - but I understand if you're tired of it.
        deathcakes 13y ago
        In the case where you are able to make a choice about which job you take then yes you definitely should be held to account for that choice. Because it is a moral one. You had the choice of hacking for the good of people or you could join forces with 'The Man' and make a bunch of money. Maybe the choice isn't so binary, but nonetheless the choice is there. I could understand your statement, 'People need jobs to survive', if your profession was bricklayer, or shelf-stacker, but being a no doubt highly qualified individual in a booming field, as Snowden is, does not generally leave you scrambling to pay the rent and buy your groceries.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
Myrmornis 13y ago
I don't see how this can be in question, if the employees chose their employer freely. How can one seriously oppose a corporate entity if one may not oppose the people who comprise the corporate entity. "Corporations are people, my friend".
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  If employees choose their employers freely, what are interviews for?
  - rosser 13y ago
    If people choose their spouses freely, what is dating for?
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      Exactly?
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    Well, they are partly for helping you choose your employer. Job interviews are 2 sided and I personally take the attitude that any employer who thinks otherwise has failed the interview process and is therefore ineligible for the position of employing me.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      I like your choice of metasyntactic variables.
      - moocowduckquack 13y ago
        I bet you say that to all the boys.
  - Myrmornis 13y ago
    Any chance you could stop asking silly questions? The employees choose freely to apply for work there was (very obviously) what I meant.
dalke 13y ago
By "okay" do you mean "legal" or "ethical" or "moral"? In this case it looks to be completely legal. Regarding federal law, discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and a few other protected classes is illegal. Discrimination on the basis of other factors is generally acceptable, except where they collide with membership in the protected classes. (For example, a hacker conference cannot require that all participants have an uncovered head and demand observant Jews, Sikhs, etc. to take off their religious headgear, since there is no safety need for it.) Employment in a specific company is in general not a protected class. Some states have additional restrictions on which discriminatory practices are not okay. In California, the Unruh Civil Rights Act says: “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.” Most civil rights protections limit the prohibition to a list of discriminatory classes. The Unruh act is different because, quoting from the courts: “The Act expresses a state and national policy against discrimination on arbitrary grounds. Its provisions were intended as an active measure measure that would create and preserve a nondiscriminatory environment in California business establishments by ‘banishing’ or ‘eradicating’ arbitrary, invidious discrimination by such establishments.” For example an ACLU lawyer was found to be in violation of the Unruh Act because in a 1980 California public meeting on police surveillance practices, where the police chief was invited but declined to come, one of the police officers attended in civilian clothes, and never announced that he was an officer. The ACLU believed he was an undercover agent, and kicked him out. The officer sued, and the courts found that that was arbitrary discrimination. In any case, DefCon is in Nevada, which does not have a similar law. I don't know enough about California law to be able to say if this prohibition against Fed participation is arbitrary or not, were it to take place in California.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Well, so I mean ethical / moral (is there a distinction?) and the 1980 case involving the Unruh act is a legal embodiment of my own ethics / morals. Thanks for the details, that was enlightening.
charonn0 13y ago
I would say that any voluntarily acquired and freely renounceable attribute is a valid and ethical attribute by which to judge the character of, or discriminate against, another person. It may or may not be a good idea to do so, but the organizers of a private gathering may exclude whom they wish; the nature of ones employer is not an unethical standard for exclusion.

Certainly, yes. Is it not ok to discriminate against someone who has joined a terrorist group and is actively helping them? Is an army medic not rightly discriminated against by the other side if the medic's side loses the war? Discrimination is bad when it's about 'who someone is', never when it's about 'what someone does'. Providing work and support in exchange for money is very much 'what someone does'.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
So from your two examples, discrimination on the basis of one's employer is okay if the employer is not recognized as legitimate by the state, taxes are not remitted, etc. How do you decide if it's okay or not to discriminate against employees when the employer in question is legal? You say it's never bad. How do you know that? Is it okay for the IRS to discriminate on the basis of one's employer? What about other arms of the government?
- mcantelon 13y ago
  >How do you decide if it's okay or not to discriminate against employees when the employer in question is legal? What is legal and what is ethical are not necessarily the same thing, hence laws changing to make slavery illegal, etc. Ethical considerations often result in the changing of laws.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    So ethical things can be illegal, unethical things can be legal. Would discrimination against the employees of a legal employer in one's own state (country) ever be unethical?
    - mcantelon 13y ago
      >Would discrimination against the employees of a legal employer in one's own state (country) ever be unethical? Of course. Feel free to skip the leading questions and make whatever point you're working towards.
      - rfnslyr 13y ago
        He needs to stop playing devils advocate. It's painfully obvious you are right. Why on earth would you want someone to leech information from a hacking convention to be used against those very same people? Fuck that. Ban whoever you need to ban.
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        I'm trying to understand how your mind works, I'm not making a specific point or leading you in a certain direction. It doesn't help when you don't answer questions directly, it looks like you're trying to avoid answering them - this could have been less painful. For my part I could have been less obtuse and aggressive. I believe that discriminating against someone on the basis of their legal employment is unethical and you don't, so I'm trying to determine when it's okay and when it's not okay. What I've learned is that some people (including you) believe that sometimes it's okay to discriminate against people on the basis of their legal employment and sometimes it's not, and that it's up to whether the employment in question goes against your own personal ethical standards. I'm not condemning this discrimination, only noting that it goes against my own personal ethics. People need jobs to survive, and even Snowden spent more of his life as a bad guy than as a hero. I'm fine with discriminating against work, but not against workers. If you want to explore the issue in more depth, fine - maybe there are more nuances - but I understand if you're tired of it.
        deathcakes 13y ago
        In the case where you are able to make a choice about which job you take then yes you definitely should be held to account for that choice. Because it is a moral one. You had the choice of hacking for the good of people or you could join forces with 'The Man' and make a bunch of money. Maybe the choice isn't so binary, but nonetheless the choice is there. I could understand your statement, 'People need jobs to survive', if your profession was bricklayer, or shelf-stacker, but being a no doubt highly qualified individual in a booming field, as Snowden is, does not generally leave you scrambling to pay the rent and buy your groceries.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

Myrmornis 13y ago

I don't see how this can be in question, if the employees chose their employer freely. How can one seriously oppose a corporate entity if one may not oppose the people who comprise the corporate entity. "Corporations are people, my friend".

foobarbazqux 13y ago
If employees choose their employers freely, what are interviews for?
- rosser 13y ago
  If people choose their spouses freely, what is dating for?
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Exactly?
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Well, they are partly for helping you choose your employer. Job interviews are 2 sided and I personally take the attitude that any employer who thinks otherwise has failed the interview process and is therefore ineligible for the position of employing me.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    I like your choice of metasyntactic variables.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      I bet you say that to all the boys.
- Myrmornis 13y ago
  Any chance you could stop asking silly questions? The employees choose freely to apply for work there was (very obviously) what I meant.

dalke 13y ago

By "okay" do you mean "legal" or "ethical" or "moral"? In this case it looks to be completely legal. Regarding federal law, discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and a few other protected classes is illegal. Discrimination on the basis of other factors is generally acceptable, except where they collide with membership in the protected classes. (For example, a hacker conference cannot require that all participants have an uncovered head and demand observant Jews, Sikhs, etc. to take off their religious headgear, since there is no safety need for it.) Employment in a specific company is in general not a protected class. Some states have additional restrictions on which discriminatory practices are not okay. In California, the Unruh Civil Rights Act says: “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.” Most civil rights protections limit the prohibition to a list of discriminatory classes. The Unruh act is different because, quoting from the courts: “The Act expresses a state and national policy against discrimination on arbitrary grounds. Its provisions were intended as an active measure measure that would create and preserve a nondiscriminatory environment in California business establishments by ‘banishing’ or ‘eradicating’ arbitrary, invidious discrimination by such establishments.” For example an ACLU lawyer was found to be in violation of the Unruh Act because in a 1980 California public meeting on police surveillance practices, where the police chief was invited but declined to come, one of the police officers attended in civilian clothes, and never announced that he was an officer. The ACLU believed he was an undercover agent, and kicked him out. The officer sued, and the courts found that that was arbitrary discrimination. In any case, DefCon is in Nevada, which does not have a similar law. I don't know enough about California law to be able to say if this prohibition against Fed participation is arbitrary or not, were it to take place in California.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Well, so I mean ethical / moral (is there a distinction?) and the 1980 case involving the Unruh act is a legal embodiment of my own ethics / morals. Thanks for the details, that was enlightening.

charonn0 13y ago

I would say that any voluntarily acquired and freely renounceable attribute is a valid and ethical attribute by which to judge the character of, or discriminate against, another person. It may or may not be a good idea to do so, but the organizers of a private gathering may exclude whom they wish; the nature of ones employer is not an unethical standard for exclusion.