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Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by bsanr2 on Thursday April 16, 2020 @05:49AM (#22887719)
Statistically-speaking, this will disproportionately effect women and minorities (low performance reviews !necessarily= low performance when implicit bias is present, which again, statistically-speaking, it is). Certainly these times suck for everyone, but there go the careers of black, brown, and female millennials with yet another black mark on their CVs before they've hit their 40s.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by mardifoufs on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:45AM (#22888046)
I'm sorry but I (as a minority myself) genuinely feel a little bit insulted by your assumption that minorities score worst in performance test. There's no basis for that belief, a part from your personal biases and they are shockingly regressive even if well intentioned. Are you yourself a minority?
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by corneliusphi2 on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:50AM (#22888091)
I think they didn't mean tests but reviews, as in subconscious racism and sexism on the part of the reviewer
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by dougmwne on Thursday April 16, 2020 @07:15AM (#22888255)
I think they meant manager and peer evaluation, not standardized aptitude testing. Though on that note, I know someone who creates those standardized employment apptitude tests and checking the test for minority group biases is part of their validation, I believe so the company has something to point to if they need to defend the test later. It's apparently easy to start measuing things other than apptitude and veer into cultural or economic influences.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by bsanr2 on Thursday April 16, 2020 @11:53AM (#22890652)
I included the parenthetical to make it clear that what you're asserting was not my intended meaning.

I am a gay black man.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by mardifoufs on Thursday April 16, 2020 @12:34PM (#22891072)
Okay thanks for the clarification, but still if anything I find the tech sector to be one of the industry with the least amount of racial prejudice even in promotions. I totally understand that personal experiences can be different and are still valid, but I think the data tells us that there isn't any widespread systemic racism in tech. The proportion of people of color in C level exec/higher management levels is huge and the efforts made to increase diversity have been intense. I just don't see how that could happen if lower performance reviews were generally biased against us.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by bsanr2 on Thursday April 16, 2020 @04:28PM (#22893192)
That is inaccurate to the point of straining good faith.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by wing-_-nuts on Thursday April 16, 2020 @05:44PM (#22893886)
His point is accurate if you include asians as a minority group. I suspect you're talking specifically about black people.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by dragonwriter on Thursday April 16, 2020 @05:52PM (#22893945)
> His point is accurate if you include asians as a minority group.

No, it's not. Even if they were favored, one racial minority group being favored and others being disfavored doesn't balance out to “no racism”, it's even more racism than the latter being disfavored alone. And even if there is no evidence of racism in either direction affecting Asians, that doesn't negate racism affecting other groups.

At best it might be accurate of you only look at Asians.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by mardifoufs on Thursday April 16, 2020 @10:19PM (#22895625)
What about the much higher numbers of indians (especially in C level executive positions) in tech? Or Arabs? Transgenders? Neurodivergents? Iranians? Muslims?

What's the line here? At what point would tech not be racist? I really don't see your point here. There is a lot of evidence pointing to a really diverse, generally progressive industry with, if anything, a higher over representation (compared to the population) of multiple minority groups, different gender identities and a much more inclusivity conscious mindset than probably any other industry. We have no data that really points to the opposite conclusion. Again, at what point would you not say that those are all exceptions?

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by dragonwriter on Friday April 17, 2020 @12:57AM (#22896331)
> What about the much higher numbers of indians (especially in C level executive positions) in tech? Or Arabs?

What about them? (Mostly, what both of those show is what the structure of the immigration system favors for nationalities where there aren't lots of people who are eligible for family-based immigration.)

> Transgenders?

Mostly reflects that people of higher socioeconomic status and in social environments concentrated on particular geographic locations are more likely to primed to accept.(or, viewed another way, less strongly conditioned to deny) transgender identity, and that both of those correlate with onramps to the tech field. Not that that is germane in any way to racism since gender identity isn't a race/ethnicity.

> Neurodivergents?

Also aren't a race/ethnicity and so aren't germane.

> Iranians?

See above notes about Indians and Arabs.

> Muslims?

Aren't a race, but also see above notes about Arabs and Iranians (which apply to lots of other places where Muslim immigrants come from.)

> At what point would tech not be racist?

I never said tech was racist, I said that “some races are overrepresented” isn't counterevidence to racism but, absent evidence for some other explanation for the overrepresentation, supporting evidence.

But, that aside, obviously, at the point where no one was systematically disadvantaged in the field on the basis of their race.

> There is a lot of evidence pointing to a really diverse, generally progressive industry

No, there's not. There's a lot of evidence of an industry drawing principally from a narrow domestic racial and class pool, that on non-racial/class grounds overrepresents groups overrepresented in that pool, and which in addition to that domestic pool overepresents immigrants to the US on non-family bases because being in the industry is itself highly advantageous to employment-based entry into the US.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by bsanr2 on Friday April 17, 2020 @09:56PM (#22904701)
The absence of certain types of bias does not preclude nor excuse the existence of other types.

>There is a lot of evidence pointing to a really diverse, generally progressive industry with, if anything, a higher over representation (compared to the population) of multiple minority groups, different gender identities and a much more inclusivity conscious mindset than probably any other industry.

That is not true. Retail, labor, non-tech administration are good examples to the contrary. The difference in pay and prestige is telling.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by camgunz on Thursday April 16, 2020 @11:46PM (#22896016)
> At what point would tech not be racist?

When it's demographically representative.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by JBSay on Friday April 17, 2020 @03:39AM (#22897008)
Does your circle of friends exactly match the general population demographics? No? You're a racist!

See how absurd your expectations are?

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by camgunz on Friday April 17, 2020 @10:38AM (#22899321)
While that's a false comparison (there aren't lots of people trying to support their families by becoming my friend), bubbles are very real. Communities tend to be racially segregated and that leads to prejudice and discrimination.

Please be a little more receptive to stuff like this. Racism and sexism are social ills that affect the majority of people. It's worth your time to having a passing understanding of the major concepts.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by raghava on Thursday April 16, 2020 @07:28AM (#22888322)
This is also the time that th underprivileged would get exploited more.

Work permit/visa holders will see an increase in workload (with a "work-more-or-eff-off" note, along with possibly a paycut too) Even pay negotiations on open offers, making it seem generous tha offer doesn't get cancelled.

Personally know a couple of friends who are in the US (with H1Bs awaitng transfer/extensions) facing this particular situation now.

Hiring is fucked. Tech hiring and ex\mployment more so.

Seems every employer treats employees as though the wage slaves are just so, or just above hamsters on wheels doing tricks.

Depressing, to say the least! :(

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by gofreddygo on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:03PM (#22894021)
throwaway account for obvious reasons.

Work permit workers (H1, OPT and L1-B in increasing order) are the worst exploited and least privileged sub group of the entire tech workforce.

Be it an upcoming economy with a flood of opportunities like we saw for the past 7 years or a downturn, like the one we are witnessing now, visa workers will be exploited no matter what.

They are not cheaper than non visa-dependent hires, but they are abundant, easy to hire, easy to fire, easy to replace, incredibly easy to bully, pressurize and basically exploit. The only barrier to total exploitation is the manager's own conscience and values. And we all know, values are easily compromised when it can help the bottom line.

Working on a visa in USA is fucked.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by me_me_me on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:10AM (#22887838)
Having not worked in USA, I always wonder how valid such comments are.

Never really felt such thing being anything but odd ball case in Europe.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by rusticpenn on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:55AM (#22888134)
Depends on where you work in Europe. There is definetly a glass cieling for minorities in companies like VW.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by me_me_me on Thursday April 16, 2020 @10:49AM (#22889921)
I am not sure if it glass ceiling exists for minorities or simply for people who are not 'playing the game' or not fully participate in it.
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by fooker on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:38AM (#22887998)
When you claim to be speaking statistically, shouldn't you also cite some statistics?
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by bsanr2 on Thursday April 16, 2020 @11:59AM (#22890710)
It's generally a well-known phenomenon, but here:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/success/layoffs-women-minorit...

https://hbr.org/2019/01/why-most-performance-evaluations-are...

Links to the research cited are in the articles, which provide a basic overview.

Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by nunez on Thursday April 16, 2020 @05:34PM (#22893814)
yikes.
[dead]
Re:Ask HN: Who Is Firing? by tomhoward on Friday April 17, 2020 @08:50AM (#22898525)
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html