Exactly. That's what the parent comment is saying. But they are thinking about the entire funnel, not just the end of it. By the time a slate of candidates reaches a company's hiring process, there has already been an immense selection bias against minority candidates.
Two people growing up in different places (not different cities, but different neighborhoods within the same city) have lived in completely different worlds. Their schools are different; their health care is different; their safety is different; their opportunities are different; the people they know are different. And much of the time there's a stark racial difference in the makeup of those places. Historically this was very much intentional; but even if it were no longer intentional, the effects won't dissipate for a long time.
So when you get a slate of candidates that all happen to be white, it's not just a random coincidence. Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right?
Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate. But that's not going to happen any time soon. So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out. In other words, candidates that are strong, but, say, don't know anyone that works at microsoft (no surprise there... two worlds) or perhaps don't think they're good enough.
The article points to a rising black employee population has some kind of evidence of injustice, but, if the company works harder to find qualified black candidates then obviously the percentage would rise. Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does) then improving a hiring process would result in an employee population that more closely matches the demographics of the population at large.
But at the end of the day, it's still evil racism.
Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty.
So if you apply a racist filter on top of the (implicit) wealth filter, you're just being racist against poor Asian & white people.
This is false. But let me charitably engage your argument and ask you the following -- if your premise is correct, that means that lower access to education and economic attainment among under represented people of color has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with...something. What is that thing? Why would it be the case that, as Philosopher Liam Bright says, "the people who have the stuff still tend to be white, and blacks must still sell our labour to them if we are to get by"?
No.
So it's not about race. (I just gave you proof.)
It's about wealth and social class. Sure, those might correlate with race, and even be caused by racism (past or present), but virtually all real world consequences are downstream of wealth (in particular the ones mentioned: where you live, what you can afford, the amount of free time you have, your health, your nutrition, access to education/jobs, ...).
If you ignore wealth and focus on race, you're racist.
But you're not arguing that we give opportunities to people without good access to education and poor finances. You're arguing we give opportunity based off race. In fact, there are far more white people in the US with poor access to education. If you really wanted to increase opportunities for such people you wouldn't accomplish it by judging by race.
More total or more per-capita?
The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against (Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). The main difference seems to be cultural values that prioritize the nuclear family and educational attainment. The SAT isn't racist, poor black people who study do far better than rich white people who don't.
If America was so racist, the single most successful ethnic minority wouldn't be Nigerians. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with.
Do you have a source for this? Not for debate, I'm genuinely wondering where the information comes from. From time to time I've heard things about people from Nigeria being hardworking - haven't looked into it very deep though.
FWIW and from anecdotal accounts of acquaintances of mine (not a lot but in the double digits), this comes down to a cultural focus on education and family structure from a young age. Compare to the culture and family values promulgated elsewhere.
This might actually be the best plausible argument in favor of affirmative action and D&I policies targeted towards these folks. By making it easier for them to enter especially high-skilled industry sectors such as tech we strengthen their incentive for adopting more effective cultural norms, which has significant benefits in the longer run.
(Unfortunately, this won't do any good if the educational system as a whole is not up to reasonable standards - if you're uneducated, you're still practically barred from the most productive and lucrative careers. And U.S. K-12 public education sucks.)
Wasn't there a Harvard study that concluded the biggest factor was a 2 parent household?
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/new-harvard-study-w... (Slate: What’s the most important factor blocking social mobility? Single parents, suggests a new study.)
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/129/4/1553/1853754 ("Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States")
Oh that's right... racism.
What is their average household income?
What countries in Africa do most of them come from?
Where do I read more about this?
Wealth, Poverty, and Poltics reads like a textbook, but provides a wealth of information about causes of disparity that have nothing to do with racism. Similarly, conquest and cultures talks a lot about disparate impact throughout history.
One of the foundational tenets of CRT is that all racial disparity is caused by systemic racism, and, therefore, that all racial disparity must be addressed by systemic change until there are equal outcomes. This idea is fundamentally wrong on a billion levels, and also insanely harmful to society. It is one of the main reasons, if not the primary reason, why CRT is so wrong and so dangerous. When you diagnose the illness so completely wrong, and then diagnose the cause of the alleged illness so completely wrong, then, your prognosis is not only going to fail to improve anything, it's going to make things worse for everyone!
Edit: according to this study, there is no race achievement gap—it is entirely accounted for by poverty
https://edsource.org/2019/poverty-levels-in-schools-key-dete...
These things aren't mutually exclusive, stop trying to project them as such.
Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US. If we are trying to give opportunity to impoverished people we would judge by poverty. If we want to live in a racist society then we would judge by race.
Where are you people getting these stats? This is being repeated elsewhere and is not based in reality at all.
You may be thinking of poverty rates or proportional percentages if you think the above is untrue. The data is there for you to manipulate for your purposes as you wish, though.
True: There are more white people in poverty (~5.5% of population) than black people [in poverty (~2.5%)] in the US.
False: There are more white people in poverty (~5.5%) than black people [in or out of poverty (~13.6%)] in the US.
But it also shouldn't be surprising. There are almost 6x as many white people in the US as black people. Poverty rates amongst white people is about half of black people. Do the math.
You've given the exact reason why your statement is a completely useless red herring. Say there was a minority in the U.S., the Romulans. Let's say literally every single Romulan in the U.S. was impoverished due to hundreds of years of systemic, intentional racism. But there's only, say, 500,000 of them. Half a million.
Your argument is "we shouldn't give more opportunities to the Romulans to counteract the very obvious and intentional systemic racism that put them in the shitty position they're in, because way more white people are in that shitty position. We should only focus on poverty, so that we help 36 white people for every 1 Romulan helped. Even though the Romulans are impoverished because of intentional, systemic racism. Even though their towns were literally bombed if they dared get too successful. Nope, we have to help 36 white people each time we help 1 Romulan." Do you see why that sounds racist?
Your first inclination when someone ask for the source of the statistic you cite is to ask why it's important?
Do you expect anyone to take your argument seriously after doing that?
Asians sure, but I would think diversity programs generally try to include them too.
Discriminating against a group of human beings for an arbitrary detail such as the color of the skin is indeed racist. No matter if that human being is a freaking north-europe-blonde-arian-white or whatever. No matter if that human being is or not opressed or whatever. Judging people by the color of the skin is WRONG. This ideological bullshit that US is expelling that pretends to normalice racism against white people is atrocious and must end and everyone, like you, that follows this line of thought must be called out and being exposed as what you are, which is being a fucking racist.
Seriously, it is beyond me.
How uncharitable. I never said either racism was bad, just that one has less weight behind it.
> Also, stop assuming that the whole world has the same historical context as the US.
This is a thread about a US based company so assuming the historical context of the US matters is fair.
Also anti-black racism exists across the world.
> This is a thread about a US based company so assuming the historical context of the US matters is fair.
I was talking in general terms given that I've encountered this US ideological racist garbage in many places at this point.
> Also anti-black racism exists across the world.
Not at least where I'm originally from (Africa).
I cannot get my head around any of these arguments other than pure and simple indoctrination. As soon as you apply basic common sensical logical reasoning to it, you see how outrageous and ridiculous is.
The whole "prejudice + power" thing is a late social studies invention. Which is fine - different fields of study often have their own terminology, including using words in ways that do not directly match their regular meaning. What's not fine is people from those fields of study lecturing everyone else on how we're supposedly using it wrong. It's like biologists going around randomly yelling at people that tomatoes aren't vegetables whenever the subject comes up... except biologists don't do that.
Of course you can. And it's really easy, too. You simply discriminate against their race (or, as you have described, their skin color).
In case you haven't figured it out by now, if a human being can be lumped into a race, then racism can be levelled towards that person. That's literally baked into the meaning of the word racism.
Tell me you do not know the history of the USA. I’m a fucking Canuck and even I know that post-war housing support for the returning troops was starkly racist, that lenders were blatantly racist in their policies, that every fucking aspect of the #1 way to establish future generational prosperity - owning a house in a nice neighbourhood - was stacked against blacks.
The poverty exists On. Fucking. Purpose. It is racism that has created impoverished black neighbourhoods in America.
FFS, Black Wall Street was bombed by White America because racism prevents black people from getting ahead.
My god.
So mind your own “fucking” business, hoser. You think your country has none of its own problems to solve?
I would have banned the two of you, but I don't want to ban you without a warning and I'm not going to let you off the hook while banning the other person, so I'm going to let you both off the hook. However, please don't ever vandalize HN like this again.
You can't vandalize HN like this, no matter how right you are or feel you are. And you've done it elsewhere recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33148354. That's not ok.
I actually banned you just now, but decided to undo it because the other user was also way over the line. If you don't want to be banned on HN, please respect the rules from now on.
The top comment doesn't care about that at all, skin color is all that matters. It's about group identity, not differences in backgrounds. They'd give Obama's daughter "a foot in the door" over the daughter of some white hillbillies that is the first in her family to finish high school. Because obviously: group identity is paramount.
I agree, it is incoherent for people to say that certain racial groups being over-represented doesn't mean the system isn't fair, but blacks suddenly being hired is evidence the system isn't fair.
>So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel
With racism... and honestly this entire process is annoyingly indirect... just apply a racial quota and don't BS me.
> Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate.
People sure are obsessed with this narrative that affirmative action is all about preventing too many whites from getting jobs. This isn't the 60s, most of the people who are getting the bump are asian not white and it's not even close. This narrative doesn't work because it's nearly impossible to explain how asians ended up in the span of around a century ended up way behind whites and getting discriminated against to shooting past them in income.
> Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does)
If you claim that people can get worse healthcare, worse schools, worse safety, worse opportunities, and know less connected people and still think they perform equally at a job? Well you actually are still predicting performance, you're predicting that certain groups are stoic supermen. Whereas other groups are a bunch of losers who couldn't even be better at their job despite growing up with every advantage in the world. So not only have you not gotten away from predicting performance based on skin colour, now you're also predicting privilege based on skin colour, so you've doubled your race based assumptions.
Personally I'm just so done with the racist theories and the mental gymnastics people play around this data. If people want to reserve jobs for people of different identity groups, fine, lets do it for the sake of racial harmony so we can all sing songs together holding hands interracially in a circle.
Incorrect, for these aren't the same thing: one has existed for a long time and the other is a sudden change. The latter begs an explanation, and it's there: deliberate management manipulation of the candidate pool. It's therefore understandable that co-workers will see such hires/promotions as based in part on factors beyond performance.
In which direction was the manipulation? How do you prove that the pool manipulation was neutral before and is now favouring blacks, rather than it was disadvantaging blacks and has now moved to a more neutral postion?
"has existed for a long time" is just an appeal to tradition. It says nothing about the validity or correctness of the previous situation.
Anonymize the applicants. You can determine what a neutral pool is by removing the ability to discriminate between applicants of different race, gender, etc.
Maybe, maybe not. In either case, two wrongs don't make a right. If you want to eliminate discrimination then you need to stop discriminating. The solution is not to counter-discriminate, it's to remove the discrimination further up the funnel, to use your analogy.
Why would that be odd? It does happen in sport, and nobody cares (nor should they).
> So a good thing to do is apply some pressure
Why is it good? Author talks about not being able to hire for several months due to lack of DIE candidates in the pipeline.
Of course a giant like Microsoft can afford to waste resources, but for a lot of startups doubling down on DIE means to literally die.
In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%.
Why would that be odd? You just quoted the author as saying they looked for months to find non-white candidates and failed. Do you work in tech? That's the norm. If someone tried to hire for a tech position and got a slate of entirely non-white candidates, that would be entirely remarkable.
> Why is it good?
It's good because if your hiring funnel doesn't represent the general population then it is biased and therefore sub-optimal. It's good because we enslaved a population for generations and then tried as hard as possible to keep them out of the middle class, and I think that's a bad thing.
So 0.1% of engineers in the funnel should be Amish and 18% should be younger than 14.
There might be a flaw in your logic.
Jokes aside, this is maliciously reductive. There's too many factors contributing to the funnel (location, sourcing channels, employer, job preference, hiring market state) that makes predictions about funnel virtually impossible. But you already know it. You're not here for the truth, you're here to push your ideology.
> It's good because we enslaved a population for generations
My ancestors were thousands of miles away from US territory when slavery happened. In fact, it is quite likely they were slaves themselves. And yet you're saying I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes just because of my skin color.
That sounds quite racist to me. Luckily, my skin is not only white, it's also thick.
> I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes
Whose crimes, the person you're replying to? Do you believe in some sort of original sin handed down by your ancestors? Your blood is pure because your ancestors were victims, but GP's blood is tainted because their ancestors were slave owners? You're making some seriously insane judgements based on a person's ancestry.
And who's paying any price anyway? Hiring from a limited pool of candidates is sub-optimal. What price are you even talking about?
So when a white person gets a high-paying job, it's because of history of slavery. If a black person gets a high-paying job, it's because they worked hard. Did I get that right?
No wonder Trump got elected when this is the agenda.
> You don't get to ignore the history that has led to the life you currently live just because Genghis Khan burned down your (great)^30th ancestor's village. It has nothing to do with that.
So Genghis Khan has nothing to do with that. But slavery has everything to do with that. Is there a threshold I'm not aware of? How far in the past we have to look at to be able to claim "event X led to event Y".
Lots of Jews ended up in US during World War 2, and now their grandkids are doing quite well. Should they be thanking Hitler because he is the "history that has led to the life they currently live"?
> Do you believe in some sort of original sin handed down by your ancestors?
Obviously I don't, but that's what this person implied.
> You're making some seriously insane judgements based on a person's ancestry.
When I speak your language, I sound insane. Good.
> Hiring from a limited pool of candidates is sub-optimal
To me "optimal" is the minimum amount of effort that leads to maximum results. E.g. if you get enough resumes by posting a job on your website you don't need to put extra effort to find more candidates. I'm curious to hear what's your definition. I suspect it requires augmenting math with morals.
Finally, here's a couple of questions for you to think about:
1. How should countries with homogenous skin color deal with history of slavery?
2. Should we exclude Nigerian Americans from DIE / affirmative action policies, because they are doing better than average American?
Not quite. I said "led to", not "because", and everything that happens today was "led to" by history, including a black person getting a high-paying job. Remember this was all in response to this rather amazing comment:
> My ancestors were thousands of miles away from US territory when slavery happened ... and yet you're saying I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes just because of my skin color.
You're using "my" and "we" to mean "me and my particular ancestors" and "you and your ancestors", whereas the person you were replying to was very clearly using "we" to mean "the history of all of humanity". The latter acknowledges reality as it is right now and the events leading up to it, and the former relies on some magical inheritance of responsibilities depending on your blood ancestors.
> So Genghis Khan has nothing to do with that. But slavery has everything to do with that.
Again you're ignoring the point. Both of these events led to the world as it is today, and neither of us is more responsible for them than the other. Your ancestors, my ancestors: that has nothing to do with it. And you're the one who started out assigning blame and "why should I pay!?" based on whose ancestors are whose. Affirmative action proponents are not doing that. They're looking at the situation as it currently exists right now and trying to make it better. We can debate whether their particular approach works or not, but we can not say "it's not my problem because of who my ancestors are".
(That's not even mentioning the fact that Genghis Khan died in 1227 and there are people alive today whose grandparents were born slaves.)
> To me "optimal" is the minimum amount of effort that leads to maximum results. E.g. if you get enough resumes by posting a job on your website you don't need to put extra effort to find more candidates.
So your definition of "optimal" is wrong, in any reasonably complex situation. What if your job posting was written poorly and all your applicants thought the job was something a little different? They could literally all be mis-qualified for the job, and you'd never have the opportunity to realize there are much better candidates out there. That's an example of "systemic bias" that prevents optimal outcomes. If you suddenly realize your job posting was crap and your candidate pool is sub-par because of it, you should take some affirmative actions to fix it, rather than spend "the minimum amount of effort."
Can we think of any other systemic biases like that, that prevent optimal outcomes? Any at all? Like, oh, I don't know, race discrimination?
> 1. How should countries with homogenous skin color deal with history of slavery?
By learning about it and understanding its effects on their society today? The same way I'm suggesting the U.S. does?
> 2. Should we exclude Nigerian Americans from DIE / affirmative action policies, because they are doing better than average American?
I don't agree with all the ways DIE / affirmative action are practiced today. I agree with many of the criticisms levied against it in this comment thread. Many other criticisms sound like they're rooted in the fundamental idea of "racism is natural/historical/OK and I'm racist for saying so, you're racist for disagreeing". I'd rather have DIE / affirmative action as we have right now than nothing, and certainly than whatever world you imagine where we (humanity) can essentially bully another group of humans for centuries, and then when we realize that actually doesn't lead to optimal outcomes in society, we shove them back down again anyway in some sunk-cost fallacy in order to avoid those nasty uncomfortable feelings of shame, regret, and blame (which have nothing to do with it anyway).
Then why focus on the past at all? "everything led to everything" is meaningless statement, it adds no value. But we both know that the reason you made it is because it allows you to use emotions as an argument.
And I still don't understand it, is average income black male more deserving of a good job than poor white male? If you focus on the past, the answer is yes. If you focus on the present, the answer is no. Which is it?
> we can not say "it's not my problem because of who my ancestors are".
On it's own it's a terrible argument. But one can definitely use it in response to "this is your problem because of who your ancestors were".
> That's not even mentioning the fact that Genghis Khan died in 1227 and there are people alive today whose grandparents were born slaves
It's not the gotcha you think it is. You're the one who brought up Genghis Khan in the first place.
FYI slavery in Russian Empire ended in 1866. So yeah, there are people alive today whose grandparents were born slaves. And those people as white as it gets.
Not to mention that slavery still exists in many parts of the world.
So I'm still failing to understand why one group of ancestors of slaves is more deserving of inclusion than another group of ancestors of slaves. In fact, it seem to be more deserving than today's slaves. It is almost like slavery has nothing to do with those policies, and yet all your talking points are about slavery.
> What if your job posting was written poorly
Then it would not lead to the results and would not be considered optimal.
> By learning about it and understanding its effects on their society today?
Bad answer. Learning and understanding are not actionable.
> I'd rather have DIE / affirmative action as we have right now than nothing
That's a false dichotomy. Minorities well being has been improving decade after decade. That's not nothing.
In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%.
It doesn't help when students are under-qualified for the schools that they get into. It hurst every party.
In the end black people with diplomas end up college educated with fancy but useless degree, still underemployed, with giant student loans accruing % every day and living paycheck to paycheck.
Literally modern servitude reinvented, what an irony
https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp...
https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow...
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell...
https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell...
The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. In fact, all of history, as well as the state of the universe itself, testify that this should not be the case! Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history. The world is complex, and the causes for disparity are too numerous to list and impossible to even attempt to measure or tease apart in their impacts. Sowell has written about numerous causes of disparity between groups that have nothing to do with racism or any societal injustice, and the above book examples are just a small portion of what he has written.
What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions. If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism! Therefore, we must fix it through systemic racism in the opposite direction! This kind of thinking is broken, flawed, and completely incorrect to the core, and acting on it simply leads to more injustice, more unfairness, and more disparity of different kinds. It is an ideology born of intellectual pride, moral vanity, and an utter lack of wisdom.
Actually it has as much evidence as you have time. Take a big bag of fair dice, and split them randomly into two groups. Actually, split them however you want, whatever "lines of demarcation" you choose. Then roll them and apply literally any measure of literally any statistical outcome you want.
Oh shit, it turns out: in a just world, outcomes along arbitrary lines of demarcation are roughly even! Every time!
> Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history.
So? You need to assert that history has been just to different groups for this to be evidence to support your statement about what happens in a just world. Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one.
> What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions.
Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others, and you need to split the groups based on this reason. Remember: any arbitrary split must necessarily have roughly equal outcomes in a just world. If the world is just, any clear variance from equal outcomes must be due to some intrinsic differences in the dice themselves.
Let's say we split humans into two groups based on whether their birthday is an even or odd number (day of the month). This is a line of demarcation between groups of humans. Let's use your first sentence here:
> The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it.
So this is where we disagree, right? I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure. It's a clearly arbitrary line. But you say there's no evidence to support that. Really? Really? Do you really believe that the odd-birthday group would be significantly different in outcome than the even-numbered, in any way? Of course not. In literally any "outcome" measure you could come up with, these two groups are indistinguishable.
Let's say we split humans into two groups based on biological sex. Would we expect to see any differences in any outcomes? Of course: there are differences in average height, muscle mass, sexual preferences, arrangement of sex organs, etc. There are actual intrinsic differences between these groups that account for some differences in outcomes, even in a just world.
Now let's say we split humans into two groups based on skin color. Uh-oh. We see huge differences in outcomes here. Can we explain it by intrinsic differences? Careful. There are really only two options here: either the world is not just, or skin color is not arbitrary. Asserting the second is literal racism: you're saying there's something naturally different about people with black skin that accounts for their vastly greater rates of poverty even in a just world. That's textbook racism, and, even worse, plain-old incorrect. It's also simply not logically necessary, because we know the world has not been just. Very, very not-just to that particular group, in fact.
> If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism!
Such a vapid strawman argument. This bullshit only works if we've never actually observed systemic racism. Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe. Systemic racism did happen, and in many cases is still happening, and then later we observe that there is also racial disparity. These "leftists" go "hey, maybe the racial disparity we see now has something to do with all that systemic racism that was going on for hundreds of years" and you pretend like this is some unfounded conclusion-jumping?
Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened. So many of your points sound completely asinine when you re-read them with that in mind.
You aren’t wrong to think black Americans are the victims of systemic racism; the problem is that most the “systemic racism” that operates today is an unintended consequence of well-meaning liberal policies, as Sowell has discussed for decades now.
If you think human outcomes follow a simple normal distribution in a just world, then you are making the exact prime mistake I already pointed out; which is dramatically, and I mean dramatically, over-simplifying the world. Seriously: read some Thomas Sowell. Nothing about this world or this universe is normally distributed.
> Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one.
What is "just"? Think hard before you answer that one. Actually, read "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" and the "Intellectuals and Society" by Sowell. You'll find that the social justice version of justice is vastly different from what people have historically thought of as justice. It is also, in my estimation, far more unjust, unfair, harmful, and evil than the traditional view. It is an arrogant ideology based on a belief that one has the power to shape the world according to one's whims, rather than a proper respect for the fact that we are brief sojourners in a vast, complex, and powerful universe, and a planet filled with billions of complex individuals.
> Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others,
You should read "Discrimination and Disparities" By Thomas Sowell, where he quickly crushes the normal distribution hypothesis. He has shown through very simple examples, which are still dramatically over-simplifying the world, where there are multiple preconditions for success, and where missing even one precondition results in the same failure as missing all of them. This model alone completely disproves a normal distribution hypothesis, even in a world where the preconditions are distributed randomly. And, not to sound like a broken record, the preconditions are not distributed randomly in any way.
> I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure.
If you think the birthday group problem remotely models human outcomes, then you're repeating the same basic mistake over and over.
> Can we explain it by intrinsic differences?
You can explain it a billion different ways. The question is: who is right, and how do you prove it? Read "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Sowell. You'll find plenty of explanations that have nothing to do with either racism or of innate genetic differences. It is proponents of CRT who should need to prove themselves, but because they are in vogue culturally, they get away with their evidence-less assertions without any pushback.
> Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe.
It's good leftists didn't make them up, since leftists, namely, the democrat party, were primarily responsible for all of those things over the past 200 years. They didn't make it up because they mostly caused it! And again, correlation does not imply causation, such a basic statistical truism that CRT theorists love to ignore. Just because there was racism, even just because there still is racism, doesn't mean that racism is the primary cause of economic disparity, or, even a major cause at all! Sowell has written about multiple minority groups in different countries, who, despite being oppressed by real racism, and not the made up CRT kind, managed to prosper economically far above and beyond the majority population.
> Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened.
Go read "The real history of slavery" by Sowell. Read the other essays in the same book. No one is ignoring slavery. In fact, we are probably more educated on slavery than you are, judging from this conversation. The only racists are people like you who think that the appropriate reaction to disparity is real, explicit racism against those with "privileged" skin color. But, really, you're just following a long tradition of the political left being racist.
I realize this conversation is a waste of time. But it still feels good to crush your arguments. Maybe one day you'll listen, educate yourself on reality, and develop a better-functioning moral compass.
Like this one:
> since leftists, namely, the democrat party, were primarily responsible for all of those things over the past 200 years
That is so inane it does not even deserve a response. You've given away that you're not arguing in good faith.
> Similarly, you assert that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome, yet fail to provide any scientific evidence
This comment illustrates this well. You know that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome. You know that that's the case. There is not a shadow of a doubt in your mind that that is obviously correct. But of course whoever you're arguing with must provide mountains of scientific evidence (at which point you would undoubtedly move the goal posts), whereas you're allowed to get away with "simply" making semi-rational arguments and quoting, over and over, literally one source, who (according to wikipedia):
> Sowell was an important figure to the new conservative movement during the Reagan Era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Oof. Double-oof. So this singular person you're relying on for all your backup was an important figure to the most awful presidency of the modern era, the start of an economic plague that has allowed the rich to loot and ransack this nation's prosperity and dramatically worsened the very racial and socioeconomic disparities at the heart of this argument, and a corrupt Supreme Court justice who is a major leader in a movement to destroy democracy in the U.S. and replace it with a peusdo-Christian Theology. Yikes.
I came here prepared to reply with more rational discussion, but like always, the longer you talk to racism-apologists, the more you see the facade unraveling, the bad-faith arguments, and the goalposts moving. It's not worth it.
"Did you know that the Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, founded the KKK, and fought against every major civil rights act in U.S. history? watch as Carol Swain, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, shares the inconvenient history of the Democratic Party."
Your resistance to my statement has nothing to do with the truth and everything to do with your own cognitive bias.
> You know that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome. You know that that's the case
The point is not what I believe or "know" to be true. The point is to actually test your beliefs empirically against reality. If you're not doing that, then you're not doing anything remotely scientific. You might as well be spouting your religious beliefs, which you have been, by the way.
Your views on Reagan and Thomas reveal your extreme bias, ignorance, and mis-education. No one could claim the Reagan presidency was the worst in U.S. history, or that Thomas leads a movement to destroy "democracy in the U.S.", without a hefty combination of all three. And, If I am quoting one source, it beats your zero sources and your ridiculous comparison of humans to dice and economic outcomes to dice rolls. But, really, many, many others have said the same things as Sowell. He just says it best. Those include a host of other people you'll dismiss because you clearly only pay attention to leftwing sources that agree with your existing religion.
Or perhaps it is not your business to decide what blacks should think?
Imagine if you're hiring in a region where blacks are 10% of the population, but only 1% of resumes you receive are black folks (and if your pool of candidates is low, 1% can literally mean zero candidates).
Your mindset seems to be "those poor blacks don't understand which jobs they should apply to. I know better than them, I'll help them". You still think you are superior to them. You're not a hateful racist, you're a virtuous racist. Still a racist though.
"So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out."
Imagine you're one of the non-minorities who worked hard and misses out because of an artificial pressure. How do I explain to my kid that all else equal they will lose to another candidate because of not being a minority (assume this is similar to minorities of the past; however the results are mixed)? What's the point of trying hard in school? What's the point of working hard at work? These are the types of questions I'm starting to struggle with in real life. Teach the kid the same stuff I was taught (lies), or disillusion them that the world is not a meritocracy, truth and honor count for nothing, hard work may or may not pay off, etc?
They'll pick it up all on their own.
I have seen exactly zero people suggest that. That's how I know it's made up.
If you don't believe non-white people have disadvantages just say so and we can move on.
Then anonymize the resumes so that recruiters can't tell which candidates are men or women, or which is white, Asian, Black, etc. You don't eliminate discrimination by setting caps on how many interviewees can belong to each race. It certainly could be the case that whites are advantaged (curious why you focus on whites despite Asians being far more overrepresented, by the way). Put the proverbial veil between the candidate and the hiring manager, and we'll find out the truth.
One of my previous workplaces rejected proposals to anonymize our interview process, on the grounds that it would inhibit our diversity initiatives. Interviewing.io did an experiment relative to gender with anonymized phone interviews, and the result were the opposite of the traditional narrative [1].
1. https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-ma...
As just one example, women still do the majority of child rearing, especially babies. People who want children make that choice, but men typically take a few weeks out of their career whereas women take months or more. That's a systemic disadvantage women suffer.
Actually, studies specifically aimed at measuring tech jobs indicate preferences favoring women candidates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644
People frequently compare the rates of women in tech relative to the general population, not the pool of tech workers. This is misleading, when in fact most companies are quite balanced in terms of gender representation - relative to the representation of women in the field. 80% of nurses being women isn't a sign of men being disadvantaged any more than 80% of coders being men.
That's, perhaps, a systemic disadvantage mothers suffer. Tilting the tables advantages childless women most of all (and would be illegal discrimination against men, were the law to be enforced). Similar to how Ivies' affirmative action helps the children of African despots more than disadvantaged Americans.
I picked your example. Also, I'm not in the US. Apologies for failing at the intricacies of US-centrism.
Anonymous CVs are an interesting idea, and indeed how most of the studies measuring biases (not just on gender, but also things like perceived origin of name) are constructed.
But you're not going to get everyone to do them.
> Interviewing.io did an experiment relative to gender with anonymized phone interviews
If voices were so representative gender, we wouldn't have a severely worse pay gap for trans women. These are more systemic issues that start with gender roles and expected acceptable behaviors themselves.
Asians are often referred to as "white" or "lily-white" in the context of hiring and college admissions.
There's your "white guilt" in action. Meanwhile, at the end of the day, everybody (regardless of skin colour) just wants to attend a damn fine musical performance. The fuck do I care if the musicians are black, white, young, old, fat, or skinny?! NONE of those are relevant attributes to being a talented musician who can perform well on a team!
I was originally going to write that you’re playing the “I’m technically correct” trick here, but I don’t think your argument actually rises to the level of technical correctness. Setting aside the debate over whether the former policy is desirable, it is clearly not the same as the latter policy. If Microsoft had said “everyone interviewed cannot be a white male,” or even “most people interviewed cannot be white males,” then you could more credibly try to make the case you’re aiming for. But they simply didn’t.
My example just made it bluntly obvious that discrimination in the interview stage is still discrimination, there's no "technically correct trick here". Mandating that X% of your interviews be of a particular race or gender is discrimination, no matter the value of X. Setting X to 100 just makes it very clear.
“2 of the candidates you interview must meet these gender/racial requirements” is a mandate, but it’s not a percentage mandate. I know that’s a little pedantic, but I think it’s important pedantry, because you keep using percentages:
> With a pool of four people, which isn’t uncommon in my experience, that means 50% of the interviews are locked behind racial and gender requirements.
That’s only true if you are limited to just four people, which obviously you are not. You may feel it’s an unfair burden on the hiring manager to expand the candidate pool if necessary to meet the racial and gender requirements, but that’s not an argument about discrimination.
> Setting X to 100 just makes it very clear.
I sincerely believe setting X to 100 makes it a different argument. :) “All of your candidates must be X” is manifestly not the same as “some of your candidates must be X”. (The former may require you to leave out candidates you think are qualified, the latter does not, for a start, which strikes me as an extremely important distinction in this context.)
Incorrect. If you mandate that 20% of candidates be Y, but only 10% of candidates in the applicant pool are Y and 90% are X then on average you need to exclude 50% of qualified non-X candidates. If I have a pool of 90 X and 10 Y candidates and I have a quota of 80,20 then even if I include all 10 Y candidates I can only include 40 of the 90 X candidates. Sure, if I said that 100% have to be Y then all of the X candidates would be excluded. But even lower quota values still result in the out-group being limited.
> “2 of the candidates you interview must meet these gender/racial requirements” is a mandate, but it’s not a percentage mandate. I know that’s a little pedantic, but I think it’s important pedantry, because you keep using percentages:
Since there's a finite number of candidates it's still ultimately a percentage. The percentage is variable based on the total number of candidates, but it's still a percentage in the end.
Quotas and caps are two sides of the same coin. Instituting a minimum representation of one group, is fundamentally the same thing as capping the representation of those who don't belong to said group.
Discrimination in selecting who to interview is absolutely a form of discrimination. Imagine I tell my recruiters to exclusively interview white Catholics, and I respond "well, those white Catholics still had to pass the skill-based interview. Had we interviewed any non-whites or non-catholics, the interview would be unbiased towards them"
Is that a non-discriminatory hiring process? The fact that non-catholics and non-whites weren't even given a chance to interview is rendered irrelevant by the fact that the White Catholics that were still had to pass a skill-based interview?