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U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#391

Post by general_ai »

oculusthrift wrote: post #379
general_ai wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like "Asians" is too broad a grouping. I think if we split "Asians" into Indians and the Chinese the stats would be a lot more illuminating. Microsoft, for instance, seems to have a much larger percentage of Indian workers than Google does. It could be because Microsoft hires a ton more contractors (some of which convert to FTE) or it could be something else. In any case, much finer grained stats are needed to…

microsoft has a large office in india and many transfer over to US offices

Could be why. You can't really "transfer over" to US offices easily, however, even if you are already an employee. You have to have an H1b.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#392

Post by omginternets »

yarou wrote: post #82
Spitzerl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The millennials and the way you talk. Ridiculous. No wonder you can't find a date.

I'm not gonna lie, I've said some pretty fucked up things on here when I've been inebriated, but the amount of pure malice in your reply even made me look twice. I'm sure that same winning personality makes you a huge catch.

I'm not sure what I missed, but now I'm morbidly curious.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#393

Post by romanovcode »

swframe2 wrote: post #195

I worked at Oracle in 1992-1998. I hired a white male employee who complained later that I was hiring too many indian employees. I went backed to look at the applicants and noticed that 90% of them were indian and that I'd contacted every non-indian applicant. I'm not white or indian so I was very eager to make sure I was being fair. My non-scientific conclusion after working at a lot of other companies is that very…

> Areas that used to be mostly white or mixed were now entirely indian.

I've worked in a company where this shift happened in front of my eyes.

Basically I concluded that they have very clear people/employee hierarchy therefore Indian who is in top-position will rather deal with another Indian as a lower worker because he will be able to order him around like a puppet. Therefore he will vouch to hire more Indians.

This may sound like a generalisation and it probably is, but I've seen this exact shift of company having less than 10% Indian to 80%+. And i've seen how they treat each other.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#394

Post by iopq »

Frondo wrote: post #199
wallace_f wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire in exact quotas (which would also be discriminatory really). There already are off-the-record quotas. Who in management hasn't heard discussion at least eluding the the need for a diversity hire? Probably very few people at this point. I believe a distinction must be made: Equality of opportunity is good. Equality of o…

You know what, though? If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do. Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're p…

>If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do.

But we don't have equality of education, equality of upbringing, etc. so it's natural that given the equality of opportunity we get unequal results.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#395

Post by belorn »

sangnoir wrote: post #342
wallace_f wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it doesn't seem like Unfortunately, in our political climate one side of this debate has people who can say, "it seems like" and that's it. "It seems like" [...] 'we have a huge problem of sexism and racism' and if you argue against that you're this evil monster, as you described: >most people [don't] even give a shit about equality of opportunity, even those who pay lip service to it. I think most people don't want…

> Women will always have longer lifespans and higher average IQs than men Then why is it that on average they get paid less than men for the same job? Surely if they are inherently "smarter", they should be dominating the knowledge economy and earning more than men. The fact that they don't points to some greater opposing force that needs addressing.

Men and women aren't equally incentivised to seek high paying jobs. Dating site statistics show a strong correlation to success for men and how much they earn, but not for women. Their correlation is with attributes like age and self-care.

The social ladder and ranking is also attached to the same incentives. A mans ranking is (mostly) based on his ability to support a family. A womans ranking is (mostly) based on her ability to raise a family. As sad and depressing that is, the message it sends on a cultural level is that no one wants to be near a poor male or infertile female. On the flip side, women are not punished by society for not focusing on maximizing earning potentials, and men aren't punished by society for not focusing self care and longer lifespans.

Going even darker when looking at incentives for earning and lifespans, we can look at the link between low income for men and suicide. About a factor of about 1000% according to some studies when comparing high vs low income. Suicide is also the most common cause of death for men at ages 15-50. The negative impact from unemployment (and low income jobs) effects men more, and a natural conclusion would be that the incentives to avoid it is thus stronger.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#396

Post by logandavis »

omginternets wrote: post #373
logandavis wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do want to define equality of opportunity that way. As you originally asked me to consider (before editing your post), the consequence that I believe would follow would be equality of outcome, give or take random sampling variation. To respond to your newly edited (four times! ack! I am scrambling to keep up) comment: I do not want to argue that all groups of people are the same. You have already challenged me to p…

>I do want to define equality of opportunity that way. You can't have it both ways. Either all groups are (statistically) the same in their values, preferences, etc, or the claim "equal opportunity => equal representation" does not hold. Again, this latent assumption in your reasoning is the object of my criticism. >You seem very touchy about this topic. Why do you feel compelled to say such mean things about my post…

Again: I cannot demonstrate that "aforementioned factors" like "values" are homogeneously distributed between ethnic groups, because it is not true. I don't understand why you keep asking me to try. You have repeatedly said that this somehow disproves the assertion "equal opportunity -> equal outcomes". I do not agree.

Here is where I think we differ: we are using "opportunity" to mean two different things. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that when I'm saying "equal opportunity", you're hearing "at the point of hiring, equally qualified candidates are equally likely to be hired". I am taking a much longer view of "opportunity" - one that considers cultural context, childhood exposure, and socialized gender differences like the ones represented in the paper you linked. To me, if one candidate went to engineering camps growing up, and another did not, they did not have "equal opportunities" to develop into equally strong engineering candidates, who would eventually reach the point of hiring. The "aforementioned factors" you're talking about (e.g. cultural values, income inequality across ethnicities) are baked into my understanding of "opportunity".

This is why I haven't believed you when you've told me that the existence of cultural difference proves me wrong. To express my position in propositional logic terms, I'm saying that I believe A ("equal opportunity") implies B ("equal outcomes"). From my point of view, with how I'm meaning "opportunity" - which I don't think is how you're understanding it - you're trying to get me to admit that in the real world, "equal opportunity" is False. I have admitted that repeatedly. A is False. This does not contradict A -> B. [edited to hopefully clear up this confusing analogy]

You've told me I'm "playing with words to insinuate bigotry", but this is what I've meant by "unequal opportunity" the entire time. Because this is what I think "opportunity" means, in terms of becoming an employed engineer. I tried to explain that in my very first reply to you. I'm sorry if I didn't explain it clearly.

I can't control what you feel is disingenuous, so I won't try, but I really think our disagreement here is just a matter of verbiage.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#397

Post by claudius »

tbrownaw wrote: post #346
pippy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why merit based evaluation is the only sane hiring practice. I'd love to see legal protection for companies that can provide evidence they strictly adhered to the merit based hires. You can also apply this rationale to your own projects, by including the Code of Merit into your projects[0][1]. [0] https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit/blob/master/CODE_O... [1] http://code-of-merit.org/

This is why merit based evaluation is the only sane hiring practice. I'd love to see legal protection for companies that can provide evidence they strictly adhered to the merit based hires. Maybe something like that could work if we ever figure out how to consistently and accurately measure productivity. Assuming that productivity is in fact how you intend to measure "merit". . Also, from your link... The project cre…

> Well, at least you're honest about being a dictatorship. :) OTOH, just saying doesn't make it so. Hostile forks are a thing, license changes without copyright assignment are not a thing, etc.

Hostile forks do not change the project, they create a new one. License changes are of course restricted by law, as are all other ‘decisional powers’ (as any reasonable person would assume).

> Congratulations, you're biased in favor of people with more outgoing and assertive personalities. ;)

Not my problem, a technical project is not a therapeutical session for people who can’t speak their mind.

> Proportional requires that contributions be quantifiable. I'm not aware of any accurate, objective way to do that. (If there was, it would also be a solution to the "how to measure productivity" problem.)

You only need a good enough comparison to differentiate two people if there is a dispute. This is often a very clear-cut case. If it isn’t, let the rest of the project decide in whatever way is appropriate.

> What does "technical advantage" include? Switching costs imposed on users? The level of skill required from contributors? IDE-computable code metrics?

I don’t see why different projects could not have different metrics there, to be decided upon by the project/core team? If it’s a fun-in-your-free-time project, you can expect as much as you want from future contributors and don’t give a shit about your users, conversely, if you try to sell it, you may need to take switching costs into account.

> Wow, working only on clearly-defined problems must be nice. What happens when the ambiguity is part of the problem space?

If your problem space is not well defined you have bigger problems than a code of merit you may or may not like. Do more research first until the problem space is defined. Apart from this trivial tidbit, the sentence obviously aims at ambiguity in communication, where there is never any place for it. Not using words ill-defined words or ambiguous constructs seems like a decent idea in general.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#398

Post by wallace_f »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #376
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned earlier, women do in fact protest against discrimination in the oil rig industry[1]. 1. http://www.warrensiurek.com/blog/2015/04/5-women-claim-gende...

Another example http://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/07/12/A-Labrador-woman-has-...

Do you both really believe as many women as men want to work in the oil rig industry, or that it is even close? There will always be exceptions, especially when huge sums of money motivate the exceptions.

What about as auto mechanics, or plumbers? Those businesses can be very entrepreneurial, requiring no hiring decision, yet women are still underrepresented. Would you still say there are not more men than women prefer those jobs?

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#399

Post by tomohawk »

Frondo wrote: post #199
wallace_f wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire in exact quotas (which would also be discriminatory really). There already are off-the-record quotas. Who in management hasn't heard discussion at least eluding the the need for a diversity hire? Probably very few people at this point. I believe a distinction must be made: Equality of opportunity is good. Equality of o…

You know what, though? If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do. Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're p…

If you start with $1 million in pennies and I start with $1 million in pennies and we play a game with a fair coin: heads I win, tails you win - with the winner getting a penny, guess what happens if we play the game over and over again? Over time, one of us will have $0, and the other will have $2 million.

So, even with equality of opportunity, there can be gross disparity of outcome over time.

The pursuit of happiness is still the best policy, though.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#400

Post by zo1 »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #378
logandavis wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly makes you think that a degree "means less" for a black job applicant than it does for a white one, when a white applicant is approximately 150% likelier to have a degree than a black one is? Are you attempting to assert causation in the absence of correlation?

I think he meant the following. Suppose that for University X, the minimal SAT requirement for white applicants was 700/700, and for black applicants was 400/400. Suppose that the SAT scores of all white students at X are uniformly distributed over (700-800/700-800), and those of the black students are uniformly distributed over (400-800/400-800). Now randomly pick one white student, and one black student. Which of t…

That is indeed what I meant.

It's a whole lot more "obvious" here in South Africa. There are actual quotas, rather than "score" enhancements and juggling like there is in America.

With the assumption that the "range" of ability is equal in both groups. The simple fact that you take a smaller quantity of one, rather than the other, implies that you're taking a different ability range of one group over the other.

So if you have 100 black, 100 white students, and both their group scores range using a normal distribution from 500-1000. But you enforce that only 10 whites can be taken, and 40 blacks should be taken. Then you're guaranteeing that only the "top" 10 of the white students get picked, while with the blacks the top 40 get picked. This means you're going down the distribution and selecting black individuals that have lower scores.

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