Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 507 posts

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

#401

Post by wallace_f »

logandavis wrote: post #386
wallace_f wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you literally just compared affirmative action to Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition. No, I didn't. That's your misunderstanding. Go back and read what I wrote. No one is saying they're equivalent. What I did say is that government sanctioned force always comes with an argument of moral outrage, even if what they are doing is undeniably immoral. I should expect more of these straw man, incorrect, borderline-tr…

Ah. My apologies for misreading. I went back and re-read what you wrote. Please correct me if the following interpretation is wrong: First, you said that moral outrage is the motivation for "racist" policies such as Affirmative Action. Next, you said that moral outrage also motivates state-sponsored violence. (I suppose this does not constitute a comparison per se.) I'm sorry, but I really don't see the point of brin…

That's also not my intended meaning. I don't know how else to say it and feel that I'm being baited. I guess I'll quote myself:

>I'd even reject it on moral principle: it is immoral for government to enforce racist or sexist policies that discriminate against certain groups of people. Yes, it's in the name of moral outrage (equality), but note government-sanctioned use of force always comes with an argument of moral outrage, even if it is almost undeniably immoral, i.e: (America funding Jihadists in the Syrian War, Vietnam, Nazi Germany, the Opening of Japan, the Inquisition, etc., etc.).

This is not about doing what's right. This is about lawyers and political correctness. There are plenty of opportunities to make the world a better place and I don't see that many Glenn Greenwalds, Laura Poitras's, or Snowdens. In fact, the government has worked to undermine at least 2/3 of those people. We can't even provide everyone with healthcare or clean drinking water. We're funding jihadists in Syria. We have cities with murder rates higher than any country in Africa. The CIA has been caught distributing crack cocaine and the reporter who revealed it "died of suicide by 2 gunshot wounds to the head." The political correctness around equality all sounds and feels great, but the reality is that it's textbook Harrison Bergeron stuff leading us closer to that kind of dystopian future. It's hard to see that, harder yet to have the guts to say it, and much easier to just be politically correct and ignore reality.

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

#402

Post by frozenport »

omginternets wrote: post #266
frozenport wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asians are 6% of the population, should big companies like Google start firing people? Palantir got sued for hiring Asians at a ratio of 20%. 4 out of 21 were Asians, this was too low given the size of the applicant pool.

> 4 out of 21 were Asians, this was too low given the size of the applicant pool. What if they were actually the better candidates? Bias in hiring may well reflect bias in talent.

Yeah, so that's why they are being sued. But saying that large corporations should achieve the percentage of demographic as is present in the population is wrong.

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

#403

Post by zo1 »

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.

That ignores other factors unrelated to simple IQ. E.g. Women have to give birth to children, and are more likely to want to take care of them.

So yeah, sure, if you look at the scenario in simple isolation, then you could argue that there is a "greater opposing force".

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

#404

Post by throwaway1892 »

romanovcode wrote: post #393
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. Th…

> how they threat each other.

Do you imply something here or is it just a slip?

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

#405

Post by munchor »

general_ai wrote: post #391
oculusthrift wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm pretty sure they use the L1 Visa[1].

[1]: http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/

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

#406

Post by dijit »

deathanatos wrote: post #357
jdavis703 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since graduating college I've stayed continuously employeed at several different Bay Area tech startups, so I'm pretty sure I have at least decent technology skills. Yet I've been to several interviews where questions about race/ethnicity were brought up (and I failed to get offers from those companies that ask such questions). I can only imagine what it's like being a woman going for these positions. My point, a lot…

As someone whose both given and taken several interviews, this is highly abnormal. (Though, I'm essentially WASP, so perhaps I don't receive them.) There is (IMO) no legitimate reason to ask questions of race or ethnicity in a interview for a software engineer or similar (as it's simply irrelevant) … especially in today's world where we're trying to fix any discrimination in the field.

I have asked "are you eligible to work in " if their current location is outside of the country or it is known they are not citizens.

Which I guess would be a question about race? in a way?

I wouldn't ask a white person who spoke swedish and had a very swedish name as I'd assume they are swedish by birth.

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

#407

Post by romanovcode »

throwaway1892 wrote: post #404
romanovcode wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Th…

> how they threat each other. Do you imply something here or is it just a slip?

No, it was typo. Sorry

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

#408

Post by louhike »

wallace_f wrote: post #371
prutschman wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's surprising to you that there are women who want to work on oil rigs, and want that badly enough to go through the trouble of making a case out of it, then you may need to update your beliefs about what it means to be a woman.

Give me a break. You are insane if you think auto mechanics, miners, truck drivers, plumbers, construction workers, landscapers, or working on fishing vessels, or other physically demanding, laborious jobs, are not preferred more by men than women. 5 women and 1 court case (and no lawyer ever set up a lawsuit like that, right?) does not change all of those facts. You need to realize that your worldview and own person…

"You are insane if you think auto mechanics, miners, truck drivers, plumbers, construction workers, landscapers, or working on fishing vessels, or other physically demanding, laborious jobs, are not preferred more by men than women."

Then why developers are mostly men? And why there is more and more female football/soccer players?

It might be harder for females to get muscles, compared to men but it does not mean they do not want to do and can do physically demanding jobs.

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

#409

Post by dnautics »

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.

maybe men on average get paid more because they need to be incentivized to take jobs because they're more likely to die on the job (20x more likely than women).

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

#410

Post by dkersten »

wallace_f wrote: post #371
prutschman wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's surprising to you that there are women who want to work on oil rigs, and want that badly enough to go through the trouble of making a case out of it, then you may need to update your beliefs about what it means to be a woman.

Give me a break. You are insane if you think auto mechanics, miners, truck drivers, plumbers, construction workers, landscapers, or working on fishing vessels, or other physically demanding, laborious jobs, are not preferred more by men than women. 5 women and 1 court case (and no lawyer ever set up a lawsuit like that, right?) does not change all of those facts. You need to realize that your worldview and own person…

You are insane if you think auto mechanics, miners, truck drivers, plumbers, construction workers, landscapers, or working on fishing vessels, or other physically demanding, laborious jobs, are not preferred more by men than women.

Yeah, and girls prefer pink... How much of this is because of how women are brought up, believing that these are mens jobs, rather than by nature? Women do plenty of physically demanding jobs, just not generally these stereotypical "mens" jobs.

Hell, if you look at poorer countries, you see women doing all kinds of physically demanding stuff like carrying water for miles. Its not that they can't or won't do them when they have to, its that when they have a choice that they don't and I believe that's because from a young age and in media these things are portrayed as very un-womanly.

Post reply on HN