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Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

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Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#231
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it is ok, that you skip it, the difference on pay gap is men having far worse life for those few extra bucks. It is not everything about the money and your path is correct. We (men) are doing it wrong and we are the idiots. The extra money is just not worth it, but we are pushed into craving for social status (which in most cases equals to income, car, house,...) due to the fact that potential mates (females) are…

Interesting theory. So you think if women make more, than men will try to increase the wealth inequality in other ways? I'm curious about that. Alternately, they could also just learn how to validate and be with women's emotions (and their own).

It is not about men "trying" to do it. They (at least most) don't want it. Who wants to work more if they have enough for their needs? But their needs are also having a partner and the partner wants a man who is "alpha" (which, in today ads powered world means rich). So he needs to do as much as possible to get better mate. Does he have a chance? I would maybe even go further, 3rd and 4th wave of feminism are bs. I agree with first two waves as woman position was unfair, but it is curious to me, why 3rd and 4th wave are tolerated by society that is (feminism claims) patriarchic, why don't those king pin mans just shoot them down? My explanation would be, that it is good for bussiness. Woman work more, and men also. And for less money, with doubling the work force. It is perfect for earning more money and catastrophic for society.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#232
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logically, if I know that in giving one person a raise, everyone will ask for the same raise, I just won't give anyone a raise that isn't negotiated by the entire group, which takes longer and is less likely to occur without conflict. It actually extends to the whole market, too - if all salaries are transparent, then an RN makes x. They can't make more than that, anywhere they go. It gives a floor, sure - if they ge…

Salary growth for the past 30 years has been slower than productivity growth. So I'd see your point as already happening, companies have already capped salaries, except for executives, who basically set their own salaries.

However consumer prices have gone down over the same period. A refrigerator today costs much less in terms of labor hours than it did 30 years ago. So productivity growth has led to a rise in living standards.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#234
post #55

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That only works the way you think it works if most people agree with you. I doubt that... Plus it's really hard to determine who is actually a 10x contributor, even more so universally (across projects, teams, companies).

It's really not that hard to see, on a single team, who's contributing twice as much as who else. You don't even have to be a manager - sometimes managers are the last to be sure, actually. Generally people who complain about lazy coworkers end up settling on a lot of the same people... Being a manager just gives you official venues like feedback requests to realize "oh everyone else sees it too."

Managers are usually terrible at knowing who is contributing on a software team and they're the ones who set pay.

This is 100% a red herring as far as pay transparency is concerned anyway. If you're not being unfair you have no reason to hide anything.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#235
post #145

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Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.

Don't forget about dumb luck, one of the greatest predictors of wealth.

Dumb luck? What is dumb luck? So the wealth differences between a high school drop out and a college grad can largely be attributed to this "dumb luck"?

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#236
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.

It is not, in itself, a problem. A certain amount of inequality encourages economic growth and innovation. Zero wealth inequality would be perfect communism. A lot of people--myself included--presume that would retard growth due to a lack of incentives. The maximum amount of wealth inequality would be for one person to own the entire world, and for everyone else to have nothing. This is practically impossible, of cou…

>A lot of people--myself included--presume that would retard growth due to a lack of incentives

No need to presume anything, we have a number of examples to look at throughout history. Actually, stunted economic growth is the best case scenario for socialist systems. Most of them achieve no more than mass starvation and death of millions of citizens.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#237
post #229
post #165

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This is the same sexist attitude that got that google employee fired. I suggest you stay off HN and stick to TD with these ideas.

Why is it sexist to suggest that women might prefer different careers from men?

Because suggestion that men and women in general are different is criminally sexist. It's what got us here in the first place.

People(republicans) need to get it through their heads that there are NO differences between men and women, period.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#238
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary growth for the past 30 years has been slower than productivity growth. So I'd see your point as already happening, companies have already capped salaries, except for executives, who basically set their own salaries.

However consumer prices have gone down over the same period. A refrigerator today costs much less in terms of labor hours than it did 30 years ago. So productivity growth has led to a rise in living standards.

> So productivity growth has led to a rise in living standards.

I love seeing this statement. It's true but the people who post it never follow up evaluating whether or not productivity growth has far out-paced the rise in living standards. If productivity growth has been exponential while the rise in living standards has been linear that's a sign that there's a problem regardless of whether or not living standards have risen.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#239
post #168
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way around this is to have education. Especially on topics like statistics literacy (not really just statistics, but how to read them), journalism, lobbyism and propaganda. These things should be taught in high school. Taking apart arguments in old propaganda (where there is less political motive) and encouraging people to look out for new propaganda. Of course it doesn't seem the government would be interes…

Statistics literacy would help, but there are a lot of highly educated people who repeat things like the pay gap myth. I think the problem is more about ideology and the lack of critical thought.

If even PhD's can't be expected to adhere to basic standards of intellectual honesty and critical thinking, then how can we ever expect the general society to grow up and realize the value of these things? How can we, the enlightened few (I say this half-seriously, of course, because obviously I am not without fault myself), ever expect to be able to lead a logical conversation with most normal folks we encounter in our daily lives, even with our parents, spouses and children? Seriously, most of us will never be able to choose their spouse from that tiny minority that understands honest and logical discussion. They will have to settle for something less. Most of us will have children who will never understand what we understand, simply because the school, the society and even our spouses will teach them to act based on emotions and false values. Basically, we are doomed to be eternally dissatisfied with the way our lives turn out to be!

I have to admit, conversations about critical thought in society invariably make me depressed.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You entirely missed the point. We can never include every single relevant variable to perfectly explain the observation. It's impossible. This doesn't mean statistics is useless. This is the meaning of the phrase "the map is not the territory". All models are flawed, but some are useful.

No, statistics aren't useless, but its usefulness cuts both ways: if you can add one or two relevant variables and almost entirely remove the observation, then statistics tells you that the observation was only there due to omitted-variable bias.

Sure, that's fine. That's part of using statistics to the best of our ability.
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